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mysticofspades · 5 months ago

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Top 10 Moments in the Life Series

Okay, so like, a month ago or something, Jimmy asked his viewers to compile together a list of their top ten moments from the life series, and I put together my potential list right then and there when the video came out. Then I forgot about it for the entirety of a month and now here we are. (ADHD sucks sometimes TT). Since he’s already put out his reaction vid, I didn’t feel like putting together an entire video but still wanted to ramble some so~

10. Desert Duo on a Camel Together in a Red Desert

Frankly, this made the list exclusively because of biases. The significance of these two men wandering around a RED DESERT – red as in; covered in blood – on the back of some rideable minecraft animal is probably lost on any new viewer. Not to mention the Cactus Monopoly scene, with Scar giving Grian the monopoly over it while saying; “I know how you love monopolies.” That entire interaction pretty much ruined me. I haven’t not thought about it in weeks. I need help.

9. The AH-HA Bit

I don’t know if I need to say anything more about this. If the previous was iconic for its dramatics, this is iconic for the opposite. It’s just a bunch of men having fun together, laughing and making stupid little puns about a made up British tradition. The fact that Impulse, a very american american, was somehow bound up in this group made it ten times funnier. No notes, this bit speaks for itself. Insert funny AH-HA pun here.

8. Etho’s Fishing Rod Kill on Scar

Already one of my favorite seasons for a variety of reasons, Last Life didn’t need this scene to make it my all time favorite season or anything. But damn, am I glad it happened. The precision and calculations on Etho’s part is just– damn! That entire situation, no matter how it played out, Etho would be on the winning side. Like, it was either Scar dies and Etho gets a boogie kill or just not. Even if Etho didn’t get his kill there, Bdubs woulda still gotten a life and Etho could still kill anyone else. Either way, Bdubs would’ve gotten his life and Etho would’ve gotten his buddy back. It’s all just beautifully and meticulously planned out that I can’t help but plop into this spot.

(Yes, I recognise that it might not have been planned to that extent on Etho’s part, or IRL Etho’s part, at least. I am choosing to believe that ch!Etho totally did weigh out all his options and came to the conclusion that this was the best course of action and was confident he could get the kill and even knew that Scar would have the Enchanter on him. He just comes off as that type of character to me, is all.)

7. Scott’s Sacrifice for Pearl in DL

You cannot tell me that this is not one of the most iconic moments of the life series, ever. Scott standing over that pile of TNT, lighter in hand while Pearl, bathed in red and a bloody ax clenched tightly in her fists, watches, wide-eyed and hysteric, trying to desperately ask what’s going on or to understand or to just do something, unable to in the end as Scott takes his own life crowning her victor over the bloodbath that she had never thought would end like this.

And that fucking line?! “Tilly death do us part?!” What the hell, Scott?!

In conclusion, your honor, Tilly is still alive somewhere in the DL world and someone should rescue her.

6. Grain’s Stalactite kill on BigB / Ren

Alright, this is pure luck and I am so fucking here for it. It’s simply beautiful. The unplanned accuracy of a man on a bloodlust ending up only getting a kill on his chosen soulmate is poetic as shit (shit that just so happens to be really poetic, that is).

It’s kinda like the reverse or inverse of the Etho fishing rod kill. Grian’s pure luck and also not is what makes this scene so fucking memorable.

Not to mention both Grian and Scar’s reactions. Grian was over the moon, screaming and celebrating and being ecstatic until he realizes just what he’s done. And his little “except when I got married,” is all pure chaos and we live for that here.

Then there’s Scar, ever the opportunist, immediately starts looting the corpses. Silently. He picks up anything he deems valuable (which could mean useless lint and string, but whatever) and tries to bealine it out of there the second he’s done. I love Scar, honestly.

5. Scar’s SL Win!

This specific season holds a special place in my heart for being the only season I watched and stayed tuned in for the entirety of its run. So when Scar, the one I’ve been rooting for since 3L, happens to win, you can imagine my excitement.

It was so out of left field, too. Like, in the final battle, I knew for a fact something was going to take out Scott and Pearl, them being winners already and this spoken rule of no double winners and all. But between Scar and Gem? I’m sorry, Scar, but I definitely didn’t see it coming. Gem was on a mad one, killing or getting someone else to kill more than half the server and already being stacked on kills. It just fits, ya know?

Like, Martyn, Grain and Pearl all were crazy about killing their entire season, even on green they were kinda unhinged, ya know? (couch couch Scarlet Pearl cough cough). And it's not like Scott didn’t have a body count.

To be fair though, it’s not like Scar didn’t get any kills either, it was just more…. Discrete? Unintentional. His kill on Bdubs and his accidental shot on Gem were both not of his own volition.

The idea that what it took for Scar to win was to completely give up on making friends is poetic as shit.

First season, he had an ally, a friend, a comrade, one whom he betrayed then gave his life for.

Next season, he tried and tried and tried again to make friends, almost as if chasing that same high he got with his first partner, but never managing to make any meaningful connections, and ended up shot in the back.

Then, he’s reunited with his partner of old and they get off to a good start, being the last greens and all. But as if with all things, it came down as Scar, accidentally, took their first two lives and his soulmate took the other.

Afterwards, he returns to his family, hoping to find peace and connections there. He finds it with his mother and brother and, sort of, with his estranged father. He leads a Scar-typical season of blowing things up (attempting to, at least), stabbing people in the back and swindling (only a little). It all comes to a head as his once-soulmate, once-partner-in-crime stabs him in the back, literally.

Finally, we have this season. Scar starts out looking for friends, he very much does. But the universe itself has other ideas. Bad task after bad task, Scar is left almost entirely isolated from the rest of the server. The backstabber of a soulmate offers him a home but he cannot take it (as per rules he made up about his task). Then, somehow, somewhere, he sees those words, “She’s dead, Scar, you won.”

It’s all just beautiful honestly.

4. “It was just a prank, Scar!”

The beginning of it all. This little prank led to so much that it deserves to be in the top5 of every list out there, in my opinion anyway. Like, Grian randomly happening across a creeper out in broad daylight then proceeding to choose to lead it all the way into a group of distracted people in the name of a prank which leads into a season-long, dramatic, all-defying alliance of which leads to a climactic battle surrounded by the disheveled and war torn lands they once ruled over together (we’ll get to this in a minute, don’t worry), chants of the ghosts of the lives they ended to get to where they are, screaming in their ears to fight and to kill and having to brutally take the last life of the person he’d once vowed his own to Al because of what? A prank?! Seriously?!– is that not the best shit you’ve heard all day? Or all week? Hell, maybe your entire fucking life???

I sure think so.

3. Liz’s Final Death in SL

I realize that this is my only Tim related moment on the list and it was Tim who had asked for the list in the first place, but whatever. There are plenty of cool ass (and miserably funny) Tim moments out there (ones I might plop into the honorary mentions bit) but this is honestly my favorite and the one I think makes the cut compared to the others on here.

Anyhow. Onto Liz taking Tim’s place as first out.

I watched Liz’s POV late, can’t remember if it was because she uploaded late or someone else uploaded and I forgot to get back to it afterward– I dunno. I saw hers late and thus already knew she was going to die first, so, unfortunately, I didn’t get to live it through her eyes first, quite sad I know. Point is, I fucking. Nearly. Cried.

Like, not only was Liz’s whole arc in the season quite sad already, with the whole, “I wish everyone were here,” and her attempt at cheering herself up ending up so horribly, I knew beforehand that something awful was going to have to happen to sum up all her season-long misery. Dying in the midst of an attack, her only proper attack really, with an ender-pearl sitting untouched in her hotbar, was not the way I thought that would happen.

And something I didn't expect even more?? Her dying first??? Yeah, no, it was definitely not on my SL Bingo Card, that’s for sure. It was just so out of nowhere and yet, it also wasn’t? How do I explain? Like, Liz’s whole season was going from one misfortune to another, bad decision to another and it just kept piling on, until, well– you know.

Tim’s seasons are usually like that, no? Bad decisions followed by the universe itself hating on him followed by pure bad luck. Pretty much any Timmy Life Series season honestly.

I don’t think I’m doing this scene– this event justice. Timmy went out first every season for 4 seasons in a row. then Lizzie waltzes on in for the second time, suffers a bunch in her episodes, tries to kill Scott (a well-known no-no if you want to live) and then dies. First.

Beautiful and iconic; that’s LDShadowLady for you.

(I realize I should probably talk about Tim some more, given that this is the only Jim-related moment on here, but eh. This segment is too long already. I’ll talk about some other Jim moments later.)

2. Scar’s Water Bucket Clutch

This moment proved to me that putting Grian and Scar together in a life series makes a seriously underrated but totally fairly rated duo. Like, in one season they managed to keep a whole ass, proper, monopoly going for at least, like, 2(?) whole sessions, Grain managed that stalactite kill I talked about already and then Scar does this shit??

I just– there’s a reason these guys got so fucking close to winning and never teamed up, volentairily, ever again. Had they teamed up again, and wanted to actively work together and actually win this shit, they totally could. There is a fucking reason both of them are individually winners now and I’m so shitting here for it.

Onto more specific things; Scar is a mad man and I love him for it. He saw Etho burning a couple of pandas (I apologize; a couple of jellies) and was just, “screw you Giran, those pandas need me,” and he went.

Grian’s reaction going from severely panicked to immeasurable pride is just beautiful (lots of things are beautiful, shut up).

When I tell you I replayed this shit non-stop until all the dopamine this scene could provide my ADHDed brain could be sucked up dry until it was drier than the driest of dry prunes you’ve ever seen on a hot ass summer afternoon, I mean it with every ounce of my being.

With that said; second place it shall be forevermore~

1. Cactus Ring

I mentioned this earlier and I don’t think anyone is necessarily surprised judging by all my other picks thus far, yeah?

Everyone’s heard of the beginning of the end. Well this feels a lot like the opposite of that. The end of the beginning, ya know? Third life’s the beginning, where everything began, where everything and everyone got established (well mostly everyone) and it’s where everything started. The cactus ring, to me, marks the end of the beginning. As if to say, “the beginning is over. We all know what we’re doing from now on, the trials are over and the bloodlusts and betrayals have already begun, let them continue (forevermore~).”

It’s a red mark (of blood) in the sand from where they began to where they’ll continue to go. It's the end of an era, the beginning of another, the continuation of a story left unfinished. It’s everything and nothing and I’m making no sense–

My point in all this is that this moment is iconic and deserves top 2, at minimum, on any and all lists of this kind. I accept none otherwise (not really :P).

…I feel like I spoilt myself a little my gushing about these guys earlier and now I don’t really have all that much to say–

Honorary Mentions!

1 - Tim’s final LimL death.

What the hell, dude? Talk all that crap to what? Trip off your own fucking Bad Boys Bread Brige™? Timmy, Timmy, Timmy.

Joel and Grain’s, and even Pearl’s, reactions were awesome btw!

2 - Grain and Scar’s Sing-Along!

It’s a desert duo moment, I don’t know what you want from me.

3 - Tim Killing Liz in SL

If I’m not mistaken, this is, like, Tim’s only kill that season and it being completely accidental and the fact that he feels horrible for it makes this moment comedy gold.

4 - Grain’s Triple Kill in 3L

This set the stage for many, many kills to come, and the excessive use of TNT minecarts can also be pinned back here, which is awesome of course.

5 - Etho’s Washed Up?!

This was originally on the list but because of (Scar-related) changes, it no longer is. It's awesome though so I put it down here. I fucking love this shit, dude. Cleo and Budubs’ back and forth and Etho just like, “I knew it guys, I really am washed up,” is just great.

6 - Mumbo’s Death in the Nether in SL

Mumbo is awesome and kinda not all there sometimes. This just so happens to be a moment of the latter, is all. Love him.

7 - Joel and Liz’s Romance in SL

I love these two interacting just casually. They’re super sweet and I just– I love seeing couples just doing normal things, like playing a game they both like together and just having fun, ya know? Whether that be with a little flirting or not, it’s fun to watch.

Alternatively; the Joel and Liz are trying to flirt in LL with Scar awkwardly there in the background.

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ketterdamskaelishprince · 9 months ago

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ada's spectre, and why i'll likely always feel sad about it

here is the promised analysis/talk about ada's spectre. going to preface this by saying i obviously don't know the true intent behind everything and her design, i just like to look, giggle and then make sad little observations which just help me love this silly webcomic even more. so if you disagree with me on something– totally ok! i love to learn and i love to see different interpretations.

there's also a few bits i missed out because i wrote this all last night in a bit of a haze, and i cannot be bothered to expand on some of my ideas, especially when it's just stuff like "BROS SO PARANOID AND RAW RIGHT NOW".

anyways, here we go :) @mugcereal this one's for u pookie <3

so i think with ada's spectre, we first need to look at the instance as to how she gets it, because that always makes things way more sad!

to specify, she turns into her spectre at episode 69, and i think it's really sad how she does it. she basically gets a string of roasts from prospero that go along the lines of calling her "conceited" "twadry" and "... and stupid!" – effectively throwing back in ada's face what she believes everyone thinks of her.

(obviously, as a very big and glaring sidenote, i believe prospero is aro/ace or just aromantic so OBVIOUSLY i am not bashing him for this. bros told her so many times that he doesn't want to be with her, let alone to be touched. that is a flaw in ada's character and is a reminder to us on the importance of boundaries!!!!)

so, ada is basically there, collapsed on the floor in a robe– effectively showing the most intimate and private part of herself as an insecure and lonely girl. and that's when she transforms.

i think it's interesting to understand how this most likely links to her life and how she died. so we know she was killed with an axe, most likely by the man she fell in love with and worked for, and how prospero's words in this situation, hurt her just the same as the words before her death. why?

because they remind ada of what she knows and fears she is: just a stupid, fake and cheap person who will never have the same status and respect as the people she pretends to be and surrounds herself by.

i think it's also interesting that she's clutching her stomach/torso here, and correct me if i'm wrong but that could be a potential signal to the part of her that was axed to death (?). no idea if that's a good shout or not but it's what i first thought!

anyways! now we move onto her spectre design!

first of all, her spectre design eats. like just a personal side note, i love it. it's just so gorgeous and i don't care if she's terrifying to some because to ME? to me, she's my gorgeous little pookie who can scream and show people their worst fears and she looks amazing whilst she does it <3

ok anyways, actual design.

to first understand her design, i thought i'd show you what banshee's traditionally in folklore look like!

typically, they are described in two ways. the first way is a youthful women with long black hair, blue eyes and just super pale. this description could also lose the blue eyes and just keep the black hair– either way the first depiction of a banshee is a super young woman.

this is not the one we're focussing on today folks!

we're going to focus on the second depiction. a hag/ old woman, with red cheeks, a grey cloak and a green dress, often seen to be combing her hair. banshee's throughout folklore are known to wail, scream and cry when a family member had died. to most, the banshee was a sign that death was coming to your household and they are known in myths and folklore as a predictor of death.

now, hold onto the green dress and look at ada's design real quick for me.

here we see a lot of green, which yay! definitely shows signs it comes from the second depiction. i think, on top of it being a nod to the second depiction, i think it could also be an allusion to something else: jealousy.

green symbolism in media can often vary, from meaning new life, luck and also jealousy. and i think if we take in the things ada screams whilst in her spectre form, such as this from episode 82:

you see there definitely is some sort of jealousy there, but this isn't something i necessarily want to focus on, it's just an observation i made that may or may not be true!

anyways, to continue, i want to look at ada's outfit when she's a banshee. i'm going to basically be making my notes i took last night look nicer.

(keep in mind that when i wrote these, my ideas were literally bouncing off my brain and sometimes they're a bit contradictory, but i think that's the beauty of my crack theory analysis!)

i think the act of almost showing her bones to the outside, there's a level of rawness to ada we don't usually see. her spectre form essentially gives her the power to scream out her anger, and by seeing her bones it's almost as if to say this is the ada she doesn't show people. this is the ada that she keeps to herself because god forbid anybody love her (because in life and death it's become abundantly apparent to her that nobody does seem to love that ada).

but then, what i thought was also a super cool thing as how the bones almost act like a corset!

then i got sad because i looked at the bows, and because something dawned on me and it made me start to frown. there was a sad realization to me as i looked at ada's spectre design that even in this all powerful form, she hasn't lost her insecurities, they just become more prevellant. because for all of the traditional wrinkles, hag-like appearance a banshee is meant to have, ada barely has any.

obviously this could be in part to character design and stuff, and yeah probably– but let me be sad!

because ada carries her frills and bows from life here because she doesn't want to be ugly, she doesn't want to be this creeping monster who rips apart people. because if she's not got her intelligence or status or anything going for her, she has her appearance and by god she's not going to let that go to waste. so here her spectre form is, a banshee.

so what must ada do? she must takes her frills and keep her insecurities, her fears and her crippling need to be loved.

another aspect which is super interesting is the stitching on her body. one one hand, it could be an allusion to her violent death, suggesting the man she fell in love with didn't just stop at axing her once, but just kept on fucking going (which, you know: fuck you, whoever you are).

but on the other hand, it could be a metaphor for ada's thinly veiled facade she puts on of being a prim and proper lady (which we actually, interestingly enough, see she looses a lot the more time she spends with montresor– opting to take parts of his language like "ain't" and "beggin'". this sort of leads on from previous ideas people have made of ada willing to change herself to be loved. she swaps civility for the wild wild west all for a bit of love).

ada offers up parts of herself in this metaphor. that's what she always does. she offers herself to the rich man she fell in love with, she offers herself up to prospero (again, look at the. side note. bro wasn't wrong for rejecting her he literally can't like her) and she offers herself up to the acolytes and she fucking barks for them (because i'm not over that).

piece by piece, she strips away everything she is until she literally is just skin and bone. and once she's torn herself apart, she needs to stitch herself back together– because it's against the facade she's put on to look so broken and messy. and so she repeats the cycle again, giving more and more until she is literally hanging on by a thread.

her powers are also super cool. traditionally, as i said, banshees wail when a family member is soon to die/has died, and is often like an omen/predictor of death. so yeah, ada having a banshee scream makes sense. but the whole 'fear itself' is also super cool. i kind of like that she has this– because its sort of satisfying for her, the girl who's been pushed over but still comes running back, to watch as people become paralysed with fear. idk, retribution or whatever.

i'm going to leave you with this not very profound thing i wrote last night (and then just some other mumblings):

i think that although spectres are super powerful and also just a very fantastic concept, they're also fragile. spectres are quite literally the monster inside of you. yet here ada's monster is, and with all her bows and revamped dress of a banshee (or potentially an allusion to her life as a maid) she tries desperately to be anything but that. because to here it's ugly and it's too much of her on display. and with some much of you on display comes the very fear that if you are hated, disliked or something repulsive, you no longer have anything to blame on anybody else. you just have yourself to blame.

(as morella says here in episode 88).

i'm not saying ada isn't deeply flawed, because she is. she has so much fucking baggage and insecurities that they literally forbid her from doing the right thing sometimes. i don't think she's a good person, but i also think that she has the opportunity to be a good person/ do a semi-good/ non-bad thing, and all she has to do is take it. but i also think it's nice how that's shown in her spectre design.

and, you know, if none of this makes sense, that's also fine!

anyways, yeah. somebody tell me never to make a random analysis at night again because it's a bit of a bitch to translate in the morning.

#ada nevermore #nevermore webtoon #annabel lee nevermore #nevermore #ada #ada nevermore analysis #nevermore character analysis #character analysis #adas spectre #is that even how you spell it #anyways i love her for who she is #my precious little screaming meow meow #LMAO #ok idk what i'm talking about anymore LMOA #forgive if there are typos because at this point i am TOO TIRED to do anything about it

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shieldfoss · 1 year ago

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Following up on that previous point re the difficulty of programming being a union of the difficulties of STEM and humanities:

"RAX" is a register in x86-64 intel

"EAX" is also a register in x86-64 intel

"AX" is also a register in x86-64 intel

"AH" and "AL" are also (two) registers in etc./

(That last one is technically not true)

This illustrates the point twice-over, first by the unreasonable back-compat of x86, and second by the unreasonable entrenchment of x86.

(Readmore added when I realized I was about to write "Let's go back to the 8086")

---

Let's go back to the 8086 :3

Alright so the 8086. It's popularity is seen in the two senses of its longevity.

The more obvious one is its twenty year life span - it launched in 1978 and you could still buy it in 1998, twenty years later, what?

But it's less-obvious-to-outsiders longevity is this: The language you wrote in to talk to the 8086, the x86 instruction set, is still in use today - everything I do at work is compiled into a dialect of x86 (Specifically x86-64).

The instruction set has been extended a lot since then so you can talk about the features of newer chips but to the best of my 20 minutes of research, a program compiled for the 1978 intel 8086 will still run on a 2023 intel 14900K[1]

So what is the 8086 like?

Well, it has some of those registers I mentioned - it doesn't have EAX and RAX, but it has AX, AH and AL - and BX, BH, BL, and a C... and D... variant of those.

"Oh wow 12 general purpose registers" well yesexceptactuallyno.

There's a reason they're grouped as 3 x 4 letters "A(X,L,H), B(X,L,H) ..." rather than just having 12 letters for 12 registers.

AX is actually just AH and AL next to each other. You can store 8 bits in AH, or 8 bit in AL, or 16 bit if you combine them, with the combination-name AX.

The proper way to describe it is to say that the 8086 has four 16-bit general-purpose registers, AX, BX, CX and DX, each of which has a High and a Low part of 8 bits each.

Alright, we're done talking about the 8086, because a newer chip comes out it's 32 bit! Let's add some 32 bit registers! Let's add EAX, the extended AX register.

Wait that's a terrible name, what? Call it like A32 or something.

Did I say "we're done talking about the 8086?" So that was a fucking lie.

Of course we're still taking about the 8086! All the world's software is written to run on an 8086! If your processor doesn't have an AX register there's no software for it and you won't get any sales - but if you have an AX register taking up space that could be used for a 32 bit register, your chip will be too inefficient and you also won't get any sales. Easy solution: It's the same register! Code that wants to use a 32 bit register asks for EAX, code that wants to use a 16-bit register asks for AX and it just gets the bottom half of the EAX register! Beautiful!

And that's why you have to name it "EAX" - if your user writes to AX, and then to A32, they might get surprised that AX was overwritten. But if they write to EAX, to the extended AX register, they'll know they're overwriting AX.

Wait.

Surprised?

What's this "surprised," how is a software delevoper getting surprised, I thougth we were in STEM here? Pure, clear first-principles reasoning, correct logic application and so on?

No - we're in the part of software that is dominated by the difficulties of the Humanities - as a software developer sitting down to hand-roll some x86, you do not have the luxury of a true physical understanding. You have to know what the chip designer decided, not what the laws of physics are. Understanding this is less like Quantum Mechanics and more like Jura, where you need to know a bunch of texts that have nothing to do with justice qua justice and everything to do with how human systems have interpreted justice over the last many centuries. Or like politics! You can lobby for changes! Try doing that to solve your problem with the Fine Constant!

So that's the "unreasonable back compat"

The "unreasonable entrenchment" is that Intel tried to kill x86. It's bad! I mean let me be clear, x86 has one advantage and that is "historical presedence" By just about every other measure it is bad.

Intel knows this! They invented a new instruction set 20 years ago (a reminder here that x86 is 40+ years old) and (1) it was better and (2) it failed miserably because it wasn't x86 back compatible. Oops! So we've been struggling along with x86 back compat ever since.

The unreasonable back compat means that x86 is not the best instruction set for modern chips, as it must also model old chips.

The unreasonable entrenchment is that we can't get rid of x86.

They're trying again now (They annouced x86-S earlier this year) so maybe! But probably not.

[1] Caveat here - it will run on a modern cpu but if you have installed a modern operating system then the operating system will not run it - this fact is exclusively about the hardware realities of the x86.

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burnwater13 · 6 months ago

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Boba Fett and Fennec Shand leading the Mods down the streets of Mos Espa. Image from The Book of Boba Fett, Season 1. Calendar from DateWorks.

Grogu had questions. Lots of questions. His first question was where did you get a cool speeder bike like the ones the Mods were cruising around Mos Espa on? His second question was do they come in purple? He had always liked the color purple and he thought that if he could convince his dad to get him a cool speeder/scooter like the ones they had, he definitely wanted it to be purple.

Like Master Windu’s lightsaber. Which had also been cool. Of course he wouldn’t be telling Daimyo Fett anything about that. He understood that the two of them had some history and Grogu didn’t want to bring any bad memories back. That wouldn’t win him any support in the get dad to get him something fun and cool and pretty.

“Hey, kid, does your dad know what you’re up to?”

Grogu sighed. Fennec always showed up at the worst possible moment. He quickly shut down his datapad and turned a very fake smile on the Daimyo’s right hand person.

“Well, you’re not going to get it if you don’t collect allies while you can.”

She turned to walk away and Grogu ran over to her and hugged her boot.

“That’s more like it. Listen kid, I don’t care if you get a speeder/scooter and ride it from her to Pika Oasis everyday. Just don’t bring any fish back and give the gorgs directly to the cook. But you and I both know that your dad doesn’t want you to have one. He doesn’t have a good record with speeder bikes and he knows that you are twice as reckless as he is. He thinks you’re going to get hurt. Now…”

Fennec paused and it seemed to last forever. Grogu held her boot even tighter.

“You know that your dad listens to the Daimyo. He respects him because he understands the Mandalorian experience and he understands what it takes to be a bounty hunter. Your dad is supposed to be training you to be a bounty hunter, right? You are his apprentice. That means you should be showing the Daimyo just how responsible you are. How much of a hard worker you are. How you can fit in small spaces and retrieve things for him that no one else can.”

Ahhh… so that was what Fennec was up to! She needed Grogu’s help. It was such a rare occurrence and as much as he wanted to gloat and do a little dance, he knew that he needed to strike while the lures were hot!

He tapped her boot and then signed his question to her.

“What and where? You’re pretty smart kid. You worked that out faster than the Majordomo did the last time I made him an offer. Okay, enough of that. Turns out that bacta tank that the Daimyo uses has a filter cartridge that requires periodic maintenance. The droid that does the maintenance was cleaning it when the Gamorreans entered its work room to have their axes sharpened. Being a bit on the clumsy side they knocked the filter off the bench and it rolled behind a built cabinet that even the Gamorreans can’t budge. Turns out, no one needs to move it. We just need someone with a small hand and the ability to use the Force to get the thing. That’s where you come in. Can you get that Jedi friend of yours to stop by? He could fetch it for us in no time.”

Well. Fine. Be. That. Way!

Grogu pouted at he looked up her. He knew that she knew that he could do that without breaking a sweat, which meant he could be on his new speeder scooter faster than a bantha could lick your face. She was just teasing him because he’d spent ‘a day too long at that Jedi Sleep Away Camp’.

“Oh, come on. I’m just teasing you. Your friend can’t get here anything like soon enough. I need that filter back today. Let’s go.”

Fennec offered to carry him, which was a first. He jumped into her arms and then let her settle him on her shoulder. He preferred the view from there.

Before he knew it they had left the kitchen, where he’d been eating a snack and looking at speeder/scooters on his datapad, and were suddenly in the basement workrooms. He still had no idea how Fennec managed to move so fast, even while he was sitting on her shoulder watching her. It just seemed like walking to him but she always got where she was going so quickly compared to the amount of time it would have taken his dad or even the Daimyo. Huh.

When they reached the correct workroom, there were only thirteen of them filled with various tools and equipment, Grogu hopped down from her shoulder and made his way to the cabinet that the two Gamorreans were still standing next to. At attention. With their axes at the ready.

Grogu chirped at them and they stepped carefully to the side, giving him a clear path to the interior of the cabinet.

He coo’d at Fennec and found himself holding a flashlight. He appreciated how quickly she got that for him.

“It rolled through that small cut out in the back. Yes, right there. Now do your thing kid.”

Grogu almost laughed or giggled or chortled, he didn’t know what the sound was that he smothered but it was definitely based on how desperate she was and the view he had of the problem. He put the flashlight down, being careful to make sure that the beam of light still lit up the small opening and then raised his left land and walked slowly, very slowly toward the opening.

Before Fennec could ask him how it was going, the flashlight clicked off and he was plunged into darkness. He felt a breeze blow by him and as it did, he whirled around and grabbed for the tail of the breeze and … caught it! As quickly as that he was on some critter’s back and riding it like a blurgg.

It tried to toss him and turn and buck and plunge and do whatever it took to get Grogu off it’s back, but that critter had no idea how much Grogu wanted that speeder/scooter and he was not about to let go of any critter holding the filter piece in it’s jaws.

“Dank Farrik! Fennec, what the heck is going on down here?”

Uh oh! It was his dad. No time for messing around. Grogu focused on the task at hand and yanked the filter out of the critters mouth and then did a beautiful backflip off it’s hairy hide.

He trotted out of the cabinet and held the cartridge out to Fennec, who handed it to the droid who thanked her in a toneless voice.

“Hey, Mando, just doing a little maintenance. Your kid’s been a big help, as usual.”

Grogu smiled at the grin on Fennec’s face. She wasn’t wrong. He had been a big help.

“Good. Glad to hear that. Come on Grogu. The Daimyo wants to take you shopping in Mos Eisley. He said new speeder/scooters arrived and he said you’ve earned one with all the helpful things you do around here. He just said no purple ones. He can’t abide that color for some reason. Come on. Let’s go.”

Grogu finally understood the attraction of the Darkside of the Force. One day he would get even with Fennec Shand. One day.

NOTE: If you know which episode this photo is from please comment. I checked them all (too quickly) and didn't find it. Thanks.

#calendar prompt a day #the book of boba fett #grogu #din djarin #boba fett #fennec shand #the mandalorian

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burntheworldtwice · 1 year ago

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Live Thoughts on The Last Voyage of Demeter (Spoilers)

So I know very little of this movie outside the plot. I know it is much anticipated. Reviews are decent. But I didn't want some critic tainting my opinion you know? So I smoked a bowl, made a broke girls charcuterie, and am diving in.

-First of all who doesn't love a good Dracula tale?

-This is moody. Love that. Definitely recommend being in the dark by a fire if possible. its giving Victorian child and I personally am a victorian child so this is just swell

-I wish we still rode horses. Its a power move. Cop pulls up in a car ugh boring cop GALLOPS up on a horse. Mad respect.

-OMG its the guy who went after Oppenheimer for that shit senator. What's his name......David Dastmalchian. Im sorry hold the phone. DASTMALCHIAN is his dad Machiavelli. I'll be honest y'all im not a fan of his face. He looks weasly and honestly a bit threatening but that may just be the roles I've seen.

-Corey Hawkins out here showing LOOKS. Saving LIVES. CHILD LIVES. What. A. Gem.

-Whats in the box? WHATS in the box? WHATS IN THE BOOOOOX?!

-Why must children be so enthusiastic? So young and full of hope. Even on a fucking Russian ship in the 19th century.

-This cheese is really fucking good.

-Awe isn't this cute. "Crew in high spirits". Dancing around and shit. Did you know that many sailors were gay and that's why everyone thinks the Navy is a bunch of pussies. The more you know :)

-Is that Aaron Paul? LOL

-This really is pretty I must say. And the use of sound is just **Chefs kiss** I love when a movie employs sound as a means of expression.

-She needs a transfusion who's fucking blood is heh using is that his blood? The count is awake! yipeeee.

-I really need to watch some BTS for this. A lot of CGI and sets. Like did they do it Life of Pie style. I'll have to goole that..

-Ruh row. Bats outta the cage. NOT THE FUCKING DOG WHYYYYY KILL THE KID. Ugh why is it always the dog :((((

-HUUUCCKKKK

-Rabies? Men are so simple minded.

-Damn Drac is not looking good. Like worse than Voldy pre cauldron sesh.

-This kid is really taking on some emotional trauma. And little Woody Newman is just a cutie. He reminds of Gavauche (idk if that's spelled right) in Les Mis.

-"A boat without rats such is a thing against nature." That's a tattoo right thurr

-I am LOOOOVING the horror. The gore is so well done. Beautiful like Saving Private Ryan... If youre into blood..

-I could listen to Liam Cunningham read a Ikea instructions manual.

-I don't know if its intentional or not but I can't figure out the timeline of this movie. They mention a cove and it being over two weeks to England. But I can't tell how the time is passing. Could also be high but hey who knows.

-I know Rotten Tomatoes poopood this but I'm having fun and Draculas a dick lmao mimicking his victims. Damn bitch. Oh good strings. I love a good horror

-Why do we find it so hard to believe in things we can't understand? I realize the human brain seeks answers and solutions rather than more questions, but what if the answers and solutions are right there we just refuse to believe it?

-LMAO "I have a very important job for. you Toby. It's a lot to take on, can you handle it?" Hands over a spyglass. "Will you shine my shit for me dude?" I was talking to my wife about this but like I don't remember ever being this curious as a kid. Like demons on board? Nah Im staying in my room. Meanwhile this kid just wandering around the belly of ship.

-RUN TOBY RUN

-He got a knife. Tough kid here.

-Wow he's going full Jack Torrance with the door here. But who needs an axe when you have your face???

-NOT TOBY. Like I know everyone dies and all but damn. Also can Dracula apparate. Or is it like AS IF YOU COULD OUT RUN ME. Im a little behind on my Dracula lore. Oh he might live with these backwoods infusions.

-Okay I just haven't paid attention on the captains log. My B.

-Olgarin was bit... and infected? But Anne and Toby were fed on... and aren't? I'm going to have to think about that. Going up in flames was a fun drama though!

-I feel like maybe don't open the spooky box. And this man just rowing out to sea blindly believing in his faith. Did the Prince of Darkness fly out there? or. Yep. He a winged mother fucker.

-I like Dracula just whispering sweet nothings before he feeds.

-Are his burns not fucking horrifically painful? Im in pain looking at him. I know burns and that shit sucks for forever.

-Can Dracula manipulate the weather? I feel like I really need to brush up on my Dracula now. Foggy as hell. Dracula knew yawls plan come on.

-Women always out here making the greatest sacrifices.

-Why is Dracula synonymous with the devil? I like to think of Dracula like Jason Segal in Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

-THe smothering with the wings was like kinda dope. Won't lie.

-I'm so glad they're trauma bonded now.

-I think I would of made a great light house keeper. Chill up in the rain by a fire. Watch the ships. Ambient lighting. My kinda gig to be frank.

-That ending sunrise. Wow. Almost poetic.

-NONONONONOOOO please tell me there's not going to be a sequel. Please dear god just let it end.

-Fuck.

#the last voyage of demeter #movie thoughts #livemovie #my commentary #movie recommendation #moviereviews

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willowlived · 2 years ago

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close your eyes and count to ten - day one | lake

abstinence camp spoilers! broken bones/ injury mention. that's it :) no editing. one day if i find my ao3 i will but not today :') yes this is also a day late but i have day 2 coming too shhhh

Is it the smartest thing in the world to drag Pete here when technically abstinence camp is technically still in full fucking swing for the next ten minutes? No. Truth be told she would not be surprised if Grace motherfucking Chasity to come around with her axe, being more of a cockblock than ever before. That's what it feels like at least, though maybe that's because of the company she keeps now.

Stephanie Lauter knew what being absolutely fucking whipped meant. Up until she got there, she thought that it was straight fucking bullshit that thirteen year olds wrote in their creative stories or hopeless romantics waxed about in stupid poetry. Meeting Peter Spankoffski? Well... she is sort of starting to think that she might just understand the meaning and never in her life had she wanted to actively pursue someone, and fuck it had been hell just sitting there next to him, talking to him and trying her best to not flirt ( or flirt in a tame manner- restrained and clearly so ). For weeks she has been swallowing down glances, she has been swallowing down words or touches- No more.

Closing ceremonies are happening and things are crazy and chaotic ( as crazy and chaotic as things can get at a abstinence camp being ran with only one insane counselor instead of two ) but it's finally the perfect time to steal Pete away, Steph helping him walk down to the water, she helps him sit where they can both let there feet dip in the water, and then she sits next too him, not too close, hands pressed to the ground one, subconsciously reaching in his direction, keeping up her restraint so to make sure he did not grab it. If only she had her phone, she would start a timer, she would play some music, she would have an easier time trying to find the words to say. Words when it comes to these sorts of things have never been her strong suite, but she has a playlist for everything to ease the mood-

Or well... maybe she does not have one for everything. After all, what fucking songs could she put in a playlist to describe a good old "We kissed and it was real and wonderful, don't you agree- but we have been pretending like nothing happened for the sake of our heads staying on our necks" mood? Mentally scolding herself, Steph sighs- It's just words... Say something...

" So is your brother coming to get you? " Fucking smooth Lauter. It probably isn't the best conversation to start with. Surly the last thing he wants to talk about his brother. The last thing she wants to do is talk about leaving. Not when there is so much to discuss about the past, something that was also not her strongest suit, much preferring the now. Pete, though, does not seem so bothered, a small smile forming on his lips through from Steph's perspective it seems... sad.

" That was our plan. Maybe plans have changed, though." His eyes fall down and his shoulder tenses, kicking at the water with his non-broken leg as he clears his throat. Regret hits Steph like a rock and like he senses it, he looks over at her and offers a smile, small, tense, but like he's trying to assure the both of them of the fact and not simply her. He exhales and shakes his head. " After everything I just have a bad feeling. Like we're never going to leave- "

Which probably makes this conversation something we shouldn't be having. Doubt creeps in for a moment as Stephanie swallows and tears her eyes away, again fishing for words when she felt a hand resting on hers, turning back to find Pete looking at her this look she could not quite place in his eyes, then she looked back to the water, a little bit of a smile on her lips as she teases. " Well if you're going to make moves like that Spankoffski I don't think that we will. No pre-marital hand holding. " Thankfully, that got a laugh out of him-

Surprisingly, that laugh gave her enough of a confidence boost to properly grab and hold his hand, squeezing it a little while giving Pete a bit of a smile before she drops it, looking back behind them just to make sure that there was no one there, sighing a little to herself in relief, before looking back to their entwined fingers.

A comfortable silence falls around them for a moment, but it does not feel like it's they are quiet, words coming from the pair of them in the way Pete was playing with her fingers. Are they waiting out the ticking clock? Are they enjoying the time? It's a mix of both, at least from her perspective and for the second time this summer, despite how many hours they have spent in the sun, Steph actually feels it hit her skin. And it's all the she needs to talk about what's been on her mind.

" So senior year is coming around, yeah? " Steph starts and Pete hums and looks up at her, tilting his head, clearly not following her train of think though he nods his head. She looks out at the water, but she scoots a little closer to Pete, carefully so their knees are touching. " I know it's going to be a little messy and fuck we will have a whole other person out there trying to kill us if we get all kissy and touchy and I know that- "

" Wait." Pete cuts her off, a little crack in his voice that she hears him scold himself slightly for, her eyes moving to look at him in hopes to reassure, only to find him looking wide eyed right at her. " Are you actually asking me what I think you are? " His voice lowers a little bit as though one of their classmates would near, a certain timidness that she had not seen all summer and makes her sad to see.

" Are you, Stephanie Lauter, asking me to be your boyfriend? - O-Or date or whatever? "

" ... I mean if I, Stephanie Lauter, was asking you that, and happened to mention that I have been meaning to follow up with you about a certain kiss that happened, what would you, Peter Spankoffski, say?" She asks, not hiding her nerves. Pete, though, smiles and blushes, and wordlessly nods his head, breathing in before finding his words.

" I would say that it might be a little complicated, but I would really like that. "

Steph, smiles wider and laughs happily, muttering a small " Cool. " Fighting the urge to kick the water around in her joy. She instead, takes another chance and kisses his cheek before standing up and holding her hand out to help him.

" Well then I guess you need my phone number and you need to get back to you brother. "

It sure as fuck was going to be an interesting last two minutes of the summer of 2020's Camp Idontwannabang. And it sure as fuck was going to be an interesting senior year, but as long as Peter Spankoffski was holding her hand, she sure as fuck knew she could handle it all.

#a day late but you know.#enjoy the happiest of ideas i had because some of these are going to get mcfucking sad- however i think i will probably only do three days #in which steph has the hots bad for pete and has been Suffering #be gentle with me i have not written fanfics in forever #i rp mostly but i have to Whoops #lautski #stephanie lauter / peter spankoffski #stephanie lauter #peter spankoffski #nightmare time 2 spoilers

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bingus-bungus · 1 month ago

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going to answer this under the cut bcs i dont like waiting to ask questions and no one would send us the asks anyways ahhahahahahahahahha

traumagenic / stressgenic, if im understanding the question right

~30, definitely some fragments in there though

more introjects

uhhhhh barely any. for some reason only vylent, simon, iSH and maybeee F can see the headspace, simon says that his is an island and vylent and iSH refuse to tell me (rude)

yes, we have one we know is a subsys for sure, and others we're not sure if they just share the same source as normal or if they're a subsys

yes, agent 3, 4, and 8 are in some sort of awkward silly relationship, dove miiiiiight be in a relationship with jade but she hasnt confirmed that yet, and simon and stella are in a one-sided relationship but thats only because stella isnt sentient yet

I N T E R N E T

we try our best to keep track of roles but they just kinda. bleh

we find it useful when we're trying to see if a term exists for what we're thinking of, but we know there's some sort of controversy surrounding it so. idk if that makes our use of it valid or not

simply plural, although we usually notice changes in switches around 10 minutes after they actually happen, so its not like. always accurate

F may have been the host for a bit, but its very unlikely

no, closest thing we have to a name is the insert cool word collective, it was just a silly thing we made up so we had a name for our strawpage

marina, marina agitando, and agent 8 are octolings, agent 3, agent 4, and frye are inklings, ax is an octoling AND an inkling (and also a crow), ray is a rayquaza, nepeta is a troll (from hs) f but hes a cat and little petey are cats, and dog man is a dog (holy shit) im not sure if all of these count as nonhuman but shut your fuck up

not that we know of (vylent pleaseeeeeeeee_

uhhhhhh im not that interesting but F is in co-front rn so: we actually could not come up with anything interesting. we're like the two least interesting people here. F has the best handwriting here ig is that interesting

uhhh no

F (as previously mentioned before) has really good handwriting, and simon is very good at digital art, which is ironic considering his source takes place sometime during the 50s-60s

idk

a lot of things. usually what music to listen to, like. what to do in general, and what fandoms we should be in which is rlly stupid in my opinion

usually, we're all collectively autistic + depressioned, and anxietyed, but simon thinks he has dyslexia which im not sure if that can happen for like. one guy but uh. what was the question again i forgot

little petey probably counts as a syskid, but thats the only one we know of. some of us do age regress as a coping mechanism tho

this malt tastes like shit

kind of?

nepeta often goes back and reads homestuck, she doesnt really have a problem with it bcs nepeta isnt in hs^2 (aside from davepetasprite) but jade roxy and dove have kind of been trying to source separate (especially with jade since that last update). idk how any of the splatoon fictives got here, a few weeks before we discovered being a system we decided to go on hiatus of playing splatoon so. no. i could go on and on since we have so many fictives from so many different sources but. i dont think this wall of text looks quite appealing

doesnt apply to us

havent really though of that yet, we usually just think about the same future jay wished to have back before we found out we were plural

not yet

kind of outdated but yes

uhhhhhh too tired

most times any of us didnt get along they usually resolved it within like. 1-3 days. except for bill, he went into dormacy for like a month and came back saying he went through his redemtion arc (which he did)

not really? as previously mentioned x2 i have very good handwriting but im typing rn so.

i mean like, we dont really like it that much, theoretically, if an actual baby knew how to type, it probably would just type normal words but i can see why people do it. im okay with it as long as people provide translations so we can actually understand it

uh. we dont really know that much about dog man. hes a dog

jay has all of our collective interests, i feel like. when most of us split we got assigned like. one or two of those interests. whenever i visualize splitting or alter forming i always imagine cellular division idk

splaoton

nope

probably jade, since our trauma was somewhat related to homestuck, but i realized her and all the other hs alters formed to like. help us cope with that and shit. little petey was also a surprise since like. little petey, and F because he was a factive

we do, but we havent actually drawn them yet ;-;

collectively nonbinary, asexual, and demiromantic

whats a gender

we're all asexual

simply plural

whats a food

uhhhhhhh in the middle

maybe?? we've always had shit memory so its hard to tell whether its system related or not

we have this in our drafts. this was before we actually knew simon's personality, so we thought we was just "the crazy one". this was actually bill that said that

49. vanilla

50. only one i can think of is simon who has a chronic fear of water, which really isnt that silly, just scary because like how the fuck are we supposed to shower

51. bazingacore (idk)

52. not really

53. smirking face (yes, that was how we found out for sure actually)

54. no

55. only axolotl and ray

56. when we went trick-or-treating on halloween F (me i just need to write this in the third person so it sounds better) was fronting the entire time which was really weird because he had no idea who any of our friends were except for one of them

57. yes most of the time

58. not as much anymore, but we have a sp front status called "some other mf" and idk if that counts as handling it bu SHUT Ur fuckn up

59. not yet and i hope never

60.

not that accurate but like bazinga or whatever

Long system ask game!

Because it's been ages since we made one and we felt like it.

What type of system are you?

How many people are there in your system?

Do you have more introjects or non-introjects?

How much control do you have over your headspace (if you have one)?

Do you have any subsystems?

Do you have any in-system couples?

How did you discover your systemhood? Or did you become one on purpose?

How do you feel about system roles, and do you use them?

What are your thoughts on Pluralpedia?

Do you use anything to keep track of switching?

Have you ever had a change in hosts?

Do you have a system name? How did you pick it?

Do you have any nonhuman members? Feel free to list their species!

Do you have any headspace pets?

Current fronter/fronters, share some random info about you!

Do you have a partner system? How did you meet?

Have you ever mistaken a character of yours for a headmate? What about the other way around?

Does anyone have any skills that the others don't?

What's something y'all tend to agree on?

What about something you tend to disagree on?

Do symptoms of neurodivergencies/mental illness tend to manifest the same way or differently among headmates?

Do you have any syskids?

Share an in-system joke!

Has how you view your plurality changed?

If you have fictives, do they participate in their source fandom? If yes, are they open about who they are in fandom spaces?

How do you handle headmates having different spiritual beliefs?

How do you decide on major life decisions (where to live, what to study, what work to have, etc)?

Do you have any system traditons?

Current fronter, do you have your own playlist? Feel free to share it!

Do you have any art of anyone in the system? Feel free to show it off!

How do you handle it when people in the system don't get along?

Current fronter, is there anything that makes it obvious you're the one fronting? (Voice, accent, body language, typing style, etc)

If you have syskids, how do they feel about stereotypical "babby tawk"?

Share something about your newest member!

Do you tend to have collective or separate interests and hobbies?

If you have introjects, what source do you have the most from?

Are you out as plural to anyone irl?

Do you know any systems irl?

Which headmate was the biggest surprise?

Do you have a singletsona?

Do you have any collective labels?

What's the most common gender in your system?

What's the most common sexuality in your system?

What's your favorite app/website/etc for plural stuff?

Do you tend to have the same taste in food or not?

Is it hard or easy for you to switch?

Do you experience system-related amnesia?

Share something weird a headmate has done!

Current fronter, what's your favorite ice cream flavor?

Share a silly fear someone in the system has!

Current fronter, describe your aesthetic!

If you have outworld pets, do they tend to act differently around different headmates?

Has anyone ever figured out you were a system without you telling them?

When it comes to syskids, is there anyone in particular that takes care of them?

Does anyone in the system identify as otherkin, therian, or fictionkin?

Have you ever switched in an awkward moment? What happened?

Do you ever switch without realizing it?

Are you ever blurry? How do you handle it?

Has anyone ever treated an introject badly because of who their source is?

Current fronter, share a pic of your "face claim!"

#-jay #-f #-dove

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jkl-fff · 4 months ago

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Silly Game Time! Who are some of your favorite fighter characters? And what do you like about them?:D

A Preface: I'm a martial artist (IV Dan in Taekwon-Do, been doing it for over 25 years). Ergo, there are few things I love more than a good, realistic fight scene featuring competent fighters (within the rules of the universe, of course--"realism" looks different in a universe where people routinely shoot fireballs out of their hands or can jump 50 feet). The keywords there are "good", "realistic", and "competent" (double points for consistenty in the fighter's style, thus making it part of their characterization). Because I also have *extremely* high standards, since I understand what makes these things good and cometent (and consistent) and especially realistic in the real world. Having a good imagination means I can extrapolate that into a universe with expanded abilities (magic and so forth).

ANYWAY ...

From books, I'm a fan of Wayne from Sanderson's "Mistborn" series. The man has only two powers: Time Acceleration (in limited bubbles) and a Healing Factor (until he runs out). But he uses those so creatively and fearlessly to be an incredibly adept brawler who dual-weilds wooden canes to devastating effect. Plus, he's a cheeky scoundrel, and I always have a soft spot for them. He also is a kleptomaniac with a fixation on hats.

Also, Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill (Ax for short) from "The Animorphs" series. Despite being able to shapeshift into any animal he has the chance to physically touch, he does most of his fighting in his natural, Andalite form *and* unarmed. By the end of the series, dude muse be quite the skilled combatant by his people's standards. I also find him rather endearing, being the only alien teenager amongst a group of Human teenagers, and apparently the equivalent of a football jock now forced to be the smart guy.

From TV shows, I'll go with ... the titular character of the beautifully artistic show "Samurai Jack" (even if the last, resumed season left much to be desired, storywise). He's an idealistic paragon. He's a man of few words. He's a stoic vagabond. He tries to always be courteous despite having no clue what's going on most of the time. He strips down to his loincloth unnecessarily like he's got an exhibitionist fixation in, like, every episode. He loves the natural world. He's the greatest swordsman who has ever lived.

Aslo, Ser Jorah Mormont from "A Game of Thrones" (who Iain Glen performs magnificently). He's basically a sensible mercenary who becomes dedicated to the cause of the young, exiled, dragon-mothering princess Daenerys Targaryen out of love (a bit meh, a bit yuck, but fine) and as part of a quest for redepmtion. Why? She's a charismatic leader who seems for a long time to be genuinely dedicated to the cause of building a better, more just world. He's not the best fighter nor strategist in the world, but he's damned good at both.

For games, there's Cal Kestis from the games "Jedi: Fallen Order" and "Jedi: Survivor". He's one of the few Jedi still alive, and he has to reconnect with the Force and his training because he cut himself off from it to hide from the Empire. But he wasn't some master; no, he was just a young apprentice when all that happened, so there's a lot lacking in his skillsets, technique, and Force power. Besides which, he never feels invulnerable (which is refreshing for Star Wars protagonists, and also something that being a video game character makes the audience feel much more viscerally). He's earnest and his best friend is a cute, little droid he would die for. He has guilt and doubt and spite and darkness in him that he has to fight. He's so fashionable with his customizable clothing (you can make him so damn pretty in pink!).

And for movies, there's whoever the heck Jackie Chan's character is. Now, normally, being typecast is considered a bad thing for an actor. HOWEVER, when one finds their niche, they'd be a fool not to stick with it. For example, Sandra Bullock is the best career-driven woman who needs to learn to have fun and let love into her heart; Kelsey Grammer is the best out-of-touch, high cultured snob who is really witty but also becomes the butt of most situations due to his own arrogance; and Jackie Chan is, hands down, the best friendly guy who is also an acrobatic, martial arts master for reasons whose fights almost always become inadvertantly comedic. It makes him a delight to watch.

Thanks!

#martial arts

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ariawritingstuff · 1 year ago

Text

In defence of:

Gale,

Spoilers ahead

Buckle up because this is gonna be a long one

I actually did a little searching to try and figure put why people don't like gale, just so I can cover all the bases. Splitting this into two categories, category 1, "you missed the point" these are in my opinion stupid reasons to hate gale the character, whether they're flaws in game design or you just dont get the point I am getting genuinely annoyed with these reasons. and category 2, "you know what that's fair" this series is called "in defense of" so I'm still going to make an argument in defence of these qualities, it's just that these are much more reasonable complaints.

You missed the point

He eats your shinies

He thinks we're dating

He's so horny (yes I have actually seen it said)

He's sensitive about his performance

Talks about his ex

You can't kill him (yes this is a real complaint)

He's defensive early on (yes I've actually seen it said)

You know what that's fair

He threatens to blow himself up when things get hard

Is an insulting know it all

He talks too much

I thought the romance scene was platonic

He violated mystras boundaries

He eats your shinies, so you can let astarion give you a -1 debuff to like everything for at least a day, but you have to have that dancing lights cantrip necklace? Really? I once saw someone complain that he doesn't go get his own magic items and I'm like fam, it's not his fault your hogging all the loot. I'm sure if you just let him spend a portion of the money you found together he'd spend it on the magic ax no one else can or wants to wield. Narritively speaking gale can and does obtain magic items on his own, ypu are just keeping them all and he just doesn't consume the magic in the items he's using until you give him permission. He's not eating your frostwalker boots he's asking you if it's okay for him to eat his own frost walker boots.

"He keeps hitting on my character and gets pissy with me when we aren't dating" that's a glitch not a character flaw, and it can and does happen with other characters. They only think your leading them on because the game told them you are in a relationship. He's not being clingy, your relationship is coded into his memory on accident.

Aside from Wyll and maybe Astarion, Gale is like the least horny character. It's easy to get his approval from him when playing a good tav, so he can develope a pretty major crush pretty easily depending on your choices and how buggy the game feels at any particular moment, but having a crush is not the same as being horny. The man will not even kiss you until he thinks it's literally his last night alive. You are the one oversexualizing him at this point.

This one's smaller and a bit more of a spoiler, but if after you sleep together and he asks if it meant anything to you he gets bothered when you say "it was fine." Here's what I need you to understand: Gale was not asking about his sexual performance in this moment, he was asking about the emotional meaningfulness to you. That's why it's so upsetting to him. He put his heart out there and you responded with apathy. He tells you he's a bad kisser. As far as physical performance goes he knows he's out of practice that's not what bothers him. This one is my least favorite I think.

Mystra wasn't just his ex, she is the goddess of a domain that is a major part of Gale's identity. I know there's the grooming argument and I don't entirely disagree with it, but I don't think she met him as a child. She still holds sway in his life in act one when she has discarded him and obviously she is directly involved with him act 2 onwards. Like if my ex showed up and said "the world would be better off with you dead, here's the means to end it" I might want to talk to someone about it. Also really important here, he only brings up his relationship with mystra in the context of your own relationship if you prompt him, he only compares your relationship with her IF YOU PROMPT HIM. In fact if you ask him directly to compare you to her in bed he refuses to. For Gale to obsess over mystra, you have to.

You can kill him there are just consequences. Gale the character doesn't have the orb for self preservation in fact as soon as Mystra tells him to blow himself up he is so ready to do it. If your really want him dead you can leave him to die in the portal, or chew his arm off as durge. Leave him in camp til act 2 and give him no shinies and he'll leave or you can tell him to get lost if you do give him shinies, or kill the tieflings and he'll leave, and if your like "no I'm not playing an evil tav" why are you so hells bent on killing a party member then? You don't have to accept him into your party in the first place. You're not stuck with him I promise.

He's defensive early on? Bitch where? He's one of the most friendly early on, he just doesn't want to talk about his deepest shame and biggest secret and that is so fair.

That rounds out the stupid reasons to hate gale now we can talk about the more reasonable complaints

He threatens to blow himself up when he's upset. Not really, he does warn against upsetting him, but mostly thats because strong emotions can actually upset his condition and blow everyone up. That's why he won't kiss tav when he says the thought of kissing him is "most welcome" karlach has a similar condition, but she doesn't warn when she's getting upset, she just bursts into flame. There is one point after your night together , and the orb is temporarily sealed, if when he asks about what it meant to you and you respond with apathy, he says not to shake the vessel of the orb, but that's less about "I'm mad I'm going to blow up" more of a "a literal goddess told me to kill myself to save the weave, I have very little to hold onto right now please don't be cruel to me"

Gale is a bit of a know it all and it can be insulting, but 1, he only gives information because he thinks its relevant or useful. He doesn't do it just to make himself feel smart. He says things that are insulting sometimes, but 2, he's been alone for like a year, and before that he wasn't talking to mortals for goddess knows how long. Also It seems that the people who hate gale for being a know it all love Astarion for the same reason.

If you don't like a certain characters party banter or speaking during dialog scenes leave them at camp. Putting "he uses to many big words it makes him seem pompous here as well" same solution.

Larian realized that the romance scene with Gale needed to be a bit more blunt, so now it specifies platonic vs romantic thoughts, so there is no longer confusion. But also he's not the only character who's romance scene is a little ambiguous.

And finally I once saw someone get hung up on the phrase where gale says he "violated mystras boundaries" but in reality that boundary is kind of I a grey area. Her boundary was that he was not allowed to learn something, that kind of goes from boundary setting to controlling behavior, the only thing that keeps it teetering on the edge is that she is magic, and so what gale was learning about was a part of her, sort of, not really because shadow magic is separate from her. What I think is weird is that regardless of how questionable the boundary was in the first place Gale recognizes that it was a boundary and recognizes that what he did hurt someone he cares about and expresses remorse for it. He uses the word boundary explicitly because he knows the weight that word carries and applies the same gravity to his actions. Everyone makes mistakes, but not everyone is willing own up to them and Gale does.

#bg3 #gale #in defense of

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mmorpg-escapism · 1 year ago

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A Realm Rewritten: Chapter 3

(no beginning screenshot this time, though I was tempted to reuse one from chapter 2)

Besany made note of a decrease in non-adventurer workers around the orchard as they approached. She also heard, rather than saw, that Staelwyrn was up in arms. “Where’s that schemin' scapegrace run off to this time?” he roared.

The farmhouse was abuzz with more activity, and Staelwyrn himself was up on the roof looking out over the hills beyond. He clambered down when he spied the pair approaching, and gave a sharp look when Y’shtola held out the knife for him to inspect. “We’ll dispense with the pleasantries then, though ye’ve been gone some time, Y’shtola. Found that knife in the grotto, did ye?”

“Aye, we did. Buried in the back of a goobbue that set upon us.” Y’shtola handed the knife over to him, and watched him inspect it with a practiced eye.

“It didn’t last long,” Besany added,” but nothing else there looked like anyone, much less kidnappers, had spent any time living there.

“Seven hells... Ye’ve brought back enough of a clue anyroad. This is Sevrin’s knife. That scoundrel up and ran off with half me crew shortly after ye left fer the grotto.” Staelwyrn’s grip on the knife handle tightened. “The ungrateful little cur bites me every chance he gets, but I can't quite bring myself to cut him loose. I s'pose he reminds me a bit of my younger self.”

Besany nodded, understanding exactly what he was talking about. Life on the streets of Bozja, ruined as they were, was hard, but she always looked out for other displaced youngsters. Every couple of years one such scamp would get under her skin like that, but they’d learned to survive, after a few mishaps knocked sense into them. “We’ll do what we can.”

“Thank ye.” Staelwyrn relaxed visibly. “Grynewyda mentioned they’d struck out in the direction of the Woad Whisper Canyon, north across the river, but we’ve since lost sight of the lot.”

“Clearly this is more than just delinquency,” Y’shtola remarked. “Aye, when last I had words with him, he didn't look defiant so much as hunted. I fear the lad’s found more trouble than he wanted.”

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

The road north to the canyon was well worn, and ended at the edge of the cliff where it became a wooden ramp down to the floor of the ravine. There were several cargo lifts scattered across the edge, empty and unmanned but for a pair of guards scanning their direction.

As they reached the end of the ramp, the Miqo’te women’s sensitive hearing picked up the sound of steel clashing with steel deeper into the canyon. With a shared glance, they broke into a sprint down the path following the river that had carved the canyon.

The white stone walls of the canyon gave Besany a feeling of being compressed even with the width to let three men travel abreast. In moments, it opened up into a wider cave, and revealed the source of the river and also the commotion: Five blue-clad pirates hammering mercilessly on two young Hyur, who were barely able to hold their ground.

A massive backhanded swing sent one of them flying towards the water’s edge, but thankfully he slid to a stop before going over. Besany summoned a burst of speed and placed herself between the group and the remaining man, weapon drawn.

“Wot’s this?” A thick Roegadyn at the front of the pack guffawed. “Yer a lucky rat, Sevrin, but one wench with a stick won’t save ye from the Reavers.”

Sevrin dropped to a knee with a grunt, leaning heavily on his axe. He gave no reply. Besany lined up her blade with the supposed leader of the group, drawing all attention on her while Y’shtola hurried to the aid of the unconscious lad. “You should run.”

The Roegadyn ignored her. “Few betray the Serpent Reavers twice. You won’t live to do it a third time.” The five stowed their weapons as he spoke, which struck Besany as odd. “Cowerin’ behind yer protector will only delay the inevitable. Honorless wretch...yer life is all you have left.”

Then she heard a chant from someone not in the group. “O mournful voice of creation! Send unto me a creature of the abyss, my thrall to command, that I may smite mine enemies!” The ground began to shake as small rocks seemed to skitter of their own accord to a point between the pirates and the canyon wall.

“And soon ye won’t have that, either!” roared the Reaver. Instead of charging as expected, the group fled towards the other end of the canyon as a huge stone golem rumbled to life. Glowing yellow eyes bored in on the gunbreaker as it ground out a screech and charged.

“Y’shtola! Cover him!” Besany jumped to meet the golem head on, slamming her blade point-first into where she thought the core was. The impact vibrated through her entire body, but she held firm and attempted to steer the charging behemoth.

The sound of rushing air filled her ears from both Y’shtola’s Rescue and the unstoppable motion of the golem. The lumbering pile of rocks slammed her hard into the canyon wall. She felt a rib crack. A numbing sensation at the base of her spine. Rather than wait for it to try again, she fought through the pain and pulled herself up to be on top of it as it backed up to try again. The blade twisted to follow her grip with the agonizing sound of metal grinding against stone. She pulled the trigger before it came loose. A thundering KABOOM! echoed through the canyon, shaking dirt loose from the cliff face. Besany rolled upright and gulped down air to replace the breath she didn’t know she had lost. Adrenaline was nullifying her pain from the rib and from the shards of golem that were now raining down. She silently thanked her father for the investment he had made in its crafting all those years ago while reloading her blade, and turned to see Y’shtola holding her wand in the middle of a green-tinted windstorm. The two men were resting against a boulder behind her, stone-faced but breathing.

The adrenaline faded, and Besany felt a slight twinge as the healing spell mended her bruises, damaged nerve, and cracked rib. “That was... less fun. What did you get into, Sevrin?”

The words had barely left her lips when her vision flashed white, and a spike of pain shot from her head down to the tip of her tail. Y’shtola rushed over, and Besany barely registered her question of “another Echo?” before she hit the ground, screaming a wordless cry for help.

The faded memory crackled into her mind’s eye through the agony rocking her body. She stood on the deck of a ship, surrounded by assorted Roegadyn and Hyuran pirates sporting similar blue tattoos and gear. The ship itself was docked, but she didn’t recognize it as one of Limsa’s docks. The land around them was covered in barnacles and blue stone, and out of the corner of her eye she spotted a dark robed man atop a nearby cliff. Turning to look proved futile, the memory had full control.

A fishman, lanky and blue-green, webbed limbs and fins in place of ears, stood at the center of the crowd, across from a tall Hyur in a fancy hat. Sahagin, they were called. The pain drowned out the words, but clearly they were signing some kind of accord. As the vision dissipated, the visible tattoos glowed an eerie green color.

The next sensation was of running away from something terrifying. It too faded away, and she found herself holding a letter. “Deserter,” it read. “Bring yourself or bring replacements for the Reavers, or forfeit your life. You have two days. Woad Whisper Canyon.” The hands were not her own, and they trembled under the dim light of the Summerford aetheryte. “Sevrin!” Staelwyrn called out, and the last thing she saw was those hands crumpling the letter up and throwing it away.

The fear lingered until the darkness took her.

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

Besany awoke in a room she did not recognize. The hum of a healing spell slowly replaced the fading pain in her ears. The light was dim, but enough to make her wince when she opened her eyes. “Ow....”

“Besany!” Y’shtola ended her spell and sat back on the stool. There was a small table next to her with food and drink.

“How long...?” Besany tried to sit up but was stopped by a stern look from her caretaker. She flicked an ear in annoyed response, and laid unmoving while Y’shtola finished her healing efforts.

“Just a few hours. Sevrin and Aylmer helped carry you back to the farm.” “So... no change from the last one.” She sighed. “It’s not a week-long coma anymore, I’ll take it.”

“What did you see?”

“Sevrin’s memory... Sahagin... Reavers. There was some kind of deal? Sevrin ran. They found and threatened him. We interrupted their payback for running.”

Y’shtola nodded. “It seems that the past caught up to him. It is good that we were there to rescue both of them.” She let her spell fade.

Besany sat up and glanced around the room. “Speaking of... Where is he?”

“Limsa. The boy explained everything to Staelwyrn and turned himself in to the Yellowjackets.”

Besany dropped back to the pillow and stared at the ceiling. “He was terrified. That’s probably the safest place for him.”

Y’shtola nodded. “You should rest a while longer. I will speak to Baderon about this event.”

A flash of detail ran through Besany’s mind. “Hey, wait a minute, there was something else. Black-robed fellow, and maybe a red hat or mask? He was way out of the way. I still can’t control my perspective in those things, so I couldn’t see any more.”

A pensive look crossed Y’shtola’s face. “Ascian... of course. Fate is playing tricks on us both. Very well. When I return, we shall see you to Uldah.”

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

In-Game Level: 8-12

Quests: Washed Up + Double Dealing + Loam Maintenance + Plowshares to Swords + Just Deserts

I have a healthy new respect for gposers across the board. Two screenshots took me over an hour to do and that was super basic stuff. I imagine it'll get easier as I get better at it, but holy... fun, but that took too long.

I'll admit I'm not entirely satisfied with the way this chapter is written, but I REALLY want to get out of Limsa. If you didn't catch it at the end there, chapter 4 begins a major divergence from the original MSQ, and I'm really excited to get that idea out of my head and on to paper (so to speak).

I tried a different kind of scene break here. I think that might be part of the reason I'm not entirely satisfied with it, but whatever, it gets the job done and I like the result.

A03 crosspost!

#a realm rewritten #ffxiv #writeblr #a realm rewritten: chapters

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taiblogcomics · 1 year ago

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Barely a Cammi-o Appearance

Hey there, Iron Man's undergarments. We're down to the wire! Last three issues of Avengers Arena, starting now! Let's fucking goooooooo~!

Here's the cover:

Honestly, kind of a cool cover. And somehow, judging from my research (i.e. checking the "Shout-Outs" section of TVTropes), this one isn't based on a particular movie or anything, unlike so many covers before it. I guess it's just really echoing that style really well. Thankfully, there is actually remarkably little lust in these comics. A bit too much blood, though, and not nearly enough jetpacks. Also, I know the style of these has always been "I was a teenage X", but "was" implies past tense. Cammi is still very much a teenage astrogirl. That didn't stop being a thing that was true or anything~

So, last time we had a big dumb fight scene with Cullen as a monster that ended in Nara's death. Once again, it's kind of hard to be broken up over this OC that was only introduced in this comic and has been kind of obnoxious throughout the story. Understandably, though, Anachronism isn't taking it well. I'm gonna skip over this first page of Arcade monologuing about the value of slow burn stories (I'd like to slowly burn this story, let me tell you), because I truly do not care, and just get to the part where Anachronism swings his axe into Cullen's stomach.

Thankfully, it doesn't result in another death (although it probably should), though it does result in copious amounts of blood. Just as the cover promised! Cullen thinks he deserves it anyways, because he's on his mopey emo teen kick, where he's secretly in love with his best friend, therefore his best friend should kill him for killing his girlfriend. Real fuckin' tragic stuff. Cammi breaks up the fight by shooting Anachronism with her laser gun, which somehow has enough force to send him flying.

Meanwhile, Nico has correctly concluded that everything sucks in this story, so the time for nice and making friends is over. All it got her last time was dead, so she and Chase blast Reptil aside, then she goes rocketing into the ocean with Cullen. Also meanwhile, Hazmat turns up alive, her radiation suit and probably also her stomach wounds leaking heavily. She stumbles across X-23 unconscious in the forest, and tries to move as quickly as she can away from her. But the lingering trigger scent and her wounds rouse X-23 to consciousness. That's not gonna be good for anybody.

So those two duke it out, which actually loops back around to how this all began. Yeah! You remember the very first issue starting with a fight between X-23 and Hazmat? I don't blame you if you don't, I wanna put every thought of that issue out of my head too. But this is that fight, right down to Hazmat's inner monologue about being a hater, which has only become more tiresome in the months since. If this was something we cared about, it'd be a satisfying narrative thing to see the story finally cycle back around to its foreshadowing. But instead it's this story.

Anyways, watching the fight is Arcade, of course, but watching him watch the fight? Hey, you remember that bit where Apex and Deathlocket fell into his lair? Hey, we're finally coming back to that. The pair of them have been hiding in the duct work this whole time, observing Arcade and learning his routine. Hey, you remember how Arcade is a nanite-infused god? Why hasn't he noticed them? Hey, you remember how Apex is a technopath? Why can't she control Arcade's nanites? It's almost like this isn't a very good story~

So Apex and Tim are switching back and forth almost comically now, essentially to carry an argument with each other. I've no doubt alters argue with each other sometimes, but my problem is the ease of their switching, when it took unconsciousness for them to switch before. But if I keep complaining about every detail, we'll never get this review done. We're three paragraphs deep, and I haven't progressed the plot at all! Anyways, the point is that they've repaied and upgraded Deathlocket's cannon arm. Locket gets as annoyed with their arguing as the reader is and decides to head off and put a plan into action.

The plan is maybe Apex/Tim can hack into Arcade's systems, they just need him distracted enough to do so. Locket first tries letting some of the animals loose, but Arcade's robot assistant just rounds them up. She upgrades to actually breaking stuff, but he sends the robot in to deal with it again. Can't you see Grandma's watching her stories? She picks up Kid Briton's sword and cleaves the robot in twain, but gets startled by one of the other bodies in the storage room. It's Darkhawk, and he's still alive! Seeing him roused from death makes her scream, which is finally enough to get Arcade off his ass to check on things himself.

With Arcade having left his creepy observation deck, Apex swings into action. Or at least she tries, since Tim keeps switching in to argue that they should go check on Deathlocket. That scream sounded real, and she could be in trouble. Once she gets Tim off her back (with a lot of insufferable British slang, by the way), she manages to break into Arcade's network, only to then set off one of his firewalls, which is just him ripping off a similar thing from Jurassic Park, right down to the finger-wagging.

So Arcade comes back in, leading a shocked Deathlocket, and doing his smuggy-smug superior taunting stuff. He's a little impressed they're down here, thinking they were already dead, and he just has them have a seat while he watches more of his teens-fighting-teens spank bank. Nico's still dragging Cullen through the ocean, Cammi has Chase at gunpoint, Anachronism's fighting a triceratops for some reason... And while he's gloating at how beautiful it all is that he's finally pushed everyone over the brink, the comic ends with Arcade getting clubbed over the head by Darkhawk, now fully conscious and mobile! Oh, finally an issue with a good ending~

Well, I could complain about how this is another dumb fight scene issue, or how even the parts that aren’t are annoying because of the constant bickering between Tim and Apex. Or even Apex being annoying all by herself by a combination of her smug attitude (only a hair under Arcade’s own) and the need to remind you she’s English by shoving in Britishisms into every dialogue balloon to the point she sounds like an old-timey Cockney thief character. But honestly, that last panel with Darkhawk standing over Arcade brandishing a weapon is just so satisfying... I can’t wait to see how they ruin this moment next issue~

#comics #reviews #Avengers Arena #Taiblog

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callipraxia · 1 year ago

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Aaaaaah we're getting so close to Everything...time for Northwest Mansion Mystery!

Looking closely, I can, in fact, see a slight difference between the colors of Priscilla and Pacifica's dresses. This is no way means Priscilla had a point. Jerk. Also...is it really true that the showrunners were surprised that people interpreted Preston's bell as evidence (or, more accurately, just a revelation) that Pacifica was a victim of child abuse? It...is within one of the series' occasional humor types to have Pacifica regard the confiscation of one of six credit cards as horrible abuse, but...this episode is a fairly dark one, no? There's humor (as I type this, Dipper is telling Pacifica to her face that "you're the worst," proving as good as his two-seconds ago-word, and there's the stuff with the absurdity of everyone worshiping the Northwests) but it's one of those jokes where the moments you laugh at in the beginning turn around and punch you in the mouth by the end. Events in this episode are all played fairly straight and the episode ends on the note that "Fiddleford appears to have just been brushed off while warning Dipper about an event which the camera implies is a prophecy that Bill Cipher is about to create Hell on Earth." Two episodes from now, you also show us some flat-out child abuse on screen. You...really should not be surprised by the standard interpretation of this one, dudes, and should have written in what Pacifica was so afraid of if you wanted any chance of people interpreting it the way you say you wanted them to....

I like that Pacifica ended up not wearing any shade of green at all, lol. Pacifica might not have won, but neither did Priscilla.

...I don't get flirting, do I? As far as I can tell, Mabel makes herself look foolish repeatedly, Candy's hardly any better, and Grenda's "flirting style"...just, uh...looks like bullying?

I can only assume that the picture of Archibald Corduroy was never actually of him at all, and he just possessed an empty landscape painting for dramatic effect. Also, a bit...morally ambiguous of you, Archie, to come back in a hundred fifty years, long after the actual individual who wronged you was in the ground...his descendants were no better, but that's somewhat beside the point. Not to mention the efforts to kill completely innocent bystanders, including the staff and children....

The bleeding taxidermy is genuinely a little unsettling. I seem to recall finding the evil skeleton that way the first time I saw it crawl out of the fireplace.

...Ford, why did you a) bother writing that at all and b) why did you write it in invisible ink?

Why is there a picture of either the skeleton of a king and/or Death Regnant in the Northwest house, being used to guard their secrets? Ok, yes, out of universe, it's to look creepier, but it feels like something that can be made into a plot point if one wants badly enough, all things considered.

"That is messed up, man!" Truer words were seldom said, Dipper.

"A forest of death, a lesson learned..." I love the rhyme, it's a good rhyme, but the trouble is...not sure it's actually a good lesson? The rich would be more likely to learn "we must appease the peasants because they will chop off our heads, being violent and vengeful as a class inferior to our own" instead of "don't renege on a contract in a magic town," much less "it's morally wrong to do that."

"Last you, me, and the butler a week" Erm...Priscilla's right there, dude?

Interesting that his axe stayed behind after he ascended.

I understand why Dipper probably didn't think much about brushing Fiddleford off, given he'd just been jigging and saying nonsense words, and that he says weird things all the time...but on the other hand, Dipper, didn't I write a few hundred words yesterday on the theme of how you know he's lying and have seen him drop the act multiple times? This is the Author's Assistant. He fixed a laptop Bill ground your feet into. He had almost remembered what you wanted to know in his last appearance. This is what happens when you go being attracted to people, I guess? You forget your usual obsessions/that something big is clearly being warned? And don't notice that you're standing two feet away from a tapestry of Bill burning the world?!

Powers, you appear to be wearing an American flag lapel pin while pretending to be from the Middle East. You really can't help yourself, can you? Fun fact: I didn't even notice this detail ever before, and yet I still once wrote a joke about Powers covering one of Fiddleford's attack robots with an obnoxious number of flags. Powers just...is the type, somehow.

Whew. That was a ride...and nothing compared to what happens after I hit that play button again. I do not know if I even have the energy to continue on now, commenting like this through the Sheer Intensity of two of the finest bits of animation ever televised. And I have some other stuff to do, and my battery is low...Might have to make this a week-long project...anyway. Now for some (hopefully) coherent remarks for @zkang288...

We get a lot of semi-conflicting information about the Northwests through the show. When we first hear of Nathaniel, we are told he was the garbage man and died trying to eat a tree. Here, we see what appears to be him (? Time period means it can't be much further down the line than his son or grandson) (edited to add: saw a picture of Nathaniel’s statue. I think it was him, the statue looks like Flashback Man) appearing canny, manipulative, and aware that someone's dying curse might well come true. We also learn in the Journal that the Northwests hoard artifacts...and then, in this episode, we see a prophetic tapestry with Bill in it. Now, this could all be pure coincidence - Ford remarks he saw multiple examples of indigenous art with his "Muse" on it, and we know Bill has been associated with this area for a long time. All things considered, though - including how two Northwests play a part in the circle ritual: Pacifica as a participant, Preston by, er, reluctantly encouraging her participation - it seems unlikely it really is a coincidence, and it's certainly more fun/inspiring to imagine that it is does mean something which there just wasn't enough time to elaborate on (hence my faint sense of regret around this episode). I would not be at all surprised if there had been a deal somewhere in the history of the Northwests - they seem the type, they keep these strange records of the truth hidden in the house (even from some family members) while suppressing it publicly, and, well, if Nathaniel made a deal, specifically, then that would go a long way toward explaining "this guy got picked to be the fake founder" and "then he died eating a tree." Maybe he couldn't keep his end of the bargain...or maybe Bill just thought it was funny to drive him insane once he'd outlived his usefulness. Certainly, however, nothing any Northwest did seems to have done anything to help them survive Bill's wrath: he first remarks on his desire to rearrange all the orifices in Preston's face when Preston was a child, and he takes the first opportunity he has to do that, something which appears quite painful for Preston and which probably traumatizes his wife and daughter. He also promptly adds Preston and Priscilla to the Throne of Human Agony, where they are mixed in with the rest of the townsfolk (something which would horrify Preston, no doubt...especially if he'd known that one of Dipper's "kind" had been specially singled out, turned to gold instead of stone, and on two separate occasions offered the kind of position that Preston had asked for immediately before his facial reconfiguration. Because I think Preston might actually be that dim and shallow, that he'd rather be a utensil which Bill kept separate from the others than to just be one of the many, no better or worse than Lazy Susan or Tate McGucket or the Pizza Guy). If Bill does know the Northwests of old, it's...potentially interesting to wonder what he might have thought of them: if Nathaniel really did owe his rise in society to Bill, then he and Bill were, in a way, alike: they were both lowly-born, from an underclass, and they both used magic to rise. However, I can't help but imagine that the sheer ordinariness of Nathaniel's apparent goal ("be rich and snooty" instead of "kill 'em all and reshape the galaxy") would...offend Bill on some level, I guess? And the sheer entitlement of the modern Northwests almost certainly bought them no points with him: Bill was presenting himself to the town as its god when Preston announced that he "welcomed" Bill's arrival and asked to be a horseman of the apocalypse. As if Bill would, er, ever remotely care if Preston welcomed him or not, or ever have any use for Preston.

(Paragraph divide, hit the character limit again) Of course, Bill is an egomaniac himself...and therefore, seeing someone he can throw down so easily speak to him as if to something even remotely approaching an equal would have hit a number of sore spots, possibly including his subconscious knowledge of his own weakness. At that point, after all, Dipper and Ford - aka, those two lunatics who just won't accept defeat; one of them has a way of turning up and turning the tables on Bill at the worst moment possible, and the other is the person who probably knows the most about Bill of anyone, at least short of maybe the other Higher Powers, and who has both a death ray and a death wish - are still out there. We also see that Time Baby is able to stroll into Bill's domain at will, even if he overestimated his own ability to stroll out alive again, so Bill probably still perceived Time Baby and "the big frilly jerk" as threats at this point. Bill was declaring himself god, but he was not actually invincible yet, and I reckon he...didn't like that. Didn't like that at all. And then Preston has the gall to try to make a deal with him, when finally, after all these aeons, Bill is outside the mindscape and can do things of his own accord and isn't (he thinks) reliant on manipulating humans into deals anymore...!

Long story...still kinda long, I think this episode gives us a lot of potential material, establishing a link between the Northwests and magic clearly and making it seem highly plausible there's a connection to Bill. We also get some good ghost lore, in terms of world-building, for establishing the limits of threats we toss at Our Heroes in our fics. And, as I said yesterday, Dipper gets some character development which is actually delivered with a little subtlety instead of the moral of the story being used to bludgeon us over the head, which was nice.

Well - the house is mostly in order, except that the vacuuming needs doing, but it's too late in the day for that now - too hot. With that therefore postponed to tomorrow morning and with my Spanish lessons done, I shall see if my DVD player will cooperate with watching GF S2 Disc 2.

...initial efforts aren't promising, we only got as far as Dipper and Mabel declaring that twinship makes them "birthday experts" into "Blendin's Game" before the DVD player glitched out - turns out that the first disc of S1 might not be wonky after all, and that it's actually this DVD player. Still - perseverance!

Bad children. going through people's things...I tend to regard the interior of one's handbag and/or wallet as a rather private space, and would react very loudly to anyone presuming to go through mine. Soos is probably better-natured than I am, but dangit, Mabel, you at least definitely know this, because you outright admitted you were snooping for "Soos secrets!"

Y'know, I don't know if the problem with the giant hummingbird story is that "Soos is very naive" or "it's Gravity Falls, that's actually perfectly reasonable."

...yeah, forget perseverance, let's find the old laptop with a disc drive in it, I do not have the fortitude to watch the scene where Blendin invokes Globnar five more times, and in the past three minutes the disc has twice skipped back to the beginning before I could even get past the menu. Stupid rubbbish property.

#gravity falls #gravity falls season 2 #rewatch #gravity falls characters #northwest mansion mystery #preston northwest #bill cipher #lore #gravity falls analysis

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silverynight · 3 years ago

Text

When the Moon rises

It's been a couple of years since it's just Nezuko and him in the house. It's been a little bit lonely...

Tanjirou sighs, as he goes to the river to get some water; winter is coming, which means he'll get to sell more charcoal the next couple of months. He really hopes that's the case, because they need money desperately.

On his way back to the house, he spots a little bit of blood on the ground before finding an injured black wolf a few feet from there. Tanjirou has never seen a wolf so big in his life.

Despite knowing the risk he's getting himself in, Tanjirou kneels next to the creature; its leg is hurt and it's bleeding a lot, that's probably the reason why it hasn't tried to bite Tanjirou yet.

He knows what he's about to do is dangerous, but his heart is aching for the creature, so he takes it home.

The poor wolf doesn't even protest when it gets carried by Tanjirou; he knows the problem will come later when the wolf gets back its strength.

Even though Nezuko looks scared, she immediately (making quick gestures with her hands) offers to help him. So they clean the wound and Tanjirou covers it up as well as he can, whispering to Nezuko to go back to her room in case the creature wakes up.

Tanjirou puts a bowl of water next to him, as well as rice because it's one of the few things he has at the moment to eat.

However, he still takes the axe as he sees the wolf open its deep blue eyes; Tanjirou tenses when the creature looks around before staring right at him.

The wolf merely moves and looks as if it completely understands the situation it's in. Which, of course, can't be possible.

No matter how smart those eyes look.

The creature eats everything, drinks the water before it falls asleep on the ground. Tanjirou relaxes somewhat but he doesn't let go of the axe; he doesn't want to hurt the wolf, but he's lived long enough next to the forest to know no animal would hesitate to hurt him if they feel in danger.

When the creature wakes up again, it moves, however, it nods at Tanjirou almost like it's thanking him and jumps right out the house through an open window.

It really looked a lot better, but Tanjirou knows it needed more time to rest to heal completely.

He just hopes the wolf gets better soon.

***

The first time he's walking down the mountain to go to the village and he notices the big creatures following him in the shadows, he almost panics.

This time, he uses his very unique nose to see if he's in trouble or not; instead, he realizes that they're a pack of wolves and they're just being... protective.

Tanjirou doesn't understand why would a pack of wolves act like that around him... unless...

He tries to scan the area and realizes that his wolf is there among the others...

***

It keeps happening; Nezuko finds it really amusing when he finally tells everything that has happened the last couple of days.

Tanjirou quickly gets used to their quiet presence when, one day, one of them jumps in front of him and starts wagging its tail.

"I've never seen a wolf like you in my life," Tanjirou chuckles, looking at the golden fur with the red tips all over it. It has fiery eyes.

The wolf looks pleased at him and gets closer.

"Do you want me to pet you?"

Its tail wags again.

"Alright, alright," Tanjirou smiles, knowing Nezuko would be worried about him if she was there watching.

He's made another friend.

***

Tanjirou is outside with Nezuko when three men arrive at their house; he tenses for a moment before his nose catches sweet and calm scents. He knows he's smelt that kind of emotions before, but he can't remember at the moment.

Well, the only thing that matters is that he is sure they're not there to hurt them.

Then, Tanjirou freezes for a second, completely confused and shocked to move; he swears that two of them look like the human versions of the wolves he's met.

Shaking his head, he chuckles, realizing that's ridiculous.

"Do you come from the village down the mountain?"

The third one also reminds him of one of the wolves he's seen shadowing him. He's the tallest of the three, his hair is white and tied up in a ponytail. His eyes are almost pink.

"Our pac–village is deep inside the forest, pretty," he replies with an amused chuckle.

"Oh," Tanjirou blushes, feeling a little bit shy as soon as he realizes the man was talking directly to him when he said "pretty". It doesn't make sense, Nezuko is the beautiful one, the pride of their village.

"I'm Uzui Tengen."

"Tomioka Giyuu."

"Rengoku Kyojuro."

"Kamado Tanjirou," he mumbles with a bow. "And she's Nezuko."

"Is she your mate?" Rengoku asks, fiery eyes going from one to the other with curiosity.

"Uhh... My what?"

Tomioka rolls his eyes at the other, but looks almost shy as his eyes meet Tanjirou's; he looks like the most calm and collected of the three.

"He means wife."

"Oh! No, she's my sister!" Tanjirou chuckles as Nezuko nods quickly.

"Great!" Uzui grins approvingly.

Tanjirou starts wondering if they have come to ask for his sister's hand; it wouldn't be the first time, she's really beautiful and now that Tanjirou is the head of the Kamado family the people that have come to see Nezuko ask for his permission first. However, he's sent everyone back because she's not interested in marriage at the moment.

He looks at her, silently asking if she's interested in one of them when he realizes Nezuko is staring back at him with amusement.

"Nezuko, could we take your beautiful brother back to our pack, I mean... village to introduce him to the others? It's a tradition."

What? Tanjirou blinks in confusion as he realizes Uzui is asking her permission... Why?

Did he say beautiful?

Nezuko nods, but makes a couple of gestures with her hands afterwards. She wants to go along.

Tanjirou is ready to tell them what she meant, but Tomioka is already nodding back.

Then she signs: I know. Which prompts Rengoku to laugh with delight.

"You're really a clever girl!"

"Tanjirou, would you come with us to meet our... family?" Tomioka asks.

He wants to say that he just met them, that he doesn't know who they are, not really, but something tells him he's wrong; their scents are familiar somehow. He feels safe around them.

Nezuko takes his hand then to encourage him.

"O-Okay."

***

Tanjirou has never seen a house so big in his life, it surprises him for a moment.

But then he gets absolutely distracted by the pink wolf that comes running towards him with its tail wagging happily.

And then that wolf turns into a woman (a very naked woman) right in front of him.

Even though he just watched a creature turn into a human, the first thing Tanjirou does is to cover his eyes and blush to the tip of his ears.

"Mitsuri, please put something on, he's not used to... this."

"Right, sorry!" He hears the woman's voice in the distance. "I'm just so happy you finally brought him home, Giyuu!"

By the time he dares to look again, the woman is dressed, but he doesn't get to process what's exactly going on because she hugs him tight.

"You're so cute!"

"Uhh... Thanks."

"Welcome to our pack, Kamado Tanjirou and Kamado Nezuko," another woman greets them; she's wearing a butterfly hair clip on her dark hair. "As you probably figured it out by now, we're werewolves."

Werewolves. Tanjirou blinks a couple of times, trying to convince himself he's not actually dreaming.

"Let's get you something to eat!" Rengoku says then, taking his hand and Tanjirou is glad for the interruption.

***

He meets three more inside the main house. One of them has the lower half of his face covered, the other, a very young looking man with long, black hair hasn't stopped staring at him with a fond grin on his face. The third is the tallest man he's ever seen and, the curious thing is that Tanjirou is almost sure he's seen him before (in another shape actually) it's the wolf he mistook for a bear once.

"I know you've been protecting me every time I walk into the forest," Tanjirou begins, feeling Nezuko's hand on his shoulder for a moment. "So... Thank you. Although, you don't have to do that–"

"It's our absolute pleasure," Uzui cuts him off, taking one of his hands and kissing it.

"We want to keep doing that," Tomioka mumbles then. "To take care of you and your sister."

"That's very nice of you, but–"

Tanjirou didn't know there was someone else missing, until a man with scars all over his chest and a wild look on his face suddenly rushes in the room and takes him in his arms.

It's the white wolf with scars he's seen once, outside their house; he thought he was a spirit back then...

"Sanemi!" Someone protests.

For a moment, Tanjirou thinks the werewolf doesn't like him because he stares at him for a moment before biting him gently on the cheek.

"What?" He's so confused, trying to figure out if that's some kind of threat. But then, the man nuzzles his neck, pulls him closer and sits on the floor with Tanjirou on his lap.

"We told you not to bite him!" The one who introduced himself as Tokito Muichiro pouts.

"He'll be our mate, won't he?" He growls back, tightening his grip around Tanjirou. "Then I don't see the problem..."

"Your... mate?" Tanjirou stammers as his mind feels even more puzzled at the word our. He looks at Nezuko, completely lost, but she just seems amused.

"We haven't explained that part to him... yet." Kocho glares at the man with scarred chest. "So please let go of him... now."

Reluctantly, the werewolf does.

***

"We want to court you, my boy!" Rengoku grins, taking both of Tanjirou's hands in his.

"All of you?" He mumbles, feeling his cheeks like they're on fire.

"Yes, that'll be the ideal situation," Kocho tries to explain. "However, you can choose one of us if you want."

"We just want you to be happy!" Kanroji assures him, although she seems sad already. "We'll respect your choice!"

"It's not... I mean..." It's too much for him in one day. He's still not over the fact that he's eating next to nine werewolves. "Maybe we should be friends first."

"But you'll let us woo you, right? To try to win your heart?" Uzui has to lean in order to look at him in the eye because he's really... tall.

Tanjirou blushes again, glancing at all those hopeful looks on their faces.

"Yes," he mumbles, feeling his heart beating with excitement already. He turns his head in Nezuko's direction and realizes she looks happy for him.

She approves of them already.

***

Requested by one of my patrons. <3

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#werewolf au #kny #kimetsu no yaiba #demon slayer #tanjiro kamado #nezuko kamado #giyu tomioka #kyojuro rengoku #shinobu kochou #tengen uzui #muichiro tokito #mitsuri kanroji #gyomei himejima #sanemi shinazugawa #giyutan #kyotan #obanai iguro

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you-are-my-joy · 4 years ago

Text

The Return of an Empress | 07

Title: The Return of an Empress

Pairing: OT7 x Reader

Genre: Isekai, Angst, Romance, Fluff, Smut (Later on), Slow burn

Characters: Empress!Reader, Advisor!Jin, Advisor!Yoongi, General!Hoseok, Advisor!Namjoon, Assassin!Jimin, Knight!Taehyung, Knight!Jungkook

Word count: ~9k

Summary: After one fateful night, you find yourself transmigrated into your favorite novel as the Empress that shares the same name as you. As a bookworm, most would think you’d be happy, but how could you be happy when the Empress you’ve become is expected to be killed in three months. The only thing on your mind now is to learn how to survive.

Warning: May contain depictions of violence and mentions of abuse throughout the story.

Masterlist

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In the 380th imperial year, on June 9th, two days after the nobles were caught red-handed and thus apprehended, was the day of the largest massacre of high nobility in the history of the empire.

At 8 am in the morning, a total of 18 of some of the most well-known and influential nobles of the empire were executed by the city plaza.

With tired steps, you trudge inside your bedroom, immediately falling onto the comfort of your bed. You let out an exasperated sigh, tossing your head back until it rests on a nearby pillow. Despite getting rid of the duke and the rest of the nobles, you can’t help but still feel a sense of unease and tension. Would the original empress make the same decision? You don’t know the answer, but what you do know, is that you’ll most likely be haunted by the cries and screams of those who lost their lives today for the rest of your life.

It’s one thing to actually read of the graphic murders and deaths that occurred in the novel, it’s a whole different story when you actually experience and see first hand how gruesome the public executions truly were. Back in your world, you’ve never witnessed anyone’s death before, as it was the 21st century, public executions were prohibited decades ago. But suddenly you had to endure an entire morning witnessing the horrifying deaths of 18 people as their heads detached from their body, a large pool of blood staining the once clean pavement.

You weren’t keen on torturing people, so you were merciful in the sense that you chose to execute them through a beheading, with a fresh and sharpened axe to be exact. In this world, beheadings, although gruesome and bloody, were seen as the most ‘humane’ form of execution as the deed would be done in one swift motion, a painless execution to some extent.

You remember hearing many of the nobles and commoners who attended the public executions express their disappointment at your choice, thinking you were being much too kind considering the heinous crime they committed. Despite their disappointment, they were slightly relieved over your choice, many were still skeptical over the empress’s supposed changed behavior, but seeing you wince and grimace at each beheading finally convinced them otherwise.

News spread like wildfire around the empire about what had occurred at the party, news articles being published nearly a day later. The most popular topic of course being the Grand Duke himself drugging the empress, and so countless of nobles all around the empire scurried to watch the spectacle. Thus, the grand finale of the execution came when former Grand Duke, Lee Joong-Gu finally stepped forward.

Many people had looked at him in disgust, throwing rotten fruits and vegetables his way and cursed out his name. The entire time, he wore a solemn expression as he kneels down without complaint unlike the rest of the criminals who wailed pathetically until their last breath.

You remember that in the midst of it all, he had looked up at you, your eyes instantly locking with one another, and you swear from where you stood, you saw a hint of remorse and guilt in his face. Your mind reeling as he tearfully mouths ‘I’m sorry’ to you, but before you could even react any further, the axe gets raised in the air and in the next second is swung down with much force. His head rolling down the pavement as the cheers of the crowd rang out excitedly at the gruesome sight.

However, the cheers seem to fade from your ears as all you can focus on is the dukes rolling head. And somehow it stops, facing in your direction, empty eyes that were once so full of life, ingraining themselves in your memory forever. You blink away the tears forming in your eyes, confused as to why your body was reacting like this. You flinch as you stare at his body slumped over, but your view gets blocked when Jungkook steps in front of you.

The entire morning, Jungkook and Taehyung have been right beside you, acting as your escorts as you had requested. Always attempting to block your view when they noticed your grim and disgusted expressions at each beheading. Jin and Namjoon were also present, but they stood a few meters away from you, ensuring that the executions ran as quickly and smoothly as possible. Hoseok was present as well, but as the general, he was in charge of security and surveying the city plaza, prioritizing your safety over everything else.

The only ones who hadn’t shown up were Yoongi and Jimin. Yoongi, you had expected, though you had a glimmer of hope that he would make an appearance, but Jimin? You thought he would come to greet you after the party, but you haven’t seen him since he left you by the ballroom doors. You were extremely worried, thinking something bad had happened to him, but Namjoon reassured you that he was fine as he had ran into him the other day. He further informs you that Jimin wasn’t feeling good, which explains his sudden absence. Though you remained unconvinced, you choose to give Jimin his needed space, thinking it would be better for him to come to you when he was ready.

When the executions were over you stood up from your seat, ready to leave the area in a hurry as the overwhelming stench of blood nearly made you puke on the spot. But suddenly you heard loud cheers as everyone directed their attention to you, “All Hail Empress Y/n!” many of them yelled out, grinning at you as they praised your actions.

You hadn’t expected to be well received so quickly, since less than a week ago, some of these same people trembled in fear over your presence. You send them a charming smile to express your gratitude, but this only seemed to ignite something in them as they seemingly cheered your name even more.

Despite the cheering, all you wanted to do was go back to the palace and rest. So here you are, groaning as you lay flat on the spacious bed. You feel the bed dip slightly to your left, prompting you to open your eyes to see Jungkook looking down at you with a small smile. “How are you feeling?” he reaches his hand out to gently brush a strand of hair in front of your face.

“Absolutely exhausted,” you let out a groan, closing your eyes once more. And you weren’t only talking about the past few days. It seemed that you were never truly able to catch a break the moment you arrived in this world. You can’t even imagine the amount of work the past empress had to endure.

Taehyung, having found comfort in your couch situated in the middle of your grand bedroom, hums at that, “Mentally or physically exhausted?”

You scoff before letting out a yawn, “Both.”

Jungkook nods as he moves his hand away from your face to lazily trace shapes on the palm of your hand, “I'm sorry to hear that your majesty,” he replies, sending you a pitiful look, as he notices traces of stress and exhaustion written on your face.

Still with your eyes closed, you rest for a moment, “It’s fine. This is my duty as the empress.”

Jungkook nods, “I understand, but before you’re an empress, you’re a human. You need to rest, your majesty,” he says, concern laced in his voice as he continues tracing odd shapes on your palm.

Though after a while, you’ve come to the realization that rather than shapes, he was actually tracing your name on your skin.

You open your eyes to stare at Jungkook who was too distracted writing your name to pay attention to your gaze. You just stare when a sudden thought crosses your mind, “Hey Jungkook, can you try calling me by my name?”

Jungkook seems to freeze in his spot, his hand stopping right above yours as he stares at you with wide eyes, “Pardon?” this seems to gain Taehyung's attention as well when you see him from the corner of your eye snap his head instantly in your direction.

You shrug, sitting straight up now facing him. Both your faces nearly inches apart that Jungkook instantly blushes and shifts a bit further away from you to calm his racing heart, though you take that gesture as discomfort instead, “What’s wrong? You don’t want to?”

Jungkook stutters as he waves his arms in front of his face in an ‘X’ shape motion, “N-No, It’s not that I don't want to… but why are you suddenly asking that of me?” Both Jungkook and Taehyung stare at you in a mixture of confusion and interest since they haven’t addressed the empress by her name in nearly 3 years. Not after she had scolded the both of them until they complied to her wishes.

“I figured we might as well go back to our old ways you know?” you suggest, but after taking in their shocked reactions you quickly add, “Of course if you’re uncomfortable with my request then I don’t want to force you to do anything. But I do give you permission to call me by my name when it’s just us.”

Jungkook turns his head to Taehyung as they look at each other wearily, as if doubting your words and thinking this was all just one big test. He hesitantly turns back to you, “Is that truly alright?” he asks while fidgeting nervously with his hand.

“Of course it is,” you smile reassuringly, your eyes staring at him in anticipation, “will you?” You ask, you try to hide your excitement in order to not pressure him, but who were you kidding, it’s practically written on your face.

Jungkook’s lips curve upward slightly as he couldn’t deny your request, especially when your golden eyes shined brightly at him, “Yes…. Y/n…” though he had said it in a shy whisper, you still heard him loud and clear. You didn’t think hearing your name come out of his mouth would affect you so much but you couldn’t stop yourself from smiling widely. It’s times like these that you’re extremely grateful for sharing the same name as the old empress.

“Woah that’s not fair,” you turn your head to find Taehyung with his arms crossed, playfully glaring at you both, “why does he get special treatment and I don't?”

You chuckle as Taehyung's pout reminds you of a child who got their toy taken away and wants it back. Your amusement grows even more as you sit back and watch Jungkook be equally as childish when he sticks his tongue out at the older knight. And Taehyung, the ever mature knight, mimics his actions in return.

You grin at the older knight, wanting nothing more than to ruffle his hair, “this applies to you as well Taehyung.”

Taehyung finally turns to you after seemingly having a contest with Jungkook on who can contort their face in a mocking way better, “thank you… Y/n,” he replies softly with a gentle smile now on his face.

They’ll admit, addressing you by your name sounded strange coming out their mouth, but they couldn’t deny the nostalgic and warm feeling in their chest when they finally did. And your smile definitely brightened their day even more.

“Y/n.” you hear Jungkook call out softly, though he flinches when he gains your attention.

You furrow your eyes in confusion at his odd reaction, “Yes?”

You notice his cheeks glow with a tint of red, “Sorry, it’s nothing. I just wanted to say your name in front of you,” the ending of his sentence becoming a soft whisper as he was embarrassed to have been caught by you. But he should’ve known better than to believe your ears wouldn’t catch him.

You have to mentally slap yourself to stay calm and composed as to not squeal in delight to embarrass him further. So to spare him, you fight back a giggle as you beam back at him, “you’re more than welcome to call me by my name anytime you want Jungkook.” Gaining a wide smile from him in return.

“Y/n?” Taehyung suddenly calls out, causing you to face him now. Though he chuckles at your raised brow, “I’m not just calling out your name, I genuinely have a question.” You chuckle right back, nodding your head, gesturing to him to ask his question. “Are you still feeling sick?” You understand he wasn’t referring to earlier, rather he was talking about your symptoms from withdrawal.

Thankfully after properly taking medication daily or as suggested by the royal physician, you’ve been experiencing a lot less symptoms as the days go by. Joy reminding and ensuring that you actually took them definitely helped with the process.

You nod sending him a soft smile, “no, I’ve been feeling a lot better nowadays. Though, I’ll admit I kind of want to throw up. But I’m pretty sure the main perpetrator to that is the blood.” Despite having left the plaza awhile ago, you seemingly couldn’t get rid of the stench of blood in your nose. Even just the thought of it makes you involuntarily gag.

Jungkook softly chuckles, “from being in countless battles, you’d think you’d get used to the sight of blood,” he jokes with a teasing glint in his eyes as he grew bold enough to hold your hand after tracing on it for so long.

You stare down at your joined hands, his large ones nearly covering yours completely. You feel him squeeze your hand lightly prompting you to look up at his mischievous grin as he caught you staring. You playfully roll your eyes, “it’s been awhile, alright, I forgot,” you grumble.

Though Taehyung hums at that as leans his head back on the soft cushions of the couch, “you seem to be using that excuse quite often,” he mutters, not looking you in the eye, but instead choosing to stare out your window.

At his statement, you gulp nervously. You immediately take note from the corner of your eyes the prying look of Jungkook as his hold on your hand seems to tighten.

But before you could come up with yet another excuse, you hear a knock at your door. Someone was definitely looking out for you as you had no idea how to respond without you being even more suspicious than before.

You sit up straight, briefly glancing at your knights who refuse to look you in the eye before calling out, “come in.” You quickly let go of Jungkook’s hand causing the boy to snap his head in your direction before his shoulders seemingly drop. Though he doesn’t say anything more as the doors to your bedroom open wide.

Soon enough, the double doors reveal Hoseok, Namjoon and Jin. They bow out of respect before briefly making eye contact with Jungkook and Taehyung, to which they send a curt nod, acknowledging each other’s presence.

For some reason, you felt a shift in the air as the three men stepped into the room. As if they were... hostile? But that doesn’t make sense, you question. Shouldn't they be on good terms with each other? You thought, but you were so wrong when you could feel the tension around you. Something unspoken between the five males.

You understand that you haven’t known these men for long, but even you could tell that there was a sudden shift in their relationship. You saw it in the ballroom and now your suspicions are confirmed when you observe their body language in front of you.

After many moments of silence, Namjoon finally turns his attention to you, “more of those journalists keep requesting for your time your majesty,” he reports, only now do you notice his tired eyes. He must’ve been dealing with those journalists since he got back, and from what you know, they’re almost as ruthless as those in high society.

But before you could respond, you hear Taehyung let out an annoyed groan from where he sat, “They bombarded her all throughout the morning, can’t they give her a break?” he scowls when turning his head out the window as he caught a glimpse of those pesky reporters from the border of the palace walls. Their cameras steadily aimed at the palace, hoping to capture a lucky shot of the empress.

“It’s alright, I can handle them,” you reply, having already mentally and physically prepared yourself for this since you knew this would be a hot topic in the empire. A topic that the reporters wouldn’t let go of until they were satisfied. But just as you were about to stand from the comfort of your bed, you feel a hand gently rest on your shoulder, prompting you to turn and find Jungkook staring at you in concern.

“Y/n, you need to rest,” Jungkook says softly, “you truly did look sick early, maybe it's from withdrawals or maybe it's from the blood, who knows, but I think it’s best you rest for the day.” You knew it would be hard to go against Jungkook, especially when he had that determined look in his eyes. Though that wasn’t what everyone else was thinking as his statement piqued their interest.

“Y/n?” Jin questions loudly. He had thought he was hearing things, but by the looks on Namjoons and Hoseok's faces, he indeed did hear correctly. Jungkook had addressed you by your name.

The boy blushes, not having realized he had blurted out your name in front of them. But before he could explain himself, Taehyung beat him to it.

“Y/n gave us permission to call her by her name,” he boasts with his head held high as if he was bragging about some great achievement he got. Which in a way, it kind of was.

Hoseok raises his brow as he turns to look at you now, “may I know why?”

You clear your throat, “well, when I got rid of the alcohol and drugs in my system, I wanted to make things right and go back to how they were before. So I gave them permission to address me by my name like old times,” you reply confidently, having already prepared an answer for this question long ago.

Though after some time, Hoseok’s blank face shifts, “I see,” he replies with a smile, but you knew better than to trust that, you knew hidden in that expression was a man that still had doubts despite witnessing the downfall of the nobles before his own eyes. You had thought Namjoon would be the one you needed to be careful of, but it seems you were wrong in that sense as you become anxious at Hoseok’s judging stare.

Jin clears his throat, an attempt to get rid of the growing tension in the room, “we also came to discuss plans regarding the property of the nobles as well as what's to come with their families and who would be the ones to take their positions,” he pauses before nodding his head in Hoseok’s direction, “we brought along Hoseok in case military services were needed.”

You nod, though you couldn’t help but wonder, “Where’s Yoongi?”

Jin stills for a moment before tilting his head, visibly confused from your question, “why are you suddenly asking for him?”

Now it’s your turn to be confused as you furrow your eyebrows, “Because he’s also one of my advisors,” you answer as if it was obvious.

As if sensing your confusion, Namjoon responds, “pardon our rudeness, your majesty. You just don’t normally call on him for these types of things.”

Now you’re even more confused than before, “I don’t?”

Namjoon nods his head in confirmation, “I believe it’s because he’s not from nobility, that it may hinder and influence his judgment on these types of cases,” he explains in the nicest way possible.

Dumbfounded, you remain seated on your bed, “I see,” is all you could utter. You knew that out of the 8 of you, the only ones who came from nobility were Namjoon, Jin, and Hoseok. Their families were one of the few nobles who secretly opposed the former emperor, which made it easy for the main character to gain their support in the rebellion. There’s no doubt that Hoseok’s military family, Namjoon’s intelligence, and Jin��s abundant wealth, had an immense influence on the success of the rebellion.

Of course that’s not to say that the others are any less important. Jungkook and Taehyung were among the best of the best in terms of strength and fighting, not to mention Jimin being an ace when it came to agility and swiftness. They had the skills to go against opponents 10 times their size, and yet somehow win. The three were known to be the best fighters in the empire, after the empress herself of course. Afterall, they learned everything they knew from her.

Yoongi on the other hand, proved himself to be worthy to stand by the empress’s side as an advisor due to the fact that when it came to forming tactics, he always had the perfect plan to go along with every scenario. Much of the rebellion's success was derived from the various attack plans that Yoongi came up with.

He also knows how to handle her the best out of them all. He knows how to approach her when she gets mad or upset. And he is one of the few people who isn’t afraid to go against her if he needs to, only with her and the empire’s best intentions in his mind.

But when it came to politics, Yoongi had a harder time due to the fact that he was just a village boy who didn’t receive the same amount of education as Namjoon or Jin. Granted neither did Y/n, having been born from the same village, but she was so determined to become the empress that she worked strenuously day in and day out in order to fit the role. Having Namjoon as her teacher definitely helped the process run smoothly.

Sure Yoongi isn’t as book smart as Namjoon, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t smart at all. You know that despite things being said about him, his words and inputs at national council meetings have proven to be of great help to the empress and the empire in the past.

And so without another word, you stand up from your bed with a newfound determination.

Jungkook and Taehyung eye you in concern. “Y/n?” Jungkook asks, reaching out to hold your hand, causing you to stop in your tracks.

“I’m going to go and personally find Yoongi. Regardless of our differences, he’s still my advisor, and his presence is just as important as every single one of you.” You feel Jungkook loosen his grip on you, allowing you to slip away from his grasp.

“Shall we escort you there?” Jungkook asks tentatively, while Taehyung had already stood up, prepared to follow you on your command.

But instead, you shake your head, “Considering what transpired last time, I don’t think it’d be wise to bring either one of you two along,” Jungkook rubs the back of his neck while Taehyung turns away as they’re both suddenly reminded of the way they had behaved towards Yoongi. Although they were opposed to the idea of you going alone, they couldn’t argue with your statement, since even they don’t know how they would react if they were in each other's presence again.

“I’ll accompany her majesty,” Hoseok suddenly speaks up with a raised hand, resulting in everyone turning their heads in his direction, “I think it should only be fair after all,” he pouts, lowering his hand to cross both his arms across his chest.

Namjoon raises a brow at his claim, “Fair?”

Hoseok nods as he accusingly points at every man in the room other than himself, “Every single one of you have spent more time with her than me, that's why I think it’s only fair if I escort her,” he declares with a puff of his chest.

Taehyung scoffs at him, “Can you blame us? We’re her escorts, of course we’re going to spend more time with her,” he fights back a roll of his eyes due to Hoseok being of a higher rank than him.

“Exactly, so I hope you don’t mind me stealing your ‘Y/n’ for the time being,” and before you could even utter a word, Hoseok strides towards you, reaching for your arm and practically begins dragging you out the room, “see you boys later!”

Jin shakes his head disapprovingly as he watches Hoseok roughly pull you, “would you be more careful with her majesty!”

Hoseok scoffs, “She’s not weak,” he responds as he turns around abruptly, your chest nearly colliding with his if it weren’t for his arms steadying you.

“I agree, but she’s also not a ragdoll that you could just push around as you please,” Jin snaps back at him, eyes narrowing at the grip on your arm.

Namjoon nods his head at this, “Indeed. Be more gentle Hoseok,” he warns sternly as he shifts his body towards the both of you intimidatingly.

And you don’t even need to turn around to know Jungkook and Taehyung were both shooting daggers at the general.

Hoseok sighs and finally lets go of you with his arms raised above his head in defeat, “alright alright I get it. I’ll keep my hands to myself.” Though the men in the room only stare at him with unconvinced expressions as he smiles innocently right back.

You stifle a laugh at their reactions and begin to turn to leave, “we’ll be leaving then,” at this you turn to stare at each one of them, “while I’m gone. Behave.”

Taehyung scoffs, crossing his arms as he plops back down on your couch, “We’re not children Y/n.” But his pout tells you otherwise.

The corners of your lips quirk upward in amusement, “could’ve fooled me.”

He turns to you with an offended expression, mouth wide open and before he could give you a piece of his mind, you scurry out the door with Hoseok tailing right behind you.

“Y/n!” You hear Taehyung’s voice yells out as he appears by the doorway in a matter of seconds.

You turn around and almost laugh at his dumbfounded expression. Though, you nearly trip over your own two feet if it weren’t for Hoseok skillfully reaching out and steadying you. You quickly thank him before looking back towards your door to now find the rest of the men staring back at you.

“We’ll set up a proper meeting tomorrow! See you boys then!” You call out before you’re reaching for Hoseok’s hand. He widens his eyes for a moment staring down at your joined hands before he feels you pull on him in the direction you were running to.

You could still hear their protests coming from your bedroom as both you and Hoseok run away. But Hoseok can’t help but be more focused on your angelic laughter over everything else.

“So what did the general want to talk to me about so badly that he wanted us to be alone?” you say finally after creating a fair enough distance from your bedroom.

From the corner of your eye, you see him smirk, “What makes her majesty think I had ulterior motives?” he asks innocently, his pace matching with yours as you both walk down the quiet halls.

You shake your head with a smile, “because you’re Hoseok,” you reply with a teasing glint in your eye.

Hoseok lets out an offended noise as he dramatically brings his hand to his chest, “That hurts your majesty,” he pouts, “couldn’t I have just wanted to spend some time with you?”

You laugh at this, “Sure, but you and I both know that that’s not the case,” your mouth forming a smile, an attempt to show him you meant no harm.

Hoseok finally lets the innocent facade fall as a smirk begins to form on his face, “Our empress sure has a sharp mind,” you hum in reply, prompting him to continue speaking, “you’re right, I did want to talk to you.”

Though after some time walking in silence, he speaks up again, “But I had nothing in particular to talk to you about, I just wanted to see for myself whether you had truly changed or not,” he responds bluntly.

“Your verdict?” you question with your arms behind your back, a carefree aura surrounding you.

“Hard to tell for now,” he teases with a wink in your direction, “however, something tells me it won’t be long before I give you my answer your majesty.”

“Well let’s hope it’s an answer we both will like,” a wide optimistic grin now on your face.

Hoseok stares down at you, giving you a small smile in return, “Yes, let’s hope.”

You two don’t speak for a while, though you can’t say it was awkward. There was a comfortable air between the two of you that you actually didn’t mind walking together in silence. You took this moment to look around the scenery, admiring the window view as you don’t really have much time to do that since Taehyung, Jungkook and even Jimin would often preoccupy your attention, not that you were complaining about their company, you rather enjoyed talking to them. But you can’t help but be grateful for this moment to yourself. So for the time being, you just look out the window, little did you know, Hoseok was staring right at you.

Hoseok couldn’t help but admire the way the sunlight glows on your skin as if you were an ethereal being. Even the slight quirk of your lips mesmerizes him as he watches you bask in the sunlight. A picture perfect moment that he desperately tries to ingrain in his mind.

“You know, you’re more than welcome to address me by my name as well Hoseok,” you suddenly speak out, turning your head causing the male to widen his eyes momentarily at your abrupt attention.

But Hoseok’s eyes soften, giving you a small smile before turning his head straight in front of him yet again, “I’ll keep that in mind... thank you.”

Neither of you speak again after that, just enjoying each other's company in silence. And after everything that you’ve been through, you didn’t realize that this was exactly what you needed.

“Hey Yoongs”

The man hums, his eyes closed as he lays comfortably against the grass right beside Y/n.

“You’ll be with me forever right?” the young girl speaks up after some time.

At this, Yoongi opens his eyes as he stares at the far away look in her eyes, “Of course Y/n, where else would I go?” he furrowed his eyebrows in confusion, “why do you ask?”

She shrugs looking straight up at the passing clouds, “just making sure,” the wind softly breezing against her hair.

Yoongi nervously laughs as he turns away from her, “Sorry, but it’s gonna take a lot more for you to get rid of me,” Y/n chuckles at this causing the corners of his lips to curve upward at the sound. “Unless I got it all wrong. You’re not trying to run away from me once you become empress are you?” he questions with a teasing tone. Though he had a smile on his face, he couldn’t deny the feeling of anxiety at the possibility of her leaving him.

She scoffs before turning away, “Of course not, what would I do without you nagging me all the time, you’re practically my brother at this point.”

Yoongi feels a pang go across his heart as he faces away from her, “... right… you just see me as a brother huh,” he mumbles, more so to himself but she could still slightly hear him.

She tilts her head in his direction, “hm?”

Though he just shakes his head, “Nevermind,” now sporting a more cheerful expression as he nudges her shoulder playfully, “so suddenly I’m your brother huh?”

She nods her head, turning away from him, focusing her attention back to the sky, “Of course you are, what else would you be?” she genuinely asks.

Yoongi stills for a moment before responding with a long sigh, “Nothing,” he pauses, watching the clouds pass by both him and her as they lay on the grass in peace, “absolutely nothing.”

“Her majesty told me about it and left the job to me,” Jin responds in a tired voice as he lets out a sigh. If he had known accepting the empress’s orders would lead to this, he would’ve never done so in the first place. Because not only does he need to deal with a pile of work, but also a very pissed off Yoongi.

“Why would she give you all the work and not me?” Yoongi asks, tone slightly offended and irritated.

“I don’t know Yoongi, why don’t you just ask her yourself,” Jin replies tiredly as he massages his temple at his growing headache. It’s not that he wanted to get rid of Yoongi, but because he himself couldn’t provide him an answer to his question. He too couldn't understand why Y/n would give him all the work instead of him, frankly he wishes she would divide up the work evenly but alas, that doesn’t seem to be the case as every inch of his desk is nearly covered in piles of documents.

Yoongi lets out a huff of air before standing abruptly. Jin stares at him and widens his eyes when he notices that he’s about to leave. Nervously he stands from his seat as well, “Where are you going?”

“I’m going to ask her myself,” Yoongi replies as if it was the most obvious answer, his hand reaching for the door handle.

Jin gasps, “I wasn’t being serious!” he moves around his desk to grab hold of the advisor.

But Yoongi shakes his head, stepping back from his reach, “I know you weren’t, but you’re right. If I want change to happen, I need to go to her myself,” he watches concern wash over the older male before placing a hand on his shoulder, “don’t worry, I won’t lose my cool,” he says in an attempt to reassure him.

Though both Yoongi and Jin knew he was lying. He was just telling him what he wanted to hear. Jin wanted to stop him, but in the end, he lets it go since he knows that once Yoongi’s got his mind set on something, it was nearly impossible to get him out of it, ”fine, but I don’t want to hear about you getting sent to the dungeons again Yoongi.”

Though Yoongi only chuckles, “I won’t get angry, don’t stress about.”

And boy was he wrong, because it hasn’t even been 10 minutes that he walked into her office until hell broke loose.

“Just let them handle it Yoongi, why are you so upset, I’ve given you plenty of work before,” she barks angrily.

“I’m upset, because you never give me the same amount of work as them!” He snaps back at her, tone equally as harsh.

She nearly growls at his attitude, “Would you relax Yoongi, it’s just pieces of paper! If I had known you’d get so fucking irritated over it I would’ve sent the entire pile to you if that’s what you really wanted!”

That’s not what he wanted. He wanted her attention, her trust, he wanted to be the first person she sought out when she needed help.

He wanted her.

“Y/n-” he gets interrupted when Y/n grabs a pile of documents and throws it in the air in front of him. He watches as the pieces of paper float down everywhere in the room, making it look as if a tornado wrecked havoc in the area.

“Here! Just do it all for all I care, they’re just damn pieces of papers anyway,” Y/n growls tiredly. Yoongi could not have come at the worst time. Not only did she have to deal with a raging headache, but now her own advisor was yelling in her face far too early in the morning for it to be tolerable.

She could feel her head ringing at the volume of his voice, but when she told him to leave as she wasn’t in the best mood to argue, he kept refusing stubbornly, insisting she listen to his complaints because apparently what he needed to say was so important to go against her orders. And so when she realized his important reasoning was because he was upset over his workload, her anger only rose from there.

With her already sour mood, him snapping back at her surely didn’t help his case either.

“I have way too much shit to deal with right now, don’t add onto it Yoongi,” she spats loudly, the piles of paper covering nearly the entirety of the floor around them.

His shoulder drops, finally coming to terms with everything as he stared into the once cheerful eyes narrow dangerously into tiny slits.

The girl before him, was never and will never be his.

For the past few days, Yoongi had been actively avoiding not only you, but everyone else. No matter how hard they tried, neither Namjoon or Jin could reach out to him. It was almost as if Yoongi somehow knew just when and where everyone would be to successfully avoid them.

In the beginning of the empresses reign, no one took him seriously because he wasn’t from noble descent like Namjoon and Jin. when they would attend national council meetings, no one spoke directly to him as if his previous status of a commoner was still intact. And so he had to put on this whole ruthless persona for people to show an ounce of respect for him. He had to exert more effort to prove to everyone that he was equally as worthy as the other two advisors. That he was capable of doing the same amount of work, even if he didn't receive the same strenuous education as them.

And because of the comparison between him and the other two advisors, insecurities were born and shattered his mind.

So seeing you put your trust in Jin and Namjoon hurt him a lot more than he would like to admit. The fact that they both knew and yet you hadn’t brought it up with him once was like a shot to his heart.

And yet throughout his time spent alone, Taehyung's voice echoes in his mind.

“When was the last time you ever treated her as one of her advisors? When have you ever truly cared for her majesty?”

He groans out of frustration at the entire situation. Because as much as he hated to admit it, he was right. When was the last time he treated her with respect. Even though the rest of the boys joined the rebellion with him, never once did they blatantly disrespect the empress the way he did.

And with the current situation, he doesn’t even think he deserves his position of advisor anymore. Never in his life did he imagine that someone was drugging the empress. All this time, he’s been bitterly blaming the empress about the current condition of the empire when in reality, it wasn’t even her fault. He pushed her away when she needed him the most. When she was suffering he unknowingly made things worse. And because of that, he doesn’t even know if he has the courage to face the empress ever again.

Yoongi freezes when he hears a tentative knock at his door. Slowly, he raises his head from his hands before responding in a loud tired voice, “who is it?” ready to curse out the person on the other side of the door.

“It’s me hyung.”

Yoongi widens his eyes at the familiar voice that he can’t help but rise from his seat. He carefully walks over and finally opens the door to reveal Jimin’s figure standing before him. For a moment, the two men stand opposite of each other in silence.

“I need to talk to you,” Jimin finally says. Yoongi nods and steps aside for him to enter, still in complete disbelief that he wanted to speak to him after everything that’s been said between the two in the past month.

As if reading his mind, Jimin turns to him with an uncertain smile, “You’re probably wondering why I'm here,” Yoongi only nods, unable to produce words at this point. Jimin stops at the center of his office before continuing, “I know we’re going through a rough patch right now, but at the end of the day, you’re still someone that I deeply care about. You’re my brother and I’m just worried about how you’re taking the situation,” he explains with a nervous expression.

Yoongi’s eyes soften, of course they weren’t on good terms at the moment, but Jimin was right, at the end of the day, they’re brothers. He could never truly hate or get mad at him, or any of them for that matter unless they truly betrayed him.

Jimin wasn’t certain this would be a good idea, unsure how the older male would react to his presence. And so when he hears Yoongi let out a chuckle, although not so enthusiastically, that alone causes Jimin to visibly relax.

Just then, Yoongi lets out a long sigh, “I’ll be honest, I feel like shit. But I know she’s probably going through it way harder than I am,” he finally replies as he rolls his neck.

Jimin nods, “I’m sure she is,” he mutters looking away.

Though Yoongi raises a brow, Jimim’s tone almost hinting at the fact that he doesn’t know about your feelings which was surprising to Yoongi since he knows how close he is to you. At that realization he furrowed his brows, “you haven’t spoken to her, have you?”

Jimin seems to stiffen at his claim, he contemplated lying but knew the older male would see right through him anyway, and so he just shakes his head, “no I haven’t.”

“Why not?”

Jimin lets out a low chuckle, “I wasn’t able to keep a promise with her,” he answers softly, running his fingers through his hair.

Now Yoongi was even more confused than before, he wanted to ask more questions but felt like now wouldn’t be the right time based on the downcasted look on the younger man's face. And so he only nods in return. Though Jimin’s lips quirk up, grateful that he doesn’t push the topic further.

Jimin leans against the back of his couch, crossing his arms, “I saw you that day,” he added, wanting to change the subject. “The day at the ball,” he clarifies when he saw the puzzled look on Yoongi’s face.

“You attended the ball?”

Jimin shakes his head, “no I was watching from above, her majesty wanted me to be her ‘eyes in the sky’, or something like that,” he pauses before chuckling, “she’s been saying some strange things recently.”

Rather than laughing along with him, Yoongi can’t help but feel annoyed, “Of course you fucking knew about it, too,” he mutters furiously under his breath.

Jimin widens his eyes at his sudden harsh tone, “Pardon?”

Yoongi scoffs, now stomping his way to his desk, “The empress told you of her plans,” Yoongi uttered with resentment, “everyone but me.”

And as if the world wanted to continue mocking him, here you appear through the open door, with Hoseok right beside you. You freeze in your spot, when you realize Jimin, who was now staring at you like a deer in headlights, was also present in the room. Despite his surprise, he bows out of respect. Though you can’t say the same about Yoongi.

“What are you doing here,” Yoongi curses at himself, he didn’t mean to take his anger out on you. You just happened to arrive at a bad time.

Though his cold icy tone doesn’t deter you in the slightest, “I came to inform you that we’ll be holding a meeting tomorrow,” you explain hesitantly, careful not to say the wrong thing to aggravate him even more.

He raises a brow in doubt, “you came here to personally tell me?”

You nod, “the rest of the men wanted to have a meeting regarding the situation, but I didn’t want to attend if you weren’t present.”

Yoongi scoffs, “I'm not some charity case.” Although, Yoongi can’t deny the warm feeling in his chest from what you said.

You stop, taken aback from his words, “Is that what you think you are?” you pause before continuing, “Why do you think you became one of the empress’s advisors?”

Yoongi rolls his eyes at this, “Because you think of me as a brother,” he spats bitterly.

“No, it’s because you’re one of the few people I trust most in this world, I know we had a bumpy road getting here, but you have to believe me when I say that I trust you,” you insist as you take a step closer into the room.

Though your statement seemed to have ignited a fire in him as he snaps his head to you with narrowed eyes, “If you trust me so much then why didn’t you let me know about this entire situation?!” You jump back at his tone, surprised by how angry he got.

Hoseok steps forward in an instant, “Hyung I had no idea about the drugs either,” he blurts out, trying to dissipate the tension in the room as he moves to stand in between you and Yoongi.

Jimin nods in confirmation, shifting his body to stand protectively in front of you as well, “he’s right hyung, Hoseok also had no idea what was going on.”

“That may be true, but she still sought your help, no? She needed military strength, she needed someone to hide in the shadows and she went to you two,” he snaps at them. Hoseok shuts his mouth, unable to form words to counter his claim.

Though it’s not like Yoongi was going to let anyone else speak, not until he was finished, “Where do I come into play? Jin hyung and Namjoon helped with the plan, Jimin looked out for you from above, Hoseok provided the military strength, Jungkook and Taehyung came as your escorts. But what about me?” At this point, Yoongi paces around the room frantically, you try to reach out to him but he jumps back as if your touch would burn him.

“Why am I always in last place!” He yells at the top of his lungs, “Is it because I wasn’t born into high nobility like Jin hyung? Is it cause I’m not some fucking genius like Namjoon? Or as handsome as Jungkook and Taehyung. Or as confident as Jimin. Or as reliable as Hoseok?” He continues his rant when everyone is too stunned to react.

“Yoon-”

“Why am I never good enough for you!” He shouts, slamming his fist hard on his desk. The room becomes silenced in an instant. The only sounds coming from the broken advisor standing before you.

“Am I not enough?” He sniffles, his voice cracking as he stumbles, grabbing hold of the corner of the table to stabilize himself. He bows his head low, an attempt to hide the tears forming in his eyes.

You turn to look at Jimin and Hoseok, giving them a solemn look as you nod your head in the direction of the door, wanting to speak to him privately.

They seem to understand your gesture as they begin to silently make their way out of the room. Although Jimin hesitates for a moment standing by the doorway. He takes one last look at Yoongi and back to you, his expression unreadable before finally closing the door behind him.

At the click of the door, you turn your head back to Yoongi, your eyes focused solely on him. Carefully, you take slow steps towards him, you don't know if he notices but if he did he didn’t take any further steps away from you. “Yoongi, you are more than enough for me, you have to believe me,” you urge as you stop a few feet away from him. Careful to not overwhelm and crowd around his space.

His silence urges you to continue, “I just felt like you didn’t want anything to do with me so I gave you your space,” you explain softly, “But you’re still one of my advisors, I should’ve communicated with you better on the situation. I'm sorry.”

You take a few experimental steps towards him, assessing his reaction carefully because if you saw any indication that he was uncomfortable by the distance, you would step away immediately. But he gave you none. Even when you were now standing in front of him, he didn’t make an effort to move away. Instead, he finally lifts his head, holding your stare as his tears now running down his face.

You don’t know what got over you, but at the sight of his tears, you find yourself reaching your hand out until they cup his face gingerly. His breath hitches when your hand caresses his cheek, your fingers wiping away the seemingly never-ending tears.

“Yoongi, you’re more than enough for me,” you repeat softly as you stare into his eyes. Almost mesmerized as his glossy eyes shined back at you making it look as though you were staring at the night sky.

You lean your body forward until your arms wrap around his shoulders, bringing him into a tight hug, “I’ll always need you,” you say in a soft whisper. But no matter how quiet you were, he heard you loud and clear.

He sucks in a breath as a sob escapes his mouth. He doesn’t try to fight you, instead, he wraps his arms around your waist instantly, tightening his grip around your body.

But instead of calming down, his sobs grow louder at the feel of your body against his.

Concerned, you try to pull away but Yoongi only tightens his grip around you as he shakes his head.

“Don’t,” he whimpers softly, clutching onto you tighter as if you would slip away forever, “please don’t leave me. Not yet,” he cries out. Your heart nearly shattering at the sound of his voice cracking.

Your eyes soften as you once again relax in his arm, your hands rubbing his back reassuringly as he continues to cry, his tears falling onto the nape of your neck. “I won’t,” you soothe gently, “I won’t leave you Yoongi.”

He sniffles once more, “You’re really back?”

You don’t have it in you to respond with a straight answer. You just couldn’t bring yourself to lie to him like that, especially in his current state. Lying to his face knowing that the empress he knew was no longer the owner of this body. That you were a completely different person, but who in their right mind would believe you.

So instead, you nod softly, reaching a hand to run through his hair. His tears stream down his face as he chokes back a cry at the feel of your nod.

You smile bitterly, as you have to keep reminding yourself, the girl he loves isn’t you, it’s the empress. He’s not crying for you, he’s crying for her.

You had seen this coming, but it still hurt a lot more than you had expected. The world for some reason just wouldn’t stop being cruel to you.

A young man approaches the darkly lit room slowly, the only source of light being the fireplace that’s barely holding onto life as it seems as though it’s about to die out at any moment.

“Master, I’ve come with urgent news,” the boy announced, news so important he fidgets in his spot nervously as he anticipates his reaction. It’s silent in the room, the only sound coming from the crackling of the fire as the wood burns.

There, sat in front of a large window was the boy’s master, he had not turned around to face him, instead, opting to stare up at the moon as it shines brightly down on him, “Speak,” he commands in a dominating voice.

The boy nods his head, “We received a report confirming the death of Grand Duke Lee Joong-gu as well as Sir Taehyung, Sir Jungkook, and Sir Jimin stepping down from the rebellion.”

The man hums, immensely intrigued by the sudden news, “and the others?”

The boy shakes his head, “there have been no reports being made of the others stepping down as of this moment master, though many speculate it’s just a matter of time at this point.”

The man bellows loudly at that, as he leans back comfortably in his chair, his eyes shining with mirth, “I told that damn duke not to get too greedy and look what happened. He got caught,” he scoffs as he turns fully around, hands crossed on his desk as he traces the letter he had received from the late grand duke a mere few weeks ago in a bored manner, “Seems what that fool said was of concern after all, her majesty has truly changed.”

The boy nods, “What do you suggest we do now?”

He turns back around, admiring the night sky, “tell my men to continue keeping an eye on her majesty. And report everything to me.”

The boy bows, “yes master,” he responds before turning away, ready to inform those of the new orders.

“Well I’ll be damned,” the man whistles as he leans back on his chair, “so you truly did succeed in changing the story,” he chuckles and with a dangerous glint he stares up at the moon, “I can’t wait to meet you, new empress.”

A/N: Hey guys!! I’m so sorry for taking so long to upload this chapter, I had to focus on my final exams and all the assignments my professors piled on me at the end of the semester. So I tried to finish this chapter as fast as I could!

I hope you’re all happy with how things went in this chapter. Also sorry for all the drama, I just felt like it would be better for the reader and Yoongi to make up instead of making more chapters of them avoiding each other when they could just communicate about their feelings.

Thank you everyone for supporting and reading my story! I also love receiving all your kind messages so thank you so much for that!

And as always, I hope you have a wonderful day!!

Tagslist: (those in bold, I’m not sure if it worked for you, I’m really sorry, I’m not sure how to fix it) (I also apologize if I forgot to add someone, just comment again and I promise to add you in the next one!!)

@reallysparklychaos, @unknownsageking, @casspirit0705, @fangirl125reader, @silscintilla, @serefara29, @chimtaesty-main, @xxqueenwxtchxx, @diamonddia-mond, @vishakhas-world, @purelyecstacy, @resticou, @woopetals, @magicsweetener, @splaterparty0-0, @daydreambrliever, @strangeobjectmaker, @luna-xial, @m0chilattae, @celaenaelentiyavox, @lindsayjoy444, @layzfeelit, @kimsaerom, @songtiddies, @untamedgrape, @sonnymii, @moonssuga, @kassandravictoria, @galaxyflab, @blank-et-noir, @nynhope , @midnight1199, @yessii-i, @protontippens, @gguktings, @borahebangtan, @katkrusade, @handsupanddropthepotato, @missseoulite, @cellula-staminale, @red-bow-tie3, @whateveritis616, @ggukkieland, @sbroces, @nnessworls, @yoonieebear

#poly bts #poly!bts #bts au #bts fanfic #isekai #jin x reader #yoongi x reader #hoseok x reader #namjoon x reader #jimin x reader #taehyung x reader #jungkook x reader

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