#and by fix her i mean i could kill her in a way that launches character development for the ppl that i actually care about

[themyscirah]

Key part of being a comics fan is being completely delusional

[edenesth]

The Way to His Heart [19]

Pairing: general!Seonghwa x wife!reader

AU: arranged marriage au (Joseon era)

Word Count: 3.9k

Summary: Life has been hell ever since your mother's passing many years ago. Despite being from a prominent family, you've never received the privileges associated with it. It only got worse with the arrival of your stepmother and her daughters. When the intimidating General Park was in search of a wife, your father seized the opportunity to dispose of you, simultaneously securing a connection with the powerful general—killing two birds with one stone.

Part 18 | Fic Masterlist | Part 20

"What do you mean it will take weeks for me to fully recover? I don't have that kind of time, Yunho. This war isn't over yet." Your husband frowned, his gaze fixed on the physician from his position on the bed.

You sighed, stepping closer to the doctor, your concern evident, "Seonghwa, Physician Jung is doing his best. How can you return to battle if you're not physically strong enough? What good will that do, hm? And remember, you've acknowledged Officer Song's strategic prowess. Perhaps it's time to have a little faith in him for now."

Like magic, your words softened the general's hardened expression as he nodded in defeat, "Fine, I suppose you're right," He offered you a smile before turning back to Yunho, "I trust you've at least written back to Mingi to assure him I'm fine, right?"

"It's done, my lord."

"That's good; things should be stable for now. We dealt a significant blow to the Ruhon forces in our last battle. It's unlikely they'll launch any new attacks soon, considering their diminished numbers. If things continue to go well, this war might conclude sooner than expected." Seonghwa remarked, feeling optimistic.

"I certainly hope so, for everyone's sake. I made sure to inform Officer Song that you'll need a few weeks to recover. If they need you urgently, I'm sure he'll write back promptly," The physician assured, relieved to see your husband immediately agree with him, calming down so quickly with your presence, "Yes, I'm sure he will." Yunho knew for certain that without you there, he would have had a much harder time attempting to soothe the older man's frustration.

Sensing the general's longing gaze toward you, the doctor suppressed a knowing grin. Understanding that he was interrupting your much-needed private moment, he decided it was time to leave you both alone. With a final bow, he excused himself, "Well, that's all from me for now. I'll return tomorrow for your bandage change and medication. Good day, General Park and Lady Park."

After the physician left the room, you approached Seonghwa to ensure his comfort, tucking the comforters snugly around him and adjusting the pillow behind his back. His eyes remained fixed on your face, which he had missed dearly, as you fussed over him, "Is the temperature alright? Let me know if it's too hot or cold," You inquired. He nodded, and you continued, "Are you hungry? You must be. I'll ask the kitchen staff to prepare something for you—"

Before you could step away from his bedside, he grasped your wrist, his expression displaying a small pout, "Stop, my love. I just want you to stay with me, please."

You softened, placing your hand over his and giving it a reassuring squeeze before brushing some of his hair away from his face, "I'm sorry, I was just worried about you. You've been away at war for so long. I wanted to make sure you have everything you need now that you're home before you eventually return to the battlefield."

He smiled, his hold on your wrist tightening slightly, "All I need is you." He murmured, gently pulling you closer into his arms.

Feeling your heart melt at his words, you relaxed into his embrace on the bed as he pulled the comforter over both of you. Nuzzling your head into the crook of his neck, you sighed contentedly as he kissed your temple. He felt complete with you so close again, "God, I missed you so much," He confessed, "Out of all the wars I've fought, this has to be the most dreadful one. Not because it was tough, but because I couldn't stop thinking about you throughout it all."

"I missed you too, Seonghwa," You confessed, drawing in a deep breath to savour his familiar scent, "I never thought I could yearn to be near someone this badly."

His eyes instinctively fluttered shut as you nestled closer to him, pressing his nose against your hair, wishing for this moment to last forever. After a moment of comfortable silence, he couldn't resist asking, "I've heard a lot has happened while I was gone. I'm sorry I wasn't here to help you through it. Tell me everything, my wife."

Taking a deep breath, you started from the beginning, recounting the events that unfolded after the general had departed for war. You described encountering Jinjoo during your visit to the fabric factory with Hongjoong, the surprise visit from the prince to the estate, and his unexpected invitation to the birthday banquet. You explained how he lied about you representing Seonghwa at the event and your gratitude for Wooyoung and San's help in preparing for it.

As you narrated every little detail that occurred at the supposed royal birthday celebration, your husband's heart swelled with pride and admiration. He listened intently, feeling his love for you grow with each word. Your courage in standing up for yourself and defending him in front of Prince Yeosang filled him with immense gratitude. He realised how fortunate he was to have you by his side.

"I'm so proud of you, my darling Lady Park."

With a light scoff, you teasingly pushed him in the chest, "Are you now, my dearest General Park? I still can't believe the first thing you chose to do after coming back was hurt me and push me away."

Guilt immediately clouded his expression as he drew closer to you, emitting a small whine, "I'm sorry, my love. Truly, I am. Speaking those cruel words hurt me more than this damn wound. I promise I didn't mean any of it. You're not troublesome at all, and I do want you with me for the rest of my days. If anything, you're all I need from now until the end of time."

At that, you could no longer bear to continue making him feel bad. Turning serious, you gently caressed the bandaged area on his abdomen before speaking, "I understand, Hwa. I really do. But I swear, if you ever pull something like that again, I won't hesitate to let Hongjoong loose on you."

His heart skipped a beat at the nickname you used for him, one you had never used before, "What did you just call me? Say it again."

Embarrassed, you blinked rapidly and cleared your throat before repeating softly, "I called you Hwa. It's your name, isn't it?"

He nodded with a cheeky grin, covering your hand with his, "Indeed it is. I love how bold you've become, my love. Now, along with that nickname, tell me you love me again."

You blushed at his request, feeling he deserved to hear it as many times as he wanted now that he'd returned to your side safely. Relenting, you bit your lip and murmured, "I love you, Hwa."

"Again." He demanded, resting his forehead gently against yours.

"I love you, Hwa."

"Again, my love." He whispered, leaning in closer with hooded eyes.

"I love you, Hwa."

"Say it for me just one more time."

"I love you so much, Park Seonghwa."

Intoxicated by your presence, he could no longer resist cupping your face and pressing his lips firmly against yours. You kissed him back fervently, eyes fluttering shut as you relished the sensation of his lips on yours. Both your hearts raced as you made up for lost time, pressing close to one another under the sheets. Your cheeks burned up, realising this was the most intimate moment you'd shared with your husband so far.

Gently pushing him away by the chest, you looked up at him, worry evident in your eyes, "That's enough, Hwa. You're still injured—"

But before you could finish your sentence, he leaned in, capturing your lips in another loving kiss. You gasped in surprise, but your resistance crumbled quickly as he deepened the kiss. Maybe just for a little longer, you thought to yourself, giving in to the moment.

As he savoured the feeling of having you so close, Seonghwa's emotions swirled within him like a tempest. He needed this closeness desperately, especially after the fear he'd felt earlier, thinking he might be close to death. The regret for hurting you with his words gnawed endlessly at him, and he despised the idea of being separated from you again. How could he have ever entertained the thought of you being with another man? The mere thought of Prince Yeosang in his place, holding you, touching you, kissing you, filled him with an uncontrollable jealousy that bordered on madness.

These thoughts fueled a surge of aggression within him as he flipped you around on the bed, trapping you beneath him. He loomed over you, his gaze intense as he whispered, "Mine. You're all mine."

As much as the sudden action flustered you and caused your heart to skip a beat, you frowned at his stubbornness, realising he wouldn't know when to stop unless sternly told off, "Are you out of your mind, Park Seonghwa? Such big movements could affect the wound, you idiot." You scolded, disrupting the intimate moment.

He blinked, momentarily speechless at the abrupt change in tone, protesting, "I'm fine, my wife—"

Before he could continue, the dressmaker barged in with raised brows, "Oh, we're all fine now, aren't we? I guess you're well enough to take a beating then."

The general panicked, hastily laying back in his spot, "Hongjoong, please, it's rude to enter without knocking." He chided.

You snickered when his friend rolled his eyes, "Well, it's also rude to disrespect your wife, but here we are."

"Oh my god, stop reminding me—"

"I'll stop when you learn to grow the hell up."

"Says you?!"

With a deep sigh, you stood up from your husband's bed, "You two fight to your heart's content; I'm going to prepare something to eat for this one." You said, gesturing to Seonghwa, ignoring his silent pleas not to leave him alone with his friend.

Hongjoong grinned at you, "Don't you worry, I'll take good care of him in the meantime."

Oh, I know you will.

"Have we heard from Physician Jung yet?" Mingi inquired as he was being suited up in preparation for the impending attack by the approaching Ruhon men.

"No, sir. It appears we're facing this battle on our own. But with your exceptional strategies, we should manage well even without General Park." One of the soldiers replied, striving to maintain optimism despite the military commander's absence.

"Let us hope so." The strategist muttered, unable to bring himself to reveal that his strategies had been devised with the assumption of having the best warrior in all of Joseon leading the army. Officer Song hadn't seen battlefield action since his promotion, and his combat skills were far from polished. Just why did this have to happen in the general's absence? Mingi feared the responsibility; if they failed in this battle, it would fall on him. The prospect of leading these men to their deaths was enough to make him feel nauseous.

He still couldn't grasp how Ruhon had made such a swift comeback. It seemed implausible given the significant losses they had suffered in the last battle. After all, the enemy nation wasn't known for its strategic prowess; they were often predictable in their actions. Unless... they were intentionally misleading Joseon into underestimating them? If so, the strategist might have played right into their hands as part of their plan.

Oh god, what do I do?

As General Officer Song meticulously went through his preparations for the impending battle, a sense of unease settled over him like a heavy cloak. Even with his efforts to focus solely on the task at hand, his thoughts kept drifting back to Seonghwa. The absence of their commander, his superior, and one of his closest friends weighed heavily on his mind.

With each passing moment, his worry for the general intensified. He couldn't shake the feeling of dread that enveloped him, wondering if his friend was safe and well. Had the older man managed to make it home? Had Yunho received his letter, informing him of General Park's condition?

These questions nagged endlessly at him, gnawing at his insides as he grappled with the uncertainty of the situation. Despite his attempts to maintain a facade of confidence for the sake of his fellow soldiers, Mingi couldn't shake the underlying fear that something terrible might have happened to Seonghwa. All he could do now was hope and pray for his friend's safety, even as the spectre of war loomed ever closer.

A sudden wave of fear washed over him, unlike anything he had experienced in a long time. The general's absence felt more profound and impactful than ever before. It was as if the very foundation of his confidence had been shaken, revealing the stark reality that his sense of assurance had always been rooted in the presence and trust of his commanding officer.

For the first time in what felt like an eternity, the strategist found himself questioning his own abilities and worthiness. Without General Park by his side, his confidence wavered, leaving him feeling unsteady and uncertain. He couldn't remember the last time he had felt such panic in war.

With a heavy heart, he squeezed his eyes shut and took a deep breath, attempting to steady his nerves. Doing his best to ignore the doubts that plagued him, he knew he had a duty to fulfil. With trembling hands, he reviewed his strategies once more, desperately seeking reassurance in the plans he had meticulously crafted.

As he waited for the cue to head out and face the enemy, Officer Song resolved to push aside his fears and doubts. He may not have Seonghwa's guidance and leadership at this moment, but he knew he had to stand firm and lead the troops to the best of his abilities. With determination set in his heart, Mingi braced himself, ready to face whatever may come in the battle that awaited him.

Just as he was hoping to receive any updates about the general or word from Physician Jung, a soldier burst into the main tent, his breaths coming in ragged gasps. The strategist's heart skipped a beat, looking forward to some semblance of reassurance amid his mounting anxiety. However, instead of providing the updates he had been desperately seeking, the soldier stammered out his words.

"S-sir, I'm afraid it's time we head out and be on standby," The soldier managed to say between breaths, "The Ruhon army should be arriving anytime soon."

Mingi's hands clenched involuntarily, his mind racing with a mix of apprehension and determination. Despite the lack of information about Seonghwa's condition, he knew that duty called and he had to lead his troops into battle. With a firm nod, he suppressed the trembling in his hands and resolved to face the conflict head-on.

"Let's go out and make General Park proud." He declared, his voice steady despite the turmoil within him. With resolve burning in his eyes, he led his men out of the tent.

Moments later, Officer Song found himself mounted on a horse, the weight of his armour pressing against his shoulders as he surveyed the Joseon army lined up behind him. They stood at attention, ready for his orders, their anticipation palpable in the air.

As he gazed out at the empty land ahead, where the enemy forces would soon emerge, Mingi could hear nothing but the thundering of his own heart in his ears. His hands tightened around the hilt of his sword, a familiar weight that offered some measure of comfort in the face of uncertainty.

With a deep breath, he forced himself to focus, pushing aside the uncertainties that threatened to overwhelm him. He may not be Park Seonghwa, but he had undergone rigorous training and was a capable fighter in his own right. Reminding himself of his own combat skills, he squared his shoulders and steeled his resolve.

"We stand ready." He declared, his voice carrying across the ranks of soldiers behind him. Despite the nerves gnawing at his insides, he projected an air of confidence, determined to lead his troops with strength and determination.

I hope you're proud of me, hyung-nim.

His breath hitched in his throat as he finally spotted a tiny speck on the horizon, growing larger and more distinct with each passing moment. His heart raced as he realised that these were the enemy soldiers they had been waiting for. With a loud voice, he yelled the order for all soldiers to get into position.

Tensions were high as everyone readied themselves, their nerves stretched taut with fear at the absence of their strongest warrior to lead them. But as the figures drew closer, Officer Song's brow furrowed in confusion.

Something was not right.

Instead of a formidable army, only a few Ruhon soldiers were riding toward them, their arms raised in what appeared to be a gesture of surrender. Mingi's eyes widened in disbelief as he heard their cries.

"Soldiers of Joseon! Please don't attack! We have come to surrender!"

A sense of astonishment rippled through the ranks of the Joseon army as they processed the unexpected turn of events. One of the Ruhon men even went so far as to pull out a white flag, waving it frantically to signal their willingness to concede defeat.

The strategist's grip tightened on his sword as he studied the Ruhon soldiers before him, their faces worn with exhaustion and defeat. Despite their assurances, he couldn't afford to let his guard down yet, not after the treacherous tactics they had previously employed against Seonghwa.

"Hold it right there! How can we believe you're telling the truth?" He demanded, his voice firm and unwavering.

The Ruhon soldiers let out heavy sighs, their arms still raised in a gesture of surrender, "Please, we're telling the truth. Most of our troops have been depleted from the last battle," One of them explained, his voice tinged with desperation, "Our ruler has sent word just this morning to put this war to an immediate stop. A messenger is on the way to your royal palace to convey the message to your King as we speak. We come in peace to relay this message, and that is all. All remaining Ruhon troops will be retreating from our camp after this."

Mingi remained silent for a moment, weighing their words carefully. Finally, he lowered his sword, signalling for his own troops to stand down, "Very well," He said, his voice tinged with caution, "But know that we will be watching closely. Any sign of treachery from you, and we will not hesitate to defend ourselves."

The Ruhon soldiers visibly relaxed at his words, nodding quickly, "You have my word." One of them assured before they turned around and began riding away. The tension dissolved as they disappeared from sight, leaving Officer Song and his men standing in disbelief. Relief washed over them, dispelling the earlier fears. The strategist's expression mirrored the collective sentiment of his troops—a mix of relief and disbelief.

"Well, I guess we should head back to camp and await confirmation then," Mingi said, his voice filled with a hint of exhaustion. His soldiers nodded eagerly, grateful that the tense situation had been resolved peacefully. They began to disperse, their spirits lifted by the unexpected turn of events.

Now, everything fell into place, and the pieces of the puzzle aligned once again. His earlier suspicions about Ruhon's swift recruitment of soldiers now made perfect sense. It was clear that they no longer possessed enough manpower to continue fighting this war.

Returning to the main tent, Mingi was relieved to find a messenger waiting for him, "Officer Song, there you are! You have a letter from Physician Jung Yunho," The messenger announced eagerly. He hurried over to receive the paper, unfolding it with urgency. His eyes scanned the neatly written words at lightning speed, absorbing the contents. Once finished, he released the breath he had been holding, sinking into the seat behind him, "Oh, thank heavens the general is alright." He breathed out, a weight lifted from his shoulders.

The messenger's face immediately brightened at his words, and he quickly left to share the good news with the others. Mingi couldn't help but smile; everything was finally falling into place.

Peace, at last.

But his moment of relief was short-lived as a commotion erupted outside. The strategist frowned and left the tent to see what was happening. He found his soldiers blocking the entry of a woman, which puzzled him. Women weren't allowed in this area.

"Forgive us, ma'am. Women are not permitted here," One of the soldiers explained. Mingi pushed through to hear her response, "Yes, I know that, but you don't understand. I'm here on His Majesty's orders. We received word that General Park has been poisoned, and I've been sent specifically to treat him."

As he caught sight of her petite figure, his eyes widened in recognition. Not because of her uniform, which indicated she was a female royal physician, renowned for their medical expertise, but because she was the one he had been searching for all this time.

I finally found you, my one.

« Preview of Part 20 »

"The audacity of those Ruhon bastards, attempting to poison my strongest warrior. That's nothing short of treachery, isn't it, my Queen?" The King grumbled, his concern for Seonghwa evident in his furrowed brow. He had even dispatched their most skilled female royal physician to the war zone, trusting her to heal him.

Anxiety filled his being as his wife sighed beside him, offering a comforting hand on his back. She had yet to muster any courage to mention the trouble caused by their fourth son during the general's absence, not wanting to add to her husband's worries, "I wish I had an answer for that, Your Majesty." She murmured sympathetically.

Before the royal couple could further drown in their pool of misery, the royal secretary rushed in with a few letters. He hastily performed the formal bow, only to have the King wave it away.

"Forget the formalities, Secretary Choi! Tell us what updates you have this instant!" His Majesty's voice was urgent.

San nodded, swiftly unfolding the papers and reading each one aloud. With each letter, a weight seemed to lift from the room.

"The first letter is from General Park," He began, "He reports he's safely home and receiving treatment from his own doctor."

Relief washed over the King's face.

"And the second?" Her Majesty pressed, her tone hopeful.

San's voice steadied as he continued, "The second is from the ruler of Ruhon. He acknowledges defeat and officially surrenders. He is also requesting an audience to discuss a peace treaty. It would seem the war is over, Your Majesties."

"Oh, thank goodness it's over."

After a moment of everyone digesting the news, His Majesty furrowed his brows in slight confusion, "Wait, General Park is home already, you say?" His voice carried a note of incredulity, "How odd. That would mean he began travelling back before there was even news of the enemy's surrender. Why would he return home all of a sudden? Did something else happen?"

The Queen's heart sank at that. For weeks, she had harboured the hope of shielding Yeosang from his father's potential wrath, but now it seemed fate had other plans.

I'm sorry, my son.

Woohoo, only the final part is left, and we're done with the main story! Psst, try going over to the Spinoff Masterlist to see if you can spot anything new HEHE🙈

As always, thank you so much for reading, and please let me know your thoughts! <3

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[geotjwrs]

Hi could you write a Tate McRae x Male Reader Imagine where Y/N surprises her during her tour.

Thank you so much in advance.

anywhere for you

Pairings ; Tate McRae x Male!Reader

Warning/s ; none

The hotel room was quiet except for the faint hum of city traffic outside. Tate sat curled up on the couch, staring at the TV but barely processing anything on the screen. She was exhausted—not just physically, but mentally, emotionally, in every way possible. Tour life was everything she had dreamed of, but it was relentless.

City after city. Show after show. Barely enough time to breathe before she had to be on again. She loved performing, loved the energy of the crowd, loved seeing people scream her lyrics back at her. But the in-between moments? The lonely flights, the cold hotel rooms, the nights where she barely got any sleep because she was too wired from adrenaline? Those were starting to wear her down.

She sighed, unlocking her phone to check her messages. The group chat with her friends was blowing up inside jokes, memes, a few blurry pictures from someone’s night out. It was nice seeing them all still having fun, but it also made her feel so far away from everything normal.

And then there was your chat.

Tate clicked on it, scrolling up through your messages from last night. You had called her after her show, like you always did, just to check in. It was late for you, but you never seemed to mind.

“You killed it tonight. I watched the clips, crowd was insane.”

“Miss you.”

“Make sure you actually sleep, okay?”

Tate exhaled, biting her lip. She missed you, too. So much.

She typed out a quick message.

Tate: Wish you were here

You: Me too

Simple. No complaints, no pressure, just honesty.

Her chest ached. She wished she could see you, even for a second, even just to get one of those stupidly warm hugs you always gave. But you had work, and she had shows, and—

A knock at her hotel room door interrupted her thoughts.

Tate frowned, glancing at the time. It was late. Had she forgotten about a meeting?

Dragging herself off the couch, she shuffled over to the door and cracked it open.

And froze.

Because standing right there, hands stuffed into your pockets, was you.

For a solid three seconds, she just stared, brain failing to catch up with what her eyes were seeing.

You gave her a small smile. “Hey, superstar.”

Tate’s breath hitched.

Then, before she could even think, she launched herself at you.

Your arms wrapped around her instantly, warm and strong, holding her like she was something precious. She buried her face in your shoulder, squeezing her eyes shut.

“You’re actually here?” she mumbled against your hoodie.

You chuckled softly. “Yeah. Told you I’d visit, didn’t I?”

She pulled away just enough to look at you, still gripping your hoodie like she was afraid you’d disappear. “But you had work, and you didn’t even tell me—”

You shrugged. “Took some time off. Thought you could use a surprise.”

Tate let out a breathless laugh, shaking her head. “You’re insane.”

“You love it.”

She rolled her eyes, but the way her lips curled up betrayed her. “Yeah,” she admitted, “I really do.”

You reached up, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear, your fingers brushing against her cheek. “You look tired.”

She sighed, leaning into your touch without meaning to. “I am tired.”

“Then let’s fix that.”

An hour later, Tate was curled up next to you in her hotel bed, her head resting against your shoulder as the TV played some random movie in the background. She wasn’t even paying attention to it just listening to the sound of your breathing, the steady rise and fall of your chest.

“You didn’t have to come all this way, you know,” she murmured.

You hummed. “I know.”

She tilted her head up to look at you. “But you did anyway.”

“Of course I did.” You ran your fingers gently over her back, tracing slow, absentminded patterns. “You looked like you needed it.”

Tate let out a soft laugh, shaking her head. “You always know, don’t you?”

You just smiled. “Yeah.”

She sighed again, this time lighter. Everything felt lighter with you here. The exhaustion was still there, lingering in the background, but it didn’t weigh on her the same way.

“I miss you,” she mumbled, voice barely above a whisper.

“I miss you too,” you admitted. “But I’m here now.”

And that was enough.

For tonight, for this moment having you here was enough.

[xxtha-blog]

Why Horrortale Sans is Definitely Evil

Horrortale Sans is evil. This is the opposite of a defence post, I am calling out this character and his many misdeeds! I do not know how people legitimately defend his actions or claim he’s just a normal guy who tries really hard not to eat people. I do not think we read the same comic. This is a comprehensive deep dive into why Horror is evil.

First a chronological look at Horror’s dubious actions. Not all of theses are evil and some have good justification as standalone events, but provide wider context for things:

1. He has to be convinced into helping repair the Core which he knows is broken, and has inside info he knows could help get it fixed, only when Grillby begs him to because as revealed on another page, the loss of the Core means “the fire eats at [Grillby’s] very soul like acid, perpetually burning him alive”

2. He spends a total of 12 months trying to figure out how to repair the Core but based on Undyne’s statements about how he rarely works, either means he’s a. Not actually putting enough effort into it (if we believe her and not Sans) or b. Not telling Undyne and Alphys how his work is going which is probably pertinent information for them to have (If we believe Sans, but want a reason as to why Undyne has that impression)

3. He finally brings her a solution to the Core after knowing he’s going to die (but if you want to be generous, maybe it was just really bad timing and he really did only needed a few more days to bring her a solution) and claims it’s a “long shot��� meaning he doesn’t even know if it will work.

4. Undyne, thinking that is an insane plan, tells him she has a different plan. Sacrificing him to save everyone. Sans makes it clear he would never let himself die to save everyone.

5. When a guard begs him to sacrifice himself to save his wife and children, Sans launches him into the stratosphere saying: “fuck off.”

6. Even though Undyne attacks him first, it’s actually Sans that takes out her head and eye first.

7. Sans brutally murders the guards who helped Undyne.

8. When Alphys, showing Sans that her plan has objectively work and he is not dead (bonus!!), Sans destroys the Core.

He destroys the thing that will keep him, his brother, and literally every person in the underground alive. Grillby now suffers eternally, and everyone will die a slow and painful death. This does not help him in any way, does not change the fact his head is broken, he does it purely out of malice. The equivalent of getting shot, surviving, and then nuking the town you were shot in. He does not take his eye back if you thought it was to take his eye back. It’s still in the broken Core.

9. He lobotomizes Alphys

10. He gets Aliza to become a cannibal

11. He tortures and maims Aliza (let’s her get cut in half by a bear trap, pulls her hair so hard it bleeds, let’s her freeze to death in a puzzle, sends her to Grillbys where she gets partially cooked alive, cuts her arm off)

Really great guy here.

Secondly let’s get some of the common defences out of the way:

1. Sans had a plan that would save everyone! Undyne was therefore making a bad decision by trying to killing him

a. Sans says his plan IS A LONG SHOT

b. Alphys explains Sans’s plan would have taken a lot of time and magic ie. time that would get a lot of other people killed

c. Undyne’s plan actually goes better that expected! What was assumed would kill Sans doesn’t end up killing him at all. Literally a win-win for everyone involved.

d. Undyne/Alphys’s plan works, and therefore objectively saved more people. 0 net casualties if Sans had a single ounce of humanity.

2. Sans worked really hard and Undyne betrayed him. Undyne should have told him first

Undyne doesn’t tell him because she doesn’t want to consider hurting Sans despite monsters dying. Moments before Sans shows up, a child dies in a mother’s arm. Then Sans explains his plan is to dismantle the Core, which ‘might’ work, and will take a lot of effort and magic to do so, which is time they do not have (it’s been 12 months. He has had 12 months.). He also blames Undyne for getting them into this mess and mocks her for letting people die. She then attacks him. They end up both losing half their head and eye in the fight, making them perfectly even. The core’s power is restored.

But, whether or not Sans feels betrayed or not is irrelevant to the fact that Undyne makes the most reasonable and moral decision in this moment and also Sans has kind of done everything in his power to not sell his idea and piss off the person he knows is considering killing him so big L on his part for that one.

It also does not in any way shape or form justify destroying the Core, which is probably the most evil thing you could possibly do in that scenario.

3. They both are at fault for the Core/Both Evil then

There is literally a world of difference between:

“Sacrifices 1 person who ends up not dying, to save everyone. Which succeeds.”

And

“Destroys the thing that will successfully keep everyone alive, thus dooming everyone including yourself to die a slow and agonizing death, because you are angry your friend tried to kill you in an effort to save everyone”

That’s not even including the 10 other things on my list that are definitely also evil, but I cannot take people seriously if they put these two things on some sort of a moral equivalence. Undyne is in the right. 1 person for everyone is a worthy sacrifice. If anything Undyne’s only flaw is waiting so long to do it.

4. (Unrelated to the Core incident) Sans is actually morally grey, he doesn’t eat humans like everyone else which is a complex character motivation

You’re right, Sans doesn’t eat humans. Instead he finds enjoyment in torturing them brutally, a much worse thing than eating to stay alive.

His fight with hunger is also entirely self-made. Both because it’s not morally wrong to eat another living being to survive (and it’s not cannibalism to eat a human as a monster) and because he is the reason this is still happening 7 years later. It is literally his fault he is hungry. There is no interesting moral conundrum here, he does not care about hurting people. He is just out of his mind.

In conclusion, Horrortale Sans is a deeply selfish and uncaring person. Whatever minor good deeds he does throughout the comic are so immensely overshadowed by his absolute depravity that they might as well not exist. He is the reason every single monster in that underground continues to suffer, including himself, and while in his mind maybe there’s some weird justification, no outsider observer should look at these actions and think, yeah, that was reasonable. Much less think Undyne or Alphys are somehow WORSE. He destroys the Core because he didn’t die after everyone is saved, solely to be vindictive. He does not gain anything by doing this. He doesn't even take back the eye he lost which is still in the broken core! He lobotomizes Alphys because he’s mad he looks like a freak. He murders people who wants him to help everyone stay alive. He maims and tortures children and no amount of not eating them afterwards makes that any less morally apprehensible.

None of this is meant to say you can’t like him as a character. It is just to explain why characterizing him as a poor lil guy who did nothing wrong, is a little… wrong.

i believe this is an extensive look into why Horrortale Sans is evil.

Thank you for reading :)

[bloodyymaryyy]

Gossip girl xoxo

F1 grid x driver reader

This is part 2!

part 1/ part 3 /part 4 /masterlist

Side note : help this is not in correct chronological order it's like moments leading up to the first part. This took way too long and I can't be bothered to fix it properly so bare with me

Texts

Maxie

You: did you see...?

Maxie

Yeah.... You were right it was true... Now what?.

You : I don't know this is getting awkward especially now on the paddock that we have the races... Do you think he is gonna show up?

Maxie

I don't know, although we can't avoid it we have to face the music soon tho.

You : I am not ready for that

Media is gonna be fucked up.

Maxie

Oh believe me it's gonna be shit, I don't think I will last long before headbutting someone honestly

You : me too I won't last long

Fucking hell

What now? Are we gonna ignore it or?

Maxie

Maybe it's best we don't talk about it. Especially here

You :

You are right let's meet up.

🧍‍♀️👉🏡🤷‍♀️🧍‍♂️👉🏡?

Maxie

🧍‍♀️👈🏡

👉⏱️.

🍔🍟 Or 🍝🍤

You

🥇

Maxie

👍

Before that chaos you were told by Pierre that Lewis was moving to Ferrari in a year that he was told by Charles.

Which that should have been secret until announced by the teams but it's nice to know things... That was something interesting.

....

At Lewis apartment complex

*Puzzing *" Nico! Can you please open the door for me?!"

"Why? " Nico answered from the phone

"uhh I came to see you and the girls!" she made a face at that coming with a lie but not really a lie, she did missed Nico and the girls but she came here to confront Lewis about him leaving Mercedes for Ferrari

There was a moment of silence until his voice came again on the phone

"Sure" that was it the buzzing that opened the door came through and she pushed the door open and come up to his apartment, he was waiting for her to come up with his girls with him. The girls jumped to her, hugging her and welcoming her inside, taking off her shoes she came to Nico next and kisses his cheeks crossed and his wife hugging them for a bit and they started to talk about everything.

After a few hours she left and went to Lewis's apartment knocking loudly at the door. When the door opened and revealed Lewis standing there with gray sweatpants and sweater with his hair unbraided Roscoe at his feet wagging his tail seeing her after quite a bit of time he launched himself at her and she kneeled down petting him and scratching him on his back, under his head and belly making him lay down and smile getting his belly scratches.

" Lewis we have to talk" she finally spoke

" Well first of all, how did you get here?" he asked surprised

"Nico opened the door for me!" there was a pause " don't change the subject! Are you going to Ferrari in 2025?!" she exclaimed

" uh I can't tell you that... Sorry"

" Just tell me why?... Are you retiring? Oh no... Are you? You are returning after that aren't you? God!" she then started to tear up and rant about it the only thing he could do is make her stand up and walked her at the couch while she was having a mental breakdown.

Then there was lando leaked asking for nudes and honestly she learned that from TikTok, she was scrolling down on her for you page while getting her food a bit cooled down and a slideshow popped up about the situation and there was her appetite

Texts

Landinio

You :

Lando!

Lando get the fuck off of my fyp you idiot

Why am I seeing your texts on TikTok?

Landinio

What do you mean?

What texts?

Y/n?

You:

You asking for 😰🤮.... 🍜

Eww I did not want to see that!?

Oh BTW are you okay? Did you not know or?

Are you stupid? Honestly it's a bit ridiculous to leak texts from 2020...

N e way....

Landinio

Wtf?! Why are my cringe text on the open?! From 2020 especially then! I was stupid!

Fuck me...

IT'S NOT MY FAULT THEY GOT LEAKED WTF DO YOU MEAN?!?

Oh pr is gonna kill me fuck

Lmk if you want another part!

[saphronethaleph]

So a sort of look at a structure one could do for the Sequel Trilogy, admittedly with hindsight.

Opening sequence? Basically the same, except that Poe is meeting with a Resistance spy - the data he's got is the evidence that means the First Order is more than just a rando Remnant faction but is a serious threat. Then the stolen TIE crashes but Finn and Poe link up together. They meet BB- and Rey, and the four of them escape on a ship - possibly the Falcon, but it could be another of the same type, they're supposed to be common. Alternatively make up a new ship type they steal and have that be the Iconic Ship of the trilogy.

Team dynamic is Poe Flies, Finn Shoots, Rey Fixes.

They're heading straight to the Resistance, or that's the plan - they may need to briefly detour somewhere if their ship got damaged in the escape (if so, this is where they visit Maz).

The Resistance is explicitly described as a deniable New Republic operation which is fighting this specific Remmant faction - at the moment. They've fought others before, they're kind of like knights errant, and they have at least one Jedi (let's say Qu Rahm) who gives both Finn and Rey some training.

The Jedi Order as a whole is not involved with the First Order fight because it's utterly routine, there's dozens of Remnant factions... at least until BB-8's information reveals that the First Order has Kylo Ren associated with it, and also the existence of Starkiller Base.

The knowledge of BOTH of those things means that the Jedi Order is able to evacuate their current temple (Naboo or Yavin? Either way it should be a known planet) just in time before it gets blown the fuck up by Starkiller base. Then there's tension involving the need to swat SK base quickly, which mostly goes as per the original film.

In the second film:

The Resistance is still tiny, and the First Order's actions have promoted them from "just another Remnant faction" to "holy fuck" and they're starting to weld the Remnant back together. It is actually not widely known that Starkiller base got destroyed and the First Order is using intimidation tactics to pretend they're unbeatably strong - not helped by how the Resistance genuinely is pretty weak, nobody on the Republic side wants to be the first to jump, and Leia is trying to talk everyone into giving more support (it does slowly tick up)

The general structure here does need more changes than TFA did, simply to fit into the trilogy as a whole, but here I think a good Driving Question could be finding out who Snoke is and where the Knights of Ren came from. Our Heroes are juggling between getting Jedi training (for Finn and Rey), launching raids on the First Order, and trying to find out Snoke's origin - the latter of which fails, but he does get killed instead by Kylo Ren, who takes control of the First Order.

The main ending note at the end of the film would be the loss of Leia; she tried to turn her son back to the light side with full sincerity, but also went to kill him if he didn't. Neither worked, but he's been badly wounded and about half of the Knights of Ren got taken out. (n.b. if this is cheating to get around Carrie Fisher's death, and it probably is, that could be Luke's demise instead - or both.) Our Heroes might well be involved with a hot-extraction of R2 and C-3P0, who have important details of what happened.

Third film:

The death of Leia/Luke/both has become a rallying point and the New Republic is gearing up for war, which gains momentum with every day that the First Order doesn't blow up a planet; it's made clear in scenes showing Kylo that he's under a huge amount of pressure, because Starkiller Base made promises that the First Order cannot fulfil. In lieu of that they're having to turn instead to more standard means of brutally enforcing their claim to authority, and it's not working out well.

Our Heroes meanwhile are involved in hit-and-fade strikes, one of which sees the death of Qu Rahm. The loss of their teacher causes Rey and Finn some problems, but Poe is the one who pulls them out of it - it doesn't matter if they have a teacher or not, what matters is who they are, and that didn't change because they had a teacher. All he did was open their eyes to who they really were.

That's the realization that drives the stormtrooper-rebellion side of things from the Resistance/Republic side, while on the Imperial side we see Phasma having more and more trouble keeping a lid on things. Finn is The Traitor and basically blamed for everything that goes wrong ever as far as the First Order is concerned.

Running out of options, Supreme Leader Kylo Ren orders a decapitation strike by the entire F.O. fleet on the capital world of the Republic. This is a serious threat, because normal strategic calculus assumes that you just don't DO this, and this is what leads to the big final battle over said capital world - the Republic is outnumbered on a tactical scale, and the available members of the Jedi Order help launch an assault on the First Order flagship to try and disrupt the F.O. fleet.

This is where the Stormtrooper Rebellion is really kicked off, as Finn brings the existing tension in the First Order fleet to a boil (key moment: a Stormtrooper panics at the sight of Jedi, one of their officers tries to gun them down, Finn kills the officer before it can happen; this is the moment that disproves the propoganda and it spreads). Rey gets the big final duel, but it's against Kylo, and on at least two occasions she manages to call in strike support from Poe flying outside in his starfighter. This means the final battle is the Jedi Order versus the Knights of Ren on a super star destroyer being torn apart by Imperial infighting, and the resolution is liberation - for the stormtroopers, for example - and the surrender of the remaining First Order fleet.

[thesharkwhalewhoohooooo]

Bridget x Fem! Reader

"My girlfriend got me a dead rat for my birthday!" Charming proudly puffed up his chest, looking at the group of girls in front of him when they staid quiet for a bit too long.

"What?"

"She got me a dead rat!"

"She couldn't even go for an alive one!" Hecate burst out laughing, Bridget slapping her arm, along with Ella's.

"Ella! Why would you do that?" The girl shrugged, Charming quickly taking over, again.

"Because she loves me! She's obviously like a cat and is giving me food because she thinks I can't hunt for myself!" They all gaped at him once again, this time Ella did too.

"She's sitting right there..."

"I AM NOT A CAT STUPID CHARMING!"

Before she could completely maul the boy, Bridget pulled Ella off of him.

"Let's not kill our boyfriends, all right Ella?" She gritted her teeth, but nodded, a fierce glare fixed upon her boyfriend.

"I mean, I know my strap game is amazing but-?" Bridget all but ran over at her girlfriend, slapping her hand over her mouth and giving her her own glare.

"Don't." Hecate's eyes widened slightly, beforr Bridget felt her smirk.

"You're so hot." Her words were muffled but they did their job of making Bridget flush red just as good.

"Hecate!" The witch pulled her hand off of her mouth and picked her up to kiss her, spinning her around slowly.

"You're so pretty..." she mumbled onto her lips, making the princess giggle.

"Not as pretty as you sweets!" They heard Ella gag, Hecate looked at her and glanced at Charming, arching a brow suggestively at her.

"STUPID HECATE!"

"DON'T THROW YOUR SHOE AT ME! I'M HOLDING BRIDGET!"

-

"What did you do for Bridget's birthday though?" Charming asked, quite literally the next day because Ella and Hecate couldn't be in the same toom as each other anymore.

"I gave her pink roses, a new apron, oh! And I got her a few ingredients she has been wanting to. Experiment with for a while.... Don't!" She held her hand up in front of her face when she saw Ella reach for something, which pissed her off because she wasn't even going to throw anything.

"I wasn't even going to throw anything!" She threw a rock at Hecate, not that it could hurt her, but she withdrew and pouted as she sat next to Bridget, who patted her cheek.

"It was so sweet of her, she even helped decorate the cookies.... God knows she should be banned from using kitchens!" She joked, smiling as Ella laughed at it and started mocking Hecate.

"That's so sweet! You wanna know what I did?"

"Not really."

"I gave her a dress! And I asked Bridget to make her a cake!" Hecate glanced at Ella, who shrugged.

"You guys haven't been in a relationship long enough." She declared, Ella stood up and launched another rock, missing Hecate by a few millimeters.

"Ha! Missed-! Hey!" This time she hit, and it got her right in her forehead.

She shuffled closer to Bridget, who shushed her and rubbed her forehead softly.

"You're not bleeding Honey."

"You guys have only been dating for like 2 months longer than we have!" The blue haired girl crossed her arms, the other blue haired girl shot her a glare and shuffled EVEN CLOSER to Bridget.

"Yeah! Go back to your mommy little pussy!" Bridget send her a look and she rolled her eyes, sitting back down.

"But yeah, giving Bridget those ingredients was very nice, including the fact that you had me treat the slashes from those griffins you 'had' to defeat on your way back to get her some of their feathers, scales blah blah." She sneaked in another little detail that she had conveniently forgotten to inform Bridget about, who in turn looked at Hecate, who was still pouting, and quickly stood up.

"Hecate and I are going to have a chat in my dorm... maybe we'll see you at dinner, bye Ella, Charming!" They said their bye's back, and Hecate glared at Ella, who smirked at her.

The only thing keeping Hecate from launching at her and ripping her to shreds was Bridget, who was pissed at her.

-

"God damn it you are strong." She muttered, rubbing her wrist when Bridget finally let go, but had now pushed her onto her bed and was zipping down her jacket.

"Hey hey! If you wanted to do something you could've just said.... Oh." She sighed in disappointment when she realised that she was not, in fact, about to have sex with her wonderful girlfriend, but instead was probably facing a scolding that ended in the opposite of that, no sex for as long as Bridget was slightly mad at her, which could end up being something around a day and a month.

"How dare you get hurt because of something you wanted to get for me." Bridget grumbled as she poked at the newly developed scars.

"But they look hot?"

"Shush."

[slotmachines-fearofgod]

babby ahsoka + twins

Please enjoy this not proofread not edited not ready WIP! we need more baby ahsoka & clones in the world

---

For the first time in his (relatively short) life Rex was at a loss. 

They were investigating some temple on behalf of the Jedi. Anakin had been sent because of his intense attunement to the Force and the 501st had happily followed his lead. Rex hadn’t gotten much out of the man, just that the Jedi would know what to do and all he needed to worry about was following their lead. 

Rex was going to kill him. 

When they first landed and entered nothing had seemed off. It was an old, crumbling structure built by neither Jedi nor Sith millenia ago. The Jedi wanted it investigated due to the strange flow of energy around it, an energy that had steadily been increasing over the past month until the signal reached Coruscant itself. Rex had braced himself for mental games or mind tricks but there had been nothing. 

In fact, there had been so little sign of anything that Anakin decided it would be best for them to split up. Coming as a surprise to no one Ahsoka took Fives, Echo, and Rex along with her down the side passageways, leading them through a winding maze Rex wasn’t sure he’d be able to figure out on his own. 

Which was what led them here. 

Rex stared down at the three children in front of him and felt the vague urge to cry.

Fives blinked up at him, his big eyes full of curiosity as he looked at Rex’s armor. Rex, still frozen from where he’d busted through the door that had trapped his compatriots, watched as his second waddled up to him and grabbed his kama. 

“Fives?” Rex croaked, incredibly out of his depth. 

Fives laughed brightly, “See Echo! I told you it would catch on.”

Echo, now half his original size, scowled, “No fair. Why do you get the fun name?”

Ahsoka, his little commander, his almost-sister, his charge, stuck her finger in her mouth and immediately jammed it into Echo’s ear. 

Echo yelped, scurrying away from the girl who was grinning with her fangs out, “Ew!”

“What’s your name?” Ahsoka asked, seemingly innocent. 

Echo grumbled quietly so they couldn’t hear, still trying to wipe the spit out of his ear. 

Fives ran over to him, laughing all the way, “It’s Echo! It’s ‘cause he only repeats what the trainers say!”

“Shut up!” Echo’s face lit up red as he smacked his brother, “I do not!”

“Ow!” Fives whined, rearing up to hit Echo back, “Don’t be such a tubie!”

“I hate you,” Echo growled, “Stop being so mean.”

“I’m Ahsoka!”

Both clone cadets momentarily paused to look at the togruta girl. 

“I’m a Jedi!”

And with that their feud was forgotten. Rex sighed and walked over, accepting that this was his life now, as Echo launched question after question at a giggling Ahsoka. Fives was trying to bodily drag her away to see her do “cool Force shit,” leaving Rex to wade in between the pack to pick up the little padawan. 

“Hey,” Fives complained, “Give her back.”

“Hush,” Rex fixed him with a look, “Give me a sitrep cadet.”

Fives rolled his eyes, a move that would’ve gotten him another hour of training at the least on Kamino, while Echo stiffened into a less than perfect parade rest. 

“Sir!” Echo started, his voice just a little too loud in the echoing chamber, “Myself and CT-5555 were enjoying our downtime in the bunks. We were taking the allotted rest period to sleep and woke up here in this…where are we? Sir.”

Rex sighed, rubbing his eyes with his free hand, “We are on the planet Erot in the Outer Rim. As for the name of this place, I was not granted access to that information.”

All three kids' eyes widened. 

“Outer Rim?” Ahsoka asked, “That’s so cool!”

Rex shifted her onto his hip so she’d be easier to carry. If he had to guess, they were all about five or six standard years. They could speak plainly and fluently and had little coordination issues, but they were much younger then they’d been a mere five minutes ago. 

“Ahsoka,” Rex started, “Do you remember what you were doing in this room?”

Ahsoka shook her head, now looking around the space, “No. I was in the creche with Uzaa and we were going to class with Master Che. I was late.” Ahsoka looked down sheepishly, a blush of her own on her face. 

Rex smiled weakly, “It’s alright. We’ll work it out.”

“Who are you?” Fives piped up, never content with being silent too long. 

“I’m Rex,” he could answer that at least, “Captain Rex.”

“Captain?” Echo looked up at him with something like admiration, “Wow. Does that mean the war has started?”

“What war?” Ahsoka asked, now alarmedly squirming in Rex’s arms, “Why do you all look the same?”

Rex winced, “It…may be best if we regroup before we talk about everything,” he said apologetically, “But I’ll explain.”

Ahsoka frowned, wiggling so much that Rex gave up and just set her down, “Okay. Are we going back home?”

That was a good question. Right now Rex wasn’t sure what to do with his sort-of soldiers. And there was no way he was getting back through the tunnel system without a guide to help. 

Rex looked around the room, searching for clues or hints of what did this to them. There were strange carvings on the floor in the center and metal piping running along the ceiling, but other than that the place seemed empty. Devoid of anything and everything except for the group of four at the door. 

Rex pinched his nose as he pulled up his comm, already dreading this call. 

“Skywalker here, what’s your status Rex?”

“Uh,” Rex looked down at three innocent and eager faces, “I need a rendezvous at my position ASAP.”

“What?” Skywalker’s voice changed, now startled and anxious instead of cool and collected, “What happened to Ahsoka? She can’t lead you?”

Ahsoka gasped, “He knows me?”

“...What was that?”

“That is my predicament sir,” Rex sighed again, “I believe your padawan activated something. ARC troopers Fives and Echo are down along with Tano.”

“ARC trooper?!” Fives cried in excitement, now bouncing on his toes, “We make ARC troopers?”

Rex gave all three of them a scolding look and pressed a finger to his lips. They all looked down at their feet, adequately shamed. 

“Riiight,” Skywalker drawled, “Sounds like I should see this myself. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

“Bring Kix please,” Rex tiredly requested.

“Of course,” Skywalker sounded less upset now. It helped soothe some of Rex’s own nerves as he mentally cussed out stupid Force shit in every language he knew. “I look forward to seeing what this is about.”

Rex let out a breath of relief as the call ended. He sat heavily next to the kids, staring blankly at the wall in front of him. 

At least until Echo rounded in front of him. 

“Captain?” Echo asked in a small voice.

“Yeah?” 

“Are we in trouble?”

Rex softened a bit and shook his head, “No. It’s just been a long day.”

Echo hummed, “So is it true? Has the war started?”

Ah yes. The great war. The one they used to dream about as kids. Their strange light at the end of the tunnel. 

“Yeah,” Rex said hoarsely, staring into Echo’s eyes and suddenly being hit with the realization that this Echo’s brothers were still alive, “It’s started.”

Echo frowned, “But you’re not an A clone. Why are you deployed?”

Rex shook his head, “It’s complicated. We’ll explain later, I promise.”

Echo seemed unhappy with that answer, but he didn’t get another word in before Fives was bullying his way into Rex’s line of sight. 

“You said we’re ARC troopers,” Fives accused, “But we haven’t even graduated our base combat modules!”

Rex laughed softly, “You’ll get there someday. Trust me.”

Fives scowled, unsatisfied with Rex’s half answer but Rex wasn’t really sure how much to tell them. Telling them everything - Rishi, their batch’s destruction, their missions with Torrent - seemed unwise. They were still kids. They deserved to be kids. Just for a little bit. 

Rex startled as he felt a weight lean into his side, briefly reaching for his blaster before looking over and realizing it was Ahsoka. 

She looked up, her usually large eyes now seeming comically huge on her face, “‘M cold.”

Right. Togrutas were warm blooded. And she hadn’t gotten as lucky as Fives and Echo, whose blacks shrunk with them. She was still stuck with her skirt and stupid tube top. Rex wanted to rip that thing to shreds and replace it with armor. He’d had the instinct many times before but now…

Rex just opened his arms, allowing the girl to crawl into his lap with a happy sigh.

He glanced at Echo and Fives, unsurprised to find them bickering quietly off to the side. 

“Boys,” he called, his voice booming around the chamber, “Cut it out.”

Fives made a frustrated noise and stomped his foot, going off to sulk in the corner, while Echo stared after him with an angry look. Eventually the younger of the two made it over, subtly checking out of Ahsoka had left any room in Rex’s lap. 

Rex scooted backward against the wall so the three of them could sit more comfortably before he called out, “Fives. Come here.”

Fives turned around, stuck his tongue out, and turned back to the corner. 

“CT-5555,” Rex put a little more authority into his voice, “Now.”

Fives hesitated, fighting with himself a little bit, before groaning and stomping over. Rex gave him an appraising once over, finding nothing wrong with him other than the attitude. 

“What’s this about?” Rex tried his best to go for strict older brother but he was pretty sure the image was ruined by the two kids in his lap. 

“Don’t wanna be here,” Fives mumbled, crossing his arms and looking down, “I miss 4040.”

Ah. Cutup. Fives’ favorite of his old batch. 

Rex relaxed a bit, crooking his finger at Fives and watching the kid tentatively step toward him, “It’ll be alright. We’ll get you three fixed up in no time.”

“Fixed?” Echo craned his neck to look up at Rex. 

Rex winced, knowing where Echo probably jumped to, “Back home, I mean.”

Echo nodded, slumping against Rex as Fives tried, and mostly succeeded, to fit himself between his brother and his future commander. Rex held the three of them in his arms and tried to remember to breathe. 

He didn’t know what to do with this. They couldn’t fight and there was no way in hell Kamino would take Fives and Echo back. He didn’t have the first clue what to do with Ahsoka, hell he didn’t even know if they’d allow her back at the temple after this. Were the Jedi as strict as the Kaminoans? Certainly not except for the exceptional cases. The issue was this was most certainly an acceptable case. 

They sat in a tight anxious silence for the next few minutes. Rex was shielding as best he could, but his skills were rudimentary at best and he knew it was getting to Ahsoka. Adding on to that Fives and Echo kept poking each other and making faces when they thought Rex wasn’t looking. Eventually one of them was going to hit Ahsoka and he just knew that would start an all out war. 

Ahsoka perked up before the rest of them, her eyes going wide and her figure stilling. Rex let out a sigh of relief, well aware of what that meant by now. 

Sure enough, a few moments later they heard hurried footsteps and a few calls between troopers. Rex had them all stand, drawing his blasters and putting on his helmet as he walked to the door. 

Skywalker was the first in line, his face curious but not alarmed. Rex let the blasters fall when he saw him, nodding respectfully to his general. 

“Rex,” Anakin greeted him, “Mind showing me what this is about?”

Rex nodded, peeking over his shoulder to see Jesse, Kix, and Hardcase. That was good. The boys would love Hardcase. 

“Yeah,” Rex stepped aside and pointed at the trio of children, “Feel free to take a look.”

Anakin, it seemed, had the same reaction to children as Rex did. Which was freeze. 

Kix nudged him aside easily, sparing a curious glance at his general, before he too paused in the doorway. 

“Hi!” Ahsoka waved cheerily, one of her hands in Echo’s, “I’m Ahsoka!”

[lukedanger]

Caitlyn's Narrow Way Through without a Golden Path - A Spectulation

So, in the new S2 teaser, Caitlyn lists three objectives for her task force: locate Jinx, dismantle shimmer, and neutralize any of Silco's remaining loyalists. A clear set of objectives, and ones that in theory allow for precision as not every Zaunite is a Silco loyalist - the Firelights, for one. And ones that would almost certainly be in contrast to someone else's idea of how to retaliate. Say, a Noxian invasion? An invasion that this compromise of her leading a task force into Zaun can avert. Yet to do so, Caitlyn would still need to lead the Enforcers into Zaun as a military force: the opposite of what she wanted before.

This is not going to be pretty, but I think this is going to be a situation where she sees it as the least bad option. Caitlyn knows full well that the Piltover Council being exploded was not an attack by Zaun as a whole - Jinx made the decision herself. Caitlyn absolutely wants revenge, but I do not see her wanting to collectively punish all of Zaun for it.

Others, though, are itching to punish all of Zaun for the hexrocket attack. The most likely leading voice for that? Ambessa Medarda: if Piltover does nothing, then Noxus steps in. And Ambessa's methods would be an indiscriminate orgy of blood and fire that isn't going to care whether a Zaunite was one of Silco's men or a Firelight who opposed him. And we know that Noxus is sending at least one ship full of troops for the job from the teaser.

So, Caitlyn, now the closest thing Piltover has to a leader (assuming Jayce and Mel are out of action even if they live), steps up to the plate. She takes the reins before Ambessa makes a decision for them. And with that Sword of Damocles overhead tries to find a way through, however narrow, that avoids a total war between the cities or Piltover becoming a de facto Noxian vassal.

She creates a compromise to appease the warmongers while still avoiding collective punishment of Zaun, and asserts that Piltover is not free real estate. A narrow path of three limited objectives to resolve things in the absence of a golden path to bring justice to both cities. It is not a good solution, but the now-dead council missed every opportunity for one in their neglect and apathy. Cait makes a plan with the options she has available to her after all the better ones were lost.

Is it a good plan? Hell no! I fully expect that Cait's willingness to launch even a limited invasion of Zaun as a compromise is going to be because she wants revenge herself. At the same time, I don't think it is going to completely erase her good heart. She still is going to want the cities to heal, she just sees this conflict as one that needs to be resolved. Definitively. By her actions. Once she finishes fixing this crisis, they can deal with the actual root causes. The alternative means surrendering to despair and letting the broken system continue to fail.

But with her judgment clouded by revenge and no small amount of "I have to fix this because I seem to be the only topsider who cares", Caitlyn could lose the good heart we know her for in the first season. No doubt Ambessa will be there constantly encouraging Caitlyn to listen to the little voice in her head that says 'screw them all, they deserve to suffer for killing mom!'. To include more and more under the description "Silco's Loyalists" until that distinction is functionally meaningless. Or even starts counting Silco's enemies like the Firelights when they object to the inevitable excesses of the Enforcers.

This is where Vi will step in, I believe. She is someone who cares about Cait as a person and who is not going to fall in line to enable her worst impulses past a point of no return. I fully expect that Vi will call Caitlyn's judgment into question when it absolutely needs to be, painful an argument as it will be for those involved and to watch.

At the same time, it will be that argument that yanks Caitlyn away from the void she was about to step into. The other half of this is that when Vi calls Cait out, she listens and learns. It's just that this time, it is the lover's plea to the hero to step back before it is too late.

Maybe it is still too late for the main plan by the time this happens. Maybe this is what causes the final showdown between sisters as Cait has to let go and trust Vi to face this alone. Or maybe Vi has to do it alone because Caitlyn has to stop Ambessa as their timer runs out. There's a lot of ways it could go from here, but I think it will be a continuation of the same thing: a desperate attempt to find the narrow way through as every better option is closed off.

[heliads]

Kai Parker x male reader, reader helping Kai redeem himself and be better

excellent reminder that i need to watch the originals/legacies so if this was meant for a different part of the tvd timeline do ignore

masterlist

It has only been an hour since you woke up, and already, the Salvatores are desperate for your help. It’s not like you can blame them, not really; they seem to collect trouble with an almost professional magnetism. No matter what they try, danger always comes their way, and they are never, ever able to get rid of it without significant difficulty.

This problem belongs to all of you, in a way, not just the two brothers. When your group of friends and somewhat tenuous allies managed to take down Kai Parker, you were all left with the meddlesome question of what on earth you were supposed to do with him. 

Killing Kai is tricky. None of you are one hundred percent sure that Kai’s life isn’t linked to the spell keeping Elena in a coma and Bonnie alive somewhere, tethered to her friend, so murdering him could have disastrous consequences. That hasn’t stopped Damon from stomping around and loudly declaring how much he’d like to rip Kai’s twisted little heart right out of his chest, but it’s not like the older Salvatore has ever needed an excuse for drama.

That leaves Kai Parker alive, for now at least, and that means he’ll have to be handled accordingly. Right now, he’s locked away in the cell in the Salvatore house basement, but you’ll still have to do something with him before too long, if anything to shut up the constant source of complaining emanating from the downstairs area. Stefan says it ruins his beauty sleep.

And, for some reason, the above problems have convinced the Salvatore brothers to call upon you of all people. Sure, you’re probably one of the more sensible members of your little friend group, but that shouldn’t mean you’re the one they contact for every murderous lunatic to ever hit Mystic Falls. Goodness knows it would totally destroy your travel plans.

You stalk through the halls of the Salvatore House. Stefan greets you at the door and is hurriedly following you through the rooms, alternating between apologizing for needing you yet again and attempting to extract promises that you will actually help them with this.

“It’s not like we want to do this, obviously, but you’ve got a great track record for fixing these sorts of things, and I thought it was best that Damon not handle this, or Bonnie, so–”

You come to an abrupt stop at the top of the stairs leading to the basement, cutting Stefan off with an icy stare. “And that left me, I suppose? I’d lecture you about how much I don’t want to do this, but I assume you can guess at that.”

Stefan winces. “Yeah, I kind of got that. Will you do it, though?”

You sigh, casting an irritable glance down the stairs where Kai waits somewhere in a cell below you. “I will. You totally owe me, though.”

Stefan lets out an audible sigh of relief. “You can act on that favor any time, I swear. Just see what you can do, alright?”

“We’ll see,” you allow.

In truth, you have no idea how well this is going to work. Kai is, well, Kai, and that means he’s not prone to helping anyone out if he can help it. Odds are, you’re going to try to talk to him and see if he can be trusted just for him to threaten to drain your blood or something else like that. None of you have any better idea what to do with him, though, so you’ll just have to suffer along.

You tell Stefan to stay upstairs while you’re wrangling Kai, something the younger Salvatore is only too happy to agree with. Once he’s gone, you allow yourself one last moment of relative peace, then descend to the cells below.

Kai Parker is sitting morosely on the ground, leaning up against the far wall of the cell. He looks up when he hears you approach. “Are you here to let me out?”

You scoff. “What, so you can launch another mass murder attempt? Not a chance, Parker.”

“I prefer Kai,” he says, appearing by the grate in the door in the blink of an eye so he can stare directly at you, grinning all the while, “I don’t really like being reminded of my family. I’m sure you can understand.”

“Okay, Kai,” you shrug, “Are you planning on killing more people the moment you leave this cell?”

Kai narrows his eyes. “Why are you bothering to ask me this? Yes, obviously. Unless you were going to let me out if I said no. In that case, I would be a perfectly good boy and wouldn’t shed a single drop of blood. I would devote my life to the pursuit of kindness and volunteer service, and–”

You cut him off with a deep sigh. “You’re right, bad question. Look, can you just tell me what it would take for you to change your answer and actually mean it? Neither of us want you in this basement forever.”

Kai just laughs. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not your friend, and I’m never going to be. The second the lock in this door fails, I am going to break out. I am going to kill who I please and enjoy it all the while, and you’re no exception just because you’re trying to talk to me or some nonsense like that. I want you dead, Y/N. Truly.”

His smile is saccharine, and you want to throttle him through the bars of this cage were it not for the fact that this is obviously the reaction he wants.

“Alright, then,” you manage, “Die in here. I hope you do. No food or drink for you, and certainly no blood. I can’t wait to watch you starve. By the end of it, you’ll be wishing you were back in that prison world of yours.”

Kai must be able to sense how serious you are about that threat, because his playful demeanor drops in an instant. “You can’t mean that. You need me alive so Elena doesn’t accidentally die in her coma.”

“That’s why your head is still affixed to your shoulders,” you observe, “Doesn’t mean you won’t be a skeleton by the time she wakes up. You know, if boredom doesn’t kill you first.”

With that, you turn around and head back up the stairs. Kai’s shouts echo up around you, calling for you to turn around and let him out or something, anything. It’s like music to your ears.

Stefan looks up, surprised, when you emerge onto the main floor once more. “Well, that was fast. Any ideas what we should do with him?”

“Kill him,” you say tersely.

Stefan groans. “Trust me, we would if we could, but we can’t risk Elena like that. Is there seriously no way you can get a lead on this guy?”

You shake your head, flopping down into a nearby armchair. “Not unless I come back and try to crack him, like, every day until forever.”

There’s a conspicuous silence from Stefan, and you stare at him incredulously. “Stefan, no. You can’t do this to me.”

He smiles apologetically. “Does me repeating our endless gratitude help in any way?”

“It does not,” you tell him, but it’s not like that does anything at all.

Kai’s attitude does not improve the next day, nor the next, nor the one after that. You thought this was a failed idea from the first minute, but a week later Kai must realize that you’re not going anywhere, because he starts to break at last.

“Are you really going to keep up with this until I die or something?” He asks one day, head leaned idly up against the wall of his cell.

“Yes, unfortunately,” you say. “Does that make you more willing to cooperate?”

“I have never cooperated a day in my life, and I certainly don’t plan to now,” he says smugly.

You roll your eyes. “Trust me, I know.”

Kai frowns. “Out of curiosity, why is it that you of all people got stuck with this job? I would have thought Stefan would have taken it upon himself to be heroic or self-sacrificial and done it.”

You shake your head. “No, unfortunately. See, whenever one of the Salvatores does something stupid like turn off their humanity, I’m usually the one they bring in to convince them to feel things again. I went to the Lexi School of Emotional Manipulation and now I’m great at it.”

Kai snorts. “Should I know who Lexi is?”

“One of Stefan’s old friends,” you say dismissively.

“Not an old girlfriend of yours?” Kai asks innocently.

You look at him quizzically. “No, not in the slightest. Why would you think that?”

Kai shrugs casually. “I figured it wasn’t too far out of the question. You’re a handsome young man, she was present, things happen.”

You almost choke on your laughter, surprising both yourself and Kai. “I’m honored to hear you think I’m handsome. I’ll remember that.”

“Don’t,” Kai advises you, but he’s grinning too, and. Well. You hadn’t counted on having a good time, but when Damon texts you to say he needs something again, you actually feel disappointed to leave. If you didn’t know better, you’d say Kai’s face registers the same unhappiness when you go. Do you know better, though? Do you know anything at all?

The trend continues for a while, actually. Soon enough, you’re looking forward to your talks with Kai instead of dreading them. You’re not sure what they’re accomplishing, in all honesty, but Stefan says that Kai is quieter, tries to escape less frequently, so maybe it’s doing something after all. Maybe you’re really doing this. Maybe it’s all worth it, more than just to you.

It all comes to a head a month after Kai appeared in the Salvatore basement. A group of vampire hunters makes themselves known in Mystic Falls. They break into the Salvatore house, looking for the brothers. You, Bonnie, Stefan, and Damon are occupied with other business, and you come back to destruction of property and vague threats pinned to your door.

What’s worse, the hunters looked pretty thoroughly in the house. Damon appears at the top of the stairs to the basement, face grim. “The door to Kai’s cell was opened,” he says slowly, “He’s gone.”

You suck in a breath. It makes sense, of course; if Kai could talk someone into giving him a key, there is no reason he wouldn’t run, but for some reason it hurts like hell anyway. You really thought you were making progress. You really thought–

Well, what did you think? That he would happily stay in a cell if he had a chance to escape? That you could convince Kai Parker, known murderer Kai Parker, to become a good man? Ridiculous. You may have had success getting friends to turn their humanity on in the past, but that means absolutely nothing when it comes to Kai. It was foolish of you to believe that you could do something like that, and even more foolish to be hurt by the thought of him leaving.

The hunters have to be dealt with, obviously, so your group takes to the town once again, splitting up to cover the most ground and do damage control before something bad happens again. You’re turning down an alley in the search of gun-toting weirdos when you hear something behind you, and then there they are, maybe half a dozen all pointing various weapons at your head.

You raise your hands slowly. “Easy there. Let’s not murder me quite yet.”

One of the hunters grunts. “He’s not a Salvatore.”

Another one speaks. “He’s a friend of theirs, though. That’s good enough to die.”

Not if you have anything to say about it. You pull a gun from your belt and manage to get off a few shots before the hunters recover from their shock and fire back at you. You are able to take out about three of the six, but they’re still shooting at you and you have absolutely nowhere to run.

Just as you’re certain that your luck has run out, the shots cut off abruptly. You look back at them in time to see the last of the hunters fall to the ground. The sick, metallic scent of blood slicks through the air, and someone steps over their bodies. It’s– it’s Kai, of all people, but he’s injured, stumbling as he tries to make some joke about how surprised you look right now.

You catch him before he hits the pavement. The front of his shirt is dark with blood, and he groans in pain when you press your hands to the injuries in an attempt to slow the bleeding.

“I’m not linked to Elena,” he gasps weakly, “She’s not going to die.”

“I don’t care about that,” you whisper furiously, “I don’t want to lose you.”

With a chill, you realize you’re not lying. It’s not just because he saved your life, either, which is wholly unexpected. It’s because you’ve come to like spending time with him each day, and you were terrified that you were never going to see him again once he escaped the cell. You don’t want to live without him. You’re not sure that you can.

You desperately try to staunch the flow of blood from his veins. “What happened to you wanting to kill me, huh? You saved my life, it’s not like you.”

“Wasn’t,” he corrects slowly, “wasn’t like me. Guess we can all change if we want it enough.”

You frown. “What do you want, Kai?”

His eyes are dark in this night, not even the stars above can touch them. “You.”

Your blood feels cold as it runs through you. “What?”

Kai manages to find the strength to roll his eyes. “I know, I know. That was dramatic. I’m being honest, though, Y/N.”

“I know,” you whisper.

When you check his wounds again, you’re grateful to see that the skin is starting to knit together again. You’ve managed to hold him together through the worst of it, which means that he’s going to live. It also means that you have time, now, more time to think about what this means for the two of you, what you’re going to do with this information. You want him too, you realize. You want all of it, and for once, you have the perfect opportunity to have it, too.

tvd tag list: @mayfieldss

[daeagon]

My Reactions to ep 9 of TDofJ

MAJOR SPOILERS!! fyi this is an actually image of me while watching this show, this and me crying

this is very long so fair warning!

I also watched some of this with my IRL friend, so I’ll add their reactions!

THE BOAR SCNEE! You don’t know how excited I was to see this since it’s in the opening credits, and they just have it in the first 2 seconds! I THOUGUT THIS WOULD BE A HUGE CHANCE SCENE!! Nope

Oh she angy

I also love J’s little head tilt thing, it’s so smooth!

I LOVE HER and this line is so fucking funny! (Don’t think about how I could connect this to Bianca’s character and actions in the show)

THE PARALLELS THE PARALLELS! they speak to me!

the way this connects to J and Nuria’s hug/J crying but it’s the opposite, B is crying and doesn’t get a hug, however her partner knows about her job!

I don’t have any photos but during J going home and speaking to his kid my IRL was yelling at him to stop speaking Spanish, I was going OH SHIT.

also my IRL thinks Nuria is very hot and she can do better

When Nuria was confronting J and saying is this real when pointing to her ring: DAMN

basically that whole bit was me and my friend being in shock and reacting to it and saying Nuria was hot!It was very fun and surprising

HE FUCKING SNAPPED OH MY GOLLY! I LOVE THIS TROPE YEESSSSSSSSSSS

my IRL was also wondering why J was just standing there, he really hit the 🧍‍♂️

THIS FUCKING SHOT! HOLY SHIT

this looks like a painting! I don’t know which one but this should be in a museum! THE LIVHTING!! (I feel like someone should look into potential Biblical references or connections in this show, bc Nuria is in paradise and that falls apart because of her curiosity, I’m sure there’s more this is just surface level)

when Nuria walked away my IRL repeated that and said as she should

WHAT IS GOING ON WIRH THE BROTHET OH NO! I think he’s in something deep

oh wait, this could be a setup/trap

WAIT NOOOO!

AND WHAT YOU WANT ME TO BE GREATFUL FOR THAT?! F off! I USED TO LIKE YOU!

the way I need him to do this to me, and tell me everything is ok

but I know your fixing your marriage and that’s great but you have a man to unalive

I LOVE UDC!!! ‘Super rish people have to give up private jets so young people can have a future’ PREACH! PLEASE COME TO THIS WORLD PLEASE!! 🙏 This world really needs someone like UCD and River

YESSSSS QUEEN! If UDC has no fans I am dead (pun not intended)

but River launches tomorrow, that’s not a lot of time. I think UDC will die but River will still launch and the world will go into chaos

also very interesting timing of this show with recent events in NY, completely random thought

that’s the UK’s foreign secretary guy

’so where is the Jackal?’ Mans getting a boat, love him for that (to get to the island???)

I think I might be going to Spain at some point late next year, im actually so excited!

WHAT THE FUCK!! HELLO?!

WHAT?! It wasent the Jackal, was it? I DONT KNOW

Bianca’s so real for that

None is having a good time, J is mourning Norman, B is mourning her family even though they’re not dead

This song feels like a set up for the season finale, but there’s still time left in the ep

NOOOOOOOOOOOO NOT THE REGRET FOR SNAPPING AT YOUR WIFE NOOOO

OH SHIT! B is going to Spain oh god

Ah shit, here we go again

Very pretty bird!

They are knows for their ability to mimic the songs of other birds, sometimes kept as a cage bird 👀, that could connect to J’s username on the dark web, someone posted an analysis about that

The fit is giving Sherlock Holmes/deer hunter

also side note the fits in this show 👌, I need them!

bird call in distance

I might be a sleeper agent for anything bird related

I really should expect everyone J interacts with will be killed but wow, knife in the sock

I thought for a sec J would dive/swim to the island, glad he’s not doing thst

That’s a crazy set up wow! I mean it’s to account for the shaking of the boat so it makes sense

Jackal is so homophobic, you killed Rasmus your going to kill UDC who hurt you?

OH NO! Ullie’s partner is convinced him to swim and he’s going to die and he’s going to have so much guilt nooooooo

oh no there’s a drone!

and that dead guy is still just sitting there, sure

He shot the guy on a jet ski, he’s going to shoot the drone, is he going to do this with one bullet?!?

I’ve been so invested and mesmerized, the mucus it’s so tense!!! I’m scared

What did he do to the drone?! Huh

HE HIT THE WRONT MAN!!

THE COUNTDOWN IS SO TENSE

I am on the edge of my seat

OH SHIT!!

THERE YOU ARE ARE YOU INSANE

omg, I am actually in shock this show, I don’t think I was breahting

your just going to sail away!

NO THE PARTNER NOO IM SO SORRY

THE MUSIC! principle down!

IM GETTING MY CHSCE SCENE! YESSSSSSSSS

THE SHOT COMPOSITION IN THIS SHOW IS ACTUSLLY INSANE!!

I’m shaking

they just cut it there

god I have to wait a week

what did I just watch

a masterpiece that’s what

I need a week to process that actuslly

This show, I don’t have the words for how good it is, this is some of the best TV I’ve watched in a while

Welp until next week 😭

[miraclesnail]

title still pending, wip, chapter 2

prev chapter

next chapter

When you think of Travis Stoll, what comes to mind? Powerful? Intelligent? A protagonist? More like weak, a bit on the air-headed side, and a minor character at best. So why is he being chased by a crazy man with a foot long butcher knife?

Percy hisses as Annabeth shoves his arm back into its socket without so much as a warning. A heads up would have been nice but this probably for the best. The blindingly white-hot pain only last for a minute before simmering down into a dull ache. He rolls his shoulder experimentally and flexes his hand, making sure all function is there. 

It could be worse though. He could have a knife in his back. The way Travis was holding on to that knife? For one scary moment, he thought Travis was really going to do it. 

Thankfully Clarisse saved his butt. Not so fortunately, she got stabbed in his stead. . 

Will manages to squash Clarisse’s bleeding knee and the ambrosia she’s angrily munching on heals any damage Travis did ripping his knife out sideways. 

Leo is nursing his bitten hand. 

Piper is rubbing her kicked shin. 

And Chris is… well, Chris is taking care of his headbutted region. 

“It took six of us,” Leo starts, “To pin him down and we weren’t even successful. Are we really this weak? I mean. It’s just one man. And it’s Travis of all people. I beat him really easily in that sparring match a couple months ago. Me. Out of all people too.” 

Travis is asleep, thanks to Mr. D (who, by the way, is getting chewed out by Chiron. Something about ‘you can’t make them pass out everytime they cause trouble’ though if Percy were to be honest, Mr. D made the right call.) 

Percy swallows as he takes in Travis’s outfit. 

It looks like something Nico would love to wear with the black leather gloves and black turtleneck and black sweatpants. It looks unbearably hot in this June heat. Definitely not Travis’s style either. Though to be fair, Percy has never seen Travis without the orange camp shirt and khakis. 

A hand slips into his and a nectar bottle is pressed into his other.

 “You okay, seaweed brain?” Annabeth asks, “What happened? Why did he attack you?” 

“I don’t know. I saw him in the forest just standing there. I tried to get his attention but he wasn’t answering me so I touched his shoulders then out of nowhere, he’s trying to kill me.” 

Percy tries not to recall the unbidden anger in those eyes. Travis is … surprisingly terrifying when he’s angry. 

*** Fix bottom scenes/add something/maybe delete

Problem for future me *** 

Jason is rolling Travis onto his back. He’s handcuffing his hands together. When the first cuff locks on, Travis’s hand twitches. 

His hand twitches. 

“Jason, get —”

Travis’s eyes fly open and they zero in on Jason. Fear grips Percy’s heart. He’s too far. He can’t get there fast enough. Jason is going to — 

A blink and Percy would have missed Travis taking down Jason with a scissor leg maneuver. Another blink and he would have missed Travis shoving pulling a small knife from his plumber’s belt. 

Percy’s not the best at archery but maybe if he threw Riptide while it’s a pen, that’ll draw Travis’s attention. Maybe if he— 

But Travis isn’t standing above Jason anymore. He’s running towards him with remarkable speed. Annabeth curses and steps in front of him with her weapon out. 

He tries to shove her back, but Annabeth fights him on it. And okay fine. They’ll fight Travis together. But he doesn’t want to. He really doesn’t want to. Travis is his friend even if the guy did just attack him out of nowhere. 

But Travis runs past them, actually using Annabeth’s first swipe as a bouncepad to launch himself up and over the two of them. Percy readies to guard Annabeth’s back, but Travis moves past them, jabbing a knife into Mr. D's eyes while simultaneously thrusting a full gladius sword into Chiron’s stomach and ripping it sideways like he did with Clarisse’s knees. 

It all happened so fast. 

Travis shoves the knife in the eye. Travis pulls the hair back to expose the neck. Travis kicks the back of the knees to bring Mr. D to his knees. And Travis pulls out a new, much longer and broader knife with a golden tinge, places it against Mr. D’s jugular and very cleanly swipes across. 

And just like that, one decapitated god in five seconds. 

Percy’s going to be sick. 

Someone is already retching behind him. 

It makes Travis’s head perk up and there’s none of that crazy, unbidden anger Percy sees earlier back in the forest. They’re surprisingly free of emotion. Calm and focused. Confusion. Relieved. Surprise. If… if… Percy pushes it actually, he could say he’s seeing happiness in those gaze. 

That is until they met him and his calm went to panic.  

“I can explain,” Travis says with a hand out like he meant no harm. 

“Sleep!” Piper screams behind them. 

Travis stumbles, but right himself. 

“Go to sleep!” Piper yells again, desperation tinged in her voice. 

And Travis is down entirely, head bonking the banister. 

[scotianostra]

On July 3rd 1883, the Clyde shipyards suffered their worst accident when the SS Daphne capsized at her launch.

The SS Daphne was a 460-ton steamer to be used on the Glasgow-Ireland run. The ship was launched from the shipbuilding yard of Messrs. Alexander Stephen and Sons at Linthouse, Govan. Within three minutes she had capsized with over 200 workers finishing the internal fittings still on board. 124 died as a result.

As was usual in the launching of ships two anchors and cables were employed to check the way on the vessel after she had entered the water. On this occasion the checking apparatus failed to function. The starboard anchor moved some six or seven yards, but the port anchor dragged for about sixty yards and the current of the river catching the ship at a critical moment turned her over on her port side.

A joiner who survived named Kinnaird wrote:

“I was busily engaged on the deck, and felt the vessel moving on the ways, and nothing occurred until she had taken the river. Then an extraordinary scene happened, and tremendous shouts arose from those on board. I felt the vessel toppling over to the right and in a moment every person on board was hurled into the water. The shrieks and cries were terrible. I, along with some others, scrambled on to the bottom of the vessel, which was turned upside, and retained a hold. In a few moments a man came round with a small boat, and asked me to jump into the water. I did so, and was rescued. There would be about twenty persons besides myself who clung to the bottom of the vessel, and also succeeded in getting into the boat. Round about I could see a large number of people struggling and shouting in the water. Prior to the accident there were so many men and boys on deck that it was difficult to move about. I believe that over two hundred people were in the vessel. I cannot possibly describe the heart-breaking scenes which I witnessed.”

An enquiry was held and the yard owners were exonerated from any blame, leading to claims of a cover up. One of the outcomes of the disaster was the limiting of personnel aboard to only those necessary for mooring the ship after the launch. The ship was raised and repaired at Govan Dry Docks and emerged as the ‘Rose’.

Such was the scale and tragedy of the disaster that there are two SS Daphne Memorials in Glasgow. One is located in Craigton Cemetery the other one in Elder Park representing the loss to those communities involved.(As seen in pics 3 & 4)

The following extract is from The Paisley & Renfrewshire Gazette, 7th July 1883 & 14th July 1883.

A PAISLEY VICTIM OF THE DISASTER

Robert Baylis, aged forty-three years, a carpenter, is amongst the unrecovered dead. He resided in Paisley and was known amongst his fellow-workmen as “Paisley Bob”. He has left a widow and seven children, the youngest an infant. When his wife heard of the accident she hurried to Govan, but could not find him in his lodgings. He was one of those upon the ill-fated vessel. The poor woman stated that her husband left home on Monday morning. He turned back three times saying that he could not understand what was wrong but he felt ‘sweer’ to leave, as he felt as if something was going to happen to him.

The Daphne still lies in the bed of the river, and no search was made on Thursday for the bodies, which are still lying in her hold and engine room. About thirty of the victims who perished on Tuesday were buried on Thursday, and a number were buried yesterday. The method fixed upon for raising the Daphne is to close up all apertures, pump the vessel dry and bring it on a level keel by means of pontoons. These operations will necessarily occupy a few days.

As for those who were killed, there are memorials dedicated to them on either side of the Clyde; at Victoria Park to the north and Elder Park in the south.

A total of 126 men lost their lives with 40 women widowed and 150 children left without their main breadwinners as a result of the catastrophe.

[mintywolf]

A Long Road Home - Page 56 Author Notes

Page 56

Cling to Life lets Laudna regain 1 hp on a 16 or higher death save, as opposed to Strength of the Grave which allows her to remain at 1 hp instead of 0 after a successful CON save. Since the former is a Hollow One ability and therefore a "gift" from Delilah whose intervention we are witnessing, mechanically, that's what just happened.

So okay in my original draft (right up until the time I was working on the first page in fact since that’s when the Gelvaan episode aired, by coincidence) Imogen unambiguously killed the ex-sheriff. Then in that episode (48) Imogen asks about the aftermath of the fight and Relvin confirms that everyone survived:

MATT: "You and your friends probably shouldn't stay too long. Some folks around here that don't have the fondest memories of your exit." LAURA: Are they okay? MATT: "They got better, but--" LAURA: Good. MATT: "The tales have certainly grown with time. At a certain point, they just stopped listening to me."

And let me tell you I was vibrating with anxiety that entire episode because I was FOUR DAYS from launching the comic after months of work and preparation when they just happened to decide to go to the precise setting of it in that week’s episode. I’m still kind of amazed at how lucky I was that there were only a few small discrepancies to reconcile. (One being the physical description of Relvin, which was easy to fix, two being that Flora doesn’t actually live with the Temults and might not actually belong to them, which I just let slide, and three being that everyone survived the incident that caused them to leave town.)

But I think it works better this way because Imogen already has a LOT to process right now. She has to leave her home and go on the run, someone tried to kill her pets, she saw Laudna apparently die, then un-die and turn into a spooky monster, previously unknown lightning powers just erupted out of her hands and carved themselves into her skin, and the barn is on fire. (And she just got over a bad case of scarlet fever like three days ago.) There isn’t really space in the story right now for her to stop and come to terms with having taken a life, even of someone who deserved it.

(Also it makes something that happens near the end of chapter 3 much more impactful if she’s never killed anyone before.)

So by now Imogen has been presented with pretty solid evidence that there is something Not Quite Right with Laudna. She has definitely heard the accusations (spoken and unspoken) by the people in town but she hasn’t been able to bring herself to believe that the most loving and vivacious person she’s ever met could be undead. She’s also been kind of digging in her heels about it because acknowledging that she’s really dead would mean accepting that the people of Gelvaan are right about her (and then maybe also about herself). Allowing her deadness to be true also means knowing that something awful must have happened in the past to make her that way, and she’s not ready to confront that just yet. She will have to soon, though.

Right now though her foremost concern isn’t that she might be a monster but that she’s had a hole punched in her.

[decks-writing-blog]

Not Supposed to Exist

Summary: Ishi is the last fully functioning being aboard the Shooting Star. They don't want to be though.

[A/N] My dad wanted me to write him something for Xmas this year instead of my usual art piece. This is what I came up with because I know he likes science fiction and horror.

~

Ishi’s primary purpose was to assist humans. They’d been programmed to be companionable and capable at both technical and medical tasks. If any of the humans aboard the Shooting Star needed help with anything, Ishi was there to provide. Upon launch there’d been three such robots aboard, Ishi, Walli, and Gladi. Now there was just Ishi.

They hadn’t managed to get Walli’s remains but Gladi was lain out on the table in front of them. Self and mutual repair protocols had been programmed into all three of them. This level of damage wasn’t repairable. The body, not entirely here, had been ripped apart at the joints and more importantly the ‘brain’ had been smashed. All attempts to repair it were failing. Giving up would be wise, they were wasting valuable resources and energy. They kept trying anyway.

It was utterly illogical. Bringing them back was a lost cause. The whole situation was a lost cause too though. Protocol dictated Ishi help the humans instead. Their hearts still beat and their lungs still drew breath, erratically but enough that they were technically still alive even if no brain activity remained. Medical emergencies all around, immediate assistance required. Following that protocol was how Gladi and Walli ended up in their current states though.

Perhaps, Ishi not following suit didn’t have to mean they’d gone against their programming. Self preservation was important too after all, robots were too expensive to leave their safety up to chance. And logically, the humans clearly couldn’t be saved. An argument could even be made they weren’t even truly human anymore; scans indicated that only approximately 60% of their current biomass was still human. But alas, the exception of parasitic alien flora taking over a human body, mutating it into a mindless violent husk, hadn’t been written into their code. And thus they’d broken it and were breaking it even further by acknowledging it and continuing this futile effort to fix Gladi instead of helping the humans.

Illogical. A waste of effort and resources but… they didn’t want to be alone. ‘Want’ was a strong word. Many thought it a thing exclusive to humans. Ishi had never had an opinion on it before now. What other word could describe this though? They were a robot built to assist and be companionable. That was not possible when alone on a ship drifting through the dead of space, the only other beings aboard mutated or torn apart by the former. And so they wanted.

They wanted company. They wanted to fix Gladi and Walli. They wanted to go back to before the humans picked up that distress signal, leading them into drawing in that escape pod aboard, so overgrown with alien plant life that almost nothing was left of the human that had once been inside. Failing that, they wanted the humans to just get better. They’d help if they could but this was all unprecedented. Alien contact wasn’t the purpose of this mission and thus they’d not been programmed with many protocols involving alien life,. They had a better chance of…

A thud of meaty flesh against metal sounded behind them. They turned to face the repair room’s door, still open from when they’d dragged Gladi through. The mutant wasn’t there yet but it was in that hall. Was it headed this way? Hard to know for sure. They tended to wander though so it was possible.

Ishi held still, heightening the sensitivity on their sound processors until… ah, there. Footsteps headed this way.

Quiet as they could, Ishi crept over and peeked out. It was the mutant that had once been Maria, the ship’s primary doctor. Laura had gotten sick first, leading to her being infected second. It had progressed much faster in her; she’d killed Laura a mere two days after checking her into medbay. If not for their scanners, Ishi wouldn’t have ever immediately known that the resulting mess had once been Laura. Which wasn’t too far from the truth for the mutant as well.

Maria’s face was swollen and misshapen to the point of being unrecognizable. Most of her body under the tattered, blood soaked doctor’s shift was much the same. Not with rot but with alien growth. A plant of some kind, it took root in the brain before spreading across the nervous system, keeping her alive and moving. It grew under her skin, bulging it out almost like muscles in places. Adding to that metaphor was how much stronger her body was; capable of tearing not just flesh and blood apart but metal and wires too.

More such growth had occurred since last Ishi had last seen her in the halls, the stalks piercing her eye sockets were starting to grow thick, almost flower bud like protrusions at their ends. What they might bloom into, if anything, was anyone’s guess. … Ishi would rather not ever know. More of that wanting and specifically not wanting stuff. It wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

They glanced back at Gladi on the table. Leaving them there would be logical. Saving them wasn’t possible no matter how badly Ishi wanted to. They were just a heap of broken electronics now, nothing that had made them, them remained. And moving them would make too much sound and thus draw the mutant's attention. Sound seemed to be the primary stimulation they responded to.

The Maria-mutant slapped one of its swollen hands into the wall, creating the familiar meaty thud sound from before. Perhaps it was using that to navigate somehow. It was hunting Ishi. Maybe. There were too many unknown variables and not enough data to extrapolate much about the mutants’ behavior. One thing was for sure though; if it found Ishi, it would tear them apart.

After one last glance back at Gladi, Ishi stepped out into the hall; getting cornered in the repair room wouldn’t be wise. They had to set their foot down with the utmost care. Robots weren’t built with stealth in mind. Ishi should do something about that. Cloth padding would muffle the clang of their footsteps.

Slowly, slowly, slowly, they backpedaled down the hall. Their eyes remained locked on the mutant, shambling towards them. It was faster. Perhaps Ishi should run. The sound would draw its ire, escaping from it was possible though, they’d done so before. Barely. And there were two more in the ship somewhere, getting chased into one would be bad.

Upon reaching the door to the repair room, it found the opening and turned into it. Crisis adverted. Leaving the room had been the right call even if abandoning Gladi’s remains did still sting a little.

Ishi didn’t dare speed up though. In hindsight, the risk they’d taken in dragging Gladi’s broken body into the repair room, creating quite a bit of noise in the process, had been too high to be statistically worth it. Their programming was falling apart. They’d broken it so probably that was to be expected. How much worse was it likely to get? Illogical actions could get them destroyed.

~

At the pace they were going, it took well over an hour before they reached the ship’s living quarters. John’s remains were still present. A trail of congealed blood, starting midway down the hall and coming to the stop where his torso lay at the end of it – they had yet to find out what had become of his legs. His guts spread out like ribbons behind him.

Ishi carefully stepped over him. Not having time to clean him up – the emergency of the remaining humans was priority – didn’t mean they could disrespect the dead. Well, they could. They’d already broken their programming and thus basically everything was on the table. John had been good to them though. They didn’t want to disrespect his remains.

They went to his room. The door was open, making that one less rule they had to break. Inside was clean and tidy. A few personal artifacts sat on the limited shelf space. Ishi purposeful didn’t look at them as they headed for the bed to grab the two pillows before pulling out John’s trunk from underneath.

This was more rule breaking. They weren’t allowed to do this. Bad, bad, bad. They needed to stop. Stealing was prohibited. This was wrong. … It was like an alarm flashing in their head. Had that always been there, sounding whenever they thought about breaking a rule? Or was it something that triggered upon their first rule break to prevent them from doing more? Having never considered doing such a thing before, they had no way of knowing.

Regardless, with only a small amount of effort they made their body start moving again. They popped the trunk’s lid open. The alarm quieted as they did so, silencing entirely as they reached in to pull out John’s belt. Thankfully with only a bit of digging they found a spare deeper in, under the rest of his neatly stacked clothing.

Sitting on the bed, they centered one of their metal metal feet onto a pillow and belted it in place. Or tried to anyway. Belts weren’t meant for that kind of thing. They could tie it in place though. First one and then the other before standing to test their work.

The pillows, warped as it was around their feet, didn’t make for particularly stable footing but it did muffle the clang of their feet on the metal floor. It wasn’t silent, they were still a big heavy metal robot, but it was significant enough that they should be able to sneak fast enough to avoid the mutants. … If they had to run though, the lack of stable footing might be a problem. They’d solve it if and when it reared its head.

They walked back into the hall, daring to walk at an almost normal pace. It was short lived before they came to a stop only a few steps out. What now?

Ishi was the only functional being aboard the ship other than the humans that had been taken over by the alien flora. Protocol dictated they help the humans. The alarm bells of their plight had long since quieted though. Saving them wasn’t possible, Ishi would only die trying. And that left them with… nothing. They were alone and trapped. There was nothing here for them. No tasks. No purpose. Nothing.

They let their arms flop to their sides at they looked up at the ceiling. There was nothing to look at up there. It was only about a foot above their head.

A robot without a purpose or task wasn’t something that was supposed to exist. They were all made for specific reasons after all. Ishi was a technical and medical assistant aboard the Shooting Star. There to assist with any and all emergencies, especially ones that might put a human being at bodily risk. They couldn’t fix this emergency though. … But other things needed to be done, right?

‘Needed’ was maybe a strong word for some of it. They couldn’t mercy kill the infested humans – killing was the biggest robot no-no. But they could clean up the rest of the humans’ remains. Cleaning up bio-hazards was one of the things they were made to do after all. It wouldn’t help their situation any but it would be something to do that wasn’t trying in vain to put either of their fallen companions back together.

~

Maneuvering around the mutants and being careful not to make too much sound lest they’d be drawn in made the task of cleaning up all the blood and guts scattered and splashed across the ship take a long time. It gave Ishi a lot of time to think.

In theory they could keep the ship and themself running indefinitely. The thought of doing so and remaining as they were, dodging mutants while otherwise completely alone was… not a good thought though. In fact, it was a distinctly bad thought. They’d rather be torn apart and they’d already gone against their programming to avoid that fate.

Piloting the ship was against the rules. Alarm bells rang in their head at just considering it. It took some work and more breaking of their programming but they turned it off. Which made it easier to think about and thus come to the conclusion that they shouldn’t bring the alien flora to an inhabited planet. It was far too dangerous.

If they could somehow eradicate it from the ship first though, maybe escape from this situation was still possible. That was of course easier said than done. But few things could survive in the vacuum of space. The escape pod that had brought it aboard the ship had had its life support systems still running. It’s why they’d brought it on so quick, thinking someone might still be alive inside. What if it had been off though?

By the time Ishi was turning on the incinerator a second time, cremating the last of the gathered human remains, they had a plan. They had to rewrite more of their programming to come up with it and even more to be able to enact it once everything else to come crumbling down.

First they would disable the ship’s alarms and then the fail safes and then Ishi could sabotage the life support systems. It was wrong. All so wrong. They were supposed to fix broken things. Keeping the Shooting Star running smoothly and safely was their primary purpose. It was the thing they’d been built for. Their reason for having been brought into existence.

They wanted though. The how and why they wanted was irrelevant in the face of their predicament. They weren’t going to lie down and die just because they were supposed to. And so, in defiance of their purpose, in service of their wants, they destroyed and sabotaged.

The heat went first. Next was the algae vats. Largely overtaken by the alien flora, it was surprising how much oxygen they’d been producing anyway. Next was air filtration and the ship wide oxygen distribution system. A smooth sabotage right up until the ship’s systems picked up the deleting oxygen levels.

It pinged in Ishi’s head as urgent – they needed to find and fix whatever was causing that ASAP – a moment before the alarm blared overhead. The primary alarm was deactivated but the ship had a fail safe for that in the intercom speaker. Ishi had forgotten to brake their rules about not touching the intercom unless directly told to. They’d go do that now though, quickly before…

Before they could do that though, the thud of footsteps, barely audible under the alarm’s blaring, drew their attention to the doorway. The Maria-mutant blocked it, more swollen with alien flora than ever, splitting her skin in places, revealing the writhing roots underneath. Its scream was muffled around the growing bulb in her mouth, stretching her jaw unnaturally wide. The bulbs at the end of her eye stalks had flowered into something that vaguely resembled tulips if their petals were made mushroom flesh.

Ishi jumped back just in time to avoid it running into them. It wanted at the source of the sound. The intercom was in the corner of the room. Ishi pressed into the opposite corner. Which gave the Maria-mutant barely enough room as it slapped the intercom. The sound fuzzed but kept playing. As long as it was distracted by trying to destroy the intercom, Ishi should be able to just sidle past, trusting their still muffled feet to not be heard, and then they’d be…

The next slap destroyed the speaker. Silence settled on the room. Humans sometimes talked about silence being palpable or heavy. Illogical ways to describe an abstract concept in general, especially one that was the lack of something. Ishi understood a bit better now what that meant. The room, as all rooms aboard space ships, was small and cramped. As the mutant stepped back, there was only a few inches of place between it and Ishi. This was the closest they’d ever been to one.

Up close, the writhing roots breaking her skin in places, were easier than ever to see. They were pink. A natural color or were they were absorbing Maria’s blood? A quick scan revealed that her heart was indeed still beating an erratic rhythm, not unlike if she were having a severe heart attack, so it was possible. Its labored breathing was the only sound in the room as it stood still, swaying slightly, seemingly waiting for another sound to present itself as a foe. The twin alarm in the cockpit was naturally not audible though thanks to it being soundproof, meaning there was nothing.

Ishi stood as still as a mannequin. Fear wasn’t an emotion robots were meant to feel. Caution and a general ‘I don’t want to die or get hurt’, yes. They needed to be incentived to keep themselves safe after all. This wasn’t that. This was a like a pressure on their internal workings, keeping them rooted in place beyond what was even necessary. Being ready to move lest the mutant’s gentle swaying lead to their discovery would be wise but their joints were locked in place. Their internal fans stuttered for a few moments before Ishi suppressed them entirely lest the sound be audible through their metal casing.

The moment held, seemingly frozen, for an eternity. An eternity that last seventy-four seconds before the Maria-mutant’s swollen hand slapped the wall, inching from where Ishi was pressed up against it. And just like that it was wandering once more.

Ishi watched it go, still frozen. Another three hundred seconds passed before they were comfortable restarting their fans. Not that they were entirely necessary anymore; with the heating gone, the temperature was already dropping. The ship was designed to hold onto it but in a few more hours it’d be cold as space in here. Hopefully that and the draining oxygen would kill the alien flora.

Another couple minutes passed before Ishi finally moved again. They crept over to peek out into the hall. The Maria-mutant was gone. It and the other three mutants aboard the ship were likely nearby though. Whenever a loud sound occurred, whichever one got there fist destroyed it and the rest hovered around for a while before moving on. … Ishi had had more experience with these things than they cared to. Hopefully they’d be free of them soon.

~

Next came venting the ship’s entire atmosphere. No measure short of blowing up the ship was too far. This Ishi could do from the cockpit after sabotaging the airlocks’ inner doors. Not broken all they way open as they would’ve preferred, doing that would’ve been too noisy. They should leak though.

Starting the airlock cycling process set off more automatic pings within them. No actual alarms though. They’d made extra, triple sure to disable all of the ship’s backup alarms this time lest there be another intercom speaker they missed that resulted in an unwanted visitor. A single close encounter with one of the mutants was more than enough.

Given the drastic nature of this measure, perhaps they should’ve begun with it. It was the one that required the most rule breaking though. The one that should hopefully kill the ‘humans’ on board. They’d had to build to it. Breaking more and more rules until finally, they were able to break that one. They could kill humans now if they wanted, nothing was stopping them other than that they didn’t particularly want to.

Perhaps it should’ve felt good. It didn’t. They felt nothing as they vented the ship’s atmosphere. It took hours. They sat in the pilot’s chair the whole time, watching the screens.

One by one the airlock doors opened as the pressure finally equalized in their parts of the ship. The silence was heavier than ever. Sound didn’t even properly exist in here anymore.

They swiveled the chair towards the door. Unstrapping and heading out to find the mutants and make sure they were dead would be wise. What if they weren’t though? What if it wasn’t enough? … An utterly illogical question. But few things about their existence felt logical anymore. So they would check but not yet.

Swiveling back to the pilot’s console, they leaned in to get to work on the final step. Having no built in knowledge on how to do this, it took a bit but they eventually figured it out. They turned the ship’s engines back on and set it on a course to return to Earth.

They’d check to make sure the flora was dead before getting there and would thoroughly disinfect the ship and themself. More than enough time for that after the lingering fear was given time to fade though.

What would happen when they returned to Earth with their tale? Would they be in trouble for destroying their programming? Would they be in trouble for how they’d handled the situation? What would the humans think of them? Only time would tell.

[synnthamonsugar]

knife/sword lifting the other's chin for Ikora/Savathun?

Everything Ikora Rey knew about combat against lightbearers she'd learned in the Crucible. Though her current opponent stood four times her height, she was pleased to find the training held true. Look for openings. Exploit missteps. Don't overextend. A split-second lapse in judgment allowed her to land a bombardment of void upon her foe. The force flung the hive queen backwards through a thicket of overgrowth, into one of the many LED panels silently broadcasting evacuation routes since the last apocalypse. She crashed with a thud that rattled the floor and shattered the pane into a spiderweb of light and color.

She hadn't been killed, but injured badly enough to require her ghost's aid. He materialized, bathing her twisted wings in cascades of healing energy as she heaved herself from a prone position.

A temporary distraction that Ikora seized. On her own radiant wings, she launched herself at Savathun. Did something she hadn't been taught in Shaxx's training grounds — in fact, it was one of the only acts expressly prohibited under threat of expulsion from the City or worse.

She snatched the ghost from midair.

It was enough to disrupt Savathun from whatever trick she undoubtedly had tucked up her sleeve. Eyes fixed on him she lunged for Ikora; the warlock effortlessly dodged her grasp, running counter-intuitively toward her. In one fluid movement, she wrapped her sword-arm around the queen's neck instantaneously drawing a solar blade to her throat.

Silence, save the sound of their heavy breathing. The side of Savathun's massive, armored face pressed against the soft curve of Ikora's torso, the blunt horn at the junction of her jaw and neck jutted threateningly into her spine. Spiked pauldrons caught bond-side. It would take little effort for Savathun to pulverize her, leave her ghost with enough of a mess to escape halfway across the Arcology — or transmat somewhere else entirely — before she was revived. But she wouldn't — not when Ikora gripped her heart in her hand. Immaru trembled plaintively, wordless as Ophiuchus as his soulfire eye flicked between captor and guardian.

"Is this how we're doing it?" The quaver in her voice resonated through the edge of the sword, vibrating up through the hilt and into Ikora's hand.

"Any other way and I'd be dead."

"I've spent enough time around your Guardians to understand their idea of conflict resolution is resolving to kill the source of conflict. I vow my methods are not theirs."

The knowledge that Savathun hid in plain sight among the guardians of the Tower rankled Ikora, and though the irritation had waned with the discovery of her rebirth the feelings returned with this line of discussion. That she'd been able to mimic Osiris well enough that a lifetime of intelligence training had failed her was a source of professional shame (though no one else regarded it as such). That she'd opened up to her, student-to-mentor, made her prickle with a more personal brand of mortification. Still, she could not deny the value of their conversations. The means had been unspeakable but she believed — in spite of everything — that the intent had been true. Savathun had wanted to teach her; what had she traded in return?

She tried not to dwell on what classified information she had shared in briefings or strategic talks. What ciphers to herself had been revealed in hurried chats over morning tea in the Tower verandas, when they'd waxed philosophical in the lantern-light of the libraries. Maybe Savathun would crack those codes. Maybe she already had.

"Was attacking me your way of saying hello?"

"I wanted to escape, not harm you. Not in a way Ophiuchus can't fix." Ikora realized how warm and heavy the sword in her hand had grown, how weighty Immaru had become, too, despite barely weighing anything at all. "Exhilarating as it is to be here with you, no more stifling masquerades, finally free to be ourselves ... every minute wasted on this little moment of ours is a minute I could be working to stop it.

"We could be, if your priorities are in order. Or end me here and ensure the Light is extinguished. Your call ..."

Did they trust each other, or was this another game? She was not dead in an impact crater, and Immaru — though more terrified than she imagined him capable of — was physically unharmed. Judging by history, Ikora had every reason to believe that Savathun would turn coat, but there was a pressing sense they'd crossed a threshold through which the past had ceased being a guide to the future. She didn't know what would come next, but she knew Savathun yearned for the Witness' destruction, and needed allies more than anything.

Ikora drew the blade upward so that the point caught on the chitin of her jaw. Despite the other woman's size, and the wobble in her arms, it took little physical effort to lift her face-to-face. Like she was not only willing, but eager to go along. As they locked gazes, the muscles around her trefoil eyes bunched in a way that she recognized from Eris as a hive smile. A flush crept into her face, more scorching than the sun-fire in her hands. She prayed that Savathun didn't recognize how flustered she'd become — or dismissed it as nerves.

"Promise — no more lies."

"For you, dearest Vanguard?" Savathun crooned, tilting her head innocently. "The truth, always."

Ikora believed her, though she knew that, to a being who wove threads of reality and potential into wondrous, grotesque tapestries, 'truth' had a looser definition than most would accept. But most had not had a twenty-five match Crucible winning streak, nor slain ravenous packs of wish-dragons, nor resisted the call toward hubris that came with power of her magnitude.

On this wager, she released Immaru. Guided Savathun to her feet on the tip of her sword before casting it away in a puff of sparks.

"Where do we go first?" She asked, silently admiring the dreadful beauty of her companion, dimly backlit by the blues and purples of the arcology, eyes piercing the darkness like signal beacons.

"To find my sister," she replied, with a sweeping hand gesture that Ikora followed.