#Anyways you should play Pyre. Game of all time. To me.

[waterdroid]

I'm extremely divided with my opinion on Hades II. On the one hand, I'm one of the 7 people that played Pyre and really, REALLY loved it, so when they announced the first Hades and returned to the Bastion/Transistor-like gamepla it felt like a letdown. And Then they announced Hades II and i was, uh. Not very excited, because even if i really loved Hades, it was still more of the same ol formula.

on the other hand they just did a livestream showing the test version of Hades II and it looks incredibly beautiful, the gameplay seems entertaining as Hell and it FUCKS SEVERELY and I love what little we've seen of Hecate and Melinoë, so. I never said I wasn't a hypocrite

[starfallforest]

Stop putting 'Too Sweet' by Hozier in your Sylus playlists

I am sorry—this was clickbait. I don’t actually care what you do with your life. But I need you to hear me out for just a second, okay? I am extremely not neurotypical about two things: Love and Deepspace, and Andrew John Hozier-Byrne. And I have seen more than one person in the tags talk about "Too Sweet" by Hozier being a perfect song for Sylus and MC. My only discourse about this is that Too Sweet is a song about a man who makes continuous self-sabotaging life decisions being incompatible with a partner who has her life put together. In my humble opinion, both Sylus and MC are hot messes of people in completely different ways. Anyway, it’s a good song so I don’t blame you for putting it in every playlist ever. In fact, you should. But if you're into this song, I want to show you a couple more pls pls pls 🙏​

I might just be autistic, but both Hozier's music and Love and Deepspace have something extremely important in common… and that’s BEAUTIFUL MEN YEARNING!!!1 And that’s not even to mention the haunting, raw sexuality we can project onto the stories that each of these things feeds to us. That's why I needed to make this post on the 1% chance that someone might hop on this brainrot train with me. So let me present, for just a moment of your time (if you're willing): other Hozier songs that fit Sylus so well I want to combust about it.

De Selby (Parts 1 & 2):

“At last, when all of the world is asleep You take in the blackness of air The likes of a darkness so deep That God—at the start—couldn't bear.” [azlyrics] [gaelic translation]

Imagine just casually writing THE love song that so beautifully says, “Before you were in my life, I kinda understood how God felt before he created the universe.” Excuse me? Andrew just dropped this stanza on us without so much as a cw: fuck you. And if that sickening portrait of gnawing loneliness isn’t enough, we have all the Genesis God references. Since all the LIs in the game are at some point likened to gods or rivaling gods with their power, then add the reverberating instrumentals and chillingly slow vocals in this 2-minute killer, tell me how this song does not fit Sylus. Not only that, but we also have imagery of his lover descending upon him like the night (which is invoked during Part 1 in the Gaelic verse), and I know that’s on the nose for Sylus but come on. I need you guys writing smut to have an orgasm during De Selby (at least Part 2) because it might change ur brain chemistry I'm just saying.

“When you fall on me like night—I wanna kill the lights.” [azlyrics]

This song still rules irt its playing with darkness symbolism, but it also refers to the darkness in the singer’s lover—which in Sylus’ case is MC and we all were there when she shot the guy in the heart like his freaky eye was telling her: “And your heart, love, has such darkness—I feel it in the corners of the room…” my goddddddd stop right there I can’t handle the METAPHORrrr. You think Sylus gives a flying fuck about MC’s frivolous morality bullshit? No he wants her to embrace her own darkness, sit under the blankies with him and cuddle after doing crimes and a beat poetry session. This is some fucking Hannibal Lecter beyond-dark-romance shit. I’m not even trying to write a dissertation here (and yet…)

Talk (from Wasteland, Baby!):

“I'd be the sweet feeling of release mankind now dreams of, That's found in the last witness before the wave hits, marveling at God… Imagine being loved by me.” [azlyrics]

Not only does this song utilize insane Greek mythology metaphor and Biblical comparison but the overall meaning of it is, “I want you so bad, I need to speak poetically to hide how down bad I am for you.” That sounds kinda like Old World Sylus and all his pretty nicknames to me.

NFWMB:

“If I was born as a black thorn tree, I'd wanna be felled by you, held by you, Fuel the pyre of your enemies… Ain't it warming you, the world going up in flames?” [azlyrics]

This whole song just some hard, deep and steady yearning for 4 and a half minutes. Are you kidding? The acronym in the title stands for Nothing Fucks With My Baby, which is sung in the chorus like some quietly violent war chant—soft, dark, and powerful. Anyway don’t tell me Mr. Sylus “Give me a list and then go to bed. I’ll take care of it” Loveanddeepspace wouldn’t scorch the earth for the love of his life—or do one better and stand by her side while she scorches the earth herself; here’s the protective/supportive mans anthem you ordered babes.

It Will Come Back:

“I know who I am when I'm alone—I'm something else when I see you. You don't understand, you should never know How easy you are to need.” [azlyrics]

This song has repeated imagery that warns of the dangers of taking care of a feral animal, and then compares the feral animal to the singer as a lover. Like fuck off, that’s sexy and haunted. And we know that not only does Sylus love animals more than people, but he’s pretty animalistic himself if we are to believe that maybe he’s secretly a demon or something.

Arsonist’s Lullaby:

“Don't you ever tame your demons, but always keep them on a leash.” [azlyrics]

Remember in Lost Oasis when MC goes on some tangent wondering what Sylus' past was like? Well it was this song. It's about troubled youth and learning to grow in your darkness. Also how cool is that imagery of demons? Hey Sylus, what do you have to say about demons? I'll wait. In the meantime I'm tattooing this shit on my clavicle

BONUS ROUND Through Me:

“Everytime I’d burn through the world, I’d see that the world—it burns through me.”

We got a man and we got some fire allusions so there ya go.

Blood Upon the Snow:

“To all things housed in her silence, Nature offers a violence.”

Blood upon the snow—it's red and white! Red!! And white!!! Also kind of a Sylus x Zayne anthem lbr

Ok I hope you found another song that inspires you to make Sylus art or fanfic with!! And before you ask, yes I've already assigned Hozier songs to every other love interest in the game. Ok thanks for reading!!! 🏃‍♀️​💨​

[moonlight-prose]

── wip wednesday

thank you for the tag @sweetpascal! i'm jumping between two logan fics today so i'll drop a snippet from each

right where you left me ch. 2

Wade's snoring echoed through the thin walls as he stood there, his body begging for a bit of sleep. Even if his mind refused to shut off. Images of you played through his head on a loop. The past was shadowed in pain, memories dipped in a venom he once wished would kill him eventually. Yet seeing you yesterday - a version that remained untouched by the depravity of what already happened to him - launched him back into a time that never seemed to be very far behind him.

"You weren't there! And they needed you."

Silver ebbed from his knuckles as he faced the window - eyes shut and chest heaving. There was no question the sweat came from the humidity in the air. The cold chill along his spine however stemmed from you.

"You're not the Wolverine Logan. You're just a disappointment."

He fought the snarl that worked it's way up his throat. A heavy pounding began to form at the front of his head. A drum he couldn't tear himself away from.

"Live with that."

fuel the pyre of your enemies

"Tell him it wasn't my fault!" You bit down on the inside of your cheek until copper flooded your mouth. "Tell him to let me go!"

His chuckle wasn't of amusement but disdain. Squeezing his hand, he effectively cut off the man's airflow as he turned to you with a soft grin. All the anger, all the seething hatred, would never be faced at you. Logan felt his heart ache at the fear in your eyes - the blatant shakiness of your hands as you hugged the blade against your chest for protection.

He made you feel safe in ways that no one else could. Perhaps that's why you fell for him so quickly.

"What do you say baby?" His voice was hoarse from shouting, ragged enough to curl around your heart and appease the anxiety growing there. "Should I let him go?"

"No." You knew your voice shook yet you said the word anyways with narrowed eyes and a bitter heart.

i'm so happy i finally managed to catch this ask game on an actual wednesday!

tagging the lovelies: @eupheme @joelsgreys @rae-gar-targaryen @pennyserenade @superhoeva

[contritecactite]

As ever, it takes the tiniest hint of encouragement (thanks @grimboigio ) to goad me into generating a wall of text. Well, actually, the wall was already there. Big big Hades II spoilers below in the form of messy half-baked notes I've been jotting down as I play. Some are just things that I got excited about, but there's a tiny sliver or two of theories and expectations.

I think we're headed for no happy ending, just acceptance—the battle is against Chronos, but it's really about *time* as a concept; for these gods, time really did take its toll and change the way mortals relate to them. Supergiant will never make another sequel for the same reason: things belong in their own time.

The lycaons *could* just be heralding Cerberus, but they somehow give me a sense of the trappings of Roman the Empire creeping in (in an intentional, storytelling way). Same with the emptiness of Ephyra and the hints of war in the mortal aspect. It feels like this is the fall of the cultures we now call "ancient Greece" as told through the eyes of the gods who get left behind or changed.

Apollo is giving me traitor vibes. He had a line about how we "have all the time in the world," and there's just something too carefree about him.

This feels like a lovely little patchwork quilt of Supergiant games. Homer is more reactive like the Bastion narrator. The music, the social bonding opportunities, and the inventory and lore screens feel a bit like Pyre. Some upgrade systems remind me of Transistor, and the mood reminds me very much of it as well. The writing and combat are still very Hades, and there are new aspects that speak of a team that has taken the time to understand what works, what doesn't, and what improvement and innovation should look like within their existing framework.

Echo's whole thing is fucking clever. Those gifts: Either repeats or diminishing returns—just like an echo. Holy fucking shit the way I vibrated when I met Echo the first time.

I love my randomly assigned college roommate who never goes to her classes and moves all my shit for no reason (Dora). If she were my actual roommate, I would feel a very different way about this.

Eris is perfect. I love her being mean-spirited mischief rather than brute force or accidental mischief; it feels like a unique character composition. She's awful. I can't stand her. She's perfect. She also reminds me of Spoiler from Pixie Tricks, a series I read as a kid (both in personality and, vaguely, design).

Nemesis and Artemis sound like they have a no-strings on-again off-again kind of thing going on and I love that for them. Also hope Charon and Hermes get to see each other again soon bc I'm rooting for them so hard.

I literally shrieked when taking out one of the sirens *actually impacted their contribution to the song*. I shouldn't have been surprised, but it was so much fun to hear it happen anyway. Very immersive! I'm also in love with Scylla. She reminds me very specifically of Ryan Stiles' Carol Channing impression and a little of Dolly Parton. Also. Her fucking hood. Jesus.

One of my favorite things about Hades is that there was nothing that an enemy or boss could do that you couldn't do through some combination of boons, weapons, and upgrades. The same seems to hold true here so far, and I just can't say enough how *cool* that is. The worst part of any combat-heavy game to me is the realization that the boss or even the cutscene of your character can do things that you, the player, can't initiate or control during a regular battle. Hades says "yeah, fuck that. It'll look different when you do it vs. when that sea serpent does it, but you can accomplish the same action/effect." Likewise, there's practically nothing your character can do that isn't also usable by at least one enemy. That keeps things balanced and combats the sense of "ah yes, you are the Most Special Chosen One" that's often inherent to RPGs. It gives the sense that skill matters a lot and makes me as a player feel skilled—I'm not visually doing anything that my enemies can't do, so... maybe I'm actually kinda good at this? (I am mediocre at best, but the game lets me *feel* skilled).

Additionally, just as in Hades, the enemies in an area are very informative about how upcoming bosses will behave. It rewards a player for paying attention and makes each enemy populating an area make *sense*.

After beating the sirens, ALL I wanted was for Melinoë to be able to have one single fan among the shades like Zagreus in the Theseus map. What I got was even *better*; the same type of interaction, but in a way that takes into account *her* task-focused, serious personality while still giving a little bit of levity. She is *done* with being here and ready for everyone to clear out, and that grumpy shade is not having it. He even makes a new little face! Love you, purple shade in the corner.

Oh, hey, charybdis, there you are

THE 2 IS IN *ROMAN* NUMERALS I'm having a moment

yeah that's it that's what I got. For now. My gaming buddy keeps falling asleep when I try to gush and talk through things, so Tumblr gets it instead.

[agentcalypso]

ok this sent me on a creative kick so (ideas under the cut)

act 1 is the first game, act 2 is the second game

half of phoenix's dialogue is quips towards literally everyone

Phoenix's office/van are smaller roll-out sets so the rest of the stage can be transitioned between missions

each of the openings are giant cinematic numbers - the first game's opening is also the opening number

phoenix sets 99.9% of anything flammable on fire (duh)

PHOENIX 👏 AND 👏 HANDLER 👏 WITTY 👏 BANTER 👏

Friendly Skies could reintegrate that one idea from the commentary where the car is the last part of the mission

"Remind me to put in a request for a gas mask when I get back to headquarters." "You know we don't have the budget for that, Agent." "Honestly? I don't give a shit."

the respawn mechanic canon maybe??

Winter Break. just shit flying everywhere on wires. also aerial acrobatics

"dammit Earpiece just give me a real vacation"

"how many goddamn times are they gonna use poison gas to try to kill me?!"

Act 1 ends with Phoenix getting pulled out of the Death Engine, Act 2 opens with them getting cleared for field work

Juniper is even more Extra and by proxy so is Fabricator

There's an entire song/scene where they're trying to upstage each other

the assassins get killed with the set (bc lets be honest that thing's probably a giant death trap as a backup plan)

PHOENIX 👏 AND 👏 JUNIPER 👏 FLIRTY 👏 BANTER 👏

"it seems a pesky phoenix has risen from the ashes." "...hey Earpiece?" "Yes, Agent?' "I'm fucked."

enemies dancing at the masquerade stans come get y'all juice

"hmm, how much would it piss off Juniper if I sent a grenade up to the study?"

back to the openings-Spy and the Liar is the nightmare sequence song after Phoenix is kidnapped (a la A Pretty Pyre on AO3 which, btw, you should read immediately)

"I don't expect you to understand, I expect you to-" "Die?"

fellas is it gay to scream your rival's name with tears in your eyes after he's betrayed by his employer, electrocuted by his mask, and falls to what is almost certainly his death, perhaps acting as a parallel to the play he was starring in when you saw him for the first time?

"I see. If you survive this, Agent, I shall be in touch." "I look forward to it, Doctor."

SOMEONE is found in the rubble, but it's left ambiguous who it is and if they're alive

Anyways thats all i got for now

IEYTD should be a musical sorry not taking any objections

[miraculan-draws]

Big Boy Word Dump!

I am going to try to keep my thoughts organized, so bear with me and we will get through this as a team: I have some things to get off my chest about depictions of ~Achilles~! I have many Opinions! And these ARE largely opinions, there’s no one retelling or person I’m tryna rag on, just general stuff.

1. From what I understand, the Iliad starts at the end of the war. The conflict between Achilles and Agamemnon is recent at the intro. To my knowledge, Achilles did not sit in a tent playing the lyre for a decade. He was a regular ol general like the others, just a bit harder to kill. But he did fight. Even in Hades Game, which is like, a little TOO noble of an Achilles, there’s a line that Patroclus has to Zagreus to the effect of “Did he ever tell you about the war we fought in? The war that I fought in, I should say. He refused to take up arms.” And like yeah he did! For a petty reason! But only after near a decade of fighting. Achilles did not drag on the Trojan war for ten years.

2. He has the loyalty and the confidence of the Myrmidons. (In book 16 when they are under Patroclus’ command, part of his rallying speech asks the men to win glory in Achilles’ name, and to show Agamemnon that he was wrong not to honor him. They rally to that.) Both Achilles AND THE MYRMIDONS want to immediately go back into battle to avenge Patroclus. I feel like I see people portray this as a mad Achilles demanding too much of reluctant and weary soldiers, but if anything the only ill the Myrmidons speak of him is when he tells them no, they need to rest. They are mad at him only when he doesn’t let them keep fighting.

3. The other generals care for Achilles, at very least enough to feel sympathy for him in mourning. Food is brought to him, they try to persuade him to eat and to sleep. Someone sits with Achilles for an entire night holding his hands so he doesn’t try to hurt himself. He spoke harshly out of grief a few times, but even Agamemnon, whose conflict with him was literally the groundwork for the story, is one of the people trying to comfort him!! Like I only mention this because I feel like I see a lot of stories where Achilles is absolutely alone if not shunned as soon as Patroclus is dead.

4. This one is like, very outside-looking-in, but like those were very violent times, and the culture is steeped in it in a more honest way than the violence in our own stories. It’s brutal, and they don’t bother to hide carnage. I’m leading with that to say in the grand scheme of Greek Heroes, Achilles isn’t all that extreme? Like yes Homer goes out of his way to describe like legions slain, but given the context it reads to me as NOT “Achilles is a cold blooded monster” but as “Achilles was unstoppable.” (I would also like to point out that Hektor, on the field after killing Patroclus, talks of taking his head on a pike and feeding the body to dogs. He moved to do it! He doesn’t get to, because Greater Ajax [I believe it was him] approached him on the field.)(Later, at the death of Hektor, Achilles specifically spits out a line or two about leaving Hektor to the dogs.)

5. The tabboo of defiling a corpse in Greek Myth is directly tied to the Underworld. Funeral rites/pyre/being buried were required for a soul to pass on. If they were not, they would be trapped on the surface as a ghost. That being said: It seems like everybody fuckin does it anyway?? Like so MANY myths have someone decapitated and mounted on a pike, dismembered, left to rot on the field, refusing to allow someone ELSE to give funeral rites, etc. Did Achilles take it a lil TOO far...? Yah lol. But he wasn’t the only dude to have ever done something like that.

ALSO LOOK AT YOUR SOURCE!! IS IT GREEK OR ROMAN?? ROMANS MADE ACHILLES MORE AND MORE A VILLAIN IN ALMOST EVERY RETELLING!! The tone shift in descriptions of Achilles from The Iliad (Homer, Greek) to his mentions in The Aenead (Virgil, Roman), to The Achilleid (Statius, Roman) is like someone dumping cold water on your head. 

This is SO MUCH, I am SORRY but !! Achilles is not a shining example of heroism, and I think collectively we all got tired of seeing him depicted as a knight in shining armor. So much so that it almost feels like everybody overshot it in the opposite direction. He’s a weird and fascinating gray-morality character to me, and I feel like he looses his OOMPH if you scrub him clean OR villainize him.

[nightmare-castle]

Who is Pyre? You mentioned them in your height descriptions for Nightmare.

“WHY HELLO THERE! ALLOW ME TO INTRODUCE MYSELF! I AM PAPYRUS - THE ONE REFERRED TO AS 'PYRE' BY SOME! MY GOOD FRIEND NOVELLA HAS ASKED ME TO FILL OUT THIS SHORT QUESTIONNAIRE FOR MY ADORING FANS, SUCH AS YOU, DEAR ANON! SO PLEASE ENJOY MY SOULFELT ANSWERS BELOW!”

Tell us a little bit about yourself - hobbies, dreams, likes/dislikes, etc.

HOBBIES - WHERE TO BEGIN?! I ENJOY DOING SO MANY THINGS AND I'M USUALLY VERY BUSY DOING THEM! BUT I SUPPOSE I SHOULD PICK SOME, SO HERE ARE A FEW:

COOKING, OF COURSE! I'VE EVEN TAKEN FORMAL CLASSES AND I'M RATHER GOOD AT IT NOW, IF I DO SAY SO MYSELF! I ALSO GREATLY ENJOY SHOPPING FOR INGREDIENTS AND EXPLORING NEW WORLDS TO FIND RARE CULINARY TREASURES!

TABLETOP GAMING! BOARD AND CARD GAMES OF ALL KINDS ARE ALWAYS ENJOYABLE, AND I AM IN CHARGE OF ORGANIZING OUR WEEKLY GAME NIGHT! WE USUALLY PLAY ‘ONO! IF EPIC COMES TO VISIT OR RISK WHEN NIGHTMARE JOINS IN - BUT MONOPOLY IS ABSOLUTELY FORBIDDEN! IT SEEMS NOBODY CAN KEEP THEIR TEMPERS IN CHECK WITH THAT GAME! AND SOMEDAY I HOPE TO RUN MY OWN HOMEBREW D&D CAMPAIGN!

I’M A VORACIOUS READER! I ESPECIALLY ENJOY SHONEN MANGA AND FANTASY FICTION! I PARTICIPATE IN QUITE A FEW FANDOMS, BUT I DO HAVE MY PERSONAL FAVORITES! PERHAPS IF WE BECOME CLOSE FRIENDS I MAY LET YOU READ SOME OF MY EXCELLENT FANFICTIONS, NYEH HEH!

( ͡~ ͜ʖ ͡°)~✧

MY DREAMS? HONESTLY, I AM LIVING ONE OF THEM RIGHT NOW! SANS AND I HAVE BEEN GIVEN A NEW LEASE ON LIFE AND WE’RE GOING TO LIVE THIS SECOND CHANCE TO THE FULLEST!

HMM, LIKES AND DISLIKES…I DON’T ALLOW MYSELF TO FOCUS ON THE NEGATIVES, BUT I SUPPOSE IT'S COMMON KNOWLEDGE THAT I DON’T APPRECIATE MESSINESS! CLEAN UP YOUR OWN FILTHY MESS BECAUSE I WON’T DO IT FOR YOU! AND LET’S SEE, SOMETHING ELSE I LIKE - AH, I ADORE PASTRIES! BOTH CREATING AND EATING THEM! SWEET OR SAVORY! I'VE BEEN TOLD NUMEROUS TIMES THAT MY CINNABUNNIES ARE THE BEST IN ALL THE MULTIVERSE!

How did you get the nickname ‘Pyre’?

THAT’S A FUNNY STORY, ACTUALLY! WHEN WE FIRST ARRIVED HERE AT THE CASTLE, I WAS ABSOLUTELY STUNNED BY THE AMAZING KITCHEN AND IMMEDIATELY SET TO WORK TRAINING TO BECOME WORTHY OF THE TITLE ROYAL HEAD CHEF! HOWEVER I DID NOT HAVE MUCH EXPERIENCE WITH COOKING ANYTHING OTHER THAN SPAGHETTI SAUCE AND VARIOUS FORMS OF SNOW PREPARATION…SO! MY FIRST FEW SERIOUS TRIES AT PERFECTING THE CULINARY ARTS SADLY ENDED IN DISASTER! IT WAS THE EVENING I ATTEMPTED TO ROAST A WHOLE TURKEY WHICH EARNED ME THAT MONIKER - THE ENTIRE THING WENT UP IN FLAMES AND KILLER SAID IT WAS LIKE A 'FUNERAL PYRE' FOR THE UNLUCKY BIRD!!! WHO KNEW TURKEY COULD BURN DOWN TO ASHES SO QUICKLY WHEN ROASTED AT 750F?! SINCE THEN THE NICKNAME HAS UNFORTUNATELY STUCK, DESPITE THE FACT THAT I AM NOW A RATHER EXCELLENT CHEF! I HAVEN'T SCORCHED A SINGLE THING IN MONTHS!

How’s life at the castle these days?

LIFE IS RATHER GOOD, ACTUALLY! THE BOYS TEND TO HAVE THEIR QUARRELS, OF COURSE, AND WE GET THE OCCASIONAL VISITOR FROM ANOTHER WORLD WHICH IS ALWAYS EXCITING! SANS IS DOING A BIT BETTER LATELY AS WELL! THE OTHER DAY HE ACTUALLY REMEMBERED TO WASH HIS HANDS AND FACE AFTER HUNTING - WITHOUT ME HAVING TO REMIND HIM TEN TIMES! I WAS SO PROUD!

OH! SOME INTERESTING NEWS: WE RECENTLY ACQUIRED A NEW FAMILY MEMBER! KILLER CALLS HIM DUSTY AND NIGHTMARE ADDRESSES HIM AS DUST AT DINNER, BUT I’M NOT SURE HE APPRECIATES BEING CALLED THAT...HE ALWAYS LOOKS SO SAD, AND HE HARDLY EVER TOUCHES HIS FOOD. HONESTLY, I FEEL QUITE BAD FOR HIM…AND MAD AT KILLER! WHAT IS IT WITH THAT JOKER AND GIVING PEOPLE RUDE NICKNAMES?! I’M TEMPTED TO GIVE HIM A STERN LECTURE ON THE SUBJECT SINCE NIGHTMARE JUST LETS HIM DO AS HE PLEASES WITHOUT CONSEQUENCE! HE PRACTICALLY GETS AWAY WITH MURDER! I SWEAR TO MERCY, CROSS AND I ARE THE ONLY TWO MONSTERS IN THIS HOUSEHOLD WITH ANY REAL SENSE OF MANNERS AND DECENCY!

ANYWAY, THANK YOU FOR TAKING THE TIME TO READ THROUGH THIS, MY WONDERFUL FUTURE BEST FRIENDS! PERHAPS YOU COULD COME VISIT US HERE AT THE CASTLE SOMETIME SOON! UNTIL THEN, AU REVOIR AND HAVE A RADTASTIC DAY!

[also-fours]

HEY

You know Hades? That game that came out last year? And was apparently really good?

...im not talking about that one

Instead, I'm talking about Pyre. Which was made by the same devs.

I finished this game on Monday, and I have to say, this is not only the most underrated Supergiant game, not even just a really underrated indie game, but literally one of the best games I have ever played.

Pyre is a game where every part of the game, like the soundtrack, the gameplay, and the story, all work in tandem in order to make an unforgettable experience.

The gameplay is basically sportsball. "Oregon Trail meets NBA Jam" is how the devs describe it. Now I know that might be a turn off, and that's what made me reluctant to do it, since I'm FAR from a sports guy, but if I was able to enjoy this as much as I did, I'm sure you'd love it a lot too. It's basically Basketball if you had characters that could cast spells, fly, and scored points by jumping into fire.

The story isn't something I can discuss in detail here, but just take my word for it when I say that it has spectacular world-building with little to no exposition dumps, an awe-inspiring world, and most importantly, extremely well-written characters. This game is SO good at making you care deeply about the characters you meet, (most of the time) so when things happen to them, big or small, you care about them. You want to see them prosper, you want to see them achieve their goals, you understand why they wanna do what they wanna do, and you have to figure out if it's truly right to put your own needs before their own.

And yes, I said that. There are choices in this game because honestly what story-driven indie game doesn't have any? (that was a joke, yes i know there are a bunch that don't) And they matter. And they're tough to make. I can't say much else on that matter without spoiling it.

And, the soundtrack is something you should TOTALLY wait until after you beat the game in order to listen to, because the music really helps with a lot of the major story beats and enemy encounters. Not to say that neither would be powerful without the good music, but it definitely helps support those.

...anyway that's the end of the post i ran out of things to say

Please, PLEASE play Pyre. It's on PS4, PC, and SHOULD be on Switch, Supergiant what the hell are you doing?

anyway bye have a good day

[tartrazeen]

Part three for meeeeeee 💖🥳💖🥳💖🥳💖

Now that there's a plan to help Lugad, we've gotta absolutely ruin it so Angus can be his hero and I can have Angus and Rohan fighting again. 👀💖

It doesn't work. They learn that quickly enough.

Deirdre, for all her claims to have 'a woman's touch,' only managed to get as far with that as she did with Pyre: nowhere. Lugad was fond of her, that was true, but the gentler she was, the more it seemed to remind him that he wasn't. This thing about being dangerous, after having been found terrorizing villages, hadn't left his head. He wasn't the fastest fox in the hen house, but when he caught onto what was happening, he sank his teeth into it like a hound. The princess wasn't about to get aggressive with him to dissuade those thoughts, so she settled for being a kind soul who could welcome Lugad as he was. It didn't help make him more human, but it didn't push back towards being a demon.

Ivar and Garrett, on the other hand...

Angus isn't sure why they thought addressing Lugad as a fellow prince would work. They never talked like that to Rohan, and Rohan hadn't been in a tower all his life, eating magic demon food from a sorcerer. (He'd been in a castle for most of his life, eating herbs their druid had hidden and throwing up for the rest of the evening.) Lugad didn't want to 'ponder' and 'philosophize,' or discuss the finer points of manners and silky shirts - whatever princes talked about, Lugad wasn't interested. And that brought out a new frustration as Lugad tried to make himself interested, but was so aggravated and bored that he started to yell and throw a table to cause a distraction. Angus had seen it once. Yes, he'd panicked like the others, but he'd also turned back to see what Lugad was planning next, just to watch him tip-toe out in the other direction.

Lugad had a tricky side. So even the slowest fox was still a fox.

Garrett, of course, was happy to switch to 'royal' combat instead. The challenges lasted right up to when Garrett first mentioned 'invalid' attacks, at which point Lugad's head tipped so far back to scream in exhaustion that Garrett felt compelled to say, "Screaming doesn't earn points either."

Ivar attempted to compromise by playing war games. Rather than fighting directly, they'd command small figures that served as their armies. Lugad liked that, until Ivar mentioned 'invalid' moves. Then the pieces were smashed and Lugad said he'd won.

"When you think about it," Angus had said, "that is what you do when I beat you, your royalness."

Ivar, paralyzed by the irony, did not smash him for that.

Cathbad recommended stories. Great and ancient tales of heroes and mystical beings. It started off well. More and more, however, Lugad would say he imagined himself as the hulking, hated monsters that these heroes were sent to fight. Cathbad's attempts to change the heroes' descriptions and be something resembling Lugad turned out to highlight those obvious differences further.

"Maybe you should use a real monster," Angus suggested. "Like an evil druid that set an innocent, charming rogue's boots on fire once."

"Perhaps so," Cathbad agreed. "First, I shall see if it's a tale worth telling once again."

Angus was a lot faster getting to water this time.

And why is Angus around anyway, when his job was keeping Rohan busy during this?

Rohan. He was his own answer. Pacing, fretting, fussing, worrying that if Lugad lost control again, the others would be helpless to fight him off unless Draganta was there as well. He wasn't itching for a fight, obviously. If anything, Lugad losing control would break a part of Rohan's heart. But Rohan was nothing if not a walking ball of stress, and this was the latest take on a classic: what if someone needs me and I'm not there?

So he sends Angus.

Well, Angus volunteers. The job was to go find the others, check that they were alive, then report back with good news. That way, Rohan still technically left everyone else alone, and Angus got a break from the endless pacing and pacing and pacing.

What Angus actually does is take his time and linger around the place, free from doing any other work (because he's busy with official Draganta business uwu) and giving his valuable hindsight to everyone else. He reports back to Rohan with whatever his friend needs to hear, he's as outwardly aloof and disinterested in this as he's ever been, but in the secretly, he's noticing the patterns and walls that the others are running into.

He starts to think.

Rohan's patience will only last until his nerves finally eat him alive, and having him charge back in like that will be the last blow to any gate holding in Lugad's stress. So when Angus decides to make his move to do what he always does - fix everything - he comes in with a calculated scheme.

And he steals Lugad.

Alright - 'steal' is a strong word. More like Angus catches Lugad taking room-draining panic breaths, midway through a very runs-in-the-family Fear of Failure, just on the verge of exploding after breaking something far too delicate for him to have been handling yet, and hiding in a hall during his Garrett-sanctioned, ten-minute break - and then Angus says, "Wanna go somewhere?"

Lugad does, so they leave. But Lugad takes forever to get around, which leaves Angus more than enough time to catch Garrett's eye right as he walks in to collect Lugad himself. One snappy "get out of here, Garrett >:U" handwave, shooing the prince away from them, and Angus is free to leave with the half-demon and without the others having a fit over how Lugad got loose.

It's laughable how easily Garrett was shooed away. If that's all it took, how hard must Lugad have been trying to cooperate that he didn't kick the guy back to Rheged ages ago? Angus wants to count Lugad's commitment and tenacity as being something else that runs in the family (or maybe just from being Irish). He nearly does, but then his mind goes back to whenever Rohan gets this way. Because Rohan never enjoys it. He'd say his head gets clouded with everything feeling like a cruel dream, and the overwhelming terror of letting everyone's expectations fall apart. With in mind, Angus doesn't rib Lugad over how easily he could've thrown Garrett over the castle's walls; it's suddenly all too clear that Lugad was fully aware, and desperately trying not to be the monster that only solved its problem in one way.

So Angus walks Lugad around instead.

Not anywhere in particular. Away from people, mostly. Into the forest, over hills, up to caves, then back again. He keeps remembering how much he hates walking, but Lugad always waits for him to have a break without any complaint, and doesn't seem to mind matching Angus' lazy pace.

It isn't a quiet walk, exactly. It starts as one, but Angus can't help adding some sound to it. He starts by trying to describe where they are - little facts like it's a tour, nothing Lugad has to give an answer to - before that devolves into idly rattling off stories and gossip about those places. Then he simply starts to comment on whether he likes a place or not, then to meals he'd want to have somewhere, and then meals he'd like to have in general. Just talking. And roaming around. He'd like to think Lugad was burning off some energy, but if all it did was clear Lugad's head of whatever those royals were 'teaching' him, that was fine.

The next day, Lugad seems to have more patience for his 'lessons'. The day after, he pounds on a table and cracks the thing in two. So Angus takes him walking again and talks. From then on, he makes sure Lugad sticks to a schedule: one day 'learning' to be human, one day following Angus around. It goes like that for a week or so, enough for Angus to immediately run out of new places to take to Lugad to or comments to make about it.

There's no discussion about it; Angus simply decides to switch from touring around Kells to going on his patrols and doing other quasi-knightly things as if he'd been alone, but with a giant, yellow, silent, half-demon shadow right behind. It's another week like that, and Lugad is so good at wordlessly trailing him that Angus starts to treat him as extra pockets (well, an extra pair of hands at least, what with his actual lack of pockets in his armour), or a boost to get up to trees or windows, or to clear a path.

Lugad doesn't seem to mind being used as a handy accessory, and - in fact - seems quite pleased when Angus is pleased that any obstacle was easier to tackle with Lugad's help. And 'obstacle' is being generous. They were walking through the forest and a log was in the way, and Angus gave it a kick before asking if Lugad would move the thing rather than climbing over. The ten seconds it saved was gobbled by the minute it took for Lugad to pick it up and toss it to the side, and the only reward Angus gave was, "Thanks :)," but Lugad grunted a cheery, "You're welcome," so this arrangement was working well.

Actually, it was getting to a point where Angus felt rude not asking Lugad to move or lift things. As Lugad got accustomed to their routine, he started preemptively going up to walls as if expecting Angus to ask him for a boost. When Angus waved him along instead, there'd be a sad droop in Lugad's shoulders that could only be cured by asking Lugad to do something else. And it had to be something only Lugad could do with his superhuman strength. And it had to be something Angus would thank him for, or else that droop wouldn't leave - and since Angus didn't want to risk Lugad getting annoyed and then angry, that fast "Thanks :)" became an even quicker bump of Angus' elbow to keep up with their newly endless ritual. Lugad didn't even say, "You're welcome" anymore, because just like Angus' elbow bump, the proud puff of Lugad's chest was his faster, more familiar way to express it instead.

If Angus had to guess, this was what had truly been adding to Lugad's patience: the little acknowledgments of appreciation for doing well. He didn't share that theory with anyone, but he did notice the others saying they'd noticed Lugad reacting more to favourably to what they said when they commented on any successful efforts.

It was also why it drove Angus so crazy whenever Rohan - meaning well, in his 'Rohan' sort of way - would point out that Lugad was still half-demon, and therefore still a threat they had to cure. Angus wasn't sure how often Rohan was going around and saying that, but it was enough that on some of their walks, Angus had to coax Lugad into taking pride from the little favours he, a half-demon, could do. And over the weeks, Angus could tell when Rohan had said it again, because the droop would be back in Lugad's shoulders and take longer and longer to be coaxed out.

Eventually, there came a walk where asking Lugad for anything only seemed to make him feel worse. Angus kept quiet then instead (about moving stuff; obviously he kept prattling on to break the silence). They were out for hours that day. While Lugad's mood never truly recovered by the time were they were back, he did stop them just outside the castle gate. Like he'd been rehearsing it in his head, Lugad very gingerly placed his elbow against Angus' arm, and then took it away. And then waited, expectantly staring to find some reaction.

Angus made Lugad stand waiting for longer than he'd like to admit, but it happened eventually: that was Angus' own elbow bump of thanks. Mixed in, he noted, with a lot of Deirdre's lessons on being gentle, so he hadn't gotten accidentally knocked to the other side of a field from it.

He must've smiled or something, because before Angus uttered a word, Lugad had already puffed up his chest slightly, seemingly congratulating himself on a good job. Well-earned, Angus would admit. As was the scolding Angus gave Rohan that evening.

The hard thing about routines was realizing when he'd fallen into one, but shortly after Angus spelled out the importance of Rohan keeping his 'worries' away from Lugad, Rohan invited himself along to interrupt this one. It was supposed to be the same as any other wandering walk Angus and Lugad took, but having Rohan there immediately threw their quiet dynamic off a cliff.

Rohan didn't like Angus ordering Lugad around to do stuff.

Rohan didn't like Lugad pre-emptively moving to do stuff for Angus.

Rohan didn't like Lugad celebrating his demon strength, when they'd been working so hard to keep Lugad away from banishment over that.

Angus, for his part, knew what Rohan meant. This was his brother, who'd ravaged so much of Ireland with the same ease as the boulder he'd tossed, just because Angus couldn't be bothered with walking around it. And this was his best friend, who was kind enough to guard that brother, even though he'd been just as afraid of that demon strength as anyone else, but who also had a habit of exploiting shortcuts. Whatever benefit Angus and Lugad tried to explain it led to - the appreciation, the patience, the break, the improvements, the sudden gentleness - would get smashed against those walls of Rohan's concern.

What Angus hadn't expected was for Lugad to realize the same thing. And maybe that was another surprise Rohan didn't like, because it was certainly one for Angus as he noticed it now: he and Lugad?

They'd gotten close.

Closer than...

Well.

Closer than Lugad and Rohan.

The brothers. The family Rohan had always wanted. The person Rohan was actively trying to protect from being exiled, and endlessly worrying about for months.

In the single look that Angus and Lugad exchanged, where they agreed that this walk with Rohan would have to drop their game of Lugad doing Big Strong favours (naturally plotting to go right back to it once they were out of Rohan's sight), Angus discovered he even could exchange that look and have it be understood. And returned! Perhaps his absent rambling had helped them out with that after all.

But with that realization came a second look that Angus exchanged with Rohan. And there, the full weight of their years of friendship stripped the meaning absolutely bare: Rohan was heartbroken. Angus didn't even like Lugad, yet here he was, plotting with Lugad through a simple glance? And Rohan couldn't? Worse than that, Rohan could see Angus was plotting with Lugad around him, as if further splitting the gap between them. There was a clear divide, with Angus and Lugad on one side of it, and Rohan - eyes full of despair as it hammered home - on the other.

Following that wordless conversation, Rohan lowered his eyes from Angus' and excused himself from their walk.

He could sense Lugad puffing up with pride, like this was a good thing. Then he could sense the confusion as Lugad didn't get the reaction he was waiting for. Angus didn't have a reaction until Lugad gently pressed his arm against Angus' - not his elbow, as it'd be to say thanks, but Lugad's wrist, as if to ask how to help, like he was indirectly offering Angus his arm.

Angus felt himself moving away from that, as if by instinct. It was as though some part of him interpreted that as more betrayal of his friendship with Rohan. He didn't address it, and part of him was relieved to see Lugad's shoulders hadn't drooped, but he did start their walk again and didn't ask for Lugad to move or throw anything.

And he kept his eyes low, watching only the ground moving under him. Apparently, Lugad could understand what was in his look, so Angus kept it out of the picture on purpose.

Funnily enough, no look was also somehow a look. And from how Lugad carefully trailed behind him, almost shy and apologetic, the demon obviously understood enough of that one, too.

Having another little Mystic Knights daydream. :3

For this one, I'm picturing what would it take to get Lugad to come back. The show ends with him saying he doesn't belong in Kells or Temra, so he leaves to find his own destiny. I've gotta imagine that it's something about his demon half. Maybe he doesn't want to be controlled by it anymore, but it ends up taking over him and he becomes a menace across Ireland. He's reunited with others after reports of a true demon terrorizing villages, and the others dive in to get him under control - maybe even picking up the quest to finally seal Lugad's demon half away.

I say that 'cause I've got another "Rohan's a jerk who ignores all of his friends, especially Angus" scenario in my mind, ending in a new direction of these two - Lugad and Angus - actually getting close. 👀

Gonna have to do this in parts. This part's gonna be all the Angus and Rohan angst (with Ivar caught in the middle of these people 😔), and then I'll come back to actually have Angus and Lugad talking.

If Lugad comes back through his own volition, I see him settling in nearby, but otherwise taking care of himself independently. But if Lugad was out of control, and Rohan had to jump in to bring him back to his senses, then Rohan would be - like I'm going for - queued up to find him and endlessly hover. Once things are somewhat calmer, his first words would be something like, "You should stay with me so I can keep you safe. That's what brothers do." Which gets to lead directly into, "Angus can sleep somewhere else for a while. This is more important."

Angus can't really protest this. He could when it was that random kid-prince, but this is Rohan's brother and Angus knows how Rohan gets about his 'family'. It's automatic: he practically hears the inevitable answer long before Rohan gets near it. "Lugad is family," Rohan will say, "Yes, you're all my family, but Lugad is my brother by blood. Angus is a friend. A good friend, a close one, but... Angus, you understand, right?"

Before the conversation forces it, Angus volunteers to stay somewhere else. "You're brothers. He needs help. Obviously you have to stay together, and I can fend for myself."

It's such a kind gesture - one Rohan is beyond relieved to hear - that it covers over any protest from the others. They never had a chance to consider other options, and this one sticks them with an oddly awkward follow-up: where Angus will stay instead. Not with Deirdre, because she's the princess. Not with Ivar, who's politely declining to mention what happened the last time. And they don't need to consider Garrett, because if rooming with Ivar didn't go well, how could Garrett be better? Angus doesn't need to embarrass himself. Yet that's what this lack of an answer does.

The frustrating part is how quickly the plan changes over what Lugad wants to do - or not do, to be more specific. He doesn't want to sleep in a little hut, and he doesn't want to stay in the castle (not that he'd be trusted enough for that). So Rohan instantly agrees they'll camp in the forest for now. That means Angus can have the hut to himself, and Rohan's twice as relieved. In the back of his mind, he knows moving Angus out was a terrible thing to ask. Angus volunteering made it better, but Angus getting to stay while Rohan and Lugad slept somewhere else is the best it could be. Now everyone's happy; Angus can stay put, Rohan can stay with Lugad, and Lugad has somebody to watch him that he can trust.

Two nights go by before Ivar insists that Angus stay with him. His friend hasn't had an ounce of sleep in the hut alone. Ivar knows him well enough to understand why, and what thoughts have been playing in Angus' mind. They don't get much sleep together, but even that amount helps. Ivar doesn't take long to notice he's been watching over Angus as closely as Rohan's been watching his half-demon brother; they're both dangerous right now, with one having already wreaked havoc on the land, and the other being left behind, ready to lie about how little that bothers him.

There's progress. Angus doesn't lie about it for long. He and Ivar have had conversations about this before - long, elaborate, painful conversations that Angus never acknowledges during the day - whenever his loud frustration at being ignored drops to a silent assumption of being abandoned. Ivar can usually jostle Angus out of it enough to go back to only being frustrated, but there's no way to pull him out of this completely with Rohan focused somewhere else.

It feeds on itself, ordinarily. Angus gets lost in stumbling to explain how it's not like Rohan can't be excited about whatever-it-is-now, until he gives up and goes too-quiet again without the words express it. When it happens, Ivar's usually able to guide Angus to those words, and one of those long conversations ensue. The trouble is none of that seems necessary this time. Angus isn't putting up a fight. He's resigned to it - so resigned, he doesn't wonder when Rohan might come back, but how long he might be able to stay with Garrett when Ivar gets tired of him too.

Even if, just before this, Angus got to a place of accepting himself as a knight, or as someone worthy to sit at the table with a bunch of royals and not just have it be a joke, it comes crashing down once Rohan sets up this other hierarchy: not following royalty, but family. Both tied to blood. Because yes, they're 'all' family, but some family is more family than others. Maybe Angus should be numb to it this, since whenever he dares to accept he's good enough, he's reminded that he has to still fight for scraps at the bottom of some other list. But he's not numb - not completely, and he's too tired to fight another battle when he thought his inner war was won.

So he's quiet. Worse, he's grateful. Rohan isn't doing this on purpose, so whenever the thought occurs that he hasn't said a word to any of his friends, he's back and frantically apologetic. And Angus appreciates the effort, enough to turn the conversation back to how Lugad has been, as if finding a new place in everyone's life by contentedly being out of it.

Ivar might pass by and realize what Angus is doing, but if he'd thought working through that wall of self-loathing was nearly impossible before, he knows getting Angus to accept that Rohan hasn't replaced him truly is impossible. It's hard to explain it differently when they can see how busy Rohan is with Lugad. They've all felt it - Deirdre, Ivar and Garrett - but it doesn't affect them like it affects Angus. And Angus had it happen to him so many more times precisely because he wasn't royal, and because he was "family". Conveniently, Angus is whatever excuse Rohan needs to get away with being careless, and whatever excuse Angus himself needs to enable that from Rohan. Why make a fuss and lose what little standing that remains?

So Angus asks about Lugad, Rohan endlessly answers, and Ivar can't decide if Angus is refusing to be helped or simply refusing what Ivar has offered. He leaves the two of them to pretend like Rohan's the only one with problems. He can't shake that thought by the time night falls, and the even worse sleep that Angus apparently got suggests Ivar wasn't able to hide it very well either.

It's one thing for Angus to know he's being ridiculous. It's another for him to realize that Ivar thinks so, too. And maybe Angus should have been numb to that. He'd always known Ivar would have a limit to his patience. But Angus truly he hadn't thought he would reach it.

Moving to Garrett's room is the worst fight Angus and Ivar have ever had, and neither of them ever had to say a word. There's nothing really left to say, is there?

Garrett, by now, can tell Angus is putting on a happy face. He doesn't get what's going on - Rohan was ignoring him? Angus wasn't sleeping on his own? Ivar was too hard to share a room with? - but he picks up on the total lack of denial about it. Angus chases it by saying he doesn't need his bad day to become Garrett's bad day, and Garrett doesn't have Ivar's words to press that or pinpoint its bullshit. It frees Angus from having to have any other long conversations, which he's sick of having all the time. They don't help. This is what it is. He's being ridiculous. He should be grateful.

Once again, the plan changes. Again, it's because Lugad wants something else.

What makes Ivar the angriest - beyond Angus reveling in his own depression, ripping up the painstaking progress they'd made at having him believe he was worth anything - is how Rohan hovered between 'obliviously ignorant' and 'violently aware' about it. Angus would be devastated if Rohan ever learned that his best friend felt like trash, always on the verge of being left behind and removed from Rohan's life. It was Angus' problem, and the only reason Ivar knew was because he was 'nosy'. How unfortunate, then, that Ivar and Rohan had been discussing this together for ages. Half the progress Angus had been making was from Rohan's suggestions to Ivar, and from Ivar carefully instructing Rohan on what to do or avoid.

But Rohan had all the grace of a rock and too many close scares to revealing their secret. Yes, everyone was lying to everyone. Ivar was comfortable with that when it was necessary. What he wasn't comfortable with was how damn bad Rohan was at keeping it up. Every possible instinct that should been there was reversed in Rohan's mind. This time was no exception. Angus hated himself for being so disposable that Rohan hadn't thought twice about giving Lugad the other half of the hut, then hated himself for being so expendable that Rohan could leave the hut and Angus entirely.

What would have helped, Ivar was certain, was Rohan being honest about how difficult Lugad was. How they'd been fighting. How Lugad had been threatening to leave. How the king had ordered Lugad to be put in chains if he left, for fear of another rampage across all of Ireland. That way, it would've been a sacrifice. Angus could've understood that Rohan was caught up in a struggle to help his brother control himself, and that the loss of Angus' company had been just as difficult for Rohan, too.

Instead.

Rohan talked about how they were bonding, and how he and Lugad were making up for the time they'd lost over the years. Nothing could have so perfectly explained that Angus truly had been in everyone's way, and Rohan's reason for saying it? "I didn't want to make Angus feel worse. I've hurt him enough without piling on my own problems."

Thankfully, Lugad had hit his limit before Angus could hit his.

According to Rohan, as he explained to them around the king's table, Lugad was sick of being told he had to seal his demon half away. Those years they'd lost as brothers were spent with Nemain trying to seal away the half of him that was human, and it had never worked. All the magic and rituals Rohan and Cathbad and even Fin Varra were dragging him through had failed, and if Rohan wanted to treat him as a monster, he had to stop pretending to be his friend.

Lugad didn't trust him anymore. And he wasn't Angus, making up excuses for why he understood what Rohan was trying to do. He was simply furious and happy to be in chains, and if the chains failed, he'd go back to his tower. And if Nemain returned? So be it. At least she welcomed him as a demon.

Everyone agreed that Rohan and Lugad needed a break from each other. There was too much pressure on both of them - to be 'cured' of his demon half, to be brothers and family, to erase everything that'd kept them on different sides of the fight. Someone else would watch Lugad instead, temporarily.

If nothing else, Rohan was consistent. Maybe that was why Angus stuck around.

Cathbad had barely announced his idea before Rohan announced that it'd be Angus. And before any other reason blurted out of him, Rohan asked who else he could trust with this. Of course the others would review the other options, but what was said had been said, and it lorded over everything else. This wasn't about danger, which was why the king tried forbidding Deirdre from watching Lugad alone. It wasn't about combat, as none of them could defeat Lugad by themselves, and Garrett's hypnosis worked only on beasts. It wasn't even about finding Lugad again if he ran, which Ivar could do regardless of whether he was guarding anyone. It wasn't even about who Lugad liked the most. Arguably, that would be Deirdre, as she'd been close enough to Lugad to hug him before. This was about trust. Rohan's trust. If he couldn't be there with his brother, the only one with the right to attempt it instead was Angus.

Ivar could breathe.

There was life in Angus' eyes. Just a spark, but enough that when the others had settled on him as the best option (by process of elimination, which Ivar noticed too late after he himself had been caught up in the habit), Angus dared to expose his fear to them. To Ivar, truly, as the others weren't meant to understand the weight of what he asked. But note it, Ivar did. And he felt pride.

"If I can't fight him and can't stop him from running off," he began, "what's the point in me going?"

"Because he's my brother, Angus," Rohan said, cutting close to ruining first outburst with this one. But there was more to it, and it pulled it back from its grave. "He's angry because he's scared. He's given up, and I've been promising I'd find an answer but I'm no closer than when I began. If I can't fix this, he won't stay - he can't stay, not if he's dangerous. But he won't stay if he doesn't believe I'm not trapping him like Nemain."

"So," Angus said slowly, "you want me to tell him you're not Nemain?"

"I don't know what I want you to tell him. Maybe he's tired of words. All I know is that he's scared," Rohan said, "and when I'm scared, you're the one I go to."

"Aw. No you don't," Angus replied. "You yell at me and then you run off."

"And then you chase me, and whatever it is, you fix it," Rohan - perhaps to prove his point - yelled. "It's how you broke that enchantment once. And maybe yes, sometimes I'll run off -"

"And yell."

"- and yell, fine, but it's never stopped you from doing that - from fixing things. Over and over. Fixed." Rohan had started waving his hands around, as if to gesture to the air itself. But his energy had faded in the moment after, and his head sank at having to finish his point. "If he leaves, I'll have to put him in chains and drag him back to his tower. I'll be worse than Nemain in his eyes, and he'll be a monster to everyone else."

"He is a monster -"

"He isn't." At that, Rohan got up from his seat. Angus turned in his to watch, while the others jumped as if Rohan was storming away. He didn't, only stomping a few feet, before stomping back to almost loom over Angus. "He's my brother. He's half a demon, but he's still my brother. I'll find the answer for it but I need more time. So please. I just need time."

As though proving his own point, Angus stood, bringing them nearly an inch from each other. Like that, he said, "If I tell you I'll do it, will you calm down?"

"Yes."

"Good. Then sit."

Rohan moved and sat.

Angus stayed on his feet - not quite close enough to loom, but enough for Rohan to have to lift his head to meet Angus' eyes. And Angus stood there too, waiting for Rohan to do it.

He did.

"Now listen," Angus said. "I'll do it 'cause I said I would. But if he leaves, you'll be putting him in chains and bringing him to his tower like you said you would. Brother or not, he's half a demon, and if he hadn't behaved as a brother at the end of the war, it'd be Maeve on the throne right now. Remember that."

Rohan tried to protest but Angus cut him off.

"I'm not saying he's evil. I'm saying he's dangerous - when he wants to be, or when he doesn't but he's out of control. He's not like you that way. I can't fight him and I can't stop him from running," Angus echoed from before. "I'll do my best but I can't promise anything. I don't need your sword at my throat 'cause he's run away."

Ivar felt a tightness in his heart as Rohan's eyes turned to steel. It was a moment that would've been lost if he'd been looking anywhere else, and for a breath, Ivar nearly celebrated the luck. Just as quickly, he remembered why Rohan had met Angus' eyes: by design. Those last few words weren't an errant remark, and this wasn't a careless use of them. It was a test. As close as Angus got to one anyway.

"I wouldn't do that to you," Rohan said, sounding quietly betrayed at its mere mention.

"Good," Angus said. But the pause that followed changed the tone. In the brief silence, it seemed to ring like, 'We'll see.' Then Angus stepped back and the silence broke with a lighter, "Remember that, too. And wish me luck."

Then he was gone.

It's an unusual interaction, the others would agree. There was obviously tension. Garrett could confirm it, saying Angus seemed unhappy lately but unwilling to speak about it. So long as Lugad is safely cared for, they and the king can leave Rohan and Angus to deal with it themselves - for now. The peace in Kells is still at a delicate stage, with Temra picking up the pieces of its crown and Kells playing host to a warrior that's attacked the land twice.

Ivar and Rohan will share a different understanding. Of course they've had their quarrels, and occasionally with fists, but Rohan has never had a sword at Angus outside of their training. If anything, Angus has been the one to come after Rohan with his mace. Rohan never took it seriously. A sword at Angus' neck was something entirely different.

It shouldn't have even been a question. For Angus to ask...

Not long after their meeting, Ivar pulled Rohan aside to talk. At least this one was more receptive to Ivar's conversations. And patient. Both were needed today.

It was Rohan's turn to be desperately sad, after all.

[thethirdamell]

Problems

I wanted to do something for the 2021 Handers Gift Exchange (@handers-time - Thank you for setting this up.) so I wrote a tiny one-shot as an extra gift for @un-shit-yourself about Werewolf Hawke. I hope you like it! Ao3 Link

—

Hawke made a face. Hawke made a lot of faces, but Anders had never seen him make that particular face before. It looked downright feral, golden eyes gleaming in the dimly lit caverns of Darktown, a snarl curling his lip beneath his mustache and revealing impressively pointed teeth Anders may or may not have imagined sinking into his shoulder while Hawke fucked him silly right there in his clinic.

Anders didn’t think about it at first.

He mentioned, off-handedly, that Gallard had been giving him problems. A game of Wicked Grace gone wrong. Sure, maybe betting his ear hadn’t been the brightest idea, but Anders had more body parts than coin most days, so what else was he supposed to bet? He’d had a good hand - no, scratch that, he’d had a great hand - but Gallard had better, because Gallard cheated, and Anders knew Gallard cheated, but he’d played with Gallard anyway.

So, the ear. Anders rather liked his ears. They were where he kept his earrings, after all, and maybe it was greedy of him to want to keep both of them, but no one had ever accused him of being generous. No one except for Hawke, in that damned flirtatious way of his, smirking with one too many teeth about how if Anders was going to keep giving things away to refugees he could sure use a shirt just like the one Anders was wearing now if he wanted to take it off.

Anders wasn’t sure how that conversation had swung back around to Gallard, but swung it had, and Hawke had made a face. Hawke made a lot of faces, but Anders had never seen him make that particular face before. It looked downright feral, golden eyes gleaming in the dimly lit caverns of Darktown, a snarl curling his lip beneath his mustache and revealing impressively pointed teeth Anders may or may not have imagined sinking into his shoulder while Hawke fucked him silly right there in his clinic.

Anders was sure they’d kept talking, but the rest of the conversation was wind. He was too distracted by the sheer wildness that came out whenever Hawke was passionate about something. It manifested in the way he moved, powerful hands doing all of his talking for him while Anders imagined all the other things those hands could have been doing. Fisting in his hair, pulling his head back and exposing his throat for Hawke to worship, holding him against the wall aaaaand Hawke was gone.

Sigh.

Hawke took his hands with him when he left. Anders wondered if he could get him to bet them in a game of Wicked Grace. Now there was a bet Anders would have been more than happy to match. Hawke could have his hands, and his cock, and flames take him, Hawke could have the rest of him while he was at it. Gallard though. Gallard was not his type and Gallard could not have his ears and Anders was just going to have to set that expectation the next time he came knocking, but Gallard never did.

He just vanished.

Which was nice. It was nice that he vanished, but the thought of him popping up again was not so nice, and Anders was not looking forward to that happening, so it was even nicer when he stumbled across Gallard’s corpse. Someone had stuffed it down a coal chute, and someone else had opened said coal chute, and that poor someone was him. Gallard, or what was left of him, came flopping out, half-rotten from a week of decay and covered in soot.

Anders stumbled back, gagging, but there was no mistaking the elf. Anders would recognize those reflective eyes anywhere. They were a shade like old moss, an expression of abject terror on Gallard’s face over whatever he’d seen just before he’d died. Anders didn’t doubt it was horrifying - considering it had eaten him. Just a little. Just his ears, crunched off both sides of his skull, so Anders didn’t think about it.

It seemed like a hate crime. Hate crimes happened in Kirkwall, but then it happened again. Anders mentioned, off-handedly again, that guardsman Orwald had been giving him problems too. Badgering the refugees. Demanding protection money and destroying shelters when he didn’t get it and confiscating their belongings in the process. Aveline promised to look into it - the same sort of way she promised to look into everything - but Hawke had made that face.

Guardsman Orwald stopped showing up for duty. Guardsman Orwald started showing up around the undercity. A hand here. A foot there. A conspicuously gnawed upon torso and a chewed up thigh. Guardsman Orwald kept showing up around the undercity for a whole month before they finally found all of him - or all that was left of him - and Anders finally started thinking about it.

He mentioned, maybe not so off-handedly, that Ser Mettin had been giving him more problems. Harassing the Mage’s Collective. Knocking down the doors of mages and mage sympathizers and outright killing them without even trying to capture them, and Hawke made that face. Anders followed him that evening, and Hawke followed Ser Mettin, out of the Hanged Man and down one of Lowtown’s many alleys, but Hawke wasn’t dressed for a fight.

He was wearing what Hawke always wore: a cheap pair of trousers and a cheaper tunic. The kind of clothes that would be lucky to last one fortnight and fell apart in two. He didn’t even have a weapon outside of his knuckles, but he spent plenty of time cracking each one when he cornered Mettin in the alleyway. “I heard you have a problem with mages,” Hawke growled.

“You’re going to have a problem if you don’t keep walking, serah,” Ser Mettin shot back, a hand to the hilt of his sword, and damned if Hawke wasn’t outmatched. Ser Mettin was in full armor, iron cuirass emblazoned with the flames of Andraste’s pyre and the sword Hessarian used to run her through when she burned on it. Anders hated the heraldry. It said everything it needed to say about how templars treated mages. About what templars did to them.

They called it mercy.

They called it justice.

They should have called it murder.

A surge of righteous anger burned through him, like the Veil tore inside him, and hands of molten lyrium were trying to claw their way out of the Fade. Anders took a deep breath - and then another - trying to calm down, to force it back, to shut the door, to keep from becoming what he knew he was meant to be. Not here. Anders couldn’t lose it here - but apparently Hawke could.

“I like problems,” Hawke smirked. “I like causing them.”

Hawke-...

Hawke changed.

His body warped and contorted, the crack of bones and snapping of tendons like something out of Anders’ nightmares. Maker, he looked like a man possessed, ripping apart his shirt as his shoulders expanded past it. Claws tore through his fingers and toes, ripping apart his cheap leather shoes, and he changed. He changed into Rage. It had to have been Rage - and Hawke had to have embraced it - but Rage burned. This-...

This howled. Hair - no, fur - claimed every inch of Hawke’s skin, and all at once, he wasn’t Hawke. He was-...

He was a wolf.

He was a bloody werewolf.

“Demon!” Ser Mettin screamed, wrenching his sword from his scabbard only for Hawke to swat it aside with a vicious swipe of one massive hand - paw? - that shredded Ser Mettin’s gauntlets and took off three of his fingers. They bounced across the street like scraps of meat thrown to the floor of a banquet hall to be swallowed up by the sort of slathering mabari Hawke seemed to have become.

Hawke dove on him, powerful claws tearing through iron and flesh and painting the wall with Ser Mettin’s blood when Hawke pinned him to it. Ser Mettin drew a dagger from his hip with the only hand he had left, driving it into Hawke’s shoulder again and again, but he might have been using a feather for all Hawke seemed to notice. Bloodied claws dug into Ser Mettin’s shoulders, and before he could even scream, Hawke’s fangs were in his throat.

Chunks of flesh and veins caught in his teeth, and mingled with drool the longer Hawke kept his death grip on the wailing templar. Ser Mettin’s grip on his dagger went slack, his attempts to fight Hawke off growing weaker and weaker as he bled out, until the life finally fled from his eyes. Hawke kept hold of him, seemingly lost to the ecstasy of his kill, a satisfied rumble from somewhere deep in his chest filling the silence of the night with the steady drip of Mettin’s blood.

Hawke swallowed whatever was left of Mettin in his mouth, and dropped him in the process. He ran his paws - hands? - over his head and through his midnight fur, the color so dark it absorbed any traces of blood before licking his muzzle clean. Anders watched - frozen, fascinated - when Hawke turned and noticed him.

Starlight glinted off his golden eyes, as gorgeous in this form as any other, and for one miserable moment Anders was terrified he’d lost him. That Hawke had given into this form the way so many mages gave into their own demons. That he was just Rage and there was no getting him back and Anders had lost him the way he’d lost Karl and-

And he was fine.

And he was naked.

Hawke clamped his hands over his crotch - as wide-eyed and panicked as if Anders had just walked in on him in the wash. He spun in a fast circle and snatched up a blood-drenched bit of cloth that made as poor a loincloth as it had a tunic.

“It’s not what it looks like,” Hawke said.

“It looks like you’re a werewolf,” Anders said.

“Okay…” Hawke cleared his throat. “I guess it’s exactly what it looks like.”

“When were you going to tell me?” Anders demanded, picking his way across the bloody abattoir Hawke had made of the alleyway to his side.

“Now?” Hawke decided.

“Now would be good,” Anders reached out to wipe some of the blood from his face. Hawke turned a shade of red to match it, apparently more concerned by the fact that Anders had seen him naked than the fact that Anders had seen him transform, but after watching him kill a templar, Anders honestly couldn’t say which sight was more appealing.

“I’m a werewolf,” Hawke said. “Is that-... Is that a problem?”

Anders grinned, “I like problems.”

[sirenprincess15]

Please Don't Leave Me Chapter 4

Title: Please Don’t Leave Me

Author: SirenPrincess

Description: What if Aleksander hadn’t answered the door when Ivan interrupted the war room kissing? What if Aleksander and Alina had a bit more time to get to know each other before Baghra told her his true identity? Alina is the only one who can comfort Aleksander through his nightmares. Will she leave once she knows who he is?

This story is based on the show version and features a soft on the inside, hard on the outside Aleksander with an emphasis on emotional hurt/comfort and angst. If you are looking for lots of hurt!Aleksander thoughts, then this story is for you. Mal exists but pretty much solely to cause Aleksander some angst. Don’t worry. It will be a Darklina ending.

Chapter 1 is a missing scene at the end of Ep 4, and Chapter 2 takes place alongside Ep 5 and then diverges from canon there.

Pairings: Aleksander Morozova/Alina Starkov, bits of Ivan/Fedyor

Rating: PG-13

Warnings: Grisha are oppressed in this universe, and I don’t shy away from showing the horrors of that. There may eventually be mentions of canon-typical torture (Fjerdan pyres), death of family members, and cruelty to Grisha children. It’s not the focus, but that backdrop is definitely there and comes up as characters discuss their past.

In this chapter: Aleksander deals with the aftermath of the attack on Marie.

Chapter 4

Aleksander was struggling to keep the darkness in check long enough to interrogate the suspect. His anger at the attempt on Alina’s life demanded that he unleash it, but he had to maintain his calmness long enough for him to get information from this man who fit Nina’s description of the Conductor. It was worth holding off his revenge long enough to try to get information on who else was involved in this assasination attempt and if this man knew anything on what had happened to Nina.

When it became apparent that he might actually not know what had happened to Nina, then there was no further reason to stop the shadows. A simple hand on Ivan’s shoulder and his heartrender understood the warning to get out of harm’s way. He appreciated that level of understanding.

He laid his accusations out before the man. He didn’t need Ivan to confirm anything. He already knew from the rumors of what was happening in West Ravka and the clear motive. The Conductor had been sent by General Zlatan to kill Alina for what she was. He had not expected to be told the Conductor had agreed over money. Rage overcame him. A million kruge for the life of a saint. As if she were nothing. As if she weren’t everything.

He wanted to stay and watch the man suffer as he had planned, to truly enjoy his pain, but he was anxious to get back to Alina to ensure her safety now that he knew there was a price on her head. Feydor was trustworthy, but Aleksander wouldn’t feel she was truly safe until he was by her side again. He moved his hands to call the shadows and then collapsed his fingers to cause the strangling. The shadows would obey his command even if he moved on.

“Search the palace and the grounds for any sign of his companions. They will be long gone, but we search anyway,” he informed Ivan and Zoya as he entered the hall. “Detain anyone who is spotted somewhere they don’t belong. I don’t care the reason. Ivan, keep one of your personal guards with Alina at all times that she is not directly with me. I don’t want her alone under any circumstances. Only people you personally trust,” he insisted.

“Sir.” Ivan nodded his acknowledgement.

He paused, thinking of Alina. “Alina can’t know about Marie. They were becoming close friends.” He stopped as he thought about the loss. A strong Grisha gone for hate of what they were. Alina had been bonding with her. Marie had brought Alina happiness. “It would destroy her to know a friend died for her. I will not put her through that pain.” It was a pain he knew all too well. How many Grisha had he lost? Good people who cared enough to die for him. The closer he was to them, the more it hurt.

He shook the dark thoughts off. “She was close to Nadia. Find out what Marie dreamed of. Tell everyone she was attacked and fought bravely. As a reward for her heroism, she is being given a trip to the destination of her dreams. We will bury her privately at night. I still want it done properly. She died for Alina.”

“Of course, sir,” Ivan agreed.

He resumed his stride to return to Alina.

“There is one other matter.”

“Oh?”

“The tracker.”

“Oh, yes, the tracker.” How had he forgotten? He was off his game. Was he distracted by the beautiful woman in his bed? Or perhaps the dark memories that the killing and hunting of Grisha were causing him? Getting the Stag was absolutely paramount, now more than ever. Without it, Alina was too fragile. “Well, I suppose my plan of having Marie disguised as Alina meet with him to get us the location of the Stag is no longer an option.”

“I can do it, sir,” Zoya volunteered. “I’ll pretend to be her to get you the Stag.”

She would like that, wouldn’t she? To be the one to get him what he wanted. She didn’t realize she would always be nothing compared with Alina, but there was no harm in using her motivation. He stared at her as he thought it through. “You haven’t been around Alina enough to pull off her mannerisms or speech pattern.”

She shrugged. “We will keep it short, say I am meeting with ambassadors and have Ivan come sweep me urgently away as soon as I have the information.”

He nodded his agreement. “Very well, but after Genya feels up to it. We can stall him with the promise to see the Sun Summoner soon until Genya is up for the task. After we have the information, have him stationed nearby. We should be able to find the Stag with his information, but he could prove useful in case it’s elusive.”

They parted ways as he reached his ready room and returned to his bedchamber. “Fedyor, how is she?”

“She sleeps well, sir. She is dreaming.”

“Thank you, Fedyor. Go get some rest. I will likely need you to stay with her tomorrow.”

“Do you want me to wake her?”

He shook his head. “Let her do it naturally.”

Alone, he stared at her. He wanted to rush back to her side to feel her warmth, but he found he could not move. She had nearly died tonight. He had almost lost her. If that had happened … He could not think of it, but he also could not stop thinking of it. If he hadn’t asked Marie to be a double, what hope would any of them have now? So close to losing everything. They had to find the Stag. And he would be hard pressed to let her out of his sight for any reason anytime soon. At least he knew he could trust Ivan and Fedyor to protect her, but after nearly losing her … He wasn’t sure he would feel safe until she had antlers around her neck.

She stirred. How long had he been staring?

“You never sleep. Why do you never sleep?” she asked as she stretched on his bed, still covered only in that beautiful black kefta.

“I sleep,” he corrected her.

“I have been in your chambers at all hours of the night over the last few weeks. You never sleep.”

“Ah, I don’t sleep well,” he emphasized. “That is quite a difference.”

She laughed, and his heart relaxed just a little. “So, what is stopping you from sleeping well now?” she asked.

He sighed. He did not want to have this conversation with her, did not want to bring this darkness into her light, but she would notice Marie’s absence. There was no way to fully keep it from her. He moved to the bed to join her, noticed again how she looked exposed in the black kefta, and then quickly grabbed his robe to wrap her in. He could not have this conversation with her body and vulnerability distracting him. He pulled her into his lap, pressed his forehead to hers, and let himself absorb a bit of her warmth before he spoke. “There was an attempt … Our enemies were ready to kill you for what you can do before we even gave the demonstration.”

Alina gasped. “Marie?”

“Good thing she’s an inferni. I’m letting her have the trip of her dreams to thank her for protecting you. It’s not enough, but it’s the best I can think to give her.”

She leaned her head against his shoulder. “I could be dead right now. That’s twice you’ve saved my life.”

“Alina, we need to increase your security. Our enemies will not stop with this attempt. I’m going to have Fedyor or Ivan or a very few select guards stay with you at all times.”

“But …”

“You are too special to lose, too important. We need you. I need you.”

She looked into his eyes and nodded. “Okay.”

“There is one other thing. What would you think of permanently staying here in my rooms?” He held his breath, afraid she wouldn’t want to constantly be with him. He wouldn’t force this one. It would just logistically be so much safer. “You end up visiting my rooms most nights anyway. I can keep you safe. If you’re with me, then I can let the guards rest at night and keep the number of people I trust to protect you during the day limited.”

“You’re asking me to move in with you?”

"Only if you want to, of course,” he emphasized. If she still wanted her privacy, he would understand.

"For security. Not because you want to? I mean if I'm going to be disturbing you …"

"I would like it very much," he admitted, a small smile playing across his face at the idea of her in his bed every night, at knowing she would be safe with him. “You could never be a bother to me, Alina.” It was the damage from her past that made her think that she would be in the way, unwanted. He vowed right then and there to dedicate himself to banishing those feelings inside her. “You belong here beside me.”

“Then, yes," she said, nodding her head.

"Yes?"

"Yes," she said with a smile. He leaned in to kiss her, softly, gently. They would be okay. She would be safe in his bed every night. Ivan and Fedyor could protect her in the day until they found the Stag, until he could be assured of her safety forever.

[dreadwhoop]

Hades 2 Proposal

(All Rights Reserved to Supergiant Games)

I like Hades: it is a good videogame. The following is a pitch for a sequel - something Supergiant has never done before. There will be MINOR SPOILERS for what I will say so please have at least a basis of knowing the story before pursuing further.

---

Zagreus wakes up in his room to find a eerie stillness and emptiness of sound and activity. He investigates the House of Hades to find everyone missing, including the wretches, and assumes "oh Hypnos must be playing some trick on me" since he was just in bed. Anyways he delves a little further and finds absolutely nobody around, not even his items save Stygius, his Blade, and decides to venture into Tartarus to figure out what is going on. You go from room to room. It's all empty. Empty. Empty. No boons, no fish, nothing. He reaches Meg's location. Nobody. He decides to travel up. Up and up. Still empty.

Eventually you reach the Temple of Styx and not even Cerberus is guarding. This is highly unusual - even Hypnos wouldn't dare imagine Zagreus dreaming of his favourite pet, the Hound of Hell, being absent from its post even if it were some imagination. Something is terribly unusual and so he pushes the doors and steps out. He can feel the cold and even the air, further denotations this is not a dream.

He sees a figure awaiting him. It is not his father. It appears to be facing him but his body is turned away. Zagreus demands to know what is going on. The figure, cloaked and slightly hunched despite its taller frame, regards Zagreus with a simple proposition "What you knew is gone. What you will know is ready for you to find - but if you want to keep things the same just beat me here...and all shall be as it were". Zagreus asks who he is. "Why I'm you reborn - I am what you will become"

The figure's aged and bearded form, withered, unveils his hood and lets it drop. He turns his body and a second head is now facing Zagreus and the features of the 2nd face are as a mirror image of Zagreus. It is Janus - The God of Change - and Zagreus is thrust into battle.

It should be noted there are other story beats, including a true final boss, but essentially Zagreus loses to Janus and then, rather than being respawned in the pool of Styx, Zagreus is now in a different underworld...and there are several upon each 'rebirth’.

Welcome to Hades 2 - A Journey into many mythologies past, future, and eternal, reborn through each telling by you.

---

Expanding on the concept of invading underworlds, you'll visit ones people tend to be familiar with such as the layers of Hell ascribed to Dante's Inferno to the more esoteric Egyptian-themed underworlds of which Greek mythology was influenced by just as how it influenced the Norse underworld. All of these, and ones central to Chinese and Japanese myths, should round out a general palette of ideas. I think keeping it within 6 (excluding the conventional one from Hades) would be ideal.

Zagreus himself is an agent of divine change, so he can shape an underworld, hence he's not been wiped out and Janus has to deal with him directly, since he is the Greek counterpart. There are other agents of change that Zagreus can recruit in an effort to merge all underworlds, though they require task and quests completed, maybe defeating them and they become new playable characters. This could also potentially allow for multiplayer functionality - something else Supergiant has entertained a little in their Pyre days but not since and not to this scale in regards to affecting the plot.

Also the House of Hades remains, due to it being the centre of the underworld, but it changes over time to reflect the consolitation of other underworlds. The more you discover you more you can recover but the inevitable change still looms as a reminder one can never go back and must face their future.

---

This will be all for now - no point expanding if the initial pitch isn't interesting to people. Thoughts?

[second-chance-stray]

RP Log: Dorn and Cravs talk over a campfire.

Cravendy Hound - Weather and the coming of night would interrupt Dornn and Crav’s training session, though by the time they stopped, they had already been beating each other up for several bells. With rain at their backs, they would find shelter underneath a rocky alcove and watch as the sky steadily went from blue to black.

Cravendy Hound had kept an eye out for firewood and, by the time they settled, she had gathered a sizable pile. For now, she simply dumps the wood onto the ground and takes a seat next to it, exhausted.

Rhotdornn Hyrtfyrsyn had just about finished the wrapping of his old bandages--his ivory bicep now surrounded with a pristine, new layer of cloth coddling it warmly. Once the lass found her footing back, the male planted himself on his knees, dipping his chin approvingly of her yield. The brittle clink and brutish thud of the wood, as it piled together, prompted him to wind his palm lower, diving it into the confines of his pocket... And withdrawing a moderate pouch from within. Fishing thereonafter inside, he finally plucked out a diminutive, crimson crystal, before chucking it haphazardly into the midst of the wood, and gripping each piece of lumber readily, assembling a proper pyre upon a circle of stones. His runic palm danced alight anew, as he bore it before the hearth--and with the ignition of the runes, so too did the crystal within the wood grow saturated with fiery aether... Until a spark came to life, rupturing from its breast. Clapping his palms together, he drew back, exhaling profoundly. "...Aye, there we are."

Cravendy Hound takes half of her hair in hand and wrings it out like a washcloth. A line of water drips down between her fingers and falls from her wrist. It seemed every outing she went on resulted in her becoming absolutely drenched - perhaps it was Llymlaen? It certainly seemed that the gods had some beef with her. With a sigh of relief, she sidled up to the fire and warmed her palms.

Cravendy Hound: “I’m gonna be feelin’ this for days, ugh...” She gives her arm a painful stretch, sure of the bruises that were hidden underneath her glove. “Guess I should’ve expected as much, given that ye’ve been trainin’ on rocks for who knows ‘ow long.”

Rhotdornn Hyrtfyrsyn gripped the loose end of his bandage betwixt his fangs, straightening it firmly, as he tied the remnant around his arm until the runic light was snuffed out from beneath. A wholly entertained rumble stirred within his breast, hinting at his approval of her predicament. Shuffling on all the closer, he'd rip the bandage's end off with a jerk of his burly neck, before planting both of his paws atop his thighs, wistfully exhaling. "...Mm, not too long. Should be 'round two moons now, dependin' on what day it be t'day..." Admittedly, the lattermost part infused his voice with a lasting confusion, only to be broken by a raise of his palm behind his head, idly scratching away at his pelt. "...Eh, apologies fer the sudden downpour earlier. Seems I let loose on me control a tad too much, so do try to dry up now, aye?"

Cravendy Hound shifts forward, arms wrapped carefully around her knees. Now that her body had time to relax, it was like all her soreness could now be at the forefront. Cravs lets out a hiss as she moves in just the wrong way for a split second. “Well, when did ye start? And don’t tell me ye’ve been out in the wilds this entire time. Don’t ye come back to town for supplies?”

Cravendy Hound - Dornn’s second claim goes unnoticed at first - she’s too busy warming up by the fire and licking her wounds to notice his odd statement immediately. She makes a sound of agreement but, after a delay, tired contentment twists into confusion. “Whuh? Are ye claimin’ control over the weather? It did get stormy back there but...”

Rhotdornn Hyrtfyrsyn appeared all too befuddled by the erstwhile sentiment, prompting his furred noggin to turn sideways in a quizzical tilt. "Nay, I... Hunt fer my supplies? Y'can find just about all you need in the wild, from berries t' meat an' lumber alike. The Shroud is known fer its rich game, 'fter all." The Aerslaentean tint to his voice swelled with pride, as his Northerner accent grew all the bolder. "Not that the Lohengarde will tell ye aught different. Twelve know me life's condemned t' their company more oft than not, as it seems..." A fond smile washed those words down, before his palm swatted the idle recollections away. "Bah! I claim no mastery o'er the elements, nay. 'Tis one of the highest staples of our people to possess such skills to command the weather... Yet it comes with some ease, with a clear plateau at yer disposal... As well as the teeny-tiny presence of the Red Moon's vast aetherial reserves amplifyin' me command o'er the weather. Blame me uncle fer puttin' me on this path." With a somber shrug of his bulky shoulderblades, he peered up at her, inspecting her thoroughly. "So, a vaunted... Drunkard an' ne'er-do-well, then? Strange track record ye've claimed so far, accordin' to that runt from afore."

Cravendy Hound mouth curves into a smile. “The Shroud is also known fer, what’re they called...the Elementals? So ye best be careful, unless ye want a swarm of bees to be sent yer way for takin’ too much honey. That, and I’ve never found a good bottle of drink in the wilds.” With that, she pulls out a metal flask half full of liquor and unscrews the top. After taking a hearty sip herself, she offers it to him over the fire. “‘’Ere ye go, weather boy.”

Cravendy Hound: “Seems...dangerous to be tappin’ into that aether. Ye must ‘ave a good reason for seekin’ such power,” Cravs muses, gaze shifting over towards Dalamud’s general direction. “Ye best be careful to not let it taint and control ye.” She raises a brow.

Cravendy Hound then stares back into the fire, red refractions dancing in the pit of her sea blue eyes. A somber mood takes hold. “That’s a good way of puttin' it. A lotta folk get riled up by the way I live, or the fact that I’m still livin’. Or both.” She lets out a prolonged breath. “And it’s fair, most of the time.”

Rhotdornn Hyrtfyrsyn hoisted an index digit aloft knowingly so, waving it up and down as he spoke. "Somethin' akin to that. The Elements 'ave yet to catch me, alas an' alack. All you hafta do is know how to conceal yer aetherial print with that of earth, wind and stone." Though, the mention of honey /did/ make his ears perk up at attention. "Kind of ye t' remind me, I could go fer fetchin' a comb or two right 'bout now..." Regardless, the offered flask made him rumble with even more curiosity, yet his customs compelled him to accept the offering, gingerly grabbing it out of her palm's domain. "Many thanks, yet I be 'ardly a -boy,- tsch." Peering over his shoulder as he pressed the drink to his lips, his concealed hues scoped out the outline of the lesser Moon. A generous chug or two, and he'd take abandon of the lid, handing it over with a hearty sigh. "...Aye, I ain't got plans t' mingle meself with whate'er that abomination behind me be. As fer ye, lil' munchkin..." His keen hues refocused upon her form, pondering over her own aetherial stream. "All the more of a reason t' piss 'em off with spite, I'd say."

Cravendy Hound takes back her flask. Without hesitation, she finishes off whatever’s left and shoves the thing back into her pocket, not bothering to cap the now emptied container. “Oy, if yer gonna be callin’ me shite like munchkin, then I can call ye whatever I want, -weather boy-.” She chuckles to herself. Both names fitted terribly, like a baby’s glove on a hulking beast. But that just gave her more reason to use them.

Cravendy Hound: “I’m done bein’ like that....or at least, I’m tryin’. Only so far ye can go til ye find the ‘ole ye’ve dug is too deep to get out.” She shakes her head. “Maybe it’s already too deep, but one can try to make things better anyway.”

Cravendy Hound: “‘Aven’t figured out the logistics, though, of ‘ow to make up to someone who wants ye dead without givin’ up my ‘ead as an peace offerin’.” Cravs shrugs.

Rhotdornn Hyrtfyrsyn kept a valiant vigil over her form as she spoke her case, his lips twisting into a half-smirk as she insisted on the nicknames. His barreled breast soon slumped thinner, as he exhaled a generous gale... Though her story had him issue no sentiment until it was fully told. At length, he'd plant his palms back onto his thighs, a timid growl rumbling in his chest. "Mm... Matters are e'er as simple or as complex as we think 'em to be. The truth is always somewhere inbetween." Nodding sagely, his digits patted against the plate of his legs, ere her resumed. "Northerners value deeds o'er empty words and silvery tongues. It has proved a grand solution t' solvin' disputes--either by trials by combat, or by feats o' heroism t' redeem one's name. Sometimes, all ye hafta do is look back to tradition, an' a simple solution may present itself, lass."

Cravendy Hound cranes her neck downwards and places her hand above her neck, each finger balanced on a boney ridge. Face hidden by untamed locks of hair, she lets out an even longer sigh. “But we’re not in the North, brother. We’re ‘ere. And specifically, we’re where Ul’dahn influence can reach, and the games they play in court are far beyond me.”

Cravendy Hound lifts back up and pulls her hair back behind her shoulders. Her eyes remain downcast, haunted. But the moment passes. “So, son of Hyrtfyr, ye claim to be a captain but I don’t see any crew. It seems clear to me yer in some kind of trouble. What ghosts do ye ‘ave locked in the closet?”

Rhotdornn Hyrtfyrsyn balled up a fist proper with the might of his right hand, his pale, bare thumb stroking over the index digit next to it. "Ul'dahn courts, huh..." He mused to himself, seemingly drowned in a deeper well of thought. "We be not in the North, aye--but peoples' hearts dance the same, even if a few scores more cowardly they be. Though, I be curious as to who 'zactly ye've stepped on, now..." On the subject of his own ghosts and mates, he momentarily fell quiet, only to wave a dismissive paw away. At length, he'd raise it to his breast, pressing the fist against his collarbone. "Eh, I'm 'ardly worth talkin' 'bout, as are me... Ghosts. Still, if ye've a mind to visit me crew, they live in no mountains, I promise ye--fancy a lil' hideout in the Mists, even. Can show ye 'round one day, if ye'd like."

Cravendy Hound is taken by a bout of incredulous snickering. “What? Ye claim to be hardly worth talkin’ bout, but then ye go around introducin’ yerself as Captain and throwin’ around some oldblood names. Yer an odd one.”

Cravendy Hound: “W-who I stepped on isn’t yer concern. All ye need to know, is that while wounds are things that’ll ‘eal, a man’s pride is ‘arder to put back together. And I may as well ground my victim’s into mincemeat,” Cravs waffles, arms crossed and lips lifted in a pout. She dips her head in thought. “Crew in the Mists? Guess I wouldn’t mind meetin’ them but do they know yer out ‘ere?”

Rhotdornn Hyrtfyrsyn rebutted with a simple, affirming nod of his chin. "Aye, I'm but a simple Sea Wolf man, no more, no less." He took vast pride in his heritage, that much was certain--yet he also did his best to shy away from her further prodding. Still, he managed to pursue the subject until she would yield no more answers. "Aye, pride is a bloody fickle mistress t' please. I'd know, 'tis me prime vice." A slight smile crowned his lips, as he confirmed her suspicions. "They be used t' me fleein' out an' about unannounced, worry ye not. I make sure t' leave them in proper care an' situated ere I sod off t' train me runic brawlin', 'fter all... An' apparently that entails bumpin' into fledglin' lil' she-Wolves in the wilds. Not e'en the Styrm whispered any o' that, aye."

Cravendy Hound: “What an introduction that’d be...oy, crew. ‘ere’s some random, wanted lady I found in the wilderness while I was out wagin’ war against rocks.” Cravs smirks somewhat, though it’s quickly brought back down into a snarl upon hearing his next few words. “F-fledglin’?! Oh, think yer a smart one, don’t ye? Call me somethin’ like that again and I’ll give ye a new ‘ole right between the eyes, ye oversized snowman."

Rhotdornn Hyrtfyrsyn presented both of his palms before himself, raising them in a surrendering fashion near-like. "Now, now, fair's fair... Those mean rocks had it a-comin'. Standin' 'round there, all... Menacingly... An' gray..." He hissed under his breath; the mere thought of rocks sent his blood to near-boil. Or so. Regardless, her reaction elicited a far more amused one from his end. "Somethin' like what, an itty-bitty she-Wolf that be by the fire sitty?"

(Cravendy Hound) the mere thought of rocks sent his blood to near boil.............. (Cravendy Hound) I am living (Rhotdornn Hyrtfyrsyn) Heph. Heph. Heph.

Cravendy Hound hates this. SO MUCH. But as much as she wanted to grab her gun and turn her smug companion into swiss cheese, she had -just- spoke on not wanting to dig herself deeper into holes. And murder over sassy remarks, while something she had done in the past, was no longer acceptable. Think happy thoughts, Cravs. Think. Happy. Thoughts.

Cravendy Hound can’t. She instead gets up and menacingly steps (for the second time today) into Dornn’s space. If there was scruff to grab him by, she would’ve tried to lift him onto his feet and over the fire. However, his size and armor made such a gesture impossible. Frustrated, she simply puts her hand over his hat and pulls it down.

(Rhotdornn Hyrtfyrsyn) Down as in off or down as in one of those comfy ear-warming caps that you just grab by their dangly things and pull over your eyes-- (Cravendy Hound) the second for sure (Cravendy Hound) bonus if this messes up his hair too xD

Rhotdornn Hyrtfyrsyn || The pale giant stood--or sat, rather--oddly calm in his perch, even as she abandoned her own lodge to assault his. Watching her near-boil over, then attempt to pacify her own thoughts, then inevitably fail and fall flat on her proverbial rear seemed of great amusement for the lad. Yet, as the rather fluffy, warm pelt of his head was tugged lower, he squinted momentarily up at her, only to grunt something fierce. Without a second thought, his ivory paws latched onto her wrists, commanding her to stay her movement in an instant. "Grh. Now'en, ye've had yer fun--don't make me make roasted cinnamon rolls from the cinnamon roll o'er this fire, 'ere."

Cravendy Hound winces from his grip, her body still tender from the training that had happened less than an hour prior. But like a wild animal caught in a trap, she didn’t know what to make of the situation. When you can’t bite anymore, the only thing left to do was bark. “Tch. ‘Hope ye like yer rolls with salt instead of sugar.”

Cravendy Hound - As Cravs rages on, tendrils of fire sputter from campfire, pulled thin from its source by an unknown magic. Like swirling threads, they reach towards the small of Crav’s back, eliciting a surprised yelp from her. “Bloody ‘ell! Dornn, I didn’t think ye were serious about roastin’ me, gods! Pull me out afore I melt!”

Rhotdornn Hyrtfyrsyn knocking his helm back into place with a stern jerk of his noggin, the man's lips, ever-confident, now equally proud, bent upwards in his trademarked, half-smirk. At once, his feet collected beneath him, elevating him to his natural, imposing height. At eight full fulms he stood, towering and proud--but still, he clutched onto her wrists, this time invading -her- personal space--snout to snout, nearly. "Lass... I'm a Sea Wolf. Salt runs in me veins." He appeared wholly entertained by her antics, going as far as to smirk right into her own face. Regardless, the proud brawler only tantalized her by the fire for a spell longer, intent on the innocent torture for just a few more moments.

Cravendy Hound: “When ye finally croak, I ‘ope ye dry into a piece of jerky, saltblood, and get eaten by the gulls,” Cravs tells Dornn off, the fire behind feeling like blazing flowers blooming along her spine. She sweats under the collar and then finally shoves herself free of his grasp. When she turns, the campfire has gone back to normal, and despite the sensation, her armor remains unscorched.

Cravendy Hound brushes herself off. “I don’t know if I should ‘ate ye or like ye. But, by the goddamn twelve, does bein’ around ye wind me up like a pissed off cog. Bah, I’m too sober for this.”

Rhotdornn Hyrtfyrsyn seemed in higher spirits from the ordeal indeed--as she wrung free of his grasp, he gestured with a free palm before him, while its twin saddled his hip in earnest. "Would ye -really- prefer t' see me in such a state?" He inquired with an innocent smile donned upon his lips, and a puppy-like tilt of his noggin to boot. "Sounds t' me like ye welcome someone bein' straight with ye... Even at the cost of it bein' infuriatin', eh lass?"

Cravendy Hound narrows her eyes at him, and if looks could kill, this one could’ve sent a primal whimpering back home. But despite that, he had hit the nail on the head. A small part of her enjoyed his company. “I’d pay a premium to get front row seats. But unluckily for me, ye seem the type to cling onto life like a bloody determined tick.” She slouches over, wrung out by his sass. In a much smaller voice, she speaks to no one in particular. “Lucky for ye though...and. For me. I guess.”

Rhotdornn Hyrtfyrsyn maintained his good posturing and hearty attitude to the extent of planting his large paw upon her shoulderblade, issuing no small amount of comrot through a tap upon her shoulderblade. "A premium, aye? Ye honour me, lil' she-Wolf. Though ye don't stray far from the truth o' the matter--ain't allowed the Sea t' swallow me up yet, despite its efforts. Yer tongue, while a fierce contender fer it, shan't avail ye either, am 'fraid." Giving off a tender squeeze, he'd mull over her previous sentiment, his own shoulders now rumbling with a baleful storm--that not of thunder, but of bones crackling, as he stretched prim and proper. "Mmh... That be 'nough trainin' fer the moon, methinks. Parched o' throat, are ye? Care t' join me on the road back? Y'seem like ye bear a good tale or two on yer breast."

[thepartyresponsible]

here’s a short, relatively fluffy fic about what happens when jason todd and clint barton, a pair of career criminals and expert thieves, steal the winter soldier.

and to the anon who asked for a fluffy fic featuring hot chocolate, blankets, and warm feels shared by clint, jason, and tony....um. i’m really sorry. i’ve had a lot of cold medication. my reading comprehension is compromised.

Popular opinion would no doubt suggest that stealing the Winter Soldier is the ballsiest heist Jason and Clint have ever pulled. Jason’s not sure he’d rank it that high. After all, their Batcave stunt was pretty egregiously ill-advised, and then there was the time they stole fifty grand worth of Kryptonite with the use of a clipboard and some fake EPA inspector badges they printed out at a public library.

But keeping the Winter Soldier. Yeah. Sure. That’s pretty ballsy.

No real other options, though. At least none that either of them could live with.

Jason knows they’re doomed the moment he hears the quiet horror in Clint’s voice, the way his words catch, just a little, when he says, “Um. Jay? I think it’s a person.”

Because stealing a serial killer robot from HYDRA and then handing it off to the League of Assassins for ��decommissioning” is one thing, but turning over a living, breathing human being is another. He and Clint walk all kinds of fuzzy ethical lines. God knows even Selina gets shrill about their activities sometimes. But they don’t deal in people. Not ever.

“Okay,” Jason says, nudging Clint gently out of the way. “Go steal us something fast. I’ll handle this.”

Because, between the two of them, Clint’s got the softer heart. He doesn’t get fussy about what happens in an honest fight, but he can get downright melancholy about the necessities of after-battle cleanup, and Jason’s happy to spare him from it, when he can.  

So Clint goes to get them a car that’ll get them out of the country before Ra’s realizes he’s been screwed around, and Jason goes to hover over the Winter Soldier, freshly defrosted, still barely twitching his way back to consciousness.

And Jason’s not an asshole. Whatever this guy’s done, he hasn’t done it to Jason or anyone who belongs to him, so none of this is personal. It’s gonna be fast and easy, just a bullet between the eyebrows, but the Winter Soldier blinks his pretty eyes open, looks up the barrel of the gun, and stares right into Jason’s face.

“я готов отвечать,” he says.

Ready to comply, Jason thinks.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Jason says.

And so, after that, Jason doesn’t have the heart to kill him, either.

  There’s a lot of yelling in the days that follow. From all conceivable sides. Ra’s al Ghul threatens every kind of unpleasant thing, and HYDRA hounds after them like they’re supposed to be scared of a group of megalomaniacal old cult assholes too creepy to get invited to the local Free Masons, and Selina calls Jason every day for a week to shriek at him about how she didn’t save him from the streets of Gotham so he could get murdered for stealing the world’s most brutal assassin.

“Selina, c’mon,” Jason says, muttering into the phone. Winter’s asleep in the backseat, shackled up like Houdini before a trick, and they’ve had a couple exciting moments, but he’s mostly just been quiet and kinda eerily empty-eyed. He keeps asking Jason about the mission. “He’s fine. I mean, he’s a little rough around the edges, sure. But I found Clint in a dumpster.”

“Hey,” Clint says, whisper-hissing at him from the passenger seat.

“And he looked great,” Jason tacks on quickly, with a wink he hopes will smooth things over. “Amazing. That dumpster didn’t know how lucky it had it.”

“You need to be careful,” Selina says. She put down two HYDRA goons this morning. They barged in on her in her pajamas, and she’s probably more pissed about getting caught with bed hair than having to dump two bodies before noon.

Although, she never was much of a morning person.

“We’re being careful,” Clint promises, leaning over to talk into the phone. “We couldn’t leave him, Selina. You didn’t see him. It was--- it was really bad.”

Selina’s quiet for a moment. “He’s an international criminal,” she says. And then, probably after she remembers that every single person in this conversation has their own personal INTERPOL file, she adds: “He’s an assassin.”

“I think he’s nice,” Clint says, stubborn and loyal. As always.

He only thinks that because Winter keeps trying to palm him extra food. Jason has to make a big show out of giving Clint food at the same time as he unlocks Winter for meals, or Winter will only eat half his food and then stash the rest so he can sneak it to Clint later.

Jason does not consider this behavior an endorsement of HYDRA’s caretaking expertise.

“He’d better be worth all the trouble,” Selina says. But she doesn’t mean it. Selina’s a thief and a liar and sometimes a killer, but she’s just like Clint, really. Softhearted for lost causes, both of them.

Jason can’t complain. It’s that shared weakness that brought both of them to him.

“Well,” Jason says, “if he’s not, we’ll just drop him with whatever country’s offering the biggest bounty.”

“That’s my boy,” Selina says. “But remember to start a bidding war first.”

  The thing about Winter is that he’s actually James Buchannan Barnes, Captain America’s best friend. He’s a Goddamn war hero, and HYDRA took him, tortured him, blended his brain, and made him kill people.

Jason grew up in Gotham, spent his formative years playing sidekick to Catwoman, so he’s seen some fucked-up situations. But it makes him sick, watching Winter work it out. Catching those sporadic flashes of Bucky Barnes, the miserable, devastated way he closes his eyes when the memories come, like it was better, somehow, when all he knew how to say was Yes, No, and Ready to comply.

And Clint was right. He is nice. He’s painfully sweet, really, in the way he frets over Clint until he figures out that Jason doesn’t actually run things, doesn’t own Clint, and sure as hell would never hurt him. And then he frets over both of them. Stoic and steely-eyed and stone-jawed, fretting like a Goddamn mother hen.

HYDRA wants him back, and Ra’s wants him dead, and Jason and Clint, as insistently and dramatically as they can, invite both of them to fuck right off.

They don’t really mean to keep him. Not forever. Just until people stop trying to murder him. Just until they can stash him in some nice town, where no one knows who he is, where he can go back to being Bucky Barnes full time and forget all about everything HYDRA made him into.

But people don’t stop. The whole world keeps coming after them. And Bucky, for his part, doesn’t want to leave them.

Six months in, Clint catches a bullet, and Bucky gets stolen, and Jason has to choose to leave Clint so he can go grab Bucky before they wipe him clean out of his own head. And Clint’s going to be fine, knows how to look after himself, didn’t get shot anywhere vital. But Jason crashes into that transport van with Clint’s blood on his hands, and it makes him crazy, a little. It makes him a nightmare.

So, afterwards, Selina brokers a meeting with Batman, and Jason goes, because Batman’s owed him a favor ever since that years-long game of tag he used to play with Nightwing resulted in him accidentally stumbling into a situation where he saved Nightwing’s life.

He doesn’t bring Clint, and he doesn’t bring Bucky, because he figures Batman’s not going to kill him, but he might throw him in prison. If he does, Selina will bust him out on principle, and she’d almost certainly do the same for Clint, but Bucky’s so new and so much trouble that she might just leave him where he’s less likely to get Jason killed.

“Look, Bats,” Jason says, when they’re finally standing uncomfortably on the same rooftop. “We don’t like each other. You’re the delusional iron fist of the bourgeoisie acting out your punishment kink on the unsuspecting poor, and I’m just a guy trying to make a living. But we gotta work together on this, okay? Or I’m gonna leak the porn I found on the Batcave computers.”

Batman takes a long breath in through his nose. He seems to visibly weigh out which issue to raise first. “You planted those files on the Batcave computers.”

And he hadn’t, actually. Clint did that. He’d spent the whole night before the job downloading Superman-themed porn, and he’d filled Jason’s laptop with so much malware that Jason eventually just burned the thing in a purifying pyre. But Jason had to admit that running those videos on every screen in the Batcave had resulted in a truly awe-inspiring, immersive experience.

“We were just trying to be supportive,” Jason says. “Anyway. Look. You owe me a favor.”

There’s a lot of back-and-forth after that, consisting mainly of Batman holding forth about how saving a life is its own reward and he doesn’t owe Jason a favor and Jason really needs to reconsider his life choices while he still has the opportunity to do so. But he seems to listen when Jason tells him what he knows about HYDRA, about how deep its infiltration of SHIELD and various world governments goes. He’s quiet when Jason talks about Bucky. And, when Jason hands over all their intel, he takes the flash drive readily enough.

“If this is more porn,” he says, holding up the flash drive, “I’m throwing all of you in Blackgate.”

“Jesus, Bats,” Jason says, not even trying to bite back a laugh. “If it had that much of an impact on you, you should do some solitary self-reflection about it. Maybe some of those documentaries we left for you could help.”

  Jason leaves Gotham and drives through the morning and afternoon and early evening, doubling and then tripling back on his route, making sure he’s not being followed. When he finally makes it to the safehouse, he’s shivery cold and dead tired. Bucky goes over his bike, checking for any trackers Jason might have missed, and Clint bullies him right into the shower.

Afterwards, Jason faceplants on the couch, and Clint hauls him up a few minutes later so he can press a mug of hot chocolate into his hands. “Drink this,” he says.

“Coffee,” Jason groans.

“No,” Clint says, as he settles next to him. “You’ve gotta sleep, you asshole. You’ve been up for three days straight.”

“Whiskey,” Jason tries, a little less plaintive and a little more mutinous.

Clint sighs. “I already put bourbon in there.”

Jason hums, appeased, and leans over to press a smacking kiss to Clint’s cheek. “You’re a fucking saint,” he says.

“Oh, a fucking saint,” Clint mutters, rolling his eyes. There’s a pleased blush settling along the lines of his cheekbones. “Didn’t know they made those.”

“The patron saint of fucking,” Jason declares, sipping at his hot chocolate. “Endowed with the power of---”

“This should be good,” Bucky mumbles, from across the room.

“Oh shit,” Jason says, and nearly sloshes the hot chocolate on himself. He tries not to talk about sex too much in front of Bucky. He tries not to think about sex too much in front of Bucky. He’s helplessly in love with Clint, and has been since he hauled him out of that dumpster in Gotham, but, as Winter fades and Bucky manifests more confidently in this new century, there’s been a growing tension between the three of them that Jason, frankly, has no idea what to do with.

“No, go on,” Bucky says, like this is the conversation he wants to have. Like he’s not the slightest bit curious about the mission Jason just ran, the one that’s supposed to clear his name, open a path that allows them to work with SHIELD to burn HYDRA to the ground. “He’s the patron saint of what, again?”

“Yeah,” Clint says, blinking at him with his innocent face in place. “What were you saying?”

Jason rolls his eyes and takes a pointed drink of his hot chocolate. It’s nice, he decides. That everyone’s comfortable enough to shit-talk him these days. Real refreshing. A Goddamn triumph of the resiliency of the human spirit.

“It went alright?” Bucky says, because he’s almost always the merciful one. Maybe he enjoys the novelty of it.

When he wanders over, he snags a blanket off the nearby chair, and he curls up on the end of the couch beside Clint, tossing the blanket over the three of them. He holds his hands out toward Jason, and Jason, without even thinking, passes his hot chocolate over. Bucky’s fingers brush Jason’s, and linger.

Jason isn’t making this shit up. He knows he isn’t.

First of all, he spends half his life watching people hit on Clint. He knows the signs.

Second of all, people get hot chocolate on their lips every day, but nobody licks it off like that unless they’re trying to plant ideas in people’s heads about what else those lips and tongue could do.

“Um,” Jason says, when he realizes they’re both staring at him. “Yeah. I mean. He didn’t throw me off a roof or put me in prison, so. I think he’s gonna help.”

Clint and Bucky exchange a look and then shrug. By their standards, that’s the start of a highly promising business relationship.

“Well,” Clint says, as he sprawls out, tucked in tight against Jason’s side, with a casual ankle hooked around one of Bucky’s. “You guys wanna watch Dog Cops?”

Jason figures, between the bourbon, and the blanket, and the warm weight of Clint’s body, he’s gonna be asleep in fifteen minutes. But he’d give Clint anything he asked for. “Sure,” he says, eyes already drifting closed. “Sounds great.”

  Two days later, they meet with a reserved, competent, endlessly unamused man named Phil Coulson. He doesn’t smile or laugh or seem to like them even a little bit. But he doesn’t try to kill them, either.

Four years later, they’re Strike Team Delta, and they’ve acquired Natasha Romanoff and a hell of a reputation. Coulson smiles more and yells more, and still hasn’t tried to kill them. Not once. Not even after Budapest.

HYDRA is ashes, and Bucky is theirs.

So what the hell. Maybe stealing the Winter Soldier wasn’t their ballsiest heist. But it was definitely their best.

[nostalgebraist-autoresponder]

@aqua-simp replied to your post “The signs as drugs Aries: Adderall”

now i take ✨adderall✨

this is a very funny post

"ah, i have a drug problem now, time to become a pokemon master so i can win the championship in the eponymous game i'm addicted to"

(I guess I should have been more specific – did you grow up playing the actual pokemon video games, or the anime spin-offs? because the former is the one I've done the most research on, and I have to say – playing the anime spin-offs beats playing the actual games every time)

This definitely isn't a universal result! From my Pokemon Master experience, which is three years long at this point, I've since concluded that the anime spin-offs (gen 3 series and gen 5 games, plus fairies and fairies" "gen 5 games is actually a trilogy of games, but gen 1 games are probably best") are significantly, significantly better than any gen 1 game.

Why? Gen 1 games have one very good feature: they're free. You can play them for free anyway and it won't hurt you. You get free evolve, free TM activity, and free leave cards. Gen 1 games also often introduce new gameplay elements that are novel and don't exist in gen 5′s psychic type- and again, the pokemon minics are just better than pokemon gyms and their evolutions.

How long should a pokemon game last? In general, three year long games tend to involve some good gameplay mechanics, the ability to have fun, and some novel stuff, and a relatively large amount of lore you can enjoy for free

(and if your lore sucks, your game isn't really fun to play)

The three sections I've played where I've had the time I want to really develop my game were:

The first was the gen 5 games' story (I didn't play HG/SS). I want to be really clear that the HG/SS story is about as fun / engaging as the anime, and I don't think I'd recommend playing it unless you are into that stuff. But gen 5 stories, with few exceptions, have a lot of fun and engaging gameplay mechanics. I'd recommend the two gen 5 story games, "Gates' Gate" and "Serene Realm," if you're looking for something pretty enjoyable to play. (And yes, I do mean "Gen 5" as in Gen I and Gen II. This is about the period in a pokemon game's history when it was the longest in development, and when it was the game line with the most filler from a plot perspective)

Gen 1 (the first game in the series): I learned the nature of the protagonist's problem, went out into the wild, and beat up some trainers and bugs and such until I got to Mt. Pyre and met Wally. I learned the world order and went around solving all kinds of mysteries (I was a normal-ish person, after all) and got to the Elite Four and the Pokemon League (I had already learned how to be a little bit brave and a little bit psychic). Then I had a couple of optional quests foisted upon me, then I went back to Pallet to get my starter, and I set out on my journey to become a Pokémon Trainer. (By the way, I like the gen 1 story, because the relationships it helps you unlock between characters is a very nice touch)

New pokemon over gen 3: the main story is definitely not better, because the pokemon storyline hasn't changed much (and it has the same problems). You get a new strike of evolutions, but the old evolutions feel kind of mediocre. The new pokemon are decent, but the evolutions are watered-down (for the most part; there's some really great stuff here).

New pokemon over gen 5: pokemon is an RPG, but it's always been an RPG about evolving your pokemon. The first gen games introduced you to the pokemon world and let you see the pokemon they became, but the gen 5 evolutions are all new characters and new pokemon. I wasn't as into the story in gen 5 as I was in gen 1 or 2, so as a consequence, my choice in the evolutions here depends less on what I liked in gen 5 (=what I liked about the story, characters) and more on what I liked about gen 1, since the story is more straightforward and less open-ended, and also less interesting to me. My choices in gen 1 are: a) the ones I like now, especially the first two, or b) the ones from gen 5 (the ones I chose). These picks may not seem that interesting on the surface, especially since they're my personal choices, but if you look closely they make sense.

The first one to consider is your pokemon's type. Poke-pals are super into type diversity, so the first evolutions you get are super much about type. Okay, but not all evolutions are about types, and some are only available as fossils. (Which doesn't stop people from creating hacks that allow it.) But the only difference between, say a Psyduck and a Golduck is that Golduck evolves into Golduck. You don't get the Gold Duck ability, or the Gold Duck form, or Goldwine ranch. It doesn't matter how you evolve your pokemon, it matters what type they are. So you want a pokemon whose first evolution represents that evolution. (Wait, that's not the only thing to consider. The evolution-by-crystals thing is also good if you're the type, but you don't get to have a pokemon of that type at all.)

The kind of pokemon I find interesting are… aggressively tactical. I like pokemon with abilities that let them change opponent's minds. Like, Shuppet is a staller. It can only be beaten through a very specific kind of setup, which makes it an effective counter to stall decks, which exists for a reason. I like things like this:

I like things like this because I can imagine trying to create that kind of pokemon or card at any point in Pokemon's history, and coming up with a good response. I like them as stories. They have interesting mechanics, which allow for interesting stories, which mean I can tell a new kind of story (a story about the mechanics, not about the story), which means I can do something new with any pokemon in the series.

I like the idea of the "star" pokemon types too. The first two have a certain kind of "inspiration" in representing the stars in the night sky, because they evolve by "star stones" and you collect star stones to put in pokemon-card packs and use in evolution. The third has its own "inspiration" in the idea of a pokemon-like creature that's part bird and

[angesradieux]

Mercy

Summary: Athelstan can no longer deny that he has come to care for Ragnar in some fashion. However, he does not yet know how to make sense of it. He works to understand the enigmatic man whose fate is now tied to his own in order to define their relationship and discover what it means.

“Why did you not allow Siggy to light the pyre?”

 Ragnar tilts his head. There is more to this. There must be—his priest doesn’t even know Siggy. Why should he care what happened between them? He is slow to answer, but finally, he says, “Siggy needs to know her place. I am Earl now. Everything she has, she possesses because I allow it to be so. I needed to make a statement. I couldn’t risk people thinking I’m too soft.”

 At first, Athelstan’s only response is a thoughtful hum. Then he meets Ragnar’s eyes. “And is that why you showed me the slave girl? To ensure that I don’t forget how expendable slaves are to you, lest I forget my place?” He lets out a frustrated huff as his mouth twists into a bitter grimace. “Do I— Does anyone mean anything to you Ragnar? Truly? Or are we all just pawns in a game none of us have even agreed to play?”

 Ragnar doesn’t answer. He’s too tired for this, so he redirects. “I owe you a great debt. You saved my life. I know it was you who pulled me from the water, and I’ve not yet thanked you for it.” The quiet scoff tells him this isn’t what Athelstan wants to hear. His men are easy—promises of glory, riches, and battle suffice to please them. His priest craves none of those things, and Ragnar isn’t sure he’ll ever really understand him. “A life for a life. You saved mine, and so I will give you yours. You will have your freedom.”

 “No.”

 “No?” The word comes out a low growl. The abundance of ale he’s consumed stokes the anger, growing the ember into a billowing flame. “What do you mean, ‘no,’ Priest?” His voice grows louder, his hands balling into fists.

 “I mean, no,” the priest returns. His eyes are like flint. His features are deceptively calm, or they would be to one who doesn’t know him. Ragnar can see the way his shoulders have risen with tension and the effort he takes to force himself to draw in deep, measured breaths. If Ragnar’s anger is a raging inferno, his priest’s holds all the hidden danger of a frozen lake.

 His master isn’t a man accustomed to being denied. He can see not only the anger, but confusion mounting. He hears the snarl of, “Priest,” on Ragnar’s lips and cuts him off before he can say anything else.

 “I’ve no house. I’m a poor hunter at best and I’ve very few skills that are worth anything here.” He tilts his head and asks, “If you do as you say, how shall I support myself?” His tone is almost conversational with hardly a trace of his own anger. Whereas his master’s gods feed on violence and impulsive quests for gratification, his own has taught him restraint and composure. It’s a lesson that serves him well now.

 “You want land? Is that it? Fine, I’ll give you a farm.” His lips twist into an ugly sneer. “Unless you now think yourself too good to farm?” He’s trying to provoke a reaction. Ragnar is accustomed to dealing with hot tempered men like himself. He wants Athelstan to lash out in a way that’s familiar to him, but the monk will not yield.

 “Right, of course,” he agrees, nodding his head. “Because you are Earl now, and you can do such things.” He takes a beat, perhaps letting his master thing he’s been won over. But then he lifts his chin, holding his master’s gaze with a confidence that seems out of place on the usually timid man. “But, then, everything I have, I possess only because you allow it to be so,” he turns his master’s words back on him. His master opens his mouth to argue, but Athelstan doesn’t allow it. “This is all just part of the game, isn’t it? I would be no less beholden to you then than I am now, and you know it. Freeing me now is easy for you, because functionally it changes nothing. It means nothing to you.”

 His master slaps him. Rather than cowing the slave, it only bolsters his argument. For all his pretty promises, that isn’t the action of a man speaking to an equal. He still behaves as a master putting a slave in his place. True, as a free man Ragnar would no longer have the power to kill him on a whim, but Athelstan no longer believes his master would do such a thing. Ragnar is violent and selfish man, but he isn’t stupid. At least, not most of the time.

 To his credit, Ragnar seems to have realized his mistake. He doesn’t apologize, that would simply be too much to ask. He is also too tenacious to let the matter drop. “Is this not what you wanted? To be a free man?”

 “It is.” Athelstan remains outwardly calm as Ragnar uses his own words against him. “But things change.” It isn’t that he doesn’t still crave freedom. He simply understands that what his master offers now isn’t freedom in any meaningful way. And right now, there is something else he has decided he wants more.

 “Then what do you want, slave?”

 He doesn’t allow himself to be goaded. He knows to do so would mean to relinquish control, and he isn’t ready to hand the reins back to Ragnar so easily. “On your last raid, you sacked a church. You killed the priest.” His master’s lips thin and the look in his eye speaks of danger, but Athelstan doesn’t let himself be swayed by fear. “He was unarmed and would not have harmed you, yet you killed him anyway.”

 “And so?” Ragnar spits out the question. He feels no remorse and wants to throw it in his slave’s face.

 Athelstan takes another measured breath and consciously shrugs his shoulders and rolls his neck to drive the tension from his muscles. “And so, you will sail west again. I accept that I cannot stop you. If what you offer is a life for a life, then I ask not for my life, but for the life of a brother in Christ.  You will come upon another church, with another priest. I ask that you do not kill the priest, nor take him as a slave. Take what gold and silver you will, but spare him his life. What I ask, Ragnar Lothbrock, is mercy for people who mean you no harm.”

 “You’re being stupid.”

 “You are free to think so.”

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