#WHY DOES HE LOOK SO DEVIOUS IN THAT LAST PANEL THOUGH

[cursed-princess-club]

your college grad older brother who moved to michigan that came home for thanksgiving bringing up politics at thanksgiving

[tailorvizsla]

Ner Mesh’la Tracinya

Pairing: Fem!Reader x Armorer Word Count: ~4300 Warnings: Public(ish) sex/fingering Author’s Notes: Y’all probably don’t know this but I thirst for Armorer the same way I thirst for Paz Vizla. You can read this over on AO3, if you’d prefer.

📚 My Master List 📚

Edit: Changed the formatting for story information and added moodboard. A huge, ginormous thank you to Huliabitch for helping me figure out how to make it! ❤️❤️❤️

Din Dumbass Djarin dropped you off with his Tribe in the middle of the night without warning. To you, or to his family. After a very tense standoff where you tell them Din’s full name – the improvised middle one included – and withstand two hours of interrogation while someone tries to contact him, you are allowed to use one of the rooms. Din eventually responds, informing the Armorer that he had endangered you and the Imps know who you are. So, he is keeping you safe until the worst of the danger is over. Fortunately, you have useful skills, and you are put to work immediately.

Today marks your eleventh week with Din’s family. You had sneaked down to the laundry room earlier today and ‘borrowed’ one of Neten’s suits to work in. You figure he will not mind it, considering you caught him red-handed in the kitchen, stuffing caramel cookies up the front of his bucket. The same caramel cookies that Paz Vizla had brought back and warned everyone to not touch.  

You zip it up halfway and tie the sleeves around your waist. It’s hotter than the face of the sun, even indoors, and you don’t give a shit if anyone is offended by the sight of you walking around in a thin white tank-top and a man-sized extra-large flight suit. You then set to work in the workshop, trying to repair the environmental control panel so that the whole ‘hotter than the face of the sun’ problem will go away.

It does not take you long to figure out that the problem doesn’t involve the panel. Listening carefully, you realize that you cannot even hear the fan spinning, even with the power on. That explains why the air is not moving. You let out a huff as you look up at the square grill, well above your head.

Grabbing a ladder, you go unscrew the screws and place them into the cup on the table. Then you grab your bag, push it into the gaping maw, and sort of wriggle up the sloped incline, using your hands and feet to push yourself along. Whoever decided to put the fan this far back into the vent should be dragged out in public and pelted with tomatoes, you think grumpily to yourself.

You just barely fit into the dusty, narrow space. It takes a minute or so to wriggle your way to the fan, where you start testing the connectors. Once you have located the faulty connectors, you yank them out and replace them. As you solder the last connector into place, your feet slip a bit on the incline.

You shuffle yourself forward again to reattach it to the power source. For a single gut-wrenching second, nothing happens. Then the fan slowly starts to spin, spluttering, before it finally chugs up to speed. Thank the fucking spirits. The cold breeze causes a wave of goosebumps to break out across your sweat-slick skin. With that task finished, you begin to wriggle your way back out. When your back half exits the vent, you try to feel around for the top rung of the ladder.

You feel it…and promptly knock it over.

Shit.

The ladder hits the ground with a loud crash. You let out a little puff of air to get the hair off your face and try to figure out what you are going to do next. It’s a bit of a drop to the ground and you don’t want to risk spraining your ankle. Unfortunately, the metal beneath you is dusty, and you start to slip out. You let out a screech.

Two hands clamp around your hips as you fall out completely, landing on the person behind you. They let out a surprised grunt as they catch you, their arms wrapping around you. The two of you stumble back a bit, but the strong person behind you keeps you both on your feet.

“T-thank you,” you say, turning to your savior.

“Perhaps you should secure your ladder next time,” Armorer says, her helmet tilting down at you.

You swallow, noting that her arm is still wrapped around your waist. Fuck, she is so much stronger than she looks. Absently, you rest your hands on her chest plate, feeling the warmth of the bes’kar under your fingertips. For some reason, your heart begins to pound, and heat begins to blossom everywhere. You try to speak, but all you can manage is some sort of pathetic stuttering noise. After a second, she lets go of you, and you take a half-step back.

“Th-thanks,” you manage to say, somewhat coherently once you can manage to breathe.

Swallowing, you take a second to center yourself. Calm, collected, and definitely not soaking wet just from that simple touch. Ignoring that damp heat in your panties, you force yourself to focus on your work.

“Well, the environmental controls are fixed now,” you say in what you hope is a cheerful tone. “Is there anything else that I can help with today?”

You note that her helmet tilts down again.

“The environmental controls in the karyai seem to be damaged as well,” she says. “I must ask – why are you wearing Neten’s suit?”

You let a devious smile cross your face.

“He won’t mind,” you say.

“Why is that?”

“He’s the one who ate all of Big Blue’s cookies,” you say. “Paz already knows, but…he is waiting for the right time to bring it up.”

Armorer sighs.

“I assume you will be taking full advantage?”

“I will wash everything and put it back once I am finished,” you say. “If Neten can’t take a bit of playful blackmail, I don’t think he can withstand what Paz is going to do to him.”

She nods once at you. When she leaves, you wonder why she had come here in the first place. Shaking your head, you clear the thoughts away, and head down to the karyai. There, you find the two vents she had been referring to. One has the same problem as the one in the workshop, so you repair it quickly. The second control panel has burnt out completely.

You scavenge what parts you can from the workshop, finding a few extra chips and connectors. Unfortunately, it is not enough to repair the second unit. You sigh and write a note for one of the hunters to bring back a new condensation coil for it. On second thought, you add a detailed drawing with precise measurements. Some of the hunters are not the best at paying attention to certain things, and you do not want to wait for a third (or fourth) trip out when they invariably fuck it up.

At the end of the day, you are beyond exhausted. Your body is covered in a fine layer of dust, grease, and whatever the hell had been accumulating in the vents. After a hot shower, you go back to the karyai to continue helping around the place. Even when the workday is over, there is always plenty of work to be done. There are always children in need of care – and you are always happy to offer a tired parent a few minutes of respite.

As soon as you come into view, you are swarmed by five of the younger ones, and you let them cuddle into your side, giving each one a bit of attention and affection. Then, mischief fills you as you kneel in the group of children. Slyly, you start handing out very small pieces of candy. The older children immediately sense the presence of sweets and come to grab a piece for themselves.

Then Armorer comes to investigate. The children scatter like cockroaches, their treats secured in pockets or mouths. Rising to your feet, you reach into your other pocket and bring out the good candy. You offer her one of your last chocolates with a sheepish grin. Armorer takes it, much to your surprise, and puts it away.

-

-

-

Armorer finishes putting her tools away. Her shoulders ache, but in the pleasant way that results from hard labor. She banks the flames to keep the Forge at operating temperature. After collecting her toiletries, she heads to the locker room. As she passes by the workshop, she hears a faint strain of music. It is familiar and unfamiliar at the same time, with a strong drum beat and lilting string instrumentals. She steps inside to investigate. At the far end of the room, just out of sight of the doorway, she sees you by one of the reflective cabinets.

Not standing, but dancing.

You are dancing quite skillfully. Armorer feels her mouth go dry when she sees the way your supple body twists and undulates to the soft music playing. She often thinks back to that morning when she caught you. She had not been expecting to see your nipples straining at the fabric of your shirt, nor the way you flushed at her touch and your pupils dilated. She lingered, simply enjoying the way you stuttered. Armorer continues watching, a coil of heat in her belly, as your breasts and ass bounce with each movement.

“See something you like, Armorer?” comes a voice from behind her.

She almost twitches.

“Sneak up on me again and I will put my hammer through your thick skull,” she says flatly to Paz.

The older man snorts. He leans in.

“She’s cute,” Paz whispers dramatically. “You sure you can handle a little spitfire like her?”

She only has to look at him. He chortles and nudges her with his shoulder, a show of companionship and support.

“Good luck,” Paz says.

“A good hunter does not need luck,” she responds.

Paz snorts. Armorer ignores him and turns back to you. You are still dancing, though slower than before. It has been far too long since she has had a companion to share herself with.

-

-

-

The next evening, you find yourself finished early. So, rather than laze around and watch some silly soap opera in the karyai with Revala, you decide to go blow off some steam. You put on your athletic clothes – all elastic and snug so you don’t get caught up in anything – and put your hair up in a braid. You bypass the few machines and head toward the back rooms where people spar. Selfishly, you decide to take over one of the private rooms so you can stretch and do your yoga routine. If you fall over, at least you will have privacy for your humiliation.

“Do you wish to be alone?” a voice asks from the doorway.

“No,” you say to Armorer as you lift your head. “There’s plenty of space for both of us.”

You notice immediately that her helmet is very different than the one she normally wears. It is the same color and has similar features. However, it looks shorter. As she moves, you can see that it reveals most of her cowl. Ah, it lets her move her head without running the risk of dislodging her helmet and compromising what she can see. The one she wears in the Foundry probably functions for more protection against the intense heat of the flames.

“Do you wish to know something?”

You mull over it.

“Nah, it’s a stupid question.”

“Remember the company I keep,” she remarks casually.

You are unable to hold back your snort of laughter. Earlier in the day, you overheard her speaking with Hannah, the cook.

Hunters are not known for their intelligence, Hannah. That is why we must also childproof the top cabinets.

“It’s about your helmet, which is why I held back,” you say quietly.

There are a few moments of silence before she tilts her head. You assume it’s an invitation.

“Is your other helmet ceremonial, or does it offer more protection from the heat?”

“Both,” she says.

You nod. You want to ask more questions, but you figure you would be pushing your luck if you did. You want to spend time with her, not piss her off.

“Would you like to spar?” she asks.

“Sure,” you say. “I will do my best.”

You get to your feet and stretch your arms a bit more. She comes to a halt in front of you, dropping into her fighting stance.

You take a moment to size her up. She is taller than you and outweighs you by a small amount. Armorer spends most of her time in the Foundry, so she has some serious muscles. Not only that, she is a Mandalorian. She has been raised since her childhood to fight people (or so you assume). From what you can gather, Armorer has years of experience on you. You are outclassed in every single way, you think to yourself, as you match each of her footsteps, circling one another.

The only think you can hope to do is to try and outlast her, wait until she is tired, and then try to take her by surprise. They have no idea you are a somewhat-capable combatant. That was one thing Din had made sure of – he drilled you as hard as he could as often as he could. He wanted you able to protect yourself and the kid when he was gone. So, that was your only hope at this point.

She makes the first blow. Armorer is holding back, but it still hurts. You wince.

“If you would move out of the way in time, it will not hurt,” she remarks easily.

You dodge the second one and jab at her with your left fist. You are pretending that you are less skilled than you are. She twists out of the way. She hits you again. You try to return it with several quick strikes. None of them meet their target. When you can see that Armorer is slowing down, you decide to make your move.

With her next punch, you grab her by the arm and pull, flipping her over your hip and sending her sprawling. You surge forward onto her, trying to pin her down. Panting, you manage to get onto her legs, but she is fast. And holy shit, she is fucking strong. She easily rolls you onto your back, even as you are trying to pin her down with your full weight. As she moves to kneel above you, you grab her foot and pull it out from under her, sending her careening onto the ground.

You thank Cara for teaching you that move. Stubbornly, you try to get up, but Armorer decides to end the fight. With one hard shove, she sends you careening onto your front, knocking the wind out of you. You flail for a moment. Then she settles onto you, straddling your thighs as she presses you down into the mat. Her weight on you sends your blood pressure and pulse through the stratosphere.

You try to elbow her, but she slams your arm down into the mat, just barely missing your ear. She catches your other hand and pins it between the two of you, right at the small of your back. You try to roll onto your side, but she holds you down, resting more of her weight onto you to keep you on the ground.

“Recall that I am a hunter. I know when my prey is attempting to deceive me,” she drawls out. “You cannot escape.”

“Yes, I can,” you insist.

“You may try,” she says mildly.

You tilt your head and bite her, hard enough for her to feel your teeth through her thick glove, but not hard enough to cause concern. She smells like spicy smoke and leather, you think to yourself. She inhales sharply in response.

“How uncivilized,” she murmurs.

“Madame Armorer, may I remind you of how many orifices you have threatened to shove your boot into today?” you ask saucily, wriggling as you test her hold on you.

She, of course, does not budge. When her fingers tighten in warning around your wrists, you go quite still, and Armorer leans forward. You almost moan when you feel the firm press of her breasts against your back. Fortunately, you manage to stifle it before you embarrass yourself any further than you already have.

“Stop struggling,” she purrs. “You are helpless here.”

You want so badly to arch against her, to feel more of her strong body against yours. Arousal begins to thread through you, filling your veins with molten lava. It courses deep into your core, leaving you aching and throbbing between the legs.

“Do you wish to submit, little kitten?”

Oh, sweet merciful gods.

The fight leaves you as your brain promptly short-circuits. You nod, not trusting yourself to speak. Right now, you are on the verge of begging her to fuck you, to do whatever she pleases with your body. All you want is her touch, her hands against you, mapping out every square inch of your body. As she shifts, you let out a little noise, one that she definitely hears.

“Say it,” she says in a coaxing sort of tone. “I want to hear it.”

You inhale shakily.

“Yes, Armorer,” you whisper, your voice cracking. “I – I submit. T-to you.”

She lets out a little purr of pleasure and releases your wrists.

“If you move without my permission, your punishment will be severe,” she says briskly. Then, as if reading your mind, she adds, “I have a paddle, and I will not hesitate to turn you over my knee.”

You let out a squeak.

“I will not tolerate disobedience. I trust you will behave?”

“Yes,” you nod solemnly. “I will behave.”

“Good girl. On your back.”

You obey. She lowers herself next to you, resting her weight on one elbow, looking every bit like a lioness about to pounce. You lick your lips and swallow, letting your eyes trace over the lines of her helmet. Her hand finds your neck, her fingers skimming over your pulse. Obediently, you lay there, hands by your sides as she continues her exploration down to your collarbones and sternum.

“So soft,” she remarks, as she squeezes your breast firmly.

Her thumb brushes against your nipple. You almost arch your back to follow the warmth of her hand. Remembering her threat, you just barely restrain yourself.

“Good girl,” she croons.

A little mewl escapes you as she continues her slow trail downward, her hand pausing on your ribcage. Then dipping down to your waist, making you squeal and twitch as her fingers tighten there. She stops moving, her helmet tilting down a bit. Biting down on your lip, you lay there, your entire body trembling as her hand remains at your waist.

She gives you a few seconds before she skims her palm along your belly. Bypassing your mound, she cups your hip and squeezes firmly, forcing a stuttering sigh from between your bruised lips. By now, your breath is coming in tiny gasps and your panties are soaked through, your cunt clenching wantonly.

Slowly, torturously, Armorer makes her way back up, dragging your shirt up to reveal your sports bra. Hooking her fingers under the band, she eases the elastic up and over your breasts, freeing them from the confines of the fabric. She lets out a low hum of satisfaction. Her hand rises to your lips.

“Take my glove off.”

You reach up.

“Use your teeth,” she says.

You nod in understanding. Locking eyes with her visor, you grasp her elbow gently, and lift your head. You gently bite down on the tip of the index finger. One by one, you slowly work her glove off. Then you pause.

“Do you want me to take it off completely?” you ask.

“Close your eyes,” she says.

You obey once more, closing your eyes as you remove it completely. Mischievously, you lean up and press a quick kiss to her finger, earning yourself a soft sigh. Emboldened by her pleasure, you skim your lips along her palm, pressing little kisses against her calloused skin until you find her thumb, relishing in each intoxicating sigh she gives you. Smiling, you part your lips and gently nibble along the side of her digit. She inhales and pulls away. You let out a mewl of disappointment.

“You disobeyed me,” she says.

You sulk.

“I will be lenient,” she murmurs. “There will be time for you to learn your place.”

Her hand returns to your chest. She cups your breast. The feeling of her bare skin against yours sends a jolt through you, leaving you feeling dizzy and starved for air. She tweaks your nipple, humming as a sob catches in your throat. Swiftly, she treats your other breast to the same delightful torture, wrenching a full moan from you this time.

Her fingers slip under your waistband. When her fingers find your aching, throbbing clit, you whimper, your hips trembling as you struggle to stay still. Her promise of discipline fascinates you, but you need release more than anything else. Armorer traps your clit between her fingers and squeezes. This time, you are unable to hold back. You cry out sharply as you press your knees together. That knot in your belly is so tight it hurts.

“There we are,” she breathes. “Keep making those pretty noises for me, kitten.”

She strokes long, slow, lazy circles around your pearl, wrenching sobs from your throat as she so very slowly works you to the edge. Then she slides further down, tracing around your entrance. Without warning, she slides one finger into your aching, yearning center. You keen as your entire body twitches, your walls tightening around her still finger.

Armorer presses her forehead to yours. You can feel her breath against your cheeks. Automatically, you turn your head and press your lips to her helmet. She laughs, deep and low in her throat.

“Would you like to kiss me?” she asks. Then her voice lowers, growing huskier. “Press your lips to mine? Taste me?”

“Please,” you choke out.

“I thought I would have to work harder to teach you your manners, kitten.”

You whine as she presses a second finger into you and curls them, pressing directly into something that makes you see stars and your back arch. When you’ve come back down, she continues her languid pace.

“So pliant,” she murmurs. “So submissive. Tell me, do you enjoy being told what to do?”

“O-only - you,” you manage to stutter out, as her fingers curl inside of you again.

She hums with pleasure as you tighten around her. Whimpering, you turn to nuzzle her helmet.

“P-please – can I – touch you?” you whimper up at her.

“How could I tell you no?” she asks. “Touch me, kitten.”

You let out a warble of happiness as you finally reach up, touching her arm and hand. Up her arm, to her shoulder. You explore her body, touching the parts of her that you can reach. Sweetly, you kiss her helmet again, pressing your forehead to hers, knowing that it means something to Mandalorians.

She slides a third finger into you, and the knot in your belly begins to unravel. You pant softly against her visor, keening quietly as you spiral closer and closer to orgasm. When you start to reach that peak, you grasp at her, burying your face into shoulder as you sob, your entire body rising up to meet her hand. A white light goes off behind your eyelids as your orgasm strikes, as quick and hot as a bolt of lightning. She continues her pace, prolonging your orgasm, until your body is limp and shaking next to hers. She leaves her fingers inside of you, your walls occasionally tightening around her.

“You did so well, kitten,” she croons.

You dare to press a kiss to her shoulder, tightening your hand possessively around her.

“Ner mesh’la tracinya,” you whisper to her. My beautiful flame.

She inhales sharply.

“You have been listening in on lessons,” she murmurs.

“I want to please you,” you breathe up to her. “More than anything else…”

“You have pleased me so very well.”

She slides her fingers out of you. Blindly, you reach out, grasping her wrist with your hands. Then you gently pull her hand to your mouth and start cleaning her off, lapping up the evidence of your pleasure with short flicks of your tongue. Then you suck each finger into your mouth to ensure it is clean enough to be put back into her glove. Patting the ground by your side, you find her glove, and slowly put it back onto her hand, working it down until she is completely covered once more.

“Can I open my eyes now, please?” you ask.

“Yes, kitten,” she says, her voice a bit strained. “Open your eyes.”

You open your eyes and smile at her. Languidly, you stretch out next to her and continue your slow exploration, wondering if she will let you return the favor. She swallows and pulls back. Before she can speak, you bite down on your lower lip, and let your hand fall to her hip.

“You know,” you say. “I’m finished with all my work today…and you seem to be finished with all your work, too…”

Fuck, she’s got a nice ass, you think to yourself, as you steal a quick grope of her backside.

“…I don’t think anyone would be upset if Alor took some time to rest,” you say sweetly.

“Why do I suspect you have indecent intentions toward me?” she asks.

“I am afraid my intentions are depraved,” you say. “I might even wish to debauch you, Armorer.”

She laughs, a rich, warm sound that sends shivers all the way down to your toes.

“Kitten, you know nothing of debauchery,” she responds.

You sulk.

“I do too,” you insist.

“Mmhmm,” she hums. “Very well. We will retire for the evening.”

She easily gets to her feet. You take her hand and she hauls you up with what seems to be no effort at all. The two of you head out toward the locker room, a thrill filling you at the promise of a night spent in her arms.

[mdzs-overthink-athon]

Adaptations - Part 14: Don’t we all have a little WWX in us?

(Masterpost)

This scene appears in:

Mo Dao Zu Shi novel Chapter 10

Mo Dao Zu Shi manhua Chapter 25

Mo Dao Zu Shi donghua Episode 2

The Untamed / Chen Qing Ling drama Episode 2

In this scene, Jiang Cheng returns and learns Wen Ning was summoned. 

He is now positive that “Mo Xuanyu” is possessed by Wei Wuxian. 

He goes after him with Zidian, which has the power to remove possessed spirits, but is initially blocked by LWJ. 

WWX screws himself by running away from LWJ’s protection and thus gets whipped anyway.

Ouch.

-

More under the cut

Anyway, when there’s no change in “MXY” after being whipped by Zidian, the others try to convince JC that he’s wrong, and WWX has such good taste he wouldn’t possess someone like MXY. 

In the donghua and manhua versions, WWX obfuscates by capitalizing on MXY’s reputation as a cut-sleeve. 

His plan is to make JC and LWJ both so annoyed that they’ll leave him alone. It backfires delightfully.

I do also just want to note this manhua panel which caused fangirl me to drool all over myself:

Meanwhile in CQL world, the snowflakes censors couldn’t handle this last exchange, so instead we get Lan Jingyi mouthing off and making JC uncomfortable by reminding him about how he originally killed WWX

This poor tormented motherfucker.

Then we get a really weird segue where the camera angle on WWX gets all distorted and we’re supposed to understand that we’re travelling baaaack in tiiiiime (SFX: echo)

And this is where I begin banging my head against walls in the process of creating each post because I will be trying to reconcile four deviating plot lines in my head. Wish me luck!

So basically this scene is about a couple of different things for me:

Zidian

We saw Zidian before, but there’s increased focus on it here. You could say it’s the star of this scene in a way. It is cool and symbolic and full of personality (and purple!) so some of my criteria here is based on how Zidian is portrayed.

Manhua:

First off I love the motion and SFX here. We get a good feel of action despite the fact we’re looking at static images. I also love the lightning effect. Over all, masterfully done. 10/10.

-

Donghua:

Here, the more impressive shots of Zidian are more symbolic - the lighting and effects are still masterful, as is the framing, but the true beauty to this is that Zidian is used as a symbol for JC’s burning rage. Look at that furrowed brow of furor. Contrast with the reasonable, all-business expression in the manhua above. Which do we think is more JC? 11/10. 

-

Drama:

Here, a similar thing is done with Zidian symbolizing JC’s rage. The visual effects are quite nice as well, given it’s live action. The live action format, though, makes it less possible to really show those sweeping strikes at the perfect moment the way the donghua and manhua do. 9/10.

-

WWX being a brat

Of the many faces of WWX, this might possibly be my favorite. In this scene, he has the opportunity to be extra mischievous. First he is eluding discovery and capture, and then he’s (at least in the manhua and donghua) actively trying to extricate himself from the situation by pissing everyone off.

-

Manhua:

Here is WWX heckling JC from behind his donkey, and doing some expo for us, the readers on why the whip didn’t separate him 

(I don’t know what xianshe means, but XR translates the novel version as “I was forcibly given this body”)

Then here he is trying to be “disgusting” by flirting with everyone

Manhua!WWX is once again just a bit too cute and pretty to pull off the mischief I want to see from him here. I do like to see him hiding behind things / people though, and he’s clearly trying. 7/10.

-

Donghua:

Here’s WWX gloating smugly to himself about why Zidian didn’t work:

Here he is declaring his (fake (for now)) crush on LWJ:

WWX is super devious here and I love it. The little smug closed-mouth smirk is what does it for me. 10/10.

-

Drama:

This one is a bit different as Drama!WWX largely plays it straight (pun intended), and focus is on the other characters. Here’s WWX being miserable and sad b/c he was whupped, while LWJ glares:

Then incredulous JC demands:

Then I guess we are prepared for fisticuffs? (from safe behind glaring LWJ)

Yep so I’m honestly not sure what’s going on here but it’s cute and definitely cements the relationships between these three. 8/10.

Overall, we have manhua: 17, donghua: 21, drama: 17

My personal fav: the donghua. The portrayal of Zidian as both a symbol of rage and a vehicle of pretty purple lights is top-notch, and mischievous / fake-flirtatious donghua WWX delivers. 

-

P. S.: I want to thank all the very patient followers who have stuck with me so far and even reblogged some of these ridiculously long posts of mine. I will now be attempting to put most of each post under a cut, so they don’t clog up everyone’s dash so much. I should have done this earlier, but a year or two back, tumblr erased some of my lengthy essays that I placed under cuts, and I have had a debilitating fear of including a cut in my posts ever since. Like other random tumblr malfunctions, it seems to have since evaporated and I’m left wondering if it was my imagination or possibly user error. Anyway I just wanted to thank you for your dedication in interacting with my posts even though they were so long as to be rather rude :)

(Source: manhua) (Source: novel translation) (Source: donghua) (Source: drama)

[gaknar]

Review: The Claremont Crossovers

Geez, I haven’t written a review for this blog since my Secret Wars review from like 17 years ago. How can that be? Well, I guess I used to work on this blog a lot more often and now I’ve gotten way more into Super Nintendo games and BDSM. Like a lot of people. But now that I finally finished reading Inferno, it is time once again to bookend my experience with an overly wordy wall of text filled with the worst kind of oblivious meninist butt humor jokes and pretentious sounding run-on sentences that are trying to sound smart but are always improperly ended with prepositions of. And lots of ridiculous comic book panels.

These are only the silliest panels from this reading that I could find after looking for about 25 seconds.

Bookeeping. This review covers everything that I have read since X-Factor #1. This includes Uncanny X-Men #204-243, X-Factor #1-39, New Mutants #38-73, along with a smattering of annuals, Daredevil, Power Pack, Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Excalibur, and X-Terminators comics that were all part of the Mutant Massacre, Fall of the Mutants, and Inferno crossovers. There were a lot of developments over the course of the 4 years these comics were published. Jean Grey was resurrected and the original members of the X-Men reformed under the moniker X-Factor.

Mr. Sinister formed his band of evil mutants, the Marauders, who would become the X-Men’s main antagonists, and their most devious act would include committing mutant genocide against the Morlocks in the New York City sewers while dealing critical wounds to main X-Men team members Kitty Pryde, Nightcrawler, and Colossus during the fight.

Later, the X-Men were seemingly killed in a struggle with the mystical being known as the Adversary, but in reality they went into hiding in their new Australian outback base.

Illyana Rasputin lost control of the hell dimension Limbo which led to a demon invasion of Manhattan.

And finally, perhaps most prominently, Cyclops left his wife Madelyne Pryor and their son to get back together with Jean Grey, an act that led Madelyne to become corrupted with Pheoenix Force power and to turn into the Goblin Queen.

This era of X-Men comics contains the first major crossovers between the main X-Men comic book and its spinoffs. These events would become common as Marvel found ways to use its more strongly published works to carry the weaker ones, and the ploy still works apparently since here I am 30 years later reading 500 page omnibus collections just because there are 4 or 5 absolutely killer X-Men comic books in them. I love the X-Men so much that I’m willing to wade through the unending buildup to get the most out of the climaxes.

Seriously this artwork.

However, I find that this style of editing leads to a peculiar trend in pacing that can be tough to recover from in-between the major storylines. As Mutant Massacre leads into Fall of the Mutants, which then leads into Inferno, the characters are faced with consistently increasing stakes. With each passing story line, casualties grow and become more grave, and the consequences are more lasting. Mutant Massacre starts with the genocide of a mutant community, and several main characters are critically wounded as the X-Men face the worst defeat they’ve ever experienced. Then a year later in Fall of the Mutants, just as the team is starting to recover, the entire team of X-Men is killed during their battle against the Adversary. They would immediately be resurrected as a reward for sacrificing themselves to save the world, but it is still a defeat that claims the lives of every member of the team, if only for a moment. By the time we get to Inferno, the world is literally ending. Demons are raining from the sky and regular people are straight up getting slaughtered in the streets and elevators as the X-Men are more or less helpless to stop the destruction.

Inferno is an amazing storyline, if only for all the scenes of inanimate objects coming to life and straight up eviscerating common folk who are just minding their own business. Look at this shit!!! How did the comics code of conduct ever approve this. A mob of people just packed themselves into a demon FOOD PROCESSOR and every inch of them was liquefied except their bones. Chilling. (And let’s just forget about how the writers retconned all this blood orgy stuff in the Inferno Epilogue).

This all works in a capitalistic sense. Constantly raise the stakes and don’t let up for a second because if you do, the reader will take their eyes off the page and you will lose money. But the problem is, you can’t do this forever. And if you try, eventually you are going to write yourself into a corner where you’ve raised the stakes so many times, and you’ve re-manufactured the drama so often, people will stop caring. I call this the Dragon Ball effect.

How many times have these characters become gods at this point? Like three movies ago, the most recent movie was literally called “Battle of Gods.” I’m not even watching Super. Once your characters get so far away from humanistic stories people can relate to, you are no longer creating art. You’re manufacturing sensationalism. And it gets boring. These guys are starting to look like different flavors of freezie pops.

Maybe this is why the X-Men comics that come after this, the comics that make up the last leg of writer Chris Claremont’s 17 year run on the series, become so weird. Because perhaps there was no way to continue to raise the stakes any higher. After this point, we don’t get any more big crossovers until X-Tinction Agenda, but even that story is small and quaint when compared to what is presented here. Wolverine completely disappears from the series, all our other favorite characters disappear into the Seige Perilous to be transformed into completely different versions of themselves, and we get a lot of surreal stories that don’t have any sort of climax in the way that we’ve been conditioned to expect. The series becomes murky and ambiguous, without a solid narrative arc, and I think that’s why people regard the end of Chris Claremont’s writing on the series to be the weakest part of his run.

I can’t wait to read the X-Men comics that are coming up next. Because I didn’t know what in the FUCK was going on in these comics when I was a kid and I’m hoping they make more sense now.

Anyway, I’ll be the judge of all that, once I get there. (I may even indulge in the Infinity Gauntlet omnibus because, you know, there’s a couple X-Men involved in that). But regardless of what comes after this, I think it’s also true that the crossovers presented in this reading are generally regarded with less respect than Chris Claremont’s earlier work on the series, such as the Dark Phoenix Saga and Days of Future Past. This I don’t agree with. While the stories in this reading do range in quality, with Fall of the Mutants definitely being the weakest of the three big crossovers, and even though the Uncanny X-Men portion of Inferno isn’t even the central story of that crossover (the critical story elements take place in the far inferior issues of New Mutants and <ugh> X-Terminators written by Louise Simonson), Claremont’s writing is still much stronger, more layered, and more elegant than anything else that is presented in these collections. These crossovers may not be as timeless or original as the most famous X-Men stories, but the writing here is still really darn good and engaging (at least in Uncanny X-Men), and in my opinion, does not represent a decline in aptitude on the part of the writer. It’s clear that Claremont’s writing has continued to mature and become more nuanced, so much so that when you compare it to the first issues he wrote for the series, it seems like he’s a completely different writer.

KALIDASCOPICALLY. Again, these were just the silliest panels I could find after looking for about 25 seconds.

Personally, I love this period of X-Men comics. Under Claremont’s executive control, no plot thread gets dropped. No minor detail goes disregarded. Characters continue to grow and develop at such a natural pace, sometimes it feels like my own life is developing right alongside theirs. This adds depth to these readings and I can’t describe how it feels to be a part of them, and I think it’s this element that is missing from so many other comic books written by so many other comic book writers, including nearly every X-Men story written after Chris Claremont left the series.

Case in point, there are so many minor recurring characters that appear in these stories, like Franklin Richards. (I seriously tear up every time I see these panels). This little guy bounces around the Power Pack, the X-Men, and the Fantastic Four like a ping pong ball. He’s a key character in the story line where Kitty Pryde finally recovers from the wounds she suffered during Mutant Massacre. And even though Kitty and Franklin have only met each other a few times, those meetings have meaning and they are remembered and called upon in the telling of the current story. All of the efforts made by the writers and editors to keep the narrative linked make these characters seem like real life people with weight and substance, rather than a thin layer of ink on a piece of paper. And it totally works.

Ugh, this review turned into another circle jerk about the writers of these comics, and especially about Chris Claremont. But what can I say. It’s because of the writers that we are here. Love or hate these comics, and I know Claremont’s wordy scripts are not everyone’s cup of tea, but these are the stories that make the X-Men what they are. It’s tough to be aware of these things when you’re in the middle of reading them, but I’m having the absolute best time writing this blog right now, and it is primarily because these are the comics that resonate with me the most. And when I’m finished with Claremont’s material and I’m slogging through some crap written by Chuck Austen, I bet I’m going to look back on these days with envy.

[richmond-rex]

🌹🌹 - If I’m not too late!

Oh, you’re definitely not late! I was here thinking to myself which excerpt I could post without giving too many spoilers away, and I remember I wrote the first chapter of a character study about Cardinal Beaufort on the days before my thesis’ viva—I needed to decompress and I couldn’t possibly try to write my usual fics and characters because nothing would come out right. But I had no emotional attachment to Henry Winchester whatsoever besides a mere curiosity and for once I wanted the challenge of writing a devious, cunning character. The fic is entitled Four Kings, Five Scenes and each chapter was supposed to portray the cardinal during four different reigns: King Richard II (ch 1), King Henry IV (ch 2), King Henry V (ch 3), King Henry VI (ch 4) and King Henry VI again (ch 5). Obviously, I realised that no one would want to read this story lol. It really was the stress of the moment that made me write the first chapter. Well, since I’m not going to publish it anywhere and the chapter is fairly small compared to my usual chapter length (5k or more), you can read it here below the cut! Tagging @nuingiliath because she might be interested as well.

OLD TEMPLE, HOLBORN

Late September 1398

“Tell me what I ought to do, brother.”

Henry Beaufort, newly-appointed Bishop of Lincoln, rolled the episcopal ring on his finger—amethyst flaring under the sunlight—and let out an exasperated, long-held sigh. He could see its tracking ascendence in the air, the way the dust specks caught in the sunbeam would spiral and dance. Though old as its very name suggested, Old Temple was still one of the finest episcopal houses in London, bought for the exclusive use of the bishops of Lincoln after the Knights Templar decided to move within the borders of the City. A dusty residence it might be, but it was still one of the various privileges acquired after Henry’s consecration, or perhaps more importantly, his legitimisation. Everything was coming together, and yet, all hung at the brink of destruction.

“You are the eldest of us, John,” Lincoln replied, voice softening. “It is for you to lead us once Father is gone.”

His brother turned from the arched window, face twisting into a frown. He looked lost, utterly and completely lost, the tip of his red chaperon thrown over one shoulder as if the very fabric was trapping him in place or threatening to coil around his neck and squeeze out his breath.

“You’re the family’s clergyman.” He entreated, stepping closer. “Tell me, brother. What would God have me do?”

It was Lincoln’s turn to frown. By then the morning had given way to noon and the bishop had just finished donning his purple robes, a gold-threaded stole hanging from either side of his neck. It was almost time for Lincoln to resume his administrative duties concerning his diocese—let not anyone claim Henry Beaufort had earned his mitre by bribery and favouritism. He ran a hand along his tonsured head—he still had to send for his zucchetto hat to be brought to him—and paused in that pensive state, partially choosing what to say and partially assessing when he should schedule another shaving.

“God would have you love your brother—” He clasped his hands before his stomach, magnanimously. “—and obey your king.”

It was the first opportunity the two Beauforts had to discuss Bolingbroke’s banishment from the kingdom. It was an urgent matter: Henry Bolingbroke was Duke of Hereford and Earl of Derby, and—that was the most important piece of information—their father’s rightful heir. He was to inherit the large possessions and prodigious fortune that belonged to the Duke of Lancaster, the richest man in the realm—or so it had seemed, at least until the moment King Richard sent him into exile. The king had not mentioned his Lancastrian inheritance but as all invisible things, it still had its own weight, it still cast its own shadow. Lancaster himself was no less worried for the omission of the matter. It hung heavily, unresolved, in the air. 

His brother John, lately elevated from his earldom of Somerset to the marquessate of Dorset, resumed his speech after a brief moment of consideration.

“I say Bolingbroke is a good Christian, brother. He has vowed to defend the faithful and I know he means well and true.” 

John would know, the two of them had gone crusading together. While John, Bolingbroke and Swynford were bonding over tournaments and military expeditions, young Henry had his head buried deep in manuscripts and missals. For a time it had been a fancy of Henry’s to imagine himself a Knight Templar fighting for the kingdom of Christ in the Holy Land: the armour, the tabard and the red cross, entire armies under his command as a Grand Master. A child’s fancy, yes, for the Templars were no more—yet there Lincoln stood, at the very place those brothers had once called home. There was a rightness to it, a taste he could feel at the very tip of his tongue. Lancaster might have arranged for the trio of brothers to be admitted into the Confraternity at Lincoln’s Cathedral but it was he—Henry Beaufort—the one chosen to command the entire diocese now. 

His brother John didn’t even seem to notice his state of reminiscence. He kept talking, his words coming to Lincoln’s ears in all of their ardour again.

“—I didn’t speak for Uncle Gloucester at the time and now it weighs on my conscience! Worse, brother, I condemned him! I called for his very arrest!”

“Woodstock was a traitor of the realm.” The bishop deadpanned. “It was your duty as a peer to call for his arrest. You know that as well as I d—”

A boy holding his purple zucchetto was just about to enter the room. The bishop dismissed him with a sharp turn of his head, shooed him away with a glare and a quick motion of his hand. The boy scurried away, his hurried steps echoing on the flagstones. Lincoln frowned, pressed his lips into a thin line: his own brusqueness had displeased him. He should be nobler in his actions, loftier, gentler even, a true shepherd of Christ. As he turned, he saw John had already stepped back to the window. Once again, he didn’t seem to have noticed any commotion around him.

“Be as it may, this time is different.” John restarted. “Our brother has done no wrong against the king. There is only one explanation for this—” John stopped short before he went further, checking himself at the very last minute. He didn’t utter the word, but it hovered just above them, somewhere over their heads. Retribution. Vengeance for the time Bolingbroke joined the Lords Appellant and rebelled against cousin Richard. One by one those rebels had been crushed.

The glass panels tinted his brother’s face with green, spots of red covered his face as he shifted his weight from foot to foot. Shocking blue, poisonous red, a liquid green so fresh one could almost drink. 

“It was cruel to make him fight Mowbray to the death, but there was still honour in it. There’s no honour to be found in exile.” He closed his eyes. “He has six children, Henry.”

This time the bishop’s reply was swift. “Father will take care of them. As will we if it comes to such an end. We shall support the family as we always have.”

John, still looking very much disheartened, acceded with a small nod. “You know,” he smiled weakly, eyes growing distant like a far-away ship. “I used to look up to him when I was little. All I ever wanted was to be like Bolingbroke, a true son of Lancaster.”

The sensation was familiar to the bishop himself, only his brother still seem to hold to that boyish memory as his heart’s truest wish, even now that his aspirations were supported by law: standing there at the bishop’s residence, John was dressed in Lancaster blue and white, their father’s SS livery collar hung over his shoulders, the S-shaped links crafted in pure gold and held closely together. 

A sting of bittersweetness washed over the bishop. What if… what if the king had Bolingbroke attainted? Surely, King Richard was unpredictable those days—no one had been quite able to placate his moods ever since Queen Anne had died—but if the king did attaint their brother, neither he nor his children would be authorised to inherit Lancaster’s lands and title. Perhaps… perhaps King Richard would choose to pass them over to Lancaster’s next legitimate male heir, in that case, his brother John himself.

“Dear brother, why do you choose to dwell in such sorrowful thoughts? Father loves you best.”

John turned to him sharply. “You cannot know such a thing!”

Oh, the plain irony of watching his brother’s face turned into a scowl that mirrored exactly the one their father was famous to possess! John had Lancaster’s same strong nose, as did the bishop himself, yet now at his anger, his brother had turned into the very picture of John of Gaunt. It was oftentimes that natural children would have their sire’s face if not his name, as if it was an underhanded way of nature to compensate for their social ostracism.

“He does.” The bishop repeated in a firm voice. He clasped his hands, a position that gave him reassurance in difficult situations. “Recall that Father has done everything in his power to make us his true children. He appealed to Parliament and His Holiness the Pope Himself, he moved mountains to secure our charts of legitimisation. All this time, he has extensively defended our cause to the king. Now, that same king has banished his heir from the land and the Duke of Lancaster poses no resistance. Why do you think that is?”

It was not exactly true, but it was what his brother needed to hear. Lancaster had, in fact, negotiated with the king to the best of his abilities, a piece of information that the bishop suspected his brother John knew already. The Marquess of Dorset was, after all, well-placed within cousin Richard’s circle. A more credible point against the bishop’s claim would be, however, that the Duke of Lancaster rarely ever showed his true emotions, fatherly or otherwise. It would be impossible to say whom he loved best.

“If Father will not risk his head over this matter, John—John, my beloved John! Heed my words now. You should not risk your own!”

John looked at him with such heaviness it bore into the bishop’s own soul. Henry walked over to his brother and placed a hand on his shoulder. 

“You have a good heart, John. It is loyal and true and it bears testament to your character, but it will get you killed. Remember who gave you your earldom of Somerset, who made you marquess of Dorset, knight of the Garter, who married you to that illustrious lady, the king’s own niece. He who appointed you as Constable of Dover—”

“—Warden of the Cinq Ports, Admiral of the Fleet in the North and West, Lieutenant in Aquitaine, I know, I know!” John took a long breath. “I know. The king, our cousin.”

King Richard himself had fastened the earl’s belt during John’s girding; the king himself had draped the velvet cloak across John’s shoulders. The ceremony had been clear enough: the earl’s power derived from his authority and his authority alone.

The bishop retrieved his hand from his brother’s shoulder slowly, pulled it back inch by inch until it was safely resting against its twin counterpart, flat against his stomach. 

“Father has been unwell. When the Lord deems time to call him to His side again, who will look after us? Remember our brother Tom, so young and not yet a peer. Remember Joan and her children. Remember Mother.”

“No. No, brother, you speak true.” John conceded with a nod. “I can’t endanger your safety nor leave any of you unprotected. I cannot defy the king.”

There was resolution on his face, yet there was sadness as well. The bishop still sought a way of soothing his brother’s heart. “Let me be the one to speak for our brother. Cousin Richard already knows I’ve had my whole diocese pray for him. I stand safer as a prelate than you do as a courtier.”

In a second, his brother gripped his shoulder, displaced the stole hung around the bishop’s neck with a heartiness that surprised him. As though they were mere, simple children again, John smiled in truth at last.

“You have always been the wisest of us, brother. Yet,” He looked down,chuckled. “Yet sometimes I still remember that boy who vowed to God he would become pope.”

Bishop Beaufort felt his lips quirk up—a genuine, delicious thrill elicited by the memory—and so, accordingly, he lowered his eyelids in modesty. “All wisdom comes from our Holy Mother, the Church. All grace from God the Lord Almighty and His Son, Christ the Holy Lamb.” His prelate answer given, he glanced up again. “Sometimes I caught myself thinking of that boy as well, dear John, yet times have changed.”

John raised an eyebrow, apparently befuddled. “Have they?” 

“Yes,” The bishop replied, no longer speaking of the ambitions held for a long time inside his heart. “If for the better or for the worse, only the future will tell.”

_______________________ *notes: it’s said that John Beaufort, while still suporting Richard II at the time of Bolingbroke’s invasion, might have played a double game. When he was captured by his brother’s forces and the Percys called for his execution, Henry IV is supposed to have said: “I beseech you do him no harm, for he is my brother, and has always been my friend; see the letter he sent to me in France.” Henry IV later made John Beaufort his Lord Chamberlain.

Henry Beaufort remained close to his brother John up until his last breath. The bishop stayed by his side at St Katherine’s hospital while he was dying. Henry was made executor of John’s will, a mark of deep trust, if not also affection the brothers had for each other. It may explain why Cardinal Beaufort vouched for his nephews, his brother’s children, so fiercely in the coming decades.

[thegoddamnfangirl]

Do Cats Eat Bats? Do Bats Eat Cats?

Pairings: Batfam x Batsis!Reader

Requested by anon: Could you do one with the reader getting to know her father (Batman) and her brothers while her mother (catwoman) is in jail?

this request is so soft

 It had been a while. 

Bruce’s heart raced as he tracked Selina down to her location in an apartment building. 

 She hadn’t been in Gotham for so long-

Five years, to be exact.

It needled at him, that she was stealing. That she waltzed into Gotham and simply took the Jade Cat from it’s exhibit, and Batman was so struck with her appearance, after all this time, that he let her get away with it.

 Almost.

Selina was going to jail.

His mind flashed back to the last time he had seen her, the last time-

 She was pulling her jacket back on, slightly panting. The cowl had never felt heavier on his face, he wanted to pull it off but he couldn’t, he couldn’t give in to what he wanted, not anymore. He just had, and it was causing this little moment of weakness. 

 Selina Kyle had mysteriously left the city, soon after, and nothing Bruce Wayne nor Batman could do, would find her.

 He swung into the balcony of her apartment, landing softly. Finding his way inside, he hid in the shadows, waiting for her to come in. She invariably would.

 A cat mrrowed and brushed against his legs. He knelt to pet in slightly, noticing several others asleep in places around the room. Her bedroom. 

 The door opened. A woman’s shadow cut into the narrow strip of light allowed in from the hallway. She didn’t switch on the lights; stepping into the darkness of the room, she said, in a soft voice-

“Batman.”

 “Catwoman,” he said, moving forward.

 “Good to see you still cut an impressive figure,” she purred, coming closer. He didn’t move- her hands came to rest on his chest, and she tilted her face towards him.

 “I’d like to keep that Jade Cat, you know,” she whispered. “For old times’ sake?”

He almost replied, but the sound of the doorknob turning made her jerk back, pushing him away.

  “Mommy?”

The DNA was a match.

Batman sat staring at the screen. For a long time. A considerably long time.

This child was his.

Arresting Selina this time round had been one of the hardest things he'd ever had to do, so far. He'd felt for her daughter, this little girl with no fault in what was happening to her mother, and of course, he'd wanted to know who the father was. So he could make sure the girl got to her other parent safely. Of course. He wasn’t jealous, or anything. Of course.

He hadn't expected Selina to say-

"You."

Looking at her now, he started to trace a slight resemblance. The shape of her nose, the cut of her brows. The way she looked around the Batcave in a fixated way, taking everything in, in a manner not typical of children her age.

Her eyes met his. She stared. Hard.

"I want to go home," she said.

Bruce pulled off his cowl.

"(y/n)... Do you know who I am?"

"Batman," she replied. "You're Batman."

"I- yeah. Has your mother ever told you about me?"

"She says you put her in jail lots of times," the girl said, a frown on her face.

"Okay," said Bruce, wondering how to tell her.

"I want to go home," she repeated.

"Where is home?" He asked.

It took her a minute, and then she said-

"I want my mommy."

Bruce sighed.

"Uh, kid," he began. "I'm sorry, but I can't take you to your mother. She's... Busy. That's why she got me to bring you here, so I could take care of you while she's away."

The girl began to tear up.

"I want my mommy," she said, softly, as tears began to fall.

"I- don't cry. Please don't cry. It's okay, look, your mommy left you with me, and I'm your daddy, okay?" Bruce said, pushing his chair towards the panel on which he'd seated her.

She looked up sharply, the tears stopping. It reminded him exactly of Selina, how her countenance would turn from scared to devious in an instant.

"You're my daddy?"

"Yes," he nodded, processing the information he'd just given her. He had a daughter.

"What if you're lying?" She said, scowling.

"I'm not," he said. "If you want, I could get your mommy to call you tomorrow, and tell you herself."

"Also I have a DNA test," he added.

She looked around at the Batcave.

"I don't like them," she said, decidedly, her eyes following the bats. "You should get a cat."

"Do cats eat bats?" He asked, with a small smile.

"Do bats eat cats?" She returned, a smile lighting up her whole face.

"We should ask Dinah," he said, with scenes from his favorite childhood book flitting through his mind.

A taste he shared with his daughter, he thought.

The secret to children was to find what they liked, and make everything about it.

After a long conversation about Alice, Wonderland, the world through the looking glass, and the red Queen, (y/n) had decided that Bruce was, to some extent, trustworthy. He'd convinced her that it was time for bed, and she wouldn't let him tuck her in, yet, but he was sure they'd get there.

He'd changed out of his suit, seen that she was asleep, and then headed straight to Dick's old room, where he'd told Dick to meet him.

"Hey, B," Dick said, grinning. He was reclining against the bedstand, brushing his long hair.

"I never get time for hair care- I figured, while I was waiting, I might as well," he added to Bruce, who nodded impatiently and sat down on the bed beside him.

"So, whaddya hiding in the Batcave?" Dick asked.

"You like Damian, right?" Bruce asked.

"Yeah? He's-"

"I made another one,"said Bruce, breathing deep. "I went to Selina's to arrest her and she pulled a Talia on me. 'This is your daughter, bye'."

"DNA test confirms," he continued, answering Dick's unasked question.

For a few moments, Dick sat still, blank faced.

"I've...always wanted a sister!" He said, breaking into a wide grin. "What's her name? Can I see her? Have you told Dami yet? Will she be staying here?"

"Slow down, chum," Bruce grumbled. "I was hoping you'd tell Damian. It's important that he sees this as good news."

Four heads peered inside the room in a cartoonish way, one on top of the other.

Damian, his head poked in through the doorway, Tim craning his neck to see above Damian, Dick with his chin resting on Tim's head and Jason, the tallest, having a comfortable time. All gazes fixed on the young child asleep inside the room.

"She looks like Bruce," said Tim.

"I don't see it," Damian huffed.

"Maybe we shouldn't stare," Dick suggested.

"Shut up, Richard. This is recon," said Jason. "You know the threats involved in the case that Bruce has spawned another demon."

Damian hissed in Jason's direction, but he was so preoccupied with the thought of having competition- more competition- as his father's child, that he didn't do much else.

"She looks sweet," said Tim.

"So does Selina, all the while she's picking your car keys from your pocket," Jason pointed out.

"It's moving!" Damian backed up. "Everyone, out of sight, now!"

"Okay, enough being sneaky, guys," said Dick. "We'll get to know her when we get to know her."

Jason blew a raspberry at him.

Tim started to head in the direction of the breakfast room, and everyone followed suit.

"Do we have to talk to her?" Damian whispered to Dick.

"Nicely," Dick whispered back. "She's our baby sister."

"When I was her age, I'd killed over a hundred people and I was eligible for a doctorate," Damian said. "Point being, she's not much of a baby, Grayson."

Said "baby" sister turned up twenty minutes later at breakfast, washed but still looking drowsy. Her tiredness dissipated, however, when she saw the boys.

"Who are you?" She asked, scowling at them all from the doorway.

Dick looked up from his strawberry toast and smiled.

"We're-"

"-we should be asking you that," Damian interrupted. "This is our- my- house. Who are you?"

She looked caught off-guard. Scowling hard at Damian, she was about to say something, when Tim slumped and his face fell into his cereal.

"The sHIT!" He shot back awake, shaking his head. Jason burst into laughter and Damian looked at Tim with disgust, while Dick momentarily forgot (y/n) in his concern for his brother.

Tim shook cornflakes from his face, and smiled slightly at (y/n)'s bewildered stare.

"Sit down, kiddo," said Dick. "Would you like some breakfast?"

She stood still as a rock, staring at Tim.

"Why did you do that?" She asked, finally.

"Faint? I'm kinda tired, sorry," Tim shrugged.

"Oh my god," said Damian, when (y/n) remained fixed to her spot. "She's dull."

"You're dull," (y/n) snapped.

"Nobody is dull-" a fifth voice said; Bruce came in through the hallway, dressed in a grey turtleneck and black jeans. The dark circles under his eyes seemed deeper than usual.

"Good morning, (y/n)- have a seat," he said, as he made his way to the head of the table, where Jason sat. Pushing his son off the chair with one hand, he took his seat, ignoring Jason's protests and blocking the right hand hook which came towards him.

(Y/n) climbed into a chair beside Dick, edging close to him. Something about him made her like her better than the other boys, though she thought Tim seemed silly and largely harmless.

"I don't think you've been introduced yet, so- (y/n), these are my sons. Your brothers," said Bruce, deliberately relaxing the tension in his shoulders.

(Y/n) stared blankly at him.

"But..." She started. "But boys have germs."

"You'll get along with ours, you're a germ, yourself," Damian said, earning a sharp look from his father.

Meanwhile, Jason had found a seat on (y/n)'s other side.

"Heya, baby cat," he said, when she caught his eye.

"I'm not a baby," she said, her voice soft. "I'm five years old."

Even Bruce's mouth twitched up.

"She's right, she's quite old," shrugged Damian. "What style are you trained for, Kyle?"

(Y/n) looked around in confusion.

"Style of what?"

"Fighting style," explained Dick. "Has your mom trained you to fight?"

"Yes," said (y/n). "She says to use fingernails on faces and kick people between the legs and then run."

Bruce choked slightly on his juice.

"That's... effective," said Jason. "Isn't that what Selina used to do to you, B? Distract you, then aim for the nuts?"

Bruce and Damian both scowled at him, while (y/n) reached for some toast.

"I've never had brothers before," she said, half to herself. "Is everyone in this house a boy?" She asked Bruce.

"...well..." He started, "you're the only girl here, yes."

"Daddy," she said, "I'm going to get sick. From the boy germs."

To illustrate her point, she moved her plate a little away from Dick's.

"Boy germs aren't-" Damian started, but Bruce cut him off.

"-aren't a matter we take lightly around here," he said. "I'll have a vaccine for you by the evening."

Her eyes widened.

"I don't like shots!"

"No shots!" Bruce promised. "Er, anti-boy-germ-inflammatory tablets. Yes. Tablets."

"Mommy says not to take tablets from anyone but her," said (y/n).

"And me," said Bruce. "I'm your father, (y/n), it's alright."

"Why weren't you my father before?" She asked. All the boys immediately looked away from Bruce- a makeshift signal that had some to mean 'you're on your own'.

 “Well, (y/n),” Bruce said. “I was your father. I just- you, actually, you just didn’t know it. Uh, your mom wanted to...surprise you.”

 “It’s not much of a surprise,” she said, absolutely genuinely.

“Stop laughing, Jason,” hissed Bruce as Jason covered his face with his hands, trying to stop.

 “Do you know Wonder Woman?” (y/n) asked, out of the blue. 

“Uh, I work with her, yes,” said Bruce. “But kitten, you understand that this whole ‘Batman’ thing is top-secret, right? You can’t tell anyone, and we don’t discuss it here at home.”

 “Wonder Woman’s the cooooooooolest,” giggled (y/n).

“She isn’t, not really,” said Bruce. 

 “She can fly!”

“I can fly,” said Bruce. “In a plane, but I can fly.”

“She’s got awesome stuff like the lasso of truth and her jet!”

“I’ve got better things. Have you seen the Batmobile? The Batcomputer? The Batsuit? The Batkids?” Bruce replied, sitting up straighter.

 The boys were quietly watching this exchange. Dick was strongly reminded of the time Bruce tried to make him get rid of his Superman plushie. And his Superman quilt. And his Superman PJ’s. And his Superman socks, with the tiny red cape. Oh, and his Superman boxers.

 Jason started laughing again. 

“You know who’s the coolest?” he interjected. “Red Hood. I hear he died, once.”

“Please, Nightwing is cooler than Red Hood,” said Dick.

“Um, those overgrown brutes have nothing on Robin,” said Damian.

 “Not true!”

“Robin is a short-ass pre-teen with too many toys!”

“Nightwing is-”

“-Red Hood-”

“-what’s going on? Oh, Red Robin, without contest!”

"Boys, you're all- they're all-"

"-butt out, B-"

(y/n) finished her toast and slipped out of chair, giggling slightly at the fight she had indirectly caused.

Padding up to her father, she whispered in his ear-

"You're all really cool, I think."

[ty-talks-comics]

Best of DC: Week of January 1st, 2019

Best of this Week: The Flash #85 - Joshua Williamson, Christian Duce, Luis Guerrero and Steve Wands

Amidst everything going on in the DC Universe right now from Year of the Villain to the end of Doomsday Clock, there’s been a lot of really underrated books that DC’s been publishing and Flash Definitely falls into that category for me. Of course, Flash is no low-tier character, but as it stands, there’s not a big conversation surrounding Joshua Williamson’s run with the character like there is for the up and down runs of Batman and Superman, but there should be!

Joshua Williamson and his revolving art team of Christian Duce, Scott Kolins, Rafa Sandoval and Carmine di Giandomenico have pulled off some of the most consistently fantastic Flash storytelling in recent years. From the Speed Force Storm to Flash’s “Final Showdown” with Captain Cold and finally here with Rogues’ Reign, these stories have only seen Flash become an even better character with depth after he’s been tested over and over with insurmountable odds and overpowered enemies while still being riddled with doubt.

This issue of Flash acts as the penultimate issue to the Rogues’ Reign storyline and sees us learning a bit more about some of the Rogues as individuals while at the same time, breaking them apart even further. This book is less centered on the various speedsters, but more around their lack of control over their powers and Flash continuing his rivalry with King Cold to the bitterest end.

The book begins with four panels of King Cold, Leonard Snart, monologuing to himself. We get a great big focus of the Symbol of Doom in the sky as Snart says that it’s the end of the world, but at least he’s going out like a winner, unlike his loser of a father. One of the many defining characteristics of Cold up to this point and in other stories has been his hatred of his father and his aversion to become anything like him. However, he’s become nothing more than a self-fulfilling prophecy because his life is nothing more than misery because of the sacrifices he made to get to where he is.

Cold helped Luthor’s ascension and the rise of Doom by accepting Luthor’s Gift and allowing himself and his Rogues to become ultra powered, but in doing so, has alienated himself from his friends and family now that they all have what they want. Duce frames all of this excellently by first placing Cold in shadow before he looks at his glasses, as if reminiscing about his old life before putting them on and looking towards his death at the end of the world.

Soon after, we cut to Kid Flash and Avery receiving training from two unlikely sources; Heatwave and Weather Wizard. Though they were seen as reporting in to King Cold a few issues ago, it was brief and mostly to air some small grievances that they had with the way that Cold was running things. Here, we get the reveal that they’d been working with Golden Glider since she broke off from her brother and Mirror Master under their noses. In a brilliant double page spread by Duce and Guererro, we see that they’ve been helping the speedsters keep their speed under control.

It’s a pretty warmhearted scene followed by more where Gold Glider comforts Flash about their presence. Williamson makes Heatwave and Weather Wizard come off as two men that have suffered hardships in their lives, leading them to the life of crime, but still managing to have hearts. Glider tells Flash how Weather Wizard wanted to escape the life of crime that his family was involved in when he was a kid, but never could which lead to him hurting people he loved. Heatwave suffers similarly from his pyromania being the reason his parents died, but it’s painted more as him having a sickness he can’t control. Glider tells Flash that they want to stop Cold so that things can go back to the way that they were.

Duce draws these scenes with a surprising intimacy. Amidst all of the intense action, Duce draws Heatwave with a sense of pride as he watches Kid Flash control his speed better, Weather Wizard stare in his lonesome because of everything going on and shows the kids eating with their teachers after a long day. On top of all of this, Flash has a nice scene where Golden Glider teaches him how to ice skate after he asks her to get back into what was one her hobby. Guererro colors all of these scenes with warm tones, even in the ice which is primarily blue and white. Flash and Glider’s colors give off something of a happy feeling.

One of the recurring themes of this run has been relating to the Rogues in meaningful ways and Williamson does an excellent job here of contrasting all of them to an amazing degree.

After Flash makes a bad joke to Golden Glider, causing her to become morose, Weather Wizard steps in and tells them that they’ve found where Mirror Master has been hiding and the entire crew go to find the last two pieces of his great mirror. Kid Flash asks Golden Glider if she used to date him and she confirms this, stating that she didn’t know why, but that she knew all of his tricks.

Mirror Master has always been one of the Rogues of lesser renown because well… he's an idiot. Only in the sense that he's never used his powers to a degree where people needed to be afraid of him, but thanks to his upgrade they need to. In actuality, his access to an entire Mirror Dimension makes him one of the most dangerous people in the DC Universe as a potential spy or thief because A LOT OF SURFACES REFLECT. Flash and the other Rogues learn this the hard way when Mirror Master springs a trap on them, revealing that he knew that Glider and the others betrayed Cold.

When the Rogues and Speedsters finally encountered Mirror Master, he looks absolutely devious with a wide grin and his wide grin as they did everything they could to stop him. Duce’s poses were dynamic and captured how intense the fight was, the furious facial expressions were very well done and crystalline backgrounds were beautiful. Guerrero’s colors stood out in how distinct each of them were. Mirror Master’s glossy white clashed with the other characters, especially Flash’s vibrant reds and Weather Wizard’s dark greens. By easily besting all of them, he showed just how dangerous he could be.

He teleports them all to the King and Snart notes how disappointed he is and how the Rogues could have ruled the world together. This causes Glider to snap at him, saying that he never told the Rogues what that would entail - the end of the world under Luthor. At this point Captain Cold is so far gone that he just doesn't care anymore and Williamson has been leading him down this path since the beginning.

In Rogues Reloaded, Cold had the idea for the Rogues to get one more heist over on The Flash before retiring completely and that was foiled with all of the Rogues being defeated. In Welcome to Iron Heights, Snart decided he'd run an operation from prison but Barry Allen and his former ally, Godspeed foiled that plan too. Because Cold had murdered another inmate to throw off the scent, this led to a fist fight between Cold and Flash which saw Cold's defeat and transfer to Belle Reve Penitentiary. Obviously the defeat had an adverse effect on Cold because he was so sure that he would overcome, but didn’t. He lost again.

Captain Cold has always been one to hold family in high regard since he's never quite had a functioning one side from the Rogues, so his time on the Suicide Squad was devastating to him. I mentioned in past Flash reviews that watching teammates die mission after mission must have done something to his psyche and Lex Luthor took advantage of that when offering him and his actual friends a way to win against The Flash. All of that led to this.

King Cold, feeling betrayed and pissed off, freezes his former friends and sister, leaving only The Flash to fight him one on one again. In their last fight, Cold wanted it to be one on one without any powers, but he lost that fight because of Flash’s iron will. As he removes his cold weather clothes, he reveals that Luthor’s Gift wasn’t just improved gear, but it was a supercharge of power implanted into him. Their final face off will be hand to hand with powers.

This final shot is absolutely poster worthy. Duce conveys the rage emanating from both of them with jaws wide as if they were yelling at each other. Fists are cocked back, ready to pummel their opponent into the ground, especially Cold as he has frozen his arms up to the elbow for maximum impact. What makes this even better is the Symbol of Doom hanging over them in the background like a terrible omen. Guerrero manages o make so many colors fit together in a brilliant display. Flash and his signature red and bright yellow makes him look heroic, the underdog in a fight shrouded in dark greens and cold greys. Cold is paler, his normally blonde hair turned completely white and his arms as blue as his cold blood.

I absolutely loved this.

Duce and Guerrero killed the art in this issue. On the scale of Flash artists for me, Duce is high up there. They manage to blend high intensity action with nice character moments to get the reader invested in character’s emotional states through visuals. Guerrero accentuates this by coloring scenes so that they fit each individual mood and can blend these all together when there’s a clash of ideology or character. Of course, Steve Wands is the glue that holds all of this together his letters are perfectly placed, distinct for each character and give every situation the proper weight to individual lines.

The Flash is an underrated hit that everyone should be reading, especially in regards to the Flash/Captain Cold saga. Their rivalry has been a grand center point on the level of Batman and Bane’s right now or Superman and good storytelling (zing!) I can only wonder where things go from here and what will happen to Captain Cold after this because this is probably the highest he’s ever flown, so how will he fall?

[robot-unicorn-attack]

CHAPTER 03 - NYX

Taglist: @ayzrules​ @bebemoon​ @interluxetumbra​ @filthysoulls​ @jay-swagsby​ @shiftyprincess​ @now-on-elissastillstands​ / @elissastillstands​

Walking through those doors, Sol was immediately bombarded with lights and sounds. It was a press conference, the same layout as it had been for every post race in the past and will continue to be for every one in the future. Though, Sol would be lying if she said she didn’t enjoy them. Relatively speaking, of course.

She enjoyed the fact that she could string everyone along with whatever story she could come up with and the reporters ate it up like it was going to give them the answers to eternal life. 'Complete suckers' she had thought after the first round of questioning past back during her first year. Ever since, she's garnered a taste for the lime light. Well… maybe a bit before then…

 However, even though she walked through as a villain would, something was off about this particular post event. There were reporters, yes, but something else stuck out to her and before she could narrow it down, someone was whisking her away to touch up her makeup - having it smeared from the heat of the race - and then ushered her to a seat.

 A growl formed low in the back of her throat and her chest was tight with the expletives she was about to spew. A woman..

 "Tell us, Nyx, did you have a hand in the fall of racer Basilisk of Abraxilis Racing?"

Coy Cheshire smile, "What ever gave you that idea?"

 Lights continued to go off around the room as she waited for the reply from the others.  They were getting wet with anticipation at the potential drama being sifted and sorted. Which way were they going to spin their stories this time around? Sol had to keep herself from the barf noises she wanted to make at the expense of everyone there.

 "It's no surprise to anyone here. Or on the track, that your methods are less than honorable."

She allowed a hum in response as the reporter continued, "it only makes sense that the cause of Basilisk's... accident would be malicious in nature. And the only one devious enough to pull it off is you, Nyx."

 "Oh stop it, Zaera," she playfully threw her hands at the reporter as if she told the funniest joke, "you're gonna boost my ego tenfold if you keep showering me with praise like that~"

 There was a faint bit of uncomfortable chuckling from the other side of all the lights and Sol couldn't help but flash a big wicked grin in their direction. Eyes catching the flash of light and casting their glow across the room. It was surreal. As if they were in the presence of an actual deity.

 "Nyx, Nyx! Tell us, c'mon, did you do it? Did you somehow sabotage Basilisk's ride?" The murmurs that kicked up were hushed but adamant. They wanted to know they wanted answers.

 Sol shifted around in her seat to make herself more comfortable. Long limbs dangle where they could. Head tilting from side to side as if contemplating life's problems. As if she had the solutions.

 Another wicked gleam and grin sent them in a frenzy, "Torrid Gorge is a tricky, tricky track. I can't be to blame every time a racer can't handle their ride."

 More clicks from the cameras. More flashes go catch her molten stare. More questions were asked and then answered or just avoided entirely. The usual were thrown out.

 Who are you wearing? McQuinth, of course. The label partnered with Noxian~ to create something perfect for a deity such as myself

What was going through your mind during the start middle end of the race? Oh, you know. How to take the turns, whether or not dashing into golems is going to ruin someone's run. How fucking hot it is on the track… the usual.

What was the incident at the Neon Demon about? The argument between you and Widowmaker? If my beloved teammate hasn't spilt the beans, than neither shall I. It isn't becoming of a lady to kiss and tell, now is it?

Etc. Etc.

 In the midst of all the questioning came a moment where the air around the room became stagnant and almost icy. Sol can remember precisely when the goosebumps rose to the surface of her skin, almost tickling her in a way that scared her. Not a moment too soon after the experience the room was all a tizzy with alarms and chimes and bells gluing off signaling notifications to all the press present. She could even hear faint noises from the other rooms. Similar situation going on everywhere, she mused.

 Even Allryn, off to the side, was answering a call in a heated hushed tone, while a small holoscreen in the palm of his hand lay open for his viewing.

 A reporter called out to Nyx, drawing her attention and focus back to the room now occupied my hungry wolves rather than the timid reporters from earlier. What ever it was that came in, really got their journalism blood going.

 "Were you aware that Basilisk raced for the company Abraxilis?"

 The question was random and it took her a moment to process those words. Just what was it that came in that has everyone in a jumpy state?

 "You have already asked me this." It was evident that she was getting annoyed with the badgering and focusing on her did she didn’t she sabotage bit. At least to Allryn, it was obvious. "Please, Nyx, answer the question." They were dead focused on her answers. Hanging to her every word more so than normal. Their eyes wide and if she had the ability to gauge the sizes of their ears she would have guessed they had enlarged enough to catch even a whisper from her lips.

 Sol released a very auditable sigh, "Yeah, of course. I'm aware of all the racers and their teams and sponsors. It comes with the territory." A flick of her wrist to show her disinterest in these lines of questionings. Hoping they would get the memo and proceed to something with a bit more sustenance.

 "So then you are aware that councilman Cedric Abraxas was the founder and CEO of said company?"

 A slow nod from the goddess. "Yes? I'm afraid I'm not following..."

 "Let me break it down for you," Sol noticed Allryn slowly approach her location, eyes trained in on the interviewer, "We have just been informed that Lucira Artelcro aka "Basilisk" is in critical condition and may never race again." The crowd that occupied the room around her was a buzz. That must have been what the notifications were about. Basilisk's condition. No matter. It wasn't like that affected her at all…

 "Makes it a little less crowded on the track~" she let out a soft chuckle but the interviewer continued. Some people even began filing out in a hurry after checking their screens one last time. And to say that that wasn't interesting would be a down right lie. If anything it peaked her interest quite a lot. Why would they leave before the interview was over? It wasn't like they were there for very long… 45 minutes max after a race.

 "Were you aware of councilman Abraxas' death earlier this evening?"

 "What does that have to do with me?" Although, yes, it definitely caught her attention. The death of a political figure in Unicorn City, no matter how corrupt the guy was, still warranted a modicum of attention.

 "As you are well aware, Basilisk's team is owned by the aforementioned councilman and his company, Abraxilis. So you can see how the two instances taking place tonight, at roughly the same time, looks very suspicious. Especially for you."

 "Again. I fail to see the comparison." This was all too much. Even for Sol. Hell even for Nyx, the Goddess herself. Why was this reporter hounding her on the councilman's death? So what? It's not like she had anything to do with it. She was n the track, anyone with eyes and half a brain cell could tell you that that was where she was at the time of his death So, why all the questions?

 "If you're looking to ask me something specific I suggest you find the backbone to do it, otherwise this is over-" she makes to rip off the mic clipped precariously to the fabric of her cleavage and begins shifting in her spot and get up when there was a voice that called out over the hustle and bustle, "Was it on purpose?"

"Hmm?" Her eyes narrowed as she locked onto her new target within the audience. Halting her movements, waiting for them to continue further.

 "W-what I mean is. The accident with Basilisk and the attack on Abraxas. Was it on purpose? Did you do it?" They tried so hard to exude courage and confidence in their voice as they projected the questions towards her. She could literally taste the nervousness in the air.

 "I'm afraid I have no idea what you're talking about."

 "Was it some sort of political attack on Abraxas and his policies involving the rezoning of the Barzan provinces?" Cedric Abraxas, he voted against sending aid to Ser'hld IX more than enough times before the moon was finally destroyed. Sol remembers when the issue was fresh and it was all anyone was talking about those many years ago. And then when Leni entered her life and was able to open up to her, she would lean on Sol as she lamented her home's destruction. The only reason Sol knows so much and cares enough about Ser'hld is all thanks to Leni. So is she glad that the man, who could have stopped and saved an entire moon's population, is dead and murdered no less? Abso-fucking-lutely.

 "So you aren't denying involvement with either incident then?" Shit did she say that aloud?

 Before she shoved her foot any further down her throat as she likely would have, Allryn swooped out from the shadows and gracefully, yet forcefully, took Sol by the arm and raised her to a standing position. He muttered just loud enough for her to hear for her to keep her mouth shut and to act natural.

 "Thank you all, that'll be all for tonight." The way he took over the room with the authority of power, it sent a shock of electricity through her. But it wasn't in a way that was pleasant. Not in the slightest. Allryn was taking control of a serious situation, a mess that she herself decided to dig in to. Any backlash on his part was due because of her. "Any further questioning will be taken up by the panel. Please submit any and all recordings through the correct LAZER channels and the other racers will be more inclined to answer at a later time. Thank you all." He waved them off, turning his back on them literally, in order to escort Sol off the small platform and back through the door she emerged from not but an hour earlier.

 Still they shouted their questions and still camera and lights and flashes were going off. They even tried to push past the additional LAZER security at the back door to follow; all in the name to get to the bottom of the coincidence of the century.

 Abraxas top racer physically unable to compete anymore and he himself out of commission permanently? Seems a bit suspicious.

 And the only one at the center of it all, was Nyx.

[cam-cat-writer]

Fictober/Klancetober Continued

Part 23 at long last!

Here on AO3 or under the cut

       Pidge skidded down the hall, hopping excitedly to regain her balance before sprinting towards Lance's door and sliding her hand across the panel to open it. It slid open, revealing a startled Lance sitting in the middle of the floor with Hunk, doing face masks.

      "Whoa! Pidge, give a guy some warning, geez!"

      Pidge bounced up and down, darting inside the room to dance back and forth, words tumbling from her mouth. "This is important, Lance! I figured out almost exactly how long we've been in space for!"

      Lance's jaw dropped and he jumped up, grabbing Pidge by her shoulders. "Wait, for real? You funky little genius, how did you manage that?"

      Pidge grinned, extracting herself from his grip to pull up her holoscreen. "Blue. Coran was having me help him with some record-keeping and data collection, "For the New Age of Voltron" or something, whatever. Anyway, he was checking Blue over, reading out-"

      "Pidge, does this train of thought actually have a caboose?"

      Pidge rolled her eyes as Hunk tried to stifle a chuckle. "He could tell how long Blue had been in contact with her new paladin for! Something about her quintessence ebb and flow? I'm not really sure, there was an awful lot of Altean in his explanation when I asked."

      Lance waved a hand dismissively. "Sounds overly complicated. So, how long have we been up here? Like, what would the date be if we were on Earth right now?"

      Pidge straightened her glasses. "Well, technically speaking, it wouldn't be quite that close to the same, due to how far from Earth we currently are, all the wormholes we've been travelling through, the rippling and distortion of the fabric of space-time-"

      "Pidge, I just want to know if I've hit my birthday yet, thanks!" Lance gave her a strained smile, too impatient to look sincere.

      "Fine," she huffed. "According to the readings Coran and I took, and the conversion rates between Altean time and Earth time, and the date we left Earth..." Pidge pulled up another window on her holoscreen. "It's about the equivalent of October 22nd, 2 PM if my calculations are correct." She smirked. "And they are."

      Lance rubbed his forehead. "October 22nd, hang on." He looked over at Hunk. "Why does that sound sort of familiar?"

      Hunk grinned, shrugging and trying to look innocent. "Oh, I don't know. Maybe it's important? I think you're slightly off though."

      Lance snapped his fingers. "You're right, October 23rd is what I was thinking of. Why is that important....?" He trailed off, racking his brain.

      Hunk exchanged knowing looks with Pidge.

      Suddenly, Lance's cheeks flushed and a look of distinct embarrassment flashed across his features.

      Pidge laughed so hard she had to sit down on the floor next to the boys. "Remember now, McClain?"

      A small, "Yep" came from Lance's general direction before he quickly started wiping off his face mask. "Well, this has been great, Hunk, but you know I'd better go, I'm sure Coran needs help with something and maybe I can find an airlock to throw myself out of-"

      Pidge caught his arm. "Lance, it's fine, calm down. I mean, I'd be embarrassed too, if I knew my "rival's" birthday."

      Hunk chimed in. "And after complaining over and over that you really don't care about anything to do with him. Oh, or that you don't know anything about him other than he's stupidly good with a sword and has a mullet."

      Pidge smirked. "Oh yeah, I can see how you'd be embarrassed to be caught in such lies, Lance. Looks like you do know a bit more about our little Keithers than we've been lead to believe, huh?"

      Lance groaned. "Fine, I admit it. I know... a few things about Keith. How could I not just... pick up on some stuff?"

      Hunk raised an eyebrow.

      Lance sighed. "... Do I have to say it? Can it just be... like, heavily implied?"

      "Lance." Pidge fixed him with a devious smile. "You heard Shiro mention his birthday once at the Garrison and you remember the exact date. It's been heavily implied for a while now, Lance, so what's the harm in just biting the bullet and-"

      "FINE I HAVE A CRUSH ON KEITH!" Lance blurted out in one breath.

      Hunk put a hand on Lance's shoulder. "Good for you, Lance. Now you know what you should do?"

      Pidge opened her mouth, and Lance threw up a hand to forestall her. "Whatever you're thinking," he eyed her, "don't." Pidge pouted and crossed her arms indignantly.

      Hunk nudged Lance again. "Dude, at least take him breakfast in bed, that's McClain tradition."

      Lance wrung his hands together. "I... He's not a McClain though." He mumbled.

      Pidge grinned. "He could be." Lance choked and his eyes bulged.

      "Pidge! You-you-you can't just... you can't just-!" He buried his face in his hands. "I hate you both."

      Pidge chuckled quietly. "No you don't."

      "You're right." Lance lifted his gaze slightly. "Just you."

      "Hey!"

      Lance had been standing outside of Keith's room for almost ten full minutes now. Pidge had told the others that it was Keith's birthday the next day, and Shiro had told him(but not before teasing him for knowing Keith's birthday) that Keith was under orders to enjoy his morning and sleep in, so Lance knew he was in there, but he just couldn't force himself to knock. Just, lift your hand and hit the door, you've done this a million times, just- He screwed his eyes shut and rapped firmly on the door before he could talk himself out of it for the fifth time in a row.

      "Come in?" Keith's confused voice came through the door. Thankfully not heavy with sleep, Lance had no idea what he would've done if he'd accidentally woken Keith up. Taking yet another deep breath, Lance put his hand over the control panel and walked into Keith's room.

      It was dim, but not dark. Once Lance's eyes adjusted, he saw Keith sitting on the bed, buried in a blanket, and... Okay so maybe he was shirtless but that didn't matter because-

      "Lance? Did you need something?"

      Right. He hadn't said anything yet. Lance cleared his throat quickly. "I, uh, I just- I brought you breakfast. I mean, it's a McClain thing? I mean, we always did breakfast in bed on birthdays so I thought I'd do it for you. Unless that's weird. Or if you've already eaten. Or if you'd rather not- I can leave-" Lance abruptly stopped rambling when he saw a soft smile cross Keith's face and then watched as he started laughing.

      "Lance, are you just going to stand there rambling or are you going to bring me my breakfast?" He was still smiling as he gestured for Lance to come closer, sitting up to accommodate the tray Lance was holding.

      Lance swallowed hard and nodded, walking up to the bed and carefully setting the tray over Keith's knees and stepping back. He cleared his throat again and tried to look Keith in the eye, carefully averting his gaze from his bare chest. "I guess I'll... I'll go now. Happy Birthday, Keith." He turned to go.

      "Wait, Lance." Lance's heart jumped to his throat. "How did you know it was my birthday? Did Shiro tell you guys?"

      Lance flushed and shook his head. "Uh, no." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I, uh, I remembered your birthday from the Garrison."

      Keith raised an eyebrow. "Really? All the way back then?"

      Lance nodded, not quite looking at Keith. "Yeah. All the way back then." They were quiet for a minute.

      Keith put a hand over Lance's. "Thanks." Lance looked up, finally locking eyes with Keith.

      He smiled fondly. "Anytime, Keith."

      They fell silent again, and finally Lance cleared his throat and stood up. "I should, ah, let you eat that. I'll see you later?"

      Keith nodded, eyes alight with something Lance couldn't identify. "Definitely."

[psychic-timetraveler]

Camp nanowrimo update day 9: A wonderful writing day today! Thanks to the help of a few friends to give me some scenes they’d like to see, I got through one of them I was having a lot of fun with! Over 2500 words written today!!

Word total: 31145

Here’s a little snippet of what I was working on today!

––––

“Great, glad we got that all squared away.” Q finally interjected. “Get onto the field agent gadgets. Oh, speaking of gadgets anyway,” he dug into his pocket and pulled out the same canister of knockout gas he had used the same night he had met Rose, “I’m out of knockout gas.”

“Quincy Towers, I swear ya will be the death of me. Briseadh agus brú ort.” He waved him off.

“Thanks, Doug.” Q smiled as he threw the empty canister to the Irishman.

Thankfully Doug caught it and was half tempted to throw it back at him for causing him so much stress. Instead he took a deep breath and set the canister on the nearest table with the mental note to grab him another at a later date.

“Now, what can we give ya that ya would enjoy…” Doug trailed off, staring at various seemingly empty wall spaces.

“I told her that you could hook her up with some things that would make her tie wearing friend jealous.”

“Ah, tryin’ to make Brad jealous with the cool shite he doesn't get to use? I like it. Devious. I have a few ideas we can try out.” He made a happy ‘ah ha’ noise and opened up another panel on the wall with his hand scanner. Once the wall open, he began to vigorously flip through the levels of gadgets on a mission to find exactly what he was looking for.

Doug spun around and handed her a tiny pen that looked like one of those tablet or phone touch pad styluses. “This, my dear, is a stylus but it so happens to double as a blow dart gun.” He smiled and pointed to the squishy end. “They shoot out of here and ya squeeze the little clip and they shoot out. Pretty nice, right?”

“So cool!” She gawked over the tiny device. “It’s so small.”

“But effective. Perfect for agents on the go who need to be subtle. Q thinks he’s too cool for the tiny gadgets.” Doug glared over at Q.

He merely shrugged. “What can I say, I like my knockout gas and stasis guns.”

“And I just refilled that a few cycles ago.”

“And I used it on three assholes who were trying to jump this little lady here.”

Doug cringed. “Oi, why didn’t ya say so? Twats…” He trailed off and shook his head, then bringing his attention back to Rose. “Where was I? Ah, right. Let’s see here…” He trailed off and went through the levels again. “I’m guessin’ ya need a gun of sorts.”

“Something effective.” Q added.

“Ah, I know the one!” Doug smiled and quickly returned the panel to it’s normal wall state and ran across the room to another panel.

Rose was adoring this easily excitable Irishman. His accent was to die for and just everything about him just seemed to please her. No wonder Charlie and Lila had a thing for him, how could anyone not? He was tall, had the most luscious ginger locks and a sense of style that was to die for. Hell, if he wasn’t taken she’d be trying to hit on that who knows how old piece of Irish gold was.

She was too into her own mind that she jumped a bit when Doug thrusted a gun into her hands. “This, my dear, is one of my personal favorite weapons.” He smiled.

Rose turned the gun over in her hands a little bit. To her, it looked like a more futuristic revolver. Instead of the bullet cartridge, there was a series of buttons. It had a nice weight to it, not too heavy and yet not to light. It fit comfortably in her hands.

“What’s so special about it?” Rose asked, eyeing it up and lining it up as if she were aiming at the wall to shoot. She had never fired a gun, but her mind was telling her exactly what to do and look for with the weapon in her hand.

“I am glad ya asked!” Doug smiled. “That, is a stasis gun that is modeled after the famous .44 Magnum revolver in those old Clint Eastwood movies. It has a nice modern feel for the wild west aesthetic of those movies. Not only is it just a normal revolver hand gun, but press that light blue button on the top.”

“What does it do?” She asked curiously as she hit the button.

Doug smiled, putting his hands over his mouth to hide his excitement as the gun began to transform. Suddenly the revolver in her hand morphed into a massive rifle. Though it was now half the size of her height, it was still as light as the handgun was. Not only did this surprise Rose, but it pleased her as well.

“That is what it does.” Doug’s smile widened. “So, this lovely little thing transforms into a loose inspiration of a Winchester repeatin’ rifle from the 1800’s of, I suppose, your time. Saw it in a movie once and was inspired. It’s still a stasis gun but it manages to look more intimidatin’ without the extra weight.”

Q watched her eyes light up in awe at the gun she had now just fallen in love with. It reminded him of himself the first time Doug introduced him to his futuristic Smith and Wesson. Something about a new agent falling in love with their new stasis gun brought a smile to his face. This new partner of his sure had something special about her that his last handful of partners didn’t have.

She was eager to learn, despite being quiet. It would take some time for her to warm up to everything, but when she did there was no stopping her. A part of him was telling him that she would end up like him; determine to get the job done with only a few gadgets here and there, kick ass and take names, and still follow the rules as closely as possible and only going over sometimes.

The young lady in front of him had a familiar feel to him. A wholesome and welcoming feeling that he hadn’t felt in almost three hundred years. She was different than his past partners and something was telling me she wasn’t going to be going anywhere anytime soon. For some reason, that was okay with him.

“Quincy.” Doug’s beautiful Irish accent brought him back from his thoughts and finally stared at the ginger man who looked as if to be throwing something at him.

“Right, sorry.” Q apologized.

“Knockout gas.” Doug tossed the new canister to him and Q thankfully caught it. “Anythin’ else I can offer ya?”

“You know my stance on gadgets.” He pocketed the canister in his holster before crossing his arms over his chest.

“Yeah, seems like your lil’ partner here is the same way.” Doug then turned to Rose. “Just remember, you’re free to come back any time to test out anythin’, got it?”

“Yes, sir!” She happily saluted him, excited with her new gun and dart gun.

[gldngrl7]

Karamel Fic: Edging Toward Synchronicity (2/8)

Author: gldngr7

Rating: Explicit

Began: March 11, 2017

Chapters: 8

 Feedback:  Encouragement and constructive criticisms are always welcome. Flames are destroyed with my freeze breath.  Intentional Anti hate is taken as encouragement and a challenge to up my game.

 Author’s Notes:

I’m not even kidding around anymore.  This story is about a journey to intimacy and that intimacy includes heavy elements of BDSM, Dominance/submission and Daddy-kink.  If you know you’re not into that or interested in seeing more, walk away now.  Kid gloves are off, folks.

If you would like to know who to thank for this upping of my smut game, you can thank the Anti who left me a hate comment on my last story telling me that I was going to hell and that I needed to “atone for my sins” for “hating woman”.  To this Anti: If you thought I had “out-grossed” Fifty Shades of Gray before…you ain’t seen nothing yet.  Just so you know…”This was all for you, Damien.  All for you!”  Enjoy. And know that there’s so much more where this came from.  I take your hate as

Dedicated to my fam member @mon-kai-el  and dirty bitches squad (aka The Dark Side) whose dirty talk showed me that I could take the kid gloves off.  Stay thirsty, my friend.

For those of you who care…there is in fact plot.  And it moves forward and everything!

PSA:  If there are any Babysubs out there who read this and think, ‘this is me’ and you don’t know what to do.  If you want to talk, message me.  It’s important that you know this:  THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH YOU!  Not a damn thing, and don’t ever let anyone tell you differently.

  Tagging: @mon-kai-el, @actualpuppychriswood, @pwettypwita, @contygold86, @karamelizedlove, @kelbottumbles, @starcrossed-comets, @emarasmoak, @fangirlintheforest, @ships-sailing-in-the-night, @lostin-the-desert

     Hold

          Hold on

                Hold on to me

‘     Cause I’m a little unsteady

             A little unsteady

               If you love me, don’t let go

 -The Renegades – “Unsteady”

  Chapter 2/8

 “Okay, clearly I am stirring up some unresolved feelings inside you…”

 “Wait a minute,” Mon-El insists, his feet padding steadily on the treadmill at an easy two-minute-per-mile pace.  “Isn’t that what you are?  A manifestation of unresolved feelings?”

“You’re not entirely wrong.  But I meant more unresolved feelings.  I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you have a lot of them.”

“As evidenced by the hallucination of my dead friend.”

“Yes, and I’d really like it if we could deal with me first.  I think I‘m a little more pressing in the overall scheme.  Also, something tells me that the unresolved feelings about what just happened in there are going to take care of themselves.”

“Fine,” Mon-El capitulates.  “How can I help you?”  He rolls his eyes, utterly aware that he’s offering his assistance and his undivided attention to a figment of his imagination.

“Okay, let’s start with this.  We are cohabitating with Kara.  Now…I know there’s a lot to be happy about here.  Making your latching official—“

“Mating,” Mon-El hastily corrects.

“Pot-ay-to, po-tah-to,” Ral chuckles, disregarding the correction.

“It’s not the same,” Mon-El insists.  “Not here, it’s not.  There’s mating first, and then there’s latching…if both parties agree.  As I understand it.”

“I think we both know where this is going, Brother. Why obfuscate it?”

“Because…”

“Because she doesn’t know everything about you yet?” Ral offers.

“And when she does, this relationship will be over faster than you can say ‘liar, liar – pants on fire’.”

“Why would anyone--?”

“I don’t know.  It’s just a crazy thing they say.”

“Maybe you’re not giving her enough credit...?”  Ral shrugs.

“Our history when it comes to all things Daxam-related isn’t exactly stellar.”  Mon-El feels his tense muscles finally begin to loosen as he slips into the rhythm of his run.  Ral leans against the concrete wall in front him, his arms crossed while he strokes his chin thoughtfully.  A stance he remembers well from the times when Ral’s devious mind was pressed into service in order to extract Mon-El from some mischief in which he had inevitably found himself embroiled.  “What are you thinking about?” Mon-El asks, as if he doesn’t already know.

“She suspects something,” Ral announces.  “We’ll have to be careful in our communications.”

“I’ll leave you secret notes on the fridge,” he whispers, conspiratorially.

“Will you be serious?”

“I don’t think that’s what you really want,” Mon-El answers.

Unexpectedly, Ral’s form shifts, and the image in his mind suddenly wears the form of a once beautiful young woman, blood pouring down her face from a savagely torn scalp.  “Help me,” she begs.  Her hand, clutching a small bouquet of desert blooms, reaches out for him.  His feet falter on the treadmill, and before he can catch himself he’s face down, the moving belt spitting him off the machine like he’s a nasty tasting morsel.

When his body stops rolling, Mon-El comes to rest on his back, eyes staring up the fluorescent lamps on the ceiling.  “What in the name of Bask!” he curses.  He isn’t hurt, of course, just slightly disoriented and unable to get the sight of the woman out of his mind, as though she’s burned on his retinas. He digs his fingers into his eyes, attempting to erase the image.  Mercifully, when his eyes open, Ral is standing above him, peering down upon him.

“Very graceful,” he comments, his eyes blinking slowly as though unimpressed by Mon-El’s full-bodied impression of tumbleweed.

“Stop doing that,” Mon-El groans between gritted teeth.

“Doing what?”

“Changing into her.”

“Oh, that wasn’t me,” Ral explains, lodging his hands on his hips. “That was all you.”

“But why would I…?”

“Unresolved…blah, blah, blah,” Ral says, checking beneath his fingernails as though their cleanliness might soon be witnessed by someone of incredible import.  “Get used to it, my friend.  Something tells me it’s going to be happening more and more often.”

“That doesn’t make any sense!”

“Doesn’t it?”  Ral wonders. “It doesn’t make sense that the more secure you start to feel in this life, the more your mind might start to loosen its stranglehold on everything you’ve been keeping so tightly locked down? Seems legit to me.  Maybe J’onn was right.  Maybe you should see a Preceptor.”

“They call them therapists here.”

“Right.  That’s what I said.”

Mon-El rolls over onto his stomach before popping up to his feet. He stares down at the still-running treadmill, its low-pitched hum now sounding to him for all the world like an aggressive growl.  Done for the night, Mon-El reaches over and yanks the emergency-stop tab from the machine’s face panel, something he hadn’t had time to think about doing when he was busy falling ass-over-teakettle.  “Useless piece of shi—“

Kara walks in on what looks like Mon-El abusing and cursing the gym equipment.  She had hoped that the hour she took to run a few errands and do some shopping would have given him enough time to cool off, but just in case, she came prepared with her mea culpa.  “I really hope it’s truly the machine you’re angry at and not me,” she says, interrupting the angry glare-fest directed at the treadmill.

Mon-El spins around at the sound of her voice, finding that the Supergirl from an hour ago is gone and that Kara Danvers stands in her place, her black floral skirt and pink blouse striking the perfect balance between sexy and innocent.  He grimaces, embarrassed to be caught raging at an inanimate object.

“Though it’s better than being caught talking to a hallucination,” Ral adds to Mon-El’s thoughts.  “Go with it.”

Her brow is crinkled with concern, more for herself than for him it seems, and for some reason, she’s waving a white gym towel at him.  “Kara?”

“Are you still angry with me?” she wonders, waving the towel again. Perhaps she should have given him two hours to cool off instead of one, especially if his anger is spreading to encompass harmless gym equipment.

“What’s with the…?” he nods his head toward the towel.

“Oh!” she exclaims, realizing that he’s lacking crucial context to comprehend her display.  “It’s a white flag,” she exposits.  “Or at least it’s the best I could come up with on short notice.”

“A white flag?” he queries, curious about what lies behind this demonstration.

“In most Earth cultures,” she explains, strolling towards him, “a white flag is used to indicate surrender by one party for a battle to come to an end.  It’s also used to request mercy for the conceding party.”

Drawn to her as though she’s the center of his gravity, he moves in her direction until they meet in the middle of the room.  He knows he’s not supposed to touch her or exhibit any physical affection for her while in the DEO, but he theorizes that this policy is likely to remain a work in progress – perhaps for a bit longer than a while. “You’ve never needed a white flag to surrender to me before,” he smirks, the lids of his steel-gray eyes drifting to half-mast.

“You’ve never been this angry with me before,” she points out. “I mean, not since we…started seeing each other.”

“Seeing each other?” he muses, interest piqued by her use of the term. “That doesn’t sound quite complex enough for what’s happening between us.  Does it?”  He wants to reach for her, pull her into his embrace but twists his own gym towel between his hands instead.

“No,” she agrees, softly.  “It doesn’t.  It’s not nearly complex enough.  I just know that you’re my partner…my mate…I chose you—“ she smiles as soon as the words are out of her mouth, knowing what he’ll do next.

“I chose you,” he insists, his smile matching hers.

Her lips tingle with the need to brush against his, to feel his breath mingling with hers as though the very act charges the air around them, turning it into a renewable power source. Kara bites on her lower lip in an attempt to stifle the rush of blood there, before she opens her mouth to speak.  “Why do I get the feeling we’re going to be having this argument for a long, long time?”

Mon-El’s eyes widen, and a sadness quickly passes through them, like catching a glimpse of something in the corner of one’s eye, only to turn and find that perception mistaken.  “I hope so,” he replies.  “You have no idea how much.”

“I didn’t mean it the way it sounded,” she rushes, misinterpreting the source of his fleeting sadness.  “J’onn and I got ahead of ourselves.  We shouldn’t have been talking about you like you weren’t in the room.  Making decisions about what you should do without consulting you first.”

“Kara, look, I know that you don’t think I’ve trained enough—that I’m not ready—“

“No, but that’s not it,” she interrupts, grabbing for him, her hands on his shoulders.  “It’s your lead allergy,” she explains.  “There’s so much of it out there, and it can all be used to hurt you.  I just want to make sure you’re as protected as possible before you take on those calls, that’s all.”

“Really?”

“I couldn’t…”  She bites her lip, her eyes glancing away from him as a blush stains her cheeks.

“What is it?” he presses, cupping her cheek to turn her face back towards his.

“Remember this morning when I was worried that the DEO would send a tactical team to find you, and you joked that there were worse ways to die?”

Mon-El recalls that she hadn’t found his joke funny and had insisted they issue a moratorium on gallows humor.  “I remember,” he nods, with a shrug.  “What about it?”

“Cadmus almost killed you and…”  Her guts clench inside as she teeters on the edge of a monumental confession, just a stiff breeze away from tipping over the precipice.  A frustrated moan rises in her, slipping through her tightly pressed lips as her eyes squeeze tightly shut, “…and Medusa.”

“That was a long time ago,” Mon-El says, his voice taking on a soft, soothing tone.

“It doesn’t feel that way,” she counters.  “It feels like it just happened.  Mon-El…I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to you.  If you were hurt out there, I wouldn’t be able to…”  Her confession trails off as she becomes lost in his gaze, her blue eyes rising to meet his soft gray regard.  She shakes her head, as though unable to continue, and seeing her growing discomfort, Mon-El takes over, filling the silence she left behind.

“I feel the same,” he admits.  “Every time you go out there.”

“But—“

“You’re not invincible, Kara,” he interjects.  “You can tell yourself that all you like, but that doesn’t make it true.  I know that bullets can’t hurt you like they can hurt me, but that doesn’t mean that nothing can!  And…at the risk of making you angry, you can be reckless, Kara – rushing into dangerous situations without gaining a full understanding of the risks.  I know who you are,” he insists. “I see what you can do.  But that doesn’t mean I’m ever going to stop worrying.  I understand your concerns.  I live them every day.  But you’ve never backed down when facing an enemy that could hurt you.  I don’t understand why you think I shouldn’t do the same.”

She feels her own brow crinkling as though to mirror his concerned countenance and raises a hand to rub at the overactive muscles there.  Here is a topic they’ve never really discussed, not before they became involved and not after.  Kara knows her own feelings on the matter, recalling vividly the events of the Cadmus hostage-taking and his brush with death in the form of the Medusa virus created by her own father.

Mon-El has only been in her life for a few short months and already she’s witnessed his near death on two separate occasions.  And both of those occasions occurred before.  Before she let him in.  Before she chose him.  Before she learned that she can’t breathe without him.  Long before discovering that her body sings when he touches her, when he whispers against her heated skin, and when his eyes drift down to her lips, gazing at them like they’re his salvation.

She’d kept him at such a distance then, refusing to know him, talking a good game about his potential, but really refusing to see him as anything other than a Daxamite wastrel.  She’d treated him accordingly, facing him in the direction she wanted him to go but citing his cultural upbringing each time he stepped off of her pre-approved path. Cursing the place of his birth as though it was something better forgotten to the ravages of an extinction level event, rather than a culture worthy of remembrance because of the loss of so many lives.  It wasn’t just a planet that died but billions of hearts that stopped beating, and the last heartbeat remaining, stands before her now.

And more than anything, she wants that heartbeat to endure because…because she loves him.  She loves him!  Her stomach drops to her feet, and everything inside of her freezes as her own realization paralyzes her.  Her tongue turns to hot sand, and her hands begin shaking.  She loves him, and she doesn’t have the first clue if he feels the same – if she’s out on this limb all by herself.  It’s like when she was a child, first learning to fly.  The wind would lift her, carry her for a few moments, but then the ground would come rushing, rushing up to her, and all of her efforts, all of that soaring, would be for naught.  Each attempt leading to crushing disappointment until one day she just…stopped.

Maybe she isn’t ready.

“Kara?”  Mon-El’s fingers brush against her cheek, and she flinches from it slightly, raising his distress level.  He snatches his hand from her skin, his fingers tingling as though venom were spreading through his bloodstream.

Mon-El’s voice interrupts her revelatory reflection.  Her thoughts had taken her down a bit of a rabbit hole from which she struggles to emerge.  “What?” she mutters.

“You okay, Kara?” he demands, his concern ratcheting up a few notches and filtering through the tone in his voice.

His voice brings her out of her haze, his face coming into clear, sharp focus.  His lips are tight, and his brows have snapped together to create a deep crevice between them, but the most striking thing are his eyes: so deep and fathomless, those bottomless grays that hide nothing when his thoughts center on her; the emotions floating on the surface there inscrutable to her only because of her lack of experience in this arena.  If only she could read their messages with confidence.  If only her own feelings didn’t cause her to second-guess his.

“I’m fine,” she lies, shaking off her petrification like loose tree bark.

“No, you’re not,” he contradicts.  She’s fearful suddenly, her eyes turning shiny blue, the crinkle in her forehead unmistakable to him.  “You think I don’t know how you look when something’s bothering you?”

“I don’t….” she tries but trails off.

“Are you having second thoughts?” he asks gently, assuming he’s found the root of the problem.

“Second thoughts?”

“It’s okay to change your mind,” he promises.  “I can keep staying here until I can afford to get my own place.”

“No,” she answers, violently shaking her head back and forth.  “I haven’t changed my mind.  I’m not going to change my mind.”  He’s trying not to look overly hopeful, and she can’t bear the thought of taking that hope from his eyes.  She wants him there, in her home, in her bed; promising to make breakfast in the mornings but rarely following through, leaving his pants strewn across her furniture, and putting too much soap in the washing machine.  She wants all of that.  More than, she realizes now, she has ever wanted anything in her recollection.  Her hand brushes against her belly, not enough so that he would notice but just enough to remind her.  She wants all of him.  Even the part he doesn’t know about yet.  Reaching up, she presses a kiss on his lips, quick enough that if they’re lucky, it might go unnoticed by the camera’s monitors.

“Are you sure?” he asks again.  “Because you don’t seem that certain at the moment.  You seem a little…lost.”

“I’m not lost,” she insists, staring unwaveringly in his eyes.  “I know what I want.”  Kara places a hand on his face, the pad of her thumb tracing the orbital bone of his upper cheek just beneath his eye.  “Let’s go home, Mon-El,” she whispers.

Judging the truth in her eyes, Mon-El breathes a sigh of relief and nods.  “I’ll pack my things.”

“I’ll help,” she offers.

She takes his hand as they walk out of the gym and head towards his quarters, loving the way it feels when his long, graceful fingers interlace with hers. Loving him and the way he looks at her, eyes soft and unguarded.

“So…this white flag policy,” he wonders, information gathering for future reference.  “Does it work this well for all disagreements?”

Kara laughs at what she believes to be a jest – the kind of joke he would make to see her smile.  “Why?” she teases.  “Planning on using the technique?”

The pit of his stomach roiling with the stress of confining secrets bursting toward freedom and mayhem, he forces a smile and hopes she doesn’t notice the difference.  “I have a feeling I might need to over the next few months.  I’ve heard that living together can be an adjustment.  Just…be patient with me?”

Kara squeezes his hand.  “Promise,” she vows.

In his quarters, it doesn’t take very long to pack the modest belongings in his footlocker and to grab a few other things he’s hoarded in the months since his arrival.  Kara requested a ride home from one of the SUVs in the DEO motor pool, thinking it imprudent to use any but normal means of transport in this situation.  Less than half an hour after leaving the gym, they stand in the fourth floor corridor of her loft apartment.

“I got something for you,” she announces, her hesitant smile belied by the mixture of sparkling mischief and excitement in her eyes.

“You did?” he teased, setting the footlocker down in front of the door.  “A surprise?”

Kara nods, digging around in her purse until she finds what she stashed there earlier.  She removes a Supergirl keychain with two keys attached and a tiny bow wrapped around the ring itself.  “Your keys,” she says.

Mon-El laughs but feels his heart race and his stomach flip flop, a shiver of heat racing down his spine.  “For me?” he teases.

“For you.”

“A Supergirl keychain?” he wonders.

Kara shrugs.  “They were selling them at the hardware store where I had the keys cut.  I couldn’t help myself.”

“I’ll be able to carry a piece of you wherever I go now,” he says, his storm-cloud eyes growing darker as the pupils expand right before her eyes. “Even when I can’t be near you.”

Kara finds the notion odd but still romantic.  Since their relationship became physical, when have they been unable to be near one another?  Mon-El is a romantic at heart—she’s suspected this truth for a long time—one of the many things she loves about him.  “Care to do the honors?” she suggests, indicating the door in front of them.

He nods and unlocks the door, swinging it open before bending down to pick up his chest of things.  When he stands up, his knees nearly buckle beneath him because what he sees before him isn’t the loft he’s already come to think of as a haven but a burning, exploding wreckage of the palace he escaped decades ago.  He can feel the heavy, tugging grip of hands on his shoulders but is drawn instead to the image of Ral lying on the floor, bloodied to the point of being nearly unrecognizable, his broken legs twisted grotesquely to either side of his body.

“There’s no time,” Ral rasps weakly around horribly split lips.  “You have to leave me!  I’ll only slow us both down.  You can still escape.”

He can feel the heat of its fires on his face; smell the burning flesh of victims screaming for help as they reach charred arms out for him.  His ears fill with the sounds of wordless screams as chunks of plaster and stone fall all around him, narrowly missing him as if their strikes were never meant to land.  He can feel the disturbance of the ground around him as they smash against the ground splintering into shards that fly into the air all around him.  A molten rock crashes through the crumbling palace ceiling and explodes at Ral’s feet, tearing apart the man’s body before Mon-El’s eyes and sending his remains flying in all directions.  Mon-El flinches away from the carnage he can’t un-see, and his fingers lose their grip on the box of his things.  “Ral?”

Unaware of the onset of his distress, Kara enters the loft as always, dropping her purse and keys on the kitchen island and flipping through the mail she retrieved from the mailbox downstairs on their way up.  It’s not until she’s startled by the sound of his footlocker crashing to the ground that she realizes he isn’t in the apartment with her.  The envelopes slip from her fingers when she spins back to the doorway, skittering across the flooring like shards of a broken dish.

“Mon-El?” she inquires.  He’s pale as a sheet, his eyes squeezing tightly shut as his breath comes in quick gasps. Immediately, she’s by his side.  “Mon-El, what is it?”  When his eyes open, she recognizes the thousand-yard stare, one she’d heard Eliza talk about when she was younger.  One she’s seen on J’onn’s face more than a few times.  Not wishing to startle him, she refrains from touching his trembling body, using her voice instead to shake him from his memories. “Baby?” she calls, hoping for a response.  Her voice is an approximation of cool and calm, while her insides are the exact opposite, performing frenetically like a squirrel jumping from limb to limb in a copse of trees.  “Come back to me.  Follow my voice.  I’m right here, baby.  I’m right here.  Please?” she begs.

Her plea cuts through the mayhem, finding him in the middle of his hellish landscape.  Melting the images away like hot water thrown on a still wet canvas.  Slowly, the memory fades as Kara calls for him, softly but with total resolution, her voice becoming louder and louder than the din around him.  The world comes back into focus, but it’s too late because he’s falling, falling to his knees and into her arms, taking her down with him.  “Kara?” he croaks, as though he can’t quite believe she’s truly there with him.  He can smell the violet-scent of her hair shampoo, and he clings to that like it’s the lone piece of driftwood in a raging river.

“I’m here,” she whispers into his neck, wrapping her arms around him, stroking his spine with long, soothing strokes.  “I’ve got you.”

“What happened?” he asks, everything spinning around him.  “I was…” His breath comes hard and fast, on the verge of hyperventilation.  “I was…”  He chokes on the words and the air around him.  When he opens his eyes again the world whites out, becoming obscenely bright as though a flashbulb has gone off in his face.  He slams his eyes shut to block it out, seeing the negative imprint of her and the loft on the back of his eyelids.

“You were there,” she hypothesizes, her voice shaking, a bit of fear seeping through.  “Is that right?  You were there?”

Eyes still shut, he nods into her hair.

“It’s okay,” she promises.  “I’m here.  I know what’s happening to you.  You’re going to be all right.  Just breathe.”

Slowly, in excruciating increments, he comes back to himself, back to this place, to her arms, opening his eyes to see everything as he’s come to know it.  She wipes her fingers across his cheeks; erasing tears he hasn’t realized are falling. His heart still races in his chest, and a fine sheen of perspiration has broken out on his face, as well as down his neck and chest.

“Talk to me,” she begs, her voice barely above a whisper.  “What happened?”

“I don’t know,” he confesses.  “I opened the door, but instead of your apartment it was…”

“Daxam?”

“Yes.  That day. There was screaming and fire and so much…screaming and the smell…”

“And you mentioned something,” she presses, gently.  “A name…maybe?  Ral?”

Mon-El remembers and like a flash, the pain sears through his head, his vision going off like a flash bulb again for a split second.  He presses the heels of his palms against his temples. “Ahhhhh,” he moans, the pain streaking through him like an overload of electricity.

“It’s okay,” she declares.  Something is triggering him, and the memories cause real, physical pain as they emerge.  Like an infected boil in need of lancing, his memories require purging if he’s ever to process his grief.  Her gut twists inside at the knowledge of what she needs to do.  “I know it hurts,” she says.  “Just tell me one thing.  Who was Ral? Was he there with you?”

“Yes,” he groans.  “Everything was collapsing around us, the world was ending, and all he wanted was to see me safe.”

“Why?” she wonders.  “Who was he to you?”

“He’s my…he’s my…brother-in-bond,” Mon-El confesses, the pain easing slightly, the tightness in his chest loosening.

Kara shakes her head.  “I don’t understand,” she tells him.  “What does that mean?  Your brother by blood?”

The stabbing pain in his head turns into a dull but insistent throb as he shakes his head.  His breathing, at last, returns to normal, his voice dropping in pitch as though his vocal chords are exhausted.  “Not by blood.  There’s a word for it here, but I can’t…step!” he proclaims. “Stepbrother.  Is that right?  Step? I can’t think straight.”

“Ral was your stepbrother?”

“Yes,” he says, breathing a sigh of relief as the muscles in his neck and shoulders release some of the rock hard tension they’ve been holding. “His mother married my…father when we were just small boys.  I was six, and he was seven.”

It strikes her then, like a heavy mallet against a gong, that he’s never mourned the loss of an individual to her knowledge.  It all seems so vast, the loss of an entire world and everything that a person can identify with, that it’s hard to see the personal loss sometimes.  He’s never mentioned his family or even any friends, and, to her shame, she’s never asked. “You can talk about him, you know,” she reminds him.  “You can talk about…any of them.  You probably need to.”

Mon-El’s eyes meet hers, finally, and the deep, incalculable grief in them shreds at her heart.  “I don’t want you to think I’m weak,” he confesses, shame written plainly across her face.

“Mon-El, I would never think that!” she replies, shocked and saddened at the direction of his thoughts. She pulls him into her embrace, wrapping her arms around him with bone-crushing strength.  But instead of cringing at her power, his body melts into the hug as though allowing himself to be absorbed by her.

He wants to spill everything, all of his secrets and believe from the bottom of his heart that she will understand – that she won’t be angered by it, or worse – sickened by him.  Surviving the destruction of his world would be easy in comparison to watching the affection in her sparkling eyes turn to abhorrence.  But he’s a coward.  He always has been, and he’ll never be anything more, no matter how strong or fast his body is now or how impenetrable his skin.

Mon-El withdraws from the comfort of her embrace, undeserving of such sweet succor and casts his eyes about the room.  “I need…”  His shaky voice trails off.  It occurs to him that they are still half in and half out of the apartment, the front door still open.

“What do you need?”

“I don’t know,” he realizes.  He struggles to his feet, as if all the solar energy in his cells has deserted him.  Reaching down, he picks up the footlocker he dropped, wondering where he’s supposed to store his things.

“How about a cup of tea?”  Kara suggests, as she stands to her feet.  She closes the front door, flipping the deadbolt to lock it.  She rarely locks the door of her loft when she’s inside, practically daring intruders to try her, but tonight she makes an exception. “It’s soothing.  And then maybe…a hot shower before bed.  That always helps me.”

Mon-El swallows the bitter taste in the back of his throat, unable to banish the acrid flavor no matter how many times he tries.  “Tea,” he agrees with a weak nod.  “Lots of sugar.”

“You and your sweet tooth,” she chuckles forcefully, hoping to lighten the mood as she grabs the kettle from atop the stove and begins filling the vessel with water from the tap.

Mon-El stands in the center of the apartment, footlocker in hand, wondering what he should do next; watching as she tinkers about the kitchen lighting the gas stove and turning the knob until the flame is just right.  He wonders if he should just find an unobtrusive corner for his things.  Movies don’t really cover the protocol for this part of cohabitation.  This is usually the part where the credits start to roll across the screen, he realizes, his stomach sinking to his knees.

Confused by his inaction, she glances around the room as she pulls out the ingredients for tea and two mugs.  The loft is so…her.  She’s crammed the place with remembrances and decorative knick-knacks and more chairs than she can possibly fill even if everyone in her life came over at the same time.

She’s filled every corner, every nook and cranny.  There’s not a spare inch of free space for him.  Leaving the kettle to boil, she pastes a smile on her face.  “Let’s make some room,” she declares.  She takes the chest from him, carries it into her…their…bedroom, and places it on the bed. “I know, I have a lot of stuff,” she chuckles, covering her embarrassment at not noticing the problem earlier.  Or being prepared for it.  Had Kara been thinking ahead, it might have occurred to her to come home and clear a drawer or two for the man she loves, while he stewed in the DEO gym.  But after getting his keys cut, she put out a three-alarm apartment fire instead.  “Eliza says it’s because I came here with nothing, and so I hoard things.  Collect them.”

“I may have gotten a little overexcited about purchasing clothes once I found the place of Good Will,” he points out, completely able to see where she was coming from.  He grew up with everything he could have ever needed, and though he is surprised to discover that he doesn’t even miss most of those luxuries, he finds that he doesn’t like the idea of being without something to wear.  Most of his garments, in the beginning, had been borrowed or provided by the DEO.  Mon-El finds that the clothes he purchased with his own currency are the ones that mean the most to him.

Kara speeds over to the rack of hanging clothes on the east side of the room and begins pulling blouses and skirts and slacks from the rack.  She folds them in a blur of movement and stacks them on the bed.  Leaving empty hangers behind, swinging back and forth on the rod, for him to use.

“You don’t have to—“ he begins, feeling guilty that she’s making room to accommodate his presence.

“I do,” she disagrees.  “You deserve space for your own clothes and jackets.  These are all summer clothes anyway,” Kara rationalizes with a casual shrug. “I can store them under the bed until May and then switch out the winter clothes on the rack for the summer ones. It’s fine.”

Following her lead, Mon-El opens the chest and begins removing his clothing, beginning with his growing collection of jackets, which he hangs up on the empty plastic coat hangers.  Over by the chest of drawers, positioned against the wall near the bathroom door, she clears the bottom drawer full of novelty sweatshirts and t-shirts she rarely uses.  She can go through them later and perhaps find items to donate to the ‘place of Good Will’ this weekend.  Mon-El hangs up his button down shirts on the rack, while she extracts his jeans, t-shirts, and pajamas from the footlocker and organizes them in the bottom drawer of her wardrobe.  When she’s done, there’s space to spare.

She folds his boxers and rolls his socks, placing them meticulously in the top drawer alongside her socks and panties.  The blood in her veins thrills at the sight, the visual evidence of their lives edging towards synchronicity.  Despite her nervousness, she can’t deny that she wants this.  His things mixed in with hers.

“You’re not a guest,” she says, turning around to face him, her hands clasping nervously together.  “I want you to understand that.  This is your home.”

His lips lift up on one side in a cock-eyed smile, hands shoved deeply into his pockets as he rocks slightly back on his heels.  But his eyes gaze into hers without flinching away for the first time since his temporary breakdown.  “Our home,” he amends.

Kara’s lips pursing coyly together as though trying to suppress a smile she really wants to give free reign.  She nods.  “Our home.”

 TBC

[theimaginesyouneveraskedfor]

Linger (3)

Chapters: 1, 2 Based on: this imagine Warnings: allusions to abuse, violence, and PTSD. Character: Loki, Kay Hemlock (OC) Notes: This isn’t concretely based in the MCU in terms of preciseness. I’ve merely created a story line going off of the end of Thor 2 and what in my head happens when Loki is found out. If you have issues with accuracy and continuity, then be prepared for this to be out of sync.

Kay had not bothered to turn any lights on, she preferred the dark. Feeling her way along the hallway, she found the barroom of Stark Tower, the moonlight streaming silver through the windows. She recalled how the glass had been shattered the last time Loki had been there and the resulting carnage from his little scheme. It was hard to believe that she was back, once more dealing with the sociopathic demigod.

She slipped behind the bar and opened the cabinet below, picking a bottle without discrimination and a crystal tumbler. She set them atop the bar with a clink and uncorked the bottle; scotch by the smell of it. She was glad that Tony kept a tidy bar; unlike everything else in the tower, he organized his liquor personally. With a suppressed sigh, she lifted the scotch and tipped it so it sloshed into the glass noisily.

Relinquishing the bottle to the bar top, she hovered her hand beside the glass and stared at brown liquid as it sparkled in the night light. What was she doing? She had vowed never to be a drinker. Not again. The smell of alcohol always made her think of the stench of her father’s breath as he shouted in her face. Or when it drove him to worse acts that resulted in bruises and scars.

She closed her fingers around the tumbler and steeled herself as she looked through the window out onto the cityscape. Her hand trembled a moment as she lifted the glass and slowly raised it to her lips, sipping the repulsive liquid with a grunt. Pulling it away from her mouth, she coughed and sniffed, bracing herself once more before pouring the entirety of it down her throat.

She choked and slammed down the glass, a wave of head rush rippling over her. She brought her hands to her face and pushed back her hair as she closed her eyes and exhaled. She remembered when she had enjoyed the toxic flavour of spirits, when she had sought it out desperately to forget her fears. Like father, like daughter.

“I would have suggested the Old Malt Cask, but I’m no connoisseur…just a fan,” Tony’s voice scared Kay and she nearly jumped as Tony slowly turned up the light to a low dim, “You alright there, Kay?”

“Yeah,” She lied as she pushed away the glass, embarrassed at her discovery, “You know how it is…you must with a full bar in your front room.”

“Self-medicating,” He sat on the stool across from her, picking up the bottle and sniffing the open neck, “I’ve been laying off the stuff, hence why this is nearly full. I’ve been told it won’t solve all my problems. If any.”

“It never does,” Kay admitted, her tongue silky with the residue of scotch, “I just needed something.”

“I know, but he’s not worth it, Kay,” Tony corked the bottle and slid her tumbler away, “You should go home. Get some rest. We’ll find someone else.”

“To do what? Fury said he won’t talk to anyone else…not that I want to talk to him again,” She was rambling already and suddenly the liquor seeping into her brain, “I want to leave,” She admitted as leaned against the bar, “But I don’t want him to win.”

“Him?” Tony echoed and his eyes pierced her, “Do you mean Loki? Or your father?”

“Fuck you,” Her response was involuntary but the truth did not mix well with scotch, “What do you know about my father?”

“Kay, I’ve watched you these last few days,” He began carefully, “Loki’s an asshole, I’ll be the first to admit it, but he’s not the reason for those tears. Not entirely.”

Kay stayed silent as she glared at Tony, reluctant to accept that even after all these years, her father still had an ounce of control over her.

“He’s manipulating you, it’s what he does,” Tony explained quietly, “It’s one of his little tricks. He knows how to stir up your past and bring you back to your lowest moments…but I think there might be some things you need to face up to. I think you’ve been running from them for too long.”

“White man thinks he knows everything,” Kay was slurring already; her tolerance had weakened, “Telling the Indian how to drink…I don’t need your help.”

“I know that’s not you talking, Kay,” Not a hint of offense in his voice, “Not you.”

Kay rolled her eyes and turned away, crossing her arms annoyed. In the back of her mind, she knew Tony was right and she was being a drunk idiot. She hadn’t asked him though. She had come to drink alone in the dark, not for a therapy session.

“Go away,” She uttered blackly, “I want to be alone.”

“No, you don’t,” He insisted and heard him stand, “But I do think you should take some time for yourself. Tomorrow.”

“Hmmp,” She huffed but said nothing else as he came up beside her, a gentle hand on her back.

“I’ll talk to Fury. You take the day and you relax…without scotch,” He ordered and he sounded like her mother. The thought of her brought the hint of smile to her drunken lips, “Is that a yes?”

“No Loki?” She asked in a half-whisper.

“No Loki,” He assured with a smile of his own, “Not until you’re ready.”

Kay sat alone as she stared through the clear glass, unknown to the resident within the bare cell. Loki had little more than a plain bench to sit upon and he more often paced than reclined anyhow. She let her vision blur as she watched him; one foot in front of the other, hands behind his back, chin held high, walking the parameter of the room over and over. She could imagine it was agonizingly monotonous but could find no empathy for the snide demigod. She wished there was a button on the control panel which could send another vicious shock his way.

The night had gone by slowly after her midnight binge. She had slept but only by the hour, waking from the void of her dream world to that of her bedroom. The alcohol had suppressed her dreams but given her little rest. No matter how she tried, her thoughts would not leave Loki. Or her father.

She tapped her fingers on the edge of the control panel and sighed, leaning back in her chair. Eventually she would have to go back in there and she felt impatient to do so. She hated the anticipation of her next meeting with the villain and she was eager to mend her injured pride. Why did she let him get the better of her? Perhaps it was because she did the same to him.

The sound of the door whooshing open and closed from behind her came and Kay was surprised to look over her shoulder and find Thor walking in. He had disposed of his usual scarlet cape and while he still wore his armour, he looked less than his regal self. She could see the wear of his worries under his eyes though he smiled at her as he approached. He lowered himself into the chair next to hers and avoided looking into the cell at his caged brother.

“Lady Kay, I am surprised to find you here,” He began with concern, “I thought you would be eager to be free of my brother.”

“Trust me, I am,” She assured, “I just…I’m trying to get my head straight.”

“Well, I can tell you my brother will do little for that,” He finally glanced through the window as Loki made another round, “It’s just who he is. He has his little tricks to deflect others. To protect himself, I believe.”

“Oh, you sound better at my job than me,” She commented drolly, “I had no illusions coming in here. I knew this wouldn’t be easy.”

Thor nodded and silence rose around the pair as both watched Loki with untold thoughts. Kay was the first to speak as Loki’s movement reminded her of panther, trapped but devious.

“My people, the Mohawk, they believe in a trickster named Flint,” She did not know why she was telling Thor the story but her mind was spent, “He cut his way out of his mother’s womb. He is the lesser of two brothers and is demonized for his impatience.” She looked away from Loki, “Many believe him to be evil, they say he brings hardship to humans, all of which he blames upon his brother.”

“Loki is not evil,” Thor argued but gave his brother a sidelong glance.

“I know, there are others who believe Flint to be guilty of nothing more than the death of his mother,” She explained evenly, “That the one act left a stain on his whole life and in the shadow of his brother, one loved by many, he became maligned by others. To show his true colours, he often caused more harm than good, though that was far from his intention.” Kay rubbed her chin as she tried to understand her own words, “I’m trying to tell myself the same of Loki. That he’s not truly as bad as he seems.”

“He’s not…or at least, he wasn’t always,” Thor looked grim as he let his shoulders slumps, “I want to salvage what’s left of the brother I know, Lady Kay, but I don’t want to cause you harm in doing so.”

“I know, Thor, it’s--”

“How long do you intend on watching me so, Kay?” Loki’s voice cut her short and she looked to the glass where the dark-haired demigod stood looking in, “I may not be able to see you, but I can sense you.”

Kay looked to Thor who seemed as shocked as her, his blue eyes pensive as his posture stiffened with anxiety. Both remained silent and Loki knocked on the glass to draw their attention once more, “I promise, Kay, I’ll be nice this time.”

[janeorozco92]

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[entergamingxp]

Larian’s gorgeous Baldur’s Gate 3 looks to be a game of groundbreaking systemic depth • Eurogamer.net

It’s early days for Baldur’s Gate 3. An end of year release window seems to have leaked but there’s “no exact date” for when it’s coming out, according to developer-publisher Larian Studios, of Divinity: Original Sin and Original Sin 2 fame. And when it does come out – simultaneously on Google Stadia and Steam – it’ll be in early access first. Understandably, early access can seem a bit icky to some, but Larian’s argument for it seems fair enough: the game needs en-masse testing from its own audience if it’s ever going to come together, and having now seen a marathon, over three hours long presentation of live gameplay, I can see why. Baldur’s Gate 3 is a game with an extraordinary level of systemic depth and remarkable complexity. Across the board it’s a game that’ll need time. Time to polish, time to balance, and quite a bit of time from the player, I’d imagine, to really get anywhere close to understanding and mastering its systems. But from what was shown of the game and what Larian has told us in our Baldur’s Gate 3 interview, it’ll be worth the wait – and then some.

Baldur’s Gate 3

Developer: Larian Studios

Publisher: Larian Studios

Platform: PC (Steam), Stadia

Availability: Early Access “later this year”.

Our presentation opened with the same stupidly pretty CGI intro you’ll have seen from the Baldur’s Gate 3 panel going on at PAX, before a quick run through the character selector, a skip over the “secret” tutorial, a couple of hours of early game party-gathering and dungeon crawling, and then a closer look at a massive, later-game dungeon that showed all the flashy systems off with a little more depth. To start at the beginning though, on the most fundamental level, Baldur’s Gate 3 is a darker, more viscerally detailed story than what you might have been used to from Larian.

The story begins with a bunch of Mind Flayers – angry, definitely-not-Cthulhu squid people with some pretty gnarly magic powers – flying around in a jumbo squid mothership called a Nautiloid. On board, you and a handful of others are held prisoner and infected with what could more or less be described as brain worms: a “tadpole”, with lots of teeth, bores its way under your eyelid, through the back of your eye and into your brain. The Nautiloid crashes, you wash up on a spot of beach, and your mission is to find someone who can get that tadpole out of your head before it pops through your skull and rather gruesomely turns you into a Mind Flayer yourself. As I said: a bit darker than Divinity.

The tadpole does come with a special power though, which acts as one of Baldur’s Gate 3’s central gimmicks: you can sort of “mind meld” with anyone else who has one, and as well as the “origin characters”, plenty of characters around the world will turn out to have a pet tadpole of their own. (The character creator itself appears just as detailed as Original Sin 1 and 2. Origin characters and their special, fully-voiced, cutscened and backstoried facets return of course, and in the creator you can choose race and subrace, background, class, subclass, and just about everything else conceivable).

On the surface, much of the time the tadpole mind-melding boils down to the odd special dialogue option with fellow brain wormers, acting as sort of shortcuts through tricky conversations, in the vein of special origin character options that are seemingly always positive. But that’s a superficial explanation, really. The tadpoles are one part of a much wider set of systems – or perhaps more accurately, a wider web of sets of systems – that all play off one another with Larian’s now-typical panache. To get to the heart of how this little story gimmick plays into the wider game you need to go deeper, into what Baldur’s Gate 3 really is and how it really works.

What it is is complex. Start by thinking of a typical CRPG like Divinity: Original Sin, where the background numbers power the visible numbers, like your characters stats, which dictate your ability to navigate certain situations like persuading someone to let you out of prison through dialogue, or smash through a door with magic. All of the people-persuading and the door-smashing intertwines with a set of rules, which in the Original Sin games is built around surfaces and statuses. So, if the floor’s on fire and you throw some water on it, or cast a water-based spell at it, the fire and water turn to a lingering cloud of steam. Standing in the steam might do damage to you or cure you of an ailment or whatever else, depending on all the moving parts like what race you are and what innate traits you have, and so on.

The devious grease and fire trap in action (click to expand these images, and for better look at the UI behind our captions).

Now, intertwine those rules with the rules of Dungeons and Dragons, as they were back in the original Baldur’s Gate and Baldur’s Gate 2. You can dip weapons in flaming sconces to light them on fire, you can throw anything you have on your person (more on that in a bit) you can stack objects to create stairs (more on that too), and, above all, everything is powered by a D20 dice roll. Sometimes that’s behind the scenes, little formulae whirring away in the background as you walk around the world passing and failing perception checks for little hidden levers or pressure plates; or spotting or failing to spot facial twitches that reveal anxiety or anger in conversation, all the working-out of which viewable in a little bottom-right tooltip that lifts the mathematical bonnet. Most of the time, however, that dice roll is quite explicit. You roll for initiative on encountering enemies, according to things like who has the high ground or the element of surprise. You roll for explicit attempts to do things like persuade or intimidate in conversation, as well as the passive rolls in the background that might just pop something up. You roll, three times, to see just how “dead” you are when you’re downed: fail three and you’re dead for good (if you haven’t already been picked off, or if you haven’t got a resurrection scroll on some other party member to recover).

Stir all that together and what do you have? Chaos. Baldur’s Gate 3 is a molotov cocktail of a game, every action’s consequences shattering outwards, spreading and spurting across seemingly the entire length of a run through it. Take the experience we had, with Larian’s founder, Swen Vincke, taking control of the origin character Astarion, who’s a vampire spawn (like a vampire only he has a boss, who’s more of a proper vampire). Astarion, being a vampire, regularly has the option to just go ahead and feast on the neck of whoever he’s talking to. Most of the time that’s not a very good idea and there’s not a very good chance it’ll work, but if you want to try it, you can. To demonstrate this, Swen opted to chow down on a sleeping party member at your camp (you can make camp in most places to heal up, restore ability uses and so on). He needed to role an 18 or higher, out of 20, to succeed – the purposes of the demonstration was to show it was pretty tough – and of course he rolls a natural 20 and now we’re noshing on our mate, left the next day with an especially upbeat Asatarion and a very “tired” Cleric.

But that, really, is only the surface of what you can do – and more than that just how much the inherent chance-based systems of D&D affect an already complicated mesh of things you can do in games like Divinity. At the very beginning of our first playthrough, at what would be the first little tester battle after the tutorial, Vincke missed a shot that had a 90 percent chance to hit, scored a critical miss on what would’ve been a one-hit-kill spell, and got killed in one shot by a critical hit from the enemy. So we roll back through all the intro chat for another go and: two hits, two kills, enemies done and dealt with before they could even move.

In another skirmish, this time our party up to three members, against about four bandit grunts, Vincke showed off the game’s new stealth system, sneaking Astarion up behind an archer that would have had an incredible high-ground advantage to punt him off the ledge before the battle begins. Again though: bad luck. Misses and critical hits in all the wrong directions mean that, even including the tactical ledge-punt, the battle goes horrifically and we’re left kiting the bandits out into the woods towards some neutral fighters nearby, in the hope they’ll join in. A magical, disembodied hand was used to try and nudge someone off another ledge but missed. Potions were used up, abilities spent, and Astarion left to throw his boots at an enemy for a bit of chip damage – and hits. Half-triggering the nearby group of neutrals changes how we meet them later on, forcing us to fight the last one instead of triggering a cutscene. Some party members are lost for good. Some secrets, hidden in plain sight just off the beaten path, through some bushes and under some noticeably odd-looking rock, go undiscovered. The point above all is luck can swing a playthrough to the wildest extremes of success and failure. Enjoying that will come down to how happy you are to improvise, make do and fly by the seat of your throwable boots. Or how regularly you like to save.

There’s 4 player online co-op, and two-player couch co-op confirmed by Larian so far.

There’s another rather ingenious twist to all this, too, which that bandit skirmish hinted at. You can split your party and put any of them into turn-based mode at one point, while the others can simultaneously walk around in “real time”. Baldur’s Gate 3 is technically a turn-based game. The combat is turn-based, dialogue is turn-based, so to speak, and the environmental puzzles, of which there seem to be many, are solved in that manner too. But you move around the world in real time and this system, really, is a bit of a hybrid. In our playthrough Astarion wandered down into a dungeon – previously guarded by those bandits – on his own, and worked his way through most if it solo while the others were left presumably frozen up on the surface. Then we got stuck in some combat after some more bad luck, including a key that failed to open a chest it should’ve (and an attempt to smash the chest open that just… smashed the chest entirely), and had to bring in some help. So back up on the surface another party member smashed through the ground they were standing on to drop down, conveniently, into a room next door to this tricky battle – a spot of movie magic, I’d suspect: “oh no it’s going wrong in exactly the right place, we definitely didn’t plan for this as a way to show you how the hybrid system works!” – and so we turn a 2v1 into a 2v2, that additional party member automatically entering turn-based mode when he reached the “battle area”.

Later in that dungeon we got stuck in a particularly grisly grease and fire-based trap (with a dash of raising the undead thrown in for good measure) and again Vincke demonstrated the power of lateral thinking by juggling real-time and turn-based movement to bring other party members to join and work around the hazards. Often that actually descends into a sort of calculated gaming of the game itself, and fascinatingly that seems to be where the game really finds its groove. Baldur’s Gate 3’s magic is in its malleability, but also in your malleability, as a player that has to react and adapt. You are supposed to try and break it. You’re supposed to build a staircase of crates the other side of a door to an enemy and keep popping it open and closed to confuse them and juggle the aggro. You’re supposed to see what happens when you throw this at that, cast this on them, say this to her or climb up onto that.

The elaborate verticality in action, as our party splits and sneaks through a multi-floored dungeon.

Which brings us to the climbing, and perhaps the biggest shift in how CRPG regulars will need to work their way through Baldur’s Gate 3: its fascinating use of verticality. Your characters can now all jump quite a significant way – success depending on, you guessed it, character stats and semi-hidden D20s – and so even in towns and hubs you can work your way onto a building and down into it through the roof, bypassing locked doors or barred gates. In the later-game dungeon we played, you’re tasked with tackling a tough boss surrounded by enemies. He’s got a tadpole himself, but try to use that in dialogue and, unless you’re lucky with the dice, it’ll probably fail, leaving him angry and you exposed to a pretty nasty ambush. So what do you do?

Well, if you picked up some interesting-looking barrels several hours ago, you could use them to create sort of veil of darkness to sneak up behind him. Things – obviously – went wrong when this was attempted in our playthrough so again, improvisation. The stealthiest character was sent up to the rafters – this must be the third or fourth level up of at least a four or five level dungeon – and around beside the boss. A very risky jump is attempted, to right behind him, and somehow pulled off. An explosive barrel is placed, and the our rogue Astarion works his way out up the other side, knocking down the escape ladder with him. Then the conversation, which our other party members had seemingly been paused in, half-way through, this entire time, can play out. Mind-meld fails, boss gets angry – planted explosive barrel gets detonated! – and he goes flying across the room and through a hole, down three floors to some giant spiders in the basement. Carnage – but all predicated on a decision to pick up some barrels hours earlier, your own ingenuity to think of it, your knowledge of how the systems themselves can be gamed, and the luck to pull it off.

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/02/larians-gorgeous-baldurs-gate-3-looks-to-be-a-game-of-groundbreaking-systemic-depth-%e2%80%a2-eurogamer-net/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=larians-gorgeous-baldurs-gate-3-looks-to-be-a-game-of-groundbreaking-systemic-depth-%25e2%2580%25a2-eurogamer-net

[idornaseminary]

Chapter One-Hundred Sixty-Five: Beatrice, Enzo, Mel and Natasha

Two left.

Two snared.

His deal was nearly done.

Crix walked close behind the two witches as they made their way from the infirmary to the Great Hall, the waxy rain of floating candles dripping onto their shoulders. He pressed his wand to Mel’s spine and both the witches’ wands against Beatrice’s, her darker curls tinged with blue crackles, the wood pressing into the thoracolumbar junction. If they made one false move, made one snarky comment, if they even looked unsavoury, Crix would sever their spinal cord.

He wouldn’t kill them. He would paralyse them. He would cripple them. He wouldn’t kill them. They were needed for the bigger picture.

Nevertheless, the lustful thought of murder was blissful.

The Great Hall was empty. Silence filled the space where laughter and rapturous hormonal merriment resided when the light shone through the stained-glass windows, shrouded in darkness and fleetingly illuminated by the full moon.

“Over there, get,” he snapped, driving them forward. He brushed at his hip when he felt a tingle of pain, speckles of green glass still embedded in his skin.

Bitch. That potion took me a whole lunar phase. Do we really need them all? Surely I could just kill one of them.  

“Remember, remember, little whores: not an ounce of funny business. Got what I said before memorised? What did I say?”

Mel shrugged. “I dunno. It’s hard to retain anything that comes out of your big mouth. You’ve got one of those voices that belong on a no-maj infomercial.”

“I think you’ll remember very fucking quickly,” Crix laughed, “Unless you want to never see your…”

What was he? Mel and Enzo had history? Was it over? Was it newer than that? Calix had mumbled something about it.

Crix raised his eyebrows quizzically, turning towards Mel and deciding to push on her buttons with force: “Boyfriend? Friend? Fuck buddy? What would you call him?”

“Gentleman caller would be preferable,” said Mel, batting her eyelashes at him.

“I don’t know about that, Mel. Teddy would have to know what a gentleman is to understand,” Beatrice spat at the demented wizard behind her, grinning at the way he winced, favoring his left hip. “I suppose to him, the closest a man could come to being a gentleman is a boyfriend, though I’d wager his experience would disagree.”

Crix narrowed his eyes, his toothy smile broadening as he stepped backward. “There’s no fun in being a gentleman. The days of chivalry and good grace are dead. The fun, the sheer thrill of life, is found in villainy, these days. Like, for example, when Calix kissed that common stale. That was fun. That experience was wonderful.”

Beatrice didn’t even bat an eyelash at his remark, her face remaining calm and cool as she went to stand along the far wall next to her friend. “You mean when you dry humped Jackie Velez in front of the whole school? Yeah. Nice try pinning that on my man, but no cigar bud. Very convincing performance, but it’s hard to get me riled up about something I know you did ex post facto, even if you looked an awfully lot like Cal.”

“Yeah, you’re not as clever and devious as you think you are, pal.” Mel slowly turned so that she faced Crix, his wand pressing into her sternum. “Now, are you going to quit fucking around and actually tell us why you brought us here?”            

“Oh, but I am,” he chuckled, jabbing Mel hard in the chest with the tip of his wand, “The good doctor is dying on his feet in a hovel and I can’t help but wonder what his golden legacy will be. Bastard? Prick? Disloyal cunt? I mean, the world saw Calix do some terrible things. And everyone here is a brainless, cock-sucking sheep - they’ll believe whatever they see. For fuck sake, I’ve been half the students in this god-forsaken shit hole and no one’s noticed for years!”  

He laughed menacingly, pointing towards a panel on the wall behind the dais where the professor sat. “So, yes, bitch, I am that clever. One of your group is half-fucked, the others are soon to join him and, as for you two, you’re going to march down to the dungeon, through that secret passage, to face your swan songs like good little wretches, understand?”

Mel tried her hardest not to flinch away when Crix jabbed her with his wand. Her eyes wandered to the dais, wondering what fresh hell Crix had planned for them beyond that wall. She said nothing, refusing to even meet his eyes. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

Beatrice crossed her arms over her chest and pursed her lips tightly, electricity sparking off her silver painted nails crackling in the cold morning air. “What happens when people look for us? Four students all go missing at the same time? Doctor Evans saw us last with you. What’re you going to do about that? We told her everything, and whether she believes us or not, she knows. That makes you a prime suspect when we’re gone.” she said, wondering why she was trying to reason with a madman.

He shrugged his shoulders, jabbing at them both once more: “I’ll do what I always do; I make the problems disappear. Prime suspect or not, they won’t catch me. Mel’s realised you’re both fucked, hasn’t she? See, she can’t even look at me! The game is up. You’ve lost. So, start moving, please. This is your last chance.”

Enzo panted, groaning as he slogged up yet another staircase. Although Natasha’s healing magic did enough to keep most of his blood inside his body, thin lines of dark crimson would trickle down his fingers every now and again. He pulled the sleeve of his hoodie down, covering up the still deteriorating chunk of skin missing from his left wrist, chewing down on his left cheek hard enough to attempt to distract himself from the pain.

That was when he saw a sliver of light at the top of the staircase.

“I think… we’re almost out,” he said to Natasha, praying that this was not another one of Theodore’s illusions.

Natasha had elected to follow behind Enzo as they trudged up the long staircases. First of all, if he collapsed, it would be easier to prevent him from tumbling all the way back down, and second, an attack seemed more likely from behind, should Crix find them missing, and she was currently the one in better shape to defend them.

Her eyes landed on the same light that Enzo was seeing, relieved both that they were nearing escape, and that he wasn’t hallucinating from his blood loss.

“Finally,” she mumbled, a bit short of breath. They had been climbing for a while, and she was exhausted. But it seemed to only be a little bit farther. At least in a relative sense.

He took the stairs two at a time then, forgetting his pain and faintness. He reached the top, peering through the crack. “We’re on the main floor of the castle,” he said in a hushed whisper. He then noticed the grand windows around the corridor, revealing the full moon. “It’s nighttime… or early morning.”

He pushed the door open and he and Natasha stepped through. As soon as their bodies entered the main corridor of the first floor, Enzo noted that the door behind him vanished. It must have been a portal of some sort, disguised as nothing more than the wall.

Clever.

Natasha couldn’t be more relieved when they finally stepped through the door and into the first floor corridor. The sight was a surprise, but at least they were free. She looked around, seeing the moon and realizing Enzo was right. There was no one around, which she supposed was a good thing. What would people think if they saw the pair just stepping out of the wall?

That was when they heard distinct voices echoing from the Great Hall…

“That’s Theodore… and Beatrice, and…” Enzo’s voice faded and he listened to their conversation. When he heard Theodore’s threats, he looked back to Natasha, and, for a moment, wondered how, out of any of the five, she and him got wrapped up playing hero together.

“Wand,” he muttered, drawing his own and creeping up to the large, double doors.

Natasha almost rolled her eyes at the last word from Enzo, and would have if the situation wasn’t so dire. Does he think I was just going to charge in there without a wand? Seriously? However, she held back her biting comments and drew her wand as well, following the Aquilen towards the doors.

Enzo took a deep breath, creaking open the door just enough to see the scene inside. There was Theodore, looking a little worse for wear. And there were their friends, being held at wand point.

No time for plans.

He gritted his teeth, pushing open the door, trying to ignore the aching flames licking up the nerves in his arm as the wound on his wrist flared up. He and Natasha stepped into the Great Hall, and Enzo raised his wand.

“Drop it!” he called, his voice booming around the dark, empty room.

Crix spun on his heels, shifting behind the two witches at the sound of voices, one set of wands firmly pointed at them, the other over their heads, waving rhythmically between the two uninvited intruders.

He spat at them, a bilious anger rising from the pit of his stomach. How the fuck did they get out? They were supposed to be trapped! They were his two caged captives!

“You little fuckers! Don’t move,” he called, observing that Calix wasn’t with them, “Not one more step!”

Natasha shook her head, pointing her wand directly at Crix between Mel and Beatrice. She knew he had their own wands pointed at them, but she doubted he would be able to use all three at once.

“You’re outnumbered, Crix,” she told him. “Why don’t you drop the wands?”

“Natasha! Enzo!” Mel exclaimed, relief flooding her system. Her eyes fell on Enzo, on his blood-soaked clothes and scarred wrist. Her throat tightened.

“I said not one step! Don’t move a muscle, or I’ll kill them both,” Crix sneered, his treacherous heart beginning to thunder in his chest. “Now, I’ll only give you this chance once, drop your wands. You can’t win.”

Beatrice glanced between the two witches and wizards, eyes wild. She needed to try and get her wand back now. Though Crix was physically outnumbered, he was out of his mind deranged, and he could potentially do something they’d all regret. Her fingers twitched nervously and she glanced at the wizard closest to her, wondering if she could summon her wand, though she thought it worth a try. She just needed to wait for an opening.

“You hurt them, we kill you,” Enzo spat, taking another step closer.

He watched as Melanie and Beatrice stared at he and Natasha. They were clearly wandless, or they would have fought back by now. How did he disarm them? It occurred to Enzo then that Theodore Crix was not all that he seemed. Potions major, maybe. However, if he was collecting students without anyone noticing, he was no novice.

“Is whatever you’re trying to accomplish worth dying for?” Enzo asked, taking yet another step closer.

Just need to be able to separate him from the girls…

“Dying?” Crix asked, jabbing both the witches’ wands into their backs, their bodies jerking forward. “I have no intention of dying. Try and kill me! I’ll have you all.”

He waved his wand in an arching motion, the chain holding one of the ornate chandeliers above Enzo and Natasha’s head shattering. Gravity took hold. The chandelier began to fall.

Natasha was going to retort when Crix waved his wand, the sound of something above their heads breaking right after. She didn’t think, just grabbing Enzo by his collar and dragging him with her as she dove out of the way. Normally she would trust him to have good enough reflexes to get himself out, but after his injury, she had reason to doubt it. She hit the ground off to the side, hard, feeling exactly where bruises were going to form beneath her pale skin. But she wasn’t concerned about that right now. She was much more worried about the Arschgeige that just tried to kill her and Enzo.

The Cucurrion pointed her wand at Crix. “Stupefy.” She doubted the spell would work, but it would at least cause him to focus on something other than killing them for a second.

Enzo did not even have time to look up before Natasha grabbed him, hauling him out of the way of his certain death. He stumbled, falling to the ground beside her as the chandelier smashed, bits of crystal flinging everywhere, some scratching at Enzo’s cheeks. He clenched his eyes shut, making sure it would not blind him, when he heard Natasha fire the first spell.

He scrambled to his feet, aiming his wand back towards Theodore who clearly was ready to abandon his mission to ensure his survival.  

Crix shoved Beatrice aside, grabbing Mel, who was closer, and wrapping his arm around her throat. Natasha’s spell whistled past their heads, narrowly missing Mel’s cheek as she was pulled aside.

Crix smiled manically. A change was needed. His plan was dynamic. He still had time. And a chance. He had them all in the same place.

Two of them didn’t have wands.

One appeared hurt.

He could still - would - still do this.

“Let’s see how good your friends are, yeah?” Crix purred into Mel’s ear, his words poisonous. He raised his wand and two of the long tables came hurtling from the back of the hall towards the wizard and witch.

Beatrice narrowed her eyes at Teddy and balled her hands into fists, her nose wrinkled in anger as she stood along the wall where she was shoved. It seemed to her as though he had no idea what he was doing moving forwards. He was between a rock and a hard place and he was just trying to inflict as much damage as she could. Watching helplessly as the tables flew towards her friends, a thought struck her, which made the whole world come to a grinding halt in her mind.

Where is Calix?

She swallowed tightly and slowly crept forwards, glad that the maniac had thrown her aside until she stood behind him, her coiled black hair frizzing with bolts of lightning. This asshole killed her man, and he was trying to kill everybody else now too. Wand or no wand, she was willing to do anything at this point to allow her friends an opportunity to take him down. “Sounds good to me, jackass,” she growled, reaching forward to grab his wrist, attempting to pull it behind his back.

Mel’s skin crawled when she felt Crix’s breath on her ear. Mind racing, she desperately tried to think of something she could do to free herself from his grasp.

Then Beatrice grabbed his free wrist, causing his grip on Mel to loosen. Letting out a snarl, she pulled herself forward and rammed her elbow into his groin. She was able to fully break free and stumbled across the floor to where Enzo and Natasha stood. Panting, she clutched at Enzo’s pant leg, unable to bring herself to stand right away.

Enzo felt Melanie grab his leg as Beatrice disarmed him, just before raising his wand to shatter the table flying his way into millions of splinters. He hardly had enough time to cast a shield around him, Melanie, and Natasha before they were sent to them.

He reached his semi-working arm down, grabbing Melanie and hauling her to her feet. She looked okay - not hurt. He breathed a sigh of relief, focusing his attention back to Theodore.

Crix doubled over, a sharp, intense pain momentarily blinding his vision. He wrenched his arm free from Beatrice’s tight grasp and cast a bombarda charm to drive her away.

The pain seared. Crix swallowed air quickly. His eyes scrunched shut. Casting a healing spell, dark smoke dropped from his hands, pitch black with a stomach-churning smell of rot and decay, that made the pain in his midriff ebb and wane.

Little bitch, he thought as his eyes opened, watching Mel run back towards Enzo.

I’ll get you all!

Crix raised his wand, pointed it at Mel’s back and roared:

“Crucio!”

Mel doubled over, buckling in an instant as pain flooded her entire body, a searing, crippling agony she had never experienced in her life. Her body convulsed, tears streaming down her cheeks as her mind blocked out all of her surroundings and tunneled into the only thing that was real for her right now - suffering. Her lungs burned, and it took a moment for her to realize she was screaming.

Beatrice watched horrified, her jaw dropped as Crix cast an Unforgivable Curse on one of her friends, making the rest of the world fall silent. The Samoan witch looked down at the ground, eyes going wide with glee as she realized her holly wand was there fallen on the stone floor for the taking. She quickly glanced at Teddy, hearing nothing but the screaming of a witch in pain and her blood thundering in her ears, and bent down, grabbing her wand before scuttling back, pointing it at him.

What do I do? Which spell do I use?

Enzo flinched as the curse hit Melanie’s back, sending her to the floor in a frenzy. The curse echoed in his mind: ‘Crucio.’ After Winter Break, it was no longer something he learned about in a classroom. It was something beaten into his head.

All of that fell away when as he watched Melanie scream in agony on the floor, tears streaming down her face. He immediately fell to his knees before her, holding her head up from slamming against the hard marble below as the curse wracked her body.

“Someone stop him!” he hollered, his voice booming louder than it ever had before.

It was then that he heard the Great Hall’s doors swing open once again, and out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a white gown and a cascade of white-blonde hair: Headmistress Liara. Behind her was a renegade of students, many screaming in horror as they witnessed the atrocity in what they always felt was the safest place in the castle.

Beatrice swallowed tightly and saw Calix’s bloody, bruised, lifeless body in her mind’s eye. The pale bruised skin with dried blood crusted around his wrists, his lips cracked and curled up into a sickening smile. He deserved better than to die by the hand somebody as wicked and depraved as Theodore Crix. But then again, he wouldn’t have wanted to cause anybody harm, no matter how malevolent they were. She started to lower her wand and shook her head, grip faintly tightening around the whippy wood. Calix was better than that, and Crix didn’t deserve to die; perhaps have his career ruined and spend the rest of his life in prison, but he didn’t deserve to die.

Enzo noticed Beatrice lowering her wand; she was going to spare him. As Melanie continued to convulse in his arms, on the brink of death, anger swelled in his chest. It wasn’t morally right, he knew that, but he was not going to let Melanie die.

“He killed Calix!” Enzo hollered the lie at Beatrice who met his gaze. “In the dungeons. I watched it happen. He tortured him until he bled to death! He’s going to kill Melanie, too! Do it!”

Her bottom lip trembling, Beatrice glared at the man in front of her, her blood boiling and making her face red. Around her head, her curly hair rose like a black storm cloud, crackling and alive with rage. She swallowed tightly and sniffed, pushing aside the thoughts of her deceased love as hot angry tears rolled down her cheeks. 

“Avada Kedavra,” she muttered viciously under her breath.

Her eyes went wide, the world slowing down to the pace of a snail as she watched, wondering if she was really the one to cast the killing curse. She saw the bolt of green light escape the tip of her wand, hurtling towards Theodore Crix with alarming speed before colliding with his back turned towards her. The spell caught him dead on, and Beatrice couldn’t help but stand there paralyzed as she saw him fall face forwards towards the floor, landing with a sickening thud that made her heart skip a beat.

What have I done?