#Axes Art Amuse

[obscurevideogames]

(Axes Art Amuse - Saturn - 1996)

From: ClockWerx

[ckret2]

Pictured above: a shape's eye view of the end of the world.

The second dimension has burned; and Bill's been accidentally setting the second dimension's neighbors on fire. At the moment, the Axolotl is trying really, really hard to convince himself that these two facts are unrelated. Here, have a fic.

This is chapter 5 of an ongoing fic about the Axolotl in the wake of the Euclidean Massacre as Bill just keeps on committing atrocities. If you wanna read the earlier chapters (and/or look at more pretty art of Bill committing horrors and the Ax witnessing horrors), here's chapters one, two, three, and four.

####

As soon as the Axolotl and the Time Giant exited Dimension Zero, they were greeted with a faceful of rain. Apparently the storm cloud with the Apocalyptic Threat Task Force had been waiting for them. "The fires in the remaining dimensions around 2Δ are finally acting like normal fires," it said. "No teleporting around, no more targeting the mortals. We've got the worst ones under control. Think we'll save about 40% of Dimension 2 Zeta and 30% of Dimension 2 Epsilon. Whatever you two did in there, it helped."

"Yeah, well." The Time Giant shrugged, nearly dislodging the Axolotl from his perch draped over her shoulder. "It was one of those problems that fixes itself once you figure out what it is."

So the Time Giant had been right. The triangle's attempts to rescue "his" "people" and to stabilize his strange underworld in Dimension Zero had been what was destabilizing all the other dimensions. As much of a relief as it was to hear the situation was improving... part of the Axolotl had hoped that the fires were still as untamed as ever—because that would have meant the triangle wasn't guilty of perpetuating the blaze.

(If the triangle wasn't actively working to keep Dimension Zero stable, how much longer until it collapsed and erased all its imprisoned souls from existence? Would it be long enough to get them all out?)

The cloud asked, "So, did you find out what destroyed 2Δ?" Right. The Axolotl had almost forgotten that was what they'd originally been looking for.

The Time Giant shook her head grimly. "Didn't see any sign of it. But I've got a suspicion who did it."

The Axolotl said sharply, "All we have is circumstantial evidence." And he'd ripped into more than one god who'd tried to damn a mortal based on circumstantial evidence. 

The cloud's sunbeam darted between their faces. Slowly, it said, "I take it you mean our triangular friend. I don't have any proof yet about the original fire; but he's been spreading the fire, I know that much."

"How did you know?" the Axolotl asked. He and the Time Giant had only just learned it themselves inside Dimension Zero.

"We've been interviewing some refugees while you were out. I—think you'll want to speak to them." The cloud directed this statement to the Axolotl.

The Time Giant said, "Later. The triangle says he's willing to move his people to another dimension." She gestured toward VENDOR, flanked by the two cops THEY'd apparently adopted as THEIR personal escorts. THEY were ranting into a phone that the crab-looking cop was holding up for them. "So we've gotta go discuss refugee stuff with Vendy McVendface."

"VENDOR," the cloud corrected.

"Vend 'er? I hardly even know 'er!"

The gods turned to stare at the border of Dimension Zero as the triangle laughed at his own joke until he wheezed. "I had to. It was sitting right there! It woulda been a crime not to pick it up!" His cackles slowly petered out. "What, no laughs? Maybe the joke doesn't translate."

The Time Giant shrugged. "I kinda thought it was funny."

"Ah, whatever."

"Have you been listening the whole time?" the Axolotl asked, not sure whether to be amused or mortified.

"Don't worry about it, I've got something more important to say." He zipped up along the surface of Dimension Zero's border until he was eye level with the Time Giant. "Hey, Hourglass. I didn't say I'm ready to move my people. I said I'm ready to talk about moving. Your guy better sell me on it. If your offer isn't worth it, we're not leaving."

"Are you serious?" She screwed up her face. "Ain't not being erased from existence worth it?"

"I have very high standards. And there are fates worse than death."

"Name one."

The triangle only thought about it a second before he answered, "Captivity."

####

It wasn't until the Axolotl and the Time Giant left the border of Dimension Zero that the Axolotl realized, the moment the triangle had shown up, the storm cloud had disappeared. It was now drizzling surreptitiously near VENDOR, waiting for them to catch up.

As they approached VENDOR, the Time Giant said, "You should give VENDOR the news."

The Axolotl gave her an affronted look. "Why me?" This wasn't his responsibility. He hadn't been hired to do a job here. He shouldn't even be here; he was essentially an over-involved lookie-loo.

"You'd be better at talking to 'em. You move in the same circles."

"I'm not a politician, I'm a lawyer."

"I'm an engineer." She took the Axolotl off her shoulder and nudged his butt to set him gently floating in VENDOR's direction.

The Axolotl twisted around to give her a resentful look, but swam toward the vending machine.

THEY ignored the Axolotl until THEY finished THEIR current call, at which point THEY snapped, "What?" and he explained the situation. Blessedly, THEY didn't ask any further questions or give him any instructions; THEY just grumbled, "Finally," and told the crab cop, "Call the Vitruvian Mandala—we'll need to find places for another ten million 2D refugees."

"And 1D," the Axolotl said.

"Yes, yes." THEY muttered under THEIR fan, "And hopefully we'll get that triangle to the afterlife he deserves and be done with him."

The Axolotl doubted THEY meant a serene eternal paradise. Pointedly, he said, "Which afterlife he goes to is his choice."

Afterlife law was his speciality. Not cases like "based on this mortal's good and bad deeds, which form has she earned for her next reincarnation?" or "has this soul earned entry into his religion's realm of the wicked, the good, or the heroic?" Those were decided on the local level.

Rather, he tended to handle inter-pantheon, sometimes even interdimensional, cases—like, "if a mortal born on one planet lives and dies on another planet, which world's afterlife has claim to his soul?" "Is a soul's right to return to her native afterlife forfeit if she's apprehended in another god's jurisdiction for crimes against reality?" "Can a death god in a dimension where wandering ghosts are banned incarcerate a ghost from a dimension where wandering is legal?" "How does a soul's right to claim an afterlife weigh against an afterlife's right to claim a soul?" "Who has the right to judge a deceased mortal in the first place?"

The Axolotl personally thought that mortals deserved to be treated as mercifully as possible—starting with respecting the dead's own choice of afterlife above all others, and ending with outlawing damnation at the interdimensional level.

The rest of the multiverse... didn't agree with him yet. He didn't intend to stop until they did.

He went on, "Case law has long established that unless the dead made other arrangements premortem, they will be taken to—in order—the afterlife of their birth, their death, or their choice. The afterlife under whose jurisdiction the triangle lived and died has been destroyed, so he can go to any afterlife that says they're willing to take him, whether or not��you think it's what he deserves—"

VENDOR's camera rolled and THEY impatiently beeped acknowledgment. "Do you mind, I'm on the phone." THEY turned THEIR back on the Axolotl to focus on THEIR next call. Yeah, most gods didn't like being told they couldn't just smite and damn whoever they felt like.

The storm cloud called the Axolotl's attention with a fork of lightning. It said, "I'll need to help coordinate the rescue efforts with VENDOR. I can get the report on what you learned in there from the engineering inspector; but you need to go talk to some of the witnesses of the fire. Maybe you should ask the Vitruvian Mandala when He's free."

That was the second time it had told him to talk to the refugees. "Why?"

"You said that yellow triangle's your friend, right?"

"I... did, yes."

The cloud didn't explain any further. It only said, "Be careful around him."

####

VENDOR bustled around making preparations to receive ten million new refugees with absolutely no input from anyone else on the scene; the cloud's time was split between coordinating with the ATTF and getting a full debrief from the Time Giant on the conditions inside Dimension Zero; and left alone, the Axolotl found himself staring into the roiling barrier around the bloated singularity.

He swore, no matter where he looked, in the center of his view he could see a tiny, yellow, triangular pinprick of light, like an afterimage burned into his retina. No matter how deeply he looked into Dimension Zero, somehow his eyes always seemed focused on the triangle, making it appear nearer and then farther, like an optical illusion.

Be careful around him. He wished his Oracle were here to ask him questions. Helping her mortal mind make sense of this whole affair might help him make sense of it himself.

He'd seen the horror in the triangle's eye when he realized that he was the one incinerating the dimensions that had once bordered his own. He'd heard the sincerity in the triangle's voice when he said he could feel the deaths of every life that fell into his dream realm—the deaths that he himself was causing. He'd felt the guilt pouring from the triangle when he realized his efforts to save "his people" from being killed were what was killing them. Whatever else the Axolotl knew, he was sure the triangle hadn't meant to cause anyone harm. He hadn't started the fires on purpose. He just... didn't know what he was doing.

And "his people"—what did that mean?

Maybe some of the people in the triangle's dance party were from his dimension. The Axolotl couldn't totally confirm that they weren't; if the triangle had somehow survived, then why not others?

But it was undeniable that the triangle had been "rescuing"/kidnapping people from other dimensions, and he talked about the people he'd rescued no differently from the people from his own dimension.

Why? Had members of his species spread to neighboring dimensions? Or had his species come from another? Had his people established diplomatic relationships with cultures in neighboring universes, enough for them to consider themselves one people?

"Certainly not," said the Vitruvian Mandala.

He was a god from one of the worlds in Dimension 2 Gamma that the ATTF had managed to evacuate before the dimension was fully incinerated. Now, He was just another refugee, huddled with His confused, terrified people on one of the temporary worlds provided by VENDOR, curved uncomfortably atop the spherical planet. He had to be reeling from the loss of His home just as much as His people were—if not more, since He had known and seen and done and loved much more that any single mortal could. But nevertheless, He'd immediately stepped up to assist with organizing the rescue services, acting as a liaison between VENDOR and the 2D mortals to find new homes for them. 

And some of His people had been among the ones dragged into Dimension Zero—which was no doubt why the cloud had suggested the Axolotl speak to Him.

The Vitruvian Mandala may have been a minor creation god (He'd only created a galaxy) but He was more than powerful enough to know whether any of His people had ever made interdimensional contact. The Axolotl had waited until He had a moment to spare from assisting VENDOR, and then asked Him about their relationship with Dimension 2 Delta.

"I seeded life on all the populated worlds in My galaxy. None of My worlds have ever so much as been colonized by another galaxy in Our own dimension, much less people from another dimension," He said. "And We're a young galaxy—the most advanced starfarers have hardly ventured beyond their own solar systems; none have left Our dimension."

"And they've never spoken to other dimensions...?"

"No. The first contact We ever had with 'Dimension 2 Delta'—or what was left of it—was when the Magister Mentium began dragging My people into his underworld. The leaders I've had a chance to speak to from Dimension 2 Epsilon and Dimension 2 Zeta have told Me the same. " He called the triangle 'Magister Mentium' without any of the halting awkwardness the Axolotl did, or even the self-consciousness the triangle himself did. The Vitruvian Mandala had never known the triangle as anything but the Magister Mentium—and in His voice, it sounded not like an oversized title for a tiny triangle, but like the name of a fellow god.

But—the Axolotl had only asked the Vitruvian Mandala about Dimension 2 Delta. He hadn't brought up the Magister Mentium, nor mentioned that he was asking about the kidnapped people. "How did you know about the Magister Mentium?"

The Vitruvian Mandala said simply, "Because he introduced himself to My people before he started stealing them."

At the Axolotl's shocked silence, He said, "Do you want to see what they saw?"

####

When the agents with the ATTF had started interviewing survivors about the cosmic fire, naturally, they'd first approached the other gods for information. And then the gods had approached the mortals under their charge to get their testimonies and pass them on to the apoc agents.

The Vitruvian Mandala had telepathically extracted His people's memories and copied them into tiny glassy discs with brass rims. He sifted through dozens of discs before offering the memory of a narrow rhombus from one of His most technologically advance worlds; and the Axolotl stared through the disk to experience the mortal's memory.

The memory started with a sight that had become all too familiar to the Axolotl: a distant line of burning blue fire. It took a moment for the Axolotl to orient himself to the mortal's razor-thin two-dimensional view of her world; but once he did, he realized that, from her perspective, it wasn't a line of light. To her, it was the entire sky. The constellations of faraway flat stars had vanished, and their place was taken by an inferno.

The whole world reeked of a stench that the rhombus didn't recognize, but that the Axolotl did: burning hydrogen. In most dimensions, three-fourths of all the matter in the entire universe—including the very stars themselves—consisted of hydrogen molecules. Hydrogen burned a pale blue. The stench in the air, the pale blue light filling the sky, was the smell and sight of the raw materials of reality itself burning away.

The nearby buildings had emptied into the city streets as people abandoned their work to coming outside and stare at the burning sky. Somewhere—it seemed very far away—people were screaming, sirens were wailing, government proclamations were issuing out of radios and loudspeakers; but on these streets, on the border of the city where the sky was most visible, everyone was horribly silent. 

An eerie feeling of unreality hung over the world. It felt like a scene out of a dream. The rhombus's heart filled with dread. She didn't understand why or how the sky was burning, but she felt in her bones that it must mean the end of the world.

She never imagined that it was the end of the entire universe.

And then, more real than reality itself, bright enough to blind, a radioactive-yellow shape appeared in the middle of the crowd. Over the gasps of shock, a voice that echoed between the buildings proclaimed, "Gooood evening! Lines, bis, and tris; quads, quints, and more—my beloved believers and my new friends—I'm sure you all recognize my voice from the news, but it's a pleasure to finally meet you all in the flesh!"

She wasn't sure he had any flesh to meet. He was ghostlike, as insubstantial as smoke—and just as formless as smoke, too: his shape constantly shimmered and shifted and distorted, his skin appearing and disappearing as his internal organs were exposed; one moment a leg visible, the next a hand, then no limbs at all, just his blindingly bright body. His organs were all wrong. When she could stand to squint at the specter's light, in the split seconds that his ghostly form was properly visible, she thought he looked like a triangle.

(She'd never seen the third dimension, never even attempted to imagine what a 3D shape might look like. She didn't realize his appearance shifted because he was a 2D shape tilting in 3D directions trying to lay flat on the 2D plane of Dimension 2 Gamma, and not quite succeeding. )

"Allow me to introduce myself properly: I'm the Magister Mentium, seer of the third dimension! Your gateway to the stars and stardom, your guide to prophets and profits, your mastermind and master of minds; and, if you're lucky, your new eternal party host! I'm sure the honor's all yours—but please, resist the urge to swoon! I have a limited time offer that you cannot afford to miss."

For all his self-aggrandizing, the triangle was still completely unfamiliar. She didn't see recognition in the eyes of any of the shapes around them, either. She doubted he'd ever actually been on the news at all, unless it was in one of those dubious programs about ghost hunting or UFOs. 

But the triangle charged on regardless: "I'm here to bring you salvation from— Whoops! We've got a crying baby over here. Sorry junior, I'm on stage right now." She hadn't even noticed the crying until the triangle pointed it out; the whole world seemed dull and muffled and gray except for the triangle. One of his arms stretched in the child's direction and disappeared; there was a split-second flash of black fingers where the baby used to be; and then both hand and baby vanished, the baby's cries morphing into a shriek of terror that slowly faded into the unseeable distance.

"My baby!" a rectangle wailed. She rushed up to the alien triangle. "What did you do to my baby, you—" She tried to seize his arm, and let out a howl of pain as her hands burst into flame.

"Calm down, Mama, your little brat's okay!" He reached out and flicked the rectangle back. His finger hit her with the force of a catapult. She tumbled away from him through dimensions unknown, skins and bone and organs turning inside-out over each other; and slammed into a nearby building, fusing with the wall. All that was visible of her was a thin cross section of meat. The rhombus couldn't imagine where the rest of her had gone—but she could smell the burning flesh.

"Too bad I can't say the same of you." The triangle turned to stare them all down, gaze darting restlessly from face to face. His pupil was bizarrely long, animal-like; and his gaze burned. She was sure that, if his gaze had lingered on her a moment longer, she would have caught fire, too. "We're burning time, people! Would anyone else like to be excused? Last call!"

There were a few whispers, but no one moved. The crowd was petrified with fear.

"Terrrrific! Then you'd better listen close, because I only have time to say this once," the triangle said. "Here's the deal! There's only two kinds of people: the ones who hate captivity, and the ones who love it. Oh yeah, there are people who love it! Some of 'em like inflicting it, some of 'em are too stupid to think for themselves, and some of 'em just want to do terrible things and pretend they had no choice!

"But I'm here to help the rest of you—you know who you are! You're the ones who never quite tessellated with the other kids! The ones who are sick and tired of your family saying you had so much potential and asking where it's all gone! You can feel the barbs of social obligation hooking into your flesh—yeah, you there, you know what I'm talking about, I see you!—and you'd rip your own skin off if you thought it would set you free! It won't, by the way—take it from a guy who knows! Luckily for you, my way's more effective and less painful! Probably!"

In spite of their fear, more than a few shapes had started pushing closer to the triangle. He was speaking to them.

"So if you crave freedom—from work, laws, morality, physics... death..."

More than a few shapes glanced fearfully toward the sky.

"...if you want to see the stars with me—then raise your hand! Reach out to me! Watch your enemies burn and escape to a realm of dreams with no rules and no responsibilities! That's right, this way!"

As soon as he said raise your hand, it seemed like half the crowd stretched their hands out to him —and the longer he spoke, the more reached out.

She recognized some of the people reaching out—some of them were her neighbors and friends. Here was a beaten-down pentagon who'd spent his whole life being controlled, and just wanted freedom from the ruthless monsters who used and abused him. There was a controlling circle who'd spent her whole life using and abusing others, and wanted freedom to be an even more ruthless monster. They all reached toward the triangle just the same—as if they'd been waiting their whole lives for an opportunity to escape. The desperate, the downtrodden, the dastardly, the barely daring to hope. If the whole burning world felt like a bizarre dream, then this must have felt like a dream come true to them.

But to the rhombus, it felt like a nightmare. She had to fight through the crowd to back away from him. 

"No need to push! If you can't see me, just hold your hand toward my voice, I can see you!"

The smell of burning existence was growing stronger.

Was this a test? An approaching apocalypse and a shapeshifting god of light and fire offering a last-minute rapture. The sky was burning—what hope did they have if they didn't go with him? More of the crowd was reaching for him now—terrified of him, but more terrified of their fate if they didn't. The rhombus reluctantly stretched out a hand.

"Thaaat's right, this way! I've got all of you!" His voice was taking on an edge of impatience. "Just—come on already! Hurry up!"

She was at just the right angle to catch a split second glimpse of the triangle through the crowd. She saw as the person closest to him reached out and grasped his hand. She saw as the first of the triangle's new followers burst into flames. The unlucky soul crumbled to ash before they had a chance to scream.

"I said no pushing."

The rhombus jerked her hand back and hoped the triangle hadn't seen her through the crowd. He wasn't offering salvation.

Most of the crowd wasn't lucky enough to get a view of the unfortunate shapes at the front who were already learning what a deal with the triangle entailed. The rhombus could hear people, as though from a vast distance, calling out to the triangle: "Take me, take me!" "I'll do anything!" It seemed like the whole world was trying to get closer to him; she thought she was the only one trying to move away, until she made it as far back as she could, where the crowd was thinning out, and caught a few other shapes in her peripheral vision who'd moved the same way. More than half the crowd was rushing in toward the triangle.

But apparently, it wasn't enough to satisfy him. "Come on, people!" That enthusiastic voice, halfway between a salesman and a camp counselor, was gone now. His voice went shrill with anxiety. "What's it gonna take?! I'm offering you idiots paradise, why won't you listen? Why don't you ever LISTEN TO ME?!"

For a moment, even though the triangle was completely hidden by the crowd, the rhombus could feel his fiery gaze sweep over her. She felt the way her skin threatened to burst into flames, and she knew he saw her.

She backed away until her rear angle bumped into the nearest building.

"Fine! You've had your chance! I've found my people!" The triangle's voice dropped to an angry snarl. "For all I care, the rest of you can burn."

For every hand that stretched out to the triangle, a black hand reached back toward them—dozens and dozens of hands. "Let's blow up this popsicle stand!"

He seized his new believers' hands.

Most of them instantly burst into flames.

Most of the rest were either jerked away into some unseeable direction like the baby had been, or else the burning ghost hand they were shaking yanked something out of them, leaving behind a dry corpse.

Reality warped and distorted in ways her eye couldn't make sense of: buildings wobbling and spilling apart like they were made of liquid; people twisting together with the buildings in sickening multi-corpsed abominations.

"Whoopsie!" The triangle let out a shrill, tittering laugh. It sounded pained. "S-still gotta get the hang of that. Oh well!" He spoke louder and faster. "I saved as many of you as I could, doing the best I can here, the rest of you don't matter, anyway byyye!"

And then he was gone.

And then they were all awake. She hadn't known they were asleep. Whatever happened hadn't been a mere shared nightmare; it was as though the layer of existence that dreams happened on had been pressed into the layer of existence where reality happened, and she hadn't even noticed until the pressure applied by the triangle lifted and the layers popped apart again.

The layers had popped apart too hard. Several of the shapes nearest the triangle that he hadn't taken with him instantly died—the tether between their souls on the plane of dreams and their bodies on the plane of reality snapped like overstretched rubber bands.

The fused corpse abominations had been left behind, still tangled and mangled with the architecture. The buildings were charred. The survivors were covered in burns they hadn't noticed—everywhere the triangle had looked was burned. Anything the triangle looked through was burned.

She was covered in burns. She could feel the burning inside her body. She raised her hands to her face and felt it peeling off.

She couldn't even feel the bright blue fires roaring down from the heavens.

And then something else lifted her out of the world, just before the reality around them began to burn.

She didn't know where all the people the triangle had taken had gone. But as she blacked out, of one thing she was sure: this higher dimension he'd claimed to see, this realm of stars and dreams? They weren't there.

Wherever they were, they'd gone down.

####

When the Axolotl emerged from the recorded memory, he was dizzy with horror. He had to lay down on the prefab planet next to the Vitruvian Mandala while he reeled.

"Are you all right?" the Vitruvian Mandala asked.

Broken, the Axolotl said, "he threw a baby."

"I know."

"Is the baby alright?"

Delicately, He said, "It's beyond the dimensions I'm able to sense."

The Axolotl curled his gills. Not the baby. "What about the rhombus?"

"Her body was too burned; she died shortly after this memory," the Vitruvian Mandala said. "But fortunately, only a small part of her ghost suffered third degree burns. With an ectoplasm graft she's expected to recovery enough to have a fairly normal afterlife. Inasmuch as any afterlife can be considered 'normal' for My people now."

The Axolotl had noted how many ghosts were mingling with the living mortals when he arrived on this planet. He hadn't wanted to say anything; he didn't know whether that was normal for their people. "I can give you the contact rituals of some interdimensional psychopomps I respect. Very professional and compassionate gods." Although they'd be cursing the Axolotl's name for millennia for throwing so much work on their desks.

"I'd appreciate that. Thank you."

The Axolotl returned the memory disc to the Vitruvian Mandala; He momentarily stared into it Himself before returning it to His collection. "He gave speeches like this all across My populated worlds. I've retrieved thousands of memories like this from My people." His voice shook; the Axolotl couldn't tell if it was with anger or grief. "There would have been more—if more had survived."

"I'm so sorry." He didn't know what else he could do for the poor god but be sorry. All the senseless, slapdash slaughter. All of it so casual and accidental.

"Why?" the Vitruvian Mandala demanded. "He didn't speak like he meant My people harm, but he couldn't have done them more harm if he'd tried! I've never heard of him before—what is he, some malevolent trickster god? Why did he do it"

"Because... he thought he was saving them." That was the only thing the Axolotl could cling to.

####

(Thanks for reading!! If the art lured you in and this is the first chapter you read, this is part 5 of a 7-or-8-or-9 part fic that keeps getting more parts, about the Axolotl in the immediate aftermath of the Euclidean Massacre. I'll be posting one chapter a week, Fridays 5pm CST, so stick around if you wanna watch the Axolotl run out of ways to pretend Bill didn't destroy his own dimension.

It's ALSO chapter 65 of an ongoing post-canon post-TBOB very-reluctantly-human Bill fic. So if you wanna read more of me writing Bill, check it out. If you're not sold on the idea of a human Bill fic, I've also got a one-shot about normal triangle Bill escaping the Theraprism if you wanna read that.

If this is NOT your first time here and you already knew all of the above: Bill got SO CLOSE to looking like a misguided good guy last chapter, and that's why he had to throw a baby.

No actually it was because it seemed really really funny. Flipped that flat little thing like a pancake.

Due to real-world reasons, this is another chapter that isn't as edited & polished as usual, so let me know if you noticed any rough spots that need buffing. And let me know what you think! Bill with his cult leader persona cranked up to 100% is probably the hardest Bill to write.)

[adolin]

@moscca you're right and you should say it! Here's a really great compilation of Taz quotes I've been keeping in mind

From an interview where she says that Lovecraft was one of her main inspirations, talks about her relationship with horror vs. sff as a genre author, and wanting to find relatable heroines in horror lit.

I didn’t write Gideon the Ninth for the characters—I wrote it entirely for the structure. I wanted to tell a very specific story, and I needed everything to serve that story.

I want people to realise there are no boundaries. I also want to release people from having to take their universe entirely seriously, if they don’t want to. Science fiction and fantasy reflects ourselves, our anxieties, our joys. I’m just writing to amuse myself, as per usual.

I am writing for my younger self and it would be disgusting of me to try to teach her anything.

(& other quotes from that same interview)

Although love and forgiveness aren’t necessarily the same thing either, Gideon’s frankly divine ability to forgive is a huge core of the novel. [...] Forgiveness is almost the electrical current being able to transmit through love.

The way I personally stay true to the story I started down on is to give myself permission to not teach anyone anything. [...] I know that a lot of people do take enormous pleasure and relief in lines or phrases or ideas from stories that ring true to their own lives, but it’s important for me that I tell a story and that I’m not writing Chicken Soup for the Necromantic Soul.

...the God of the Locked Tomb IS a man; he IS the Father and the Teacher; it’s an inherently masc role played by someone who has an uneasy relationship himself to playing a Biblical patriarch. John falls back on hierarchies and roles because they’re familiar even when he’s struggling not to. But the divine in the Locked Tomb is essentially feminine on multiple axes.

It seems to me that most books by anyone female-adjacent have an expectation that they will comfort the uncomfortable and discomfit the comfortable etc., whereas a guy can just tell an adventure story and be done with it. This ties in with an idea that I think nowadays that good art is moral and bad art is immoral: i.e. if a story is good it must somehow be beautiful on the moral scale. We go looking for why the art we love is moral even if the art we love is a donut.

[stalkerofthegods]

Ares Deep dive

Ares is the Greek god and patron of many things, he is the edge of the sword while you hold the soft side, no god can be the god of war without the bloodshed, so don’t judge so quick, he is an amazing god, we love Ares here.

Herbs • Garlic, basil, buttercup, yarrow, ginger, anything with tiny yellow flowers, spicy stuff (ex- peppers, paprika), Water hemlock, Snapdragon, Poppy, Nettle, Magnolia, Ginger

Animals• Vulture, Colchian Dragon, serpents, barn owls, woodpeckers, dogs, horses, Stymphalian birds, boars

Zodiac • Aries

Colors • Red, black, and dark purple

Crystal• garnets, rubies, bloodstone, obsidian, red scoria, smoky quartz, red jasper, carnelian

Symbols• a helm, a shield, a spear and sometimes a sheathed sword, flaming torch, armor, palace, four fire-breathing horses 

Jewelry you can wear in their honor• Iron, armor

Diety of• masculinity, civil order, Battle lust, courage, City guards/police, Rage, Violent deeds, Fights, Murder, Manslaughter, Quarrels, cheese, dancing, rebellion 

Patron of• the Amazons, City defenses, City defenders

Offerings• Dragons, Dragon imagery, Dragon art, Strong dark red wine, Strong whiskey, Pure water, Black coffee, Black tea, Olive oil, Beef, Red meats in general, Cooked fat from meats, Blood from cut meats, Heavy spices, Spicy foods, Garlic, Red, black, and dark purple candles, Art or statues of Him, Statues of horses or dogs, Weapons, armor, and shields (ex- art, statues, toys, handmade.), Trophies, Spicy jerky, Sport drinks / protein shakes, Hand drawn or printed art of HimArt or images of dogs, horses, and vultures, Feathers from vultures, woodpeckers, or barn owls, Iron or steel jewelry, Red flowers (ex- roses), Thorns, Miniature or toy weapons and armor (especially helmets), Snake skin, Animal teeth, Write down your fears or successes and give them to Him, Medals and ribbons you’ve earned, Antiques, Photos of riots or past wars, hot sauce, Pork ribs, homemade meals, poultry, hare, venison, wolf hearts, chili peppers, lemons, green bananas, unripe peaches, batons, bullets, kendo swords, shields, military helmets, bullet-proof vests, military boots, military belts, dynamite sticks, grenades, lion pelts, shark teeth, ram skulls, explosives (handle carefully), Medals or Certificates, dog fur or dog teeth (ethically sourced), horseshoes, bull horns, war memorabilia, broken glass, spicy jerky or twiggy sticks, Carmel, sushi, stormwater, spicy salsa, Mexican food, chocolate or chia pudding, burnt matches, cigarette butts

Devotional• Create a playlist and listen to music that makes you feel brave/empowered, Donate to the Rape Crisis Center or other similar programs, Donate and support victims of war, Cook with garlic or heavy spices that you haven’t tried before, Try new things and don’t feel ashamed about doing so, Tell Him about your accomplishments, Tell Him about your fears, Learn about shadow work and try it for yourself, Learn about history, past wars, and past riots, Learn what they accomplished or failed to accomplish, Learn and educate yourself about the downsides of war and what can happen to the people affected by wars, Partake in combat sports (ex- martial arts, fencing), Exercise, Play some strategy games like chess, Risk, and Civilization, Stand up for yourself and what you believe in, write to your governor/mayor for things you want to see changed, attend riots, Pray to Him (ex-strength, ability to fight and defeat enemies, courage, to keep others safe, and help in a battle), go to a protest, learn first aid, educate yourself on PTSD, do unharmful things that give you adrenaline rushes (ex- amusement park rides, bungee jumping), watch action movies with him, pet a dog, Playing Strategy Games, Work on managing your anger, bones, go do axe throwing, a playlist that makes you feel, brave, energized and confident, keep track of your successes (this can be daily tasks, when you conquer them cross them off, and then offer the list to Ares), write down or draw art of your fears, go to a rage room, pray or meditate during thunderstorms, watch war movies and documentaries and play war/combat and strategy video games

Ephithets•Adámastos/adamastus/ἀδάμαστος/ΑΔΑΜΑΣΤΟΣ/ἀδάμας -unconquerable & indestructible, Ænyálios/enyalius/ἐνυάλιος/ΕΝΥΑΛΙΟΣ -war-God, Alcimus, Álkimos/alcimus/ἄλκιμος/ΑΛΚΙΜΟΣ/Adj - valiant, brave, Alloprósallos/alloprosallus/ἀλλοπρόσαλλος/ΑΛΛΟΠΡΟΣΑΛΛΟΣ- loyal to the struggle and to the souls who are engaged in it, Ánax/ἄναξ/ΑΝΑΞ -lord, king, Aphneiós/aphneius/ἀφνειός/ΑΦΝ��ΙΟΣ -rich, wealthy, Arrectus, Árriktos/arrectus/ἄρρηκτος, ΑΡΡΗΚΤΟΣ -unbreakable, Brotoctonus, Enyalius, Hippius, Hoplochares/Hoplodupus/Hoplophorus,  Íppios/hippius/ἵππιος/ÍΠΠΙΟΣ -horseman,  Mægasthænís/megasthenes/μεγασθενής/ΜΕΓΑΣΘΕΝΗΣ/μεγασθενές -very strong,  Megasthenes/Mægasthænís., Ombrimothymus:See Omvrimóthymos/Omvrimóthymos/ombrimo hymus/ὀμβριμόθυμος/ΟΜΒΡΙΜΟΘΥΜΟΣ/ὀβρῐμόθῡμος -doughty, indomitable, Oplódoupos/hoplodupus/ὁπλόδουπος/ΟΠΛΟΔΟΥΠΟΣ -clattering in his armor, Oplokharís/hoplochares/ὁπλοχαρής, ΟΠΛΟΧΑΡΗΣ -rejoicing in arms, Oplophóros/hoplophorus/ὁπλοφόρος/ΟΠΛΟΦΟΡΟΣ - he who bears arms, Phrictus/Phriktós/phrictus/φρικτός/ΦΡΙΚΤΟΣ - horrifying, Polæmóklonos/polemoklonus/πολεμόκλονος/ΠΟΛΕΜΟΚΛΟΝΟΣ -he raises the clamor of combat, Polemoklonus/Polæmóklonos, Sceptuchus/ Skiptoukhos/Skiptoukho/sceptuchus/σκηπτοῦχος/ΣΚΗΠΤΟΥΧΟΣ -he who bears a scepter, Teichesipletes/Teikhæsiplítis/Teikhæsiplítis/teichesipletes/τειχεσιπλήτης/ΤΕΙΧΕΣΙΠΛΗΤΗΣ—he who storms the cities in battle, Vrotoktónos/brotoctonus/βροτοκτόνος, ΒΡΟΤΟΚΤΟΝΟΣ -the slayer of men.

Equivalents• Mars (Roman), Onuris-Anhur (Egyptian god), Tiu-Tyr (Germanic god),  unnamed war-god (Scythian god).

Courting• unmarried, but courting Aphrodite. 

Past lovers/crushes/hookups• Aerope, Agraulos, Harmonia, Otrere, Astyokhe, Demonike or Sterope, Kyrene or Asterie, Astyokhe

Personality• He’s a great father, and a great lover, I talk to a godspouse of his and they talk about how he calmed them and was always there. He’s a great father because I’ve talked to a person who their father is ares and he’s always there for them, he’s also generous.

Home• Mount Olympus 

Mortal or immortal • immortal

Fact• Ares was the only male greek god that never raped or sexually assaulted any woman

Curses• Routing armies, Cowardice, Death on the battlefield, Military invasion, Sacking of cities, Rebellion, Uprisings, Sedition

Blessings•Driving armies, Bravery, fighting strength & endurance,  Averting war (peace), Repelling invading armies, Maintaining civil order, Crushing rebellions, Restraint violent instinct,

Roots• Thrake, Ancient Greece.

Parentage• Zues and Hera

Siblings• Enyo (twin sister), Eris (sister), Apollo (half-brother), Artemis (half-sister), Athena (half-sister), Hephaestus (brother), Hermes (half-brother), Dionysus (half-brother), Hebe (sister), Heracles (half-brother), Aphrodite (half-sister).

Pet• four fire-breathing horses (Aithon (Red-Fire), Phlogios (Flame), Konabos (Tumult) and Phobos (Fear))

Children •ANTEROS (God of reciprocated love, son of Ares and Aphrodite), DEIMOS (God of fear, a son of Ares and Aphrodite.), ENYALIOS/Enyalius (A war-god son of Ares and Eris), EROS (God of love, a son of Ares and Aphrodite),  HARMONIA (Goddess of harmony, daughter of Ares and Aphrodite.), NIKE(The goddess of victory, a daughter of Ares), PHOBOS (God of panic, son of Ares and Aphrodite),AEROPOS/Aeropus (son of Ares and Aerope.), ALKIPPE/Alcippe (daughter of Ares and Agraulos), AMAZONES/Amazons (Warrior women of Assyria, daughters of Ares and Harmonia), ANTIOPE(daughter of Ares and Otrere), ASKALAPHOS/Ascalaphus (son of Ares and Astyokhe), DIOMEDES (son of Ares and Kyrene or Asterie), DRYAS (son of Ares), EUENOS/Evenus (son of Ares and Demonike, and sometimes the son of Ares and Sterope), HIPPOLYTE (daughter of Ares and Otrere.),IALMENOS/Ialmenus (son of Ares and Astyokhe), KYKNOS/Cycnus) (son of Ares and Pelopia or Pyrene), LIKYMNIOS/Licymnius (son of Ares most say his father was King Elektryon), LYKASTOS/Lycastus) (son of Ares and Phylonome.), LYKOS/Lycus (son of Ares who used to sacrifice strangers to his father), MELANIPPOS/Melanippus (son of Ares and Triteia.), MELEAGROS/Meleager (son of Ares and Queen Althaia, but most call him a son of King Oineus), MOLOS/Molus (son of Ares and Demonike), NISOS/Nisus (son of Ares, but most accounts say he was a son of the Athenian prince Pandion), OIAGROS/Oeagrus (a son of Ares but some say his father was King Kharops),OINOMAUS/Oenomaus (son of Ares and the Pleaid Sterope or Princess Harpinna), OXYLOS/Oxylus (son of Ares and Protogeneia), PARRHASIOS/Parrhasius(son of Ares and Phylonome.),PARTHENOPAIOS/Parthenopaeus (son of Ares and Atalanta, many say his father was Melanion or Meleagros), PENTHESILEIA (daughter of Ares and Otrere), PHLEGYAS (He was a son of Ares and Dotis or Khryse.), PORTHAON (son of Ares or according to others of Agenor), PYLOS/Pylus (son of Ares and Demonike.), REMUS (son of Ares and Ilia), ROMULUS (son of Ares and Ilia), TEREUS (a son of Ares.), THESTIOS/Thesius (son of Ares and Demonike or Agenor and Epikaste), THRASSA (daughter of Ares and Tereine.), DRAKON ISMENIAN (A monstrous dragon-serpent, it was a son of Ares and the Erinys Telphousia.)

attendees• DEIMOS & PHOBOS (The twin gods of terror and fear), ERIS & ENYO (goddess of strife, hatred and war), KYDOIMOS/Cydoemus (The god of the din of war), NIKE (goddess of victory), OTHER ABSTRACTIONS(spirits described such as Rage, Anger, Threats, Death and Valour)

Appearance in astral or gen• In ancient Greek art, he was depicted as either a mature, bearded warrior armed for battle, or as a nude, beardless youth with a helm and spear.

Festivals • Artemis Agrotera/Kharisteria , and Genesios, maybe.

Day • Tuesday 

Scared places• Odrysia in Bistonia, Thrake (his birth-place)

Planet• Mars

Tarot cards• Chariot & Emperor card

Scents/Inscene • Frankensince, Sandalwood incense, resin, burning wood (especially if Himalayan salt in thrown in since it reminds him of blood), and red sandalwood incense

Prayers• 

Prayer to Ares for the Safety of a Soldier

Bold-hearted Ares, bright-helmed son of thundering Zeus and noble Hera, well-honored god of war, any battle will you face, any foe will you fight, without fear and without hestitation. Ares, god of warriors, ally of those who risk their lives on the field, to you do soldiers offer their prayers. You know each one’s name, O Ares, you know their lives, you know their worth. Great Ares, I pray to you, watch over ____________ who heeded your call, who practices your art, whose name you know well, for s/he is one of your own who does you honor with each day s/he serves. Ares, I pray to you.

In general 

Bright-helmed Ares, strong of arm and stern of visage, firm of stance, unyielding of will, ever ready to face any foe, to hold the line against all who may come, to battle until the end. Ares, son of noble Zeus and wise Hera, cherished by golden Aphrodite, honored by those who call on you for strength and courage, in the north were you much honored in times of old, in Thrace and Thessaly were you held in esteem by those whose lives were harsh, whose world was stony, whose comforts were hard-won. Ares who answers the prayers of the despairing, I honor you

For Courage

Ares, fierce-hearted son of Zeus and noble Hera, full-famed you are as god of war. To you do soldiers pray when battle is most heated, when mettle is most needed. To you as well do we turn in desperate times, to you do we call for strength, for the spirit to endure. You understand the terror of struggle and strife, you confront it in every way. Ares, your courage is unquestioned, your might and your prowess unequaled. Ares, friend to those in direst need, I pray to you, grant me the nerve to face what must be faced, grant me the will to do what must be done, grant me the heart to forge ahead.

Links/websites/sources •https://greekgodsandgoddesses.net/gods/ares/

https://twelfthremedy.tumblr.com/post/624476009567289344/ares-offerings/amphttps://aspisofares.wordpress.com/tag/offerings/https://www.tumblr.com/warriots/622104378198933504/a-guide-to-ares-worship https://www.tumblr.com/warriots/622104378198933504/a-guide-to-ares-worship https://scarletarosa.tumblr.com/post/187742800571/ares-greek-god-ofhttps://www.tumblr.com/diana-thyme/722942201197363200/greek-gods-101-ares @enyalios-shrinehttps://greekpagan.com/category/prayers-2/ares/

BIG HELP TO

https://www.tumblr.com/tarotbee

Ares is the Greek god and patron of many things, he is the edge of the sword while you hold the soft side, no god can be the god of war without the bloodshed, he is an amazing god, we love Ares here.

I use resources, I do not own the info, and most deep dives have UPG (that I use in my work.) And I only take some information from sources. I am 14, this is my hobby, I am learning but I spent many hours and days on this, and I am always open to criticism. I have been doing worship for 5 years. Please know you can use the info, I do not sue, but I will take action if this work is used without permission and not put as a resource if used in any work. without permisson and not put as a resource if used in any work, for the public.

[lumilasi]

Second member of my lil Space rescue crew I'm building for funsies. I also couldn't help but doodle that comic strip as well, BC it was stuck in my brain and wouldn't leave otherwise.

Anya deserved SO much better....art wise too, maybe I'll try to draw her properly later?

(Side note; in a more serious story, Stefan absolutely would NOT just casually walk there with a bloody axe, knowing Anya is very badly traumatized; he'd be much more tactful. This strip is kind of meant to be absurd and 'non-canonical' to his character)

Also, more info about Nadiya below:

Nadiya is VERY picky about her crew, hence she has a small one. She's especially picky about men, having had unpleasant experiences working with them during her training.

That said, she has very firm trust on Stefan and her co-pilot, who have proven themselves to her quite a few times already

Nadiya finds Stefan's obliviousness over the fact TWO people have a crush on him amusing.

She and Stefan act as the "mom and dad" of the crew, though they aren't a couple by any means; neither feels any sort of attraction to the other, but they trust and respect each other, and are willing to take more drastic measures than the others.

Nadiya can be quite ruthless if she wants to, there is a reason why she has a reputation. That being said she takes her job as a rescuer seriously - she's just willing to 'rescue' crews from their bad apples as well...

Her saying, "Whatever the threat, external or internal" is basically her philosophy that leads to this.

I'll add more stuff once I figure it out; I don't have her that fleshed out yet, but that's typical for any new characters, they need time to develop.

[rum-inspector]

Swtor companion gifts. Sometimes I amuse myself by looking into what type of gifts companions like

Arcann likes commissioned art, a little bit. Is it a personalized holoportrait of himself? Of you, the gifter? Or his favorite rarepair? Pet portrait of his exoboars? We don't know.

The silly part of me wants to think "personal aroma set" is akin to Axe Bodyspray just because the boy looks like someone you know who uses too much of it - but I'm sure it's something more refinedm being ex-prince and all. Is it perfume? Is it scented candles? it could be insence? Whatever it may be, he likes to smell moderately nice.

But he really likes sith opera! Quinn likes it too. They can listen to it together, To the detriment of rest of the alliance, Quinn with his tenor and Arcann's baritone they form a delightful duo on Odessen Talent Nights. Together they can hit some of the notes. Fun to watch, not so much to listen.

[fili-urzudel]

If you don't mind #9 and #7 with Thorin and Dwalin.

7. Sleeping in a dog pile

9. Forehead touches

I was quite honestly immediately inspired by this one, it was just bridging the gaps between every flash of inspiration I had lol. It felt nice to write something platonic, and I hope that this was close to what you had in mind, or if it wasn't, it's still something you enjoy. <3

Word count: 1.1 k

Warnings: Might getcha in your feels idk, old man dwarf Balin POV

Pebbles - Platonic Balin, Thorin, and Dwalin

Dwalin could hardly keep still, hands fidgeting with the head of the wooden axe Adad had gifted him some months ago. "Will you let us stay up as late as we want?"

"No," Balin answered sternly, still feeling a bit strange, entrusted with all this authority. "You will go to sleep when Amad and Her Highness said you need to go to sleep. And you'll eat your dinner."

"I thought brothers were supposed to be fun."

"I thought sons of the advisor to the king were supposed to be well behaved," Balin said, before ruffling his brother's dark hair. He hadn't quite gotten the hang of braiding it yet, so he decided to leave it all out, and it stuck out quite impressively from his head. "And you can have fun, just be mindful. It's not your house. And be gentle with Dis, she's just a little'un."

"Aye, aye," he waved him off.

The older dwarf hoisted his school bag over his shoulder again before knocking on the door to the common quarters of the royal family. "Come in!" The princess's voice rang through, and Balin took a deep breath as he pulled the door open. 

"Dwalin!" Thorin jumped up from whatever it was he was doing at the table to all but tackle his little brother, initiating their special handshake that always ended in a headbutt. 

He had taught them it. 

"And what am I? Chopped liver?" As he spoke, Frerin and Dis came running up, sticking to either side of him and forcing him to drop his bag of schoolbooks on the floor. "Ah, at least someone cares," he joked, a hand on each of their backs.

"Thank you for showing up early, we're about ready to leave," the princess told him with a genuine smile. She was always so warm. "I know you'll all have so much fun!"

"Not too much," Prince Thrain reminded them.

"Of course not, sir."

"I know you're a good lad, Balin," Thrain reassured him. "I'm sure we'll return to clean plates, clean rugs, clean clothes, and no damaged art, right?" He asked, pointedly turning to his eldest son and his best friend, who seemed to be tuning him out.

"Yes, da."

"Yes, sir!" They said at the same time.

After a round of goodbye and another set of reminders for Thorin and Dwalin, the pair were off, and Balin could get started on his homework. Right?

"Dis, you've got to finish your vegetables," Balin encouraged her, though he knew the words would have irked him when he was her age. 

"But I don't like green food," she pouted, blue eyes welling with on-demand tears. 

"Thattagirl," Dwalin praised, and Balin shot him a look that had him shrinking in his seat. 

"They're good, I prom—Frerin, that had better not be drawing clay," he warned as he saw the pebble nearing the wall with a suspiciously clenched fist. "I may not be your ma but I won't let you color the walls either."

After redirecting Frerin's creative energy to parchment, Balin cleaned up after dinner. 

It wasn't much easier after.

"Boys, no wrestling on the furniture," he said exasperatedly, still trying in vain to do his schoolwork at the dinner table. He moved his papers and books haphazardly in his arms to the table in the sitting room, hoping to dissuade them from trying again. 

They continued amusing themselves with tasks of varying volume, and Balin was almost done with his essay on the First Age when it went quiet. Too quiet.

"Boys?"

"Quick, pick it up!"

"Why weren't you watching her?"

"She's your sister!"

"She's your sister too!"

"You're older!"

By that point, Balin had made it to the room at the end of the hall—the master bedroom. Someplace none of them should be.

The scene was simple enough to decipher. A vase of some sort lay on the ground, formerly perched on a table that Dis must've walked into and knocked over. Surprisingly, the noise was not enough to make her cry, but enough to make the other pebbles start panicking.

It wasn't a big deal. Honestly, if it was anyone's fault, it was Balin's, something he would readily admit to when the prince and princess returned.

But the pebbles thought they were in big trouble, with enough anxious energy to keep them up all night. 

"Why, you little goats!" He roared, and the pebbles perked up almost instantly. "You'd better run!"

Dis shrieked and toddled away, the others in hot pursuit. Balin chased them around tables and the kitchen island, catching them and earning more screams every time they hid behind a bed or chair.

He let them get ahead of him just enough to confer among themselves, and when he caught up, they attacked. 

"Get him!" Dis cried in her small voice, and Balin couldn't hide his smile.

Frerin and Thorin each took an arm, and Dwalin bowled them back onto the couch. "My own brother, betraying me!" he shouted, closing his eyes in defeat.

The couch was wide, wide enough for the five of them to spread out as they wished. Dwalin lay on his chest, his untamed hair tickling Balin's chin.

Thorin laid his head on his stomach, his baby sister in his arms and his little brother laid out on his legs.

And finally, they could rest, Balin thought as not-so-quiet snores filled the room.

"Balin?" A small voice asked, and it took a moment for him to realize it was Dwalin's. It had been a while since he sounded so... little. 

"Yeah, nadad?"

"I'm sorry for not being better tonight."

"You were just having fun," he assured him. "It's alright."

"Are you sure?"

Balin touched his forehead to his brother's briefly, patting his back. "Yeah. Go to sleep, nadad."

His brother snuggled back up to his side.

He would clean up the vase later. He would tell the prince and princess when they got home and apologize profusely for not watching them more closely.

But right now, it was nice being right where he was.

My, where did time go?

It had been a long time since then, Balin reminisced. A lot had changed. They were charging to recover the mountain he had lived most of his life in. He had a couple hundred more grey hairs, and all the pebbles had full beards now. The ones that were still alive, at least. Dis had pebbles of her own, and they were on the quest. 

He wasn't sure, but he did know one thing. It was an absolute fact, actually, as Thorin and Dwalin lay snoring on each arm.

Some things didn't change much at all.

[darksaiyangoku]

RWBY Christmas Tales

Oscar and the Green Knight

It was Christmas Eve and the young King Arthur Azure had invited everyone to a party in Camelot Castle. Most royals had huge banquets, goblets of wine, rich lords and ladies dressed in fancy suits or luxurious dresses. But Arthur was different. Instead, he and his trusty knights were engaged in a snowball fight outside the courtyard. Jaune Arc and Lie Ren stood back to back as they faced Ruby Rose and Nora Valkyrie. Sun Wukong and Yang Xiao Long leaped from the bushes and pelted Weiss Schnee and Blake Belladonna. Sage Ayana, Scarlet David and Neptune Vasilias kept a watchful eye as they hid behind several stone statues for cover. Even the common folk were starting to join in and soon the snowfight turned into a snowbattle. Lines were drawn, families were pitted against each other, best friends became mortal enemies and the Knights of Vale took arms against the very people they swore to defend. It was a frenzy, many had lost their footing and fell onto the soft, velvety ground. In the end, only two were left standing, Arthur and his best friend, Oscar Pine. Oscar held a snowball so large that he had to use both hands, while Arthur's was in the shape of a small egg. They glared at each other menacingly, standing their ground.

Oscar: We knew this day would come, Your Majesty.

Arthur: So it would seem, Oscar. Your resolve to win is strong, but can the same be said about your snowball?

Oscar: *deep breath* This snowball was forged by the hands of the Pine Family. It carries their blessing, courage and honour. As a Knight of Vale *lifts snowball* I'll put everything into- agh!!

Arthur's snowball directly hit Oscar in the nose, knocking him backwards. Oscar felt a cold, hard sting and screeched, much to the amusement of his fellow knights, who were laughing at the sight.

Oscar: Come on!! That wasn't even fair!! I didn't even get the chance to finish my speech!!

Arthur: *chuckles* Consider that a lesson, my friend. You can't delay a battle simply with words, the enemy won't allow it.

Oscar: Tck! Whatever. *grumbles*

Arthur: Oh come on, don't be like that. Tell you what, how about I get Glynda over to make you a warm, sweet plum pie?

Oscar: Hmmmm..... *sighs and smiles* well okay. You know I could never refuse a plum pie.

Arthur: *smiles* That's the spirit! *helps up Oscar*

While all the guests were getting ready to head inside the castle, the gates suddenly burst open and a strong, gust of wind flew into the courtyard. As the wind cleared, everyone was stood silent as they saw a large knight standing before them. His armour was dark, luscious green, his cape was bright red and his hand, he carried a large battle axe, with a a beautiful golden handle. The most ominous feature, however, was his helmet. It bore the horns of a devil and peering through the vizor were ghastly, white eyes. Slowly, the Green Knight entered the courtyard and shook the ground beneath him with every step. Arthur tried to signal his comrades to retrieve their weapons, but the tremors made it impossible to move. The Green Knight in front of Arthur and bowed to him.

Green Knight: Merry Christmas, young King of Vale. I have travelled far and wide for players of my game.

Arthur: ...and what "game" would that be?

Green Knight: The axe I hold in my hand is one of the most powerful weapons in all of Remnant and I shall gladly depart with such a jewell if one is willing to strike me down with it. But whoever is victorious, I shall return the blow in one year's time. Who among you is willing to play? Or are the Knights of Vale merely children pretending to be heroes?

The Knights of Vale took offence to this slander and they all lined up to face the Green Knight. Arthur, however, was stricken with fear. There was a dark presence that he could feel. It was harsh and terrifying. He tried his best to stop his hands from trembling. The people shouldn't see their King afraid. Oscar pushed through the crowd and came between Arthur and the Green Knight.

Oscar: I accept your challenge, sir.

Arthur: What?!

Ruby: What?!

Knights of Vale: WHAT?!

Ruby: *runs to him* Oscar, no! This is crazy!

Arthur: Ruby's right. Please let me handle this.

Oscar: *shakes head* No. It's okay. I was the one who answered his call and I'm the one who's going to see it through. None of you must interfere. *deep breath* I'll be okay.

Reluctantly, Arthur and Ruby stepped away and allowed Oscar to continue with the challenge. The Green Knight gave him the axe and got onto his knees and lowered his head. Oscar gripped the handle as tight as he could and raised the weapon high into the air. He swung the axe down with devastating force and cleaved the Green Knight's head clean off. Many of the people screamed in horror as they witnessed the head roll to Oscar's feet. He turned pale and his stomach felt heavy. The Green Knight reached for his head and stood up, carrying it under his arms.

Green Knight: Well done, Sir Oscar. You have bested me. But remember, you shall return that axe to me so that I can repay you in kind. You have one year. Good luck.

An ugly, bellowing laugh escaped from his head as he left the courtyard. Oscar's legs started to shake and he collapsed to the ground.

Ruby: Oscar!

Arthur: Quick, someone fetch water!

Ruby: *shakes Oscar*Oscar! Oscar! Wake up! Please wake up!

[cherryrainn]

How would Striker react to meeting a sinner demon who maintains her human form? She killed her husband in self defense with a gun who would abuse her as she suffered a miscarriage from the abuse. She ended up being hanged for her crimes because it was the 1900's. The sinner demon ends up taking a liking to Striker but she can't leave Pride because it's part of the punishment. The sinner demon carries an ax and a shotgun.

━━ ✧ 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐡𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐝𝐞 ˚୨୧⋆｡˚ ��

─ ✩ 𝐏𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆 ; striker + fem!reader

─ ✩ 𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄 ; this is so creative thank you

─ ✩ 𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒 ; mentions of abuse, miscarriage

the dimly lit alleys of pride offered a stark contrast to the usual hustle and bustle of the more luxurious circles of hell. striker strode through the streets, his ivory white hair catching the glow of the ambient fires. the mission was simple: gather the materials he needed for his next assignment. even in this forsaken place, striker wasn't one to waste time.

as he navigated the winding pathways, a particular establishment caught his attention. unlike the rest of pride's grim scenery, this place emitted a strangely inviting aura. striker, ever curious and in need of supplies, pushed open the creaky door and stepped inside.

the interior was dim, illuminated only by the faint light filtering through the boarded-up windows. the smell of old wood and gunpowder permeated the air. behind the counter stood you. despite the passage of time and the circumstances that led you here, you maintained your human form, an anomaly in a place like hell.

your eyes met striker's, and there was a momentary pause—a silent acknowledgment of the shared understanding of hell's complexities.

"looking for something specific?" you asked, your voice tinged with curiosity and a hint of amusement.

"ammunition. high caliber," striker replied, his eyes scanning the array of weapons and supplies adorning the walls of your shop.

you nodded, fetching the requested items with practiced ease. as you handed him the ammunition, your eyes met once more, and a subtle shift occurred—a mutual recognition of the darkness that dwelled within both of you.

"interesting place you've got here," striker commented, taking a moment to examine a finely crafted shotgun on display.

"it serves its purpose," you replied, leaning against the counter.

a smirk formed on striker's lips. "you seem different from the usual riffraff in pride."

"as do you, imp." you countered. "not many venture into this part of hell unless they have a death wish or a specific agenda."

"let's just say i'm here on business," striker replied cryptically, his eyes narrowing slightly. "and it seems like you understand the intricacies of doing business in hell quite well."

you chuckled, amused by his perceptiveness. "survival is an art form down here. you learn to adapt, to make deals, and sometimes, to look the other way."

striker's gaze intensified, a flicker of respect gleaming in his bright yellow eyes. "i admire your pragmatism," he admitted. "in a place filled with backstabbers and sycophants, it's refreshing to meet someone who understands the value of straightforward dealings."

you nodded, "survival often requires making difficult choices," you said, your voice tinged with a hint of melancholy.

striker tilted his head, intrigued by your cryptic demeanor. "and have your choices led you to regret?"

a somber expression crossed your face as memories of your past life flooded your mind—the abuse, the miscarriage, the fatal act of self-defense, and the unjust punishment that followed. "regret is a luxury i can't afford," you finally said, gripping the handle of your ax tightly.

striker studied you for a moment, recognizing the pain and determination hidden behind your eyes. "perhaps we're not so different, you and i," he mused, his voice surprisingly gentle.

you met his gaze, a silent understanding passing between you.

as striker prepared to leave the shop, his curiosity got the better of him. he turned back to you, with a questioning look.

"before i go, there's something i've been itching to ask," striker said, his tone a mixture of intrigue and nonchalance. "what was your sin? what landed you here in hell?"

you paused, the weight of the question settling on your shoulders. the memories of your past resurfaced, and you met striker's eyes with a mixture of pain and resolve.

"i killed my husband," you replied evenly, the words carrying a heavy truth. "in self-defense. he was abusive, and i lost my child because of him. but in the 1900s, they weren't exactly sympathetic to the plight of a battered woman."

striker's expression remained unreadable, though a flicker of acknowledgment passed through his eyes. he was no stranger to the harsh judgments and unforgiving nature of this place. "ganged for self-preservation. classic move."

you nodded, the weight of your sin echoing in the silence that followed. striker, surprisingly, didn't pass judgment.

after a moment of shared understanding, striker extended a gloved hand toward you, his yellow eyes locked onto yours with a newfound sense of respect. "striker," he introduced himself, his voice carrying a hint of gravitas.

you clasped his hand firmly, sensing the weight of his reputation and the complexities that defined him. "y/n," you replied, allowing a brief smile to grace your lips despite the haunting memories that lingered in the recesses of your mind.

as striker prepared to leave, his eyes met yours once more, a flicker of determination gleaming within their depths. "i have a feeling our paths will cross again," he said, his voice carrying a confident undertone.

you nodded, sensing the sincerity behind his words. "i'll be here," you replied, gripping the handle of your ax with a newfound sense of purpose.

with a final nod of acknowledgment, striker stepped out of your shop, disappearing into the labyrinthine streets of pride. yet, despite his departure, his presence lingered in the air—a reminder of the unexpected connection forged between two souls bound by the complexities of hell's unforgiving landscape.

[anhed-nia]

More Not-Blogtober for What Doesn't Ail Ya

In my latest experiment with manipulating this content mill to force my thoughts on an unsuspecting public, I say my piece about what makes Rob Zombie's movies uniquely important--and it's not all the nerdy references or the extreme sex and violence, or any of the usual stuff people surface. To quote Nurse Forsythe, "even old flesh is erotic flesh," and Zombie definitely got that particular memo:

The truth is that I don't even necessarily like everything I write about, despite my often positive/SEO-friendly tone. There's only one Rob Zombie movie that I absolutely love all of, and a few others with parts I enjoy--but the question of quality often has to take a back seat to the question of what something means, why it happens, what has brought it into public awareness. Another good example of this is the TERRIFIER series, which I really do not enjoy, though I sort of talked myself into appreciating it when I dealt with it for Blogtober a couple years ago. It doesn't take a genius to come up with the whole Evil Santa gag, but when I started connecting the dots I thought...is Evil Santa actually a time-honored anti-censorship avenger? I think this is possible; I think that, possibly, the horror world needs to formally institute ax-swinging Kris Kringle as a specific avatar of free speech:

To be totally honest I feel a little tired just knowing that I'm going to have to watch this movie in October, but the series does have its qualities. The most embarrassing revelation from my previous series rewatch (which I really don't think I can repeat) is that I really like TERRIFIER 2's popular novelty sunglasses scene. David Howard Thornton is a good clown and he makes it really funny, without diluting how actually-scary the scene is; being in a public place during business hours should feel safe, but it really doesn't here since any false move can set off Art and then he'll remind everyone that he's a supernatural being and strangely inescapable. But anyway, I was amused to see new novelty shades in the TERRIFIER 3 trailer, obviously Damien Leone realized that there's something there...for some reason. They should do a New Year's movie for TERRIFIER 4, there's always lots of gag glasses circulating around then.

[chershare]

AI BS because WTF guys

So like, I know I have a lot of WIP out there. A lot of fic I haven’t updated in a long time but have no plans of abandoning because I love all of my writing and I do have plans for all of my works. It’s just finding motivation that’s the issue, not the intent to finish them.

If I’d planned to never work on something again, I’d do what most people do these days and label it as Abandoned. Hell, if I hated it and decided to axe it completely, I’d just remove it.

There are plenty of fic I follow that haven’t been update in a long time - some over a decade, and that’s fine - and I love to reread and daydream about potential endings. A fun way to pass the time, because I can come up with the endings or continuations in my own way even if they never get finished.

I don’t, however, contemplate stealing them.

There are authors that I follow that have abandoned some of my fav of their works or left fandoms entirely, and that’s fine. I have never once thought while rereading a fic I know will never be continued “hey, what if I steal this and feed it into a capitalist machine for my own amusement?” because that’s not what decent people do. We don’t steal from people, even if they aren’t doing things in the fandoms or fic that we love, because why the fuck would we.

Who the fuck does that? No writer would thank you for it, and there is no doubt that you would know it’s wrong to take someone’s work like that.

Fandom isn’t perfect, but I want to think that the vast majority aren’t the kind of people who are so selfish and uncaring as this.

I haven’t removed Tsundoku from ffnet despite the many issues I have with the site, even though I haven’t updated it in an age, because someone who uses a text to voice app that works with ffnet better than Ao3 asked me not to. I could have done so despite the toxicity that I’ve known with the fandom on that site, but for someone else’s comfort I’ve left it up.

I haven’t stopped writing despite some truly unpleasant people trying to start shit in comments for their own petty, small minded amusement, even on Ao3. Where it is infinitely better than on ffnet, in my personal experience. I haven’t stopped updating and haven’t removed my works from the web even though trolls and shit stirrers exist.

But if I find out that someone has stolen my fics - no matter how long it’s been since I updated them - and fed them to a fucking AI of any kind, I will remove all my works and never post a goddamn thing again. I changed my settings on Ao3 to users only to potentially avoid the chance of being mined by some AI bullshit, and if I’m betrayed by even the fellow users of Ao3, I’ll just quit. I won’t like it, but I’ll fucking do it.

What else can I do? At that point? Where even real, live people in fandom just... steal from me to go expressly against my wishes? Who don’t respect my time, effort and creativity?

What would be the point of writing if someone doesn’t appreciate the time, effort and goddamn passion I’ve put into my works? Because feeding fic into an AI to get “an ending” - so fucking insulting - says that you don’t respect the authors writing and you don’t respect them as people. I’m sure there are some people - I can’t picture it, but I’m sure they might exist in some fictional universe - who don’t care.

I care. I really fucking care.

This isn’t about plagiarism or anything. I don’t make money from writing fanfic, I just have fun and like to play in sandboxes and share those ideas with my readers, hoping in good faith that they also enjoy and respect my efforts. There are plenty of fics and art that I’ve seen that are similar to my own works, and that’s fucking awesome. I’ve got some other authors who link me as inspired by, and so far I haven’t had any issues with people wholesale stealing my fics.

Who cares about a few similar lines or paragraphs in the grand scheme of things, because holy shit two cakes yaaaassss am I right? That’s just the way of things. If it’s like a whole chapter or more, then it’s like “hey bro, uh, nani the fuck” but I haven’t had the actual plagiarism issue. I’m flattered when someone has a style or idea that is similar to my own, because that means I’m at that point in my writing where someone is learning their own writing style based on mine.

That is nice. Flattering. Makes me feel like some kind of fandom parent or whatever, patting the little fandom babies on the back as they grow into themselves. You use that culture and world building I started - do it child! Expand! I’m so proud of those little shits.

This AI shit? That is not flattering.

That just makes me feel sick. Violated.

The thought that someone would just throw out that bridge - that trust - between writer and reader, just fucking burn it down, is so, so fucking horrifying. I don’t know how to express it, but my hands literally started to shake when I first learned that someone would steal work because it wasn’t finished and feed it to an AI without so much as a by-your-leave.

I have so many WIPs guys. So many beloved fic that I wanted to share even if they weren’t near done. I’d never thought I’d be afraid of posting something unfinished, but now I’m pretty fucking terrified.

And angry. So, so angry.

There are authors who stopped writing their fic for various reasons, who have disappeared from fandom, not because they don’t have inspiration or are experiencing burnout, but because they died. That’s right, you’re potentially whining about someone not finishing their WIP because their lives ended. I can’t even express how much writers not finishing their fics more than likely doesn’t have a thing to do with you.

Unless you harassed someone off a platform, then more often than not people don’t care about you when it comes to updating. Funnily enough, more often than not, it’s not about you.

If you’re upset about someone not finishing a fic - something that’s done for free and fun, shared without expectation - I would like you to think of that potential worst case scenario and take a goddamn chill pill. Sure, that’s not the result in some cases, thank all the gods, but it could be. It could be someone that didn’t just dip out of a fandom or abandoned a fic; it could be so much worse, and you’re stealing from them. They don’t even have a chance to consent - not that I think they would - and you stealing their hard work because “wah, I want to see the end boohoo” is just the epitome of being a giant, entitled piece of shit.

Why the fuck would you disrespect someone’s work by stealing it to give it to a machine that is literally built to be a capitalistic feeder? Why do you care so little about writers that you would do something like this?

If you don’t like that something isn’t finished, you can always ask to write a continuation. You can link as “inspired by” and write your own, if you’re that desperate. You don’t want to/think you can’t write? Live with it. Professional writers drop series or go on hiatus for decades all the time. And they get paid.

We don’t have to share our work with you. Honestly, I have plenty of people outside of wider fandom that I can share my work with privately and never worry about someone stealing my shit again. The fact that I’m contemplating that eventuality of someone going against my wishes, violating my contribution to fandom and the love I have of my work is just - awful.

It feels awful. Like, I have angry tears of frustration in my eyes as I’m writing this.

Writing for people who enjoy it is a joy! Interacting with people about my fics is one of the highlights of fandom! Getting comments - even the dreaded wall of emojis or “update soon” right after an update - is enough to brighten even the worst of days!

People who decide that their personal wants with an author’s work is more important than going on that journey with them? Deciding not to respect the author? That kills the joy.

The trust.

The drive.

I have less desire to write and post since learning about this, and I’m trying to fight back against that depressive wave of “what’s the point?” but it’s so fucking hard guys. If someone is going to decide to steal my shit anyway, what’s the fucking point in trying to continue or find inspiration?

I don’t want to have to leave fandom as a creator. I don’t want to take away my fic from the people who love it, who have been following my fics for years and respect that I can’t always wrap my soggy brain meat around a fic and leave it for a while - sometimes years - to work on other things. I don’t want to.

But I will.

To protect myself, my choices, my writing? To protect myself? I’ll leave.

It won’t be the first relationship that’s soured and gotten bad that I’ve needed to drop like hot coals, but it will be the longest lasting one. It’ll hurt, and maybe I’ll have regrets, but I’ll fucking do it because I won’t be disrespected and have my writing used like this.

Outside of fandom there’s already so much shit that I cannot stomach having to deal with this kind of fuckery here as well. Fandom isn’t necessarily a “safe space” but it has always been an escape and somewhere that I can have fun. That I can at least trust people to appreciate my writing when I manage to update someone after a while, even if it’s a small thing.

I don’t know what kind of asshole you have to be to decide to steal someone’s work, someone’s joy, and do something like this - at least outright plagiarism is almost flattering. I’m not the most popular writer out there, but I’ve been in fandom for a while, and it takes all kinds. All kinds does not include the AI that we’ve been suddenly having to defend ourselves against since they became a real problem.

This is just a slap in the face.

The fact that maybe there are people out there in fandom who are acting like the AI Trojan Horse, stealing our works - our time, effort, creative process and enjoyment - and doing things like this? It’s so fucking disheartening and hurtful and just downright cruel.

So yeah. Please don’t steal my shit. Don’t steal anyone’s work and do something like this. You’re doing more damage than you seem to think. Not that I’m sure you’re thinking at all.

Maybe you - the people who do this - don’t care. Maybe that’s why you did it in the first place. Maybe writers don’t count as real people to you, not when it comes to fanfic or anything. Maybe you are just that selfish that only your own wants matter.

Maybe you don’t care about how I, we, feel.

But I do.

[multi-level-shipper]

so as I stated before, I'm re-reading Joey's gay memoir. and here's the thing.

Joey talks about how he LOVED Coney Island as a kid, and he seems to hold it to a slightly higher degree of reverence than the theater. Probably a few reasons for this- it was his vacation as a poor kid, it was time spent with his family, and he also draws some very strong connections about the heart and the soul to his experience being there.

"We arrived at the gates of Luna Park on Coney Island just when they opened."

"The gates were tall towers, with a huge arch entrance beneath. Above, between the towers, was a giant heart, bright red, freshly painted, with the words The Heart of Coney Island written on it. I think about those words sometimes, even these days as I trudge through the mud in the Meadowlands. I think about what it means. The heart. The soul of a place. The beating core."

"I have been searching for the soul for so long myself. That one illusive piece to my puzzle. Art imitates life, that was the solution. But how to live within an imitation? How to step into the cell of a cartoon? How to break the fourth wall? With a hammer? An axe?

Or a whole world." (Pg 200)

There are a few things I want to say about this.

As if we needed any more proof, this is a really long way of getting the point across that Joey craves living in a fantastical world. He needs this sense of creative wonder to feel fulfilled. Directly on the next page he goes on to say that the train ride home sucked balls, and he only felt as if the corners of each of his five senses were fully reached while having this experience at Coney Island.

So, firstly, he mentioned that he was "searching for the soul" for so long. But what in the fresh hell does that mean? Well, either Joey doesn't know how to define the parameters of what a human soul even is (which is a fair and complex question to be asking,) or he's been searching for his soul. Or rather, his purpose in life. While he has the studio and Sexy Lawrence at this point, he might be doing a bit of serious introspection here- which, let's be real, Joey never does this unless he's scared of something to do with his own well-being.

I don't have too much to say about the "heart" side of things. Although, this seriousness about the amusement park could explain why Joey was so ungodly finnicky with the Bendyland edits he kept sending back to Bertrum. He had to make things just right within one of the studio's most important features, or he might actually explode.

The SOUL, however, where do I even start. Firstly there's a direct parallel here we can add to the conspiracy board- the Ink Demon has no soul, and here in IOL Joey is trying to find his own. Another thing to note is how he personifies Coney Island, a non-breathing and non-living place, giving it a heart and a soul. It would be safe to assume that, seeing as Joey Drew Studios is his own form of safe haven, that he would ALSO personify the studio in a similar way. Also willing to wager that he saw Joey Drew Studios as a perfectly curated fantastical world to surround himself with- which is why he would simply not allow anyone to say anything otherwise. He had to keep up this illusion, or the safe haven would fall apart.

Joey giving places a soul also has interesting implications when considering Bendy and the Dark Revival.

We technically don't get an actual ink copy of Joey, we get a "memory" of Joey, as he puts it. However, we don't really see other spirits in BATIM or BATDR that aren't tied to a body. Ghosts are strangely never really explained, with a few exceptions like the ghost train in BATDR. I think this is an interesting distinction to make, because this could imply that Joey's soul is tied to the studio directly. Everything in the BATIM world was created by Joey- our Henry, Alice, Boris, everyone. The BATDR world was created by Wilson, so any existing creatures there are either by his hands, or have been directly taken from the BATIM loop and brought there. It was the assumption that Memory Joey came from Wilson's timeline, but we actually have no idea where he came from specifically, as he quite literally shows up and then vanishes in our first encounter with him.

[sunswathe]

pairing: steddie

word count: 880

i have had this au banging around in my head on and off so much and i need to set it free. this is inspired by one of my favorite sculptures, theseus and the minotaur by antonio canova. you know the one. the one that is super horny and lives rent free in my brain.

yknow. this one.

so heres the beginning of what will, hopefully, one day be the beginning of a longer fic because i have so many ideas for this one

The beast in the center of the labyrinth is nothing like Steve expected.

They told him it was a raging bull given a man’s shape.

He expected something large, and imposing. Twice— no thrice his size with muscles to match. A hulking creature with crazed eyes and frothing lips, horns and hooves sturdier and more deadly than the strongest of metals.

Something angry. Something terrifying. A beast.

What he finds is… unexpected.

The bull-man is… sinewy. He is large in that he is tall, but he is lean, possesses very little bulk. His horns are sharp and deadly, but they are made less intimidating by the mane of curly hair they grow from.

He has the head and legs of a bull, but his eyes are big and intelligent. His lips clean, breathing calm, even as Steve enters his chamber with his massive spear drawn.

The Minotaur is not what Steve expected, but he still wields an axe, blade stained red, with the ease of a practiced fighter. Holds it gently but firmly in his hands, cradling it close to his body like one might a lover.

His appearance is enough to give Steve pause, if only for a few moments. But a few moments seem to be enough.

The beast opens his inhuman mouth and Steve expects an angry roar, expects him to open that great jaw and bellow a war cry before he charges Steve, axe raised—

“So this is the disgraced prince?” A smooth voice echoes through the chamber, and Steve feels his body go rigid.

He hasn’t heard a voice— not one that speaks words— since he was thrown into the labyrinth. Since his father cast him in to prove his worth or die trying, and Robin cursed and fought and spat at the guards holding her back, the guards dragging Steve away and hitting his temple with the solid pommel of a sword.

“I must admit— you’re smaller than I expected,” the voice continues. Steve has not looked away from the Minotaur, and he sees him tilt his head. The beast’s lips move, the voice rings loud around them, but surely not? Surely it could not be the beast of the labyrinth speaking to him?

Steve blinks for a moment. Then— 

“Whuh— I’m smaller than you expected?! You—”

The beast laughs at Steve’s sputtering. It’s deep and full and mocking. It should belong to something pretty and joyful, but instead comes from the throat of the monster standing between Steve and his redemption. Steve feels his cheeks flush crimson with embarrassment and nothing else as he tightens his grip on his spear. He hadn’t noticed his stance relaxing.

The Minotaur’s axe drops into the dirt, his weight leaning against the grip while he bends with the force of his amusement. His mane sways into his eyes, and Steve feels the most insane urge to brush the hair aside. The heat in his cheeks increases, spreads down his throat and up to his ears.

“You’re quite red, sweetling,” the beast chortles, straightening. “It’s rather handsome. Most of the warriors sent here are sculpted like the finest marble. But you— you’re softer than I’d thought you’d be.” There is a smile on his face and it should be absurd. Steve shouldn’t be able to see a smile on the face of a bull, see the amused curve of his snout and the twinkle in his dark eyes, but he can.

He can, and it's lighting up inside his chest.

Steve scoffs, feeling off-kilter. “You’re twiggier than I expected. You’re the Minotaur of the labyrinth? A skinny thing like you?”

The beast’s grin becomes sharper. Grows a hint of danger. The light in Steve’s chest burns with it. Steve ignores the feeling, just as he ignores the stirring in his gut.

“Do not underestimate me, prince,” he says, loud and dramatic. He speaks clearly, like he’s in a play. Performing for a crowd of only one. “Step closer to me, I dare you. I've survived hardships you could never imagine, fought stronger men than a pampered royal demigod,” he spits the words, “I will not make this fight easy.” The beast easily swings his axe up and into his hands, graceful and showy, but Steve can see the easy strength behind the movement.

Well. There isn’t much else to be done, is there?

Steve is tired and bruised from his days— weeks?— in the labyrinth. Days spent fighting massive animals and making fire from almost nothing. Resting for only small snatches of time as he traveled through the twisting maze to find the center. His sides are bitten and torn from a horrible run-in with the largest bats Steve had ever seen.

He knows he wouldn’t have stood a chance against the Minotaur he’d imagined.

He’s pretty sure he still doesn’t stand a chance against the one standing before him. Steve has never been much of a fighter, not of men.

The choices before him are to give up now and be killed, or to fight back with the last of his strength and be killed.

He won’t give his father the satisfaction of going down easily.

So of course Steve braces himself, readies the half-shattered shield still attached to his arm, raises his spear, and steps forward.

[youngerfrankenstein]

So, in my opinion, is Fire Emblem Engage worth getting?

In a word: No.

In 12 words: Well, maybe, if you get it cheap and only care about gameplay.

In several words:

Yeah I can’t say I’m fond of the game. Still, might as well start with the positives.

While it took me a while to figure them out, once I did I actually really liked the Emblem mechanics! It’s an interesting way to do weapon proficiencies and open up the reclassing options. Albeit the skill inheritance works far less well given the need to use SP. But they are fun and flashy and weirdly enough I kinda like the weird pseudo-cyberpunk costumes? And they have pretty darn useful special moves which I had a bad habit of not using in the same way I hoard stat ups.

The map design is overall decent? Not spectacular, but decent. And small honestly. But they did mostly play well, different without being too gimmicky. The variety of weapons you get ahold of is also nice, you get your average swords, lances, axes tomes and staves. Knives are also back again, and essentially so are fist weapons (called arts)! Though sadly no transforming classes :(

The smash mechanic is there. Sort of. Personally I never used it because the tradeoff of always going last was WAY too high for knocking an enemy back. And the break mechanic (weapon triangle advantage means the person can’t strike back) I have, mixed(?), feelings about. It has the tendency to be both super useful and super annoying. And since basically every map has the tendency to have a little of everything, planning out different teams for different maps isn’t really a thing. In fact you’re often just… stuck with who you first choose and the new guys. Given the level scaling it almost felt like you were just supposed to continually dump any but your best units for the ones you were just given, and a couple maps later you can’t really change your mind.

Part of this is because of how TERRIBLY skirmishes are implemented. They are ALWAYS a higher level than your best units and they scale. So if you were hoping to try out someone new or bring somebody who was falling behind up? You are in for frustration.

The UI is also kind of frustrating too. Even little things like the first option on the battle menus not being “Attack” or the main menu being “+”. And the controls often felt… sticky is the only way I can put it. Not physically, but like I would pick a character and see what their options were and while trying to put them back it felt like I had to hit “B” half a dozen times. Also nitpick I don’t know if you can change, but bring back the fucking movement arrow. I actually did find moving units more frustrating without it.

I would talk about the Somniel but honestly I barely used it. I think I didn’t at all until the 12th chapter or something, and once there I used the arena and that’s about it. The rest just felt like pointless minigames to waste your time and given how my dad’s reaction was to try them once, go “that was pointless” and never do them again, I think I am correct. Later in the game I tried to use a couple things to round out supports but it still took like 5 turns in between increasingly irritating skirmishes to go up ONE level so I ultimately gave up.

To be fair it’s not like I really cared about finishing the vast majority of the supports. Any problems 3H supports had? Double them. Maybe triple. They’re largely boring and ultimately I can’t say they made me care about any of the characters. Maybe I just got mostly bad ones but hey. I can’t this game will be adding to my “favourite FE characters” list. They’re mostly inoffensive and bland to mildly amusing. Favourite from this one? TIMERRA. Because I put Sigurd on her and she could one-shot one of the final boss’ health bars and could probably solo maps if I let her.

The fact the art style and designs are largely incohesive and ugly as sin does not help.

Now the big question. Is the story as bad as everyone says?

Yes. Yes it is.

Look. Simple stories with obvious plot twists CAN be done very well! This one is not. The dialogue is bad, and more than that it drags on fooooooooooooreeeeeeeeeeeeveeeeeeer. My god every scene lasts at least 5 minutes longer than it needed to. Special mention to Lumera and the Hounds’ deaths, as well as “But I wanted to be a good dragon.” It’s just not cheesy enough to be entertaining and not interesting enough to be, well, engaging.

Last note because I couldn’t think of where else to put it. But. The soundtrack is also pretty darn underwhelming. I like the Solm music! And I like a lot of the remixes! But overall it’s just. Bland.

So yeah. If you can find a cheap secondhand copy? Knock yourself out. Otherwise? Don’t bother.

[archoneddzs15]

Super Famicom - Star Trek The Next Generation: Future's Past

Title: Star Trek The Next Generation: Future's Past / 新スタートレック 大いなる遺産IFDの謎を追え

Developer: Spectrum Holobyte / Axes Art Amuse / Realtime Associates

Publisher: Tokuma Shoten

Release date: 17 September 1995

Catalogue Code: SHVC-XN-JPN

Genre: Simulation

No. of Players: 1

Judging by the screenshots at the back of the box this game seems to play a lot like Space Battleship Yamato on the PC Engine Super CD. As commander-in-chief of the entire Star Trek universe, you're granted control of almost every conceivable option on the Enterprise, from mixing it up with Romulans to reading a computer essay on warp-field operations. Compared to, say, Starfleet Academy Starship Bridge Simulator, there's more interaction with the characters both on and off the ship. Every aspect of ship operation is in your control, yet taking the landing party down for missions gets boring. The graphics and cinemas would be better if they weren't so pixelated. The storyline is very cool with tons of missions and fans of the show, like me, will find it interesting. This Japanese Super Famicom version does contain translated Japanese text and is published by the same company that made those Hatsukoi Monogatari games.

[tunashei]

First Impression of Animorphs!

I'm listening to the Animorphs series while I work, through Animorphs Aloud - a fan made reading of the series. Here are my first impressions/random thoughts about them! Spoilers below if you haven't read them.

Book 8: The Alien

OOOOOOH AX POV! Ax Pov! This is not a drill! I am so hype

Oh the mental imagery of Ax watching the space battle above him while sitting alone in this artificial dome is so...so emotional. The strange disconnect of watching helplessly in a veritable garden of eden as your brother and others fight above you in the cold vacuum of space. I'd like to draw it

And then the absolute terror of being ejected from your ship and falling into the ocean of the nearby planet. Stuck beneath miles of water pressing down on you. Chills

Also now I'm really curious what the surface of the sea looks like if you're looking up at from below many miles

Ooooh we got little diary entries! Very amusing! This book is starting off so strong

Loving the amount of planning for taking Ax to a movie, they've learnt from previous times!

One of the reasons I was so excited for Ax pov is stuff like learning all these Andalite words, and bits of biology, the different ways of observing things. Alien perspective is so interesting

Confession time, I listened to this book before Megamorphs 1 which is before this book in the timeline. So I had no idea was a Veleek was and was rather confused they'd beaten one

I love the regular forays into Ax's Adventures with Food. Please don't eat cigarettes baby

I was cracking up at work for this whole sequence. Got some funny looks.

Going to make a prediction. Seerow's Kindness is referring to Andalites helping out the Yeerks somehow. Also Seerow is Visser Three's Andalite Host.

My man eat with he feet

I'm so here for Ax and Tobias best buds friendship

Ax confirmed canonically hetero this is a sad day for us all :(

Ok why after the semi-disaster of the movies would you take Ax to school, that is one of the most stressful confusing environments for anyone. Also schools have registers they're not going to just let you bring in a new kid

Unless maybe the teacher won't care because they've got a bloody Yeerk dying in their head! The book has predicted this predicament!

However, very unrealistic that the kids fled the room instead of crowding around the freaking-out teacher. You'd spend 20 minutes chasing them out the room and they'd still crowd around the door peeping in.

Oh this is...a bad thing to have hidden Ax. Poor Jake. This whole conversation is very tense. Ax bringing up his brother as if to remind Jake he's already lost HIS brother to this war

Ax is always described as blue-and-tan, implying he's more blue than tan. I have a hard time believing people would think he's a deer from a distance considering his colours

Huh...wouldn't it be weird to never have moonless nights? The stars are always brightest on those days, great for stargazing. I wonder how bright the night would be if you had multiple moons. Or would it not be additive?

Fascinating evolutionary implications from a species having a biological clock that makes them war every 62 years. Some kind of mass population cull? Ensuring only the strongest breed?

Ok this is pretty funny but actually made me reconsider how we appreciate stuff?? Actually kind of mindblowing. We really don't appreciate food as an art form. After I'd listened to this bit at work, my boss gave us all a tin of chocolates. Ate them on the way home and took some time to really savour the flavour. My life is being enriched by these books.

'He was a male-as all human fathers are' Implication Andalites can have female fathers??? Maybe. Would be cool.

Ax totally winning at social interaction

Aw Ax, you are being very brave :(

Huh so this Yeerk controller loved another Yeerk? I could have sworn in a previous book it said they were incapable of love, I think the one where Jake gets infested

Poor Ax. You really feel his struggle in being compared to his brother, now having to take the blame

The yeerk just fuckin bailed out the andalite?! I was not expecting this. You beat Visser Three?!

Aight so the Visser's andalite was not Seerow. He's just...some guy. Ngl was hoping for a bit more info on that, I've been very curious how Visser Three got an andalite which no other Yeerk has acomplished

Although...they're on the home world? Maybe there are other andalite controllers. Ruh roh

You guys are absolutely going to regret not putting this andalite out of his misery. He's literally begging for death and you know the horrors of being infested, and will be an incredibly powerful enemy again if you leave him. I mean, you couldn't even try to lug him out of there? How many people are going to end up killed in the future because Visser Three remains an andalite?

Called it on Seerow's Gift being helping the Yeerks. I kind of get it though I'd feel sorry for any sapient species that had to life it's entire life as a slug in a pool

Winced when Ax confessed his fears of giving humans help that would lead them to be conquerors, and Marco brushing it off. Humans would absolutely become conquerors, it's in our history

Wow. This is definitely my favourite book so far. I expected it would be, I'm very into xenofiction (when a book is written from a non-human perspective) but I think the emotional journey was also great in this. The ending was a bit quick and weak. But overall great.