#after over...3 years now?

[xylaes]

Read Part 1 Here! Read Part 2 Here! Read Part 3 Here!

give in

Xylaes beat the sides of both fists in frustration against the door that had promptly slammed shut behind the small rescue team, trapping them within some kind of large chamber in the Spiral Weave. He should have known, he should have seen that coming, but his judgment was so clouded by finally getting another chance to kill this bastard that he didn’t notice the trap that they were all now in.

After reuniting with Rynga, they decided to form their own little mercenary crew of sorts to assist those being held captive within the City of Threads, just as they both had been. It was too dangerous to leave the safety of The Burrows and run around Azj-Kahet trying to find their way back to the surface, and they certainly weren’t going to sit still and wait for help to come to them. Eventually the military would be here, and the mercenaries would follow shortly after. For now, there was no better way to bide their time. Even after the military arrived, it still felt right to stay and keep doing what he had been doing. They knew the city well at this point, and had plenty of connections to move about nearly unseen.

Thus far, their small team of six had already rescued quite a few captives scattered about the city, including more victims of the Puppetmaster. Xylaes had a personal vendetta against the bastard at this point, especially after discovering Pyraelia there. Thankfully he had reached her just in time; she was so close to being lost and becoming one of…them. This only cemented his desire to find the sick fuck behind all this and to kill him once and for all. So while others left and rejoined their own crews, or were finally able to go home when the time came, Xylaes and some others stayed. They all wanted to see justice served.

let go

Rynga tugged on his sleeve, urging him to stop. It was no use, that door wasn’t going to open until whoever shut it wanted it to open. He glanced around towards the others as they all readied their weapons, waiting for whatever was about to happen.

“Looks like I’ve finally caught you all in my web.” The voice echoed from somewhere within the chamber, but the blinding spotlights from above made it impossible to locate their target. “You have been a nuisance from the start; setting my puppets free, destroying my workshop and then my theater. I think it is about time we get to your final act.”

“Come fight us yourself, coward!” Xylaes yelled out, eyes darting around and trying to locate the source of the voice.

His taunt was met with a maniacal laugh, “This will be my grandest play yet!”

Give In

More spotlights flickered on, illuminating the massive collection of ‘puppets’ waiting in the wings that had finally come to life. Most were nerubians, but there were a few members of the various Horde, Alliance, and neutral militaries scattered throughout. They were outnumbered, by a lot, and these puppets weren’t as easy to kill as their mortal bodies would have been.

There was nothing to be done but fight, they just had to watch each other’s backs and just maybe they could make it through this. One of the massive beetle-like nerubians stepped out of the shadows and Xylaes could feel a chill run up his spine. He would never admit to himself that a situation was hopeless even when it obviously was, and perhaps that was the secret to his longevity at this point. He had found himself in plenty of deadly situations, yet death had always eluded him.

Let Go

At times he thought he had maybe been blessed with the gift of luck, but if that were the case his past would have been very different. It always seemed like everyone around him got hurt, or worse, and yet he persisted. The adrenaline raced through his veins as he broke out into a cold sweat. All of his senses seemed to sharpen in that moment as he locked in, readying himself for the fight to come.

GIVE IN

“SHUT UP!” His abrupt exclamation caused the rest of the crew to give him a bewildered look. The feminine voice inside his head was growing more and more persistent. It wasn’t Callia like he had originally thought, he would have listened to her by now. He waved it off, shaking his head as he stepped closer to the center of the room, the group forming a circle with their backs to each other while the puppets began to close in on them.

With the first couple waves, their team moved fluidly through the battle. They were all highly skilled fighters and had plenty of experience under their collective belts, but the fact was that there were just too many puppets and soon enough they started to get overwhelmed. Maya, the human female he had first saved from the Puppetmaster’s workshop, was the first to take a hit. She dropped to one knee, screaming in pain as a spindly lance pierced her thigh. She kept fighting through it as best as she could, but she would sooner bleed out before getting through all of the enemies.

Rynga did her best to stop the bleeding with a bit of Light, but soon after Aras, a male Kaldorei that had joined them most recently, fell with a large gash across his chest. It was getting so crowded and harder to move, and soon enough the massive beetle-like nerubian hovered over them. 

It was happening again, everyone around him was dying.  At least he would die too this time.

LET GO

Maybe it was time to listen to the voice. What else did they have to lose at this point? He did what was asked of him, to give in and to let go. The fingertips of his replanted arm began to tingle and burn before suddenly the sensation shot up the foreign limb and throughout the rest of his body as everything suddenly went dark. The last thing he heard was Rynga screaming before completely blacking out. At least it was quick and relatively painless. He’d be with Callia soon.

“Xylaes, lad, wake up.” The voice was very faint, as if someone was calling to him from across a large room. His body felt sore and heavy, was this what it was like to die? That didn’t seem fair. The smelling salts immediately caused him to jolt up, nearly knocking Rynga over in the process. “There ya are, lad! Thought we lost ya fer a moment. Thought we lost…everyone fer a moment.”

It took him a few moments to get his bearings about him, rubbing his eyes and clearing his throat before speaking. “Am I…are we dead?”

“No, lad. We’re all alive, thanks to ye.”

Xylaes looked around towards the others. Maya and Aras were looking at him in confusion, both were bandaged up, but alive. When his gaze met Rynga’s, she looked taken aback for a moment, eyes furrowing as she leaned away from him. 

“What do you mean?” As far as he was aware, he passed out and didn’t do a damn thing.

“Ya don’ remember? …Obviously ya don’ remember.” She attempted to wipe the shocked expression from her features, reaching out to cup his cheek. Her touch was always comforting. “Ya…” It was clear she was attempting to figure out how to word something and couldn’t quite find the best explanation. 

“You made a smaller version of the void explosion like the one that blew apart Dalaran and it fucking killed everything but us. Didn’t know you had that in you, but fucking glad you did.” Maya was blunt like that, and Rynga seemed thankful she didn’t have to pick more delicate words.

“Didn’t know I had that in me either. Wish I could remem…” He trailed off as his eyes caught sight of the small amount of showing and -glowing- skin between his glove and sleeve on his left arm. He pushed up the sleeve, staring at the once hidden runes of this replanted arm that were now glowing a dark purple. “The fu-”

“That’s not the only thing, lad.” Rynga picked up her sword, wiping part of the blade off on her leg before holding it up to his face so he could see a faint reflection.

If he didn’t know he was looking at his own reflection, he would assume these eyes belonged to a stranger. Glowing a deep purple, surrounded by an inky blackness; this looked too familiar, and not in a good way. He quickly pulled his sleeve back down and cleared his throat, “Right, well, let’s get the fuck out of here, shall we?” The priority was to get somewhere safe. They could discuss this later. Or not. Maybe it was only temporary.

Who did this arm belong to before him? He wasn’t sure he wanted to know anymore.

@themercenaries @pyraelia

[transgendz]

Emergency Commissions

One of my checks was a couple of days late last week, and the more lucrative of my 2 proper jobs has given me only one day of work this week (seems to be system issue?? I'm waiting for a reply from my higher up, there seems to be a queue of sorts) I have no idea when I'm going to get my check this week, either. Although it's supposed to come in on Tuesdays, I have heard from coworkers it is likely to be delayed again. On top of all of this, I have had wifi issues for a week, and I work from home.

I was already going to have to do some commissions to make rent this month before the reduced work hours and wifi issues. I have to pay rent on Saturday, and I do not get a grace period. I cannot emphasize how screwed me, and both of my disabled roommates are if my check doesn't come in on time, which is apparently not likely to happen.

I am setting this goal for $600 which is how much I am going to need for rent if my check does not go through in time. I will update this post accordingly, and turn off rbs if I get my check before rent is due, but tbh if i thought that was happening I wouldn't be making this post.

Anyone who help with this can contact me at my art blog @theartistrans for art like you see above. There may be a bit of a wait because I have 2 jobs and this, but I will mail you the piece if you pay the shipping also.

Dm me for proof or more details. More details are also in my tags.

$C V PP Kofi

[mozart-the-meerkitten]

*rolls up 15 years late with Avatar the Last Airbender thoughts*

So I've been rewatching clips from the show lately to refresh my memory while I'm writing my Zuko Alone fanfic. And last night I rewatched the clip where Iroh teaches Zuko how to redirect lightning and I have had thoughts about this scene for years so I might as well finally throw them into the void of tumblr.

So, this scene is insane to me, because at the end of learning how he could-hypothetically- redirect lightning, Zuko looks at Iroh and, completely seriously says "okay I'm ready to try it with the real thing now". Like, Zuko, the boy with a massive scar on his face from where his father burned him just looks at his uncle and says, "shoot me with lightning".

And yes, he's 16 and not thinking but that's part of the point because the amount of blind, complete trust Zuko has in Iroh to look at him and say "shoot lightning at me" after the insane trauma he had at the hands of his own father- that is WILD to me. Zuko literally trusts Iroh so much that he just assumes, without even having to think about it, that no matter how volatile and unpredictable the lightning is, Iroh won't hurt him because Zuko cannot fathom his uncle hurting him.

And of course, Iroh's appalled because Zuko's standing there with a massive scar on his face from when his father misused firebending against him and likewise, Iroh cannot fathom hurting Zuko. And since IROH knows how volatile and unpredictable lightning is and how it could literally kill his son nephew he is absolutely NOT going to use it just to let Zuko practice redirecting lightning, but he's so flabbergasted that Zuko would even ask him that that he just kind of splutters angrily that he will ABSOLUTELY NOT shoot lightning at Zuko. (it's also just another layer of how messed up Ozai is because he shot lightning at Zuko without a second thought later)

But I hope Iroh thought about it later and realized the amount of pure, unthinking trust Zuko has in him because ;-; the child didn't even THINK about it. "Okay uncle shoot lightning at me now. I know I'll be safe because it's you." I love them so much 😭😭

[shima-draws]

Me? Drawing Tododeku for the first time since *checks calendar* APRIL of LAST YEAR???

[rev-velvet]

I find it extremely funny that Craig and Octavio are running a booth together at Grand Fest. Like you KNOW Octavio was probably like "Look your granddaughters and my grandchildren former soldiers are all here to have a good time. So truce." And then they get to old man gossiping and then maybe some reminiscing about before the war and their past friendship and words left unsaid and and and

[welcometogrouchland]

(ID in alt) I literally said I was gonna post this month's ago and then never had the wherewithal to describe it and so I didn't Lmao (said with pain). But since I'm thinking of opening my commissions I figured I should remind ppl that I. Yknow. Can draw.

Lots of Steph here (I had major art block making all of these and my brain worms for her kept me going) + some sprinkles of stephcass for Cass nation to enjoy!

[mrs-gauche]

I beat Veilguard.

It's 4am. I'm a mess. I'm in tears.

[sysig]

[doggolol]

HE ALMOST SURRENDERS TO THE KISS

HE WAS SUPPOSED TO SURRENDER TO THE KISS

IM SOBBING

[deadandphilgames]

happy phanniversary to all whose first dnp video was basically im gay

[goldensunset]

dude if kh ends ill. probably cry lmaoo. but also. fandoms continue after their thing is finished dont they?? like. 10 years after its done ppl will still talk abt it?? i hope so at least

given that the kh fandom has survived several massive droughts over the years at this point i think it's unkillable. some of my mutuals on here are from like the ice age of kingdom hearts and still alive and blogging the exact way they always did. it won't be a huge fandom but even now with the series still being alive the fandom isn't as big as it once was in its heyday. but those of us here are incredibly loyal. and the nature of any long-running thing is that people carry it with them over the course of many years and it'll become impossible to drop it once it does end. but! it truthfully all depends on How it ends if you ask me. if it's a trainwreck a lot of people might abandon it out of resentment. if it's good or even mediocre as an ending it'll have its fans throughout eternity

[reiverreturns]

a rough draft wip? on wednesday? groundbreaking.

said another way - we're fully on the mota train now girls buckle up

[qoldenskies]

I was reading back through caged lungs and I realized just how many times Donnie got hit in the head during the last fight and how hard, no wonder Leo is concerned about brain damage.

Also, when Donnie goes to see April at the end of chapter 2, is he just dissociating really hard or is that an actual physical symptom from the…everything really!

not to mention the oxygen deprivation with raph throttling him! the last fight is so visceral and nasty and it was the final nail in the coffin when it came to donnie's issues physically and mentally, because although he would have been terrified of them regardless i dont think it wouldve been "inconsolable screaming heap at the sound of raph's voice" like it was in the early bit of CW.

and id mark that as dissociation personally. the second he registered as being in relative safety he kind of shut down because he wasn't able to process it, which had kind of been a running coping mechanism through the last month or so of CL. MIND YOU: IT IS NOT HELPED ALONG BY THE BRAIN FOG CAUSED BY HIS TIME IN ISOLATION, its a nasty concoction of problems. and also yeah physical exhaustion definitely doesnt help! he ran all the way to april's apartment while actively starving, after all.

although itll get better after [REDACTED PLOT THREAD] is handled, i think dissociation is gonna be something donnie will be dealing with for years, because spending four days in a quiet, enclosed dark space has some extremely messed up consequences for your brain and body. it was also in general something he used to cope under the abuse, so i could see him having issues with it when he's not in his right mind (sick or sleep-deprived, for example), i could see him regressing back to that old mindset when something like that happens. his perception of reality is permanently a little fucked :(

[the-judicial-assistants-notebook]

sits up in bed. so lana and ema definitely thought they were responsible for edgeworth "choosing death", right?

(the rest of this post was supposed to go in the tags, because it's not very well organised or written, but it got too long so. here are the slightly edited tags for your reading pleasure (or otherwise)):

i was going to make this solely about ema because she's the obvious one with her open adoration of edgeworth, but the thing about rfta is that it goes to great lengths to emphasise the connection between lana and edgeworth as well.

the sl-9 incident showed that lana grows attached to people deeply, hence angel starr's comment on how, when neil marshall died, 'she (lana) felt like her own brother had died.' with edgeworth, i think it was similar but worse. because he's not just a coworker or subordinate who's dear to her. he saved her life. and it cost him his own.

at the beginning of the case, edgeworth says he was mistaken for thinking that lana was always looking out for him post sl-9 (a statement interesting on its own because that's when everyone else says she grew distant), and, later on, he brings ema fingerprinting powder because lana asked him to. then, of course, there's the 'lady luck' comment he makes.

similarly, on lana's side, you obviously have the end of the trial when she says he did well, but there's also that additional moment post-trial where she's the only one to notice — in a group comprising her, ema, phoenix and gumshoe — that he's 'hiding', listening to their conversation. point is, there's enough to suggest that she might have been the nearest thing edgeworth had to a mia; his 'chief prosecutor' to phoenix's plain 'chief'. they're as close as two people can be in a relationship where one of them is constantly lying and the other is von karma's star pupil.

rfta is pretty straightforwardly depicted as the case which solidified edgeworth's resolve to do what he did; i don't think i have to prove that. rumours about him have reached new heights, his car and knife were involved in goodman's murder, he makes an unprecedented mistake in court by failing to connect the evidence room and carpark incidents, thus forcing the chief of police to enter the trial to do so himself, and he's publicly revealed to have relied on falsified evidence to secure a conviction in the sl-9 case, all of which only happened because of lana. jake marshall even claims that from the beginning — that if you trace edgeworth's rumours back to their source, you end up meeting one person: lana skye.

and it gets worse because at the end of rfta, she thinks he's fine!! she literally says, 'i was afraid the pressure would break you, but you rose above it,' and reminds him he's nothing like gant because he's not alone. she leaves the case thinking he will be okay. and then, what, like a week passes, and she finds out that he wasn't, and that he's gone, and it's her fault. even after she was freed from gant's control, even after she had finally stopped lying, she couldn't prevent herself from claiming another life. so much for 'lady luck', i suppose.

and the game reiterates this multiple times. gumshoe states at the start that edgeworth's ties to those higher up in the department have made him the subject of constant rumours, and phoenix says (in front of ema) that he shouldn't be held responsible for the forged evidence because that was all lana's doing, which then leads to edgeworth commenting (again in front of ema) that he feels as though 'something inside him has died.' it all goes back to lana. we can argue and say that it was technically gant's doing that caused all of this, but lana still took actions that led to it. even her complicated friendship with edgeworth isn't spared; it's that closeness between them that exacerbated those rumours. how could she not feel responsible in some way?

and with ema, it's rather obvious, isn't it? if she hadn't gone poking her nose into things, none of this would have happened or come to light. and, of course, she'd never choose anyone over her sister, not for anything in the world — it's simply not a question, but that's the problem, isn't it? it's not a question. it's not some hypothetical moral dilemma. it just is. she may not have killed neil marshall, but she still has one king of prosecutor's blood on her hands. and now she has to live with that. she just. has. to live with it. no matter if he chose otherwise.

moving on from that a little, i think it's actually wild how much of ema's journey to becoming a forensics investigator is paved with bad memories. neil marshall's death and her subsequent inability to testify are what drives her to begin pursuing it, her first proper investigation results in her idol's "death" and when she finally graduates, the person who saved her sister has been disbarred, and she can't even help because she isn't allowed to. all that pain and constant pursuit of her goals, and she's still the same ema skye, still that girl shrouded in darkness, always one step behind the truth, one step a little too late. no wonder she was angry in aa:aj. i would be furious.

[shima-draws]

Grips my shirt and tears it apart so that all the buttons go flying and SCREAMS I love Law and Cora so much what the FUCK!!!!

[kaiserouo]

headcanon warning

bonus

no he doesn't