#(( you must always assume she has several hundred other peoples numbers to call up at anytime she likes

[ravenouswreckage]

What kind of things are they into?

"Well, the standard of beauty is to be large and heavy and well-muscled... Which is not too hard for most, when they show an interest in myself, though I have been known to be choosy about such things. I do have the pick of whoever I like, after all! Nor am I hurting for potentiates, and making them line up next to each other or force them to chase me or to encourage them using their strength and their size to fight each other is very entertaining. Certainly it is an excellent way to get myself warmed up, if they know very well what they are doing.

But I do take great appeal in landfolk too! They are delightfully soft to the touch, and warm, and the sensation of fur across their body is greatly valued in of itself... I like that their hands are dexterous and small, and I like the... mammalian-ness of them, I suppose?

It is hard to explain. I do not imagine you would have the same struggle to describe it, as you certainly are not operating off of the usual cultural background. But you would not be likely to be asked in the first place either, regardless.

Worse yet, I do not imagine most would understand any decent degree of quality control. This, I have noticed, has pained more landfolk than my own people, but my people do understand that I am not hurting for choices, nor am I shy about taking what pleases me. It is about being best of the best, you see. Nor merely what lies before me, but that which is excellent, that which is prime, the apex of all that has led up to it and everything that will come after. Which is to say, I am not satisfied with paltry specimens, nor anyone not willing to put their whole self forward into such things."

She clenches her hand together, then unclenches, flexing her fingers so that her thumbs fit in between her three digits to form a perfect cage. It matches the way her head is leaned off to the side, staring absentmindedly at some far wall, showing off the curvature of her neck.

It's hard for her to answer this, for multiple reasons. There's a clear image in her mind of what she likes, even loves, the lines traced between her favorites that she returns to, but it's not something that can exist in words, not something she could roll around on her tongue if she tried. She is trying. As evidenced by what she's managing to get out, it's not helping.

And, worse yet, she will not be so frank about her own attraction in the same words as the landfolk who ask her for it. She knows she will not. It was a lesson that has been ingrained in her, and it will continue to be until Miranda herself stops existing, and then it will find another poor soul to teach. That's risky. There are risks to be taken here, and, yes, she knows her kingdom is not listening so intently right now, but since when has that ever been an excuse to get out of habit? Her mind buckles against the thought, against anything that might clearly show her hand, and so she returns to the usual, the apt, the frustration that sinks its teeth into her mind.

"No... No, I think most are not adequate. Disappointing, really. Even if you find one with a proper body, they seldom have the knowledge to know how to use it! Perhaps it would be better if I simply carve their brains out myself. It would be putting them to better use, after all, and it would not be so hard to keep them from there. They already do not worry about the process of courting me to begin with, so there is nothing lost by them losing that capability entirely."

[himaboroshi736]

IronDad fic recs

Here. I’m a french reader, but I’ve read A LOT (like...a lot) of IronDad, so, eventually, here my fic rec. (I tried to class it by categories, but well...) (it’s gonna be very long, guys)

 Peter Parker has anxiety 

Don’t let me get me, by hopeless_hope 

He picks up his phone and sends a quick text. "hey, happy! i’m not feeling too hot today, so i think i’m gonna have to cancel. tell mr. stark i’m sorry!"

He stares at his phone, waiting for a response. It never comes, and Peter sighs sadly. There was a part of him, a small part, that really hoped he was wrong. His insides burn, and he curls up tighter into a ball and turns off his phone.

(No one’s going to try to contact him anyway.)

or

Anxiety has a way of convincing Peter that everyone hates him. Tony has a way of proving him wrong.

Midnight Oil, by @jolinarjackson

After everything that has happened to Peter over the last year - or five, really - he shouldn’t be worried about something as mundane as the ACT. When he fails it, though it sends him into a spiral of self-doubt, which only gets worse when Peter realizes that he doesn’t seem to be able to fix whatever is broken.

Tony Stark has anxiety 

do you even remember what the world looks like ?, by @iron--spider

Tony’s heart has been working on overdrive since this whole thing started. Friday has a countdown clock plastered on the heads up display, but it feels like hieroglyphics to him at this point, like some ancient language he could never master.

Because when Peter Parker is missing, things start losing their meaning real quick.

“Should be around here,” Rhodey says on the com. May is still on the other line, listening in, because once a certain amount of time goes by without word from Peter, things move into Extremely Worried Aunt territory. They’re already in Tony Is Panicking territory, and when both of those territories overlap it’s never a good time for anybody.

Time? What the hell is time? His mind is blanking numbers out entirely. Minutes are seconds are hours are years.

not like megatron, by @iron--spider

“Hi! This is Peter Parker, I can’t get to the phone right now, so leave a message and I’ll call you back later! Hopefully not too much later, but don’t get your hopes up!”

Tony knows that message by heart. He’s heard it hundreds of times, in a greyer world, and it sends shivers down his spine as he climbs into the car.

He doesn’t think about that place. That half-world. No way, that’s done, that’s over, that’s history.

“Hey, kid, don’t you know it’s bad etiquette to go and disappear on your birthday? Not allowed, really, really bad vibes from the universe. What’s going on with your suit? I wasn’t watching. Nope. Just got an alert. What’s going on? Uh, call me back.” He clears his throat and hangs up like a moron, driving out into the street.

Hypothermia trope (i really like it so if you have any suggestions...)

i knock the ice from my bones, by hopeless_hope

Peter tries to move his legs through the water, dread filling him when they don’t move, and he just hangs there, doing anything and everything he can not to focus on the feeling of ice clinging to his bones. He feels sluggish, the world blurring around him, and he rests his head on the ice, not even registering the cold anymore.

He’s just so damn tired.

“PETER!” he hears someone yell, but it’s all muffled, and he lazily drags his eyes up to see a figure descending towards him.

Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he thinks, This is not how my vacation was supposed to go.

or

While on what's supposed to be a relaxing vacation with the Starks, things for Peter quickly go south, and he finds himself on thin ice. Literally.

Ice Ice Baby, by @wolfypuppypiles

If Tony, Bucky or pretty much anybody that knew Peter had seen him that morning they would have smacked him upside the head. Helping people was great, everyone should give it a go, but when helping people puts you in danger it’s not so smart anymore.

AKA Peter can't get from Avenger tower to the subway without giving his winter clothes to homeless people and ends up with a severe case of hypothermia

Candle in the Window, by @madasthesea

Finals are over and Peter just wants to go home. The weather has other ideas.

Burn This Out, by @ephemeralstark

It's summer and Peter is free to be Spider-Man all day which is great, but it's summer and Peter is out as Spider-Man on the hottest day of the year which is not great.

Or, Peter gets heat stroke because he can't thermoregulate and things could not go worse for him.

(yeah, it’s not an hypothermia, but it’s linked to the fact that Peter can’t actually thermoregulate)

Post-Endgame (really like this trope too lmao)

the first birthday after, by iron_spider 

(Endgame spoilers. But The Thing doesn't happen.)

The rain falls harder and Tony turns, his neck creaking and cracking, and he sees Peter asleep over by the window. He’s holding a small, flat box, and he’s slowly slipping to the right side of the easy chair he’s in.

Tony thinks about letting him sleep, but he finds himself speaking anyway. “Pete,” he says, his voice rough and raspy.

Peter immediately startles awake. “Happy Birthday,” he says, almost like he’d fallen asleep practicing it, planning to say it as soon as he woke up. He blinks at Tony, shivering a little bit, and then he smiles. “Happy Birthday. Happy Birthday.”

Tony snorts, smiling back. “Thanks, bud,” he says.

Second Best, by Rowan_M

Tony had adjusted to parenthood quickly when Morgan came along, and was always conscious of making sure Peter isn't left out ... Almost always. When Peter gets hurt while taking care of Morgan, Tony obsess over his daughter and takes his anger out on Peter, without even checking to see if he was okay. Steve finds Peter later that night in serious pain and in need of immediate medical attention.

Or, Peter gets hurt while taking care of Morgan and Tony basically ignores him.

when you’re feeling empty keep me in your memory, by JkWriter

after everything with thanos he forgets it's his birthday. he just assumed everyone else did too.

All For You, by @ironxprince

Three weeks after the snap that saved the world, Peter learns he was the reason behind it. He learns that Tony risked death, and now has to live with the ramifications, both physical and mental, all because of him.

This doesn't sit right with him.

you save everybody, but who saves you ?, by @iron--spider

Tony doesn’t sleep, because he can’t, because too many things are plaguing him, most of all where Peter is and what he’s doing. Tony has a good view of the hallway through the windows to his room, and he stares and stares until his eyes cross, until he hallucinates, until he knows he’s going insane.

He sees Peter sneaking into the med bay at about four in the morning.

The kid’s mask is off and he’s got two short, harsh slashes across his cheek, and he’s bleeding from a slice across his neck. His suit is ripped in a few places and he’s holding onto his middle, and Tony can see his hands are shaking.

It’s like something splinters in Tony’s already broken brain, like his world narrows and there are hazy edges, both weakness and strength entwining in his veins when he sees Peter struggle up onto one of the beds in the main atrium, starting to tend his wounds without calling anybody to help.

BAMF Peter Parker 

Pizza, a Movie, and... an Attempted Kidnapping ?, by Pogokitten

“Tony. We’ll be fine,” Peter tells the man for what must be the tenth time in the last half hour.

Peter’s sitting on the couch of his and May’s apartment and building Legos with Morgan as they both watch their father’s methodical, yet anxious, pacing. He’s dressed to impress, as is Pepper who is watching the scene slightly exasperated.

“Are you sure? We can ditch the gala, kid. Just say the word,” Tony offers, halting in front of his kids.

Or: Tony and Pepper leave Peter in charge of Morgan while they go to their first gala since the third snap. Peter is expecting a calm night in with his adopted sister, but some thugs throw a wrench in his plans.

he’s good like that, by @iron--spider

“Get the hell outta here, boy,” the man says. “Or you’re gonna watch your boss die in front of you.” Then he grabs Tony by the shoulders hard, and shoves him down to his knees. The gun is louder now, like it’s filled with words that are eager to be shouted, and Tony winces when he feels the barrel press against the back of his neck. His knees weren’t ready to hit the ground that hard, and he tries to keep the pain from reaching his face.

He must fail, because Peter looks pissed.

“You’re not gonna shoot him, mister,” Peter says, somehow still trying to maintain a respectful tone, despite the clear anger written all over him.

stark robotics and technology conference, by @iron--spider

Peter leans against the wall while Tony chooses their floor, and the doors close. “Do you, uh, want me to do some interning stuff? Like go and get you coffee? Make sure the, uh—programs are all ready? Make sure the paintings are straight in the ballroom? Make sure the chairs are—”

Tony snorts. “Kid, I just thought you’d enjoy this. May told me about when it came through Queens but you two couldn’t make it because she was working and didn’t want you to go alone, and I thought, after all the shit you’ve been through lately, that you deserved something fun. No interning for you. That’s just an excuse.”

Peter remembers that. It was six months after Ben died, and he wasn’t gonna bother May too much about the conference. He didn’t know how much tickets cost anyways, or if kids his age could even go.

He really hung onto the idea of Iron Man after Ben died. Peter held him closer than ever.

Peter and Tony fighting 

dinner and a jailbreak, by killerqueenwrites

“I’m not your kid!” Peter shouts.

“Don’t walk away from me, I’m not done–“

“You’re not my dad!”

Peter fitting in after the Blip isn't as easy as Tony hoped it would be. He wants his kid back, but they can't seem to stop fighting.

and then Peter goes missing.

my old man, by parkrstark 

"I just want to help you. I want to help you understand what's wrong here and how to stop it. I used to be the same way until my father showed me how to be a man." He glanced back at Peter to sneer. "He's old enough to know better by now, but it's not your fault you didn't know how to teach him." "Teach him what?" Tony asked even though he didn't want to know the answer.

"Discipline, of course," Junior said with a wink.

--

Tony takes Peter on a weekend trip to try and change his mind about college and things go wrong. Then, they go even more wrong.

Between how it is and how it should be, by @frostysunflowers

''Doesn’t Captain Rogers ever…wonder,'' Peter winced as he fumbled for the right word, ''where you are?''

Bucky smirked. ''Steve’s a regular mother hen. Used to be me that worried about him.'' He gave Peter a pointed look. ''Better question is, isn’t Stark wondering where you are?''

Soulmates trope 

presumed dead, by killerqueenwrites 

Tony gets his first soulmark when he’s fifteen, his second when he's thirty. He's forty-six when his third appears, and forty-eight when it fades to grey.

did you see the flares in the sky ?, by justt-ppeachy

‘hi’  

One simple word was displayed proudly on the inside of his right wrist. Tony wasn’t sure when this word showed up or how long it had been there.

A line formed underneath the word and Tony could almost feel the pressure on his arm from the marker his soulmate was using to push one phrase from their skin into his.

‘i loev yu’

The letters were written slowly and messily as they showed up upon his wrist while he watched in disbelief. Not sure if he was hallucinating or just going insane, Tony rubbed at the writing, wondering if they would disappear once he looked again.

The words were barely recognizable, but they were still the best thing Tony had ever seen.

IronDad Fluff (yeah)

peter wearing tony’s hoodie, by killerqueenwrites 

Tony’s used to his clothes going missing. His MIT hoodie doesn’t often leave his closet, though, which is why he notices its absence straight away. There’s a lifetime of safety and comfort in this old hoodie, for both of them, and that’s all Tony could ever wish to give Peter.

Career Day, by @superhusbands4ever

“Hey, sorry I’m late,” Peter’s enhanced senses picked up the familiar voice from outside the door. “I had a meeting this morning and then I got lost looking for the class… anyway, I’m here for Peter? Peter Parker?”

He frowned at hearing his name, still unsure what exactly was going on. He watched as his teacher continued to stand and stare out the door for a minute before seemingly remembering herself and taking a step back.

“Of course! If you could just go sit next to him until your turn, he’s in the back on the right side.”

The man stepped through the door and Peter gaped with the rest of the class as Tony Stark, in his signature suit and goatee, sporting a pair of red sunglasses and carrying a suitcase walked through the door.

Kryptonite, by forensicleaf 

The kid is acting weird.

Tony tries to figure it out.

father’s day, by @iron--spider 

It’s Father’s Day, and Tony never really had a father. Not in the real sense of the word, not in the way that counts.

Peter Parker doesn’t have a father, either. Not anymore, anyway, not since he was little, and the amount of years that have passed since then outweigh the amount of time he got with Richard Parker.

Tony wouldn’t call himself Peter’s dad. He wouldn’t, he doesn’t, he doesn’t think of himself that way, no way, no way.

He stares at himself in the mirror. He pulls down on his cheeks, makes his eyes water. He runs his hands over the roughness of his jaw and sorta hates everything about himself right now, because he’s acting like a goddamn idiot. It’s Father’s Day and he’s not a father. He doesn’t know why the hell he’s pining for something that isn’t his, shouldn’t be his, can never be his. He isn’t a father, he isn’t Peter’s father, so there’s no reason on God’s green earth for Peter and him to do something for Father’s Day.

ain’t no valley low enough, by @iron--spider (yes, again, ‘cuz she’s the best)

Peter snorts. “You know I didn’t apply anywhere in Florida.”

“Please, kid, you know all you have to do is write a beautiful essay with my recommendation attached to it and you’re in. You’ve got the scores.”

Peter has a list. Of all the places he applied to, all the places he got into. A lot of it was encouraged by the adult role models in his life, some of it by Ned daydreaming about places like California and Colorado. Mostly, Peter just applied everywhere he could think of, because he’s known for a long time that Tony was gonna help May pay for it, and he didn’t wanna limit his options. Thinking about college has been strange for him, strange to the extent that he had a full blown panic attack about it in the middle of Avengers taco night last month. He can’t really understand it, doesn’t get why it feels like the end of the world—because he’s experienced the end of the world, and it’s not which campus has a bowling alley and which school has circus classes. But he nearly blacked out all the same, sobbed in Tony’s arms on the balcony until Tony proposed this. The road trip.

and when it’s hard, i’ll place your head into my hands, by hopeless_hope

“Tony,” Pepper sing-songs to get his attention. “Your mother hen is showing.”

“What?” he snaps indignantly. “I am not a mother hen. This is just... concern. Of the average kind. Perfectly normal.”

“Of course,” Pepper humors him, and he shoots her a dirty look as he types out a quick text to Peter.

or

It's been five days since Tony's heard from Peter, who's away at college, and Tony is not coping well. (Neither is Peter.)

Peter likes cuddles (and Tony too, but he always denies it... until he can’t)

my arms will hold you (keep you safe and warm), by parkrstark 

“So, you’re telling me your body...is going through Oxytocin withdrawals?” Tony asked slowly.

“Cuddle withdrawals,” Peter corrected him. “Mr. Stark cuddles.”

TW : Rape/non-cons

make me strong, by parkrstark 

It all started when Tony introduced Peter to Skip Westcott. He just didn't know until it was too late.

(There is a lot more, but I can’t find it rn ;-;)

5+1 

5 times peter clung to tony, by parkrstark 

... and the one time tony clung to him.

You are my Dad, you’re my dad, boogiewoogiewoogie, by Hittinmiss

“Peter? What’s going on kid?” Tony asked, him popping up on the phone’s screen.

“Hey da-” Peter started automatically before immediately noticing his mistake, the look on Ned’s face proved that yes, he almost called Tony Stark dad. He needed to try recover quickly because the look on Tony’s face seemed confused, especially with his slight pause. “-aaaaaamn Mr. Stark I really like your shirt. Where’d you get it?”

Smooth.

---

5 times Peter called Tony Dad and the 1 time Tony called himself Dad

5 Times Tony Took Care of Peter..., by As_Clear_As_Crystal 

“Think if I coded a sign into your suit that says ‘Baby on Board,’ maybe criminals wouldn’t be so enthusiastic about murdering you?” Tony asks airily, poking at the bottom of Peter’s foot.

Peter halfheartedly kicks at Tony with his toe. (“That’s offensive, Mr. Stark.” )

- - -

aka: Five times Tony took care of Peter, and one time Peter took care of Tony.

5 times Peter is stuck with Tony, by @iron--spider

(...and one time he’s stuck alone.)

“I wonder if Pepper’s reported me missing yet,” Tony says, with an exaggerated sigh. “I wonder if this is some kind of scheme to kidnap me or something.”

“I think the ride’s just broken,” Peter says.

“Today of all goddamn days,” Tony says, exasperation clear in his voice and in his eyes. “Ruining our trip—”

“It’s not ruined,” Peter says. “Look, we’re hanging out."

“Real quality time,” Tony huffs. “Us, a few other trapped members of the general public, and a handful of animatronic pirates. Drunk pirates. Repeating themselves.”

5 times tony forgot peter was just a kid, by @parkrstark

...and the 1 time he didn't.

Or the one where it was hard for Tony to remember that the kid fighting next to him was still just a kid.

can i get a good night’s sleep ? can i PLEASE get a good night’s sleep ?, by peterstank 

The doors open and there’s Peter, perched on a gurney with his shirt gone and a whole lot of blood staining his side. He’s bent awkwardly, clearly trying to feel his way around whatever wound he’s got.

“Um,” Tony says, approaching, “What.”

Peter looks up and—yeah, he’s lost a lot more blood than Tony had originally thought. His face is completely fucking drained. “Hey,” he says, offering a jaunty wave before returning his attention to his side. “I got shot.”

“Oh!” Tony nods. “Oh, okay. What the fuck, kiddo?”

or: five times peter doesn’t sleep + the one time he does

Five Times Peter and Tony Had Each Other’s Back, by Sahiya

... and One Time They Needed Help.

Peter is Tony’s Biological Child

I Had the Dream Again, by Skeeter_110

Peter calls Tony in the middle of the night crying.

Congratulations, it’s a Boy, by capiocapi 

"Sir, I have the results.”

“Okay, Jarvis. Hit me.”

“It’s a match. 99.9% chance that he is your biological son, which is the percentage needed to be recognized by law as a biological parent.”

Tony’s stomach did a funny swooping dance. “Great. Congratulations to me then, eh? It’s a boy.”

You Are My Sunshine, by @iamconstantine

Tony Stark had always been a man of science and he always would be. It was his personal and fundamental belief that everything had an explanation. His eventual encounters with Norse gods, alien life, and sorcerers did kind of quake this a little bit, but still.

One thing that had always confounded him as the one thing that had no scientific explanation was fate. Murphy’s law, Finagle’s law, the butterfly effect, the domino effect, the snowball effect, and the wisest of all: “Shit happens.”

So how peculiar was it that one of the greatest things to ever happen to him began with a tray of champagne?

Serie i love you more than anything, by @iron--spider 

The highs and lows of Tony unexpectedly becoming a single dad at 31– from Peter’s early baby years, all the way past the defeat of Thanos

May’s abusive boyfriend trope 

A Peter Parker Problem, by @spagbol99

Peter Parker was back from the dead. At least that is what everybody told him. He'd been snapped out of existence until some sort of time travel and an active death wish by his mentor had saved him and the universe. Just your average sort of life for a 16 year old from Queens.

Peter comes back to find May has a husband and a kid. A new family he has to fit into. But he has done it before, he can do it again.

The only thing that feels solid is Tony: the Blip and fatherhood have mellowed him and Peter loves the bond they have now. He knows Tony would be there for him through anything. But Tony needs to focus on his own recovery - not small time Peter Parker problems. When things at home take a turn for the worse, Peter decides that he'll handle it himself. He is Spider-man. He's been to space and fought aliens. He can get through anything. After all, if May is happy, he is happy, right? Right?

(again, I’ve read a lot more but can’t find it...)

Peter Parker Whump (everyone’s favorite trope)

Danger Pizza, by alice_in_ink

The window was pushed open, and Iron Man’s head popped into his bedroom. “Here’s where I’m confused—why lock the front door but leave the fire-escape-accessible windows unlocked?” He clambered through said window. “Seems like a safety hazard.”

Peter eyed the metal suit as it straightened to a standing position. “Did you break into my window to kill me?”

The face plate lifted, and Tony’s eyes quickly looked over the teen. “Christ, kid. It looks like you’re halfway there.”

...

A wild night on patrol leaves Peter with a broken back, and boy, does he want to be able to move without dying. (So he calls Anthony Stark, obviously.)

If You Can’t Catch A Breath (You Can Take The Oxygen Straight Out Of My Own Chest), by @losingmymindtonight

"And I would hurry. Little Peter is about to be under quite a lot of pressure, and it might get a little hard to breathe.”

I’ve Got You, by @thedumbestavenger

Peter runs into a Copycat Vulture out on patrol, from there, everything escalates.

Meetings and Migraines, by AllThingsGeeky

Peter has another migraine at an unfortunate time and despite his best efforts he can’t ignore it forever.

The Most Important Thing In The World, by S0lstice

Peter’s door creaked and began to bend under the force of the crowbar and for the first time since regaining consciousness, fear began to press into him. Something very bad was happening and it was happening fast - too fast for his sluggish mind to keep up.

He went with his instincts instead, the first one always being, Help Mr. Stark.

Friendly Fire, by @jolinarjackson

Finding a careful truce with the government, the “rogue Avengers” are allowed to return to the Compound where they are put under house arrest. Peter coming to spend one week at the Compound during his summer break couldn’t have come at a more inconvenient time as the opportunity to bond a little more with his mentor is overshadowed by a conflict he doesn’t quite understand. When he starts to develop a mysterious medical condition, however, the former team is forced to work together – not just to protect Peter’s identity from the DODC, but also to find the cause for his illness before it’s too late.

“He’s my kid,” Tony said, his voice hoarse. “He’s my kid and I failed him.” He covered his eyes and took a few deep, shuddering breaths. “All I ever do is fail him.” Natasha knelt down in front of him and cupped his face in her hands, waiting for him to meet her eyes before she said, “Right now, he doesn’t need you to fix this. He doesn’t need you down here. He needs you over there, in the medbay, by his side.” She thumbed tears from the corners of his eyes and ignored the ones running down her own face. “You haven’t failed him yet.”

alarm bells and panic levels, by @iron--spider

Tony lands heavy on the dock, the wood splintering hard under the metal suit. He’s having trouble breathing, his nose is bleeding, he most definitely has more than the recommended amount of broken ribs. But none of that fucking matters. The sky is clear, the assholes are down, but there’s one thing missing.

He looks over his shoulder when Rhodey lands too. His suit is dented in a few places but other than that he looks alright. His face mask flips up and Tony lets his mask retract.

“Where’s Peter?” Tony asks, his voice rough with the amount of yelling he’s been doing. Fuck these stupid assholes. They were supposed to go mini-golfing today. The kid had been looking forward to it for weeks.

Rhodey looks around, breathing hard through his mouth. “I thought you knew.”

there’s something wrong, by @iron--spider

“I’m sorry, Pete,” Tony whispers. “We should have checked you for something like this when we were resetting your arm and checking on the concussion. Goddamnit. We didn’t think.”

“He poisoned us both?” Peter asks, trying to open one eye to look at him.

“Yeah,” Tony says, brushing Peter’s hair back from his forehead. “He’s dying. He got the brunt of it, a nice fucking cocktail of bullshit, including mercury and a bunch of other toxic shit—”

“Am I dying?” Peter whispers, voice breaking.

Fitting In (Tiny Spaces), by aloneintherain

Peter's trapped beneath a collapsed building during a mission, hurt and unable to move. Luckily, his comm still works. Unluckily, the Avengers don’t realise how bad of a state Peter is in, and Peter isn’t inclined to tell them.

“Spidey, they’ve got reinforcements. We’ve hit a bit of a snag here, and I don’t think anyone will be able to help you for a while. Think you can sit tight while we deal with this?”

The pressure on his lower back and legs was becoming too much. Peter swallowed thickly, fighting down panic. He could handle this.

“Yeah,” Peter said. “I can do that.”

Collections/Series (’cause I could make an inventory of all @iron--spider stories, you know, but you have to read all of her work, if you haven’t yet) (God she doesn’t even know who I am)

iron dad bingo, by @iron--spider

stay at home, by @iron--spider

whumptober, by @iron--spider

Whumptober 2019, by @marvelous-writer

Day in the life of the Iron Family, by @marvelous-writer 

The Tumblr Archives, by @losingmymindtonight

Everything comes back to you, by @losingmymindtonight

Nice work, kid, by @madasthesea

Irondad Bingo 2019, by sahiya 

The Adventures of Spidy-son and Iron-dad, by eva7673

Tony adopts Peter (why everyone kills May, btw ?)

Accepting the Tides, by @emma--anacortes

Tony had dragged Peter from the depths of despair after May's death. It was normal that he'd grown to care a little about him, right?

Yeah, okay. He freaking loved the kid.

So naturally he would feel a little weird when Richard Parker randomly shows up in Peter's life. Naturally he'd feel protective, nervous, and confused because where has Richard been all this time? And why does Tony feel sick every time he sees him around Peter?

All he knows is if Richard hurts his kid, Tony's gonna give him hell.

Series Out of Darkness, by @starryknight09

“Is this Peter Parker?”

“Yes…”

“This is Dr. Nguyen. I’m sorry but your aunt’s been in an accident and we’re going to need you to come to Queens Memorial as soon as you can.”

Peter's life shatters with a phone call. The last person he expects helps him pick up the pieces.

[twdmusicboxmystery]

11x02: Acheron, Part 2 - Analysis

Okay, let’s talk 11x02. And 11x01. Because it’s a two-part episode, it’s important to consider them together. I have a LOT to say about what’s going on in these two episodes, so I’ll have plenty to post all week. Let’s dive in!

***As always, spoilers abound below for TWD 11x02. Don’t read until you’ve watched! You’ve been warned!***

Maggie

The first thing we see is a point of view from under the train car. The instant I saw that, I knew how things would go. I never thought Maggie would die (if nothing else, there are scenes with her in the trailer we haven’t seen yet) but I was curious as to how she would survive. When I saw this POV, I knew she’d end up crawling under the train. Just as Glenn crawled under the dumpster. Massive parallels to Glenn. Which by extension, massive parallels to Beth. Major resurrection theme.

It's also important that when she reappears, she comes from underneath the car. Obviously, that’s logical given that she crawled underneath the car, but they make a point of asking if the pounding is coming from the roof. Gabriel says no and then they open the bottom hatch for her. Her coming up from the ground like that is a visual representation of a resurrection.

So we see Gabriel, Negan and the others enter the train car. The spatial details here are important, and I had to watch the episode twice to get them all straight. It’s a little confusing the first time. So, the group jumps down into the train car through a hatch in the roof because they couldn’t get the door open in the last episode. The thing is, if you watch closely, you come to realize they’re not in the train car on the end. They must have walked along the roof for two or three cars before finding a hatch that let them in.

So, when Gauge shows up, he comes behind them, and that confused me because I was thinking they came from that direction. And they did, but they entered through the roof, not the door. Anyway, they can’t get the door open. So honestly, even if they’d tried harder, I’m not sure they could have saved him.

This scene accomplished a lot of things, character-wise, that we need to touch on. It’s important to note that Gauge’s death happened due to his own choices. Does that mean he “deserved” to die or that they shouldn’t have tried to save him if they could have? Of course not. No on both counts. But that doesn’t change the fact that his choices sealed his fate.

It's especially interesting that he called Maggie a Liar. Not only is that a throwback to the Governor, but it’s a particular type of mentality they’re showing here. Even the fact that he didn’t shut the door behind him is really interesting. My first thought was to be annoyed with him. Why WOULDN’T you shut the door. You live in this world. You know better. But it’s all ego. He can’t imagine something bad will happen. He just assumes if it does, someone will save him.

But the most telling thing was how angry he got before saying Liar. It just shows very much how he approaches life. When he messes up, he doesn’t feel bad, and accept that it was his fault, and try to learn from it. No, instead he gets pissed and blames everyone but himself and his own actions.

If this had been Daryl or Gabriel or Alden or any of our other heroes, they would have recognized that opening the door would have gotten their friends and family killed and would have sacrificed themselves. Especially if they realized they’d screwed up. But Gauge became angry and defiant, even killing himself.

Anyway, I’m rambling. This really has nothing to do with Beth or TD other than perhaps being a future template for something. But I thought it was a really fascinating character sketch.

The thing is, this isn’t really a matter of Gauge being wrong and everyone else being right.

Maggie is…not doing so well either. As I told my fellow theorists, Paola Lazaro said in TTD last week that Maggie was kind of off the rails. I think she said that a little prematurely, because we really didn’t understand Maggie’s state of mind just by watching 10x17 and 11x01.

It's not until she tells that messed up story about the house she found and the people in it that we understand that her state of mind really isn’t at its healthiest. Even saying she wanted to kill Negan before is…understandable given their past. But it makes more sense now why Negan is so nervous. He’s sensing her state of mind that her moral conscience isn’t as strong as it once was, so of course he’s fearful for his life.

I don’t know where they’re going with this Maggie story line, but I have a feeling this attitude of hers will cause conflict down the road. Several of my fellow theorists believe it will cause a rift between her and Daryl. And we can see that somewhat through Alden. At first, he was very much defending Maggie, especially against Negan. He has a lot of loyalty to her. But he didn’t like her abandoning Gauge, and you can see his loyalties starting to waver.

At the very least, what she said about not feeling anything about it is the opposite of what Beth always stood for. Daryl was trying hard not to feel things during Still, in the wake of the prison going down. She made him feel things because that’s the only way a person is truly living, rather than just surviving. Now Maggie is in that state of mind.

And I’m gonna argue that makes it a prime time for Beth to return to help her. But of course I’m completely objective over here. ;D

Maggie’s Story:

Maggie’s story was definitely dark and horrible, but interesting to analyze. I’m assuming there was cannibalism going on there. That’s why the missing limbs. The men in the house were eating the female prisoners. No only a callback to Terminus, but remember that Bob’s leg was taken for food, so I’m sure that’s what we’re supposed to infer here.

She talked about no eyes, no tongue, no limbs, vocal cords ripped out. So definitely the see no evil, speak no evil themes. With the limbs, it’s also a matter of not being able to escape or save themselves.

In terms of the plot, I do have one question about this that I think may be significant. Maggie first talks about three deformed people (she says, “I wouldn’t call them men”) coming toward her. She kills them, and only after that hears the noise from the attic.

My question is, why were they deformed? If they’re “men,” then they must be at least Maggie’s age, if not older, which means they’ve been around since before the apocalypse began. Even eating human flesh doesn’t cause one to become deformed, so why the deformities? I have no idea, but I wondered if there is a radiation theme going on here. Something they’re hinting at, but not saying. Just thought that was intriguing.

After that, things go sideways and everyone almost dies until Daryl arrives to save the day. So, let’s skip to his story.

Daryl:

We first see him bust through a wall with Dog. So, dog took off in the last episode, but the first time we see Daryl, he’s already found Dog again. At least, the first time. This is where he sees the murals on the wall, the walker with the handcuff and the suitcase of money, etc. I already talked about most of that in great detail HERE, so I won’t rehash it, though it’s very important.

One thing I will say about the mural is that thematically, it’s a match to Still. So, in the golf club, we had lots of rich people who clearly hid there when the world first went bad. And I don’t remember this particularly, but several of my fellow theorists have told me they remember the TTD after Still and that the writers talked about how the golf club was a statement about the class system. You have these very rich people, but their wealth couldn’t save them. Death, walkers, the apocalypse…none of these things discriminate based on wealth or position.

On the wall, we see people with crowns standing at the top, but below, they are homeless, and one of them is being attacked and torn apart. Meanwhile, Daryl sees a line of text that says, “it comes for us all,” probably meaning death.

Well, guess what? Angela Kang, in talking about the murals, said that this, too, was a statement about the class system. So thematically, this is meant to be a parallel to Still.

It’s just interesting to contemplate because if you think about it, most of our heros—Rick, Daryl, the Greene family, etc—weren’t at all wealthy. Rick was humble and well-grounded. Hershel worked hard his whole life and never had any glory or fanfare. And then there’s Daryl, who was “nothing. No one.” They all survived.

So of course it’s a socioeconomic statement, but it’s also one about mindset. It takes not only grit to survive this world, but a certain amount of humility. Ego always gets you killed eventually, as it did with Gauge.

I’ll also mention that I thought the guy with the crown who was being torn apart was being set upon by walkers, but AK says they’re specifically not walkers. They’re people.

So, it’s not a coincidence that we see this juxtaposed with the Gauge situation. His ego gets him killed and we literally see him being torn apart because of it.

Moving on.

Daryl finds a bag with a $100 bill with a letter written on it. This is a massive TD clue from start to finish. 100 is an important number. The hundred dollar bill features Benjamin Franklin on the front and Independence Hall on the back. Look either of those up and you’ll find lots of fun parallels we could point to. I won’t go into all that today except to say it’s definitely part of the Revolution theme.

This is what’s written on the bill Daryl finds:

“Dear Dad, you always said if you don’t come back in a week to move on. Mom didn’t listen and went looking. It’s been three weeks, so we’re going next. I’ll watch Jesse and turn on the radio every day at 10. See you both soon. Love Tom and Jesse.”

He also finds a picture of two kids. So, the “three weeks” jumps out because of Rick’s line in 5x10, “it’s been three weeks since Atlanta.” It’s also about missing family members, going searching for them, etc. Possibly important that the mom is also missing. I can’t help but think of the song from Still. “Our mother has been absent, every since we founded Rome…”

There is a 10 in there, which is an important number. The turning the radio on every day is both the radio/airwaves theme (also a line from the song) but a callback to Rick and Morgan and their walkie talkies. So, really interesting symbols here.

The two kids immediately reminded me of Noah’s twin brothers. I don’t think these two are supposed to be twins. I’m assuming the brother is older. But still obviously siblings. And it hearkens back to the last episode Beth was technically in. Which also had a lot of the CRM/Revolution theme in it. (X, X).

AK says this family probably didn’t make it, so I’m not expecting these kids to show up in the narrative. But it’s also important to note that the little girl is carrying the toy rabbit Maggie found earlier. So the rabbit also ties into all this symbolism. (P.S. I didn’t get to my rabbit post last week. I planned on it, but time got away from me. I should get it posted later this week.)

So, this is massive in terms of TD symbolism. I’ll talk about it fits into the bigger narrative in a minute.

Then Daryl kills the sleeping bag walker. I wasn’t sure the significance of this at first, but I think it ties to the tents and sleeping bags we saw in Atlanta in 5x06, Consumed. Daryl and Carol passed them while looking for Beth. So, this just shows us that this is tied to her storyline and Daryl searching for her.

You could also argue that the walker was “hidden” at first, and it’s significant that Dog found it/realized it was there before Daryl did. 

The other thing is that as he’s looking at the sleeping bag walker, there’s a random shoe on the ground next to it. Missing Shoe/Foot theory, which is also indicative of Beth. 

They hear another roaring sound and Dog takes off, running into the dark tunnel.

Here’s the thing. I think most people will assume the roar he heard was just more air being forced through the tunnels by the storm, as Alden explained it in ep 1. But I always watch with the subtitles on and I noticed at this part, the subtitles said, “Man Roaring.” So they actually did hear someone screaming. And that’s probably why Dog ran toward it.

After watching it again, I realized it’s probably supposed to be Roy. He’s the white-haired guy, played by C. Thomas Howell, who Daryl finds wounded after he emerges from the Tunnel. I think whatever happened to him when he went topside but then got attacked by walkers is what Dog heard and went running toward.

Maybe not terribly significant in the plot, but it’s important symbolically. Because once again we have something Daryl hears from a distance but doesn’t see. Dog (a proxy for Beth) runs toward it, and Daryl follows. When he does, he find someone who had previously separated from the group. They’re hurt, but alive. See the parallels?

I will say the Roy situation confuses me just a little. He’s clearly hurt, and when Daryl tries to bandage him, he refuses, saying, “just tell my kids I didn’t die a coward.” But then later he’s with the group, all bandaged up, and seems to be okay. (He dies when they reach the Reapers by taking an arrow to the head, so he still dies overall.) But it’s just weird that it seemed he would die, then seemed he was fine again.

It may well be something that foreshadows a future situation, and that’s why it’s not making tons of sense right now. Only time will tell.

Anyway, I kind of glossed over Daryl crawling through the dark tunnel. I don’t have much else to say about it except that it’s a SUPER potent symbol for Beth’s arc and very important that he emerges on the other side and finds this person. Annnd then goes to save TF. (Dark Tunnel Symbolism).

So, he hears the gunshots and finds the train they’re on. He comes up behind the walkers attacking them from the front, kills them, moves the bench blocking the door, and lets everyone through. Then he uses a grenade to blow up all the walkers. (Ew.)

After that they all get out of the tunnels and go topside. The next scene is also super important. We see the stars above. That’s partly to show that the storm has passed now, but also constellations = Sirius.

Maggie asks what he has and he tells her about it. There is one weird moment in this scene. When she tells them about the supply depot she wants to stop at, she says Georgie (from S8) set it up for emergencies, for people on the outside to use. When it says this, the camera focuses on Daryl for a LONG moment, and he looks almost sad. I’m not sure what they’re trying to tell us there.

Anyway, they all head out. Unfortunately, when they reach the right neighborhood, the Reapers are there to meet/kill them. And Roy is the first to go.

So, a couple of things here. I’ll probably do a details post because I’m leaving out MOST of the background details throughout the episode, and there are a lot of them. Lots of details to be gleaned in this scene.

But the second time I watched it, I was struck by the people hanging upside down. Obviously a grim sight, but it occurred to me that these people hanging this way look a LOT like the deer diagrams from Scars. Let me show you some pictures:

Top pick is 11x02. Middle and bottom one are from Scars.

See what I mean? So, chances are something about Scars foreshadowed the Reapers, which is interesting. They clearly see human beings in a certain way (as animals to be strung up and…perhaps eaten?) And that makes me think that what Maggie found in that house may tie into the Reapers as well. Just kind of interesting foreshadows of coming plots.

Eugene:

Let’s talk Eugene and then I’ll shut up for today. Eugene’s stuff was very intriguing. First thing you need to know. And understand, I didn’t know this. @wdway​ pointed it out. Some months ago, the actress cast as “Stephanie” was announced. This is her:

And that’s clearly not the woman who steps into the train car at the end. Which means this isn’t really Stephanie. She’s a decoy. In fact, the actress from this episode is billed on IMDb as “woman 2,” not as “Stephanie.”

Knowing that, if you go back and re-watch the parts with Eugene’s group, they mean something very different.

On the surface, it seems that Zeke, Yumiko and Princess are taken away in a sinister fashion. Then Eugene melts down and tells his story. (Note: while he focuses on his feelings for Stephanie and I think most of that is true, he still says he lied both to her and to his friends about being from a large settlement. So, he’s still keeping large chunks of the truth from them.)

Again, on the surface it seems that they accept his explanation and just decide to allow them all in. All the stuff with the other three is just a misunderstanding.

But if “Stephanie” is a decoy, that can’t possibly be the case. I think Zeke and the others told Eugene the truth as they know it, but they’re all still being manipulated.

After Princess left to pee, the guy told Eugene no one was in the room and acted like he had no idea who Princess was. They were definitely using psychological torture on him, trying to break him.

I think they know very well that Eugene's group is still lying about their settlement, and they're using a decoy "Stephanie" to find out the truth.

My point is that it goes back to the hallucination, making-someone-think-they're-crazy theme. It will be really interesting to see how this unfolds, because there's all kinds of psychological shenanigans going on here.

@galadrieljones​ made a really interesting connection some time ago. She noticed that back in 10x18, at Leah’s cabin, there is a metal, heart-shaped chair. The same chairs show up in the Commonwealth’s sales video from the trailer. So there’s some kind of link between Leah, Daryl’s memory of her, and the Commonwealth. We don’t know what it is yet, but all of this gives credence to the idea that she is either an outright hallucination, or Daryl is just remembering things wrong.

It also might mean that the Reapers are connected to the Commonwealth in some way. We don’t really know yet, but I’m having tons of fun trying to figure it out.

I want to touch briefly on the train car theme. Once again, there’s a parallel in both story lines (Terminus, and this one at the Commonwealth). Daryl’s group is in train cars this episode. And while Eugene’s group has been at a different compound, they started in the train yard and end in it here. But what I noticed is that Eugene enters the train car at the end, which is furnished inside, and finds his friends there. They all have a happy reunion.

It made me think of the fact that when Rick, Daryl, Michonne, and Carl enter the train cars at Terminus, there is also a family reunion. What happened beyond that was not good or easy. Clearly, Terminus was not a good place. Many of them almost died at the trough and they had to fight their way out through a walker blood bath.

I’m just saying that, while it obviously won’t play out exactly the same way, something similar is probably waiting for Eugene’s group outside that train car. Not good.

Acheron Overall:

Okay, let’s get to the big cheese, here. The overall narrative. The template.

These two episodes are called Acheron part 1 and part 2. So here’s the skinny:

Acheron = Underworld. Daryl’s group going into the subway tunnels (dark, underground) is what constitutes Acheron and why the episodes are called that. That’s why, at the end of this episode, they emerge from the tunnels onto the surface (i.e. the living world).

Given all the death, cemetery, and dark tunnel symbolism around Beth, given that she ventured into the land of the dead by being shot, maybe clinically dying for a time, and being thought dead for so long, what this tells me is that everything that happens in these tunnels is a foreshadow and template for what will happen this season.

I maintain that Dog = Beth and we will soon see something where Daryl hears something (not necessarily her; it was a man screaming so I still think it will be Rick he hears word of) and goes chasing after it. While searching for it, he stumbles across Beth. Then the two of them (both Dog and Daryl returned to the train car) go back in time to save TF from something.

This is most likely why the Roy thing is weird. In a super understated way, he represents Rick in the template. Daryl will find him, but only after he finds Beth. Even consider what Roy says. He says, “tell my kids I didn’t die a coward.” And that’s all well and good, but did we even know Roy had kids? No. Have we met them? No. But who has kids that Daryl IS concerned with? That would be Rick.

So I’m thinking that maybe when Daryl finds Rick, Rick will think he’s dying for some reason, and that’s why the dialogue here. But he won’t, which is why we see Roy with the group later.

And no, I’m not thinking that Roy dying via the Reapers will extend to Rick. It’s more like what they’ve done with countless characters that have been Beth proxies. Eventually, they kill them off. He’s a minor character they were using as a proxy, and when they are done with him in the narrative, he becomes walker chow. Or, in this case, Reaper fodder.

Anyway, I think everything will end up being a foreshadow for something. Maggie and Negan. The Gauge situation. All of it. I’ll try to keep coming back to this as the story progresses to show what everything foreshadows. I’ll stop there for today.

[thebibliomancer]

Essential Avengers: West Coast Avengers #1: Avengers Assemble!

September, 1984

WHO will answer Hawkeye’s call to join the new team?

I assume Mockingbird? I see her silhouette in the cover box and the assumption was that she and Clint were a package deal? I don’t know what it’s being played like its not a given.

Some good or at least interesting options here for the second team.

Red Wolf, Iron Man, Puck, I thiiiiink Crystal?, Doc Sampson, Mockingbird, Cyclops, Black Widow, Wonder Man, Tigra, Quicksilver, Hercules, Ant-Man, Namor, and the Shroud.

A lot of interesting options. I really want it to be Cyclops and I know its not going to be Cyclops.

STOP TEASING ME WITH AVENGERS CYCLOPS IF YOU’RE NOT GOING TO GIVE IT TO ME!

Also, this issue #1 of West Coast Avengers. Or at least the first issue #1. The team is introduced in a four issue miniseries before getting an ongoing - and a second issue #1 - about a year later.

This will be moderately confusing for my numbering but I’m brave enough to barrel on through anyway.

Last time in Avengers: Vision became the chairman of the Avengers and announced that due to the threat of the Dire Wraiths, the Avengers would be opening up a West Coast team led by newly married Hawkeye. In one page reminders of the subplot in various issues, Hawkeye and Mockingbird arrived in Los Angeles, went real estate shopping, and set up a new HQ in a nice compound that used to belong to an actress.

The team is only missing one thing.

A team.

Maybe it’s just me but I’d think that you’d get the team sorted out before you spent who knows how much renovating a compound up to the level required for a superhero team.

It’s going to be really embarrassing if you open a new Avengers team and nobody comes.

(Vision agrees and has taken the liberty of reaching out to several likely candidates.)

Mockingbird confirms that Hawkeye has invited her onto the team but she’s not even sure she’s Avengers material, she doesn’t even have powers.

Hawkeye: “Neither does Captain America! Neither do I! If I can be an Avenger -- !”

Mockingbird: “Anyone can, right?”

Hawkeye: “And people wonder why you took the code-name Mockingbird!”

Haha! I do like their chemistry!

He does clarify that its totally not just because she’s married to him (although I would point out that he kept trying to get Black Widow on the team based on them dating) but that she’s totally earned it! She has years of experience as a SHIELD agent!

Hawkeye calls Vision to let him know that the place is all set up and Vision lets him know about the reaching out to several likely candidates biz.

BOOM SCENE TRANSITION TO DOWNTOWN SAN FRANCISCO at the office of private investigator Jessica Drew.

Because, yeah, Jessica Drew did the PI thing as an ex-superhero way before Jessica Jones. And Jessica Jones is probably Drew with some of the serial numbers scratched off.

ANYWAY, she’s talking to hardboiled Tigra, who helped her on the Enselmo case.

Jessica Drew: “I still laugh when I think about the way you ran our pigeon up and down Telegraph Hill!”

Tigra: “That was the best part of the case! After all... bringing pigeons to ground is second nature to a lady who’s half-cat!”

Jessica tries to offer Tigra a job (since this is before the internet and Tigra can’t find a lot of modeling jobs for models covered with fur) but Jessica’s secretary interrupts with a call for Tigra.

The call sounds ominous from Jess only hearing half of it but I’m 99.9% sure its Vision offering Tigra a spot on the West Coast Avengers.

Read Tigra’s replies with that context and you’ll laugh.

Tigra tells Jess that she’s got to book it to LA for business that she has to settle on her own but they’ll talk about Jess’ offer later.

Tigra: “Don’t worry, I’m a big girl... I can make my own mistakes!”

I feel like a little bit of clarification would have gone a long way here, Tigra.

Because Jessica assumes that Tigra is in trouble and decides to call someone to tail (ha) Tigra.

Meanwhile, a car chase in the Mojave Desert.

To cut to the car chase, this is a movie set filming a stunt spectacular car chase scene for what I’m pretty sure is James Bond.

Pyrotechnics are easy if you don’t stress blowing up the stuntman.

Because he’s near invulnerable.

The stuntman (Simon Williams, Wonder Man) does need to have buckets of water thrown on him to cool him off after being in an explosion but he’s otherwise fine.

Cool that Wonder Man found an acting job he can handle. He seems pretty thrilled with it.

One of the staff on set tells Simon that his trailer is buzzing and he realizes its his Avengers transceiver.

He receives his offer from Vision (although apparently a much more vague one than Tigra) and flies off after making sure he has no more stunts scheduled for the day.

An hour later and hundreds of miles elsewhere, Iron Man (the James Rhodes version) is flying around, minding his own business, thinking about how cool it is to have relocated to California to help Tony Stark open a new business, admiring the Standord University Linear Accelerator Center.

Just as he’s thinking that he hopes that Tony isn’t in a hurry to being Iron Man since he’s gotten used to it, Vision cuts in on the secret Iron Man radio frequency to call him in to the meeting.

Iron Man arrives twenty minutes later at the West Avengers compound on the Palos Verdes Peninsula bluffs and paraphrased does an impressed whistle at what a nice place it is.

Iron Man: “Some spread! This looks like the kinda place Tony would’ve hung out... before he lost Stark International! The best part of being his pilot in those days was ferrying him to spots like this! Who’d have thought I’d ever be invited on my own? Then again, who’d have thought little Jimmy Rhodes would grow up to be Iron Man?!”

Future knowledge bums me out a little with this. This is spoilers for a year from now and several issues from now but in the time gap between the West Coast Avengers limited series and the ongoing, Tony does take over being Iron Man again. I hope you enjoy all this while it lasts, Rhodey. And hey, War Machine is only like eight years away!

Tigra arrives and starts acting familiar with Iron Man because she thinks she knows its Tony and they were teammates for a bit.

She ditches the briefly identity obscuring trenchcoat and hat because dammit she has a year round fur coat and its hot in California!

She also might be flirting, although hopefully not as bad as she’ll get later in the ongoing. Spoilers for a year and several issues for now but it is a bafflingly bad subplot that Tigra gets given.

The other reason I bring it up is that this is the exact situation that led Rhodey to quit the Avengers when he became Iron Man. He felt it would be awkward interacting with people who already knew Iron Man well.

I guess he’s more comfortable with it now.

The West Coast Avengers roster that we already know about are all people who either quit the Avengers or don’t feel like they’d be a good fit. Which is just a great start so I’m interested to see if we’ll get justifications for why they’d sign up the minute a franchise opens.

Hawkeye takes Tigra and Iron Man off on a tour while a mysterious shrouded figure watches.

The tour concludes without us seeing the tour, boo. But it comes up that neither Iron Man or Tigra know why they’re here.

Iron Man was just told he was needed but didn’t get any more details. We know that Wonder Man got the same vagueness. And Tigra was just offered a $1000 dollar stipend to fly out to LA and see if she could “help the Avengers out!”

So Hawkeye gives them the sales pitch.

That Captain America made it a rule that except in emergencies, the Avengers’ roster would be limited to six members. But Vision decided that they need more than six Avengers but wanted to keep the team from becoming unwieldy so told Hawkeye to set up an expansion team: the West Coast Avengers!

It’ll basically be the same thing as the original Avengers in terms of by-laws and rights and privileges and both groups will be affiliated but the West Coast Avengers will be running their own show west of the Rockies.

If everyone here agrees to sign up, that’ll make a team of five with a sixth spot to fill.

But Tigra objects that she left the original team because she felt out of her depth and why would that be different here?

Ah, now there it is.

Justify it, Hawkeye.

Except he doesn’t because the intruder alarm goes off.

The intruder alarm all the way in the first basement level, which means their intruder has already penetrated deep into the compound and bypassed a lot of the security systems.

Hawkeye is sure that the intruder is actually a highly organized commando raid and he’s instantly proven wrong with an infrared scan shows just one guy.

Womp womp.

Hawkeye is also sure that however this just one guy got as far as he did, the security system in the next area will totally--

Womp womp.

Hawkeye is fed up at this point and seals off the security levels, forcing the dude back through the domestic areas. He then orders Iron Man, Tigra, and Mockingbird to split up to cover more ground that way and surround the intruder.

Not having much better to do, they do, but everyone has some misgivings in their thinky thoughts.

Iron Man: Hawk sounds like he really gets into giving orders. I don’t know if I like that.

Tigra: I must be some sort of masochist to get involved with Avengers again! They always seem to know what they’re doing... not like me! What am I doing here? What am I trying to prove?

Hawkeye: Should I let the others catch our intruder... or rush in and collar him myself? How would Cap handle this?

Mockingbird: Poor Hawk... He wants so much to be a good leader! I know he can do it, but I wish he wouldn’t try quite so hard! In a way, though, it’s funny... His first act as leader was having the team split up!

Mockingbird is the first to run into the intruder, suddenly being enveloped in a cloud of darkness. She can’t see anything but hears someone moving and launches one of her staves from her spring-loaded sleeve launcher.

Its a near miss, breaking a lamp instead of the intruder, who turns out to be Shroud. Y’know, that friend of Jessica Drew’s we met in that two-parter about saving Jessica Drew’s ghost?

Shroud realizes how skilled Mockingbird is and that he might have trouble if he takes her lightly so he goes right for the Vulcan neck pinch, knocking out Mockingbird. But she hits Shroud in the stomach guts with her second stave as she’s passing out.

Hawkeye then shows up, concerned that he hasn’t run into Mockingbird yet and drawn to the cloud of darkness, except not the Final Fantasy villain.

He shoots a light arrow, except not the Legend of Zelda powerup, into the cloud to no real effect so shrugs and shoots a sonic arrow instead.

Shroud flees the area and Hawkeye finds Mockingbird who tells him to shut up with the EEEEE arrow.

Hawkeye: “Where’d our man go?”

Mockingbird: “How should I know? It was dark!”

Hah.

The cloud of darkness passes through the area of the mansion/compound that Tigra is in and she recognizes it as Shroud’s darkness. She calls out to him but he doesn’t hear her because he’s in another wing about to be tackled by Iron Man who can see Shroud with his in-helmet radar.

Controlling darkness is all well and good until technology.

Ain’t it said, Rumia?

Shroud is also blind so all he knows is that an armored man is lunging at him until Iron Man calls him a fool for trespassing on Avengers turf.

And that’s when he realizes that he done goofed.

Hmm. What is that symbol on Shroud’s hood, anyway? It looks kinda like Aku.

Shroud manages to escape Iron Man’s grasp, sacrificing some of his neat cape. Although, it tears into an even cooler look so is it really a sacrifice?

He decides that he’s just going to get out of here.

Shroud: Have to get undercover and think out my next move. I don’t want to fight Avengers! That could become a life’s work -- and I have better things to do!

I can’t decide whether he means that he’d be at it all day or that this misunderstanding fight would lead him down an unwilling path of villainy as some third-string grudge holder.

Probably the former?

Anyway, Shroud is just leaping over the balcony when Wonder Man finally arrives and spots him. And unfortunately for Shroud’s ribs, he has been cultivating a reputation as a crimelord so Wonder Man flies in and tackles him into a tree.

Womp womp, except for Shroud this time.

Tigra shows up and jumps on Wonder Man from forty feet away to stop him from hurting Shroud any further, explaining that he’s her friend.

Shroud: “I’m certainly glad I’m not an enemy... I’d hate to think how I’d be treated then!”

Hah.

Later, in the medical room, I guess, Mockingbird applies bandages to Shroud’s ribs except on the outside of his costume. Does... does that do anything? Obviously not for open wounds. But for bruised bones, I guess the point is compression. But it feels less than ideal because he’d have to take off the bandages to take off his shirt. Just feels better to apply the bandages under the clothes, MOCKINGBIRD.

What makes it weirder is that we see him a couple panels later pulling his shirt down over the bandages. Which makes me think Mockingbird bandaged him on top of his costume and he had to pull his costume top out from under them and pull it down. He didn’t just stop her because that would be rude?

Shroud explains that Jessica Drew asked him to keep an eye on Tigra because of how the phone call made her act all weird. He followed Tigra from the airport to here and ran into a gaggle of superheroes. 

In the meantime, Hawkeye has verified Shroud with a report Captain America filed on him so Hawkeye believes he’s a good guy now.

Wonder Man and Iron Man apologize for going in swinging and Tigra for not just telling Jessica what the call was about. But Shroud tells them no permanent harm done.

Hawkeye decides to offer Shroud the last spot on the team (assuming that everyone already invited is going to choose to stay).

Hawkeye: “That trick you do with the dark is one slick little number... and anyone who can hold his own against us as long as you did obviously has what it takes in the skill department. Besides, what you did reminds me a little of how I introduced myself to the Avengers -- I broke in, too! Come on... What do you say?”

Shroud say... no.

He’s honored and a couple years earlier he would have jumped at the chance. But Wonder Man’s assumption didn’t come from nowhere. Shroud has been spending the last many months building up his outlaw rep so he can take down gangs from the inside.

Like the Green Hornet, I guess?

But since it’d be hard to be an Avenger West Coast AND keep up the fake outlaw thing, Shroud has to turn them down.

Shroud then pulls his cloud of darkness disappearing trick and nopes out.

With all that tied up, Wonder Man asks whats the big thing that Vision called him out for, leading an exasperated Hawkeye to start his West Coast Avengers sales pitch from the top.

Mockingbird: “That’s the spirit, fearless leader! Just remember, it can only get better from here!”

Hah.

So, that was the first issue of West Coast Avengers.

And there’s still no West Coast Avengers team.

Tigra and Iron Man still have reservations about the idea. Wonder Man has no idea why he’s there.

Its an interesting decision to hit the ground walking with this team. But it makes sense. The initial plan wasn’t for the West Coast Avengers to get an ongoing. This limited series was supposed to establish the concept, give a few Avengers affiliated characters something to be doing off-panel, and be able to be pulled in for crossovers and guest appearances as needed.

So the book can focus more on Hawkeye’s trials in actually getting this team going. He’s finally gotten to be a leader of the Avengers like he’s always wanted and now has to deal with all the frustration that Captain America or Hank Pym had with him, and then some.

Still, funny that the West Coast Avengers’ first adventure has them not only not a team yet but spending their time beating up a friend due to mistaken identity.

Will they get their act together by the next issue? Only time will tell. I tell a lie because Chronos never spoils stories. Only me will tell or maybe the Internet.

Follow @essential-avengers​ for the rest of the West Coast Avengers limited series. And for eventual bafflement when they get an ongoing. Also, like and reblog.

[kuiperblog]

DRPGs: function over form

I have an odd affection for DRPGs, or “Dungeon-crawling Role-Playing Games,” which are sometimes referred to as “Wizardly clones” in the same way that early FPS games were called “Doom Clones.”

Legend of Grimrock is an indie game that I’ve found is closest to actually emulating the feel of the original Wizardry games from an aesthetic perspective while updating them for modern graphics; most of the examples from recent history are Japanese and feature anime-style character designs, with Etrian Odyssey being perhaps the best-known (and best-selling).

I describe my affection for DRPGs as “odd,” because few other games have the ability to thoroughly captivate me for the time I’m playing, only for me to completely forget everything about them when I’m done playing them.

For example, I recently noticed that Demon Gaze 2 was on sale for 75% off in the Playstation store. I’m keen to try it out, since I enjoyed the first Demon Gaze game so much that I took the time to 100% (I earned the “platinum trophy” so that anyone on my Playstation Network friends list can see the evidence of my achievement). This is a task that reportedly takes around 50 hours. I say “reportedly” because it’s based on other people’s reports of how long it took for them to “platinum” the game; I can’t really recall from memory how much time I spent playing that game, or really anything else about it for that matter.

I cannot express how weird it is for me to not have a memory of have any specific memories of playing a video game, especially one that I spent that amount of time playing. I can still vividly remember a specific game of Dota 2 that I played over half a decade ago. I could talk for paragraphs about an indie puzzle game that I played for 2 hours in 2012. You could ask me to talk about any of the N64 games I played as a middle schooler and I could probably recall many specific memories from the time I spent with those games.

And yet, when it comes to Demon Gaze, I remember nothing. Not the characters, not the plot, not any of the specific milieus or setpieces. And, truthfully, it’s probably because caring about any of these things is never really something that the game asked of me in the first place. I earnestly tried to remember anything I could about Demon Gaze, and here is a full, comprehensive list of what I came up with:

There’s an NPC whose character trait is that she’s always sleepy. I think she lived in the basement of...something. I think your “home base” was an inn, and she lived in the inn’s basement, and you would sometimes have to talk to her to do certain things or something.

One of the levels had plants and was mostly green. Maybe multiple levels, actually. I want to assume this meant there was a hedge maze, but I’m not actually remembering a hedge maze; I’m just assuming that a dungeon-crawling game plus a green area must mean there was a hedge maze.

One of the levels involved climbing a tall tower, or maybe descending into a deep pit. There was definitely verticality involved, and the map was cylindrical.

I think the main character used swords. But maybe they didn’t. I’m pretty sure that you could dual-wield at a certain point in the game. (I think part of what made the main character so strong was the fact that they could equip an artifact that let them dual-wield?)

That is truthfully and honestly the full extent of what I remembered about the game before I started writing this post and digging up screenshots which reminded me of the main character’s heterochromia. When grabbing screenshots for this post, I found one that showed a character’s class as being “Paladin,” and my reaction was not, “Oh yeah, Paladin was totally a character class in this game,” but “Oh yeah, Paladin totally sounds like a character class that could plausibly be in this game.”

Normally, I’d have memories of specific boss battles, or setpieces, or characters, or story moments. But in place of those, I have memories of looking at Google Sheets that people had made to list all of the items that dropped from certain areas, and ranked them to let you know which items were the best. I could more vividly tell you the decor of the room I was in when I unlocked the platinum trophy than the final boss I beat (or item I obtained) to unlock it. (Being a game for a portable system like the Vita, I actually have memories of many locations and “setpieces” associated with that game; just not locations in the game.)

DRPGs are, maybe more than any genre, a game that is experienced through a layer of abstraction, and I think this is best illustrated by the Etrian Odyssey, which lives in the DS family of systems, which are notable for having two screens (as is suggested by the name “Dual Screen”). Here’s a screenshot that shows what the game displays on both screens when you’re dungeon crawling:

On the top screen, you see the environment you’re exploring in all its 3D-rendered detail. On the bottom screen, you have a map of the area you’re navigating, with the arrow in the middle indicating your current position and orientation. And for the vast, vast majority of dungeon crawling, my attention is focused solely on the bottom screen.

This is, I gather, how most people play DRPGs. Etrian Odyssey puts even more of the focus on the bottom screen by forcing you to draw the map as you walk (hence the bevy of icons and paintbrushes it offers you when filling in the grid). If you try to play by looking at the environment, you’ll quickly realize how much of the area is just copy-pasted assets that are difficult to navigate by. The map isn’t just a “guide;” the game feels less like a first-person dungeon crawler and more like game with a top-down POV where your avatar is represented by that arrow on the map. If you watch gameplay videos and only pay attention to the top screen, you’ll be blown away by how fast it seems like people are moving, but it makes a lot more sense when you realize that people are only paying attention to the map: people will see, “okay, I want to walk north 5 tiles, turn 90 degrees left, then walk west 2 tiles,” and then just input that series of actions faster than the walking animation can actually play out on screen.

I’m half convinced that the reason Etrian Odyssey took off more than any other DRPG is that, due to being on the DS, it has an entire screen dedicated to the map, whereas in a game like Demon Gaze, your screen is mostly taken up with what amounts to decorative filler while the part of your brain that’s focused on gameplay has to focus on a mini-map in the corner of the screen:

So, perhaps you can understand how it is that I played this game for 50 hours, yet have no recollection of the scene/location depicted in this screenshot. It’s because close to 100% of my focus was on the mini-map. I experienced most of this game as an abstraction.

There’s a real sense in which DRPG players (I’m talking about myself here) want everything in the game to be an abstraction. The ideal length for a combat animation is “as long as it takes for me to read how much damage the attack did, so please just advance the battle as fast as I’m pressing the X button.”

Video games are inherently abstractions of real things, like the way that adding the pyramids to my build queue in Civilization V is an abstraction of what it’s actually like to build the pyramids in ancient Egypt, or left clicking in Counter-Strike is an abstraction of what it’s like to fire a gun, but they usually try to call back to the things that they’re abstractions of. Civilization gives you an inspiring quote from some historian describing the pyramids, and Counter-Strike tries to have animations and sounds that somewhat reflect the behavior of real guns. But in DRPGs, I don’t want the combat to be the simulation of my character swinging a sword on an enemy. All I care about is watching the numbers flash on screen, and the reward isn’t “you’ve triumphed over this vile forest-dwelling enemy,” it’s “the number on your exp meter went up.”

While games like World of Warcraft eventually become like this for a lot of people (a game with a hundred buttons that is all about managing cooldowns), you at least start from a place of walking your avatar around the world and performing actions that make your wizard look as though you’re casting a spell.  But most DRPGs start from the position of “all you care about is the numbers, right?” The game is an abstraction unto itself.  It is a game that is made for people who like looking at spreadsheets (and I most definitely spent a decent chunk of time looking at spreadsheets).

Maybe that’s why they can get away with having character designs often clash with the art style of the environment and enemies, and sometimes with the art style of other party members. Several of the character portraits in the above screenshot seem like they were drawn by different people, and there are some moments that, when you look at them in a screenshot gallery, make you think that the characters just don’t belong in the world they’re inhabiting. And while the game is sometimes visually non-cohesive in a way that becomes really obvious if you pay attention, the truth is that when you’re actually playing the game, you’re not really paying attention to all that.

For another example of this, I like to turn to Stranger of Sword City, which has a really cool aesthetic that hits you from the moment you pick up the box (or look at the title screen):

The original release of the game, on Xbox 360, was remarkably consistent with this specific style. But the Playstation Vita version of the game (which was later ported to PC)  gives you an updated character creator and your options include, well, a variety of options drawn in a variety of different styles.

I just looked at the screenshots on the Steam store page for the Stranger of Sword City and, well:

Yes, that is a Prinny in the bottom left corner. Yes, Nippon Ichi did publish this game, why do you ask?

I think one of the reasons I don’t tremendously mind the aesthetic choice (or is it a lack of choice?) in a lot of DRPGs like this to randomly have anime-style characters (even when they might be dissonant with the rest of what’s on screen) that I don’t necessarily need my paladin’s look to really communicate that they’re a holy warrior or whatever; I really just want them to be eye candy that I can appreciate in the moments when I’m distracted from the numbers. But in the end, it doesn’t actually matter that much, because, well...

DRPGs feel like they are all about function over form. (The “looking at the mini-map and not the 3D environment” is a microcosm of a playstyle that’s encouraged by a design philosophy that seems to apply to nearly everything in a “good” DRPG.) This puts them in stark contrast to, say, Persona, which involves a ton of dungeon crawling, but relies heavily on the style (which includes the battle music, the stylish combat animations, and the quips that your characters make in battle) to make that part of the game interesting.

When you down all of the enemies in Persona, part of the “reward” for that comes from getting to deal a bunch of damage to all of the enemies, but a huge part of the reward also comes from the feeling of visceral pleasure that comes in the moment when Akihiko senpai says “I’ve been waiting for this!” and you smile and agree and say, “Me too, Aki. Now give me that shot that’s so iconic it became a meme template.”

I probably would not have made it through dozens of hours of crawling through Tartarus in Persona 3 if Mass Destruction weren’t such a banger of a battle theme. But I spent just as much (if not more) time dungeon crawling in Demon Gaze despite not having Lotus Juice’s rap verses soothing my ears during those battles, which I guess maybe stands as a testament to how good Demon Gaze was at making the game fun?

Ultimately, the abstraction that every RPG leveling system gets toward is “your character gets stronger.” Maybe DRPGs are better than any other genre at removing any abstractions that would serve as a barrier between you and that goal.  And the best DRPGs also give you formidable challenges that give you ample reason to want to become stronger: games like Etrian Odyssey are notorious for their difficulty. I feel the difficulty is a bit overhyped; much like my feelings on Dark Souls, Etrian Odyssey only really feels “hard” when compared with other games where the player is never put plausibly close to a failure state whereas Dark Souls and EO actually punish the player for making mistakes, and EO also has the “X-factor” of having enough variance (due to things like random crits) that you actually do want to give yourself a decent margin for error. Which is to say, EO is one of the RPGs where you actually care a lot about having a team that’s strong enough to kill a boss in 8 turns instead of 10 turns, since that’s 20% fewer chances for an unfortunate event to send you back to home base. Powering up your team in EO feels important and significant way more than it does in a lot of other JRPGs.

There is a very real sense in which the entire point of the obligatory spreadsheet companion is to aid you in your quest to become the strongest you can be by breaking the game somehow. The thing I do remember about Demon Gaze (not concretely, but in the abstract) was that there were some item/class combinations that were wildly better than the alternatives. Some might deride this as poor balance, but in my eyes, “breaking” a game in that way is really more akin to “solving” it, in the same way that one might “solve” a puzzle. I did it: I found right combination of skills and items to trivialize the game’s difficulty! Huzzah! In a “well-balanced” game where all items and classes were all carefully tuned to be equally viable, such a thing would not be possible. Thus, what others might consider “poor balance” in some DRPGs is actually an essential and core part of what compels me to spend time with those games.

I feel like these factors and more make DRPGs somewhat unique in a way that probably contributes to them reviewing poorly. For example, if you look among discussions on DRPG forums about recommended games, there seems to be universal consensus that Stranger of Sword City is a great game (with many praising it as the best DRPG they’ve ever played), but on OpenCritic, only 45% of critics recommend it, and I think all of this is perfectly encapsulated by a 6/10 review from TheSixthAxis:

Stranger of Sword City excels at one thing, and really flounders at the others. It’s a rewarding experience if you’re a fan of challenging RPGs and gameplay depth. If you’re a fan of well-written dialogue, engaging music or proper difficulty curves though…well….there are a lot of other video games out there that may suit you better.

And that’s the kind of thing that makes me want to locate a guide, crack open a spreadsheet, and start a new save file.

Anyway, the Stranger of Sword City is on sale for 80% on Steam right now. That’s $4, for a game that I paid $40 for when it first came out on Vita! I’m tempted to buy it again, just for the convenience of being able to play it on my monitor without having to dig around to locate my old Vita TV.

[dantesintegrity]

You know what I absolutely yearn for these days

Just the ability to go to a Diner. The kind that is open all the time, day and night, so you can simply just go in and just sit down. Perhaps you chose a table, or on one of those stools near the counter, but you always end up picking a booth next to the wide windows. You don’t order anything, but you do have a Coffee Mug next to you. You always loved the smell that Coffee makes. You take a sip of Coffee. You sit there with your computer open, and you just write. Whether it be an essay you need to finish, or your dream novel you are finally writing, you just write. 

A waitress walks up to you and asks ‘do you need anything ...?’ while pointing to the menu that has been sitting by to you for the past hour. However you instead point to the Coffee Mug near your hand and say, ‘More Coffee please,’ She walks over to the Coffee brewer and takes the jug from it and pours your Mug before walking away. As she walks away, you take in the scene once more. You turn to your right, there are dozens of people in the Diner. All of them are talking to the person they sit next to, on their phone, or to no-one in particular. You don’t pay attention to any one of them, but the echoes of their voices provide a good ambience. You turn to your left, there you see the parking lot with cars, bikes, but you also still see the road people got here from. It's noon, so the Sun is high up in the air and the Natural light it provides gives you some warmth. You look back forward, you see your computer with a word document open with a few sentences written. You take a sip of Coffee, and start writing. When you start typing, the world starts to blur away as you enter the Flow.

Suddenly, You are interrupted. It’s the Waitress again, she asks, ‘you need anything ...?’ While pointing to the menu once again. You shake your head as you point to your empty Mug, ‘I just need more Coffee,’ She then takes the jug she was already holding and refills your Mug with Coffee before moving along. You take a sip of Coffee. Then you take a second to actually look at the menu you were given. It has a standard retro style to it, completely consisting of bold lines of Red on White. The things you can order includes many different types of Burgers, Hotdogs, Steaks, Sandwiches, Patty-melts, Fried Chicken, Fried onion Rings, Fries, Soft drinks, Hard drinks, Milkshakes, and whatever it is that’s acting as the Special for that particular day. The pictures look delicious and the descriptions sound quite appetizing, but you’re not hungry. You take a sip of Coffee. You look outside to see that the Sun that had risen high up above is now in the middle of Setting, and the blue sky is now warm orange. There are fewer cars and bikes in the parking lot, to turn to look back inside and notice that there were fewer people within. Luckily it is still enough to create an ambience to zone out to. You look back to your computer, you see the number of words, sentences, and Pages of the Document have increased dramatically, and while you do feel pride for your progress, you still wish to continue writing for just a little bit longer. You take a sip of Coffee. 

You look on your word document and put your hands back on the keyboard. You read the sentences once more, thinking of a way to continue on with what you just wrote down. You read the last few paragraphs, nodding to the subtle little metaphors, and similes, and analogies, and allegories that you put in, as you try to think of any more you could add. You go on to read back a couple pages more and try to determine flow and the speed of which everything you wrote down moves in, and you try to think of how you can progress. You try to read from the start, but you keep scrolling up, and up, and up with barely any movement in the scroll bar. Surely you haven’t written that much? Even if you did, it would still be best if you continue writing from here on. Right? You would do that, but the words, the words are just not coming to you. It’s not as if you aren’t trying, you are desperately trying to grasp the straws that come up in your mind, yet they are just too out of reach, or too close to you that they just seem generic. You take a sip of Coffee.

After you take a sip, you realize that you are out of Coffee. You call out for the Waitress, trying to find her. You seem to be completely alone in the Diner, yet the Ambience of a hundred half heard conversations still echoes within. You look outside the window next to you, and see that it is night. It’s dark, so dark that the street lamps barely shine enough to reach the ground. You can see the night sky, the hundreds upon thousands of Stars that litter the dark purple that is space. Other than the Stars, the moons, and the barely visible street lights, it is pitch black outside. You can not see anything out there. You can not see the people out there, nor their brightly colored clothes. You can’t see them wander around smiling as if waiting for you, nor can you see their gestures of beckoning you to come along. It’s too dark for you to hear them whisper about you. You take a sip of Coffee.

You notice the menu once again. Last time it was Lunch and Dinners, but now you see the menu consist of Desserts, mainly pies. There’s Apple pie, Cherry pie, Strawberry pie, Blueberry pie, Pecan pie, Lemon meringue pie, Chicken pot pie, Pork pot pie, Beef pot pie, Lamb pot pie, Wild game pot pie, Civilized game pot pie, Game pot pie, Sport pot pie, Fight pot pie, Lie pot pie, Truth pot pie, The actual truth pot pie, etc. You aren’t hungry for any of those. You take a sip of Coffee.

You look for more things to distract your mind. The diner has barely any lights on, yet it still seems brightly lit enough for you to see clearly. You look at the tables, and the small circular shape it consists of. Condiments, Jams, Coffees, and all of the other standard dining table materials are laid on it; probably more than their needs to be. You don’t know if there is even enough space to put a plate on it. Now that you are looking at them, those chairs, were they always that tilted? The counter with stools looks like a nice place, but after shifting your view you realize that the Stools are just optical illusions, painted on the counter and floor. There is also a display case with the various different kinds of pies you just read about, their colors look mesmerizing, but the way they move bothers you. Not only that but you just noticed that the front door that you were certain existed before is no longer there. Well, that does not particularly matter to you, you don’t plan on leaving anytime soon. You take a sip of Coffee.

‘Need anything ...?’ the Waitress from before says to you. You turn to her. You take a sip of Coffee. ‘I need a refill on Coffee’ You tell her, pointing at your Coffee Mug. You hear her head tilt slightly, and Coffee comes pouring down. You thank her for the Coffee as she shifts away from your sight. You take a sip of Coffee.

As you are Sipping your Coffee, you realize that both your hands are typing something on your computer. You stop your hands with your hands and scroll back up to read what you just wrote. You take a sip of Coffee.

‘You need to move on,

Please,

You have to go,

Just go,

It doesn’t even need to be forward,

You can go backwards,

You can go leftwards, or rightward.

You can go north, or south, or east, or west, or north east, or north west, or south east, or south west, or ascend, or descend, or climb, or drop, or straight, or pass, or across, or along, or between, or behind, or over, or under, or around.

Just go somewhere.’

The writing continues for five hundred more pages, you don’t like how condescending the words are. You take a sip of Coffee.

When you look back to the Diner, it appears that several more hours have passed. The sun is shining through the window but the sky is a Mossy-Brick color now. It doesn’t bother you though, you never really cared about what color the sky is. You take a sip of Coffee. Besides, you can’t even see the window anymore. There is only a Mirror there, you don’t like looking at it though, the way the reflection looks back at you annoys you. You take a sip of Coffee. The ambience in the Diner has fully returned, there is still no-one else in the Diner, but no-one got bored and they decided to have a conversation with each other. You take a sip of Coffee.

The Waitress returns. You take a sip of Coffee. ‘Anything ...?’ she says to you. You try to look up to see her face, but no matter how far you look up, and twist your neck, and bend your back, you just can’t seem to reach her face. Regardless, you look at the general direction you assume her face would be in and say, ‘I would like some more Coffee please,’ while pointing at the Coffee Mug. She blinks, and doesn’t say anything. There was no malice in what she didn’t say, but you didn’t particularly like how she phrased the thing she didn’t say. She demanifests after she refills your Coffee mug. You take a sip of Coffee.

There’s a person sitting on the other side of the table with you now. You don’t remember seeing him before, but his face seems friendly so you must have allowed him to sit there. You ask him, ‘What do you think?’ He responds with a simple, ‘Yes.’ His eyes are the color of petrichor, and his breath smells like Sapphire. You take a sip of Coffee. Suddenly, there is a person playing piano behind you. Without even looking at you, the pianist somehow plays a song that aligns with every single one of your actions; She smiles as she shifts the melody to a higher octave as you grab and lift up your Coffee Mug. You take a sip of Coffee.  As you take your sip, The Pianist, The Person Across You, and every single one of the No-Ones in the Diner whistles along with the melody in perfect pitch. You take a sip of Coffee. Everyone and No-One suddenly comes to the same conclusion, and walks over to a lamp to paint it Cyan. You take a sip of Coffee. 

The waitress is now with you once again, ‘...?’ She asks. ‘More Coffee please’ You ask her for more Coffee. She doesn’t say anything to you.

She doesn’t ask you where you are going.

‘No where, I don’t need to go anywhere.’ you ask her for more Coffee.

She doesn’t ask you where you think this place is.

‘It’s a Diner.’ you ask her for more Coffee.

She doesn’t tell you that you are on the Crossroads.

‘This isn’t a crossroad, this is a diner’ you ask her for more coffee.

She doesn’t tell you that everywhere is a crossroad, this place is just more so the Crossroads.

She doesn’t tell you that you have been sitting on a crossroad for a long while, and while you can make a choice to move one direction, another direction.

She doesn’t tell you that you never even made a choice, and that even moving back is a Choice.

‘Are you forcing me to choose?’ you ask her for more coffee.

She doesn’t tell you.

You look back to the window, but you still can’t see the outside due to the Mirror, the mirror only shows you what you know you will do; and you can’t see the Sun telling everyone prophecies and the others Dancing, beckoning for you to join the dance. You look back in the Diner, and you see Everyone and No-One eating the pies that were displayed earlier, all of the colors look delicious, but you scoff at their decadence. You look forward to seeing your Computer writing on its own, all while plucking out its own keys. You look back, the Piano is now playing poker with the Cyan painted lamp. You look at the Waitress.

‘Am I dead?’ you ask her for more coffee.

‘Have you decided that you are dead?’ She asks you.

You don’t tell her your Answer.

You take a sip of Coffee.

[princessofgayskull]

ik this isn't she-ra related but ur main blogs asks aren't open 😳😳 n e wey, thoughts on folklore?? i wanna hear ur favorite songs, favorite lines, any parts that gave u chills, all the good stuff

Someone asking me about Taylor Swift? Someone asking my thoughts about Taylor Swift?! Someone actually wanting to hear what I have to say about Taylor Swift? I feel like Entrapta back in season one when she was asked about her theories about Etheria and was she excited to show everyone her model.

Before I dive in, I want to apologize that it took me so long to get this to ask. I’ve been swamped trying to keep up with summer classes and I wrote several versions of this post only to have tumblr delete it and make me start over before I had the bright idea to write it on a google doc first so I didn’t lose all my work and that is the draft you are reading now! But, for authenticity reasons, after I saw this ask I scrambled to write what I could remember from my first album listen that took place at exactly 11pm (after I watched and cried to the cardigan video, of course). Here there are in note form:

I cannot believe that in the darkest timeline that Taylor Alison Swift dropped a surprise album with sixteen songs in an entirely different genre (the heart attack I had when I learned folklore was a genre shift; I cannot believe I doubted the song writing legend herself). The album has been out for a week and I kid you not the only reason I know I didn’t make it up or dream it is because this album is far more beautiful than I could’ve ever come up with. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve listened to it. Everything about the album- the lyrics, the topics, the genre, the production- speaks my language fluently. Even during the first listen I felt that I had somehow known these songs my whole life despite their raw newness. 

This might read weird, but I think one of my favorite aspects about the album is how voyeuristic it feels to listen to. I don't mean sexually, but rather the way it feels like I don't have full permission to be looking at the lives of the people she is singing about. It's as if Taylor said, "I know you want to peek behind the curtain and see all my flaws" so she dives into these characters who are very flawed people and is so raw and honest as she takes their place saying almost "I will treat them like you treat me." 

Yet at the same time, it's her most grounded album. There's something so shiny about pop music (I'm not knocking it, I love pop music, life's too short not to) but this is as if Taylor's pop mentality was left out in the rain and rusted. There's something so real and familiar about it. Like you can reach out and hold it in your hand.

It's venturing too far into the forest and stepping into another dimension and living in it for sixteen songs. A dimension of mysticism, nihilism, magic, and mistakes.

Here is my track-by-track list of favorite things/ chill moments/ awestruck moments.

the 1- WHAT AN ALBUM OPENER. This song rips my heart out and stomps on it. "You know the greatest loves of all time are over now" Why does lyric make me wanna break down and have the most cathartic cry? The defeated acceptance of it all is gut wrenching. "In my defense I have none" Taylor's turn it phrase on this album is brilliant and I aspire to this level of word cleverness.

cardigan- the slow buildup of this song pure magic. If you don't scream "Cause I knew everything when I was young!" at the top of your lungs when listening to this song, are you really a cardigan stan?

the last great american dynasty- F. Scott Fitzgerald who? No, I only know Miss Taylor Swift. Seriously, this song isn't even four minutes long and it's better than any novel written about the American dream. Also, "and then it was bought by me" Taylor you cannot just drop that bombshell on me without letting me get emotionally prepared.

exile ft. bon iver- a song crafted in heaven. Somehow it makes me both depressed and provides me serotonin. I can't get enough of the lyric "I'm not your problem anymore/ so who am I offending?" FUCK THAT'S GOOD. THE SONG IS SO GOOD. SMASH THAT REPEAT BUTTON. I could drown in this song.

my tears ricochet- by far my favorite on the album, and my favorite number five track. I don’t think there’s another Taylor Swift I relate to as much as this one. This hits a very, very close to a personal place for me. Right at the center of an open wound. And god, the build up. It just makes the emotional experience that more poignant. “And I can anywhere I want, anywhere I want, just not home.” I got chills the first time I listened to that lyric, and it brings tears to my eyes. Needless to say, I’ve had some good cries to this song.

mirrorball- this track is about as cutting as they come. The Imposter Syndrome anthem. It’s the “everything that comes from me has to be perfect, to make up for the fact that it’s from me” song. It’s the sense that nothing you do is worth doing if there’s no audience, yet the audience is the biggest threat. “I’ve never been a natural, I’ll do is try, try, try.” Yeah. There’s a reason this is the TS album I relate to the most. 

seven- I keep saying these songs are so beautiful, but god, this one. Her vocals, the lyrics; in my opinion, a defining moment on the album. The driving home of the point that stories are important because we tell them. It’s a story plagued by a narrator who’s too young to understand and can only put the pieces together as she’s looking back. “And I’ve been meaning to tell you/ I think your house is haunted/ your dad is always mad and that must be why.” I almost can’t handle that. The loss of childhood innocence and the longing for it in just three minutes and twenty eight seconds.

august- “REMEMBER WHEN I PULLED UP AND SAID GET IN THE CAR AND THEN CANCELED MY PLANS JUST IN CASE YOU CALL/ BACK WHEN I WAS LIVING FOR THE HOPE OF IT ALL, FOR THE HOPE OF IT ALL/ MEET ME BEHIND THE MALL!” currently trying to learn this on guitar, which is fun because I’m not much of a singer. Also, I think that Betty and this girl should ditch James and date each other, if you’re of the interpretation that James is a cishet guy.

this is me trying- So I know that this is a song about a woman struggling with an alcohol addiction, but I really relate to this song because it just feels so much like my struggle with mental illnesses and the way my potential died so quickly because of that struggle. “I was so ahead of the curve/ the curve became a sphere/ fell behind all my classmates/ and I ended up here.” yep. that’s about it.

illicit affairs- again, the build up. “Don’t call me kid! Don’t call me baby! Look at this godforsaken mess that you made me!” Gotta scream that everytime. Also are we going to talk about the lines “Take the words for what they are/ a dwindling mercurial high/ a drug that only worked/ the first few hundred times” ? because I cannot stop thinking about it, or any of the lyrics for that matter.

invisible string-Joe Alwyn, do you know one of the most beautiful songs in history was written about you? I love the instrumental on this one. Also, it’s just flat out brilliant. “Bad was the blood of the song in the cab on your first trip to L.A” Holy shit.  Also, “cold was the steel of my axe to grind for the boys who broke my heart/ now I send their babies presents.” You know what that is? Growth.

mad woman-while my tears ricochet takes the spot as my favorite, this is the Taylor Swift song I claim above all others. “Every time you call me crazy, I get more crazy/ what about that?” This song is at the intersection, however coincidental, of my identity as a mentally ill woman. It’s also extreme vindication the way she calls out women acting as double agents of the patriarchy. A scathing criticism of patriarchal socialization and the way women are punished for reacting to anything. 

epiphany- listen to this song after watching the news. lay down. assume fetal position. try not to cry. fail and sob. wash, rinse, repeat.

betty- the old taylor can’t come to the phone right now cause she’s chewing out james for cheating on betty. *wink* However, she will write a folksy banger that’s very old taylor where James takes accountability for their mistake. I love the wlw interpretations of the love triangle songs, and I also can totally see James as a he/him lesbian. 

peace-the disembodied feel of this song is so unique to Taylor’s sound but I totally dig it! This is the album of a woman in her thirties, and I hope it paves the way to more women being able to stay within the industry getting older. There’s a maturity here that is the result of having created so many albums and having found her voice.

hoax- Time to go scream off the edge of a cliff in solidarity. An open closer that rivals the defeatism of the opener, a slow descent into madness that has followed a trauma. “You know it still hurts from scars from when they pulled me apart/ but what you did was just as dark/ darling, this was just hard/ as when they pulled me apart.” Literally no words. I’m always left speechless. 

If you’ve ever thought “I like Taylor but I don’t like her music because she did country and now does pop” this is the album you need to take a chance on. I can only dream of one day possessing Taylor’s ability to tell stories and this album will stick with you in all the best ways. The reason Taylor Swift can genre jump the way she does so seamlessly is because of her unrivaled strength as a songwriter. Stream folklore on spotify!!!!!!!!!

This is probably much more than you asked for, but I hope it satisfies! Thank you for letting me gush about Taylor and this album!!!!!! Sorry it took me so freaking long! If you have thoughts, I would LOVE to hear them!

[queenlists]

Every Halloween.

A/N: I wish I had this idea before or on Halloween, but it's here either way! Warnings: Death and violence. I hope you all like this. Thank you for the support! ✌

Post date: 11/14/2019

"Tate!" I laughed out as my best friend tackled me down onto his bed as he got on top of me, tickling me. I tried to hit him, but he had my pinned. For a skinny kid, he had strength. "Please! I'm sorry!" I cried out, the tickling immediately stopped. "Why are you sorry?" Tate probed, urging for an answer cocking his eyebrow as a huge smile crept across his face. "I'm sorry for...nothing!" I wiggled out of his grasp, running down the stairs laughing. Tate laughed along with me, quickly trailing me and eventually grabbing me up in his arms. "Okay! I'm sorry for saying you look like the off brand version of Kurt Cobain!" I quickly apologized to ensure that Tate would let me go. Tate, of course, let me go "Now how hard was that?" "Very!" I smiled at him. 

"Can you two stop the running around and giggling?" Constance takes a long drag on her cigarette, swaying into the room with a smile on her face "Mama is trying to get some beauty rest!" Constance walked over to Tate, fixing his hair and brushing the lint off of his sweater with her hand. Tate rolled his eyes at her actions "Mom!" "Oh hush, my sweet boy. You're too handsome to have lint on your sweater. (Y/n), are you joining us for dinner this evening?" "Of course she is! She's Tate's girlfriend!" Addy chimed in, giggling. Tate's cheeks lit up several shades of pink before he bit his lip, looking down. Tate and I are always attached at the hip. If we aren't together, we're on the phone with each other. He's my other half, so it's not uncommon for everyone to assume he's mine. I wish, but he's not.

Dinner was the same as any other night.  Constance rambled about how she was supposed to be a star, but was destined to be a mother. Addy and Tate giggled at their own inside jokes. While I chimed in with a witty comment every now and then, earning smiles from the table. Nothing was different.

Lying in bed together, Tate was fidgety. "What's going on with you?" I propped myself up, looking at him. "This world is shit. That school is shit. I don't want to go back." Tate got up, pacing around the room. "We could make the world a little more bearable taking those snotty kids out of that school. We can start with the school then change the world! I've been thinking about it, (Y/n)! I can change it." I nodded as I listened to his ramblings. They were nothing, but ramblings that he needed to get out. "I'm going to change the world tomorrow." Tate smiled as he sat back down on the bed. "I'll back you on this a hundred percent." I smiled at him hugging onto him, not knowing what I just did. Not knowing I sealed a few coffins, including Tate's.

I woke up, stretching out. Sitting up, I looked around. Tate's already gone. I groan, picking up my phone. 10 AM! I'm super late for school! Why didn't my phone go off? I scramble to get ready, racing down the stairs only to be greeted by Constance. "Tate said to give you this." Constance hands over an envelope. "What is this about?" Constance shrugs, sticking around to catch a peek of what the letter said. "I figured I shouldn't read it. He only told me not to open it about a thousand times." I open up the letter:

'(Y/n),

I love you. I needed to make this world more bearable for us before asking you out, so stay home from school today. I'll be home later. I want you to be mine. Yes or no?

-Tate'

I smile, holding the letter to my chest "He asked me out!" I squeal out as Constance takes a drag from her cigarette "What a surprise" she sneers, turning around swaying away. I roll my eyes at her sarcasm and gleefully head back to his room to text my other friend:

(Y/n): Guess who just asked me out!! (10:25 AM)

(Y/f/n): I hear gunshots. R u here? (10:26 AM)

What? I quickly called my friend, who thankfully answers almost immediately "(Y/f/n), dude what are you talking about?" I panic into the phone. "Someone's shooting up the school! I'm hidden right now." (Y/f/n) whispers into the phone, breath quivering. I feel myself starting to hyperventilate as I hear the pops of a gun nearing. "Call the police! Call your parents!" I yell out, trying to steady my breath. "Are you here?" "N-no. My alarm didn't go off, but Tate went. Oh my god, Tate did!" I feel tears start to fall as I scramble to my feet to run to Constance. "We already did. Mr. Goldman said they're on their way already. The gunshots are getting louder. They're closer to us." (Y/f/n) whimpers into the phone. "Just stay quiet! I hush into the phone. "Constance!" I yell out, running down the steps. She walks in, her mascara leaving black streaks down her face, she has a picture of Tate in her hand to her chest "I know what my sweet boy is doing." "TATE! WHAT THE HELL!" I hear my friend scream into the phone and before I could utter a word, I hear a pop and the phone clang onto the floor. Screams. All I hear are screams. I drop my phone, staring at Constance. "He doesn't mean harm" Constance whimpers out.

I sat on the last step, sobbing as Constance pleaded with a police officer on the phone to let Tate go. Soon, the door flung open and Tate appeared, rushing past us up the stairs. I chased after him "Tate! What did you do?" Constance and I both yelled after him. I pushed the door open as he calmly cleaned off his face and sat down. "What did you do?" I pleaded, stepping closer to him tears stinging my face. "I did what I had to. Are you mine?" He looked at me innocently, his voice quiet. "(Y/f/n)?" I sobbed as I watched him nonchalantly lay back. "Is fine. I left that class when I saw (Y/f/n). Are you mine?" I hear a loud bang downstairs followed by the cries of Constance and heavy boots approaching. Tate sits up, looking at me. He's scared. "Are you mine?" He yells out at me. I go to open my mouth, but the door is kicked open and I'm being pushed out the room. 

Constance and I are screaming. I know we are. I see her veins sticking out, her face going red as she begs the officers to let her baby go. I feel my throat burning. But, I hear nothing. I can't even get a glimpse of Tate. I hear nothing, but I feel everything. I know it's not going to end well, so I know it's now or never. "Yes, Tate! I'm yours!" I sob out. Seconds later, gunshots rang throughout the house. My heart fell to my stomach as I heard an officer report "Tate Langdon is deceased." I fell to my knees, staring at the officers in black. My world is gone. What's the point of anything anymore?

---------------

It's been a few months now. Constance already moved out of that house and family already moved in. Everyone seemed to be progressing in life while my whole world stopped when those officers took Tate away from me. I avoided Constance after that day. I couldn't bring myself to face her. "Honey, you have a visitor" my mom called out to me. I roll my eyes, thinking about the numbers of people who swing by either to drop off food or to see how I basically lived with a murderer and how explosive Tate Langdon must have been. I trudge through the house, to the front door. It's Constance. I smile at her and wave her to come in. "No thank you dear, I have a surprise for you. Come with me."

-----

Kids ran around past us in costumes. Yards were spookily decorated. The autumn leaves were still falling down on the already coated sidewalks and streets. I looked down as I saw that house come into view, letting Constance lead me inside. "What you did was very stupid and I'm mad at you!" I heard Addy yell out. She rushed out of the kitchen, stopping briefly to look at me before leaving the house completely. "Come on, Addy!" That voice. That voice was too familiar. I didn't bother to look up until I saw shoes. Worn converse shoes. The same worn converse shoes I used to draw on. The same worn converse shoes that belonged to my dead boyfriend.  My eyes trail up, memories of this very outfit flooding my mind until I locked eyes with him. "Hi, (Y/n)." Tate smiled at me, before pulling me into a bear hug.

Normally, if someone came back from the dead you'd run the other way. But, I couldn't.  I didn't want to. I knew the house was haunted - I mean I spent the night there at least five times a week! I seen stuff. I heard stuff. I just never thought he'd come back to me. 

----

Tate explained the whole situation about the dead coming back to play on Halloween, so for the first time we spent the night as a couple and every Halloween after that we were a normal couple.

-------

"Come on, mommy!" my son jumps up and down excitedly as he holds his bag full of candy, wearing a dinosaur costume. I laugh as I chase after him along the beach. "I see him! I see him!" my dinosaur roars out, running towards the figure. I watch smiling as Tate picks up our dinosaur, swinging him around "Hey buddy! I missed you so much, Cobain!" I finally catch up to the two, Tate pulling me into the hug "Hey beautiful." "Hey handsome." Tate kisses me deeply. I close my eyes, kissing him back, taking a mental note of this moment just like every other Halloween. "Happy Halloween!"

[anistarrose]

Don’t Hang Up Yet, I’m Not Done (TAZ Balance AU)

Summary: Tres Horny Boys have the Red Robe’s phone number, continued. This time, Merle and Taako make some calls.

Warnings: Dissociation

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18979621/chapters/45066238

A sequel to this fic, which was in turn inspired by this art by @mspainttaz!

***

The next call Barry gets is in the late afternoon several weeks later, and once again, something tells him exactly who’s going to be on the other end of the line before he even moves to pick it up.

(Then again, it’s barely been an hour since he gave Merle that cryptic nod, so it’s not exactly difficult to guess the reason for the call.)

“You saved my kids,” Merle whispers, sounding dumbstruck even now. “Why?”

“I — I just — why wouldn’t I? I had the power to stop innocent people from getting hurt. Of course I saved them.”

“Well, that’s real altruistic of you,” Merle murmurs. Bit by bit, his normal enthusiasm creeps back into his voice as he continues: “Not sure how you’re supposed to reconcile that worldview with making the Relics, though. Too bad I can’t cast Zone of Truth over the stone, ha!”

“Yeah, it’s a real shame,” Barry replies. “Anyways, you need to teach your kids to be more careful. Odds are I won’t be around during the next… freak accident.”

“Yeah, their passive perception stinks,” Merle agrees with a sad laugh. “Or at least Mookie’s does, as much as I love the little fireball. Mavis is a bright little thing when she’s not busy looking after her brother — she reads at a college level, you know! Probably gonna make a hell of a wizard one day!”

“Give it to me like you would under Zone of Truth, Merle — did you call me just to brag about your kids?”

“Don’t tell my boss,” Merle answers in a hushed whisper. “I’ll get my employee phone plan revoked!”

Barry struggles to stifle a laugh. “Merle Hightower Highchurch, calling up the enemy to have a friendly chat? What would the Director think?”

Merle laughs too, the irony lost on him. “You know, you’re a much better conversationalist today than you were the first couple times we met. What’s up with that?”

“Uh… I dunno, social anxiety? How’s life on the moon treating you?”

“It’s got its perks. Apparently the gravity is low enough up there that my spinal cord decompressed, so now I’m a millimeter taller — and trust me, I know it doesn’t sound like much, but we dwarves have to take what we can get!”

“I can imagine.” An idea occurs to Barry — it’s a long shot, but worth a try. “How about the gnomes — are there any gnomes up there? How are they doing with the gravity situation?”

“Well, Leon doesn’t ‘like’ me or ‘the crew I hang with’ so I don’t really talk to him. And Davenport, well…”

Barry very nearly short-circuits his Stone of Farspeech as sparks of magic course through his form and down his sleeves. “What about Davenport? How is he?”

There’s a pause on the other end of the line, and Barry gets a bad feeling that he came across as a little too invested in Davenport’s well-being.

His fears are confirmed when Merle asks: “What, do you know him?”

“Just heard the name in passing,” Barry lies. “Never met him, but most names from the Bureau that I hear in passing end up belonging to pretty important people. What’s his — what does he do for your operation up there?”

“You know, I’ve never really thought about it before, but — if we could make this our little ‘Truth Zone’ here, for just a second — I’m not really sure why Lucretia hired him in the first place. All he can say is his own name, and he always seems kinda anxious about one thing or another — again, I never know what, since he can’t really talk.”

Barry doesn’t know how to reply.

“Damn good at cards, though! You wouldn’t believe how hard it is to find a good game of yooker these days — or even chess, for that matter. You play either?”

“No.” Barry’s pretty sure that Merle and Davenport are the only people in the planar-verse who know how to play the game they’ve dubbed “yooker.” And he doesn’t even want to think about that chess remark.

“Darn. Well, I should probably get going — I can’t miss karaoke night with the boys. We’ve been trying all month to get Lucretia to join us, and she finally let it slip that she hasn’t got anything going on this evening!”

“Oh. Well, uh… don’t let me keep you from that, then. Nice talking to you.”

After he switches his stone off, Barry adds in a whisper: “Wish I could join you.”

***

“Sup, Little Red Riding Robe?”

“Don’t call me that,” the Red Robe groans. From the other end of the line, Taako hears the faint rustling of papers — his call must have interrupted something. He doesn’t feel too bad about it, though.

“What, would you rather be the Big Bad Wolf?” Taako asks. “I thought I was doing you a solid and painting you in a sympathetic light!”

“You know what, fine. Little Red Riding Robe it is,” the Red Robe replies. The hostility in his voice begins to dissipate as he goes on. “Tell me, Taako — is this just another prank call?”

Taako chuckles. “Oh, you wish. See, I stumbled across a piece of info that might just interest you…”

He pauses, waiting to see how the Red Robe reacts, but he’s met with silence.

“I’ve got your number, Riding Robe, idiomatically and literally. So this afternoon I took a quick vacay to the Stone of Farspeech service provider’s offices, cast a few Charm Person spells, and figured out just what name that number was registered to. Pretty clever, huh?”

It might just be Taako’s imagination, but it feels like the silence grows a little more tense.

“Now tell me, who’s this Sildar Hallwinter guy?” he asks. “Is that an alias, or did you just mug a dude and take his phone?”

The Red Robe chuckles. “Huh. That’s some genuinely impressive sleuthing — then again, I should’ve expected as much from you, Taako.”

“Well, uh, to tell you the truth… it was technically Angus’s idea — you ever hear about him? The boy detective? Little snoop was going through my dresser and found the paper I jotted down your number on, and dragged me into this quest to track down your true identity.”

“And does he think this case has been cracked wide open by this new info?”

“No. He’s pretty sure Hallwinter isn’t your real name — and don’t tell him I said this, but I trust him on that one-hundred percent. He’s pretty good with this stuff.”

“What did you really call me about if you’re so sure, then?”

What if she’s just gone?

“Well, I —”

Who?

“I…”

I can’t remember her face, Taako!

Whose face?!

Please, Taako, just kill me!

“Taako? Taako, are you with me?”

He doesn’t feel like he’s with anyone. Even lying on his bed, beneath a pile of heavy blankets he doesn’t remember arranging, he still can’t stop shivering. He’s so cold, and so, so alone.

He clutches the Umbra Staff close to his chest, close to his heart. It’s the only warm thing he can feel.

“Please, Taako, can you say something?” the disembodied voice continues. It sounds like it’s trying very hard to stay calm, and mostly succeeding. “Tell me what’s happening? I have Merle and Magnus’s numbers — I can call them if you need someone to come help —”

It also sounds very familiar, but trying to place it makes Taako feel like he’s teetering over the edge of a void, about to lose his balance and plunge into darkness.

“W-who is this?”

“It’s me, Taako, it’s… it’s the Red Robe.”

Taako’s eyes finally land on the Stone of Farspeech at the corner of his bed, and hesitantly extends a hand towards it. It’s not quite as warm as the Umbra Staff — but it’s certainly not cold, either. He pulls it closer, wrapping his fingers around it.

The Red Robe lets out a short, sad chuckle, which the speaker garbles a little bit. “There are some who call me Little Red Riding Robe. Or Sildar Hallwinter.”

“Sh-shit.” Their earlier conversation returns to Taako quickly, as he tries to sit up in bed. His teeth are still chattering slightly when he tries to speak. “I — I dunno what just happened. I just b-blacked out —”

“Hey, it’s okay. You’re gonna be okay. It’s not your fault.” There’s a pause. “Hey, do you think you can you tell me a little more about Angus? He seems like a bright kid —”

“He is. B-been picking up magic real fast too. He’s a nosy little shit who never stops asking questions to all two dozen of his adoptive moon parents and I’m so glad Lucretia hired him.”

“He was right about Sildar Hallwinter being an alias, you know. Did he say what tipped him off?”

“He’s got contacts in the police force planetside like you wouldn’t believe. There was hardly anything in any of their files about Sildar, so we talked to Johann and he told us that name never got fed to the Voidfish. From there, Angus just figured that no real person would have that little info about them floating around.”

“Huh. That makes sense. Did Merle and Magnus come along for this adventure, or was it just the two of you?”

“Nah, Magnus was hanging with Carey and Merle was napping. I could hear him snoring from a room away.”

“What about the Director? I’m assuming you didn’t mention this to her?”

“Oh, hell no. She’d throw us straight in the brig if she ever learned how long we’ve had your number without telling her.”

“Yeah, I figured. I trust Merle and Magnus are doing well?”

“Yeah, they’re… well, actually… okay, look. I probably shouldn’t be telling you of all people about this, but something’s been off about Magnus lately. I thought I was imagining it at first, but now I’m pretty sure he’s trying to avoid the Director — which is actually kinda hard these days, since she’s been overseeing our training more and more. And he’s been really awkward around Johann, too. I’ve never seen him like this, and… I’m kinda worried.”

The Red Robe goes silent for a moment. “Well… what happened in Refuge must have been hard on him. I’m sure he’ll feel better soon.”

“Yeah, yeah. He’s pretty tough…” Part of Taako feels guilty for revealing so much to the Red Robe, but part of him doesn’t want to hang up. Magnus and Merle are already fast asleep — what if he blacks out again, and no one’s on the phone to talk him out of it?

Then again… is that what the Red Robe is aiming for? To gain Taako’s trust, and act so supportive that Taako can’t help but reveal sensitive information during a late-night, emotionally vulnerable ramble?

No, Barry wouldn’t do that. If he wants information, it’s just because he’s worried about you.

“Well, this has been a great chat, Riding Robe,” Taako says with an exaggerated yawn. “But I’ve got to get to bed. You never know if tomorrow will end up being a long day of saving the world.”

“You do that,” the Red Robe tells him. “And remember, you can always call me back if you need to.”

“I’ll keep it in mind. G’night.”

***

Magnus’s body is gone, and it’s Barry’s fault.

(Strictly speaking, it’s the fault of the Animus Bell. It taunts him even now, tucked safely away in the possession of the Reclaimers, calling to him and promising to ensure his family survives when the Hunger comes. To bring Lup back from whatever worse-than-undeath fate she met. But Barry recognizes enough of his own voice in his Relic to know that it’s lying.)

Barry made the bell, he put it out into a world that was not his own, and both that world and his family paid dearly.

I’m going to find a way to get your body back, Magnus. I promise.

“I think we deserve some answers from you,” Magnus slowly declares, still holding his detached mannequin arm in his remaining hand. Surprisingly, he doesn’t seem angry — just tired.

Oh Magnus, you don’t know the half of it, Barry thinks. He doesn’t say anything, but he nods to Magnus and then holds out his hand, creating an illusory Stone of Farspeech in his skeletal palm.

And one by one, without exchanging any words between each other, the three Reclaimers hand their stones over — first Magnus, slowly and solemnly; then Merle, with a guilty look on his face; and finally Taako, hesitant as he begins to raise his hand but resolute by the time he plucks the stone from his ear.

Barry flicks his hand, and the devices shatter.

“I’ll buy you new ones soon,” he promises. “But let’s get you those answers first.”

[kinetic-elaboration]

April 25: Thoughts on The 100 2x10

Twenty years later, I return with Ep. 2x10: Survival of the Fittest.

This commentary is NOT pro-Grounder or pro-Lxa.

I last watched in January and I have literally no idea what’s happening lol. I mean, I do because I’ve seen the whole thing enough times but still. Like specifically.

One of Netflix’s warnings for this show is “fear.” I CANNOT.

The idea of Arkers and Grounders perhaps meeting in certain ways pre-canon is interesting (the suicide by earth idea) but then the story just becomes one of yet more Mindless Grounder Brutality and I get bored. Like I’m sorry this is truly the most boring civilization ever imagined and I cannot believe we’ve been asked to care more and more about them with each passing season.

The lost possibilities of Bellamy & Lincoln. Also of Lincoln, in general? Someone who tried so hard to be something other than what he was taught to be.

Also, his story is basically confirmation that he became obsessed with Octavia because he was illegally spying on the cool Sky People and then ran into a Pretty Girl and that was just that on that.

The underworld. They’re not subtle.

Mmm-mmm my favorite set. Indra looking badass as per usual, giving her warriors a pep talk. And Kane with friendship heart eyes like “I’ve found my new BFF!!” (This is truly how I read the expression on his face.)

“Only our Guards are armed here.” Lol okay but does anyone really believe Indra travels with ONLY two knives on her person?

I’m generally a Jaha apologist but I cannot stand him in S2, primarily because his whole thing is based around him caring about “the Grounders’ land” in this realllllly awkward native peoples parallel, as if this was supposed to make him sympathetic when (1) there is literally no evidence at all that the Sky People occupied Grounder land in s1 or are occupying it in s2 and (2) he is advocating abandoning the main characters to death, the main characters are a bunch of teens, and literally no one calls him out on how disgusting that is. The only thing he’s right about is that the Grounders are terrible and Kane’s boner for them is ridiculous, but still.

Is there a Grounder named Michael? Lol.

“My shock baton’s got your back” probably isn’t intended as wildly inappropriate adult man hits on teen girl flirting but........ I dunno how else to read it.

Murphy > Grounder I said what I said.

That woman in the background of the fight with her eyes wide like ‘oh heavens! oh my!’

Kane’s here trying to be like stern dad keeps his kids in line for the sake of peace and Indra and the rest of the Grounders are like... fucking crickets. So ridiculous. So immature. Keep your own bitches in line Indra.

I completely forgot that Mountain had multiple airlocks and thus just, you know, opening the doors wouldn’t do anything. Makes sense, I’m just dumb.

Clarke > All Grounders and seeing her show respect to Lxa or anyone, even if it makes sense in context, just irritates me.

Clarke: *gives several very good reasons why sending large numbers of Grounder warriors into the Mountain will do literally nothing but lead to more casualties.* Grounders: *raaaaa I hate being told no, let’s just attack!!! ATTACK!*

“He shouldn’t have attacked my ship.” Honestly I think part of why S2 Clarke is my favorite is because I really identify with her, surrounded by idiots, just doing her best to get fucking anything done and done right.

“You’re very brave under the Commander’s protection, aren’t you?” DUDE. DUDE. You literally just reminded everyone that this five foot tall blonde teenage girl roasted your brother and several hundred others alive and you think the commander’s protection is why she’s brave? She’s brave because she’s smarter and tougher than you, duh.

And after all this Lxa’s like “Quint’s right.” Um he’s truly not though??? Ugh, the stupidity irritates me.

“Hook up” for “alliance” I am DYING.

Kane is absolutely the worst faux-father figure. Encouraging Octavia to get her ass kicked by idiots who are training for no reason...

And then this bitch (Quint) tries to kill Clarke as if that were even remotely a good idea... what if you were successful? What then? Lxa would torture you for like 100 days and then kill you start thinking things through.

I miss Byrne in that she was annoying but at least had, like, a perspective and purpose, BUT that was a cool death scene. A good sort of shock.

“Work detail” is such an odd phrase, like... one would think....everyone works?? It seems to be code for “mop some floors.”

I’m gonna be honest, the search for the CoL was the clear weak point of S2 for me but Murphy & Jaha are an interesting pair to share screen time.

Murphy: hesitates to accompany Jaha to Wells’s grave until he sees the possibility of getting a firearm of his own, then falls in love. You had me at ‘can hold a gun!’

They really are wasting bullets. Those are...kinda a finite resource? Also you’d think that these literal members of the Guard (based on their jackets) already know how guns work.

Kane really is devoted to this I’m Your Daddy thing, huh? “Look at me, shooting this gun, I’m so cool--don’t you want to be cool like me? I can teach you.” (And O in the back sharpening her sword like she knows what she’s doing.)

I don’t get how Mount Weather could influence Grounder legend given that they’ve known about Grounders for less than a generation, and they tend to destroy anyone they capture, not, like, release them back into their villages? Cool idea though!

Octavia, the secret weapon, exploitable by both sides because she knows both sides, is an interesting path SOMEone at SOME point should have gone down, or should go down, like in fic. Just putting that out there.

See, literally, what did I say? Quint does not even succeed in killing Clarke and he’s sentenced to death in 0.5 seconds. You gotta think ahead man!!

Lol I’ve seen this how many times and only now am I hearing that the word “Pauna” (which I’ve also been mispronouncing) is in fact in the episode. I always thought that was extra-canonical.

Pretty hilarious that Clarke, attempting to run away from the Irradiated Gorilla, leads everyone right to...the home of the Irradiated Gorilla. AKA the National Zoo.

Look the only thing I really have to say about this entire story line is that it’s pretty clearly only here to make sure Clarke, the main character, has something to do in an episode that isn’t really about her, like it’s straight up Filler just like the Bellamy Scales a Cliff episode, and it’s dorky and laughable and awful CGI and I get that--but I still maintain that the concept of “animals from the zoo survived and are still out there in mutated form” is cool and we should do more with that, as a fandom.

Also....moose? How’d that get there??

“Leave me” Lexa says, as if it weren’t incredibly easy for Clarke to save her. Like...why do you give up so easy all the time??? Grounders are weak. The slightest thing happens and it’s either “Time to kill you” or “Time to die.”

Murphy, unimpressed by the beauty of Earth.

Completely forgot that elder Murphy’s name was Alex. Put that one in my back pocket.

This Jaha and Murphy scene at Wells’s grave is the best of a fairly lackluster episode. “Clarke sugar-coated it for you, didn’t she?” “Good can come out of even the darkest acts, John.” “Camp You is that way.”

(Also...when did Clarke get a chance to talk to him? Was this over video in S1? I guess it must have been since she’s been busy in S2.)

When Kane lets Octavia fight the Grounder he is 100% doing it for himself and the alliance. He’s using her.

And somehow this is the ONLY time Octavia lost a fight. I wish the show had acknowledged more, as it does here, that tenacity is a great virtue but it’s not the only virtue. Also the Grounders truly are canonically terrible at what they do.

My favorite O characterization is when she’s just a blank slate for people to write on because she never was able to create a personality for herself. Because I think it’s the most true to her backstory, which seems only intermittently relevant imho. “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” “I would like to be stronger,” hence “I shall get beaten up.”

*Sings* Lxa is a terrible leaaaaaader!!! Getting all up in Clarke’s head trying to tell her that caring about not constantly killing people is..............somehow.....................bad??? Lol.

This scene here where Lxa provides the groundwork for the Ai-in-Commanders thing, is probably where the show began its downhill slide. Don’t get me wrong, I love S2 as a whole--most of this nonsense didn’t really come up until S3--and S3 itself has good ideas, including the AI thing, but they were just realized so badly...... Makes me sad. We could have had so much more!

“Don’t be afraid, death is not the end,” is like......the least helpful thing to say. Yet again, Clarke uses her brain and figures out an actual plan, as opposed to “die heroically” which is really all the supposedly genius Lxa ever has. “Die heroically” or “Save own ass at others’ expense I said what I said.

I’m so salty.... I can’t even believe myself.

I enjoy the Indra and Octavia relationship.

So I’m going to say that I always assumed, and still basically assume, that the reason Indra chose Octavia for a second is that she really did think there was something special in her when she saw her fight. Like that’s all. Just like she would with a Grounder kid who wanted to be a warrior. But I think it would be interesting if she’s thinking just as Kane is: that Octavia is a useful bridge between the two peoples, that perhaps, she could get something from her. (Counter spy?)

“No one gives anything without expecting something in return.” Early John Murphy philosophy synthesized.

What the fuck is Jaha eating? Little...food pellets.

It’s true that he’s being cynical but it’s ALSO true that Jaha is withholding important truth from him and ultimately, arguably, using him.

“You didn’t give a damn about us. You still don’t, that’s why you’re not fighting for this kids in Mount Weather.” SOMEONE FINALLY SAID IT. THANK YOU MURPHY. MVP of this ep.

“I was pardoned, slate wiped clean, I’m still treated like dirt.” The treatise of the Ark AU thanks.

More patented Murphy nose rubbing.

Murphy and Raven, both pulled in, to some degree, by cultists.

Murphy and Octavia, both manipulated by more powerful adults for their own ends.

Jaha is so... he has all these peace and love, everyone is accepted, nice ideas and beliefs and faith, but he also does not care at all about sacrificing a few here and there. He may remember Alex Murphy but he doesn’t really care, he’s not really haunted. Remembering is like a courtesy. He may miss his son but he still ultimately believes, even hearing how utterly stupid Wells’s death was, that it was worth it for some unknown greater good. And he’s willing to give up on people who aren’t even dead yet, just write them off as an acceptable loss, even though they’re his people and a subset of his people to whom he owes a particular debt, and still consider this sacrifice, not even yet made, to be worth it for this bigger plan. There are a lot of things I respect about Jaha as a leader, and surely in a universe of terrible leaders he is not the worst, but this is his fatal flaw, what keeps him from being good. Real leaders do accept that losses will happen, as Lxa says, but they don’t seek out losses and they don’t merely catalogue them and then move on. They feel them, and accept responsibility for them, and carry them forward.

No I am not talking about Clarke, although within this universe, she comes closer to the ideal.

The story line with Lincoln, Bellamy, and the Reapers is like nightmare fuel if I think about it too much.

Indra, with the tiniest slice of meat possible on a huge plate: “Eat! Get strong!”

Kane, trying to be sexy and seduce a new friend: “Thank you.”

Kane and Octavia are talking and Indra is just in the background, sitting on a tree stump, brooding in the most photogenic way possible, very ‘google earth, always taking pictures’ of her.

I’m sorry but I can’t stop seeing Kane’s whole demeanor in literally every scene of this episode as like “Attempted Daddy.” Not in the paternal sense.

“You’re asking me to be a spy?” / “I’m asking you.......... yes, to be a spy, that’s exactly it.”

Objectively ridiculous for Octavia to think the Grounders are her people but, I get it, she’s desperate for people of some sort.

“There’s a million ways to die out there” should have been the title of the series. More accurate than “The 100.”

“If it’s not your time than nothing can kill you” IS everything infuriating about Jaha in one line. Saying ‘it’s just what was meant to be’ is a pretty easy way to avoid responsibility for anything, ever, and it’s extra sketchy from someone who, as a leader, knows or should know that his actions have consequences for other people, sometimes life or death ones. I mean...everyone but he and Murphy did die searching for the CoL.

We REALLY need more fic that utilizes Jaha as a weird guru type.

“You wanna stop being treated like a criminal then you have to stop thinking that that’s all you are.”

Here, Clarke comes up with yet another smart idea. How many is that in one episode? She’s too smart, guys, just too smart.

That said, the first time I watched this ep with my mom (the second time in general for me, the first time for her), when Clarke explained her ‘release the Grounder prisoners’ plan, she was like “...Duh? I thought that was already the plan? Isn’t that what Bellamy was going in there to do?” Basically most people on the show < Clarke < my mom.

The tragedy of Lincoln’s addiction story line really does get to me.

I’m a little insulted on Bellamy’s behalf that he was marked Harvest lol.

I just watched the episode and I heard them explain their plan... but I still don’t really see how it was going to work. Like just... cause chaos and let Bellamy run inside? Kind of feel like someone would have caught him at some point, and also--doesn’t that run a significant chance of getting Lincoln killed? Oh well. It all works out eventually. Mostly.

Anyway, not the greatest episode, but it had its moments. The Jaha and Murphy story line was good, and I actually enjoyed the Octavia, Kane, and Indra stuff more than I thought or remembered. But it’s always kind of a bummer when one or both mains get lackluster filler plots--and in this case it really was both--I mean, Bellamy’s was important, but it wasn’t very long. And none of my faves: no Mount Weather, no Jasper and Monty, no Raven.

It still fucks me up that Liz Phair wrote music for this show.

[gryffindorcls]

The Best Friend Swap:  Chapter 3

Chat Noir touched down in the middle of an abandoned street along with Rena Rouge.  The damage in the area was substantial, but it luckily was devoid of life.  Seconds later, two more heroes joined the group.

“Fancy meeting you here, kitty,” Ladybug commented teasingly, taking her place next to her partner.

“Hey, Bugaboo,” he said flatly.

She threw her arms around him and rested her cheek against her chest.  “Oh, no...I knew something was wrong.  You should have said something before.  Now there’s an Akuma, and you’re going to be distracted...and...”

Chat kissed the top of Ladybug’s head.  “Don’t worry, my lady.  I wasn’t lying when I told you I was okay at the cafe this morning.  Today has the potential to be a great day, it’s just...I’m mad that Hawkmoth is getting in the way of that right now.”

“Ahhh...so, does that mean you’re ready to go kick some butt?  Are you going to be extra focused so we can get back to our fun?”

“You know it, Bugaboo!”

“If you two lovebirds are finished, we have an Akuma to take care of,” Rena Rouge crossed her arms and cocked her hip to the side, “And from the looks of it, this one seems pretty intense.”

“Yeah, dudes,” Carapace began, “We might need more than just us for this one.  Do we know who else is in town at the moment?”

“What’s up, chicken butt!” a fifth voice added to the conversation.

Chat Noir unsheathed his baton.  “Well, it looks like we’ve got Roi Singe.” 

“You bet, cat man,” Roi responded, eliciting an eye roll from Chat, “I think Pegase and Viperion are on the way, as well.”

“Just them?” Ladybug questioned.

Kim saluted the spotted heroine.  “As far as I know, boss.  I guess that’s what happens when everyone grows up and moves away.”

She beckoned the group over with a wave.  “Okay, we can work with that.  I don’t know what the deal is with this Akuma, but we all need to watch each other’s backs out there.  Right now the plan is to drop in, observe, and regroup,” she turned to look at Chat before completing her instructions, “And I would really like it if no one got blown up today.”

“My lady,” he placed a hand on his chest, “It has been months since I’ve perished in battle.”

“And I don’t want today to be the end of that streak, Chaton.”

“We have Viperion today.  He can give me a do-ver if I mess up.  I’ll be fine.”

“It would be nice if you stayed safe in the first place.”  Her gaze returned to the rest of the heroes.  “Let’s go, team.”

Ladybug was the first to zip off in the direction of the Akuma, and Chat followed closely behind her.  The group landed in the fray of an already raging battle.  Several explosions rocked the earth around them as the heroes who were already on the scene retreated from the Akuma’s attacks.

“About time you guys showed up!” Viperion grunted, ducking away from a hurtling piece of debris, “I’ve been fighting him off by myself while Pegase got all the civilians out of the area.  It’s nice to see some friendly faces.”

“Indeed,” Pegase noted while rolling out of a self-made portal, “The statistical likelihood of our success has increased by 73.4 percent now that all of you have arrived.”

“Uhh, I think that number might be closer to one hundred percent, my friend,” Viperion responded, “It’s not like we could have fixed anything without LB.”

Ladybug ignored their banter.  “Good afternoon, gentlemen.  I’m glad you could make it.  Which one of you knows the deal with today’s Akuma?”

Pegase stepped closer to Ladybug.  “He calls himself Boomtown.”

“Do we know his M.O.?”

“I think Hawkmoth told him that the world hates him, and the only way to make his life better is to level Paris and start anew.  He has a pistol that makes whatever he shoots explode.”

She squinted in the distance to get a better look at the Akuma.  “Goodness, gracious.  He even has a little cowboy hat.  Did she make him watch old American westerns to make him crack?”

Chat sighed.  His father had never been a particularly effective villain.  During Gabriel’s reign as Hawkmoth, he usually spent most of his time Akumatizing people with solvable problems.  While they had dangerous powers that created sticky situations, these individuals made relatively ineffective Akumas.  Gabriel was never able to achieve his goal because of his desperation, and it showed in the quality of his champions.

The new Hawkmoth was cunning.  Unlike Gabriel, the current holder of the Butterfly Miraculous didn’t take chances.  She made it well known that she wanted to make sure that her victims had more than petty problems and flashes of anger.  The method of Akumatization fancied by this Hawkmoth involved kidnapping people she deemed “emotionally susceptible” and torturing them until they were the perfect champions.  Now, every time they fought an Akuma, it was not just a battle to save Paris, but a rescue mission.

“Do we know who it is?” Ladybug asked, breaking Chat out of his reverie.

“I think it’s August,” Vipereon responded.

She looked mournfully at the victim.  “He’s been missing for months.  His family will be overjoyed to have him back.”

“What’s the plan, Bugaboo?” Chat placed a hand on her shoulder.  “We’re ready when you are.”

“Right...LUCKY CHARM!”  Ladybug scrunched her face as a can of disinfectant spray fell into her hands.  

She observed the Akuma from a distance as he demolished another building using the explosives from his pistol.  Ladybug watched him recoil from the smoke and debris before firing again.

“Boomtown doesn’t appear to like the smoke,” Ladybug declared, “It must be an automatic reaction from whatever Hawkmoth did to him before turning him into an Akuma.  Her methods always create some sort of weakness that can be exploited...and it’s a good thing that this one was pretty easy to see.  They’re usually not.  She got sloppy this time.”

“Okay, but how are we supposed to use that to stop him?”  Chat pointed to the disinfectant spray in her hands.  “Because I’m pretty sure that’s tougher on grime than it is on crime.”

“I know what to do, but I’m not sure where we’re going to find the resources to do it.”  Ladybug turned to Viperion.  “If only your girlfriend wasn’t still out of town.  Her powers would come in handy right now.”

“I was actually on my way to pick her up from the station when the Akuma hit.”  He crossed his arms in frustration.

She huffed and looked around.  “I need Roi and Viperion to distract Boomtown while Pegase takes me to that decimated apartment complex over there so I can find something to start a fire.  Once I do that, I’m going to make a lot of smoke, and that should make the Akuma hesitate.  Carapace, I’m going to need you to get Chat in there so he can Cataclysm the Akumatized object before Boomtown starts shooting again.  Rena, I’m going to need you to make a duplicate of August so we can get the real him out of here in case one of Hawkmoth’s lackeys tries to take him away again.  There will still be a lot of smoke before I call for the Miraculous Cure.  Pegase, I’m going to need you to get him to safety while using the smoke as a cover.  Call me once the ladybugs have fixed everything, and I’ll come find you.  We cannot lose this victim.  Understood?”

A chorus of affirmations came from the group when a soft thud sounded behind them.  The heroes turned their heads towards the newcomer.

Ryuko crossed her arms and cocked her head to the side.  “That’s a pretty solid plan, Ladybug.  I guess you don’t need me then.  Too, bad.  I was looking forward to having some fun today.”

Viperion chuckled and moved to her side.  He placed a gentle peck on her cheek.  “Sorry I was late picking you up, my love.”

“That’s okay.  When the Akuma alert went off, the train shut down.  So, I transformed in one of the bathrooms and blew the door off of the cabin.”

“You never cease to amaze me, my beautiful dragon.”

With a sigh of relief, Ladybug put her hand on Ryuko’s shoulder.  “Thank God you’re here.  Your powers will be much more effective than searching for something to make a fire.”

“What did you have in mind?”  the Dragon Miraculous holder questioned.

Ladybug tossed Ryuko the can of disinfectant and looked in the direction of a small gathering of trees that remained untouched amidst the destruction.  “I heard that leaves make a lot of smoke when you burn them.”

Ryuko grinned.  “Say no more.”

In a single bound, she vaulted off the ground and went to work.  The rest of the heroes assumed their places and started on the tasks given to them by Ladybug.  

Chat turned to his best friend while he waited for his cue.  “Has Marinette been having a good day so far?  The only reason I ask is because we’ve been having a bit of trouble at the Eiffel Tower.”

“No, dude.”  Carapace waved his hand dismissively.  “We’ve been having a great time, but I gotta tell you...Marinette totally took over the day.  She scrapped your plans, but I told her that we had an appointment at two.  Don’t worry...I’ll make sure she gets all dressed up, and I will get her to the Eiffel Tower on time.”

“Thank you.  That means a lot to me, but if you haven’t been following the schedule, what have you two been doing all day?”

“Well, it’s a little embarrassing, but we…”

A blast of fire cut him off before he was able to respond.  The two heroes watched as Ryuko used turned her arm to into a pillar of flames and turned the can of disinfectant into a blowtorch that she directed towards the previously unharmed trees.  Ladybug, Roi, and Viperion had successfully lured Boomtown over to the foliage before Ryuko set them ablaze.  

As smoke began to fill the air, Carapace called for his Shell-ter.  He and Chat ran through the smoke and found Boomtown on his knees.  The Akuma victim had shut his eyes and covered his ears with his hands.  His pistol had been thrown several feet away from him.  He looked terrified.

Carapace made an opening in the Shell-ter large enough for Chat to reach out and grab the Akumatized item.  The opening quickly closed before too much smoke poured into the tiny space.  

Chat called for his Cataclysm, and the object turned to dust in his hands.  He then used his baton to call Pagase to pick up a now sobbing August.  In a matter of minutes, magical Ladybugs swirled around them, and the smoke cloud disappeared.  Carapace released his Shell-ter, and Ladybug raced over to them.  Ryuko, Viperion, Rena, and Roi followed closely behind.

“Hey, kitty.”  She smiled and wrapped her arms around him, “I see you’re still in one piece.”

“Yup,” he responded, “and I didn’t even need Viperion’s Second Chance today.”

She let go of Chat and turned to Carapace.  “Thanks for keeping him safe.  He’s been a little out of it today.”

“Believe me, you don’t know the half of it,” the green-clad hero chuckled.

Chat hit him on the arm while Ladybug shot them a confused look.  As she opened her mouth to speak again, a notification came in on her yoyo.

The spotted heroine tapped the screen.  “It’s Pegase.  He just gave me their location.  He and August are with the other civilians that he evacuated before the Akuma destroyed everything.  They’re over by the Eiffel Tower.  Let’s go get them.”

Rena reached out and grabbed Ladybug’s arm.  “Wait, girl.  How about you go back to spending time with Carapace.  You always stay to clean up the mess after attacks.  Let us do it for a change.”

She clutched her yoyo close to her chest.  “I can’t just leave you.  We all have to finish the job.”

“No, we can handle it.” Rena turned to her boyfriend.  “Right, babe?  You should take her back to whatever you were doing.”

Carapace looked at Ladybug.  “Please don’t make me argue with her.”

Chat placed his hands on his girlfriend’s shoulders and pulled her towards him.  He placed a light feathery kiss on her forehead that caused her eyes to flutter shut.

“We’ve got this, my lady.  Besides, it will give me more time to get to know your best friend,” he purred into her ear.

“Are you sure?” she whispered back.

“I’m positive.”

“I guess I’ll see you in a little bit then.

“I’ll be counting down the minutes, Bugaboo.”

Chat waved goodbye as Ladybug and Carapace zipped away on her yoyo.  Rena turned to the remaining heroes and grinned.

“Okay,” Ryuko began, “That was weird.  What’s going on?”

“Alright, now that they’re gone, we need your help with something,” she announced.

“Well, yeah,” Roi responded, “You want us to help get the civilians back right?”

“No, that’s not it.”  Viperion shook his head.  “There’s more to the story.  What exactly are you two up to right now?”

    Chat looked at the group.  “We do need assistance with getting August and the civilians back to their rightful places, but after that, I’m going to need help with something that’s on a slightly more...personal level.”

Rena used her thumb to point at the leather-clad hero.  “Our own Mr. Sunshine here is planning to propose tonight, and we need help moving around some decorations at the top of the Eiffel Tower before it starts to rain.”

Ryuko’s stoic expression cracked into a genuine smile.  “My two friends are getting married?”

“Only if she says yes,” Chat noted.

“Goodness gracious...I told you to stop with that nonsense,” Rena chastised, “She’s going to say yes.  You two are Ladybug and Chat Noir for crying out loud!”

“Congratulations,” Viperion added, “However, I have to ask...did you say that the decorations were at the top of the Eiffel Tower?  Aren’t there other people up there?”

Rena shook her head.  “Nope.  He rented the space for the night.”

“Holy...how much did that cost?”

“Trust, me.  I’ve already called him out for that one earlier.”

Ryuko crossed her arms.  “Money doesn’t matter when you truly love someone.”

Rena laughed.  “Sorry, but not all of us are part of the trust fund club.  We can’t just wave our credit cards in the air like magic wands and make things happen.”

Viperion turned to his girlfriend.  “I hate to break it to you, my love, but when I propose, it will not be on top of the Eiffel Tower.”

Ryuko gasped and threw her arms around him.  “Wait...you’re planning to propose?”

He chuckled nervously.  “Uhhh...I love you?”

A portal opened up next to the group, effectively ending the conversation. 

Pegase poked out his head.  “What’s taking you guys so long?”

Rena moved next to the portal.  “As much as I would love to keep talking about this, we’re going to have to unpack that slip of the tongue at a later date.  Right now, we only have two hours to fix up the decorations and get Chat cleaned up for tonight.  Who’s with me?”

She leaped into the portal, and the rest of the heroes followed.

“This might just work out after all,” Chat thought to himself.

<—–Previous     Next—>

AO3

Fanfiction.net

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Thank you to everyone who has been reading and following my other stories.  You are all wonderful!

My current plan is for this fic to have one more chapter.  Get ready for the big proposal!

Also, thank you to those who have left comments and asks on all of my works.  They make my heart feel full!  (That and I love talking with all of you!)

My username on Fanfiction and AO3 is clslovegood47.

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Tagged Peeps:

@hermionemonica @yeetmetothemun

[raendown]

Sort of an entry for the @kakashirarepairs Bang Event. Doesn’t actually fit either of their themes but it gave me a push to write this sequel I’ve been saying I would for like two years so I ran with it. 

Also tagging @madakaka so my wife doesn’t yell at me. xD

Pairing: MadaraKakashi Word count: 7149 Rated: T+ Summary: Sequel to Chapter 88 of the Soulmate Story Collection. After countless years of waiting Madara has finally found the soulmate he was always meant for and once again begun the process of aging. But more importantly he has a chance now to experience the honor - and the challenges - of watching Kakashi grow in to a man.

Follow the link or read it under the cut!

KO-FI and commission info in the header!

Ages Turn (You Were Always Perfect)

12--

Obito’s surgery was going well and it looked like there was a large chance of a full recovery – or as full a recovery as was possible when half of one leg and a portion of the same arm were missing. Kakashi knew this only because he overheard the nurses gossiping with the assistants popping in and out of his own surgery.

It was strange being awake for this and Kakashi rather wished they would just knock him out or something. The light was too bright on his retinas, his body was nearing chakra exhaustion, and they had discovered he was unable to deactivate the Sharingan currently under inspection. He understood, however, that the medi-nin needed him to stay awake so that he could answer their questions. Not to mention they probably also needed him to stay awake to deal with the seething mass of sulky protectiveness lurking in one corner of the surgical theater.

Kakashi was still barely able to wrap his head around the fact that he’d found his soulmate. It was incredibly hard to continue staring at the people examining his eye and not let his gaze drift continually over to where Madara stood, ragged and wild, like a savage beast contained within a human shape. He was tall and even his chakra itself was loud and heavy yet Kakashi had seen a layer of gentleness in him when he’d been pulled in to the man’s embrace for the first time. Right now there was little of that gentleness as he hovered menacingly, giving the impression of a pacing cat even while staying perfectly still. His eyes followed the movement of every person near Kakashi in a silent warning that one single twitch in the wrong direction and he would act. Violently.

He appeared to be making the medical staff nervous, which Kakashi thought was rather unprofessional of them. Really, if they didn’t do anything wrong then they had nothing to worry about. Did they think themselves so incompetent?

It took another hour before he was declared as patched up as possible. Rin distracted herself from worrying about Obito during that time by basking in the praise for her field transplant, lapping it up like a purring kitten. Kakashi supposed it must be nice to have the focus on herself for once. Usually she allowed either of her teammates to stand in the spotlight and it wasn’t until today that he’d thought to wonder if she had ever minded. The moment his head was free Kakashi turned his own attention at last to the man waiting impatiently in the corner. As soon as their eyes connected Madara was moving, seeming to float across the floor as though he were a part of the gathering evening shadows. When he reached Kakashi’s side he lifted one hand, gently tracing the edge of soft white bandages.

“Are you still in pain?” he asked. Kakashi shook his head.

“I’m fine.” Madara narrowed his eyes and Kakashi huffed with as much attitude as he still had the energy for. “Fine. I have a headache but it’s not bad. It’s just because I’m so tired.”

“You should rest, Precious One.”

Kakashi’s face threatened to burst in to flames, red spilling over top of his mask. “I’m not precious!”

“You are to me,” Madara said, unrepentant even as Kakashi blushed harder.

“Well…that’s…anyway I can’t rest. I have to make sure everything goes fine with Obito.”

Madara hummed in a way that said he wasn’t particularly interested in Obito’s fate himself but that he would happily wait for anything that was important to Kakashi. The younger looked down at his fidgeting hands, baffled. They had only just met. Sure they were soulmates and even he could feel the instant connection. But to be called precious? He couldn’t imagine being precious to anyone. Even kind Minato-sensei surely saw him as a bother more often than not, or so he assumed. He’d spent enough time pushing everyone away from himself he was honestly surprised to still find himself with any friends at all.

Kakashi tried not to think about it too hard, concentrating instead on the wonderful feeling of freedom when he was finally allowed to escape the surgical theatre. Madara trailed after him as he wound through the hallways and settled down beside him when he plopped inelegantly on to one of the benches in the waiting area outside the room where Obito was being tended to. His body was tired and clambering for rest but Kakashi had only just confirmed that Obito was his friend. He wasn’t about to abandon the other boy now. Maybe leaving wouldn’t have been quite the same as abandoning him but it would have felt the same and so he stayed.

Still, it only took ten minutes for the events he had gone through to finally catch up to him all at once. Before he even had time to realize what was happening Kakashi was slipping down in to blank unconsciousness, falling sideways against Madara’s shoulder as he gave in to exhaustion at last. Madara smiled down on him more gently than most would believe him capable of. Not wishing to disturb the lad, he wrapped one arm around his tired soulmate and simply held him tightly, reaching over with his other hand to close the jaw which had fallen comically open when he slumped over without warning.

Waiting was something Madara was more than familiar with. He had done his fair share of it over the past several decades and yet he found that he had just enough patience to wait a little more. Finding his soulmate was a blessing he had long given up on and he was happy just for the chance to sit here and observe the lad.

To his eyes, Kakashi was the most perfect creature he had ever laid eyes on. Silver hair the color of the moon, skin so pale he feared it might turn translucent if it got wet, and the beginning of what would surely be a jawline to kill for once he grew in to it. From the short time they’d had together he had already seen enough hints that the boy’s personality would keep him delightfully on his toes as well. He could already tell that he would never be bored. All in all, even after only one day Madara was already confident that the wait, long as it had been, was entirely worth it.

He would need to find a way to make Kakashi understand that. The poor lad didn’t seem to have a very high opinion of himself, something Madara intended to rectify as soon as possible.

Perhaps five hours had passed by before anything significant happened. Energy sang through his veins and Madara was tingling with the need to move yet he remained as still as possible, not wanting to disturb the precious gift still dozing against his shoulder. Despite the demands of his own body he was still just a little disappointed when Kakashi was awoken by the opening of the surgery doors.

Kakashi was upright and wide awake in an instant when he spotted the doctors coming through the door. It took Madara gripping his arms to keep him upright, however, since his knees threatened to buckle with sheer relief once he heard that everything had gone well. The doctors gave them the number of Obito’s recovery room, side-eyeing Madara in a worried manner as they did so, and Kakashi took off down the hall the moment they had finished speaking. Perhaps a hundred years ago Madara might have remembered his manners and thanked the doctors for their service. At the moment, though, the only thing which mattered to him was the boy rapidly disappearing down the hallway.

 13--

Life in this future world was confusing. Madara might have been alive and well for the past several decades but he hadn’t bothered to peek in on the rest of humanity in any significant way for most of them – and he certainly hadn’t bothered to examine how day to day life might have changed.

There were so many new gadgets to play with that his soulmate merely took for granted. It took more than a week before Madara caved and asked what the white box was that seemed to prepare food in mere minutes. Kakashi called it a ‘microwave’ and started explaining something about radiation and energy transfer but Madara stopped him when he was uncomfortably reminded of his best friend’s little brother. It hadn’t helped that Kakashi sort of looked like Tobirama, his hair just a few shades darker.

Some of the other new inventions were incredibly useful, however. Madara particularly enjoyed the television box in the living room. Not so much for himself but mostly because it kept Kakashi entertained and perfectly still for hours at a time, leaving him easy pray for fingers that wanted to play with his hair or idly sketch the profile he made against the sickly artificial glow of the screen. Sometimes if he was very lucky Kakashi would fall asleep watching some terrible show and Madara would be treated with an opportunity to curl up beside him on the couch and sleep with that soothing chakra right next to his own where he could reach out when the nightmares woke him in the night.

One piece of what Kakashi called ‘technology’ that Madara absolutely did not like was the doorbell. Loud and clangoring, Madara hated the sound of it but he hated even more the horrors that always followed. Rin he didn’t mind, a calm and respectful young lady who seemed to understand how much he detested having their time together interrupted. Obito was annoying yet survivable, his brash nature offset by the periodic waves of gratitude that still popped up even now a year after Madara saved his life.

But the green one. It was the boy in green that had Madara shuddering every time his voice sounded over the incessant ringing of that hated hidden bell. For the third day in a row Madara clapped both hands over his eyes to block out the noise and glared balefully at the entrance to the apartment they shared. As a registered citizen of Konoha once again he would be within his right to make a noise complaint. It would be against his own apartment and Kakashi would be the one to get in trouble as the only name on the lease but surely he could bribe someone in to letting that infernal beast of a child suffer whatever punishment was due.  

“KAKASHI MY RIVAL! LET US TEST OUR STRENGTH ON THIS GOOD DAY!”

“If he shouts any louder I’m getting him a muzzle,” Madara grumbled, arms folding more and more tightly to his chest as his body sank lower on the sofa. Beside him, Kakashi only smiled.

“He’d probably take that as a challenge to yell just as loud with it on.”

“Ugh.”

On the other side of the door Gai banged his fist again and cried, “I HAVE THE MOST YOUTHFUL CHALLENGE FOR YOU!”

“I should get this over with,” Kakashi said.

“No.”

Looking over at him in amusement, the boy actually had the gall to smirk. “Aww, what’s the matter?” You gonna miss me while I’m out slinging boulders or whatever dumb thing he wants us to do?”

“Yes,” Madara admitted simply. “I always miss you when you are not here with me.”

“O-oh, um, okay. Well. I’ll try not to be away too long, I guess.” Kakashi flushed and practically leapt off the couch as though if he moved fast enough he could outrun his own emotional responses. Madara let him go without any further protests despite the fact that all he wanted to do was call the other back and spend the day alone together.

In general that was the only thing he ever wanted to do.

He could hardly be blamed, though. Kakashi was his soulmate and in the year since they had finally met he’d come to the conclusion that the universe really did have a good reason for making him wait so long. He would have waited another hundred years if he needed to if Kakashi was the prize at the end – although he would eviscerate anyone who dared call the boy something so demeaning as a mere prize. The point was that they were well matched in his opinion and they would only become more so as more years passed them by.

Still only thirteen years old, Kakashi held no sexual or romantic attraction for him. Madara was more than aware that many adults in the village had worried about that but the very idea was laughable. He was a child! What draw could there be for a man finally allowed to grow to twenty-one years old in a child who hadn’t seen even a quarter of the years that he had? No, the only attraction Madara felt was a bone-deep pull that told him Kakashi was precious.

Watching his soulmate leave to spend time with someone else was as hard today as it was every day but it had already been more than twelve months since they found each other and Madara was long used to the necessity of that pain. Kakashi was a young thing and desperately in need of socialization. As much as Madara wished he could, he knew he couldn’t make up for an entire social circle and so he watched with sad eyes as the boy slipped out the door to spend time with that green beast of a stretchy human. If he were so inclined he knew he could have gone along but Madara had seen quite enough of the outside world already, most of it filled with darkness and disappointment.

He was much happier to while away the lonely hours here in the place his beloved soulmate called home, watching shows on the television box that he didn’t understand and waiting patiently until the missing piece of himself came home again. Kakashi always came home again.

 16--

Three years was more than enough time to find a job and what better employment for a man of Madara's skill than to rejoin the shinobi ranks he had once commanded. So thought the walking sunshine known as Namikaze Minato, at least.

Lifting one eyebrow in blatant disinterest, Madara considered throwing the contents of his teacup in the man’s face for the sheer pleasure of watching him scream. All that stopped him was knowing this over-bright perpetual smile was somehow precious to his soulmate and that Kakashi would give him a lecture to end all lectures if he hurt this man. For as many times as he had courted with danger in his life Madara had no intentions of angering his soulmate again.

The last time he’d gone without any hugs for a solid week, not an experience he wanted to repeat.

“I am content with my place,” Madara stated firmly, knuckles white to retain their grip on the cup he was very carefully not throwing at anyone.

“You could be so much more than content,” Minato insisted. “You could serve your village again. If the history books are right then the village was your idea in the first place, an idea no one had ever dared to entertain before. Wouldn’t you like to protect it?”

“Did he really say that?”

“I’m sorry?”

Madara's grip loosened and his eyes grew distant, cup lowering to rest gently on the table. “I’m surprised Hashirama would have told anyone that. He was always fond of forgetting that an idea was not originally his. How odd…to be the subject of a history book. Suddenly I feel very old.”

“You are old,” Kakashi chipped in as he entered the room, heading straight for the fridge without bothering to greet either of them.

“Now, now, that wasn’t very nice.” Long used to his role as father-figure, Minato shook one finger in reprimand. Kakashi blithely ignored him and continued pouring himself a glass of juice.

With a deep breath Madara shook away the ghosts of his own past. “Whatever I am, I am no longer a shinobi.”

“Once a shinobi, always a shinobi,” Minato countered. “It’s in our blood.”

“Not mine; not any longer. I served my time already, Yondaime-san. When the first buildings were raised I pledged my allegiance to the first Hokage and I did my duty protecting this dream we crafted together. So many years later I should think you would be thrilled by my decision to take a seat on the council instead of insinuating that it isn’t enough.”

“You input is invaluable, there’s no one who would disagree–”

Madara cut the man off before he could go in to anything else with a sharp, “Excellent. Then it’s settled, I will continue to enjoy my retirement and a life that is finally not reliant upon any sort of conflict. You will go back to the office that was built for a bigger man than you and bother me no more about this.”

Across the room, Kakashi sighed.

“Bigger man than I?” Minato asked in a quiet, serious sort of voice. Madara was the opposite of scared.

“Hashirama was much taller,” he replied airily.

Clearly he hadn’t fooled the other man but to call him out for such a petty insult would only make Minato look even pettier. He made the very smart decision to drop it instead and turn to catch Kakashi’s attention for the real reason he’d come, something he needed clarified from the last mission his protégé had come back from.

After he had what he needed Minato declined any offers of staying for tea. He left boisterous goodbyes, his usual humor returned, and Madara made sure to stick his tongue out at the man’s back as he went out the door. Then he jerked as a pale hand swatted him upset the hand even as another one set a glass of juice down in front of him. Kakashi was rolling his eyes when Madara looked up at him with a baleful expression.

“What?” he demanded.

“Can you be a little nicer?”

“No. I don’t like him so I don’t have to be nice to him.”

“He’s the Hokage,” Kakashi pointed out. “And he’s my sensei – well, before you started teaching me he was.”

Madara looked away. “He steals attention from you that could have been mine. And time. And affection. I don’t like any of them. You should spend all of your time with me, obviously.”

He didn’t really mean that – well, not entirely. It would be nice to have Kakashi all to himself at all times but he understood that wasn’t healthy. And he could tell Kakashi knew that he didn’t mean it when the only reaction he got was a roll of one gray eye and a bony hand reaching up to tangle in his hair.

“Possessive bastard,” his soulmate accused him.

“Of you? Yes. You’re clearly the superior being above all others, can you blame me for wanting to keep you all to myself?”

Kakashi laughed and the sound cracked high and low unevenly. Neither of them commented. He was getting so big, taller than Madara already which truly wasn’t fair.  Watching him grow in to the man he was always meant to be was a bittersweet sort of honor that Madara usually chose to reminisce on when he was alone. But in moments like this when an unexpected touch left him relaxed enough to lower the very last of his guard he couldn’t help but let his mind return to the one thing that had been on his mind ever since a few months before when Kakashi had finally found it necessary to learn how to shave.

What would it be like when he grew in to adulthood and wanted his independence? How many years did Madara have left before the only precious person in his life discovered the draw of romance and sex, before he fell in love and wanted a place of his own to nurture a new kind of bond? The very thought was as terrifying as it was thrilling. Of course he would want nothing more than for Kakashi to be happy.

But what of the bond he had spent nearly a hundred years waiting for? Madara looked up at the young man who it seemed only yesterday had been a child and wondered. He wondered how much it would hurt when he was no longer the most important thing in Kakashi’s life.

And he wondered if he should start keeping his declarations to himself that Kakashi would always and forever be the most important part in his own life, that he had been years before they ever met.

 19--

Madara had a problem. Generally in the case of social issues he tended to sneak out of the house when Kakashi left on a mission and find a moment to shamefully demand that the young Rin explain to him what he should do in certain situations. Neither he nor Kakashi were very good at people things and they were both lucky to have someone patient enough to deal with the two of them, though both had sworn her to secrecy.

This time there would be none of that and without that avenue of clarity Madara found himself at an utter loss for what to do. He couldn’t bring such a sensitive issue to anyone else – didn’t even have anyone else to bring it to – but that left him with only the horrible option of figuring this mess out himself and thus he was brought back to the same conclusion every time he tried.

He had a problem. A big one.

With each year Kakashi grew older and taller, smarter and stronger. All of this he had noticed since the first day and had no problems with. It wasn’t until late in the year after Kakashi turned nineteen that Madara's traitorous mind thought to notice that his soulmate had also grown rather handsome with the years gone by. Considering that he had started aging again once they met that would make him exactly eight years older than Kakashi. Governments and courts the world over had been ruling since his own era that the time spent without aging did not make one older, only more experienced, but it wasn’t something he had thought to look in to in all the time he’d been living here in the current age. Would those around them find it wrong of him to grow attracted to Kakashi now as he grew in to adulthood?

More importantly, would Kakashi think him wrong? The idea that his own beloved, the other half of himself, the better part of his soul, could ever find something in him truly disgusting was not something he wanted to dwell on for long. Yet it seemed that he could think of little else these days.

The attraction hadn’t really started as an attraction. It had started as a comment overheard from a stranger passing them by, a young woman with little enough shame that she felt the need to comment loudly on the curve of Kakashi’s rump. Madara had glared at her until she fled and thought to himself absently that the shape of Kakashi’s rump was nowhere near as important as the shape of his beautiful heart – although he did have quite a pert little bottom. Just an innocent thought, a mere observation, but after he had noticed once he couldn’t help but notice again and again until he was forced to crawl out of his bed one night and spend a few hours sitting on the cold tile of the bathroom floor, stolidly refusing to touch the problem that had risen in his pajamas.

Sitting awake that night had been the first time he realized he was developing what some might call a crush. A ridiculous term – what he felt for Kakashi could never be reduced to something so simple – and yet it was painfully apt as well. He was sure that if Kakashi ever found out about these new feelings he would balk and Madara would indeed be crushed.

Obviously there was no point in twisting himself in to knots over whether or not Kakashi might feel the same but oddly that was not the most difficult part of the whole situation. Rather it was the feeling that he was lying somehow by keeping this information to himself. Since they met he had been entirely honest in all facets, answering any questions Kakashi had about himself, sparing no detail even when it probably would have been healthier to do so. Now his secret burned under the bones of his ribcage. Worst were the quiet nights like tonight when Kakashi suspected nothing, leaning in to him for a bit of contact and playing absently with the tips of his fingers while they both watched television.

Madara wanted to take his hand back. He wanted to weave their hands together. He wanted to blurt out everything that was on his mind. He wanted to stay silent, bury the feelings down where even he could forget them. Inside his head was such a muddle he almost missed it when Kakashi spoke.

“What was that?”

“It’s just so obvious,” Kakashi repeated. “I don’t know why no one else can see they’re in love!”

“Who?”

“Them!” As he gestured the television screen focused in on two characters caught in a moment of ephemeral almost before someone else blindly interrupted them.

Madara cleared his throat. “You think they’re in love?”

“Duh! I mean, are we even watching the same show? They belong together!”

“Maybe they do,” Madara whispered. He determinedly kept his eyes focused on the screen to watch one of the characters get pulled away with the man she had agreed to marry several episodes ago. “But maybe it just isn’t right.”

Kakashi immediately went off on a rant about how love was always right but Madara tuned him out. It was too painful to listen to when he had no idea if Kakashi would hold to that value if he ever had it tested by discovering Madara's secret. Something things were better left to the land of make-believe. And some secrets were better dealt with by simply letting them be, he decided.

He was falling in love with his soulmate. Whether that love was ever returned was in another’s hands now and Madara would have to be grateful for what he had even if he never had more. A hard fate but, as he had ever believed, Kakashi would always be worth it.

 22--

After so many decades it felt strange to bleed again. Of all the many times he had contemplated what it be like to join the battlefields once more Madara had always assumed that it would be just like picking up an old habit, that the burn of pain would be just as easy to ignore as it had been in his prime.

It was not.

Having a sword pushed through one’s chest was never a pleasant experience but although he could say this was not the first time he had suffered such grievous wounds he could say it was the first time he had screamed. Pain flood his senses until all he could think were two singular, overwhelming thoughts. ‘I am going to die’ and ‘but Kakashi cannot’. Despite the conviction in that second thought it was harder to bring his rusty skills to bear than he imagined it would be. His arms were lead and his legs were shaking. Vision tunneled and ears hearing the ring of battle as though from underwater, it took only one more blade sinking in to the flesh of his shoulder for Madara to go down.

What a titan of history, he couldn’t help but scold himself, to fall in the first battle he joins since the fifth decade of his twentieth year. All those years spent locked away in a cave by himself had taken more of a toll than he thought. Sparring and exercise were no substitute for the true chaos of a real fight. He should have stayed with the other council members when the alarm sounded to warn of an attack on their western gate; his pride and his body would have both been spared a wound.

Nothing could have prepared him for the sound of Kakashi’s own scream as he leapt down from a nearby rooftop only to see his soulmate slumping to the ground with silver shining amongst the blood pouring from his body. And it was a lot of blood. Madara understood that his thoughts were beginning to scatter due to the loss of it all but he couldn’t help wondering if the last time he had taken a similar injury produced this much blood or if it only looked like so much because he was already covered in the lives he had taken today.

Strong hands lifted his head, soft lips against his forehead, and Madara opened his eyes to discover that he had drifted for an undetermined amount of time. The men who overwhelmed him lay in pieces to one side and Kakashi knelt on the ground with him, both eyes wide open with tears gathering in the corners.

“There you go,” his soulmate murmured in broken, choking syllables. “Hey, no, keep your eyes open. Don’t you dare. You can’t die the day before my birthday. That’s just the height of rude.”

“Always been rude,” Madara managed to get out with blood bubbling his words. A quiet sob escaped Kakashi’s lips before he wrestled himself back under control.

“Not to me. Never to me. Stay awake, come on. You’re not allowed to die.”

Madara found it in him to smile. In the arms of a loved one had never been the way he thought he would go but it was definitely much better than most of the other ways he’d pictured. Through the confusing mixture of burning and numbness he could feel Kakashi’s hands holding pressure on his wounds and pulsing chakra in to him with the brute force of someone who knows only rudimentary healing.

“You just have to hold on for a little bit more. Rin is coming this way, she’ll save you. Rin can save anyone. She has to. She has to save you.” Kakashi paused to swallow and Madara wanted to close his eyes but he didn’t want to look away from the beauty above him. “You can’t…you can’t go. I didn’t have enough time.”

When he opened his mouth Madara found there was too much blood to speak loudly enough for the other man to hear him from so far away. He gestured with one dripping hand and Kakashi bent immediately. Mentally apologizing for the stain, Madara pressed a kiss against that pale cheek he could trace the shape of with his very soul.

“Every day,” he whispered, “was a gift, my Precious One”

“Then stay awake and let me give you more gifts, damn it! No no no no no! Hey! Wake up! Hey!”

When the last of his strength gave out Madara did not fall unconscious immediately. His body slumped, his eyes closed, and no matter how he screamed at himself in his own mind he had no fight left in him to tell Kakashi that he was alright, that this was the best death he could have asked for. Instead he was forced to lie still and listen to his soulmate scream for a help he seemed to think was coming. Madara wished he could close his ears to the sound even as he cherished what he thought were the last words he thought he would ever hear his soulmate say.

 23--

“I hate you.”

Despite the venom in those words it was hard to believe in them when Kakashi voice came muffled against his chest, the length of that wiry body pressed against his own in what Madara assumed to be one of the rickety hospital beds. That certainly looked like a hospital room ceiling above him when he opened his eyes.

“Somehow I doubt that,” Madara said, filled with wonder that he was able to say anything at all when the last thing he remembered was steel through his chest. When, he wondered, had he agreed to reverse their roles? Always it had been him fretting over the day he would lose Kakashi. It had never occurred to him as a possibility that Kakashi might lose him first. The entire idea of death itself has stopped occurring to him altogether, likely a symptom of such a long life and probably something he should talk to a professional about.

He wouldn’t. But he probably should.

“No, I really do hate you. You’re a jerk.”

“What else is new?”

“I almost watched you die.” Kakashi’s voice warbled and it awoke something feral in him that wanted to fight whatever it was that had hurt this man. Except it was him. He had done that. “You owe Rin such a big thank you. I’m sending her a fruit basket every day for the rest of her life. She saved yours.”

Madara blinked at the ceiling, still a little fuzzy. “My fruit basket?”

“No! She saved your life you idiot!” Kakashi’s face was tear streaked when he came in to view, Sharingan covered but both eyes sporting deep circles underneath. He was frowning. Madara's concentration slid away from whatever they were talking about to concentrate entirely on the tragedy that was the fact of Kakashi frowning.

“You should smile,” he mumbled. Contrary to what he was hoping for, Kakashi frowned deeper.

“What part of ‘you almost died’ should I be smiling about?”

“Dunno. Like your smile. You’re very pretty.” When Kakashi’s eyes widened Madara's did too. “Oh I didn’t mean to say that. Don’t tell Kakashi I said that!”

Silence hung deep and heavy between them for a few moments.

“Alright. I won’t tell me. You must be incredibly high right now; I suppose they do have you on the good stuff. Rin said you might be a little funny when you woke up.” His soulmate sighed and ran a hand through his hair, greasy in a state he only ever reached after several days without a shower.

“It’s a secret,” Madara insisted.

Kakashi dropped his hand and cocked his head to one side. “What, that I’m pretty? I would have said handsome but…”

“No, everybody knows that!” Madara declared vehemently. “It’s a secret that I think so too. Don’t tell. I don’t want you to know because that’s…is it bad?” Were he sober he would have been utterly mortified of the small hesitance in his voice, the lack of surety that had haunted him in the first few months after they met each other when he questioned every so often if Kakashi truly wanted him there.

His question was met with a bewildered gaze. “Why would it be bad if you think I’m attractive?”

“Because then you would know.”  

“Know what?”

“That I love you.”

“Of course you love me. We’re soulmates. I love you too, obviously.”

Madara's heart leapt inside his chest with such vigor the heart monitor beside him went wild. “You love me too?” he asked breathlessly.

Before answering Kakashi narrowed his one visible eye with what looked like a great deal of concentration. As he waited Madara couldn’t help but be very nervous. Why was he not answering? Finally he sat back with a curious little hum and shook his head but before Madara could experience heart failure he muttered under his breath.

“Something tells me we’re not having the same conversation at all but I can’t say how. All you said was that y-…oh. Oh you said…Madara…you love me.”

“Yes but you can’t tell!”

“No I mean you really love me. Like you’re in love with me!”

“Obviously!” Drugs clouding his mind, the loneliness of the caves barely more than a decade behind him, Madara let slip what was probably the most pathetic sound he had ever made as the isolation and the yearning came back to him in a terrible rush. “Of course I’m in love with you! I waited so long for you and then you were there and you were perfect and I already loved you like a part of me but then you grew older and you got tall and handsome and it’s not fair! You shouldn’t get to be everything I ever wanted if I can’t keep you!”

Kakashi gaped at him.

“W-why won’t you get to keep me!?” he cried.

“Because you’re going to fall in love with someone else and make me go away!”

After nearly a solid minute of more flabbergasted staring Kakashi closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Then he let it out and drew in another one. Madara recognized the technique he had taught his partner a long time ago for keeping himself calm when his emotions threatened to overwhelm. Only once Kakashi deemed himself calm enough to talk again did he open his eyes again and pull his face in to a semblance of a serious expression.

“That is the absolute stupidest thing you have ever said. And you once tried to convince me that wearing anything other than a fundoshi as underwear was a dishonor against my ancestors. Madara I love you too. Of course I love you too.”

“But you don’t–”

“Yes. I do. I don’t just love you, I am in love with you the same way you are in love with me. I would very much like it if you stopped sleeping in your own bed and slept in mine. I would love it if you could be sober so we could make out and be gross right here in a hospital room. Get the picture?”

Madara furrowed his brow and gave that some thought. If Kakashi was in love with him too that would solve every problem he had. For the first time in his life he would be completely happy. His smile may have been a little lopsided when it spread across his face but he was still a bit too loopy with sedatives to care very much. All that mattered to him was that Kakashi was smiling back and that Kakashi loved him.

“I like that picture,” he murmured. “You know something? You…were worth waiting for.”

“Was I?” Kakashi asked teasingly and sounding strangely out of breath.

He nodded enthusiastically to make sure his point was not refuted, not understanding that he was being teased. It felt very important that Kakashi know how grateful he was that he hadn’t given up and taken his own life. Sure he’d gone a little crazy and it had taken a while to smooth out some of his more feral edges, reintegrating him back in to society had been an adventure for every poor soul he came in to contact with for the first half a year, but in the end he’d had Kakashi and it was more than everything he had ever dreamed of.

Chuckling a little, Kakashi pulled himself a little farther up the bed so that their faces were close enough for him to count all the barely there freckles that danced along the line where his soulmate usually wore a mask. Madara liked the mask. He liked that such a beautiful face belonged only to him. The freckles were so distracting he didn’t think to question why they were getting closer and closer until-

They were kissing. Already foggy and muddled, Madara's drugged up mind emptied even further until all that was left was the perfect silence – the perfect moment of completion – of their first kiss. He whined shamelessly when Kakashi pulled away, not ready for the moment to end, and was immediately pulled in by the sound of happy laughter filling the room around them. He could live without another kiss for a few moments just to listen to that laughter. Such an incredible moment felt as though it should be marked with some kind of grand words but as he wracked his brain Madara could think of only one thing to say amidst the empty joy.

“Happy birthday,” he said. And then he was confused when Kakashi’s laughter only grew louder.

“Maa, my birthday was three days ago. You’ve been asleep for quite some time.”

“Oh. But I like your birthday. You always get older and you’ll never know what it is to wait. That’s…I’m glad that you don’t have to know that.”

At last the laughter quieted as Kakashi subsided to gift him with a very soft look. “So am I.”

“I’m very tired. Do all injuries feel like this in the future?” Madara tried to squirm but it felt as though his body were made of lead, heavy and sinking down in to the mattress. “I can understand why you don’t like hospitals.”

“You should go back to sleep. We can talk about this again when you’re not high and you actually have a chance of remembering the conversation.”

Madara nodded obediently even as his hands reached out to pull Kakashi down for another lingering kiss that made both of them give matching purrs, though his was slightly more feral. Some habits were hard to break even after eleven years of being properly socialized again. He didn’t really notice how hard the drugs were hitting again until a snort of amusement broke through and he realized that they were no longer kissing but his eyes were still closed. Trying to open them again felt like a battle when he tried and for the first time in his life he decided that he could surrender without a fight.

Something soft brushed against his forehead, a kiss of benediction, and then Kakashi’s voice whispered in the space above him, soothing him down in to the dreams that called so enticingly.

“I love you,” his soulmate whispered. “Sleep now and I will still love you when you wake again – and every day after that too.”

He couldn’t be sure if it was the sedatives or his own imagination but Madara almost thought he could feel Kakashi curling in to him once more to rest there with him. The nurses would be angry to find them like that. He didn’t care. With Kakashi watching over him it was even nicer to let go of reality for a little while, safe in the knowledge that no dream could possibly be as beautiful as what he would find when he woke again.

A future with Kakashi growing older and building a life together. For a man who had lived the same day again and again and again year after year growing old sounded like a grand adventure; he couldn’t wait to experience it with his soulmate at his side.

[linelpisffxiv]

From the Six Month Gap

A little story about Lin through the eyes of the Captain of the Guard.

Despite night returning around all of Norvrandt, Sin Eaters still exist. Lyna can command her forces and ask for help from others to find the bastions, but at the least, nighttime drives them away, so rest is possible.

Further, the Cardinal Virtues are all dead, thanks to the Warrior of Darkness, and those another tier down no longer contain the power to seed their aether into a human. The few deaths she witnessed were nothing more than that. Deaths. Not Conversions.

As she walks into the Crystarium, she sees the Warrior of Darkness standing there. The odd Mystel woman from her Grandfather’s homeland.

“I was expecting you, Lyna,” the woman says. She holds up a bottle of some mead. “Drink with me?”

Lyna knows there’s nothing meant by it, but their communications have been quite rare. “What reason do you have for it, Warrior?”

She chuckles and swishes the bottle again, a smile on her face. “Your lovely company, of course.” After a second, the smile drops, and she sees beyond her usual facade. “And I know you and I are birds of a feather, and wanted to listen, to see if my advice would work. We can head to my room, if you wish.”

The Warrior of Darkness rarely drops her easy smile. And while they have not spoken much, what she’s seen of the woman shows she has faced several battles in her homeland, and as much loss as any Crystarium soldier, if not more.

“I assume you would not prefer the Stair?”

“There are things I want to disclose to you, believe you will understand better than most not from my homeland. Tis a secret I would not like to have let out.” As easily as the mask came off hardly a minute before, she puts it back on. “So, what do you say, Lyna? Shall we celebrate?”

“If you insist, my lady.”

A’lin makes a face at the address. “Please don’t call me that. I am not a lady.”

Lyna hides a small chuckle. The Warrior of Darkness is interesting. “Of course, forgive me, but what shall I call you, then?”

“Lin, please.” She gives a flourish of a bow. “Now please, Commander, follow me.”

The walk to the Pendants isn’t far. A’lin chats with Emanuel for a few moments, her smile almost genuine, but doesn’t quite reach the eyes.

She has the best room in the Pendants, no argument. A few in the past had it, but about a decade ago, the Exarch insisted it stay empty. Back then, the reasoning was confusing, but as she watches A’lin get a couple glasses for the wine, she knows.

The man knew she was coming. More, that she would love it.

A’lin occasionally looks through her window, enjoying the dusk she faces.

After everything is prepared, she frowns. “Commander, why have you not taken a seat?”

“I was taught it rude to sit before a host. And should you insist I call you Lin, I will say call me Lyna.”

“Well, then, Lyna, back where I’m from, if a guest is uncomfortable, they’re free to sit, though I might roll my eyes if one eats before I’m seated.” She sets the glasses on the table. “And do not feel pressured to take one of these. Choose whichever seat you like.”

Lyna takes one of the stools and holds the glass. It’s one of her favorite meads, but it was not quite as common any longer. How the woman got any is beyond her. “So, what is it you wanted to ask me that was so private?”

A’lin sits across from her and takes a sip. After she swallows, she speaks up. “How did you become Commander? Was it some great deed or did you—”

“Work my way up from the bottom? Latter. I look young, but that is a trait of most Viis. I am thirty-seven. Why, how old are you?”

Lin chuckles. “There are at least three answers to that question, probably four or five.” She shakes her head. “Make that six, actually. The easiest is I’m twenty-nine. If my math’s right, it was a few days ago.”

Six ways to count her age? Is A’lin serious about that? How can there be so many?

“Though by your reckoning, I’m over a hundred. My homeland is in a place where time flows differently. I do not know my exact age. A hundred years ago for you, I was still twenty-seven. That number would vary depending on how long ago the Flood of Light was halted.”

“A hundred and seven years ago, I believe is the generally agreed upon count, but there are contrasting studies.”

“Then for you I’m a hundred and thirty four.”

“What other counts do you have?”

“The count purely by my homeland. I’m still twenty eight. I’ll turn twenty nine for them in four months. The three others… are very personal, and I don’t know what they are, either.”

Lyna pauses. For all the talk, there was something forgotten. “You asked how I became commander. You are young for the same role. Did you want to ask because you were forced into the position?”

Lin nods her head. Her eyes close. “Back home, despite having always known night, not having sin eaters, there were threats. One that by some reason, I was given the power to destroy certain kinds.”

“I’m assuming that was the power you came here to use.”

“Yeh,” she says. “However, not every fight I’ve done was against threats where my powers came to be. There is strife between several factions back home. I fought spoken as well. Some brainwashed, some blackmailed, but several others who believed in their cause, were willing to die for it. I’ve ended so many lives. Not mercy-kills, nor monsters. Spoken. Large groups of them.”

“Do you know how many, precisely?”

“Dozens, hundreds, easily. No names for most, and faces for even fewer.”

Lyna takes a long sip of the drink. Her mind seethes. She knows why Lin thinks whatever the truth is, if it’s more than her homeland’s odd time, she chose Lyna to speak with. Why she would learn this truth. She saw the odd powers of the woman with her own eyes. It was a secret that ate at her.

And these people where she calls home think because she has this power she should be a commander. Lin is a good one, but she also does everything but fight in her free time. Sing, dance, explore. She didn’t choose the path. She was forced.

“Did you want this?”

Lin shrugs. “It’s my life. I’m good at it. Some days I want it, others I don’t. What I can say is before I learned of Norvrandt’s predicament, I was on the verge of becoming what my leaders needed. A commander with a power that gives several skills to her. Mild precognition, the ability to learn new weapons quick, and, as you saw, the power to fell aetheric beasts. Had I not gotten the call, I would have likely been dead by now.”

She smiles. Unlike several, this one has her eyes sparkle with the same joy one should bring. “What I can say is after I tie up the last few loose ends back home, I want to find a way to stay here. I’m not the only one who can fight those monsters. But here, the titles feel far more earned than the one everyone calls me back home. I am also given the ability to rest. I have friends and family back home, and they know, but I know the leaders would call for me were I easily available for anything less than a single threat. I admit that is where I shine. What I am needed.”

“I have a question, if you are comfortable with answering it,” Lyna says. “This home you refer to. Where is it?”

“And that is why I wanted to talk to you in private. I spoke with the others. With everything that happened. You deserve to know, just… don’t get upset.”

What she explains is confusing, but her words paint enough of a picture. It explains why the Exarch and all their friends are more powerful than average, why the skills they pick up all are quick (to the point that Lin’s speed of learning must be amazing to be considered part of her gift). Their aether is denser because they’re from a place where such is normal.

And they could have chosen to let it happen. Destroy their world to take that strength.

“I’m one of only two or three of us who technically have thicker souls. I had a piece of mine here. We joined together. Ryne might be the reverse, having taken in the soul of her equivalent back home.”

“And the third?”

“The Exarch, but he’s different. However, I feel it is his story to tell when it comes to his own soul. All I will say is that when I said I would probably be dead by now if not for his interference, it is not hyperbole.”

“I must ask. This is much to take in. Why did you want to tell me all this? Bear another secret from the world.”

“I trust you. Not with secrets, but with my back. You are— that is — I want you as a friend Lyna. Sparring partner. You are one of the strongest I’ve known in Norvrandt, in both mind and body.”

“And you’re my grandfather’s lover.”

Lin chuckles. “That too. But even if I wasn’t. He trusted you with the Tower should anything happen to him and it stayed. You would have learned in that case. And it may still be the case. I’d rather you learn with some mead in you than otherwise.”

“With a hero?”

“With a friend. If you’ll have me as one.”

Lyna holds up her glass. “You think you know me, Lin? Well, if you want, I can tell you whatever you desire about growing up here.”

Lin offers hers and taps it against the one in Lyna’s hands. “I do have many questions about that. But I don’t believe in asking without offering something in return.”

“With what you offered, I think I owe you everything you wish. Including some stories about me as an adolescent in the Crystal Tower.”

“Do tell.”

She has several feelings. Anger at the leaders of this other world Lin is from, Shock at seeing what a small role all this is in some cosmic fight, but also peace, knowing that she won’t be alone with either of those facts.

[korkrunchcereal]

Red Crown Rebellion

Bal-Varos Eyvor had always detested winter. It was a bitter experience of starvation and struggle that left men dead or weak. As lord of the Okenwald, it was his duty to ensure his people were safe. Yet winter had come, brought on by invaders from beyond the sea. As the snow fell, Bal-Varos was forced to bend the knee to a tyrant. He had been forced to listen to the orders of an Indaris and a High Elf simply to survive. He did what he needed to for his people, yet now the time had come to do what he needed for his country.

The letter had arrived three days previous in secret, borne by a man Bal-Varos had never met but had slipped through to his command tent. The man had spoken not a word as he swiftly passed on the letter, before departing. Bal-Varos had spotted immediately the seal of House Indaris upon the letter, yet more importantly the color.

A red seal.

Three days past agonizingly slow, due in no small part to the tenuous wait. He hated the waiting; always did. Time gave way to hesitation and the uncertainty of choice. Yet he needed to wait for the various pieces of the plan to move into position. Three lords of the Gilded Lands had plotted in secret before the High Elf occupation, and it was time to see their plots to fruition.

Bal-Varos wrapped his black furred cloak around himself, staring upwards at the walls of Waycrest and the high elven guards. The small city had been host to a scheme most foul, headed by its former Lord Moonsworn and his son. Yet their plotting had failed, leaving a broken home and an empty throne. For a moment, Bal-Varos mused over the irony that yet more treachery spawned in the northern holding. Would his own plans fall to ruin, much as Moonsworn’s did?

His boots crunched against the snow as he began walking. The tents of the Gilded army lay sprawled out in the near blinding whiteness of frost. Overheard, the sky had turned grey with clouds swollen with rain, or perhaps snow. It was a dark and dreary day and Bal-Varos could not help but shudder at the cold. Around him, soldiers offered salutes, bows and simple acknowledgements to the Lord of the South.

Much of the army was made up of his own men. The Eyvorian Guard were the best fighting force in all the Gilded Lands. None within the golden holdings could match the rangers in accuracy and speed, or the guard in their prowess for they clashed often with the forest trolls and thus were born of combat. It was why Eyvor remained strong and maintained the borders from troll excursions. Winter however bought some respite from the marauding warbands of the south, enough to pull troops away for this moment.

The rest were smatterings of troops levied from the multitude of lords and ladies. It was a rainbow assembly of colors near overwhelmed by the green, yellow and black of Eyvor, but their addition would prove useful. It was a force numbering near six hundred men in total, yet they were not alone. Bal-Varos cast his gaze northward along the wall, spotting the faint outline of tents. Aurelian had called on the Greyhall tp to send troops, and thus had brought them into the plot.

Their force was much smaller, perhaps some three hundred men though they were the elite of the province. Among their number Bal-Varos knew was the vaunted Greyflame Knights, led by his son in law Hyserian. As well were peerless storm-magi and sharp-eyed rangers and though small in number they were quite formidable. Notably absent were forces from House Squallcrest and Blacksand, though such was the plan of Indaris and the Lady of the Tempest.

“Lord Eyvor.” A familiar woman’s voice escaped behind him, Bal-Varos turning with a smile.

“Ranger Captain.” Bal-Varos gave a nod to his daughter Elandril. “Come, walk with me.”

“As you wish.” Bal-Varos waited for Elandril to approach, before he began walking. “The captains have been briefed as per your requests and await your signal, as have your bodyguards.”

“Good, good. And the governor?”

“He has been informed you wish to speak at the Manse and awaits you there.”

“Ah, excellent. What do we know of the north?”

“My husband confirmed that Lord Saderis’ plan worked…weasel bastard.” At that Bal-Varos chuckled, nodding.

“Aye, the Lord Mistborn as he likes to be called now is a bit of one, but he’s been useful so far.”

“Yes, but how long until the snake turns against us?”

“As long as it's more profitable for him to help us, he won’t. But if he decides to be a snake? Well, we’re neighbors.” Elandril rolled her eyes at his statement.

“As you say, my lord.” She looked over, noticing the morose expression his face as he looked up at the opened gates. “What’s wrong?”

“This whole damn mess. We should have seen the war coming.”

“We did, but we can only do so much. The other lords and ladies were too prideful and ignorant, and it comes back to bite them.”

“So goes the history of the Gilded Lands.”

“It didn’t help that Indaris pulled his stunt.” The name Indaris was spoken in a curse, as if the word was a disgusting taste on Elandril’s lips.

“No it did not, but what choice did he have? What choice did we all have?”

“We could have fought,” She suggested.

“And we would have been put under arrest like Saderis the elder or the various other lords that then went missing or be killed. No, sometimes the hunter must be the prey.” Elandril let the statement hang, remaining silent as the two walked through Waycrest’s streets. Snow covered the ground, and very few people were out. Those that were outside were Quel’dorei, who eyed the two in suspicion. Once or twice they saw a Sin’dorei scurrying through the streets, heavily cloaked due to the weather.

“Bah.” Elandril muttered. “It was a mistake letting the High Elves into our lands.”

“There have been many mistakes in this war, but the return of our brethren is not so great a mistake.”

“Father?” She had dropped Bal-Varos honorific, confusion in her tone.

“Look at them, my daughter. They are bakers, craftsmen, statesmen; common people who only wish to live in their former home. They sailed with the ‘High King’ to seek their old way of life. For many here this is the first time in over a decade they’ve stepped foot on Quel’thalas soil. The only crime they committed was leaving when Prince Kael’thas turned to darker paths to survive. They simply chose another way to survive.”

“I suppose so…”

“Of the many injustices Merik has done or proposes, the unity of our dying people is not one of them.”

“What of the soldiers that march under his banner? That slay our people?”

“Ah, that is the question isn’t it? I suppose in time we shall see. For now however we must focus on the presence. If I recall my studies of Waycrest’s layout correctly…ah yes, there we are. The old Moonsworn manse.” Just ahead was the half-damaged remains of the former House Moonsworn’s estate. Half of it had been blown away, leaving a massive hole in the building. The other half had been all but sealed off by the governor who, for some strange reason, had taken the cursed estate as his abode. Perhaps it was because it was abandoned, or perhaps that despite the damage it still remained on the non-destroyed side one of the nicer locations in the city.

As the two approached, several Quel’dorei guards, had been lazily leaning on a nearby wall, perked up. Gods Bal-Varos could weep at the discipline they had. Then again, they didn’t expect any real threat. This was their city now, for there were more high elven troops in the city than Sin’dorei outside. Yet some instinct at least warned the Quel’dorei to investigate the large man and the woman that approached.

“Halt; what business have you with governor Feron?”

“Lord Bal-Varos Eyvor requested an audience with the governor. I am sure you were at least warned of that?”

“Ah, right. Weapons, please.”

“Weapons? I am a lord of the Gilded Lands. I carry them where I please”

“And you’re to be in the presence of the governor. He’s more important than you, blood elf. Weapons…now.” Elandril narrowed her eyes, a hand slowly moving to the sword at her side.

“Alright, alright. If the Governor is so damned paranoid about two lone blood elves in a mansion filled with his soldiers, so be it.” Bal-Varos unlatched his scabbard at his side, offering it out the High Elves. It took both hands for the High elf to grab it, the man gasping in surprise at both size and weight. Begrudgingly Elandril followed suit, offering out a pair of daggers, her bow and quiver, and her sword to the guards.

“Proceed, Sin’dorei.” Bal-Varos gave a nod of his head as he lumbered into the manse. Behind him, he could overhear the guards muttering to each other.

“That was the Bear?”

“I’ve seen cats put up more of a fight.”

“He knows his place here.”

“They insult you, father.” Elandril’s fists were clenched as she walked alongside Bal-Varos, knuckles near white at the indignity.

“Aye, but we must play this game just a little longer. It has been many years since I’ve been in this dreadful place. If I recall correctly…we go down this hall.” Past a multitude of armed guards they walked, ignoring the suspicious glances and glares thrown their way. Ahead they can hear distant murmurs behind a guarded door which, as Bal-Varos correctly assumed, was where the governor was currently. The guards opened the door for the two, letting them hear the conversation.

“-and that is why these Sin’dorei need to…” The pale faced and spindly Governor Duke Feron paused mid-sentence as he became aware of the entrance of the Eyvors. His lip curled up, arms crossing. “Hello Bal-Varos.”

“Governor Feron.” Bal-Varos gave a bow of his head in respect, his daughter following suit. Quickly his eyes darted over the room and at the individuals inside. It was a handful of various high elves in different uniforms that Bal-Varos could not place but nevertheless assumed meant these were ‘distinguished’ individuals among the occupation force. “My thanks for allowing me to speak with you.”

“Yes, well I am a busy man considering the supposed rebellion in the Southwest, but your messenger was very insistent on the need to speak. What do you want?”

“You had yesterday wished to, as I heard, ‘report to me the offenses of my soldiers’?”

“Ah yes, of course! I was just speaking with the good captain Heroux here about the situation.” Feron waved a hand to an armored and scarred high elf at his side. “Your ‘soldiers’ if such a name is fitting for such brigands have been stirring up trouble in the taverns and inns of the city.”

“My men are just enjoying all the taverns this city has to offer, governor. I was not aware such was a cause for problem.”

“It is when they assault my own men.” Captain Heroux finally spoke up. “Harassing and assaulting Quel’dorei soldiers off duty and starting bar fights is hardly fit of a proper military.”

“Have they now?” The doubt in Bal-Varos’ tone was plain for all to hear, some shifting uncomfortably as the large man crossed his own arms. Even unarmed, Bal-Varos was a large and imposing man whose very presence commanded respect. Governor Feron, however, gave none.

“I don’t know how it is done in the backwater south where your lands are, but among civilized society there is nothing like your men have been doing.” Bal-Varos snorted at that, smirking.

“Captain Elandril; tell me, have the men reported any of these so called ‘bar fights’?”

“No, my lord. Nor did I assume they started any fights, for none of them have returned from being off duty with any kind of injury. Unless of course this ‘proper’ military of yours has no idea how to even throw a punch.” Feron’s lip pulled up in annoyance, eyebrows rising in contempt.

“Charming, girl. You will not be so insolent once the High King hears of this dismissal.”

“Ah, not to worry governor I will ensure the men receive a proper talking to of their conduct. They are simply…chafing at being forced outside the walls.”

“For the people’s own protection.”

“Bah; near a thousand Quel’dorei troops in this city can’t protect the people? Come now governor you’re beginning to insult me if you think my soldiers so barbarous as to threaten civilians.”

“Would they not? Your lands are quite close to the trolls; I wouldn’t be surprised if you shared some of your ‘culture’. It would explain quite a few things about your captain. She is quite the dire looking one.” That brought a chorus of snickering from the high elves, but not from Bal-Varos or his daughter.

“Careful governor; your tongue is getting the best of you. Would be quite a shame if I had to rip it out of your pretty little head.” There was a ringing of steel as swords were drawn, the near dozen high elves armed at the threat.

“No, it’s not the troll’s fault for your daughter, Bal-Varos. It’s you.” Feron stepped right up to Bal-Varos, looking up in order to meet his gaze. “So brutish and uncouth. No wonder Aurelian became prince; at least him and his soldiers have proper civility.” Bal-Varos ears’ perked, the great bear staring down at Feron.

“Are you suggesting, governor, that Aurelian’s soldiers are in any way superior to my own?”

“Ah, I see subtlety is actually beyond you Eyvor. Let me explain more clearly. Aurelian for all his obnoxiousness at least knows how to conduct himself to his betters, as do his soldiers. There is a reason the High King requested Indaris troops. Not Eyvor ones.” Bal-Varos’ ears perked again though not at the conversation at hand, the faint ghost of a smirk visible on his features. They couldn’t hear it.

“Let’s get one thing straight, Duke.” Bal-Varos leaned down, eyes not leaving Feron even as the other high elves approached.

“It’s alright; he wouldn’t dare put a finger on me or Merik would annihilate his lands, his house and his family. He’s a dog that thinks himself a bear. Go on, Eyvor. What is this one thing?” At that Bal-Varos grinned, noting now the unease Feron had in his surprising reaction.

 “Indaris’ toy soldiers are nothing compared to my men, and you all made the grave mistake of leaving me my troops.” Before Feron could respond further, shouting escaped outside the doors. Bal-Varos lifted his head slowly as the Quel’dorei looked past him.

“What is going on out there?” Screaming was the answer, followed by the thud of something heavy on the floor. The doors flew open as figures streamed inside. Neither Bal-Varos or Elandril turned, knowing precisely who it was. They simply watched the expressions of the others, taking great satisfaction at the confusion, surprise and fear written plain on their faces.

They were dead before they could utter a word in shock, as green fletched arrows pierced throats and hearts. Governor Feron was the only one left standing, though now panic spread across his face. He tried to stammer out anything, stepping back and falling hard on the ground. He looked down, shrieking as he realized he had tripped over the corpse of Heroux whose mouth, opened wide in a scream, was stained by the blood oozing from where his eyes had been.

“Wh-what is the meaning of this!” Twelve Sin’dorei adorned in the emerald cloaks and hood of the Eyvor rangers stood beside their lord, bows drawn. Troll bone jewelry and trophies jingled on their persons while their fists had been stained crimson, giving the air of barbarity to the elves. Feron had been right about one thing; the Eyvor soldiers had picked up some things from the Trolls.

“Come now Feron, where was that confidence you had earlier? Something about I wouldn’t touch you? See, down in the South,” Bal-Varos began, boots making a thud as he paced before the fallen governor. “The soldiers of house Eyvor skirmish with troll warbands constantly. It makes them stronger as a fighting force, more so than any other military in the Gilded Lands. Indaris? Dolls in armor compared to my men.”

“You’ve doomed yourself! Your men! Everyone! The garrison here outnumbers your men. This little rebellion will end as swiftly as it started, and when they finish the other garrisons will turn on the lords and ladies. You created a slaughter, Eyvor!” A great booming laughter was the response, Eyvor turning to place a boot on Feron’s leg. He pressed hard, causing a shriek of pain to escape.

“You think your pretty soldiers will stand a chance? While you’ve been sitting in this cursed mansion plotting and planning, I too have been planning. For the week we’ve been here, I’ve had my men study the layout of the city. If you knew anything about House Eyvor you would have noticed the lack of training we had been doing. We studied. We watched. We waited. As for the other garrisons? Well, Captain? Did Lord Dawngrasp get my letter?”

“Indeed, as did the other lords and ladies.”

“Letters?!” Feron stammered out between screams as Eyvor pressed harder and harder, cracking bones with his great weight. “What letters!”

“"Right. Forgot to tell you. You know the new Lord Saderis? Weasel shit of a person, but even shit has its uses. It's an open secret the little lord of Mistborn is a thug and a cheat, but not as many know he's a demon with a quill.  The rat's sent your garrisons southwest, on 'official orders' to deal with a rebellion that isn't there."

"What!?" squawked Feron.

The old bear laughed, flailing his hand about like one of Aurelian's pompous flourishes. "That's right; there never was a rebellion in Wyrmstorm's lands. Your pretty little soldiers are outside the walls of our homes...and Vaeldris Dawngrasp is waiting for them. Whatever survivors manage to crawl away from that massacre are going to find they have nowhere to run. When winter flees and spring comes once more, our fields will be rich in high elven blood. "

“Wh-wha…how. Bah, even if you take out the garrisons, there’s still the army in the Coast! Merik will have your heads!” Eyvor lifted his foot, before bringing it down hard on Feron’s other leg. Bones snapped as Feron screamed in agony, tears beginning to build in his eyes.

“Ah yes, about that. If I am correct, right now the army in the coast is marching north, under the orders to reinforce Shallowbrook.” Eyvor relished the disbelief in Feron’s expression, along with his pain. Worms deserved to be stomped out, after all. “By the time they realize the deception, my army will have marched into the coast to reinforce my son-in-law and I would love to see your armies break upon the walls of Seahallow. But all of that means little if Aurelian is able to keep his end of the deal. By tomorrow your kingdom will be without a king.”

“Treason! It is treason!” Bal-Varos lifted his foot, turning to walk to the nearby window. Outside he could hear panicked screams as his men went to work. Tavern trips had been much more than that. They were information gathering, patrol watching; anything to help for this day. He had watched and waited with the patience of the wolf. The time to switch from prey to hunter had begun.

“Treason? No. I commit no treason in ridding Quel’thalas of your ilk. The real treason was Merik assigning you to our little corner of the kingdom. He didn’t know it then, but he sent you to your death. Do you hear that outside? You were right; I have created a slaughter. But it is not my men being slaughtered. It’s yours.” He didn’t turn to look as Feron tried to stammer something out, only to be replaced by a wretched gurgling sound. His body barely left a sound as it collapsed.

“Your orders, my lord?” Bal-Varos finally turned around, watching his daughter wipe blood off of a curved dagger.

“Secure the center of the city, then rendezvous with your husband and ensure the northern district is taken care of. The Tempest forces are strong but small, and I don’t want them being ambushed. The Quel’dorei may know more of the city then we expect. Get captain Syrene to the west, and Garo to the east. I will take the south.”

“What of the civilians?”

“They think us animals, but we are not. I don’t want a single hair harmed on the common people. Those that surrender will be allowed to stay in the city under our occupation until the situation with the Kingdom Reborn is resolved. Those that fight back? Capture, but do not risk your life if they threaten it. “Oh, and as to your earlier question on the soldiers that fight for Merik? Make a lesson out of them.” Elandril grinned, offering a salute.

“By your orders, my lord.” Bal-Varos nodded, watching as his daughter left. For now, this mansion would serve as his command center and rallying point. He could not help but be amused in the irony, of this mansion now being host to yet another betrayal. His amusement faded quickly however as he heard a distant explosion, lips threatening to pull into a frown.

“Your plan had better work Indaris, or we’re all doomed.”

[officialleehadan]

Blood Summit

“Be polite, even if they are not, and do not lie,” Helena told Owen as they walked into the restaurant that was this months’ meeting location. She had chosen this time, as she was the one calling the meeting, and deliberately chose somewhere with good food and proper service. “Many of the Elders can read thoughts, and all will be listening to your voice and heart.”

“Comforting,” Owen muttered, but stuck close to her side, back straight. He moved like he was ready for a fight. He probably was. She supposed it was enough that he left his weapons in the car. “Can you do that?”

“Read minds?”

“Yeah.”

“No. That is why I dosed you with a Faerie truth potion earlier.” She smiled as he glared at her. “Come now, you can’t imagine I would simply believe you.”

He kept glaring, and she smiled, lipstick reapplied in her limo and shining red in the candlelight of the restaurant. The owner, well aware who she was, rushed over, his eyes darting over Helena and her unusual companion.

“The Elders are already here, Mistress,” he reported, sharp but clear. Unlike a younger vampire, Helena saw no need to intimidate the few humans she interacted with on a regular basis. After all, they provided valuable services. Why would she go out of her way to terrify them? “In the large dining room.”

“Thank you,” Helena murmured, and pressed a folded hundred into his palm as she passed. Good service deserved a reward, and bribery ensured that it stayed good.

“You know that most of these people want me dead,” Owen said quietly. She glanced over at him as they walked through the quiet restaurant. “I’m a Hunter. It’s not like I blame them, but will they believe me about Josef?”

“Alliances between the Covens and the Hunters are not unheard of,” Helena told him with a shrug. “In fact, quite the opposite. A threat to us all merits investigation and is too important to be tainted by past grudges.”

“I’ve killed three Elders in my time. They won’t take me apart for it?”

The nerves were understandable, but Helena was somewhat surprised that he was looking to her for reassurance. Perhaps he was more trusting of her because she had her chance to kill him and chose not to. Still, it made sense that, as he got ready to walk into a room full of the most powerful vampires in the city, that he was wary.

“Some will be angry,” Helena told him honestly. “But they will listen. All of us here are old enough to know when vengeance must be set aside for survival.”

“Reassuring,” he muttered, and tugged on the jacket sleeves. His fingers twitched like he wished he had a weapon, but he stilled them. “Okay, I’m ready.”

The private dining room was one of Helena’s favorite places in the restaurant. The walls were deep burgundy, and rich wood paneling protected the paint from chairs. Nine of the twelve chairs were filled, and Helena took one of the empty ones for herself with Own at her side.

If he kept the one empty chair between him and his nearest neighbor, well, it was probably for the best.

“Thank you for coming,” Helena said when everyone was settled and a silent, professional server came through to provide drinks to everyone. “Friends, we face a threat, not just our covens, but to the city and the Others who call it home. Owen, please tell them what you told me.”

“Leave no detail out,” called Ekaterina. She was one of the oldest vampires at the table, and also one of Helena’s friends. Her support was invaluable. Her power alone made the others listen. “The situation must be dire indeed, to bring a notorious Hunter into our arms.”

“It’s bad,” Owen said with a remarkably steady voice. His heartbeat was a little fast, but he gave no other sign of his earlier nerves. He pulled a keychain out of his pocket and held it up. “Is there a projector in here?”

Chao-Fe took it from him. The Chinese vampire had a special gift with technology, and quickly had a laptop and projector hooked up and shining on a pull-down screen. Owen stood and tugged on his sleeves again before taking the floor.

The first photo was clearly a candid, taken at a distance, maybe with a phone. The man was tall and powerfully-built, and dripped with weapons. His entire attitude screamed ‘military’ and his pale face seemed twisted into a permanent expression of fury.

“This is Josef,” Owen said, and looked up at the photo. “He’s thirty-seven, Caucasian, former Green Beret, and an asshole. He believes that Others are a taint on humanity, and wants to see the city- and the world- cleansed.”

He pressed on to the next photo before anyone could ask about the first. It was the same man again, this time leading several others on a firearms course. “He’s the best shot I’ve ever seen with a gun or a crossbow, and he’s strong enough to take on a shifted Wolf barehanded. I assume he’s fully human, but I could be wrong.”

“Has his blood been tested?” Loraven had been an elf before he was Turned, and was the oldest vampire at the table, although he had been a vampire for only two hundred years of his twelve centuries of life. “Others almost always show in blood testing.”

“I couldn’t get a sample,” Owen said uncomfortably. “I’ve sparred with him. He’s good. Not fast, but really strong. He clocked me when I called him out and I flew.”

“What sort of firepower can we expect?” Fahzad asked.. He was the youngest of them all, but one of the best fighters despite his bare fifty years. “Guns? Military tech?”

“All of the above,” Owen told him. He was starting to relax as the questions came, and he realized how seriously the Coven Elders were taking him. Helena was slightly smug. This was a side of the vampire community that most Hunters never saw. “Probably no magic except enchanted weapons. I tipped off every Hunter I knew with a drop of Other blood before I tried to confront Josef. Helena can tell you how well that went for me.”

Everyone at the table could smell the faint trace of blood from his wrapped and bandaged cuts, and he held himself in a careful way that suggested he was feeling those injuries.

“How many will stay loyal to him?” Chao-Fe asked, taking notes. He looked between the other Elders, no doubt calculating their own numbers, and what sort of force they could rally on short notice.

“See, that’s the bad news,” Owen said grimly, and clicked the laptop again. This time a silent video played behind him. Dozens of trucks and busses filled the lot of a warehouse complex. Men and women streamed off them, heavily armed and grim-faced. “He’s calling in every favor anyone ever owed, and inviting as many Hunt-leaders in as he thinks will come. Some refused- a lot of us are fine with Others- but plenty aren’t.”

“Numbers?”

“Nearly five hundred the last time I heard. I still have a friend or two on the inside, but they can’t do much without outing themselves. He’s building an army.”

Not a large number, but more than enough to wipe through the city, especially if they didn’t care to be quiet about their presence. Others were only barely acknowledged by the government, and plenty of people would be happy if they stopped existing.

“Why did you chose to come to the Covens?” Loraven asked thoughtfully, his glowing blue eyes fixed on Helena’s human. “We all know your name, and your reputation. Many of us were friends with Henri, and Scheherazade, and Regine, before him.”

“We’re enemies,” Owen told him. His heartbeat was still fast, and a little unsteady, but that was good. Someone who could control their heartbeat in a lie tended to have a slower heartbeat than normal. “But the Covens are the only Others in the city who have the kind of force to match Josef and his pals.”

“The skinchangers could.”

“The skinchangers are barely organized enough to keep themselves under the human radar,” Owen sighed, and nodded to the laptop. “I got as many documents as I could. Photos of anyone who looked important. Equipment. I think he has prisoners, but I don’t know where, and I know, he has a pit full of fledglings.”

“How do you know?”

“Because when I told Josef that he was crazy, and tried to walk, he dumped me in and assumed they would deal with me.” Owen held up his hand and the white bandaging that peaked out from under his sleeves. “I killed two. There were at least three more, but I didn’t stick around to count them. They were in frenzy.”

“That brought sad silence from the whole table. Finally Loraven leaned forward. “will you allow me to see their faces?” he asked politely. It was a nice gesture. He could easily have taken the memories without Owen ever knowing he was there. “That we might know who has passed, and who is missing still?”

Owen looked at Helena, no doubt remembering her earlier reassurances. She nodded slightly. Loraven knew better than most how bad a fledgling-frenzy truly was. It was how he had been turned.

“Yeah, go ahead,” he decided, eyeing the elf warily. “What do you need from me?”

“Think of your memories of the time,” Loraven said, and closed his eyes. “And do remember to breathe. I could almost dance to your heartbeat.”

Owen chuckled faintly, but he did breathe, and his heart slowed. After a long moment, Loraven opened his eyes.

“I am satisfied,” he said to Helena’s surprise. Parkside Coven will be facing this threat with West-River Coven, and I strongly recommend that our council remain united. The danger here cannot be overstated.”

Whatever he had seen must have been terrible indeed. He was shaken, and shared a nod with Owen, who took a slow, relieved breath. Helena allowed herself a smile. She had been ready to deal with the matter with only her coven, but with Loraven backing her, they had a real chance.

The other Elders considered for long enough that Helena had a small selection of appetizers sent in. The debate was almost entirely silent, carried by those with thought-reading. Loraven, always honest to a fault, kept those without from being left out of the conversation.

Poor Owen had to sit and watch, his part finished except for the occasional question.

It was nearly midnight before a decision was made.

“The matter is settled,” Loraven said at last, and stood. “My peers, we are in agreement.”

“what’s the verdict?” Owen dared to ask, heart now pounding. Two covens stood with him, but they all knew two wouldn’t be enough. “Will you help?”

Helena was the one to answer, and she hid her exhaustion with long practice. Some of the Elders were wary of her Hunter, and of a trap, but with Loraven’s testimony backing her, she fought to keep everyone involved.

“We will.”

+++

Blood and Passion:

White Marble

First Negotiation

Blood Summit

+++

Support me on Patreon!

[castielusive]

Ray’s Miscellaneous Rec List

Several of these are unique, and a lot of my favorites are on here because of that. Assume all fics are rated explicit unless stated otherwise. WIPs are marked, but few and far between. Updates regularly.

Title: Asunder by rageprufrock

Word count: 23,817

Summary:  Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. (Matthew 19:6)

Sam gets married, Dean gets a wake up call. Easy top 3.

UPDATE: Pod fic version. It’s so good. (x).

Title: Carry On by TamrynEradani

Word count: 148087

Summary: When Sam gets into Stanford, Dean needs a bigger paycheck than Bobby’s garage can give him. Luckily, he knows a guy.

Edit: The author took this one down, but she’s said she’s fine with people reading it if they have the pdf. Hit me up if you want it.

Edit 2: Podfic version: x

Title: The Breath of All Things by KismetJeska

Rating: T

Word count: 65,404

Summary: Dean Winchester was twenty-six years old when a car accident killed his father and left him paralyzed from the waist down. A year and a half later, Dean is in a wheelchair and lives in a care home in Kansas, where he spends his days waiting to die. It’s only when Castiel Novak starts volunteering at the care home that Dean starts to wonder if a changed life always equals a ruined one.

Easily number three in my favorites.

Title: Drop Anchor by almaasi

Word count: 42,124

Summary: AU. A sailor and an enemy pirate are marooned on an island together, and while awaiting rescue they accidentally achieve domestic bliss.

Or:

Dean Winchester is lieutenant of the Royal Trading Ship Echelon. On a pleasantly sunny but particularly catastrophic day, he is marooned on an island somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean with only one man for company. That man is Castiel, captain of the black-sailed Leviathan: a pirate, no less. Given the circumstances under which they are stranded, rescue seems unlikely, and it could be aeons before a ship even comes by. The two of them may as well make the most of their own private island, personal differences be damned.

This is lovely.

Title: In the Weeds by Nanoochka

Word count: 40,265

Summary:

“Dean knew, from the minute he laid eyes on Chef Castiel MacCarthy, the day would come that he would have to kidnap the man and dump the body in the darkest, dirtiest crack den in Ireland. Given that this was Dublin city, it wouldn’t be hard to find.”

Title: make you whole by casfallsinlove

Word count: 4,531

Summary: In which there is a funeral, mixed-up feelings, quiet motel rooms, and a long journey home.

Title: 300 Things by cautionzombies

Word count: ~76,500

Summary: Dean’s life at twenty-four makes him feel like he’s forty–he works two jobs to help pay bills for his house and put his genius little brother through private school, and has spent six years (on and off, let’s be honest) working on his mechanical engineering degree at KU. With so much of his life devoted to his family, Dean has little time in his schedule for class and no time for social interaction. Then, while getting his classes together for the fall, he finds himself in a do-or-die situation: He must take his last literature class now, his spring already filled with those left for his major…except that none of the English classes will fit his schedule. This is how Dean grovels and begs Dr. Castiel Milton to make a special arrangement for him, and Dr. Milton does.

Easy top 5. Ashton’s art is what got me to read this one in the first place, and I didn’t notice it linked anywhere in the fic, so I’m sticking one here quickly.  [x]

Update: Tenoko1 did an audio fic and I am completely enamored with it. [x]

Title: Significant by holyhael

Word count: 4,547

Summary: Dean Smith’s and Castiel’s unconventional morning after.

This is? Amazing?

Title: There’s No Going Back by Catchclaw

Word count: 2983

Summary: Some of the things you find on vacation are hard to bring home.

Dean Smith/ Endverse!Cas is quickly becoming my favorite thing ever.

Title: put your hands on my waist by mcpadalackles

Word count: 2,182

Summary: “Dean is sitting at the window seat in their dark bedroom, the one that opens onto the fire escape. He must be cold. He’s wearing nothing but boxers, miles and miles of lovely bare skin exposed to the cool breeze drifting in. If he is, he doesn’t seem to care.”

Short but sweet. One of my top 10.

Title: Bicker by followyourenergy

Word count: 7947

Summary: Sam Winchester is nervous.  He’s taking his girlfriend of eight months, Jess, to meet his brother, Dean, and his brother’s best friend and roommate, Castiel.  Sam loves his brother and loves Cas, but it seems like all the longtime friends do is bicker and he hates it.   Sure enough, from the moment they arrive Dean and Cas are at it.  Sam thinks he knows what’s best for the two of them, but Sam ends up learning a few things about love and relationships that he never expected.

[NEW] Title: Smells Like Queer Spirit by ChasingRabbits

Word count: 8,364

Summary: It's been ten years since Sam Winchester has seen his brother. However, just as he's come to terms with the likelihood that he will never see Dean again, fate (and the internet) intervene and Sam is finally able to track him down.

What he finds throws him for a monstrous, brain-scrambling loop.

A series with a lot of variety. Not every piece is my favorite, but this one and the last two are great.

[NEW] Title: Mr. & Mr. Smith by amarillogrande

Word count: 26,550

Summary: Dean and Castiel Winchester are a normal married couple, living a normal life in a normal suburb, working normal jobs—both as secret deadly assassins. When they find each other as targets, their quest to kill each other leads them to learn a lot more about each other than they ever did in five (or six) years of marriage.

Canonverse and (mostly) canon divergent:

[NEW] Title: A Little Company by VioletHaze

Word count: 48,585

Summary: After Cas became human, he and Dean finally stopped dancing around what existed between them. The vulnerability of the newly-fallen angel scared the hell out of Dean, scared him enough to decide that he was ready to stop pretending and make some serious changes.

Now, five years later, they'd retired from hunting to live a "normal" life in Sioux Falls complete with a house and a brand-new adopted baby daughter.  Against all odds, Dean had found that the civilian life he'd always scoffed at nearly overwhelmed him with joy. 

But Dean knew better than to bask in it; the world was a dangerous place and a happiness like that depended on him safeguarding his little piece of it.

[NEW] Title: Hunting for Faith by  perunamuusa and riseofthefallenone

Word count: 270,952

Summary: It starts a few days earlier.

Castiel first notices it in the middle of the night when the dreams of fire and screams have kept him awake. He’s kneeling before the altar, praying, when the glass in the windows start to shake, the very air vibrating around him. Castiel is on his feet and reaching for the gun tucked into the back of his pants as the shutters over the windows start to rattle.

Title: Bring up the Deep by beenghosting

Word count: 22,679

Summary: They went back and forth on whether or not to make the drive until Sam found an article in the town’s local paper dated a week earlier about a lobster fisherman who swore a monster sank his boat.

Case fic!

Title: The Five People You Meet in Heaven by amarillogrande

Word count: 22,237

Summary: Heaven is white.

Well. Isn’t that fucking stereotypical

Dean isn’t really sure how he got here. Or even why he’s here. And hell, for all the times the Winchesters have died, he thinks he ought to know the drill by now. But what he doesn’t know is when most folks go, they find something different.

There’s a system God put in place. That when you’re gone (for good) there’s a couple things you gotta do first.

There are five people waiting for you.They are the five people you meet in heaven.

Best canonverse fic I have ever read.

Title: Faith Healer by punkascas

Word count: 75,087

Summary: Dean hates faith healers. Scam artists and power-hungry dicks, all of them. But with Sam nearing the end of his rope and desperate for a way to keep their father’s last words from being true, Dean has no choice but to turn to the enigmatic and irascible Castiel, more tattooed junkie than spiritual leader, in hopes of finding a way to cure Sam. Yet Castiel hides dangerous secrets, and Dean soon learns they have more to worry about than just Yellow Eyes and Sam’s growing demonic abilities. War is coming. Canon divergent after 2.10.

Title: Dean (and Cas’) Top 13 Zepp Traxx by pantheon_of_discord

Word count: 82,450

Summary: Dean eases Baby down the frontage road, trying not to look in the rearview mirror as his home gets smaller and smaller behind him.

He’s done this a hundred times. He’s driven down this road in the soft morning light, heading out to some little town in some distant corner of the country. This is a job like any other.

“It’s not like we’re never coming back,” Cas says from the passenger seat.

Dean and Cas and the open road, to the tune of Led Zeppelin. A post-series story in thirteen parts.

Title: where the weeds take root by beenghosting

Word Count: 16,450 (so far)

Summary: “Are you happy? Y’know. Just—being here,” Dean says, gesturing to the yard with his beer bottle. “Being with—I mean, you used to fight in celestial wars and—and save the world. Now you’re growing vegetables and talking about chickens.”

Title: new testament [just more of the same ‘verse] by outpastthemoat

Word Count: 46,880

Summary: No heaven. No hell.  Just Dean and Cas and the status quo.