#I was just trying to throw out some lore theories then blinked and had this

[justagirlinacape]

Been thinking about the implications of scars “stuck on secret life” lore

Like to the others know? Depending on which memory headcanon you follow at least one person remembers secret life happening, and maybe even know that he won. Does he talk about it with them? If he dosnt, can they tell anyways? Do the people who don’t remember still know something is up because of the behavior changes that come with long stretches of isolation?

And he had to go back?? Did he want to or was he forced? That means that his whole life after winning consists of being completely alone with the only times he sees his friends or anyone is when they’re all killing each other. Sure that won’t do any lasting damage lol. Do the other players notice him getting more and more unhinged each season as this routine drives him insane?

Also, if we’re looking at cross series lore, if scar can only be in one life series or another for presumably forever, who the fuck is on hermitcraft?

Just imagine the life series members come back from their latest game, all of them feeling something was off with scar but not paying too much mind because they had other things to worry about. They get back to their respective servers afterward and scar is totally normal. Maybe they’re relived, comforted by the fact that their friend is okay, and saying that whatever odd thing was going on was because of the game. But actually the person they’re talking to isn’t scar, or at least not their scar, and he’s still stuck. Their scar is never going to be able to give them that feeling of relief, because he’s not okay. He’s probably never going to be okay again.

And maybe they start to piece it together. One wrong word here, another there, nothing specific enough to cause any real alarm, just an odd feeling that they get. In the back of their minds they know something’s not right, but it’s never enough to put into words. But scars doing so well on hermitcraft right? Sure he acts weird during the games, but they’re death games everyone’s acting a little out of charectar. And no one wants to face the possibility that something’s wrong, so they’ll just leave it be. They don’t have any sort of hard evidence and no one wants to make a big deal out of nothing

Or maybe they do know. Maybe, deep down each and every one of them knows that scar is not theirs, no matter how identical he may be. But everyone was hurt by the games, and theres no reason to bring back bad memories.

Maybe they do know the smiling face on hermitcraft isnt actually their friend

Maybe they don’t care.

[theodora3022]

Once upon a (fever) Dream

Relationship: Scaramouche x Reader (Gender neutral)

Summary: Scaramouche is unwell with a fever, it's your responsiblity to take care of your superior. Little did you know, overhearing his fever sleep talk would turn your life upside down.

Author's notes: I'm trying to get back into the writing groove! Scaramouche has been on my mind a lot ever since the lore of the pale flame set was datamined. If you are interested in the theory I based my fic on, one of my dear mutuals made this informative post. This is pretty tame and more of a psychological analysis more than a fic tbh.

I will not take any criticism on the theory.

Warnings: SFW, Character study-ish, abundance of internal monologues, use of swear words, hints of speculation on Scaramouche's backstory/identity, power imbalance, possessive and obsessive behaviour, trust issues(??)

"Another day Feelin' like no one really knows me It's okay At least I'm used to being lonely"

-Jake Daniels "The Show"

Scaramouche is having trouble distinguishing the dream realm and the waking world. Tch, this always happens when he falls ill.

Dreams. Stupid, meaningless things he cannot control. Scaramouche is never a fan of them. Sleeping is just a way to recharge one's energy for the following day, so why is this petty factor even a possibility? Memories mixed with random shit. Fever dreams are even worse, because he cannot force himself to wake up, and they might even allow forbidden information to be exposed.

The Balladeer seldom falls ill. But when he does...he needs some subordinates to look after him. Not that he got any other option.

Unpleasant to work with? Talks way too much? Eh, not that he cares. Scaramouche does not see the need to present himself as likeable. Like is a temporary, fragile concept compared to fear.

There was a time in his long life, he thought he was loved...the love he received turned out to be nothing more than one of his past naive self’s delusions in the end. No, it is meaningless in being nostalgic over that.

Damn this Moronic fever, stirring his mind all messy...

Fear is a better alternative, more secure and firm.

"Sir, it's time for your medicine." You knock, hesitating when there is no granting of entry from his end.

This unfortunate task: taking care of the bedridden harbinger has fallen onto you as of late. Being the newest recruit in his sector, of course, your seniors would throw this troublesome work to a rookie like you.

The optimal approach is: Do what you are supposed to do as a subordinate, sprint through the doorway once you complete your tasks. Being in his room longer than needed will only result in harsh insults. That foul mouth does not seem to know any mercy.

"Sir?" You ask again, mentally preparing yourself for the possible scolding before turning the doorknob. Letting yourself in is not a wise idea, however, this is your obligation. Lord Balladeer would be even more upset if you had brought in the medicine at the right time.

"No...Please don't...I promise I'll be-" Is that, sleep talking? Oh archons, why?

Those facial expressions are not pleasant ones. A nightmare, great.

Is there a way to unhear things? You sure wish there is. Scaramouche's life before his service has always been a popular topic of break time gossip among the Fatui. Some say he is of noble birth from that arrogant attitude, some say he comes from a peasant family, there are even absurd speculation about him being a fisherman before. However, his subordinates know better than to gossip in his presence. No rumours were ever confirmed or denied.

Who knows what he would do if the Harbinger catches you "eavesdropping". The mutterings have quiet down now, but you still have paperwork to attend to after this(that he assigned you).

"How much of that did you hear?" Just when you are contemplating whether to poke the sleeping bear or not, that menacing violet gaze has already fixated at you. Did he sleep talk? Scaramouche is uncertain. Still, it is always better to be safe than to be sorry.

At least he’s awake now, no need to wake him anymore. You said to yourself quietly. “Not much, my lord. I will forget everything as soon as possible. Now, time for your medicine.”

That scent makes Scaramouche’s stomach churns. A pot of dark goo and a plate of sugared plums, just like yesterday and the day prior. Wait, wasn’t he-

“How do I know that you don’t go whisper to your friends?”

Efficiency and resilience. Those are the two essential qualities one must possess if one wishes to remain in Scaramouche’s service. He may be a difficult superior, but his sector gets a relatively decent chunk of field missions, therefore it is easier to move up the ranks for new recruits. Who knows when you would get a promotion if you just deal with financial transactions in banks under Pantalone.

Perhaps it is sight of the oh so mighty man in such a fragile state, you are feeling...braver than usual. “My lord, what do I have to gain from gossiping?” Do you focus on unscrewing the cap of the pot, sounding somewhat amused? That unnoticeable curl did not escape his eyes.

When was the last time a recruit dared to look him straight in the eye like this? Scaramouche has no recollection. That immense headache is not helping either. Whatever, what matters now is making sure you do not go slipping off what you heard to others.

After handing the utensils and the pot to your superior, you head outside, prepared to stand in the hallway until he finishes the pot.

“Did I give you permission to leave?”

Aren’t you curious about what he is hiding? Humans love to pry by nature, right? It’s not the first time he had to dispose of those who know too much after all.

“Do you need anything else, my lord?” Of course, he’s not gonna let you off the bat that easily. What were you thinking? Deep breathes, (y/n). It’s not like he is going to electrocute you in this state.

“I wish to keep this head on my shoulders.” In an organization like the Fatui, new recruits are seen as resources that can be disposed of if needed. No one would blink an eye if you were to die of “accidental” death.

“You say that, but your eyes tell a different story.” Since when does he care about what is going in the minds of his subordinates?

“Sir, you can deal with me once you are fully recovered. Her Majesty, the Tsaritsa needs you in top condition as soon as possible.”

Gulping down the thick porridge, the little man then lied down, trying to sleep the fever away. The sensation of the quilt moving almost made him jump, he thought you had left the room already? What do you think you are doing?

Did you pull the quilt up to his chin? It’s not like he needs that cloth, but...this notion.

He’s so adorable when he’s sleeping. You thought as you walked through the door.

Did you just… tuck him in?? That is what’s that called right? Arranging the covers for someone?

You really should know better than treating your superior like some infant. However, that is not a mocking gesture. Scaramouche supposes he’ll let this one slide.

As the door shuts behind you, you hummed a cheerful melody, trying to not think about what would happen once he’s back on his feet. Hopefully, he will let you live on if you try hard enough to prove your usefulness.

You are reckless. You have no idea what you got yourself into.

He just had the perfect way to make sure his secrets remained in safe hands.

Someone else would take care of your current position. What would that leave you? Hmm, a personal assistant would be fitting for someone as caring as you. Personal, somehow he likes the sound of that already. Scaramouche had loathed the idea of having someone tend to his daily life, complete independence is a goal he always strives to achieve. Now...that idea does not seem that horrible after all. Do you even know how to brew tea? You’ll have to learn if not, and quickly too.

His past must remain a secret until the situation calls for it, that much is certain. Unstable variables should be placed under constant surveillance, and Scaramouche can only rely on himself to guard something as important as this.

(A/N: Thank you for reading this character study fic!! Relogs and comments will be greatly appreciated!)

[fishybehavior]

girl help, I'm caught up in my own brainrot for a slowburn plasma fic au, where Jay is a fanfic writer and Kai just wants to understand what Starfarer is

- - -

Logging into his Readdit account, Jay looked through the usual memes and updates on the Starfarer's thread. Throwing his comments and memes around. Chuckling at the weird theories and crack idea’s near the bottom. He was about to sign off and check up on some friends when an alert popped on his screen. A message from his friend, one of the mods on the board.

“Lol. check this out ur always complaining about having no one to talk to” It read, a link to a post, posted several hours before. It must’ve been buried underneath everything else.

“Looking for someone to explain the goddamn lore of this stupid show” The title stated, it explained that the poster had a little brother into the show, but they couldn’t understand any of the lore. “Looking for someone patient with internet illiterate dorks.” Raising an eyebrow at the odd description, he looked at the comments below to see that the poster was the first comment, listing ways to contact them.

“Ignore the internet illiterate comment, my stupid sister put it in and i dont know how to change it.” Jay couldn’t help but chuckle, looking at the two ways of contacting this poster he decided to do Disharmony, it was the easiest way anyway.

“eyo!! i saw ur post on readdit

im always free if u got questions about the fandom or the lore :]”

- - -

Hours later, Jay was scrolling through Rumblr when he heard the oh so familiar, yet annoying, ding of Disharmony. Sharing the fanart he was looking at, he switched over to the app, looking to see if it was his friends screaming over his new rewrite ideas. But no, it was a message from a barely familiar name, $hougun1987, the guy with the Readdit post.

“hey”

“yello, how u being? :)” Jay responded quickly.

“uhhhhhhh, fine i guess.”

Jay hummed, he didn’t want to scare him off, but the guy didn’t seem comfortable. “So u want to know more about starfarer?”

He watched nothing happen for a second, then the small writing icon appeared. Jay had set his to be a bluebird, it slowly flapped its wings as he waited for the guy to reply.

“yeah my lil bro is super into it. Loves to talk about it, but i dont understand a thing he says about it”

Jay nodded in understanding; he wanted to share the show with many of his friends too. But after the third death in the second season and the weird time travel episode that messed with a lot of the timeline, he always ended up losing them in the confusion.

“its pretty awesome ur willing to try and understand it most find it pretty duanting”

“i dont care if it is you should see his face light up when he talks about it, all I want is to understand half of what hes saying he’ll light up so much more when he can talk about it to someone” They responded immediately, Jay was shocked about the passion in his words.

“if u dont mind me asking why r u asking for someone to explain it? theres plenty of vids about it”

“You cant ask videos questions”

“Comments?”

“They all speak gibberish too Imm stubborn and suck at learning I just need a person who can go slow and can answer questoins"

Jay blinked, this almost seems too perfect. Someone who wanted all the details, and was willing to listen to him ramble about every aspect of the show he had been hyper-fixating on for almost two years now? AND was going to ask questions. . .

He couldn’t pass this up, even his own friends in the community were tired of listening to him ramble about the show.

“we’ll, honestly, my dude, this sounds like a great project id be more than happy to help if u want me” Jay responded, not trying to sound too excited.

“sounds good how about we start tomorrow? ill message u”

“Yee! what ur name btw?”

“what!?! im not giving you my name!!”

Chuckling he quickly responded, “i dont want ur name, just wanna know what to call u we’re going to be chatting for a while it’d be awkward to call u dude the whole time”

There was a pause, and for a second Jay was worried that he scared him off, but then the app dinged as he responded.

“shogun, call me shogun”

Grinning from ear to ear, Jay replied. “hi shogun, im plasma :)”

[specterchasing-a]

I'll Stick With Being Human || Milo & Eddie

TIMING: 2015

LOCATION: White Crest High School

PARTIES: @wickedmilo​ & @specterchasing​

SUMMARY: Milo and Eddie wind up together in detention... again. Eddie talks about believing in vampires, but Milo’s not buying it.

Realistically, Milo knew smoking during the detention he was being given for smoking wasn’t a very smart idea. But he wasn’t good at making smart decisions, and where was the fun in following the rules? If he was in trouble for smoking on school grounds, then what did he really have to lose by smoking on school grounds? A genuine question, one he was confident he knew the answer to. Besides, he had a lookout this time. A friend he had met on multiple occasions during his after school adventures. It seemed they both had a habit of getting caught out, but clearly their punishments were doing nothing to deter them. Every now and then another student would join them, people would come and go. But Eddie seemed to be a constant, and he was grateful for that fact. Pushing the window open as far as he possibly could, he knew from experience they probably had ten minutes before a member of staff returned to check on them, so he sparked up, glancing back towards Eddie who was peering through the glass in the doorway. 

“You can’t be fucking serious.” He muttered, in response to his company's previous statement. They had shared many conversations about ghosts and ghouls, Eddie being a very avid believer in the supernatural. He was more than willing to humour him, especially given how well it managed to pass the time. But vampires? Vampires might be pushing it. He exhaled a breath of smoke, laughing easily as he pulled a nearby desk towards where he was standing. Clambering to sit on it, the height didn’t give him much of an advantage, but it allowed him to better direct the smoke outside. “What, you think they sparkle?” He teased. He couldn’t say he knew very much about ‘vampiric’ lore, beyond what he saw in modern mainstream media. No doubt he was about to learn an awful lot, but he was never going to walk away with the same level of conviction. How could he? “Don’t you think if vampires existed, people would have figured that shit out by now? Hey- keep watching the hall, dude! If I get another detention because of you, I’m taking you down with me. You know that, right?” 

Eddie never learned how to keep his mouth shut. Teachers issued warnings, but he couldn’t resist the urge to give voice to whatever thoughts he deemed important enough. More often than not, his chatty nature landed him in hot water, not that he minded. With Milo around, detention wasn’t all that bad. With most of his fellow students, Eddie understood the importance of keeping his cards to his chest. If he mentioned ghosts or other such creatures to them, it was more than likely that he’d wind up ridiculed—or worse. That wasn’t the case with Milo. Sure, he liked to tease Eddie about his theories but mostly he just listened. Eddie appreciated that about him.

As soon as Milo offered his rebuttal, Eddie rolled his eyes. The scent of smoke stung his nostrils, inspiring a grimace to form. “Ease up, Summers. If you get caught, it’ll be thanks to that stench, not me,” he warned, but quickly directed his gaze toward the hallway to be safe. As far as he could tell, the coast was clear. Eddie’s arms folded over his chest as he leaned against an unoccupied desk. “The whole point is that people already know about vampires—just not, y’know, everyone. And, no, they don’t sparkle… probably.” Admittedly, Eddie didn’t know enough about vampires to relay any facts with unshakable conviction, but that didn’t dissuade him from his belief. 

“But, if you look at an obscene number of deaths in White Crest dating all the way back to the 1700s, you’ll notice a pretty obvious pattern of neck punctures and exsanguination. You can’t tell me that doesn’t seem pretty fuckin’ weird to you.” Eddie eyed him pointedly as if daring him to argue. “I’m right about this, I know I am. I just… have to figure out how to prove it conclusively, is all.”

Milo pointedly exhaled a breath of smoke, blowing it towards the open window before turning to watch as it was pulled outside by a barely existent breeze. “A smell doesn’t prove anything.” He countered. “So long as they don’t see me smoking, it isn’t like they can do shit.” That probably wasn’t true, but he would much rather believe it was. “The whole point is sooo not that people already know about vampires,” he laughed, allowing himself to be drawn back into the conversation. He often liked to tease Eddie about his beliefs, though it was all in good nature. There was no harm in the way he saw the world, and if he was being entirely honest, more often than not, he was genuinely interested to hear more. He wasn’t the type of person to admit that, so he continued their discussions with playful jabs, and questions intended to catch out his friend. As far as he could tell, Eddie didn’t mind. 

“Probably?” He raised his eyebrows, his eyes shining as he took another hasty drag from his cigarette. “Look, every small town has weird deaths. Come on, I mean small towns are already fucking weird. No matter where you go there’s some urban legend, or cryptid living in the woods. It’s just shit people made up to entertain themselves before tv became a thing.” Pausing to think for a moment, he wasn’t sure how to explain the puncture wounds. Then again, he had never seen proof or done any research. For all he knew, Eddie’s information was biased. “What about the vampires in Victorian London? You know those creepy stories of people climbing out of their graves? I read an article about that once, the vampire even made the papers, but everything had a logical explanation. Stuff wasn’t exactly reliable back then. People were confirmed dead all the time when they were just… I don’t know, taking a nap or something. And you think animals don’t go for the neck sometimes? Or people don’t get carried away with their kinks?” He grinned, watching to see if Eddie became flustered, or took the comment in his stride.

At the mention of kink-related deaths, Eddie let out a huff of laughter. “What a way to go,” he mused with a smirk, trying to ignore how warm his cheeks suddenly felt. With how sex-obsessed boys his age were, Eddie quickly learned the importance of seeming comfortable discussing the subject. Still, he much preferred talking about vampires; he understood them better.

“Look, I’m not saying that mundane reasons for puncture wounds don’t exist, y’know, they do, but what if that’s not always the case?” Eddie’s shoulders raised along with his eyebrows. “Not to sound completely unhinged, but maybe—just maybe—Vampires don’t want people to know about them and, over the years, they’ve been covering up the truth with logical explanations. They’re immortal, they’ve got plenty of free time to do so.” 

Eddie glanced back at the hallway to make sure Milo remained unspotted, quickly returning his attention to him when all was clear. “And who’s to say that logical explanations and the supernatural can’t coexist? The same result can occur even with vastly different triggers. If we hold on too tightly to what we understand, we’ll never find out how massive and diverse the world really is.” 

Milo laughed, smoke unfurling on his breath. “I’m sure there are worse ways.” He pointed out, tapping ash onto the window ledge before sweeping it away with his hand. He could see the faint blush on Eddie’s face, but did nothing to draw attention to it. He was more than satisfied by his answer, and making him feel self conscious would be far more malicious than a few playful comments about sex. “I mean, even if the puncture wounds aren’t coming from something mundane, I’m just saying it’s a bit of a stretch to assume mythological creature, you know?” Laughing again, he took one final drag of his cigarette before killing it and throwing it outside. It would only land on the grassy bank two floors below, nobody was ever going to notice. “It’s too late,” he teased. “You sound unhinged, but that’s why I like you.” 

Sliding off of the desk, he made a point of dragging it back to where it previously had been, deciding to wait before closing the window so that the smell of smoke had longer to dissipate. “You know, I get it. If I was a vampire I wouldn’t exactly want people to know.” He admitted, thinking about it very briefly before continuing. “But don’t you think like, with technology and shit like Twilight, people might start to notice if vampires were actually out there?” Grinning easily as his friend began to talk in his usual way, passion lacing his tone as he fought to sound reasonable and profound, he took a seat back at his allocated desk. He couldn’t hide the affection he felt, and couldn’t deny the fact that Eddie did sound reasonable, and profound. But he wasn’t about to give in so easily. “What’s the scientific explanation for Edward sparkling? That’s the real fucking question here.” 

At the mention of his theory being a stretch, Eddie responded with an indifferent shrug. “To reach the truth, sometimes a little stretching is necessary.” He thought about his ability to see and hear ghosts, how no reasonable explanation for that existed. It seemed a little far fetched to think of himself as an anomaly. Others had to be out there. 

“You sound unhinged, but that’s why I like you.” Eddie blinked in surprise at Milo’s comment, a slow grin tugging at the corners of his lips. “Careful, or I’ll take that as a greenlight to unload my even weirder theories.” He liked Milo, too. On a few occasions in the past, he thought about asking if they could hang-out outside of detention, but could never muster up the courage to go through with it. Regardless, he had no trouble considering him a friend.

“I mean, people have,” Eddie replied enthusiastically. “If you look online, there’s plenty of people discussing the existence of vampires and there’s no way they’re all bullshitting.” As soon as Milo sat down, Eddie took a trip to the desk next to his and seated himself. His knees tucked under the metal bar connecting the chair to the flat surface of the desk so that his attention was solely on his fellow delinquent. “There’s even talk of slayers; people born to hunt vampires. Just because the media refuses to cover something, doesn’t mean it’s not out there.”

When the conversation circled back to Edward Cullen, Eddie laughed. “Who’s to say? Maybe vampires just have a thing for glitter. But, in reality, they probably don’t get a chance to sparkle for too long before they burst into flames.” He went quiet for a moment, deep thought furrowing his brow. “Y’know, I read a lot about supernatural beings and, with some, I can’t help but think how cool it would be to be like them, but vampires? Mostly, I feel bad for them.”

“I don’t know if scientists would agree with that logic.” Milo teased. “But every YA author out there is screaming. You should write a book.” Laughing easily at the mention of wilder, and weirder theories, he wasn’t surprised Eddie had them. And he would be lying if he said he wasn’t secretly interested in hearing more. But instead, he matched his friends grin, tilting lazily back in his chair. “We can save those for double detention, they sound like they might take more than an hour to get through.” 

Raising his eyebrows, at his friend’s following comment, he shot him a pointedly skeptical look. “You have been on the internet, right? Are you sure these aren’t just people trying to will their fantasies into existence? Do you know how many girls cry themselves to sleep because they aren’t about to marry a vampire who sparkles in the sun?” Turning slightly as Eddie took the seat beside him, he picked up the pen he had abandoned to smoke, tapping it absentmindedly against his desk. “Wait, so Van Helsing is also out there?” He was feigning disbelief again, making out he didn’t genuinely want to know, but he had a feeling Eddie recognised that. They had spent far too much time together now for him to buy into the disinterested act. “I’ve never actually heard anyone talk about slayers before.” He admitted. “Not in the context of like, conspiracy theories.” 

His eyes shining as the conversation inevitably circled back to Edward, it felt good to make Eddie smile. Regardless of why they were both in detention, it wasn’t exactly a great way to spend an hour of your time afterschool. Eddie made it bearable for him, and he liked to think he did the same in return. “Burst into flames like an explosion? Or is it not that dramatic? I like the idea of being incredibly extra. If you’re gonna go, why not do it in a burst of fucking flames.” His smile faltering as the joking began to ease up, there weren’t many things he considered during their conversations about the supernatural. He listened, he laughed, he encouraged. But this was interesting, why would anybody take sympathy for a creature that was historically supposed to be bloodthirsty, and out of control? What lore did Eddie know? “You do?” He asked curiously. “Why? They get to live forever, and have cool powers, right? Doesn’t sound so awful to me.” 

Eddie had very little interest in fiction, but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t dream of one day knowing enough about the supernatural to write books. Most people would disregard them, but he hoped that some would take him seriously. “I’ll make sure to get into even more trouble than usual,” Eddie promised, not that it took much effort from him.

“Yeah, I know it’s not always smart to believe what you read on forums, but some of these people really sound like they know a thing or two.” Eddie needed some of the claims to be genuine. If they weren’t, it meant everything he knew was built on lies. 

When Milo feigned disbelief, Eddie responded with raised brows and pursed lips, still unable to completely erase his grin. “Yeah, they’re like, total badasses who do everything they can to keep vampires off the streets. They’re basically superheroes.” But, no matter how much Eddie wanted to root for slayers, he couldn’t find it in himself to want all vampires to die. Most of them didn’t ask to be creatures of the night, it seemed wrong to paint them all as villains.

“Your guess is as good as mine but, now that you mention it, I hope there’s some flair.” Eddie should have hated detention, but Milo actually gave him a reason to look forward to it. They didn’t have a lot in common, but they kept each other entertained. Eddie didn’t know many people who made him laugh like Milo did, it was nice. 

“I dunno,” Eddie said when the laughter died down. “If you ask me, the whole immortality thing sounds like a raw deal. They’re destined to outlive everything they love. And then there’s the whole needing to drink blood to survive—what if they don’t wanna hurt anybody? But, y’know, they have to or they die slowly and painfully. No more sunlight, no more normal life, just shadows and blood. I don’t think there’s a superpower out there that would make a life like that worth it, do you?”

“I feel like you don’t need any help with getting into trouble,” Milo pointed out. “But then neither do I so I guess I’ll see you same time next week?” Humming quietly in response, he smirked at Eddie, unable to help himself. “You said that, not me.” There was no harm in checking out forums, of course. And it seemed to make his friend incredibly happy, but he wasn’t about to ruin their dynamic by being supportive. “Anyone can sound like they know a thing or two, I could probably convince you I’m a doctor with all the useless knowledge my parents have forced on me over the years. But please don’t let me anywhere near medical equipment, you know? I’m a liability.” Laughing at the idea of slayers being superheroes, he had only ever seen one trashy Van Helsing movie, but his mind decided to conjure the image of its serious, angsty protagonist proudly wearing a bright red cape. “Maybe don’t tell the slayers that, they probably have better fashion sense...” 

Clicking his pen so that he could doodle on the desk as he listened, he found himself drawing a stick figure with fangs. He was tempted to surround the figure in flames, but the thought made him feel a little guilty. Maybe he had been spending too much time with Eddie. “I feel like if there was flair, the viral videos would be endless.” He pointed out. “If we’re really going with vampires being legit it’s probably quiet, and highkey depressing.” A frown creasing his brow as he added a cape to his miniature vampire, he began to colour it black, needing to make it clear it wasn’t a tacky superhero rendition. “If they stick with other vampires then maybe the immortality isn’t so bad.” He murmured thoughtfully. “But yeah, I guess maybe the other stuff doesn’t sound so great. I think I’ll stick with being Human. Can’t come to detention if I have to avoid the sunlight, and then who’s going to keep you company?”

Eddie grinned broadly at the mention of seeing Milo again the following week. It felt nice to have a schedule involving arranged meet-ups, even if they were obligated to be there. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” he mused. Milo launched into a short speech about the importance of credible sources and, as much as Eddie hated to admit it, he made a fair point. “Okay, yeah, you’re not wrong, but I’m not giving them permission to remove my appendix. I’m just reading what they have to say about Vampires, so I’m probably safe unless a creature of the night decides to give me a graded pop quiz on their species,” he explained with laughter bubbling beneath his words. “Maybe, but I kinda hope they don’t. They already have superpowers, why would they need to top things off by being fashionable? That’d just be unfair.”

Eddie’s gaze landed on Milo’s doodle, the sight prolonging his grin. If it had been drawn on paper rather than a desk, he would’ve liked to have kept it. “Yeah, I think humanity’s the way to go,” he agreed as he finally looked back to his friend. “I look forward to wasting my mortality with you by spending it in detention.” Maybe next time he’d see about making plans beyond school property. 

[hesesols]

Into the WILD

Day 16 of Ichiruki month 2020

Trapped inside fantasy MMORPG. Send help please?

Rating: T

FF/ao3

.

The first thing that strikes him as odd is that the ground underneath him is dewy soft. Not that the carpet in his tiny student accommodation isn't soft. It just isn't as soft by comparison and doesn't smell so strongly of grass and urgh- he hates pollen with a vengeance.

It makes his nose itch like mad and –

Wait!

Last time he checked summer was already over and the northern hemisphere was entering early autumn.

.

Brown eyes open in alarm.

The sun is in his eyes as he sits up and he's lying in a sea of golden tulips and ruby red camellias, blades of grass and crushed flowers under his fingertips.

He isn't alone.

There are others next to him. Each one garbed in unusual medieval clothing- intimidating-looking armours with spikes and brightly-coloured capes, fur-trimmings and equally garish-looking armbands; brandishing weapons that range from claymores to wooden staffs. Everyone seems to be in more or less the same state of disbelief and wide-eyed amazement at their new surroundings.

Where are they?

And holy shit! Is that a real-life armoured bear?

.

"You look like you could use a hand there, Kurosaki."

"Ishida?"

Ishida or at least who he assumes to be Ishida- his annoying cousin of sorts and fellow guild member- stands in front of him, offering an outstretched hand. Ichigo recognizes the voice but those pointy ears, the gleaming ivory bow that stands at a grown man's height and strange cleric-like clothing- those are definitely new. He grabs hold of it and pulls himself up, wiping at the grass stains with a fierce scowl before turning to the strange elf-like creature.

"What are you wearing?

Uryuu snorts, "I could ask you the very same question, Kurosaki."

Ichigo glances at the midnight black armour he has on- light weight, extra resistance to magic and +25% endurance to all physical attacks- wait, where did that come from?- the reassuring weight of Zangetsu in his hands-

He blinks.

.

Name: Zangetsu. Also known as: Sword of the Moon, Cursed Fang. Status: Legendary. Raid item from the Sacking of the Gollum King's Palace at Hueco Mundo. The mythical black blade forged by the Grandmaster Yhwach over the Fires of Sokyouku for a full year and a half in preparation for the Conquest of the Soul King's Throne (see also Conquest of the Soul King's Throne). Grants the wielder—

.

Reeling from the surprise, he falls flat on the grass.

How the hell did that just happen? How did all those words and background information just pop into his head unprompted? Almost like they're in a fantasy RPG gam—

"What's going on?"

Uryuu's smile is grim and sardonic, sliding the half-moon glasses up the bridge of his nose before he tells him, "Don't freak out but I think we're inside the game."

.

.

.

"Anything?"

Uryuu shakes his head.

Ichigo sighs. The lines of communication are down and no one has been able to log back out into the real world since they first entered.

"This doesn't make any sense at all!"

10,000 WILD players across the world and different servers who were online and active at precisely 12 midnight that day somehow found themselves transported into the game world and trapped there as their game character persona.

They're calling it the Lockdown.

No one has a clue as to why they were the only people affected, nor do they know how they came to. One minute they were logged in, playing the game as usual; the next thing they know they're lying flat on their asses in this strange new world strongly reminiscent of the game world of WILD, as their respective game characters.

He's one of the lucky ones he thinks. As a human Swords Master, there isn't much alteration to him besides the clothes and the muscle bulk added to his physique, unlike Chad who woke up as a bear armed to the teeth with a war axe and metal gauntlets. It wouldn't have been a pleasant wake up call for anyone, much less someone who wakes up trapped inside a fantasy MMORPG.

"What about Keigo then? Have you managed to locate him yet?"

Uryuu's eyebrow twitches. The pale blue glow from his hand falters for a fraction of a second when his attention shifts to shoot his guild leader a nasty glare.

Ichigo growls before mumbling out an apology to the raven-haired Cleric. He knows of course that Uryuu is trying his best and really in a strange new world that seems equal parts deadly and fascinating, the best is all they can do.

He's just … frustrated over the lack of answers and to make matters worse, one of their own still remains unaccounted for. Out of all the guild members who decided to switch servers during the Lockdown, it just had to be Keigo- scatterbrain extraordinaire. He wouldn't trust Keigo not to get sold on some crazy-ass get-rich-quick scheme in the real world, let alone in this virtual reality full of bloodthirsty monsters just waiting to make a nice dinner out of unsuspecting players.

The double doors to his studies are suddenly pushed apart, jolting him out of his thoughts. Orihime stumbles in barefooted and narrowly avoids tripping over the trail of her druidic dress robes in her excitement. Her cheeks are flushed and the pretty flowers in her flower crown bloom and blossom in magnificent shades of pinks and violets as she makes her announcement.

"Kurosaki-kun! I have his location!"

Ichigo jumps to his feet.

.

Finally!

.

It's the first piece of good news he's had since he found himself stranded here with the rest of his guild members.

"So where is the idiot then?"

Behind her, trails Tatsuki- their resident cynic and Shield Maiden who purses her lips and informs both him and Uryuu rather miserably, "You're not going to like this. He's in the Forest."

Ichigo resists the urge to face-palm as he sees Uryuu rubbing at his temple.

"Keigo must have been on his way back to HQ and decided to take the shorter route," Uryuu rationalizes things- as the team tactician he excels at it, "he couldn't possibly have known."

That's right. Keigo couldn't possibly have known that he would get sucked into the game and be left standing in place of his game character.

Tatsuki gives a derisive snort, "Doesn't make a difference. A level 25 Bard like him can't possibly survive the Forest of Hueco Mundo alone. He's going to get himself killed. The Forest is no man's land- level 70+ Hollows and player killers aren't warded out."

All eyes turn to their orange-haired team leader.

"What do you want us to do?"

Call it instincts but Ichigo has a nasty suspicion that player death in their new world would also mean certain death in the real world. The thought makes him nauseous and for obvious reasons, he isn't too keen on testing out the theory himself.

Keigo may be a pain-in-the-neck and downright insufferable at times but damn it! He's one of them. He's their pain-in-the-neck and they can't just leave him there.

In the real world, Ichigo Kurosaki may be just an ordinary university student bogged down by studies but here in WILD, he's a guild leader, it's his job to look after his guild members and he pledges to make sure that every single one of them makes it back home to the real world in one piece.

Ichigo heaves a loud weary sigh, grabbing the sleek black katana by his side.

"Let's go get our idiot back!"

.

.

.

"I told you we should have gone left instead of right!"

Tatsuki can feel her skull throbbing. She should have just stayed behind with Chad and Orihime.

"Stop yelling at me! It's not my bloody fault that you're so fucking incompetent that you couldn't get a better map!"

"Oh so I'm the incompetent one?! Never mind I was the one who organized the rations! We would have starved to death days ago if I hadn't triple checked our provisions!"

Tatsuki grimaces as the feel of exhaustion creeps in as does the unbearable chaffing on her thighs. It wasn't just the lines of communications that were shut off with the Lockdown. It turns out the Portals- their main means of transport have also been disrupted and that means that the full distance between Karakura and the Forest had to be covered by good old-fashioned horse-riding.

They've been riding nonstop since they left Karakura, trading horses with NPCs in the farmlands nearby to push ahead at a gruelling pace and rescue Keigo as soon as possible. It is a noble cause but the trade-off for the weeks' long worth of hard-riding leaves the three riders surly and sullen. This virtual reality that they're trapped in certainly feels real enough, right down to hunger pangs and sore muscles.

Chaffed thighs, bland food, little sleep and the heat (the sheer humidity was making her hair frizz) made for horrible traveling condition and it seems that both Ichigo and Uryuu are about to hit their respective boiling points.

She rolls her eyes, tugging at her horse's rein to halt.

"Both of you need to shut up before –"

A sudden rustling in the bushes nearby draws their collective attention and sure enough from the depth of the overgrown bushes, a Hollow emerges. This one seems more reptilian in features, flickering pink tongue and all. Something jumps at the back of her mind but Tatsuki ignores it.

The Guide is nothing more than a useless collection of WILD lore and trivia.

She doesn't need a lecture on Hollow classes and their special attacks to know that the only good Hollow is a dead one.

With a loud battle war cry, she unsheathes her blade and leads the charge, throwing herself against the beast.

.

.

Ichigo leaps through the dense foliage with Zangetsu drawn and bloodied in his hand. Despite Tatsuki's misgivings about his foolhardy plans and recklessness, the woman is just as bad with her own brand of battle lust, leading the charge like a crazy berserker.

All hell literally broke loose the second they stormed through the clearing. The sheer number of the Hollow horde overwhelmed them and forced them to break formation and the three of them took off in different directions in a bid to divide the remaining Hollows' attention.

He ducks behind a tree to catch his breath. Having lost sight of both Uryuu and Tatsuki during their retreat, he is in a sour mood and more than a little embarrassed that a level 98 Swordsmaster like him is being forced back by a horde of weakling Hollows in level 50s.

"Psst. Ichigo."

Ichigo grips Zangetsu tightly, eyes nervously darting at his surroundings. He could have sworn that he heard Keigo's voice. Well it's either that or he's officially losing his mind.

"Over here."

A head pops out from the bushes next to him and Ichigo reacts accordingly- nearly slicing the newcomer's head clean off his shoulder and Keigo almost becomes a casualty of friendly fire before Ichigo sees through the heavy layer of disguise and stops the blade mid-swing.

"Keigo?"

The bard is barely recognizable with his slashed and dirtied tunic, patches of dirt and dried leaves covering his face.

"The fuck you doing- sneaking up on me like that! I could have killed you!"

Keigo couldn't have cared less. With a loud wail and snot running down his face, he throws himself at his saviour and professes his undying gratitude in between hiccups and tears.

"ICHIGO! I knew you would come for me! I never doubted for a second!"

"Get off me! You stink!"

The happy reunion doesn't last as the roar of a Hollow and heavy footsteps of a lumbering giant still their movements. Ichigo pushes Keigo away from him and readies his blade, but even his quick reflexes are no match for the suddenness of the attack.

"ICHIGO!"

The Hollow's swipe knocks the air right out of him and sends him flying. The tree trunk of a young sapling snaps in half as his back connects painfully with it. The pain disorients him and he is enough of a doctor's son to recognize the signs of concussion. Also, he thinks he might have cracked a rib (or two) as fresh blood- metallic in taste gurgles past his throat.

His vision clears in time for him to see the Hollow- a Dragon class one with beady yellow, thick, iridescent scales covering its front and gigantic wings sprouted at his back, rearing up for another charge.

This time at Keigo, who is down on his knees- eyes wide with fear as he scrambles to get away from the advancing Hollow.

There's no time to think. Ichigo pushes everything he has- the very last spurt of HP and MP within him towards Keigo, taking his place before the monster with gapping mouth, awaiting certain death to come.

.

.

"Out of the way!"

His eyes snap open just in time to see a small lithe figure, sunlight reflecting off the bone white armour- so bright that he squints, leaping through air and landing gracefully on the Hollow's back. A glint of light flashes yet again and before his very eyes, one of the Hollow's tattered wings is cut off, an arc of blood spurts high into the air and the Hollow's roar of anguish follows.

"Are you deaf or stupid? Get out of the way!"

Ichigo doesn't hesitate. With Keigo tucked under his arm, he pushes past the pain and sprints for the clearing.

With them gone, the mysterious stranger makes quick work of the beast, easily dismantling its other wing before diving for the kill; sinking the white blade somewhere between the soft scruff, flabs of excess skin free from the scaly armour.

Ichigo watches in silence as the dying monster screeches in pain, a swan's song in roars of fury before it topples over with dead eyes, a fine cloud of dust from where its body fell.

With the urgency of the situation gone, he focuses on the newcomer. Sheathing Zangetsu as it becomes apparent from the markings and sigil on the stranger's shield and helmet that he is a Paladin, one dedicated to the path of the light. They're in safe hands- for now at least.

"Where did you come from?"

The Paladin regards him oddly.

"What do you mean?"

.

"Princess!"

Half a dozen of swords are suddenly drawn and held under their throats by what seems to be a band of armed knights. Their armours gleam with the same bone-white shine and the leader of the men- a tall redhead with inked markings across his forehead approaches them with a fierce scowl and the intent to kill.

Next to him, Keigo yelps.

"The fuck!" Ichigo curses. His chest hurts, he's barely standing on his feet and now this?

Can this day get any worse?

.

"Watch your mouth, you punk!" The redhead growls threateningly, "You're in the presence of the Princess."

Amber eyes narrow. Did they think he's stupid? There's no one vaguely even female in their company unless—

The Paladin removes his helmet and a cascade of black hair- dark as the night pours forth. Apple cheeks, soft petal lips and elfin features curtailed somewhat by the iciness of her stare and her unsmiling face.

Their eyes meet.

.

Oh!

.

The short stature suddenly makes so much sense. Ichigo gulps.

"They're Heroes, Renji."

Renji scowls and gives them a dirty look.

Ichigo's eyebrows knot in confusion. "Hang on- what do you mean by Heroes and how are you a princess? Royalty isn't a job class and Paladins don't call themselves Princesses. I don't care what level you are, that's not allowed by the game admins."

The smile on the woman's face- Ichigo doesn't know what to make of it, but he thinks he's about to be made into a fool of epic proportions, especially when she pushes past her armed guards and tilts his face up by the chin with the tip of her white blade.

Smirking with dark violet eyes gleaming, she tells him, "That's because I'm not a Hero. Look closer."

Sure enough- when Ichigo focuses his gaze at her, her presence is shrouded in golden aura. The Guide pings- very belatedly and most unhelpfully, he might add.

.

Name: HRH Princess Rukia of the noble house of the Kuchiki, heir apparent to the throne of Seireitei. Status: NPC

.

He bites his tongue.

"B-But- but NPCs aren't sentient," Keigo blurts out.

Ichigo turns just in time to see him give out a pained yelp, being pummelled by the angry redhead, "Oh I'll show you how non-sentient my fists are!"

He winces. That looks like it would hurt… a lot. But Keigo's an idiot with thick skin, he'll live.

Rukia- her name rolls off his tongue easily. He refuses to even entertain the idea of addressing her by her royal title. For starters, a princess isn't supposed to be a Paladin, or know how to fight or use a sword, or look this good while having him at her mercy.

He gulps when violet eyes narrow at him.

"And you? Do you think that NPCs are non-sentient beings too?"

Ichigo is a fast learner and gives a quick shake of his head.

"Good-" her lips curve into a smile, hair dipping low to tease at the contours of his face as she whispers into his ear- "Because this NPC just saved your life. I'll show you just how deadly I am with my sword before you dismiss me as just another background token NPC."

The sword tip leaves his neck.

"Now, hold still."

That's all the warning he gets before a green glow is emitted from her hands- smelling faintly of mint and something fresh he can't quite name. He shuts his eyes, letting the healing magic wash over him, knitting most of his superficial cuts and wounds back into place.

When the light fades, his chest still hurts but at the very least he feels a little less light-headed and breathes a little easier despite the pain.

He wants to thank her- both for her healing and her timely rescue from the Hollow but she refuses to meet his eyes.

"Renji," she barks at her captain of guards who immediately stands to attention.

"Take them with us. He needs a proper healer. I can't set his broken ribs."

"It's Ichigo!" he calls out, interrupting their conversation and earning himself a hard glare from Renji but Rukia's gaze is almost thoughtful.

"Can you still ride, Ichigo?"

He nods.

A horse is brought to him under Rukia's instructions and as soon as he is properly mounted with Keigo seated behind him, the woman sounds the horn, black hair unbound and flailing in the wind as she leads the company into a gallop.

"To Seireitei!"

.

.

FF/ao3

Review, like, comment or reblog to send some love my way pretties~~~

I have a thing for fantasy AUs. Can’t you tell? Click on link for rec list of some off-main Isekai/Game animes. I have a special place in my heart for them.

[leahxx129]

The Last Descendant (Sam Winchester x Reader) pt.2

Summary for pt.2: You wake up in an entirely unfamiliar place but soon run into a familiar face. As the days pass, you grow closer to each other but every good thing has to come to an end, right?

Warnings: cursing, careless medication use

Word count: 2.850-ish

Read Part 1 HERE.

You wake up with a headache and an unusually dry throat, but these are minor inconveniences comparing to the fact that the room you’re in strikes you completely unfamiliar. You have no idea where you are. You throw off the covers and try to get up, but a painful throb in your left leg slows you down a bit. You examine the aching limb just to discover an apple-sized deep purple spot on it.

„What the hell happened?” you mutter under your breath. Eventually, you bring yourself to get up and limp over to the bathroom. 

„Well, you look like crap, princess!” you compliment your reflection and decide to wash your face, which, you conclude, doesn’t help at all. 

You find some painkillers in the nightstand drawer and pop a few pills, not caring to read the instructions regarding the dosage first. You find your stuff on a chair in the corner but decide against putting the skintight jeans on. Your leg definitely isn’t in the condiotion to be sexy, so you just slip into your ankle boots that go surprisingly well with the oversized male plaid shirt you’re wearing. Walking gives you a great deal of trouble, but being the stubborn ass person you are, you choose to ignore it and leave the room anyway. The corridor is way too lit and it gives off a hospital vibe, but you can tell this place isn’t one. There is a strange symbol on each door which seems remarkably familiar, but you can’t quite put your finger on it just yet. You wander aimlessly through the corridors that follow each other until you hear a noise coming from a room. When you limp closer and peek in you can see a man standing in what appears to be a kitchen, back turned to you.

„Best defense is a good offense, so here goes nothing…” you think to yourself as you creep up behind him as quietly as possible. You grab a frying pan from a hanger and just as you are about to give it a swing, the man turns around and grabs your wrist.

„Whoa..hey..Y/N!”

You stand there speechless for a second but regain your composure considerably fast.

„Abercrombie?! What are you doing here??”

He rolls his eyes.

„I thought we’ve established it’s Sam and I live here.”

„Then what am I doing here?!”

„Y/N, just calm down, okay? I’ll explain everything-”

„Well, I’m listening!” you cut in nervously.

„Give me the frying pan first, before you hurt anyone!” he commands, and you hand him the kitchen utensil despite your unwillingness. „Great. Now take a seat, I doubt your leg is already as good as new.” he comments, his eyes lingering on the purple spot. „Want some coffee?”

„Sure.” you sit down on the chair closest to you „I drink it with two loads of sugar, sprinkled with a little bit of an explanation.”

He gives you the most authentic bitchface you’ve ever seen in your life as he sits down across to you and hands you your coffe.

„It’s kind of a long story.”

„I’m listening.”

„Well…in a nutshell, you forgot something in the hotel room and when you came back for it, I invited you to have a few drinks as a sign of my gratitude for saving my ass. Then after a few too many we caught up on that kinky wild sex you had joked about before.”

You stare at him doumbfounded, which he finds very entertaining.

„We drank absinthe, didn’t we?” you finally manage to say while running both  hands through your hair „I mean I love that shit, but it can fuck me up real bad.”

Your comment seems to break him, and he starts chuckling.

„What? What’s so funny, Winchester?” it takes a couple of second before it dawns upon you „This didn’t happen, did it?” you ask through gritted teeth.

„Nope. But you should’ve seen your face.” he shoots you a content smile.

„Quit messing with me because bad leg or not, I can still kick your 6”2’ ass.”

„Is that really the way you’d treat someone who saved your life?”

„What do you mean? And I want the truth this time.”

He sighes and his expression turns grim just in a matter of seconds.

„Remember the blonde chick with the vampire you killed?” you nod „Turns out she wan’t a victim you saved from becoming monster snack. She was his mate.”

„Oh, okay. And?”

„And… you could say that she was kind of pissed off that you decapitated her one true love. So, when you took off on your bike and turned on the interstate road, she hit you right in the side with a truck. It’s basically a miracle that you got off with nothing more than a fractured leg bone.”

You gulp your coffee slowly.

„Based on that look on your face, this is not the end of the story, is it?” 

„No.” his voice is barely above a whisper „She then took you to a nearby abandoned warehouse and… and she wanted to turn you. That’s when I arrived. You see, the part of you forgetting something in the hotel room wasn’t entirely a lie. You left your machete there. I went after you immediately, assuming you left the way you did as that’s the only way out of that town. I saw your bike in the bushes and the signs lead to the warehouse…. I was just on time.”

You can feel tear drops forming in the corners of your eyes, so you wipe them off before they have the chance to surfice. The fact that he cared enough to save you stirs up so many unwanted feelings, feelings you thought died a long time ago.

„Thanks.”

„No problem. You did the same for me.”

A long silence falls on the kitchen.

„Y/N?”

„Hmm?”

„When I fought with the vampire, something weird happened.”

„Yeah?”

„Yeah. When I cut her on the arm with your blade, she just… froze. Like… almost as if something was already killing her from the inside.”

You hesitate a little. Should you tell him? After all, he saved you. He deserves to know. Certain parts, at least.

„It was forged with dead man’s blood. Incapacitates those fuckers just long enough for hunters to cut their heads off. Real piece of work, might I add.”

He nods as if he’s confirming a theory.

„One more question… where’d you get it?”

„Every girl’s gotta have her secrets, Sam.” you smirk at him mysteriously.

You steal quick glances at Sam whenever he’s not looking. And when he’s researching, he rarely looks at anything but the lore book. What is it about this man? What is it that makes you sit here and help him instead of running? What happened to staying out of everyone’s business? A few hours ago he told you everything… he’d been drunk the night you met, because his brother’s in trouble and he has no idea how to save him and he just lost it. But the worst part came when he mentioned the Men of Letters and that you’re currently at a safe house of theirs. This only should’ve made you grab your stuff and get gone, but the part involving angels and Michael above all is kind of the main reason for leaving and never looking back. And yet here you are, helping him, convincing yourself it’s because he saved you and your leg still needs time to heal… You shut the book you’ve been reading a little too fast, drawing his attention to yourself.

„If I have to read one more sentence, I swear my eyeballs are gonna start spinning around in their sockets and I’ll see my brain.” you say quickly in your defense, looking as innocent as possible. The right corner of his lips curls into a barely visible smile.

„Go get some shut-eye. You’ve been very helpful, Y/N, thanks.”

„Yeah, I’ve been helpful at finding nothing….” you murmur in response.

„Hey, you went through an entire book in just a span of a few hours! I call that help, even if there is no relevant information in it. Sleep well.”

„Will do.” you force a smile knowing exactly how big of a lie your reply is.

You limp back to the room you woke up in and read the manual on the painkilling drugs.

„Shit!” it’s not strong enough to knock you out for the entire night. „Well then, Sam might crap his pants later this night when the show starts…” you whisper to yourself and take a couple of pills.

The fatigue and the warmth of your blanket soon sends you to sleep. You don’t know how long you usually go without dreams, but at one point they always appear. First, they start off nice, mostly memories of your family. You, your father, mother and brother having a barbecue in the backyard, or just watching TV in the living room, anything basic you enjoyed doing with them. Then there’s a turning point when everything goes to hell. They appear and slaughter your whole family in front of you, one by one. Your father is the last one. He sees you hiding and tries to mouth something to you, but he’s choking on his own blood and you can’t make out anything, at least not until it’s too late. Every scream, every death rattle stops once and for all and that’s when you realize what he was saying. And you do it, regardless that it’s almost no use. You always wake up exactly when this happens, sweaty and screaming, but this time it’s different. There is someone calling your name.

„Y/N, wake up…Jesus, Y/N, wake UP!!” you hear a deep manly voice. Still in the haze of your recurring nightmare, you’re not able to identify who and you do what any person in this line of job would – try to incapacitate the intruder. In a blink of an eye you pull the person onto yourself, then shift so you would be on top and point the gun you got from under your pillow in their face. You’re seeing stars from the pain that shoots through your leg as a result of your swift movements, but you do your best to ignore them and supress the urge of crying out. The only thing disturbing the heavy silence is your panting.

„Sam?!” you finally recognize him.

„Uh, yeah!” his hands are in the air, his gaze is shifting between the gun and your eyes. „I heard this awful screaming coming from your room and I thought something happened…”

You let the gun down and avert your eyes.

„Yeah, not so much. I mean, when people witness this, they freak out, but it’s just another typical night of fucked up sleep for me.”

„You were tossing and flailing and… it honestly sort of looked like you could hurt yourself.” he adds in a low tone.

„Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don’t. It’s fifty-fifty.” you admit, which quite frankly surprises you. You don’t really open up to anyone.

„I see…” his eyes then slowly travel all the way down your body from your face to your thighs as you are still stradling him.

Feeling your cheeks heat up, you slide off him to his right side.

„Sorry about that. And, well, for the whole thing.”

„Oh, don’t be, it was nothing at all. I’ve seen a lot worse actually.” ha pauses for a second, but can’t keep himself from asking „Hey Y/N…Was this…was this about the reason you got into the life?”

„Make a guess.” you respond sarcastically, and he draws his brows together in confusion, awakening some guilt in you. Sam is just trying to be there for you to which your reaction is pushing him away.

„I’m sorry.” you sigh „Yeah. It was about the reason, damn straight. You know how everybody gets into the life by losing someone?” he nods „Well, try losing your whole family at fourteen. Now that can mess your head up real bad. Even though it’s been more than a decade now, my subconscious makes sure I never forget what happened.”

„You know, if you’d like to share-„ he starts but you jump in.

„I appreciate it, Sam, I really do, but I don’t think I can do it.” 

„Of course, it’s fine. „ he gets off the bed and starts towards the door but stops halfway and sits down in a chair. You look at him perplexed.

„Uhm, Sam? What are you doing?”

„Nothing. Just making sure that if you fall asleep, you won’t hurt yourself.”

„By sitting there and watching me sleep like a weird-ass creep?”

„Now that you say it out loud, yes, I admit it sounds way worse than it actually is-”

„Sam, I don’t need a sleeping nanny. I’m a big girl, I can handle a few bruises every now and then.”

„Y/N, please. I’m pretty sure that seeing my naked butt added to your trauma, so please let me do this for you. Let me help you. Or at least let me try.” he pleads. You suddenly realize the weight of his words. He really wants to do this for you and for himself. He couldn’t help his brother, and this chance strikes him as a step on the path of redemption.

„Okay. I hope you don’t snort.”

He smiles at you gratefully. You replicate his expression and turn to the other side and try to fall asleep again. You have no idea how much time has passed but you can’t take it anymore. You sit up abruptly.

„Okay, this isn’t working. I can’t fall asleep knowing that you’re sitting there and staring at me.”

„What? I’m not staring, don’t be ridiculous.” he scoffs.

„You know what? Come here.”

„Beg your pardon?”

„Sit here beside me. Or lay down. Or whatever. This way the whole thing won’t have that creepy stalking vibe.”

„You sure about that?” maybe you’re imagining it, but his voice sounds a bit higher than usual.

„Yup. Although I might kick you a few times, which I apologize for in advance.”

„O-Okay.” 

A couple of second pass when you feel the bed sink in a little bit on your left side.

„We can share my blanket if you’d like.”

„Thanks.” he whispers, and you feel him tug on the fabric.

„Good night, Sam.”

„Good night, Y/N.”

When Sam lays beside you, he makes sure to keep a certain distance between the two of you. But during the night when you wake up, you find yourself a little too close to him. Your head is on his chest, your right arm is around his torso. One of his arms is around you, his lips brush against your forhead. You can feel his hot breath fanning your face. Your very first intinct is to jump out of the bed as far away from him as possible, but somehow you don’t follow it. What the hell’s wrong with you now? Or was something wrong with you earlier when you thought cutting everyone out was the only way? You have no idea. And the fact that Sam’s hold around you tightens does not aid you in finding an answer.

The next morning you prepare breakfast by the time he wakes up. None of you mention the proximity you’ve experienced the previous night. The day goes by with researching. You try to crack a joke occasionally and it appears effective – he rewards them with a smile, even with a laughter once. 

Later on, your attempt at a peaceful slumber is again ruined by your restless subconscious. Sam bursts through the door. This time you don’t pull a gun at him – your shaking hands and tear-blurred eyes wouldn’t even let you - but sternly express your desire for him to leave. Being a Winchester, he does the exact opposite, this time not bothering to keep a distance.  Somehow your figure and his fit perfectly. This goes on for a few days, but you decide to leave. The research isn’t going anywhere, but Sam’s Mom and a friend named Bobby supposedly have a lead on his brother. Plus, you have your own business to run, you can’t keep on playing vacation and miss out on everything.

As a surprise, Sam’s fixed your bike that got trashed in the accident.

„I’m nowhere near my brother, but I did learn from the best.” he says shyly, scratching the back of his ear.

„No, Sam, it’s perfect. Couldn’t have done a better job myself.” you say as you stand on your toes to press a kiss on his cheek. Your lips may linger a little longer than they should. „Thanks. For everything.” you add, your voice scarcely a whisper. He smiles down at you, not saying anything.

You walk to your bike, but before you put your helmet on, the words basically just fall out of your mouth. 

„Hey, don’t be a stranger, Winchester. You should call sometimes.”

[mazurah]

do you have any headcanons about alteration magic? i feel like due to game balancing limitations, it wasn't as powerful as it actually could have been in-universe. thoughts?

I’ve been sitting on this ask for more than a week trying to figure out how to answer. Yes I have Alteration magic headcanons, but a lot of them aren’t technically mine. 

First off, you’re absolutely right. Alteration is much more powerful in the lore than it is ingame. The Ayleids, who invented Alteration magic, could shapeshift.

There does, however, appear to be evidence that, just as the Psijics on the Isle of Artaeum developed Mysticism long before there was a name for it, the even more obscure Ayleids of southern Cyrodiil had developed what was to be known as the school of Alteration. It is not, after all, much of a stretch when one considers that other Ayleids at the time of Bravil’s conquering and even later were shapeshifters. The community of pre-Bravil could not turn into beasts and monsters, but they could alter their bodies to hide themselves away. 

⁠— Daughter of the Niben

The closest things we’ve ever seen to that kind of magic (not counting things which aren’t actually school-of-magic spells, such as the Wild Hunt, vampire transformations, and werewolves) are spells like oakflesh, which isn’t exactly what I would call shapeshifting. Shapeshifting implies that you’re actually changing your shape, not just changing the consistency of your skin, so I think it’s more likely that the Ayleids did things like make their limbs look like branches to blend in with forests. 

And then there’s that one NPC in Skyrim, the Face Sculptor, that will straight up let you open the character creation menu and change anything about your appearance except your race or sex. (What, no sex change option? Transphobic!) You can’t tell me there’s not Alteration magic involved in that somehow (although I would certainly listen to a case for Restoration.)

There’s also a spell (actually a greater power) that got cut from Skyrim called Polymorph Skeever which lets you turn yourself into a skeever. It was never implemented in the game, but it exists in the code, so I think it’s safe to say that it’s a valid piece of lore. Polymorph spells do exist! There’s even more of them in ESO.

So do I believe that a master Alterationist could potentially turn somebody into a chicken? It’s quite possible. Are we ever gonna be able to turn NPCs into chickens? Not without the Wabbajack. They gotta balance the game somehow.

To be honest, this is a limitation to magic in general, not just Alteration. If I was really a master healer, what’s to prevent me from healing somebody’s mouth closed? Or casting a spell that causes my enemy to have a heart attack? There’s all kinds of things I would love to be able to do with magic that I can’t because of game limitations, like casting a spell to send me to Oblivion so I can go exploring, or conjuring a Dremora or Winged Twilight to ask them about themselves (both of which exist in the lore.) Or using levitation in Skyrim. *sigh*

Back to Alteration though. If you want to know about Alteration in general, the lore book you should be reading is Reality and Other Falsehoods:

It is easy to confuse Illusion and Alteration. Both schools of magic attempt to create what is not there. The difference is in the rules of nature. Illusion is not bound by them, while Alteration is. This may seem to indicate that Alteration is the weaker of the two, but this is not true. Alteration creates a reality that is recognized by everyone. Illusion’s reality is only in the mind of the caster and the target.

To master Alteration, first accept that reality is a falsehood. There is no such thing. Our reality is a perception of greater forces impressed upon us for their amusement. Some say that these forces are the gods, other that they are something beyond the gods. For the wizard, it doesn’t really matter. What matters is the appeal couched in a manner that cannot be denied. It must be insistent without being insulting.

To cast Alteration spells is to convince a greater power that it will be easier to change reality as requested than to leave it alone. Do not assume that these forces are sentient. Our best guess is that they are like wind and water. Persistent but not thoughtful. Just like directing the wind or water, diversions are easier than outright resistance. Express the spell as a subtle change and it is more likely to be successful.

⁠— Reality and Other Falsehoods

This is a great start, but it doesn’t help us understand what it would be like to use Alteration on a daily basis, and that’s where headcanon comes in. I headcanon that people have different ways of conceptualizing spells, and this can result in different teaching styles. Sometimes the differences are cultural. But ultimately, it comes down to how good you are at envisioning the changes you want, how much you believe the changes can/should/will happen, and how good you are at willing those changes into existence. How to Disappear Completely by @chameleonspell contains an excellent illustration of what it’s like to try to learn Alteration and navigate the cultural differences between teaching styles as a novice: 

Iriel had studied Alteration. Had, at one point, thought he might specialise in it. It had sounded so impressive, when he first attended lectures at the Crystal Tower: change the world! Bend the physical realm to your will - sorry - your Will! Then he had attended classes, and spent months learning about counter-aetheric force (the academic term for what ordinary people, who didn’t understand these things, called gravity) and formulas to calculate water pressure and wind resistance. Altmeri magical tradition demanded that students first master the theory. You had to learn the rules before you could break them. He might be allowed to actually alter things in a few years, if he studied hard and passed the exams.

Things were different when he transferred to Cyrodiil. There, the Professor of Alteration was a steely-eyed Imperial known to students as The Cliff, due to her threats to throw students off one, if their problems with levitation persisted. Necessity focused the mind, she said. Alteration was all about willpower and belief. She didn’t hold with teaching the physics of it. You are a mage, she would roar. You make your own physics! Your mind will do battle with the Aurbis, and if you are worthy, the Aurbis will bow before you!

She was rumoured to be working on a transmutation spell that would change lesser substances into gold. They said she spent her nights concentrating on a rock on her desk, glaring the resistance out of it, molecule by molecule. When she looked at him, Iriel could believe it. But, struggling to levitate a feather on his own desk, he hadn’t felt that engaging the universe in mental combat was ever going to be his forte. It was so much bigger, and more experienced than he was, so much more self-assured. There were thousands of years of inertia behind its processes, grinding like endless Dwemer machinery. His will, even capitalised, was too weak a spanner to jam into those works. A minor blip in the rhythm, at most, and it’d be crushed as the gears churned on.

He’d found himself returning to the equations he’d been forced to memorise at the Tower. He’d discovered, to his chagrin, that the Sapiarchs had been on to something, at least to his Altmeri-educated mind. If you wanted to change something, it helped to understand the thing you were trying to change. Staring at the feather, he had realised he didn’t need to do battle with the entire Aurbis, he only needed to fight the air immediately around the object he wanted to move, convince it that local relative masses were very slightly different. The Cliff had been right about one thing: it was about belief. And Iriel found it considerably easier to believe things if he could construct a veneer of logical process, however flimsy.

He’d balanced the feather on his finger. It barely weighed anything. Using the standard formula, it couldn’t be constrained by more than a quell of counter-aetheric force. He had repeated the incantation, but instead of trying to command physics as a whole, he’d merely suggested a minor adjustment to the relative densities of feathers and air, just within these few square inches.

The feather had shot upwards and lodged an inch into the plaster of the ceiling. He’d blinked, brushed the dust from his hair, and began recalculating the ratio. An hour later, he’d floated up to retrieve it himself.

⁠— How to Disappear Completely, Chapter 93: force by @chameleonspell ​

(That entire work is amazing and contains so many headcanons and extrapolations of lore I couldn’t possibly begin to summarize them if I tried. You should read it.)

The thing about Alteration, and to a lesser extent, all magic in general, is that to perform it, you must wrestle with the very nature of the universe. Alteration, at its essence, contains what could potentially be understood as the fundamental principle of magic: to perform it, you must impose your Will on the world around you. When you perform it, you change the world. 

This is not without consequences. I headcanon that the greater skill a mage has with Alteration, the more trouble they have with distinguishing what is real and what is not, and with maintaining control over the reality of their personal environment. This is a headcanon I garnered from reading the works of @troloputo2012, and to some extent, @chameleonspell.

The advanced alterationist starts with sensory issues, since they start being able to listen and see the mechanisms of this world (also the plane where spirits and magic roam, that occupies the same place as this Mundus, and being this over saturated with information can be overwhelming), and slowly, they start having trouble attaching to reality and they can’t go back to their normal life as before; many have grounding sensory “mechanisms” to wake up, but many don’t because sometimes nothing works … .

Many experts get tired of constantly wrestling with existing or fail because their will is not strong enough, just give up and vanish, or they get consumed into their own reality and are unable to follow the currents of the world and time … .

To be able to live correctly and master alteration, one must have considerable willpower, or it’ll consume you. You learned to use alteration to weaken reality for you, now you must use it to also reinforce reality (for you start to unconsciously exist in weakened reality you created for yourself) to live.

— Alteration is not as harmless as it seems. by @troloputo2012

So a master of Alteration who fails to have enough Willpower to maintain their own existence might even disappear completely (a concept very similar to the tenuously canonical concept of Zero Sum, wherein a person truly perceives the nature of the universe, sees that they are a figment of the Divine Dream, confronts the concept head on, and fails to assert that they still exist, thus ceasing to exist.) Sure, a master of Alteration can change reality to an amazing degree, but there is a danger; there is a price.

Finally, I have a headcanon (which I’m pretty sure isn’t actually my idea, but I’m not sure where I picked it up) that schools of magic are more like philosophical models for creating spells rather than rigid expressions of natural law. Ultimately, almost any spell could potentially be created using almost any school of magic, but depending on what the spell does, it may not be a very good spell. It might use too much magicka, or it might be insanely hard to cast, or it might take a really long time to conceptualize the spell in that school of magic so nobody bothered trying to make the spell in the first place.

This is an easier idea to apply to Alteration than it is to some other schools like Conjuration (like, what am I gonna do, conjure healthy body parts for a dying person?) but it can go a long way to explaining why some spells change schools between games. For example, there are a few Alteration spells (mostly resistance spells) that get moved to the Restoration school of magic between Morrowind and Oblivion. If you’re looking for an in-universe explanation for this, perhaps spell researchers developed more efficient spells using the philosophy of Restoration, and the magical community had come to accept them as the norm by the time Oblivion began.

So yeah, there’s a lot of overlap between schools. In fact, there are documented arguments between mages about the similarities and differences between schools:

The School of Alteration is a distinct and separate entity from the School of Destruction, and Bero’s argument that they should be merged into one is patently ludicrous. He insists — again, a man who knows nothing about the Schools of Alteration and Destruction, is the one insisting this — that “damage” is part of the changing of reality dealt with by the spells of Alteration. The implication is that Levitation, to list a spell of Alteration, is a close cousin of Shock Bolt, a spell of Destruction. It would make as much sense to say that the School of Alteration, being all about the actuality of change, should absorb the School of Illusion, being all about the appearance of change.

⁠— Response to Bero’s Speech

While I believe that Alteration is an insanely powerful school of magic in the right hands, it’s probably still easier to heal someone using the principles of Restoration than it is to do it using the principles of Alteration.

Feel free to add your own headcanons, I love having discussions like this!

[clanwarrior-tumbly]

Calm and Quiet

A/N: Hey lovelies! It’s been a long while since an ego fic. This was a story request from a lovely person who asked for Soft Anti, who has mild autism (in the form of sensory/sound issues), although he’s unaware of it and doesn’t know why noises overwhelm him until the Reader and Henrik step in.

The person who asked for this also gave me info on some of their experiences so that I have a better understanding of this subject before I write it ^^

Another Note: I'm not fully back into writing Septic Ego content. Tbh I don't know when I'll be since I feel like I've written just about everything for these boys (plus the current lack of canon ego activity as well as my interest in other fandoms. If any ego lore pops up I may be inspired).

Enough from me now, hope you all enjoy! 💕💕

........

Anti always had some issue with there being too much going on at one time. But even when the amount of activity was minor, he’d still get anxious and jittery. And he never knew why.

He began to notice this starting to pick back up as he sat on the kitchen counter, fiddling with one of his knives. It delicately twirled in his fingers, barely grazing the bandaids he had from past incidents with the sharp tools that used to be weapons of terror and bloodshed.

Now he just plays around with them, keeping them for knife-throwing skills that gave him a lot of satisfaction and helped him calm down after a rough day.

However, as he tried to focus on the shiny silver blade, he nearly jumped as he felt a foam Nerf bullet nearly miss his head, hitting the wall and falling to the kitchen floor.

“Oops! Sorry bro!” Chase’s voice hollered from across the room as he ran to snag the bullet, before he reloaded his Nerf gun and turned back around. “Alright you’re on Jackie!” He let out a war cry as he ran back to the living room.

In the other corner of the room, Anti picked up the sound of Henrik and Marvin having debates on science and magic, with the doctor slamming his fists down and raising his voice while speaking in German. You were stuck in the middle, trying to break up the “discussion” before things got heated.

At the kitchen table, Shawn and Angus were laughing loudly, drunk off their asses, while Jameson sat near them and tried to read one of his books. But then as Shawn demonstrated his ink powers, a drop of the viscous liquid accidentally flew into Jameson’s tea, startling him enough to drop the ceramic cup.

Anti shuddered at the noisy shattering, and even louder arguing from four of his brothers. It didn’t help that Marvin was trying to show off some magic in the form of bright lights.

Usually he’s able to withstand this type of commotion, but it was just becoming too much right now. And not knowing why it was bothering him so much only made him more upset, to the point where he teared up and jumped off the counter, his boots slamming to the floor.

"I CAN’T TAKE IT!!”

His angry, glitched shout made the whole room fall silent as you and his brothers looked at him, eyes wide and faces confused.

Anti tensed immediately, not liking the abrupt silence, before he sniffled and stabbed his knife onto the counter before glitching away. Mutters of concern were passed around the room, although some of the egos thought the glitch demon was just lashing out like always and continued their conversations.

"Is..he okay?” You glanced at Henrik, who had his eyebrows furrowed together, as though he was thinking.

Then he briefly glanced at Marvin. “You know..ve can have zhe talk of magic and science later,” he declared. “I need a break. So [y/n], let’s talk in my office.”

You nodded and followed the doctor out of the room and to his office. Once you both arrived, he sat down in his chair, and you took the seat across from him, leaning back. “Do you have a theory on what’s been going on with Anti lately?”

“Yes. I’ve actually been taking some notes about his recent behaviors.” Henrik shuffled through the files on his desk, finding Anti’s and opening it. “Judging from zhe recent patterns, zhey seem to be consistent vith patients who are on zhe autism spectrum. For Anti, however, it may only be a mild form. Sensory issues, primarily from sounds, seems to be zhe case here.”

You blinked in surprise, although his explanation seemed to make sense. “Hmm, I guess that would explain it. It seems like Anti’s been bothered by how he’s acting, too. So..what should we do now?”

“Maybe bring him here and run some tests. Can’t just diagnose someone based on speculation.”

...........

It took some time to coax Anti out of his room, but when you managed to, you brought him into Henrik’s office. Once the good doctor explained to him the reason behind his recent behaviors, he was stunned--never believing that demons could exhibit such conditions found in humans.

But at the same time, Anti was..relieved in a way that he finally understood what was going on with him. Not knowing why he was acting the way he was frustrated him, so to hear his diagnosis was good in a sense.

“So..what’s the next step in this?”

“Ve accommodate,” Henrik told him with a smile. “Zhere is no cure for autism, so it’s a matter of helping you deal vith it better and us making sure you don’t get overwhelmed. Yes..ve’re a loud bunch by nature but vith time-”

“D-Do we have to tell the others?” Anti asked, nervous, although when he felt you squeeze his hand gently, he relaxed a little. He looked at you, sighing. “I just..don’t want ‘em treatin’ me any differently or not talkin’ when I walk into the room.”

“They’re not gonna immediately fall silent,” you reassured him. “They’re still gonna be chatterboxes, but they don’t wanna see their brother stressed and upset either, so we’ll figure out a balance. They’ll understand, and if not I’ll knock their teeth in.” You jokingly winked at the demon, making him chuckle.

“Thanks, [y/n].” Then he looked back at Henrik. “And thanks, doc..for helpin’ me figure this out.”

“All in a day’s vork, mein bruder.” The doctor simply nodded, glad to see that the demon had a better understanding of himself now.

[aion-rsa]

Mortal Kombat Trailer Breakdown and Analysis

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It’s taken 24 years, but we’re finally getting a new live-action Mortal Kombat movie. The R-rated reboot is set to come out in April, but outside of some casting news, a few recent stills, and a very brief appearance in a HBO Max ad, and some character posters, Warner Bros. has kept a lid on the movie.

Fortunately, we finally have a trailer to dissect, and it’s quite the ride. Action-packed, dark as hell, and seemingly very faithful to the original games, the Simon McQuoid-directed movie seems on the right track..

Give the trailer a look below:

Watch Sub-Zero literally (cold)snap Jax’s arms off in the first official trailer for Mortal Kombat. pic.twitter.com/x8cnrptYgT

— IGN (@IGN) February 18, 2021

There are quite a few story hints, easter eggs, and nods to the games in this short trailer. Before we share our findings and try to figure out what it might all mean, we need to start with the big question…

WHO IS COLE YOUNG?

Lewis Tan plays Cole Young, who appears to be the protagonist of this movie. At the very least, he appears to be our POV character, as opposed to Liu Kang or Sonya. So what does this trailer tell us about him? Cole apparently has a birthmark shaped like the Mortal Kombat dragon logo. He also has a younger sister named Emily (Matilda Kimber).

But really, who is he?

There’s always the chance that Cole is really just a new character, but it’s just as likely that he’s a familiar Mortal Kombat character. Kind of like how Agents of SHIELD had the character Skye around for a season and a half before revealing her to be the existing comic character Quake.

One of the popular theories is that he’s Johnny Cage. Since this movie is most heavily inspired by the first game, Johnny Cage’s absence in this movie is notable. He’s the only guy on the first game’s roster that the movie seems to be ignoring. With Cole Young, the movie could be forgoing the comedic aspects of Cage’s quest and getting rid of the nonsensical “gain public notoriety by winning a super secret tournament that nobody’s ever heard of” storyline, which seems like a smart move.

Besides, Cole’s tattoo seems to suggest that he’s a “chosen one,” and the most recent games have doubled down on Cage being special, too. Turns out his ancestors were Mediterranean warriors bred and trained to kill gods.

The other big possibility is that Cole is actually Kuai Liang, the younger brother of Sub-Zero, who is featured heavily in this trailer. In Mortal Kombat lore, there are two Sub-Zeros, the villain Bi-Han and the hero Kuai Liang. After Bi-Han dies in the first game, Kuai Liang takes his place.

Revealing that Cole is in fact Sub-Zero’s good guy brother and can perform all of his awesome ice attacks would be a fun third act reveal.

Plus it would explain why he appears to be haunted by Scorpion’s demonic visage.

Then again, maybe Cole is someone lame like Taven. It would almost make sense if he were Rain. Almost.

SUB-ZERO

Joe Taslim is Bi-Han, the first Sub-Zero. The trailer puts a ton of emphasis on him despite Sub-Zero being more of a henchman villain when he isn’t being depicted as an antihero. What’s great about this movie is that it’s using bits from the modern games for inspirations. Instead of just throwing ice balls and making frozen puddles, this Sub-Zero is able to weaponize his surroundings. Just look at the way he’s able to create a wall of frozen ice and throw Scorpion through it, or the way he freezes Scorpion’s blood and turns it into a dagger.

There’s an interesting shot in the trailer of Sub-Zero walking out of a dark, smoky portal. At first I thought this was supposed to be Smoke, but it’s very possible that it’s Bi-Han’s post-death form, Noob Saibot.

SCORPION

Hiroyuki Sanada is Hanzo Hasashi, the ninja warrior fated to die and return as the specter Scorpion. Prior to becoming an undead warrior, we do get to see him wiping out a bunch of idiot invaders with his trademark kunai.

We see more of him later, wearing an outfit closely resembling his Mortal Kombat 11 look, complete with an aura of Hellfire. More importantly, it appears we’ll finally get that cinematic Scorpion vs. Sub-Zero fight we’ve been wanting for decades.

“Slaves under my control,” my ass.

LIU KANG

Ludi Lin is Liu Kang, the hero of Mortal Kombat. At some point, the people behind the games realized that Liu Kang had become a pretty bland protagonist and shunted him to the sidelines. Even the recent Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion’s Revenge made a big deal about him being the chosen one, but also kept him in Scorpion’s shadow.

That leaves us wondering how much he’ll get to do in this movie. He was fine in the original film, but if Cole Young is the main character, what does that mean for Liu? Who is going to watch who save the world?

Regardless, we get to see Liu show off his fire powers. This includes summoning a giant, flaming dragon. Definitely a step up from the awful CGI of Mortal Kombat: Annihilation.

KANO

Josh Lawson is Kano, playing up Trevor Goddard’s previous take on the character as much as humanly possible. Kano has his cybernetic eye, including the laser, but it’s less overt, hidden by a bit of skin grafting.

Read more

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Kano’s appearance overall is interesting. Based on what we see in the trailer, it seems very likely that he’s an ally who betrays the rest of the heroes. He travels around with them, but we also see Sonya take him down and Kung Lao deflect the eye laser, so the timeline of events is unclear.

He also gets to take out what appears to be Reptile with his classic heart rip Fatality.

JAX

Mehcad Brooks is Jackson “Jax” Briggs, who unfortunately ran into Sub-Zero during a mission years before the events of the movie. Jax got his arms shattered in that fight, but he tends to lose his arms quite often so no biggie.

As expected, he gets cool metal arms as replacements. He’s shown later in the trailer preparing for his head-clap Fatality against some goon in armor. I give you fifty/fifty odds it’s an established character that nobody likes like Hotaru or Dairou.

SONYA BLADE

Jessica McNamee is Sonya Blade, and while she’s seen guiding Cole a bit early on, she doesn’t appear to do too much else in the trailer. We do see her very briefly fight with Mileena in the final moments in the trailer. In a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cut, she appears to blow off a huge chunk of Mileena’s midsection using her laser gauntlets. Nasty.

KUNG LAO

Finally, Kung Lao makes his movie debut and is played by Max Huang. All he does in the trailer is identify himself and deflect Kano’s laser with his hat, and that’s about it.

In the games, Kung Lao is the descendant and reincarnation of the Great Kung Lao who defended Earthrealm in Mortal Kombat until being killed by Goro. He’s Liu Kang’s best friend, but is also jealous that Liu is the hero when the glory really should go to the original hero’s descendant.

GORO

Goro only appears for a second, leaping at an unknown opponent wearing what appears to be gold armor for a shirt. Goro was the initial selling point of Mortal Kombat as the returning champion and penultimate boss. Hopefully, this shot pertains to a real fight in the movie and not, say, a flashback to a tournament from centuries earlier.

MILEENA

Sisi Stringer appears as Mileena, Shao Kahn’s beloved daughter figure, personal assassin, and the deranged clone of Kitana. What’s interesting about her appearance in the trailer is that there’s been no mention of Kitana nor Baraka in this movie. Mileena is a spinoff/hybrid of the two, so seeing her appear on her own is surprising.

Her design is pretty reined in here. Gone is the character’s usual giant piranha mouth.

RAIDEN

Tadanobu Asano is Raiden, who doesn’t do anything other than stand around and look cool. At least we see him staring down Shang Tsung, suggesting that his role isn’t to compete in the tournament,but to mentor the heroes and keep Shang from abusing his authority.

SHANG TSUNG

Chin Han is Shang Tsung, who doesn’t have much going on here either, but we do get confirmation that Sub-Zero and Mileena work for him.

SHAO KAHN

Much like the first Mortal Kombat game, Shao Kahn, the emperor of Outworld, seems to be off the table in this movie. He’ll likely be mentioned or referenced at some point, but it’ll likely be in the form of the statue we see in the trailer.

The statue very closely resembles his Mortal Kombat 11 look. In fact, it’s like he walked straight out of the game…or off the side of your cool uncle’s van.

REPTILE

There are a couple of shots of what appears to be Reptile. Instead of going with the ninja version of the character, the movie depicts him as the two-legged lizard creature from Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance.

Not only does he get his heart torn out by Kano, but he’s also turning invisible at one point. Better than the CGI mess from the ’90s at least.

TOURNAMENT LORE

The movie seems to be connecting the wacky birthmark with the existence of the Mortal Kombat tournament, which is odd. What is cool is this painting, which appears to depict the Great Kung Lao after kicking Shang Tsung’s magical ass in the tournament finals.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

They should totally make a live-action TV show about that era, and kill off all the good guys in the final episode before getting cancelled. That would be cool.

Mortal Kombat is out on April 16 on HBO Max.

The post Mortal Kombat Trailer Breakdown and Analysis appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3beETVk

[citrus-feline]

Hey I love SU and Peridot is one of my favorite characters but pls. Stop reaching so far to make excuses for her literally shrinking. Like okay I get it you want the show to be perfect but it isn't. Peridot is particular has shown to be pretty far off her design in terms of height. Some excuses people have made is "peridot degrades over time" which I guess makes sense but. Would that really be part of the lore in SU? That seems so irrational compared to the usual pace. So Peridot will theoretically die in a few years because she will shrink too small to function. Will her physical form just vanish and leave her as just her gem in this scenario? She has had her story gone over, and I don't think we will get much more out of her aside from little episodes about her and Lapis anymore. I think her potential for personalized episodes is almost gone. I love her, yes, but I'm trying to be realistic. What kind of plot point would it be for everyone to just tell Steven "oh Peridot is dying at an incredibly high speed for not just gems (which theoretically could live for eternity) but at a high speed for humans, creatures that have life spans so small in comparison to gems that they are considered insignificant in every right." Like?? In gem terms dying that quickly is less than even a blink. Another thing I've seen is how she's changing her form (both consciously and subconsciously). I doubt this theory a lot too because why the hell would she do that? Peridot likes being tall, that is literally canon. I would get if the paint can shit never happened saying she's throwing away her alliance to homeworld by making herself less threatening would like be not that weird of a theory but she has still been shown to enjoy being tall even after her redemption. Some are saying she's subconsciously becoming smaller to be more like Steven, but are gem forms really that easy to influence? Shapeshifting is something they do out of a desire to change their shape, not a subconscious action that goes almost completely unnoticed. Gems change their forms after being poofed, and it is canon that it takes significant effort to stay shapeshifted for long periods of time even for gems who are really good at it like Amethyst. Saying she's getting smaller not just without thinking about it but also effortlessly is really farfetched. She's been shown to be not the most skilled gem in the past, so why would incredibly powerful shapeshifting abilities pop out of nowhere with no explanation? Even her weak powers have taken a while to get to where they are now, which is still not the most impressive thing. For her to magically come across a godlike ability in gem terms for shapeshifting without anyone noticing is silly. And why would that be a Peridot exclusive trait? Why would peridots have such an ability in the case that it was a gem-type thing? And why would it never be brought up? Anyways I'm just saying that making these excuses go so far isn't helping at all. The show has its flaws, that's just the truth. Peridot shouldn't be shrinking, but she is. If the team comes out to reveal something explaining it, I'll accept it, but with how it is now it just seems like artist inconsistencies. This can be seen with hairshape and facial expressions as well, as certain artists on the team have tiny details that make it so you can pick up who made which frame. The inconsistency should be at least discussed. Characters can change designs but in terms of Peridot, she's smaller each episode and you NOTICE it. That's the big thing, noticing the difference. If it was small enough to easily ignore, I wouldn't be talking about it at all. But I've noticed it many times beforehand, and now that it's a topic coming up to mainstream fandom, I thought I would finally say how I feel about it.