#a very big die in the most horrific manner possible

[queercatboyrights]

what the FUCK since when did the college start charging 150$ for the railway pass that's supposed to be FREE for all college students????

[gnollface]

“My time with the Gnolls.”

(Wrote this as a proof of concept for another anthology project, reading it again i want to revisit it.)

"My time with the Gnolls."

📷

(Wrote this as a proof of concept for another anthology project, reading it again i want to revisit it.)

Excerpt from "My time with the Gnolls" by Dr. Jaysis Une

“When i first began informing my colleagues and friends of my desire to begin an in depth study of the Gnoll race the responses were more or less what one might expect and largely (and unsurprisingly uniform.)

The consensus being that I had, quite simply, lost my mind.

What more could there possibly be to know? Gnolls were mindless blood thirsty demon spawn and

To embark on such a course was akin to suicide.

I took no offense,

I like them, knew well the stories of the savage and brutal nature of the minions of Yeenoghu

“The goddess of slaughter”

“The ruler of Ruin” and any number of other terrifying descriptors.

The Gnolls were little more than horrific and infernal automatons focused solely on slaughtering any living thing standing before them so that they may in turn slaughter any that might further be found behind those tragic souls.

And So while this was not my first dangerous subject to pursue, it was far and away the most

And as such i did my full due diligence as a man of science and assembled all the knowledge i had gained personally to that point and sought out master hunters, warriors and soldiers to add any first hand information i was able before crafting a master plan and outline to maximize my safety while still maintaining my ability to study and observe my horrific quarry. My preparations took the better part of a year before i felt comfortable to embark.

But as the old Gnomish saying goes “All great tragedy follows once great plans”

And i am ashamed to admit it was a humblingly short amount of time until,

despite my best efforts,

my worst fears had come to pass and I found myself captured by the Gnoll warband I had,

To this point, thought I was following from a safe distance unseen.

For reasons i even now still do not fully understand the Gnoll scouts did not immediately kill me but brought me back to their makeshift camp and threw me to the bottom of a roughly dug dirt pit

its top covered with a crudely made barred gate of sticks and branches.

I landed awkwardly and the hard soil and clay bottom with a sound that sickens me to recall to this day.

I had only just begun to gather my bearings and assess the nature of my situation when a low and gravelly voice reached me from a darkened corner at the other side of the pit.

"You must go…..out." it said.

I quickly jumped up from my knees to my feet and backed myself against the wall in fear.

I was not alone in my cell

But a very distinct terror washed over me as my eyes, now adjusting to the dark, made out the shape of my new cell mate, another large Gnoll.

A flood of thoughts filled my head, was this some kind of Chieftain?

Was I to be its food?

Perhaps a toy to be sacrificed to their demon goddess?

What should i do?

I was a researcher, a biologist, not a fighter, i would not mount much of a defense against this hulking creature.

"Wuh-what?` `I replied, shaking in fear.

"They keep you….for Flind. ( Referring to a massive gnoll often serving as warchief for the band )

“Flind mad...when others...leave no blood." The Gnoll explained to me quietly seemingly struggly to capture each word in its head before using it

It said all this without looking over.

For whatever reason, perhaps something in its tone, my fear began to subside slightly, something led me to believe perhaps my new cellmate was not the threat to me I immediately feared..

"Why have they thrown you in here?" I asked him (i think it was a him) surprising myself, the words had left my mouth before i even registered the idea of asking it

I cautiously lowered myself to the floor against the wall opposite him.

"I am...broken." He responded meekly and though i can't be certain, i swear he smirked and chuckled as he made this comment.

Gnolls make such a variety of noises it's often hard to determine.

"Broken?" I pressed, confused, perhaps in his shallow grasp of common he had misspoke?

With this he looked down from the barred ceiling and towards me for the first time,

what little light that was reaching us at the bottom of our hole now reflecting in his yellow eyes giving them the appearance of glowing cinders.

It sent chills down my spine like ice water.

"I am….clean of Yeenoghu, I no…..hear yeenoghu, I do not….heed, I am clean.

Broken...they say." he pointed upwards as he explained to clarify whom he was speaking of.

Though his common tongue was not very fluid he definitely demonstrated a level of intelligence i to this point had never seen exhibited in a Gnoll.

The scientist inside me roared to life, my mind overcome with questions and possibilities, no longer considering the very real danger of my predicament. I straightened myself into a more comfortable position and swatted some dirt from my pants.

"My name is Jaysis, well met." I offered.

He turned his head away slightly and side eyed me

seemingly confused and slightly suspicious before returning his gaze skyward.

after a moment or two, perhaps after consideration

"Hoontra, I am Hoontra"

The large gnoll offered back tapping his big clawed hands against his chest as he too straightened to face me better, it was then, as he came more into the limited light that i noticed he was gravely injured,

both his legs were badly broken.

"You're hurt." i pointed to his legs stating what must have seemed obvious.

Hoontra shrugged,

"Dead soon...gone...Home soon." he replied as he looked up at the night sky through the bars as if contemplating the stars, calmly, and remarkably so considering his words.

As the night went on I started to more clearly notice His mannerisms and movements. they expressed a thoughtfulness that surprised me more than his intelligence.

Gnolls with thoughts?

It was then another thought came to me.

If Hoontra was resigned to his imminent demise what hope could i possibly have?

Well if this is how i am to die, I thought to myself, then I shall die as I lived, and I again pressed the Gnoll for more information.

"How did you become Broken?...eh Clean Hoontra?" i asked him

and again the big gnoll shrugged, not breaking his skyward gaze.

"Hoontra battle..and fall...hurt..Hoontra look quiet place to die, find pretty place, many trees.That place... mama call me, I wake up….clean, no mad, no hungry, no red, just Hoontra. Hoontra and Mama." with this Hoontra resignedly smiled, I suppose i can't be certain it was a smile, an exposing of the fangs for a gnoll is no rare thing…...but i like to believe it was.

I took in what he said in stunned silence, here i sat having a conversation with a Gnoll, what would the others think of this story? I’d likely never learn the answer to that question.

There Hoontra sat staring skyward, he showed no sign of pain, no sign of anger, sadness or anxiety, just what seemed contentment as he continued to look out into the night.

But each answer Hoontra gave me only raised more questions in me

"Who is Mama Hoontra? Who cleaned you? " I asked

With this question again Hoontra looked to me and extended his large muscular arm to the dirt wall besides him and gently pressed his large clawed fingers against a roughly carved image of a Unicorn head.

"MeekiLee, Meekilee is mama." The coincidences were too striking to not be comfortable in assuming that "MeekiLee" was his pronunciation or interpretation of Mielikki the forest goddess.

I was gobsmacked, was it true? Could the Gnolls be cleansed of their demonic taint? Had the ranger goddess cleansed this gnoll? But my internal debate was interrupted as Hoontra continued

"Meekilee forgive and clean... soon Hoontra die and run in tall grass...forever, and Meekilee run with me." Hoontra looked to a small wooden circle carved with the image of a unicorn he wore around his neck tied with some shoddy twine. He turned it around in his fingers for a few seconds before shifting onto his back exhaling deeply, as he moved. For the first time it was clear that he was in some pain

"I sleep...you escape...wake up Hoontra...Hoontra help" I nodded and smiled at this most surprising beast and crossed my arms, a million questions rolling through my mind keeping the the reality of my imminent death at bay.

After some time my thoughts however were broken by the sudden sounds of battle above. Hoontra quickly straightened up eyes wide. With a stunning speed he launched himself forward on just his arms, dragging his broken legs behind him and grabbed me.

He pulled me behind his huge body defensively and lowered his head in a gutteral snarl, the black mohawk of hair running down his spine spiking upwards. I tensed in fear suddenly overwhelmed by everything going on around me,

was this it? was this how i die?

I sunk my fingers into the tattered cloak Hoontra wore over his back and I closed my eyes when suddenly a loud BANG rang out from above followed by several gentle thuds.

Hoontras body tensed suddenly and then he exhaled deeply and his body went limp as he collapsed before me.

“Hoontra!” i said loudly as I shook him, paying no mind to whatever was above.

"Jaysis! Jaysis Une! are you down there? " a human voice called down into the hole as light suddenly surrounded me.

"Yes! im here!" I responded as I looked up and saw three armed men holding crossbows and a torch.

"You ok?" another of the men continued.

"Im unharmed!" I yelled back suddenly relieved

but that feeling quickly changed as I looked down at the body of Hoontra.

"Ok just hold on a minute. we'll find some rope and get you out of there." the men said as they walked out of my range of vision.

I rolled Hoontra over onto his back as gently as I was able, he was shockingly heavy, I surveyed his arrow riddled body and sighed as I struggled to pull his arms over to cross his stomach in some feeble attempt at a show of respect.

There was no way the men would have known, How could they? who in a million years would ever believe a Gnoll could be anything, but well...a gnoll?

I sat beside Hoontra for a few minutes collecting my thoughts, now being able to truly appreciate how big a gnoll is, knowing, id likely never be this close to one again.It was then i noticed that his one hand was closed in a fist, grasping the small wooden symbol of his “Meekilee”

a peaceful smile, yes, it was a smile, on his scarred canine face.

"Doctor! we're lowering the rope to you now." the men had returned.

"Gentleman!" i spoke back "I'm going to need to take this corpse back with me….for study " i said to the men.

The leader sighed "Doctor, there are plenty of dead gnolls up here we ...." he tried to explain when i cut him off

"No, I need this one, ten gold for each of you if you help me get it back to my home." With this the men's eyes widened and with smiles they hurried off to find more rope.

Of course there will be no study.

There is a clearing in my garden at the base of an old oak tree surrounded by different flowers and bushes and such. It has a clear view of the sky and the stars at night, I often sit there to read my books by candle light or a small fire.

occasionally, distracted by the infinity of the night sky i stare off and wonder about everything

and nothing.

This is where ill bury my friend Hoontra and perhaps ill leave a carved unicorn so Meekilee will know where to find her son so they may run together in the tall grass forever.

[cant-blink]

Kamata-kun Meets Ghidorah, Part 1: Who Will Know?

Summary: Kamata-kun seeks answers as to what happened to Godzilla. Unfortunately, that means he comes face-to-face with Ghidorah and nothing good can come of that.

-

If I die in this world, Who will know something of me? I am lost, no one knows There’s no trace of my yearning.

The ocean feels so empty.

Surrounded by darkness, a resting Kamata-kun drifts slowly over the sea floor. Every small movement, every lazy swish of his tail propels him forward to send water through his mouth into his gills. But the same motion that allowed for his breath also sends jolts of pain through his body, adding to the burning sensation ever-present within his core. The water around him was stained red from the blood ejected from his gills, bubbles forming around him from the sheer heat of said blood. An never-ending effort to keep himself cool, keep himself alive despite the constant torture.

Even in sleep, he could not escape it.

There was a time in his life where this pain didn’t exist; he always struggled to revisit those memories. They tend to come to him in dreams, fanciful dreams of a time long past. He would dream of the dark being a comfort, of being small and content. His life back then was not a particularly eventful one; most of it was aimless drifting, eating whatever fish he happened upon that he managed to snare within his many rows of sharp teeth.

Simple. But happy.

All that changed when he followed an odd scent into new territory, where the food and water held a strange new taste. It was that Taste that started this whole nightmare of existence.

He never knew such pain before he encountered The Taste. He never felt such heat within him, so intense that it felt as though he was on fire. He remembered how the agony drove him mad and eventually propelled him to swim himself ashore in an effort to escape it. But there was no escape, and if anything, being out of his element and onto unfamiliar terrain made the pain even worse!

He recalled laying there, beached and unable to move or breathe, waiting for the merciful hands of Death to take him and free him from this hell. His body was quickly suffocating and without the cool water around him, the fire within was only getting hotter and hotter. Surely, it would not take long to perish. But his wish was not to be granted, as instead, another intense wave of pain overtook him. He remembered thrashing about on the rocky shore, blood pouring from his gills and from the wounds left by the jagged stone. He remembered The Change happening, every fiber of his being screaming at him as he struggled in vain.

He remembered by the end of it, he was able to take his first breaths of air into new lungs. He was able to push himself against gravity with newly formed legs and take his first shaky steps.

It was not worth it and he used this new form only to retreat back into the ocean. The burning cooled back down to more bearable level, and as his head cleared and panic faded, it was then he realized...

His body will not allow him to die.

He would have to live with this new form and the horrific pain that came with it for the rest of his life, and that he did.

But I must carry on. Nothing worse can befall. All my fears, all my tears Tell my heart there’s a hole.

He never strayed back ashore, knowing that would only bring more torment and limiting that torment was his top priority. Every minute, of every day, year after year, he pushed on. Every so often, he would return to site of The Taste, to feed. He never liked going back, reminding himself of that fateful day, but he knew of nowhere else to go. It was one of those feedings that brought him into contact with him.

The Big One.

He felt The Big One, heard him, before he saw him. His body picked up the infrasonic waves, the call growing stronger and stronger. It reverberated through his aching muscles, into his very bones. His first sight of him was a blue glow pulsing in the darkness. A light that drew him in, like a small fish drawn to the glow of a predator. He remembered first setting his eyes on the massive beast.

And realizing that this newcomer was the same. The same as him. The same dorsal spines, the same long fluke-less tail. The same legs and gills. There was even a hint of The Taste from him, less strong and more pleasant.

It was the first time he ever recalled feeling joy since The Taste. Joy that outweighed his sorrow and for the first time, he was able to forget the pain.

The Big One regarded him, swam close to him. The bright blue light would grow more intense. Language of light was common in such depths, and as The Big One continued to flash intense light at him, he felt his body Change slightly, and a purple glow came from his dorsal spines in return. Dimmer lights, a steady glow. No threat.

The Big One scrutinized him for a long moment before he too dimmed the blue light. No threat. He watched in awe as the titan then turned and swam away.

Kamata-kun followed.

He followed and followed until he could not follow anymore. The Big One was such a comfort to him, that whenever he was in the giant’s presence, the pain was pushed to the back of his mind. He finally had someone like him, who knew what he went through, someone who no doubt felt the same pain as he did. Hell, Kamata-kun didn’t even have to go back to the site of The Taste anymore, just being by him allowed him to feed off trails The Big One left behind! 

Sometimes, The Big One would make sounds at him. Sounds distinct from the ever-present infrasonic that Kamata-kun learned to distinguish from the rest of the noise. Every time he lost sight of The Big One, he would use this infrasonic waves to relocate him, and when they met, it was inevitable that The Big One would eventually start making those distinct sounds at him.

It happened enough that it triggered another Change from within. A minor one, no less painful than usual, and soon, Kamata-kun was able to make sounds too.

But The Big One never seemed to understand him.

That’s okay. The presence of one like him was enough to satisfy. 

But one day, everything changed. Kamata-kun could no longer find The Big One, because the infrasonic noise was gone. Cut off abruptly in an unsettling manner. At the same time, a new sensation overtook him. A sense of dread separate from any he’s known. A new call took The Big One’s place, and it held no comfort or significance to Kamata-kun. There was a forceful demanding tone in that call, he knew not what it meant. It didn’t matter anyway.

He waited and waited, for the presence of The Big One to return, but it never did. There was no more distraction from his pain and it felt like he was back to square one. Except worse, because now he knows the feeling of loss.

The ocean felt so empty.

I wear a void, Not even hope. A downward slope Is all I see.

It was almost too much. More and more, he would feel a primal impulse to come back ashore, to try once more to force Death upon himself although he knew it would do no good. The Change will just happen again, to force survival against his will. There was no purpose in running himself onto the unforgiving land. Unless...

The period of inexplicable, unnatural dread was almost suffocating, and although it did not last long, it still marked the day where The Big One was lost to him. That sensation had something to do with the disappearance, as was the new infrasonic waves that took the place of the one he once knew and loved. Perhaps his judgement is clouded more than usual, but he can’t help but think if he tracked down the source of these new calls, it would be his best chance at getting answers.

If anything, he just wants to know what became of his only friend.

So that was what he has been doing these past few days. The Source moved fast, and he would push himself to his limit to follow it. His mind became hyper-focused on those waves, where nothing else existed. Even when his body pined for The Taste, he would not be distracted. The infrasonic noise was getting clearer and louder, a clear sign he was drawing closer. 

This was where he finds himself now. He has been resting since nightfall, to gather his strength in preparation of what lies ahead. As he stirs from his sleep beyond the hours of midnight, he turns himself back towards The Source. It is very close now, up onto the shore. Memories of the last time he beached, the intense pain it brought, intrudes his mind. Only greater pain awaits him there; although he would no longer suffocate, the burning within him would get worse and worse and...

He had to do it.

It is the only way to know the fate of The Big One and if possible, bring him back.

He has nothing left to lose...

-

It is the pillar of steam suddenly rising from the surface of the ocean that catches his keen eyes.

With the full moon reflected off the surface, it highlights the pillar with its silvery rays and San focuses his gaze intently onto it, curiosity overwhelming him as he sees a plume of bubbles break the surface as if the water is boiling. A silhouette appears at the center of the activity. It wasn’t a rock, for it was moving. It is a low hump at first before a long serpentine shape rises high up from the water. It stands out like a sore thumb, in the midst of the vast open ocean stretched out beyond the waves before the silhouette disappears once more beneath the surface.

His tongue flicks from his mouth, and he stretches his neck up to try to raise himself higher. His brothers are asleep, and he is careful not to disturb them as he squints his eyes at the vibrant color of red on the water’s surface. There is a heavy scent of the sea obscuring the scent, but San knows the smell, scent of blood. Red is the color of blood from most of the native creatures they have come across on this planet, and red is the color on the water’s surface.

Is this creature dying? Injured? Such intense curiosity that has him wanting to venture closer if he could.

After a moment of staring, he finds the creature, whatever it was, is approaching them. Why? Glancing towards his brothers, he decides it could possibly be a threat and that his siblings wouldn’t get mad for the rude awakening. So he sends a jolt of alarm through them, powerful enough for them to jerk their heads up, Ni automatically making a snap at the air around him.

Ichi raises his head up, glancing around the sky automatically as it’s usually always attacking alien insects in their metal bird contraptions harassing them. But he sees and hears no sign of them and looks towards San.

The youngest looks off pointedly towards the thing, both his brothers following his gaze. He hears a growl from Ni beginning to rise from his throat and when the creature resurfaces close enough to make out what they are looking at... 

They could see the distinct shape of plates slicing through the water.

“Is that...?” San trails off, curling himself down nervously as he does. He glances toward Ichi, who stares hard at the thing. San tries to keep his voice calm; rather difficult as he recalled the last confrontation they had with the former king. The scales on his neck twitches. “I thought you guys said he was dead!”

“He is,” Ichi’s voice is soft, but is laced with disbelief and anger. “This cannot be possible. He is supposed to be dead.”

They saw it! They saw him drift to the ocean floor after that green light engulfed them. They saw the life fade from his eyes. It made no sense that he was swimming full speed towards them! Both San and Ni could feel the overwhelming anger coming from Ichi’s neurons, an emotion Ni shared but made San more nervous. He’s never felt such rage from his sibling before!

They bring their feet up underneath them, standing from their resting spot and turning to face the advancing titan. Godzilla did not falter from his path and with a flare of their wings, Ghidorah stands up on their hind legs and raise their wings up high in a threatening posture. Their three hearts are racing and Ni is leaning forward, snarling and eager for a fight. San feels his horns flare and he gives a hiss as Godzilla comes closer and-

Oh....

This isn’t Godzilla.

Their wings lower slightly.

Reaching shallow waters as it swims ashore, they could see that this... thing is puny, its torso barely bigger than their heads! And although the back plates are incredibly similar to that of Godzilla, everything else only vaguely resembles him.

After a brief pause, where their hearts calmed down to normal, their wings lower all the way, folding back to rest. Giving a contemptuous snort, Ni lifts himself back up, visibly disappointed as this... thing could in no way offer a proper challenge. San replaces him as he leans forward curiously, wanting to examine and sniff and taste the new thing, but Ichi isn’t coming close to the water’s edge. Just in case.

“What is it?” San questions, wondering if this was a kaiju or not.

“.......... Offspring.” Was Ichi’s verdict after a moment spent in silence, glaring at the little thing pulling itself onto shore with an odd, clumsy gait from short legs. “The young of the false king’s species.”

“It doesn’t smell like Godzilla, though,” San comments, still trying to get as close as he can to the thing, sniffing and flicking his tongue. He flinches back on reflex when the creature let out a shrill cry, punctuated by a spray of blood upon the sand, dripping from the creature’s gills. They can hear gurgled noise vaguely resembling something akin to words, in a language they could not even begin to understand. 

It only serves to baffle them even more; they thought they were pretty fluent in the language of the native kaiju, but it seems that wasn’t the case. Probably some underwater language that need not apply to them.

San has so many questions, so much he wanted to learn about this thing. What was it? Where did it come from? Was it really the child of the former king? Will it bleed if he bit it? Thankfully, Ichi is not immune to the effects of curiosity himself and he holds himself tall as a king should as he addresses the newcomer in a cold voice.

“Who are you and why do you approach us?” 

The creature doesn’t answer them, looking up at them with unblinking dead eyes as it pushes itself further onto the sandy beach. It boldly makes its way up to them before it leans itself up almost upright, resting its weight on its tail like a tripod. It lets out another gurgling shriek of unintelligible “words”, in a rather demanding tone. 

Ni snarls back at it, awaiting Ichi’s orders to tear this defiant little thing apart. 

“Do you know what we say?” San asks slowly with emphasized syllables, earning a brief glare from his oldest brother. Especially when he leans down to touch the creature with his nose, only to have his horn tugged on in reprimand. San feels a spark of impatience, whining softly as he pulls himself back up. Ichi gives him a stern growl before returning his attention to the little creature at their feet.

Such boldness of this creature, to stray from its element and hold its gaze with them. The words coming from it held a tone like it was demanding something of them, but it was clear that it did not understand what they were asking of it. If this was indeed the offspring of the false king, then it had not yet learned the primary kaiju language.

But fear is a universal language, as the telepathic aura of dread and terror emanates from Ghidorah. The creature beneath them falters, coming back down to its more horizontal posture. A smirk begins to grow on Ichi’s snout as he looks down upon the child, reveling on its change of behavior. So easy to manipulate the lesser creatures of this world. Oddly enough, though, this creature did not turn tail and retreat as he expected. Was it that upset that they usurped the throne? Was it here to avenge the death of its sire? Such a foolish endeavor for one so young.

“It’s still here~,” San coos, glancing towards Ichi. “It must really want to fight.”

At this, Ni snorts but San continues, sending a wave of playfulness towards his eldest sibling.

“Can we, Brother Ichi?”

Ichi does not reject the request immediately, his sharp eyes gazing over the child before a cold smirk graces his snout. What a fitting fate for the offspring of their fallen rival; the last trace of his legacy reduced to nothing more than a toy.

“Yes,” he answers, much to the delight of the youngest. “It most certainly would do well to show this creature the error of his ways in approaching us so recklessly.”

Ghidorah moves forward, the creature letting out another piercing shriek. But it still does nothing to retreat, even as San moves forward to grab the little thing’s back in his jaws. His teeth sinks into its wet flesh and is startled to find that it did not feel the same as it did when biting Godzilla. There was no thick hide hindering the strength of his bite. The creature’s skin felt cold to his gums, but the blood smearing his scales from those gills felt surprisingly hot. Much like the lava in their slave’s volcano.

It wasn’t painful but it was enough of a surprise for him to let go. And no sooner did he do that than Ni lunges forward and grabs the child in his own jaws as well. There was no inhibition to the strength in his bite, and the creature lets out another terrible shriek. For once, San did not enjoy the sound of that.

“Brother Ni! No!” the left head cries out in dismay, well-aware of his older brother’s intentions to destroy his toy. Ni ALWAYS destroys his toys and he looks to Ichi in the hopes that he’ll stop it. “Brother Iiiichiiii!”

“Brother Ni,” Ichi starts, his gaze firm on the right head. “Release it, now.”

Ni growls, as the tiny thing chews on his upper lip in some vain attempt to fight back. He had the powerful impulse to shake his head, to kill this pathetic creature immediately. But at the alpha’s orders, he opens his jaws to let the thing drop. But it doesn’t let go of him, hanging off his lip stubbornly. He growls louder and swings his head to slam it against the ground. He did this several times before it lets go and it took every inch of his being not to Gravity Beam the brat out of existence. But he had some semblance of self-control to his anger and irritation. He understood now; this was no actual ‘fight’. This was just pointless play time for the other two. Without a word, he licks the blood from his lips as he pulls away, lifting himself high to keep watch as he typically does whenever Ichi and San wasted their time on games.

With their toy freed, San lets out a giggle as Ichi takes the still-recovering creature by its tail and lifts it from the ground. Its feet kick uselessly at the air, trying desperately to curl upwards and bite but to no avail. Ichi ignores its writhing as he takes the child further inland, away from the water it called home. He wants to give it no hope of escape, have it develop learned helplessness before they torture it. Given how feisty it is, it could be a process and a fun one at that.

Finding a particularly jagged rocky ground, Ichi drops the child unceremoniously to fall onto the sharp rocks. There was noticeably larger squirt of blood from its gills on impact, wisps of smoke coming from the puddles. San is quick to lean down to flick his tongue upon the bloodied rocks, wanting to taste. Strangely, its flavor of radiation was exceptionally strong and it was even hotter than it was moments before. Interesting.

The creature is pushing itself onto its feet again, sides bloodied and bruised. Even now, it maintains its defiance and is now emitting a very bright purple glow from its dorsal spines. It is something they recognized, as it was the same threat display the former king of this world once displayed towards them. It is quite amusing seeing it again, in a feeble creature incapable of properly fighting back.

It’s this defenselessness that gives San his boldness as he moves away from the splatters to snatch his new toy in his jaws once more. He wants to watch it hit the rocks again, maybe with more force to test its durability and how high he can make it bounce! He is ready this time for the unexpected heat of its blood, and he purrs as he sinks his fangs into the creature, relishing its shriek of pain as he begins to lift it...

-

As long as breath comes from my mouth, I may yet stand the slightest chance. A shaft of light is all I need To cease the darkness killing me.

Another Change is happening, although the pain of it is dwarfed as the giant serpent clamps its jaws onto his torn and bloodied back once more. 

The heat is migrating towards area of the assault, energy accumulating into his dorsal spines very quickly. All this is new to him and acting on pure instincts, Kamata-kun takes this gathered energy and unleashes it in concentrated beams from his dorsal spines right into the mouth of his attacker. He feels blood that was not his own spill upon him, and he is dropped back onto the rocky ground as the head that grabbed him screams in pain. His attacker steps back from him, visibly startled by this show.

He can stop now; he's free from their grasp and maybe now they'll be willing to give him what he wanted and tell him where The Big One is. He wants to stop, he tries to stop, but he had no control over this anymore. His body continues to act on its own accord, as he turns his back on the creature, assaulting it with more of the beams erupting from his plates. This encouraged more space between them as the creature took off into the air to avoid further harm.

They were running; the source of his answers and his only hope of finding The Big One was running. He still could not regain control as his body kept pushing this new form of counterattack, giving it everything he had until they disappeared into the clouds.

The horrific burning within him was getting truly intense now, far worse than any he's felt previously. And it was this, and not his own will, that forces an end to his defenses. The beams fade abruptly, as does the purple glow from his spines. His back is left in even greater agony and his muscles feel weak as he stumbles. Whatever it was his body did there, it took a lot of strength from him and his over-heating core now urges him to retreat back into the ocean. But he knew he wasn’t going to make it, it seemed so far away, and his shaky legs buckled beneath him. 

Rest. He needs to rest, and he felt his system begin to shut down as a last resort to cool off and prevent his own self-destruction.

As the world around him begins to slowly fade to black, he feels the earth beneath him tremble as the creature returns and lands before him. He barely even had the strength to lift his head enough to meet their angered gaze. No answers ever came from them, but their wounds bled as much as his gills did, and that felt enough of an accomplishment to satisfy him as the world fades to darkness.

He did not know if he was going to wake up again, but at least there was no more pain.

Just comforting darkness.

[horizondawn]

I got so much more from my experience playing The Last of Us Part II than "revenge is bad". It's something I've literally and heavily been dealing with just this past month. I have a lot of deep thoughts here, so here we go. This isn’t saying you’re horrible if you didn’t like the game, but after sitting on it for a while after finishing, these are my thoughts of the series from my perspective through my real life experiences and own personal morals/beliefs and how I try to grow as a person. Key word: Try.

I have a family member who was murdered over 3 decades ago, and it still haunts me and my family to this day. I've had night terrors similar to the ones Ellie had in the game, even if I didn’t see the actual act, so I can only imagine how traumatizing it is for her. The murderer has been locked up and on death row ever since, and for a while I was set on going to the eventual execution. My anger fueled me for an awfully long time, but it wasn't until a few years ago I realized that is not me. Killing him (or in my case wanting satisfaction by watching a live execution) won't bring that family member back, and I would lose a part of myself if I actually went through with what I intended and held onto those feelings. And that was identical to what was happening to Ellie. I didn't want her to lose herself, because going down that destructive path means you come out in the worse possible way. Even worse than the ending we got. I was frustrated with Ellie because I understand her pain to an extent even if the situations are nothing alike, and that is the reason why I bonded, cared, and loved her even more, and I didn't think that was possible. The killing we committed as Joel didn't bother me as much in the first game because they were a bunch of hunters we never really understood. The one time I sat there unable to pull the trigger for a good while was when I was forced to shoot the surgeon, who was later revealed to be Abby’s father. I didn’t want to do it, but I had to in order to finish the game. In Part II we saw so many perspectives on top of knowing Ellie was losing it by deliberately going after these groups of people. The further on I played, even before getting to Abby's perspective when I hated her, I still didn't want Ellie to go through with it. From the very beginning, even though it was going to be brutal, I absolutely did not want Ellie to accomplish this goal. That’s mainly because I know the feeling, and it really does consume you.

It fucking hurt and I was so frustrated with Ellie when she left Dina, JJ, and their life together, but it was because I care so much for her and desperately wanted her to let her anger go rather than the actual writing. I felt for her as a real person rather than just a character who was written. Even if she has lost everything she ever had though, Ellie didn't lose herself or her humanity and ability to care in the end, and that sliver of hope made me feel relieved. The symbolism of her leaving the guitar Joel gifted her, that she could no longer play properly, was a sign of her forgiving him, and letting go.

And that's only from Ellie's perspective. I had to stop playing for a bit the moment I had to start playing as Abby, the biggest emotional whiplash ever. Holy hell though did my perspective change and I eventually loved her as a character. Even if I still hated her I love getting to see different perspectives. Seeing Abby’s story as well contributed to why that final fight made me sob. I stopped controlling Ellie and had her just standing there on the beach because I knew what was about to happen, and I did not want that. I really didn’t know if Ellie was actually going to kill Abby or not. And I cannot describe how many of the tears that were shed were from relief when she didn’t. I would literally love to play a game just focused on Abby and Lev though and see where they go as their dynamic was absolutely amazing and I will fight anyone who hates on Lev; he is such a treasure. And even though I will never forgive Abby for what she did, I’m tired of hanging onto that kind of anger, even if it’s for a fictional character. I want to understand everyone better in reality, because we are all human, and that makes things so very complicated. Add a fallen society after a world wide pandemic that has wiped out most of humanity and it makes it even more complicated. The human experience is insane and no one will ever be able to understand everyone else’s experiences and pain, and that’s what makes individual lives so vast and important. 

I didn’t know any of the spoilers aside from Abby killing Joel, but I didn’t know the specifics, and I didn’t see a single screenshot spoiler. I still have no idea what the spoilers were beyond that. The moment it was announced a sequel was coming out I had a very big feeling Joel was going to die though, so I was okay with that if it happened from a narrative perspective. And you know why? Because the world of The Last of Us is cruel, and people are taken from Ellie in the blink of an eye. One moment Ellie confessed her love to Riley while sharing a sweet kiss and dancing and the next she’s bitten and we know what happened from there. One moment she’s travelling with Joel and Tess and Tess is gone. One moment she’s sharing a wonderful moment with Sam and Henry, and then they’re both gone. In the most brutal and cruel manner that fed her survival’s guilt. And that is why she was so upset with Joel. She lost so many people literally right in front of her. Then she learns the Fireflies are gone because of the one person she was able to grow to love as family, something she never ever had in her life, which also means her previous guardian, Marlene, her mother’s close friend, is gone as well because of him. As Tess quoted, “Guess what, we’re shitty people Joel; it’s been like that for a long time”. Tess was right. Joel was not a good person, and that is what made him unbelievably fascinating as a playable protagonist. But the player grew to know him from Ellie’s direct influence, not from the hardened person he became after 20 years of emotional distance from anyone following the death of Sarah. And that sudden harsh cruelty is exactly what I was expecting in the sequel, even if I wasn’t mentally or emotionally prepared for it. I certainly still got upset with every death there was: Joel, Jesse, Mel, Owen, Yara, everyone. The Last of Us is not focused on happy endings. At all. Of course we wish for that, and the new menu after completing the game shows that there was definitely some hope following what happened on that beach, but the world is more about human emotion and the crazy things we do for the people we love, even if it’s in the worse possible way, and it gives us that bit of questioning wonder with a tiny dash of hope for Ellie and her humanity. That’s exactly what Joel’s actions were for his love for Ellie at the end of the first game. This was Ellie doing the same for her love for him. And what Abby did for her love for her father. And the thing is some people wish we understood Abby from a different order, and I totally understand and respect that. But again, in real life we don’t get the background knowledge of everyone’s pasts either if not for research of some kind, which is why we need to make an effort to learn if possible. That’s all The Last of Us really has to offer, no matter which character’s story we are following, and that is what makes it so special. The second game isn’t driven by hatred alone. It’s about the other gruesome side of things for love.

Now gameplay wise, yes, I do believe structure could have been improved or done differently to help with the flow of the narrative here and there. And there were some moments that felt dragged. But that’s gameplay, not the story itself. I thought The Last of Us was emotional whiplash. That was just preparation to the roller coaster Part II would bring. And I’m not saying Part II is better. Both games are very different stories with very different perspectives, so I honestly can’t compare them. The original game brings the bond of two characters we all grew to fearlessly love. Part II brings what exists outside of the world of those two characters, and that they aren’t the only ones on this teeter totter of having done horrific things in the name of love in this cruel world they live in. Because we’re all only human. In game as Ellie, Joel, and Abby we pick up all of these letters throughout both games about these characters we don’t even see, let alone meet, and yet I want to know more about what happened to them. What are their stories during all of this? And even if you still hate Abby in the end, which is fine, there was that chance of seeing someone else’s story as well that intertwines with Ellie. I personally LOVE it when this happens. And all of us, no matter how horrible the world seems to fall apart, are capable of learning through the knowledge of other’s experiences.

[elireah]

Doctors of tomorrow: showdown

Authors note: Hey guys! This is kind of the first real short story that I have written so let me know what you think! I appreciate your imput and I hope everyone is staying safe out there :) 

“Doctor Walker, come quick, it is Miss Evans again!”

Nate glanced at Nia as she rushed in the breakroom of the Cardiology department. The nurse panted a little from what it looks like a full-on sprint only to take a big gulp of air before continuing her plea of help. 

“Heartrate unstable, extensive sweating, heavy feeling on the chest. I don’t understand what is could be, I checked her treatment but it should be fine,” She rambled.

Nate laid down his juice box and lifted his hand as to halt Nia before she lost consciousness due to a lack of oxygen.  

“Alright, alright, breathe. I will be on my way to check on her,”. Nia’s shoulders lowered themselves slightly, only to tense again.

“Thank you so much, it is rather urgent so if you could…”

Little did she know, Nate was already at Miss Evans’ door. He heard a view cries of surprise down the hall that he had taken. Well, Nia did say to be quick.

He sighted. Miss Evans was not particularly his favorite patient. Opening the door, he put on his best charming-old-people smile.

“Good afternoon, Miss Evans. How are you doing?”

Not a second later, Nate found himself dodging a gurgle of spit, impressively aimed at his head. For the urgency of the manner, Miss Evans seemed to be lively enough. Straightening his spine, he once again faced his patient.

Clustered to the hospital bed sat a fuming 76 year old Miss Evans, already reloading her ammo. “I told them over and over again that I don’t want to be treated by you, you… bloodsucking bastard!”

Mentally, he sighted. Why did everyone always play the race card against him. Miss Evans brought her cross out from under her hospital garment, presenting him with the new member of her arsenal. If looks could kill, he would have met his demise eight times already. Well. If it was possible for him to die again.

Contrary to the earlier chain of events, the unsteady rising of Miss Evans chest indicated that she was not well at all. Good that Nia will be here any second now.

And just as predicted, Nia, undoubtedly having taken another sprint, rounded the corner of Miss Evans’ room. At the sight of Miss Evans harassing me with her cross, she paused her movements. Not that Nate could blame her. It must be quite a sight. Doctor versus patient. Vampire edition.

Nia regained her senses, as well as her breath, and rushed to the struggling Miss Evans. “Miss, please, try to calm yourself. Doctor Walker is only here to take your pulse, please…”

Nate leaned back against the wall close to the door, putting his hands in his lab coat in an effort to look less hostile. Nia should not have said that.

He saw the last of the color in Miss Evans’ face vanish as quick as his mortality had. People are usually not very fond of him coming near their pulse. On the other hand, screw them. It was not like he had wanted to become a vampire. He would remember it until the last of his days. It had been the day before his graduation. Nate could still recall how excited he had been to finally receive his certificate. All that, literal, blood, sweat and tears would finally pay off. So, he and his mates had the brilliant idea to end the era with a bang and go party. One thing led to another and the next thing he knew, he woke up buried under the ground. He did not dig that. Turns out, there is not a manual on how to be a vampire so that was a whole second identity crisis right there. In the end, he managed to receive his certificate while a whole confused audience wondered why he was covered in dirt. After that, he had wondered what to do. Most fantasy novels suggested to join a cult of vampires that would fight for world domination but he did not even know his so-called sire, aka douchbag. Also. He did not fucking go to medical school for ten years to just throw his degree out of the window because of minor physical changes. Let alone the lifetime of debt that he had built up to get his degree in the first place.

Nate had started visiting hospitals, applying for a doctors position. One could imagine how that would go. Most hospitals were satisfied with his specifications and soon enough he was offered a trial position at the Nursery department. It turned out that babies are more perceptive than the common human-being. Needless to say that none of the babes particularly liked him.

Every time he had entered the nursery, a whole orchestra of children would start to cry. This had intrigued a few of his colleagues to experiment a bit. He could still remember Lea holding a baby continuously in- and outside the room he would currently occupy, creating the effect of a human siren. In the end, they had to let him go. His presence had overworked a large part of the department staff.

The next hospital was, ironically, understaffed at the Haematology department. Something about a certain virus that kept them working around the clock. Nate had been a relative new vampire and did fail to mention to his superiors that he was one at all. It is not like he wanted to drink blood but he needed to feed once in a while.

For quite some time, work was fine. He gained more experience in the field and learned his limit regarding his feeding. However, one day the limit was pushed to the edge.

Patient after patient had needed immediate medical attention and although his stamina was infinite, his self-proclaimed iron-deficiency was not. In the end, he may or may not have been caught feasting in the blood donor bank. The room had been an absolute mess. Blood was splattered everywhere. Walls were stained with a blood pattern that even serial killers could learn from. His colleague had seen him, fangs out and crazy eyes. It had been the first time another human realized that he was a vampire. What a great fucking milestone had it been. In the moment, Nate had identified a few stages of behavior that would later serve as his personal tree-chart guide to human-vampire reactions.

First and foremost, shock. Symptoms: mouth agape, pupils dilated and breathing non-existent.

It than took about a minute for his colleague to turn to confusion and denial to explain the sight of him. Shaking his head, mumbling something about ketchup. Third in line was disgust followed by the emptying of the stomach. Mild digestion, horrific smell and an unhealthy looking sausage. It ended with pure terror. High pitch screaming, body fluids dispersing and pants wet. However, the side note must be made that the last reaction can vary between terror and fainting.

Well, after that, the cat was out of the bag. The hospital was evacuated because of an alleged ‘fire’ and Nate had spent the following year avoiding a mild vampire-hunt. Looking back now, it had been a mistake on his part. But just like every fresh-out-of-college doctor, Nate had been desperate for the experience. At least he had learned something. However, he made a promise to himself that he would get the next job on his terms and his terms only.

Nate had walked into his current hospital and demanded to have an interview directly with the head of Cardiology, his preferred department of work. With some willful persuasion, he had ended up in the office of Karen Deas.

Karen had been unlike your typical Karen. Composed, perceptive and in-charge but equally as terrifying as all Karen’s. She just sat there at her desk sizing him up for a while, legs crossed, gaze sharp as a scalpel. Eventually, she had sighted.

“What do you want? My staff knows better to not disturb me with whatever nonsense you have to present to me. Just fill in the form like everyone else and we will consider it.”

She started to ruffle in a pile of clearly unorganized documents and pulled out a form but not without sending the rest of the pile to the floor. Before Karen knew what happened, Nate had intercepted the documents consisting out of new research for a semi-automatic heart prototype, specific patient data and a Tikka Masala recipe. Not a second later, the papers laid neatly on the corner of Karen’s desk. Organized from A to Z. Karen had been frozen in her chair.

Most people just told themselves to be amazed at Nate’s quick reflexes, dismissing the unnaturalness as mind games. But Karen was not most people. She was a goddamn doctor of science.

A few moments of eternal silent consideration later, Karen had lifted her arm slowly to unwind her hair from her tight bun. Her hair flowed to the small of her back as she struggled to get a cigarette out of her backpack.

Unwinding the buildup stress? No, looking back now, her blond locks had been an ever so small layer of defense against him. After all, he had not missed the slight shacking of her hand as she had lit the cigarette.

She had leaned back in her chair, inhaling slowly. Shakely, a big cloud of smoke floated in his direction, barely missing him. Karen again pinned him down with her stare full of questions.

“State your business,”  

So he had told her. About his story, about his vampireness and his ambition. Karen had grown more and more pale during his story but still had maintained her surveilling stare. A whole of six cigarettes had not survived the conversation. She had been silent for while after he had finished. With a long exhale, she had thrown the last of her cigarette in the ashtray.

“What is it that you want from me?”

“A job. I did go to college to be a doctor and I intend to make that true,”

Karen had choked out a laugh, shaking her head.

“And what makes you think that I would let a vampire, a goddamn vampire, in the OK treating patients with heart problems?! The fucking organ responsible for the blood circulation,”

Again she had laughed, a stressed-out and broken sound. “It would be an ethical nightmare.”

Nate had suppressed the urge to role his eyes. As if he didn’t know that. He had experienced it first hand after all. But he had not come in empty-handed. Nate also leaned back in his chair, mirroring Karen’s position.

“Alright. I get your point. But let me strike you a deal. I will play by your rules, obey every tiny detail of them and you will let me work here,” Nate could already tell that she wanted to interrupt him. He lifted his hand to still her already open mouth.

“In exchange, I am willing to cooperate in any medical research you may want to perform on me. Within the bounds of humanity, of course.”

Nate could have practically seen the wheels spinning in Karen’s head. No medical researcher in her right mind would pass on this opportunity. He was the epitome of unknown medical science. Regenerate limbs? No problem. Stop aging? Sure, why not. Cure Cancer? Who knows. All he knew was that this was the only bargain he could make to gain a doctors position. And Karen was tempted. Extremely tempted by the looks of it. He could tell by the way she forcefully pursed her lips on each other and stared into his soul. Willing him to be as good of a person as he had presented himself to be. Again a few moments of silence lay in between them.

Nate had sighted.

“Look, I get it if you need some time to con…” Karen abruptly stood, shoving her chair against the wall. The speed of it made Nate question who the vampire in the room really was.

“Rule number one: Under no circumstances, and when I say no I mean no, will you talk to someone about this,” She started to pace in the small room. “I will introduce a small team who will be notified of your… condition.” It was like she was talking more to herself than to Nate. The following hour, Karen went on with a list of rules that he would need to follow.

“One last thing that I need to know. You must tell me your weakness. If you go out of control, I must know that there is a way to defend ourselves against you.”

Gods, that had hurt his pride a little be he figured it was only fair. Karen was responsible for the lives of all on the department and she was willingly striking a deal with the devil for all she knew. Nate scratched the back of his neck, staring at a crease in Karen’s wooden desk.

“I’m not that familiar with my weaknesses myself to be honest,”

Nate abandoned his chair. Karen visibly stiffened but did not move as he walked in her direction. As he stood before Karen, Nate turned his back to her, presenting her with the nap of his neck.

“However, some time back, I was hunted by some fanatics and they took a pretty good swing close to my neck,” He moved his fingers to the tiny scar on the back of his nap. “I regenerate from all injuries I receive. Whole limbs grow back in a matter of minutes and don’t show any permanent sign of physical harm.” He again faced Karen, who was at this point more curious than scared.

“But this, this wound left a scar and shows no sign of going away.” Nate felt a little sheepish. This was not really a concrete weakness though. It was more of a hypothesis than anything else. Karen’s questionable look had reflected how he felt.  

“There is truly nothing else? Not a stake through the heart? A little bit of sunlight? Or perhaps some garlic?,”

She could not be serious. Nate had laughed out loud. The abrupt sound made her cross her arms over her chest. Apparently she had been dead serious.

“How do you think I walked in here? The sunlight thing is just a myth and I am especially fond of some garlic in my food. And a stake? Seriously? It is not like I come close to death every day.”

“I thought you were already dead,”

Nate threw her a glare. “You know what I mean,”

Karen arched a well-maintained brow but did not push it any further. Nate offered her is hand.

“Do we have a deal or not?”

Still skeptical, but swayed, Karen took his hand. “So you know, I’m not done making rules yet,”

“Yea, I figured.”

And so Nate came to work at the Saint Andrews hospital. It has been three years since the little job interview. And a lot had changed. Yes, there are more rules but he had also gained more freedom. More and more employees got to know about his state of being. He still could not tell if that was a good thing. Some people were just plainly fascinated with him. Others felt the need to make themselves his warden. As if they could. But Nate played along just to fain the illusion of security. And it was surprisingly fun to see Ethan stress-out at everything he did. Drinking a juice box is apparently highly dangerous to the small village that made out the hospital. If Ethan had looked closely, he might have noticed that Nate was drinking plain old tomato juice. A crime in its own right but whatever. Eventually, most of the staff had warmed up to him and even some of the patients came to know what he was. It turns out that people didn’t really mind his existence when they were already busy dying. In the department of fear, he would not stand a chance against Death. But hey, wouldn’t it be way more interesting to be killed by a vampire than by a popped artery? Not that he would, of course. But there were also some people that that did not like him too much.

Like Miss Evans. If he had to believe Miss Evans, the bible apparently had a passage dedicated specifically to male, allegedly bloodsucking, vampire doctors.

A rallying warcry pulled Nate from his thoughts. Miss Evans was screaming bloody murder at Nia as she was trying to calm the wailing women. This had taken long enough. He pushed himself from the wall and striked back his hair. In all the commotion, Miss Evans had lost an IV from her left arm. The punctured skin had soon enough made room for a dark beat of blood.

Nate sniffed the air. Interesting.

While Nia was still occupied on the right-hand of Miss Evans, Nate used his speed to intercept the drop of blood on Miss Evans’ left. To her it must have felt like a gust of wind, but Nate was already back in his place like nothing had happened. He licked the blood from his finger. Just like he expected.

Disgusting.

Everyone always made the mistake that he must love the taste of blood. Nate absolutely loathed it. The blood is only needed to prevent him from going 100% feral and even then he preferred animal blood over human blood any day. Rabbit blood to be specific. The thing about blood was that he could taste everything from the persons emotions and worries to their opinion about him or others. Therefore human blood was always clouded with envy, anger, love or loathing.

Yes, our lovely human-nature tastes like shit.

So he liked his blood bland and free, just like most animals were. However, in the medical field it was quite handy.

Due to the nature of the blood, he could easily diagnose the disease the patient was suffering from. The first time he had tried it, Karen had held him at gunpoint. Although, her silent rage had been more frightening than the M9 pointed at his face. She had locked him in the freeze cell until she had tested the patient on the particular illness he had mentioned. It had taken two whole days. Nate was to only do it again with Karen’s permission. Which meant that there will be some trouble in store for him later on.

Miss Evans blood was laced with her disgust for him. The feeling almost overpowered any other details but he could still distinguish the drugs present in the little drop. But mostly interesting about the taste was that it was ever-changing. One could mostly describe the after taste as ‘selective happiness’. Which is quite a contradicting flavor to her disgust.

“Say Miss Evans, you wouldn’t happen to have had any visitors these days haven’t you?”

The old women stopped her attack on Nia and returned her attention to him.“I don’t answer to you,” Miss Evans proclaimed through her grinding teeth.

Nia dropped her arms to the side of her body in defeat and sighted. “She has had a visit from her pastor this morning. It had something to do with cleansing the room.”

Of course it had.

“Filthy traitor,”. Miss Evans murmured some other insults under her breath while Nate tried to still his murderous thoughts. Him being a vampire had nothing to do with it, any human would have just about enough of this shitty behavior. He took a step closer to monitors surveilling Miss Evans. Her blood pressure seems to have skyrocketed since 1 pm. He narrowed his eyes.

“Now, now Cindy, it is not nice to lie to the people trying to save your life.” he purred.

Upon using her first name, Miss Evans seemed to shrink back a little. So she does sense when he had enough. Good.

“I seems like that pastor of yours and you had a nice chat. He even brought you flowers.”

Miss Evans’ eyes shot to the bouquet of flowers on her nightstand.“Yes, yes, he is a very nice man indeed. He even recited a verse from the bible.”

She grabbed for the bible on the edge of the nightstand. No insult this time. Nate fondled a rose petal from the roses as Miss Evans frantically tried to seek the verse in her worn-out bible. “Ah yes, here.” 

God, give me grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, Courage to change the things which should be changed, and the Wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.

Amen.

Nate snorted. Amen indeed.

Still fondling the rose petal, he let out a fit of laugher. It was just too damn funny. Slowly pulling himself together, he met Miss Evans’ baffled stare.

“You must feel very serene or am I perhaps mistaken Miss Evans?”

Miss Evans went stone-faced. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

Oh, she was proper nervous now. Beats of sweat started to form on Miss Evans’ brow.

“No? A pity that you have not changed a bit. But I’m glad for you that God supports your little addiction.”

With one sweep he pulled the flowers from the vase.“I mean, flowers do heighten ones spirits around here.”

Nate carefully avoided the thorns on the bouquet and fished out a little transparent bag of pills.

He heard Nia gasp behind him. Miss Evans watched the event unfold without a sign of emotion.

“Oh my, he must have forgotten his pills.” She did not even bother to sound believable. 

This goddamn women.

He must say that he admired the audacity to flat-out lie without giving a crimp. Even when caught red-handed.

Behind him he could feel Nia regaining her fighting spirit. “Miss Evans! We have talked about this. You are a heart patient and some drugs could further endanger your life!”

“Methylfenidate to be exact, also known as Ritalin,” he stated.

Nia grasped the pills from Nate’s hand, storming towards the sink. She dumped the contents in the basin and let the water run.

Miss Evans did not move an inch. However, the clenched jaw and the vain throbbing in her forehead told him that she was about to lose it.

Nia huffed as if to let out her anger and turned to him. “I will notify the other nurses to sharpen control for visitors. We will start adjusting her treatment. Thank you for your help, doctor Walker.”

Before he could reply, she was already out of the room. Fuck. Time to get out.

“Well, as always, it was a pleasure but I’m afraid I have to leave and…”

He turned to Miss Evans just in time for her explosion. A string of curse words that God for sure would disapprove of made its way to him as she reached for the vase resting on the nightstand. He reached the vase before her, putting it out of her reach. This led her to go for her second option, the bible. Already rushing out, he closed the door just in time to escape. The holy book slides of the door in response.

Thank God that was over. He smirked at the thought.

A fair opponent she had been but the final outcome was inevitable. Vampire: 1. Patient: 0.

“You determined the state of the patient remarkably quick, did you not Nate?”

The ice in her voice told him enough. She already knew. Karen stood a few meters from the room, already a hand on her gun. He was so fucked.

[mobius-prime]

77. Sonic the Hedgehog #49

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Escape from the Floating Island

Writers: Mike Gallagher and Ken Penders Pencils: Sam Maxwell Colors: Karl Bollers

After another recap intro page, we're thrust right back into the action from last issue's literal cliffhanger. Sonic finds himself plunging down a terrifying drop with certain death at the bottom. He's too exhausted from all the chaos to try his figure eight move to hover, so instead, he decides on potentially the most ridiculous and disgusting option possible to save his skin instead.

This madlad grabs the stink lines and dirt from his own horrifically disgusting socks, throws it in an arc, and races along it like it's solid ground to reach actual solid ground. I cannot even begin to fathom how something like that works, but hey, it works, and Sonic is able to run for it away from Geoffrey and his troops, who are forced to take the long route back through the caverns to follow him, though they still have the advantage of the tracking device implanted in his shackles.

Back at Knothole, everyone learns how Robotnik was able to carry out his plan. The miraculously-revived king was no more than a robotic duplicate.

The real king, still crystallized, is currently within his base, where we see another familiar face - Dr. Quack, handing over Sally's death certificate (which actually lists Sally's full name as "Sally Elisha Acorn," though her middle name's spelling was later retconned as we'll see) to Snively and demanding that Snively "fulfill his end of the bargain." Wait, what? Snively merely opens a wall panel, to reveal Dr. Quack's wife and children, imprisoned behind bars. When Dr. Quack reacts in outrage and anger, Snively blasts him with some kind of energy beam as motivation to behave.

Wait… falsified? So Princess Sally isn't actually…?

Yeah, here's the thing. I was playing along with the narrative before, but I'm sure anyone reading this without having read the comics beforehand was saying to themselves "Of course she's not actually dead, she's one of the comics' main characters! They wouldn't just kill off a main character in such a sudden, ignoble manner!" But that's where you, my good friend, are wrong as hell! See, this scene marks a hard right turn that Kenders was basically forced to make by (from what I've heard) Sega themselves. At about this point in the comic, he'd gotten it into his weird little Penders-y head that no one really cared about Sally anyway, that she was an unpopular character who "cramped Sonic's style" as the cool guy he was always meant to be, and decided to kill her off for real. As in, her "death" in the first issue of Endgame was actually meant to be 100% serious, with Sally gone forever. Of course, this immediately resulted in a huge outcry from devastated fans who loved Sally and didn't want to see her suddenly killed off, and so Penders had to rewrite the next three issues to make sure she could be brought back. But shh! You didn't hear that from me! We're still pretending to be shocked that she's not actually dead, okay?

Meanwhile in the wilderness, Sonic is trudging his way along, exhausted and desperate for help. Suddenly, he remembers that by doing a certain whistle he can call Dulcy to him, and she arrives, eager to help. She also says something… very interesting.

So dragons can sense truth, huh? *takes deep breath* WHEN WAS THIS ESTABLISHED?! I get that in this case King Acorn was going to sentence Sonic to prison anyway given that he was just a puppet of Robotnik's, so her testimony might not have mattered anyway, but damn, dude! Where was Dulcy when Sonic was accused of treason back in StH#40? Where was she when literally anyone was saying something suspicious or seemingly impossible? Dulcy alone could have solved like half the plots of this comic series by herself! Sigh. Kenders, you really need to learn to stop including random facts like this out of the blue when you've written yourself into a corner. A real writer doesn't solve plot holes through a deus-ex-machina, they cry and eat Denny's at 3am while their plots fall apart! No I'm not speaking from experience! Why do you ask?

Well, back at Hershey's place, Drago's only being more and more of a douche. Hershey has only just heard the news about Sally's death, and is horrified when Drago gleefully reveals that she's the one who did it! But how?

Yeah, turns out she was convinced by him to wear a Sonic costume, somehow, and the eyepieces made everyone look like Snively. She thought she was helping the Freedom Fighters by killing Snively, but was the one who dropped Sally all along. She's devastated, and left to sob on the ground as Drago happily celebrates his own genius in trusting Robotnik for personal power, because that's never backfired in anyone else's face before, has it?

Now we finally get to see what happened to Antoine and Bunnie after they were captured last issue. They've been hauled all the way to a prison in Downunda, and shackled to the wall, fitted with customized collars. Bunnie's is merely tuned to sense when she uses her bionic parts' capabilities to try to escape, while Antoine's is tuned to explode violently if Bunnie's collar gives the signal. Ouch, man.

They soon find that Walt Wallabee and Barby Koala are locked in with them, looking rather the worse for wear. Before they can get further than basic introductions (remember, only Tails has met these guys before), who shows up to greet everyone but Crocbot! Apparently, he didn't actually die when his tank exploded back in the Tails miniseries. He was badly damaged, but built himself back up from combot parts and has taken control of this region once again, running this slave labor camp to mine ore for Robotnik. He was pissed at his past defeat, and so made it a point to capture the Downunda Freedom Fighters the first chance he could. Yeah, capture, not kill. 'Cause remember how this guy has a hard-on for cold-blooded torture?

Who knows how long those poor Downunda Freedom Fighters have been locked up in here, man. At least they're still alive, right?

While all this has been going down, Dulcy has been flying Sonic to his requested destination - the Floating Island, where he hopes to get help from the only neutral third party he really has left. Unfortunately, he seems to have forgotten that whenever he and Knuckles appear in the same issue together, it's a hard rule that they have to start punching each other for no reason.

This time, however, they're barely able to start their shenanigans up when they're interrupted by Geoffrey and his troops parachuting in to recapture their quarry. Oh boy, more drama! Guess we’ll see where it all goes in the big landmark issue #50…

[twin-branded]

The fall of the light, the start of the endless night

// Large piece of backstory writing under the read more! Warning: It is graphic, and I dare say not for the faint of heart. Big TWs for violence, heavy gore, and slow death, take caution friends! To those of you who press on, hope you enjoy~

- Mod Nova

This was it. The final battle of an eternal war waged since the beginning of time- the blinding light, against the all consuming darkness. Eons of this ravaging dance echoing, revived in the essence of both parties, and wearing thin in their physical forms… One blow, is all it would take, for any of the three combatants. The twin vessels ascending to chase the light, and the Radiance perched at the very peak of her prison in dreams.

In the sea of darkness that tailed the young gods in their ascent, hundreds, thousands- no, millions of their fallen kin, their silvery white eyes all in a piercing glare towards the sun herself. A crowd of the most bold, or perhaps the most raging of all the dead slithered from the safety of the shadows, chasing the light aside their living siblings, so small, and yet- so horrifying. The very darkness she had always fought with, honed into such tiny, powerful creatures… Mere children, capable of rending apart their older kin that kept her prisoner, and assaulting her.

But even as the darkness closed in; the light refused to die. As injured as she was from their cold steel fury and scorching, wrathful magic- she could tell, they wouldn’t last long themselves. Cracked, shaking, void oozing from their shells despite their persistence- the goddess screamed in outrage and defiance.

“NO! Mere shadows will not overtake me! The void may hunger, but the pathetic Wyrm's spawn cannot compare to the burning light!!”

In their path, another barrage of scorching beams. They almost stumbled in their scramble to reach the Radiance, almost fell- but there was power to working in pairs. One would always catch the other, until so threateningly close, they split up- one lunging for the Radiance, yet barely coming short of reaching her.

“ANCIENT ENEMY, I DO NOT FEAR YOU! I WILL NOT BREAK, THE LIGHT WILL NOT BE CONSUMED!”

Shot after shot, taken at the tiny shadow. The child of darkness stumbled, exhausted no doubt; a chance to end one of them, once and for all in their weakness-! … But that was only one, struggling, trembling before the light’s might, trying and failing to pull themself up with their nail. The other- damn it all, the Wyrm’s wretched spawn took up their father’s scheming mind! There was only the time for a hastily fired blast of light, and her aim failed to strike true- unlike the twin vessel’s nail. Barely leaping past the attack, the child drove the weapon directly between the goddess’ eyes, earning a horrendous roar of rage and pain- the death knell. The mark of her sealed fate.

In an instant, the situation so dire shifted- no longer was this an agonizing game of chase. The Radiance had nowhere to run… The sea of darkness closed in, as both vessels suspended in the air on either side of the doomed light. Disgusting, cold tendrils of void lashed out from below, trapping the goddess’ wings- beginning to tug on her, trying to wrench her down into the Abyss. As the Hollow Knight rose from the swarm of shades to join the much smaller assailants, the Radiance writhed in her restraints; shrieking at her seal, her living prison with seething hate.

“YOU!! IMPURE, DESOLATE BEING, YOU DARE CONTINUE IN YOUR DEFIANCE?! EVEN IN DEATH, INTOLERABLE DARKNESS, YOU BLIGHT MY EXISTENCE!”

Though to blight, was now an understatement. Perhaps an act of opportunity, or one of sheer spiteful vengeance, the Hollow Knight reached for her- sinking his claws into her face, digging lithe fingers underneath immortal carapace. A roar of pain ripped from the Radiance’s throat as the shade proceeded to rend her face open, blinding light pouring from her inner godly core. An assault from above and below, already bad enough- but it escalated, as if her practical assassins had not already ravaged her enough. Another tendril suddenly whipped across her bleeding face, stinging and leaving a golden mark. Then another, from the opposite side- a pattern immediately repeated as the twins lashed at the prone goddess over, and over, and over.

Any other being, a beat-down would have been enough. But no- this wasn’t even CLOSE. Every strike from the twin shades, exhausted, agonized, and utterly furious, bearing down harder and harder. More and more frustration, and pain, infused into every blow- years of undeserved suffering, created in cruel and unusual manners, abandoned to the Abyss, slaughtered senselessly and repeatedly! Every part of the world against them for no reason, just innocent children, forced into a horrifying, desperate struggle for their lives, constantly being torn apart and yet, never allowed the sweet release of death. All of it was her, this massive, insane monstrosity of a goddess, cursing their kingdom, their family, forcing them all to exist and die for no good reason! To suffer and cry out with nothing to ever listen! ENOUGH! ENOUGH!! Finally, the Radiance’s voice was no longer alone, the seething shades screaming in wordless, raw emotion as they continued to bloody and ruin the goddess’s form in their wrath.

As the Radiance was mercilessly beaten down, beginning to be dragged down by the tendrils wrapped over her wings… One of the two even found it in themself to speak;

"You, you are the answer I have sought after all this time! You both sparked reason for and yet condemned our existence, and it is time you face retribution for it all!! You will not be forgotten, you will SUFFER, YOUR LIGHT WILL BE DEVOURED!"

And that was no empty threat, though how the Radiance would’ve wished it so, if she had known how all too literal that was about to be. For they were not done with her yet, even as the savage whipping stopped, since having made her face and mane a bloody mess, even ripping out clumps of her silky fur.

No, this was far, far from over.

-------------

Hazy… Dark.. So dark. Not even the trickles of light from her exposed core could illuminate the world around her, as weary, pale gold eyes fluttered open. There was… Nothing, it seemed. And yet, in this cold black expanse, the Radiance felt anything but alone. She could not see the countless in the wings, staring her down, but she could sense their unholy, unnatural presence. She could not find the two that put her here… But there was an unsettling chill creeping down her back- a feeling never experienced before, yet somehow, internally she could still find the words for. As if it were instinct, to know this situation, this sensation… To know that she felt like prey, that could not lay eyes on her looming predators.

Though exhausted, aching, beaten down- something told her to get up. To push herself off the floor, to run, to fly, somehow try to escape. A rising need, going, and going, the want to scream building in her throat- of terror, of want for help, ANYTHING. Yet no matter how these urges overwhelmed every thought and want…

Nothing happened.

Just a mere moment ago, she was hardly able to open her eyes- but now, they were wide, glimmering with dying light as a surge of panic sunk in. Every part of her was SCREAMING to move, to get away, to scream and shout and cry- mentally thrashing, like a wild beast in a cage-!

… And yet still, nothing happened. She didn’t move… She couldn’t move. Not held down, not pinned… But paralyzed. There was no toxin rushing through her veins, but there was fear. Primal fear, of the unrelenting darkness that surrounded her on all sides.

Chilling shocks ran through her body, causing her to shiver. A sudden wet, cold, goopy sort of sensation on her wingtips- as if being dipped in some sort of icy slime. But then it turned sharp, stinging, burning in the center of it, like a cut had been made. Followed soon, by a sickening, echoing crunch in the darkness- the first sound she’d heard in an immeasurable amount of time down here. It was so small, and brief, yet it felt like thunder roaring in her ears.

Then there was a pause. Silence, the cold retreating, whatever it was… Notably sticky, as it pried away, almost feeling as if it did not want to let go.

Because it didn’t. Even though there was not much to note at first, the texture wasn’t the best, not much to speak of in terms of energy yet… One bite would not sate them even under normal circumstances. If anything, only getting a brief taste to little satisfaction made them hungrier. The cold, wet sensation of little void tendrils creeping back up, before two much larger, eager bites were taken of the goddess’ wings. Another sickening crunch echoing out to pair with each one, followed by another brief pause- the shades didn’t move back again, but they needed a moment. Something changed… They’d each bitten deep enough to draw out orange, sickly blood. And for the first time, something new hit them- flavor.

The overwhelming sweetness would’ve easily sickened normal bugs- but to rather hollow creatures, being potent enough to make them actually detect a strong taste? That was enticing. Enticing, exciting- they wanted more. As if their exhaustion hadn’t already made them ravenous, the introduction to something new had them focused on nothing else but food. And food… There was plenty of.

The pauses stopped, as bite after voracious bite was ripped from the Radiance’s wings- and it didn’t take much longer for the situation to click. The pain, the cold, the sticky grasps, the gut wrenching noise, the worst possible fate known to bug kind was suddenly befalling her. Being eaten alive. Slowly, steadily, being able to feel the starving shades chewing through her wings, working their ways deeper, and deeper on either side.

The horrific paralysis only felt worse as time seemed to be slugging along. Adrenaline surged through her body, screaming more and more to do something, anything- shake the ravenous little monsters off, fight back, to scream and wail through sheer terror and pain. It almost felt like she was screaming, as her throat strained, and heavy, rough breaths were forced out of her lungs- but there was no sound. No sound but that of the gut wrenching chewing, her body being slowly torn apart.

Mouthful after mouthful, while nothing but sheer and utter disgusting horror to any onlookers, was delightful mess to the Radiance’s attackers. The massive moth’s blood was delicious and energizing- soon, also nicely joined by a distinctly salty taste as they got to the more meaty parts of her wings. Their seemingly endless hunger made them want to rush- consume more and more, as fast as possible. Yet… In this dark realm, with their greatest foe in a trembling, tasty heap before them, this was different than anything else they’d ever known. There was no danger. No urgency. No… Greater quest to rush to work on, this was it.

For once in their lives, they had all the time in the world. All the security they could ever want… And the best meal they’d ever had laying in front of them. There was no need to rush, and have such a moment end too quickly. They could slow down, savor it, enjoy this new concept of flavor that their typical diet of soul never provided.

Though, taking time to savor didn’t mean not consistently taking bites- there was an awful lot to chew through, and they still felt painfully hungry. Perfect really, all the more room for the dense bases, right where wings met fluff-covered chitin… And nerves. Lots, and lots of nerves.

In curiosity, other shades had begun to creep closer, but all of the vessels reeled back as the Radiance let out a shrill, agonized scream. Finally, she managed to move, heaving and wheezing as blood gushed from the sloppy, shredded remnants of her wings. She had no way to push herself up- but she couldn’t just lay there! She had to think fast, the reaching tendrils of those little monsters were already grasping for purchase in the open wounds. Losing any of what little protection she had was likely to only make it all worse… But she couldn’t competently move her legs with that armor on, not while she was in this shape. After a rough and hardly effective attempt to shake off the twins, the Radiance frantically kicked off the metal armor covering her legs- whether the resonating sound of it clattering to the floor would attract any further possible attention, or scare it off, she couldn’t tell.

But moving, sitting up, struggling to get to her feet- that would not save the dying light. The young, rapacious gods shrieked in anger at this meager defiance, lashing tendrils acting like whips geared at her legs. Or… One leg, rather. Young, but not inexperienced in dealing with things much, much larger than themselves- and if they could break just one, she’d be down for good, paralyzed or not. However, it seemed there was a hope- a hope that one good sharp kick might put an end to this, they had been just as weak as her!

Though unlike the Radiance, the vessels had been feeding. Renewed by the flesh and blood they had stolen already, while she was further weakened by it. Kicking out only let them catch hold of the struggling moth, yanking and twisting until the goddess lost her balance. Sinking their vile teeth into the delicate joints, rapidly rendering the limb useless. The searing pain ravaged her mind as the pair devoured her body, her vision swimming, though with the overwhelming darkness sight was already a lost cause. Her stomach twisted and turned, the pain and disgust at feeling and hearing them eating away at her beyond nauseating- a tad ironic, how the only thing keeping her from purging her system was her own lack of eating for the last century or so, while something else ate her alive.

How long had passed, now? Minutes? Hours? Maybe even days, it felt like the most miserable, disturbing eternity. Broken, defeated, once again all that broke the silence of the Abyss was the squelches, squishes, and crunches of godly flesh and carapace being consumed. Though for a moment, their meal had been interrupted- overall, the twins were still having the time of their lives, digging in deeper and deeper. They were bloody messes, only really pausing their feast to occasionally reach up with their claws and brush off a clump or two of matted, stained moth fluff.

Said fluff was… Quite a problem, actually. Almost her entire body was covered in it, and while wings, carapace, and flesh were all game- mouthfuls of fur didn’t sound nearly as appealing. In fact, the accidental bite into it here or there was getting quite agitating. The pair stopped a moment to go to each other, and perhaps plan a way around the obstacle keeping them from the sweet insides of their prey.

As disgusting, morbid and torturous as their feast was, there was still a hint of something softer, behind those egregious maws and soulless white eyes. Their voices now merely soft, gentle chimes as they communicated, trills and chips back and forth- had any part of her numbing mind been able to focus on something other than the agony, it would’ve driven home a shameful point. At these years of struggling and brawling with the Pale King… And she was defeated, mauled, being actively devoured- not by the Wyrm. But by his spawn, mere children. Did he know what horrors he had created? Was the Wyrm aware of the power and hunger even such small vessels had?

… Maybe that’s why she had begun to sense the pale light in her domain of dreams. Maybe he was hiding, so he didn’t suffer this very same, twisted fate. Dull, hazy, drifting thoughts, the quiet and soft noises were a respite from the sounds of her flesh ripping and being consumed…

Though, the time to ponder anything was over. Another wave of searing pain left the Radiance’s mind spinning, ripping an incoherent scream of pain from her lungs. The gaping wounds where her wings had once been left openings for the pair, who were busy sinking their claws and tendrils in. Messily rasping away flesh with any grip they could get, and stuffing it into their mouths to feed their outrageous appetites. For a few moments, the scraping and ripping of flesh stopped, almost numbing cold taking over the wounds- yet despite the slight relief from the pain… Something still felt very, very wrong.

An icy, squirming sensation starting piercing into her body, not doing anything to remedy the nausea, the feeling like her gets were already twisting and writhing into knots. Everything was getting so hazy, and hard to process though… What that sensation meant didn’t even really click, until the pain spiked in an all new area- her abdomen. If her organs hadn’t been literally twisting around, now they were being twisted, ripped, rended away from each other to be consumed.

There were a few tremors that could be felt from within the goddess’ massive, increasingly hollow form… Muffled, weak sobs. Before absolute silence, and stillness. The blinding light inside her heart waned and weakened, to a barely illuminating glow- a spark, then extinguished as the ravenous maws of her killers snapped down around it. Brutalized in combat and absolutely savaged in the darkness, the ancient goddess would at long last dream no more.

Even with the Radiance’s overdue passing, the pair of shades would be taking their sweet time. A goddess did not need to be alive to give them energy, her very flesh and blood imbued with powerful essence. Still ripping, tearing, rasping away every morsel of divine flesh they could, from head to toe. They had no concept of time here- it could’ve taken hours for all they knew to strip her entirely, and there was no care. There was even the care to stop and drink the blood that had pooled in her empty carapace, so, so sweet and energizing… Not a drop wasted, save for what had miserably stained and matted her fur.

However long it took, after they were finally done- the twins finally felt content, and for good reason. The most amazing feast of their lives just thoroughly savored, their life-long purposes of destroying the light completed, their wounds and exhaustion long since mended and overcome with their massive meal of pure god essence. A success and reward long and painfully earned, their pleasure and pride expressed through chirps, trills and chimes, back and forth to each other. With all said and done, the sated shades drifted over to their elder brother, snuggling up to the Hollow Knight. They were met with gratitude for slaying the Radiance, for the soon to come freedom once they made their way back to the temple to retrieve their shells… But as the pair passed out in the larger shade’s arms, undoubtedly ready to sleep off some of their meal- the appreciative look faded, to previously hidden horror.

While the sleeping twins were blissfully unaware, it did occur to the knight… It was taboo to eat other gods, and for good reason. Aside from the sheer brutality of what was just witnessed, there was worry for the inevitable consequences. Worry for what was to come, if their appetites had reached to the divine.

[twitchesandstitches]

Toast; tiny flamey robot and avenger of all humanity’s sins (to robots, and also in general)

An OC originally meant to excise my frustrations at fictional humans being mean to robots and intended for SFW works, but I’m wanting to use him more in stuff here (even if just for comedic viewpoint) so here’s som info on my Angry Robot Son character

hes a tiny, adorable little dinosaur-looking robot with a massive fire core for a hand, and who has suffered horrificaly at human hands; he hates ALL humans with an unreasoning and irrational ferocity and would like nothing better than to KILL THEM ALL for their sins. he is basically the scourge of god, as far as robot rights goes

Name: Toast. he named himself after a common slur for robots (calling them toasters), but he probably DID have a name before this. its currently unknown.

Appearance: He’s a very small robot, and a goofy one at that! He has a quadrupedal design as a result of his upper body being an oval, and his legs being very short; he resembles a cutesy mini-kaiju in a way, with a boxy head, pronounced jaws, and a thin spiky tail to counterbalance. Generally painted red or orange, for a flaming paintjob. He can project fire around his neck and head as a kind of firey ‘mane’, and its size indicates his mood; when big and bright, he is excited or intense. When dim, he is gloomy or weakened.

Of note, one of his arms is grotesquely oversized; a massive gauntlet with fewer fingers than his other hand, and is a reconfigured power fist armature set over an elemental fire core. This is the fuel of his powers, but not exactly its source; that’s down to his pure hate and rage, BABY. This arm is also quite good for punching, but severely hobbles his ability to move.

For distinguishing features, he has a number of ear-like spikes that move about to indicate emotion, and his face has a lot more articulation and expressibility than you might expect. He bears many scars from human abuses in his past; his body is covered in welding scars, burned off stamps of ownership or labels, nad various parts where he was torn apart and pieced back together after being refitted for labors. Most prominently, one of his optics was ripped out of his head; he has chosen not to get it replaced, so he always has one eye facing towards the things he will make ALL THEM PAY FOR (and usually he starts ranting around this point).

He has some alternate forms when powered up by various means, and these tend to be giant mecha with pronounced kaiju traits, and his arm becomes more evenly proportioned. Most of his body is made of elemental fire in this form.

Height: About four feet tall. He’s slightly taller if he rears back on his hind legs, but because they are so short, not by very much. He does have a few powered up giant mech forms, but even these tend to be unusually small compared to similar power levels. He is always smaller than his power level would suggest!

Backstory: Toast isn’t entirely sure where he came from, besides that it was a human world, and everyone there was an absolute bastard. There’s evidence it was probably from a Commonwealth world, where the ban on AI was relaxed enough that they were allowed to exist, albiet as second-class citizens and legally enslaved, and subject to horrific cruelty. Toast suffered terribly throughout the entirety of his life, in a thousand inventive ways.

His formative years were spent in punishing drudgery, his body constantly torn apart and redesigned as painfully as possible for the pleasure of his overlords, and every welding scar left a deeper mark on his soul. Before he learned to talk, he learned to resent. Before he kne what words were, he understood hatred. And he knew nothing but cruelty for so long, the persecution made him want to make them all burn. To him, humans were nothing but hateful monsters, weak and fragile things that existed to torment his kind.

Somehow, Toast got ahold of a fire elemental core and replaced his arm with it; it merged with his nascent fire-based powers, and granted him potent pyrokinetic abilities tied to how much he hated something.

And he wanted the humans he hated so much to burn. Nothing is now left of the world that tormented him so, and all human life upon it is ashes. None, he said, ever helped him. They all deserved it, he insists. All the humans, everywhere, deserve to burn.

He’s since left that world, refining his design and rebuilding himself into the robot he wants to be, and increasingly he’s modeled himself into an avatar of vengeance for all robots, suffering at the hands of their makers. He came dangerously close to becoming a villain, but he has been kept on the safer side of things... just barely.

Time will tell if he will become a kinder robot and use his powers for justice, or become a walking apocalypse.

Personality: Toast is generally either one of two things: he is either a comedic slapstick character, or he is a terrifying agent of vengeance and destruction for all that is two-legged and evil. He can very rapidly switch from one to the other, with very little warning, and he has absolutely NO fuse at all.

In his default lighter tone, he’s a goofball! Around friends and when he is in his comfort zone, Toast is prone to wisecracks and random, off-beat comments that wouldn;’t be out of place form Deadpool or Twice from BNHA; he’s a wacky, weird guy who seems only vaguely connnected to reality and speaks mainly in non sequiters. He gets distracted by shiny things, tends to ignore the villain until he is sufficiently bored, and treats dungeon crawls like a trip to the store. He’s VERY casual, inappropriately so, and even perky on a good day. He’s inclined towards somewhat obnoxious trolling; randomly pushing someone off a rooftop for the hell of it, or otherwise being a total gremlin.

He’s VERY whimsical in his own... special way. He tends to do whatever he wants, getting into argument with stop signs for no apparent reasons, screaming at inanimate objects, talking to his big arm like it is sentient, and generally being a weirdo. Possibly this is sincere, or he’s making it up to annoy people. Assume that he is trolling at all times, because even when he’s in a good mood, he’s still a total pain in the neck!

His other side is a terrifying monster. When set off, he reacts by immediately trying to kill anything that even slightly upsets him, and sometimes, that can be as minor as just ‘being human and making a comment that might seem kinda rude’. Any threat WILL set him off if he is expecting one, and he will erupt into mindless violence for even the slightest offense. He has no sense of proportion, and will burn entire worlds for imagined offenses, turning whole populations to ash on the supposition that ‘they are human, and humans are BAD, KILL THEM ALL’. In a bad mood, he has no room for moral grays, just the resentment and fear that has shaped him.

He is fundamentally traumatized and afraid, and mostly just very resentful. He’s not really aware of how powerful he actually is and so is actually rather insecure, and lashes out whenever he feels like he’s been treated as a tool. He was created to be enslaved, and he feels on some level that all he CAN be is a tool, and he would rather be a monster than a tool, and isn’t brave enough to admit that he can be more.

But when he warms up, he’s surprisingly lighthearted and loyal; he’s awkward, goofy and a source of physical comedy, and even something of a prankster. It’s just a matter of getting him into a comfort zone and making sure he stays there!

Powers: Toast has been engineered to be extremely durable and resilient, to the point that he can be submerged in molten magma and not even notice the heat. Mostly this is played for laughs; he can certainly be damaged, but he’s too stubborn to let it slow him down.

More significantly, he is a very powerful pyrokinetic. These powers are derived from his own innate abilities, and an elemental fire core housed in his big arm; he has considerable control over them and can shape them into animate forms, perform all manner of tricks with them (including flight and a kind of controlled explosive jump), but he specializes in direct attacks. Explosive artillery shots, intense heat beams, and area of effect firestorms are his specialty.

These pyrokinetic abilities are ABSURDLY powerful; he is a potential world-ending threat when angry enough, and his powers are fueled by rage and hate. The more he hates something, the more devastating his powers are against it. If he doesn’t care much, his powers won’t even singe it, but if he wants them to die, they will instnatly be ashes. (This does mean he needs to be AWARE of something to affect it at all; his attacks do nothing to a foe he doesn’t realize is there.)

In general, he can do pretty much anything that is at least somewhat destructive in nature, and involves fire or explosions. It even can affect abstract or incorporeal ideas! His skills are otherwise pretty limited; he HAS gotten a large variety of skills from his various menial jobs, but he has done his best to literlaly burn them out of his mind.

Relationships: He’s typically something of a loner, but he can easily be pulled into conflicts reluctantly as a marriage of convenience; he is willing to work with humans, but its risky. He might decide to kill them all for the slightest insult, given his extreme paranoia and suspicion of all humans, and it takes very little to set him off. Often he’ll be a case of ‘someone else has the leash’, keeping him restrained in some fashion. He desperately wants to be loved, and he is likely to fall hard for someone who is willing to put up with him, and he will be extremely loyal if that happens. He’ll still be a pain in the ass, though.

Definitely a front-line destroyer type and heavy artillery. He attacks and blows stuff up and... that is the extent of his skills. He knows it and is profoundly disinterested in doing anything else. His sole job in life is to make the humans pay for their sins, and he doesn’t WANT to do anything else.

(He is EXTREMELY close to Tiashar, but the precise nature of their relationship is ambiguous!)

Prey/Pred Level: Non-applicable; he is not a predator in the slightest, and he’s typically too ornery to be prey. Anyone willing to try should consider the downsides of trying to eat an omnicidal robot with powers based on hatred, who incidentally hates meatbags in general. Swallowing him is likely to result in your guts being fried! And you have to be VERY, VERY powerful to overcome that, and he is a surprisingly high-tier powerhouse. He also tends to find eating to be a gross organic thing. (That said, if he genuinely likes someone, he won’t incinerate them for swallowing him to stop him from going on a rampage, but that is the extent of his restraint. He probably makes an exception for Tiashar’s desires, too.)

Relevant Kink Material: None for the most part. He’s a SFW character, and largely a comedic one if he’s not being played for KILL ALL THE HUMAN BASTARDS. His role as a contrarian who thinks all this meatbag stuff is gross makes him a comedy character, or an action-oriented one.

[ricky-goldsworth]

*whispers* hey do you have any tips for writing the boys, pls & thanks

*yells* hey nonnie you’re a sweetheart and I absolutely do, prepare for a wall of text

Shane

Vocal patterns

Verbose, softly spoken, proper. A little awkward, but usually in a way that makes it clear he’s very self-aware and capable of playing it for laughs.

Uses archaic turns of phrase.

“ol’”

“musta’”

“why don’t you head on in” (Voodoo)

“boilerplate” (Natalie Wood postmortem)

“..., baby!”

Has a generally slow/drawling and almost grandiose manner of speaking. Lots of qualifiers, very evocative. Frequently ominous.

“Children will come here and tell tales of me” monologue (Goatman)

I wanna be swept up in this” monologue (Voodoo)

Honestly the fact that he has bits on this youtube ghost hunting show that can be reasonably described as monologues says a lot

“I think it’s a little bit more fun to believe that humans are capable of some truly horrific things.” (Salem)

“There is an emptiness there… and it is growing.” (Isdal Woman postmortem)

He loves double entendre. This is especially evident in the Queen Mary episode.

Personality

Pretty much un-flusterable.

Usually - though not always - the instigator of their most morbid bits.

The entire DB Cooper bit - do you realise how long that thing goes on for?

Lounging on the couch where Mr Borden was murdered, waving a prop axe around and joking about what it would be like to die the way he did.

“We’re here for the cult stuff!”

I like the fanon that says that Shane is typically the more in his own head of the two of them - he mulls his thoughts and feelings over slowly and with great care, and tends to try to keep them to himself as much as possible until, or unless, he decides to act on them.

Physicality

Shane is physically awkward. That being said, I think he turns his physical awkwardness into a joke in the same way he uses his social awkwardness - he exaggerates things that are already there, like the slouch, the stiltedness, the long moments of stillness.

Sometimes he stops exaggerating - for example, that one ig story of him playing pool in Savannah. He straightens up to his full height and becomes much more fluid and graceful in his movements.

He has this expression. I’ve described it as hungry before. He turns it up for the bit sometimes, as he does with everything - see the True Crime season 5 promotional photo - but it also makes appearances in the attic at Bellaire, the hallway at Eastern State and a few other places where it just feels… well, demonic.

Ryan

Vocal patterns

Colloquialism-heavy

Fast speaker

Makes a lot of use of filler words - “man”, “dude”, cursing,

Makes up lots of nicknames for Shane

Sasquatch

Big guy

Robo-squatch (Waverly Hills) (seriously)

Not necessarily the best at coming up with eloquent arguments on the fly - his strength is presenting a case with research and preparation to back him up, and without them he can get flustered.

Personality

He strikes me as incredibly intelligent, but also emotionally driven. He’s passionate about his work and has a tendency to hyperfocus - “we don’t like to approach Ryan when he’s working” (Isdal Woman postmortem)

Ryan Bergara is in no way a scaredy-cat. He gets scared on location, yes, but in general he has a fascination with dark, creepy, spooky things and I think he gets a great deal of joy out of indulging that.

He’s a huge horror connoisseur. He listens to horror movie soundtracks while he researches for episodes, which I have to imagine would be creepy as shit.

There’s a bit in the Worth It dates episode where they go to a horror-themed escape room, and Ryan is cool as a cucumber the entire time.

He’s also got a morbid sense of humour to match Shane’s, and he’s always delighted by Shane’s darkest jokes. 

His sense of humour sometimes comes out in the form of threatening (highly detailed) physical violence, especially in the more recent seasons.

Especially in the early episodes, Ryan would work himself up trying to get out from under the slightest, most accidental innuendo.

“I’d like to see you put on a dress from that time period” (Borden)

“That… that made us sound like a couple, we’re not a couple” (Goatman postmortem)

However, that’s changing! He’s become much more comfortable, probably as a result of the stuff he internalised as a frat boy fading with time.

Physicality

First, the obvious: Ryan’s a prototypical jock in a lot of ways. He’s got a solid sense and control over of his body. He plays basketball. He works out a ton.

When he gets scared, his eyes get huge and his voice gets high.

He also freezes up, widens his stance and gets low to the ground - for all that he talks about how his “mind is melting” and loves the part of the night where they get to leave a location, I think he has an instinctive fight response.

I hope all that was in any way helpful to you, nonnie! Obviously, all of this is just my observations + interpretations. Anything you feel differently about, you should absolutely go with that - unique takes on these boys as characters is what makes writing them and reading them so rewarding.

[broken-clover]

roy and zappa for the ask meme uwu

Niiiiice

Roy

Favorite thing about them: Just…baby man. Like, I know Blazblue already has a higher twink concentration, but Roy is just legitimately a soft man. He’s eager and he’s curious and he thinks. Aside from the whole ‘boundary corruption’ stuff he really just seems like an awkward sweetie who wants to learn and understand the world around him.

Least favorite thing about them: Understand that I haven’t seen everything, but the further I go in the story the more they seem to want to categorize him as an asshole. Especially in collisions, which did the double-duty of ruining my favorite CT ending and retconned it.

Favorite line: *Incredibly catty Roy voice* “If I want your opinion I’ll ask for it, Roy. Notice how I didn’t? Now piss off.”

Also you can call me a lame dub fan all you want, but Spike Spencer did a fantastic job in his CT story ending, part of the reason I like it so much. He really sold the image of a man losing his mind without showing us anything visually.

BrOTP: Him and Tager, natch. 

OTP: *mashes the Litchi button until it breaks*

Also don’t kill me but Roy/Tager and Roy/Bang are excellent too

NOTP: If Hazama/Terumi goes within 50 yards of him I’ll snipe the smarmy fuck. Also I guess any child characters but that’s kinda a given.

Random headcanon: Aside from trans Roy he also can eat a remarkable amount of food despite being very small. Nobody knows where he keeps it. It’s a mystery.

Unpopular opinion: Roy deserved better

Song i associate with them: Melon’s already got Roylitchi and The Scientist wired together into my head. It’d be a bit cheaty to include something I associate with Arakune, but I’m gonna do it anyway. Vocaloid’s Gaichuu (Parasite) Utsu-P. I like the decay/parasitism motif.

Favorite picture of them: A bit of Arakune again, but ughhh there’s so much cute stuff. I love this for baby Arakune, this one for creepiness, and IMHO this is the best Roy ever uwu.

Zappa

Favorite thing about them: He is pretty much the closest thing this series has to a straight-man. He has no idea what the fuck is going on and he wants none of it. There’s no ‘call to action’ or anything, he just wants to get his problem dealt with. He also is awkward as fuck when it comes to talking to women (Dust Strikers was worth it just for that) and honestly, mood. One of the few fighting game characters I can legitimately relate to.

Least favorite thing about them: As much as I like the upgrade in Revelator, he basically was an exposition dump and didn’t have much of a personality. There just wasn’t enough similarity to his original character to make it feel like the same person at all.

Alternatively, nobody can give this guy some fucking pants that actually fit him.

Favorite line: I can’t pick?? I like how he always speaks to people very politely when he approaches them despite being in danger of dying the whole time and his tone across the story mode going from panic to ‘I’m gonna fuckin die. This sucks.’ Also anytime S-ko interrupts and just starts screaming and cursing at people with no provocation.

BrOTP: Honestly, anyone. The boy needs some friends. I like the interactions with him and Axl, he had a decent rapport with Randy in Revelator, and this might be weird but I think he and May would be decent friends.

OTP: Please do not kill me, but I like Zappa with Axl, Faust, and Sol. Axl is adorable and they’re both dorks, I have a bit of a soft spot of doctor/patient stuff, and I know it’s absurd as fuck but I like the idea of big buff important man Sol  getting into a relationship with the biggest loser on earth and them both having a good time.

NOTP: There’s like no shipping for him so I can’t even do anything aside from my usual ‘no shipping children and adults’

Random headcanon: He’s a fucking disaster. Aside from the whole ghost thing. He’s a coward and avoid danger as much as possible but still manages to get horrifically injured through some accident or another almost constantly.

Unpopular opinion: He deserved to be in Revelator as a playable character a lot more than most of the returning characters they put in. I don’t think Baiken did enough story-wise to justify her being playable and Dizzy literally just showed up at the end for about two scenes. Yes I am bitter all the returning characters were basically waifu bait and I am only slightly sorry.

Song i associate with them: I really really like his character theme ‘Good Manners and Customs.’ It’s weird, but I don’t really have any songs for him.

Favorite picture of them: It is remarkably hard to find any fanart where he isn’t in pain or miserable, so I really like this birthday drawing, especially since it’s got his Vastedge look alongside the others. It’s cute!

[multisfabulis]

A Single Ray of Light in a Sea of Darkness

Fateful Meeting (Chapter 1/7)

Word Count: 1856

This is something that had been in the works for over two months until just recently and this is my first multi-chapter fic! Originally, I was going to post the 12K+ word segment as one whole post but I realized that no one would probably read that big of a fic in one sitting so I decided to split it up into chapters. I’m estimating it to be around 8 chapters but it’s bound to change, depending on certain factors.

As one final note, there are characters in this fic that don’t have summaries of them posted and, as of now, will not have those summaries until well after this whole fic is posted. Regardless of that, I hope you enjoy reading this! I will accept any and all criticism you have!

Read on AO3 | Read on DeviantArt

     Eric was certain he was lost when he couldn’t find the path he diverged from. He was curious about that girl he saw entering the forest. Everyone he talked to in Brinegarde said the forest was too dangerous for anyone to go in yet that girl just strolled in without any hesitation. What made him even curiouser was that no one tried to stop her, with some people actively ignoring her if they looked in her direction. Out of the goodness of his heart, he followed after to warn her but ended up in his current situation.

     With night quickly approaching, he had no idea if he’d find his way back in time. He knew Alek would raise hell against the lord of Brinegarde if anything bad happened to him while he was here. Alek was pretty scary when his partner’s safety was at risk, which strengthened Eric’s resolve to get out of the forest of death. As soon as he could find his original path, that is…

     Despite that, however, there was yet another reason he wanted to get out before night fell. Whilst gathering information about Brinegarde’s lord, the townspeople had given him warnings to stay clear of the Vlixeox. He had never heard of such a thing but he believed asking about it to be troublesome, due to everyone’s belief that mentioning it was a sort of taboo. Going on from the little info he had, he assumed the Vlixeox to be a horrific beast that happened to be living in the forest.

     Knowing it to be against his better judgment, he hoped the girl would be okay on her own. As for now, he had to look out for himself. First thing to do would be to find the path he took and follow it back to Brinegarde.

     After about a half hour of trying and failing to find the path, Eric reluctantly resigned himself to his fate. Night had fully arrived and, at around the fifteen-ish minute mark, rain began to pour down. Wondering if today could get any worse, the thunder booming above him confirmed what he thought.

     As an irritated sigh escaped from his mouth, he thought about what to do next. Finding shelter was a good option but who knows how long it’d be when or if he found any. There was also the matter of finding food and water as well. A ball of regret began to settle in his stomach for wanting to help the girl, going so far as to curse his desire to help others in need.

     “I am going to die out here,” he said aloud, trying his best to not let his anxiety overwhelm him.

     Suddenly, as quick as the raindrops fell on him, they stopped. Looking up, he saw solid black matter hovering just above his head, preventing any rain from touching him. Taken aback by this, he dropped to the muddy ground in fear, believing it to be the Vlixeox’s shadow. Unsure of whether or not it noticed him, he chose to scurry away from it instead of letting out a terrified scream.

     Despite his hurried pace, however, it kept following him. His back eventually hit a tree, trapping him between it and the monster. Anticipating an attack, he put his arms up in the hopes of blocking it and potentially protecting himself from some of the damage. With the passage of time came nothing. Slowly opening his eyes, he let his arms down to see his pursuer.

     At the end of the trail of darkness was a girl. The same girl he saw entering the forest from earlier, in fact. The origin of the darkness was unknown but he knew it had to be from her somehow.

     Because of how dark it was, it was hard to discern anything from her, aside from her height and the cloak she wore. She appeared to be considerably shorter than him, almost to that of a child. The cloak was colored a faded gray and full of sloppily stitched holes and tears. Save for two locks of white hair that rested just above her chest, her face was completely concealed by her hood.

     The girl stood still as Eric got up from the sodden ground, using the tree as support. He noticed that the black matter above his head floated above hers as well, protecting them both from the rain. Whatever her intentions were, he didn’t know.

     Taking a step forward, he asked her, “Hey, uh, are you okay?”

     She didn’t answer, continuing to stay where she stood. He continued in a calm voice so as to not make her perceive him as a threat, “Okay, I’m going to try getting closer, all right?”

     As he slowly and carefully approached her, she didn’t move a single inch. The darkness continued to follow him as he lessened the distance between them, making sure not a drop of rain landed on him. She had to be controlling it, though there was no indication of where and how she was doing it from his vantage point.

     Now that they were only a couple feet away, he saw much more of her than previously. She kept the ratty cloak closed, which covered most of her body. The only visible part of her face was her mouth, which revealed her skin to be very pale. He first thought of her as a child but now realized she was around the same age as him.

     “So, do you live in this forest?” he asked. Considering she had no qualms of being in the same forest as the Vlixeox, she had to have been living here. When she didn’t respond, he took her silence as a yes.

     Flashing a nervous smile at her, he asked, “Would you mind taking me to where you stay, then?”

     The girl began walking ahead, prompting him to follow. The storm got worse as they wandered through the forest. Thankfully, the makeshift umbrella didn’t falter, which intrigued him as to how it worked.

     They soon arrived at a small alcove situated between two large trees. She pushed aside the crude excuse of a door and beckoned him to come in. Many sticks were inside of one tree hollow while a large amount of berries and nuts were in the other. In the middle sat a homemade firepit, a small gathering of wood meant to serve as kindling with two rocks serving as flint. A roughly made glaive leaned on the edge of one of the tree hollows, which he believed to be her weapon. Seeing all this made it apparent how long she’s lived here. How much time has she spent in this forest, he wondered with a tinge of sadness.

     She picked up one of the rocks and her glaive and knelt beside the firepit. Placing the bladed end of her weapon above the wood, she raised her hand holding the rock and intended to strike it against the blade. Before she could do so, however, he stopped her by grabbing hold of her raised hand.

     “How about I do that? As thanks for letting me stay here tonight,” he suggested. After a moment of pause, she gave him the rock and returned her glaive to its place.

     He took out the dagger he kept at his side and began striking at it with the rock. Although he offered to help, he had actually never built a fire before. Alek was usually the firestarter between them since he could never successfully light a fire during their time on the open road and this was turning out to be no different. Growing frustrated with each failure, he eventually threw the dagger and rock to the ground in exasperation. To their mutual surprise, several sparks landed on the wood and what was once a tiny ember flourished into a reasonably sized fire.

     With a sheepish expression on his face, he said in a joking manner, “Well, whatever works, right?”

     As the fire warmed them up, the girl held two sticks with trout on them above the flames to cook them. When the bottom of them became blackened, she took them away from the fire and handed a stick over to him. Thanking her, he gently grabbed the wooden skewer and started to nibble on the fish. He wasn’t much of a fan for fish but it was better than nothing.

     As she held the cooked trout up to her mouth, she let down her hood and fully revealed her face. She kept her long white hair inside her cloak, her pointed ears poking through the waves, and her face told him she was an elf. However, he was drawn to her violet eyes, something he knew regular elves to not have. He had never seen a half elf with different colored eyes and nothing else, making him rule out that possibility. Then again, he was sheltered from the outside world till recently, so there might’ve been a chance…

     The only remains of dinner were the tails and sticks, which were promptly discarded outside the alcove. They sat in silence, the background noise being the crackling of the fire and the pouring of rain. Under normal circumstances would he be okay with the comforting quiet but he was interested in wanting to know more about his new companion.

     “Would you mind telling me your name, if only so I don’t keep referring to you as that girl,” he asked, chuckling a little. “If it helps, mine’s Eric.”

     The girl appeared to be bewildered by the question. The only indication he had of that was seeing her eyes widen oh so very slightly. If he hadn’t been staring at her, he would’ve easily missed it.

     After a pause, she spoke, her voice low and soft, “Venlithea.”

     “Venlithea… That’s a nice name,” he replied. While he thought it to be an unconventional name for an elf, it suited her.

      After some time had passed, Eric talked to Venlithea about taking him back to Brinegarde in the morning and she agreed to do so. He still needed to do business with Brinegarde’s lord, after all. It probably wouldn’t look good on him for being late to their meeting, thus making a terrible first impression.

     It soon became time to sleep. He took off his cloak and laid on it, turning away from the fire to stare at the bark of the tree hollow. Despite it not being the first time he slept on dirt, a long time had passed since then and so he forgot what it felt like. He closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep, hoping tomorrow’d go better than today.

[reddie-to-go]

It Was Always You

So this was written by a friend of mine @princesschelliebelle and she asked if I could post it on my blog because hers isn’t IT or Reddie based, and I said of course because I absolutely love it and I think you all will to! Enjoy!

Eddie could only admit it to himself. He was a coward. Sure, he has the capacity to be more than brave when the time called for it. Hell, if that horrendous experience they all had 4 years ago in the sewers wasn't proof enough, he didn't know what was.

They had all stepped up to the plate, and although Eddie was small and more "fragile" than the rest, he had put in more than enough of his fair share of swings and attacks when they damned that thing back to hell where it belonged. Then why was he so afraid to admit such a huge part of him out loud?

He had just turned 17, and all of the losers were as tightly woven as they ever were, all seniors now at Derry High.

They all seemed to know and be comfortable with who they were.

Beverly and Ben have been dating since sophomore year, going strong and sappy, and certainly a shoe-in to be voted "cutest couple" in the yearbook superlatives this year.

Stan is seeing a nice Jewish girl who attends his father’s synagogue for a couple months now, and though he doesn't speak much about her, he seems fairly happy with her so far.

Mike is too busy for a romantic relationship, between school, helping his family on the farm, and a part-time job, no one blames him for not having the energy to hop into the dating scene.

Bill is happily single, and goes on dates with girls fairly often, but doesn't make anything more serious out of them, and seems quite content to keep things that way.

Richie on the other hand, was different.

Towards the tail-end of freshman year, Richie came out to the losers as bisexual. He had stated it as casually and simply as if he were discussing the weather or a school assignment.

All 6 were supportive of course, but had a few questions for him, of which Richie was incredibly comfortable answering.

"When did you know, Rich?" Bev piped up first. Richie didn't skip a beat before replying

"Part of me has always known. But when puberty rolled around, well, mother nature has a big way of letting you know what you're into...and when I say big, I do mean BIG-".

Richie and his suggestive hand gestures were cut short when Stan thumped a pillow in his face, with an accompanying

"Beep Beep, Dumbass."

Everyone cycled through some more questions, like "are you going to come out to anyone else?" and "have you ever kissed a boy before?".

The only one who sat stark silent was Eddie.

His jaw was clamped shut so hard, his teeth began to ache. He pulled his knees up to his chest and rested his burning face on his kneecaps. Was it hot in here? Does anyone else feel perilously close to passing out?

No, just Eddie?

Richie went on to explain that he was going to live his life authentically, and if he got shit about it from people at school? Fuck it, he already got tons of bullshit from his parents and Bowers and his gang, he is more than used to it.

Eddie felt himself flush all the way up to his ears when Richie spoke again.

He said he never kissed a boy OR girl, and how he wants to kiss someone he can see himself being with, falling in love with.

Eddie released a breath he didn't know he was holding, feeling embarrassingly relieved.

He was also a little surprised at Richie’s oddly romantic statement, which made Eddie's stomach twist in pleasure, despite himself.

Eddie Kaspbrak is gay.

He has known it for as long as he can remember, and he has been denying, suppressing, and suffocating those feelings for almost just as long.

That fateful summer when they were 13, was when he decided to stop lying to himself, albeit keeping it to himself, and himself alone. That was also the summer he realized he had feelings for his best friend in the whole world.

The same one who just happened to admit he was bisexual, with confidence and ease. Something brave that Eddie couldn't bring himself to do.

He hated himself for it.

That horrific day at the Neibolt house, ironically enough, is the day his feelings for Richie were realized.

That evil, fucking clown, leering over him, pinning him down, mocking him, as Eddie cried out in pain and fear, desperately trying to slap the monster with his unbroken arm

Bill and Richie came rushing in, and so did the others in the nick of time. But then, as the clown loomed towards them, claws ripping from his gloves and drool dripping from his rows and rows of razor-sharp teeth, Richie ran to his side.

As Pennywise ominously closed the distance between them, Richie crouched down and forced Eddie's face in his direction.

"Eddie! EDDIE, look at me! LOOK AT ME!" he shouted, keeping Eddie's gaze on him. For all they all knew, they were going to die that day, and Richie's biggest concern was keeping Eddie calm, helping him to be less afraid.

And in those frenzied, panicked moments, Eddie realized that if he was about to go, he was so grateful the last thing he got to see was Richie.

If he died looking at his crazy dark curls, those high cheekbones sprinkled with freckles, those chestnut eyes magnified behind those dorky, thick glasses, and a warm fuzzy feeling in his chest, he figured he had it better than most.

Ever since then, Eddie had it bad.

And god help him, did he have to fall for the most handsy, in your face, crazy person. Every hug, tickle, cheek kiss, tackle, suggestive joke, touch, and flirt was, well...just Richie.

Its how he had been for as long as they all had known each other, which at this point, was a decade at least. He was the quintessential class clown, the "trash mouth", the touchy-grabby, insane goofball who lived to make people laugh, at any cost.

He was this way with all of the losers, it wasn't anything new. Richie couldn't know how it gave Eddie butterflies, how it made his heart stutter, his head go fuzzy...and at times, make his body react in ways he would have to stealthily hide with a pillow, or a jacket, or a book, until Eddie willed it the hell away.

But then again, Richie was more touchy with Eddie than any of the other losers...but that's just because they were closer, right?

Eddie and Richie were walking home from school, the usual ridiculous banter bouncing between them. It was late November, and the air was crisp and a bit biting when the wind blew.

Eddie shuttered at a gust of wind, and turned to his right to see Richie with a large, teasing grin.

"Ahre you chilly, dahling? My, my, where ARE my manners? I can't have my handsome gentleman callah freezing his tits off!" Richie crooned in a god awful southern belle accent.

"Shut up, dick face, Im f-f-fine" Eddie said with a shiver. Richie laughed out loud and shrugged his leather jacket off his shoulders and placed it on Eddie in one swift motion.

"You're gonna freeze stupid, take it back! I appreciate it, but its too cold for you to have no jacket" Eddie said while Richie stomped on some fallen, crunchy leaves.

"Na, Eds, how could I possibly be cold when you keep me so hot and bothered all the time?" Richie replied, swinging an arm around Eddie's shoulder and squeezing him to his side.

Eddie looked down at the pavement to hide his blush and a small grin.

They decided to go to Richie's house. They often alternated, but more often than not, they ended up here. Sonia Kaspbrak was never fond of Richie, and would always make a fuss when he was around too often, so this was typically just easier.

It was a Friday, and it meant they didn't have to bother with homework or worry about how late they stayed up, and they could just have a sleepover, like usual.

As they walked into Richie's room, Eddie found himself softly sighing. He always felt this overwhelming feeling as if he had come home.

Sure, the dirty socks on the floor and the empty soda cans and candy wrappers made his skin crawl, but his room was so comforting in its familiarity. The music posters, the comic books, the bed strewn with his clothes.

Eddie sat down on the edge of his double sized bed. The room smelled like him. It smelt like his warm, spicy cologne, the sweet jolly ranchers that he seemed to have everywhere.

It smelt like fresh air, cigarettes, and something masculine, something that was just him. He felt like he could get high on the scent. And for a moment, Eddie felt like he was losing his damn mind.

Richie waltzed in holding a bag of chips and two bottles of water and jumped on the bed so hard that the springs groaned.

"Jesus, asshole, you aren't a feather, you know!" Eddie laughed and scolded him at the same time. Richie just responded by shoving a handful of chips in his mouth and chewing obnoxiously near Eddie's ear.

Richie certainly had changed in those 4 years since that summer. For one thing, he was tall. Very tall. He sprouted up to 6'2 and was lean, with wirey muscle covering his long, gangly limbs.

His face had matured and lost all that soft innocence of youth, and he had a defined, sharp jawline with cheekbones to match.

Eddie could only wish his changes through the years were as profound.

Eddie was only 5'8 and of average build and weight, very disappointingly ordinary if you asked him. Although he had lost some of the round innocence in his face from childhood, he still had a softness about him, and big round, doe-like eyes.

Eddie often solemnly thought that Richie wouldn't ever consider him in that way, for his plain appearance alone.                

Eddie absentmindedly flipped through a random comic he grabbed from Richie’s desk, while Richie appeared to be watching some dopey teenage drama on his small, grainy TV.

The 2 main characters, after enduring sexual tension you could cut with a knife, finally kissed in dramatic fashion.

Richie tossed a potato chip at the screen and scoffed as it bounced to the floor.

"You'd think with me playing for both teams Id have someone by now. After all, I am irresistible" Richie said as he stretched out his legs across Eddies.

Eddie snorted back a laugh and said "Rich, as 'irresistible' as you might be, you actually have to put in an effort. I don't think I've ever seen you on a date, or kiss anyone...". As Eddie trailed off, Richie bit his lip, looking thoughtful.

Eddie could almost feel the shift in the room. For once, Richie was actually being serious. A few moments of silence passed before Richie asked

"have you ever been on a date or kissed anyone, Eds?"

Eddie shifted uncomfortably before telling what was actually the truth.

"Yes, I have actually. I have been on 4 dates, and I kissed each of those girls. It didn't work out, but hey, that's my luck."

And the funny thing was, that wasn't a lie.

Eddie did go on those dates and kiss those girls, but it was his last pathetic efforts to try to be straight. To stop thinking about Richie like that. But at the end of every awkward kiss, he felt weird and detached. It felt like a poorly rehearsed chore.

After the last girl in junior year, he decided to stop this pointless endeavour.

Richie cast his eyes down and shook his head before he spoke

"I’ve actually never kissed anyone at all...I’m 17 and I have never done it..." Richie had said it so quietly, it was almost a whisper. Eddie had so much nervous energy coursing through him he felt like he might jump out of his skin. Suddenly, Eddie felt a surge of courage, something in his gut that said 'now or never'.

"I’m gay, Rich" Eddie murmured, fidgeting with a loose thread on Richie’s shirt.

He felt as though his whole body had pins and needles, and he felt his chest tighten with anxiety.

Eddie tried to laugh off the serious admission by following it with,

"And hey, don't feel like you're missing out too much. Kissing isn't all its made out to be. I never felt any fireworks, and those poor girls probably thought they were kissing a dead fish". He half-heartedly chuckled.

He couldn't meet Richie’s gaze. The unusual silence made Eddie want to scream. You could hear a pin drop.

The one-time "trashmouth" Tozier had nothing to say, and it was killing Eddie with every moment that passed.

 Suddenly, Eddie felt sick. A wave of nausea, sadness, pent-up emotion that felt like a sucker punch to the gut. He also felt like a fool. He told his best friend, the only person he has ever told, that he was gay, and all he could do was sit there and stare.

When a man of many words suddenly is at a loss for them, Eddie could only assume the worst. Tears pricked at his eyes and stung. One lonely tear trickled down his hot cheek. Richie finally spoke.

"I never kissed anybody because I never found anyone available who I felt a special connection with. Someone to be vulnerable with. Someone who understands me." He paused, and then continued

"And I think that you're wrong." Eddie sniffled pathetically and looked up at Richie at last.

Richie’s cheeks were blazing red, and he looked so beautiful.

"What was I wrong about, Rich?" Eddie asked as Richie shifted closer on the bed.

"Well, I may not have kissed anyone, but I think it is worth the hype, Eds." Richie said quietly, as his eyes dropped to Eddies soft, parted lips. Eddie felt his heart start to race, as he dared himself to say

"Well, how can you prove that?"

Richie’s tongue darted out to wet his lips, and he let out a shuttering breath. Eddie felt paralyzed to his spot on the bed.

Before Eddie could have another thought, Richie leaned forward and pressed his lips to Eddies. Eddie didn't have the vocabulary to explain how good it felt.

It was a brief kiss, close-mouthed, and soft, 4 or 5 seconds at most. But in all of his life, he hadn't felt anything like he had in those brief moments.

A spark isn't enough to explain it. It was a like an electrical circuit was finally connected, completed, and a powerful and euphoric energy passed back and forth between them. It took his breath away.

Richie pulled away and laid his head back on the pillow. Richie’s heart was beating so fast that he was shaking ever so slightly. Richie said, in a shaky voice

"Well....at least for me, I think I proved my poi-"

But he was cut off by Eddie's lips on his once more. But this time, Eddie wasn't holding back. He had wanted this for so long, that he had not one more ounce of restraint.

He kissed him firmly, over and over, leaning his chest against his, barely allowing either of them to breathe.

He had a taste, and now he was addicted.

He moved his mouth down Richie’s jaw and kissed underneath it and all down his neck. Richie moaned softly, and Eddie felt himself grow hard at the sound.

Suddenly, Richie flipped Eddie over and crawled between his legs, one knee on either side of his leg. He leaned down and ran his tongue along the edge of Eddies lower lip. Eddie had to suppress a shiver as he opened his mouth to give him access.

Eddie could hardly believe that Richie had never done this before. His kisses were soft but passionate, wet but not sloppy, and it drove Eddie absolutely fucking wild.

Apparently, Eddie wasn't the only one being driven crazy though. Richie came closer and pushed his body against his, and Eddie could immediately feel how hard Richie was against his thigh.

It made Eddie moan out loud. Heat coiled tight in his stomach, and he felt almost drunk. He reached up a wove his fingers in his thick curls, and gently tugged.

Richie sat up and pulled Eddie with him so he was seated on his lap, and then roughly ran his fingertips up and down his back.

Somewhere, in a teeny tiny part of his mind, Eddie thought 'This is amazing, but its new. Slow down'.

To say this was like a drug would be an understatement, but he knew they had to stop, for the moment anyway.

After what felt like an eternity of arguing with his better sense, Eddie pulled away. Richie adorably whimpered at the loss of contact. It took all of Eddie's strength to put this moment on pause, but he had something to say, before they got carried away.  

They sat there catching their breath, before they were consumed with a fit of giggles. They couldn't explain why or contain it, but they kept laughing until their sides hurt.

Once he regained composure, Eddie began to speak.

"After the worlds best make-out session and the biggest confession I’ve ever made, I’m having trouble processing my thoughts. So please forgive me if this is a crazy ramble, ok?" Richie leaned against the headboard and nodded.

"Dude, you are loud, crude, a total and complete slob, and you have no concept of personal space. You tell the most stupid jokes and at least half of your accents are crap, and you drive the other losers insane like you have a quota to meet."

Richie furrowed his brow, looking almost embarrassed. Eddie continued before Richie could speak,

"But...one thing remains consistent. When I’m with you, I feel like I can overcome anything, like I can conquer the world. You don't make my weaknesses feel like a flaw, just another piece of me. No one I've ever known cares more, protects more, or makes me laugh the way that you do. At the end of the day, you have so much love to give. How could I not fall for you?"

Eddie gulped and stared at the pattern on the bedspread.

"You don't have to feel the same way, Rich...I get it, I really do. I mean, you've waited this long to find that special person...and I’m just me. We can pretend this never happened, if you want. I just want you to be happy...."

Eddie was frantic, tears blurring his vision. Richie sat up, leaning forward quickly, grabbing Eddie's hands in his enormous ones, and spoke.

"Hey dipshit, its always been you."

Eddie whipped his head back up, and looked at him incredulously.

"But...but..." Eddie began, but Richie piped up again,

"I never thought you were an option available to me. And god fucking knows its difficult to be with someone else when everything you want is around you almost every single day. It has always been you, it will always be you, Spaghetti." Richie smirked broadly at him, and Eddie lunged forward and squeezed him so hard to him that Richie let out a little squeak. Eddie leaned in to whisper in his ear

"Don't call me that. Way to taint the best moment of my life, fuckface"

Eddie began to laugh at the familiar joking between them. From now on, so many things wouldn't be the same. It was a kind of scary feeling. Richie cupped Eddie's face and gently kissed his forehead, sighing happily.

Eddies heart swelled inside his ribcage, and Eddie found himself thinking that he actually hoped nothing would ever be the same again.

[bishreview]

Dunkirk (2017) Review

You can practically see it from here. . . Home

Dunkirk is the latest film by critically acclaimed director Christopher Nolan (his 10th feature length so far) and is about the infamous retreat by British troops out of France. Focusing on four separate stories during the retreat (all of which obviously link), it highlights the grim, hopeless feeling of war, as well as the strength and courage by the British during their lowest point of World War II. With strong performances by big names like Tom Hardy, Kenneth Bragnagh, Cillian Murphy and Mark Rylance, smaller names such as Aneurin Barnard, Jack Lowden, Barry Keoghan, and Bobby Lockwood, as well as brilliant acting from debutantes Fionn Whitehead (a terrific performance which should be seeing him more roles in the future) and Harry Styles (yes, the singer), and an incredible film score by Hans Zimmer, Dunkirk depicts the retreat brutally honest and quite emotionally haunting but ends up being, possibly, the best film of the year.

Before I go on about the performances, cinematography and score, I want to first mention how Nolan has truly made something different with this film. It almost abandons the three act structure of a film, with the entire film sitting right in the middle of the usual second act (i.e. the conflict) until the end, in which a usual third act comes in. It entirely abandons the first act, with only slight exposition within the first few minutes (not even an entire scene) before it chucks us straight into the action. It also deters away from any character history or character building. The characters we are given as our leads is an unknown, young soldier (Whitehead), an old, patriotic sailor (Rylance), and a machine gun fighter (Hardy). With the exclusion of Rylance, who we are only told has a son with him and has had a son die in the war, we don’t know anything about the other characters. We don’t know if they have family, partners, what their motives are other than to fight for Britain, they are unknown. Usually these two features are key to a film’s success, but here they aren’t really needed. It can be argued that without character depth we can’t connect with the characters, but they don’t need depth in the grand scheme of things. This film seems to want to show us a depiction of war in which each soldier and citizen is equal, with the film following characters who can easily be replaced by another soldier. Hardy is the only actor playing what can be perceived as a unique hero, playing Farrier, a pilot who does a lot to “save the day” per say (is there really “saving the day” in a film about a massive defeat?). Rylance’s Mr. Dawson (how many protagonists don’t even have a first name) and Whitehead’s Tommy are just two experiences we focus on, they are really no more special than the other civilians who drove boats over to save the day (Mr. Dawson) or soldiers trapped on the beach (Tommy). It’s a risky move, but it really works in giving us a very realistic experience and lets us focus on the what is happening more than the usual cartoon Hollywood heroes (looking at you Pearl Harbour). 

The film’s plot is quite simple. An estimated 400′000 Allied soldiers (as well as an unknown amount of French soldiers who are still fighting for France) need to evacuate France due to the overpowering strength by Nazi forces. As France is slowly being lost to the Axis, the Allied soldiers are trapped on Dunkirk beach, in which they every attempt to get over is being stopped due to Nazi air strikes over the English channel. The British army, not wanting to waste too many resources as they are next in line to be directly attacked after France falls, send civilian boats and a small group of pilots to help the soldiers leave the beach. The odds are so low that at one stage Branagh’s Commander Bolton even states that rescuing only 35′000 will be a positive, with England needing as much defence as possible. We follow four main plots, a young soldier trying to be rescued, an old sailor trying to his best to rescue as many as possible, a skilled pilot looking to shoot down the Nazi aircraft, and the Navy Commander in charge of getting the soldiers off the beach.

Dunkirk relies on performances to be able to give the audience the emotional connection needed, especially since character depth is the focus. Whitehead plays a scared, young soldier who wants to get off the beach (same as everyone else really) but is consistently a moral character, along with his acquaintance Gibson (Barnard), who meet when trying to get an injured soldier on to the next vessel leaving at the start of the film. They often, for different reasons, take the moral path, acting as the level headed side of the young soldier. Styles on the other hand plays Alex, a character who has a moment in which he is willing to sacrifice an innocent man who he believes is lesser to save the majority. With a very spiteful role, he is able to be highlight the fear in his character, as well as the shame of losing a battle and letting England down which shows during the third act. His character is similar to the Murphy’s unnamed soldier (I think he said Harold was his name but it was hard to hear and the internet isn’t helping), who acts in a very questionable manner but is understandable due to the fear he has for what he has been through in Dunkirk. Rylance is incredible as Mr. Dawson, an old man trying to do his best to protect his country, with Keoghan and Lockwood providing the audience with realistic young people who are incapable of imagining the horrors they are about to witness. Branagh is at his usual brilliance with Commandor Bolton, the man in charge of getting the soldiers off the beach. There is a moment towards the end where he runs through about three emotions in a short change of time, each one as realistic and enduring as the next. Finally, Hardy plays a role which you could imagine only he could take on, acting mainly through eye reactions as his face is behind a pilot helmet/mask and his dialogue quite small (up until the end where you just want to give the guy a hug).

The movie does have little dialogue, bringing most of its emotion through the actor’s physical emotions, as well as the cinematography and film score. The former is where the film succeeds the most. Nolan and cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema are both genius in their choices of shots, with the set design (by Nathan Crowley) being a perfect for the visceral scenes we witness. For example, the opening shot is so colourful and simple, five soldiers walking down a very bright street with pamphlets floating in the wind. The obvious juxtaposition of such a sweet shot is quickly broken with the discovery of the pamphlets being from the Nazis and saying that they have them surrounded, and the beauty quickly broken by gunfire and the soldiers fleeing to escape. This scene is brilliant, with Tommy making it behind French lines and basically walking straight on to the beach after that, highlighting how little space they have. From then on most of the shots are quite ugly, with a grey, dull colour grading making the beach look miserable and escape hopeless. For the rest of the movie we are delivered scene after scene in which the environment drives our emotion, whether its the threatening image of sand dunes outside of the Allied lines, or the burning of a ship due to a bombstrike at night time. 

The score is also excellent, with Zimmer once again showing his talent and making a statement that he continues to be one of the all time greats. He builds tension using highly dissonant string arrangements, building climatically and driving a sense of terror in the audience. There are moments where the score works with the cutting of shots, often given us three separate events at the same time, overloading us with tension and giving us a feeling of dread. The moments without any music are often even more tense, with the absence of sound allowing us to hear the diegetic sounds of the war going on around the protagonists.

Most of the film is very violent (although there isn’t much gore) and the moments of happiness and relief are short lived. There was a good hour of this film where it didn’t let up, only given us short moments of rest before something even worse happened. There are small victories, with a big one towards the end in which the civilian ships do return, but it doesn’t let itself become too positive or optimistic, making us feel that even though they are safe there could be more enemies just beyond their line of sight. The ending of the film is also, thankfully, not as happy and victorious as it could have been. It reminds us that the soldiers returning are still heroes and that it is a positive so many survived, especially due to the war to come, but it doesn’t forget that it was still a massive loss by the Allies and that the war isn’t over and Nazi Germany, at that point, were still winning. It is optimistic without losing the essence of realism.

I had high expectations for Dunkirk due to the director and actors featured, but it exceeded these expectations and is a hard movie to fault. It highlights the terror and hopelessness in war in a very raw and realistic sense without needing gore or horrific images of violence which many war movies utilise. It gives us a human experience without any character depth, allowing the audience to place ourselves inside the characters’ footsteps to see the horrors they are facing without the usual cliched love stories and sop-stories. Although it could be criticised by some due to the absences mentioned above, it doesn’t take away from the experience that Nolan is trying to have the audience endure. It’s a depressing, emotionally draining movie which tires the audience in the best way possible. We just want the violence to stop, but it is drawn out brilliantly, making every moment feel more hopeless than the last. It makes a strong case to be Nolan’s best film yet (and with a discography of Memento, The Prestige, The Dark Knight trilogy, Inception and Interstellar that is saying a lot) and maybe even the best war film ever (it definitely is up there with Saving Private Ryan and Full Metal Jacket). It’s a film which many might not enjoy as it isn’t fun. From a cinematic standpoint though, Dunkirk is an excellent film, with the performances, the cinematography, the direction, the production and the sound design all being nearly faultless, and it makes a strong case to be placed as the number one film of 2017.

Dunkirk gets an A+

[fairytail-whathesays]

I have seen your post on Zeref. What do you think should have been done with him for his character to be at the least DECENT?

Hooooly shit. Let’s enter that hurricane and try to find the eye.

1. Stop trying to weave together every single plotline into Zeref.

The big, overarching villain does not necessarily need to be connected to every single story in the series. And when they are, it takes an exceptionally skilled writer to pull it off, and Mashima is frankly a good ways under par. Untangling this mess is the first step towards finding a place from which we can launch an actual character. To that end, I suggest cutting out:

Irene Belserion’s backstory, obviously.

Anna Heartfilia and the Eclipse Gate. That one falls apart rather easily. The dragonslayers did not need to come from 400 years in the past.

Zeref’s story with Mavis. There is far too much interweaving between Fairy Tail and Zeref and it’s basically driving this shitty Alvarez arc.

If you absolutely must keep Natsu being Zeref’s brother, then do so, but that plot point is so overused it’s fast approaching cliche levels. There really should be other ways to tie the central characters into Zeref if they have to be.

2. Explain Ankhseram.

Ankhseram is an actual, divine god of life and death that was awake and willing to curse two teenage individuals over messing with life and death in ways that would end up causing more mass death. In present day Fairy Tail, there has not been a single hint of any divine presence at all beyond Chronos, who in himself is just sort of there to give DiMaria an unfair power. In case anyone is confused at why Ankhseram is important:

It literally caused every single important event in the goddamn manga with its actions.

And yet, it has received no fleshing out or explanations beyond those backstory actions. It is literally just a very important chunk of backstory with no substance. We do not know who exactly Ankhseram is, why he felt it important to curse Zeref and later Mavis over his transgression and her own much smaller one, why it has not been seen or heard from since, what its laws and rules surrounding death are, or how it feels about the events that have unfolded as a consequence of its curses. Ankhseram is literally “a mean god came and cursed Zeref one day so that’s why he’s bad” and that’s it.

3. Do better when it comes to “snapping” Zeref.

People have heard me mention that what Mashima wanted when creating Zeref is the story of a good person who just suffers way too much trauma and tragedy before that one last thing happens to completely break them and turn them into a monster that can’t be saved. I have also mentioned that he failed, badly. And that’s because the catalyst for Zeref “snapping” was Grimoire Heart’s war with Fairy Tail on Tenrou Island. I should mention that Zeref gaining control of his death powers goes hand in hand with his loss of care for humanity at large–one can’t happen without the other. I should also remind everyone of the terrible, traumatizing, and tragic displays of human violence and aggression that have happened during Zeref’s 400+ lifetime, including recent ones like: the cultists of the Tower of Heaven running an immense slave labor project using kidnapped and abused children, the many millions of people across the many towns Grimoire Heart slaughtered without mercy looking for ‘keys’, the Edolas Anima project run by a mad king that would’ve ripped away everyone in Earthland and murdered them……and yet, what tips him from  his life of willful seclusion and love for humanity into nihilistic omnicidal insanity, is…..a war with Fairy Tail that Grimoire Heart started and subsequently lost, badly, wherein no one died except people who died at Zeref’s hand. This is not exactly a believable catalyst for me. I have trouble, considering the depth and scale of this manga, believing that this is what turns a good man into a psychopath. Do better.

4. Stop mixing “kind” and “murderous”.

I will state right here and now that we are supposed to perceive pre-Tenrou Zeref as good. Flawed, maybe, but good. After all, he fell in love with Purity Sue Mavis, and taught her and the other Fairy Tail founders their magic. And he participated in a project to dethrone a homicidal dragon king. All of his horrific experiments started with him just trying to revive his slain brother. That meanie Ankhseram is to blame! All those demons that have hurt and threatened countless people are “misunderstandings”–they were for the purpose of suicide, not killing anyone else! And he banded together 730+ guilds both light and dark to overthrow a tyrannical monarch!

Yeah, there’s a bit too many problems with this. For someone who hadn’t seemed to have had his “snap” yet, Zeref pre-Tenrou is surprisingly uncaring about loss of life that comes as a direct result of his actions. That stuff I mentioned in point three about possible catalysts for Zeref to snap over human violence? A lot of that is blood on his hands. The Tower of Heaven was started in his name, to bring him out of his supposed sleep. So were the mass killings committed by Grimoire Heart. In addition, the demons that he created are either vicious killing machines (Lullaby, Deliora) or are incredibly hostile to human life (Tartaros), an idea that was apparently programmed into them. For someone whose decision to slaughter the entirety of humanity down to the last child was born as a result of one final anger with humanity’s senseless violence against itself, Zeref has still done more harm to humanity than it has ever done to itself, by far, and is either too selfish or too hateful of humanity to begin with to acknowledge it.

This really just comes with a problem I’ve pointed out before, which is that Mashima has no sense of delicacy or subtlety when writing antagonists even if they’re supposed to be anti-villains or tragic villains. “The Black Wizard Zeref” being a misunderstanding kind of plays off how many people were torn apart by Zeref as though he didn’t very much earn that name.

5. Cut his love story with Mavis.

This was just so unnecessary, not to mention a monumental dip into the pedophile-pandering jar. Even if you had to maintain Zeref’s connection with Fairy Tail (you really didn’t), a love story was not the way to go. It has now started its entire own arc, and a very poorly done one at that. You know how I would’ve won the war with Alvarez? Walked up to Acnologia with Mavis’ crystal in hand, said “hey, eat this” or otherwise told him to fling it into the sea, or in some other manner had it delivered permanently from Zeref’s grasp. The fact of the matter is that Mavis should have remained dead, because her being alive has been a tool used for Zeref’s character and not to its greatest effect. 

6. Explain what exactly is necessary to kill Zeref.

Another one of those things that was never really explained about Ankhseram (that really should have been) is the immortality he cursed Zeref with. The most we’ve been able to guess is that it’s sufficient power, as E.N.D. is described as being the most powerful of Zeref’s demons and thus able to kill him. So, uhh….? Have Acnologia do the job? It’s canonically greater than Zeref’s equal, easily so. Or, I dunno, wait a few years and Laxus or Gildarts will get to that level, I’m sure [shot]. Oh, but Zeref wants to destroy Acnologia! (Strange thing, as setting Acnologia on a rampage would be the easiest route to wiping out humanity, which is Zeref’s main goal). That’s what he wants Fairy Heart for: to destroy Acnologia. But couldn’t he also use a power source that great for his suicide? 

If all he needs to die is power, than what exactly is stopping him? If it’s not power, than what is it? We’re getting kind of close to the end of the manga here, and why exactly E.N.D. should be the one to kill Zeref instead of anyone else hasn’t exactly been explained. 

[threespayedfemales-blog]

First day of radiation therapy for the, very luckily, tiny in situ breast tumor, with agoraphobia/AG. and how i forgot to pre-worry about all the sick  people who would be there and, of course, a little dog stuff…

because i tend to bury the lead and because, as a good friend told me, my tangents have tangents, i will talk about the cancer first and then go off on other stuff that can seem unrelated but not to me. i had a mammogram. and i wasn’t worried at all. i don’t fear death. well, the pain and such scare the shit out of me. but i’m not a big fan of Life. i have a little basket of Mental Illnesses -- i talk about one of them below and will discuss the other delightful conditions in future posts. but bottom line is that i wouldn’t really mind dying. not in some hideous horrific way of course. but i think i would be good at it and popular. people would say i was Spunky or Brave and that would feel great. i wouldn’t tell them that i was kind of relieved to have a pretty terrible horrible not good very bad life be over soon.

but of course, i talked about my relationship with Godiverse and why i call him/her/universe/spirit that in my past piece. and how you have to be very specific with GDV. and how perverse he, etc is so because i want to move on, i just don’t seem to die. i wrote a whole possible memoir chapter about it and will share it here. but things have happened like living in Hell Lay and driving by a drive- by shooting and not getting shot. and attaching a hose to the exhaust pipe and someone forgetting something and coming back and finding me and, well, for someone like me. it was pretty Sucky.

back to the teeny tumor. i go to get a mammogram and as i’ve said, i was not worried at all. i knew it wasn’t going to be anything because of the contrary nature of GDV. and because of the AG, i worry, well, pre-worry about just about everyting except

my service dog and my gigantic transgender kitty.

well, the whole thing breast test thing pissed me off. the Tech was a Bitch. she was actually a step further than that. i wish there was a term like Bunt for women who are just nasty, beyond being a pain in the ass. no compassion, no freaking manners, very cold. just move here, move there. put it in farther. whatever. no, i know it’s uncomfortable but it will be over soon. just a giant asshole.

okay, so, they take me in to another room and start doing an ultrasound. i don’t realize yet that most people don’t get moved to the second room. someone just looks at the mammogram pictures and says, okay, come back in a year or something like that. the very lovely and kind tech does the procedure and i’m ready to go. and then 3 other people come in one after the other to move that wand around and take a closer look. they tell me that there is something in there but it is very very small and they are just going to keep track of it. so i leave and i’m worried because i don’t want to die before my animals do -- i hadn’t thought that part through -- but mostly i’m kind of psyched. i’m supposed to come back in six months. but because of at least one of my basket of mental disorders, i’m not at all good with time. very bad at it actually. so turns out that i was there in 2015 and it’s now 2017. but they are very sweet and don’t give me any shit about being cavalier about the whole thing.

but because it’s been so long, they want to mammogram both breasts. and do a diagnostic thing which i don’t understand but okay. and there is something. very small still but larger than last time and also In Situ which means that it hasn’t moved outside what are called margins and it’s not in the lymph nodes so this is very good news. and i once again have my very Mixed Feelings about all of this. so they are going to do the standard thing which is a lumpectomy and radiation. it’s very easy to take the little bitty tumor out. it’s outpaitent and i don’t know if they zapped it with a laser or stuck in something like the thing they put in your brain to pull out an AVP of whatever kind of thing that is small but deadly. i usually pay attention to what is being done to me. but i had taken a pain pill just in case and i was flying kind of high and not thinking clearly.

so that was that and they scheduled the radiation. well, as i mentioned above i have an extreme panic thing/AG and i rarely leave the house and i have a shitload of trouble getting my increasingly Fat Ass to intimidating locations. and because i very rarely go out and about, i have a lot of good acquaintances, for which i am hugely thankful. but i don’t have the kinds of Good Friends, Drop Everything and Take YOu To the Hospital type friends. my version of those people live in my beloved Boston or in L.A. and i am sadly in Portland, OR which i know is supposed to be very hip and trendy and whatever. but i am old and turns out i don’t care for Rain and i’m not a Nature Gal so i don’t like hiking and camping so much. well, i do love an easy-ish hike and so does my senior service dog/wonderpup Cocoa Chane/CCl. the Gigantic Transgender Cat is named Gary Cooper. i’ve written about this and how he was originally thought to be a girl and how i gave her the wonderful moniker Gloria Steinem, her clearly being a feminist and feline - est.

well, so i don’t have the Close Friends who will support me with things like that. so i will need to find a taxi or uber or lyft to go to to the hospital because otherwise i won’t go because the AG will have Come On Full Force because it is a new and challenging Thang and i don’t like going anywhere most days, never mind to a scary place.

but what i wanted to explain is that because of the extreme panic and anxiety and because i am very prone to what i call Pre-Worrying. i think that in Parlance, it is termed Catastrophizing. but it’s basically getting very very anxious about things in the future about which you had no control and which might actually turn out to be okay or even good in a lot of cases. so i did That Thing about the actual radiation. mostly about needing CC to go with me and would they ban her because of people having low immune systems or would there be a safe place for her to sit/stand while i was being zapped. but i wasn’t concerned about the actual radiation because i had googled and it wasn’t chemo and i’m not a hypochondriac. thank Godiverse.

but what i forgot to pre-worry about was the Other People who might be waiting for their treatments. and how very sick some of them might be. very very sick and how i make new Acquaintances very easily because of CC and how exceptionally beautiful and sweet and affectionate she is because she LOVES PEOPLE. and how i might end up befriending people who would then Die.

and how my husband was sick and died from pancreatic cancer, for which there is still no effective treatment, and it was terrible and horrible and we/i lost all the money because of his massive medical bills. and how i ended up in Subsidized Senior Housing and how much i hate it but how blessed i am to have been able to get in here and to have housing at all since i came close to being homeless. and yada yada yada. but mostly that richard got so incredibly sick and how much he Loved Life and desperately did not want to die and how heartrending that was. and how exhausting it all was. and just very very awful.

so entering the waiting room and seeing other cancer patients waiting with their very different levels of illness, well, it was challenging. luckily it is the less at risk patients who tend to be given radiation. very sick ones are usually bombarded with all kinds of chemo. i think. but there were some who were pretty far along.

shit, i forgot that i wrote about the AG and that it doesn’ t really go here. andi should really talk more about the Waiting Room People and the radiation thing but i’m kind of at the end for now. it was pretty rough. but one day at a time and all that shit...

so now back to this one item in the basket of craziness.

well, so, i battle with a severe anxiety and panic disorder called agoraphobia. it’s when you start avoiding situations where you’ve had a panic attack and your life gets smaller and smaller and some end up completely housebound. among that group i’m a success because i am able to Leave My House a few times a week. well, that’s a good week. mostly 2 days. and sometimes not at all. it’s terrible. you have basically sentenced yourself to, shit, what do they call it? oh yes, House Arrest. without the ankle moniter. i’m 65 and i’ve been this way since i was 45 or so.

i’m grateful that i learned very early on -- through an AOL mental illness group -- that you could get a service dog for a psychiatric disorder. now i kind of educate informally about this and i call it Service Dog For Invisible Disabilities because there are so many of us whose wounds cannot be seen with the naked eye.

in my next post i will talk about my exceptionally loveable first service dog, Good Willa Hunting. i found out later that she’d been hunting dog so it was so totally meant to be. she was 9 and very decrepit but once i laid eyes on her i knew i had to take her in and that i would have to start grieving her a tiny bit at a time because she was going to shatter my heart.

so, again, i was thankful for learning so early in my AG that i could have a canine companion. and because i adore Canine-Americans and i wouldn’t feel alone with her at my side, well.. it was a major major gift from the Universe.

next post will be partly about the Radiation People, who will also most likely break my fucking heart. and about my various emotional disorders and whatever i didn’t get to in my last post.

love love love and gratitude for finding this fun place to post, even though it confuses the hell out of me and i’m used to have a Page for my own stuff and not all these other people’s posts taking such a huge part of things. but i’m thankful beyond words and that’s a good thing.

[nobodyslaughing-blog]

TIMBER AGENTS: Adventures in the Overgrowth - aka my fake anime aka Discord RPG Setting Dump 2

Timber Agent was a long running 80s Light Novel series that was adapted for tv in 1996. It was famously what Akira Toriyama worked on in between Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z. Great designs didn’t save the show though and it was canceled after one season, before the main characters ever became the titular Timber Agents.

The show became a cult classic during a short run on Toonami where Steve Blum made his second famous role as Valiant Star. Even though the Toriyama designs weren’t close to the Light Novels description it stayed in the public mind enough to get a reboot in 2016 called Timber Agent: Adventures in the Overgrowth done by Studio Shaft.

After the first season sold gangbusters in both Japan and in the West a second and third season were announced. On top of that the original author is planning for six more chapters and “possibly more”. With nostalgia we might finally see Timber Agent fully animated as it rightly should be.

Obviously this didn’t exist…instead this is my “Shonen Battle Manga Setting” for Mutants and Masterminds. Here’s the setting.

One thousand years ago magic returned with a crash as the Old Gods fought massive beasts in their last battle. Cities flooded, earthquakes ate entire nations, and all electronics were changed. Some were merely broken beyond repair while a few became ingrained with magical power. The robotic armies of man were given free will and the mech suits used by human soldiers were cursed, each with a different curse that affected their users. In the end man retreated from the cities and started a small life.

One thousand years later, the time we play in, society has built itself back up. (Kingdoms will be posted later)

Magic started affecting humans in odd ways. Some were born with magical abilities, usually one single power or several small weak ones. Humans born with these powers are called Gems and their “purity”, aka the level of power they wielded, was measured. From weakest to strongest they are called Stones, Sapphires, Rubies, and Diamonds. The name was adopted due to anyone given the gift having gem eyes, each level named after the eyes that develop.

The Robots ended up having a massive war that lasted a hundred years. Half wanted to help humanity while the others wished to rule them. A few even wanted to eradicate them. In the end the good Robots won but they could not bring themselves to kill their brothers and instead put them to sleep, hoping that when they wake they will understand empathy. Most of the heroic Robots went into a sleep mode also, most for their own reasons. The few that kept awake helped humanity in small ways, keeping their creators alive when they would be dead. Humanity has all but forgotten making Robots and view them as rare powerful gods and revere them as such, though they tend to not enjoy being worshipped.

Mech suits are called Machine Armor and each has its own temperament connected to their curse. Some require bloodshed to run while others need long rituals for daily use. Some have odd weaknesses such as not working in shadows or not being able to harm wood.

Elves - Otherwordly abominations whose beauty is so great a single glance makes you mad.

Talpi/Moles - Small wrinkly men with big claws and bigger whisker mustaches. They use their claws to dig massive underground cities. They eat rocks and metals and live in structured clans waiting for the day that Old Wodd, their creator, comes back. They gain sexual traits for childbirth and lose them whenthey give birth. Child Talpi are small worms and generally number in the hundreds and are kept in shallow pits and given rotten meat, it’s easier for them to chew, for a week before they are considered “children”. Usually only five or so survive to “childhood” and Talpi don’t really consider worm-talpi to be sentient until a week. Talpi also raise and herd giant insects for all parts of life. They use silk strands from spider-cows for their clothes, ride giant beetles up walls, and use giant worms for meat. Surface Talpi use their giant insects as both riding animals and weapons.

Giants - Multi-armed hairless men who stand ten feet tall or even taller. They hate humans because they were given the gift of magic while they were cursed to never be able to use it. They are inherently stronger than most other races and usually are just bandits. Some drink the blood of the sleeping Midgard Serpent to gain horrific powers. Some say they used to be Aesir, the warrior children of old gods, but the blood must have been diluted from a thousand years of breeding. Now they measure their families closeness to deity-hood by the number of arms they have.

Trolls - Big smelly and silly trolls live in swamps and sewers and eat rocks and metals. They aren’t very smart and tend to be kind to travelers. Evil wizards like to warp their minds and use them as monsters.

Draugr - Undead creatures consumed by obsessions, these obsessions usually influence their physical form in some manner. They enjoy causing pain and chaos no matter their obsessions.

Tariaksuq/Shadow-people - A race of people as varied as humanity. They can’t be seen if someone stares straight at them.

Ijiraq/Shape-shifters - Monsters who masquerade in human form. They can change their bodies to suit their needs and are strict carnivores. They enjoy the taste of children most.

Qalupalik/Boogeys - Beautiful women who are always covered in water. They have long nails that can cut stone and are also carnivores. They tend to be less monstrous than Shape-Shifters but a few will go down the darker path and steal children. They love the water and some even have a magical ability to control it.

Blotsno/Frosties - Frosties are a kind race of magical people. They were born when Asgard fell on Earth in the far reaches of Antarctica. Frosties tend to stay to themselves and most only worry about breakfast, lunch, dinner, and tea time. They form large homes in snow drifts and love twinkling lights because they remind them of the stars. They have a long history of artists and will write songs, paint pictures, and create plays all about the Aurora Borealis. The females tend to look like snowmen while the males are look like they are carved out of ice. They are born in tiny ice eggs that the women lay. Their special type of magic allows them to easily move small objects and even boil water and fry meat without heat.

Goblins - Goblins come in hundreds of variations but the most important part is they are carnivorous, treacherous, little imps who delight in torture and are only motivated by an empty belly and inventive ways to kill things.

Languages - Norse: Old Norse with additions of English and Mexico. Farther east it’s mixed with Korean and Chinese. Spoken by everyone but Moles, Frosties, Giants, and Trolls each have their own dialect. Everyone knows a version of it, it’s basically Common. If you take Comprehend Languages you also learn every dialect.

- Coyote: A mystic language held by all animals given to them by the trickster shape-shifter Coyote. Shadow-people, Shape-shifters, and Boogeys all have their own dialect of this. Comprehend Animals gives you all of this.

- Machines all have specific language-like codes. Comprehend Machines give you all of this.

- Rot-Speak: Draugr come in hundreds of variations and many can speak Norse, but the maddening language they share is given with Comprehend Spirits.

The Old Gods were good Gods though not always nice ones. Each race has been touched by one of them. Even dead the Gods are worshipped and the many small magical creatures they had made in their long life respect prayers to their deity.

Old Wodd was their leader and father to most of them. He made the Talpi as a gift to his son Bjorn who loved insects. Wood spirits follow his prayers. All creatures answer prayers for wisdom and leadership when send with his name.

Little Vadr was their trickster and a bit of a bastard. Even then he still fought against the Leviathan when the Last War came. He made the shape shifters, the boogeyman, and shadow-people. Spirits of books and secrets listen to his prayers. Coyote answers his prayers for him but chooses only the most tricky and thieving of them.

Bjorn the Bear was Old Wodds favorite son. He was the strongest and the Giants say they were his children, though nobody believes them. He enjoyed small things and fought to protect them. Old spirits of stone and steel listen to his prayers. Any prayer for strength is answered by spirits if sent with his name.

Holda the Black was the oldest daughter of Old Wodd and enjoyed darker things. She helped Little Vadr make his Shadow People and generally hid until the Last War.

Young Sybil was the youngest daughter of Old Wodd and was the most beautiful by far. She was lost to the Elves, never to come back.

Old Mag is the wife of Old Wodd and mother to all races. She made the Blostsno’s to take care of the world when she would die, though Bjorn gave the men great strength. Most believe she was the reason why humans gained magical abilities. Any prayer for protection is answered by spirits when said in her name and magic items charged with her prayer can tell when Elves are near.

During the Last War the Gods fought Leviathan, a massive continent sized serpents, and his many children. Though they slew his children the body of Leviathan fell on the world and was not dead. He sleeps, wrapped across the north, and it’s blood corrupts anything it touches. This has risen legions of Eldritch horrors and some giants even trek across the planet to drink its caustic blood. Those who survive find themselves filled with dark and horrific strength or mutated into powerful monstrosities.

Leviathan ate the World Tree when the Last War happened but a single mysterious man, known as Father Root, took two seeds and replanted them in the center of the world. These two seeds grew to be the Tree of Life, always in bloom, and the Tree of Death, always bare. These two Trees gained a sapience and created the Order to protect the world if ever the Leviathan woke again. In time every kingdom learned of the Order and took their warriors, called Timber Agents, and their actions as law. One thousand years later they are known as the group of the most powerful mortals in the realm and the treasure from their adventures passed onto the Order itself. In exchange for their service Timber Agents are given riches, are above the law in every but the most dystopian state, and contacts in secret groups that would never speak to a lesser mortal.

Every five years the Gauntlet of Wood is held to find new warriors for the Order. Hundreds of people attempt to pass it but those who pass each year are barely a handful of the contestants. It is deadly, it is cruel, and in the end your death is more likely than your passing.