#I do like the idea of a Reaper being made and he's essentially a sleep god rather than a god of death tbh

[mushroom-for-art]

Why he so eepy, this was meant to be a speculative Reaper oc made from part of the soul of my other Reaper oc Tresa though he doesn't particularly look very reapery and I think I could do better next time, for now an eepy boy. He's small and soft

[ben-the-hyena]

Can I ask for pm hcs 🥺🥺🥺

Oh I said a lot before already !^^ what didn't I say hmmm... ah yes ! The Mayor does say they need to be 1000 ghosts for the curse to be broken and set them all free. A curse the Phantom does NOT want lifted and is paranoid about the fact they are 999 already. Which is why in my fanon Phantom Manor is unknown to ghosts from other places, no afterlife bureaucracy, network and legislation like I see all haunted places that welcome ghosts to have (inspired from the fact Little Leota does say you need your death certificate to join the mansion and how the Ghost Host essentially gives a tour promoting if any of us will die soon and want a place to stay). So whenever a wandering ghost in search for a new house to haunt comes across it very intrigued because they never heard of that one before, the Phantom puts on a show of being amicable and welcomes them in for dinner, shows them where they will haunt/sleep, says they will sign papers and he will take their death certificate later, he actually calls in a Reaper, who can kill for good the Undead, and they are summoned and murder the poor ghost who, if they understood what was going on, found themselves trapped in that manor the Phantom is omniscient in and linked to therefore sees everything and controls it. A death-DEATH trap

That's because the lore of PM has Henry Ravenswood becoming rich out of nowhere, which sounds inspired from many southern legends about rich but cruel land owners who made pacts with the Devil to become rich. Which he did, and he signed for his soul. Not to the Devil since there is no Hell or Heaven just an Afterlife, but still to have his soul owned by demons to torture forever. He had always a sort of medium gift he never worked on like Madame Leota but knew about ghosts and could see them from childhood, and knew that they would need an unfinished business or a traumatic experience or a broken heart to intend to. He sure would have one of those, he just wouldn't need to die fully happy or of old age and was careful with it. And he did find one unfinished business : prevent his daughter he has incestuous lust for to marry and stay a virgin for his own virginity fetish. So when he and most of the town died in the Thunder Mesa earthquake (which was scary and traumatic as well) while she was engaged to a 5th suitor, the rage at the idea of someone else touching her while he would be away had him directly become a ghost and he managed to fool and murder her fiancé on her wedding day, and it turned out in a sad turn of fate he had a lot of reality bending powers for a ghost and decided to torment other ghosts, one of them being able to summon and trap spirits thanks to his medium gift he had as a mortal which amplified as a ghost like it did for Leota. He trapped her fiancé Jake in her own pendant without her knowing so she would never guess and look there which also amused him in his own sick sadistic mind, and summoned evil spirits to aid him imprison and trap within the manor the other ghosts made ny the quake, feeling like a God who could now do anything he liked and prevented himself all his life, bow he could be openly evil

But the demons did end up find him. His unfinished business WAS finished from the moment he killed Jake and they sensed it. So they returned to claim him, with a Reaper (essentially grim reapers who serve Death itself and can kill for real those who "escaped" aka ghosts zombies and vampires ; I HC it takes place in the same universe as the Petit Vampire movie ok) to snatch him for good while they would travel (demons, interdimensional lol) to join him in the Other Side to torture him forever. But crafty and realizing now he was in deep shit, he offered a new deal : whenever a new soul would come, he would offer them by summoning a Reaper to send them to torture eternally in his place, he could be a sort of honorary Reaper himself, or a delivery man at least. They accepted, let him rule on his little kingdom for now and fetch them innocent souls who did not deserve it, it would be even more fun and cruel. But still wanting him, they warned him that if the Manor ever welcomes new residents or prisonners who would stay there for good and reached 1000, the deal would be other and they would claim him. Reassured, he accepted...

...realizing only later that him + his dog who returned a well + Mélanie when she would eventually die + the dead citizens of Thunder Mesa + the evil spirits he just called = 999. Oops. And with Jake in her necklace it was even actually 1000 !... but apparently either they didn't detect him because he trapped/hid him good or because the necklace itself is its own dimension or anything or just because he didn't officially take him for prisonner unlike the others- he doesn't know nor wants to, but one thing is sure is he doesn't count ! And while he does rejoice about this, the coming of any newcomer fills him with rage and fear swiftly replaced by pure evil sadism when he calls for the Reaper to double-kill them as he keeps them captive for them. A good, effective deal, to which his prisonners notably Mélanie feel helpless and hopeless about, feeling both awful for the unsuspecting newcomers some beg to stay for breaking the curse one way or another and more realistic ones like Mélanie beg them to run away while they can, and for how it seems they will forever haunted under the Phantom's iron fist

As of 2023, the Hatbox Ghost is the only one to have made it "alive" (heeeem...) back in 1992 when he was still banished from the Mansion and looking for another haunted house after Mélanie managed to help him escape. He never forgot, and this memory haunts him no pun intended he never told anyone not even Emily. His guilt he could not save anyone nor that poor, poor Mélanie he developped a deep friendship for in only 2 days there (the fact she was a heartbroken bride got him, he has a soft spot for brides at this point lol. Also the fact it's her own father wanting to marry her one day DISGUSTS him) and only hopes she is okay and will find a way one day, and the fear he never felt for anyone about the Phantom, never had a ghost scared him so much for how menacing, sociopathic and cold he was, and how close to double death several times... somrtimes where he sees 2 red dots in the dark he grows paler than he is and flashbacks before realizing it is something else and not his eyes, but he hides it and keeps it for himself

If he only knew, meanwhile, how much the fact a ghost DID manage to escape manage to give them hope and form a resistance still going as of 2023

[mittensmorgul]

hey mittens! i know you’ve written off the finale at this point (and haven’t we all), but i was just wondering: do we know whose idea it was to have kripke co-write that ep? because like, in hindsight, that was...a choice, and i’ve been thinking that might explain SOME of the weirdness of that ep (emphasis on SOME because uh. i really do think that some of the cringiest details didn’t come from writers at all). anyway—thoughts?

I don’t think Kripke had anything to do with writing the final ep. It just... felt like a Kripke ep, and I’m starting to think that Dabb did that intentionally. He’s the most meta writer the show might’ve ever had, and in refusing to allow Sam and Dean to live out past their ultimate victory, in choosing to “force an ending” on the characters instead of leaving their world “open” with no concrete ending, he succeeded at the task that Chuck- as Kripke’s avatar in the original story of Supernatural-- had failed to do.

Dabb, in a very real sense, is the one who “ended the story of Supernatural.” He wanted to bring it full circle, to “close the universe” and make it “reboot-proof.” This is something he’s talked about going back as far as SDCC 2019, and many of us had hoped that would mean something “better” than what Chuck wanted for the Winchesters, and for Cas.

I was hoping, and watching the show for the last few years under the assumption that Dabb’s in-story avatar was more a combination of different characters. At first, Billie, who started as a reaper but was elevated to the role of Death (like Dabb himself started as a writer who became more important to the telling of the tale, and eventually became the final showrunner who would eventually reap the show in the end, as it were).

After Jack’s introduction, I wondered if he was going to “grow into the role” of the Authorial Avatar. After all, he served as a mirror for all three other characters, reflecting their stories back at them and allowing them to process their own emotional and psychological issues by helping Jack through them. I wrote long ago, back in s13, how this enabled TFW to sort of graduate from student to master, in the martial arts sense of the word, because one truly only completes learning a thing through the process of teaching others.

And then the Empty became involved as an actual being that manifested through the identities of others, and didn’t really have its own identity other than “I need to sleep, stop disturbing me!” which... felt like it might’ve become relevant when Jack’s power was able to break through into its realm.

Then these three beings began plotting the final overthrow of the Original Author. One laid claim to the lives of Sam and Dean (Billie), one laid claim to Castiel (the Empty). We watched Jack-- the incarnation of “balance” and the vehicle through which the show demonstrated what the human soul’s function is, what the function of angelic grace WITHOUT a human soul’s function is, and what Jack as a whole being with both actually is, as he fully came to his own understanding of what humanity, human love, and the responsibility and function of cosmic power and balance is within himself.

I never doubted (especially after he consumed Michael’s grace and made that power his own) that Jack’s function would be as the ultimate role that Chuck had been trying to force on Dean since s11-- “the firewall between light and darkness.” That Jack would be the crucible to fully unite the power embodied in Amara and Chuck. Chuck’s ending was about as poetic as it gets, and I 100% appreciate Jack’s “end” in the narrative that isn’t really an end for him, because the story also implied that Chuck’s original “problem” stemmed from his wanting to give himself an ego and play with his own creation like so many tinkertoys, to force his will on a universe he created to be ruled by the will of others. 

The ultimate act of Team Free Will left Chuck fully human and an effectively blank book, with no power to force anyone else to play his games. Excellent, right? Poetic even!

But the story wasn’t really over, because in our world, there was one more episode, a coda fic if you will. And all of the characters I’d associated with Dabb-as-avatar were... rendered mute. Billie was dead or dying in the Empty, Jack came into his full power and had already healed the universe, implying that the Empty’s conditions were fulfilled and could finally go back to sleep.

Unfortunately, Chuck’s Book, while appearing blank, still contained all the words. Only Death could read them, and as far as we know, nobody in that universe had ascended to that role. But in our universe, we know that’s Dabb’s function in the narrative. What sort of ending could he write?

Most of us hoped that it would be a “once more, with feeling” sort of “you can finally lay down your arms and make a new life for yourself” ending. Many of us were baffled first off that Jack wouldn’t have brought Cas back from the Empty to Earth. We never really had a satisfactory explanation in canon of what happened there. Was Cas actually dead? What function does he have if he’s in Heaven? Has he been relegated to a role of duty and service as punishment for daring to yearn for human things? It just... it felt like the final stab from a story that had just told us that he truly has been the one disrupting for in Chuck’s story, that he was something that Chuck could never force out of the story or control, who demonstrated free will and learned to love humanity because of Dean, and yet doomed to never have that for himself. Most of us felt that line in 15.18 deserved subversion in the aftermath, and yet we never even get concrete confirmation that he’s even really alive in the same way he was before. It’s... what Chuck always wanted for Cas, to shunt him out of the story and render him powerless and plotless.

What did Chuck want for Sam and Dean? What story did he force them into over and over again? One of them tragically dead and the other miserable and mourning. He wrote billions of iterations of this exact story, over and over throughout billions of universes created for the sole purpose of doing exactly this to every incarnation of Sam and Dean he possibly could. Most of us hoped this might be the ONE universe where that was subverted, like it was the ONE universe where Castiel refused to fall in line with Heaven’s orders and plans. But nope, Dean died tragically (almost immediately after saying in canon that the only way they could honor Cas and Jack’s sacrifices for them was to keep living), and Sam lived a rather bleak and hollow life where the only thing we know he did was to raise a son named for his dead brother.

Chuck would’ve been freaking DELIGHTED!

Which... brings us to Heaven... where we get the vague hint that Cas “helped” Jack “knock down the walls” and make it a paradise that Dean would love and feel rewarded by. We never actually find out what role Cas played in that, or if he was also there in some capacity. But how I’ve always personally understood Heaven as it was in Chuck’s creation, was as a self-sustaining and ever expanding Destiny Generator, like a power generator or a giant battery where each Heaven Cubicle functioned as a cell. The show itself has been using the soul-as-power-source for ages (it was pretty much the running theme of s6-- it’s the souls!-- and this theme was returned in force in s11, culminating in the “soul bomb” plot of (gasp!) Andrew Dabb’s season finale.

Heaven was beginning to break down as a “machine” and a power generator not for lack of human souls, but for lack of angels to maintain the structure of heaven itself. In one of his first episodes, Cas even described the function of angels as being “agents of fate.” Their sole role was to literally “hold Chuck’s narrative together.” Metaphorically in the story-- in the original Apocalypse as the guides who tried to force Sam and Dean into the roles they were destined for-- as well as metaphorically in Heaven which was the “battery” that gave the angels their power in the first place. Remember what happened to Cas when he has been “cut off from Heaven” and began to lose his powers.

So the way I’d always understood the function of Heaven in Chuck’s story was exactly that. Without Chuck’s narrative, the walls would fall and the paradise Jack’s birth heralded would come to fruition THERE. Because as long as there is life, and free will, and more than one person on EARTH, that sort of paradise is an impossible dream. We’re seeing that exemplified now in real life, actually, with people claiming their rights and freedoms are being infringed upon by being asked to wear a mask and limit their social interactions to prevent the spread of a deadly virus. Does their “freedom” override the “freedom” of others who would prefer to remain alive and not infected by a virus that could kill them? It’s an impossible balance, because true freedom cannon exist in life without compromise and sacrifice.

Which brings us to Dean, and his essential humanity, which had been exemplified in his selfless love of humanity so strong that he became a cosmic disrupting force of his own by simply refusing to let Chuck’s story defeat him. He struggled with this throughout s15 as Chuck told him that his life had never truly been his own, and that he’d always been a character in a bigger story. He’d finally begun to feel at peace with who he was, with the family he’d made for himself, and everything and every experience he’d endured that had shaped him into the person he’d become, and Chuck’s revelation led him to doubt everything. In the end, he was finally able to see what truly DID matter, what really WAS real (thank you to 15.17 for confirming that Cas was one of those things that Chuck had also never intended to be part of his story, and that Cas truly had always chosen Dean freely, because his doubt of Cas was one of the main things hurting Dean in s15, epitomized in his crisis in 15.09 in Purgatory). So the fact that Cas was not “allowed” to come back to Dean afterward feels... punitive. The fact that Dean was not “allowed” to actually experience a real human life on the Earth he’d devoted his entire life to saving, the fact that Sam was never able to achieve peace and happiness in a life he’d struggled to find balance between a destiny he’d never wanted and a normalcy that had been merely performative for decades because shoving the majority of his life experience down to play at being “normal” was never truly possible, and required truly accepting all of himself to actually free himself from the half-life we saw him live after Dean’s death... all of that just... it’s exactly what Chuck would’ve wanted for all three of them.

And it’s depressing af, that when given the power to “end the story of Team Free Will,” Dabb chose to enact Chuck’s final draft, rather than handing blank books to these three to write their own lives. And it just looks like Kripke’s writing, because it kind of is his story. We just hoped it wasn’t, and that the final avatar of The Author in the story would be TFW themselves. But that was probably never meant to be. Because destiny is apparently still stronger than human free will, and isn’t that just depressing af.

[aloha-solar]

The Spaces Between the Stars: Two

Rating: M

AO3 here

He wasn’t supposed to be in charge. When she’d become a Spectre, Anderson and Udina gave the ship to her. Even though he outranked her by the time they joined up again, she was the one in charge of the ship; at most, he was the second.

“I’m pretty sure that you’re supposed to be in charge of the ship now,” she said one night in her cabin over drinks. “With you being a Major and a Spectre.” He’d burst out laughing and she’d cocked an eyebrow at him.

“I mean, yeah, I guess technically you’re right,” he’d said. “But can you imagine me in charge of the Normandy? Joker and Tali would be yelling at me in five minutes because I screwed up some calibrations somewhere.”

“Joker and Tali don’t yell about calibrations. That would be Garrus,” she’d replied, a grin playing at her lips, though she tried to keep her face straight.

“All right, so Garrus would be yelling at me,” he’d said, leaning closer to her. “And he’d start a mutiny in, uh, above five minutes trying to get you back in charge.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “Besides, you were a Spectre first, and I can’t imagine the Normandy without you on it.” She rolled her eyes at him, but the grin had become a full-fledged one.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure Javik might try and push you out the airlock after thirty seconds,” she’d said.

“Or Liara might pull me into a singularity until she gets you back,” he’d chuckled.

“Or Traynor might hold you hostage with her toothbrush,” she’d added. She chuckled too, before pulling his arm around her shoulders and snuggling up close to him. “All right, Major. So it’s settled. The Normandy’s mine, and if you want it, then you have to go ask Cerberus to build you the SR-3.” He laughed again and kissed the top of her forehead, glad that they had that issue settled.

The Normandy was Shepard’s, a pair that seemed as inseparable as Tali and her helmet, or Garrus and his visor. It was like a match made in heaven.

But now she wasn’t here, and as the highest-ranking member on the ship, Major Kaidan Alenko was now the commanding officer of the Normandy. No matter how many times the crew reassured him that he would do fine and they trusted his decisions, no matter how many times he reassured himself that he would do fine and the crew trusted his decisions, everything about it felt incredibly wrong.

It seemed the Normandy agreed with him, having fried her systems when she crash-landed, taking EDI down with her. Kaidan and Garrus had taken EDI into the AI core, Joker tailing them with his head bowed. Kaidan laid EDI down gently on the cot; Garrus slid a pillow under her head and pulled a small cotton blanket over her. In the dimly lit AI core, she looked like a picture from a storybook: maybe Snow White or Sleeping Beauty.

Joker gently pushed past Kaidan and Garrus, before kneeling in front of EDI’s cot and grabbing her hand. Kaidan and Garrus turned to leave and give them some privacy, before Joker spoke.

“It was the Crucible,” he said. Kaidan and Garrus turned back to Joker. His eyes were red and puffy, and his voice cracked as he spoke. “When that blast went off and hit the ship, that’s when EDI went offline.”

“You don’t know that,” Garrus said. “It could have been from the Reapers.”

“Garrus, we saw that blast go off, and it didn’t come from the Reapers,” Joker said. “It was from the Crucible. And—and whatever Shepard did, it didn’t just stop the Reapers. It went after Reaper tech too.” Kaidan let Joker’s words roll around in his brain like marbles. Went after Reaper tech too…No. No, Shepard was still organic. EDI, as lifelike as she was, was still completely synthetic. Shepard had implants, yeah, but she could…Cerberus didn’t get all of their Reaper tech until after Shepard found the human Reaper…she said she’d wait for him, and she wouldn’t willingly go into a situation where she’d get herself killed again…whatever the Crucible did, it couldn’t do it to Shepard…

Could it?

He couldn’t lose her again.

Garrus glanced over at Kaidan and then back at Joker. “We need to see where we landed,” he said firmly. “Joker, did we get any rough coordinates as to where we are?”

“I was trying to hit the Utopia system,” Joker said, his attention completely on EDI again. “Trying to hit Eden Prime. Normandy was overloading pretty badly though. I mighta…mighta missed…”

“Then we need to double check outside,” Garrus said. “Of course, we need to see what our commanding officer says,” he added, giving Kaidan a nudge.

“I—yeah,” Kaidan said. He put his hand on Joker’s shoulder. “Come on, Joker. Let’s check it out.” He offered his hand to help Joker up, and Joker took it. Garrus nodded at the two of them before slipping away into the battery. Joker pushed his cap further down onto his forehead and didn’t give Chakwas anything more than a slight nod as they passed her, but he followed Kaidan into the elevator and up into the CIC.

“Of all the things that still work,” Joker grumbled. Kaidan wasn’t sure if Joker wanted him to laugh or keep his mouth shut. Kaidan went for the latter option.

The doors opened. Traynor turned around and ran over to Kaidan, biting her lip.

“Still no luck getting the comms up?” Kaidan asked as the three of them walked over to the airlock.

“No,” Traynor admitted. “I’ve tried every channel, every frequency, every relay, and I haven’t even gotten static. It’s like they’ve never existed at all.”

“We’ll get it fixed,” Kaidan soothed her. “We’ll use the elevator’s power if we have to.” He grabbed two atmosphere masks and tossed one to Joker before putting the other on himself. He opened the first airlock door and motioned Joker through.

“Is he all right?” Traynor asked delicately.

“I’ll be fine,” Joker called back.

“Can you call everyone to the briefing room?” Kaidan asked her. “I’m sure everyone has something to report.” Traynor nodded, and Kaidan finally let the door close behind him. Joker already opened the second door, letting in bright sunlight and a wave of humid air. Kaidan pulled out his omni-tool and walked to the doorway with him. He scanned the air outside the ship and waited as the tool buzzed and chirped as it analyzed the data.

“It has plants out here,” Joker said. He glanced at Kaidan. “I don’t know about you, Kaidan, but I think we should be good with taking the masks off. Unless the omni-tool’s telling us that the air’s filled with poison or something.” Kaidan shook his head.

“It says the air is breathable,” Kaidan replied.

“Good,” Joker said. He pulled off his mask and climbed further out of the ship. Kaidan followed, taking off his own mask. The air felt like he was drowning in soup. He wiped a few droplets of sweat off his brow and surveyed his surroundings. They were surrounded by trees, with a few mountains and cliffs dotting the skyline in the distance as if they were an afterthought. Kaidan could hear the faint roar of waterfalls. Their whole surrounding was bright, filled with yellows and greens like a child’s crayon drawing.

Kaidan and Joker exchanged looks with each other.

“Eden Prime hasn’t been colonized completely,” Kaidan said.

“So I landed in the right planet and system, but not in a location we wanted to be,” Joker said. “Got it.”

“We have breathable air and a general idea as to where we are,” Kaidan said sharply. “Joker, that’s a great start.”

“Well, our commanding officer didn’t get spaced the second time I broke the Normandy,” Joker said. “So I’m pretty sure I was already off to a great start.” Kaidan raised his eyebrows. “That…was a joke.”

“Right,” Kaidan said. He took one last look at the planet before turning back to the ship. “Come on. Let’s head to the briefing room.”

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“All right,” Kaidan said, laying his palms flat on the table and looking at the crew around him. He hadn’t called everyone to the meeting, just the “main squad” as James so kindly put it: Adams, Daniels, Donnelly, Chakwas, Cortez, James, Traynor, Liara, Tali, Garrus, Joker, and himself. “The atmosphere is breathable, and there’s fresh water if we need it. It’s a little humid, but heat shouldn’t kill anyone. Adams, how does engineering look?”

“Life support is still online,” Adams said. “Then again, life support on any ship always has multiple back-up generators powered by different sources of energy in case of a power failure. For the actual main power core, well, that’s a little harder to fix. It’s like…it completely burned out down there, Major. We don’t know what happened.

“It wasn’t Joker’s fault,” Adams added hastily, glimpsing at Joker’s downtrodden face. “We think it was something to do with the blast that the Crucible let off. Whatever it is, we can fix it. We should have enough intact pieces from non-essential equipment that we can use on the Normandy’s main core and power cells.”

“James and I can help with that,” Cortez cut in. “We can strip down the shuttles, see if there’s any compatible parts on them.”

“You’re stripping down your babies, Esteban?” James sputtered.

“If it gets the Normandy working again, then I’ll do it,” Cortez said.

“Okay,” Kaidan said. “So we have a plan for fixing the ship. What about supplies?”

“I did a supply check with Liara,” Chakwas said. “I should have enough medical supplies to last us for about five months Kaidan, plus there’s enough medi-gel and medi-kits scattered throughout the ship that we can use for minor ailments. Regarding food, all Alliance ships are designed to have a stockpile of about a year’s worth of rations.”

“What about dextro-food?” Kaidan asked, nodding at Tali and Garrus.

“Garrus and I will be fine,” Tali said. “We have enough supplies to last for about six months, plus quarians are trained on how to modify food in emergency situations.”

“I was also able to find some old supply maps for Eden Prime,” Liara added, using her omni-tool to transmit one. She pressed a few buttons, and red and blue dots began littering the map. “Once the Normandy is up and running again, we can use these hubs to restock. The red ones are dextro-hubs, while the blues are human bases.” She clicked the map off again.

“All right,” Kaidan said. He let out a sigh and rubbed his temple. There was a deep throbbing behind his eyes, like someone had hit him fifty times with a hammer. Still, it felt good to know that the crew wasn’t going to starve, and that the Normandy did have options for getting patched up. He looked up at Traynor. “What about the comms system? Did we find out anything new there?”

“Actually, yes,” Traynor said. “But…I’m not sure if it’s actually good news. I did a test run from my terminal into the war-room while you were outside—I used my toothbrush as the test link—and it seems that the problem with the communications isn’t with the ship. It’s...it’s something else.”

“Something off-world?” Kaidan prompted her.

“Maybe. It’s still…so hard to say.” Traynor struggled to find the words. “If…if EDI was still active, then she could run diagnostics, but…” She bit her lip. “It’s so hard to say,” she repeated lamely.

“I’ll help you in the meantime, Specialist,” Liara said. Traynor smiled shyly at her before turning her attention back to the meeting.

“I might know a way to get EDI back online,” Tali said. The whole crew turned to her, and Joker actually looked at her properly instead of hiding his face behind his hat. “It will take some time though, and I think the Normandy should take priority.”

“We’d get the ship fixed a lot faster if EDI was up-and-running,” Garrus pointed out.

“Aye, we would,” Donnelly said. “But we need some of Tali’s skills down in engineering, Garrus. Unless you’re willing to go climbing round maintenance shafts to put wires back into place?”

“Kenneth, you know I can do that,” Daniels said.

“Yeah, but if you did I might end up getting a tad distracted.”

Kaidan raised his hands. “We’ve got a lot of work in front of us,” he said. “Garrus is right, we would get the ship running a lot faster with EDI back online. But we’d also get the ship back running if everyone’s hands are on deck. Cortez, would you be able to show the crew how to strip the parts from the shuttle?”

“It’d take no time at all,” Cortez said.

“And Tali, you know which crew members would be good at engineering?”

“Of course I do,” Tali said. “Anyone who has a tech background can help. Of course, for some of the trickier pieces, I might need to go down and help, but there’s no reason Adams, Donnelly, and Daniels couldn’t handle that department on their own.”

“Good,” Kaidan said. “Then you can focus work on EDI.”

“Understood,” Tali said.

“I’ll come up with a rations list, Kaidan,” Chakwas said.

“And James and I can lead any scavenging trips,” Garrus said.

“Hell yeah! You and me, Scars, we’re gonna be a dream team!” James yelled.

“…Hopefully they won’t be needed very often.”

“All right,” Kaidan said again. The throbbing behind his eyes was getting worse, and he was beginning to see the light splinter around him, creating little black flecks in his vision. He wasn’t sure if it was an implant migraine or a stress-related one. “Find the best people for your teams, and get started. Dismissed.”

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She found him in his dreams that night.

He was standing in a park, staring at London’s skyline—it felt too artificial, like a picture in an old textbook—when she wrapped her arms around his waist. He reached out and pulled her head to his shoulders, before stroking her jawline, taking in every angle, before putting his hand over hers.

“So, London,” he said. “You ever wanted to take a vacation here, Shepard?”

“I spent my life in the colonies, Kaidan,” she said, resting her head in the crook of his neck. “I want to see all the cities on Earth.” Is this how Shepard actually spoke to him? Did it matter?

“No,” she answered. She let go of his waist and turned him around. “It doesn’t matter, Kaidan.” Every piece of her was still the same—the black hair, the brown eyes, the upturned nose, the freckles that splashed her cheeks—but it was like someone turned the brightness up in her. The hair was blacker than ink, her eyes were the exact brown of milky hot-chocolate, and every inch of her skin seemed to glow. She leaned in for a kiss, but he turned his head away.

“What?” she asked, laying her fingertips on his cheek. “Kaidan, I’m still me. You know I said I’d be waiting for you.”

“I know,” he mumbled, like a five-year-old who just got scolded by his mother. “It’s just…” Just how do I know…Why couldn’t he finish his own thoughts? What was he so afraid of?

“Look at me, Kaidan. You know I’m real,” she whispered. God, he wanted her. He wanted her so badly. “Just kiss me, and we’ll be all right. Everything will be all right.” She leaned in again, and this time Kaidan kissed her.

“I missed you,” he whispered in between each kiss. “I missed you, I love you, God, Shepard—”

He felt sure that she was going to answer him, but before she did, an earsplitting bellow suddenly shot through the air and Shepard pulled away. He tried to grab her hand, but as he did, he saw Husks and Marauders suddenly running towards her.

“Shepard!” Kaidan screamed, but it felt like he was running in slow-motion. All he could was watch her charge right into the creatures. The instant she did, a bright light flashed, knocking Kaidan off his feet and onto the ground. He stood up and saw a battlefield filled with corpses, with Shepard’s body right in the middle of it.

When he woke up, he found dried tears staining his cheeks.

[theycallmequeenie]

Not Strong enough to let go

Gabriel x Reader One Shot

Note: Gif not mine. Credit to the original creator/ owner which I believe is @astralgabriel but I may be incorrect. Kinda AU, established Gabriel x Reader romantic relationship. Established Reader x Winchester friendship. Set in season 13. Cannon level violence. Word count is at roughly 2140.

 Master List

Y/N had known the Winchesters for a couple of years now and through them she had been introduce to Gabriel. The pair had hit it off from the start and were now inseparable. Y/N before joining the Winchesters had studied theology which seemingly gave her an edge on dealing with some of the things the hunter’s life had to deal with and gave her and Gabriel something to talk about and bond over in a sense. She would always take down meticulous notes anytime Gabriel would finally open up about his family or his time in heaven.

Gabriel found some joy in talking with Y/N about the past. This was something that never happened with him before, He was at ease around her and he noted to himself that for him wasn’t a usual thing for him ever. This feeling of easiness and comfort was enjoyable to him which helped him decide that hanging around the bunker wasn’t such a terrible idea. Staying would in turn move his relationship with Y/N along, which was something he truly desired for the first time since he was with Kali and would give him a chance to get to know his nephew, by Lucifer, Jack. Something he thought was a nifty bonus.

Y/N was in the bunker’s library reading something to help the Winchester brothers find a way to reopen the portal to the ‘Apocalypse World’ so that they could save their mom. She was trying to find even hint of an idea of how to help. As she was sitting with her back to the rest of the bunker sort of in her own little world, Gabe decided to check on her and in return he startled her and luckily was able to catch the flying book that was previously in her hands.

Gabe sheepishly chuckled, “Sorry Sweetheart, I didn’t mean to scare ya.” He lowered himself just enough to wrap his arms around Y/N’s shoulders as she sat in the chair trying to calm her racing heartrate. “Since we have the place to ourselves, I thought maybe me and my Special Girl could maybe get some alone time together, what do ya say Babes?”  He waggled his eyebrows as he spoke but frowned when he saw her shake her head no.

She sighed as she shook her head in response to his offer. She knew that frustrated him to no end and she felt terrible about it. For a few weeks now that had been the same answer to his same question. She was focused on the task that was given to her and she would slave over the lore books to the point of exhaustion. She would stumble to their shared room nap for a few hours and do it all over again. She knew it was worrying Gabe, but she also knew it had to be done. The longer it took to find answers the more of a chance that they weren’t going to find Mary alive and well. “I’m sorry Gabe but if I don’t do this research who will? We still need answers and the boys are off in a hunt…”

Gabe stopped her before she could continue annoyed and slightly angered. He was really feeling rejected by her in that aspect lately and had finally had enough. He did his best to reign in as much of his anger at the situation as he could but some of it seeped through into his words and his tone. “I don’t know, maybe the two whose mother is trapped over there?! They are using you as their research bitch, Y/N! Can’t you see that?” His whiskey colored eyes blazed with all his pent-up emotion. “Or are you using their research as an excuse because you don’t want me anymore?” He almost whispered, the thought of the woman that he was so in love with had possible fallen out of love with him crushed him to the core.

Seeing the pain in his eyes broke her heart. “Gabe. That is so far from the truth and you should know that. Hell, you are basically all I think about. All you ever need to do is read my mind if you feel any doubt about my feelings for you.” She stood and placed her forehead to his and focused all her energy on making him feel her love she held for him. She wanted it to wrap around him like his wings would often wrap around her in the times she needed comforted. “I know we have been up to our necks in it lately and I’m sorry I’ve been neglecting you, but Gabe, I am to the point that I feel guilty for needing sleep because it takes time away from possibly finding what we need to get her home. I’m sorry…” Her voice cracked at her last two words and she walked away from the archangel, leaving him essentially speechless.

He watched as Y/N stormed off toward their room and jumped slightly as he heard the door slam shut. “Okay, how is this my fault?!” He exclaimed, as he stomped back to their room to try and talk to her. “C’mon, Sugar. Talk to me.” He spoke as he opened the door expecting to see her curled up on their bed but instead, he saw her quickly packing her go bag. He frowned deeply. “You’re leaving…” It was meant as a question but came out as more of a statement almost feeling rejected again.

Looking up from what she was doing she shook her head no once again. “No, Feathers. We are leaving. Sam called they need our help. Dean got hurt and is on the shelf. He needs a couple extra sets of hands. Hunters work is never finished, Handsome.” She frowned seemingly a little disappointed. As she walked by him, she put her hand on his forearm. “Looks like Willy Wonka and cuddling will have to wait, again.”

Gabriel was pleasantly surprised at her words and thought, ‘Hey at least she was considering more than just napping in here for three hours and running back to that Dad damn library again.’ He smiled and followed Y/N out to her car. “Alright. Let’s go gank this sucker so we can get back here and get our snuggle on.”

The two drove the few hours to meet up with Sam and the injured Dean and listened to Sam filled them in on what happened and what they were hunting. Seems they underestimated a nest of vampires and one of them had gotten the drop on Dean which resulted in a concussion and him having to sit the rest of the hunt out. So, they sat and planed it all out and waiting for night to come.

As it started getting dark Y/N, Sam, and Gabriel piled into the Impala and headed toward the nest’s location Y/N and Gabriel were in the back seat together leaving Sam in the front by himself to drive. Gabriel insisted that she sat with him. They held onto each other’s hands the entire drive there. He knew Y/N still had some doubts about her hunting abilities and was doing his best to help her psych herself up for the battle that lay ahead of the three of them.

Sam put the impala in park and cleared his throat to let the two know they were there. Y/N got out of the back seat first and met Sam at the trunk where he handed her a machete and made sure she was ready for the coming battle. With a nod and a glance over her shoulder to make sure Gabriel was right behind her they made their way into the nest and started fighting.

Sam had managed to kill two vampires so far and Y/N managed to get one but was tussling with another that happened to be three times the size of her.  Sam went to help her when one jumped on his back and Gabriel was fighting another vampire leaving Y/N to fend off the large vampire by herself. She was losing the fight. The Vampire had managed to get several solid hits in on her and knocking her machete out of her grasp. The vampire that was fighting her pinned her to the wall with one hand forcing a terrified squeak out of her throat and picking up the blade in his other hand. Gabriel looked up in time to watch the monster shove the machete into Y/N’s abdomen. He saw her eyes go wide from the shock of being run through with her own blade.

Gabriel smites the vampire he was fighting and yells to Sam, who had just finished beheading the vampire that he was fighting with. Sam yells “No!” Gabriel snaps his fingers and the vampire that stabbed Y/N disintegrates on the spot. Before Sam knows it, Gabe is next to Y/N cradling her trying to heal her, but it wasn’t working for some reason which was only adding to Gabriel’s panic.

“No no no no… You gotta stay with me, Love. Please don’t leave me, Sugar.” There were tears in his voice as he kept trying to heal Y/N but to no avail. He couldn’t figure out why, he had never not been able to heal her before. He sent up a silent prayer to his father asking him for help, but he knew it was all for naught. As he cradled his dying love to him, he did his best to contain his emotions, but his eyes were betraying him. He started murmuring to her softly in Enochian because he knew it would bring her comfort.

Y/N whimpered softly against him fighting back a cough, “Gabe. It’s okay. It’ll be okay.” She had to pause to take a few ragged breaths before continuing, “Gabriel, I need to tell you this before…”

Y/N had to pause again but this time Gabriel tried to shush her, “Baby save your strength, okay? You don’t need to tell me anything. I’m going to get you beck to the motel room and we are going to get you patched up and everything is going to be just peaches and cream.” He looked to Sam and nodded silently telling him that he would see him back at the motel and disappeared whit Y/N.

Gabriel arrived with a dying Y/N in his arms about the same time Sam got back to the motel. Sam somehow made land speed records to be there. Dean jumped up despite the concussion. Gabe laid Y/N down on the bed that wasn’t occupied though he stayed close to her. He tried in vain to heal her would again. Though he knew deep down it wasn’t going to work.

As Sam started to explain to his brother what transpired, Gabriel felt Y/n weakly clutch his hand to get his attention. She knew her time was drawing close and she could see the reaper in the corner of the room waiting for her. She mustered her last bit of energy to speak to Gabriel.

“Gabriel…” She gasped for air, “You need to hear this.” She paused again feeling weaker and weaker by the second. “I love you, Feathers.” As she forced the words out, she heard the Reaper speak in a gentle voice to her telling her it was her time to go. Y/N reluctantly went with the Reaper that had come to collect her, as she crossed to the other side her body went limp in Gabriel’s arms.

Gabriel felt her leave him and let out a pained scream the likes of which the Winchesters never heard. Sam and Dean simply watched as the archangel before them mourn the loss of his love in awe. Gabriel wept openly over the loss of Y/N as he held her now lifeless body to him.

Sam and Dean let him have an hour with Y/N’s body before they suggested moving on with the process of her passing and getting her Hunter’s Funeral in the works.  Which Gabriel didn’t react positively to, but they knew that was going to be the case. It took them some time to talk Gabe into going through the proper motions, but it was done and it about broke Gabriel to say goodbye to her in that final way. Sam told Gabe that they had found a spell to open the portal to get their mom back. Gabe gave them a bitter laugh but said he was in. He figured that would be an easy way out of his pain that wouldn’t offend his father. He was going with the boys to Apocalypse World with no plan in coming back…

The End

[mcrninqstar]

discord: it’s you. it’s always been you.

SUMMARY: Lucifer accidently sends Maze the wrong text leading her to believe her best friend is dead. He goes to her to clarify and they end up revealing more to each other than they anticipated.  TRIGGERS: Death Mentions, Daddy Issues, Mommy Issues WRITTEN WITH: @mazikeenofmurders

MAZIKEEN: She'd been in Hell, torturing Will when she got the update from Lucifer. Charlie's dead now. She'd seen a lot of people die in her lifetime. Most of the time it didn't bother her, but Charlie was her best friend. It was heartbreaking. Her chest felt restricted, and her eyes filled with tears. She wiped them away before anyone could see them. If Charlie had ended up in Hell, Maze should've been told, but no one came while she let out her anger on Will, which meant that she'd gone to heaven and that Maze wouldn't be able to see her again. She let Belphegor continue torturing Will on their own while she went back to her own place in Hell. She didn't tell Belphegor the news yet. They'd need to figure out how to break that down to them. They were already upset enough that she'd been hurt. Maze had diverted their sadness to anger, but handling her death would be harder. Maze remained stoic until she got home and saw a picture of Charlie, Lucifer, and herself in a frame on one of the walls. She picked it up and broke down into tears, clutching it to her chest as she laid down on her bed. Now she'd really never get Charlie to sleep with her and Lucifer. That made her cry more.

LUCIFER: "Well, that was bloody awful," Lucifer lamented as he appeared in Maze's home. He needed someone to complain to about this. He'd already tried calling Linda a couple times but she declined the calls on account that it was close to 2am now. "Maze?" he called out to her. She wasn't in the living room, but he could feel her presence about. He figured she must've gone to bed. Surely she wouldn't mind being woken up to some good news. Lucifer helped himself to the bar, pouring two glasses of champagne and placing them on a tray. He carried them into Maze's room like some sort of fancy butler. He expected to find her maybe in some sexy little number or maybe nothing at all. But what he hadn't expected was to find her crying. "Mazikeen..." he lowered the tray onto the nightstand beside her. "Why are you crying? I thought you'd be over the moon, honestly..." Becoming Death was one hell of a promotion, especially for a human reaper. Charlie had essentially ascended to an angelic form of being. It was unheard of for humans to do that. It was historic and spicy and no doubt causing Uriel to panic a little. Lucifer very much liked that idea. But Maze...he'd never seen her like this.

MAZIKEEN: She heard it distantly when someone came into her home. Sometimes the other demons tried to sneak into her place to fight her when she was off guard. She was never really off guard, but she could recognize Lucifer's presence. Archangels like him radiated power that was unmistakable, especially him. She didn't move when he called her name. She didn't want him to see her crying like this, but she couldn't stop. It hurt too much. Charlie had been too important to her. "I'm not crying," she insisted, even as her voice cracked and tears spilled down her face. The picture frame she'd been clutching left imprints on her arms as she sat up. She sniffled as she wiped at her face, but more tears kept coming. She looked at Lucifer with confusion. "Why would I be over the moon about this?" she asked. Why was he? What was good about any of this? "She's gone, Lucifer." She took in a breath trying to push back the tears, but it just distorted her face. Admitting that she was gone was hard. It was possibly one of the hardest things she ever had to do, and she dealt with Cuphegor all the time.

LUCIFER: "Right, of course," he nodded and sat down at her bed side. She was too crying but he wasn't going to call her out on it. He simply pulled out the handkerchief from his pocket square and held it out to her. He had no idea what brought this on. Maze normally loved when he sent people out to be tortured by her specifically. William especially had been a thorn at her side. What he'd done now warranted permanent death so naturally he figured Maze would be happy about that but she wasn't. She was crying about someone being gone. It didn't take long to realize she was talking about Charlie. "She's not gone," he replied, placing his hands on either side of her and rubbing down the length of her arms in a reassuring manner. "I mean, I don't really know where she's at right now specifically. She's kind of hiccupping in and out of afterlives and I'm not allowed entry into some of them because of politics. But she's very much alive...unalive...sort of dead?" he sighed trying to figure out how to explain it. "She's Death now." He didn't see what was so bad about that. Maybe it was because Maze couldn't hug her? "I mean, sure, it would be ill advised to touch her at the moment but you'll be able to give her a hug when she reigns her powers in a bit. Raphael said they'd help."

MAZIKEEN: She took the handkerchief he offered her and wiped the tears off her face, still not admitting that they were tears, not that he was insisting they were or anything. He hadn't argued her lie, and she appreciated it. She leaned against him as he rubbed her arms.  She thought he was giving her some spiel about how their afterlives didn't really mean they were gone or something. That wouldn't have made a difference to Mazikeen if she couldn't see Charlie herself, but that wasn't what he was talking about. She wasn't sure what he was talking about actually. "What do you mean she's alive? You texted me and told me she was dead." Her voice was raising angrily. She'd been so upset. "You made me think my best friend died!" She hit him in the chest as she spoke. "I was crying because I thought I lost her!" She spoke with a mixture of shouting and sobbing.

LUCIFER: "What do you mean? No I didn't," he defended as she shouted that he sent her a text saying Charlie was dead. He pulled out his phone to try to get a look at what he said but she started smacking him. He swatted her away briefly to take a peak and sure enough...he grimaced. Bloody autocorrect. "That was meant to say she's Death, not she's dead," he corrected, not that it mattered in hindsight. "I wouldn't break that kind of news to you over a text message, Maze," he tried to assure her calmly. "That's Levi levels of avoidance. I'd send a carrier pigeon at least." Perhaps it wasn't the best time for jokes but that was really the only way he knew how to work through the kind of day he had. It wasn't exactly easy having to run a death scythe into an old friend and hope for the best.

MAZIKEEN: "Yes, you did!" she snapped. She'd read over the text several times just to make sure she'd read it right because that news was so serious. It didn't make a difference to her now that it was a typo. If anything, she was more furious that he hadn't noticed the typo before he'd sent it, or even that he didn't see that it had changed once he had sent it. He could've corrected it immediately and saved her the heartbreak of thinking she'd lost her friend. "A carrier pigeon?!" she repeated angrily, not finding his jokes as funny as he did in the moment when she was still reeling from thinking her friend had died. She started hitting him. "You're so stupid! I can't believe I fell in love with you, you asshole! Who jokes about that?!"

LUCIFER: "In my defense a lot was going on," he lamented, still wanting to complain about the situation. "I wasn't exactly sipping Bacardi with Raphael up there." He might've put too much faith in his phone to get the message across. "I knew you were worried about Charlie's condition and I wanted to get the news to her ASAP. I had a million and one things I needed to do to secure the veil after everything happened and I wouldn't have had time to come down to hell until well...now. I didn't think it was fair for you to wait that long." He was trying to ease her nerves but thanks to his phone he'd done the opposite. He grimaced as soon as the pigeon joke left his lips and braced himself for another round of smacking. It didn't hurt and he let her carry on. It was best to just let Maze air out her frustrations rather than let them fester. He expected her to insult him. That was par for the course. But he hadn't expected her to say the other thing. He sat up a little straighter and held her firmly so that she would stop hitting him and look at him instead. "You don't...you can't...you don't mean that, do you?" he asked her in all seriousness.

MAZIKEEN: Realistically, she couldn't blame him too much for what had happened. All in all, it was a simple mistake, and anger was the main way she knew to release her emotions. She knew Lucifer  knew that, and there were ways she could make it up to him later when she wasn't emotional. She sighed. "I guess I do appreciate you trying to tell me as soon as possible, even if you did fuck it up." She really did appreciate that, considering how worried she'd been about Charlie. "So I really can't hug her though?" She was one of the people Maze actually liked to hug. Lucifer was also one of them, but him grabbing her took her by surprise. He probably just was getting annoyed with her constantly hitting him, but most of her anger had gotten out now. She sighed. "You are kinda an asshole sometimes, but I like it most of the time."

LUCIFER: "Well, someone will suffer for the ill conceived attempts of autocorrect," he assured her. It wasn't going to be him, but someone would. Surely there was probably a demon to blame for this. "Probably Sam," he offered, hoping that would lift her spirits some with another soul to torture. "Charlie managed to separate him and his evil twin. She dragged the parasitic one here. Not sure which kingdom but when we find him, he's all yours," he replied, still running his hand up and down her arm in a comforting gesture. "No, I'm afraid you can't hug her for now. She's deadly to everything except the Archangels now." Although Charlie was young by comparison, her ranking was up there with Cupid now that she was Death. Love and Death were fundamental forces in the balance of things. "But I'll give her extra hugs on your behalf," he replied. He didn't mind it one bit. Having to stab Charlie wasn't exactly pleasant and he wanted to ensure she was okay every step of the way. His features softened and his grip lightened when she remarked he was an asshole sometimes, but she enjoyed that about him. "That's not what I meant...I meant the other thing you said. The one about falling in love with me..." he clarified so that neither of them could be mistaken this time. "You don't mean that, do you?"

MAZIKEEN: "As they should." She nodded in agreement. She smiled brightly when Lucifer suggested that it would probably be Sam. She'd always wanted to torture him. "Is it my birthday again already?" she asked jokingly. She was a little disappointed that it wasn't both Sams that ended up in Hell, but she guessed that it was good for Charlie's happiness or something. "That's pretty hot," she remarked with a smirk. "It makes me want to try it anyway. I'll tell you what it feels like." She grinned. Lucifer couldn't have all the fun in being the only one of them to be able to hug Charlie. Her smile faltered when he clarified what he'd heard her say. "Ah," so she had actually said that then? She'd thought that part was just in her head, but it was hard to keep a cap on her thoughts when she was that upset. Her chest clenched up. She was trying to gauge his reaction to that before she said anything else, but it was hard to tell how he was feeling about it. The most she could tell was that he was uncertain, but she couldn't decipher if that uncertainty came from disgust at the idea, if he wanted it like she did, if his trauma from the curse just had him scared to trust it, or a combination of a few of those. She sat up straighter, holding herself higher to make sure this confession didn't make her look weaker in any way. If he didn't like it then fuck him anyways. "I do. I've been in love with you for a while now." She let out a breath of air. That was a weird thing she never really thought she'd let out, but it was out there now. She watched Lucifer carefully for his reaction, prepared to backtrack or defend herself if she needed to.

LUCIFER: He was glad to see her smile after the particularly awful news she thought he'd delivered. He knew he'd be paying for that for the next few weeks but for now at least the storm had passed and she knew Charlie was safe. "If your birthday occurred anytime that man nearly dies, you'd be aging at twice the rate," he pointed out. He really did feel for the Winchester's Guardian. That angel had to be doing overtime on most days. "Wear protection," he teased. "Safe hugging to prevent untimely death." Maze wore enough latex that it really shouldn't be a problem. Charlie was careful too. Lucifer had instructed her to go to Val in the meantime for pointers and perhaps a pair of sturdier gloves.

He swallowed back a bit of initial panic when she confirmed that he'd heard her correctly. His automatic thoughts and fears were that his curse was back. Why else would anyone love him? He projected outward confidence because he had to. It was expected of him as King of Hell to know what to do, or at least to look like he knew what he was doing. Maze knew better than most Lucifer had no idea what he was doing. He was a mess just trying his best. Truthfully, the curses had set him back quite a bit. He still struggled, wondering if any of the relationships and connections he'd made in his life were real. Chloe had left him long before the curse was broken and he couldn't blame her. But Maze stuck around. She'd been there before he discovered his curse and she was still there afterward. She'd been there through all of his milestone and all the trials life could've thrown his way. He couldn't have imagined doing any of this without her. In fact, he was certain he couldn't have done it without her. The duties of keeping Hell running and keeping his siblings both happy and alive stretched him thin. He needed a partner and Maze was the best one he could've ever asked for.

If she really did love him, then this was a blessing because as much as the feeling scared him, he loved her too. He hadn't realized how much she did for him until she'd disappeared to the other timeline. He'd been a mess then and so had hell. Since then, he tried to show her that he appreciated her more and more. He tried to do what he could to spend time with her because he didn't know how much time they had left. He realized some time ago if the void was going to take over, she'd be the person he'd want to be with in the end. He thought those feelings were just friendship, but he knew deep down it went deeper than that.

"Okay...." he took a deep breath. "Okay..." he ran his hands up and down her arms as a soothing gesture. "Mazikeen, you are one of the most important people to me. You're the first person I check in with in the mornings and the last one I see before I go to bed. You're..." You're the one person I can see myself spending an eternity with. Just say it Lucifer. Come on. "The last time I felt like this about someone, it turned out to not be real. How do we know any of this is real?" he questioned. It was an unfair question to place on her but he wanted to be upfront with his fears. He'd known Chloe for all of 4 years when she left. And her leaving left a hole in his belief in love. He'd known Maze for much longer. If this turned out to be a curse and if she left too...he wasn't sure where that would leave either of them.

MAZIKEEN: She laughed a little at his comment about Sam's deaths. "Even better. Maybe I can catch up to you, old man." It wasn't like they really aged anyways. Birthdays were an arbitrary thing they made up just for an excuse to celebrate. They were all too old to actually keep up with their ages, and even if they did, it just made them look so much better despite their ages. "Don't worry. My strap-on has a condom and everything." She grinned. She'd be careful enough, but the thought that her best friend could kill her with just a single touch was exciting and she wanted to see what it felt like. Hopefully, she wouldn't kill herself completely in the process. She wasn't actually suicidal like some people.

Her chest ached seeing that look on his face. As a demon, she considered it a skill of hers that she could recognize the fear in her victims, but Lucifer wasn't a victim. He was her closest friend and the person she was in love with. She usually knew him better than she knew herself most of the time, but she couldn't tell where that panic came from in the moment. Was he as scared of rejecting her as she was of being rejected? Or was he just as scared of allowing himself to love as she was. She knew that with his curse, he'd been hesitant of his relationships, romantic or otherwise. It was part of the reason she'd been so hesitant herself recently about talking about it (though it was mainly because of her own fear). The way he held onto her arms, rubbing them to reassure her, convinced her that this was a rejection, so she prepared herself for it.

She had to admit, he was setting up the rejection nicely. She imagined that he was going the route of asking if they could still be friends so they could still do all of those things. The last time I felt like this about someone... So he did feel the same way about her then, and his panic was about the curse. Even so, the doubt of whether this was real or not hurt. She knew his curse was broken. Cupid had confirmed that. Maze wasn't particularly great at dealing with her emotions, so the pain she felt at his doubt turned to anger. It wasn't rational anger, considering how valid his doubts were, but she was angry nevertheless. How dare he doubt her love?!

"I'm not Chloe," she snapped. "What, do you think that just because I was with her when Cupid broke your connection that it somehow transferred from her into me? Well, it didn't because I've been in love with you for a lot longer than that. I didn't fall in love with you because of a curse. I fell in love with you because unlike everyone else you were always there with me and for me from the day I met you. It wasn't some immediate infatuation. I don't do the love at first sight thing." She barely considered the love thing until she realized it was actually a possibility. "I don't just have the feeling that I love you. I know I love you because I consider the day you picked me to be your right hand one of the best moments of my life, and maybe kicking Azazel's ass made that day better too, but that's not the important part. You are. I like working for you. I like your dirty jokes because I have the same sense of humor. And your corny jokes are awful,  but occasionally I'll find myself making them too." She sounded annoyed as she said all of this, only angry that he didn't see it. She shouldn't have been surprised though considering that seemed to run in his family. "I know a lot of people think it's a little extra the way you will do whole musical numbers. I agree, but I fucking love it!"

He looked like he was about to say something, but she cut him off. "I'm not done yet! You wanted to know how I know that this is real, so you're going to hear it all! When I was younger, and practically everyone was doubting me for being your right hand, you didn't. You never doubted my capability to kick their asses and make them shut the fuck up. I fucking love the fact that even though you're an archangel, you trust me to handle myself and fight my own battles. I'd be pissed if you tried to, but I never had to worry about that with you. I never have to worry about most things with you because I trust you. Hell, even your problems I don't mind dealing with. You self-sabotage constantly, and so do I. You've got the the world's biggest daddy issues, and I've got the world's worst mommy issues. But we know how to deal with each other's issues. The drama in your family is exponential, but I don't ever want to stop dealing with it. It's honestly really entertaining, and don't you dare fucking tell them this, or anyone for that matter, but I started to care for them too. Some of them anyways. Just a tiny barely noticeable amount." She probably shouldn't have said that, but she kept going.

"When we came up here together at first and Chloe made you vulnerable, you have no idea how terrified I was. I am your right hand and your bodyguard. I don't usually have to protect you from much because you're an archangel, but there you were getting injured constantly just because you kept going near the thing that was making you vulnerable. I was honestly glad that it was a curse just because it meant that you could be safe again." Sure there were other things that could hurt him but not many. "I was just glad that I didn't have to worry about losing you."

She continued to list off more and more reasons to prove how she knew her love was her own and not from some curse. It spanned from centuries in the past all the way to the present, including the smallest details like the way he laughed when he was scared or  the way his hair looked after sex to more major details and events like the fact that she saw him when she looked at Asmodeus or how jealous she felt when she saw the other universe's Maze seeming to have everything with her Lucifer and how glad she was to come home to her own. It took her hours to get through everything, and it was well into the morning now. "And if that's not enough to convince you that this is real, I don't know what is," she huffed. "Cupid's been trying to get me to tell you for ages now, and she wouldn't do that if she had any doubts about my feelings for you being a curse. She might be a pain in the ass half the time, but I know you at least can count on her being genuine about love."

LUCIFER: "At the rate he dies, you'll likely catch up to Aamon or Michael at this point," he joked although he really hoped Sam would slow down a little for Charlie's sake. He chuckled when she replied that her strap-on had a condom. "A paragon of safe sex. I expect no less. I'm sure Charlie will appreciate the sentiment." If anything, Charlie would at least appreciate the jokes and the company. It had been a rough few hours for her. Those hours spanned days in hell. Days that Maze must've spent feeling anxious about her friend's wellbeing. No wonder she'd reacted so poorly to his faux pas.

He was hoping to make it up to her, but it was clear his hesitation was contributing to her anxiety. Being a demon from Aamon's kingdom, that anxiety naturally expressed itself with rage. He flinched as she snapped at him. He swallowed hard when she replied that she'd been in love with him for a lot longer than he'd been cursed. Maybe they'd looked at the curse all wrong then. Maybe it was there from the beginning. Maybe Chloe wasn't the original victim, but rather Mazikeen. The thought of that ached and hurt more than anything. She was his best advisor and his closest friend. The thought of their closeness potentially being driven by a curse was a hurt that threatened to tear his chest open, but continued to listen. It was best not to interrupt her when she was in one of these passionate rages.

His features softened and his panic started to drop off slightly as she started listing tangible things she liked about him. Love curses couldn't go that deep, could they? Cupid had told him even the strongest curses can only mimic a base and superficial love. What Maze was describing didn't feel superficial. She'd also said that real love felt different. It made you feel complete even when you felt like you were falling apart. Maze made him feel that way. She understood him in ways even those around him didn't seem to get.

She didn't try to change him or insist that he be someone else, someone more mature or someone she felt he needed to be in certain situations. She trusted his judgement even when he didn't trust himself necessarily. Apparently not everyone was the same way though. There were people out there that didn't like his musical numbers? He was about to open his mouth to retort, but she cut him off. He closed his mouth and patiently waited as she continued, a smile growing on his face.

Just as he'd been reminiscing about how she never doubted his abilities, it was clear she felt the same way about him never doubting her. He always knew that she was capable. His siblings might have been more powerful than her, but they always knew that Maze was an extension of Lucifer. She wasn't a subordinate, she was family to them. And it was clear Maze felt that they were her family too. That made Lucifer brighten considerably. He knew Maze didn't have a good relationship with her family and sometimes his own relationship with his family was rocky too. But she found her place among them and that was important to him.

She was as afraid of losing him as he was of losing her which was both terrifying and a relief. When she was off in the other timeline, he'd been a mess just thinking about it. It wasn't just the daunting task of finding another right hand if she never came back. It was the inexplicable pain of losing someone whom you couldn't imagine your life without. There was no one in this world or the next that could replace Maze.

"Mazikeen," he cupped her face as she finished, letting her take a few deep breaths to calm down. She looked like she needed a drink too. "I believe you," his voice was soft and gentle as he spoke. The previous panic that it carried was now gone. He really did believe her. He knew Maze well enough to know cursed or not, love was the last thing she wanted to admit to. It took guts to get this far and now it was time for him to show the same kind of bravery. "And I love you too," he smiled. "You make me a better person without trying to change a single thing about me. You listen to my fears and insecurities and you don't let them be the only voice inside my head. When shit hits the fan you are the only person I know I can count on. It's always been you," he replied as he leaned in and kissed her gently. "It's always going to be you."

MAZIKEEN: "He's really got issues if he's going that far." Maze could see the appeal of getting close to death. She liked pushing things that far all the time. Having sex with archangels who could easily end your existence provided a similar thrill, but Maze didn't actually want to die. "Yeah," Maze agreed. "Hopefully becoming death doesn't autocorrect her sense of humor." She was joking just to pick on Lucifer's mistake, but she was a little worried about how this change would affect Charlie. She didn't know everything about what becoming death entailed. She had always been closer to Charlie than Azrael, and Azrael wasn't very social. She hadn't talked much about what being Death was like either. Maze didn't know how much she could help Charlie, or how much any of them could.

She looked at Lucifer angrily as he cupped her face, waiting for him to make fun of her or say that her explanations weren't enough to prove that this was real even though she knew it was. Her expression softened when he said he believed her. "You do?" She asked, relaxing into him now. He'd gone through so much lately that she really didn't expect him to take her at her word. "You do?" She asked again as he told her he loved her too. She felt warmer, and she was smiling brightly. She didn't think she'd been in love before him, and just getting that confirmation was such a relief. She felt lighter and happier. She looked at him in awe as he explained just what made him love her too. "I don't need to change anything about you," she said in defense of him, but she couldn't counter the rest of it. She deepened the kiss. Her hands moved into his hair, pulling on some of the strands, but this kiss was different than their usual make-out sessions. It wasn't just from lust, though she was feeling hornier now. Adding an emotional extension to kissing someone was . . . Interesting to say the least. She might've loved him before, but loving him and knowing he loved her had the most thrill she'd ever known. Cupid could never be told that. She'd never hear the end of how right Cupid was, but this was something Mazikeen had needed to do on her own anyways. Maze smirked as they pulled out of the kiss. "If it's always going to be me, do we need to discuss anything else, or are you going to get me out of these clothes?"

LUCIFER: "There's minor death kinks and then there's whatever Sam's got," he chuckled. He would pass off Linda's number to Sam and maybe even introduce them. She'd get a kick out of an interdimensional client and Sam could really use the help after all of this. He groaned at the joke Maze made about Charlie's humor getting autocorrected. If course she wasn't going to let him live it down. Despite her ribbing at him, he knew there was some truth hidden in her jokes. She was afraid that this whole transition to becoming Death would change Charlie. "She's a little overwhelmed right now, but still Charlie. It's like the second Frozen movie where Elsa transitions into the fifth natural force," he giggled to himself. "You know, that sort of makes you Anna. I've seen dark before..." he sang through his giggles, ducking away before she could smack him.

"I do," he nodded. "It doesn't mean I'm any less scared about it or that I even know what I'm doing, but I believe you and I love you," he assured her. Admitting it out loud again felt like a weight had been lifted off his shoulder. The more times he said it out loud, the more sure of himself he felt. He did love her. This wasn't the curse talking, this was him. He smiled when she replied that she didn't need to change him. He'd gone a good portion of his life thinking there was something wrong with him. He didn't fit the mold his Father intended for him. He never accepted him for who he was and simply wanted to beat him down until he was a perfect soldier like Michael. But Maze never tried to change him. She never made him feel like he was built wrong or that he was too soft, too hard, or too much for the role placed on his shoulders.

As she deepened the kiss, he pressed her against the wall, wanting to feel every inch of her. Having aired out how he felt, and having her accept it and feel the same was exhilarating and quite frankly more of a turn on than anything else he'd ever experienced before. He could hardly focus as she pulled away. "Well," he smirked, trailing kisses down her neck as his hands explored her body. "I do have some making up to do for my previous faux pas." He gripped her tightly and picked her up before plopping her down onto the bed. "You know what they say, no time line the present," he smirked, dipping down to kiss her again.

[revasnaslan]

1, 5, 9, 12?

anyway i can't figure out how to do a readmore on mobile so you get the whole post in all its glory. i apologize in advance i wrote a lot 😭😭

1. Which plotline or mission in the series do you feel had the most wasted potential?

anything having to do with cerberus is the first that comes to mind tbh. like making the protagonist join them in 2 was a very interesting choice, and i think the game tries to humanize them because of this, and i think in certain aspects it does this well... but then when 3 rolls around they made them cackling bad guys with absolutely zero nuance who seem to actively be working against everybody else because?? reasons i guess??

and i think that this had potential because i do think there is a way to make them being secondary antagonists in 3 work... like there could have been an implication or an outright statement that the alliance has fractured because of the reapers and the war and a lot of soldiers were going over to cerberus because they seemed like the best option. it would explain how cerberus (which was a spliter cell iirc) suddenly has all this manpower despite only six months passing between 2 and 3.

5. What's a scene you would have liked to see in the series?

i would have liked to see shepard actually acknowledge that their autonomy was taken from them when they were forcibly brought back from the dead in 2, and i just do not understand how people gloss over it a lot of the time. now granted i don't think the devs really thought about it hard but like shepard was stone cold dead, the comic implies their body was so mangled you wouldn't even be able to recognize them, and yet they were brought back because only they could do the job or something??

it's very weak justification for a) keeping shepard as the protagonist and b) having a reason for shepard to be aligned with cerberus despite everything cerberus has done in the past possibly including being the reason they're the sole survivor of their unit on akuze. and i'm not saying it isn't an interesting choice to be forced into that position because they're the only ones who seem to realize what's going on, but i do wish it had been in anyway acknowledged by the text.

i think that's why i'm so fixated on the idea mr illusive is shepard's father, and why i used it as the backstory for my sheps. because he is definitely the type of asshole who would disregard his child's autonomy for the greater good or to keep the humanity saving in the family, as it were.

9. Which NPCs would you have most liked to have as squadmates?

i have multiple answers for this one actually, but the context for them are very different!!

so i adore kolyat, anybody who has spoken to me for more than five seconds know that he's my boy, i'm Very Attached To Him. that being said, i can acknowledge that he probably shouldn't be an actual squadmate in 3 considering he's a whole eighteen-to-nineteen year old who really shouldn't be running around in the middle of a goddamn war. however i do think it would have been very fun to have him as one of the squadmates you could take in that arcade shooter minigame from the citadel dlc!!

there's also feron!! i'm really intrigued by him as a drell who is seemingly not connected to the compact at all and as an information broker with a very firm code of ethics he adheres to. he has a lot of potential to be an interesting character but both the writers and the fandom totally sleep on him. i think he gets all of three mentions in 3 despite being a major supporting character in lair of the shadow broker (who is kind of the reason that dlc happens at all), and the wealth of potential he has was completely overlooked. i would have even taken him being a guest squadmate in the same way as aria and nyreen in the omega dlc.

a very self indulgent answer is probably irikah. like if she had lived i could see it being so interesting to explore drell culture through someone else besides thane, and she is implied to have a very strong code of ethics she holds to that seem to run counter to a typical character in an action rpg. her reactions to events during the games would have been fascinating to see imo. i do have an au where she's alive but i haven't worked out how she fits into the squad dynamic yet or if she is even a squadmate in 2, but her being a squadmate in 3 could be an interesting direction to take it.

..... to the surprise of no one, all my choices are drell 😔😔

12. How happy are you with your ME3 ending of choice? What would you change about it, if anything?

personally, i don't really care for any of the endings and have been kind of poking at writing one of my own entirely from scratch that completely reworks the catalyst and the goddamn starchild sequence because i think it would have been a lot more poignant if the people who had died along your journey were the ones talking to you (i.e., default it switches between like thane, mordin, and ashley/kaidan) because the entire point of the starchild was to be invoking a form shepard would be comfortable with?? okay so lean into that manipulation of that, have the catalyst take the form of people shepard "failed" and invoke a guilt response.

now that being said, i usually take the destroy ending because i loathe the implications of synthesis and the non-consensual body modification therein, but i also kind of hate control because their own narrative shows how futile it is through mr illusive?? destroy has the least amount of holes in it imo.

but the narrative decision to make the destroy ending affect all synthetic life is beyond stupid because a whole theme in these games is whether or not synthetics are sentient people or not. and we know they are, because we see it in legion and edi throughout the games. which is why it's uh... kind of uncomfortable because what the game is having shepard do, with the knowledge that synthetic life are people, is committing mass genocide on an intergalactic scale?? and like that could be interesting, if there was some acknowledgement within the text that what shepard did was essentially doing to synthetics what the reapers have been doing to them... but frankly i wouldn't trust the devs to write that considering they wrote the whole arrival dlc with about as much delicacy as a 2x4 to the face so 🙃🙃

[octerminal]

I’ve talked before about how Nadia being Earthborn is the central reason she’s renegade leaning, but I really want to get into it again because I’ve been listening to Hadestown a lot recently and that always makes me think of Nadia because the musical touches on how traumatizing poverty is. And also just because, well, I always want to talk about Nadia.

But before I can do that, I have to talk about a few other things first.

(This is going to be niche and also super self-indulgent, but it’s my blog, so who cares. Note that because of what both Hadestown and the Earthborn background entail, this is going to get slightly political. But again, it’s my blog, so who cares.)

Generally speaking, Mass Effect has an issue with downplaying trauma. Ashley, Tali, Garrus, and James all go through the traumatic experience of being sole (or almost sole) survivors. Tali goes through this twice, because the comics show that before she even met Shepard she lost the team she’d been traveling with. (And that’s not even counting the fact she also loses a chunk of her team on Freedom’s Progress. They use this trope with her a lot.) Liara loses her mother in the first game and she has almost no reaction. Shepard dies in the beginning of the second game and spends the rest joking about it, with very few opportunities to express anything but humor over the situation.

People respond to trauma differently, and the game is also told primarily from Shepard’s point of view, so consequently we only see what Shepard sees. All of these characters likely grieved in private, and they definitely do carry scars (literal and figurative) from what they’ve gone through. But I also think that Mass Effect likes making characters go through objectively traumatic things without fully considering how someone might act coming out of it. In fairness, that’s the fun of fanfic, and I also do think everyone on the Normandy has some degree of experience in compartmentalizing because they simply don’t have the time to sit down with their feelings. (A lot of them are also just averse to doing this.)

But exploring that trauma is what I’m interested in the most, and that’s how I approached Nadia. Earthborn is my favorite background for that reason. It’s not a single event that’s shaped their life thereafter, but a sustained stressful environment they endure for years and only escape once they sign up with the Alliance. And in that regard, Nadia rather sees it as trading one cage for another, but that’s neither here nor there.

Like, to go back to Hadestown (I swear I’m not going to write Hadestown meta on this blog), “When the Chips are Down” is one of my favorite numbers because it so accurately describes Nadia’s response to poverty. “How can you expect me to care about another person and put their wellbeing above my own, when doing that will result in my own death? How can you expect me to trust another person, when that could result in my own death? How are you going to lecture me on having no morals when if I had prioritized morality, I never would have survived?” (This is something I love bouncing off Kaidan, but I’ll get to that later.)

In other words, and this is an incredibly obvious thing to say, poverty is traumatizing and violent. It is an incredibly violent thing to put another human being through, to make them worry for their basic safety, to live their day to day in a constant limbo of uncertainty that permeates every facet of their life. Will you be able to eat today? Will you be able to sleep in a safe environment? Can you trust this person you’ve never met? Will trusting them endanger what little safety you’ve managed to achieve? How much money do you have? How long can you make that money last? Where will you be tomorrow? How about the day after?

This is something that leaves its mark on anyone it touches. It’s hard enough for an adult to plan for the future when they don’t have the luxury of knowing how they’ll even survive the week; when you’re a child, and that sort of stress is all that you’ve known, how do you even imagine a better life when you’ve known nothing different?

Before I get any further, I want to pause for a moment. Something that’s always been curious to me are the codex entries for Earth. Here’s a portion of ME1′s codex:

Here’s a portion of ME3′s codex:

(Written transcripts of the complete codex entries at the links.)

In both of them, they talk about how humanity is in a new golden age. A lot of pollution and common diseases have been eliminated. The colonies have brought in more resources. There's even been some correction to the damage early climate change caused. Then the Fire Nation—I mean, Reapers, attacked and ruined all of this. Except, take a closer look at ME1′s codex:

“While every human enjoys longer and better life than ever, the gap between rich and poor widens daily. [...] Less fortunate regions have not progressed beyond 20th century technology, and are often smog-choked, overpopulated slums.”

This seems incompatible with the idea of Earth being in a golden age. How can Earth be thriving if the class disparity is growing, not narrowing? How can Earth be thriving if entire swaths are still "smog-choked” and using centuries old outdated technology?

It’s not incompatible if the idea is that Earth has entered a golden age only for the ones who can afford it. And this is the reality Earthborn Shepards were raised in: the idea that their suffering is an unimportant, insignificant underbelly to an otherwise “prospering” homeworld.

So, resuming with that in mind: the way Nadia sees it is that to allow poverty to exist is an inherent societal failure that reflects on the government. This is why Nadia has no loyalty to the Alliance, and why she doesn’t trust them. This is why she subsequently has no loyalty to the Council, and why she doesn’t trust them, either. It doesn’t matter that the Alliance and the Council weren’t personally responsible for her childhood, because they’re still governments. She knows that governments will lie and exploit and allow for people like her to fall through the cracks if it will benefit them. She knows they will broadcast only the best of what they have to offer while conveniently pretending people like her don’t exist.

Like, personal politics aside, as shown above with the codex entries, this is just...canon. And Thane’s loyalty highlights poverty on the Citadel through Mouse and the concept of “duct rats,” so we know that it exists there, too. How the Council presumably feels about poverty on their station is outlined if you speak to Avina on the Citadel in the second game:

AVINA: Asari futurists believe poverty cannot be eliminated without “cornucopia” technology, which will create anything the user desires. Such technology is unknown outside science fiction.

Essentially: yeah, unfortunately, poverty exists on the station, but what can you do? Believing poverty is avoidable is actually utopian and therefore unrealistic, sorry! 

But when you meet Anoleis on Noveria as Earthborn, he can literally tell you poverty doesn’t exist on Sur’Kesh. (And sure, he could be lying, and we have no proof either way. It doesn’t erase the fact that, at the very least, the existence of widespread poverty is something that even a corrupt and money embezzling salarian thinks is an easy jab.)

ANOLEIS: My homeworld is clean. Poverty is non-existent. If you take some perverse pride in that overheated, acid-washed slum, that is your business.

There’s nothing about the Alliance and poverty that I know of¹, which makes sense considering the main branch of the Alliance we see throughout the games is its military branch. There are still plenty of instances in the trilogy where the Alliance does exploit the vulnerable, or attempts to cover up their self-inflicted shortcomings. An obvious one is with Kaidan and Conatix; Kaidan literally tells you the Alliance is the one who “made mistakes.” That in their haste, they allowed a man to brutalize children for the sake of research. And when it backfired, they sealed the documents and pretended it never happened.

UNC: The Negotiation is one of my favorite ME1 missions for this reason, too—it highlights a part of the Alliance the series doesn’t really focus on otherwise. Darius tells you that the entire reason he’s operating in the region at all is because the Alliance is the one who set him up there. 

DARIUS: You see this gun? This is your gun. Your military set me up here, and now it wants to pretend it doesn’t know me! But I know the truth. The Alliance needed me here! So treat me with the respect I deserve!

SHEPARD: You said we set you up. Did the Alliance give you weapons?

DARIUS: After the batarians were driven out of the Verge, the Alliance wanted to stabilize the region. I had the strongest syndicate in the area. They gave me the weapons and money I needed to take over.

After the mission, Hackett implies the entire reason he sent renegade Shepard to cover a diplomatic negotiation is because he expected and wanted them to kill Darius, because he was now more trouble than he was worth.

HACKETT: I’m sorry that you were unable to negotiate with Darius peacefully. His death is regrettable. Nevertheless, the resulting chaos will create a power vacuum that makes future raids upon our miners unlikely.

SHEPARD: You didn’t think I’d negotiate with him. You wanted me to kill him.

HACKETT: Sometimes extreme measures must be taken to ensure humanity’s safety. Or did you think you were the only one willing to break the rules to get the job done?

(Link, so you can watch the mission yourself.)

None of this is me saying the Council and the Alliance have no redeemable features whatsoever, or that they have never contributed positively to galactic wellbeing. It’s just me citing instances in canon that support why Nadia has the opinion she does of them, and why she’s not exactly incorrect in having them. 

So, to loop this back around to Kaidan? As I said, he’s not a stranger to government-level negligence. But Kaidan had a much different reaction than Nadia did, and this is something that absolutely fascinates her once she finds out.

Before that, though: the two of them don’t really hit it off in the beginning—though they’re both still professional—and this is mainly due to Nadia being, well, Nadia. She is not a people person and she never tries to be, which consequently makes her off-putting to most people. On her end, she’s generally unimpressed and uninterested in the people around her. She sees a lot of them as puzzles to be solved and then to move on from, or threats to assess.² The rare times someone does pique her interest enough to act on it, she still prefers to not linger around for long. So, you know, just general unhealthy behavior.

So, Eden Prime is illuminating for them both. Like, on Kaidan’s end: Nadia comes off as callous. She doesn’t care about the colonists, she doesn’t care about Jenkins’ death. On Nadia’s end: Kaidan comes off as naive. How has he been a marine for this long and she has to tell him to suck it up after someone dies? (This is one of the reasons why she didn’t want to work with regular marines again; in my canon, Anderson had to needle her³ into accepting the Normandy position.)

But the truth of it is that the reason Nadia comes off as callous is because she’s thoroughly desensitized. Like, when you grow up poor, on the streets, and in a gang? You’re both witnessing and being put through a lot of traumatizing situations. Akuze, of course, only adds onto this. There’s this one dialogue option in the beginning of the second game when Miranda and Jacob are assessing Shepard’s memory, and while Nadia doesn’t take this option in canon, it is how she feels:

JACOB: You enlisted, and you survived a thresher maw attack that wiped out the rest of your team. Do you remember that?

SHEPARD: Yeah, I remember it. Everyone screaming, gunfire, blood everywhere. I was the only one focused on survival.

Paragon Shepard focuses entirely on the other marines: how they were their friends, how something like that can destroy you if you let it.

Renegade Shepard barely thinks of anyone else at all. There were fifty other marines on Akuze, and renegade Shepard thinks they survived simply because they were the only one focused on it. For Nadia, that’s because that’s what her entire life has already been until that point.

Look, there are a lot of different ways to play renegade; it runs a much larger gamut than paragon, in my opinion. Nadia is more of a neutral renegade. She’s not particularly bigoted, just dispassionate and apathetic⁴. She resorts to violence and intimidation because it’s the easiest way to control her surroundings, not because she thinks what she’s doing is particularly righteous⁵. This can get brought up in Samara’s loyalty when talking with Morinth:

MORINTH: Violence is the surest expression of power.

SHEPARD: Violence is a means to an end. Power is that end.

Like, Nadia is a person who’s had to live a life surrounded by violence, not because it’s what she initially chose, but because it was repeatedly inflicted on her. She didn’t have the luxury of nursing her compassion and generosity, or of prioritizing morality. Those things would’ve gotten her killed. What she focused on instead was survival: the best way to survive, the easiest way to survive, the way that consistently ensured her own safety. This meant violence, and in order to survive, she became very good at inflicting violence.

That’s what I meant when I said Nadia thinks she traded one cage for another: the Alliance wasn’t freedom in the truest sense; she’s still doing what she ultimately would’ve done if she had remained with the Reds⁶. She’s just doing it with government approval and a steadier paycheck. She knows she’s still being used, and it’s only who’s using her that’s changed. All that’s to say, she isn’t an N7 ranked infiltrator because she feels strongly about protecting Alliance space and dirtying her hands to do it. She’s an N7 ranked infiltrator because it’s simply what she’s good at.

One of my favorite renegade lines in the entire trilogy is during Thane’s loyalty because it perfectly highlights Nadia’s philosophy on her situation:

SHEPARD: Your father and I have killed a lot of people. You haven’t. There’s no reason you should start.

To Nadia, her life is what it is because of the circumstances she was raised in and the decisions she made in response to that. She doesn’t deflect blame for the sort of person she’s become; she holds herself the correct amount of responsible.

She kills people for the Alliance, she kills people for the Council, she kills people for Cerberus. Other Shepards might dress it up differently when death is unavoidable: “it’s a shame, but it was necessary,” said along with the appropriate amount of guilt. Or: they were a terrorist, they were a mercenary, they forced my hand. To Nadia, it’s all death, and there’s no inherent difference between killing someone “to protect humanity” (read: protect the Alliance’s interests) or killing someone “to protect the galaxy” (read: protect the Council’s interests) and simply killing someone in a situation paragon Shepards would deem unnecessary. And to Nadia, if you haven’t had to live a life like this—why start? You still have other options. Use them.

One thing I love about Hadestown is how it discusses the simple accessibility of being able to live your life, let alone live it virtuously. Like whether or not I agree with that, it’s an interesting thing to explore, and it gets brought up multiple times:

“When you’re hungry and there ain’t enough to go round / ain’t no length to which a girl won’t go / [...] and sometimes you think / you would do anything / just to fill your belly full of food” 

“See how the vipers and vultures surround you / and they’ll take you down, they’ll pick you clean / if you stick around such a desperate scene / see, people get mean when the chips are down” 

“Aim for the heart / shoot to kill / if you don’t do it, then the other one will / [...] nobody’s righteous / nobody’s proud / nobody’s innocent / now that the chips are down” 

“Go ahead and lay the blame / talk of virtue / talk of sin / wouldn’t you have done the same? / in her shoes / in her skin / you can have your principles when you’ve got a belly full” 

“I did what I had to do / that’s what they did too” 

“Some flowers bloom / where the green grass grows / our praise is not for them / but the ones who bloom in the bitter snow” 

Again, I’m not going to meta about Hadestown⁷ and the precise context for these verses are different in that canon (for starters, Eurydice never kills anyone), but the concept is similar: when you’re poor, you’re often driven to desperate measures to survive. Sometimes that means stepping over other people, or otherwise ignoring how your actions will affect them. Often, this is to your own detriment. And it’s really, really easy to cast judgment on the poor people driven to these decisions when you were never in their position. It’s really easy to just live when you’re not in a situation where you had to worry about your survival on a day-by-day basis.

I bring up Hadestown because it’s a nice conduit to explain Nadia’s issues. She’s not renegade because she thinks she’s on a crusade and anyone who gets in her way is acceptable collateral damage. She’s renegade because her survival depended on it, and as Sha’ira points out, it’s what has allowed her continual survival:

“I see your skin, tough as the scales of any turian. Unyielding. A wall between you and everyone else. But it protects you, makes you strong. That strength is what kept you alive when everyone else around you was dying. You alone survived. You will continue to survive.”

For her to survive her childhood, she had to step over other people and put herself first. This meant not allowing herself to get close to other people, and to not care about them beyond what they can give her to ensure her own survival.

And this is why Kaidan interests her. Kaidan’s response to brain camp wasn’t to minimize the importance of his morality, it was to double down on it. (Yes, partially to his own detriment, but that’s a different post.) His response wasn’t to distrust others, because after all, one of his defining characteristics is his compassion. It’s just that Kaidan’s inclined to troubleshoot everything, even his interactions with other people. He might be “once burned, twice shy” but he’s not going to be “once burned, byedon’tfollowmeI’mgoingtorelyonlyonmyselfforever.”

Like, he still wants to help...

SHEPARD: So why are you telling me this? Are you saying I’m cutting corners somewhere?

KAIDAN: I’m saying...it’s probably inevitable that we’ll have to. And when that happens, I want to help you. When someone important to you is up on a ledge, you help them. Keep them from mistakes better made by a kid.

SHEPARD: I’m a big girl, Alenko. I don’t need your help.

KAIDAN: I didn’t say you needed it, I said I’m offering it.⁸

...even though his desire to help (because he cares, because he thinks it’s the right thing to do) is precisely what led to the culmination of his trauma.

KAIDAN: He hurt Rahna. Broke her arm. She reached for a glass of water instead of pulling it biotically. She just wanted a drink without getting a nosebleed, you know? Like an idiot, I stood up. Didn’t know what I was gonna do...just, something.

He figures out what went wrong and tries to avoid repeating that mistake. He doesn’t just stop trying at all. He doesn’t lose his faith in having faith.

It’s antithetical to how Nadia responded to her own circumstances, and she can’t quite process the logic behind...why you would be this way. It’s not that she expects everyone to be like her. She’s seen a lot of different people traumatized, and consequently a lot of different ways people have reacted to trauma. It’s more like: “fool me once” is enough for Nadia. There are no second chances after that. She sees no point in ruminating over why something went wrong. Just accept that it did. (Or don’t, but never think about it, anyway.) She thinks living any other way is akin to, I don’t know, laying down in a snake pit right after one just bit you. Stupid, in other words.

(I should also clarify: this is mainly when it concerns people. She will troubleshoot when it comes to things like tech.)

Like, I’ve joked about this to a friend, but when Nadia first reads Kaidan’s file⁹ her impression is: alright, boy scout. Then she actually meets him and she thinks her assessment was more or less spot on, and she loses whatever vestiges of interest his file did manage to leave despite its otherwise boy-scouty-ness. 

But the thing is, Kaidan isn’t naive. He chooses to have the faith he has in the Alliance despite what they’ve put him through. He’s acutely aware that the Alliance is capable of mistakes, because he’s been on the receiving end of it—yet he still wants to help and feels that as a biotic, the Alliance is his best avenue to do that:

KAIDAN: I’m not looking for “the dream.” I just want to do some good. See what’s out here. 

KAIDAN: Commander, I thought real hard about how to use my talents. When I swore the oath to defend the Alliance, it wasn’t on a whim.

Like, Nadia thinks Kaidan giving his loyalty to the Alliance is a stupid reaction, yes (in fairness, Nadia thinks loyalty to organizations in general is stupid), but it still fascinates her precisely because Kaidan has some semblance of an idea of what the Alliance’s negligence can and has caused, and yet he still continues to put his faith in them. Kaidan hasn’t had the easiest life¹⁰, but instead of closing himself off, his reaction was to give the Alliance a second chance, to still place his faith in others, all because he still wanted to do some good.

It’s not what Nadia has done, and she can’t say she understands it, but realizing that Kaidan isn’t the ignorant boy scout she pegged him as goes a long way when it comes to the development of their relationship. (For instance: it allows the relationship to develop at all, lmao.) And the development of their relationship is one of the early domino pieces in a long line of dominoes that sets Nadia down a much healthier path.¹¹

~

¹ We do know, however, that the Alliance does offer to pay college/university tuition in exchange for serving with them in some capacity, thanks to conversations with Traynor and Ashley.

² You know that one Iron Bull banter with Cole where he talks about how one of the first things he does when he meets a new person is to figure out the best way to kill them? Yeah, that’s Nadia.

³ This is because Anderson’s brain is huge, and he understood no one can forever live life the way Nadia was living hers unless they’re a death seeker.

⁴ One of the most in character renegade lines in the trilogy is, once again, during Thane’s loyalty (a big reason why it’s one of my favorites: it’s really, really good Nadia content) when you choose the first renegade check during the interrogation. Shepard sounds so bored, so matter-of-fact. That’s the kind of renegade Nadia is.

⁵ This is probably worse to some people compared to “hard” renegade, since at least “hard” renegade can genuinely believe in what they’re doing, even if others consider it evil. Fortunately, I don’t care.

⁶ I don’t really think she killed anyone during her time with the Reds. (Or, if she did, it was only one person and it would’ve been near the end of her time with them.) I think they primarily used her for cybercrime. She still would’ve witnessed and been expected to participate in a lot of beatings, etc. And, as previously said, had she stayed with the Reds I do think this would’ve ultimately progressed into her killing for them, too.

⁷ Though if you enjoy criticisms of capitalism, an exploration into the traumatizing effects of poverty, and an ultimately hopeful message that meaningful change is possible even when everyone is conditioned to believe it’s not, I recommend giving it a listen. It’s easy to follow along through audio alone, but you can find a low quality bootleg pretty easily, too. (Be warned that some of the songs will differ from the official album recording, though.)

⁸ If the remaster brings better lighting to Kaidan’s little hub area and doesn’t hideously whitewash him like in ME3, this is absolutely one of the first things I’m going to gif because it’s one of my favorite moments in the entire romance.

⁹ Nadia reads the files of everyone she’s going to work with, not because she’s particularly interested in them, but because she wants to know what level of incompetency to expect.

¹⁰ Unrelatedly: ask me about my headcanon about how disgustingly rich Kaidan’s family is, and how much Nadia wants to kill him when she finds this out.

¹¹ This is absolutely not saying love, romantic or otherwise, cures her lifetime worth of unpacked trauma.

[wetalkinboutbooks]

The Bird King by G. Willow Wilson

Summary

The Bird King is a 2019 fantasy novel set in 1491, the novel takes place in the Emirate of Granada during the territory’s final days. The story concerns the flight of Fatima and Hassan, a concubine and mapmaker, respectively, from service to the Emirate’s last sultan. (Taken from Wikipedia)

We follow Fatima and Hassan on their search for the Bird King as they avoid soldiers of the Spanish inquisition, and meet a variety of characters along the way.

Our Ratings: 

 → Geena: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

 → Kae: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Overall: The Bird King is an amazing book that manages to be complex yet light-hearted. It touches on subjects like faith, love, and friendship. The characters are engaging (and absolute drama queens) and the plot is fast-paced so there’s never a dull moment. The dynamic between the characters leads to the funniest situations that will have you dying. In summary, reasons to read this book if you haven’t already:

A- ONE SUPER FUNNY BOOK PLZ READ IT

B - THE DRAMAAA OF FATIMA AND HASAAN

C - Vikram 

D - Stupid

~ Spoiler-full discussion below ~

The Good: 

→ Hassan and Fatima’s Relationship

Geena: The best thing about the bird king (aside from the horse named Stupid) was Hassan and Fatima’s friendship. IMO it was so wholesome and they were so in love (PLATONICALLY!!!!). When Hassan said seeing Fatima walking around was like seeing his heart outside his body…… a BITCH DIED!!! Also, the fact they would take shots at each other constantly? Loved it. HOW COULD I FORGET… HASSAN CONSTANTLY BEING HORNY AND FATIMA BEING LIKE “CAN U CHILL!”  

Kae: OKAY MOOD LMAOOO. So boom. Geena covered it. We love this book! Hassan and Fatima are the definition of the 💯 emoji. But these bestie-bitches are DRAMATIC af. I’ve never seen two best friends who love each other as much as they do. They’re hugging and crying one moment, then the next they’re jealous that one of them is talking to someone else. DRAMATIC. I love it. Have we talked about Gwenny and Stupid yet?  

Geena: WE HAVEN’T TALKED ABOUT THEM, the perfect accessories to the Hassan-Fatima duo. Gwen is the token white boi, there for Hassan to thirst over and Fatima to learn how to sail a ship. Stupid on the other hand…. God bless that horse all it did was drown and then LIVE!!!! The absolute legend.  BUT Kae HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE GWEN AND STUPID? HMMM

Gwen: I only love God

Also Gwen: *sleeps with Fatima on the deck of the ship while Hassan is 3 feet away* 

Kae: Well... Gwennec. Ol’ Gwenny Gwen Gwen. Gwen, the Monk who FUCKS. PAHAAHA. Gwen was a new Monk who was at first, totally against helping our favorite bestie-bitches. But Fatima was all “Don’t test me white boi I will kick ya ass.” And Gwen lowkey thought it was hot so he let them slide. He taught Fatima and Hassan how to sail while Hassan made googly eyes at him and definitely wanted to tap that. But, as previously stated, Fatima and Gwen got it ooonnn.  Hassan found out and as like “Fa, I can’t believe you slept with my husband who doesn’t know we’re married yet!”,  and that was basically that.. Then we have Stupid. The horse who was just as damn stupid as his name. The horse lived to spite the Grim Reaper just to prove it would breathe another day. We also haven’t mentioned our Jinn friend and their literal lifesaver/guardian angel, Vikram.  

Geena: VIKRAM, aka another dude/djinn/dog man that Hassan wanted to fuck but couldn’t :( Vikram was essentially the only one in the group that had a substantial amount of brain cells, and spent most of the time trying to make sure Fatima didn’t accidentally kill herself. The fact that he saw his death and it was in the arms of a “beautiful woman” should sum up his character really well. 

Kae: Geena is sooo right. Vikram was the only one with brain cells because Fatima and Hassan both shared two. Our loveable, dramatic, but also a little dimwitted faves wouldn’t have survived any of their adventure without Vikram. He lead them through a Jinn filled tunnel that Hassan made. Escorted them across the land with the Inquisition right on their asses, and fought off whoever tried to hurt them. Initially, he agreed to save them because of a debt he owed to Fatima’s Sultana. But in the end, Vikram helped them because he wanted to. He was a weirddog/man/Jinn who just wanted Fatima and Hassan to stop being dumbasses for five seconds. But they couldn’t so he was constantly annoyed and probs wanted to eat them to shut them up. BUT WE STAN THAT FURRY LEGEND BECAUSE WITHOUT HIM, OUR ESCAPEES WOULD BE DEAD-EEE. Also he was one suave, smooth talking mofo and I feel like if he walked up to you and said “You’re lovely, but you’re an idiot. It’s okay, because you’re pretty tho.” that compliment sandwich would go right over your head and you’d thank him.  

Geena: ok FIRST OFF I would be like “why do you have a tail” but god Kae you hit all the points. 

The Bad AND The Ugly

→ The Sultan and His Mom Being Pedos 

Geena: Ok so, Fatima is 17 and I’m assuming the Sultan was in his mid-thirties, because he has kids Fatima’s age 👀. So I am sure it was historically accurate, the fact that the old ass man had a 17 year old concubine, but that doesn’t make it any less gross!!!! What’s worse is that Fatima’s mom was originally a slave for the sultan, so when she was born the sultan’s mom raised her and had her instated as a concubine when she was 15!!!!!! Scuse me while I 🤮. 

Kae: Yea, Geena said it all. The Sultan was ewww. Fatima was his favorite and I guess he talked to her like she wasn’t a concubine? She was treated very well. For a concubine. Probably better than any concubine I’ve read about Like, she had rights and could talk shit without punishment. But still, DISGUSTEEENNNG. Our girl was groomed so we do NOT stan the Sultan. 

→ Luz

Kae: we also have our main villain, Luz. She arrived at their palace to play peaceful, but she had ulterior motives that involved her spreading the word of the LORDT and taking Hassan in to be tried for Witchcraft and all that magic shit. Because if we didn’t say it before, Hassan can draw anything on a map and make that place a reality. Luz has this little worm in her eye that basically makes her super weirdly strong and badass. But fuck Luz. When Fatima finds out that Hassan is to be tried for witchcraft, she goes to him so they can both escape. Fatima wants to be free and she doesn’t want to see her bestie die. So what do they do? They dip. And now our friends are on the run. 

Geena: UGH Yes, can I just say the moment that Fatima realized that Hassan would get canned she was like “fuck all these people” and peaced out with Hassan? Friendship goals… But yes LUZ!! I enjoyed reading her as a villain because she genuinely thinks she’s a good person and that her life’s mission is to “Save” people like Fatima from people like Hassan. You really end up liking her in the beginning, and then she turns around and murders a few people and you’re like…. Ah…… i see….. aND THEN it turns out she was being controlled by some brainworm that was also trying to get to the Bird King and you kind of wonder…. How much of what Luz did was her being a violent inquisitor and how much was the worm controlling her… you kno? She redeems herself by dying, so I guess she gets…. Like one (1) right. 

Kae: Damn girl! Well said!!! LITCHERALY that is a perfect summary of Luz’s character. I can’t say anything else because it’s been SAID.  Villains are always interesting when they don’t see themselves as the bad guy. They’re righteous and unforgiving because they believe they are doing the right thing. That’s what scary about them. 

Conclusion 

Kae: Okay, so in conclusion. This is an amazing book and in all honesty, I enjoyed the hell out of it. I was never bored reading it. Hassan, Fatima, and Vikram had quite the adventure and all the dramatics of made it that much more enjoyable. They left the palace in hopes of freedom. Hassan and Fatima got the idea of The Bird King from a story they liked to read, but never knew the ending. So they continued the story on their own, making it up along the way. In hopes of escaping their new fate to Luz and the Inquisition, Hassan drew up a map to the Bird King in hopes to find it. Their journey took them to meet Gwennec who sailed them to said island, where they discovered used to be inhabited long, long ago. Soon, others began to show up on the island. Hassan even got him a MANS. A DOCTOR. Whew. He’s got taste. The island is also forever changing and some of the remaining inhabitants are Jinn. 

Geena: Kae summarized the story really well!!! The journey to the end was an absolute trip, but G. Willow Wilson tied up the story neatly. We get to see Fatima become less dependent on Hassan (thanks to his doctor bf who told her to chill out) and Hassan finally find the happiness he deserves. Gwen, unfortunately, doesn’t make it to the end (press F to pay respect). Luz essentially sacrifices herself by taking the map Hassan drew, getting off the island, and ripping it up. Why does she do this? Because to make a place or passage Hassan drew disappear the map has to be ripped. And leaving the map to the island wasn’t an option because the Spanish inquisition never stops!!

Kae: And if they ripped the map on the island, the island would cease to exist! Upon arrival to the island, everyone had their ships wrecked. Luz got fucked up on the shipwreck and that worm thing got ripped out of her eyes and then it became a monster on the island that was NOT to be trifled with. Since Luz got all jacked up, she was gonna die anyway and no one wanted her to stay--

Geena: Everyone said “u cant sit with us” to luz. OKAY DISCUSSING THIS BOOK MADE ME REMEMBER HOW MUCH IT MADE ME LAUGH, GENUINELY ONE OF THE FUNNIEST BOOKS I’VE READ. 10/10 FOR ME!!

Kae: LMAOOO HONESTLY. XPECIALLY FATIMA NEVER HAVING WALKED SO FAR BEFORE AND BEING A BIG OL BABY. but she DIIIID have messed up shoes that blistered so I’ll give her that BUT YES HASSAN WAS A DRAMA QUEEN “waaah, I have red hair and im pale BUT I'M STILL HOT AND I LIKE TO F U C K” But yeah, Luz got voted off the island and voted herself off the island, ripped up the map, and then they were safe and lived happily ever after. Vikram even made his final appearance to say his goodbyes to Fatima, even though he hates goodbyes. I give this book a 10/10. It was funny, the characters were likeable and relatable, and it was just a good adventure read.

[wingstriker]

I've tried to keep myself quiet about this, but I've gotten tired of hearing people talk about Nero being evil or Nero is going to backstab us sometime in the Omega raid storyline. I don't think it's going to happen, and if anyone was paying attention, the likelihood of it happening is probably around 1% or less. Why do I believe this?

#1 Nero is not evil.

If you keep saying he's evil, I think you need to re-examine your definition of "evil". Yes, he was our enemy, but just because you are enemies does not make them automatically evil. Please stop seeing things in black and white.

War is war, and he was a high ranking soldier (and engineer) in the Garlean military. Killing people in a war is not being evil, it's doing your job or defending yourself. The Warrior of Light has killed many people as well, so if anyone is evil for killing another, well congratulations, the Warrior of Light is also evil by your own definition.

He restored the Ultima Weapon and called it his opus.

Nero genuinely enjoys working with technology. In the cutscene after you defeat Ifrit for the first time, he's wearing some sort of device on his left wrist to measure Ifrit's strength.

Livia sas Junius: "That meter of yours is too old to give any reading worth a damn."

Why would Nero carry around an old aetheric meter if he wasn't a lover of technology? He is a highly ranked engineer, and he could have easily built a newer version.

There was no way he could refuse to work on the Ultima Weapon. It was a once-in-a-lifetime chance to work with an ancient Allag weapon, and learn all its secrets. The Allagans themselves didn't know of the danger that was sleeping within the Heart of Sabik, and most likely Nero didn't know of it either. It wasn't even active until the Weapon had absorbed Ifrit, Titan, and Garuda. Proof:

Lahabrea: If you are to prevail, the hammer of Darkness must needs be brought to bear upon the shield of Light. Lahabrea: And so it shall, for the Ultima Weapon is host to a power of which you are as yet ignorant. Gaius van Baelsar: Speak plainly, Ascian. Lahabrea: The Heart of Sabik. It is the Weapon's core─an enigma whose surface even the vaunted scholars of ancient Allag failed to scratch. Lahabrea: The magic within has lain dormant for eons. Gaius van Baelsar: Of what magic do you speak? Lahabrea: A spell without parallel. Ultima. Lahabrea: I sought the life force of the primals for no other reason but to quicken the core. For the true power of the Ultima Weapon lies within its now-beating Heart! Gaius van Baelsar: Lahabrea... What have you done? Lahabrea: No more than was necessary...for my god to be reborn. Gaius van Baelsar: Damn you, Ascian!

Nero can’t be fully blamed for this just because he helped restore the Ultima Weapon.

Nero was evil in Crystal Tower.

Um... How? Was it because he was smug about joining in the expedition for the opening quest for Syrcus Tower? Was it his "evil" laugh while walking around with his aetheric meter after we cleared Syrcus Tower for the first time?

Try to understand the situation from Nero's point of view. At this point, it's highly doubtful he can ever return to Garlemald. Remember the XIVth Legion was acting on their own with no support from Garlemald itself. Furthermore, they failed to capture Eorzea, and all the other high ranking officers (Gaius, Livia, and Rhitahtyn) are dead. At best, Nero would be demoted. At worse, he may have been executed to set an example.

Why is this important? It means that, whether he likes it or not, Eorzea is his home for the time being. He has no future with the Empire as it stands. So he needs to find money, basic necessities, and a place to sleep in order to survive. And in case it wasn't obvious before, Nero's pretty good at surviving.

It is out of necessity that he joins in on the Crystal Tower expedition because he has no where else to go.

He was laughing evilly and acting all power hungry in Syrcus Tower. He wanted to master the darkness.

Well yeah, but did you really expect him to act any different? If anything, he was excited from the readings he got because he found something interesting. It's true that had he figured out how to master the darkness, he could have easily backstabbed us then before heading back to Garlemald with his accomplishments.

But that didn't happen. Just because it was a possibility doesn't matter. Also, just because Nero sought to master the darkness does not make him evil.

Warrior of Darkness: Light, Dark, it doesn't matter. What matters is how you choose to use them.

Is Nero dangerous? He can be. But look what happened to him in Syrcus Tower. He tried to prevent Unei from being taken into the World of Darkness and got taken himself. He spent his time there defending Unei and Doga to his own detriment without a weapon, and looks like a half-crystallized person when you see him again. The clones display complete trust in him. Unei keeps his aetheric meter after he dropped it, and gives it back to him before urging him to leave.

And when it's obvious he can't keep up with G'raha Tia and the Warrior of Light while running to the exit portal, he urges both of you to leave and to always remember him.

Nero: I failed to master darkness. I'll not suffer watching a green boy master the tower. Nero: Do what you will with it. But remember me, son of Allag! Nero: I am Nero tol Scaeva, the man who'll yet outdo Allag and Garlond! G'raha Tia: That was what you hoped to─ Nero: Go, damn you!

Are those the actions of a man who's "evil"?

Most of his work has terrible consequences. Ultima Weapon, for example.

Remember the Ultima Weapon was supposed to be the Empire's answer to dealing with the primal threat. As far as we know, they have not been blessed with individuals touched by the Echo. As such, you can see the Ultima Weapon as their solution to dealing with primals.

He suggested they use Omega Weapon to counter Shinryu and look how that turned out!

In my opinion, he gave that suggestion for two reasons:

To get to see the Omega Weapon in action.

In a way, to pay back a life debt he owes to Cid and the Warrior of Light for rescuing him from the World of Darkness.

Essentially killing two birds with one stone. Neither Cid nor Nero had any idea that there was something more to Omega, and to place the full blame on Cid and Nero for everything the Omega Weapon decides to do isn't right because Omega made that decision. Which is, by the way, what Nero was trying to explain to Cid in a rather backhanded sort of way. He's not so good with people, remember?

And if you don't think Nero is trying to pay back his life debt, please take a closer look at both the dialogue and the actual interactions.

Nero tol Scaeva: But sentiment aside─have you a better solution? Or do you mean to send in your vaunted hero there, as you always do, and pray the world is not engulfed in flame?

Nero also lets the Warrior of Light use his Red Baron reaper. If you ask me, this would be similar to Cid letting the Warrior of Light pilot the Enterprise.

Also, Nero didn't shirk his duty when Omega showed up again. He joined the Ironworks as a consultant. Just because he acts unpleasant doesn't mean that he's bad and evil.

But Nero always makes Cid angry!

Last I checked, making Cid angry is not being evil. It can be annoying and irritating, but that doesn't make him evil. And if anything, Nero is actually getting a kick out of Cid's reactions since nothing he does seems to please Cid.

Nero has changed throughout the game, and to ignore these changes just because he doesn't act like a goody-two-shoes means that you are missing the point.

[oveliagirlhaditright]

Show Appreciation

https://archiveofourown.org/works/33771730

Joshua tries to tell Shiki that she did something that an Angel could have, something hella powerful, but he does it sort of creepily. But even with that, Josh and Shiki find themselves having a pretty pleasant day with each other, as they more and more find their footing with one another.

A story where Shiki/Neku/Joshua are all in a relationship but Shiki/Josh is the focus here. Neku Sakuraba mentioned a lot.

Shiki was shopping at 104—thinking of buying some violet thread, since she could finally sew purple clothes again, without being depressed after Neku’s disappearance; she was even thinking of buying some ashen colored ones—when she ran into Joshua.

Quite literally, actually.

He was drinking an espresso, while he was in the check-out line with magazines he’d bought about the Prince’s latest fashion blunders, Shiki saw. And she’d fallen backwards into him, when she’d been going into a changing room nearby… but one of the workers had decided last minute to put up tape, so that no one could go in there, since the pandemic clearly wasn’t over and they must have decided they didn’t want people trying on clothes, after all. And since Shiki wasn’t expecting that sudden change at all, that was what had caused her to trip and fall into the Composer.

Thankfully, Joshua had the grace of—well—an angel, and didn’t spill any of his drink (actually, he have even made it disappear from existence to keep it safe), as he kept Shiki from a very nasty fall (something she was most thankful to him for), but she could tell he wasn’t exactly happy with her for colliding into him.

And Shiki sighed.

Even though she and Josh were sort of dating now (her and Neku and Josh—all three of them, actually—were a thing), she still understood this one the least. Partially because she less of him, of course.

They actually had hung-out a few times in the three weeks before Neku’s second murder (and Neku had probably been more surprised about this than anyone). And that was probably where the feelings had started.

Neku and Joshua would stay up late at some Tin Pin event—that they would also kindly invite her to, in order to be nice… moreso Neku (and Beat and Rhyme, too)—and then the two of them would end up crashing at Shiki’s place, since it was closer to the Molco than their homes (Beat and Rhyme did go home, however, as the Bitos were still worried about their parents giving Beat a hard time. And didn’t want to start Beat’s revival on the wrong foot. Also, thinking about it now, Shiki wondered if Joshua had kind of been lying about his home being “far away”. For all she knew, he could have magicked a house in the sky with his powers, but she’d only been too happy to help).

But even though all three of them were exhausted by the point they made it to Shiki’s house, they still didn’t sleep a lot. No. Instead, Shiki would work on some fashion designs, of course, and Neku would then be inspired to draw some characters… And the two of them would talk about how if they ever became famous, perhaps Neku could be a character designer, but Shiki could help him with clothes ideas for his drawings, because he still somewhat struggled with that. And then Joshua would say that if they ever made it that far, he would Produce everything—because he was filthy rich, of course—and he perhaps owed them something.

And it was all so fun.

…But then Neku was shot again and Shiki’s world fell apart. And Joshua left it just as soon as he’d entered it, pretty much.

And though Shiki had gone to the Dead God’s Pad with Beat and Rhyme (Rhyme had refused to stay behind when Beat had asked her to), Joshua had only told them that Neku was as fine as he could be in this situation, and the three of them would hopefully see him again someday, but he couldn’t spare them anymore details than that and wouldn’t do so.

He’d ushered them all away sort of rudely after that.

And other times they’d all went back there, it had seemed like Joshua had set up operations elsewhere… or was at least acting like he had.

And, of course, he’d changed his phone number, too.

Shiki hadn’t seen him again until he’d shown up when Neku had—when everyone was trying to fight against Shibuya Syndrome. But he’d only had eyes for Neku then, and hadn’t said a word to her.

Since then, the five of them had miraculously begun hanging out again. Sometimes with the Wicked Twisters, too, and even with Hazuki at rarer times.

And even more crazily… Neku, Shiki, and Joshua had all picked up their relationship together again.

And it was even better than it had been before… It was pretty similar to past times—with them all three working on their dreams together—but now sex was involved too, and that was so nice.

Though Shiki and Neku had both told Joshua that he needed to be a better partner if he wanted this to work, which meant he needed to show up to group outings more… he needed to be more transparent… and he needed to treat Shiki like an equal, as well.

And bless him—and bless Shibuya, Shiki supposed (which was also Josh?), that showed that it could change—Joshua had done all of these things… but he was still Josh, and maybe that was okay.

“Shiki,” Joshua told her now, as he steadied her form, so she was no longer wobbling into him or the worker behind her. “I came here to tell you that you should have died during the last Reapers’ Game.”

Scratch what she’d said about him not being happy with her before. Clearly that wasn’t it. He’d decided to be creepy with her. That was it.

“Joshua,” Shiki started, feeling a migraine coming on, as she pinched the bridge of her nose and decided to buy the slinky black dress, after all, even though she couldn’t try it on… If the way Joshua was eyeing her purchase, as she made her way down the aisle with it, she’d made the right choice. “What did I tell you, first off, about saying that kind of thing at all? But secondly, about speaking like that in public?!”

“Hehehe,” Josh laughed, with a hand held high in a symbol of peace, no doubt. Shiki groaned. “I don’t mean to offend, dear. Really, I don’t. But this is my work. Aren’t I supposed to talk about my work with my spouses… or whatever you and Neku might one day be to me? And it hardly matters if I say this stuff in public or not, no one listens. Or if they do, they think we’re talking about an anime, or perhaps that a hidden camera show’s being shot here—and they’re all on camera right now—… or that I’m crazy. Which I can live with. I don’t care what they think about me, since understanding people is impossible, as I’ve said.”

With her purchase in one hand, Shiki grabbed Joshua’s wrist with her other hand, and headed out of the store, and began making her way towards the Scramble. If Joshua wanted to talk about his work with her, she wondered if he’d want to go to the Shibuya River, which was clearly open for business once more.

And she must have been right, because Joshua began leading her there—running quite fast for someone who usually didn’t like to break a sweat—before she could even blink. And then Mr. Mew was almost falling out of Shiki’s purse with how fast they were now jogging.

“Hey, Josh. Slow down. Slow down! Hey!” Shiki urged him, moving herself to be in front of him once more, as she grabbed ahold of both of his arms and pulled him onto one of the crosswalks. “I’ll have you know, that if I lost Mr. Mew to the traffic, I never would’ve forgiven you!”

But Joshua wasn’t listening to that claim in the slightest. Instead, he was looking at her faux-starry-eyed…. Or was it? “My, my, my. I have to say, I love the way you manhandle me, Shiki. It sure does get the blood racing, you reversing the gender roles this way. Why don’t you push me against a wall next?”

Shiki rolled her eyes, pulling Josh over to a small bench, so they could sit down and talk about all of this civilly, like normal adults…

But, she wasn’t going to lie, Joshua saying that to her sort of got her going, too. If only Neku were here, as well…

“If it’s really important work stuff you want to talk about, I’m sorry for snapping at you before, Josh. Mind filling me in now?” Shiki asked with a wide smile on her face, just as she reached across the table so she could hold Joshua’s hand in her own.

And it was certainly a testament of how far they’d come, that Joshua didn’t flinch away in the slightest, but rather held her hand… Their fingers still weren’t laced yet, their hands just cupped, but Rome wasn’t built in a day, Shiki knew.

“Hmm… I probably misspoke in making you think it was something that mattered now, Shiki. I was just trying to tell you, that in the last Game… you actually did something on an Angel’s power level, when you freed Tsugumi’s Soul from Mr. Mew, which is most impressive.

“Furthermore, Shiba had last Game set up, so only people with more and more impressive psychs could keep joining in. That’s essentially why no one joined after the Wicked Twisters did. But as I said, dear, you did something that an Angel could have… You definitely would have been able to enter back into the UG, even with that stipulation, and would have been a great help to the team, I’m sure.”

While Joshua was complimenting Shiki here—which was something that never came easy for him, so she was definitely happily taking it all in—there was also a lot wrong with this scenario, too.

First of all, Joshua had earlier said she should have died in the last Game. What? Did he think she should have killed herself to help Neku and everyone? To help him? Shiki wanted to believe that he would have found a way to let her into the UG while alive. And that if she had committed suicide, he would have brought her back to life in the end, of course, like he had Neku… but something about this all still stung.

Shiki also now feared, that Joshua would use this as reason to try and make her ascend. He was always trying to convince her and Neku to become Reapers (and they mostly had decided they probably would do that when they both died again, but not before that). But now would he want her to be an Angel instead? Maybe that would be better than having to erase Players, and perhaps that was what he was doing for her here, but…

“Shiki, look. Your Mr. Mew did slightly fall out of your bag and get damaged without our noticing. I’ll fix him, toot sweet.”

And Joshua did just that, before Shiki’s very eyes, with his lovely Composer powers.

So, she was clearly worrying over nothing, huh? Maybe Joshua still had some issues to hammer out, but so did she. So did everyone!

Shiki still wasn’t Miss Congeniality… not that she thought she ever would be, or really wanted to be. Heck, when Shiki was sort of trying to be like that—like Eri—it had been when Neku had hated her!

Leaning into kiss Joshua for a sweet kiss, when a fluffy cloud—that almost looked blue because of the lighting—floated by, right after Joshua’s blue powers faded away, Shiki decided that Joshua was plenty peculiar, alright… but that maybe that was a good thing.

“Shiki, what-” Joshua asked plenty startled—and the Composer usually didn’t do startled; Shiki almost laughed—when she pulled away from him.

“I just want you to know that I like you as much as I do Neku. That’s all.”

“Hmm…” Joshua hummed now, standing up and grabbing Shiki’s hand, so he could begin leading her towards the River once more (was Neku there?) “And I suppose I like tolerating you, as well.”

And with Joshua, that might as well have been a proposal for marriage. Shiki would take it for what it was. She leaned into him merrily, with her hand in one of his own, while her other hand held Mr. Mew.

“Now let’s go find something related to edible art that the three of us can do together,” Joshua smirked.

[qweenmandymarie-blog]

((((the scariest thing I have ever done is share this))))

I guess the best place to start is the beginning. This… time line started when I went with a childhood friend to her grandmother’s house. I was 12 at the time. There was a horror movie on the television, I choose to believe this event spurred my interest in horror movies and all things ooky, spooky, weird, scary, ect. I do not know the name of the movie, but it was kinda generic scary movie stuff. A bunch of young people go into an abandoned hotel, a crazy killer dude lives there. They have sex, he kills them. What stuck with me was that he had this big hook that he would throw through the ceilings and walls and floors to catch people, and he would steal their eyeballs when he finished. I have a fear of eye things now, that kinda fucked me up. This movie translated to, really a fixation. My daydreams switched from being about general teenage girl stuff (twilight at the time I believe) to this movie, or the idea of it. From that Mandy Marie was born. Mandy is based off of me, but she is the badass I wish I could be. She always looked exactly like me at first, and acted like me. And then the crazy dude guy would capture her and she would morph like some sort of fucked up butterfly to what she remains as now. A badass queen with endless magical abilities, immortality and a sex appeal like no other. In reality I would n e v e r want to be Mandy. She hates her life, I know because I made it. The escape is nice, but Mandy isn’t a human anymore. WHICH leads into the next thing. So the weird movie set up the scene for me. From that came the ‘peculiars’. I didn’t have a name for my little collection of characters until Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. After I read that book I called them peculiars. I decided that wasn’t original enough at one point, so I changed over to ‘strangers’. Strangers are, essentially humans, born with a special gene that allows them, once expressed, to have magical powers and many other things. Most strangers have lived many past lives. I still haven’t quite come up with where strangers came from. In some timelines they come from demigods, but Mandy never was a demigod. That is again a story for a different time. For the most part strangers do not remember their past unless they have been around for a long time or are very powerful. Mandy does, but she is older than dirt and one of the most powerful strangers in the world. There are strangers all over the world. They live on compounds for the most part. Mandy is the queen of the 13th compound, the North American Compound. There is a South American Compound, the 12th , 1 in Australia, the 11th, 10, 9, 8 and 7 are in Asia, 6 and 5 are in Europe, and 4 through 1 are in Africa. The strangers started in Egypt, where Mandy was first born, in the ancient times. (this stuff is NOT supposed to be historically accurate I AM SORRY but not really) She was married to Anubis, they had 13 kids. She was taken by Horus and forced to marry him, taken again by Osiris and then forced to go back to the mortal world. Then she was found by Hades, and lived with him for a short time until Anubis found out and Hades and him had a big nasty fight and she was whisked away again. She lived through two lives and was then found by Loki. They were essentially fuck buddies until he knocked her up, but she lost the kid and he sent her back to the mortal world. She lived through 12 very miserable and disease filled lives, and then in the 13th life she was taken to a council, consistent of all the gods of death including a young man named death. They gave her the powers of a grim reaper. Her job was to help souls cross over, and to help decide who lived or died. You could also call her a miracle, she saved a lot of lives. Until she met Rodney. Rodney was, well a terrible human really. But she fell in love. He would use her to kill people and get away with it, and she would keep him alive. The council found out and stripped her of her powers. Her and Rodney and his three brothers went on to do really crazy fucked up shit. They created a circus, which was just a front for drugs and murder. Mandy slowly went insane and killed Rodney in his sleep. She proceeded to kill all of his brothers, and many other men that worked with them in the circus. She was taken to the council again, who wiped her memories and sent her soul back into the world to try again. Well she was still crazy, and spent her next 7 lives killing people, she just wasn’t as good at it.

To Be Continued 

[linkspooky]

Sleeping Beauty and Her Knight

What exactly is capable of killing a dragon?

As fairytales would have it, the best solution for a dragon is to send a knight.

A long time ago I did a post on how the Tsukiyama arc as a whole is basically a whole plot reference to sleeping beauty, but with a slight inversion. I’ll be referencing mainly that post for Ui and Tsukiyama’s section. 

The arc in which Koori Ui is introduced into the manga, is a sleeping beauty reference. Not only that, but since that arc, Ui himself seems to have symbolically switched places with Tsukiyama. Originally, Tsukiyama was both the knight, and then sleeping beauty. Whereas, now it seems ever since their confrontation on Rueshima, Koori has been acting more and more like the knight. 

Specifically, when Ui and Tsukiyama first confront each other Tsukiyama says that he owes Ui something for the Rose operation, and Ui responds that Tsukiyama owes something to him in term. Beforehand, Tsukiyama was the victim of the story, either the hapless prince, or the princess lying in the bed. From Ui’s perspective though, Tsukiyama is the rose garden. 

Both in what the ghoul ‘Rose’ referred to, Kanae von Rosewald whose name means forest of Roses, and also what the operation meant to Ui as a whole. As the operation is what caused him to lose Hairu. In other words, Tsukiyama stole her away from him in a way. 

In the original version of the tale, after the princess falls asleep she is surrounded by a forest of trees, brambles, and thorns (which roses have), in order to shield it from the outside world and save the princess.   In the original tale too, what causes the princess to sleep is a prick of a needle. Matsumae’s kagune heavily resembles the vine walls that eventually surround the princess. 

Matsumae, is what pierces Hairu. 

Oddly enough what we see before her death is not a character explanation or a flashback as most characters get, but rather what seems to be Hairu dreaming herself. 

It’s even referenced in her art in the volume 5 omake. 

Hairu is referred to as a princess several times as well, most notably by Kijima. 

So in this version of the story, Hairu is pricked by Rose’s needle and becomes a sleeping princess. Much later, Ui is told of the possibility that he can bring her back.

However, to do so he must face a dragon first. It seems also that Ui was at least clued in on part of the dragon plan as Furuta goes out of his way to explain the whole thing to him after the fact. So unlike Suzuya, Ui probably knew a little more and knew his actions in the 24th ward would be part of creating dragon.

There actually is no dragon in the Grimm version, but remember painting with a wide brush here so the pop culture (ie the disney) sleeping beauty and the original one are probably equally worthy as reference material. 

In the disney version of the tale, there’s a direct and acting antagonist in Maleficent. Whereas in the original version the old fairy who curses sleeping beauty shows up at the beginning, and then never again and her curse is just a destiny to be avoided throughout the story. Though, I might say the destiny to die young before ever reaching maturity, and have that determined since birth does have a lot of common with the garden children who are cursed from birth to live 1/4 lives.

The irony is whether Ui actually took Hairu to the rose operation or not, without an elixir of life she would have died early regardless. Which is what Sleeping Beauty is ultimately about thematically, a princess trying to escape an otherwise inescapable curse through some loophole. That remains consistent between the two stories, the disney version just has an antagonist that is present throughout. 

In the disney version, Maleficent goes out of her way to capture Phillip just as the kingdom falls asleep. (In the Grimm version a prince just kind of wanders there 100 years later... I doubt that’s going to happen with this story). To summarize the Disney version though, Maleficent’s plan is to hold Phillip captive until he’s an old man and then force him to as an old man, try to brave the thorns and save the princess then. Either way she detains his agency for a long time, and then he’s released by the interference of the good fairies. 

In a similar manner, Furuta lied and kept Ui next to his side for a long time. Ui even literally says that he was in chains, and he chose himself to chain himself to the reaper.

Even in the Disney Story, it was Maleficent’s intention for Aurora to be eventually woken up. If everything had gone according to Maleficent’s scenario though, by the time she did wake up her beloved prince would be a feeble old man that could not help her. In the same way, Furuta’s intention seems to have been to create a being capable of recreating life, but he was also stringing Ui along on the belief that this could be applied directly to Hairu and Arima. 

In the Disney version when the  fairies try to interfere in her scenario and wake up the princess early by freeing the knight to go cut through the brambles and save her (which in this version are set up by maleficent herself, whereas in the Grimm version they were set up by the good fairies as a way of protecting her for 100 years), then and only then is the dragon summoned. As a way of making sure that everything goes according to Maleficent’s planned out narrative for her revenge. 

Which matches near perfectly with what we see at the end of this chapter. Ui is told that Furuta’s narrative won’t work out for him, that he won’t get the sleeping princess by simply following to Furuta’s plan, but he stands up and decides to face the dragon anyway.

You could also tie this to the thematic roll of sleeping and dreams in sleeping beauty. Ui spends a great deal of time dreaming. Possibly ever since Hairu died, the chapter immediately after where he realizes her death is called ‘Dream.’

From that point forward, Ui clings to her memory. Ui even says so himself, he did not really ultimately believe in Furuta, but was looking for some kind of refuge. Dreaming, the same way that Sasaki did.

When faced with reality though, Ui’s choice ultimately is important. Instead of choosing to give up even after being told it was hopeless, Ui stands again. Not only that but the person who seemed to be his enemy, suddenly again became his ally when the chips were down.

Ironically, being told that there was no chance at all to revive Hairu seems to have revitalized Ui rather than breaking him down as he feared all along.

Perhaps what Furuta said a long time ago is coming to pass. Ui actually didn’t need a reason to fight all along. It was his seeking a reason that made him this way.

The same way that Kaneki seeking a reason through Touka, seems to have been what unintentionally among other things what led him to his demise and his current rampage.

Ultimately though, if what Ui has done in this moment and the growth he’s experienced does not lead to a Hairu revival, it could lead back to Kaneki. What Kaneki essentially needs to grasp is that he like Ui, doesn’t really even need a reason to fight. Ui’s been fighting all along without a reason, and he can still do, he can still pick himself up and live even when told it’s completely hopeless. Being told exactly what it is he feared hearing the most did the opposite,  it’s reignited Ui’s hope.

[x] @silverbulletsama

The fact that if anything, Kaneki’s seven thousand revivals and rebirths means this. That there was never any point from which he could recover from, that there was never no hope. Even at his lowest point and having all of his absolute worst fears come true, that Kaneki can still survive and still fight.

As I said above there’s two paths forward. That Furuta is right and there is no chance of reviving Hairu, in that case I’d likely expect the manga to end with just a dragon Kaneki fight the same way Tokyo Ghoul ended with the fighting of both Owl’s. 

However if the opposite is true if revival is still on the table, specifically after Kaneki’s destruction is tamed down and he begins to be capable of recreating life again, then thematically that would return us to the story of sleeping beauty. 

In the disney version the story proceeds simply from this point. With the help of the fairies, the prince once he learns the truth, defeats the dragon and awakens the princess. Ui has a lot in common with a knight, first there’s his weapon, a poelarm, or a spear which resembles what a knight on horseback would carry.

Ui’s hobby is riding horses in his free time, and his aspiration is to be chivarlous like a knight. He holds onto the fantasy of the CCG acting as heroes of justice, and holding a certain code of honor to be better than the situation which they are in. He also has ties to Arima as a teacher, and Arima in the past several times has been referred to as a knight. 

Which would make thematically, Ui his squire I supposed until he decided to succeed him.

Hairu is the princess, Ui is the knight, Dragon itself is the Dragon. Of course, as Ui is reminded by Furuta things are actually much more complicated than that. Even if hypothetically defeating dragon leads to Hairu’s direct revival perhaps by means of Kanou or some immortality elixir crafted from the remains of Dragon, there’s still one missing piece left in Ui’s character arc.

Ui has no idea at all about the garden or even Arima’s true ancestry and purpose. It seems odd to resolve Ui’s character without this important note being brought to him.

In the second part of the fairy tale, unknowingly there is someone of secret ogre lineage connected to the prince, who tries to eat his children. 

After wedding the Princess in secret, the Prince continues to visit her and she bears him two children, Aurore (Dawn) and Jour (Day), unbeknown to his mother, who is of an ogre lineage. When the time comes for the Prince to ascend the throne, he brings his wife, children, and the talabutte ("Count of the Mount").

The Ogress Queen Mother sends the young Queen and the children to a house secluded in the woods and directs her cook to prepare the boy with Sauce Robert for dinner. The kind-hearted cook substitutes a lamb for the boy, which satisfies the Queen Mother.

Being secretly connected to a race of people who eat humans is the last of the bombshells that Hairu has to drop on Ui. It seems to have been Hairu’s purpose in the story from the start anyway, to be connected to the garden. 

The lack of closure on the garden children seems odd too, as Yusa puts it. Even if they defeat Kaneki here, they’re not going to at this point achieve anything like the world Kaneki wanted. Most of the garden children at this point are dead, and no sympathy or even justice has been paid their way. There’s also the calendar to consider which shows Hairu as an Ukkaku. 

@tgcalendar2016

The calendar which I might remind you has never lied. So a part two of the sleeping beauty fairy tale which deals with the prince having to deal with Ogres who eat people to protect his marriage and his childre, the hints that Hairu would be returning as a one eyed ghoul despite being told at several points that such a thing is impossible, and the overall lack of a sunlit garden arc or true explanation of the garden even though it’s been built the whole story.

The fact that Furuta too seems to not have died the way he intended too, and is instead forced to live and explain the consequences of his actions to Ui.

All of that seems to point to a sunlit garden arc in the aftermath of all of this destruction, where Ui, perhaps with a Hairu on his side, or perhaps a version of Hairu he has to care for as a consequence for his recklessness in trying to revive her acting as a continuation to this arc. 

In a character sense too, it would have made no sense for Ui to be rewarded (this is in a character development sense not using people as rewards) with getting what he wants, to see Hairu again by going off the deep end and indulging in all of his worst habits.

However, it does make sense for Ui, to be told that he’ll never receive what he wants and that his actions ultimately led to ruin, who is then capable of picking himself back up again, reaffirming his bond with Take and once again experiencing positive development, to then be rewarded with what it was he was seeking. 

Either way I don’t think this is the end of Ui’s arc, because even if his reason to fight has been squared away, he hasn’t addressed the humanity of ghouls at all. Which is something that him finding out about the garden and the true wishes of Arima that he seems to have been built up to face for a long time. 

That’s the best summary I can give of Ui’s arc for now though, even when it all seems hopeless, there’s still some hope that can be grasped. 

[shutyourbigbazoo]

Kiss For Luck

((So @misscinnyart and I like to make up scenarios sometimes, and we had one in regards to my Shepard and Garrus the other night– it was bugging me enough that I felt I needed to write something for it.))

Garrus Vakarian shifted on his feet as he stood in front of the mirror in the captain’s cabin bathroom. His reflection stared dubiously back at him, three fingered talons of each hand gripping tightly on the edge of the sink. Mandibles flared as he exhaled shakily, coming to rest at the sides of his mouth, a vision of the past seeping into his mind.

—–

Soft, heated skin gently marked by old scars pressed into his back, and the image of Commander Amari Shepard joined his within the mirror. Round, emerald eyes- somehow already fully alert despite just having been awoken moments before- peered at Garrus.

“You’re up early.” Shepard observed, her husky voice thick from the grog of sleep. Fingers played over the material of the Turian’s casual wear as one corner of her lips curled upward. “That’s unusual. Something on your mind?”

“Nah.” Garrus dismissed, turning within her embrace to meet her gaze without seeking it via their reflections. “Nothing like the fate of the galaxy hanging in balance or anything like that keeping me awake.”

“I hear you.” She mumbled in return. “It feels like every step forward we’ve made, Cerberus is three moves ahead. It’s enough to keep a good night’s rest at bay.” Shepard paused, raising a hand to gently stroke the smooth carapace along the side of Garrus’ face. “But I always sleep better when you’re with me.”

A quiet rumble moved through the Turian’s chest as he leaned against her touch. They were so different, physically, and yet somehow very much the same.

“Glad I can help.” He mused, bringing one digit to brush over a freckled cheek. One of the traits he found so endearing about Shepard was how vulnerable, how real she seemed in the morning. Or, whatever morning could be determined as when one was flying through the stars.

Face marked by two thin scars- one on her right cheek, the other just a hairline of a thing from the left corner of her lips, no dark makeup rimming her green eyes or coloring her lips, and her dark hair was always in a mess of curls. He never bore witness to her regiment of taming the short locks down or the makeup being applied- Shepard always shooed him out of her cabin before she got dressed for the day.

“What?” Amari raised a full, shapely brow when it seemed Garrus had stared too long without saying anything.

He chuckled, mandibles jumping lightly with the sound. “Has anyone ever told you how cute you are in the morning?”

Stepping back, she wrinkled her nose in protest. “Cute is for children, Vakarian.”

“No, but hear me out.” Garrus insisted, turning her by the shoulders to look into the mirror. “The freckles, the big eyes, all this unruly hair… I don’t really know what’s considered conventionally attractive to humans, but if you’re asking me, you’re downright adorable, Shepard.”

Groaning, Amari reached for a tube of her favored lip color - a red hue so deep it was practically black. “I didn’t ask you. This is why the dark makeup. I’m a force to be reckoned with, not a school girl.” She expertly applied the color to her lips, facing Garrus with a smirk as she teasingly prodded him in the shoulder. “Fear me.”

Another laugh followed as he pulled her against him, dipping his head near an ear. “If that’s supposed to scare me, Shepard, it isn’t going to work. All that does is make those lips of yours more prominent– and I’m certainly not going to complain about that.”

“Oh you like them, do you?” Shepard teased, and promptly pressed a kiss to the unmarred mandible. It left a perfectly formed print of her lips , and she grinned. “Take them with you then. For luck. We’ll be making way for Horizon, soon- you might need it.”

Before he could protest, Garrus was ushered out of the cabin, directed to take the time he needed to prep for their upcoming missive.

He ran into Tali shortly after stepping off the elevator, her small snicker undeniable as she spotted the mark Shepard had left behind.

“Nice makeup.” The Quarian gently razzed, attempting to keep her tone matter-of-fact.

“Yeah?” Garrus shifted his gaze downward to her, remaining unfazed. If he had the ability to actually blush, however, this might have been the moment it would happen.

Tali shrugged. “Sure. It suits you.”

“Thanks.” His head lifted a bit higher, and he considered leaving it there after all. “It’s for luck. Apparently.”

—-

Garrus recalled that second visit to Horizon had nearly gone all wrong. He hadn’t been there with Shepard since they had worked together with Cerberus in an attempt to stop the Collectors. The tables had dramatically shifted since then, with what was essentially a full-on Terrorist group working against them at every turn.

But they had made it through, and from that mission forward Garrus ensured that Shepard would leave the impression of her lips smack on his mandible before they got started. It was all superstition, of course, but he wouldn’t take any chances. Sharing that small moment prior to diving into a mission made it feel as though Amari was right there with him, even if they somehow became separated in the line of fire. An odd thing that somehow just gave him strength.

It reminded him that he had that one thing going right in his life.

It was what he thought saved him from certain death in London.

Closing his eyes, the memory of the battle there hit him full on, rushing his mind against his will.

—-

“Maybe we’ll see what a Human-Turian baby looks like.” He speculated, standing within the ruins of a building within a secured perimeter- the world beyond it burning under vicious Reaper attacks.

Shepard laughed, though there was still fear in her eyes– unsettling to Garrus; she was the strongest woman he knew.

“Or maybe we can adopt. I think biology is against us on this one, Vakarian.”

But she didn’t say no to the idea. Starting a family with him. Being with him when this horror story had finally come to an end. Hope surged through him, giving him something to look forward to.

“There will be a lot of little Krogans running around.” Garrus pointed out, as though seriously considering the notion of he and Shepard with their own herd of rambunctious Krogan children. It was amusing, to say the least.

She had nearly left him without much else to say, had nearly forgotten to leave him with that good luck charm of a kiss marking his face. He ordered her to return alive should they get separated in the heat of battle, and she made no promises. But she did leave him that kiss.

“For luck.” Shepard murmured, as had become customary. The soldiers around them dared not utter a word about it. Everyone had their rituals when it came to war, and who the hell was going to cross Commander Shepard anyway?

Garrus was chosen as part of her squad. He never had the chance to ask why, but there were no doubts that they worked extremely well together. Tali had gone with them, instead of Liara- instead of Kaidan. A biotics wielder would have been the smarter choice, but Shepard insisted she was making the right call.

The final run towards the beam still claimed nearly every life. They watched soldier after soldier fall, deafening gunfire dying down to an eerie silence as lives were snuffed out in the span of a breath. Soon, they were among the handful of bodies still running, nearly reaching their quarry when an explosion threw a vehicle directly into their path.

“I need an evac, now!” Shepard’s voice laced with panic as she spoke into her comm unit– she understood the danger, her eyes fixated on Garrus, noting that he had been badly injured. She had placed him there, and Tali, and they wouldn’t be subjected to it any further- she couldn’t ask it of them.

It was the last time he’d ever see her. She chose to stay behind. She understood her fate- if no one made it to that beam then everything they had fought for would be lost to the decimation of the Reapers. Harbinger would win, a new cycle of destruction and genocide seen to completion. It couldn’t be risked, not as long as Shepard still drew breath.

—-

Her final words still echoed clearly through Garrus, as though she stood there with him. Uncertain of when he’d picked it up, his eyes dropped to the tube of dark lipstick clutched between two taloned digits. There was no reason he should have lived that day, but Tali told him it must have been fate, if there was such a thing.

Baseless, of course. Empty comfort, but he appreciated the effort all the same.

And now- with the Reapers destroyed, the Normandy grounded for an unspecified amount of time, and Shepard gone, Garrus wondered just where he’d find that luck. If he even needed it, anymore.

Shakily, he fumbled with the tube, lacking the dexterity of smaller, human digits, and brought the tip of the color to his mandible. He drew, attempting to mimic the shape of Shepard’s lips, but it was all wrong. Frustrated, Garrus wiped it clean and tried once more, and again…and again…

They had a missive coming up, to comb the area for viable materials to make repairs on the ship. Who knew what was out there?

In the back of his mind, he understood it was borderline crazy to believe that simply drawing on a cheap imitation of Shepard’s kiss would serve as any kind of protection.

“This is stupid.” Garrus grumbled after the fifth attempt. But his insides ached in a way he couldn’t quite explain. Grief was still raw and nightmares- something he had never before truly experienced- ran rampant while he slept.

He needed this.

By the seventh try the lip color was running low, and Garrus was loathe to waste the rest of it. Still, it wasn’t the worst effort. The plump shape had nearly been achieved, and the longer he stared at it, the more it seemed as though Shepard herself had put it there.

It would do. It was almost a balm to his broken heart- a little piece of Shepard still there, ready for another mission.

When he met the others on the bridge, helmet under one arm, he felt a small nudge at his side. Tali tilted her head quizzically at him, tapping the side of her mask in reference to Garrus’s marked mandible.

“For luck?” She asked softly.

He nodded once before securing his helmet into place. “For luck.”

[nitewrighter]

Volskaya Incident Part 3

Part 1 is here and Part 2 is here. So this is the last one! Whoo! Content warning for blood and stuff.

So... How about that 20% Healthsteal Reaper buff?

---

Tracer was staring at him, her eyes wide. She coughed one more time from the venom mine, then immediately she looked down at her chronal accelerator and over her shoulder at the back of it, apparently checking to see if it was damaged.

“You’re not...” Jack started and she looked back at him, “You’re in this time. The accelerator’s not broken,” he sighed, “It’s me. Here and now.”

“I was about to say, you look terrible,” said Tracer.

“Zurich took its toll,” said Jack, wiping the blood off his face but still feeling the two diagonal scars from Zurich there.

The red dot of Widowmaker’s sight passed along a nearby wall, and both Jack and Tracer remained crouching low.

“Five years,” said Tracer, quietly.

“I know you’re upset,” said Jack, peering out and looking for Widowmaker, “I know you’re confused. But it’s going to have to wait---”

“It’s waited five bloody years!” said Tracer, “I mourned you, you absolute tosser! We all did! And now---”

Sniper fire dented the wall several feet behind her but only an inch above the small barrier they were hiding behind but that didn’t seem to cut Tracer’s fury in the slightest.

“And now you show up and--where the hell were you during that fight with the Svyatogor? Where were you during the Recall? Where have you been all this time!?”

“Tracking down Reaper,” said Jack flatly, “We’ve tracked him here.”

“Reaper!? Reaper’s here?!” said Tracer, “I need to warn Genji and the Doc---I need to--” she stopped herself, “Who’s ‘We?’”

---

It took Ana longer than she would have liked to find the stairs leading to the upper walkways. A few deft shots of her sleep darts and whatever guards she ran into on her way there were downed. She pulled them out of the line of fire from the walkways. They have their own backup for that, she thought to herself, I’m losing too much time. And yet she still did it. She found her perch though, and though Widowmaker had clearly moved position several times by the time she was able to reach her first vantage point, Widowmaker was still well within her scopes.

“Ana, We’re pinned,” Jack spoke over their comm channel, “What’s your status?”

“Ana?! As in Ana Amari!?” a high pitched voice snapped on the other side.

“Tracer--please,” said Jack.

“I thought you said we weren’t getting involved?” said Ana.

“There’s been some unforeseen developments,” said Jack.

“Of course there have,” said Ana, smiling a bit beneath her mask.

Widowmaker was looking down. Ana knew the biotic rifle didn’t work the same way as regular rifles. At this point she preferred it that way. If she were working with the same rifle she had in the Omnic Crisis, this would be over by now, but it wasn’t the Omnic Crisis. She would subdue Widowmaker, buy time to actually put her down without drawing attention to herself.

“I’m giving you an opening,” said Ana. “Nāmī.” She fired a sleep dart and it hit Widowmaker. The sniper collapsed. With Widowmaker downed though, it made shooting her considerably harder. Still, it would buy Ana a short while to get to a new vantage point and finish the job or at least for Jack to get his own vantage point and take her out, if he could. She was already moving to a higher point on the walkways when she suddenly heard a clanking noise behind her. Ana turned to see one of the assembly mechs had dropped off the line and was currently engaged in a fight with a pink haired woman--she recognized her from a dossier on Volskaya--Zaryanova? Was that her name? She glanced back at Widowmaker. She had to focus. She had to end this. Sniper logic--kill one, everyone goes home safe. She heard a pained grunt from behind her and turned around to see Zaryanova had been thrown back from the force of the mech.

“Jack,” she spoke over the comm, “You’ll need to finish the job. I’ll be with you shortly.”

---

Zarya’s shielding was flickering around her as the mech moved in. She wiped the blood off of her mouth and hauled up her particle cannon, when she felt something impact the back of her left shoulder. Something ricocheted off the armor of the mech that wasn’t from her, and Zarya gave a quick glance over her shoulder to see an indigo-clad figure in a mask and hood with a rifle fixed on her.

“The Shrike...?” she said to herself before having to leap out of the way of another molten bolt from the mech.

“I’ve got your back!” The Shrike shouted to her.

Zarya didn’t have time to argue, she pointed her particle cannon back on the mech and fired.

--

Sombra only followed to watch the svyatogor drop down to Genji and Zarya briefly before slipping away before her cloaking wore off. The grunt she had piloting the mech had a name, several years of piloting and industrial machinery experience---enough to buy her time to get to the roof. She made a point of compiling information on everyone she was about to do a mission with beforehand, but you wouldn’t catch her dead addressing any of the main Talon forces by their names. Didn’t want to build up any familiarity and give them the wrong idea. She kept a screen open and tapped away with it at one hand, while carrying the Omnicell under her other arm. She brought up factory blueprints and detoured slightly to the main factory controls. It would be faster to do what she needed there than to attempt to hack it without using a direct terminal. Gabe still wanted her to get to the roof, but with the Shrike setting off the alarms, they now had three Overwatch agents on their backs as well. By Akande’s standards for mission success, that was way too many variables introduced, and now that they had the Omnicell, they didn’t have time to engage in combat with them. The best option was divide and conquer.

She glanced at her screen and thumbed through several security feeds of the factory, but stopped on the one that had previously had Widowmaker on it. Widowmaker was not there. Sombra’s eyes widened and she switched to several different security feeds of the same area, to finally find one of Widow downed. Sombra’s breath caught in her throat. She put her hand to her ear and rang up the frequency of the Talon agent that Reaper had sent as Widowmaker’s backup.

“Status?” she said.

“En route to Widowmaker as per Reaper’s orders,” came the reply. Most Talon agents had vocal distortion built into their masks. They weren’t high-profile like Reaper or Akande or Widowmaker, and thus benefitted from anonymity. Sombra still thought it sounded a bit ridiculous though.

“I’d pick up the pace,” said Sombra, “If anything happens to her, I will find you, and then no one will find you. Do you understand?”

“I...yes. Moving as quickly as possible.”

“Better be,” said Sombra, clicking out of the channel. She scrolled to a security feed of the elevator and smirked at Mercy managing to knock off a panel and then puzzling at the wires within.

“Don’t kid yourself,” muttered Sombra, “You’re a doctor, not an electrician,” she paused, “Though I suppose you’re not doing much good just stuck there.” She heard a blipping sound and brought up another screen. The transport was en-route. Sombra frowned “Hm...” she brought up another security feed and saw Genji racing down the walkways in her own direction, then another feed of Reaper making his way out from the workshops toward the staircases. “Still hunting, huh Gabe? Okay,” she said, interlacing her fingers in front of her then stretching her arms out, cracking her knuckles. “I think I’ve got a plan.”

---

Widowmaker hated the familiarity of sedation. When she first felt the prick of the sleep dart in her arm there was simply the thought of “Oh,” And then darkness swallowed her up. She felt another needle prick and her eyes flicked open and instinctively her hand went out and gripped the throat of a figure standing over her. In one swift movement she had seized her rifle and with her other hand had it against his temple. The talon agent choked under her grip and she released him. “How long was I out?” she said.

“Not long,” said the agent, “We have orders to regroup on the roof.”

“Reaper?”

“Making his way up. He sent Sombra on ahead with the Omnicell.”

“...And he seriously expects her to stay on mission?” muttered Widowmaker, getting to her feet. She scoffed. “We need to move.”

There was a warping sound and a flash of blue light in the corner of her vision. She brought down her visor and watched as Tracer’s infrared signature darted up stairs. “Now,” said Widowmaker,  firing off her grapple, “We move now.” She shot one of the coolant tubes near where they were standing, sending out a dense, freezing fog to give them cover as the Talon agent ran and Widowmaker retracted her grapple, flying through the air.

---

Genji was racing, his mind repeating Zarya’s instructions almost like a prayer. The room at the intersections of walkways P and 12. Bypass code: 7714. He passed a walkway labeled Л and a dread rose in his stomach that Mercy and Zarya could die as a result of his grip on the Cyrillic alphabet being tenuous at best. Focus, he had to keep telling himself, Just focus. He tried to hail Mercy on the comm but found it was still filled with static. They were essentially running blind in regards to each other’s locations. Still, with his speed it didn’t take long to reach the intersection of walkway P and walkway 12, where a small box-like room sat.

Genji remembered Zarya had a keycard and wondered if he would have to run all the way back to grab it, but found the only door leading into the maintenance and control room for the factory was already open, with the key card screen at its side displaying a violet skull icon rather than the typical keycard display. He knew the skull icon. He had seen it on the Svyatogor. Genji’s stomach dropped and with a flick of his wrist he had three shuriken at the ready as he peered into the room.

 The room seemed to serve as a major security channel feed, with multiple screens on every walls, as well as several monitors displaying power stability levels and other displays of basic factory power grid statuses. What was concerning however, was that half of the screens seemed glitched out or frozen, and displaying that same skull icon. Then there was one screen at the center of it all, displaying the face of a woman who looked to be a few years younger than himself.

“Hola,” she said. Her tone was casual, almost cheerful. Genji held onto his shuriken then warily drew his wakizashi.

“Yeah. You. I’m talking to you,” she said from the screen, “Come in here.”

It’s a trap. It could not more obviously be a trap, Genji thought to himself.

“I mean... how else are you going to make sure your friends don’t get killed?” she asked. Then suddenly one of the skull-displaying screens flickered and displayed Zarya getting knocked back by the mech. “I know you want to help them. I want to help you.”

It’s a trap. It’s a trap. You know it’s a trap, Genji thought. Still, with Zarya and Mercy in danger, he had little choice. He exhaled and stepped into the room.

“You were the one controlling the Svyatogor earlier,” said Genji.

“The one and only,” she said with no lack of smugness.

“So you’re with Talon,” said Genji, his grip tightening on his blade.

“Well... yes. To an extent,” she said with an airy wave of her hand.

“So why help me?” said Genji.

“I think we can help each other,” she said, smiling.

Genji scoffed. “I doubt that,” he said.

“Okay but hear me out,” she said and the screens suddenly clicked off.

“What---?” Genji started but felt a finger tap on his shoulder. He turned on his heel to see the woman from the screen standing there.

“Hey there,” she said, smiling.

He raised his Wakizashi and she crossed her arms over herself as if flinching when suddenly a bright violet light erupted off of her in all directions and and the visual receptors in Genji’s helmet were scrambled. His limbs were unresponsive, his head was buzzing with only her words of ‘EMP Activated’ filling his ears and his head and all his senses. His sense of balance told him he was falling forward, though with most of his nervous receptors scrambled, he only felt the impact of the floor as a numb jolt through his limbs.

----

Sombra stepped back as the cyborg ninja fell flat in front of her. “Huh. So I was right,” she said, pulling the Omnicell out of her coat. She had expected the omnicell to amplify the EMP, but not to this extent. She had even had her machine pistol at the ready, expecting Genji to still be able to move after her EMP. “No wonder Akande wants this so bad,” she said stuffing it back into the interior of her coat.  She glanced down at Genji and nudged him with her foot a little. “Hey. You still alive? I still got business with you.”

--

“Come on--just---” Mercy had given up on the panel behind the buttons and was now jabbing up at the emergency exit shaft at the top of the elevator with her staff. She very well wasn’t going to sit in a locked down elevator while Genji and Tracer and Zarya were all in danger. She managed to shove the shaft open just in time for the elevator to shudder back to life. “Finally!” She said, pressing the door-opening button. The panel didn’t respond. “Ach du lieber---” she said, turning back to the shaft, when the elevator shifted beneath her feet, then started moving up.

“What? No---” Mercy was pressing for the floor she assumed Zarya and Genji were still on. “Don’t---” The elevator chimed, and the doors opened. Mercy glanced at the floors. It had apparently gone above the main factory floors, above the walkways and assembly lines, to the administrative offices. The doors opened, and there was a single Talon agent looking around, casually waiting for the elevator. He made eye contact with her, and Mercy reacted. He raised his gun. With a long swipe of the caduceus staff, she knocked his gun upward as he fired, one shot grazing her arm and the rest riddling the ceiling of the elevator as she drew her caduceus blaster and fired four shots to his chest, knocking him down to the ground unconscious. Maybe two point blank shots to the face and that could probably kill him, but the Caduceus blaster was designed more around self-defense than lethality, and Mercy didn’t have to kill him now. Still, she couldn’t stay here. She had to find a way back to the others, and she wasn’t willing to take a chance with how much time the elevator might cost her if whoever was hacking Volskaya’s systems affected it again. She raced out of the elevator. Stairs, she thought, Find stairs. Find the others.

She found the stairs.

Reaper was on the stairs.

There was a beat. She knew the stories. He knew of her. For the past five years they had experienced each other as distant opposing forces, Reaper creating terror and chaos wherever he went in his work with Talon, Mercy doing everything in her power to undo that in her relief work. To Mercy’s knowledge, this was the closest they had ever been to each other. To Reaper’s knowledge, this was the closest they had been in five years. He raised a gun.

She turned and ran and a section of the wall shattered from a shotgun blast behind her as she sprinted behind it. Reaper followed her, pausing at a fusebox at the top of the stairs and shooting it. The hallways went dark. He was harder to see in the dark, she stood out like a lit candle. He knew this, and he pursued.

---

“You’re not getting away!” Tracer shouted after Widowmaker as she zipped after her, with Jack desperately sprinting behind her. The talon agent sent to escort her up to the roof was easily downed in a volley of pulsefire, Tracer wouldn’t even let him slow her down.

“Slow down!” Jack shouted after Tracer, “You don’t know if she’s leading you into an ambush!” 

“You know what would have been nice to know?” said Tracer, “That you and Captain Amari were alive and hunting down one of the most dangerous men in the world! That Talon was here and this wasn’t just a case of a Svyatogor gone haywire! But no! You couldn’t trust us! You had to pull this vigilante nonsense and let everyone believe you’re dead for years!” 

“You shouldn’t have rushed in with insufficient intel--” Jack started.

“It was a giant robot smashing the factory!” said Tracer, “You expect us to just stand by!?”

“This really isn’t the time--” Jack started.

“Time does not tell Lena Oxton what to do!” snapped Tracer. 

Tracer skidded to a halt in time to see Widowmaker grappling away again. Widowmaker was moving upward, Tracer realized, but she wasn’t looking back and firing on them. She was escaping.

“The roof,” said Tracer, “We need to get to the roof.”

Jack brought up the schematics of the factory Ana had lent him on his visor. “This way!” He said, turning sharply. 

---

Most of Genji’s sensory receptors came back online in time for him to feel a nudge of a foot. He struggled to spring to his feet, to raise his wakizashi. His own voice came to him, distorted. “What did you do...?”

“You’ll live,” she replied.

Genji snarled and continued struggling to get his limbs to work.

“Aw, pobrecito,” Sombra squatted in front of him, resting her chin in her hand. She reached forward and drew Ryū Ichimonji from the sheath on his back.

“That’s not yours!” He snapped as she nonchalantly tested the weight of the sword in her hand. His legs not were responding to him, his remaining organic arm was straining against his own armor, his head was still buzzing from the EMP.  

“Don’t worry, it’s not my style. It’s a little low-tech for me,” said Sombra, running her thumb across the fuller of the blade. Sombra extended her hand toward him and with a few waves of her fingers, made his prosthetic arm and legs go numb again. “Always thought you were funny like that---Given the most advanced prosthetics in the world, yet you still insist on fighting with weapons that no one uses anymore.” Genji felt the tip of his own sword beneath his chin and was forced to lift his head up to look at her. “I think I can work with you, though,” said Sombra.

“Work with me...?” Genji repeated the words and Sombra pressed the blade a bit more firmly under his chin.

“To be honest, I figured the space ape would be the one coming,” she said with a shrug, “But you’ll do.”

“What makes you think I would ever work with someone like you?” said Genji.

“I take it you’re going to want this back,” said Sombra, giving top of his helmet a slight bonk with the flat of the blade, “And,” she brought up several screens, “You’re probably going to want to help your friends.”

Genji’s breath caught in his throat as he saw her display the feeds from several security cameras. One was of Zarya fighting the factory mech, another was of two figures racing up a stairwell, Genji could recognize the glow of Tracer’s chronal accelerator but couldn’t make out the face of the man running alongside her, then finally, there was a dark screen featuring Mercy, hiding alone, visible only by the faint glow of her valkyrie wings. She seemed safe, but then a white shape emerged from the shadows near her. A bone white mask. Reaper. Mercy turned toward him and pointed her caduceus blaster at him, then Sombra closed the screens.

“Let me go,” the words fell out of him, more instinct to them than thought. Sombra smirked.

“We have some terms and conditions we should work out before that,” said Sombra, “We’re going to be very good friends.”

“I’m not working with Talon,” said Genji.

“You’re not working with Talon, you’re working with me,” said Sombra. She brought up a photo of a busy street, “And I happen to be very good to my friends.” Making a frame shape with her fingers she zoomed in on a single figure in the crowd.

“Hanzo…?” Genji squinted at the figure she had zoomed in on. He had changed his hair but Genji would know his brother anywhere.

“But my friends have to be good to me,” said Sombra, closing the screen, “I get the feeling you’re very interested in knowing your brother’s whereabouts—-it would be a shame if that information found its way into the hands of the Shimada clan. I’ll do you two solids: I let you go so you can save your pretty doctor friend and be the hero,” she did a ‘jazz hand’ motion with her fingers on the word ‘hero,’ “And I’ll give you everything I have on your brother’s whereabouts—for whatever that’s worth—but, in return you’ll owe me two favors. Not Talon favors. Me favors. Seems fair enough, right?”

“And if I refuse?” said Genji.

“Well I could shoot you,” said Sombra, “Seems a waste though, especially after our doctor friend worked so hard to keep you alive,” she brought up that same screen of Mercy, “Nah, I’ll probably just EMP you again to keep you stuck here for a few minutes so you don’t kill me while I head to my extraction point. Thing is, though… I don’t think Doctor Ziegler has that long,” she closed the screen.

Genji’s hand was still twitching from the EMP, but he managed to curl his fingers into a fist. “Two favors,” he said.

“So we have a deal?” said Sombra.

“Yes, now let me go,” said Genji.

Sombra set his sword down in front of him, stepped back and waited.

“You don’t have a way to make it work again?”said Genji.

“You know what they say about time healing all wounds?” said Sombra as sensation slowly returned to his limbs.

Genji was struggling to his hands and knees. He didn’t have time. Mercy didn’t have time. Zarya didn’t have time. Rage was boiling out from the pit of his stomach, and he hoped, somehow, that that rage might help return the sensation to his limbs faster. Some dark, furious, part of him that he hoped he had left behind in Nepal, snarled from the pit of his throat. “I should kill you.”

“You won’t,” said Sombra, examining her nails, “You’re a man of your word. And what’s more is, you don’t have time.” She dematerialized in a semi-pixelated flash of purple, and Genji suddenly heard the click of his comm activating in the side of his helmet.

“I’ll leave you with this though,” she said in his comm, and suddenly blueprints of the factory swallowed up the whole of his vision receptors, with one bright orange dot, only two floors above him, was clearly labeled: Angela Ziegler. He struggled to his feet and grabbed his sword, his legs somehow both numb and aching at the same time, and took off in a run.

---

Mercy fired the caduceus blaster. Again and again. The first shot hit him in the hand, knocking his gun from it. He moved to grab it and she fired a second shot in the shoulder and he grunted,

“Still going for the nonlethal points, huh Doc?” said Reaper. Another shot hit him in the chest and he dropped to one knee with a sharp rasping exhale, letting his other gun clatter to the side while gripping his chest.

“Stand down and step away from your weapons,” said Mercy.

“Don’t kid yourself,” said Reaper, “Without your comm, you’re all alone here. You know what you have to do to survive this.”

“I said stand down,” said Mercy. Her brow furrowed and she raised the gun slightly, aiming it at his head.

Reaper chuckled. “But we both know you’re not going to--”

Mercy fired. The blaster fire cracked off his mask, his head jerking back in a spray of black smoke as several bone-white shards fell to the ground. Mercy’s breath was shuddering as he slumped over, one hand gripping his face. She kept her gun fixed on him and reloaded, her hands shaking around the gun. Then he brought his hand away from his face. Then she lowered her gun.

“Gabriel?” her eyes were wide.

“In the flesh,” he said, large chunks of the skin on his cheek falling up and away into black smoke, “For whatever that’s worth.”

“What happened to you?” the question came out of her hushed and horrified.

“You tell me, doc,” he replied. In a swift and fluid motion he picked up his gun and fired. She almost didn’t feel it when it hit, her initial shock was so great. Gabe. It was Gabe. Gabriel Reyes was alive. Gabriel Reyes was Reaper. Reaper had shot her.  Her world was half a blur between the current moment and nightmares of Zurich. The world slowed then quickly sped up and she realized she was falling backward. Pain. There was pain and pain and pain and pain. The force of the shot sent her sprawling on her back. She coughed, feeling blood soaking through both the front and back of her valkyrie suit. Her hand was still gripping the caduceus blaster. She had to fight. She had to live. Her work wasn’t done. Her work wasn’t safe from those who would use it to harm people. The others needed her. Genji--She still hadn’t told him.

 Gripping her wound, she raised her blaster at him again. He dropped, his movement half a fall and his own breath ragged from the shots she had fired on him, and he gripped her wrist as she squeezed the trigger. The shot hit him in the shoulder and he jolted from it but still managed to wrench the gun from her hand. Surgeon’s instinct, he realized, she’d release the gun before he could break her fingers. But then she smacked him hard across the face with the Caduceus staff with her other hand and he reeled for a second before seizing it from her hand, then, with as much strength as he could still manage to eke from his SEP serum and nanites, snapping it in two. Her breath caught in her throat as he tossed the two halves of the caduceus staff aside. 

“You were dead,” Mercy’s voice was hollow and strained as her other hand uselessly tried to keep pressure on her wounds, “You died--twice--I watched you---I tried---”

“I know you tried,” he said, “I know you were only trying to help. That doesn’t change what happened.”

“I’m sorry--” Tears were welling up in those big war orphan eyes of hers, “I’m sorry.”

“I know,” said Reaper, still gripping her wrist, “It’s okay. I’m just going to need you to patch me up one last time.”

“What...?” her breath was still ragged.

“It won’t hurt too long,” said Reaper, black smoke bleeding out from the interior of his hood, “Just breathe, let it take you.”

Mercy saw the smoke run up her arm and over her body and her breath suddenly caught in her throat. Then the pain hit and it hit hard. She screamed.

“I want you to remember this, Doctor,” said Reaper, his breath getting less ragged as the smoke ran over her, she could barely hear him through the haze of her pain or the sound of her own screams, “I want you to know that this is what I’m going through every waking moment. This is what you saved.”

She kept screaming, her back arching and blood dripping out from beneath her. he kept her still with one hand on her shoulder to keep her from bleeding out too fast as his nanites leeched the biotic energy from her body. She didn’t have the SEP serum. It wouldn’t take too long.

---

Zarya was gritting her teeth as she fired on the mech as the Shrike lobbed what looked like a grenade at the mech. Zarya flinched back as the grenade didn’t explode, but rather shatter on the cockpit of the mech, prompting a cry from the Talon agent piloting it. Zarya fired a particle blast at it while the agent seemed distracted, but he managed to activate the mech’s shielding and fire off several molten bolts at both her and the Shrike. One grazed her leaving an ugly smoldering scar on her side. Zarya winced and gripped her side, then felt several shots from the back and felt the pain ease heavily. She looked behind her to see the Shrike giving her a thumbs up. “Just a scratch! You’ll be fine!”

“Any ideas?” said Zarya, doing her best to roll out of the way of the bolts as they pelted the walls behind her. She couldn’t move out of the way of another and had to activate her shielding, brightening the core of her particle cannon. The Shrike looked around, then pointed upward at one of the walkways. “Can that gun cut through steel?”

“Any suggestions that don’t require destroying the factory?” said Zarya.

“It’s just one walkway,” said the Shrike a bit more cavalierly than Zarya liked as they both hurried out of the way of the mech’s limbs and bolts, “It’s a factory. You can make more.”

Zarya took a second to consider, then found herself running out of the way of more molten bolts, some being absorbed into her shielding, further strengthening the cannon, which sped up her decision. “Черт возьми!” she said, pointing her particle cannon upward and cutting two ragged lines across a section of the walkway above. She stopped running then and the mech advanced on her.  The walkway overhead collapsed, landing squarely on the mech. The shielding of the mech fizzled out and Zarya hit it with a fully charged particle blast, leaving little more than a blackened shell. She looked to the Shrike.

“Why did you help me?” she said.

“We can speak later. The others are still in danger,” said the Shrike.

“Well,” Zarya turned back toward the elevator, “Perhaps by now we can get the Doctor out---” she stopped and saw that the elevator had stopped several floors above at the administrative offices, “Вот дерьмо,” said Zarya. She pressed a button and miraculously, the elevator responded. Whoever was playing with them earlier must have moved on. The elevator opened and Zarya walked in, with the Shrike walking in after her. The door closed and the elevator went up several floors.

“Are you with Overwatch?” said Zarya as the elevator went up.

“That’s a bit complicated,” said the Shrike.

 Zarya’s eyes narrowed a bit. 

“I take it I’m still not off the Watchlist,” said the Shrike.

“No,” said Zarya folding her arms, “You are not.” 

The floor chimed at the administrative levels and opened. They heard a scream down the hall. 

“Doctor Ziegler!” said Zarya in alarm.

“Find the Doctor,” said Ana, turning to Zarya. Ana pulled what looked like a small syringe gun from the interior of her coat. “I’ll give you a head-start.”

Before Zarya could protest, the Shrike shot her with some kind of syringe and Zarya suddenly felt something, like joy and fury and lightning running through her veins. 

“Go!” said the Shrike. Zarya took off in a sprint, leaving Ana in the dust. Ana followed after, somewhat regretting the burst of speed that came with the nano-boost. 

 ---

Mercy’s world was dimming at the peripheries, everything was swallowed and muted by smoke and shadow and pain. She felt a sharp pain in her leg and somehow that woke her up slightly and helped her breath return to her. Her eyes widened a bit to see a slight lavender-pink glow several inches above her. Reaper reared away from her and turned on his heel only to face a particle cannon blast that forced him away from her. She struggled to try and sit up slightly but only felt more blood fall out of her from the effort and flattened herself on nthe ground. Zarya. She knew it was Zarya. She had to stay awake.

---

Genji was sprinting. He had to make it in time. He scrambled through the Svyatogor assembly line, clambering on the massive frames of the mechs, hauled himself up onto moving platforms, sprinted along walls until finally reachng a staircase that would bring him up. The light of his visor glowed in the darkness as he raced through the halls.

Genji came to a sudden halt as he reached the corridor. His heart dropped into his stomach at the sight of Mercy bloodied on the floor and he glanced up at the dark figure standing near her. Zarya was standing in front of Mercy, a glowing particle barrier around herself. Genji looked back down at Mercy in horror then noticed her chest rising and falling erratically. Still alive. She was still alive, though he couldn’t be sure for how long. Genji threw several shuriken to draw Reaper’s attention off of the two of them and give Zarya an opening. Reaper turned and faced him. Genji saw his face. Genji froze. Reyes. But it couldn’t be Reyes. Reyes died in Zurich. Reaper raised his guns.

Deflect, Genji’s mind was screaming at him, Raise your blade and deflect. He felt his own hand hesitate. Reaper pulled the trigger. Genji knew he couldn’t bring the blade up in time. His eyes flicked to Mercy. Angela, he thought, No, I can’t-- then suddenly there was a warping sound and Genji found himself engulfed in a sphere of light.

“You’re covered!” Zarya shouted before blasting her particle cannon at Reaper, “Go!”  Genji didn’t need to be told twice.

“Ryūjin no ken o kurae!” he drew Ryū Ichimonji and leapt forward and slashed at Reaper. Reaper raised his gun but Ryū Ichimonji cut it through at the barrele as Reaper desperately tried to move back, but Genji’s rage was not sated by the destruction of the gun and he leapt forward and slashed again. The blade actually hit something solid this time and Reaper grunted and stumbled back, black smoke trailing up from the slash across his torso. He snarled but Genji dashed forward, the light from the Shimada dragon trailing behind him in a green streak as he slashed past Reaper. Reaper coughed and gripped himself barely holding together after the strike. 

Everything Reaper had sapped from Mercy had been for naught as he gripped his front, not bleeding, but trailing upwards and away from him like smoke. He looked up just in time to see Zarya had fired an explosive particle charge at Reaper. Reaper wasn’t dealing with that. He disappeared in a wisp of smoke. Zarya swore and then looked at Genji, who now half stumbled to Mercy’s side. Something in her face softened. The ninja had, up until now seemed fairly contained onto himself, but there was a definite desperation about him now that seemed just as human as any one of her troops on the Siberian front.

“I’ll take point,” said Zarya.

Genji looked up at her.

“I know the factory better,” she said.

Genji nodded and Zarya took off in pursuit of Reaper, shouting orders in Russian into her comm as she did so.

The glow of Zarya’s shielding faded off of Mercy. So much of her valkyrie suit was stained red. Genji realized his hands were shaking as they hovered over her wounds, unsure which one was bleeding the most and would require pressure most immediately. This looked bad. It looked really bad. He put his hand behind her head so that it wasn’t against the ground. “Angela?” he said.

“Genji…?” her voice was weak, “Are you…?”

“I’m here,” said Genji, “Stay awake.”

“You came,” said Mercy.

“You’ve lost a lot of blood,” said Genji. Her biotics should be healing her. Why weren’t they healing her? Her staff, he had to get her staff. He looked up and saw the front half of it, then scrambled over and grabbed it.

“You need to go,” she said, “Head him off at the exits—-You can still catch him before he—”

“That’s not important right now,” said Genji, struggling to get the staff to work. It looked so effortless when she used it, why couldn’t he? No, he had to figure this out. He couldn’t lose her.

“It’s broken—Genji, there’s no time…you can…he’s wounded…the mission—” Mercy started.

“Our mission was to stop the svyatogor. It’s stopped,” said Genji, setting the staff aside and putting pressure on one of the wounds on her stomach, not wanting to touch her ribs for fear they might be broken from the force of the shot.

“Genji, it’s Gabe—It’s Reaper—-We can’t just—-“ Mercy shifted in his arms then suddenly winced and cried out.

“Easy!” said Genji, holding onto her to keep her from moving and bleeding out more, “Easy…” he said a bit more softly this time.

“You have to…” her breath was going ragged.

“I am not leaving you,” he said, “Save your strength. Stay awake. Please.” He glanced down at the wound he was keeping pressure over, “Please stay with me.” He brought a hand to the side of his helmet and hailed Tracer’s frequency on the comm, then sighed with some relief as he found the comm channel was finally working again.

“Tracer---”

“Genji! Oh am I glad to hear you! What’s your status---?”

“I’m fine but Ange--Doctor Ziegler is severely injured. Reaper he--we were able to drive him off but--her biotics aren’t---I can’t leave her. I can’t. She could---I can’t let her---”

“I understand,” said Tracer. 

Genji took a steadying breath. “Zarya’s taken point. If you rendezvous with her you may still be able to get Reaper before he gets away.”

“Roger. Stay with the Doc.”

“Understood,” said Genji, clicking out of the comm channel. He gave Angela a slight shake and her eyes opened blearily. “Just stay awake. Please.”

---

There was a rush of guards running through the administrative levels, all converging on Zarya’s location, apparently, and Ana was forced to slip into darkness or risk being taken into custody without Zarya to vouch for her.  She was about to move toward the corridor when she heard a rasping cough and turned to look into the stairwell, where shadows were forming themselves into a vague humanoid shape. Ana pointed her biotic rifle at him.

“It’s been a while, Gabriel,” she said. Reaper was hunched over, smoke streaming off of him from where Genji slashed him with the dragonblade. He made eye contact with her and turned to smoke again as she fired on him, his wraith form trailing up the stairs with her in hot pursuit. He managed to get a shotgun blast off that littered the wall of the stairwell, buying him several seconds to put more distance between them.

“You don’t have time for this,” Reaper rasped, his voice somehow broken across the smoke, “Doctor Ziegler doesn’t have time for this.”

“You’re bluffing,” said Ana, “Her biotics---”

“Are destroying themselves against my nanites. She can’t stabilize. Not on her own. You saw it.”

Ana lowered her rifle from her eye. 

“The man or the mission, Ana?” said Reaper, his voice drifting away in the darkness.

---

Tracer exhaled as Genji clicked out of the comm as she and Jack rode one of the industrial lifts up to the higher levels of the factory.

“Your team...” Jack started to say.

Tracer’s lips tightened, “Doc’s hurt,” she said.

“She’ll be fine. Stay focused,” said Jack.

---

Sombra was busying herself with opening and closing various doors and strategically shutting down elevators around the factory from the roof, keeping an eye on the security feeds when Widowmaker finally emerged from where the Svyatogor assembly line exited the building.

“Araña!” Sombra looked up from her screens, “I knew you’d make it.”

“Our extraction vehicle should be here by now,” muttered Widowmaker. Sombra bent down, picked up a small pebble from the roof, and threw it hard. There was a flash of faint blue light and the pebble dropped to the ground as if its arc had been abruptly stopped.

“Cloaking,” said Widowmaker, “Well, Vialli did always have expensive tastes...”

“Shame he left due to creative differences,” said Sombra, tapping at a few more screens, “Sure was nice of him to leave all those assets though...”

Widowmaker chuckled. 

“They’re lifting the cloaking as soon as Reaper gets---” Sombra cut herself off as a black smoke poured out of one of the rooftop vents of the factory and formed itself into Reaper, on his hands and knees, panting with smoking streams of nanites trailing off of him.

“Mierda,” said Sombra, stepping over to Reaper, “So...how’d hunting go?”

“Do you still have the omnicell?” said Reaper, not even looking up at her.

“Yep,” Sombra withdrew the omnicell from her coat, “Y’know, if Akande’s decided he’s got bigger fish to fry, I’d be happy to hold onto i---”

“Sombra,” Reaper’s voice was a croak.

Sombra cleared her throat and stuffed the Omnicell back into her coat. “Right. Anway, we should go.”

Reaper exhaled and clicked a beacon on his comm and the cloaking on the extraction vehicle lifted, revealing a dark wedge-shaped aircraft. Widowmaker readied her grappling hook and Sombra casually wrapped her arms around Widowmaker’s waist. 

“You do realize you have a translocator,” said Widowmaker.

“Aw come on, Araña, you know you love me,” said Sombra arching an eyebrow. 

Widowmaker scoffed, then fired her grapple at the opening hull of the aircraft. Sombra snickered as Widowmaker retracted the grapple and they both glided through the air to the open hull of the extraction vehicle. Reaper did a simple weary shadow step to the interior of the vehicle, looking over his shoulder just in time to see Jack and Tracer burst out onto the roof from the main door.

---

“We’re too late!” said Tracer, watching the hull doors of the talon ship closing.

“No we’re not,” said Jack, activating his tactical visor. The shot was narrow, but he could make it. He could take out Reaper.

“Wait---” Tracer started.

“I’ve got this,” said Jack.

“Jack,” Tracer said more urgently, watching as the ship’s guns fixed on him.

“Just let me end this---” Jack started but Tracer suddenly tackled him from the waist just as the ships guns started firing. Bullets riddled the roof of the factory where Jack was standing as both he and Tracer took cover behind one of the rooftop cooling vents. 

“I had that! Why did you---?” Jack started.

“I just found out you’re alive! I’m not about to let you change that!” snapped Tracer.  

The words gave Jack pause and he glanced over their cover to see that the doors to the hull had closed completely, but Tracer didn’t seem done yet. She pulled a pulse bomb from the interior of her jacket.

“Stay back,” she said.

“But---” Jack started.

“You’re not strike commander anymore,” said Tracer, darting out from behind their cover. Jack covered his face as Tracer blinked across the roof, the guns of the talon ship kicking up gravel behind her before she threw the pulse bomb and then recalled back to her spot behind him and covered her head. The pulse bomb detonated in the line of fire, blowing off one of the ship’s guns. The ship’s airborne state seemed compromised for several panic-filled seconds, but it regained its bearings and shot off, away from the factory. Tracer was panting. She pushed her goggles off her face and slumped against their air vent. Then rubbed her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I was pretty sure it wouldn’t take down the whole thing but... I mean.. I guess I still hoped...”

“That...” Jack was borderline speechless, “That was good. You did good.”

Tracer half-huffed half-chuckled. “We... we should get to the others,” she said, running her hands through her hair.

--

Mercy’s breaths were still ragged. Genji wondered if her lungs were filling with blood.

“Genji…” her hand weakly went up and touched the side of his faceplate, “If I…”

“You are going to make it,” said Genji.

“Don’t let them use my research to hurt people,” said Mercy.

“You’re going to be fully capable of protecting your research yourself,” said Genji, “You’re going to live.”

A small smile lit up her face and he felt her affectionately brush her thumb on his faceplate. “So determined,” she said. The gesture gave him pause, and he wanted to bring up his own hand to touch hers, but he had one hand supporting her head and the other keeping pressure on the wound so he couldn’t.

“Angela,” his voice was low, not quite hushed, “I—I need you to stay awake. I need—I should have told you…so long ago. I should have opened and ended every letter with it. I should have told you the second I saw you in Gibraltar. I should have—” he stopped himself. She was staring up at him, eyes wide. He  took a steadying breath, “Angela, I lo—”

Some force suddenly hit Mercy in the chest and she grunted and convulsed hard in his arms. Genji’s breath caught in his throat. “No!” he said. She coughed then suddenly drew in a sharp breath and coughed again.

“Biotics--” she said, her eyes wide.

“What?” said Genji looking down at her. The sight of so much blood on her made his stomach tie up in knots, but there was no new wound with the shot--

“It’s biotics--,” she said and he lifted his hand from the wound on her stomach to see the bleeding had slowed.

“They’re working again,” he said, “Okay--You can stay awake until we get you back to the Orca, then---”

“Genji, that’s not what I mean, I mean---”

Her body rocked with the force of another shot and she grunted again and her breathing steadied more.

“We need to get her out of here,” a voice spoke and Genji glanced up to see a cloaked figure in some kind of helmet with three triangularly arranged lights on the visor.

“The shrike...” Mercy said softly.

The Shrike pointed a rifle at Mercy and instinctively he bent over her and held his wakizashi toward the figure, ready to deflect.

“I don’t know who you are,” said Genji, “But I suggest you lower your weapon and---”

The Shrike lobbed something at the ground and it shattered in front of him and Angela. Genji flinched back but felt the pain in his shoulder gone and heard a familar sort of whirring chiming sound.

“Biotics...” he said.

“Took you a moment to catch on,” said the Shrike, lifting their rifle and shooting Mercy again. Genji flinched over her and the Shrike scoffed. “We don’t have time for this,” they said, shooting him. Genji winced but then glanced down at himself. No wound. If anything the residual pain from Sombra’s repeated hacking of his prosthetics had faded. “Do you understand now?” said the Shrike.

“I--yes...” said Genji.

“I know your voice...” murmured Mercy, her brow furrowed, “That rifle... they told me they only made one of that rifle... how did you...?

“You’ve lost a lot of blood, dear,” said the Shrike before turning to Genji, “As I’ve said, we need to move.”

“R-right,” said Genji. He bent over Mercy then gently eased her into his arms, shifting her weight against himself so her head would lean on his shoulder.

“Do you need help?” asked the Shrike.

“No,” said Genji, rising to his feet, holding Mercy bridal style. He glanced down at her. “Am I hurting you?” he asked.

“No. No more than I was before,” said Mercy.

The Shrike shot Mercy again and Genji felt panic spike in his gut again before remembering the rifle wouldn’t hurt her. “Do you have to keep doing that?” he said, walking out of the factory with the figure walking alongside him.

“It’s the fastest way,” said the Shrike.

Genji huffed a little and turned back to Mercy. Her eyelids were slowly closing.

“Angela,” he spoke her name and she blinked several times and shook her head a bit, struggling to stay awake. “Stay with me,” he said. He forced a chuckle, “Try not to doze off like you always do.”

Mercy smiled. They made it to the elevator and took it down to the main floor of the factory.

“Full circle,” Mercy managed to say.

“What?” said Genji.

“I carry you, you carry me,” she said.

Genji smiled beneath his faceplate, “To be fair, you’ve saved me many times over, Doctor Ziegler.”

Mercy glanced over at the Shrike. “They shouldn’t have that rifle,” she said softly.

“What do you mean---?” Genji started.

“Genji!” The call came from across the factory yard and Tracer raced toward them in a blue streak, before coming to a short stop in front of Genji and Mercy. “Oh no...” Tracer’s hand went over her mouth.

“It’s...” Mercy winced a little in Genji’s arms, “Not as bad as it looks.”

“Oh Doc...” Tracer’s voice was cracking a little, “I’m so sorry---I should have--If I hadn’t---”

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” said Mercy, “You did so well. You---” Mercy cut herself off as her sight fell on a figure hurrying up behind Tracer. “Who...?” the question died out in her throat as the figure became clear to them.

“Oh...” Tracer glanced over her shoulder at Jack Morrison, “I...I uh... There’s someone you should...”

“Jack,” said Mercy.

“Jack...?” repeated Genji.

Jack Morrison cleared his throat and gave a small wave, “Uh... hey.”

Mercy’s mouth was hanging open, “But you---you were---they said you---I---but---you---you’re...” Her eyes rolled back and shut and she suddenly went limp in Genji’s arms.

“Angela!?” Genji glanced down at her in alarm.

The Shrike stepped forward and put two fingers to Mercy’s neck. “She’s fine. She’s only fainted.”

“We... probably could have planned that better,” said Jack.

“Good to see you can still make the ladies swoon, Jack,” said the figure in the mask, shooting Mercy with another biotic cartridge.

Genji looked to Tracer. “Morrison is alive,” said Genji.

“Yeah,” said Tracer.

“Strike Commander Jack Morrison, thought dead for the past 5 years, is alive,” said Genji.

“Mm-hmm,” said Tracer.

“Commander Reyes is alive. Reaper is Commander Reyes. All this time Reyes has been the one hunting down former members of Overwatch and he nearly killed Ange—” Genji caught himself, “Doctor Ziegler. He nearly killed Doctor Ziegler. And now Strike Commander Morrison is alive. Is there anything else earth-shattering I need to know?”

Jack instantly looked at the Shrike and Tracer followed his gaze. Genji glanced over at the Shrike as well. A long pause passed between all four of them. Genji then looked back at Jack and Tracer. “I’m getting on the Orca,” he said, attempting to sound determined but his own voice coming off as exhausted even to himself. He glanced down at Mercy, “We’re getting on the Orca. And I’m finding biotics that don’t require shooting anyone.”

---

Zarya was waiting by the Orca when they reached it.  She gave a glance to Mercy in Genji’s arms, then back up at Genji.

“She will live?” said Zarya.

Genji nodded. He knew she would be alright, between the biotics on the Orca and the Shrike’s rifle, but his stomach was still in knots, the panic still hadn’t quite left his blood in spite of his own exhaustion.

Zarya gave a single nod and folded her arms. “I am coming with you.”

“What?” said Genji.

“Security footage shows that Talon has stolen something very important from Volskaya Industries. I do not fully understand what it is they have stolen, but I know there is no way they have anything good planned for it. I cannot permit them to do harm with Russian technology. If you are taking the fight to them, I am coming with you.”

“We’ll get it back,” said Tracer, “Promise.”

Zarya gave a wary look to the Shrike, then squinted at Jack slightly. He looked familiar but she could not be sure from where. She then turned back to Tracer and gave another nod. They boarded the Orca.

---

Mercy would have looked almost heavenly if it weren’t for all the blood staining her Valkyrie suit as she laid there with the biotic fields glowing around her. Genji sat next to her, cross-legged next to her pallet. The Orca was humming all around him and there was still the slight shake of turbulence from the snow.

“You need to rest,” said Tracer. Genji looked up at her. To be honest at this point he was so exhausted he hadn’t even noticed her walk over from the cockpit.

Genji shook his head. “Something Reaper did was interfering with the biotic distributors in her spine. Someone needs to stay with her to make sure there are no further complications.”

“You need to take care of yourself too,” said Tracer, folding her arms.

“I can manage,” said Genji.

Tracer looked at Mercy, then back to Genji. She sighed. “All right,” she said, walking back toward the Orca’s cockpit. Jack was waiting for her there.

“He hasn’t left her side for a heartbeat,” muttered Tracer, taking her seat.

“The biotic fields should keep her stabilized until we reach the Watchpoint,” said Jack.

“So there’s a ‘We’ now?” said Tracer.

“I thought it would be safest staying out of each others’ ways—-but I see now operating independently of each other makes us liabilities to each other. We need to be on the same page if we’re going to take down Talon. If I had dropped Winston an anonymous tip…” Jack shook his head, “For a long time, Ana’s and my anonymity meant your safety, with this mission, that’s clearly not the case any more.”

Tracer folded her arms and shot him a look.

“And… I’m sorry,” said Jack.

“Sorry for…?”

“Sorry for not seeing that until we were all in danger.”

Tracer’s arms remained folded and her glare remained.

“And I’m sorry for the past five years,” said Jack. He sighed. “I’m sorry, for what I put you through. What I put everyone through.”

“There’s a start,” said Tracer.

“You need to understand, I had to do it for your and everyone’s safety,” said Jack, “Overwatch was already imploding—-the best chance everyone had was…”

“Letting it collapse,” there was something slightly choked in Tracer’s voice.

“There was no going back after Zurich,” said Jack, “Even if I let everyone know I was alive after the explosion, that was the final push the Petras Act needed to pass. There wouldn’t have been anything I could do.”

“You don’t know that,” said Tracer.

“As strike commander, it was literally my job to know when I was pushing my people into a losing fight. Trust me. I knew,” said Jack.

Tracer pursed her lips, then pushed her goggles up to her forehead and rubbed at her eyes. Jack couldn’t tell if she was tearing up. She exhaled sharply.

“I know I can never make it up to you,” said Jack, rising to his feet, “But if you and Winston would have me, it would be my honor to fight alongside you.” He saluted.

Tracer almost sniffled but seemed to catch herself. “Well, Commander,” she said, a slight shake in her voice as she stood up as well, “The world could always use more heroes.” She saluted back. They both stood there in the cockpit, Tracer still saluting, until she snorted and broke into a short, wry laugh that sounded like she was still stuffing down the urge to cry. “It’s good to have you back, sir,” said Tracer.

“I take it I’m not getting off that easy,” said Jack.

“Oh no,” said Tracer, “No you’re not.”

“Fair enough,” said Jack.

——

Genji didn’t know how long he had dozed off but he woke with a start. It couldn’t have been more than a few minutes, judging by one of the screens monitoring the Orca’s location. He quickly glanced down at Mercy and looked over her, but saw her condition was the same as usual. He exhaled and clicked off his faceplate and visor and rubbed his eyes, he then glanced up from Mercy and was startled to see Zarya sitting across from him on the other side of her. Instantly his hand went up to his scars and he cleared his throat.

“Sorry—I should—” he moved to put his faceplate back on but Zarya gave a smile, dismissive wave, and a huff that was almost a chuckle.

“If that is what makes you comfortable, but I do not mind,” said Zarya, “You think I have not seen my share of scars?” She pointed at the X-shaped scar above her eyebrow, “This was given to me by an Eradicator in Kemerovo. I gave it a bigger one. We held the line. Lost a lot of good soldiers that day.”

“I’m sorry,” said Genji.

Zarya shook her head. “I am sorry,” she said, “It was not fair of me to judge you so harshly. Many of my soldiers have had to replace limbs, but… never to such an extent. That along with being an… I suppose ‘Omnic Sympathizer’ is not the right word….”

“I was assuming all Omnics were like the Shambali,” said Genji, “I had not considered your fight or your losses.”

Zarya glanced down at Mercy and smiled a bit. “You know, they still tell stories of ‘The Angel of Yakutsk’ on the Siberian Front. It is an honor to have met her, I only wish the circumstances were better.”

“I suppose that’s how it is with Ange—Doctor Ziegler,” said Genji, “We did not exactly meet under good circumstances either. I was nearly dead. She saved me. I would have died many years ago or many times since then if not for her.”

“So how long have you been in love with her?” said Zarya. Genji’s head jerked up from Mercy. Zarya asked it casually, like it was a question about the weather or how his day was.

The heat sinks in Genji’s shoulders clicked out and steamed. “I’m--- Doctor Ziegler and I aren’t--- I mean.... we haven’t...” he trailed off, “I’ve... always respected her and her work.”

“Ah I see,” said Zarya, clearly unconvinced. She rolled her shoulders. “Well, you should get some rest. I have some questions for the Shrike.” With that she stood up and walked off. Genji wondered if he could explain it to Zarya without sounding ridiculous. He looked at those last few snow flurries outside the viewport of the Orca. He wondered how seriously Zarya would take him if he compared his feelings for Angela to snow, small fleeting things that somehow pile up and change everything about how you see the world. He didn’t say anything. He glanced down at Mercy, took a deep calming breath, and maintained his vigil. Her fingers twitched and she murmured something in her semi-consciousness. Genji unthinkingly reached out a hand and wrapped his fingers in hers. They would reach the Watchpoint soon. Angela would be all right then.

[meggannn]

more for lydia (of course): 21, 24, 45, 49

i am the worst person for taking like a day to respond to this omg

21)   Best Friend(s)?

it’s hard to categorize her best “friends” because for a while she doesn’t really consider them friends, she considers them “acquaintances she has varying degrees of closeness and unique relationships with” while not realizing that like… that is the definition of a friend? lmao (like for example, she only really let herself think of garrus and tali as ‘friends’ instead of ‘crewmembers i’m fond and protective of’ until the shore leave after the battle of the citadel. though while she was close with her me1 crew, i do think me2 is the first time she realizes she’s allowed to think of her team as friends too.

me1: kaidan and ashley at least in the beginning. by the end of the game i think she’s closer to tali as well

me2: at first, garrus and kasumi, and later when they join, tali and samara. i say this with like, knowing she has fondness for all of her crew

me3: garrus and, after renewing their relationship, ashley

24)   Do they have a love/hate relationship with any of them?

not with any of those mentioned above, though i think her relationships with miranda and jack in 2 are a little… not adversarial, but shepard is wary of them as much as she likes them. miranda for obvious reasons, and jack because she genuinely likes her after a while but being around her for so long is a bit of a drain on her energy, since she kind of reminds her of the kids from her old gangs. zaeed she definitely has a love/hate relationship with in 2, in that she appreciates his talks and advice but doesn’t appreciate his attitude and volatile unpredictability.

45)   Do they use social media?

lmfao I HAVE A LOT OF THOUGHTS ABOUT SHEPARD ON SOCIAL MEDIA OKAY YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE ASKED ME THIS, it’s not that she’s very tech savvy (though there’s some proficiency with hacking) just growing up as a teenager on earth who stole/resold a lot of omnitools and translators and laptops, she had very few other pasttimes when cash wasn’t coming in. i think she was really into social media during ict training with other candidates, as a way of bonding and non-physical de-stressing. and she obviously knows a lot of online slang and shitty corners of the internet from her teenage days. in the alliance she goes through periods of activity followed by periods of forgetting about the internet at all, like when she’s on missions.

by me1, she’s established enough that i think she’s convinced herself a commander shouldn’t post on social media, that’s not appropriate, blah blah. so for a while she’s mostly quiet with only occasional funny but nonoffensive comments on things like pop culture or whatever. then after the battle of the citadel she gets a huuuuge influx of followers, and she’s like ??? cause she doesn’t use her space twitter much, so she kinda posts once like "hey thanks for the support, look out for my album coming out next spring” and everybody loves it, until she starts talking about the reapers publicly and preparing for war, then everybody’s like “god shut up i thought you were cool” so she gets angry when it becomes apparent that most people just want a figurehead, not her to actually say anything, but she can’t go back to making jokes and pretending things are normal, so she stops posting altogether. maybe like, once or twice more about something irrelevant, and then three weeks later she’s dead. (and then her crew like garrus and tali in particular waste so much time on the internet looking at her online profiles, rereading her last posts, hunting through years worth of her feed far back enough to see she was a different person once, both of them in mourning but garrus denying it)

and then me2 happens, and she’s obviously not thinking about social media for a while. when she does, it’s like maybe midway through the game, like maybe on illium kasumi drags her out to dinner cause she found authentic thai in the markets, and shepard’s just content enough to think “this is the kind of meal you post a picture about and share on social media” and she considers it before remembering oh yeah i was dead……. is my account even still there? how weird would it be to suddenly post out of nowhere again? i know the rumor is i was just under cover, but would it help or hurt the war to treat this like normal? and she basically overanalyzes and decides not to say anything at all. (in reality i think after she died her account was given the space equivalent of a twitter verification, like Yes This Was The Real Shepard’s Account, Tweets Might Be Recorded, which she only discovers after she logs in on a whim back on the ship). i don’t think she breaks this social media fast until she either uses it one day because she 1) completely forgets she was avoiding it, like she just wakes up randomly and types “i had the weirdest fuckin dream let me tell yall about it” because she’s still half asleep and convinces herself it’s a good idea, then goes back to sleep and wakes up to a million notifications like “i KNEW YOU WERE BACK!!” and “SOMEONE HACKED SHEPARD’S ACCOUNT THAT’S DISGRACEFUL” and she’s like oh boy. OR 2) she gets so heated over something stupid (that is definitely about human pop culture) that she completely forgets/doesnt give a rat’s ass anymore about maintaining silence online. like “I JUST HEARD SPACE BEYONCE WASN’T NOMINATED FOR A GRAMMY LAST YEAR. WHAT THE FUCK?” after the collector base, she feels a little more freedom to be funny and has the time to engage and post about pop culture again, so she gains some attention back for that

by me3, coming out of alliance-imposed isolation, i think she takes back to the internet whenever she can, for better or worse, but because most of the news she swallows is so awful, she tries to be positive and reach out to people who @ her, like she doesn’t want to lie to them, but she tries to signal boost official evacuation and relocation efforts and stuff. when the alliance starts gaining allies, there’s a little bit of expectation for her to use her accounts as a political “so honored the turian hierarchy is joining us” blah blah kind of tweet, so she’s kind of like…. well people deserve to know we’ve made an accord, but i’m gonna do it my way, and she essentially starts sharing all the stuff that’s happening on the citadel that might get easily lost in translation, like

“i can confirm councilor udina was just killed by spectre williams after a standoff on the presidum, after he threatened the life of another councilor. we have confirmed that he was compromised by cerberus after his participation in a failed coup. please see the official statement for more details. the death of a high profile politician is always a shock, but to those feeling betrayed, i want every human and alien to be reminded that spectres are chosen to protect the galaxy from both foreign and internal threats. ashley williams takes her role seriously, as do i, and her actions saved lives yesterday. in light of the recent citadel attack, the alliance would also like me to encourage people to remain vigilant against cerberus cyberwarfare and contact with reaper tech. stay safe, everyone.”

just like, very honest, frank statements or clarifications that might not otherwise get out there, with an emphasis on trying to keep morale as high as reasonably possible. it’s not classified info, but she wants people to stay informed, like she wants people across the galaxy being bombarded who think they’ve been abandoned to know that she’s still fighting for them everywhere she can. even though she’s feeling really dejected and pessimistic sometimes i think she’s determined to make other people believe they can win even when she isn’t sure herself.

post-war (AHHA YOU THOUGHT I WAS DONE AFTER ME3, DIDNT YOU) as soon as she can travel, she kind of shoves her way into politics via reconstruction efforts despite her unstable health because she’s terrified everything will just go back to normal and the underprivileged people in slums and terminus colonies will be ignored. i think she keeps up the informative trend of letting people know what’s going on, like explaining what this or that emergency bill that was just passed by the council means, ‘cause she’s still new to politics and honesty all this dense language would’ve definitely confused her too. eventually as things start getting more settled she feels less guilty posting about how her day’s going. and then at one point, there is definitely a collective internet freakout when shepard acknowledges/makes a joke about one of the memes about her, and she’s like “what, you guys think i never go online or something?? i was a teenager once, i know how the internet works!” (she actually doesn’t spend that much time in forums or the like, she just learned about the meme from garrus and vega.)

(and then at some point post-war garrus, who used to have a dumbass video game let’s play account that gained a ton of popularity after me1 when shepard found out about it and asked to play turian call of duty with him on it (the vid was entitled “i play turian call of duty with commander shepard (my co)” and was mostly just them horsing around and then it went viral, but he took it down after she died and then purged the whole account/his entire online presence when he went to omega. but anyway a while post-war garrus comes to her like “hey you remember that video we made” “i remember the jokes about it” “well uh, i just managed to fix this old console i found at a flea market, do you want to do it again? yknow just kill time and lift people’s spirits?” so he makes a new account and introduces her to a lot of other games, she’s good at space overwatch but then when she gets cocky he makes her play like turian dark souls or some shit, and they record and post it online for kicks too)

fuck, i still have one more question left to answer???? i spent a fucking lifetime writing up this, I TOLD YOU ASKING ME QUESTIONS ABOUT LYDIA WAS A MISTAKE

49)   Would they consider themselves as a good person, bad person, or morally grey?

mostly i dont think she lets herself think about whether she’s a “good” person because emotionally, and morally, she doesn’t feel much different than she was when she was committing crimes for a living (though she knows logically she’s grown a lot, she convinced herself back then that she was justified in doing bad things by just trying to survive, which is… not entirely too different from now). anyway she still feels like she’s trying to make up for who she used to be, like she wants to put more good into the world than the harm she once contributed to, or failing that, she can at least remove as much of the evil in the galaxy as she can. (i keep forgetting to clarify, she didn’t just do petty theft and break-ins and lookouts and illegal reselling, she was occasionally a debt collector and beat people near to the point of death with biotics, and she hated it but it was mostly out of sympathy that she insisted on going instead of another gangster because if it were anyone else she knows they might’ve dismembered or tortured the person too.)

god i still haven’t answered your question. ive been writing for a full hour, keely. the long and short of it is that i think she’s morally gray. i call her paragade for a reason. she tries really hard to be a good person to make up for who she was (who she “had” to be), so she fights to save every life she can, but against enemies that show no remorse or whatnot, some of her old habits of ruthlessness and reluctance to forgive die hard. 

ASK ME QUESTIONS ABOUT MY OCS IF YOU FEEL LIKE SCROLLING PAST MORE LONG PARAGRAPHS ON YOUR DASH, YO