#My crack theory is that the only reason they were following you in the first place was so they could use your body once you perished

[beet1031]

I never played the Pikmin games growing up, so experiencing them for the first time is fucking WILD. For anyone who’s only seen the cute lil pikmin dudes on social media and isn’t aware of the first game’s plot, let me catch you up to speed:

YOU are an alien who has crash landed on Earth. This is bad, since Earth is ludicrously inhospitable for you. On this planet you are the size of an insect (actually a bit smaller than the average insect but w/e), and the oxygen that’s in all the air is extremely poisonous to you. Whatever gas you breathe (I can’t remember), you only have 30 days worth of it in your space suit’s tank, and after that you’re fucked. Your only hope of survival is finding your 30 missing ship parts in those 30 days so you can repair your ship. On your first day, you come across these little carrot looking creatures (game’s words, not mine) called Pikmin. They are tiny, stupid, and incredibly weak. But they are also suicidally loyal and strong in numbers, so you use them to your advantage because they’re literally all you have. Also I’m mentioning this because it’s important later, the pikmin reproduce by brining pellets and dead corpses to something called the onion, which destroys the body and uses its nutrients to make pikmin sprouts. Over the course of the next 30 days, you and your army of pikmin navigate an extremely dangerous forest in order to find your ship parts. Along the way you have to deal with predators that can and will eat your pikmin, bodies of water that will instantly evaporate your pikmin, and other obstacles that prevent you from completing your goal. And that’s not even mentioning some of the other enemies that do shit like possess your pikmin so they end up attacking you.

If despite all this you still manage to get your ship repaired in 30 days, you are able to successfully return home. If not, then on the 30th day your ship fails to breach the atmosphere upon takeoff, and you die in the ensuing crash. The pikmin that just spent the last 30 days following you around and fighting your battles for you then give your body to the onion and it is used to make one final pikmin.

so yeah, THATS the lore of the first pikmin game. Incredibly fucking brutal. I just started playing the second one and that game seems a lot more chill, but I was genuinely taken aback by how cutthroat the first installment is. Early 2000’s Nintendo was not fucking around.

[melbee]

My Purpose

pairing: Neteyam x EywaHealer!Reader

summary: The same way Ewya had brought you your gifts, was the same way she brought you to Neteyam. So, when sacrifice leads to fatal injury, you will stop at nothing to make sure your love is safe.

note: thanks @directioner5life for the request! You asked for a fix-it fic, and I am happy to oblige :)) (I have my thoughts on the whole death scene, and I'm going to be writing my theories soon.) Hope you enjoy my loves! xx

warnings: Mention of being shot, blood, Angst, and some sadness. Fluff at the ending though *cries*

word count: 1,984

Your mother had said you were chosen for something. Ewya had gifted you to her in a time of great sorrow, and that the seeds of the sacred tree had blessed you during your birth ceremony.

You had flourished in medicinal value, your powers having the ability to heal the sick and injured. Your mother was proud of your accomplishments, but you couldn't help but feel the oddity in your abilities.

Growing up you were protected because of your gifts, sheltered from the world, and picked on by other Na’vi kids because of it. It didn't help that with every recoup in another's health, you could feel your body drain in tiredness.

Some days were worse than others. And some days you wished it would all disappear.

That was until you met Neteyam.

The eldest son of Toruk Makto, leader of the Omatikaya Clan, Neteyam was the poster boy of being groomed for greatness. At first glance you had felt him to be too protective, but you realized his earnest love and commitment he had for his family was admirable.

That was one of many reasons that made you fall in love with him. Your mother often joked that you two would make a great pairing as Tsahik, and that you should start counting down the days until you two would mate in front of Ewya.

If only your mother knew there were quite a few close calls.

So, when the RDA had arrived back on Pandora, and Neteyam's father, Jake Sully had to step down from his position as Olo'eyktan, you were shocked. The Sully Clan was leaving, and you were determined to follow them anywhere.

So, you did.

This led you to the Metkayina clan, where you along with the Sully clan sought refuge in order to save your people. You had gone, much to the disheartened approval of your mother. Her last words before you left were,

"Help the Toruk Makto and his family. Ewya has given you the gift to do so."

Now the RDA and their task force of recombinants were beginning to close in on you and using every Pandora creature and village to push you out.

"Ma Neteyam, please." You cried out in earnest, latching onto him as the surrounding sounds of war cries were evident all around you. The RDA had kidnapped some of Neteyam's family including Lo'ak, Kiri and little Tuk. Tsireya had also been caught, and evident by the Metkayina's response they were just as displeased.

"No. I have to go y/n. I have to save my family." Neteyam who was getting ready to leave with the rest of the clan, held close to you. He wrapped his arm around you, his hand gliding over your face before leaning down and pressing a soft kiss against your neck. "Go help the injured, there will be casualties."

You frowned, tears beginning to well in your eyes. You knew you couldn't ask him to stay, Neteyam was always the strongest in your relationship, and in life. He couldn't let his family die. You reached for the same hand he held to your face and pulled it toward your own heart. "Eywa has led me to you. Now you must be strong and lead your family to safety."

Neteyam smiled leaving one last kiss on both your eyes, a sign of earnest love and affection. "When I come back, and this is all over..."

You stopped him, your tears mixing in with your mournful laughter. “I would do anything for you Neteyam. Just promise me you won’t-” Your voice cracked, your head shaking as you tried to stop any unnecessary emotion from spewing all at once. “Just come home.” You looked up at him and smiled, holding his hand tightly.

Neteyam nodded his head, his eyes beginning to shine with unshed tears, before he pulled you both up from your sitting positions and stood back. You followed him as you both walked together, the sounds of rushing feet and the splashes of water as clan members of the Metkayina latched onto their Elu’s and the warrior’s prepared their tsurak (skimwing).  Neteyam had gathered with a few of the friends and siblings of Tsireya’s, and they began calling to their Elus. 

Before you knew it, they had left, and you were stranded to deal with those who stayed, and the frightful response that endured. You quickly made yourself available however, and it came to the point where many had left to join the fight. You knew you should’ve stayed like Neteyam had said, but something in you felt you needed to go.

Watching as a few members of the Metkayina left you, you went over to an Elu you had learned to ride previously and got on. Latching on you swam quickly after them. Neteyam and the rest of the clan had traveled north to where the Tulkuns were located, and evident by the smell in the air, you could tell one of the RDA ships was nearby.

You braced the Elu tightly, its soft squawks, reminding your beating heart to be careful.

Arriving at the scene, nothing could’ve prepared you for what you were about to see. So much so, you had troubles choking back the sob bursting from you.

Why great mother. You thought to yourself in anguish.

A fire had struck out, and multiple RDA ships crashed out into the rocks. However, what made your heart burn was the sight of a Tulkun and its newborn laying cold as it drifted away in the water. Your heart burned, and the unshed tears began to fall.

You had long known the RDA and group of humans posed a threat to your home world, but you never knew how much damage they could create.

Up ahead you heard commotion, you saw yelling, and the sounds of gunshots, and the familiar voice of the Sully family. You gasped, clicking at your Elu to swim forward, as you swam slowly toward the sight before you.

You could see Lo’ak much to your relief and the rest of the Sully family, including Tsireya, your eyes squinted as you scanned for the familiar face of your beloved, but couldn’t see it.

Up ahead you saw an Ikran swoop by, Neytiri perching onto the jagged rocks, as she crouched down. It was then you could finally see the circle of commotion around a singular body.

No.

Your heart fell silent, your body taking over as you began whispering prayers underneath your breath that the reality wasn’t true. Tsireya, who had been consoling Lo’ak looked up when she heard you. Her eyes softened as tears welled in her eyes, the look of apology written on her face.

“No...” You whispered, you left unto the rock, your eyes blind to everyone around you except for Neteyam. “No... my Neteyam.”

You looked upon his shaking body, his eyes squinting beneath the setting sun, as you tilted down to see his hand as well as Lo’ak’s trying to put pressure on the obvious wound. Blood was spilling everywhere, mixing in with the waves of water that crashed next to you.

Jake who was right next to you, put a hand delicately on your shoulder, you looked up shaking your head. “I can fix this... I- "

Jake nodded in earnest, “Please.” He looked over to Neytiri who looked blankly in disbelief. “Please. For our son.”

You crouched over Neteyam, the tears in your eyes now hitting his chest as he shuddered, his eyes dilating as he began to go unconscious. You gasped pushing your two hands onto his chest, urging him to stay awake. “Please, my love. Stay awake.”

Neteyam’s ears twitched at your familiar voice, a ghost of a smile evident on his face. “Y/n I- "He began to choke on air. This was enough for you to close your eyes and begin reciting your prayers.

Everything about this was familiar to you, you couldn't put on one hand how many times you had recited these same prayers to injured Navi, but this was different. Neteyam was everything to you. He had been the one pillar that stood tall throughout the entire time you had known him.

Your visions began to burst in colors, the familiar songs of ancestors reaching out through your mind as you felt your body move in harmony. You were asking, no demanding for Ewya to heal him. You felt the sensation reach through your chest and to your fingertips.

You heard Neteyam continue to struggle, as your voice grew louder as well as your tears. You would not give up on him.

Visions flashed through your mind, memories of the first time you met him, the first time you loved him. You could see it crystal clear in your mind, his adoring smile, the way he caressed you, his laughter bubbling out into a crisp day outshining any cloudy thoughts in your mind.

“Ewya gave me a purpose.” You used to joke with Neteyam, on one of the many excursions through the forest. “And initially I thought I was some sort of vessel but… I think she wanted me to meet you.”

Neteyam smiled, his hand reaching over to grasp your face. “You are my purpose.”

You felt the memory fade, as white invaded your visions, you felt your head reach up in shock, your hands trembling as you felt your powers surge into Neteyam. You smiled, before your vision began to fade, and you felt reality come back to you.

Your vision wobbled slightly, feeling the pain and tiredness roll over you. The sun had now set to twilight, the fire beside you from the RDA ship twinkling menacingly in the corner of your eye. You looked around realizing most of the Sully clan had left, which most likely had to do with the fact that little Tuk and Kiri were not evident on your arrival.

You tried focusing on one thing at a time, your mind feeling as if you had been run over by a ship. You looked down at your hands, which still laid peacefully on Neteyam’s chest, layered with his blood. You moved your hands, to see much to your relief, that the bullet wound was gone. Your eyes then cast their gaze on Neteyam’s face, who other than a few bruises, slept peacefully.

To make sure that it wasn’t a dream, you pushed your head down to his chest where his heart laid. You could feel the resounding thump in chorus to your own, and you couldn’t help the tears fall once again. You felt yourself smile, nuzzling into his chest. “Oh, my Ewya… thank you.”

You didn’t know how long you laid there, until you felt a hand creep up your neck, and to your hair, where it patted gently. You gasped, looking up to see Neteyam’s eyes fully open and a smug smirk placed happily on his face. “Well look at that, my own savior.”

If it wasn’t for the way his playfulness exacerbated from his body, you wouldn’t have furrowed your brows in frustration. “Neteyam!” You slapped him in the chest, as he groaned. You gasped, before scowling as he let out a laugh, pushing up from his lying position.

“Y/N…” He grasped your hands with his own, oblivious to the fact that blood still caked your fingers. “I was right.”

“Oh?” You thought curiously, smiling in disbelief that Neteyam still faced your own. “What is that?”

“You are my purpose.” Neteyam grinned, reaching up to caress your cheek, before leaning in to grasp your lips with his own. As you kissed you couldn’t help but feel he was right.

Perhaps that was it. Your mother had said you were a gift. You had a purpose in life. And maybe that purpose in life was in fact intertwined with his.

You were Neteyam’s, as much as he was yours.

taglist: (comment or dm and ask if you want to be in my taglist!)

@neteyum

[mo-mode]

Back on my Screenwriter soap box while watching PJO: They should have bought a bunch of oil diffusers.

(Edit: This post was made before someone pointed out to me that I missed a key line of dialogue, but my points and theories still stand for the same reasons backing up my original post so I’m not changing anything. The dialogue I missed lets us know that Hermes told Percy the lotus was being pumped into the air off-screen. It’s also implies (? I’m still on the fence about this one?) that Hermes told him what day it is, but I missed these during my first three watches because of how quick and vague it was. Which actually kind of supports my point on why visual indicators are so important. Without these, it’s easy to miss key information. And remember, it’s a kid’s show. ANYWAY my conclusions haven’t changed, and I still believe these edits would work better than the quick line of dialogue so just keep this in mind. Thanks.)

(I’m not being nit-picky. I swear. Just hear me out.) So the weirdest thing to me in episode six was how Percy just…learned everything so quickly without any visual indicators? Like they know time passed because it’s dark outside, but how did he know it was Thursday? They know they were affected by the lotus flowers, but how does he know it was pumped into the air? This irked me because even if he’s smart enough to figure some of this out himself (which he is) we as the audience should still be able to follow his thought process instead of learning after the fact.

What if there were oil diffusers?

So imagine the trio walks into the Lotus, figures out this is like the Odyssey, and decides not to eat anything. They waltz in super confident that they cracked the code, but they were wrong. How do we know? Because the moment they enter the crowd, we get an establishing shot of a lotus-branded oil diffuser letting out steam.

Immediately, we as the audience realize their mistake, making it just that more tantalizing to watch. As the episode continues, we realize they’re everywhere. There’s a diffuser in the plants, on the counter, between the game tables, always right out of the corner of our eyes. They just keep churning out lotus-scented oil into the air, which we can infer because we’re smart. (Remember that.)

Now when Percy realizes what’s going on, we know HOW they’re doing it and HOW Percy knows without being told!! Because they were there the whole time.

Onto Thursday.

Consider: A watch.

What if Hermes has the only watch in the casino until the trio walks in with their own?

Let’s give Annabeth one of those cheap, funky watches that gives the time, day, month, year, etc. Something you get from a kids toy catalogue. It’s waterproof, glows in the dark, has an alarm or whatever. I feel like Annabeth would have one of those. (And honestly, she might already. I forgot.) The most important feature for us, though, is the day. It clearly tells us the day of the week.

It’s pretty easy to establish that Annabeth has the watch. Just do it the same way they establish the date: Percabeth arguing over it in the truck. Annabeth shows him the watch. Establishing shot of the watch’s face. That’s it. No bells or whistles necessary. Then when they get to the casino, Annabeth checks it one more time (without an establishing shot, she just does it casually) and they walk in.

(It’s so easy. I promise.)

While Grover is walking around alone, he tries to check the time and realizes there’s no clocks. (Which ngl is super common in casinos already, but it’s creepy nonetheless.) Yada yada, he gets sucked in by Augustus and that’s how he gets got.

Meanwhile, Percy and Annabeth keep meaning to check the time, but every time they do, someone tries to hand them an appetizer or a drink, which makes them forget OR Annabeth’s hubris keeps her from checking. (Percy: Time check? Annabeth: Its only been five minutes. We’re fine. We need to focus.)

And that brings us to Hermes. After their chat, yada yada, Annabeth “leaves” and Hermes gets all cryptic, then he makes a BIG show of checking his watch, and THAT’S when Percy realizes something’s wrong because oh no they haven’t checked the time. So he finds Annabeth, they see it’s dark outside, they check her watch, and it’s Thursday.

“But we didn’t eat anything!” Annabeth says. Percy looks at the diffusers by the entrance. It dawns on him. “They’re pumping it into the air.”

That’s how you VISUALLY SHOW US THINGS instead of Percy just figuring everything out off-camera and telling us!!!!

Now, you may be thinking “Oh but do they have the budget for that??” Do you know how cheap these props are? Just bulk buy like six oil diffusers, slap a homemade sticker of a lotus flower on them, and keep moving them into every shot. And they’re quiet!! They wouldn’t interfere with the sound, the steam is visible enough to be caught on camera without messing with the lighting, they actually look really cool in some lighting, and they fit the atmosphere of a hotel/casino!! Then the watch is like $15, fits with Annabeth’s character, and totally matches her outfit.

It’s CHEAP! It’s EASY! It DOESN’T CUT INTO THE RUN TIME! It’s AESTHETICALLY PLEASING! ANNABETH GETS A SICK WATCH!! NO DOWNSIDES!!!!

The biggest problem with this show isn’t how accurate it is to the book or how much money they have or that they’re “Disney-fying” it. The problem is they are TELLING US things instead of SHOWING us. And not to beat a dead horse because everyone’s heard of “Show Don’t Tell” but like??? This is exactly why everyone is taught this over and over again in school?? Because people still do it anyway all the time???

There’s also something else I learned (or really just picked up) when I got my B.A. in Creative Writing: Good shows are predictable.

Whether it’s a case of the audience learning what’s going to happen before it happens or them watching the show again and realizing how obvious the answer was the whole time, audiences always want to feel smart. They want to interact with the material. If you don’t give them the opportunity to pick apart the mystery themselves by setting down clues, they’ll give up on interacting with the show and lose interest. That’s why you SHOW them things. There are several moments where this show is completely unpredictable, not because it’s complex but because it doesn’t let you predict it. That doesn’t make it bad—the comedy and character development is doing a great job of carrying the show’s weight so far. But it definitely doesn’t make the show good.

It’s like Rube Goldberg machines. Or dominoes! We don’t watch those crazy 1000+ domino videos so we can watch the last one fall. We watch it to see HOW they fall. Take one domino out, and it’s unsatisfactory. It doesn’t work anymore.

But some oil diffusers and a watch??? Little clues that make the realization that more visually appealing??? THAT’S SATISFYING

Anyway, these are just two things that could have been done, but weren’t. Most of the show is stellar. I think it just needs a little bit of editing here and there. I studied this for like years, and I needed to get this off my chest. That’s it.

Rick Riordan, if you ever see this, I am available for hire :) I would love to be a script doctor please please please please

[rorja]

synopsis. you, suguru, and a window left open— or, the soothing lullaby of springtime.

a/n. very much self-indulgent and probably with a lot of mistakes (be patient please, i’ll correct it first thing in the morning!) but i really needed to write a moment of peace after a troubling week…….. also, i’ve been very sick and this is my first attempt at writing after a long time so i apologize if it’s not that good TT — 🐣

it was comforting, watching the thin but sturdy branches of the plum tree stretching to the glittering dots adorning the sky. regulus's fiery mane moving delicately as the evening breeze's note echoed in the air. waking up every sleeping blossom, cradling in a motherly embrace each of its sons and daughters that were yet to be awakened.

spring. where your eyes landed you could spot significant signs of its long awaited arrival, from the night sky to the grass steadily growing inches in your neighborhood's garden. it made a smile bloom on your lips, the same way pink and whiteish buds littered every branch of the plum trees.

you traced the astronomical asterism one more time, drawing an imaginary line that connected the three luminous stars of the evenings to come. an invisible triangle that linked arcturus with spica, just to finish on the other side of the sky and meet with the last component of the brightly lit trio: regulus. many people (and internet. mostly internet) would argue with power points at hand and scientific theories that the white star of denebola was a better choice than regulus. more suited to close the imaginary triangle, resulting in a nearly equilateral one at the price of brightness.

but you didn't care. that place belonged to regulus because that is what you saw the first time you used a telescope. and no one could've made you change your mind, of that you were sure. stubborn just as much over something that wasn't even real but dear to you.

your chest danced slightly— a breathy chuckle finding its way out as you eventually lifted your growing aching arms from the windowsill.

(you know a person who would've found that stubborness of yours endearing.)

a yawn parted your lips and the door cracked open. it had been a long day— a long week even, for both of you of course. but this time around it had been particularly rough for suguru. he was the one to come home with an aching back and tired limbs, though it was not that hard to see how fatigue latched on his body. a voracious snake that found a comfortable nest in between his chest, refusing to leave him alone.

it was the main reason as to why dinner was made a little earlier today and the dishes were left on the counter to dry for the night. you will put them back in the respective cupboard tomorrow as the first thing in the morning. for tonight, you decided to prioritize your rest.

it was also the reason why suguru took a longer-than-usual shower and got out of it only now. the noticeable difference in his shoulders made relief bloom in your chest— no more slumped, or a tad bit droopy but instead relieved, back to their natural stance as if the weight holding them down had been lifted. a minuscule change that probably would have gone unnoticed by others.

he walked toward the bed, phone steady in one hand while typing an answer to satoru and ieiri. it was easy to tell who suguru was writing to. you noticed overtime that when he texted the two of them he wiggled his nose a lot and (if gojo ended up saying something stupid or sending weird memes) his frown lines became more wrinkled, like a child trying to comprehend the meaning of a new word. it was adorable.

you followed his steps, raising the duvets and moving away the excessive amount of pillows on your side of the bed. suguru did the same on his own half.

"satoru giving you a hard time?" a breathy chuckle. he didn't answer, simply shaking his head in resignation and placing the phone on his bedside table before collapsing on the bed with a content exhale. you took that as a sign to join him.

"just satoru being satoru," you didn't fail to notice how his eyes softened when looking at you, "i think yuji should stop teaching him about internet slangs. he's been doing the deez nuts thing for two weeks already"

though there were traces of hopelessness heavily lingering on his words, you couldn't help but notice something else— something that you recognized immediately after as fondness. a familiar feeling that he reserved only for the few people he truly cared about. you didn't even try to stop the laughter bubbling in your chest.

(suguru watched as your eyes crinkled in amusement. the sound of your laughter lulling him to further relieve- soothing away every stubborn trace of stress still sitting heavy in his bones.

spring waltzed from the opened window, attracted by your presence. he couldn't blame it; you were the spring he eagerly looked forward to seeing each day.)

when your laugh eventually dimmed, his phone lightened up with new messages to read. suguru retrieved it and you did the same with yours, wordlessly shifting in a comfortable lull and a familiar embrace. a satisfied hum broke momentarily the blanket of silence falling on the room when you felt his free arm around your shoulders. fingers playing absentmindedly with the strands of your hair, messily splayed on the pillow.

you nuzzled closer to his chest, your cheek now resting on the thin fabric of his white shirt he had been recently using to sleep with. phone clasped in one of your hands while you scrolled mindlessly through the feed of your favorite social media.

and it's gentle. serene. a moment of shared complicity that carried the veiled scent of blossoming flowers and stardust. a needed addition to the relationship that brought somehow a welcomed sense of mundanity.

when suguru eventually fell asleep first, his chin resting on top of your head, you didn't have it in yourself to get up and close the window. too pleasant, too cozy to even entertain the thought of leaving it for a few seconds. you will close it tomorrow, first thing in the morning. as of tonight, you'll let yourself be cradled by the sweet lullaby happening outside that very same window.

(suguru's arms never felt so much like home before.)

[offtorivendell]

The Cauldron and its far reaching threads; who is susceptible to the puppet master, and how might it work?

Disclaimer: this is a massive crack theory that I have held off posting since June 2022, but fuck it I guess, let's go! This is not a shipping post.

As usual, I am absolutely NOT suggesting that anyone who is influenced by the Cauldron is inherently evil in any way. This is just a crack theory. If you can't interact respectfully, then please keep scrolling.

Spoilers: ACOTAR series to date, and massive character spoilers for River Song and the Ponds from Doctor Who (if you care about that) in part 2.

Part 1 - Cauldron Made Beings

This first section will be stating some of the obvious, as we know, per Amren in ACOSF, that Cauldron-Made beings are able to be influenced by the Cauldron, though the “how” is not yet clear. @wingedblooms has theorised extensively about the living bond that Elain Archeron may share with the Mother's crockpot, and I suspect that this bond may also tie (terrible pun, sorry) into how the Cauldron can exert control: by pulling the “bond” threads that connect it to its former inhabitants.

Cassian’s breath caught in his throat. “It was a fluke, Amren. Nesta didn’t make it on purpose.” Amren shook her head, hair swaying. “Nothing is a fluke. The Cauldron’s power flows through Nesta, and could use her as a puppet without her knowledge. It wanted those weapons Made, and thus they were Made. It wanted Rhysand to have them and thus the blacksmith brought them to you. - ACOSF, chapter 42

Finding the link would be basically impossible at this point, but I've previously mentioned that I wonder if the Cauldron's dark maker could be Koschei, or another death god/Daglan. To briefly rehash my thoughts: if there is a dark maker, it stands to reason there be a light maker, too… is it the Mother? Could Koschei be the dark mother that the Naga referred to in ACOTAR, as the terms “mother” and “maker” could demonstrate in-universe evolution of the same word? I've also previously theorised that Koschei may have been controlling the Cauldron through the King of Hybern/vice versa, and that is how the Elucien bond came to be, but this is not a shipping post, sorry!

As a quick aside, the above passage also makes me wonder if the Cauldron, or one of its hypothetical makers, wanted the Archeron sisters Made - it's something I've meant to post about, but I think Koschei has had a hand in things since Papa Archeron’s ship was lost at sea, at the very least. They are each a weapon in their own right, as Amren went on to state their powers match Rhys’ own. I know @nikethestatue has had similar thoughts. But I digress.

Look at the use of “bird in a cage” in the following passage, used to describe Nesta, which parallels nicely with Thesan’s use of decorative birds in cages as spies to listen in (thank you so much to @ladynightcourt3 for the first quote).

The amusement only grew, and Helion pushed a finger against his lips in mock warning. “Careful, High Lady. Even the birds report to Thesan here.” I frowned at the birds in cages throughout the room, still silent in Azriel’s shadowy presence. I threw shields around them, Rhys said down the bond. - ACOWAR, chapter 47

“Like calls to like,” Amren countered. “You were Made by the Cauldron. You may track other objects Made by it as well, as Briallyn can. And because you are Made by it, you are immune to the influence and power of the Trove. You might use them, yes, but they cannot be used upon you.” A glance to Elain. “Either of you.” Nesta swallowed. “I can’t.” But to let Elain involve herself, jeopardize her safety— Amren said, “You tracked the Cauldron—” “It nearly killed me. It trapped me like a bird in a cage.” Elain said, “Then I will find it. I might require some time to … reacquaint myself with my powers, but I could start today.” “Absolutely not,” Nesta spat, fingers curling at her sides. “Absolutely not.” - ACOSF, chapter 21

I think Nesta briefly (I hope, though who knows) became a puppet/shell for the Cauldron's puppet master - perhaps a death god such as Koschei, if @fawnandshadows is correct that he bastardised the Cauldron in some way, millennia ago (I think she's onto something) - and that's who we were seeing when she locked herself into her mind while scrying in ACOSF.

“Get her out, Rhys,” Cassian demanded. “Get her out now.” “I can’t,” he said softly, his power a cloak of stars and night around him. “I— The doors to her mind were open the other night. They’re shut now.” “She doesn’t want it seeing her. Or us,” Feyre said, her face tight. “She’s locked it out, but also locked herself in.” Cassian’s stomach twisted. “Nesta,” he said into her ear. “Nesta, open your hand and come back.” Her breathing sharpened. The cold deepened. “Nesta,” he snarled— And the cold halted. It didn’t vanish, but rather … stopped. Nesta’s eyes flicked open. Silver fire burned within. Nothing Fae looked out through them. Rhys shoved Feyre behind him. She shoved her way back to his side. But Nesta’s hand continued to squeeze Cassian’s. He squeezed back, let his Siphons send a bite of power into her skin. She turned her head so slowly it was like watching a puppet move. Her eyes met his. Death watched him. - ACOSF, chapter 31

I think a similar situation - though more high stakes/urgent - could come to play in Elain's book.

Elain is a Seer with mystical powers that are potentially tied to the Void.

She may try to See through mist and shadow, and accidentally make herself known to Koschei or another death god/Daglan?

In ACOSF, Nesta warned her to “stay away from the Cauldron,” and even Azriel suggested there was a darkness to the Dread Trove that “Elain should not be exposed to.” This, of course, makes many of us think that Elain will go after the Cauldron in her own book.

Could Elain mistakenly Look too far and open herself up to the Cauldron's living bond? That being said, it could simultaneously be using at least Jurian and Amren as well, and we have no idea if Made Fae who haven't been inside the Cauldron, such as Feyre and Miryam, are equally susceptible.

Part 2 - Not Made, yet possibly susceptible

I have been wondering for a while if the Cauldron can somehow form bonds, or weave threads, between itself and anyone exposed to it - or a part of it, when it was separated and hidden in different locations - for extended periods of time, or perhaps crucial ages, like somebody's formative years?

His mouth tightened, and he swallowed once before he said, “Hybern was looking for the Cauldron back then—for the pieces of its feet. One was hidden at the temple in Sangravah, its power used to fuel its priestesses’ gifts for millennia. - ACOSF, chapter 14

What if Gwyn - or anyone else - who grew up in Sangravah, a temple that housed one leg of the Cauldron, internalised some of the magic (sort of along the lines of River Song having regenerative abilities because Amy Pond fell/was pregnant while travelling on the TARDIS, and everything that happened after she was born - being taken away)?

All the High Priestesses wore the billowing, artfully twisted and layered robes—though they certainly were far from matronly. Ianthe’s slim waist was on display with a fine belt of sky-blue, limpid stones, each perfectly oval and held in shining silver. And atop her hood sat a matching circlet—a delicate band of silver, with a large stone at its center. A panel of cloth had been folded up beneath the circlet, a built-in swath meant to be pulled over the brow and eyes when she needed to pray, beseech the Cauldron and Mother, or just think. Ianthe had shown me once what the panel looked like when down: only her nose and full, sensuous mouth visible. The Voice of the Cauldron. I’d found the image unsettling—that merely covering the upper part of her face had somehow turned the bright, cunning female into an effigy, into something Other. - ACOMAF, chapter 2

@wingedblooms has suggested that priestesses could be influenced in general because they worship the triple goddess/divine trio, which follows along with what Feyre hinted at when thinking about Ianthe, all the way back in ACOMAF; that they opened themselves up to the divine during their services (in a similar way to how I imagine Elain's Sight may function). That being said, it's hard to say whether the priestesses at Cesere, Sangravah and Itica are more susceptible than their colleagues from other temples due to their prolonged proximity to the Cauldron’s feet, but I suspect it might be the case.

Could they have a deeper connection, or a bond of sorts?

One that remains even when they aren't communing with the Mother or the Cauldron?

One that may be accessed by the Cauldron or its Maker, for such nefarious purposes as letting in enemies to a library sanctuary?

Gwyn is likely already a lightsinger - please see @silverlinedeyes and @merymoonbeam for some brilliant posts that cover the basics of the theory and then some here, here, here, here and here - but if not, or maybe in addition to that, what if she was "Made-adjacent," and so also able to be used as a "puppet" by the Cauldron/the being controlling it, and thus any threads it may share with others? If accurate, this would work for anyone who was born, grew up, and/or lived for a long time in Sangravah, Cesere or Itica. To clarify, I don't think that these priestesses could call to or search for the the Cauldron, as they are likely not true “kin” - as, say, the Archeron sisters are to other Made items - but I could always be wrong about that. Or is this what lightsingers truly are?

Alternatively, what if every Singer (shadowsinger*, lightsinger, or any other type) was capable of the silent song, or had Made/Starborn powers in a way, and/or could be used as a "puppet" by the Cauldron or its master/maker? It would explain how Azriel's shadows could be used by someone else, maybe Koschei, thanks to the hypothetical living bond between the Cauldron and Made beings? So Nesta, Azriel (whose shadows are potentially Made, if not himself), Elain, Feyre, Amren, Miryam, Jurian, Gwyn and a whole lot of priestesses besides...

Too crazy? Probably, but that's why theorising is fun!

TOG SPOILERS BELOW

* Another theory I know I share with others, but at least @ladynightcourt3 and @psychologynerd, is that Azriel's shadows could be Valg. What if Valg have a living bond back to their respectful Valg King? If @fawnandshadows is correct that Koschei/death gods twisted the Cauldron, could this be how? Valg magic?

[beneathsakurashade]

why did my favorite game turn into a dating sim? twst x gen reader (crack fic) CH: 3 Am I (20 gen) the bad guy for burning water?

CH:1 CH: 2

After agreeing on going to McMousalds with your new pookie Riddle for your first date.  You need three things,

1. money

2. dinero

3. お金

    Because there was no way you in hell that you were going to ask Mrs. Rosehearts for money, especially not for fast food.  So that’s why you’re now in Crowley’s office watching as the man in the crow mask nods along to your desperate pleas.  “Ah, young love, very well Mx. Y/N!  In my graciousness, I shall lend you some money.  Alas, it is not much, but it shall suit your needs”.  He summons a short stack of cash on the desk.  You grab the stack like you’ve never set eyes on cash before, and thank your oh so gracious Headmage before securing your money in your pockets and running out of his office to your room.  Entering your room you hide your cash in your dresser, and pull out your notebook.  The notebook that you stole from a table in the Heartslabyul lounge, someone left a perfectly good notebook on an empty table, and it wasn’t stealing if you were gonna use it…right?  Well enough about wondering who would miss their notebook, you opened it to the first page to see your list.

𝚂𝚝𝚞𝚏𝚏 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚍𝚊𝚝𝚎 <𝟹𝟹

[_] - 𝙼𝚘𝚗𝚎𝚢

[_] - 𝙵𝚊𝚗𝚌𝚢 𝚘𝚞𝚝��𝚒𝚝

[_] - 𝚁𝚎𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚞𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚝 𝚁𝚎𝚜𝚎𝚛𝚟𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗

[_] - 𝙰𝚕𝚎𝚛𝚝 𝚜𝚘 𝙸 𝚍𝚘𝚗’𝚝 𝚏𝚘𝚛𝚐𝚎𝚝

[_] - 𝙷𝚊𝚝𝚜𝚞𝚗𝚎 𝙼𝚒𝚔𝚞’𝚜 𝙱𝚕𝚎𝚜𝚜𝚒𝚗𝚐 (𝚅𝙴𝚁𝚈 𝙸𝙼𝙿𝙾𝚁𝚃𝙰𝙽𝚃!!!)

    Okay so maybe the last thing wasn’t very important in theory, but it was important to you, and lucky for you.  The blue twin-tailed virtual idol was right beside you, in all of her plushie that you-won-from-an-arcade-that-totally-didn’t-cost-you-fifteen-bucks- glory.  For some reason that you couldn’t figure out, the night you arrived here Cater (a ginger haired instagram Magicam user junior who was definitely into his classmate Trey, you could sense it).  Brought her to you, you remembered it like it was yesterday (it was actually two days ago but your dementia is setting in-) he knocked on Riddle and your shared room door and you opened it to see a student that Riddle had talked about holding the oh so familiar Miku plushie.  “Hiya! You must be Riddle’s new partner! Hope you’re up to the job, you’re prob wondering ‘Who’s this cute stranger?’  And while I’m sure that our Housewarden has given you all the deets about me, I’m Cater Diamond, Heartslabyul junior! -he hands you Miku- This little thing was found by a student near where you came here, so the Headmage assumed that it’s yours”.  You nod and thank him “Yea, she’s mine, I can’t believe that she’s the only thing that followed me here…guess she really is the number one princess in the world…” you smile nervously “Wait, does that mean you’re phoneless?” Cater gasps, and you’re not sure why he just acted like an Apple user when you tell them that you don’t use Android, but you’re stuck with a Disney Princess phone from the late 2010’s.  

    “I have to take you to get a new phone, there’s this super fresh place that I know that sells phones for cheap!” He smiles and you think stop…there’s no Squid Sisters reference there, STOP IT! Before nodding “Gotcha, I’ll probably take you up on that Cater”.  He checks the time and sighs “Welp, it’s almost curfew, can’t have Riddle catching any of us out after it.  Hope to see you soon!” You smile and wave as he leaves.  You flash back to the present and  sit down on a chair, scooting next to your desk, checking off the Money box and turn to your plushie, staring her in the eyes.  You could’ve sworn you saw the faintest gleam in her stitched eyes before you check off the Miku’s Blessing box.  Now you just need three things, a fancy outfit, and an alert, because McMousalds doesn’t take reservations.  

    You ponder where and how to acquire a fancy outfit, the stores would probably be far too out of your budget, maybe there was a student here who liked to design outfits?  Preferably for around $30?  You sigh at your poor prospects, and grab a bit of your cash, leaving your room with a dream and a low budget.  You leave your shared room and think to yourself about how you’ve never had time to actually explore Heartslabyul, and as you wander through the many halls and staircases.  You feel more akin to Alice in Wonderland than yourself.  Well, considering Heartslabyul’s history that wouldn’t be too far off… Like a child you find yourself drawn to the comforting smell of something baking.  A cake perhaps?  Or a dozen cookies?  You walk into the dorm’s kitchen and see a tall student, short green hair and yellow eyes hidden behind glasses, dressed in the Heartslabyul uniform, whom you recognized as Trey.  You already knew about Trey Clover, but he never seemed particularly interesting, he was a simple guy from a family of bakers you had a friend who loved him though.  "Hi...um...Trey right?" you say quietly, watching as he reads a recipe.  He turns around and smiles at you "Yup, that's me.  You're Y/N right?  It's great to finally meet you, sorry I couldn't meet you earlier, my family needed me back home for a few days".  You smile "It's alright, and yea.  I was wondering...where can I buy a nice outfit for cheap?" Trey pauses and looks away from the recipe, "Nice outfit for cheap...I have a friend who might be able to help you".

    What Trey didn't mention about his friend was that his friend was Vil Schoenheit.  A literal celebrity.  How and why the actual fuck did you keep meeting pretty people?  Wait...you could use these connections...hehe.  Wait, no, you have to get that outfit, don't get distracted.  You sit across from Vil in Pomefiore's lounge, fidgeting nervously with your fingers as the blonde, purple-eyed celebrity stares at you with disdain.  A friend of yours who had no idea what Twisted Wonderland was, called the Pomefiore trio, Vil, Rook, and Epel the Plastics.  Which was quite funny you had to admit.  But what isn't funny is this perfect faced, stunning guy staring you up and down like you're some roach that he came across on the sidewalk.  "This.  This is all that you can afford for your outfit? Thirty thaumarks?  How in the Sevens do you expect to impress your date?  Are you going to eat at a fast food place at the corner of the street as well?" he scoffs, practically offended that you brought such a measly amount in his presence.  "My bad, I wasn't expecting Crowley to be so fucking cheap- you pause as he glares at you and mutters something about what crude language- so flipping cheap, that he only gave me thirty for an outfit.  Also uh...no, we're going to a very nice place...trust".  Vil bites back a remark and sighs "Very well then, I'll buy you an outfit.  Consider it one of my gifts for your future wedding".  The two of you rise from your seats and you smile excitedly "Ohh am I gonna get some Gucci?  Or maybe some Prada?  Shi-I mean shoot, maybe even some Dior..." he shoots you a glare "Do not push it Y/N... How I pity Riddle".  The two of you walk to the front of the school, "Are we gonna have a Disney channel movie style makeover?" you say excited "I have no idea what that is".  He responds, muttering something about feeling like a mother with an overly hyper child.

    You two arrive at a store stocked with luxury brands that you don't recognize, the cheapest item that you can find is a couple hundred thaumarks.  You walk around the store while Vil shops and discusses things with the employees.  You stare curiously at the wallets, until you're tugged away to a dressing room by Vil.  Cue the trying outfits montage.  You leave the store in around two hours as your total adds up to a total of thirty thaumarks.  Holding your bags full of clothes, you say "How did you manage to get all this for thirty thaumarks?" he responds "Simple, my father and I frequent that store.  So the employees curry to our favor.  Also, I consider getting you that outfit my good deed for today".  You blank "that sound's like it's supposed to offend me in some way...".

    You text Riddle while you're in your room prepping for the date. 

my pookie ❤️

Y/N is online

Y/N: yooooo wsg?

Riddle is online

Riddle: Hello, pardon me, but what is 'wsg'?

Y/N: whats good 😌

Riddle: I see, well, I am doing well. Thank you for asking.

Y/N: np <33

Riddle: Np?

Y/N: it means no problem ^^

Riddle: Oh, thank you.

Y/N: yea, anyways, i've got a fit for our date. i'm boutta be all dripped out. on skibidi 😌

Riddle: I'm not even going to attempt to translate that.

Y/N: iykyk

Riddle: ?

Y/N: if u know u know >:D

Riddle: Oh :o

Y/N: omg chat Riddle finally learned how to use emoticons 😨

Riddle: Cater showed me a few :).

Y/N: my boy is learning so fast, i'm so proud 😭✋

Riddle: Thank you?

Y/N: anyways i gtg, so ttyl pookie be ready by uh...5:30 p.m. >:3

Riddle: Alright, I shall be ready by that time :D.

Y/N: luv u <333

Riddle: ...

Y/N: did i say smthn wrong? 😭

Riddle: No... but, thank you

Riddle has gone offline

Y/N: tf just happened? 😭

Y/N has gone offline

    You wonder what you said to make him go offline so suddenly.  You tell all your friends that you love them, what made him suddenly leave?  Was it that no one ever said they loved him?  That was probably it... in any case you were all ready for your date.  The time was five o'clock, so that gave you time to kill, as you were already dressed in your outfit.  The anticipation was killing you. 

A/N: heyaa everyonee, here's the latest chapter, guys i promise the date scene is coming soon. KY is still going under some revisions, so i made this chapter a little longer as a present for u all <33. chat, i love riddle sm he's so cuteee (づ_ど). also help me plz, my sis is making me listen to every stray kids song 😭🙏

here's the miku plushie image, or like, u can imagine whatever Miku plushie u want idrc lol

[slythepuffle]

I'm getting sucked into a fandom for a Digimon DnD campaign. Send help /j

Anyway here's an AU I made for it:

Who We Were AU – The four of them were connected. They knew they were connected, some way and somehow – They just couldn’t remember why. And without the reason, without the memories, they were just strangers. They drifted apart, which was fine, because, again, they were all just strangers with a strange connection and history that they didn’t remember. It didn’t matter at all.

Then, years later, one of them reaches out to the others.

“I know you probably don’t remember me and frankly I don’t remember you all well either. But, I at least know that I can trust you guys. And right now I need your guys’ help. If my theories are right, I’m not the only one who is going to need help…” 

“Years ago, we and a few others went missing. Judging from my own memories, something big happened then. Something that involved all of us. And, again based on my research, none of you remember what happened when we were missing either. But whatever we were involved with, we never finished. Something – Some people – are still in danger. And we need to help them, as soon as we can. But I don’t think we can do this without our memories.”

“Luckily, I think I found a link! One of the people who went with us is still missing to this day. If we can find out what happened to him, then I think we’ll be able to figure everything else out.”

“This is Grayson ‘The Wizard’ McKnight, signing off. Hope to hear from you all soon.”

~~~~ (Blurb Under Cut)

He was working on his computer, as he always did. His screen was the only light source in the room, the night sky so dark outside that it consumed every other light.

Suddenly, a little ping! noise caught his attention. He blinked, switching tabs to see what had just popped up.

“A new message huh? Hm… Let’s hope it’s not spam…”

He moved his mouse, clicking on the message. A video popped up on his screen.

“Ooo, a video? Alright, let’s see what we have here…”

He pressed play.

At first, the screen was nothing but static. He could hear something faint, someone trying to say something, but the noise was too loud. He winced, lowering the volume until the static began to clear somewhat.

A girl stood at a console, desperately pressing buttons and typing. She looked up at the screen, her eyes wide behind her cracked lenses. Her lips began moving and he quickly raised the volume up again to hear her.

“–ello? Hello?! Can anyone hear me?! Please! We need help!”

He raised an eyebrow.

“Come on, work you stupid thing–!”

She kicked the console, which sparked. That seemed to cause her some pain, as she leapt back and cursed, tears welling. “Damnit!”

“Julie–!”

The voice, robotic in nature, sent a strange chill down his spine. He ignored it, watching intently as a tall figure entered the screen.

“We must go. The others cannot hold them back any longer–!”

“But I need to get help!” She sounded like she was on the verge of tears. She looked like she had been through hell. Poor kid – He wondered what happened to her. What had she been through that led to this? “Please Andromon. At least let me try.”

The android (ragepureboilinghatebutwhy) looked at her solemnly. “I will try to buy you more time then. Please hurry.”

It quickly lumbered out of the frame and the strange feelings he had followed suit. The girl turned back to the screen, trying to steel herself.

“If any of the previous Digi-Destined are hearing this – We are the current Digi-Destined, currently in the D-Terminal in the Digital Forest. We found your– our partners and we saw your message. This world is in danger and– and we couldn’t protect it. We weren’t enough.”

She seemed to falter, hands curling into fists and trembling. She swallowed, fiercely rubbing at her eyes as she continued. “L–Look, if anyone is hearing this – We need you. Your partners need you. The Digital World needs you. So please! Please come and help! I’m begging you… Help us.”

The wall behind her burst, dust filling the room and concealing her as static began to build. He could vaguely see the android (dangerbadrunȑ̸̰̈́ȋ̷̢̦̱̇̊ő̵̡̦͚t̷͉̄̀̾) storm into the room again, just as the static overwhelmed the screen and the video came to an end.

Grayson McKnight leaned back in his chair, staring at his screen with a mix of shock and thought on his face.

“Well… that was something.”

[chirpsythismorning]

Crack Theory: Will Byers is Twelve (012) - Part 3

I seriously meant it when I said things are about to get even more interesting. You're not ready.

I didn't notice this until literally today (so if it's a well known concept already, my apologizes!).

For those like me who didn't know about this, essentially we got two different versions of the opening to the Massacre at Hawkins Lab. The 4x01 version, and the 4x07 version.

They're almost identical, both one long take, but still with slight differences, especially in how they end. It's now clear to me that these are two entirely different takes. And so what purpose does that serve exactly?

I'm guessing they did this in large part to convey how El now has a more clear memory of that day, compared to at the start of the season.

But upon rewatching the 4x07 version, and specifically in the context of this Twelve theory, I'm shook.

4x07: The Massacre at Hawkins Lab (cont.)

Does this series of images... remind you of anything?

ANYWAYS

THERE HE IS ON THE LEFT!

Oh nvm he's gone.

WAIT THERE HE IS AGAIN!

It's confirmed!?!! Twelve (Will) sat next to Eleven (El)!?!?! It's just that the story wasn't willing to reveal this in the beginning....

And there he is again, just on the edge of the frame, to the right, coloring away...

Then, Brenner takes Ten out of the Rainbow room, and suddenly this moment that was framed as important in the s4 opener, is now being looked at from a more important perspective: El's.

El then follows through with the plan, in hopes it will bring back her memory...

The last time we see Twelve, he's still sitting at the desk drawing.

I will say before getting into what's about to happen, that this sequence is pretty haphazard at times. Like s3 ending w/the goodbye hugs level haphazard. What I'm saying is, there's visible shots during this sequence, where you can tell the blocking of the characters doesn't match up exactly with where they were in the previous shot/where they were probably intended to be for that shot.

However, I think it's helpful to think about how these are very young actors in this scene, and a scene that is extremely sensitive/serious at that. I wouldn't want children (or even adults) to have to work ungodly amounts of hours, redoing a take over and over because it wasn't perfect, nor would I expect them to do reshoots just because one or two shots doesn't match perfectly with what they intended continuity-wise. That just happens occasionally in film, and the only people with perfect continuity, I imagine are a pain in the ass to work with...

However, I think there is one specific detail that makes me slightly open to humoring this theory.

Because I will admit, I myself am skeptical for an abundance of reasons. There is still a lot that would need to be addressed in s5 if Will was indeed Twelve this whole time. Like a lot of explaining. Though, now looking back at past seasons, there is an interesting new angle to think about it with all of this in mind (that's a different post for a different day).

Still, one of the main arguments, that debunks this whole theory, is that presumably, all of the kids died that day, except for El. Right?

And so how the hell would Twelve (Will) have survived?

Well, that one specific detail I was just referring to, is the framing of Twelve in s4, and specifically in relation to El.

As you've seen so far, Twelve is either very much in focus more than the others, practically front and center, or he's lingering in the background of shots that are really odd for him to be in, or he is left out of the sequences almost entirely, while everyone else is shown. It is so. weird.!

And the ending of the massacre follows that same formula.

As El runs into the Rainbow room, the first place she looks is in the direction where she was just sitting before she left, which we now know happens to be where Twelve was as well (last time we saw him).

However, we do not get to see what El saw in this exact moment. Instead, the camera continues to focus on El as her eyes scan the room from left to right.

Once she looks down to her right, we finally get to see what she sees (I'm not going to post these shots for obvious reasons).

And so basically....

I think Twelve is under the mirror/window, roughly the same area where Twelve was when she left the Rainbow room...

The first time we get closer to seeing someone possibly under the mirror/window, they don't allow us to. It's as if they are panning over it, high enough so that test subject is out of view.

But then, we see a pair of feet on the floor to the left, below the mirror/window, along with a very prominent bloody hand print.

Take note of that handprint and those feet because I think it could be important...

SHIT there it is again!

And again, this time slightly between Henry and El, but more so closer to Henry.

God. I feel like any moment know, dramatic irony is gonna kick in and we're somehow gonna get something that makes us think of Will...

IM SO SORRY

Part 4 coming soon!

Part 1, 2, 3, 4

[uskglass-mirror-house]

The Wood at Midwinter: theories

I am yet again thinking about the new Susanna Clarke book and I have some theories about the plot.

A girl encounters John Uskglass and it's all downhill from there: ok this one is pretty straightforward. The dark figure from the woods is Uskglass and what follows is a fairy tale similar in tone to that of The Ladies of Grace-Adieu. I'm kinda hoping for this one because of course I am!

Arabella Strange and Emma Pole help a girl escape a fairy: I know they were not mentioned anywhere in the small amount of plot available on GoodReads, but both of them are related to winter in jsamn and have had grim experiences with fairies. It would be cool to have them team up with another girl who is about to be kidnapped. Also, magical girl squad yay!

Stephen Black is our king: the dark figure turns out to be newbie king Stephen desperate to find a worthy human ally to help him restore Lost Hope. It would be pretty cool to see Stephen acting more like a fae king and then having to come to terms with his detachment from his fellow humans. It would also be cool to have a comedic story about his struggles as a king as seen by a random girl he convinced to help him.

Fake it 'till you make it: similar to the first one, but a fairy/random magician pretends to be Uskglass and the protagonist has to discover the charade and beat them in a battle of magic and wits. This would be great both in the dark fairy tale vibe and comedic folk tale one (although, real Uskglass is still the best Uskglass).

Surprise Childermass cameo: ok, this one has nothing to do with the whole plot, I think it would be really funny if the only reason this was set in the jsamn universe was like Childermass and Vinculus arguing in a tavern in the background while Segundus takes notes at some point in the story. Even funnier if the protagonist never even speaks to them and just passes by.

The unexpected return of the magicians (which is totally expected): I don't think this needs further explanation. However, I do wanna say that I would not like this one as much as the others because something so crucial to jsamn should not be addressed in a short story. If this is played as a fairy impersonating Strange though...10/10

A wood of its own: the story is linked to jsamn through references only while it does its own thing. I think this is the most probable one given the precedent set by The Ladies and I won't mind it... but please, if it's a fae loves a human story, please let it be queer! I'm just... there are so many normie het romances like that already, they are growing stale.

This is all I have for now. I think I will reblog with more ideas as they come. Meanwhile, if a fic writer comes by and wants to take a crack at one of these, by all means, be my guest (pretty sure some of these were already done, but still)!

[bigskydreaming]

I actually can not believe I've never posted this X-Men headcanon that turned into a whole treatment/outline, but for those few followers who know who Dallas Gibson aka Specter is, or Laynia Petrovna aka Darkstar, or just anything about Academy X in general.....enjoy! (You actually don't have to know anything about Dallas or Laynia to follow this, I don't think.)

Anyway, I give you:

THE GREAT MANIFESTO OF WHAT IF DALLAS GIBSON WAS THE SECRET LOVE CHILD ONE NIGHT STAND CHILD OF BOBBY DRAKE AND LAYNIA PETROVNA: A CRACK FIC THEORY OUTLINE SOMETHING IN THREE PARTS

(Like I GENUINELY thought I had posted this before but found this in my drafts so apparently not. Anyway, I feel like this is particularly relevant again after Laynia was just brought out of comic book limbo as the head of a mutant mercenary group in the wake of Krakoa's fall. She's massively OOC in the one issue of X-Factor released so far and I don't like it, but it did reignite this particular headcanon so....there's that I guess).

Anyway! My treatment for revealing Dallas Gibson as actually being Dallas Drake, secret child of Bobby Drake the Iceman and Laynia Petrovna the Darkstar from when they were on the Champions together when they were both only nineteen.....without actually destroying continuity to make it work!

A triptych of linked five issue minis:

ICEMAN AND DARKSTAR: SHADOW GAMES

ICEMAN: A HOUSE OF DRAGONS

DARKSTAR: SONS OF SNOW AND SHADOW

So I have approximately 80 different pitches for what to do with Iceman at any given time, but let's go with one that I know would never in a million years happen purely because the X-Office will never let the 05 be the ages I perceive them as which is mid to late thirties at this point. Like I picture Bobby as around thirty-six or so, though for him it actually makes sense for him to be eternally portrayed as LOOKING like he's in his early 20s, since that was the age he first transmuted to his ice form and so makes sense to be his default template/molecular blueprint his power resets him to every time he has to make a new body from scratch.

Anyway, wildly self-indulgent pitch ahead, which ties into a cracky headcanon I've had since Academy X, a couple OCs, and combines my ideas for giving Bobby an antagonist of his own, more characters to interact with other than major X-Men so his story beats aren't reliant on whatever's going on with other X-Men and who's available,  and gives him concrete reasons to want to level up quickly in terms of how much social influence he wields among mutantkind, take more prominent/proactive stances on things, etc. While still leaving room for him to be goofy and always trying to use humor to seem more relatable, less threatening, etc.

So. I'm picturing this as a triptych like Sabretooth, three interlocked minis of five issues each that form a trilogy by the end.

First mini:

ICEMAN AND DARKSTAR: SHADOW GAMES

ISSUE ONE:

First issue opens with Bobby in his apartment in LA, sometime after he's left the most recent X-Men lineup and is back to living off of Krakoa. He's just gotten in and is going through his mail where he comes across a card with no return address. Opening it, he finds its a condolence card that says "Thinking of you on this anniversary of such a tragic day." His internal monologue, conveyed in caption boxes and a key element of this whole mini, shows he's totally confused by this. He has no idea why this date would hold any special significance, or who would have sent the card or why. (The specific date would just be somewhere around the date of publication, in a world where this actually got published, lol. Let's go with April 27th, for instance).

Deciding to just shrug it off as some weird thing, Bobby's basically just being moody for a page or two of reflection before Scott calls. They're trying to do better about keeping in touch even when they're not on the same team. Some generic catching up, and Bobby eventually mentions he's just been in a weird mood all day, to which Scott says he's not surprised. Turns out Scott's noticed that for as long as he can remember now, Bobby's ALWAYS in a shitty mood every time April 27th rolls around. Yes, Scott being Scott, after years of Bobby being weird around the same time every year, he eventually narrowed it down to its epicenter. This very day. Bobby is both weirded out and touched by Scott's attention to something so specific about Bobby...more attentive than even Bobby himself. When they hang up, he's still clueless about why today would be such a big deal to him, but apparently there's a pattern. That card might not have been so random after all.

Confused & uncomfortable now, Bobby decides to get out of the house & just do hero stuff. That always makes him feel better. He helps put out some fires, divert a tidal wave, gating back and forth across the planet, restless. The whole issue, even as he uses his usual banter to make the people he helps feel at ease in the wake of whatever catastrophe they were just saved from, his internal monologue shows he's second-guessing himself constantly, being his own worst enemy, criticizing every choice he makes about his saves, how he could've done things better, etc. Things come to a head when he intervenes at a protest - I don't have a specific cause in mind but ideally something non mutant related - as a group attacks the protesters until Bobby drops in to protect them.  

The protesters thank him but are pretty cynical about the whole thing. They note that this happens constantly and most of those same people will be back stirring up trouble and violence at another event like this down the line. They hope for change for the better but point out that some people never will, because they're not interested in better. They're happy with their hate. Bobby reflects on what they said, and here's where his thoughts start to take a particularly dark turn. He thinks of some of the ways his powers could be used to ensure those ppl never hurt anyone again, how the full potential of his powers include a lot of lethal options, and why shouldn't he use them when its true most of these ppl will just commit heinous acts in the future, and he might not be around to protect their victims next time. He even reflects on how he's used some of those darker options in the past, so its not like it'd be crossing a line he hasn't already....

Disturbed by the fact that the only reason he can think of not to go there is he's a hero and heroes don't do that, he just wants to be anywhere else in a hurry so he skips heading for a gate and does something he does only rarely....turns himself into mist and starts to disperse, to teleport somewhere far away, but as he does he gets the weirdest feeling, like his spread out consciousness is brushing up against someone else's. He's not alone he realizes. And he stops and recoalesces right there and talking to the empty air he demands that someone show themselves. A man appears out of nowhere, laughing.

Stranger: Your observational skills are a lot sharper than they used to be, Drake. Back in the day, you had no idea when I was around.

Bobby: Who are you and why are you talking like I'm supposed to know who you are? I've never seen you before in my life.

Stranger: Wow, it sucks to realize you left way less of an impression on someone than they left on you. I guess it makes sense though. I mean, when you KILLED me almost twenty years ago, this very day - that was obviously a big deal for me, but hey, I've been out of the loop awhile so what do I know? Maybe it was just another Tuesday for you.

Bobby: Are you the one who sent me that card earlier? Who the hell are you and what kind of game are you playing?

Stranger: Same one we were playing all those years ago, Bob. Before you got all pissy and flipped the board before I got a chance to make my next move. But thanks to the wonders of Krakoan resurrection, now we can pick up right where we left off. It really is a miracle, isn't it?

Bobby: Well maybe you should check with the Five and make sure they didn't bring you back with a few screws loose, because I'm pretty sure I'd remember this if it was actually me you were playing this game with.

Stranger: Maybe you just forgot. Or who knows? Maybe someone made you forget.

Bobby: Okay, yeah, I'm bored now. Time to put you on ice.

He starts icing the area around the stranger, intending to trap him in a block of ice, but the stranger just laughs and turns incorporeal, becoming a transparent outline hovering above the street....so to anyone who hadn't been watching their conversation - like the very protesters Bobby had saved earlier - it looked like Bobby was just furiously creating some kind of ice attack that didn't seem to be aimed at anyone...other than them. The now ghost-like stranger zips over to the crowd and starts weaving among them, seeming to whisper in a bunch of peoples' ears....and before long, the crowd that had just been saved from one attack and were primed not to just sit down and take another, were ready to choose fight over flight...and all of that fight now seemed focused directly on Bobby.

He constructs some ice barriers to just keep them at bay, not really worried they'll hurt him and more concerned about not hurting them, when the stranger's ghost form swirls around Bobby, hovering above his shoulder and now whispering in his ear. But there's no dialogue in the stranger's speech bubble....just caption boxes displaying Bobby's internal monologue....and now calling into question every single box earlier in the issue.

Caption box: Isn't it surreal how the right words whispered in the right ears can dramatically change a person's perception of something....or someone? How easy it is to change peoples' courses....even the course of their entire life?

Caption box: And fear, well, fear's one of the best motivators there is. So much easier to get someone to listen to you when they're afraid of something else.

Caption box: But maybe you can't really relate to that. A guy as powerful as you, you're probably not afraid of much these days.

Caption box: That wasn't always true though, was it? This take you back at all? Remind you of when you were just a kid, and there was a mob gunning for you just for the crime of being mutant and vulnerable? I bet you were scared then.

Caption box: Considering what a guy like you could do if he were scared enough, if the right person used the right words as the spark to ignite all that fear....the world's probably pretty lucky that Saint Xavier was there to be the voice you listened to back then, huh. Y'know, instead of someone like Magneto or Apocalypse being the ones to tell traumatized, impressionable little you what to do with all that fear and anger you felt....

Caption box: Do you ever think about that, Drake? Wonder if all that separates you from the worst of the worst is you had the right voice in your ear at the right time? That maybe there's nothing special about you at all, nothing innately noble, heroic.

Caption box: That you were just....lucky?

Caption box: Food for thought. Anyway, I gotta run for now, but I'll be seeing you, Bob.

Caption box: We have so much to catch up on.

Then its just Bobby left keeping the crowd at bay with his ice structures, him visibly shutting down, trying not to think too much and just running on instinct, until a hand reaches down from above and snatches him up into the air, until the streets are just a speck below them. Bobby looks up and to his shock its Laynia Petrovna aka Darkstar, his old friend and teammate from back when he was on the Champions as a teenager. The issue closes with her saying: "Hello, Bobby. I'd say its nice to see you and all the usual pleasantries, but we don't have much time. And we need to talk about our son."

ISSUE TWO   

This issue switches to Laynia's POV with her internal monologue in caption boxes, and picks up with them having teleported somewhere secluded via Laynia's powers (she's much more practiced using hers to teleport than Bobby is using his that way). This issue goes back and forth between past and present, as during Laynia's narration of past events they're shown as if they're happening in real time.

Bobby's pointing out that they were never together, and considering she was the one who turned him down, you'd think she'd be aware of that. Laynia responds that no, they were never a couple, but they did sleep together once and once only....she'd been feeling particularly down about her ex-boyfriend Yuri after running into him, it was a rebound thing for her and she never hid that but Bobby took it to mean more than it did anyway and acted a fool about it, aligning with their canon interactions at the very end of their Champions run, before getting on the same page and they went back to just being friends.

Except, Laynia says, then she found out she was pregnant, and he flew to Russia to join her and decide what to do together, while everyone else thought he was still at UCLA. He doesn't remember any of this, because blocks were put in their memories, hiding everything related to this. But it did happen, and they do have a son. She'll explain everything, but they need to keep moving around, as she doesn't want the man who just confronted Bobby to overhear any of this and its very hard to detect when he's around. Their best option is to keep on the move, teleporting frequently and not staying anywhere long enough for him to track where they are.

Bobby: Oh crap. HE'S not our son, is he?

Laynia: Hell no.

Bobby: Phew, I was worried we had a Stryfe situation for a second there. I am barely holding it together as is and I am NOT equipped to handle an evil Bobby Jr. from the future.

Laynia reaffirms that he is definitely not their son, but he is the reason for much of what happened back when they were eighteen. They only ever knew him by his moniker, 'Doubting Thomas' and honestly were never sure when exactly he started watching them and messing with their heads. That's his MO. His power lets him turn from flesh and blood into a form made solely of psychic energy...an astral ghost that's invisible, immaterial and can travel via the astral plane. But his only power to affect the material world in that form lies in telepathy. He can project thoughts into someone's mind and its almost impossible to keep him out or tell his intrusions from ordinary thoughts.

She's not sure how he'd fare against other telepaths, but at least with non-psychics, even the best psychic shielding or anti-telepath technology isn't a guarantee against him. Because he doesn't try to break into minds, or even sneak past mental defenses. He just surveils his targets, watching them invisibly, learning all he can about them, and then he looks for cracks in whatever mental shields they have. Tiny gaps here and there that he can just whisper into, slipping a thought in amongst the chaos and chatter generated by someone's own mind.

All of which means they never were sure where their own natural fears and paranoia ended, and his whispering began. They were eighteen, she reminds Bobby, already freaking out about this giant life change neither were sure they were ready for, even if they did keep the baby...and neither of them was an ordinary civilian. They were powerful mutants with lots of enemies....from day one, they were concerned that their child would be born with a target on their back just from that. And then there was the fact that one of the things they'd always bonded over was resentment for how early they felt their childhoods ended.

Laynia and her twin brother Nikolai were taken from their parents at birth, and raised separately with government agents for foster parents. They were always intended to be mutant operatives for their government, their lives scripted out for them, and their training began in their early teens. Laynia didn't even know she had a twin brother until she was in her twenties.

And Bobby had always quietly nursed resentment for being put out into the field at the same time as the rest of the 05, all years older than him and with a lot more focus from the Professor. Scott was his protege, a tactical genius, Jean was his preferred pupil in terms of power development, Hank was a bonafide genius, and Warren was a millionaire playboy, a natural spokesman and inevitable future celebrity. Bobby was just Bobby though, with no awareness of his full potential, and the only one the Professor didn't seem to have any real purpose for or interest in. Like he was tacked on as a spare, his presence more of an afterthought than intentional.

So especially in his late teens, after the 05 went their separate ways, Bobby had always been bothered by the fact that he'd gone through all the same traumas and hardships as the rest on their various missions, but always wondering what he was even doing there when it didn't even seem like there was any reason he was supposed to be. Privately he'd always wanted someone - his parents, the Professor, even the older 05 - to question whether there was really nobody else Xavier could have been sending out to fight Magneto, than a fifteen year old too afraid of being abandoned to say no on his own behalf. After all, the issue was complicated by the fact that when his parents weren't fully on board with Bobby going to the Institute, Xavier mindwiped them into thinking he was just at boarding school, and it was only when Bobby was eighteen that the Professor restored their full awareness of what Bobby had been doing for years.

All of which played into why Bobby and Laynia didn't tell anyone about the pregnancy, even their closest friends. It started out as them just putting it off, wanting to be more sure of their own thoughts on this before someone else tried to make the decision what to do for them, but by the time Laynia gave birth, they'd fully isolated themselves, paranoid that Xavier or the Red Room would take the baby and just make them forget all about it. And problem is, as Laynia put it, they couldn't tell how much of that was Doubting Thomas whispering all the right things to ramp up their anxieties and specific fears.

And obviously someone did mess with their memories anyway, Bobby points out crankily. This all is partly meant to seed two ongoing character arcs for Bobby in the future....the first, his awareness of how often his mind and memories have been messed with over the years, by enemies and allies alike, to the point he's honestly not sure how much of 'him' is really even him, and how much he's just the end result of people just editing his mind whenever he started heading in a direction they didn't want him to. With how long the memories of their time travel trip were hidden, now these missing memories, what other holes could exist in his memories without him ever having a clue?

And the second character arc is his misgivings about Xavier and the role he played in Bobby's childhood. Knowing what he knows now of his omega potential, aware that all the biggest developments and learning curves with his powers happened when Bobby WASN'T Xavier's student, Bobby's increasingly convinced that Xavier never trusted Bobby with his own power, and while he might not have actively stunted his growth, he certainly didn't help or encourage it the way he did his other students. The foundation is there for Bobby to wonder if the only reason Xavier ever even recruited him was to keep him from falling into anyone else's hands and becoming a threat.

As Laynia reminds him of what they were like back then and how they viewed things, things fall into place for Bobby and its very easy for him to see how they could have ended up hiding this from anyone in Xavier's orbit, etc...and this starts to become less abstract for him. It wasn't that he thought she was lying at any point, but its hitting him now....he has a son, and someone made him forget. He's someone who has always yearned for family that won't judge or condemn him, leave him, always been determined to be everything his own father wasn't and nothing like him, and yet he has a son who's grown up without him. Whose name he doesn't even know.

He does know his son though, it turns out. At least somewhat. Its one of Bobby's former students before M-Day. Dallas Gibson aka Specter. He has no idea who he really is, Laynia says, but the parents who died when Dallas was ten were his adoptive parents. But he was born Dallas Drake, as Petrovna wasn't even Laynia's real last name and she had no idea what it originally was. Heir to the merged powersets of both his biological parents, with his father's elemental form but made from his mother's signature Darkforce energies.

As for why Laynia remembers when Bobby doesn't....she didn't originally. But then years ago (during the Morrison run), she was possessed by one of Weapon X's most dangerous creations, the Huntsman. However, thanks to how her powers were designed to let her mind travel through the Darkforce Dimension to do things like teleport, when she was possessed, her mind tried to flee into that dimension. When Fantomex killed her, he only killed her body, and her mental tether to it. The shock and trauma of her physical death broke down the barriers around her memories, and they all came flooding back. Problem was, she only existed as a consciousness drifting aimlessly in the Darkforce Dimension.

But then Dallas started learning more about his powers and growing them during his time at the Academy. And his powerset also includes the ability to make shadow golems similar to the ice golems his father makes. But he didn't realize this as the first time he made one, with Darkforce energy being the clay his golem was sculpted from...Laynia was able to use that as a doorway into the physical world. She inhabited his shadow golem as her vessel, the way a future Iceman's golem once split off from him and became a separate entity. So Dallas never realized his newfound shadow friend started out as something he made unconsciously...he just knew that it seemed to have its own sentience from the jump, was a friend and protector who'd show up whenever he needed them. That friend and protector just happened to be his biological mother, watching over him the only way she could.

Until M-Day. When Dallas was depowered, Laynia lost her connection to the physical world and was stuck again in the Darkforce Dimension....until her brother Nikolai made a bargain with Immortus that led to her full resurrection. Finally she was back, and she remembered everything. But also knew Bobby remembered none of this. And so for the next couple years she just checked in on Dallas periodically but kept her distance, because she not only remembered her son...she also remembered why they were so desperate to hide his connection to them that they covered up their own memories of him ever existing.

At the end of the issue, they arrive at the hideout of the Russian mutant underground, a community of mutants who mistrust Krakoa and its leaders, but aren't on board with Mikhail Rasputin and his faction either. Laynia brought Bobby to the person who originally hid their memories and locked them away - at their own request....Bobby's idea, in fact - Alexi Garnoff aka Blind Faith, a telepath Bobby first met in his X-Factor days. But who was so quick to trust Bobby, because turns out that wasn't actually the first time Alexi remembered meeting him.

As Bobby reels from the reveal that this particular manipulation of his mind had been something he himself asked for, Alexi says he can erase all his work and return his own memories of all this, and Laynia warns him that remembering it all will hurt. Because they have a son, yes, Dallas Gibson aka Dallas Drake aka Specter. But twins run in her family.

And for a brief - too brief - window of time, they had not one son, but two.

ISSUE THREE

This issue returns to Bobby's POV and internal monologue, and takes place almost entirely in the past, or in Bobby's mindscape. He tells Alexi to do his thing, he wants to know, NEEDS to know everything. The walls come down and in his mind, Bobby finds himself standing at the start of a giant labyrinth made of ice. He sees a little boy running through it and gives chase, needing to catch up to him, desperate even as he's aware he's running on autopilot, more instinct than knowledge. He's never seen this boy before - he's not even a real memory himself. But he knows what an older Dallas looks like, at least. And he's sure this is what his mind imagines a Dmitri older than what he actually remembers might look like, and he desperately wants a closer look. But this Dima stays forever just out of range because his mind doesn't actually have a clear image of an older Dmitri to conjure, and up close, the illusion would be too obvious, and the loss all the more real for that.

Following the boy through the labyrinth, he sees memories unveil themselves on the ice walls around them. He remembers Laynia telling him she was pregnant, their agitated debates over the months that followed as they agonized over what to do, how to keep the baby safe - babies, once they found out it was twins. He sees the day the twins were born, relives them deciding to name the elder twin Dallas, after the city where they first met, before Laynia even joined the Champions, and the younger they named Dmitri, or Dima for short....after the only teacher Laynia ever felt actually valued her for herself instead of seeing her as a weapon being honed.

He remembers them leaving the hospital and hiding for a few weeks at a secluded cabin their old teammate the Black Widow found for them....she was the only one they told, figuring nobody could keep a secret better than her, and how they wavered and grew closer to caving and letting their closest friends and teammates help them figure out how to keep the twins safe. Sees flashbacks of him playing with the boys while Laynia watches fondly, and vice versa. Relives as he - still little older than a child himself - puts them in their crib and tells them not to be scared, talks about how his grandfather used to have a saying: "all Drakes are dragons," and making a dragon sculpture that catches the light to act as their nightlight.

And then he relives the day they woke up to find the crib empty and the twins missing. The first time they met Doubting Thomas, who left them an easy trail to follow because he wanted them to find him, wanted a confrontation. Bobby and Laynia had descended on the facility they tracked him to with the full fury of midnight and winter at their most destructive, and once inside they separated as they found the twins had been split up and taken in different directions. Laynia went after Dallas, who she could feel faintly, an early sign of his link to the Darkforce Dimension that she shares - second generation mutants always tend to manifest early - and Bobby went after Dmitri.

Doubting Thomas was waiting though, and the villain backstory reveal unfolded. The Professor, the Hellfire Club, etc....they weren't the only people who went around looking for young mutants to mold, seeing their potential. He grew up under the thumb of a woman even he only knows as Mother Nurture, a sadist with unguessable motivations even to her lackeys that she raised from childhood....to be their worst selves. Apparently she claims to be a precog, who knew what mutant children would grow up to be great heroes or positive influences on the world....which appears to be contrary to her agenda, whatever that is....as she targets kids who COULD grow up to be great forces for change, change for the better, and picks the ones with the brightest potential to stamp out and corrupt, turn to darkness. Her obsession with proving that there are no real heroes, that anyone can be twisted into the villain was apparently a recurring theme of Doubting Thomas' childhood, so when she assigned him the task of abducting the Drake twins when they were still months away from even being born, Thomas fixated on Bobby and Laynia during his surveillance of them, and developed an obsession of his own.

It was the first time he'd ever targeted superhero parents, let alone ones close enough in age to him that he could project onto them, see them as an inverted reflection of his own life. And even as he prepared to take the Drake twins at the earliest opportunity, that was just his assignment. His obsession with Bobby and Laynia was wholly personal, as he clearly became consumed with a need to prove to himself that they weren't better than him, that he could have BEEN them in another life, with better influences....that they would have been no different than he if they'd been in his shoes.

In fact, he was convinced there was such a slim margin of difference between them that he could topple Iceman from his heroic perch with just the slightest push. Bobby refutes this, saying he's nothing like him, but that's when Thomas says he lied. Mother Nurture actually only sent him after one Drake boy. She wasn't expecting two. Apparently, one of them was never destined to live all that long to begin with.

The issue never actually shows Dmitri, just Bobby breaking down, cradling the swaddled figure to his chest. He's dead-eyed when he looks up, frozen tear tracks on his cheeks as one icy drop falls to the ground and shatters.

Bobby: Guess you were right about me. Congrats. You win.

And then over the next two panels, Thomas flash-freezes before he can react, his entire body frozen on a cellular level...and then he shatters.

We only see glimpses of Laynia's horrified reaction when she arrives with Dallas in her arms, as Bobby hurries past those memories, he has them back but he doesn't want to relive those moments at all...and there are more snapshots of barely glimpsed memories of Bobby and Laynia reducing the entire facility to nothing but an empty crater. Bobby arrives at the memory of Laynia and Bobby, fueled by trauma and desperation, panicking about this Mother Nurture sending someone else after Dallas, their original fears reignite, the list of people who might want a baby like Dallas for their own agendas seems endless....culminating in them giving Dallas to Black Widow to place with a family she trusts to raise him safely. But Bobby notes despondently that even with all that, it'd take someone like Xavier or with similar resources all of five minutes to find a powerful mutant that young, if they ever got so much as a hint about him from Bobby or Laynia's minds.

Which is when Bobby decides: "In a world of telepaths, Cerebros and Wolverines, the only foolproof way to keep a secret...is to not even know it yourself.

They both agree, and seek out a telepath unaffiliated with any team or organization: Alexi Garnoff. Which brings us back to the present.

April 27th. The anniversary of the day one son died, and they made the decision to give up the other for his own safety.

ISSUE FOUR

With both of their memories fully restored, they're on the same page about what happens now: They have to find a way to keep the resurrected Doubting Thomas from figuring out who and where Dallas is. If he truly wants revenge, or if he still just feels compelled to fulfill his original assignment, Dallas is his real target. But they're fairly certain the extreme lengths they went to all those years ago at least did their job. Even with Bobby unaware of Thomas' existence, let alone vendetta against him, the latter was able to stalk him ever since his resurrection without finding even a hint of Dallas' location or identity...he would have had better luck stalking Laynia probably, but they assumed his fixation on Bobby for killing him, along with Laynia steering clear of Krakoa (ironically because she was worried about the many telepaths there picking up on her secret), Thomas concentrated his efforts on following Bobby and might not have even realized that unlike him, Laynia DID already know who and where Dallas was.

Thomas must have come out into the open in the way he did specifically to push Bobby to regain his memories, figuring then it would only be a matter of time before Bobby slipped up enough for Thomas to zero in on his target....so now they had to figure out how to keep that from happening, while now having a whole new host of reasons not to want to advertise they had a son. The last thing they want is to keep him out of Thomas' clutches just to put him on Sinister's radar, especially now that they know Bobby's an omega and how 'highly prized' they are as resources....which would no doubt make his offspring of interest to various villains.

Not to mention, Laynia's got her own misgivings about Krakoa. She's FURIOUS about the Crucible - Dallas was among the earliest to sign up and go through it, desperate to get his powers back and return to his place among his former classmates. Not only does she consider it needless trauma of the very sort they sacrificed so much to protect their son from, Laynia is territorial. Dallas' name and powers were pretty much the only thing he got from his biological parents, that they were able to give him as his birthright, the upside to all the downs that came with being their kid, and Laynia's pissed as hell that Bobby's new government had the gall to demand their son EARN BACK what was always his and that losing had ALREADY been a trauma all its own.

This in turn sows the seeds for Bobby's development into a more proactive role in mutant society, as well as future conflict with a lot of the personalities that put the Crucible in place initially, as he's forced to confront why he didn't have more problems with it in the first place, or at least not enough that he wasn't able to justify its existence. Has he gotten so used to assuming others know better than him, that he no longer bothers trying to weigh the morality of things himself? Is he comfortable with what it says about him that it took having a personal stake - his son having gone through it - to make him sit up and think hey, that was fucked up?

Meanwhile, Thomas has not been idle, and is using reports of Bobby seemingly attacking innocent protesters the other day to stir up doubts in him among any influential mutants or X-Men he can whisper suspicions to, without them being aware of his presence/influence. Bobby is 'strongly encouraged' by Xavier to return to Krakoa to clear up the confusion, and when he refuses, that just adds more fuel for Thomas to work with. Plus he uses all the paranoia Beast has drummed up over the past couple years to cast suspicion on Bobby suddenly being inseparable from Laynia, a known Russian operative who has no allegiances to Krakoa, while also stirring mutants in Mikhail's camp to view Laynia's choice of companions as suspicious, which threatens her work with the Russian mutant underground and her efforts to keep them safe and hidden as well.

Finally they decide the best way to deal with Thomas is to lure him in and get Alexi to do to him what he did to Bobby and Laynia years ago. Hide away all Thomas' memories of things related to them and give him a tailored memory of how he died and why.

ISSUE FIVE

Most of this issue is just Thomas, Laynia and Bobby all playing cat and mouse with each other...Thomas having his own schemes even as the other two try to implement theirs, until its hard to tell who is the hunter and who is the hunted. Bobby and Laynia are still teleporting as often as they can, both to keep him from sneaking up on them and poisoning their thoughts or manipulating their plans, as well as to evade various friends and teammates who are now seeking them out, concerned by their behavior and increasingly susceptible to distrusting them as they refuse to give any hints as to what the hell they're doing.

It should be very clear that Bobby and Laynia are NOT acting wholly rationally here, and they're both aware of it. Doubting Thomas is GOOD at what he does, and he's familiar enough with them and their sore spots, from intel he gained long ago still being relevant here and now, particularly with how recently their memories were refocused on those days....that they're sure even the tiniest or briefest amounts of access to them is enough for him to skew their own paranoia in extreme ways. Not to mention.....they're much older now than they were when they made the choice to hide Dallas in the way they did, and they made that decision at the absolute height of their grief, fear and anxiety. They're second-guessing every choice they made back then, as well as the ones they're making now, and they're NOT sure that staying away, doing this on their own, not confiding in anyone or pulling them in....they're not doing all that because they're convinced its the right move.

They're staying the course because they don't have any idea what the right move is, and until they do, doubling down on their previous choices is because there's no take-backs, no undoing things once the secret is out. They can't afford to decide that was the wrong move after they've done it, when that will do them no good.

So they stick to their plan and try to get Thomas in Alexi's range, but with his guard down enough for the other telepath to act. The POV shifts back and forth between Bobby and Laynia's, with a lot of their internal doubts about everything they've done, the thoughts Thomas raised in Bobby back in Issue #1, the ideological battle Thomas imagines exists between him and the heroes he resents so much - this back-and-forth spans most of the issue and keeps these themes front and center, until ultimately Bobby and Thomas face off again.

Bobby surprises Thomas by using his powers in an unexpected way....he makes dozens of golems spread out all over the place and then shuffles his actual consciousness through them one at a time, 'possessing' one golem as his vessel, his ice form before leaping into another one. Thomas can't get a bead on him, keeps chasing his own tail trying to keep up with Bobby's constant shell game in an attempt to find the 'real one,' where Bobby's actually vulnerable.

Finally, Bobby makes it clear he's not going to be playing this game with Thomas anymore, because thing is, the point Thomas is so obsessed with proving, wanting Bobby to know he's no better than him, is capable of terrible things....Bobby flat out just doesn't care.

Bobby: I remember everything now, Thomas. That's what you wanted, right? For me to relive all that, make sure I can't hide from it? That I have to feel every bit of pain I shut away back then because I couldn't deal? Because the truth is, as much as that was to protect my son it was also to protect me from everything I WANTED to forget? I remember. I remember my kids, losing them....I remember killing you. But I also remembered something else, that you probably didn't factor in.

Thomas: And what's that?

Bobby: I remembered that I'm not sorry.

He goes on the attack, just destruction every which way you look so that Thomas is forced to stay on the defensive, keeping himself immaterial and jaunting around because there's no safe space for him to land, so to speak.

Bobby: The Five can bring you back a thousand times and I'll kill you a thousand and one, if that's what it takes to keep my son safe from you. Here's what you never got. The whole hero vs villain, right or wrong, good or evil thing you're so obsessed with? I just don't care, man. That's never been why I do any of this. I know I'm flawed, too flawed to ever be 'truly good' but by the same token, I know there's enough good in me I'm not truly bad either. I've done terrible things before and I'll do them again, because at the end of the day, I'm not trying to be a hero. I'm just trying to save people where I can.

Bobby: Its about priorities, see. Its people that matter to me, if I'm helping or hurting. And I'll hurt someone to help someone I think deserves it more and maybe that's wrong but thing is I'm not making that choice based on if its right or wrong. I'm making it based on who I think needs help and what do I have to do to help them. Let someone else figure out the scorecard, I'm just trying to make sure the person I'm protecting makes it home safe.

Bobby: And you? You don't matter. My son matters to me. That's all that matters here. I choose him, no matter what, every time, and whatever that means, whatever I have to do to choose him, or because I choose him? I'll deal with it. If I make the wrong choices, if they backfire and get him hurt or they're not what he would want - that's the stuff that can keep me up at night. But if choosing him means killing an asshole like you to keep him safe?

Bobby: Don't worry about my virtue. I'll cope.

With that, Thomas makes his retreat, tail between his legs. They weren't able to implement their plan to have Alexi erase his memories, but they don't consider this to be over. He'll be back, they'll have more opportunities to make that happen. At least this time he was the one doing the running.

But as the finale of the issue, Thomas adapts and changes the game. He waits until Bobby's back on Krakoa, meeting with Xavier and other X-Men about recent events and trying to say as little as possible...and then Thomas picks that place and time to make his first public appearance on Krakoa since he was resurrected as just another name on the resurrection queue. Nobody knew who he was then or cared that he didn't seem interested in staying on the island, claiming amnesty and official Krakoan citizenship....but he does that now in the most dramatic way possible....as he turns to Bobby and blatantly advertises they have history.

Thomas: And in the spirit of new beginnings, I just want to say I forgive you for killing me eighteen years ago. Fresh starts for everyone, right?

And with that bombshell - and the fact that one look at Bobby tells everyone present that he's not denying it - he saunters off, leaving Bobby with more questions to answer but no closer to being able to fully disclose what he's keeping hidden....which Thomas can still reveal to anyone at any time. What he did reveal was enough to ensure there was no chance now of changing his memories of their shared past....not after he dragged them both into the spotlight and made sure they were linked so if anything did happen to Thomas or seem awry with him....there'd be no doubt who was Suspect Number One. And that was always going to come with the question of why.

The mini ends with a final page where Bobby's finally done talking w/the QC for now, and he's just standing on the beach far enough away from where a bunch of the Academy X kids are having a bonfire - with Dallas right in the thick of them - that it wouldn't be obvious that his sole reason for being out there was to catch a glimpse of him, even if only from a distance. Elsewhere, Laynia is browsing through a shop and notices a stuffed dragon similar to one flashbacks showed Dmitri cuddling with as a baby. She picks it up, hesitating as if debating whether to purchase it, with the final panel being of her back as she walks out of the shop, the stuffed animal still sitting where she'd found it.

ICEMAN: A HOUSE OF DRAGONS

The second mini of three, this one introduces Dallas as a POV character, still oblivious of everything readers learned in the first mini. It explores his feelings about being depowered on M-Day and his survivor's guilt from having left the Institute and been relatively safe compared to those who stayed, when other depowered mutants like David still stayed and fought for mutants. His best friends, Julian and Brian Cruz, insist that nobody thinks less of him for it and he was a minor, it wasn't like anybody was really consulting him on whether he wanted to stay or go at the time, but he can't shake the feeling he should have done more. Its what drove him to go through the Crucible so early on, and its what drives his determination to make it onto the X-Men team.

Seeds are also planted for later, via some brief scenes that reveal that while depowered and living away from the Institute, Dallas started exploring magic as an alternative to his powers, since there are various arts that access the same Darkforce Dimension his powers connected him to. He's no longer pursuing it as feverishly as he did while depowered, but it remains an interest as he's determined to never be powerless again, whether he has his mutant abilities or not.

He also has several chance encounters with Iceman, who he really only knows as his old math teacher, and no idea they're not so chance encounters at all.

Meanwhile, Bobby and Laynia are meeting more regularly off the island as they argue about whether or not they should tell Dallas the truth - he has a right to know and he's old enough to make his own choices about what he wants or doesn't want done in the name of keeping him safe. Their various rationales are undercut by the underlying awareness that both of them are afraid of his reaction and worried he won't understand why they did it and might even hate them for the choices they made.

At the same time, they're trying to figure out how to even go about resurrecting Dmitri. They know from Joanna Beaubier-Jinadu's example that despite his young age, Dima could still theoretically be resurrected....they just have no idea how to ask the Five or X-Factor to look for him in the Waiting Room without disclosing everything about Dallas at the same time...which brings them back to how do we tell Dallas.

Ultimately, they wait too long and Thomas takes the choice out of their hands. While Dallas is in the Mojoverse along with various other Academy X kids who have been regular presences there while taking advantage of the treaty between Krakoa and Mojo to try and get some Krakoan media entertainment off the ground,

It turns out that while Bobby was worried about Doubting Thomas approaching Sinister, Shaw or one of the other notorious mutants on Krakoa as part of his schemes, he went a different direction entirely. He approached Mojo with his proposal for a must-see show that would have all of Krakoa glued to the nearest TV screen.

And so what was supposed to be just a random trip to the Mojoverse leads to Dallas being trapped as the very confused and unwilling star of what Mojo describes as the ultimate reality show: DALLAS GIBSON, THIS IS YOUR LIFE.

The show proceeds to take viewers - and Dallas - through a recreation of his entire life, including all the parts he didn’t know about. Starting before his birth even, with Krakoans flocking to their TVs just as Thomas promised, as soon the bombshell claim of who his biological parents are drops and word spreads throughout the island. Even X-Men close to Bobby have no idea what to make of this at first and they start trying to figure out how to shut it down and figure things out from there, but it’s a futile effort, honestly.

Even if they could get Mojo to shut it down right away, the damage was already done - and its clear that nobody is more interested in seeing what comes next than Dallas himself. Seemingly having forgotten that everyone is watching this, he’s half in denial, half captivated by what he’s watching. It seems impossible but that doesn’t stop him from having a lot of confused and conflicting feelings as he watches literal surveillance footage Thomas had installed to spy on the much younger Bobby and Laynia as they interacted with their newborn sons.

Much of this is used to flesh out flashback scenes from the first mini, where Bobby and Laynia’s POVs of these early days were shown, stringing together a timeline without reproducing the same scenes exactly. In contrast, some of these scenes do directly recreate scenes seen previously in Bobby and Laynia’s memories….but now reproduced for Dallas’ viewing by objective technology devoid of the emotions layered around his parents’ actual memories of that time.

The video retelling includes footage from security cameras at the facility Thomas had retreated to for their final fateful confrontation years ago, similarly providing a stark and explicit view of Bobby and Laynia’s rampage through the facility and Bobby’s unapologetic killing of Thomas. It’s a side of Bobby few had ever seen before and raises more than a few eyebrows while answering the questions many of them had had ever since Thomas made his dramatic entrance to Krakoan society at the end of the first mini.

Bobby meanwhile started racing for Mojoworld the second Rogue called him and told him to get there fast and laid out what was going on. But it still took long enough for him to navigate Mojoworld’s confusing layout that he only smashed his way onto the ‘set’ Dallas was trapped on in time to see his eighteen year old self hand an infant Dallas over to the Black Widow onscreen.

One look at Bobby, not hiding behind his ice form and with pain and remorse writ large all over his face, told Dallas (and everyone else) everything they needed to know about how true or not all this was.

But before Bobby can even attempt to figure out what to say, Mojo calls everyone’s attention back to the screens, as he announces there’s a plot twist featuring never-before-seen-footage from that first tragic April 27th.

The screen jumps to more security camera footage from Thomas’ facility….but the time stamp puts this at just before Bobby & Laynia’s arrival. Bobby (and Laynia who has arrived on Krakoa for the first time, as soon as she learned what was happening) watch in shock as Thomas hands Dmitri off to a lackey and instructs him to get offsite before the two arrive. Onscreen, Thomas says if he’s there’s one thing he’s figured out about Bobby & Laynia, its that they’ll never stop searching for one of their babies so long as they’re still alive….so if they’re convinced this one is dead and the other one is taken to Mother Nurture as she instructed him, they’ll focus all their efforts on trying to reclaim that one. Let her deal with that Thomas sniffs derisively. I have different plans for this one.

Of course, those plans never came to fruition, Mojo narrates. He underestimated just how….fatally Bobby would react to the simulacrum he believed to be his now dead son. He was never able to follow up with the lackey who took the real Dmitri, and his hired hand - who had not signed up for any of this and was freaking out once he saw what was left of the facility he’d last seen his boss in - well, he basically said fuck this and anonymously dropped Dmitri off at the nearest hospital.

Given the lengths Bobby & Laynia had gone to make sure their kids’ information WASN’T readily available anywhere when they were born, there was no indication of Dmitri’s real identity or where he came from, so he went into the system where he grew up in a series of homes that left him not especially traumatized, but at least distrustful of authority. Then Thomas revealed that when he’d first been resurrected, he’d tracked down Dmitri by finding his lackey and figuring out where he’d left the baby, retracing Dmitri’s path from there. Unlike Dallas, Thomas had always known exactly where to find Dmitri….but felt that particular reveal really needed the RIGHT moment.

And that moment apparently was now. Taking over narrator duties from Mojo, Thomas now speaks into the cameras, directly addressing Bobby and Laynia as he tells them Dmitri too manifested powers early and has had years to learn to make the most of his powerset. He apparently can access a mirror dimension that lets him teleport via reflective surfaces, use them as scrying portals by which he can see anything within visual range of that surface….and there’s one particularly interesting twist to his power. When Dmitri’s in the mirror dimension and watching events play out in the real world via a mirror or other surface….those events don’t just have to be in the present.

Time is wonky in the mirror dimension, as is often true of extradimensional spaces. Dmitri has limited precognitive abilities as he can use the mirror dimension to peer out of mirrors and watch what’ll happen in view of them at some point in various possible future timelines.

Apparently its tricky and unreliable, but its at least effective enough that Dmitri counts as a precog by anyone’s standard. And in the early days of Krakoa, when deciding whether to go there himself, he apparently glimpsed enough clandestine conversations to know that at that point, at least…..Krakoa was not a safe place to be a precog.

Onscreen, Thomas claps his hands energetically and addresses the entire audience now:

Thomas: So, to recap, somewhere out there is the teleporting precog son of an omega level mutant who’s already proven he’s willing to cross just about any line for this son’s sake. Said son is also primed to be extremely distrustful of Krakoa….and anyone who might be seen as an emissary of it. Like, oh say, X-Men. And to top it all off….he has absolutely no idea where he comes from nor does he have any reason to believe anyone who comes out of nowhere claiming to be his longlost parents or friends of theirs.

Thomas: Now I don’t know about all of you, but I think whomever were to find him first, and gain his trust, well - they could probably figure out any number of ways those combined factors could be useful.  

The screen flashes to a generic street camera view of a Dmitri Drake that looks a lot like his brother, just with brown hair instead of blond. There’s little to distinguish either his surroundings or Dmitri himself, but its clearly being presented as a starting point for potential searchers.

The final pages show an array of panels showing notorious mutant villains all leaning forward and studying the screen with interest. Sinister, Shaw, Selene (if she’s back yet), Abigail Brand, MLF members, Stryfe, Mystique and Destiny, the Fenris twins, etc.

The second mini concludes with Doubting Thomas winking into the camera, essentially staring straight at the reader.

Thomas: May the best influence win!

DARKSTAR: SONS OF SNOW AND SHADOW

Subtitled: “Run, Dima, Run!”

The third and final mini of the triptych is a chaotic free for all as basically everyone is hunting for Dmitri Drake, who has absolutely no idea why people are suddenly coming out of the woodwork looking for him but quickly decides he doesn’t want to be found.

Dallas is aggressively putting off dealing with how he feels about any of this and flat out shuts down any attempts Bobby or Laynia make to approach him. He’s totally fixated on being the one to find basically the only person in the universe who could understand how he’s feeling right now, and they can figure it out together then. He’s blatantly underestimating how much his longlost twin actually might NOT be able to relate to his specific perspective here, and vice versa. Something his friends and Academy X classmates try to caution him about while helping him on his search.

Surge: Oh shut up, dumbass. I don’t have to like you for you to be one of us, and any twin of yours is basically a two-for-one deal, so of course we’re going to do whatever it takes to keep your longlost brother from being exploited and used by adults who suck. I would include your parents in that but I actually think them hiding you from that musty bald bitch Xavier was probably the smartest thing any X-parent has done for their kid so I’m fighting down the impulse to be impressed.

Dallas: …thank you? I think?

Thus the Academy X kids actually take one of the most prominent roles in the mini as Dallas and his classmates’ search is heavily prioritized. There’s a strong focus on various kids who have history being exploited by older mutants and are now projecting heavily. Brian and Julian are of course Dallas’ closest confidantes through this, maybe Brian a little more than Julian as the latter flip-flops back and forth between calling Dallas a legacy and a nepo baby at different intervals. He can’t seem to decide if he thinks it’s something to be envied or not. Anole is unrepentant about ranking Dallas’ dad’s most infamous costumes and how hot or not he looked in each of them. He and Dallas never got along in school. Icarus absently notes that he’s pretty sure his brother and Dallas’ dad had a thing going on at one point.

They’re not quite all as helpful as they could be, is the takeaway. But they do feel the stakes and if any generation of mutants is prone to embracing gallows humor to cope, it’s the Academy X kids.

Elsewhere Bobby is conducting his own search with the help of numerous X-Men and friends, who are all trying to process everything they just learned and saw. Most of them are supportive and understanding, though a few are more abrasive about the sheer amount of stuff they didn’t know about him or even suspect.

Xavier tries to lecture Bobby about how they wouldn’t be in this situation if he had trusted them with this at any point in the past. Bobby shuts that down with gusto, emphasizing that Xavier was one of the people they were most concerned about hiding the twins from - and a good thing too, he points out, given what could have happened to Dallas if Onslaught had known about him when Dallas was still just a kid.

But then he gets downright chilly and makes it clear how and why his dynamic with many of them will be at least somewhat different from this point on…..Xavier especially.

He brings attention back to the not so minor detail of Xavier, Moira and Magneto apparently originally declaring Krakoa to be for all mutants….except for precogs.

Bobby: You keep saying this place is the culmination of everything we’ve fought for from the first day we put on an X-Men uniform, so I just wanna know, Professor. Why the HELL did I spend my whole life fighting for you to create your own personal vision of paradise….which apparently was meant to exclude one of my children, just because of what freaking power he was born with?

Xavier: Compromises had to be made in order to -

Bobby: Y’know, you’ve been using that line since I was fifteen and its tired, X. Every time we asked why you couldn’t just use your powers in ways you insisted would ethically compromise you - except for whenever you decided it was okay because it made things more convenient for you specifically.

Bobby: From day one you’ve kept your secrets from us, for a lot shadier reasons than I’ve ever had for keeping one, so you don’t need to be telling me I’m not entitled to my secrets. You have all these contingencies for if any of us go bad, while telling us nobody’s beyond redemption except for those times you decide Magneto is, or the Shadow King is.

Bobby: You know what the real problem with your dream has always been, Professor? It asks for a leap of faith that you’ve never been prepared to make yourself. You’re always asking us to line up and put it all on the line for the chance at a better world, no matter how realistic it is….but you’ve never actually put down your own cynicism or pragmatism or whatever you want to call it….and just….dreamed. How does that even work, huh?

Bobby: Just….what the hell would you have even done, Professor, if I had raised my kids at the mansion all this time? What spin would you have given me when you finally embarked on this grand Krakoan experiment you’ve been planning for years….and needed to tell me one of my sons wasn’t allowed to come with? That if he died, you had no intention of resurrecting him and his politically inconvenient power?

Xavier: *keeps silent*

Bobby: Yeah, y’know what, on second thought I don’t think I actually want to know the answer to that. Stay away from me and my kids, X. You and I are done.

Finally, last but not least, Laynia will be running her own search for Dima with the help of her brother, the Black Widow, and Warren, who wanted to make sure she knew that he’s her friend too, not just Bobby’s. Despite the lack of detail here, she’d actually have the most prominent role in this mini - being associated publicly with Krakoa is actually an obstacle for Bobby gaining Dmitri’s trust. Laynia’s lack of affiliation with it or Russia’s government or any other organization, is what lets her convince Dmitri to give her a chance and hear her out when she does find him.

(Something she’s ultimately able to do by going to Arakko and asking Storm if she can get her an audience with Lactuca, who should know exactly where to find him. In exchange, Lactuca will ask a favor of Laynia at some point in the future, which plants some seeds to bring Laynia more into X-books without just being an extension of Bobby).

There will be a final reckoning between Laynia and Thomas this time, and the mini will end with things still messy as hell, as the newfound family of four (plus Uncle Nikolai, standing awkwardly off to the side) basically stand there staring at each other and wondering what next. But even with them all as relative strangers now, there’s a wealth of possibilities now that everything’s out in the open.

This mysterious Mother Nurture still lingers offscreen as a potential future threat, especially as they still don’t know what they intended with Dallas - if he was even the twin she was after in the first place. Iceman’s poised to be launched in any number of directions as he’s now essentially reinventing himself while everyone is paying more attention to him than ever before, all while he’s trying to fall back on comfortable, familiar habits of joking and pranks to try and bond with the sons who are grown up and don’t really know what - if any - dynamic they even need or want with him. Laynia’s reluctantly taken Krakoan citizenship to be closer to her sons, but finds she prefers staying on Arakko and grows closer to mutants she meets there, with Dima joining her more often than not, as he’ll never be fully comfortable with Krakoa even if precogs are ‘allowed’ now. Dallas is more determined than ever to be an X-Man but he’s worried that now he’ll never make it on his own merits and it’ll always be more about him being a legacy, a founding X-Man’s kid.

Etc, etc.

[darkeraurora]

Admissions - Chapter 4

Minors DNI pretty please.

A slight trigger warning for unstable/abusive parents. Nothing graphic but for those of us who had or have verbally abusive parents you might choose to skip over the parts in bold italics.

For the past two days Ghost had been holed up in his room following his little moment on the rooftop and couldn't be cajoled into leaving.

Gaz tried.

Price tried.

Soap tried.   Twice.   And very narrowly avoided having a short-tempered lieutenant rip his head off the second time.

The others around base seemed to take their cue from Soap's experience and avoided the area around Ghost's door.

Mostly.

"Really not a good idea!" a familiar Scottish accent hollered from down the corridor, earning a cocked eyebrow from the masked lieutenant. He focused his hearing... must be about 10 meters or so down the hall from the sound of it. Footsteps were rapidly approaching; light ones at first followed by heavier ones running to catch up.

Soap's evidently, judging by the continuous shouted warnings. Fucking hell. Ghost felt his irritation rising at the notion of yet another intrusion into his space. Whoever was about to interrupt his alone time had better be on fire or something. That was about the only circumstance in which he could see himself being understanding.

Someone opened his door without knocking and caused the lieutenant to squint as light flooded his darkened room. But once he focused on the small figure in his room, clad in a dark hoodie and leggings, all annoyance faded into nervousness.

His heart began to race in his chest at her approach. Ohhh shit. Simon was not ready to face her yet after his rooftop fantasy... and here she was in his fucking room. Ghost tensed, braced for an intense ass-chewing as her little steps quickly brought her closer to him.

Without making eye contact or saying a single word, Sereza marched over to where the skull sat on his bed, plopped down next to him, kicked off her shoes, and leaned back against the wall just as he was.

Simon's eyebrows furrowed in a mix of amused bewilderment.

"...come in." he quipped.

Sereza didn't say a word or look his way. Her hand wriggled inside her pocket for a moment before a bottle of water was practically shoved in his face. Two days in this drab, sunless den of his without coming out even to eat was enough, and she had come to pry him out of his brooding spot no matter the cost. Gently, of course. If her theories about the lieutenant and what went on in that masked head were correct, then this called for a delicate approach.

"Hm," the skull grumbled, taking the water from her lest she shove it through his eye socket next. 

Only once she produced her own bottle and cracked it open did he reluctantly do the same. Thanks Love. Ghost bit the inside of his cheek in exasperation at his inability to say such a simple little phrase aloud. But the ever-present voice of his father screaming at him and mocking him wouldn't let Simon utter a sound. Something about him being pitiful and a sorry excuse for a kid or whatever it was.

Ghost tramped it back down, refusing to let the memories of his father ruin a moment with Sereza.

The next few minutes ticked by, and Ghost found his mood gradually improving. He stole another sideways glance over at the black hoodie at his side. "You're in my room," he grumbled half-heartedly. A small attempt to start a conversation.

"Smartass," she retorted without turning her face.

Simon chuckled at her response. Even cracked a small half-smile. She could be such fun to bicker with. "Why are you in my room?"

"A few reasons: First of all, you've been alone in this gloomy hidey-hole -"

"Hidey-hole??"

"- of yours for two days now. And secondly, because I wanted to." Scolding words but her tone told him there was no irritation behind them, only concern. The last one actually made him crack a tiny smile. She was here with him - in his room, on his bed - because she wanted to be where he was. Just as Price had said.

The two sat in comfortable (if somewhat awkward on his part) silence a while longer. Both lost in the thoughts and worlds that existed only in their heads.

"Were you mad at me?" Sereza finally asked in a quiet voice.

"What?" Ghost nearly croaked, surprised at her question.

"Well, you kinda took off all of a sudden, in a hurry, and..." her head turned in his direction a bit, though not enough to reveal her face, "And then you shut yourself in your room for two days. So... I started to think maybe I said or did something that made you mad."

That was unexpected, to say the least. If anyone was going to be mad, she should be mad at him. And probably would be if she ever found out about his fantasy... or had seen what it did to the front of his pants.

Simon felt guilty. He'd been in his... hidey-hole... over his mortification and shame over a fucking daydream (even if it was really hot) but in doing so he'd accidentally hurt the woman he loved by making her think he was angry with her. He silently cursed the way his mind worked for the umpteenth time before gathering his courage.

He brushed his knuckles delicately along the back of Sereza's hand. "No Sereza, I wasn't ever mad at you," his low baritone soothed, "My mind is... complicated... sometimes. I'm sorry I made you think I was angry with you."

"Why did you scurry off so quickly?"

Scurry?? Ghost had to resist the urge to roll his eyes at the implication that he, of all people, scurried.

"I don't, uh, I don't always have a good explanation for what I do." Simon hoped that was enough of an answer. It was about as close to honest as he could get without telling her the entire truth. Something he was very much not ready to do. His hand kept rubbing hers as he tried to convey through his touch how much he regretted making her feel that way.

Finally Sereza acknowledged his attempt at an apology by returning the gesture. Simon's breath caught in his throat for a moment as her fingertips began lazily tracing the lines of his tattooed forearm. He found her touch both electrifying and relaxing. "Why have you been hiding in here all of this time?"

"Still don't have a good explanation... just had a lot on my mind," his gravelly voice mumbled as he kept his eyes focused on her fingers. Her hand looked so little compared to his large one. The touch of her fingers light and comforting against his skin. A sensation both precious and unfamiliar.

Ghost wished the rest of the night could be just like this moment.

Sereza seemed to accept that would be all he was willing to share for now and her attention turned to rummaging in her hoodie once more, producing a pencil and sketchbook. "Bloody hell Little one, how much shit do you have in there?"

 "Only the most important shit," she replied with a snarky tone, tossing her hood back and running a hand through her caramel waves. 

She flipped through the filled pages of her book. The drawings caught Simon's attention like they always did. A moose with giant antlers, bears, the river not far away, and faces of people from around the base - most of whom he didn't recognize - with random doodles and scribbles scattered throughout. All of them in astounding detail. The night's quiet filled his room again while he contentedly watched her pencil glide over the page in practiced strokes to create the outline of a face. Tiny scratching noises of graphite on paper were the only sound between them. The lieutenant was actually having a peaceful evening for once. Certainly a rare but not unwelcome change.

“You sketch a lot," he whispered, dark eyes fixed on her page.

“Can’t sleep a lot. What about you?”

“Barely fucking sleep,” Ghost grumbled.

There it is. An admission to what she had suspected. Sereza knew better than most others what dark thoughts could creep into a person's mind at night. They could torment you to the brink of insanity and drive you into the darkest holes the human mind could create. The kind that are only open to those who have experienced the worst that life can inflict on someone.

Her battles had made her able to recognize the signs of someone who was suffering through their own. Someone whose nightmares visited them both day and night without mercy.

Like the masked lieutenant beside her.

What exactly those nightmares were, she was unsure of. But it was clear they were ruthless in their assault. “It sucks that our minds can be so much more active at night, doesn’t it? Mine won’t shut the hell up most of the time," Sereza replied with clear annoyance and a subtle, calculating side-eye that Ghost didn't catch.

Simon hummed in both understanding and agreement before his expression took on a far-off look. A look recognizable to those who also fought against their own mind daily.

Sereza observed him discreetly. Wherever his mind was taking him was not going to be a good place. Sighing loudly, she repositioned herself, causing the mattress to move and allowing her knee to accidentally-on-purpose brush against Ghost's leg in a subtle attempt to get him grounded without drawing any attention.

The skull blinked as he snapped back to their reality. With a knowing grin, she resumed tracing his tattoo in order to keep him in the moment.

Hoping to keep his mind from wandering off again, Sereza started talking aloud. “When I can’t sleep I like going on a walk. I like how quiet it is at night and seeing the stars and aurora overhead. The sky is really pretty this far north where there aren't any city lights to ruin it..."

The Brit listened as she went on about the things she did on her sleepless nights and what she loved about life in the Arctic. Her voice was indescribably soothing. Simon had never been one for chit-chat but all of this, for some reason, felt like incredibly important information. Plus it was relaxing to listen as she chattered away. Hell, he could - and wanted to - listen to her all night long. And the next night and the one after that. All of the rest of his nights and days he could spend exactly like this.

"... but if it’s one of those nights where I don't sleep at all then I might sketch. Or read. What do you usually do?” Sereza asked as her little monologue wound down.

"Hm. Gym. Clean my guns..." he trailed off. That was what he used to do to try and keep his worst memories locked away at night, but it wasn't what he wanted to do anymore. He wanted, craved - desperately - more of this. The peaceful quiet, the tranquility, and connection that his evening had turned into the moment Sereza walked through his door. At no other time was Ghost able to experience any of these in his life. 

Only with her.

Simon took a deep breath to calm his nerves at what he was about to say next.

Gathering every ounce of his courage and bravery as he entwined his fingers with her slender ones -

"I... think about you."

"Me?!" Sereza almost squeaked, dropping her pencil. Wide eyes glued to him.

"Yeah," the skull admitted almost sheepishly, nerves making his accent thicker. Fucking hell... no going back now.

Hazel eyes tried to discern what was going on in that masked head. He was clearly on the cusp of saying something important, but he was also very obviously hesitant. "...I keep you awake?" She gave him her best fake-sad tone.

Simon nodded in response. "Yeah. You do. Quite a lot." He paused and held her hand tighter. He was right before about how little her hand was within his. "I sit for hours and think about you. Nonstop. Day and night. I think about you all the bloody time." His throat stung with the emotions he was forcing himself to admit to her. "At first I didn't understand what was going on and was fucking scared as hell by how intense my... feelings... for you were, but... before I knew it..." Ghost paused before finishing hurriedly, "You're on my mind all of the damn time. All I care about, all that I want."

"Ghost... are-are you-"

"I love you…," he confessed in a dejected whisper.  ("WHAT THE FUCK?! NO KID OF MINE IS GONNA BE SUCH A FUCKING PATHETIC LITTLE SHIT!! QUIT CRYING BEFORE I FUCKING MAKE YOU!!")

Once again, his father's voice filled his mind with hateful words. His eyes stung and his throat locked up.

("YOU THINK I GIVE A FUCK ABOUT YOU? YOU THINK ANYONE GIVES A FUCK ABOUT YOU?! ALL YOU'VE BEEN GOOD FOR IS RUINING MY FUCKING LIFE  JUST LIKE YOU RUIN EVERYTHING ELSE! NO ONE WILL EVER FUCKING CARE ABOUT YOU AND IF THEY DO, YOU'LL RUIN THEIR FUCKING LIVES TOO!")

Horrible memories of yelling, screaming, violence, his mother pleading with his father to stop... all came crashing down and threatened to bury him.

He had to stop himself.

This was not the life he wanted to subject Sereza to. His past... the anxieties and trauma and nightmares... none of it should be something she should have to deal with. He would ruin her life. God he was fucked up and falling in love with someone was horrendously fucking selfish of him.

"But I can't. You have a future ahead of you... and I will ruin it." His gravelly voice heavy with the crushing weight of emotion. "You are so, so beautiful to me. So perfect. And deserve everything good in life. I will ruin you..."

The skull stood and turned his back to her, unable to stand the hurt it caused him to face her any longer.

"Ghost-"

The Brit cut her off, shaking his head, "Forget I said anything," he mumbled, refusing to turn around and roughly pulling the sleeve of his hoodie back down over his arm. 

"What if I said that I don't care that you're complicated?" Sereza asked, sliding her hand into his once more as she moved to stand in front of him.

He silently contemplated her words. Her proximity was making it increasingly difficult to keep his hands to himself. 

"I've killed people..." came a barely audible whisper.

"Who would have killed you. Or worse,” Sereza replied firmly.

"I've done horrible things."

"To survive,” she corrected. “I'm not afraid of who you've had to become in order to complete a mission and make it out alive."

"I'm... I'm not a good man... I will hurt you. And I don’t want to hurt you.”

Those dark eyes held more pain within them than she had seen in ages and it was breaking her heart. What has happened to you? How long have you suffered alone like this?  "I know exactly what soldiers like you are capable of, but I'm still here, aren't I? You won’t hurt me or scare me away, Ghost. I'm here now, I have been here, and I will still be here in the future... because I love you too."

Simon’s entire body tensed and he drew in a shaky breath at the sound of those words. You... you don't want me Love...

"Sereza..." Ghost shook his head. He'd wanted so fucking much to hear her say those words to him one day... but it only caused him more internal misery.

He believed, with his entire soul, that he was beyond loving. His father had made sure he was well aware of it when Simon was little and then there was his captivity in Mexico, the scars of which were carved into him. A permanent testament to his unworthiness.

He had to prove to her that he was not what she wanted.

Reaching up with a shaking hand, Ghost grabbed the top of his balaclava and pulled.

He could physically feel her gaze cutting into him as she took in his appearance. The numerous scars, the mop of sandy blond hair his father always said was hideous and messy, his nose had a bump in it and was a bit crooked from being broken multiple times. A face that so resembled his father's. How could the Brit not be convinced she was as repulsed by what she saw as he was? Surely she found fault in everything there was about him just like everyone else in his life always had. He took up too much space, was too sensitive, not man enough, loved his mother too much...  

His father had quite a lengthy list of everything wrong or bad about him and Simon had learned it well. 

Dark eyes locked onto the floor between them, unable to look at her disgusted expression. Cheeks and nose reddened as he fought to maintain control over his emotions.

Small hands reached up and tenderly cradled his scarred cheeks. "I love you... Simon Riley," Sereza murmured, tiptoeing to lightly kiss one of his scars near his chin.

The gesture and hearing her call him by his name made him crumble a bit on the inside and a single tear slid down his cheek where she wiped it away with her thumb.

Ghost risked a small glance at her. None of the revulsion or pity he feared seeing was anywhere on her face. Instead there was love. Acceptance. Comfort. Safety. All being offered to him freely and unconditionally. And Simon nearly shattered at the sight of it.

She leaned forward again and left another small peck on a scar at his jaw. Barely pulling away from him after and glancing up into the dark pools of his unblinking eyes before pulling his head down for a final kiss to the scar near his lower lip, causing him to release a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

Simon tilted his face further down and lightly brushed his lips across hers briefly. "...I love you," he whispered, his mouth hovering just above hers.

Sereza grinned as she tiptoed again to reach him and kissed his lips. Quick, but not lacking in loving affection whatsoever.

Dipping his head closer, he wrapped his arm around her back and threaded his fingers into the soft waves of her hair. "I love you Sereza." Their lips came together as Simon, at last, allowed himself to take his fill of her lush lips and embrace the woman he loved. Sereza's lips were every bit as soft as he'd imagined they were. And so sweet.

She hummed in delight, pressing closer to him and wrapping her arms around his neck. One hand sliding into his hair. 

“Stay tonight?” Simon asked after their long kiss finally wound down. “Not to- Just to sleep,” he quickly clarified.

A bright smile beamed up at him. “I’d like that.” Sereza left little kisses just under his jawline - about as high as she could reach if the Brit wasn't bending down for her.

Unable to resist, Simon pulled her up to him for a proper kiss. He then guided her to the bed where once under the covers he pulled her close against his chest, his cheek resting against her forehead. Little strands of her hair tickled his chin. Sereza squirmed beside him a bit as she got comfortable before she reacquired his tattooed arm.

“That feels nice,” Ghost softly admitted while he watched her fingers glide across his skin.

"Yeah?”

“Mhm. It’s gentle and your skin is soft. It’s... calming…” A yawn cut him off. His eyes heavy with sleep and the sensation of her fingertips only relaxed him further.

“Good. I’m glad,” Sereza quietly replied as she continued her tracing and snuggling closer to his large frame. “I love you Simon,” she whispered.

Ghost shut his eyes at the feeling her words stirred inside him. He lightly kissed her forehead. “I love you too.”

[liketwoswansinbalance]

When Lightning Falls

This will be my last hurrah before the fall. So, happy reading! If it can be called that.

Summary:

A travesty and a tragedy, told in two parts. A flashback from Rhian and Rafal’s past as it ties to their present. From how they began and where they started to where they are now. From School grounds to the Great War in Neverland, suspicion and chaos abound. By the Storian’s reasoning and the Storian’s reasoning alone, where they began brought them to where their luck ran dry.

Context:

This, in a way, serves as both a prequel and a prediction fic. It’s sort of a two-shot, two-scene fic. Part 1 takes place when the brothers are around seven years old. And, the first part is largely based on my theory about the brothers’ origins. That theory is essentially about how the brothers could have been an exceptional case, born from magic, like Agatha and Sophie were, to be the souls that they are. And, not only that, they may have been created, not born, with a certain intent, so they could be used by a certain villainous pen.

Warning:

This fic is probably a bit less sympathetic toward Rafal by its conclusion than my usual writing is.

Important Note:

I have not yet read Fall. Please do not post spoilers in the comments, or send me any through PMs. I am trying to avoid all spoilers until I have the time to read Fall.

⸻

Rhian ran toward Rafal when he landed with a soft thud. His brother had been teaching himself how to fly lately.

Lightning cracked overhead, lighting up the sky and the manor, almost as if it were day.

“Fala, I’m scared.” Rhian pressed against his brother hard, and Rafal didn’t shove him away. Rhian continued hyperventilating, one breath after another, like the treads of soldiers, constant and quickening.

Rafal held Rhian in his arms like a vise, and squeezed him with a comforting pressure. Rhian’s shallow, rapid breaths receded, and his shoulders stopped shaking.

Rhian lifted his head from where his chin had been resting on Rafal’s shoulders. “Why do you think the Storian won’t let us leave?”

Rafal let go, and brushed his sopping, white hair out of eyes. He remained silent.

Rhian continued on. “School Master says It will let us explore the Woods when we come of age. How old do you think we’ll be by then? Not as old as School Master, right?”

“Not as old as School Master. Maybe, as old as the students.” The growing brothers almost reached the School Master’s waist, but Rafal didn’t think it meant much. The School Master was stooping more by the day. Hunched more and more drastically, like he was withering.

“And not as wrinkly, either” said Rhian.

“No, not as wrinkly either. He’s probably due to die a couple years down the line.”

“How do you come up with these things?”

“Everyone dies. You know that,” Rafal averred.

“I know, but I don’t talk about dying all the time,” insisted Rhian.

Rafal frowned.

“So, why do you think we have to stay?” Rhian asked again.

Rafal glanced around as if he were afraid someone would look over his shoulder, but all the faculty and students were inside the warm glow of the manor. He peered into the nearby windows on his tiptoes, gripping the ledge. Just to be safe, he told himself. Then, he ducked down lower.

Rhian observed him, and furrowed his brow at his brother’s classic paranoia. “No one’s out here, Fala.” Nonetheless, Rhian followed him, and sat on the wet grass, leaning against the wall beside Rafal.

“I’m just making sure,” Rafal explained. “I haven’t got all the facts yet. But, the last time I was with School Master for a lesson, he looked nauseous. He said that we were growing like weeds, and might replace him one day. His voice croaked, his bones creaked, and his hands shook. But he continued on with that lesson, and it gave me an idea.”

“What about? I was with the Dean for Etiquette that day. He says ‘Etiquette is what separates Good from boorish Never thugs,’” Rhian recited.

Rafal’s expression soured and he rolled his eyes. “Ok, at some point, we have to have a talk about not believing everything you hear.” He got back on track. “He told me that once, all Ever kingdoms were more closed off than they are now. The common people were called serfs, and they were bound to the land of their kings.”

“Are we serfs, Fala?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t figured it out yet. Maybe, one day, we’ll solve it. Find out what It wants. Leave the School grounds.”

“But, the Pen is Good, right? Doesn’t It want us to be safe? Can’t we trust It? Shouldn’t we stay?”

Rafal didn’t respond, grimly clutching the soaked knees of his pants.

A clap of thunder resounded, followed by lightning riving the sky apart.

Rhian raised his voice over the roaring storm, to reassure his brother. “Then, we won’t be a bother or a burden anymore! Maybe, It’ll give us an important task someday. We won’t be worthless anymore! Maybe, we’ll be useful.”

“Maybe,” Rafal said pensively, too wary to agree, narrowing his eyes in thought.

⸻

Rhian awoke in the night with a jolt and stood. He had repeatedly fallen in and out of a dreamless, jarring, electric sleep. But, unlike his sleep, this place was far from colorless. No, the entire alien island of Neverland brimmed with power and electricity. It was enough to electrocute a full-grown Stymph.

The greens were electrifying. Vivid, electric greens. Deep emeralds. Wintry radium greens. Salty, metallic, phosphoric greens. Vibrant patina. Phantasmagorical greens permeated every vine and leaf. It was like a Man-made world. The first he’d ever known. The humid, acidic atmosphere clung, stinging eyes, and biting at exposed skin. His hair drooped lifelessly, and he moped at its sorry state, trying to arrange his curls so he’d look marginally presentable. The oppressive moisture did no good. His every attempt fell limp, and he gave up.

Although unseen insects hummed incessantly, Rhian knew he must have been the only human presence for miles. He was alone, for now. Yet, he didn’t feel alone. The jungle thrummed with life.

The sky on the other hand was bleak, overcast, a deep, iron grey. Its distortions reminded Rhian of a warped mirror, like he was under a dome, to be examined by some cosmic forces above. Only, he couldn’t see without. Others could only look within. And, oddly, he couldn’t see his own reflection in the broken sky.

His and Rafal’s bond had fractured like the shattered sky above them, and Rafal had taken off in the night, in a fit. They were divided as the broken firmaments above were, lightning criss-crossing, momentarily scarring the sky. Rhian wished he had been able to string together words in some way to force Rafal to understand. They’d uncovered cracks and flaws, but there was something, maybe, several things Rafal wasn’t telling him. And, it was infuriating not to be trusted. Afterall, the Storian was to blame. It alone with its tales had bred a competitive spirit within them. Lost in his thoughts, Rhian decided to keep walking, find civilization, if there was any in this hellscape.

Instead, he trod upon a war zone.

Rhian shook his head. He couldn’t tell which side was which. It was complete and pure chaos. Worse than any chess-like, storybook-sanctioned maneuvers. Was anything fair? Whose turn was it? There were no turns he soon realized. Real war wasn’t founded on turn-based gameplay. Then, what qualified as an Attack or a Defense? Anything and everything, he expected.

A long shadow glided toward Rhian, as if it were clawing and reaching for him, and he looked up. His shadow touched Rafal’s.

Rafal approached, all decked in black, eyes cold, face hardened like a mask, chiseled and sharp. He now stood a few yard lengths away from Rhian on the crest of a low outcropping of cracked, old stone. Lightning flashed behind him, as if it were at his command. A cruel, psychological trick of sorcery.

Rhian shuddered, intimidated.

Rafal looked like a living ice sculpture in the dying light of the moon. Neverland’s forest was drenched in a frosty blue.

Clenching his fists, Rafal stuffed down his traitorous thoughts. Yet, in the heat of the battle, months of pent-up stress and frustration and rage and guilt and Storian knows what were boiling over, irradiated emotion he couldn’t contain. Fear and unfounded suspicion. Mistrust and deceit all swirling in a cauldron. Those Seers! He'd kill those Seers, every last one! Look what they'd caused. They'd made a madman out of him. But, what if he were fated to do so? They would laugh at him in their dying breaths.

It was the Pen's fault, a voice said. It was the Pen's fault then! Mistrust of himself, of Rhian, that was unfounded, and irrational, and ridiculous. It mortified him. Thinking this way.

He was shaking now, and for the first time, he felt cold. And completely numb. And then, he felt nothing at all. His senses deadened, like he'd been drugged, sedated, his body leaden, like he was no longer in control of his own mind. A passive observer. The Evil, his inclination, the stirrings were taking over. Consuming him. His own soul betraying him. No, he shook his head. It was the Pan. It was Neverland. It was the air. Nothing more. A shadow. Facing his brother would be light enough to clear the shadows away. Clear the fog of war away.

Rhian was sure something was going on within Rafal, but he couldn’t tell what. His self-destruction?

Rafal told himself, this was his only choice, his only option now, the only solution. He was the School Master, who alive, could maintain the Schools, who wouldn't create one mess after another. He was the Pen’s only option. The Storian would favor him. It had to. He’d preserve order, nevermind Balance or love. He’d use the Rules because the Rules had never betrayed him. Rhian had betrayed the Rules. Following them was the only viable end. Ending his brother and his reign was the only viable end. When he tried to love his brother, he was only betrayed, by the only love he had ever relied on, by the person who was his match.

He needed someone who could love while in pain, shared pain, to fuel the darkness pumping in his heart, someone who’d been denied their victories, their End by all the world. He’d give someone else an Ending. Another True Love. Someone who’d been repressed, never free, like himself, always living in Good’s shadow. Someone else due credit like him. Who deserved to be acknowledged, appreciated for who they truly were. Someone who wouldn’t hide, who could be their true self with him and he with them. Someone who could never be good enough, no matter how hard they tried. Never pure. Never Good enough. Evil’s love. For sides, not Balance. None of the grey, the doubting, the blood ties, the torn loyalties, the competitive priorities. Someone on his side. For once, someone who’d support him. See eye to eye with him. Offer him a perspective his brother couldn’t.

If he couldn’t find another equal, he didn’t even need love. He would much rather prefer to be feared, obeyed. At least those were constants, reliable. Yes, that was his decision. His plan. Find a replacement. Find a True Love of his own. Succeed where Rhian failed. Overtake Good, prove Evil could love. That Evil could replace Good, have everything Evers had. Lead by example. Overtake his brother in what he couldn't do.

Rhian shuffled anxiously. Rafal had a faraway look in his eyes, and Rhian wouldn’t hesitate to call the psychotic gleam in his eyes crazed. “Rafal?”

Rafal jerked to attention, straightening rigidly. It was as if he’d moved to consciousness. “Rhian,” he said inscrutably. “I know how to free us from the Storian’s grasp, Rhian!” Rafal shouted across the battlefield, his voice echoing. He steepled his hands. “We have to break the Balance. Again. But this time, on purpose. The Pen can’t condemn us as failures if we prove we have the free will to choose to break the Balance and our connection to it. We can be human.”

Rhian’s head swam. Here Rafal was, spewing nonsense and contradictions. This Rafal didn’t sound like the brother he knew. The one who worried about his well being and preserving the Balance. His eyes looked wrong. Like he was fully unfettered, and had no loyalties. To nothing and no one. Like he had floated away, and couldn’t breathe the thin air of the stratosphere. Neverland had taken a toll on him, and Rhian had been suspecting a tropical fever or some other cause of madness for days. But he had been too afraid to broach the subject. He should have.

“I can free you, Rhian! The only way we can be free is by trusting Death. Death is the one constant other than the damned Pen!”

The Ever-Never Army roared in the background, and Rhian was forced to shout. “There must be a more sensible path, Rafal! Rafal?”

Rhian’s brother had materialized in front of him, closer, and looked at him wide-eyed, hands twisting around, almost beckoning, with stiff movements. Like a puppet on a string.

“I'll rule the Woods, so the Pen doesn’t have to. No one will meddle with the tales. Only I will be the tales’ one Master.” Rafal shot a burst of black magic at Rhian.

Rhian managed to deflect Rafal’s magic at the last second with his gold fingerglow, an intense flare so light it was almost white.

Back and forth. Thrust and parry. Attack. Defend.

Black. White.

Black. White.

Black. White.

Their magic lit up the skies in the first and last fireworks display Neverland would ever witness. Any direct onlookers would have been blinded. When their glows made contact, all the figures in the forest were drenched in silver, like the pallor of the moon magnified. Oddly, the battlefield, the site of a war, became beautiful for an instant. The horror, gore, and radiance coexisted as one.

A shaft of lightning emanated from Rafal’s positioned fingers, piercing Rhian square in the chest as it crackled, and Rhian went deaf, crumpling to the ground, his chest turning concave as he leaned into himself.

Now, Rhian was splayed on the ground, streaked with his own blood, soaking into the soil. Rhian twitched a last time, and fell still.

Rafal grinned demonically, a visceral euphoria flooding his senses. They were no longer enthralled! This was it. His Ending and Its End.

He conjured a glossy, black crown, dark as pitch, with spikes that could lance through flesh, and crowned himself ruler of all the Woods. The metal sat cold at his brow. He shivered in anticipation, but got no response. The war raged on. What he didn’t realize was that the crown immediately rusted as he slid it on.

He felt his fingertips burn then, and watched as his hand shriveled. His long fingers distorted into misshapen claws.

Then, pain wracked his entire body as it contorted to match. His eternal punishment, if anything lasted forever.

He wasn’t free from the Pen. He was only bound to it more. So be it. Someday, he’d unchain himself. He felt nothing now. Had nothing to lose. Had infinite time. Nothing in his way. No one to hurt.

With the last vestiges of his magic, he conjured a silver mask, melded with the shadows, transformed, and fled Neverland at last.

⸻

Note:

Songs I was inspired by:

“Different songs” - Set It Off

What changed? What changed?

It's more than just our age

“Who’s In Control” - Set It Off

So tell me who's in control

Is it you? I don't know

This song is hypnotic and very much fits Rafal’s canonical interactions with the villainous Pen.

“Killer in the Mirror” - Set it off

As seen in the imagery about the Neverland sky.

“The Good, the Bad and the Dirty” - Panic! At The Disco

If you wanna start a fight

You better throw the first punch

Make it a good one

And if ya wanna make it through the night

You better say my name like

The good, the bad, and the dirty

[...] I know what it's like to have to trade

The ones that you love for the ones you hate

Don't think I've ever used a day of my education

There's only two ways that these things can go

Good or bad and how was I to know

That all your friends won't hold any grudges

I got the final judgment

“In The Dark of the Night” - Jonathan Young

Alternate titles I considered: “When Lightning Breaks” and “When Lightning Rives Us Apart.” Neither of these had as striking a link as the actual title has to Fall.

Also, I find childhood to murder and its aftermath to be a fun contrast.

Although I wrote Neverland in hues of green, it’s actually a bioluminescent blue island as I found out yesterday from more Fall promotional content. I find it interesting that Neverland is blue, actually. I wonder if a section of that landscape was lifted or squared off, and if the roots of all the trees were re-interred near the Schools to form the Blue Forest we know in the present. Or, could seeds from Neverland have been planted to grow the Blue Forest from the ground up?

Yes, I used the lightning motif. Love it. I used the duology trailers and cover reveals as inspiration. That division, that split, the fractures in the sky, in the Schools, in the systems, in the existing structures, in the relationships. It implies a lot I think, assuming the execution in this fic turned out all right. Just, the Ending is like tracing over broken glass, I’d say. It can never be repaired.

Again: I haven’t read Fall yet. I will post a notice when I have finished it. Please do not comment any spoilers, or send me any through PMs.

Also, I will write happier fics in the future. This was just a prediction fic, and I’m well aware I could be completely wrong on several accounts.

[mitsuris-writing]

Body Swap

Characters: Giyuu Tomioka, Shinobu Kocho, Sanemi Shinazugawa, Mitsuri Kanroji, Obanai Iguro, Muichiro Tokito, Kyojuro Rengoku, Tengen Uzui, Gyomei Himejima.

OC: Kazi Okami. (Belongs to @frosty-lycanthropy)

Warnings: None, it’s just crack 👍

Kazi woke up and stared at the ceiling for about an hour before Giyuu bursted through the door? “Huh? Tomioka what are you doing in here?” The young Lycan asked. Tomioka looked rather angry, “I’m not Tomioka?! I’m Obanai?!” He spoke with an annoyed tone, “No.. you’re clearly Tomioka- did you hit your head or something?” “No I didn’t?! And who even are you I can’t tell anymore.” “It’s me- you know- Kazi?” Tomioka or well- Obanai stared at her, “Looks like you turned into Kocho.” “HUH?!” Kazi ran to a mirror in her room and looked at herself, she was in fact Shinobu, but how did this happen? “I’m kinda hot not gonna lie.” “No, anyways do you know where Kanroji is?” “How would I know? By what you just told me I’m guessing everyone swapped bodies.” Oban ai sighed and left, Kazi got changed and followed him wondering where he was going.

They came across Sanemi? It could be anyone at this rate.. though it was a lot easier to tell who swapped with Sanemi as they were looking at the sky, “That has to be Muichiro. Sanemi has never done that in his whole eyebrowless life.” Kazi spoke with a straight face which caused Obanai to snicker. Muichiro looked over at them and then looked back at the sky. “Alright then-” “He’s no help. Come on.” “This is so confusing- you looking and sounding like Tomioka and then being rude- god my brain hurts.. wait- if I’m Shinobu does that mean Shinobu’s me? And if she is that means Tomioka is you-” Obanai stared at her, “I fucking hope he isn’t me.” They walked away from Muichiro still trying to look for the others, well Kazi is trying to look for the others- Obanai is only trying to look for Mitsuri.

The two then come across Mitsuri and Tengen, “Who is who.” Obanai immediately asks, Tengen raises his hand, “I’m Mitsuri…” “I’m Tengen!!” Tengen was a little too happy to be in Mitsuri’s body- Obanai stared at Tengen, “When you’re out of that body I’m going to fucking kill you?!” “Ah! You must be Iguro then! We say Tomioka not too long ago, kind of confused us.” Mitsuri is just dead face staring at Tengen, Tengen was moving around a lot on purpose and we all know why.. “Can you stop moving around so much..” “Why? Give me a reason and I will!” “Because… um..” Mitsuri didn’t want to say it out loud and it showed, Kazi was gonna be a good daughter and stand up for her mom! “She wants you to stop moving around because it makes her uncomfortable.” Tengen rolled his eyes but stopped moving around. Obanai was so close to just murdering Tengen but he couldn’t for many reasons.

Obanai turned around and saw himself plus Kazi walking over to them, “Oh this is fucking weird-” Kazi turned around and saw herself, “Oh shit- Shinobu?” “Yes?” “Oh this is confusing-” while they were talking three others went over to them it was, Kyojuro who was crying and leading Gyomei, and an angry Muichiro who they already know is Sanemi. “WHY DID I HAVE TO BE THE FUCKING FORGETFUL ONE?!” “Shinazugawa-san, you do know we didn’t choose who we got to be right?” Sanemi mumbled and crossed his arms, Kyojuro was crying and was even happier then ever (if that’s even possible) “Himejima-san, turned into me and he’s happy that he can see you guys for the first time!” Kyojuro who was Gyomei smiled but he was facing the wrong way, he was still getting somewhat used to the lack of eyesight but he can hear really well now!

Sadly not everyone was in their original bodies so it was confusing but either way Gyomei was happy to see them! Muichiro later walked over to them and said hi which made everyone wonder if Muichiro knew their names now or if he still had bad memory though that theory was cleared when Sanemi had forgotten who everyone else was which was kinda funny.

The next day they all returned back to normal.

Tag(s): No one.

[construingseacats]

Umireread - Legend of the Golden Witch: Epilogue - Tea Party

The following contains spoilers for the entirety of Umineko. Please do not read if you are yet to finish it.

Oh hey, is that the Purgatory, from Dante Alighieri’s hit epic, Divine Comedy? Guess everyone did die at the end, then. Couldn’t possibly be any other interpretation, right?

Thank you Battler! Very cool!

I know it’s about to become a lot more obvious in a second, but it’s good to see the game reminding you that the Epitaph is there to be solved, and wasn’t just a forecast of murders. Our job is far from done.

It sure was a cool scene, and it sure was a showdown with the culprit - but not in the sense that we might think.

Very funny Ryukishi - I’m actually kind of surprised how generous Episode 1 is with the suspicious nature of Shannon and Kanon’s deaths, given you should be able to figure out how suspect they are just by reasoning through the scenes without any extra prodding. Although, I suppose the reward is that these lines are quite funny once you know the intent behind them.

Legend of the Golden Witch is littered with subversions and baits and switches, but this one here takes the crown - this violently comes for the throat of anyone joining us off the back of Higurashi, or anyone familiar with the concept of Wrap Up Parties as a whole.

So, obviously, it’s funny to talk about how Battler knocks it out of the part with Kanon’s fake death (before being ridiculed for it), but this is a great juxtaposition between early Battler and the Answer Arcs. A lot of the suggestions for solutions here aren’t just terrible, they would actively ruin the story if they were used. I wonder how different things would be if we armed Episode 1 Battler with the Knox Decalogue and the knowledge that it’s in effect.

North Wind and the Sun in full effect - tell Battler to accept witches and he refuses with every fibre of his being. Let’s see how long it takes for the Sun to shine.

Yup, that’s how the alibis and fantasy scenes have worked so far!

It’s kind of crazy that one of the de facto main characters is only showing up after a novel and a half’s worth of words. We’re what, just shy of 140k words in at this point? That’s insane to think about.

I opened up the menu to check Beatrice’s character info, took a gander at the post-death info for the kids, and yeah I think Maria is just unironically the author of these now. Kihihihi.

You know, I just said Maria was writing the tips, but the last part of Beatrice’s information here feels like the kind of thing you’d see on one of those terrible fanmade wikis. In a way, this feels like Yasu writing about her very cool OC. I suppose, given that, we could read into the rest of it as Yasu writing as Maria - after all, that was what the initial message bottle was in the first place, right?

Even the narrative is cracking jokes now - very funny stuff, this got me good.

Oh? “You who call yourself Battler”? We’re going straight in with that one, huh?

So, as foreshadowing for the “you are not Asumu’s son” arc in Episode 4, this also lays an important point out for us - we are outside the territory of Yasu’s message bottles. There is no way she would reasonably know this at this point. Of course, that’s obvious, since the message bottles are just the contents of the “main” stories of Episodes 1 and 2, as Yasu would never write out this meta battle between Battler and Beatrice. …Well, okay, we can’t say that for certain - I suppose, if I was having to say something in red, it would be that she wouldn’t write this for a message bottle.

I haven’t looked deeply into recent Umineko theories, so I’m unsure if there’s a common consensus of how Purgatory and the meta sections fit into the “truth” of the story, but I personally see it as Tohya’s inner struggles to understand and make peace with the events of Rokkenjima, and the Battler persona that was left behind. (I’m doubling down on my prediction that Ciconia’s addressal of multiple personalities will recontextualise Umineko - Kinzo had issues with it, we’ve seen it with Maria, Shkanon leans more towards gender identity (but that’s also present with Miyao), and we have the Battler/Tohya split. SOMETHING is cooking behind the scenes.) This initial confrontation with Beatrice is representative of Tohya first coming to grips with the past, and who he once was.

Prison strip is one of those songs that I didn’t like that much the first time round, but has grown on me significantly. Such a cool backing track for the gauntlet being thrown.

And with that, we’re done with the Epilogue… Or the first one, at least! Time for second Epilogue!

[marvalouslynerdish]

D&D prompt/thoughts/theory (this is copied from a comment)

its really hard to come with why there are not more dragons of other types (asides from the creators/writers of DND just not coming up with them; i would not say they're lazy for not trying but truth is it's hard to think/write/create this stuff) especially with all the expanded and obscure and inconsistent/never explained writings of the lore of dungeons and dragons; that it is probably indescribably hard to make any of it "canon". (sorry if this typing come off inconsistently or ranting.)

 but so far in my attempt to take a crack at this, i've been coming up with some different ideas just using what i know/have discovered or have come up with so far, though we call tiamat chromatic but maybe what she actually is; is prismatic. when it comes to tiamat lore; we only get so much information about her, we know her as the imprisoned in hell five-headed terror and we mostly assume she's always had five heads but what if she didn't; the ROT book classifies her as a gargantuan Fiend; Fiend? why not a dragon? or a dragon fiend? FTD gives us aspect of tiamat and she's classed as dragon but aspect, aspect is the word they use for defining her, meaning this is not the real tiamat. when it comes to bahamut he's described as the creator of the metallic dragons and is platinum scaled; meaning one, one color for him and he has no extra heads, tiamat is described as having five-heads with the body of a red dragon; since one idea is that bahamut is tiamats BROTHER why are they not very similar to each other?! since another idea is that dnd is a MAGICAL world that creatures/gods/monsters are born/created/shaped by the different worlds and environments; i think tiamat looks the way she does is because she has been changed by the environment of hell for living there for so long that she lost her true form!    

 so let's just try to go back way before tiamat was in hell, to a different time and place during and before the dawn of the "First World" and theorize this idea; that when tiamat was born her True form was that her scales were so indescribably colorful, bright etc. that when one sees her, her scales seemed as though you could see all the colors of the world through the reflections of the scales or that the scales had such a shine to them that if you walked around tiamat you could see her body in any/all the colors maybe even mixed, so what if the reason why we have only red, blue, black, white and green for her colors/form and the chromatic dragons is because after the first world was destroyed and tiamat was probably badly defeated/injured; that there was only a handful of her and bahamut creations that survived while the rest of them were destroyed! (and also maybe they didn't get that far with making orange, purple, pink, mercury, steel and Titanium dragons cause they were creating a world full of things and when the outsider gods came there was only what they made so far so maybe the 'First World" was an incomplete project so to speak) 

 so now that tiamat is in hell, her first work of creation is gone, Sardior is fucking dead, possibly has feelings like her brother betrayed her (i mean something had to have happened there and somewhere in between that made the Dragonfall Wars happen), she fought against impossible odds but lost and had the crap beaten out of her, hates the "gods" and their followers, wants revenge and now seeks to become more powerful than ever so she can destroy the world and the gods! hell hath no fury like the wrathful vengeance that this "woman" now seeks upon the universe; she is DONE with all of this! no wonder why she has been changed into what she is now as a reflection of the events that have changed/shaped her life; for as we know, to paraphrase: ONE BAD DAY can CHANGE YOUR LIFE. . .forever. damn that was a lot of text to type i did not expect this to be this long, sorry about that. but if anyone enjoyed this, glad you like it and hit me up, take care now.

[arlequinelunaire]

Verthandi in the Middle Ch. 1.2

<Prev SV

CW: Serial killer and a little blood.

The weird thing about Urth sending me to Athens, now I think of it, is you'd figure the city would fall more under her domain. Sad as it is to say, unless you're Athenian yourself (and maybe not even then), people think more about the city's distant past than its present, let alone whether it has a future. The classical architecture, philosophers, saga- er, I mean epic poets, Urth gets all of those. None of which featured us (and no, the Moirai are totally different), but I'm fine with that, they would've just complained about us if they did.

Meanwhile, the Athens of my present just gets debt, tourists, and even the friggin' Nazis now, you can tell by the Sparta fixation. Okay okay, I know neo-Nazism's hardly an exclusively Greek problem these days. I mean, I've set up shop in Scandinavia, I don't need to be told twice.

But I'm not here right now for any Nazis, no, instead I get a serial killer. Like that's much better, especially when we've already weaved his fate and should be done with him. It then hit me that a Nazi-serial killer overlap would hardly be out of the norm, but I do hope that's not true, I don't need this meeting to be even more miserable.

I knew it was coming. No Parthenon or Agora, Yggdrasill had instead dumped me on the outskirts of Athens. A rickety, abandoned warehouse stood before me, in such disrepair that it looked like even a human could blow it down with a sneeze. The only sound was the whistling of the wind. A rank odour suggested something toxic had been dumped here at one point, and if Skuld could hear my thoughts now I just knew she would've said 'Yeah, you' or something else oh so clever. 

Right on cue, a scrawny, scurrying figure, his eyes darting frantically around, skittered his way through a rusty hole in a wire fence then headed through a dusty crack in a wall. Based on what description the report had him of, I quite quickly discerned this was our 'Scarecrow' Anastasios. Huh, so Ratatosk actually did drop me off at the right place for once, though I got the feeling he wouldn't keep up that track record. The fuzzball had already left too, and true, he personally had no obligation to keep an eye on this guy, but it felt like a dick move all the same.

I hid from the killer's sight behind an old, creaking dumpster, the sheer smell bringing my toxic waste dump theory back to mind. Yeah, he couldn't do a thing to me, even with me being outside of fate, but I still didn't want to interact with him. I'm not Skuld after all, representing the Present at least means I get to outgrow any 'serial killers are cool and edgy' phase. Then there's Odin, who at least tolerates serial killers if their victims fight back, more souls for Valhalla. Anyway, I braced myself and followed the guy, then winced as I cut my hand on those exposed wires. Well, being a Norn meant I didn't have to worry about tetanus, which was… reassuring. Still stung though.

The inside of the warehouse was somehow even more decrepit than outside. Everything was drowned in dust if not broken glass, the paintjob was a mess of rotting grey, whole chunks of the roof had crashed down, and the stench now went beyond toxic, someone had died here. Oh wait, this was a serial killer's hideout, duh, of course they had. Not like that's gonna happen anymore, so hey, that ought to increase the property value. Relatively.

Apart from me and the Scarecrow killer, there were a few others still alive in this place. The first was your average cat chasing down some rats; honestly, I was surprised to see animals here at all. Then of course was the killer's intended victim, he'd been left here while the killer was out for some reason. Last minute check to make sure nobody was following him? Heh, too bad there. Anyway, this victim was a thirtysomething guy in now-torn office wear hoisted at the far end of the factory, so tightly bound on a steel cross that his wrists had begun to bleed without the killer even stabbing them. Clearly doing more damage than the killer's actual stabbing attempts, with him missing any vital points every time he lurched with his knife right at him. The killer was left screaming "Why won't you die?!" as he started throwing shards of broken glass at him, but none made any real impact, unable to even shock his victim out of unconsciousness.

I let out a sigh of relief, looked like the fate-weaving was already working. Not that I was sent here to ensure the weaving had worked, I knew it would, I've been doing this job for millennia after all. No, Urth says this was to remind me that these are actual lives we hold power over, not just bits of magic string. And yeah I know, but why on Midgard did she think a serial killer would be a prime candidate for teaching me that? Who cares if that sort of person is reduced to a doll on a string? Also, funny for Urth to preach about empathy when she has zilch for me. 'Verthandi, you're acting improper for a Norn', 'Verthandi, your sister Skuld did nothing', 'Verthandi, is that a tone of sarcasm I hear?' again and again for millennia, now that I remember. She's my older sister, who died and made her Mum? 

But speaking of empathy, I suppose the least I can do is step in and rescue that tied-up guy. Could get Urth off my back as a bonus too. Then again, haven't I already saved him by extending his fate? No wait, Skuld was in charge of that, my bad. Still, he's gonna live regardless, worse for wear as he'll be, so really can't I just go now that I've seen these people in person? If the victim was calling out to me, then I guess I'd feel the urge to step in. But he's lost consciousness, so I doubt he'd mind me leaving. Granted, I remembered still feeling pain even though I couldn't die, and that'd go double or triple for him the second he woke up.

Well, I did the unheroic thing and turned to leave, only to get hit by a piercing shriek when I found that I'd tread right on that cat's tail. I winced hard when I heard the Scarecrow killer yell "Who are you?! What are you doing here?! Are you tailing me?! You're with them, aren't you?!" right at me. I presumed by 'them' he meant the cops, because if there was any wacked-out conspiracy junk in his head I didn't want to know. 

"All a piece of scum like you needs to know is that I'm the one who took away your ability to kill," I tell him, my eyes narrowed and arms folded. "The reason you keep failing to kill this guy, that's me. Nobody shall ever die by your hand again."

For a second the Scarecrow looked utterly aghast, but then he started quietly chuckling. "Heh, you're bluffing, that or insane. How do you 'magically' stop someone from killing? Just watch." Yet all that followed was his own knife suddenly showing itself to be blunt, plus more failed attempts at throwing broken glass.

"Face it, you're killing days are over," I told him as I moved firmly between him and his victim, "My sisters and I removed every successful kill from what's left of your thread of fate." It was only then I saw that I'd been too late to stop the Scarecrow's victims having his feet cut off, left as bleeding stumps. He'd live, Skuld and I had seen to that, but right now it would still be a life lived in agony. "Now tell me, why did you target this man?" I then spat out.

"Now I'm hoping you're insane," the Scarecrow hissed out, of course not answering my question. He pointed a shard right at my face and went, "You're saying you can just take away a person's free will as you please? You accuse me, when you can just make anyone your slave anytime you want, violate any right they have to choose? Why even bother with me personally when you can have world leaders bowing before you?!" his pitch rising ever higher as he glared at his victim, "Why ever bother saving a mediocrity like him?"

Okay, definitely sensed some projection there, though at least that last sentence of his gave me an idea of why he went after this man. The shit he spewed also gave me the urge to clarify, "We do not use our powers for personal gain, we don't even weave ourselves into any of our threads of fate. And when control a person's fate, we at least let them live." Okay, Urth and I do, but death is kinda Skuld's thing.

"Don't you dare take the high ground with me," the killer snapped back, I had to move slightly to dodge his spit. "I don't just kill anyone; I only get rid of those who contribute nothing to humanity. I was providing a far greater service than you, but now you've taken that service away. My very identity's gone because of you… wait," his rant suddenly slowed to a chilling calm, "You said you don't weave yourself into any fates, which'd include mine. Therefore, I can still kill you!"

Before I could correct him, even at risk of exposing my identity, he'd already plunged a glass shard through my ribcage and into my heart. Or rather, where my ribcage and heart would've been if I really was human. Instead, gritting my teeth through the piercing pain I still felt, I yanked out the shard and tossed it away. I didn't even dignify him with words. Because even a sharp stabbing like that was nothing compared too… one wound I once suffered.

My glare beating down on him, the Scarecrow immediately started hyperventilating. His voice managed to quiver out, "Y-you're not bleeding, t-that was right in your heart- What, what the hell are you?!"

"What, you never thought fate-weaving was a power for mere mortals, did you Anastasios?" I told him blunt. "You can't kill the Present."

The Scarecrow had now collapsed on his knees, as he slowly muttered, "The Present? So, if you're divine… or a demon, then… you're Lachesis, aren't you?"

Wait, Lachesis? Look, I'm no fan of syncretism. I don't like being lumped in with a bunch of goddesses I've never met or even seen, doubly so as I'm not a goddess myself. But I'll take an alias where I can get it, especially with how close I came to giving away that I'm Verthandi. "Yeah, that's me. The Moira Lachesis, Measurer of Lives," I said. I mean it's Greece, kinda shoulda seen the comparison coming. And if the real Lachesis does exist, I don't think she'll mind me borrowing her name. As we're both immortals, she's had plenty of time to get mad about me existing. 

"A goddess, a r-real goddess?" he stuttered. "Would that mean… Zeus, Hades, Poseidon, they're all real too?"

Not according to the word of Odin they aren't, but like the Allfather's never been self-serving. I settled on telling the Scarecrow, "That's for me to know. And I wanna be extra clear, just because a goddess has taken notice of you, Anastasios, that does not mean that you're anything above 'mediocrity' yourself," wanting to cut down the slightest chance of his ego inflating again. "We have to be there for all humanity. For instance, you wanna know why us N- Moirai" whew, good save "intervened in your fate? It's because a bunch of bratty kids thought it'd be cool if we messed with an oh-so-scary serial killer, that's all. Nothing special, just like you."

The Scarecrow was sent seething for what must've been minutes, till he finally rasped out, "Nothing special? No, don't you ever call me a mediocrity! What mediocrity would have the guts, the vision, to ever actually kill someone? Oh, people may think about it, may joke 'Yeah, I'm totally gonna kill my wife or boss or sibling'," I then wince for Skuld's sake, "but they're always too timid. Too afraid, that's what makes them mediocre. Me, even if you say I can't do it anymore, I'm still special because I have done it, without needing an officer to order me to!" 

I just tuned out his rant, as if tons of other megalomaniacs hadn't said the same spiel, confused their callousness for exceptionality. He even got increasingly high-pitched just like them all. But then at the height of his desperate reverie, he came to a complete halt and asked plainly, "Hold on, if you're Lachesis, why do you have a Swedish accent?"

Seriously, that's what he picked up on? "I'm in charge of everyone's present, I travel a lot," I told him on impulse. Also, Swedish? It's a Jotunheim accent, well, Jotunheim with an Asgardian dialect given I work at Urth's Well up there. True, there's no way he can know that, and better if he doesn't, but still.

"Anyway, you said I'll never succeed in killing anyone again… because of teens? Goddesses controlling people's fates, that I can at least understand. But a bunch of adolescents was all it took to make you do this to me, you put my life in their hands?!" The Scarecrow went back to shouting, and I couldn't help but be satisfied when tears started filling his eyes. 

"And a lot more lives out of your hands. But if it helps, I didn't like dealing with them either. Though you might like to know that they originally wanted us to kill you, it was me who talked them down to just making you never kill again," I told him. Then I flashed a wicked smile as a thought came to me, "Though maybe this is the worse fate for you. Sparing you means you'll have to live with what you've done. Maybe even confront the families and friends of all your victims, knowing you'll never be able to silence them. We can easily arrange that."

He was sent stumbling back, not seeming to care about the broken glass in his way. "Just… just stop," the Scarecrow manages to say. "Look, if you had to do this to me, why did you also come right up to me and rub it in? Couldn't you have at least left me blissfully ignorant? Leave me thinking that people can have their own fates, that teenagers can't dictate a whole person's life?"

"First, you're a serial killer, why would I ever have mercy on you? And don't give me that 'mediocrities' shit again," I hissed. "Second, I came here to remind myself that my actions have consequences for real people, something you should've taught yourself long ago."

And that did it, he was finally drained of words and sent scurrying away. I thought to go after him, but I'd more than left my mark on him by now. There's the chance he'll try to kill again to spite me, but he'll fail every time, so he'll learn how useless it is to defy his fate. Assuming he's not hunted down before then, if the police don't care then some vigilante mob will. His real first name is already public; I presume he won't be hard for them to track down.

I then heard a moaning behind me, turned around, and saw this guy's crucified victim was starting to regain consciousness. I mentally beat myself up for forgetting about him, yet another thing I can blame on the Scarecrow, then mentally tore into myself when I saw Scarecrow had cut his feet off, leaving an oozing puddle of blood and bone beneath him. I still knew this guy was fated not to die from this injury, but I swooped into help anyway, I'd already left him there on his own long enough. Unfortunately, any first aid skills I might've picked up in all my existence had faded with the rest of my memories, right when I genuinely could've used them for once. So I was left to feebly wrap my anorak sleeves around the stumps that'd been his legs for lack of any other option.

"Who… who are you?" he struggled to say, his voice reduced to nearly nothing.

"Vera Norin. I'm the one who saved you," I told him, feeling now wasn't the place for elaboration. 

"I'm… Nikos," was all he could say in return. 

"Hang on, I'll get you home. Just, er, point which way to go if talking's too hard," I told him. Good thing for Scarecrow he'd already run away, since I was now tempted to saw his own feet off. All that pain for being a 'mediocrity'.

"Oh thank you, thank you ever so much for saving our Nikos!" Nikos' wife, I heard him call her Dorothea, congratulated me upon me bringing him back to his place after we'd laid him down to recover. As opposed to her husband's office attire, she was dressed in more traditional Greek costume, all colourful embroidery above a flowing white dress, along with a little headscarf. "Well, I truly don't wish to sound ungrateful," she followed up, "but maybe bringing him to a hospital first would've been better. Ah, but then there's the issue of wait times and payment, so perhaps here was your only option."

This was… weird for me. I lived so long, yet being complimented and congratulated still isn't anything I'm used to. Eventually I told her, "Hey, even if you can't get him to a hospital, I've still got a hunch he'll live."

"That's very kind of you to say," Dorothea smiled at me. "Oh Vera, would you like to stay for dinner? We don't have much, but it's the least we can do for Nikos' saviour."

My instinct was to tell her no thanks, I'd be wanted back home. Especially as I don't need to eat, though obviously I don't let that slip. But then I thought hey, maybe just this once I could not just take off into the ether? And my sisters are immortals, they can literally wait forever. So I brought myself to say, "Sure, that'd be great." 

I also strained myself harder to say, "You have a lovely home." That couldn't be any more bullshit, the dingy apartment Nikos' family lived in rivalled the factory for sheer dismalness. The wallpaper was stained yellow if not peeling, the couches and beds looked like they'd collapse if you sat in them a little too hard, and it was all so cramped I kept worrying I'd get stuck. But Nikos had been kidnapped and mutilated by a serial killer, his family didn't need more negativity.

Dorothea smiled at me again, before she turned and called out, "Children, your father's home safe."

"Yay, Daddy's back!" two little tykes exclaimed in unison as they ran into the room, like he'd just gotten back from work and not from being kidnapped by a killer. Granted, both were still pretty young, how would you even explain serial killers to them? Still, I predicted a lot of awkward questions about feet in Nikos' future. "I was worried we'd never see him again," the older of them said.

Meanwhile, the younger of them looked up at me and outright asked, "Are you Daddy's guardian angel?" 

I… was not at all equipped to respond to that, especially since it was the wrong religion entirely, but then again so was Lachesis. Ill-equipped to talking with kids as I was, I eventually came up with, "You could say I'm everyone's guardian angel, or everyone's fairy godmother. Well, for everyone who deserves it," which was kind of the truth. But the Scarecrow knew full well I could just as easily be a punishing demon, as did quite a few others across history who only uttered 'Norn' with disgust. As an extra little treat for the kid, I briefly materialized wings behind my back, a hidden part of my body in the same way those spider pincers were.

Much as Nikos struggled to move, even he rose to smile at his two children. I began to feel queasy. All this… affection his family had for each other, even in such miserable conditions. I was told this was normal for families, but it was hard for me to get through my skull. Millennia of Urth constantly ordering me around and Skuld getting away with being a little monster will do that. And seeing a father who cared about his children, it reminded the only thing I know about my own purported dad is he's apparently named Mogthrasir… and that's it.

Speaking of Urth and Skuld, I took it now would be a good time to advertise Wyrd Sisters Inc, but on second thought it'd be a terrible time. 'Hey, I saved your husband's life, here's an ad for the place I work', you can just feel the skeevy opportunism of it. So when we sat down to eat, with a lamb meal that was much more generous than Dorothea had made it out to be, I compromised with, "Listen, if you ever need me again, here's my contact info," then handed them my card. Naturally, I never got any say in its design, it was all Urth. You could tell from the runes and the Yggdrasill-style branches. 

"Why, thank you, but it's just," Dorothea said then sighed, "it's an international number, and our internet connection is, well, not the best."

"Don't worry. I got down to Greece easily enough before, I can do it again," I told her, trying to smile at her this time.

"Thank you again, that's reassuring to hear- huh, what's this, fate-weaving?" she muttered as she took a closer look at the card.

"Yeah, deciding people's destinies. It's how I knew your husband would survive. My sister and I removed what would've been his death at the hands of that killer, and made it so the killer would never kill again," I told her.

I too hastily expected Dorothea to light up, but instead she bit her lip. "Don't get me wrong, I am ever grateful you used your… powers, I guess that's what you have, to save my husband and others from that- that monster. Ahem, however," she hesitated as a thought sunk in, "this is controlling people's fates we're talking about. Well, I'm just glad such a power seems to be in the right hands."

The right hands? Hoo boy, I've spent millennia wondering if us Norns have been that at all. I struggled to find any response to that, any response that didn't feel completely sugarcoated. The best I can come up with is, "I assure you, there are no better fate-weavers out there." Which is true, by default. 

The long meal over, which I'll tell you certainly beat Swedish cuisine, Dorothea and her children gave me one last hug before I left. From the look on Nikos' face, he would've joined in too had he still been able to stand. So instead he waved and said, "Vera, I-I really do owe you my life. What you did was a miracle, more than I ever could've asked for."

I just smiled back, utterly lost for words. No 'dreaded Norn', no 'cruel mistress of fate', just… people being happy because of me, saying I'd made their lives better. And then after all this warmth, I'd be going right back to Urth and Skuld.

But with another Yggdrasill trip, back to my sisters I went. No surprise, Urth showed up right away the instant I opened our Stockholm office door. "I trust it all went well, Verthandi?" she asked with all the warmth of a glacier. Well, better her at the door than Skuld going 'Hey, wasn't it totally cool you got to meet a serial killer?' that would've sent me volcanically fuming.

"Eh, the serial killer was a little shit just as I expected," I said, "but getting to do something good for once, having people thank me, it's not something I experience often. Yeah, I'm grateful." 

"I'm glad to hear that," Urth said simply. No 'that's wonderful' or 'that great', just 'I'm glad'. The usual for Urth. Still, even if she wouldn't be open about it, at least I was feeling pleased with myself. I didn't really care about proving myself to those teens anymore. Seeing Nikos' family so happy, that felt like more than ever could've asked for.