#alternatively they survive and the village is founded

[lgcllyanx]

soulmate au where any harm or damage one person takes, their soulmate takes the exact same

tobirama and izuna do not notice, as they injure each other so often it's difficult to notice if one of their wounds wasn't inflicted on them. they don't get hurt often enough outside of battle to realize, either, and have no general desire to find their soulmate

until tobirama perfects the flying raijin and uses it on izuna. for a moment he thinks it's malfunctioned, and he's somehow managed to stab himself with the fatal blow. then he turns, sees izuna on the ground. it is a terrifying, harrowing realization, and izuna sees him and knows. they spend their final days in separate compounds with the same wound knowing that they truly could not live one without the other

[corellianhounds]

The reason Mando does so many “side quests” is because he’s poor. He has to work for everything. He lives a self-sufficient life on the road bringing money back to his tribe to support them because Mandalorians aren’t safe and can only show their faces in town one at a time or they’re perceived as a danger because of how they look and what reputation is attributed to that appearance by many people. Almost every single episode has somebody picking a fight with Mando over the armor when he’s literally just standing there. He has to fight, scrap, save, barter, trade, and work for every single thing he has because the alternative is dying, or people he cares about dying. It doesn’t matter if it’s because they’re attacked or because they literally don’t have the money to eat, most of the Mandalorians we’ve seen live hand to mouth day by day, surviving out of sheer willpower and working together

Season 1 Episode 2: His only means of transportation (/place of living) is scavenged for parts and stolen in pieces. He’s forced to negotiate with the ones who took his stuff and do a job for them so he can get it all back before then having to rebuild the ship (when he shouldn’t have to trade anything for it to begin with)

Season 1 Episode 4: He wants somewhere safe and unassuming he can lay low with the kid and agrees to scare off some local bandits so he can have lodging. His original long term plan was to stay on Sorgan for a few months— He’s willing to fight the bandits and the Walker because that village was where he was given somewhere to eat and sleep and because he had intended to live there long term

Season 1 Episode 5: The hunter that found them on Sorgan forces him to acknowledge he’s not allowed to remain sedentary. He tries to go back to his old job, working as a bounty hunter for money; he and the kid can live on the ship, though it isn’t ideal, but he needs food, fuel, and immediate ship repairs. The betrayal of the gunslinger and confirmation from a target that word of him breaking the Guild Code has reached the literal farthest reaches of the Outer Rim solidifies that he can’t be a legitimate hunter anymore and that people who recognize him or the kid (or recognize them because they’re together) will be gunning for the reward, leading to—

Season 1 Episode 6: Mando going back to the only other life and means of making money he’s known, working shady jobs with criminals in the hope of receiving payment. The job proves even more unpredictable and dangerous than the last one and puts him back at square one again.

Season 2 Episode 1: Mando is a well-rounded character who’s been given an objective outside of just surviving to the next day. He only ends up in Mos Pelgo because he needs information, and he only agrees to fight the Krayt dragon because— as a well-rounded character— he’s promised culturally important relics of his people that he holds in the highest respect. The armor of a dead Mandalorian being given the proper respect (showing the honor he has for his people) is shown to be tied in importance with the kid. At least he’s given some food for the road because it’s clear he wasn’t being paid any money in addition to it.

Season 2 Episode 2: Chasing the barest lead on information about other Mandalorians forces him to take the dangerous passage he does; he only ends up having to survive the ice planet because of the threat of incarceration if he didn’t run. He’s not being paid in money here either AND his ship is literally barely holding together. If it was a horse he’d have to shoot it.

Season 2 Episode 3: Bo-Katan is his last lead on information about a Jedi. The child needs a Jedi teacher so he’ll be safe. By this point Mando is desperate and BKK forces him to do a dangerous job in exchange for information. He’s not getting any money this season because all of the jobs he does are in exchange for information and it’s a lot easier to manipulate and force people who need a favor from you to do whatever you tell them because you have something more specific than money they can’t get anywhere else. He doesn’t have enough money to cover a good fix of the Crest but doesn’t have anything to leverage against the mechanic who did a partial job for all the money he did have left, meaning—

Season 2 Episode 4: He has to call in a favor from a friend. Karga’s willing to cover his fuel, repairs, and docking fees, but oh Mando while you’re here I have this pesky Imperial infestation and since it’ll take a while for your ship to be repaired and you’re not busy…

Season 2 Episode 5: Now he’s finally found a Jedi. Now he may finally be able to give the kid to somebody who can protect him and teach him how to protect himself. Now the kid may finally be able to live a long, safe life, even if it means it can’t be with him. Oh right except this Jedi says she isn’t really a Jedi anymore, and also she’s kind of busy, but maybe she’ll think about it if you help her do her own thing in liberating a town—

Only for Ahsoka to then go back on her deal because she has her own thing going on. Considering how important the whole Thrawn mission is shown to be later, I’m not all that convinced she was ever going to take the kid as an apprentice. She may have been on the fence and maybe considered doing it if Elsbeth didn’t give any information up, but if the whole Ahsoka show was about her search for Thrawn, it’s obvious she has a lot more involvement in that than she’d be able to afford if she took the kid as her ward. The idea that the kid’s too attached to Mando for her to take him as a student seems like a pretty convenient excuse considering she knows this guy has zero clue about anything to do with the Jedi. It doesn’t matter if she’s right or not, she could have been upfront about having more pressing matters she was devoted to so he would have the option of not wasting his time there or doing a job for Ahsoka he wouldn’t be receiving payment or an exchange from.

And then the rest of season 2 is the bigger plot. Episodes 1, 3, 7, and 8 of Season 1 were the overarching plot.

Mando has to live life on the road in a dangerous and unpredictable galaxy doing dangerous and unpredictable jobs. He’s poor. He’s a survivalist. He’s desperate. He makes friends because interpersonal ties are often the only other form of currency he has, and those ties still often come with requests for favors or work in exchange for what they can do for him. Hardly anybody is giving him anything, and even when they do, he still feels obligated to pay them back.

[queereads-bracket]

Queer Adult SFF Books Bracket: Round 3

Book summaries below:

This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

Among the ashes of a dying world, an agent of the Commandant finds a letter. It reads: Burn before reading. Thus begins an unlikely correspondence between two rival agents hellbent on securing the best possible future for their warring factions. Now, what began as a taunt, a battlefield boast, grows into something more. Something epic. Something romantic. Something that could change the past and the future.

Except the discovery of their bond would mean death for each of them. There's still a war going on, after all. And someone has to win that war.

Science fiction, time travel, multiverse, epistolary, adult

The Radiant Emperor series (She Who Became the Sun, He Who Drowned the World) by Shelley Parker-Chan

In a famine-stricken village on a dusty yellow plain, two children are given two fates. A boy, greatness. A girl, nothingness…

In 1345, China lies under harsh Mongol rule. For the starving peasants of the Central Plains, greatness is something found only in stories. When the Zhu family’s eighth-born son, Zhu Chongba, is given a fate of greatness, everyone is mystified as to how it will come to pass. The fate of nothingness received by the family’s clever and capable second daughter, on the other hand, is only as expected.

When a bandit attack orphans the two children, though, it is Zhu Chongba who succumbs to despair and dies. Desperate to escape her own fated death, the girl uses her brother’s identity to enter a monastery as a young male novice. There, propelled by her burning desire to survive, Zhu learns she is capable of doing whatever it takes, no matter how callous, to stay hidden from her fate.

After her sanctuary is destroyed for supporting the rebellion against Mongol rule, Zhu takes the chance to claim another future her brother’s abandoned greatness.

Fantasy, historical fiction, alternate history, epic fantasy, series, adult

[the-artist-grimm]

Hi, I have just discovered your AU and I like the design, also the name made curious about what's the AU about

(Note this Lore Post is HIGHLY Outdated!!!! See the masterpost for current lore!)

Thank you! And for the ‘Crimson Angel AU’ think of it as translating to ‘Blood-Soaked Angel AU’, since I think that’s more of a better visual/description, but crimson just sounds prettier for an actual title.  This is gonna be a little long for more-in-depth lore dump so see the READ MORE for well, more! And my apologies for the rambles that have slowly taken over my brain, it's a little chaotic but the basic gist of it XD

(Note Anthea goes by she/they and I alternate between the two so if that causes reading issues let me know)

In this case, the ‘Blood-Soaked Angel’ is my lamb, Anthea, who starts off the story as being a seemingly kind, friendly, and optimistic person just wanting to help, but is really just someone who is trying to understand why they lived when their family and people did not, and just going with self-sacrifice and self-destruction as the only way to ‘prove’ they deserved to live. 

Got a mini backstory comic here with some explanations, though TLDR Anthea already had this sense of being responsible for keeping everyone else’s spirits up after losing their father, and when heretics destroyed the rest of their family/village at age 12 and they survived by the shear luck of just being out on a routine supply run, they feel as if they don’t deserve it. 

From there Anthea bottled everything up and wandered the forests for a bit until being found and taken in by Ratau, who taught her not only how to fight but also told her stories of his time as vessel, of which any involving The One Who Waits were the most interesting. A lonely, bitter, and kinda angry god of death, despite  his appearance, kept and appeared to care for the two young kits by his side. TOWW sounded different from the other bishops Anthea had only ever known to be violent, and thus she began to worship him as a sort of comfort-since thinking a gentler god greeted her family and would one day greet her was a better thought than the horror they must’ve faced prior to death. She lived day to day just pretending everything was fine, being a good kid, and helping out around the shack, while internally treating every moment like borrowed time, thinking she had to keep being useful to everyone else. (Ratau knew she had people-pleasing issues but didn’t realize the extent for a long, long time) 

Cut to Anthea being 26, and after she and Ratau were heading back one afternoon after some errand or visit were ambushed by heretics who managed to injure Ratau when they tried to escape, and though they got away, they were pursued. Thinking she’d lived on borrowed time long enough and wanting to prevent another person she loved from dying, Anthea took advantage of Ratau’s injury keeping him from stopping her and drew the heretics away, being captured as a result. 

Bishops, execution, Anthea gets the shock of hearing that they’re the final lamb prior to sacrifice, then suddenly they’re waking up in the gateway to the god they’ve worshiped for years, and he’s just as Ratau described. A lonely, bitter god with two young kits (I place Aym and Baal as teens since it leads to some interesting moments), by his side. Yet where that’s all Ratau saw, Anthea also saw the chains. The wounds bleeding an endless stream of ichor. The way TOWW struggled prior to their approach, how his voice and smile were strained. This god they’d built up as this better to the bishops is trapped and painfully so, and when offered the chance to help him, Anthea jumps at it. They must’ve lived for SOMETHING, must be the last for some greater purpose because there were so many other lambs who ‘deserved’ to live more, so if it’s for this prophecy then so be it. 

Game plays out, Anthea begins to see past the bitterness/anger Nariender puts up to see someone genuinely hurt by those he cared about and struggling to trust after while also seeing he’s not exactly perfect, whilst Nariender in turn starts to call Anthea out on the whole self-sacrificial stick as them just trying to die to make themself feel better instead of just facing the fact that they lived, others died, and that’s all there is to say. Slowly the two become friends, got an idea for example that Anthea starts to use the crown to show Nariender what he’s missed in the world as a means of comforting him/helping him remember not all was as bad as he recalls (aka they’re unintentional dates lol), Anthea also starts befriending the twins since they remind them of their own brothers which gains more Nariender friendship points at someone making his kids happy, and that friendship slowly turns to a genuine love from both sides. 

Anthea plans to keep her feelings hidden until after Narinder’s free, though secretly starts to work on an engagement present to confess by leaving the crown at the temple and going to the Lonely Shack at night. (the engagement also meant to be a symbolic ‘hey you don’t have to feel the same but just know I’ll be with you from now on I won’t leave you’). Is also Anthea finally taking steps to live life for herself and move on to something that makes her happy. Meanwhile Narinder has no idea what these feelings he’s having are-just that this weirdly kind, cheerful, but also melancholic and frustratingly self-sacrificial lamb makes his heart race, and is now for some reason being a little distant. He’s been trying to figure out how to return to the world above without sacrificing Anthea, but now has whatever this is distracting him, and thus has the crown follow one night, only hears part of Anthea discussing/being teased about planning a proposal but not who said proposal is for, and being unused to jealousy but very used to being cast aside and betrayed gets angry/scared/heartbroken and decides to just go through with the sacrifice anyway since it’s easier than trying to figure out why he’s feeling like this. 

Endgame battle hits, during which Anthea feels very confused/hurt by his order to sacrifice themself, as just the other day here was their dearest friend lightly scolding them for willingly dying just to visit. They try to reason with him and Narinder doesn’t want to hear it, so he orders the twins to fight Anthea which neither are willing but are forced, and Anthea has no choice but to kill both since Nariender refuses to hear reason. The anger, grief, guilt, and heartbreak they’ve bottled up finally boils over as red wings appear on their back like they briefly do in-game when the lamb refuses (this all started when I saw the scene in-game and thought the visual/symbolism was really cool), and they fight and defeat Nariender. 

When back at the compound Nariender’s just lashing out and cursing Anthea on the dais because he’s angry and hurt at her betraying him until Anthea just calmly tells him why he was spared-she loved him. Nariender finally looks at her and is hit with the realization that this lamb who’d always looked at him so warmly with adoration is now giving him the most blank, lifeless expression as she tells him he’s free to do as he pleases before leaving. And he now realizes that because he didn’t stop and think things through and instead let anger take the focus he completely neglected to realize that here was someone who loved him-who loved him even as they learned of his faults, saw his lowest, ect, and he just threw it all away over a misunderstanding he could've EASILY just asked about. He even sacrificed his guards (read sons) just because that was somehow easier than talking. Which begs the question, who else loved him? Who else did he miss? Was his imprisonment really all on the bishops, or was he also to blame? Whilst Anthea’s now stuck with a godhood she didn’t want, two more loved ones dead, and a broken heart. 

The two gotta learn where to go from here, the now blood-soaked ‘angel’ who’s begun to realize just how much giving pieces of yourself hurts, and a fallen god who’s begun to realize things aren’t as black and white as he thought. They get better! Eventually...

Might try making a fic, might just keep this as drabbles and rambles along with art, but right now I’m having fun making fanart/aus for the first time instead of just watching from the sidelines, so I hope you enjoy the ride. But for now enjoy some angsty doodles :D

[dirtandcrime]

Jayce Talis FanFic Concept ?

!! ARCANE SEASON 2 SPOILERS !!

I don't think I fully understood the wild rune thing in season 2, but I still really liked seeing the alternate universes/timelines, especially the one Jayce ends up in. I didn't really resonate with Jayce as a character before season 2, but after his little field trip he became more fleshed out to me (or maybe it's just the beard).

Point is, I'd like to see more of that apocalyptic timeline (and desperate, barely surviving Jayce), cause wouldn't it be cool if he was stuck there just a bit longer?

So imagine Jayce is there, struggling to survive, fighting the white machine thingies and kind of failing miserably because he destroyed his hextech hammer to fix his leg. He's on the verge of giving up, or maybe dying from his injuries when a mysterious saviour (gn! reader) shows up, the first living person he's seen in months. They beat up the machines or ward them off in some way before hauling Jayce's now unconscious body with them. Jayce then wakes up in some sort of safe haven, like a really small village of people (edit: or some sort of nomad clan who constantly travel to avoid being corrupted by the arcane or found by the 'machines') who haven't been touched by the arcane. They could have developed some kind of tech that 'countered' the effects of the arcane (lanterns?), keeping the machines away from them. The base of their protection and the tech is their one and only scientist, the same person who saved Jayce.

The whole thing could basically be about these people surviving the apocalyptic world beside Jayce while he becomes close with the main scientist, eventually resulting in them finding out he technically caused their horrible reality. That causes some conflict or rift between them, until the scientist also realizes this means Jayce can also undo everything if he just goes back to his reality, and so it all turns into a quest to get Jayce back home. The ending is bound to be angsty, since Jayce will need to leave the scientist and never ever see them again.

I obviously don't know much about LOL lore nor do I understand how the arcane and all that science stuff works, but this would be really interesting to read!! :D

[taradactyls]

Progress Update for Trying to Tread Water

Welp, we all got better, and then sick again within a week. So I didn't write enough to feel ready to post the chapter before illness got me. Pretty mildly, but fatigue is a big factor and when you combine that with caring for two toddlers... yeah.

So, below is a (largely unedited) sneak peak for you, of the chapter which has unintentionally turned into a little bit of a tour guide of the route from London to Derby.

I thought I would do a paragraph or two of the journey, but then I wanted to know a few villages I could name drop (the same way Jane Austen does with Oxford, Warwick, Kenilworth, etc in Pride and Prejudice) but that required research. Which led me into the research black hole. I ended up stitching together my own maps, comparing that to two or three other antique maps which focused on different information, plotting alternate routes, excessive use of the measuring tool in google maps, google street view, Wikipedia searches (why do so many villages list the amount of Indian restaurants they have??), and finally a four page document I made of each village they would pass through, with their distance, special features, etc. Most of it isn't relevant, but I needed to know it to feel that my writing had a solid foundation, and there was too much good stuff and potential scenes for me to be able to resist including some.

Here's the first glimpse of one of those locations I 'found' as I was doing this research. Dunstable Priory (with an image of it at the bottom).

They passed two more villages before the Dunstable Downs came into view, somewhat low as the road was, but Elizabeth did indeed reckon the walk to the top would be worth it. They resolved to undertake the climb, and explore Dunstable, the adjacent market town, for a considerable time. There was unlikely to be anything more enticing awaiting them in their final two stops for the day, so they had plenty of hours to spare.

At the inn where they were changing the horses, Elizabeth asked a maid within what might be seen around the village, and whether the downs were worth the exertion.

“There is the priory, if it please you ma’am. And the view from the hills is very fine. I have heard tell it is the highest point in this part of England, and indeed you can see farther in fine weather than I have ever travelled.”

Elizabeth settled it with Mr Darcy to climb the escarpment after their meal. While that was being prepared, they walked over to explore the church, which was considerably closer by and could be managed in a short time. It was far statelier than Elizabeth expected, with a very ancient façade which only grew more imposing the closer they got. Until, standing on the path sloping down from the doors and feeling entirely dwarfed by the ornate columns and pillars stretching many stories up to crenelations and yet a higher tower, she had to laugh. “I was expecting a country church,” said she. “I feel this place once might once have been of considerable importance.”

His brow furrowed slightly in thought, Mr Darcy mused “Yet there are many grand remnants of abbeys and priories about, after falling into ruin following the dissolution of the monasteries. Perhaps it was common for places of worship to be so impressive, and the only uncommon aspect is that it survived.”

“I will concede perhaps it once had more peers, and many larger, before so many other grand religious houses were lost. But I think it must have always been uncommon in its size and ornamentation. The sheer number of tiny country churches whose simple Norman bell towers cannot rival this surely show that.”

“They show this may never been considered modest, that is true,” Mr Darcy conceded. “But it does not necessarily follow that this particular priory had any great significance. It might have been rather average, or slightly above, for most of its life, until its fellows lost their roofs in the looting following Henry VIII’s decrees and his appropriation of the income which funded such splendour.”

Elizabeth turned to him with a smile. “I suppose I have not the knowledge to counter that fully” said she, “as we would need to compare it to a comprehensive list of everything that existed alongside it. But I cannot imagine something so impressive in appearance and preservation is irrelevant.”

“Luck, and relevance to the local people might be all that was needed to preserve it. Plenty of places of undisputed national importance have been lost,” countered Mr Darcy. “If there is anything significant about this particular priory, we might expect it to be an abbey, or have heard more about it.”

“If whole palaces and abbeys have been lost to ruin, I think it not unusual if we also lost the history of a place. It might still be important despite us knowing very little of it,” said Elizabeth empathically.

“One could claim the same of almost any hill in England – there have been ancient kingdoms and barrows enough to justify it.”

“Perhaps one would be right to do so! Maybe every mundane piece of earth we tread was once unfathomably important in a time immemorable.”

A faint smile came to the gentleman’s face. “You have a romantic’s heart, Mrs Darcy.”

“And just enough a mind for history to feel I can credibly support my claim,” rejoined Elizabeth.

“Not without leaning heavily on presumptions.”

“Do not forget, Mr Darcy,” she replied archly, “I have the liberty of being able to assert that a lack of evidence does not disprove my claim, since it hinges on such knowledge being lost. All the while being safe in the awareness that it is impossible to disapprove that a place has never been sacred in all the long years of the world.”

His smile seemed fonder, as he said “Ah, you are taking an unassailable and yet unprovable position.”

“Which is the cleverest stance to take” said Elizabeth, with sparkling eyes belying her serious tone, “if one never wishes to listen to anyone who disagrees with them.”

“And if they do not particularly care about being academic.”

Elizabeth laughed. “I cannot say being academic does matter to me; but listening to differing opinions and being open to changing my mind does. I should not seriously want to adopt such stances regularly.” Without her earlier jesting, she added “Truly though, there must be many locations forgotten. Between the Normans and the Saxons and Danes and Romans and all the Picts and the like who came before, if we overlaid all of their most important places atop one another I feel the isle would be fairly fully coloured.”

“Perhaps. But I think many of the sites would overlap,” said Mr Darcy thoughtfully. “Certain rivers and hills have attracted people for as long as people have existed to observe them. We cannot say the same for any random patch of dirt.”

“No, there may not be anything special about the dirt which draws people. But it only needs once to have been a hall, or a grave, or have been the location of a sacred tree, and then it has been important. Farmers in unremarkable fields are always finding old coins and shards of mosaic. Who is to say great things did not once happen on any random bit of soil?”

“No one living,” confirmed Mr Darcy. “But we have strayed far from the original premise of our conversation – and regardless of whether the soil its foundations descend into was once significant in ages past, that not does dictate whether this priory itself was ever particularly important beyond the local populace.”

“But we have established that it might have been, even though we have heard nothing of this priory before now,” replied she.

“Yes, which is to say that we established only that we know nothing at all and have no metrics by which to make fair assumptions.”

Apparently quite delighted by this ignorance, Elizabeth smiled, and leant against Mr Darcy. The familiar ground of their back-and-forth had done much for her in dispelling the anxiety treading the unfamiliar grounds a partiality for her husband had created. But before they could settle into their ignorance, one came along with the power to dispel it. The residing clergyman had perceived them from within, and, easily deducing them to be people of some importance on their way through, was eager to make their acquaintance and offer them a view of the interior.

They gratefully accepted, and as they were walking in Elizabeth said “Our first tour of a local church – we are proper travellers now, Mr Darcy.”

The gentleman made a slight noise of agreement. “In a place I have passed through dozens of times yet never truly explored. I have climbed the downs, but never investigated this priory.”

“Well, there you have it – something new for both of us on this journey.”

(To Be Continued in Chapter Forty)

The view Elizabeth and Darcy had of the priory:

A Wikipedia page for it here

[rxreid]

HC for an alternative happy ending for our boy Bellamy Blake?

i’m gonna be sooo fr with you guys…i found out what happened in s7 and stopped watching at the end of s6 😭😭 so for me that’s lowkey how it all ends…ofc i know the principle of s7 but anyway! i am SO happy to give him a better ending because lord knows he deserves it

dream ending of t100 for me would probably be everyone finding happiness on sanctum without all the transcendence bs.. like...screw all the people who lived there originally (unless they were nice ig...)

i imagine bellamy would probably lead the guards on sanctum too

probably would serve under clarke because in my perfect lil au she's still the leader (as she should be)

honestly if he wanted just a peaceful life i reckon he'd do carpentry or some kind of craft trade for the people of sanctum yk?

like he'd have a lil house (storage container...) just towards the edge of the hilltop where he crafts his lil furniture UGH need carpenter!bellamy in my life

he's probably desperate to find a partner to settle down and have kids with

especially after meeting madi, you can't tell me that didn't convince him on the spot that he wanted a bigger family

and please lord i just need him and octavia to be happy. the two of them getting their own little families and getting to actually BE a family themselves??? why couldn't i write the last season of the show. it would be pure happiness

in sanctum he probably learns a lot more about the value of life beyond surviving, and i think he’d love to just be part of a community where he & his family aren’t being ostracised

therefore being able to provide for the village is probably top of his list

ik theres mass amounts of farmland but idk…he deffo grows strawberries in his garden 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

gives murphy the rotten ones duh

i wanna write blurbs based on this lil au icl...especially carpenter bellamy bc thats been plaguing my mind foreverrrrrr i love imagining what they'd all do on sanctum without any threats <3

[teecupangel]

Submitted by @saberamane​

After seeing that chinchilla Desmond ask, it reminded me of my first impression upon encountering the ferox in Ark survival evolved, Genesis part 1. I know it has a cat/fox like face and kind of red panda tail and monkey-ish body but, my first experience with it was in game, as I hadn’t watched the trailer. And I thought it was a mutated chinchilla…

Saying that! A Ferox! Desmond au would be amazing. He’s small and cute, doing cute little hops to beg for treats, and then he’s a 7 foot tall wolf-gorilla thing capable of tearing your head off your body…

I just have a picture of guards angrily breaking into an ancestor’s house (like the Auditore villa at the start of AC2) and finding this cute…thing just sitting on the other side of the door, wagging it’s tail, and then they watch in horror as it suddenly grows, up and up, and up.

And then there’s nothing but screams…

================================

Additions by teecup

For those unfamiliar with what a Ferox look like, here you go:

Desmond would probably spend quite a lot of time trying to get used to his new body, especially his newly acquired four arms so he’d be a bit of a klutz too. And he’d be super surprised when he first transforms into his other form but also ‘hell yeah!’.

Desmond would just be a fluffy sweet bunny? Fox? Cat? No one knows (and Leonardo is trying to understand what he is) but that doesn’t really matter since Desmond is more or less docile and just likes to eat and cuddle. Not being liked by him would make a person a social pariah XD

So we have an idea of how Desmond could screw up AC2 (also, he can totally protect Monteriggioni by going on a rampage on the papacy army, although this might start a rumor of Monteriggioni having a demon as an attack dog) and Desmond could easily thwart Charles Lee’s plan to burn down Ratonhnhaké:ton’s village by going ham on them either while staying with Kaniehtí:io that day or by transforming and ‘taking care’ of the soldiers before Charles Lee could even hurt Ratonhnhaké:ton.

Now, the most common setup would be for Desmond to be Altaïr’s pet but may I suggest an alternative: Desmond as baby Sef’s pet? Sef found him while he and Darim are playing (maybe they were even able to sneak out of Masyaf) and he brought him back because Desmond doesn’t recognize Sef but he looks a lot like Altaïr so he just makes soft purring sounds as he put all his arms in the air in the universal gesture of ‘pick me up’ and Sef does. 

His transformation is kept a secret and Altaïr thinks Desmond might have mutated with the use of a POE. He’s still more or less Sef’s pet even though Desmond likes to follow Altaïr around when Sef isn’t in Masyaf. 

So when Swami tried to assassinate Sef in his sleep, Desmond is curled on top of Sef’s chest and he jumped down, staring at Swami. 

Swami’s eyes widened as Desmond transformed right in front of him and he let out a scream that gets drowned by Desmond’s roar.

Sef immediately wakes up to see Desmond pinning Swami against the floor and Sef knew that something fishy is certainly going on. Even though Swami is babbling that it was his father who ordered for his death, Sef doesn’t believe him.

First of all: His father wouldn’t order for this death. Of all the things Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad might and might not be, his love for his family will never be questioned.

Second of all: Even if Altaïr wanted him dead, he wouldn’t pick someone like Swami to kill him, that’s insulting. (At this point, both Swami and Desmond just stare at Sef because, yeah, he might be nicer and sweeter than his father but the Ibn-La'Ahad arrogance seems to be hereditary).

“Third of all…” Sef looked at Desmond and grinned, “Shall we get some exercise, Desmond?”

Desmond roared his agreement and…

That day, the conspiracy against Altaïr’s family and allies was thwarted by a large monster. Many of Abbas’ supposed allies squealed like pigs and admitted everything while being pinned down by said monster.

Malik drowned in paperwork that day.

[powerful-niya]

— (тнε gιяℓ ιη яε∂.)

︶꒦꒷♡꒷꒦︶

˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚hαppч nαruhínα mσnth єvєrчσnє!

˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚𝙳𝚎𝚌𝚎𝚖𝚋𝚎𝚛 𝟸𝟺: 𝚁𝚎𝚍 𝚁𝚒𝚍𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝙷𝚘𝚘𝚍 + 𝚄𝚛𝚋𝚊𝚗 𝙻𝚎𝚐𝚎𝚗𝚍𝚜 - (𝙽𝙷𝚖𝚘𝚗𝚝𝚑𝟸𝟹)

Link To Oneshot Below ↴

Part 1: Wattpad|AO3

Part 2: Wattpad|AO3

Pairing˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚Naruhina

Synopsis˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡Naive and innocent, Hinata sets out on a selfless journey to aid her ailing father. However, she makes the mistake of crossing paths with Naruto, the big bad wolf.

Now, in his presence, she faces a daunting proposition: win his harrowing game of survival to return to her father, or lose, forfeiting something uniquely her own—her innocence.

Content Tags˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚ Adventure • Alternate Universe - Fairytale • Angst • Chilling • Dark • Dark Fairytale • Dark Romance • Dark Secrets • December 24 • December 25 • Forests • Heavy Angst • Horror • Human/Monster • Human/Werewolf • Hurt & Comfort • Monster • Nhmonth • Nhmonth23 • Non-human AU • OOC • Psychological Thriller • Red Riding Hood • Supernatural • Thriller • Urban Legends • Werewolf • 2023

NSFW Tags˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚  Biting • Claiming • Coming Untouched • Coercion • Dirty Talk • DubCon • Fantasies & Fantasizing • First Time • Fuck-Or-Die • Forest Sex • Innocence • Loss of Virginity • Marking • Mating • Monster Sex • Multiple Orgasms • Oral Sex • Orgasm Denial • Outdoors Sex • Ownership • Power Play • Scent Kink • Scratching • Size Difference • Tail(s) • Vaginal Sex • Virgin • Werewolf Bites • Werewolf Mark • 2023

((For My Dark Readers Only))

Overall Word Count˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚

Part #1: 12.8K

Part #2: 19.3K

Tumblr Post: Word Count˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚5.1K

Preview ༘♡ ⋆｡˚

The sun dipped low on the horizon, painting the sky with a rich palette of amber, gold, and crimson hues. Its waning light stretched long shadows across the dense foliage surrrounding a quaint little village. 

Accompanying the gentle sway of the trees was the soft caress of the breeze, carrying with it the earthy aroma of pine needles mingled with the damp, fertile scent of soil. 

A young woman strode briskly along a meandering trail branching off from the village behind her, her midnight blue hair trailing like ribbons in the steady wind as she walked. 

The woman?

Hinata Hyūga, the girl in red. 

The young woman, sweet as can be, wore a vibrant red cloak that flowed behind her, a gift from her dear late mother. Underneath, a white blouse with ruffles peeked out, paired with a swaying red skirt. Black fishnet stockings hugged her legs as she walked with grace in her Mary Jane pumps. 

Very picturesque. 

Hinata's steps were determined, moving steadily onward and upward, unfaltering even in the face of the whispered fears that hung in the air. She's been walking for quite some time, long enough for a dull ache to settle in her ankles and a persistent soreness to nag at her lower back. 

Still, she pressed forward.

She must. 

She had only one thing on her mind, and nothing else, propelling her to keep moving forward…

Her dear father: Hiashi Hyūga. 

He's fallen ill. 

An unfortunate turn of events.

In the early stages, his illness seemed rather mild, to say the least. Just an occasional cough here and there, nothing too alarming for Hinata. She brushed it off as a common seasonal nuisance, just his sensitive sinuses acting up again. 

So, she would make it a routine to brew her father a steaming cup of chamomile tea three times a day, meticulously steeping it to perfection. By his bedside, she would softly hum melodies she learned from her mother as she helped him drink the tea, all in hopes of soothing his cough and ushering him into a peaceful slumber.

At first, the tea seemed to do the trick.

However, as time passed, the soothing properties of the tea sadly began to lose their effectiveness. Before long, his symptoms began to worsen, escalating into something far more serious.

Pneumonia. 

His ailment turned into pneumonia. 

Hinata found that out on her own, having managed to piece it together from her father's symptoms—persistent coughing, difficulty breathing, and a stubborn fever that just wouldn't go down, no matter what she did. 

She tried everything to bring his many fevers down—cool compresses, damp cloths on his forehead, and even making him sip on ice-cold water or mint tea from time to time—but nothing seemed to work.

Her father was an old man, brittle and fragile. There was only so much that he could endure. 

As the days went by, her father's appearance grew more haggard and feeble, like a shell of who he once was. It pained Hinata to see him fading away, inching farther from his usual vibrant self. 

He hardly spoke, hardly laughed, and hardly smiled…

Each day, each hour, each minute, he battled with all of his might against the cruel pneumonia. But it seemed like it was gaining the upper hand more and more each day.

Hinata truly feared that he just might…

She shook her head, suppressing tears. She shouldn't think that way. 

It was this sense of urgency that drove Hinata forward, motivating her to hasten her return home with the supplies she had collected for him.

In her delicate hands, Hinata carried a woven basket brimming with vibrant vegetables, fruits, and an assortment of herbs and medicines—collected from the settlement a few miles away.

Konoha Village.

Hinata's father, Hiashi, resided in a charming cottage on the outskirts of Konoha village, nestled by a tranquil lake. His cottage, though old and weathered, had a cozy charm that was rather inviting. 

The quaint home was surrounded by blooming gardens and a cobblestone pathway, providing a peaceful sanctuary for him to live in peace. 

But his cottage wasn't just any place; it was Hinata's home as well. 

There, the two lived, accompanied only by one another. 

After the mysterious death of Hinata's mother, her father made the decision to leave Konoha. The memories of her and the village itself became too painful, a constant reminder that Hiashi simply couldn't bear.

So, they moved. 

That was many years ago, back when Hinata was just a child. 

But since then, Hinata has taken on the responsibility of looking after her father, especially now, as he lies sick in bed. 

She's grown pretty good at it, which just goes to show how much she learned from her mother. Her mother made sure Hinata could handle looking after both herself and her father on her own, and it's definitely paying off now.

Those teachings were priceless, worth more than gold itself.

And though her dear mother had passed away, Hinata found comfort in knowing that she was still with her; guiding her hands, and blessing her with patience and strength. The wisdom and love she instilled in Hinata were like permanent marks on her soul, destined to remain for as long as she lived. 

And so, no matter the challenges she faced, no matter how heavy the burden of her father's illness, Hinata managed to maintain her positivity. 

Her inner light remained undimmed.

Her radiance was so powerful that it seemed to push back against the encroaching darkness, even now, as she walked the trail all by her lonesome.

But as she walked, the hushed voices of the Konoha townsfolk echoed in her ears, refusing to fade away.

She couldn't shake them off.

The midnight blue-haired woman noticed, as she inhabited their lands, that they constantly spoke of a beast lurking in the nearby forest.

Their fearful gossip painted a picture of a fearsome predator, a freak of nature that had made the once-tranquil forest a place of dread. 

And as soon as word spread that Hinata planned to return home through this forest, the villagers became… 

agitated.

They pleaded with her to wait until morning, to stay safe in the village for the night before venturing near those dangerous woods or traveling at all, for that matter. 

But, Hinata stood firm, adamant.

"I've been away long enough," She had told them, sweetly and earnestly. 

"I can't bear the thought of anything happening to my father while I'm away. He needs these herbs, and I won't let fear keep me from him."  She also told them.

"Thank you for all of your concerns, but I must go. Please, wish me luck!"

However, thinking back on her own words now, Hinata couldn't seem to forget the image of the wide-eyed stares brimming with intense fear and concern etched on the faces of the villagers as she finished speaking. It lingered with her even as she turned away from them and left their gracious company and then village behind.

Little did she know, a touch of naivety tinted her determination.  

The village of Konoha had long battled with the mysterious beast, for several generations, in fact. Its existence was deeply embedded in the memories of its residents, intertwining with the essence of the village itself. 

Its claws dug deep. 

Whenever someone mentions Konoha, the stories of the forest-dwelling beast immediately come to mind soon after. Some dismiss it as an urban legend, while others see it as a cautionary tale passed from adults to children, who eagerly swap it like campfire stories whenever they get the chance.

People simply referred to the creature as "the beast" or even "the big bad wolf," depending on who you asked.

Nobody knew the beast's real name, where it came from, or what it looked like—just where it lived and what it did at night, specifically on nights of a full moon. 

According to the local lore, it was said that on full moon nights, a chilling wolf-like howl could be heard echoing through the forest and into the village. Farmers reported instances of discovering their chickens mauled and their crops raided. Some villagers even claimed to have seen claw marks on their doors, and others reported the disappearances of loved ones, or so the tale goes.

But none of that mattered to Hinata. 

Sure, Hinata had caught wind of rumors about this beast when she was younger but her parents always shielded her from such tales. 

"It's all nonsense," Her mother would always brush off when a teary Hinata sought comfort in her after being scared by the other children's tales of the beast.

Children could be quite scary, Hinata recalls how they would often use the tale to frighten other kids for a good laugh, presumably targeting her as well. They'd swap and switch details so often that Hinata couldn't distinguish fact from fiction anymore. 

That's why she felt it best to heed her mother's advice and ignore the tale altogether.

Though, she still made sure to stay as far away from that forest as humanly possible.

As time passed and Hinata eventually moved away from Konoha, the legend faded from her thoughts, becoming a distant memory. So hearing it again after so many years, Hinata couldn't help but take it with a grain of salt. To her now, the legend seemed more like a tactic to keep youngsters in check—a cautionary tale spun to prevent them from wandering too far and stumbling into trouble.

It was absurd. 

Hinata has no time for legends and myths. Her father's illness is her reality now, not some spooky ole beast, and she must reach him as quickly as possible.

And so, venturing through the forest will fulfill her wish.

With one hand, Hinata clutched a lantern, its flickering flames casting dancing shadows along the trail, guiding the way with its light. In the other hand, she tightly gripped her basket, finding comfort in its presence—a constant reminder of the purpose driving her to continue her journey. 

With each squeeze of the basket's handle, her father's image appeared in her mind: sick, bedridden, and sound asleep for days on end, his hand limp in hers.

She whimpered. 

'I'm on my way, father. I'm on my way.' She thought to herself, finding another surge of motivation. She trotted onward, each step she took resonating with a thud on the stoned pathway.

The chilly night breeze constantly whispered through the rustling trees, sending shivers of its cool touch through any openings in her clothing, such as her arms and legs, causing goosebumps to rise on her porcelain skin.

Hinata shuddered, her red hood steadily flying in the wind. 

While she traveled, the fading sunlight caught the glimmer in her lavender eyes—eyes that reflected only innocence and purity, unaffected by the darkness surrounding the tales of the lurking beast or, perhaps more notably, the harsh realities of the unforgiving world she lived in. 

Her kindness and determination were guiding lights for her, yet they also rendered her vulnerable to the ominous unknown that awaited her. 

Eventually, the trail led her to the entrance of the forest, where the ancient trees stood like silent sentinels. Their gnarled branches seemed to reach out at her like spectral fingers, casting eerie shadows on the ground by her feet. 

Immediately, Hinata's steps came to a sudden halt as she locked eyes with the looming forest. Her lantern and basket swayed due to her abrupt stop, her gaze transfixed on the eerie expanse ahead. 

Shallow breaths escaped her lips in quick succession, and her hands began to tremble.

This is it. 

The forest the villagers warned her about.

The urban legend, the tale of the beast—she never paid it any mind before. She outgrew that silly old tale, and it never made her shed another tear again. She wasn't scared of it anymore.

So, why was she feeling scared now?

Hinata couldn't tell if it was her instincts kicking in or the return of her childhood fears, but her body's peculiar reaction was unmistakable. She was trembling, shaken by the sight of the spooky forest that all of Konoha spoke about with such fear, now standing before her very eyes.

Tangible and real. 

Shakily, through the strands of her midnight-blue hair, Hinata raised her head and surveyed the eerie forest. 

Instantly, she realized the gravity of her situation. 

There were no other trails to consider, no detours, no shortcuts, and no hidden pathways to divert her from the ominous woods. The trail she had followed led her directly to the heart of the very forest that was said to dwell a beast. 

The forest stretched wide before her, its dense canopy casting shadows over the trail, which seemed to vanish into the darkness ahead.

Her heart began to race. 

Once again, the villagers' warnings echoed in her mind, a constant murmur urging her to retreat, turn away, and think twice about going any farther. The echoes just wouldn't quit, persistently nagging at her consciousness, like a chorus of annoying voices that just wouldn't go away.

But, her father….

Hinata's mind drifted back to her beloved father, who she knew was eagerly awaiting her return home. She knew he longed more than anything to see her walk through the door with a smile, bringing the supplies she had traveled far and wide to acquire.

It was at that moment, the fearful echoes of the villagers' pleads faded away.

Hinata exhaled a long breath in an attempt to calm the rising tide of anxiety within her. She even bit her lip nervously, gripping the handle of her basket tighter.

'You can do this, Hinata. You can do this!' She thought, once more trying to motivate herself.

Hinata knew she had to be brave, to summon strength from within the depths of her being to go on—for her father's sake.

She must.

So, with newfound determination, she steadied herself, taking a few more deep breaths before she planted her eyes back onto the spooky forest before her. 

She was ready. 

And with that, she summoned the courage needed to finally step into the darkness that lay ahead.

To enter the forest. 

The moment Hinata walked inside, a profound stillness descended around her like a heavy blanket, muffling even the slightest sound. The light that lingered behind her at the forest's entrance seemed to be instantly swallowed by the darkness within as she took a few more steps.

One step. Two steps.

The air seemed to shift, the pressure weighing her down and prickling at her skin like tangible dread.

Three steps. Four.

Above her, towering trees with branches covered in ancient moss loomed from all directions, their shadows stretching and swaying in the flickering light of her lantern.

The scent of damp pine grew stronger now, filling her nostrils with its earthy aroma, saturating the air all around her. 

Hinata's footsteps slowed, becoming cautious, as if the ground itself conspired with the looming shadows to keep her alert. With each step, she felt as if the ground might open up beneath her feet and drag her under, never to be seen or heard from again.

The path stretched ahead beneath her, shrouded in darkness so deep that even her lantern struggled to penetrate it, casting only a faint halo around her that the darkness seemed eager to swallow up. It called her onward into its endless black depths, demanding a courage she hadn't known she had.

Her heart pounded fiercely against her ribcage, aching with each beat, a sensation that felt suffocating and very unfamiliar to her. 

After all, panic, dread, and fear were never her friends, more like acquaintances she encountered every once in a blue moon in her otherwise normal life.

But now, she felt it all tenfold. 

Hinata had always prided herself on her composure, but here, surrounded by looming trees and engulfed in an oppressive silence broken only by the occasional rustle, she was beginning to crack.

The longer Hinata lingered within the forest, the tales of the lurking beast seemed to materialize all around her, like a ghost slowly encroaching upon her senses. They echoed in her mind and in every rustle and shadow. 

'Is it there?' She questioned in her mind as she heard a rustle of bushes to her left. 

'Was that it?' She questioned once more, as she heard another rustle behind her. 

Hinata shook her head, letting out a sigh.

She was being ridiculous. 

Glancing up hesitantly, her lavender eyes fixed on the twisted, moss-covered branches overhead. They snaked together like thick vines, blocking out the moonlight. 

She caught only glimpses of the sky, but even those revealed the truth: it was already night, which explains the darkness befalling the forest, swallowing it up whole. 

She squinted, barely catching sight of the full moon above. Its ethereal glow attempted to pierce through the dense foliage, but only succeeded in casting eerie shadows in the forest that only freaked her out even more. 

Hinata tore her gaze from the sky, fixing her eyes solely on the path ahead. Remaining alert in her surroundings was wise; after all, it wasn't just a scary ole beast that might roam these woods—other ordinary animals could be lurking as well. 

Predators. 

She raised her lantern higher. 

But that's when she began to notice something.

As she moved forward, the trail ahead became increasingly narrow, almost disappearing under the tangle of roots, dead leaves, and thick undergrowth. Hinata made sure to tread carefully, even stepping over the tangled obstacles, mindful to avoid tripping and risking a nasty fall.

That would be terrible.

She tightened her grip on her lantern and basket, drawing comfort from their warmth. But she struggled to steady her trembling breaths against the creeping unease that seemed to seep from the darkness itself.

Genuinely, Hinata was spooked. 

Goosebumps prickled her skin, making it feel like a million bugs were crawling across her flesh, all stirred up by the soft murmurings of the night wind.

It just made her feel even more isolated, like an eerie reminder that she was completely alone here.

Hoot! Hoot! 

Hinata shuddered, her senses rattled.  

Maybe not completely alone. 

She couldn't help but notice the distant hoot of an owl and the rustling of creatures in the bushes. She felt so silly thinking what she just did. 

The silence felt thick, disrupted only by the eerie sounds of the night: crickets chirping, frogs ribbiting, and owls hooting in the distance. 

Hinata strained her ears, half-expecting another unsettling noise to break the stillness. Her mind was buzzing, not at all helping her situation, with the villagers' warnings echoing louder in her mind, now than ever before.

Doubt flickered, like a wavering flame, her heart thudding like a drum.

But amidst it all, Hinata clung to the image of her father, frail and ill, relying on the supplies she carried.

So, she continued on. 

She proceeded on the path forward, taking one step at a time.

'Just stay on the path, Hinata. That's all you have to do.' She reassured herself, glancing at the familiar stoned trail beneath her feet, or at least the bits of trail that her light graciously illuminated. 

But no matter how close she huddled to her light, Hinata could not shake free from the unseen eyes watching her every move. 

Her eyes darted between the trees, catching glimpses of elusive shadows that seemed to retreat as soon as they caught her gaze.

She clutched her lantern tighter.  

Awooooo!

Abruptly, a distant howl of a wolf shattered the silence, disrupting Hinata's fragile calm. Startled, she leaped in fright, struggling to stifle her whimpers, but a few hushed squeaks escaped nonetheless.

The eerie cry echoed unnervingly close, as though it were just a few steps behind her, prompting her to instinctively whip her head in that direction. 

Yet, all she saw was darkness, a vast expanse of black. 

She aimed her lantern in that direction, only to see nothing, just more… trees.

Shivers ran down her spine, her sense of imminent danger heightening. 

But she kept on.

'Just a few more steps, I'm sure. The forest can't be that big, right?' Hinata attempted to reassure herself as she pressed forward on the path again, cutting through the forest with the vision that the clear path home lay just a few steps away. 

She wasn't sure how long or how far she had walked into the forest. Every tree looked identical, and the forest seemed to stretch on endlessly, making it impossible for her to identify the distance she had covered.

Branches creaked…

Leaves rustled…

But that's all there was—rustling.

No beast. 

No monstrous entity lurking in the shadows. 

Nothing.

'See, Hinata? The villagers were just overreacting. There's nothing to worry about.' She reassured herself yet again. 

But just as she convinced herself that the villagers were simply letting their fears get the best of them and that there was no beast, she was startled by a chilling surprise that shook her to her very core. 

A surprise that made her doubt everything. 

All of a sudden, she caught a sound—a haunting, guttural noise.

And it spoke to her. 

"I see you there, little one." 

It was a voice, other than her own. 

It was a deep, booming voice that shattered the silence, its words lingering like a sinister whisper long after spoken, chilling her to the bone. 

In an instant, Hinata found herself completely still, every part of her body, from her nerves to her bones, locked in place. She couldn't think, couldn't breathe. She couldn't even—

"I can smell you too." 

The voice spoke again, slicing through her panicked and scattered thoughts. Any notion that what she just heard was merely her imagination or a trick of her mind vanished completely, leaving her with the chilling reality of her fear.

"You don't belong here." 

The voice spoke once more.

"Tell me, what's a frail little thing like you doing here in my woods, huh?" 

The voice exuded a creepy mix of menace and curiosity, and it spoke like it was coming from all around her, as if the very trees themselves whispered such ominous words.

Hinata's heart began to hammer faster, thudding against her chest as if trying to escape. 

Every instinct screamed at her to run, to sprint back to the safety of Konoha village or if not that, find cover to escape the unseen menace that lurked in the shadows. But, her legs refused to respond, rooted to her spot, bound by an invisible force that held her captive.

She tightened her grip on her lantern and basket, seeking solace in their familiarity, but the chilling reality of her fear seemed to seep into her bones, draining her determination with each passing second. 

It's the beast. 

It's real and it can talk! 

It's alive, and out there—Lurking. 

Somewhere among the trees, it was hiding, waiting, and watching. 

Probably done so all along. 

It was the very beast that the people of Konoha feared, the one they had warned her about. It has finally revealed its presence. But it has done so in a way that brought upon a mass of terror upon her poor soul. 

"Aw, what's the matter? Cat's got your tongue, little one?"

This time, amusement tinged the beast's voice, and Hinata caught it instantly. But her mouth remained clamped shut, her voice stolen by the fear that gripped her.

The creature seemed to take pleasure in her silence, its tone becoming increasingly mocking.

"You're a surprising one, coming here. I'm not sure if you're brave or just…"

A menacing chuckle was made. 

"stupid." The beast finished, a taunting challenge that further tightened the knot of dread in Hinata's stomach.

The beast's words seemed to linger in the air, and Hinata found herself grappling with the urgency to respond, to defend her purpose for being there—right in the middle of the very domain it inhabited. 

A whimper escaped Hinata's lips as she glanced anxiously around.

"I-I apologize for d-disturbing you." Her voice cracked hard. It was like all the saliva in her mouth dried up, leaving her throat scratchy and parched. But she continued, kami, she didn't know how she did. 

"I-I'm merely delivering f-food and m-medicine to my f-father." She stammered, managing to maintain a fragile steadiness in her voice despite the trembling in her limbs.

"H-He's sick, and I m-must get to him as q-quickly as p-possible, please."

The forest seemed to hold its breath as she spoke, the ancient trees and whispering leaves hanging on to every word and gentle breath she uttered with eager attentiveness. 

Her purpose for venturing into the forest had been announced. 

Her soft voice had been revealed. 

It was like a melodic lullaby—her voice. It echoed timidly, carrying a soft cadence that seemed to harmonize with the natural rhythms of the forest, soothing the very leaves around her.

Her ears caught a low chuckle, almost a growl, rumbling through the air, echoing ominously among the shadows.

The unseen beast truly found the sound of Hinata's voice rather… captivating. 

It responded in turn.

"Your father, eh?"

Another menacing chuckle. 

"Let me get this straight."

The beast paused, as if it was thinking, before its voice arose again. 

"You've traveled all this way, wading through my territory, doing what many wouldn't dare, just to deliver supplies to your sick father?"

The beast's deep voice rumbled through the air like distant thunder, its tone laced with a genuine sense of confusion as it questioned her.

Hinata nodded shakily, as if the beast could see her response.

Her lavender eyes scanned her surroundings once more, her head whipping about, unable to pinpoint where the voice was. Sometimes it boomed from behind her, startlingly close; other times, it seemed to fade into the distance, only to return with an unsettling proximity. And it even seemed to whisper with an eerie clarity right beside her ear at times, sending shivers down her spine.

Hinata didn't know where the beast was; quite frankly, she didn't want to know. She didn't want to see it. 

Once more, the trees rustled in a mysterious dance of leaves, stirred by an unseen breeze, prompting her eyes to shift rapidly, whimpering. 

Soon after, the voice echoed through the silent forest once more.

"Mmm, what a devoted little thing you are. I must take a closer look."

Instantly, panic surged through Hinata the very moment those words left the beast's mouth. 

It felt like a threat, triggering a primal urge in her to flee. Her mind raced with the urge to run, hide, do something, but her body couldn't keep pace with what her mind was screaming at it.

Panic. 

That's all she felt. 

She was overwhelmed by panic—relentless, heedless of reason or necessity—just raw, clawing panic, gnawing at her insides.

Panic gripped her fiercely, its tendrils wrapping around her mind and squeezing tight. Her heart raced like a drumbeat, each thud echoing in her ears. Every breath came in short, shallow gasps, her chest tightening with each inhale. 

Hinata felt trapped in a suffocating embrace of fear, unable to think clearly as adrenaline rushed through her veins.

'Oh no. Oh no!' She repeated over and over in her head as she whipped her body around, trying to anticipate where the beast might reveal itself.

A hushed silence fell upon the forest, as though nature itself had fallen completely still. 

Frozen in time. 

No shuffles, no rustles, and no sign of life resonated through the entirety of the still forest, leaving Hinata wrapped in an eerie quiet that heightened her anxiety to the extremes. 

She began to hyperventilate. 

Hinata glanced around anxiously, scanning every direction—left, right, front, back, up, and down—hoping to catch a glimpse of the lurking creature before it leaped out at her, a preemptive move to spare herself a heart attack. 

But the forest remained eerily quiet.

And there was no sign or sound of the beast anywhere. 

Suddenly, a sensation washed over her, as if the very air had shifted—and in an instant, Hinata sensed a presence behind her, looming over her petite frame.

A warm breath gently brushed against her neck, causing every hair on her body to stand on end.

"Behind you."

The booming voice reverberated behind her once more, but this time, it was unmistakable.

It echoed directly into her left ear.

The realization struck her like a lightning bolt, causing Hinata's heart to race even faster, its beats resembling the fluttering wings of a hummingbird against her chest.

Ba Boom!

Ba Boom!

Ba Boom!

Hinata's body froze in place.

She couldn't move. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't see or hear. Was she still alive? Was she still here?

She wasn't sure.

In moments of fear, they say the body responds with fight or flight, but Hinata was currently experiencing the lesser-acknowledged third option.

Freeze.

It was a primal reaction her body had never felt before, muscles locking rigidly, breath held tight, senses hyper-alert.

Hinata hesitated hard, finding it difficult to accept that the real beast—the one feared by the villagers, the one that had spoken to her moments ago in the night's shadows, the same one even she was afraid of as a child—was now standing right behind her.

No one had ever seen it.

No one even knows what it looks like.

Yet, now it stood behind her.

Hinata couldn't even begin to imagine what the beast looked like. 

Her innocent mind couldn't conjure a clear image, only a chilling certainty that whatever stood behind her at this very moment would surely petrify her, plunging her into a pit of regret for even venturing into this forest. 

But, she gotta. 

She gotta turn around. 

Slowly, with trepidation, and a shaky, desperate "I-don't-want-to-die" whimper, she turned, shedding the cold chains of fear that gripped her. It took all of Hinata's strength to turn her body completely around, stretching her neck to face the beast head-on.

But when she did…

What she saw instantly spurred her to fight against the darkness that threatened to cloud her vision and plunge her completely unconscious to the ground behind her. 

She fought everything not to faint. 

Instead, Hinata jolted back, away from the hulking figure of darkness, stumbling over her pump heels. 

"O-Oh my kami. Oh k-k-kami!" She panicked with a scream, lips trembling, teeth chattering against one another. Her abrupt movement caused her lantern and basket to rattle in her clammy hands, nearly slipping from her grasp. 

But that was the least of her worries. 

There it stood, in the flesh. 

The beast. 

The big bad wolf. 

Continue Reading On Wattpad Or AO3.

— (⋆⁺｡˚⋆˙‧₊☾ 𝐍𝐚𝐫𝐮𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐚 𝐌𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐡 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟑 ☽₊‧˙⋆˚｡⁺⋆)

[softskiesahead]

u should totttally infodump abt yr genshin self insert hehehe 😼😼😼😼

ohhhh…..you’ve got it…………..

welcome to aya genshin brainrot !! ^^;;; i'm sorry this took a few days...i kept coming up with more i wanted to add!! hoping to make some new references for her soon as well <3

the basics:

name: mira fournier

rarity: 4 star

weapon: catalyst

vision: hydro, snezhnaya frame

alternate titles: “young lady painter of fontaine” “miss painter” (By lyney), “the magician’s rabbit” 

nation: fontaine

affliations: fournier patisserie

special dish: coffee bavarois

constellation name: leporis somnium ("rabbit's dream")

introduction + personality:

(written in the style of the wiki pages because i'm unwell)

Mira Fournier is a playable hydro character in Genshin Impact. 

She is a well known painter in Fontaine and is popular with the upper class families in the nation. She lives with the motherly owner of a Fontinian bakery and assists with the business often.

A generally reserved and gloomy girl, Mira has a reputation as a talented but eccentric artist. Though she is popular with many wealthy Fontinians, Mira seems to hold a certain hostility against nobility, some stories telling how she has abandoned projects after witnessing the mistreatment of noble’s staff. 

Around children and those she is close to, Mira has a soft, dreamy disposition and is very sensitive to the feelings of those around her. She tends to create her own fantasies and observes mundane small things she finds lovely. Due to this, other characters commonly perceive her as “spacey”.  She is fiercely protective of children and respects those who are similarly caring for them or those with close relationships with their siblings.

in terms of backstory, things are still a bit all over the place but there is a lot there!! she's surely the most tragic of my s/is...common theme I saw when reading other characters stories ^^;;

mira was born to two artisans of a snezhnayan village which became entangled in a conflict with the fatui. since she was quite young (7 or 8), mira does not remember the details of the conflict or really much about snezhnaya at all. however, the conflict escalated and resulted in the small village being burnt down, the destruction killing her parents and brother while mira fled into the snow with her younger sister. struggling to escape and keep warm in the brutal snezhnayan cold, the children were eventually found by the fatui, including arlecchino. when found, mira was close to death, trying to keep her sister's body warm although it was far too late to save her. this is how she gains her vision, which she grows to resent due to how it was gained, but also depend on as a skill to survive.

taken to the house of the hearth, mira's fear of arlecchino, hatred for the fatui and...catatonic state after her experience made it impossible for her to thrive within the house. unlike most children there, she was not saved from anything and found no motivation (except fear) to conform to their expectations.

this is where mira first meets lyney, lynette and freminet. during her short stint in the house, they become the only children she interacts with. when lynette comments on her vision, saying how she wishes she had one too, mira attempts to give it to her, stating "I don't want it."

because of her refusal to cooperate, she is taken from the house as a part of an allyship deal with a prominent fontinian noble family who wants "companions" with special talents or visions for their son. she lives with this family and other "companians" for 4 years, when the court of fontaine investigates the death of several of the other children acquired as "companians" and discovers that not only are the children not recorded as fontinian citizens and have no adoption records, but they are also being mistreated and "borrowed" by various noble families due to their talents (such as mira's painting)

the head of the household is imprisoned for these crimes and the remaining children are legally adopted by fontinian citizens. mira is placed with the owner of "fournier patisserie" and her family. she becomes very close with them and with their support, begins taking commissions within fontaine and building her artistic reputation. during this time, she also befriends chiori, who she regards as a "fellow artistic spirit".

mira was reunited with lyney and lynette two years after her placement in the court of fontaine. despite only knowing them for a short while in the house of the hearth, mira still considers them like close childhood friends. they quickly reconnected and those around mira comment that she has become much more cheerful since those twins started hanging around her...

[sarilolla]

what if brozone did save branch in time but is still very weak and needs recovery?(a little good ending after some good angst, i think-)

Oooo yes, love that, so.... ficlet time! Angst and fluff lovers, come get your food!

Hanahaki Branch au (slight spoilers/alternative ending to not finished fic)

***

Branch being stubborn wasn't just a him thing. It was a family trait. Loving a lot was also a family trait, ironically enough. And all five of them loved each other. More than they had gotten to tell each other for a long time.

That was why they were so desperate to get to Pop Village, to Branch, as all four of them were explained what was happening to him. Branch was dying, out of love for them. That was downright painful to learn. All four had wanted to go home at one point. Wanted to reunite at one point. All four had been back at the Troll Tree once, finding the destruction, grieving a childhood lost, a family lost.

But they could finally find each other again. A small thought in the back of their head made them wonder if they reunited by one of them almost dying in every universe, or if this one was just cruel. It didn't matter. Branch mattered.

Floyd arrived first, rushing to his baby brother's side, nearly ignoring the pink Troll sitting at his other side. Kismet had found him, and the critter bus they had driven in now needed a serious break, but he was there. Branch was the most lucid then, and while he still struggled to talk, the Queen Anne's Lace had turned to dust inside him as he heard the words "I love you" from the brother he was closest to so many years ago.

Bruce was next. Brandy had practically pushed him out the door herself when the bounty hunters arrived with the news. His baby brother was dying, and there was no time to lose. Arriving in Branch's bunker, he found the two youngest, one in bed sickly, the other keeping his tears and anger inside and hidden to the best of his ability. Poppy left at that point, letting them talk. She was more confident her Branch would survive now with two of his brothers there. It would at least give him a few more hours. For Bruce, "I love you" came as easy as breathing, to both of his brothers. Branch's breathing came a tiny bit easier when the red Zinnia disappeared, but his eyes were a bit too foggy for their liking.

John Dory had been found by some old friends as he was camping. He honestly never thought he would see Delta again, but here she were. Not for him though, not directly. She was there because of Branch. She was one of the few Trolls who knew about his brothers, who knew how important they were to him. Getting Rhonda on the trail to Pop Village instantly became first priority above everything.

Clay was skeptical and scared when the two Bergens arrived, and worried when he saw Trolls with them. Viva, understandably enough, attacked the couple, and all of Putt Putt were ludicrisly confused as to why the Trolls with them were defending them. An accidental namedrop of Poppy and Branch, and the two leaders of the scared little village finally listened. Viva was ecstatic to hear her sister was alive, and that the Trolls, the Snack Pack as they called themselves, were some of her closest friends. Apperantly Bridget was nearly her sister, which was odd, but she could work with that. Clay, however, froze when he heard why they were looking for him specifically. Branch was dying. He needed his brothers. He hadn't left Putt Putt in years, but for one of his brothers? He would do anything, even get past his fears of sitting with a Bergen on her motorcycle.

John Dory and Clay arrived nearly at the same time, and were practically pushed into the bunker by the Pop Queen without the elevator even meeting them. As quick as the two could, they arrived in Branch's bedroom. All five of them were together again. Clay was quicker to the youngest bedside, while JD stood there in shock. His brothers had grown so much, all of them, and here the youngest, the baby of the family, was dying.

Clay whispered a mantra of "I love you" to Branch, who barely managed to make eye contact with him to return the words. But even with the green and yellow Dahlia turning to ash inside him, his breathing was still stuttering, stopping, hurting. His eyes closed, and the other three pairs in the room snapped to John.

He didn't know what to do. Or, of course he knew what to do. He had to go over and tell his dying baby brother that he loved him. His brothers urged him over, and slowly he unfrooze, sitting down by Branch's head, so he would hear. Hear the "I love you", the apologies, the grief, the guilt. He even started rapidly apologizing to the others in the room, all three of them quiet as the oldest unraveled in front of them. He didn't stop until he felt someone look at him, one of Branch's eyes lazily opened. Quiet, so quiet he wouldn't heard it hadn't all his focus been on Branch, he whispered back.

"I love you."

And the multi-colored Iris had died. Branch's breathing didn't clear immediately, but slowly, it eased up. The roots were disappearing, the vines no longer pressing at his throat, and the petals turned to ash where they had grown in his mouth.

His eyes slipped shut, and for a moment they all panicked, until realizing he was sleeping. He was recovering. He was alive.

All five of them sat together, the youngest sleeping soundly, and even as a fight had broken them apart two decades ago, the only feeling they now had was relief, happiness and love. They were here, they were together, and while they had their own lives, they would stay together. No more disappearing, no more almost losing each other.

Branch was alive, and so were the rest. And if they had their say, it would stay that way for a long time.

***

God, that was crushing but so relieving to write- I hope you liked it! These brothers live in my head rent free fr

[queereads-bracket]

Queer Adult SFF Books Bracket: Round 2

Book summaries below:

The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

A world divided. A queendom without an heir. An ancient enemy awakens.

The House of Berethnet has ruled Inys for a thousand years. Still unwed, Queen Sabran the Ninth must conceive a daughter to protect her realm from destruction – but assassins are getting closer to her door.

Ead Duryan is an outsider at court. Though she has risen to the position of lady-in-waiting, she is loyal to a hidden society of mages. Ead keeps a watchful eye on Sabran, secretly protecting her with forbidden magic.

Across the dark sea, Tané has trained to be a dragonrider since she was a child, but is forced to make a choice that could see her life unravel.

Meanwhile, the divided East and West refuse to parley, and forces of chaos are rising from their sleep.

Fantasy, epic fantasy, secondary world, adult

The Radiant Emperor series (She Who Became the Sun, He Who Drowned the World) by Shelley Parker-Chan

In a famine-stricken village on a dusty yellow plain, two children are given two fates. A boy, greatness. A girl, nothingness…

In 1345, China lies under harsh Mongol rule. For the starving peasants of the Central Plains, greatness is something found only in stories. When the Zhu family’s eighth-born son, Zhu Chongba, is given a fate of greatness, everyone is mystified as to how it will come to pass. The fate of nothingness received by the family’s clever and capable second daughter, on the other hand, is only as expected.

When a bandit attack orphans the two children, though, it is Zhu Chongba who succumbs to despair and dies. Desperate to escape her own fated death, the girl uses her brother’s identity to enter a monastery as a young male novice. There, propelled by her burning desire to survive, Zhu learns she is capable of doing whatever it takes, no matter how callous, to stay hidden from her fate.

After her sanctuary is destroyed for supporting the rebellion against Mongol rule, Zhu takes the chance to claim another future her brother’s abandoned greatness.

Fantasy, historical fiction, alternate history, epic fantasy, series, adult

[cts-ryu-writing-desk]

A Witches Silver Ring

Hope you enjoy this little piece it was pretty fun to try and write and it moved away from my traditional styles. Hope you enjoy this dive into Alternative pregnancy!

~~~~~~~~~~

Long ago in an age before legends, before scripture when there was only the way of force. None exemplified this more than the warrior king Serosh. More a beast in human form than a warrior, Serosh was to be feared when in the heat of battle.  Whether armed or with his bare hands Serosh would engage in combat naked. His prideful manhood swung about. Whether by skill, fear, or his ever-present battle erection Serosh certainly yielding himself several scars but never any upon his back or manhood. He was a man without fear.

Serosh would always be found leafing ghost people into the fiercest of battles. From his village, he laid siege to all those surrounding him. He laid waste to palaces and fortresses alike. None would survive his brutal campaign. So many casualties yet he still remained. Upon one of his bloodiest sieges, he heard of a warrior who may be his greatest foe. A warrior renowned for their swordsmanship. When he called to a challenge in one on one combat Serosh came without delay. Only to meet his opponent. Dressed in fine blue silks, with a curved blade in hand. 

As he normally did Serosh battled naked. His opponent. Closed their eyes giving Serosh a moment to strike. Yet with the grace of a dancer, they dodged and reposted him. A good slay to the side left a scare but did not disembowel. Something he told his opponent, “You need to do better I’ve battled with my innards hang loose before!” 

Serosh went in for a strike. Again his opponent moved elegantly like a dancer. A flurry of strikes in numerous locations. Only cuts to Serosh’s eye. Serosh let out a battle cry and swung his blade across the horizon. The swordsman in blue moved gracefully and reposted.

“You have yet to lay a scratch upon me,” he heard the voice of his opponent

The voice of a woman. He was filled with rage.

“You may be strong but you have yet to have real power.”

Serosh charged and roared his battle cry. The swordswoman disarmed him getting his sword out of his hand. She proclaimed him finished and left the battle. Serosh was not done. He demanded satisfaction. And she would not yield to “A crying child such as you,”

In his anger, he single-handedly destroyed several villages surrounding this swordswoman encampment. She would not cop to combat against him. It led him to a lone cottage hidden away from all others. And there was a witch and her daughter. Tending to a small garden, no doubt their only source of food. Serosh made his way to them, readying his idle threats, his grip tightening around his weapon.

“RAAGH!” he cried out

The daughter screamed and headed inside the cottage. The mother stood in front of the doorway ready to protect her daughter.

“Be gone from here! We have nothing for your wanting!” she proclaimed to Serosh

“If you breathe I shall take it.” He swung his blade down

The woman moved out of the way and attempted to shove him. Serosh barely budged. He went to strike again. A single strand of cloth rose on its own and held his sword in place. The cloth did not tear against the sharp jagged edge of his blade.

“A Witch!” Serosh proclaimed

“She waved her hand holding up a few fingers, her pointer, and her pinky. That wave of her hand brought the roots up and boundSerosh. He was not fearful. He swung his sword down at the roots cutting himself free. She noticed he nicked parts of his leg.

“You would injure yourself in battle?” she asked him

“What means do I have to be fearful of injury? I fear nothing, not even death,” He went to stab his sword at her. 

The witch turned to mist and evaded his attack. Using this he charged to the door. She returned to her human form and let out a word of magic in an ancient language. Serosh appeared to have been turned around in the blink of an eye now suddenly charging at the witch. With her pointer fingers and thumbs forming a triangle with her palms facing Serosh, she froze him in place. Incapable of moving,

Serosh laughed wickedly. “I have broken such spells before. I will stain this very ground with your blood once I am free,”

“What will it take, payment? Coin or flesh? Tribute? What need does a barbarian such as you want in killing me and my daughter?”

“I want only to kill, to reign as the greatest warrior!” he proclaimed.

She pulled a silver ring from her finger. “Take this,” she pleaded with him “Take this ring and it will lead you to your victory.”

“Such a ring cannot do such things.” Serosh reposed to her.

“This one will. It will fill the gap of what you lack. And that will lead you to greater things.” She exclaimed

She explained this ring was a gift from a former master. The ring was enchanted to make a person whole. By filling in the part of their soul that they lack. She laid the ring in front of him and left. Going into her little cottage it disappeared like a shroud of mist. Serosh was able to move again.

He was tempted by the ring. Picking it up he thought very faintly about what he lacked. “Nothing, I lack only utter victory.” He without hesitation put the ring around his middle finger.

The band shrunk to fit him.

Now standing in the clearing stark naked. He cleaved his sword into the ground. He marveled at the ring around his finger seeing symbols and markings appearing across the band. He proclaimed aloud that he could feel the magic surging through him. His pendulous testicles convulse and retracted before relaxing. Their weight was easily noticeable. It didn’t stop. His balls continued to engorge getting heavier and descending further. They were already the grapefruit, bringing him to his knees.

“What manner of magic is this,” he cried out. His testicles getting bigger and bigger.

Now already the size of a small melon, he could feel something inside with each testicle. Something writing, wiggling, and moving beneath the skin of his ball sack. Serosh was unsure as to the nature of this feeling. Yet the only thing he knew was that it was alive. The ring gave him only minor clarity. Life was dwelling inside his overly engorged testicles.

Serosh ripped off the silver ring. And readied to throw it away. Unable to get his footing from the weight of his baby-filled testicles, falling to his back. He could feel his balls constricting. Bringing the closer to his cock. “What is happening!” He roared out and started to feel a sharp pain surge through him.

He could feel the base of his shaft starting to stretch as the baby moved into position. It hurt like hell, he clenched his fists gripping and ripping out blades of grass as part of his overgrown nails dug into his palm. When the baby stopped moving for a moment he tried to catch his breath. He cursed that woman's fowl magics for this. Yet without delay the baby began to move again, moving further and further into the shaft. 

He could see it. His cock looked like it had inflated well beyond the size it was supposed to be. The baby's head was just under the tip of his cock which he could feel was starting to open wide. He felt the baby descend back a little before starting to move up and stretch the head of his cock. He howled in pain as his urethra was stretched beyond its means. He was tearing up blades of grass and digging into the soil trying to find anything, something he could grip onto.

Imprints of his nails in some while the skin was broken in others. His eye of his cock was pulsing as the baby's head crept out. He was crowning. He looked down at this macabre scene and saw the baby's head as it crept through his shaft again. More of the head became exposed, as much as the forehead was out now. His eyes were watering his teeth clenched, his fists raw and bloodied. 

Once more the baby began to come through the entire head finally coming loose. But there was no reprieve, it kept sliding out. The shoulders were next as the weight of his cock flopped onto his chest. The baby was being pushed out as he writhed in pain. The greatest mass of the baby was the body as it came sliding out now free from the tightest confines of his once tight urethra. 

He could feel the newborn fussing on his chest letting out their first sounds crying in desperation all whole the after birth came slithering out as his cock. Here he was, the once-great Serosh. A conquerer, a slayer of men, reduced to this.

Serosh could no longer feel his cock as it twitched and closely closed. Yet this wasn't the end. That same feeling came to the base of his shaft. It was happening again, the numbness of his cock didn't reduce the pain he felt as another baby made its way up the shaft. Again his cock flared and swelled this time the baby wasn't stopping going up the shaft until it reached the base of the head. He dug and dug until his fingers reached a thick root to grab onto. 

Baby number two began to crown stretching his head even more. He could see the top of the head. His cock flopped back into his body, as more of the head came free. The first baby was crying, he was groaning in terrible pain. By the time the shoulders were nearly out he almost blacked out. Another baby birthed from his cock resting atop his body.

He couldn't move the sound of the babies crying as his vision went dark. He awoke hours later it was already night. The babies were off of his body and he lay next to a fire. She was barely able to lift himself.

"Awake I see,"

He knew that voice, it was her, it was the witch. He turned to fave her seeing her cradling her own baby with his twins nestled in baskets cleaned and swaddled. 

"You!" Serosh roared through his teeth

“I see you have yet to quell your anger. Perhaps another set will do the trick,”

He paused. Never before has he ever doubted himself. His rage faded fast like sniffing out a candle. The witch simply smirked seeing him like this. 

“Why have you come?” Serosh asked her

“To see if you have finally learned something,”

“In a way,” Serosh responded

“And that would be?” 

Serosh's response was simple “Never threatened a witch”

“Such wise words coming from a warrior who fears nothing.”

Serosh let himself fall back to the ground. 

“Rest, your new journey will begin when you are rested.” 

The silver ring appeared again on his middle finger. No runes or symbols, it was just an ordinary silver ring. Even though he felt as if there was magic still in it. His body was still sore and numb. The ring gave him what it knew he needed. Touch of kindness, that only a father would understand and compassion, that only a mother could truly know.

[illarian-rambling]

By popular demand!

Villain Introduction: Vermir Nadvalsib, the Mage Eater

“I don’t think you know the opportunity that’s being given to you, girl,” Vermir addressed. “I’m working towards a better world, ruled by gods who know what it’s like to be mortal. There will be no disease, no hunger, no tyrants…. Or no selfish ones, at least. It’s going to take a strong hand to bring this about, and that hand needs fingers to work with. I’m offering you a place at my side.”

Fana looked down at the woman’s outstretched eikodoro hand and spat in it. The girl’s tawny eyes flashed as they caught the pale light of Vermir’s runes.

“You’re one of those crazy book mages, aren’t you?” She barked a laugh. “Go fuck yourself. My father will be here soon and you’d better pray it’s him who gets here first, because if Aunt Tw—”

Fana’s threats broke off with a sucking gasp as Vermir’s dagger found her heart. All at once, reality stilled the girl’s fiery tongue. It was shocking—bad things could happen, even if your family had all the power in the world.

Gently, Vermir laid the spasming girl down, Twelve and Ten stepping to the side. “Don’t worry, sweet Fana, this’ll be over soon,” she whispered. “You’re going to become something great. You’ll be the newest of a new order. You’ll save the world.”

Blood coated the girl’s teeth as she stared up at the silver faceplate that would be the last thing those eyes would ever see. Vermir kept one ocular rune on her arcane signature—a swirl of molten, particolored glass. It faded, growing dimmer and dimmer as the life leaked from her breast.

“I’ll k— kill you,” Fana breathed, eyes wide and glassy. “My family… save me….”

Vermir saw the exact moment little Fana Devaris died. To her magical senses, it seemed as if the girl’s arcane signature exploded, a million glowing particles spitting out like sparks from a forge.

From her pocket, the mage drew a vial of black ichor. The spirit blood was the key—the biocomponent—that allowed her to suck magic from a sorcerer, just as that sorcerer’s blood was the biocomponent that allowed some fragment of their mind to survive in a metallic body.

"This will all be over soon," Vermir whispered, though the girl could hear her no longer. "This will be over and, oh sweet thing, you'll be something better."

Spoilers for Mystery of the Mortal God below

Vermir Nadvalsib was born on the Janazi island of Laben, about five hundred years before the plot of The Mystery of the Mortal God takes place. She lived there peacefully, serving as their village mage. It was a good life, and she loved her community like nothing else, treating their sickness and improving their infrastructure. Unfortunately, there eventually came one problem she couldn't fix.

Aderin flu is all but eradicated in modern-day Janaz. However, five hundred years ago, it killed islanders by the thousands. When the disease came to Laben, Vermir worked tirelessly to find a cure. She was never successful. In time, she felt the claws of the disease curl around her lungs as well, and so she turned to darker sources. She just needed more time to work out a cure. She just needed the right magic.

Vermir knew that Chosen, those blessed by the gods and given the power to work miracles, were capable of healing the sick. She also knew that no god has more than one Chosen, and that all the Illarian gods were taken. So, she sought this power from an alternative source.

In an ancient Araunian tablet passed down to her by her predecessor, Vermir read about a spirit of antiquity, feared by the long-dead desert people. They called it only the 'dark beyond.' Vermir thought she would be able to ask this old god to make her its Chosen, and thus use its power to make herself immortal so she'd have the time to make a cure to save her people.

Unfortunately, the being she called upon was no god.

End, though Vermir never learned its name, tore through Laben out of the portal she opened. It devoured the divine souls of the townsfolk and grafted their echoes onto Vermir before the ritual failed and it was pulled back into outer space. This rendered her semi-immortal and nearly broke her mind. The whispers of the people she inadvertently killed hiss through her skull in a constant murmur.

The Chosen of the Illarian church, deployed because of the End influx, found her all but comatose. The power flowing through her was too raw at the time for the Chosen to kill her, so they tossed her in the Trench. She didn't need air anymore, after all.

For five hundred years, she languished in the ocean floor prison. She came to blame the gods for her failed ritual. Why had they sent the Aderin flu if they cared for mortality at all? Why had the Chosen come to arrest her, but not to cure her people? Why was there cruelty in the world at all if the gods could prevent it?

Her hate calcified into a grand plan. First, Vermir would find herself a perfect, unkillable form, finally finishing her trip towards immortality. Second, she would find a way to steal sorcery and give herself a godly amount of power. To do all this, she would capture a spirit and use its divine knowledge and alchemically powerful ichor to fuel her plans. It took her many centuries to work all of this out.

She escaped the Trench by causing a magic blackout, using the tooth of a 'beast blessed by the dark beyond' she managed to find in there. (Not that Vermir would know, but that tooth would be none other than Izjik Meautammera's, which she lost by hitting her head on a rock) (The magic blackout she caused also allowed Sepo and Izjik to escape). She waited until the gods sent a spirit to investigate the surge of strange magic, then captured that spirit and pulled it into a mobile demiplane she spent her time in the Trench constructing.

After that, she just needed to find some sorcerers whose magic she could steal, and who she could put into robotic bodies as a test run for her own perfect form. It's just a little unfortunate for her that the sixth experimental subject she chose was a little more... willful than the others.

And the rest is history!

As a person, Vermir really believes that usurping the gods to rule in their stead is the right thing to do. She thinks that mortals deserve to be ruled by a mortal, and once her utopian empire is solidified and all disease and war are eradicated, she really does intend to step down to let people rule themselves. The one thing that she doesn't care about is how many people she needs to kill to get to this point. A mass slaughter of sorcerers is just the price that must be paid to give her the power to save the rest of the world. She's giving those sorcerers immortality, after all, in the form of metal bodies. Why should they be upset?

Her main weakness is her temper. Vermir likes to see herself as above such petty things, but when someone pushes her buttons, she loses her cool incredibly fast. This makes her sloppy.

Her main strength is that she's a legitimately good god-queen. At the current point in the story, she's taken over a city and executed its ruler. The people love her because she distributes food fairly, runs a judicial system that cares about more than money, gives free medicine to the sick, and provided heating runes to defend against the frigid climate to an extent that the old regime never did. Apart from her transfer for sorcerers into brainwashed metal bodies and stealing of their magic, all of which she keeps secret from the masses, she's an incredibly benevolent tyrant.

As for what she looks like, as she first appears, Vermir is a shriveled bog mummy of a woman. Her face is leathery and she has no hair. Her brown eyes are adjusted to the Trench's darkness. Later, she finds herself in a towering metal form made of pale silver eikodoro - the siren god-metal. No matter if she wears flesh or metal, Vermir is wreathed by a cowl of shadows, which are the chattering remnants of Laben's populous. She doesn't have the heart to get rid of the last echo of her people, no matter how annoying they might get.

Now for fun facts, I guess?

Vermir, for all the grief she's caused him, doesn't know Mashal's name. She just calls him Six, because he was her sixth subject.

She has some serious beef with Astra because the witch stole her notes, even though she sees a lot of herself in the younger woman.

Her first round of experiments (One through Seven) were done to perfect the transfer process of putting a mind in a metal body. The rest of the sorcerers she kills and stuffs into metal bodies are brainwashed into serving as her soldiers.

At this point in the story, after conquering a city known for its sorcerous university, she has the power of upwards of 15,000 sorcerers at her disposal. This would make her more powerful in sheer destructive capabilities than many minor spirits.

She has canonically used the words "ran through" to describe a library.

I imagine her with a New Jersey accent because it's funny.

She intends to find a way to put her metal soldiers back into fleshy bodies should they want it once her conquestest of the world and usurpation of the gods is over.

Frankly, Vermir is one of my favorite villains because she just has so much personality. Also, if someone showed up, killed the president on live TV, then declared that they were the predisent now and healthcare, food, and rent were now free, I'd probably get behind them too if that's all I knew. Lmk if you have any questions and I hope you enjoy my cunty little Glados ripoff <3

Have a bitchin day!

@amandacanwrite @elsie-writes @riveriafalll @kosmic-kore @kaylinalexanderbooks @bard-coded @carrotsinnovember @patternwelded-quill @somethingclevermahogony @whatwewrotepodcast @goldxdarkness @the-angriest-author @mk-writes-stuff @frostedlemonwriter @vyuntspakhkite-l-darling

[endlesslystarlitskies]

Lost and Found Masterlist

Pairing: Leon Kennedy x Named Reader (Named but not Described) Genre: Horror, action, adventure, Slow-Burn, Romance Summary: Ella was one of the missing hikers who was kidnapped by the villagers. She narrowly escaped being sacrificed, but her friends weren’t so lucky. Managing to survive out in the woods with her previous skills and knowledge, she runs into Leon, and that meeting begins the longest, most dangerous adventure of her life as she tries to help him save the girl she saw being taken into the church. What will happen along the way? Only one way to find out. Warnings: Canon typical violence and gore, suicidal ideations mentioned, Ella has little regard for her own life and is dealing with the loss of someone closest to her while also fighting to survive with waning self-preservation instincts. Please be cautious if that triggers you.

NOTE: I am currently editing this. Each chapter that has been edited will have a * by it. 

Part 1 *

Part 2 *

Part 3 *

Part 4 *

Part 5 *

Part 6 *

Part 7 *

Part 8 *

Part 9 *

Part 10 *

Part 11 *

Part 12 *

Part 13 *

Part 14 *

Part 15 *

Part 16- End *

Alternate Ending

[violet-moonstone]

Heathers Part 2: Warrior Heather

Read Part 1 here

Option 1: Current Heather with a More Detailed Backstory

Before we discuss major alternatives, let’s go back to my question: Who was Heather’s mentor? I think it makes sense for them to be someone she met after her village was attacked, or who at least survived the attack. The combat skills and weapons/armour knowledge she exhibits in RTTE aren’t present in RoB, so they should be things this person taught her after the attack. Maybe in response to the trauma and danger she faced, she sought out a mentor who could teach her how to fend for herself and get revenge—or perhaps, this mentor found her and wanted to impart their knowledge to help her. And to explain why this mentor is no longer part of her life in RTTE, I’ve come up with 3 options.

1. Heather and her mentor mutually decided it was time to part ways once Heather was ready for her quest. This mentor was unable to join her due to some sort of illness or injury.

2. Her mentor taught her survival skills but didn’t do so in the hopes that she would enact vengeance and instead tried to dissuade her from going down that path. Their disagreement about revenge caused them to have a falling out, and Heather left the relative safety of living with/near them. The loss of the only stable/loving relationship she had since her adoptive parents died only worsened her abandonment issues.

3. Her mentor recently passed away, which prompted her to set out on her own. Again, really exacerbating that grief and anxiety.

If these changes to her backstory were made, I would be much happier with her new character direction in RTTE.

That being said, I have to say I’m still not a fan of the appearance of her design in general. I don’t like the brown and silvery blue colour combo. I would prefer something more desaturated so they don’t clash. Generally speaking, HTTYD characters designs are a great example of how to pair colours that don’t usually go together; by making their clothes earthy and desaturated, any clashing colours aren’t as glaring—plus, it makes the clothes look more lived in, which fits the vibe of the world these characters are in. The warmth and richness of the brown in Heather’s new outfit isn’t pairing well with the cold armour IMO. I want to see clothes that look well-made, but heavily worn. She’s not used to getting new clothes on a regular basis, so she’s going to make what she does have last.

I also think instead of forming what looks like a very hazardous skirt, the scales she’s wearing should be used as armour over her abdomen...you know...where all those very important organs are? I don’t get the leather vest thing for her when scale armour is an option. I think this is an example of another issue I have Heather’s design and how she functions in the show: she’s a warrior with a large, bulky weapon and a huge, armoured dragon..but she also has rogue/stealth elements (This is where the leather vest, hood, and occasional face covering comes in). It’s possible that I’m thinking too narrowly, but I think we should pick a lane—if not for believability, then at the very least to make her design more visually clear.

If we’re staying in the armoured warrior lane, then let’s ditch the vest and hood and go with armour over the abdomen, maybe with some chain mail too. Underneath, she can wear a tunic, anywhere from hip to knee length. The colour scheme of her tunic, leggings, and boots could range from dark/desaturated blues, greys, and black. These would work nicely with the colour of her armour. Maybe there could be some brown for variety, but in less rich hues than what’s in her design has now. I also think she should have a helmet (I’m thinking no horns though...and maybe it partially covers her face, so she can have a dramatic reveal when she takes it off) and coil her ponytail into a bun when she’s fighting. Finally, if she’s a warrior, she should have a bulkier, more muscular physique.

Here are some ideas for what I think her design could look like:

Imagine the armour over the woman’s chest and shoulders in the first image is made from Windshear’s scales instead.

Part 3 because my computer hates long posts