#almost like. the end of his life is super fucking tragic because he loses all his friends. sick and twisted.

[wwillywonka]

☆GET TO KNOW ME♡: [10/?] Favorite Characters

SPOCK - Star Trek Franchise (1966-2013)

I am what I am, Leila. If there are self-made purgatories, then we all have to live in them. Mine can be no worse than someone else's.

[blu-ish]

Do u think Sonic has nightmares of the SA2 ending? do u think the s2 of Prime fall reinforced this fear or gave him some closure? the anxiety of shadow falling and Sonic not being there to catch him lingers? maybe that's why Sonic is very touch affectionative towards Shadow

It fuels my angst loving heart lmao.

That scene single handedly DESTROYED me. Along with all the fics and fanart that came right after it when that ep of S2 came out hsjshshshs. The parallels are so fuggin tragic, especially from Sonic pov.

This was someone he had met in little under 48 hours, or however long the span of SA2 was lol. He's someone who challenged him, someone who, sure, wasn't entirely a mobian hedgehog--but one nonetheless, a super powered one at that. Who went from threating to destroy the world for hurting him beyond Sonic's comprehension to defending it till his final breath beside him.

Sonic's return to the ark without him will never NOT bring me to tears (yes I'm a big baby sue me lmao), he's still holding his inhibitor ring like its the most precious thing in the now saved world.

His goodbye to him; his closure--his understanding that, that was it. Shadow was gone. I don't remember the time from SA2 until Hero's but it was sure to be a long damn time, only for Shadow to just, be alive. MAN IT HURTS LIKE SH-- (I have a headcanon Sonic got to keep the inhibitor ring when Rouge gives it him later, and he wore it under his glove cuff all this time.) You cannot tell me Shadow didn't have a major impact on Sonic's life come onnnnn. I completely agree with the nightmares headcanon btw, like you take a hero with a savior complex and give them a situation where they FAILED to save someone they love and your in for an ANGST FIELD DAY.

Prime Sonic is a lil different from the Sonic's we've been introduced too in the past. (No this is NOT a complaint I love him sm, all Sonic's are amazing to me that is a fact.) He's probably the most physically affectionate one outta all of them. We see him describe his relationship with Shadow as "complicated" lmao, and for anyone new to the Sonic Series watching it, they're basically just introduced as rivals that are so fucking BAD at communicating. But you can tell he cares about his friends, and he really cares about Shadow.

This is evident in his PANIC ATTACK, when Shadow gets knocked out while trying to enter one of the gateways and ends up almost falling into the void. And this is right after they were just at each others necks, fighting for the tech.

There is NO POSSIBLE WAY it's not supposed to be a parallel to SA2, and if this Sonic also went through the "Shadow fucking dies and loses his memories TM" there is also ZERO WAY he didn't get flashbacks while reaching out to save the only piece of home he had, but Shadow's more than that. He grounds Sonic throughout Prime, he keeps him focused, he CARES about him too. Even if he has trouble showing it.

When it was Shadow's turn to save Sonic when he was fading away. Like, I WAS DECEASED, I WAS SOBBING--- ahem, I was carefully analyzing the moment where we got to see Shadow return the favor. Where he was mere MOMENTS away from losing him. He was in Sonic's place, back in space near the Space Colony Ark. Holding the most precious part of his home. His friend. (HIS BOYFR-- *gets shot*)

I like to think they both get more affectionate and open with each other, it just works so naturally well in Prime because of everything they've been through. And how the show, shows their friendship develop over time, even when Shadow gets benched for the majority of it hjhghj. He lets Sonic in, he makes the effort to hear him out, they LEARN TO COMMUNICATE.

Sonic wants to be near Shadow, Shadow in turn lets him, lets him be affectionate. Because they both really DO realize how much they care and need/want each other in their lives. They make me ill.

[alllsunday]

A few thoughts on how Portgas D. Ace is the epitome of the Tragic Hero. For one, his entire life was a tragedy.

“A tragic hero is the protagonist of a tragic story or drama, in which, despite their virtuous and sympathetic traits and ambitions, they ultimately meet defeat, suffering, or even an untimely end. They are often imperfect or wounded with some sort of fraught experience, and typically have some sort of fatal flaw.”

He fits the criteria :

1.) “High status/noble”

Ace is the sole heir of the notorious Pirate King and the only known female Will of D carrier. Yes, he’s not a noble, but he is obviously a high status pirate and a person with the “noble” qualities Aristotle was talking about even if he wasn’t literally one. Honourable, generous, polite.

2.) “Flawed”

The fatal flaw (hamartia) that brings about the hero’s downfall, destruction caused by their own hands. In Ace’s case … well, if I had to narrow it down, I’d say wrath, arrogance, and never backing down were the most key to his downfall, but the title of #1 has to go to his hubris (excessive arrogance/pride). It was because of this he went to Wano to challenge Kaido, the monster not even Oden could slay. Izou himself pointed out Ace’s arrogance. It was because of this he challenged Whitebeard, went after Teach, and ultimately ended in tragedy. Ace had been the strongest almost his entire life, losing was.. new. It doesn’t matter, cause everytime Ace is in a situation where he fucks up he always gets himself out of it, and when it comes to fighting as a whole, strength is his one constant. Even in the face of Teach’s power, he underestimated him, thinking that he’d win, which brings me to my next point :

3.) “A reversal of fortune”

“The character should suffer a terrible reversal of fortune, from good to bad. Such a reversal does not merely mean a loss of money or status. It means that the work should end with the character dead or in immense suffering, and to a degree that outweighs what it seems like the character deserved.”

Ace was a traumatised and heavily wounded character who spent his childhood suffering. It was not quite a childhood. As an older teenager, he was tearing up the world of piracy (the first pirate of the new generation, super rookie, all at an insanely fast rate, even much moreso than Luffy) before joining Whitebeard and settling down. Though not eradicated, his internal struggles cooled down slightly. Maybe by the time he was a fully wisened man and not a boy fresh out of his teenage years, he could have been on the road to healing - but his belief that he could obviously beat Teach, his subordinate, was the catalyst for the events that were to come.

It was seemingly going alright - Ace had fit in, made friends, had the family he had so needed.

That flipped over almost instantly, and ended in his painfully premature death. During the fight, Ace realised he’d been overconfident. But this time he couldn’t back it up. Teach had won.

On his deathbed, Ace finally realised that he wanted to live. Death was the thing he’d wondered about for his entire life, and now that he was actually on the brink of it - he had changed his mind. After 20 years, he genuinely wanted to keep going for the first time. Yet it was snatched away from him.

To add insult to injury, Sabo’s death, one of Ace’s many traumatic experiences, ended up being a misunderstanding. Sabo was alive and didn’t remember him… until he had died.

[live-from-flaturn]

Chay, Hope, and “The New Hunger”

An unnecessary metatextual analysis by an excited English MA queer.

So it all started with this shot from Episode 7 of KinnPorsche:

I zoomed in on the novel next to Chay’s desk out of curiosity and discovered that it was The New Hunger by Isaac Marion. Not a super old book by any means, and definitely one that Chay would realistically be reading.

Also a brief cameo that lets this single comedic shot FORESHADOW SO MUCH OF CHAY’S TRAGIC PLOTLINE without likely intending to do that at all.

Because The New Hunger, published in 2013, is a functional prequel to Marion’s 2010 novel Warm Bodies.

Warm Bodies is by far one of the most beautifully written and engaging re-interpretations of Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” probably ever written (and I spent 3 summers at Shakespeare camp, so this approval is not coming from a casual fan perspective). There are zombies, apocalyptic drama, Daddy issues, and a LOT of stuff about not losing hope in the face of annihilation, loss, and loneliness. 

R spends most of the novel talking TO HIMSELF and coping with HOW TO BE ALONE. He is doing exactly what Chay is forced to do for survival: Create his own joy and entertainment. He’s abandoned by the world around him and must fight at every turn to maintain a sense of agency, all while desperately clinging to the idea that hope is everywhere. Here are some of my favorite Warm Bodies quotes for perspective:

“It frustrates and fascinates me that we'll never know for sure, that despite the best efforts of historians and scientists and poets, there are some things we'll just never know. What the first song sounded like. How it felt to see the first photograph. Who kissed the first kiss, and if it was any good.”

“What wonderful thing didn’t start out scary?”

“You should always be taking pictures, if not with a camera then with your mind. Memories you capture on purpose are always more vivid than the ones you pick up by accident.”

“’What's wrong with people?’ she says, almost too quiet for me to hear. ‘Were they born with parts missing or did it [love] fall out somewhere along the way?’“

“The sky is blue. The grass is green. The sun is warm on our skin. We smile, because this is how we save the world. We will not let Earth become a tomb, a mass grave spinning through space. We will exhume ourselves. We will fight the curse and break it.”

“Deep under our feet the Earth holds its molten breath, while the bones of countless generations watch us and wait.”

BUT THEN YOU HAVE THE NEW HUNGER.

“Nothing is permanent. Not even the end of the world.”

“Enough white lies can scorch the earth black.”

“What happened? How did I get here? How could I have known that my choices mattered?”

“Crying. Expelling grief from the body in the form of salt water. What's its purpose? How did it evolve, and why are humans the only creatures on Earth that do it?”

He has not reached the point of exhumation yet. 

Porchay must first be burned down. He must experience the hopelessness, loss, and devastation of betrayal first. 

Like yeah, sure, this is a throwaway shot and someone on the set probably grabbed a handful of random books to use but HOLY FUCK they really could not have made a better (potentially) accidental choice!

Like... Jesus Christ in Heat do I love these books more than life itself. Warm Bodies is my second favorite book of all time and again, I read books for a living. You should go check them out if you like romance, comedy, zombies, or really just feeling good about the end of a novel. Isaac Marion will fundamentally change your life and the way you look at the world and it’s a wonderful experience.

But also the accidental foreshadowing of Porchay’s world being burnt up... of his memories being tainted and blackened by Kim’s lying and Porsche’s secrecy... Ugh it hurts. I am having some feelings in this Chili’s tonight. 

[winterandwords]

In the shower this morning it occurred to me I don't know anything about Brett or Noah's parents. This is unacceptable. Help me.

AHAHAHAHA!! This is entirely intentional (so far *nudge nudge wink wink*). The short version is that their parents aren't involved in their lives. The longer version is why. Strap in and prepare for The Lore.

(Also prepare for whatever I write here to make less and less sense as it goes on because my brain is currently shifting from excessive caffeine to strong night meds)

Brett grew up in generic suburbia with generic suburban parents. Think aggressively upper-middle-class boomers, all about keeping up appearances, sit down, shut up, be normal etc. They were deeply disapproving of his bisexuality and judged the shit out of him when he came out to them as a teenager. He hated everything about his life, got out as soon as he could, and never looked back.

THIS KIND OF COMES UP IN SPIN CYLINDER, albeit in a very low-key way. Let me drop a couple of snippets with a torturous lack of context...

A warm glow soaks through my brain when I remember the look I got from the manager of the shop, old enough to be my father but infinitely more interesting.

and

I think of the three places I’ve ever lived. The bland suburban hell I grew up in, the city where I went to university before getting sucked into Allegra Technologies for a decade and a half, and the nowhere stretch of coast we escaped to.

Noah's canon parental story is less interesting. His folks were on the much older side when he was born, like the "oh shit, how the fuck did this pregnancy even happen?" older side, so they're both dead by the time November Breaks starts.

He never felt particularly close to them and wasn't exactly gutted when they bit the dust. Not because he hated them or anything. Just because he lacked any serious emotional connection (because, outside of Brett, he lacks emotional connection in general).

But also. Also. And only inside my head and in a short story I wrote ages ago that's totally at odds with the genre of November Breaks and Spin Cylinder...Noah is the personification of death. In this non-canon lore, he loses his shit after being present at one too many suicides and quits his job, giving up his memories to have a human life. He can't fully leave his purpose behind though, which is why he ends up being a serial killer.

In Spin Cylinder, he describes murder as being "about purpose. Satisfaction, but not as emotional" and he says similar things in November Breaks. In the books, Brett sees Noah's true identity but doesn't realise that's what's happening, because genre conflicts. "You were Hades once in my drunk imagination, although maybe Thanatos would have been closer."

I might rework that short story at some point because I do love it. It's about Death and Time as tragic lovers. In that universe, I imagine Brett as the personification of chaos. Also also also, they both talk a weird amount about time in the books, almost as if time is someone they know. Or knew.

OK that got super fucking long and diverged wildly from the point. Night meds have fully taken over so I'm going to shut up. But thank you for reminding me about that story, about Death and Time and Chaos, and making me think about how maybe I'll write that properly one day.

[theminecraftbee]

i have definitely not been binging the magical girl au, haha. i have a few thoughts about pearl, in part bc i think it'd be cool to see her. lowkey feel like she might serve the same role as cub did REALLY early on but for grian (close friend who knows something is up and is trying to offer support in her own way for something far beyond her). i also think that it'd be cool to see her possessed by a moon spirit and maybe that spurs a quick team-up between grian and scar

so mumbo is already in the cub-like role for grian (except a bit pants at it but he's mumbo so we forgive him). however i do like the idea of... pearl was one of grian's friends when he was younger, but Stuff Happened while they were all in school and pearl was one of grian's friends that ended up moving away. while she's away she makes friends with other people, grian has... his general grian problems he's a dark magical girl he unfortunately gets whacked with a bit of a tragic backstory stick and i have to finish working out how that's gonna go but listen if i'm gonna play into those tropes i'm gonna buy in all the way... and they lose contact with each other.

then pearl sees the city grian's in under attack by supernatural forces on the news and... it may have been years since she and grian talked properly, but her friend gem was considering moving too, honestly, and pearl's a bit worried, but pearl's ALSO interested in investigating the supernatural stuff (that seems like fun) AND her and gem's online friend, impulse, lives in the area, and...

pearl moves to the city again in the middle of a supernatural crisis, moving in with gem. hey, the housing's WAY cheaper due to the imminent risk of Supernatural Threat, she managed to even buy something! although, her home insurance premiums are like, super high, and her lender almost refused to give her the loan because she almost couldn't find someone who would insure for that kind of damage but look it's fine, it's fine.

and then pearl... doesn't talk to grian. she's worried about him but she finds out grian's fine, he's working at a greenhouse, apparently he has trouble making all his shifts but lots of people are having trouble these days. she talks to impulse in person, she goes with him and gem to cafes in the morning. and she's generally having a good time in life, you know? she's ALSO chasing after supernatural attacks to investigate them, because she's curious! and because she notices the shadow organization - and puts a bit of a conspiracy together about who's the one supplying the people for that.

her curiosity gets the better of her. she finds herself near a very suspiciously-timed spirit of whimsy. grian, on recognizing her, panics, and i like the idea that this happens before grian is fully in redemption arc mode so scar and grian aren't really on GREAT terms when transformed (although scar's already reaching out at this point) and grian doesn't want to give scar the idea that he's willing to work with him so grian comedically tries to help scar without, you know, letting team scar KNOW he's helping. naturally he gets caught in the act.

in the end, pearl ends up mildly traumatized by the fact that apparently the spirit of whimsy liked playing with its food and she was having a good time and it felt like a lot of that fucked-up stuff was fun because of that (always terrible feeling afterwards), but almost not at all less curious. then that strange other magical girl, the one that the local heroes fight, meets her on her walk home and has a quiet, sober conversation about how the shadow organization is... they're dangerous, pearlo, you've gotta keep out of dealing with them, okay? they won't hesitate, especially if they think someone's too close, or worse: has potential.

pearl nods and agrees and thinks: ah. only one person ever used that nickname for me. and she wonders if maybe he'd had potential, too.

grian still won't pick up the phone when she calls him.

however, impulse does introduce her to a growing support group for those who had ended up possessed, where she at least meets more people affected by the crisis. and her investigation can continue from a distance. at least. until the shadow organization thinks she's backed off. then she'll strike. she can't let a cool conspiracy like that go, you know! she simply must get to the bottom of it.

thus begins the story of how pearl ropes a support group into becoming a team of conspiracy theorists thank you for coming to my ted talk.

...gem, for the record, absolutely enables all of this, and impulse pretends he thinks its a bad idea then enables it as well. sorry grian, your refusal to do anything but push pearl away and isolate yourself has not kept her out of this, better luck next time!

[newtonsheffield]

What is this I hear about a fight they had before moving in??

Ahhh Bless them.

So I think after about five months of seeing one just a few times a month in person, despite the fact that they talk every day, they facetime, Anthony pretty much just has a headphone in all day with Kate on the other side, they're a bit frustrated. Because they both want more, but Anthony's afraid to ask for it, and Kate's afraid to offer it because Anthony hasn't asked for it.

Anthony wasn't really sure why he did it, why it rankled through him on this particular day, that he hadn't heard from Kate yet, well into the night he hadn't heard from her.

But he'd seen her. Oh he'd seen her on instagram, sitting in a cafe with Edwina, seen her on TikTok laughing at something without him and it had burned. It had been getting harder and harder to pretend he didn't want to live with her, but how would that even work?

Despite what his Mum said, it was too much work to run the Castle and raise the hellions better known as Gregory and Hyacinth, and what was he supposed to say Kate, I know you want to have a successful music career, but come and live in the middle of fucking nowhere with me! No. Probably not.

So instead, when he finally heard is phone ring, he acted like a complete fucking arsehole.

"Hey mousey, how was your day?"

The nickname stung at him, her soft voice cutting at him, placating, and it normal would have made his entire body relax, but apparently not tonight, “Fine.”

They both heard the curt tone, cold and hard, monosyllabic, and he could almost hear her thinking on the other end. “O…Kay? What did you do?”

“I took Gregory to his trombone lesson. It was amazing.” Deadpan, something warring away at his chest, painful and desperate and tragic.

Kate paused for a Long moment clearly waiting for something, he stared straight ahead at the ceiling of his bedroom, trying to imagine he could still feel the warmth of her beside him, though it had been weeks and weeks since her last visit, her shows picking up, his schedule ramping up as well, his last trip to London cancelled when the caretaker they’d hired to help his mum had gotten unwell. He’d heard the disappointment in her voice when she’d said No I get it, Ant. It’s completely fine. But he’d felt it all the same: failure.

“Well I had a super productive day.” Kate hummed, clearly done waiting for him to ask, “I had lunch with Eddie, who’s finally breaking up with Erica tomorrow, and then I did some writing. I wrote a cool little hook, no idea what the words are yet, but I like it.”

Anthony didn’t have anything to say, the fact that her life seemed just fine without him digging into his chest. She wouldn’t want to move in with you anyway she has a life and she doesn’t need you.

“Cool.”

Silence stretched over the phone, he could see the look on her face in his mind. Affronted. Normally he would have been desperate for her to play it for him, to hear it, to cheer her on. But not today, and he knew it wasn’t fair.

“Sorry, did I do something?” Her confused voice ached in his chest.

“No.” It was a good thing it was just a voice call.

“Okay, well you’re kind of being a dickhead, and I don’t think that’s fair.”

The blunt way she said it, the truth of the words stung at him, like a blow to the chest. And what he wanted to say was You’re right, I’m sorry. I love you. But instead what came out was “Great, so I’m a dickhead.”

“I didn’t say you were a dickhead Anthony, I said you were fucking acting like one.” He could tell she was getting frustrated, losing her already short temper, just like he could feel irritation flickering in his own chest.frustrated at himself, at the situation.

“I’m just tired of this, Kate.”

Silence rang over the phone, through all the miles between them, stretching out between them, “Tired of what, Anthony?” Her voice was cold, frozen, he could hear Edwina murmuring behind her, low and angry but not what she was saying, “Tired of me? Tired of us?”

God no, not that. Never that. “I’m tired of being a fucking disappointment to everyone!” He’d lost control spiralling down quicker than he could catch himself, his pulse pounding in his ears. “If I’m here, then I’m not with you, and if I’m with you I’m not with my family. So it really fucking sucks.”

Kate let out a frustrated sigh, her voice wavering. “Well what do you want me to do Anthony?! What do you want?!” It was nearly a shout now, frustration stinging at them both. “Do you want me to move to Kent? Do you want to move here? I don’t understand what we’re fucking arguing about?!”

He could hardly breathe, “We’re arguing about the fact we should just call it quits now! I’m fed up Kate, I’m fed up of you being so fucking disappointed in me all the time. I can’t take it, it’s killing me! So let’s just finish this here. ”

He heard her sharp intake of breath, Edwina’s voice Let me talk to that fucker! Clear as day across the line. “Right, well, that fucking sucks. Because I still love you.”

He felt it, against his chest, just the same as when she whispered it against his chest, light kisses left there, and he felt the guilt swirling in his stomach, failed once again.

“I’m just- I’m gonna go. I don’t want to do this with you right now.” Why are you such a fucking coward?

He could hear the tears choking her, “you started this.” A simple fact he knew it, and he couldn’t make himself say anything, “Right. Bye Anthony.”

And she was gone. Tears stinging his eyes, guilt and shame burning in his chest, and when he fell asleep that night, his throat was raw.

“How long are you going to let this go on for?” His mother hummed three days later.

He’d been in a foul mood ever since, snapping at Gregory, Hyacinth, glaring at his mother when she mentioned that she hadn’t heard him talking to Kate in days.

“Yep well, I maybe broke up with her.”

“You… maybe broke up with her?” His mother had sounded shocked, confused, “I thought things were going really well?”

He’d stormed away before she could ask anything else, but apparently she wasn’t done with him.

“Let what go on, Mum?”

She sighed, “Anthony, I know you think you have to protect everyone, all the time, from you most of all, but you don’t, and trying only hurst everyone more.”

Anthony couldn’t even look at her, shame stinging at him. “I really fucked this up, I just… I want more, I want to take the next step but I can’t ask her for that, and I don’t… I don’t know what to do.”

His mother’s hands were warm on his back, her voice gentle, “Just talk to her, Darling, there’s nothing else to do. There’s a train in 30 minutes, I’ve booked you a seat, and I hope you’ll go.”

Anthony had sprinted upstairs, his mind racing, heart pounding, words tingling on the tip of his tongue, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, please. I love you I love you I love you, and I’m not good enough but I’ll try. His hands throwing things into a bag at random, sprinting downstairs, he threw the front door open and-

Kate was standing there, three suitcases around her, a guitar case in her hands, the most serious look he’d ever seen on her beautiful face, his Tshirt on her chest,

“Clear out your wardrobe, Anthony. I live here now.”

And he’d be thankful for her for the rest of his life as he dropped his bag beside hers and swept her into his arms.

[flowerflamestars]

i remember that you once said something about privateer nesta could you elaborate? please? *shrek cat eyes*

WHO TOLD YOU I AM COMPLETELY VULNERABLE TO THE CAT EYES??

okay, so admittedly I don't remember the context in which I said this?? But I still SUPER super love the idea

and it matches with what we'll call the Dream ACOTAR Extended Universe Plot, almost canon.

We begin with the final battle against Hybern. Tamlin dies, closing the loop of his tragic, misspent life. Amren stays dead, a magical being on to the next adventure.

Rhysand stays dead.

He functionally (magically) threw himself on a bomb, and took the whole blast. He's not the Cauldron- and no one man could repair what it once was, but he could contain the fatal, drastic implosion of an object that was meant to endure forever, fractured into more and more peices.

Why is this important?

Because it leaves a world where Feyre Archeron- twenty-ish, romantic hero, prop, prisoner- becomes High Lady in her own, true right.

(I don't think she's necessarily good at this job, because why would she be? It's not even her fault- Feyre has no idea about how faery politics work, no real tangible knowledge of her own inherited kingdom.)

But both the men who stole her and defined her and loved her and hurt her are dead.

And it not only sets her on a journey to become, on her own, an actual character in her own life, but it galvanizes the Archeron sisters.

Feyre's basically fucking comatose after the battle. Elain has been a mess this entire time, but after that last fight with Grayson, walking into the war and stabbing a king in the throat- she is as vital and herself as Nesta has seen her in years.

Nesta just watched her father die and felt nothing- and she hates herself for it. She and Elain had taken the head of the man who stole everything from them- and she doesn't have a single regret.

Feyre screamed until she could no longer- there's so much magic seething out her it hurts to look at-

There's a dark well inside herself that could rise. But why should Nesta let it? So what, if she doesn't mourn her father? He'd never cared about her and Elain- not when they were young, too busy and important to even speak to his own children. Not when they lost everything, and he'd tried one last time to sell them both into marriages to recoup the family loss. Not after, in the starving cold, no matter what she'd tried to force him into action.

Nesta had been mourning all along a human girls human life- what is an absent, neglectful, shitty in the most ordinary of ways human parent if not a part of that lost future?

Their sister owns a fucking country- their sister is, at this minute so hemmed in by her followers no one can see her, much less comfort her- there's a war camp falling apart around them- there's Nesta, Elain, and Azriel, unhurt, upright, alive.

(she does not let herself think that an hour before she'd been ready to die and thought it right, the ending the meant to be conclusion of her story. she does not think about how she'd wished Cassian healed beneath her hands and that he had healed, that she'd wept to learn she could do more than destroy.

that she'd still been weeping, her mouth bright with his blood, when he'd pulled away, dragged himself to Morrigan's waiting arms)

Nesta Archeron is alive. Her sisters are alive. They're free, and she'll be fucking damned if this all falls apart before Feyre can heal.

Nesta turns to Azriel and asks if he can take control of the legions.

She has no time for his blank, angry eyes- she knows he's hurt, he's mourning, he's lost- but she needs him. Cassian's...down. Rhys is dead. Feyre and Morrigan are not coming out of that tent.

And he just listens. Thoughtfully. Asks what Nesta intends to do.

And Nesta looks at Elain- soft, kind, gentle Elain who'd never once wavered now when life was on the line. Who hadn't cried a tear for their father, or for the man who'd kidnapped and then married their baby sister.

The danger wasn't over- and neither had the steel faded from Elain's spine.

Nesta tells Azriel she's going to find Keir.

Nesta isn't blind- she's walked the Hewn City, spoken to the eldest darkness. She was also at the joke of a Summit- Autumn wants new territory, Keir wants to rule Night. And here Night is, weakened, a lamb to slaughter.

Nesta's not going to lose again- she's not going to give these ancient, cruel lords another chance.

Elain grabbed her hand and squeezed- the one person, always, who Nesta never need explain herself to.

Aren't the High Fae technically Morrigan's Elain asked, a bare whisper as they walked through the camp.

It went without saying yes, but Nesta had never seen any indication they respected her enough to listen to her. She made a face, and Elain made one right back, rueful. She had eyes too, after all.

They're not going to listen to us in these clothes, Elain also told her.

She was right, of course. They were High Fae, and that mattered to those vile pricks, but they'd been outfitted for flight. She would do almost anything, actually, to be free of leather pants.

Which Elain, a gleam in her eye that Nesta was learning meant magic, dreamy and happy- led her precisely to a gold topped tent, stepped inside, bowed, and asked without a trace of hesitation if Helion Spellcleaver, Lord of Day, would perhaps do them the favor of loaning them some garments.

Solid gold eyes gleaming against blood and smoke tinged dark skin, beautiful, glorious Helion, smiled.

Day-white against Night- but also, Nesta knew, taking care with her crown of a braid, the splatter of blood left on her throat, her mouth, her cheeks like fine paint- white was the color of death.

Elain covered herself completely- shawl wrapped over her hair, tucked around her neck, breathing easier now, in human modesty- but hung from a golden belt that Helion, with the clear air of someone who knew something about seers, had found, metal hammered with stars and flames, was Truthteller, the long blade without a sheathe, black metal swallowing up light.

Keir was easy to find, and in fine form, surrounded by Darkbringers, who looped back behind the sisters the second they were close.

Nesta was not afraid- she'd thrown power into the sky and it had hurt. Not in depth, but because she was still holding on- it wanted out-it wanted to devour-

Elain dipped a flagrantly rude, swallow bob of a curtsey. Nesta didn't even bother- just let Keir hail them, royal family that they were. He liked the sound of his own voice, but he was also clever- they'd come here of their own volition and now they were trapped.

She could smell the reinforcements, the utter Autumn reek.

Nesta interrupted, and asked Keir to come and swear fealty to her sister.

It was never going to get the right answer, but it had to be said. It had to be heard.

She'd been right- they'd been right- Keir enjoyed the cruelty of getting close to Nesta, denying straight to her Archeron face that no, Rhysand's bloodline was ended. It was time, it was right, for the House of Truth to once more hold their throne.

He spoke his treason aloud, looming over Nesta- close enough to touch.

So Nesta did.

She'd willed Cassian alive and whole. It was so, so much easier to remember fire, death, drowning, to push and want the revolting man's destruction.

And when he fell, silvered fire that had filled his lungs spilling from his throat, Nesta did not flinch. She looked to the next lieutenant, a frankly indistinguishable golden haired pale-eyed blandly handsome man in black armor, and asked, if he, as the new commander of the Darkbringers, would like to give a different answer.

He did.

Azriel met them halfway back to Feyre, grim mouth flickering for a second at the sight of Elain, before looking, stone-faced, at Nesta beside her, leading a crowd of the highest ranked Night Court faeries she could find.

Keir? He asked.

Dead, Elain answered, and that was that.

The Shadowsinger fell in step with the Seer, a threatening shadow to two pale beacons.

It was Azriel who actually went inside the tent. Who said what needed to said, what made Morrigan splutter loudly enough to be heard outside, before she burst out the tent in a whorl of hair, before blanching.

Nesta had just enough control not to roll her eyes. They come to swear fealty.

And Morrigan, chewing her lip with all the dignity of a child- Elain and Nesta had been trained out of such gestures at eight, what did she think was happening here? - shook her head. She's not well, it can wait.

No, Azriel said, from behind her, it can't.

He was supporting what looked like the entirety of Feyre's weight. Dead-white, blue eyes a blaze, Feyre looked blearily out at all of them like she recognized no one.

Elain, treasure that she was, came forward to take her sister's other hand, whispering both condolence and explanation.

And so the High Houses of Night knelt in battlefield mud, and swore eternal loyalty to the youngest Archeron.

It was only after they were gone that Nesta hugged her sister- hard enough Feyre protested, a fresh batch of tears soaking Nesta's shoulder even before Elain joined them.

It's Azriel, voice a little less like a phantom, who tells Feyre they're handling things. That if she wants to rest more, that's fine.

She was so clearly shattered- Nesta half wondered how much of that Azriel can literally feel/hear with his shadow...things.

Feyre protests that there's things to do- Feyre makes it halfway through a sentence about plans before she says Rhysand's name like he's still alive and collapses in on herself like a wave crashing.

Nesta and Elain tuck Feyre back into the blanket pile. Nesta manages to kiss her forehead before Morrigan is there, hugging Feyre putting herself bodily between the sisters.

They leave, and outside, Azriel is waiting.

To hand Nesta a gaudy, enormous platinum ring. The seal of the Night Court- Nesta recognizes it from shipping manifests, but she'd never actually seen it as an adult. Here, as a faery.

Her thoughts on Azriel's powers hold true, as he answers the dismay: Rhys only used it when he had to. It had passed between the whole Court of Dreams hands, there had not been a vizier, a lord of stars, since the time of Rhysand's father.

Nesta puts on the hideous ring, barely flinching at the brush of magic, it resizing to her hand.

Elain grasps her other, squeezing, and asks Azriel who is next.

They work ceaselessly, pausing only to sleep. Azriel, Nesta is quite sure, isn't sleeping at all- until she goes looking for him with a question and finds him finally, finally out cold, face tucked in Lucien Vanserra's neck.

In silence and gestures, they come to something of an agreement- and when the Night Court comes to the table to talk peace, it's with Lucien. Jurian, who Nesta immediately liked.

By the time they return to the North, there is not a Lord one who does not know the names and nightmarish qualities of all three Archeron sisters.

Feyre mourns, and learns to govern slow. Cassian goes back to Illyria and does not return for a long, long time. Morrigan becomes Feyre's second- Nesta laughs, not altogether kind, when Lucien tells her this. No one has been able to answer her as to why, if Morrigan is so powerful, why did she not fight? what does she actually do?

What answers to her questions she does find are appalling. Why does Winter block our every turn? oh, Rhysand killed more than a dozen children. Why is Summer refusing our trade? Well, Rhysand stole their ancestral pride. Why is the Hewn City so wrathful at even the slightest form of intervention? Because Rhysand had left Keir to rule alone.

Nesta doesn't want to rule the fucking court. She thinks she could leave all of these politicians to rot- but she won't let Feyre misstep her way to death, shouldering a burden of her dead mate.

There's nothing they can give Winter but apology and so that's what Nesta does. On her knees, in a gilded palace of ice, stars caught in her hair and the seal on her. Kallias, bright and young, seems to know something about inherited problems- he does not ever forget, but he forgives, at least, the Archerons.

Summer is more complicated- but Nesta does what she can. Gives them every melted, ruined piece of the Book. Offers reparations for the next millennia. Ends up paying for what she is appalled and embarrassed to learn is a two hundred year old debt for a building the head of the Night Court's armed forces- Cassian, fucking Cassian the ghost haunting Nesta- had destroyed. During a brawl. At a solstice party.

She deals only with Cressieda, and they come to understand each other very well.

Nesta was not raised for politics and bullshit- her mother wanted her to marry a crown, but Nesta wanted the family empire. Trade. The Archeron legacy, denied to a girl. She likes Summer more than any place in Prythian, and she doesn't hide that. She relearns old lessons of tide and routes in secret, before Cressieda reveals that of course, she knows who the Archerons were.

It goes well, until Morrigan finds out what she's been doing, and tells Feyre.

The youngest Archeron had been doing better. Morrigan has been right by her side, through everything. Cassian is in Illyria, and Feyre understands why, writing him letters. She writes letters to Rhys too, if only to have a way to direct the words.

Azriel, spectral and busy she sees the least of, but Feyre never doubts his presence, keeping her safe. Elain comes, drags her out into sunlight, brings Lucien and it makes Feyre happy to see them together. Nesta comes too, with them both and alone, with papers from Feyre to sign, with affection sharp-edged but true.

Feyre knows she owes them all more than can be said- she's not stupid, she knows they're keeping Night together. That slowly those responsibilities will fall to her, when she's ready.

She does not think about how much of those responsibilities is cleaning up the tangled mess of betrayal Rhysand left behind. In her head, there is only Rhys- beloved and shadowed, kind and tortured.

Until Morrigan tells her that it's been acknowledged, in public, by Night, that Rhysand was a thief, and a murder of children.

Feyre loses her shit.

Rhysand had done what he had to. Who was Nesta, to say such things? She'd always hated Rhys. Rhys had always hated her, maybe he was right- the children. Rhys had mourned them in screaming nightmares, but he hadn't hurt them-

(Feyre does not stop to think it strange, that Rhys could have nightmares of memories not his own. That he might have fractured just a bit, under Amarantha. That the Red Lady had no daemati- that was why she'd kept Rhys all along.)

The fight is as ugly as can be imagined. And what proceeds is of course, worse. Feyre says terrible things she will ultimately regret and apologize for, but what becomes clear is that Morrigan thinks that Nesta means to hold power forever.

That she's taken advantage.

And Cassian, called home by rage, believes her.

That is, more than her ungrateful sister, more than the ongoing weight of cleaning up after a man she despised for good reason, the end of Nesta Archeron's Night Court career.

She'd thought she loved him- she'd been willing to die with him- but they'd lived. This was the life, the next life, and what did he think of her? That Nesta was a power hungry snob. That she was paying too much heed to politics.

That Nesta belonged quietly at home. That she should have learned to fight somewhere along that way- a point so convoluted it made Lucien laugh- that she hadn't learned anything that mattered.

That she had no right to kill Keir, because it had hurt Morrigan.

Had he ever, Nesta would wonder later, even liked her? Enjoyed anything about her but for that magical tether, telling him he was blessed with something special?

Nesta was something special, and she knew it.

And so she returned the ring to Azriel, packed up her possessions, and left.

First to Day, where Elain had bought a house. Fury and tears both met the explanation of what happened- fury and tears that turned to getting inadvisably drunk in sunlight, when Lucien and Azriel snuck away to join them.

For the first time in Nesta's adult life, she had no obligations. Magic, money, freedom- the whole world was out there.

She stopped wearing black. Learned pants where actually lovely, when they fit correctly and weren't made of leather. Learned Azriel could laugh, and Lucien was as clever as she'd always thought.

She read books, she ate fruit, she took Helion up on several of his more lascivious offers.

She thought of Cassian, and it ached, but not enough to go backward.

Elain's house was by the sea, right on the water. The scent of salt reminded Nesta of Summer- but also of her oldest, most secret dreams. The warehouses of goods, like mysteries to solve. The account books she stole, learning by candlelight the trade in her blood.

Ten years after the war, Nesta bought a ship.

She set out to be a merchant, use what she knew, but what happened was this: Nesta Archeron did not care anymore for rules. And so when she came upon Hybernian remnants-for they were an island kingdom, even more one with the water than Prythian- pillaging a Summer town, she destroyed them.

She stole their treasure, gave much of it back to the people.

Found, unexpected, that she had much more of a taste for marauding than she would have expected. There was still trade of course- proft made and shared- but Summer needed someone willing to do some destroying out on the sea.

Twelve years after the war, Nesta Archeron became a privateer under the Summer flag, pearls in her hair and a true smile on her lips.

Things grew, as all things do. Feyre wrestled herself the reins of government, stymied by the councils Nesta and Azriel set up as much as she often was by Azriel himself out of truly petulant action. Morrigan remained second, golden blades bright as her gowns within reach. Cassian became a sort of seneschal, reigning over Illyria in Feyre's name cold and alone as the wind through the mountains.

(Feyre thought he might never get over the war, but Azriel knew the truth.)

Elain took herself wherever the future led, a sort of mediator and councilor, walking in all Courts- but always back to home, that isolated green, green cove, where Nesta would land.

When war came again, there was no great Lordly alliance, no cut-throat summit. There was a fleet of ships whose sails where edged in purple, whose announcement across the water was silver fire, whose accompaniment were monsters of old.

Violence did not touch Prythians human shore, because Nesta Archeron did not let it.

She was death on the tide, and she remembered what shores had borne her.

She had a home in Summer, a place in Day, her family across the continent- she had her ships, full of faeries from every walk of life, who wanted as she did the freedom as much as the profit, the endless, endless blue, where sea meets sky.

It was eternity, and the Archeron sisters, free, had made it their own.

[orionshounds]

I’ve been knee deep in dsmp lore streams and I just want to ramble about it

Dream smp lore is so good, it’s so good!!! Not only is the story itself just fascinating, but how it’s presented so uniquely through the medium of minecraft of all things is just so cool. One of my favorite parts of the lore is seeing how everyone on the smp has their own “style” they present it in, and watching them find the way they find the most enjoyment in is so cool. Literally no two streamer’s lore stream quite like each others and it’s just incredible! It just speaks to the flexibility of roleplay as an artistic medium and really shows everyone’s individual personalities. 

Wilbur was dramatic as hell and wrote eloquent speeches. He started a drug operation under the guise as a country, and it lead to a revolution in which he was able to explore the spiral of a man who loses control of everything he had built. And after his arc and he wanted a break from the server? He created ghostbur, an amnesic comic relief with just enough touch of tragedy that he is still able to make heartbreaking monologues when he wants to.

Tommy is able to run around with his friends and cause as much chaos to his heart’s extent, but there is so much more than meets the eye. He is incredibly social and isn’t afraid to start conflict with a lot of people, bringing them into the roleplay. He doesn’t back down from storytelling either. His character goes through terrible situations and he fully explores the trauma that comes from those experiences. His character goes against the “stereotypical” trauma I see alot in media; instead of being shy or scared he’s reactionary, he’s angry, he’s violent, he’s depressed. I’m actually really impressed with the heavy subject matter this 17 year old teen has managed to portray (I’ve connected with it quite personally at certain points), while still being able to keep the light hearted fun that’s so intrinsic to his personality. 

Tubbo isn’t really interested in serious lore as much. Even in dire moments he tells jokes and just has fun. So, in his recent lore, he just streams as normal while putting mysterious writing on screen that he doesn’t acknowledge or have to explain, which I think is just a genius work around for him to participate in lore. He still has his dedicated lore streams sometimes, and when he is in the acting zone he has some of the most powerful moments out of everyone on the server.

Ranboo, while having stake in the greater smp lore, is much more character focused. He presents his lore through long monologues and fucking heart-wrenching voice acting. He loves working in themes of horror and causing a specific feeling in the viewer. So he chooses specific music as a themes for events/characters and creates visual queues in his overlays to draw out that desired reaction. He also values improve a LOT, if something unexpected comes up he just runs with it and he has made huge changes to his lore as early as 30 min before a stream.

Technoblade, while arguably one of the most powerful people on the server, prefers a more light-hearted yet dramatic approach to lore. When Dream was at his house looking for Tommy, Techno had no problem joking around and making fun of him for being homeless. He tore down an entire nation on the server and had so much fun doing it! He’s more of an antagonist than a true villain in my opinion. And lets not forget how dedicated he is to the game, he’s cracked at the craft. He spends hours grinding and creating farms on the smp, for amazing pay offs (his several vault reveals, the withers, etc), most of which weren’t even on stream!

Karl Jacobs is extremely social, so he created Tales from the smp as a way to involve TONS of people in lore while exploring the past and future of the server (it was also a way for viewers who weren’t that well versed in dsmp lore to join and not have to worry about it!). And through this premise, he took the opportunity to develop his own character on the smp; making an incredibly tragic story of a time traveler trying to save his home while slowly loosing his memories. Not to mention the beautifully shot cutscenes of the Inbetween and the Other Side. He includes so many people behind the scenes as well, collabing with other members on lore, hiring building teams and people to make intros and credit scenes, and promoting fanart and fansongs from the community!

Quackity explores his lore through heavily scripted events and amazingly shot cut scenes. While the way he expresses his lore comes at the cost of improv, the payoff of the visuals and story is well worth it! The shots he makes of the smp is downright gorgeous, no to mention he’s the first person to include irl footage in his lore (not counting facecams)! He’s not afraid of thoroughly examining his own character, being one of the only people I can think of that shows us “past events” leading up to something that has already happened.

Badboyhalo, Antfrost, Ponk, Skeppy, Captain Puffy, Punz, Awesamdude, Hannahxxrose all work together on shared lore and the payoff is amazing! By introducing the Egg, a constant antagonistic force that constantly pulls on character’s relationships with each other, everyone is able to stream together to battle for or against the egg! There’s also plenty of room for people to do individual lore that's more intimate to their respective character. They spend hours changing vines, putting up posters, slowly shaping the smp in a way that makes it exciting to watch streams to see just what has changed everyday. Because there’s so many people necessary to tell the egg’s story, it does comes at the cost of time (the egg has been around FOREVER). However, they all work together super hard and I just admire their commitment to the story they’re trying to tell!

And Sam! He has several different “Modes” his character is in (and an entirely separate character, Sam Nook) that he gets to explore lore with. He’s a terrifying warden, he’s a money motivated businessman, he’s a conflicted lover, he’s a traumatized victim of the egg, and just so much more. Through having so many different “roles” in the rp he gets to explore relationships and plotlines with a whole array of people. Not to mention he’s absolutely cracked at redstone and has some of the most impressive builds on the server.

And Puffy! So much of her lore is calling into question the morality of the server and really makes you step back and think critically about the characters. Her character also has, in my opinion, one of the most interesting relationships with Dream, the main antagonist of the entire server, which is just fascinating to watch unfold. Not to mention she’s one of the first people to start exploring the backstory of her character!

George doesn’t exactly do lore. In fact he’s slept through so much of it it’s become a meme. And you know what? That mad man took that and ran with it. He explains his absence in the story by having his character literally being asleep through it, creating mystery where there used to just be an absence. He’s able to goof off with his friends and have borderline nonsensical streams, then at the end sucker punch the audience emotionally by “waking up” and have the viewers question just what was real and what wasn’t?

The smp has the freedom for people who want more independent lore to be able to explore their character’s that way as well!

Hbomb, Connereatspants, and Purpled don’t have a lot of lore on the smp, generally only coming on to have fun with everyone, but when they do have their moments it unfolds in very interesting ways!

Sapnap, Eret, and Schlatt maybe aren’t as active as some other people, but when they are on they actively participate in lore and have lasting impacts on the story (Ex: Eret’s betrayal, Sapnap’s visit to dream in the prison, Schlatt becoming president).

Philza mostly does his own thing, improving the server or making some bomb ass builds. He has incredibly devastating roles in lore (killing wilbur, blowing up L’manberg for the final time, starting the syndicate with Techno), but he also has quieter moments that speak to the depth his character has, such as fishing with fundy or reminiscing about his dead son and how it went so wrong. Like Techno, he doesn’t like to take lore completely seriously, often laughing no matter what’s happening or teasing chat after something big goes down, but his character is solid with a lot of potential for future lore.

Foolish has only started on his character and its already super interesting. The hints at his dark past as a “god of death” and his current conflict with the egg are intriguing as fuck. Not to mention the MASSIVE builds he does for everyone, helping to progress their lore as well.

Fundy has a lot of freedom with his character to participate however much he wants in lore. While generally he’s a trickster who loves to prank people he has enough tragedy build into his backstory he’s able to break the viewer’s heart with a flip of a switch. Not to mention his recent, almost surreal, stream that explored his character’s disturbing dreams that may or may not predict the future.

Niki is very character driven, exploring her character's grief of losing her best friend and her anger of being ignored in the very country she helped create. She has incredibly emotional moments, and even though she’s on her own building an underground city she still participates in other lore via teaming with jack manifold or the syndicate.

Jack Manifold’s lore is VERY character focused, and while he’s described his story as a “B plot that occasionally intersects with the main plot”, the story he tells is still fascinating. Being pushed aside not taken seriously his whole life, his character develops into a fun cartoony-esque villain who begs to be taken seriously, that has the depth of a truly conflicted person who is torn between wanting revenge on everyone who’s done him wrong and just wanting a friend.

Last but not least, the man himself, Dream. The most fascinating thing about his lore is that absolutely none of it is from his pov. All we know about his character is only from what we see from everyone else’s povs, and in his case it leads to a very intimidating villain! Not to mention, mans owns the damn server and yet has made himself the main antagonist! He is the only character I consider a “true villain” on the smp. His voice acting and writing is downright sinister. I could write a fucking essay on how his character’s obsession with power has led him to the point he thinks himself an unstoppable god

Everyone on this server is stunning and I love all of them!!!!!

[tossawary]

Because my brain does NOT stop even when I’m grounded, today my brain told me, “Hey, I figured out how to make a Hobbit Fusion AU work.” And I was like, “Great! We’re working, though.” And my brain was like, “I’ve figured out how to make it a Pre-Canon Canon Divergence AU for Moshang.”

And I was like, “...I’m listening.”

The Hobbit is another one of my Comfort Media and it got brought up when I was asking about that, but I was feeling kind of “eh” about mixing Tolkien mythology with SVSSS. I mean, the mental picture of Dwarf Mobei-Jun is extremely funny and Shang Qinghua would make a great hobbit! But that interpretation felt a little too direct for my AU tastes.

So, hm, now I have another potential Big Bang contender. My love for The Hobbit is very, VERY strong and looking at my current outline, I have to be like, “Yeah, this could be 50,000 words, no problem.”

It’s a very good outline!

-

After saving Mobei-Jun, Shang Qinghua bailed A.S.A.P. because he honestly thought Mobei-Jun was going to kill him. He psyched himself out of sticking around before Mobei-Jun woke up. Mobei-Jun didn’t get enough information to track Shang Qinghua down.

Shang Qinghua (who isn’t SQH because he isn’t the Peak Lord) decides that he can’t fucking take it anymore and bails from Cang Qiong Mountain Sect too. The System objects, but also falls into line when Airplane shrieks at it. Airplane is going to go become a humble merchant and inventor and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop him!

It turns out that Shang Qinghua’s presence or help was actually crucial to stop some Emperor of the Abyss from taking over the Ice Palace and the Northern Desert. Airplane is like, “Oh, yeah, I remember… offhandedly writing something about that happening in the past off-screen?” It was one of those things that he just threw in there because it sounded really cool, and it gave Mobei-Jun another reason to “owe” Shang Qinghua and not kill him immediately, but he never got to elaborate on it because he was too busy writing stallion novel bullshit.

So, borrowing the lore from my “Horns” one-shot, an extremely powerful Emperor of the Abyss escaped the Eternal Abyss. This is some devouring horror being from the depths of the abyss, which ate everything in its vicinity in the abyss itself and crawled into the Demon Realm to eat more things. The Emperor of the Abyss was attracted to Mobei-Jun’s father. They fought. Mobei-Jun’s father should have won, but didn’t, because he was too fucked up (thanks to his own hedonism or something) to fight properly. What an asshole.

Mobei-Jun’s father was killed and devoured by the Emperor of the Abyss, which has made it… exponentially powerful. It’s now… basically a calamity. The desolation that it leaves in its wake across the Northern Desert is unspeakable. Mobei-Jun and his family, their allied clans, and pretty much all demons in the Northern Desert have had to flee.

Mobei-Jun is currently essentially a “guest” of the Sha Clan. He’s homeless. He’s lost the power of his ancestors. He’s a “king” without a kingdom. It’s humiliating. He needs to kill the abyssal creature to retrieve: his title, his ancestors’ power, and his kingdom.

While working for other demon clans to support his family and people, Mobei-Jun crosses paths with Airplane. Airplane has become a relatively successful merchant and inventor, and he calls himself Shang Houhua. He lives a very comfortable life and does his best to ignore anything resembling the plot. He’s pretty successful at ignoring the plot.

Mobei-Jun is never in a good mood these days, but he’s especially pissed off to see that human who abandoned him all those years ago. Airplane tries to argue that Mobei-Jun told him to fuck off, but Mobei-Jun is too angry. Airplane makes lots of offers in an effort to get Mobei-Jun to spare his life, one of which ends up being a claim that he can help Mobei-Jun kill the Emperor of the Abyss and make him a king again. Mobei-Jun pauses, now even more pissed off than before, and Airplane just starts babbling desperately to save his own skin.

Mobei-Jun was already forming a company to take on a Quest for the Northern Desert - in the hopes of slaying the Emperor of the Abyss and retaking his homeland. Part of the issue has been that forming the company is difficult. Mobei-Jun wants people who are loyal to HIM and ONLY to him. He won’t owe anyone else anything or promise them pieces of his homeland.

(Airplane is like, “Bro, I don’t know if you can afford to be so picky, but okay.”)

So Mobei-Jun is like… “I still want to kill you, but fine, you can come on our quest and help us.”

So Airplane ends up on the Quest for the Northern Desert, led by his very angry future murderer the “king without a kingdom” Mobei-Jun, to fight the calamitous Emperor of the Abyss who killed Mobei-Jun’s father. Fuck.

Some details beyond this opening premise:

Airplane and Mobei-Jun fall in love over the course of the quest, obviously. They have their own hijinks like each chapter of The Hobbit (equivalents to the trolls, to Rivendell, to Goblintown, to Beorn, to Mirkwood, and to Laketown, etc.). 

Oh, damn, I just realized that making a pre-fall Tianlang-Jun and Zhuzhi-Lang the Beorn equivalents would be so fucking funny.

The Emperor of the Abyss is a horrifying Smaug equivalent. It can totally talk because Airplane having a conversation with a draconian horror sounds incredible. I would love to have Airplane outwit the Emperor of the Abyss in some fashion.

Mobei-Jun and Airplane somehow manage to successfully kill the Emperor of the Abyss together. Like, together. Probably using some plot device whipped up or some clever plan devised by Airplane on his feet. Mobei-Jun trusts Airplane at a crucial moment and it all works out. Airplane actually gets Mobei-Jun his kingdom back.

I’m tempted to just skip over the Ring and not having a Ring equivalent. BUT if I made this into a longfic instead of a one-shot, I would have a Ring equivalent (if it was a one-shot, I would ditch the Ring equivalent). I think I would make Xin Mo the One Ring equivalent. During the Goblintown equivalent event, Airplane falls either into the Eternal Abyss or into Bing-Ge’s dimension, where he proceeds to successfully take up Xin Mo because he knows the trick and portal himself out of the Eternal Abyss, or he proceeds to outwit Bing-Ge in some fashion and uses the Xin Mo sword to portal himself back to the right dimension.

So then Airplane is stuck with this super powerful sword that he doesn’t want to use again because he KNOWS that it will fuck him up. He KNOWS that it will FUCK HIM UP. So Airplane has to go through the rest of the quest ignoring the temptation of the Xin Mo sword that he is absolutely not supposed to have and can’t possibly let anyone else have.

(Oh, man, imagining the influence of Xin Mo giving Airplane extra horny thoughts about Mobei-Jun on the rest of the quest is very funny. Like, Airplane was already hot for Mobei-Jun, but now it’s worse and he might never have a normal thought ever again.)

Bagginshield Movie Hug when Airplane turns up again, for sure. Mobei-Jun thought he was dead. Mobei-Jun smiles and everything, until he remembers to frown again.

I’m feeling like I don’t want Airplane to use Xin Mo to help defeat the Emperor of the Abyss, but it makes sense if he does. Him not using it doesn’t make much sense. I do like the idea of Airplane dealing the killing blow and Mobei-Jun’s pride being hurt by Airplane being the one to kill it. I also like the idea of Mobei-Jun being a little smitten by Airplane just… loyally handing him his kingdom and restoring the power of his ancestors. I also really like the idea of Airplane just… not having some super powerful plot device up his sleeve on the quest.

Like, instead of Airplane’s Author God knowledge totally setting him up to deal with this thing no problem, Airplane had NO FUCKING PLAN when he set out with Mobei-Jun. He was talking completely out of his ass when he said he knew how to help Mobei-Jun. That this all worked out at all is almost completely due to luck and improvisation.

That feels MUCH more true to both Shang Qinghua and to Bilbo Baggins. Lucky lads of fast-talking, complaining, lying, not knowing what the fuck is really going on, thirsting after kings with tragic backstories, and somehow not dying despite winging it all the time.

Instead of goldsickness, Mobei-Jun is forced to deal with some side-effects of consuming the Emperor of the Abyss to regain the power of his ancestors. (Demon cannibalism rituals. Yeah.) He starts acting really scary and out-of-character and forceful, until Airplane loses his nerve and runs away. Maybe under the influence of the late Emperor of the Abyss, Mobei-Jun actually tries to kill him? I could see Mobei-Jun trying to kill Airplane for the Xin Mo sword which dealt the finishing blow on the Emperor of the Abyss.

(I need a better name for this thing. If I can’t come up with something that actually sounds good, I might just call it “The Calamity”, but that’s giving me BOTW vibes so I don’t like it. Maybe I’d call it “The Desolation” or something? Ehhhh, I don’t really like that either.)

I want to have a Battle of the Five Armies equivalent, if only so Tianlang-Jun and Zhuzhi-Lang can swoop in as benevolent helpers as the Beorn equivalents. Currently, I’m seeing three options. 1) The orc army equivalent are neighboring demon lords who want to strike while the new Mobei-Jun is getting established. 2) The orc army equivalent is Linguang-Jun trying to kill his nephew and take power at the last minute. 3) The orc army equivalent is Bing-Ge here with an army and he’s pissed off and wants his sword back.

On one hand, 1 and 2 would be SO MUCH EASIER to pull off. I could be really lazy about the whole thing. On the other hand, 3 would be much fresher (more surprising and links back to the Xin Mo element), more challenging and the idea of pre-fall Tianlang-Jun facing off with Bing-Ge delights me. Kick his ass, Tianlang-Jun!

(Su Xiyan gets involved? My brain says YES. Kick his ass, Su Xiyan!)

Also, I was sad about there being no Fili and Kili equivalents, because Mobei-Jun has no friends, and I’ll have to make up a company pretty much from scratch. (Sha Hualing is too young and Luo Binghe hasn’t been born yet.) BUT then I was like, “Where’s Linguang-Jun in all this?” And I would absolutely have Linguang-Jun be a part of Mobei-Jun’s Company. Instead of nephews, Mobei-Jun has a sketchy uncle who might be trying to kill him. Keeping Linguang-Jun out of it might be easier, but actually doing some character-building with him sounds fun and challenging, and I’d rather limit the number of OCs if possible.

Mobei-Jun manages to shake off the goldsickness equivalent somehow, probably through “the power of love” (and/or straight-up “dual cultivation” with Airplane?). Moshang makes up while Mobei-Jun is apparently mortally wounded from fighting Bing-Ge and Airplane thinks this is all his fault. But Mobei-Jun doesn’t die! It’s all good!  

It’d be pretty funny if there was a “Returning to the Shire” equivalent where Airplane leaves because he thinks Mobei-Jun hates him now and never wants to see him again. So then Mobei-Jun has to track his man down like, “Get back here and marry me. (Also I am so sorry for trying to kill you. Please forgive me. I hate myself so much for that.)”

And they all live happily ever after!

Holy shit, this wasn’t in Proud Immortal Demon Way.

[pallasperilous]

Boneless Wings

 {AO3 version}

So, blah blah blah, it’s their standard-issue disaster: pack of dumbass witches (always with the dumbass witches. Where do they find the time for this shit? Somebody get these women signed up for a Peloton subscription or a macramé class or a vibrator of the month club, seriously, whatever it takes—), ancient curse, Castiel being the actual angel of stepping in it, nobody cares. 

The point is, two hundred and forty-one hours of binge-worthy drama later, Dean and Cas are living in a semi-detached just a short thirty-minute commute to somewhere equally lame, Castiel has two literal-ass wings, and yes, Susan, they kiss now. 

The neighbors are weirdly cool with it. 

For those of you perving along at home, Dean could absolutely provide a list of the hundred or so ways that having a boyfriend* with giant fucking actual wings is super hot and/or awesome.

This is not that list.

(*you can just shut right the fuck up , Sam, because it’s either this or Dean will start saying lover. And nobody needs that. Nobody wants that.)

1.  Bird mites. Holy shit. 

 2.  Sharing a bathroom. The shower curtain rod, and consequently the security deposit, are early casualties. The medicine cabinet follows swiftly behind. Shower hijinks are not even an option.

 3.  Dean comes home one day from a gig and there is a giant plastic green turtle in the backyard. A closer inspection reveals that the turtle is actually a mule for about half a truck bed of industrial dust ‘n grit. It is, in fact, a kiddie sandbox. Dean points out that they do not, in fact, have a small child (FINGERS CROSSED), so...?

Cas then earnestly shows him an entire playlist of exotic birdy dust bath videos on Youtube. 

Dean then earnestly shows him the garden hose. 

4.  The down just gets, like...everywhere. EVERYWHERE. How many times have Sam and Dean practically sold their kidneys for a single angel feather for some dumb spell to solve some pointless Occult McProblem? And now Dean is picking them out of his damn teeth every morning. (No, gross, not because of... Jesus, no, that is not a thing.)

On the upside of this one, Dean finally has an excuse to buy a Dyson, which he’s secretly always thought looked awesome. It is. 

 5.  When Dean is scraping out the umpteenth canister of fluff he jokingly suggests they use some of it to supplement the tragically flaccid down comforter currently shaming their bed, and Castiel pitches an existential fucking sulk. Dean wants to experience happiness again, so he does not point out that it get ass-bitingly cold here this time of year, and decent bedding is not exactly inexpensive, and the Dyson kind of maxed them out on household purchases.

But whatever.

 6.  Castiel is indulging in what Dean thinks of as a sky pout when he flies right into a head-on with li’l Timmy NextDoor’s new Christmas surveillance drone. It dings the shit out of one of Cas’s left primary feathers (the scientific term is “those big motherfuckers”), which apparently hurts like a bitch. Cas is grounded for a few weeks after that and is cutely pathetic about it and at first Dean is absolutely down to kiss it better. By the end, Dean is almost ready to strangle Cas with his own necktie, but he has learned a lot of surprisingly interesting stuff about ancient Mesopotamia, like that it was super horny.

 7.  After the snow melts, Dean starts finding shit on the front step with the morning paper. It’s not even a good newspaper; Cas signed them up for the local fish-wrapper (or maybe it was Sam, before he fled for the hills— he occasionally breaks out in a  “support local journalism” rash). The crossword puzzle is insulting, but the paper does at least syndicate Carolyn Hax, whom Dean secretly suspects of being an absolute wildcat in the sack, so he grudgingly expends the calories to bring it in every morning. 

Anyway, at first the stuff he discovers crapping up the welcome mat is just shiny bits of trash — couple granola wrappers, some MGD pull-tabs, a few field-stripped twisty-ties. Probably just windblown, and he tosses it in the garbage can. 

Then a couple weeks in, things start getting...grisly? It escalates real slowly, from a variety platter of mouse bits to squirrel à la power line and then half of a dry-aged raccoon and an opossum that has recently graduated from playing dead to professional dead-being. The neighborhood crows obviously love that their front step is now a roadkill café; Dean has to bat increasing numbers of them away with the kitchen broom in order to relocate their horrible snack to the edge of the nearest storm drain.

Then one morning there are like twenty crows and they’re in just the cutest little football huddle-up around what turns out to be a human fucking finger with a retro-fun mood ring still on the knuckle (it’s feeling: Sad) and Dean fully loses his shit. 

Cas hears him freaking out and comes whomping out of the garage ready to, whatever, flap somebody to death maybe, but as soon as he establishes that Dean doesn’t need anything more than a fresh pair of boxers, he de-poofs a bit and assesses the whole human finger/crows situation in his usual infuriatingly unrushed way. The crows had mostly bounced up to the cable line over the house, safely out of brooming range, but one by one they start to drop down and hippity-hop back towards the world’s tiniest crime scene.

If Dean were five percent less freaked he’d be tempted to go inside and find out how much of a dent he can make in a six-pack before Castiel finally dings and spits out his results, but he isn’t, so he just stands there in silence clutching the broom like it’s a shotgun.

Eventually Cas says “hm,” and then he looks at the crows and makes some noises that sound like a spoon caught in a garbage disposal, and the crows make some scrawps and chuks back, and then one of them delicately noodges the tip of dead finger with its beak and then hippity hops back a foot or two, bows, and then they all fly away over the shitty little beige duplex across the street like they’re running ten minutes late to an important bird appointment.

Castiel stands up (Dean reflexively backs up into the doorway, as this involves Cas bomfing out his wings a bit for ballast and Dean has caught a blow to the nuts on more than one occasion), dusts off his goddamn slacks, pulls a plastic evidence baggie out of thin goddamn air or maybe his socks, and casually bags the finger like they’re doing a standard FBI wheeze. “So what,” Dean says, as Cas diligently zips the baggie, “the fuck?”

“Oh,” Cas says, blinking in surprise that Dean is still there and interested, “they think I’m their god.”

Dean kind of stares back at him, the six feet of dude and like sixteen feet of bird, and thinks sure, okay, but his face must still be stuck on “Tippi Hedren attic scene” because Cas puts a reassuring hand on Dean’s shoulder and adds “Don’t worry. I’ve told them I don’t require further offerings, and I reassured them that you’re my consort and were simply jealous of other potential mates.”

It takes Dean two weeks to come up with a response to that, but by then it’s become evident that no bird is ever going to shit on the Impala again, so he decides to just chalk it up in the win column and move on.

You know. The family business.

8.  No matter how tightly he folds them, Cas can’t fit his wings through the definitely-not-up-to-code doorway of the wood-paneled family rec room in the basement, so Dean claims it as his man cave and dubs it the “No Fly Zone.” 

Castiel doesn’t find this funny, but Dean really only uses it to fold laundry. 

 9.  Transpo is an obvious issue. Cas can almost stuff himself into the Impala if he sort of reverse-cowgirls the back seat, but then the wingtips smoosh up against the windshield and Dean’s visibility is approximately zip. And, sure, Cas could fly himself anywhere they really needed to go, he’s basically a Chevy Of The Air, but sometimes it’s raining, and the seraph Castiel — Shield of God, Heavenly Soldier of the Lord, multidimensional wavelength of celestial intent, will smell like a wet fucking chicken for days afterward. Febreze does not help.

Dean spends a few nauseating weeks contemplating the purchase of — and here he learns that the human gag reflex can be conditioned, but never truly eradicated — a convertible. Once Cas brings up the possibility of a minivan or perhaps a station wagon (he’s taken to studying family motor vehicles with all the intensity of a birder with a life list) and Dean makes him sleep on the couch.

Dean gets his own living room rotation after he shows Cas a Craigslist posting for a very reasonably priced horse trailer. Castiel points out that it’s used and Dean notes that neither of them is exactly mint in original packaging either. Castiel points out that he’s not a horse, and after a few necessary but admittedly unoriginal jokes, Dean pulls up a website with an exhaustive photographic tutorial on how to convert a horse trailer “for the safe and sanitary transport of ostriches, emus, and/or cassowaries.” Cas points out that he’s not an ostrich, emu, and/or cassowary, and Dean counters that he clearly isn’t, because an emu would probably show a little more gratitude, and that’s how Dean learns that the couch has a broken spring under the left cushion. The transpo issue remains unresolved.

 10.  Dean keeps a pair of shop-grade safety goggles by his side of the bed. It’s not the sexiest look, but it turns out feathers are stabby as hell when encountered at a particular angle. Cas can do the healy thing, of course, but they learn the hard way that cornea perforation is not really a mood enhancer. On the bright side, Castiel accidentally corrects Dean’s incipient presbyopia, which means Dean doesn’t have to hold the newspaper at arm’s length anymore when he’s idly speculating what Carolyn Hax looks like below the neck. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.

 11.  You’d think that, when you’re coming down from a time-limited but incurable curse that makes you feel like every cell of your body has its own cute little individual headcold — because you missed a hex bag due to the fact that you were preparing your legal response to Sam turning up to the hunt wearing a goddamn hair scrunchy, as if he were fresh off the set of a very special episode of Clarissa Explains It All — anyway, you’d think that being wrapped in the warm embrace of an angel’s wings would be nice. 

But you would be wrong, because apparently your boyfriend has been out communing with the bees again, and those feathers pick up ragweed pollen like it’s their goddamn job, and guess what else angels can’t cure? Dean will take Motherfucking Seasonal Allergies for 600, Alex. 

12a.  One of the neighbors has that homesteading hippie brain disease that drives an otherwise normal-seeming person to brew their own beer and raise a bunch of chickens despite living within five hundred yards of a fully functioning Hy-Vee. There’s a week where one of the wee little velociraptors seems to be processing some kind of trauma because it starts yelling at dawn and keeps going until well past the hour that swearing is allowed on network TV. 

When Dean finally hammers on the front door the next afternoon the neighbor apologizes with some extremely nasty home-brew (HIPPIES) and some absolutely devastating weed (HIPPIES!) and explains that “Ginger is going through a rough molt” and then he kind of nods his head towards Dean’s side of the fence where Cas is futzing around in the squash plants and stage whispers (this is a direct quote) “You know how they get.”

Dean is about to rip the dude a new one for comparing his immortal space-kaiju lover to a fucking Australorp yard pullet when Castiel pops his head up over the white pickets and breezily contributes “Bad molt, yes, those are terrible, Dean can tell you all about how insufferable I am those weeks,” and sometimes Dean just doesn’t know why he even tries.

 12b.  The less said about angel molt, the better. 

Seriously, the freakin’ eyes-on-his-hands naked mole rat dude from, whatsit, Pan’s Labyrinth of Subtitles, would run screaming from this shit. 

 13.  There’s a 4th of July BBQ Potluck Block Party and Dean’s inability to stand idly by while good meat is abused ( shut up Sam ) means he winds up manning the grill and dismissing the pretenders to set some strictly inedible things on fire. Cas hangs out next to him and uses his flappers to kinda whupf the smoke away from Dean’s eyes now and then, which rules. It’s actually a pretty chill event until Sharon and Don From Number 4267, The Green House With The White Trim, turn up with a giant Pyrex full of naked, still-marinating teriyaki wings. 

Sharon And Don look down at their wings and then up at Castiel and then down at the wings and then up at Castiel and they are clearly teetering on the edge of a Midwestern politeness failure-based nervous breakdown. But then Cas, smooth as a margarine commercial, gently takes the dish from Sharon’s frozen hands, examines the contents for a silent moment, and says “it’s alright. They weren’t personal friends.”

He gets an extra burger for that one.

 14.  Cas keeps absent-mindedly trying to groom Dean — who, in case it still needs to be said at this point, possesses zero-point-zero feathers of his own — so he goes after Dean’s hair, instead. Dean has to stop him after his second hour of trying to straighten out a cowlick. “I don’t understand how you can steer properly with this deformity,” Cas says, as if it’s a genuine miracle that Dean isn’t constantly careening over ottomans like Dick Van Dyke. He’s even more horrified by Dean’s (frankly minimal) use of hair gel. “Jesus, Cas, it’s not like I’m drinking it,” he says, but then one time they have an epic make-out session shortly after Dean performs his masculine beauty rituals and there’s some smearage of various types of Product (tm) on the flappy areas. 

And, sonuvabitch, for the next six hours Cas is spirographing around the house like he has a heavenly inner ear infection, and he only stops veering into the doorframes after Dean wipes down every. Single. Feather. With mineral oil and about eighteen clean shop cloths. Dean switches to something called hair wax, which costs thirty zillion times more per ounce and makes him smell vaguely like church, but is a lot less gloppy. The things we do for love.

 15.  Seating inside the house is a bit of a conundrum, too. Cas can kind of flop his wings out to the sides if he sits in the middle of the couch, but then Dean’s stuck on the recliner, which is basically in the next county. Bar stools are disastrously tippy, Dean’s lower back and hips have not endured mumble-mumble years of hunting just to be subjected to a damn beanbag chair, and, after a brief flurry of optimistic excitement, Dean determines that they’d have to take the front door off to get a massage chair in. He finds a swing online that if, he can get the hardware properly installed in the crossbeam, is rated for up to 500 pounds, so he texts Cas the URL so he can check out the specs. After half an hour he writes back —

CASTIEL: Dean

CASTIEL: I believe this swing is intended for sexual congress.

DEAN: ...

CASTIEL: I can infer from the ellipsis that you have spent several minutes attempting to draft a response.

DEAN: ...

CASTIEL: Dean

DEAN: it’s multipurpose

  16 . On the plus side, though, big-ass wings make for a pretty good drying rack. He can get every sock in the house laid out on those suckers in a single round and, one episode of Dr. Sexy later, they’re perfectly dry and toasty warm, without any of the pair-busting casualties Dean has learned to expect from the apparently socknivorous dryer in the basement. 

Dean assumes it’s just the product of good air circulation and body heat until he realizes that he hasn’t had to toss a pair for being too worn out in...maybe six months? So he asks Cas “Are your wings... healing the socks” and after an entire Abbott and Costello routine centering around heal versus heel, Dean determines that the answer is: yes, his boyfriend’s wings are channeling the almighty power of Heaven to magically repair the socks Dean buys at Target in twelve-pack bags. On sale.

This is actually kind of sexy, if Dean is being perfectly honest, so, you know what? It doesn’t belong on this list.

 16.  So nobody really freaks out or bursts into tears or calls the news or the FBI or anything when Cas goes out in public with him, which Dean is secretly a little disappointed about, because come on. (Maybe giant wings just reads as a gay thing? Was there an episode of Will and Grace about this that Dean missed back when he was ass deep in wendigos or something?)

But no. Dudes tend to just glance at them across the Home Depot parking lot, throw them the Mutual Dude Acknowledgement Nod, and say some shit like “Comic-con,” or “nice anime” in a knowing tone. Then they go back to rolling their carts full of gaskets or hammers or whatever back to their mom’s station wagon. 

Little girls tend to go googly-eyed — Castiel seems to fall into the same category as a Disney princess, despite the stubble and the drabcore wardrobe, and Dean can’t count the number of times some mom has approached Dean at the grocery store (like he’s Castiel’s manager?? Which, okay...yeah, actually) and asked if they do birthday parties. The money would actually be pretty tempting if Dean weren’t five thousand percent sure that Cas would get them both arrested by launching into an anatomy lesson about duck sex or how God is a loser who favors relaxed fit jeans and Wild Turkey.

The worst is white ladies of a Certain Age, and it always seems to happen in the pudding aisle, for some reason. They either go cross-eyed with horniness and become indiscriminately handsy (Dean can’t blame them for the impulse, but also back off, Karen), or ask Cas for prayers for their cat’s chronic asshole problems (which Castiel WILL take seriously). 

Worst of all is when some hippie spinster clocks them. This woman inevitably reaches right for the feathers and asks in a willowy voice if they’d ever consider turning some of them into dreamcatchers to sell at her studio, which is literally always named The Faerie’s Glen. Then Cas gets confused about why, exactly, a sixty year-old WASP in a peasant skirt would need to call on the infant-protection powers of an Ojibwe spider goddess, while Dean just wants to bite the lady’s fingers off. 

Either way, it’s always a bad scene, and many fully loaded grocery carts have been lost to the fallout.

17.  For some metaphysical reason Dean is too dumb to suss out but also too smart to question, lugging a pair of Cessna-sized flappers around this mortal dimension actually seems to tucker Cas out. He doesn’t need to zonk out every night, but he semi-regularly throws in the towel and actually crawls in with Dean for the duration. 

This would be swell in theory, but the guy absolutely cannot settle the fuck down in less than three (3) human hours, which is the exact amount of sleep Dean requires to maintain his famously sunny demeanor. It’s not just ye olde tossing and turning — Dean can handle that, sharing a bed with Sam is like sleeping next to a kangaroo with restless leg syndrome — no, it’s a nonstop parade of little flippy-flappies and shiffle-shuffles and spontaneous outbursts of preening. 

So Dean makes him a Baby Sleep Sack. 

This is something Dean knows about due solely to one super dumb hunt involving a banishing sigil that had to be drawn in — he still feels like this had to be a misprint — human breastmilk, and that was obviously not happening. But the monster of the week wasn’t going to banish itself, so they wound up at the nearest Walmart, at 4am, picking up what turned about to be an unnecessarily generous supply of baby formula, along with a fresh box of shotgun shells because God bless America*. It doesn’t work, although “lots of stabbing” turns out to be a solid fallback plan, but the point is that while Sam was debating between Digestion Support or Neurological Development, Dean acquired an unprecedented familiarity with some of the products currently available to the sleep-deprived parent. So Dean finds some DIY Baby Sleep Sack knockoff patterns online and determines he can replicate and scale up the concept with some beach towels and duct tape, and the next morning he presents the lumpy but totally functional prototype to Castiel. 

Initially Cas thinks it’s a sex thing (reasonable, it probably is), but once they clear up that misunderstanding, he’s obviously a little peeved by the concept of being swaddled as if he were a gassy baby instead of a deathless sky monster in a sexy dude-shaped can. But Dean must be giving off some serious man on the edge vibes because Cas grudgingly agrees to let Dean tape him up the next time he’s feeling dozy. 

It’s real awkward and takes forever to get Cas bundled up right, and then he’s just kind of lying there on top of the sheets, like an enormous, grumpy baked potato. 

“I could easily break out of these restraints,” he says in a pissy tone after Dean has crawled in and turned off the light, and Dean rolls over to tell him “no shit”, but then he has to stop himself because the guy is already asleep.

Eventually they upgrade to a version made out of some of those trendy weighted blanket things, a few yards of parachute silk, and a whole lot of velcro. The dude looks so damn peaceful that Dean is honestly a little jealous.

*he doesn’t, actually. 

 18.  There’s a sunny afternoon that isn’t the usual Kansas is trying to murder you level of humid so Dean rolls the Impala out into the street for a wash. Cas helps him out a bit initially, although tragically not in a way that involves removing any unnecessary articles of clothing, but Deans sends him to grab a new tub of wax from the shed and he never comes back. After half an hour Dean needs a beer break and goes looking for him, expecting to find Cas lost in thought over whether Turtle Wax is made of actual turtles, or is made to put on actual turtles. Instead he finds Cas crouched on the shimmering pavement at the back of the driveway, sun beating down on him like it has a personal vendetta, and he’s got both wings stretched out real low above the ground. Dean kind of flips out because it’s the type of pose that just screams “stabbed in gut by angel blade” or “migraine from Hell, literally.”

Then Cas looks up, which pulls his wings up a smidge too, which in turn reveals that fully half a dozen neighborhood cats are lounging in the shady patch beneath his wings, spread out on the concrete like blobs of furry peanut butter. No, it’s actually eight cats. There are eight cats.

“Ling-Ling was feeling a little overheated,” Cas says, as if this explains everything. 

And, you know what, at this point, it does.

 19.  Dean has faith that eventually Sam or Cas or the third demon from the left in the second row will turn up a solution for the whole business. Castiel will get to tuck those bad boys back into the secret wing-closet dimension and he won’t have to worry about getting stuck in stairwells anymore, or being reported to the FAA (again). Then they can finally pack up the house, plaster over the more egregious spots of drywall damage, and go back to killing things outside of the tri-county area. The whole thing has been a pretty embarrassing interlude for a couple of dudes who’ve kicked Satan’s ass multiple times — Sam is probably telling other hunters that they’ve been deep undercover to take out a nest of suburban vampires, or a pack of ghouls with mortgages, instead of vacuuming angel down out of the AC unit and considering a Costco membership. 

And sure, there have been some...serious pluses to the situation (see: the other list), but, in his weaker moments, Dean has to admit that he’s kind of going to miss some of the goofy, irritating shit, too — like finding a six-inch feather in the veggie crisper (how? why?), or watching Cas fwap his wings out just in time to accidentally clothesline a jogger, or even the strangely compelling, sorta cheesy smell that starts to float around the house if Cas goes a little too long between hosedowns. 

He has actually grown fond of this shit. Which is 100% the least sexy thing on earth, it’s some genuinely, seriously pathetic goo goo crap, and that’s why nobody will ever hear a fucking word about it. People will ask “so what’s it like, with the wings” and Dean will waggle his eyebrows suggestively and review the highlight reel over an inadvisable amount of rail whiskey. His secret’s safe with, well. Him.

 20.  Seriously though, the bird mites. 

Gross.

[swanhookheart]

Angry Grishaverse book review time!

After watching and LOVING s1 of Shadow and Bone, I read the trilogy! I was not impressed. 

Spoilers incoming for Grishaverse stuff, so if you don’t want those, don’t read on!

Watching Shadow and Bone this past weekend, I was hooked : Darklina, the lore behind the amplifiers, the Aleksander backstory… I was really impressed and hoped that this was it--that at last, I’d found a fantasy series that was going somewhere big, something I could really, thoroughly sink my teeth into. 

*Sigh* 

Then I read the books.

The reader / viewer enters the Grishaverse associating darkness with pure evil. The Fold, described early on, is shown to be this bleak, awful, ruinous place where people go to be eaten alive by volcra and hope goes to die. We therefore, naturally, associate the Darkling--who possesses the power of shadow--with that evil from the off. I’m speaking as someone who only got into the Grishaverse last Saturday. My initial thoughts were, “oh, he’s being set up to be viewed as dark and scary; this is the expectation Bardugo wants us to have so that we’ll be blown away by some great twist later. Count me in!”

But that twist never came. He was set up as evil, and he stayed evil. Surprise, he’s the Black Heretic! Surprise, he’s an abomination effectively created by Morezova’s greed! Surprise, he’s ruthless and horrible and does cruel things! Except none of those things are actually surprising, given he was SET UP from the beginning to be viewed that way. He did bad things, walked a bad walk, and talked a bad talk. I kept thinking “ah, so he’s gonna get a sweeeet redemption arc,” and then he just never did. That element of the story was predictable to a nauseating degree, and that predictability made the entire universe feel a bit flat. If the reader saw more of his backstory, had more real, logical, sound justification for why he does the things he does (like in the show, where they at least tried to paint his actions as borne of some misplaced sense of servitude / protection for the Grisha or where we saw him actively struggling at points to grapple with the darkness inside him), then maybe the trilogy wouldn’t have been such a letdown. And yes, I know about his sacrifice or whatever later on. It’s not enough.

In villains, I and probably plenty of others like to see humanity. We want to empathize with our villains to a certain extent--to understand them just a little bit--so we can fully commit to hating them when they violate our trust. The Darkling didn’t have that human, redeeming quality, though--at least, not in the books. In the books, he was just a power-hungry jackass who simultaneously didn’t want to be alone and kept trying to kill his only opportunity not to be alone. His single-mindedness, his lack of human empathy, the simplicity with which he pursued this made him seem almost stupid to me as a reader. For someone who’s lived hundreds of years, he’s kind of an idiot when it comes to other people--which, itself, almost seems incongruous with his having lived for so long. If he’d maybe had more backstory or more in his story to justify his actions, maybe he’d feel like a better villain. But atm, all I’m doing is rolling my eyes with him. I couldn’t love him because he didn’t put in any work toward being a better person. Even in the end, he doesn’t actually do the work or repent. But I also can’t hate him because the source material hasn’t given me enough actual human qualities to hate or to feel betrayed. His character just… missed the mark for me. 

As did Mal’s. Fucking MAL, oh my GOD! This dude’s literal only personality trait was loving Alina. Cool, he could track--for Alina, mostly. He could fight--for Alina. “I am become a blade”? Sir, you got a whole-ass tattoo announcing that you’re an object in this woman’s service? No WAP is worth that, and I’m speaking as a very bisexual woman. My dude, it’s weird, it’s extra, it’s just too much. I’ll go back to the Darkling for two seconds to say that, ofc, his actions were painted as problematic and misogynistic and gross. But, like, the possessiveness Mal displays with Alina kinda feels on that same level? Why are we pretending he’s better when he actively tries to keep her low, keep her powerless, and keep her his? Again, dude got a tattoo of her sigil. He was fully prepared to be the leader of her guard even if she married Nikolai just for the opportunity for some sexytimes. I know that YA is about really intense emotion, the fire of teenage hormones and stuff, but that all just felt a bit toxic. The way that his entire life revolved around her while she tried to balance the role of saint, hero, orphan, and all the things she was just felt goofy and like a wildly unhealthy dynamic. 

Their whole relationship also felt really obvious, as I guess the Darkling being revealed as the trilogy’s big bad did. It was predictable, set up to be that way from the start. There were no surprises. It was Mal, and then it was still Mal, and in the end, it was also Mal. We weren’t really shown any of what made them so drawn to each other, we were just kind of told and expected to be fine with the intensity of it. But it read as being way too much for me, and god, it kept getting worse. Again, this one felt like low-hanging fruit--low effort, lazy writing. Nothing about it actually read to me as romantic, just as too much. They didn’t so much as fall in love as just start out that way, and reading that was somewhere between boring and uncomfortable. At least with the Darkling or hell--even Nikolai--we saw some of that chemistry unfold on the page. We were shown some of what made them work the way they did. There was something underpinning their relationship, and not just “oh, they’re supposed to be together”. I mean, after all JKR’s bullshit, I feel totally fine saying fuck authorial intent. If you can’t even be bothered to actually put your shit on the page, don’t ask me to blindly accept your version canon as gospel truth. 

We could have had Deckerstar vibes, Beauty and the Beast vibes, seen light and dark come together and surprise us by actually working well together. But no, we saw a special girl lose everything that made her special and settle for some mediocre fuckboy from her hometown. We get characters that actually have the potential to be dynamic and make for a good story, but she still ends up with this bland, vanilla, trick-ass bitch? It’s a major letdown when you’ve actually been exposed to decent fictional couples, tbh.

OOF! And the ending? Oh jesus fuck, that ending. Darkling just… dies. Just like that. I read three whole books for that? I know he comes back and dies again and all, but the whole trilogy felt like it was building up to something more, something deeper and greater and more profound. He was horrible for the things he did, sure, and he deserved defeat as long as he refused to waver from his power-hungry, destructive path. But his death brought about no closure. He and Alina never actually had the fight they needed to or reached an understanding with each other. Everything is left undone, unsaid, unexplored. The ending just felt super anticlimactic on the page, and so, the trilogy as a whole fell completely short of any mark I hoped it might hit.

Did I hope Darklina would be endgame? Sure. But I’d also have been A-okay with a tragic ending if it had been done right. Did I think it would have been a lot more interesting to see a redemption arc for Darkling than just… more of the same? Or maybe Mal develop a personality outside of Alina? Absolutely. There was so much potential, and it really feels like Bardugo squandered all of it. And for what? This was nearly as disappointing as the eighth season of Game of Thrones. I probably won’t be watching future seasons if they follow the books, but I guess I’m glad for the day or so of fleeting pleasure I got when I still had hope for a properly told story. 

[dorkshadows]

Nezha Reborn (2021)

@earl-of-221b Finally watched New Gods: Nezha Reborn! Honestly? It’s a lot better than I expected it to be lol. A solid 3.5/5 from me. I do think some story elements could have been tighter and it’s not as solid a script as Nezha 2019, but it works as its own thing so it’s worth a watch for anyone already interested in fengshen lore. Plus a jttw cameo!

This is going to be a super incoherent “review” lol but I’ll just run through my thoughts. Firstly, I loved Li Yunxiang’s character. He could easily have been an emo bad boy with a heart of gold or whatever, but he wasn’t! He was just this temperamental young man trying his best. A little cocky sometimes, but always has his heart in the right place, always willing to do the right thing. Not like, super unique as a character, but someone we root for. He’s flawed, he’s handsome, he’s compassionate 10/10 character arc

Especially love how he came to understand Nezha, and how they became one in the end. This version of Nezha is legit so tragic. A misunderstood child who had to wait 3000 years until his own reincarnation looked at him and went, ‘I get it. I am you. We’re better than this. We can do it.” The flashbacks were so sad omg, but somehow that made Li Yunxiang’s reconciliation with him more moving.

FUCK Ao bing. I knew he’d be evil but wow, WOW. That kitten was so cute. That kitten was my favorite character. And Ao Bing killed it!? FUCK HIM. Thinking about that kitten makes me want to pull his spine out for the third time. That said, Ao Bing’s character as an evil hotshot asshole works and is pretty in-line with how he’s usually depicted lol. Also a pretty balanced blend of cockiness and insecurity. Like, I loved to hate him lmao

Evil CEO Ao Guang is a silver fox dilf and I have no regrets saying that. Man has no redeeming qualities besides being the oldest piece of eye candy this entire film has. But the gangster suit, hat, grey hair combo awakened something inside me. That said, his character was kinda one-note. Like, just statically evil without much explanation. And like earl said, it was very jarring to see him treat Ao Bing so badly while also justifying killing Nezha for Ao Bing, and then not cared when Nezha killed Ao Bing. Like what was going on here

Six Eared Macaque had me screaming though. He was so bouncy and was probably the only character whose face matched his voice idk LOL Probably the best animated character, and one of the best characters in general. Had stronger characterization than Ao Guang and all the side characters combined. 

I was so SHOCKED when it turned out he was SUN WUKONG disguising himself as Six Ear. What kind of next level inception asdfasdf spent a whole minute losing it over Wukong committing identity theft by stealing the identity of the monkey that stole HIS identity 3000+ years ago. It’s such a funny thing to do, like he could have been anyone but he chose Six Ear LMAO I’m convinced it was out of pettyness and dark humor (because this Wukong seems to have had a hard life).

Anyway, once the Six Ear disguise came off, I was pretty impressed by how “mature” and world weary they made Wukong without losing any of the monkey energy.

What else? Oh right, the BODY COUNT. There was a death and/or attempted murder every 5 minutes. One of Li Yunxiang’s friends or family was always in the hospital from some critical injury in every scene omg. Kasha straightup losing her leg was a shocker. so was that dude trying to suffocate Six (hello??). Then the brother almost died and lived. So OLD LI died. And of course that’s when he reconciles with his son lmao. Like, our boy cannot catch a break in this.

Lastly, the post credits scene with Erlang Shen in the 1930s tuxedo also awakened something in me. Because I’m positive he has a 3rd eye under that hat. But also, the outfit, the dog and ball, Yang Jian shows up for 0.2 seconds and he’s all I can think about again adfasdf I paused the movie just to stare at him to make sure this was a thing that was happening.

Legit criticisms: Sometimes I felt like I was watching a video game instead of a movie. Namely when some of the more realistic looking people started talking or moving- it was just weirdly stiff and uncanny? And the voices didn’t quite match the mouths. Also wasn’t fond of how all the female characters looked like barbie doll waifus lol but that’s about it. 

[deberiaestarescribiendo]

The Lost Children #Writer Wednesday Din Djarin Modern Day Bounty Hunter x f!reader

For #Writer Wednesday created by the amazing @autumnleaves1991-blog and tagging @clydesducktape (thanks a lot for the hard work of compiling everything each week)

Summary: This a part 2 of a fic I wrote a few months another Wednesday, read it here. After you scape with Din and your child, you try to find a life again even if that means he has to leave you.

Warnings: Language, talking about neglecting children or abandoned kids, guns. This is fluff with angst and Din being a softie but a dumbass expressing feelings

A/N: I'm super tired, so be ready to find many grammar and mispellings I didn't have the time to really read it through.

The lost children

For a bit, that’s what he said, what he promised until you’re safe and settled.

“So you can keep your little kid in the babycare with the rest of the kids while you’re working. One of the cabins to the right of the front office we’ll be entirely yours. We only ask that you keep clean and in a good state”

“Of course” you’re shining, happy and excited

“You heard that Greg, we’ll have a place on our own” your arms hold the baby tightly, rocking him softly until he giggles. When you turn to Din, he can see your eyes glowing, kissing little Greg’s head, you whisper thank you

Thanking him? what for? He just pointed out that small, almost entirely ripped from the wall, announcement of a local hotel in the middle of the woods that looked for personnel willing to work and live in the resort when they were stopping at a gas station.

It is a perfect place to hide and live a peaceful life and let a baby grow up in the middle of nature. Greg and you could be happy. So why is he thinking that he should make up some excuse so you don't stay, so you don’t leave him. He should be selfish and grab your hand and run away again like you’ve been doing for weeks now, but that’s not life for a baby, and you deserve it, leave the past behind. And him, even if he doesn’t want to admit, it’s part of your past of that runaway woman that commited many mistakes.

But Din’s a bounty hunter, his life on the road, from one job to the next would only make you unhappy, and at the end, you would hate him; and that’s it’s not an option.

Nothing has made Din happier than seeing you smile at him, the little comments here and there you tell him praising him and thanking him one, twice, a thousand times for helping you, the way the baby caresses his face with his small hand and those big eyes looking at him intently until he smiles with only those two little teeth. The way you look perfect, almost like a Madonna from the Renaissance, when the street lights hit your face while he’s driving and you hold your baby against your chest, both of you sleeping in the car.

Would you think he’s a creep for staring? There’s a warmth that grows inside him when he stares at you and baby Greg. A warmth he doesn’t want to let go. He cannot offer you a good life and Din doesn’t want to force you to live like he does, just because he’s so selfish to let you go.

“So what do you think?”

The manager leaves them to think about the offert. And Din balances his big body from one of his legs to the other, hands on his hips, he sighs

“I think”

I think you should be with me

I think I should protect you

I think I should protect Greg

I think I want to be with you, the both of you, forever

I think I love you

But he doesn’t say it

“I think you should take it. It is a good place for a kid”

You frown, even baby Greg looks at him puzzled from the crook of his mother’s neck

“Yes, it seems great, quiet...And I like that Greg could be with other kids. But what about you?”

Your eyes look big, pleading, there’s a question, a petion in them but you don’t say it with words so maybe Din is imagining it, he wants so bad that you will stay with him that maybe he’s making that up

“I will go and…”

And miss you

And miss Greg

And be alone again

“Start the business again somewhere else” he shrugs, and he sees the light flicking in your eyes, the idea in your head being shattered, you’ll never ask the question and he will never answer.

“But you can stay a few days, right? Rest, eat properly for once and repair the car”

“I don’t know…”

What would hurt more? leaving already or prolonging it?

“I don’t want to be this direct, Clint...” he likes that you keep using that nickname you gave him when you’re in public. You only use his real name when you’re alone. Making it even more special, it’s intimate, more anything he has ever felt.

“but you need a shower. And I do too and this stinky baby” you bury your nose on little Gregs neck and it makes him laugh out loud that angelic and sweet giggle hits him hard and before he even knows it, Din is nodding

“A few days won’t hurt”

It’s surprising how they fall easily in a routine. How they seem to find a perfect way around each other, a perfect model like the stars and planets always circling around each other and never colliding. You, dancing softly in the kitchen humming while you stir the soup, baby Greg chasing his little frog while Din holds his back so he doesn’t lose his balance

“Hey, you want this?” Din smiles fondly to the baby and with his long arm places the soft toy far away from him “C’mon like before “ his big hands on his side while the babe excitedly starts crawling towards his frog

“Hey! look! he’s getting faster!”

You smile at them, that big and serious man has the proudest smile, so bright and pure watching your baby grow before his eyes.

It’s been almost a week and he’s still repairing the car, or so he says. The manager hasn’t asked any questions and just assumed they are a family. And you must accept that you do look like one, a broken and weird one, but more than anything you have ever experienced.

And you wish he stayed forever that he could be a father to Greg, he certainly acts the part.

“Dinner is ready.”

The scent of the pines, the bugs chirping and the soft crackle of the fire is the perfect lullaby. Your baby has taken the habit of falling asleep against Din’s wide shoulder while the three of them enjoy the small porch outside the cabin.

“I think the car is ready”

The words you fear the most float in the air and you’re almost tempted to ignore them

“Hmm” you don’t face him yet, just look at the trees and try to swallow the pain “And where will you go?”

“Don’t know yet”

“How will I contact you?”

“I…”

“Do I have to search on Craigslist? Some old codewords in the newspaper? How do you even find a bounty hunter?” you’re laughing, but it really doesn’t hide the pain in your tone

“I have a phone” Din rolls his eyes at you but he’s amused, surprisingly he’s smiling more since you met him, he’s not that stern or cold as you pictured him when he caught you

“That would have come in handy when we were lost in the desert”

“I mean a fixed one”

“You have a house then?” you turn to him, lowering your voice midsentence as you see your son sleeping peacefully on Din’s arms

“Sort of”

“I will need you to expand that a little bit more Din”

Din in the quiet of the night, the moon, the stars and the fire illuminating your face he admires you pronounce it: The tip of your tongue showing softly between your teeth and he wishes to see you repeat it one, twice a thousand times.

“My family, my...it’s difficult to explain, anyway, it’s my safeplace, where I go to rest, I get the information for my next jobs, etc”

“Oh...okay, so I call you there?”

“Yeah you could, and write if you want” he offers with pleasing eyes

“Penpals, great” you answer and it sounds more sarcastic that you intended

“You could send me pictures of Greg”

Din lowers his eyes to the soft crown of the baby, that soft place on his head where he smells so sweet and tender. He can believe that he’s going and there will be no nights like this.

“I will do”

Your eyes get teary watching him softly kiss you babe, carrying to his crib whispering sweet words so he doesn’t wake up.

“So I’ve packed many water bottles, and those protein bars in case you get yourself lost in the desert again, cowboy. Sadly you won’t have my unparalleled company” you joke tapping him on his arm

“No, I won’t” Din forces a smile “I...Take care” he awkwardly squeezes your forearm

“You too-Shit!” you scream slapping your forehead “The sandwiches! I knew I forgot something. I made you something for lunch. I’ll be right back”

You press little Greg to Din’s arms before running away leaving them with wide eyes and a confused look

“Take care of you mother, kid, sometimes she can be a lot to handle”

“Hi, Ken” you say breathly as you storm inside the reception and get inside the staff meeting room.

“Hi! Has your boyfriend left already?” He asks while writing something on his agenda

“Not yet” you say looking for the lunch bag you had prepared inside the fridge. You hand stops midway when you heard her voice

It is horrible, we have not consolation, our baby has been kidnapped and we have no information

Her fake cries fill the room, some national tv is making a report on the kidnapping of little Greg. The tragic zoom at her face fades away when they show a picture of your baby.

“Fuck…” you mutter

I need him back. He’s my baby

“He’s not your baby, you bitch” you spat under your breath

“What did you say, hun, you need something” Ken raises his eyes to you, one eyebrow arched, he follows your eyes to the TV

“That baby looks exactly…” and then you know

You grab your sandwich bag and strom out as you did before. Din is holding Greg on his hip while he finishes loading the trunk with his bags

“We’re out of here”

You cry when you reach to him, pushing him away, you close the trunk door

“Wait what happened?”

“No time, let’s go”

How has this man trusted you so much as to run away with you? For all he knows you could actually be a kidnapper, that story about leaving your son with someone you trusted and that eventually you discovered that they were assholes could be fake. But he doesn’t. He runs away, drives and drives without asking a question.

“She had the guts to say it was his son, he isn’t. She barely had it for a few months until I could settle my life. And then she asked me for a crazy amount of money because children are expensive you know I fucking payed for a a new pool in her stupid house, while my son was always dressed in old clothes, too big or too small. They didn’t care for him”

And on top of trusting you, he lets you rant away all you anger

“There’s no way I’m giving him back. I rather die!”

He stops the car, the road again is silent, dressed in the colors of the sunset

“Calm down, you’re scaring him” Greg looks at you with trembling lips not knowing why he should be scared or angry, he just knows that his mama is upset “He will stay with you, I promise”

“The police must be searching for us” your warm tears cloud your eyes

“They won’t find us where we are going”

He ditches the car somewhere and you see him burning it. He carries the big bag on his back and hands you water and snacks from time to time.

“Just a few miles more”

The red stone looks like some ethereal cathedral around you, a palace in the middle of nowhere almost like another world, magical and eerie. If there’re marks or signs you don’t see them, but Din walks among the rock so sure of his steps searching among the labyrinth of rocks. And suddenly…

You hear the soft clicks of many guns' trigger locks going off at the same time. But Din softly whistles some tune and from all over: up the rocks, between them, children come out. Kids, all different from one another, some really young, others tall and weirdly looking teenagers in that mixed age where they are not a child nor an adult and others already grown to be young adults.

“Din” a curly haired girl dressed with camouflage clothes runs towards him with open arms, she has a crooked smile as she has lost some of her front teeth

“Hey, gumball!” Din bents down when she hugs him, her sweet face pressed against his belly

“Who are they?” a boy, holding a shotgun to his side, his face full of red dots, frowns at you

“They’re friends who need help” Din explains raising one of his arms trying to calm down the group

“Are they lost too?” Gumball asks

“Yes” Din nods

“But she’s a mum” some kid screams from above

“Mums can be lost too. C’mon, we’ve been walking for hours, can we go home?” he answers

“Of course, let’s go. Boba will be happy to see you” Gumball grabs Din’s hand and smile widely jumping happily through the stone corridors

“Wait, Din, what the fuck? who the fuck is Boba? What are these kids doing here?”

Gumball fires a concerned look at you

“She said two bad words”

“Gonna let it pass, Gum, she’s a bit scared and tired” Din smirks your way and you question in silent muttering the fuck again and again

“I see you pronouncing it, you know?” Gumball rolls her eyes “No bad words or you pay the price”

“Yes, understood, sorry” you close your lips hard trying not to ask more questions until you arrive home or whatever that is.

After a few minutes of turning left right, left right, right left you’re completely lost until the stone towers open up a way to a plain and on it, a ranch.

Some horses roam around nibbling on the pale green grass that grows on the land. A house on the centre is painted white but the paint looks old and chipped.

Now in the clear you count the children that surround you, ten, ten kids in the middle of nowhere.

“Welcome to the Watch” Din smiles at you, he almost look shy and earning a upset look from Gumball, he releases her hand and holds you with his big palm on your back

“What is this place, Din?”

“Home” he simply answers

The kids run through the porch screaming and opening without a care the door to the house

“Yeah, I heard you, little heathens” a masculine voice screams from the interior

His hard steps clack on the ground and you hear the spurs before you see him arriving with his leather boots, his used jeans and a low cowboy hat covering him from the sun

“I thought something must have happened to you” he says, evaluating Din. His tanned face is covered by a long and twisted scar from his lip to his forehead, he has dark eyes like Din but colder in a way, very deep and when they fall into you, you hug your baby tightly without thinking it

“I see” he says “C’mon on in, that baby can’t stay too long in the sun”

The house is nice, surprisingly tidy given the fact that there are ten kids living in it. The furniture looks like the exhibit of an old auction house, each one of them completely different of style, color or age from the other.

The man that everyone call Boba gives some orders to the group and they efficiently start doing what he asks

“Prepare a room for our guests”

“Bring water and food”

“Prepare some fresh fruit for the baby”

You sit, little Greg with eyes wide open. As any baby he’s absorbed by all the children around him, and he reaches with his little hands trying to grab them

“Little fella wants to play, you can leave him on the rug if he wants to”

“He’s fine here, thanks” you say holding him although Greg is already removing your hands from him wanting to explore

“Boba, we have nowhere to go” Din explains sipping on his cold water

“I guess, you have never brought anybody here” He reclines himself on his rocking chair watching Din intenly

“We need to protect them for a while, until we can find a solution”

“You’ll be safe here, you know that, you can stay as long as you want, just respect the house rules” and he points to a wood board, engraved in them are a few rules

Be respectful of yourself and others

I finish my tasks as promised, ask for help if I can’t

I will not curse

Be clean of yourself and your environment

Protect your family and your house above all

“They seem...pretty logical, won’t be a problem to follow them” you smile uncomfortably

“Well, somebody said you have a potty mouth, young lady. So watch it, but for the moment, you may rest, we will see for the rest tomorrow” He sighs when he gets up and taps on Din’s shoulder before he goes to the kitchen

“Let’s make dinner” you hear him scream, before the rumbling of pans and chopping and children screaming start

“Din…” you say after a moment

“I know you have a million questions”

“Duh!” you laugh nervously

“This is my family, we’re not related by blood but by circumstances. Lost kids, abandoned, neglected; we have a safe place here and in time we go out in the world and make our own life but we always have the Watch over us. A place where we’re watched over, taken care of, listened…” his caramel eyes glow and you see his strong and stern facade crumble before your eyes, in this place he can relax. He feels safe so you can too, right?

“We’ll be fine here” He reaches for you hand, the one that holds little Greg caressing him with your thumb, and covers both of you squeezing softly

We, it’s the second time he has referred to you as a group, you and me and Greg, We.

“We’ll be fine” You smile back, lowering your face, you kiss his knuckles, leaving a warmth there Din will be holding for hours.

You don’t notice, but the whole time during dinner he passes his thumb over that small place of his skin where you kissed him.

(Hey! remember when you read that fic in May? I continued it...so sorry that it took so long, I've taken the liberty of tagging you since you were interested in a follow up from the first one @fangirlalexia @childrenofthewatch )

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

One quick question, why do you hate Before the Storm? I actually really liked it. It could be because I'm a hopeless romantic, but I just want to see your opinions on it

Oh boy, where to even begin...? I cannot stand bts... it actually hurts my insides to think about how much I hate this game haha.

[note: yeah hi uhhh... this is long because of course it is, it's coming from me but listen, my feelings for this game are not nice and I have a lot to say so.... my bad]

One of the bigger reasons, though not the biggest, is Chloe... I'm not exactly a big fan of Chloe. At all. Not in the first game, nope. I understand that so many people love her and they have their reasons for that, that's fine, she's just a character who doesn't appeal to me. If anything, she pisses me off because I can see the foundation for such a compelling character, but it all gets thrown away for the sake of bullshit.

So then they plop bts in front of us with Chloe as the playable protagonist in a prequel story about her and Rachel Amber. This is an opportunity to expand on her character, to tie into the first season and make me feel more positive feelings about her character, to do what the first game failed to do..... and to be fair, they DO have a few of them sprinkled in... but then they're overshadowed by the garbage.

It's just... the ideas are there, and they're ideas that I like but they're executed so poorly. I want to like Chloe Price, I can see that there's something good here.

Like okay.... lemme do a thing:

Chloe Price. She's going through some serious shit after her dad dies. He died unexpectedly in a car accident, something Chloe had zero control over, it's not fair, and even though it's not like the universe singled her out and said "fuck you," it feels that way to her.

On top of that, her best friend who she adores? She moves away. Not something that's in either of their control, they're kids at this point. However, Max stops contacting her and that hurts Chloe. Chloe tries to stay in contact, but eventually Max stops responding.

Then you have her mother, who's also grieving after losing her husband and dealing with her daughter pushing her away and on the wrong path. She meets a man and falls for him after realizing she still has a long life ahead of her and that's too long to be miserable over her husband's death, William wouldn't want that, and David is a source of comfort for her... something she's not getting from her daughter. The problem is that David and Chloe don't get along in the slightest... which leads to Chloe feeling like her mom is trying to replace her father by moving on, not understanding why Joyce's timeline of grief isn't the same as hers, y'know?

Oh, and can't forget that Chloe has fallen onto a not so great path of drugs, booze, bad grades, lying, staying out late without letting her mom know where she is, pickin' fights, making friends with drug dealers, stealing money and other items, all that. She's bitter, angry, unable to understand most of her own complex emotions and that only makes her even more upset. She's unable to express them in a healthy way, she doesn't ask for help, and denies it whenever offered.

So... Chloe's starts out as an extremely entitled, rude, obnoxious character. She insults the bouncer in the cringiest way possible because these adult men writing her don't know how teen girls talk, she steals money and a t-shirt from a dude who works for the band because $20? how dare? even though bands don't make a lot of money and a lot of profit comes from their merch but who cares about supporting artists you like, right? Chloe sure doesn't. She probably buys some weed from Frank because yeah, she's got a dependence on the stuff now. She gets into a fight with a couple of dudes after spilling beer on them.... but what's this?

Oh look, it's Rachel Amber. Y'know, the pretty, popular, talented, smart, perfect, charismatic girl from Chloe's school?? yeah, she's at the concert and saves Chloe from the dicks who attacked her, and the two girls spend the rest of the concert together.

Now, for some reason, Chloe isn't sure but Rachel has taken a special interest in her. Rachel is flirty, she wants to know who Chloe is, she asks her to skip school with her, and the two take a ride on a train to a park and... honestly? pretty romantic, and it plays into that escapism fantasy thing of having the pretty girl who everyone likes single you out, making you feel special.

Over time, the girls grow close. Rachel has some family problems and seeks comfort in Chloe. They spend nights walking together down empty streets at night, holding hands. They hang out and talk about the stars, they discuss Shakespeare and what it's like to actually be your true self, if there's actually such a thing. They get tattoos together, and Rachel helps Chloe color her hair. They have a special hideout they decorated together in the junkyard. Rachel spends the night at Chloe's enough that she ends up leaving a lot of clothes there. They daydream about running away together, long road trips and living big in LA.

Chloe starts to see Rachel as her angel because for the first time since Max, she feels like she has someone she can be open and honest with. Rachel almost seems too perfect to be true, y'know?

And hey, over time Chloe actually starts to kinda get her life on the right track, if not in an unconventional way. Sure, she's still dealing with losing her father. that's not something she'll just get over... but she does start making an effort with her mom, and yes, even David after he told her about his time in the army and gave her that photo. They both know they'll never be friends, and they'll still have arguments, but they'll at least keep the peace for Joyce's sake.

It's not all perfect, though. Chloe's still smoking and Rachel isn't always the best influence. They get into trouble here and there, but nothing super serious.

She dropped out of Blackwell so that her mom didn't have to keep paying her tuition and because she's fixated on this fantasy of running away with Rachel. Chloe's feeling good about herself, about her future, for the first time since her dad died.

Until Rachel disappears.

And everything goes to shit pretty quick after that. Rachel's gone, she's not answering calls or texts, and everyone keeps saying that she probably ran away, but Chloe knows better. She knows Rachel wouldn't leave without her, so something must've happened. She makes posters and puts them everywhere, but things only get worse.

Money is tight. Joyce isn't making as much as she needs at the diner, David isn't making enough as a security guard, and hey... they might lose the house... the house that was once Williams, that's a piece of him he left behind. Not only that, but where will they go?

Chloe doesn't want them to lose the house, or for her mom to be this stressed out over food and bills. Chloe borrowed money from Frank in hopes of using it to run away with Rachel, but with her missing... Chloe decides to give it to her mom in order to save the house. Joyce is alarmed that she has this much, but Chloe manages to lie her way out of it to give her mom some peace of mind.

Except now she has another problem- she can't pay Frank back and he's getting more aggressive about it as the weeks go on. Rachel's still missing, Frank's breathing down her neck with threats toward her mom, money is still an issue at home, and she's not in a good place. Chloe's desperate enough to steal... so when she makes it into a bar that doesn't card her and she sees rich boy Nathan Prescott drunk off his ass and flashing bills, she thinks it'll be an easy score. It's wrong to do this, it's dangerous, but Chloe justifies it to herself. She needs that money.

She didn't expect Nathan to drug her drink, and she wakes up to him taking pictures of her. She manages to get the hell outta there, but she still has no idea what the hell happened to her. Like.... that reeeally fucks with her, it doesn't even feel real. She can't tell anyone, she can't tell her mom, and the police won't do anything since they're under the Prescott thumb.... and well, she decides to blackmail him.

And we all know how that goes.

So... we have the highs and lows of Chloe Price. She's flawed, even starting out as unbearable, but over time she becomes more nuanced and you're invested in what happens to her. You want to see her better herself, you want her to work through her grief and get help, you understand why she hates David but when you see him and Joyce happy together and him make an effort to be better, you want to see them make amends. You know David doesn't want to replace William, hell HE knows no one ever could.

You want Chloe to keep going, to find purpose in her life and realize her own potential. You saw her at the beginning when she was broken, when she was lost and didn't see a future for herself, and it's satisfying to see her come this far to where she knows she has a future... something that becomes all the more tragic when you remember her fate in the first game.

You're invested in Chloe and Rachel's romance, you get giddy watching them flirt and do dumb, romantic, cliche things, and you're just as compelled by Rachel as everyone else. No, she's not perfect, she's not a stereotype, she's much more layered than that and it only breaks your heart when you realize that she's killed later on, that of course she's going to go missing... you already know that! So you're watching Chloe, who has gotten pieces of her life back together and is genuinely happy.... fall back down the pit, fall back into the habits she had at the beginning, and you know it will lead to her downfall.

.....TOO BAD BEFORE THE STORM DID FUCK ALL WITH THAT RIGHT?

Nope, you don't get any of that. Well, except Chloe being cringy. You get a lot of that.

No, no, we got edgelord, flanderized Chloe who thinks her wit is much greater than it actually is, whose terrible moments outweigh the good, and who doesn't grow or change no matter what influence you try to have over her.

Rachel could be replaced with a literal barbie doll and little would change. She has no charm, she's nothing like what she was described in the first game, and she's just so fucking unlikable. When she finds out that her mom isn't actually her birth mom, she claims that her whole life is a lie and her parents aren't real and she wants to meet her druggie mom who chose drugs over her for 15 years because she's the one who actually squeezed her out.

Which, by the way, WHY is this the goddamn plot?? Why did they feel like they had to shove in this "oh hey Rachel's dad is the bad guy, oh wait now this drug guy is the bad guy because he stabby Rachel, no wait now her dad is the super bad guy because he put a hit out on Rachel's REAL mom, oh no wait it's fine because Frank murdered drug man off screen" WHY YOU DO THIS??

You have three episodes. THREE. And in those three episodes, you have the opportunity to explore Chloe as a character, and her relationships with Rachel, Joyce, and David. But instead of dedicating the story to that, something you could've created a compelling narrative out of, you threw in this dumb mom plot and fire-

HOW THE HELL DID I FORGET THE FIRE????

What- why did- does she have- Rachel just- RACHEL SETS THE FOREST ON FIRE??? WHY THOUGH???

I get it, "Rachel is the fire" yeah yeah and it's dumb.

Oh and because we didn't have enough going on, here's a side mission where you gotta deal with getting money from this other kid who's running drugs for big bad drug man because he wants to help his dad who lost his job.

But WAIT, there's more- In a series where several girls were drugged by Nathan and Jefferson, forced to pose for pictures, and some even killed or driven to try and take their own life? something taken so seriously...? Victoria gets drugged and it's treated like a joke. Even worse, there is a path that has Rachel drugging her, and no one cares.

ALSO.... Rachel cheated on Chloe with two adult men, remember? One of which fucking murders her?? and we're just... we're just not gonna do anything with that??? Nothing??? Maybe a little stinger at the end but that's it????

I just..... I hate this game so much.

It had so much potential. Not only that, but it had the first game to look at and learn from. Learn from the mistakes that game made and improve upon.... but instead, they fucked up even worse. It's just a game of fanservice that has way too much going on, is trying to do too much, and loses focus on the most important things.

Three episodes could've been enough to explore different points of Chloe's character before the events of the first game. They could've crafted a story that gave more insight into her life that make sense of the choices she made, that turn her into the Chloe we see in the first game. You don't need a forest fire, you don't need evil lawyers. I know the first game had the storm and time travel and big dumb Jefferson, but you wanted to tell a story that's grounded without shit like that... y'know, before the storm.

I could probably go on and on if someone doesn't stop me, so I'll stop myself here... I hate bts because it's potential was there, I could see it in a few key moments, and it was wasted.

The romantic ideas fall flat because being pretty and gay isn't enough for me, I need more than that. I don't care if they kiss because I don't care about their relationship, and frankly, they've done very little to make me care about them as individuals.

UGH

.......does that answer your quick question? haha sorry for the not so quick answer, but like I said, this game makes my brain mad and once I get going, it's hard to stop.

[dismyblog]

remarried empress could have just made rashta a noblewoman who got abandoned by viscount lotesshu's son when his father disapproved of the relationship.

i'm going to try and put this under a "read more" but im on mobile so idk if it will work

remarried empress is a very good story. yes the protagonist is an empress of a european inspired country and fuck noble system but in this case its a historical fantasy stand in for what its really about:

navier, a highly competent woman from a family with a history of highly competent women, working her ass of from childhood training to become the amazing and skilled leader she is and then getting cast aside by her husband and removed from her position because she wasn't like his mistress: cheerful, always smiling, adoring, beautiful, submissive, delicate, INFANTILE, and doing nothing but pouring praise and gratitude upon her man.

since its a romance story, navier is not hurting for love interests that actually value her skills and regal and offer her a way out as her husband and his mistress mistreat and humiliate her over and over but she remains by the emperor's side and shows a united front not for his sake but for the sake of her people and kingdom and because she knows the role of empress is what she wants and what fulfills her in a way no man ever could.

she only makes moves against rasta when she realizes that someone is blackmailing her, which could effect the emperor, which could, more importantly, effect her kingdom.

she only makes moves to take one of her love interest's offers and leave her husband when she finds out he's going to divorce her and take the job she worked so hard at her entire life.

it wasn't because she loved king henry, it was because he offered her the chance to remain a ruler first. if grand duke kaufman had come back to see her first she would have gone with him instead. being a leader is what fulfills her.

this is what makes navier the enjoyable protagonist she is. her goals in life come first and all she's looking for in a partner is someone who will help her reach them.

it wouldn't matter if she HAD turned out to be infertile. her skill at her job and the self worth it gave her far outweighed the fact that she was 30 and hadn't provided an heir yet. the eastern kingdom was only ass powerful as it was because she was such a great empress and partner to emperor sovieshu.

but all this is undermined by one thing: rashta is a slave.

and this isn't just some tasteless worldbuilding detail, its part of her backstory and her drive as a character. we SEE the horrors of slavery in the eastern kingdom.

and navier is the ruler of that kingdom. she's pure blooded nobility, descend from the upper class of nobles who have maintained and profited from slavery for generations.

there's not even an attempt to show navier is against slavery or doing anything to get rid of it. she just accepts that its the way things are and that a slave would never be able or worthy of taking her place.

she's the empress of this country. she complicit in this system. she the embodiment of "lawful good".

how am i supposed to simply see rashta as the greedy and power hungry mistress out to steal everything from navier with this? that's what the story wants me to think of her. that's how she's portrayed. a greedy woman that's desperate to be adored by everyone around her and the power that comes with it.

it doesn't work, the nobility of this country took everything from rashta down to her very freedom and rights as a person. all for their own gain. if she caught the eye of the emperor she deserves to take EVERYTHING she can from it and get all the comfort, luxury, and security she's never had. if she wants the throne she should take it. if she wants to secure herself by passing off the child she pregnant with as sovieshu's she should. if she wants to take the seat of empress for herself she should.

by not making rashta another noblewoman more equal to navier and instead making her a slave you turned rashta into a victim and navier into an indifferent ruler rashta has every right to hate.

it's taken us out of the story where "empress" and "concubine" was a historical fantasy stand in for "competent woman loses her job and husband because she "doesn't smile enough" and "seems cold" while her husband's mistress is "charming", "refreshing", and "adorably childlike" because she fits the ideal of the submissive infantile woman.

instead it makes them to much like their real life counterparts. it turns a great character like navier and makes her no different then any real world european queen. yeah "girlboss". great. still complicit in the horrors of slavery.

and rashta become someone who deserves not of the bad things that are going happen to her. her ending up scarred and locked in the tower awful not karma. her taking her own life is tragic.

i'm fully capable of seeing what the story wants me to see and appreciating the great character navier is so close to being. but then the story shoots itself in the foot.

and before anyone says anything. i know its a korean novel thats tackling the "historical european fantasy" genre. my points still stand. i really enjoy remarried empress but it's super imperialistic and the story and fandom does almost nothing to address it as they glorify navier and trash talk rashta.