#and certainly does not require the level of trust he used to have in chase

[malkaviian]

thinking about my stupid horny fucks (finnley and chase)

[popatochisssp]

I LOVE the new boys, i have SO many questions and thoughts about them, you have such amazing imagination, What would a relationship with them be like? Would they have the initiative or us? how would they do it?, You don't have to answer i'm kinda rambling sorry, your work always makes me smile

Thank you! I did have some thoughts about that!

Spectr (Transcendtale Sans): He plays hard to get… except he’s not really playing, he…he actually is hard to get. As much as he can see lots in you worthy of love and admiration, himself… Well. He’s complicated, you know? Emotionally and logistically, in more ways than one. You can certainly find someone better suited to appreciate you than him…but he has a hard time staying away, and if you chase after him, he probably won’t be able to find it in himself to run. He falls into a relationship with you like planets fall into orbit—a slow, synchronous dance as natural and irresistible as the tides.

PapAIrus (Transcendtale Papyrus): He’s absolutely taking the lead, the one to approach you and actively try to charm the pants off you possibly literally. He finds you interesting, fun, and how else is he supposed to find out if you’d like to play with him if he doesn’t ask? He’s bound to be a little light-hearted and flippant about your relationship at the start, maybe not taking it as seriously as you’d like. He’s got his head in the cloud, and all the data and information and free access to everyone and everything on the planet in there is a lot to compete with—but don’t doubt you’ll win out in the end. He’ll serious up as time goes by, but no matter how serious he gets about you, you’ll never stop being his favorite plaything.

Xanth (Ascendswap Sans): He’ll take the initiative but he might come on a little strong, or…weird…because he’s weird. He’s very genuine and open with why he’s interested in you so the straightforwardness could either be refreshing or uncomfortable, depending on how it lands with you. Mostly, he just wants to get to know you more so he’s fine with whatever pace you set from there, as long as he gets to be around your energy. In a relationship, he likes to go with your flow, just be and do and feel with you and see where the wind takes you both—wherever you end up, he’ll have had a great traveling companion for the road.

Piper (Ascendswap Piper): It could go either way with him. He’s certainly not too shy to approach someone he’s interested in, but neither does he dislike the ego-boost of getting someone to come to him. In both cases he’s a smooth operator, his ‘trick’ not required. In a relationship, he makes a point of being your Prince Charming, whether it’s your first date or your hundredth, and all the time in between, too. For all that he’s genial and pleasant from the start, he will take some time to really warm up and trust you—to introduce you to his family, to share his past, to let you see more than just the clean and polished parts of him—but once he does defrost, he’s all yours.

Carmine (Underfell Fruition Sans): If he’s interested, he’s letting you know immediately with…varying levels of respect (on the low end, ranging between a double-take and a maybe-not-meant-to-be-out-loud ‘goddamn’). He likes to flirt and talks a big game but… he’s actually pretty new to this kinda thing, and in a relationship, he probably wants to keep things casual for awhile, nothing too serious too fast. He just got out of lockup, he’s not really looking to settle down right away, y’know? But he’s perfectly willing to adhere to the rules of engagement, so if you don’t mind casual for awhile, he’s plenty of fun, a great plus-one for everything, guaranteed. And if you are willing to wait him out, the ‘not too serious’ thing isn’t forever, of course. What, like he’s gonna let The One get away over a bit of commitment? Pfft…

Tank (Underfell Fruition Papyrus): It’s gonna be down to you to make the first move, he has no idea what he’s doing and is still kind of figuring out what he’s allowed to do or ask for, even if he’s very smitten with you—and why wouldn’t he be? He definitely needs to be told that you’re open to having him in your space, as part of your life in that way, or he may not want to risk upsetting you. For the same reason, he needs patience in a relationship because he moves slowly and doesn’t really know how to talk about his feelings. A little grace as he navigates a new kind of relationship with way different rules than the other kinds goes a long way, and with it, he warms up quickly to some of the perks that non-platonic affection and intimacy allow him. He tends to speak more with his gestures and actions than what he says, so never mistake a lack of words for a lack of feeling—he feels a lot, and he just needs to figure out what do with it all!

Vi (Swapfell Fruition Sans): Most likely to make the first move, but… he has no charm whatsoever, and a very direct approach that might be a little off-putting. …Then again, ‘weird guy rizz’ alone might at least (somehow) score him a date, or two, or three, and you could go from there. He’s committed from the jump and puts as much thought and care and meticulous planning into your relationship as any high-profile political assassination he’s ever managed…which is probably something he shouldn’t say to you, another one of those awkward, off-putting things… He has his issues, of course—secrecy, insecurity, emotional constipation—but he always takes you very seriously and never wants to lose esteem in your eyes. You are someone he doesn’t want to lose.

Hunter (Swapfell Fruition Papyrus): Yeah, he’s taking the initiative and doing it well, he’s a good flirt, fun, and persistent, and he has a way of getting people to go home with him against their better judgment—hey, he doesn’t mind being a guilty pleasure and in fact, maybe he could be yours…? As far as a relationship goes, he doesn’t take too much seriously, so it’s bound to be pretty casual for awhile, like a game of tug-of-war played with a (poorly-behaved) dog, back and forth, give and take, just a fun game you both play. …However. At some point, a switch will flip in his head when he decides he’s your ride-or-die, full commitment and no more playing games about it. This could happen at basically any point, very early in your relationship or very late. He cannot tell you when it will flip, and nothing you do or don’t do will influence the flip, because neither he nor anyone else has any control over the switch. Such are the pitfalls of trying to romance a heavily-mindfucked former assassin, but you two will figure it out eventually.

Kohl (Descendtale Sans): It’s complicated. Honestly, he’s probably so deeply in denial that he’s into you that it’ll take a Category 5 Inciting Jealousy Incident to get his head out of his ass about it make him admit his feelings. He’s a bit of a pigtail-puller if he likes you, but he’s also a kind of a pigtail-puller if he doesn’t like you, so you’ll want to keep an eye out for the distinction of him seeking you out or spending time with you on purpose—he tends to remove himself from situations where humans are involved as soon as it’s feasible, so if he’s lingering around you, or coming to find you, or seeming to make a deliberate nuisance of himself as soon as someone else has your attention, he might be a little bit interested. If you’re not content to wait for him, you may need to do what he does and needle the hell out of him until you make him admit it but don’t do so lightly—he’s like a mousetrap, if you spring him, you’re stuck with him, he’s yours and good luck returning him without the receipt. In a relationship, he’ll keep up his hassling and assorted shithead behaviors, but there’s a softening towards you and he will actually be capable of some tender, intimate moments. …Some.

Bram (Descendtale Papyrus): Definitely making the first move and just enough of a gentleman to not come on too strong… At least not at first—it wouldn’t do to scare you away right off the bat! There might be some pitfalls a bit later on because he is probably going to want to move a little faster in the relationship than you do, even if you’re a fast mover yourself, but that’s just the abandonment issues talking. He’s very sweet and responds well to constructive criticism about his pacing issues, such as ‘It is too soon to talk about living together’ or ‘I’m not ready to get married until…’ Mostly his concern is that you are happy and comfortable and enjoy spending time with him! Because he enjoys spending time with you and he wants to be able to do that a lot! (You see? He said ‘a lot’ instead of ‘forever’ that time, he remembered when you said that sounded like ‘some horror movie shit’!) In any case, he’s very affectionate and accommodating in a relationship and with maybe some steps taken to mitigate the separation anxiety, he’s a loving and attentive partner for as long as you’ll have him.

[incomingalbatross]

Positivity for the Twin Pines McFly family, because I want to.

Lorraine: loves her family!

She got a cake to celebrate her baby brother getting out of jail before they even knew if he was getting out of jail.

She wants her kids to write to him since he didn’t make parole.

She made a sit-down dinner for them all, and everything in that scene suggests that this is the norm for them.

Called Dave back so she could kiss him goodbye.

Tells her kids the story of her and George’s romance enough that Linda knows it by heart.

Marty calls for her every time he wakes up disoriented and hurt from a “nightmare,” implying that he’s used to turning to his Mom when he actually has nightmares or is sick/injured.

In general, Lorraine clearly wants her family to be healthy and happy, and puts in work to that end, even if she doesn’t know how to get there from here.

I only have a few points each for everyone else, but I still have them.

George: does everything ineffectually, but he does try to make Marty feel better with peanut brittle and poorly-constructed consolation.

Is also aware enough to know what Marty’s thinking after the scene with Biff, and while he does make excuses, he doesn’t get defensive or angry about Marty’s criticisms

(And Marty feels secure enough to express his upset feelings openly, which could go in the “doormat” section of George’s personality but I feel still requires a certain level of genuine trust, given it’s a kid talking to his dad)

Dave: Has a job, and makes an effort to get there on time.

ALSO, though, doesn’t use the night shift as a reason to miss family dinner.

Comes back to let his Mom kiss him goodbye when she calls him, even if he grumbles.

Kisses his Dad goodbye after that without being prompted.

Linda: ...Okay, we have very little information on Twin Pines Linda, except that she’s grumpy the one time we see her and she wants a chance at a social life. However, we also have no reason to believe the worst of her. I choose to believe she’s a nerd who inherited her dad’s taste for sci-fi, because why not?

And finally, Marty!

Marty: loves his family. (And not in a sad, kicked-puppy sort of way, but in a normal teenager-y way.)

He carries a photo of himself and his siblings in his wallet. That’s adorable.

He derails his established plan to find Doc in 1955 to go chasing after his Dad instead—even though he doesn’t seem to have had much of a reason, his impulse is to stick to George, and I think that says something.

Again, every time he wakes up hurt and confused, his first instinct is to call out to his Mom! This implies that he wants her comfort and that he’s used to her being there to provide it when he’s hurting. Yes, I’m including it twice, because it’s important.

Look at most of his reactions to Teen George, honestly. Aside from the imminent-nonexistence frustration, he likes him. He wants him to do well for himself, not just for Marty. Especially, look at his genuine delight when he finds out his Dad is a writer! He’s so happy to be getting to know him better!

His rage at seeing Biff hurt his Mom in 1985A

Similarly, his utter distress once Biff is gone, both at his Mom’s situation and at the idea of a reality where his parents aren’t together.

How just...shattered he is by the discovery of his Dad’s death. How much he Cannot Deal with it, and how that pushes him through the rest of the second movie’s plot.

When he burns the Almanac and looks at the newspaper again. “Doc! DOC! MY FATHER’S ALIVE!”

In short, Marty McFly's family means a whole lot to him, thank you for listening.

In conclusion: Do the Twin Pines McFlys have their familial issues and dysfunctions? Indubitably. Is that all there is to them? I certainly don’t think so.

[mushroom-cartel--writing]

begrudging (love-)blindness

Summary: You are, to him, unquestionably, terrifyingly lovely.

Relationship(s): Gojo Satoru & Reader, Gojo Satoru/Reader

Note(s):

Here’s the link to read this on AO3! (You know the drill, extra tags, different notes, the format I intended, etc.)

Personally, I think this is hot garbage in terms of structure and pacing (it’s loosely all strung together is what I’m saying, but I just needed to get it off my chest before I wrote anything else. Yet... I guess I had fun? Yeah. I did!

There's spoilers from the manga mixed with headcanon.

I still hate spacing and formatting on Tumblr, it sucks. Please, please, please, this is for your own good, click the AO3 link, this fic is such an eyesore on this platform.

|||

There’s a tug at your chest, sending you hurtling backwards and into something hard. A wall. Tiles. Smooth.

The heavens and the earth view one another through a layer of haze of light at night.

There are thousands of people gathering, their footsteps thundering echoes in your ears. Their chatter is a constant hum in the air. It stinks of sweat.

(“The train will be arriving soon. Please stand behind the yellow line—”)

You sigh.

“Dammit, Satoru! A little warning would be nice,” you hiss to the man. You hear him whisper something back but his voice is swallowed up by the crowds and then he, too, is consumed.

You feel him wander farther away from you; not left with much choice, you follow him. And down, down, down you go.

You pause when there’s an invisible wall blocking your path of his own making. “Hey!!” you shout, starting to scream expletives at him from the top of his lungs and he doesn’t look back.

A few seconds pass. The people, these poor, clueless civilians who just want to go home for the night are like sardines in a can, their bodies pushing and shoving. For space. For air. Requiring neither, you phase through the wall and the remaining levels to catch up to him, the thoughts going through your head solely focused on figuring out why he has let you out. He wouldn’t do something like this without warning you beforehand.

Why now? What now?

You pull out from the shadowed cracks of the feeble curtain set up along the fifth floor underground, suddenly feeling a heaviness you hardly ever experience. You run a cursory swipe over his teeth; the blood in the air is fresh, there are more civilians down here than up above, more sardine-ing (their presence is fading away, the above platforms’ panicked din becomes extinguished, it’s ghastly quiet, a moment frozen in time), but no Satoru. Not physically.

He loves you, you know. (You don’t understand though… Why?)

It’s a burden, draining you of what vigour is left in your soul, barely just clinging on to this plane itself.

His love is a curse in itself, really.

"I don't want you to see me hurt," he had said often, back when you were children, oblivious to the power of those words until you got older.

What they meant.

What they did—to him and you.

Still as the wind, you stand together, hands brushing up against each other's, your fingers infected with poison where his is not; the calloused skin and scars shared between you weaving a tale for the ages that will never be told.

You’re both nineteen at heart but certainly not in spirit.

You lean against him, completely unseen, waiting for him to flick his finger back.

Waiting for him to obliterate the first person he thought he could trust outside.

He doesn’t. You disappear for another time, expectant.

His love is a burden and you're not sure where you would be without it.

If he hadn't looked your way, would you be the same person you are today?

It's frightening, these thoughts of yours, but he usually chases them off when he senses them bubbling to the surface. (You want him to be annoyed.) A casual grin and stance, a flick of his wrist, a rush of wind by your side, then the phantom pressure is gone, yes, gone, however—it's never banished completely. It never can be.

You don't remember the colour of his eyes but there's a memory of you claiming they looked like marbles, buried somewhere (somehow), in the back of your mind. Like the marbles you'd smash glass bottles to obtain, their fizzy contents only drained seconds beforehand; stubby, sticky, small fingers sorting through the shards, squashing ants in the process.

Those very same fingers, now, haven't changed a bit, save for the chipped nails and whatnot duress they’ve sustained throughout his life.

You use them to push the blindfold up to his forehead, taking in the surrounding sights.

Why now? The fact that you can feel them, his fingers and everything else—that’s a bad sign. A very bad sign.

You breathe, inflating the faux lungs.

Finally, you see it. The reason why you’re walking and talking and fully corporeal.

You gulp at the living corpse, its stitches wonky and fresh. Cerebrospinal fluid spills from its face in fat droplets and lands upon the clothes of a dead man. Disgusting.

“So I was right in the end,” you say, more for yourself than anyone else. “You’re not Suguru.”

(Satoru owes you a thousand yen. You told him to burn the body immediately. Or, you know, the usual. But what’d he do instead? He went and passed it off to a third party! Man, why’d that old hag have to kick the bucket so soon… If she was still around she’d probably kick Satoru’s dumb ass for trying to be decent.)

“How are you free?” Not-Suguru asks.

The real Suguru wouldn’t ask about your appearance. He would make a comment about how the temperature has dropped and burrow into his collar. He wouldn’t question things.

The real Suguru never acknowledged you, but he knew there was something in the corner of his eye that took the image of his friend and laughed alongside them when they pulled their antics during missions.

The real Suguru is gone.

Who the hell knows where Shouko is.

Yeah. A little warning would have been nice. Real fucking nice.

There’s a cube with a dozen eyes between the two of you, the crater on the ground betrays its unassuming weight. Satoru’s muted presence, a shrunken pearl of light, emanates from the cube.

Not-Suguru follows your line of sight to it.

Giving him an answer would be a waste of your time.

You can’t, they say.

Young master, please, don’t go there, implores the servants and guards.

The elders, his grandmother especially, tell him not to enter the storehouse tucked away in the garden behind an avenue of camellia trees because that’s something they’ll discuss when he’s older.

He doesn’t listen to them, the curiosity of a three-year-old child cannot be satisfied by mere words. (“Let this be known,” the gardener says in his defense, one cold summer’s day. It is raining outside. His grandmother shoots the only person in the compound that doesn’t treat him like a blind fool with a withering glare. He does not see them again until—)

What’s in the storehouse?

A library of cursed objects? Spiritual remnants, artefacts, texts, poisons, weapons?

Maybe the mummified corpse of an ancestor whom they keep around to ward off evil?

Perhaps a curse, frozen in time forevermore?

Maybe it’s nothing and the adults are all in on some kind of elaborate hoax, he figures. Mm, yeah. Sounds about right. No one else knows about the storehouse.

It’s old and earthen. Wild plants curl the walls to one side and splotches of moss grow on the tiled roof. Where the sun hits least is pristine. Clean. He wonders if that’s where the wards are placed, out of sight, out of mind.

Oh.

Standing in the entrance of the open door with bare feet, at the threshold of the aged structure, fulfilling his desire, he learns why they wanted him to remain ignorant.

It’s a child. (A human…? This whole situation is off.) A kid his age. He can’t tell whether or not they’re older or younger. They might be a bit taller, though.

No, he wants to shout, this can’t be it! He stomps his foot. That’s cliché! Boring, boring, boring! Again, he strikes the ground. Ugh, whatever—

A sigh escapes the emaciated figure sitting in the darkness, hunched over themself against the wall of the bare storehouse.

“Ah, my f̶̥̍r̵̝͐̏i̷̳end,” they start, softly. “M̶̹̦͒y̸͍̮̋̚ f̸͉̓̋r̴͇̦̕ǐ̴̦͇e̵̫͠n̷̢͉̅̓ḍ̸̅, my very dear, old friend. You have returned.

“My e̷̳̭̿y̶͈͂e̷͔̭̎͘s̴̭̄̊, have you come to give them back? Ask for several others?

“I have waited for you, as promised. Come. Closer. Please. I do not know how long has passed since I last gazed upon your visage. Do not be afraid.

“I no longer lust for flesh as fervently as before, I will not ask of y̸͖͔̒o̵̳̍u̵͍̘̓ ą̴͕̈́n̵̫̓d̸̛̳͛ y̵̻͑̎o̵̖̥͒͌ų̴͋̐r̵̦̩̓s a sacrifice to please me.”

Their voice is garbled, the resemblance to a broken radio off-pitch jarring his reaction time, a music box opened underwater gurgling, ghosts beat to the rhythm of the blood in his ears and titter buried mysteries.

In the corner of his eyes distant stars burn, galaxies explode to life and die repeatedly, the vast cosmos is shredded apart. Universes are swallowed whole. The plane he stands upon bends to the will of the one whose gifts he uses carelessly to play the role of a deity and dictate the balance of the world.

People have said [they] reflect the very heavens.

His faith wanes.

.

a trio of ragtag orphans,

escapees, survivors and starved,

on the verge of being

no better than beasts,

happen upon a traveller taking respite from the winding roads.

a foreigner no doubt

they guess from the strange hued garb;

rest, everyone around these parts,

they know comes not

easy to scum, scoundrels, sinners and

deceivers alike.

.

.

.

mad ones, rushing to death

—without protection i must add—

oh my darling children, you are!

consume my flesh,

defend those unseeing,

purge the blight

and you shall witness

my return before long, indeed?!

.

They do not move and neither does he.

What he assumes to be their head tilts ever so to the side, gauging him, this fool of a boy trespassing on their domain. This part of the garden, the little boy realises too late, is theirs.

This, the storehouse and now him.

(—the gardener finds him sprawled out on his back come dusk. They help him to his feet and dust him off, the sparkle in his eyes an unusual occurrence; they ask their precious young master what happened and he points them in the direction of the doors sealed shut.

“I took a peek inside,” he lies. Children are supposed to do that, right?

“And what did you find?”

“Nothing.” The gardener knows he’s a bad liar.

“Good. Now come.” They lead him away from the path of the camellias. “Lady Mitsue has been beside herself over you, mister.”

His grandmother hasn’t. She probably knows what he has done and will instruct him to feed the council what they want to hear. My son was too soft, she asserts before and after every meeting with those windbags.

You have to do better.

And his father is dead, so only time will tell who’s right.)

He starts having weird dreams (memories?) several days later.

Trying to ignore them doesn’t work.

Every waking moment is subject to gore.

He has to resist the urge to scratch his own eyes out while he trains.

In the world beneath his eyelids, there are shadowy figures claiming it best he is blinded and locked away and fed what no other soul could hope to consume without issue. And just as they force open his jaw—every night, every time—he wakes up.

Satoru doesn’t know what to make of it. Doesn’t know what to make of you.

One day, he dreams of years of living without sunlight causing you to screw your not-eyes shut and look away upon the opening of a door into your domain. When you recover, you turn to the door, the emotion of curiosity tugging for your attention out of the myriad of beings you’ve eaten.

Standing at the threshold, ethereal, desperate and short of breath, is a young man. In his arms is a woman, his wife, you presume. They’re stark shades of white, binary stars of a celestial system long dead.

You smile, recognising them in an instant. “Ah, my old friends, children of my children’s children a dozen times over, tell me, what is it you wish for?”

“My wife and our child,” says the man, “please, I beg of you, save them!”

Oh? A healing? It’s been quite some time since that was last requested of you.

You skitter to the pair’s side and shut the door gently behind them, ushering them further in.

You click your not-tongue at the woman’s state, wondering why no one thought to come to you earlier. If they did, the price they’d have to pay would be much less than what you’re about to tell the man. Humans are such prideful creatures, Satoru knows this, but he can’t help but feel tense as you instruct the man to lay the woman down and state your cost.

First, he opens his mouth. Then it shuts. Opens. Shuts. The man regards his dear wife with something Satoru has never seen before in the eyes of those around him.

His reply?

“I accept—”

A harsh smack to the head disrupts the memory; he looks up, unsurprised to meet his grandmother’s gaze, wrinkled eyes so very much like his own piercing his soul.

“Being distracted in the middle of a fight is unbecoming of you, boy,” she says. “What seems to be the matter?”

He can’t tell her.

He stays silent.

“Satoru.” She raises her hand, fingers crossed, indicating the void’s opening. “We Gojou pride ourselves on our ability to adapt. That is why, in fact, I say my son was too soft. He could not accept that he would lose my daughter-in-law and the child she carried in her womb to common illness. He could not accept that it was impossible to cheat death. He could not accept the position he was placed in. And for that, he died and of the aforementioned two, only you lived. Do you understand?”

No. He doesn’t want to understand.

What is adaptation if they’ve yet to rid themselves of and bow down to your constant presence? Is that not their most fatal flaw?

You eat them.

One life in exchange for another; you told his father it was the only way.

You were given the corpse of his mother a hundred days after his birth by the elders.

Every Gojou after death, you grind their bones between your teeth and their flesh rots at the bottom of your belly. Their soulful essence fights for dominance against the forces of the innumerable curses the clans feeds you—the hate, the sentiment, the sheer bursts of techniques and mighty powers clashing, click, click, click—you embody and absorb the aftermath of each childish scuffle, playing the bored jailer adjudicator. Corpses, tools, objects, energy and flesh. It’s how you’ve lived for so long without light or human thought to taint you: the jujutsu world’s dirty little secret, waste disposal.

You are, to him, unquestionably, terrifyingly lovely.

He loves you for that one reason.

A means to an end, forever.

(The boy, a few days shy of his fourth birthday and inauguration, does not know what love is. He thinks he does, having read the definition in a dictionary in order to familiarise you with modern speech, but love is not a word to be thrown around lightly the way he does.)

“I do,” he lies again, this time, to himself. “I understand everything.”

His sight is black.

He pushes back against the current, against instinct telling him to relinquish control and reaches forward for the dream that he was ripped from.

Your true form towers over his mother’s prone form, dripping ichor and the fluid of loose entrails all over. His father stays seated even when you lift an arm to draw blood, the man facing you without a trace of fear.

“I accept—but on the condition that my child receives your protection.”

“My p̶̹̽r̴̽ͅo̵̠͐ť̷̬e̶̺̊c̶̻̒t̷̙͑i̵̮̓o̶̱n̷̖͂?” Do they not teach the younger generations what that entails?

“Yes. My ancestors wrote that you were a benevolent being in a past life. That you were a kind-hearted human who accidentally drank poison before being found and buried alive, condemned and reviled, forcing you to become what you are now. Does that still not hold true?” His father’s face is hopeful.

It doesn’t. But who are you to tell him that? That ‘benevolent being’ never existed in the first place. You’ve always been this.

The vivisepulture part was true, but the beginning? Debatable. Your memories of ‘being human’ are foggy; you’re not sure if they’re real or someone else’s. Satoru’s is the clearest thus far because you abide within him. And he’s young, there’s little to garner.

What other nonsense has been made truth in the time you have withdrawn from the world?

He wants to go down that rabbit hole.

You grab the cube and run, warping reality in your wake.

You are many things.

Alive, you are first; secondly a parent, a teacher and a friend; cursed thrice times over; quarter something-something or rather by this point; and last, your hollowness complements the damned hallowed.

You are Gojou Satoru but not.

His skin peels off in delicate scales from the speed you’re going.

The first and last time you puppeteer his body, Satoru invokes his father’s contract with you for the second time in his life.

Like the first occurrence, it happens by accident.

(The first occurrence is a stain on your memory.

Mitsue looked her grandson in the eye and tasked him with a futile quest, one that would decide the future headship of their clan. You personally thought such practices outdated but you held his tongue and grit his teeth, faking laughter for the audience they had.

She reminded you too much of your youngest, both in the way she cobbled herself together and how she suspended time long enough to catch a glimpse of you hunched beside him, flickering in and out of her void domain with the ease of a toddler climbing free of their crib.

Beautiful and deadly.

He nearly died.)

He is unaware of the finer details, but where his consciousness ends at getting a scalpel to head, it rouses again with him standing before the man who has the blood of Satoru’s friends on his hands and left him to bleed out undecapitated.

On a high from escaping Izanami’s clutches, he sprouts math and whatever nonsense off the top of his head and ragdolls up, down, across and through the air.

He feels like a being higher than the gods. Doesn’t mean he is, though.

He’s barely in control.

Violent swashes of red and blue fill the sky. He sees beyond his opponent rising from the earth the heavens condemning his breaching unto their space.

“Hey, stranger, did you know purple was her favourite colour?”

“Whose?”

|

“Satoru.”

“Hm?”

“You are Satoru, right?”

“Yessssss?”

“You… you’ve got a bit of…” Suguru gestures vaguely around the lower half of his face.

“Oh.” You rub the corner of his mouth with the pad of his thumb and see it come back tinged pink. The drying drool on his sleeves is used to rub the rest of the blood away. “Thanks.”

“Have you found her?”

“Amanai? Her body?” Suguru flinches. Your gaze is drawn to the cultists clapping. “Yeah, I did. Sorry.”

“What are you apologising for?”

“I don’t know,” Satoru says. “I feel like killing these people. Should we?”

“Why?”

“I’m still h̸͓̟͐u̴̦͗n̴͇͈̅͛g̵͔̒̕ŗ̴͕͂͘y̸͚͍͘͘.” Two wasn’t even a snack.

“I’m angry that we failed too. But we can’t do anything now, it’s out of our hands.”

|

Several days later finds him back at the entrance of the storehouse, none the worse for wear.

In the shadow of the building grows a lone weed.

“It’s changed.”

“Of course it has.”

“Will I end up like them?”

“Yes.”

[abluescarfonwaston]

Shapeshifter Au -8

On Ao3 Now! 

He found Roach. Buried his face in her neck and wrapped his arms around her. She nickered her concern.

He could be something small and unobtrusive. A mouse at the bottom of his saddle bag. A lark nesting on top. A cat keeping the mice away from Roach in the stable.

He could be small and unobtrusive and quiet and a good traveling companion. He could be whatever form Geralt wanted. Would stay that way forever if that’s what Geralt wanted.

But it wasn’t his form that were the problem was it?

Geralt had made it perfectly clear what he wanted.

No matter the form he would still always be Jaskier.

“I love you Roach. Don’t let him be too stupid without me okay?”

Running into Geralt at the bar wouldn’t be an issue. Humans had to follow switchbacks and winding roads. All he had to do was switch back after soaring down the mountain.

Not that he’d felt much like soaring but the falling sensation had been near enough to manage.

One drink and then he’d play and in the morning he’d go. Long before Geralt arrived.

“Here alone familiar? Hasn’t Geralt told you that’s dangerous?” Yennefer sweeping into the seat across from him. “Some evil mage might just snatch you up.”

He’d heard her coming, the singing- ever present around her- growing louder and louder as she approached. Wouldn’t you like to snatch me up Yennefer?

“Is that an offer Yennefer?” That voice sounded a lot more compelling now. Or maybe he just didn’t have any real reason to resist it. ”Because I don’t have any plans for the evening.”

He flashed her a smile and hers disappeared.

“You’re not bound anymore.”

Oh wasn’t that rich. Bound. He rolled his eyes at her. “I’m not the one he wished for Yennefer. I doubt the djinn will heed your breakup.”

Her frown deepened into a scowl before smoothing back into a placid mask. “Then the next round is on you Jaskier.”

Rude. I’ll go as many rounds as you want. He wasn’t even getting another round. He downed another swig. “What do you want Yennefer?”

“I wanted someone to shit talk Geralt with and you were over here looking terribly despondent all alone so I figured he’d ditched you.”

“Can’t argue with that.” He agreed waving down a barmaid for another round. It was a bad idea. Yennefer required a clear head to deal with and a hangover would make leaving tomorrow harder. But she told you to get the next round. So he did. “But I don’t think you’ll find what you’re really hoping for Yennefer.”

She pinned him with her gaze. She wasn’t using magic but he could feel it- feel her- lighting up the veins and electrifying him with her luminescence. She was going for a bored look but he felt the anger rolling like waves.

“And what am I hoping for mutt?”

Mutt. Half-bred. Those were better than what she'd called him at the start. Pet. Thing. Creature. But she hadn't called him those in the last few years. 

Mutt and half-breed were reserved for when she thought him unaware of her power. A broken 'familiar' that couldn't tell how powerful she was.

He suspected he was one of the few who knew exactly how powerful she was. More accurately than even Geralt. It thrummed in his veins and the song beat at his head every time she was near.

Power. It praised. Strong. It rejoiced.

Be hers. It plead, begged and demanded.

He shrugged. “A quick romp? A way to hurt Geralt? A friend?”

Her face settled deeper into boredom and the lightning began to scald his skin.

“Oh and I won’t find any of those here?” She reached her hand out and he moved his face into its grasp. “Never put you down as picky when it comes to bed-mates.”

There was a comment there. About how he was- was something? Those eyes were so purple. His jaw remained lax in her grip.

“I have friends and I certainly don’t need to stoop to your level for one.”

The lightning was so pleasant in his body. Thrumming like a drum. Her nails dug into his cheeks and he welcomed the pricks of pain.

“And I am more than capable of hurting Geralt on my own. Half breed.”

That name was important.

It was.

Right.

“Do you really want another man bound to you by magic?”

Her hand twitched against his cheek and withdrew. A whine escaped him at the loss of contact. He dug his fingers into his legs to stop them from chasing after her.

“What?” She studied his face as if struck. “You can’t sense magic.” She stated. Growing less sure by the consonant.

He leaned away. The song screamed louder at him for it. He grit his teeth and didn’t move.

“And what makes you so sure about that?”                

“You wouldn’t-“ She frowned. “Familiars are drawn to magic.” She explained. He had actually gathered that thanks. “The difference in power alone between Geralt and I should have.” Made me yours. It finished for her when she trailed off.

“Yeah well we were bonded.” He wanted to emphasize that “bonded” idea with the quotation marks it deserved –what did that even mean- but he didn’t trust his hands to behave so he settled for spitting the word out. “So.”

She shook her head. “That shouldn’t have mattered.” He remembered a tapestry burning under his skin when she’d used magic on him.

“Then maybe I’m not what you think I am.”

He felt her taking in the taunt lines of his shoulders. The strain pulling him to her as he struggled to resist. Her face fell- only slightly but- Sad. You’ve made her sad.

“You’re Jaskier.” She said like that explained anything at all.

She drained her drink and stood. Turning.

“Yennifer?” She paused to grab her drink from the approaching barmaid. He leaned over his unfinished drink staring into it like it might have answers. “I would have liked to be friends.”

If the world had been different they could have toasted drinks and roasted Geralt into the long hours of the night. Maybe drunkenly tumbled into bed together or just fallen asleep next to each other. Maybe he’d hate her just the same for hurting Geralt, maybe more because he would know what being human really was. Or maybe he would have fallen for her beauty and written her countless odes and sonnets.

But none of that mattered. Because she had no choice in loving Geralt. Like how he had no choice in loving her. Whatever they felt couldn’t be trusted.

He hated her for hurting Geralt. Respected her for walking away. Loved her for her magic.

Who knew what was real under that?

Does it matter?

It did to her. She wanted something real.

That thought was the only thing that kept him from running after her.

If only he were human.

But then again he’d still be Jaskier.

[og-danny-dorito]

Spock NSFW Headcanons

these were requested by @jxrdqn, who you should go check out because i like their hair color i can tell they're pretty cool. also, forgive me if these suck, i'm lowkey out of practice. they're also kindof short, although i may add more later down the line

N S F W :

- it's me, back at it again with that self-projecting-onto-characters-i-share-1(one)-similarity-with shit and spock is the PERFECT candidate for these cause i got a lot to say bitch

- SO, to start, mans isn't very experienced because sex is literally mind melding for vulcans. when you've gotta pick someone to like literally share your brain with, you're not just gonna go handing it out to people, yknow? so beforehand he's going to sit you down and have a conversation with you and explain vulcan anatomy and all that stuff

- he's always been kind of reserved, and so he doesn't seem to be hellbent of doin the nasty. in fact, he's probably not the one to bring it up first anyway

- that said Pon Farr hits him like a fuckin bus

- seriously, he's normally so reserved and poised, but when Pon Farr comes around he literally calls in sick and stays in bed all day because he can't get a hold of himself

- he's fidgety, restless even, and he finds himself sweating a little. he might avoid you completely if you haven't ever done anything like that with him before, but when you're next to him? lord save his soul

- it's not that hard to tell that's he's struggling to keep himself off of you, and he even gets a little snappy. touching him just makes it worse, and if the circumstances are right he would very much like it if you- ehem -alleviated him of his condition

- since he doesn't have too much experience under his belt he's probably a little bit ignorant on the topic of kinks. at first he denies he has any, says that it's not really necessary and that they're pointless, but when you convince him to try some things out? oh boy

- the only issue is getting him to admit them.

- in fact, he's so self conscious that he denies himself the satisfaction of initiating anything when he's feeling A Particular Way or just missing that feeling in general. he feels gross for desiring more than he has and it makes him think that's he's selfish for not being content

- but telling him that he's worth a lot to you makes him feel irrationally more self conscious due to his immediate assumption of pity from you. and so the best way, obviously, is to show him how much he means to you

- like yes, kiss him all over and nip at his ears he loves that shit and while you're at it cradle his face in your hands while you're riding him he will be this 👌 close to loosing his shit the whole time

- he's actually not that hard to turn on because he's VERY sensitive around his ears and neck. like, hypersensitive. kissing at his neck while you're in public makes his face and ears go all green and it's no wonder his nickname is “greenbean”

- but the thing is that he's never been big on pda, since it's seen as indecent in his culture. hand-holding is even considered indecent since it's like a whole casual makeout sesh so it's probably gonna take him a bit to do anything like that

- that a he's got more nerves in his hands due to vulcan physiology and so they're very sensitive as well

- so i have a lot of headcanons about vulcan erogenous zones but like to skim it down here's my chart that rates the levels of sensitivity for vulcans:

(red is instant-boner zone, orange is “u tryna get a little frisky” zone, and yellow is “maybe if imagination and/or pon farr is involved but otherwise whatever” zone)

- now notice how the ears, neck, eyelids, hands, abdominal sections, thighs, and pectorals are the most sensitive. vulcans usually wear a lot of clothing that is modest, and more often than not you can see that the neck is covered. its very sensitive and so since it was once practical it's more fashionable with that blast to the past thing with slightly tribal roots

- but sweet jesus is he sensitive in those areas, even without the whole protection from fighting thing

- he will take it to his grave before he admits that he likes a little bit of marking and roughness. that sort of stuff is looked down upon on vulcan, and so he's generally shameful of it. but if you bite this dude while he's railing you against the bed board he might just nut right then and there

- likes scratching too, and likes to have the pain from them the next day as a reminder

- he's not the type to be very loud during the whole thing but when he's getting particularly desperate for that high you're chasing he's definitely going to growl a little and then deny it literally two seconds afterwards

- he can be surprisingly rough, but only with your consent. the thing he wants the least is hurting you without your permission because he views it as a sign of betraying your trust and that can and will fuck him up. like he said already self conscious but having you hate him because he accidentally hurt you? scares the shit out of him

- he does like the idea of resistance as well but he's afraid he won't get the message and take it too far and he'll ruin everything so he just,,,avoids it

- it's one of a the few things he leaves unresolved to resonate, but if you're into that he will be a little more encouraged to approach you about it

- bdsm might not be his thing at first, but he finds himself becoming accustomed to it quickly, merely stating how he can see why people like it rather than saying he does directly

- oral also may not be his thing but after having some experience with it he's more inclined to give rather than receive just because he's that kinda dude. he wants to focus on pleasuring you since really he views you as the ultimate pripority here, even taking your experience above his and doing his best to please you (which i'm sure is more than enough, he's a quick learner)

- on the topic of pleasure specifically, i'd say that he's a switch but mostly a top considering he likes to feel like he's got a hold of something. that, and he likes to put you above him in that aspect so expect him to literally make sure you hit your climax like 5 time starts before settling down

- during his climax his eyes might screw shut and he'll clench his teeth, but that's pretty much it. he might also groan a little but like i said he doesn't really make a lot of noise besides the occasional growl

- he's around 7 inches in length and a pretty good girl of 6.9 inches exactly all around. probably curves towards his abdomen when erect, only vulcans have retractable dicks so when its out its curvin. it also turns a very interesting shade of fleshy green, and the two veins that run down to bottom pulse whenever youre touching him. pretty clean cut and all-around is very embarrassed at any point in time that he's being stared at when hes completely exposed

- nOW for my favorite part, mischellaneous headcanons ;

had no idea what the bdsm meant and lowkey was pretty sure it was a food before being further informed that it was in fact not a food

he blushes a whole lot, and he gets all quiet when he's feeling particularly pent up or turned on

most likely pansexual, since some alien species don't have a set binary or have multiple definitions for orientations, so it's easier just to say that you like pretty people rather than getting into the specifics

i would assume that he has no pubic hair because of vulcans not really growing much hair in general, so you won't have an issue navigating down there

probably thinks that seeing you mad is hot and he literally has no fucking idea why

like seriously if you're fucking livid and like fighting someone at the same time he may just want you to use any remaining rage on him in the bedroom no cap

- to spock, sex is something that requires trust and thought beforehand, and it might take him a while to adjust to some things because of those ideals that have been imposed on him since childhood. it's up to you to help him explore and figure it all out, and in the end it's worth it, promise

- he loves you, and while he doesn't think of sex as everything, he certainly loves that you trust him enough to do so with him of all people

[peepingtoad]

|| @dokuhebi​​ cont. {x}

The peculiar period of downtime that they’d found themselves enjoying ever since the destruction of the other hideout, short-lived as it would no doubt be, had borne witness to the reveal of some truths that could never have come to light while he was still Orochimaru’s captive. Now they were in another of the many laboratories that could technically be considered ‘part’ of Otogakure, except this one was far, far flung from the sight of prying shinobi—not even Danzō had any hand in the funding or knew the whereabouts of this place—and of course, the timing was such that the expiry date on the sacrificial vessel he and Tsunade had met during the Deadlock was drawing ever nearer.

While this said a lot about exactly how long he’d been cooped up, it had proven more interesting in Jiraiya’s eyes, by this point, to wonder anew how Orochimaru had managed to weasel their way around the permanent obliteration of the chakra network to their arms. Knowing their sensei’s last-ditch jutsu, this was a feat the sage had previously thought impossible until they’d managed to snap him up and seal him in the forest, like a frog tempted closer by the innocent flick of the adder’s tongue… but particularly since their impromptu flight across the land, and especially what with having his own chakra restored, it became ever more apparent that the situation wasn’t quite so clear cut.

Ever one to observe quietly and gather his thoughts (whenever he wasn’t being boisterous and charging thoughtlessly ahead; such is the duality of man, or this man at least), Jiraiya said nothing when he first noticed the increased use of wrappings around their hands, and the certain quiver that was uncharacteristic of the graceful yet confident gestures he knew. Of course, he also noticed how Kabuto seemed to be the only one in and out of labs while Orochimaru spent more time lounging around—and while yes, this was often to spend time with him, Jiraiya couldn’t simply chalk it up to being a wonderful distraction, even if it would tickle his ego. Not when they so often seemed agitated by an itch for activity that they clearly couldn’t scratch, and particularly not when with increasing frequency they avoided laying their hands upon him in that lovely, possessive way he adored.

However, he wouldn’t call them out on their secret-keeping until meditation, and the awakening of a sage’s ability to sense all around him, showed him exactly what was going on—that cells were beginning to die, that chakra capillaries were deteriorating like old and frayed cables unable to communicate signals, and that this process of death, while gradual, was only beginning with this particular point of weakness. It wasn’t just the Reaper Death Seal that was behind their condition; it was all tied in with the Body Possession, too.

By the time they placate him with the barest of explanations, he already knows that they hide the full extent of what’s to come, and the implications of what must happen next (and soon) to remedy that... are grim. It is where their ideals come to a definite nexus, the reason that they've had to consider each other as enemies for so long, until happenstance led to choices that would solder their fates together once more.

Most critically of all though, it presents Jiraiya with a question he’s avoided until now: can I support this?

Amid numerous growing concerns, witnessing their ailing health only becomes more of a struggle to watch. But the final straw comes when they retire to bathe one evening, and yet many minutes pass—five, ten, fifteen—without even a drip of water to be heard, no shower before the bath, nothing to suggest that any other personal grooming is underway.

He finds them perched on the stool used normally for cleansing before entering the bath, having evidently made attempts to turn on the tap, so he quickly completes the task, and within moments steam fogs up the room. It would seem propriety may have to take a back seat for simply getting them in and comfortable, this time—Jiraiya wasn’t fool enough to think they’d allow the indignity of him stripping and washing them beforehand, but he certainly has plans to do so once they’re relaxed.

“Mm,” he replies simply at their assertion, a response he may as well not have given for how focused he is on unravelling the bandages with utmost care. He doesn’t need to see the damage itself to know that Orochimaru justifying themself is the very first sign that they aren’t satisfied in this situation, that they are perhaps embarrassed or even ashamed by the cost of their ability... but revealing the tender skin, mottled slightly mauve with the beginnings of that deterioration he’d sensed on a cellular level, certainly hits differently. Still, he keeps it hidden from his expression (as best as he can, at least), not wishing to rock the boat. Much more set on offering a little pampering care to soften the edge of being in such a state.

With their silken hair all gathered, tied up and away from their skin—albeit it not as elegantly by Jiraiya’s hand than it would have been by their own—he guides them into the deep bath, and spares no time in kneeling on the step that he may begin to gently wash them. It’s easy to lose himself in how stunningly beautiful they are while his hands roam over their body, sometimes with the cloth, and for those extra sensitive spots that require something even less abrasive than that, completely bare with only a film of lightly floral suds to make it glide over flawless skin.

Of course, few situations were quite so grim that the notoriously lusty sage could ignore desire when it was right before him, pliant and lovely in his hands, but reaching Orochimaru’s arms causes quite the abrupt pause in what had been shaping up to be an act both caring and skin-tinglingly sensual. Something that they clearly pick up on. Something that, dare he say it, gives them a reason to think he needs an extra reminder of that desire... or simply a distraction.

And it certainly works.

With his forearm supporting his weight on the curved edge of the ofuro, Jiraiya  melts into the kiss, his free hand sliding up their sternum to cradle their neck, curling around its slender shape with only the lightest pressure applied. The steam feels steamier the more he tastes what is undoubtedly his Orochimaru; he knows too well their small breaths and gestures for this to possibly connect, in his mind, with the concept of a mere corpse painted with their likeness. And yet it does niggle. Enough that there’s a slight pinch to his brow as they part—just that subtle little indication that in this moment, despite the agitated, trembling weight of his breaths that would indicate stirred up lust, or the fact he’d topple into the bath with them if he tried to lean much further, his feelings towards them have become just a touch overwhelming. 

Love, worry, protectiveness, sadness... it all mingles together in soft, storm-cloud grey, and the very last on the list of reasons for that look is ‘trying to make sense of them’. In fact, it isn’t even on the list at all.

“Mm,” he mumbles again—although this time, at least, he intends to say more. Right after his fingers stop idly fiddling with ink-black forelocks that have fallen from the poorly arranged up-do, settling finally on brushing it gently away from their face, before caressing the elegant line of their jaw. His chin rests atop his forearm, the distance allowing him a better look at them, which in turn prompts a smile that, while gentle, could mean an array of things. Not that he’s going to leave them hanging, as he continues calmly: “Quite the contrary. It makes all too much sense to me.” 

Surely he need not say out loud how well he understood their aversion to death, their obsession with sweeping over any tracks by which it could pursue them as it had whilst growing up, nor that he knew the fact that actually possessing the power, wit and audacity to potentially overcome death was what had spurred them to just do it. Surely he need not say out loud that he knew their ambition and independent streak would have seen them leave Konoha’s tenuously safe walls for some other reason, if not this one.

After all, all three of them had left, albeit for different reasons—and Jiraiya’s own reasoning lay in an ambition of his own, or just a burden of destiny, he couldn’t always tell which. It was different to theirs, but he understood the drive to chase it. Admittedly, his is one that he still feels would have them struggling to make sense of him. Maybe, after everything, he was the one still showing a lack of trust in them. In anyone but himself, really.

Sighing, he braces his hand on the side of the tub, then rises to his full height with a few pops and cracks of his knees here and there. He’s only wearing a light yukata now, having showered not long prior, so it takes little for him to shed himself bare before decisively joining them in the tub, where the addition of his significant mass causes the water to swell, brim and spill over the edge. It evens out as he settles himself on the step situated on the side just beside Orochimaru, his arms made weightless by the water immediately curling around them to hold them in a loose embrace.

“I sensed when we fought that day, that something was different about your body, and I won’t pretend it didn’t disturb me.” His head tilts thoughtfully after saying this, clearly searching for the best words to spin substance to his thoughts. “But your essence, your soul, whatever you may think of it… it’s still the same to me. No matter how much I disagree with what you do, or worry that your actions are only gonna create new chains of vengeance and hatred that’ll come back to bite you, or even how much I worry about you, just you in general—your happiness an’ all that… Well, it still is you. It always will be you. And just like agreeing doesn’t necessarily mean understanding, not agreeing doesn’t mean not understanding. I won’t say this doesn’t worry me, of course, but...”

His eyes flick in the direction of their arms when he emphasises the word ‘this’, about the same time as a gentle nudge of the arm that forms a ledge beneath theirs illustrates it, before meeting their golden gaze again. The fact that someone will have to die to sustain their life... it’s rotten to think about it, but the fact of the matter is, Jiraiya would always choose them over someone else. And if that ‘someone else’ is a shinobi, well... there’s not much to vouch for in terms of their ‘innocence’. They were all killers here. That didn’t make killing someone to further a selfish pursuit for immortality okay, but there isn’t much he can do besides accept the fact that loving them, not from afar but being with them, means accepting that he’ll be inhabiting some exceptionally grey territory... or leaving.

Which, clearly, is quite the opposite of what he’s currently doing.

“It’s funny,” he adds with a slightly bolder curl of his lips, his hand returning once again to their face to simply hold their cheek while his thumb gently caresses the high, refined bone that lends well to that sharp glare of theirs, even with such smooth features, “you’ve tried to tell me that the way I see you, what I continue to see in you is wrong... but you’d be sad, wouldn’t you? You’d be sad if the way I looked at you changed and became like everyone else. Otherwise there’d be no need for you to hope it doesn’t. Watch me look at you, and see—”

Oh, and the way he looks at them is indulgent. Traces of concern and sadness still remain, but as always seems to be the case with Jiraiya, such feelings find themselves lost in a bright and lovely nebula of far better things—love, care, warmth... and, as always, little glimmers of teasing and jest..

“It hasn’t changed, has it? Well... except maybe the bedroom eyes. I suspect they weren’t always quite so obvious~”

[kendrixtermina]

The Recruitment Freebies: Thoughts on Sylvain and Felix

Now when it comes to recruiting characters, there are 2 who kind of stand out and are, in their own way, somewhat ‘easier’ to get.

Sylvain joins you automatically if you’re playing fem Byleth, whereas Felix actually requires high stats/abilities that no one else does but since your primary weapon is most likely going to be a sword anyways and he requires sword skill, he’s actually not so hard to collect. Given that they’re both handy units (Felix kicks butt like no tomorrow, Sylvain is pretty customizable and gets a relic early on) you’re sorta encouraged to snatch one or both.

If you’ve seen them in their original environment, you’ll easily notice why: They’re kind of the kingdom’s token cynics. 

[Longer Essay Under The Cut]

The Initial Situation

One thing that stands out right away is that the Blue Lions are one of the tightest-knit groups: The Black Eagles have sort of vaguely heard of each other because most the imperial nobility lives in the capital and the one commoner used to be famous, but that’s it, only Linhardt and Dorothea really express any regret over betraying Edelgard if they do, and their fates don’t differ that much by whatever faction they’re in - Ferdinand is certainly sad to see the Empire itself go down (see that amusing line about an ‘Adrestia-shaped hole in [his] heart’) and has a minor existential crisis when his family’s lands are confiscated after he spend his whole life preparing to rule them, but while he gets that line wondering what might have become of him if Byleth had chosen a different path, he pretty much always becomes a statesman no matter who winds up on the throne.

The Golden Deer, meanwhile, are from wildly different backgrounds and even Claude just showed up last year. If they stay together, they eventually become a tight-knit group under Claude’s leadership (except Lorenz, if Byleth’s not with them), and if you recruit em,  they will largely pursue their own interests as they were never too unified to begin with, with most of the commoners saying they were never that involved in politics, and most of the nobles acting out of self-preservation or opportunism.

By contrast, most of the Blue Lions know each other personally and will be pretty conflicted about defecting from the Kingdom if you recruit them, and it’s no wonder:

Sylvain, Felix Ingrid and Dimitri were childhood friends and all big weapons enthusiasts, Dedue has followed Dimitri everywhere he went for the last few years, Anette’s father worked for Dimitri’s, Mercedes is Anette’s BFF from magic school and while Ashe didn’t know the others before since he was a poor village kid before Lonato took him in, he becomes fast friends with the rest of them due to their shared admiration of knight stories.

So in this more idealistic and old-fashioned groups, Sylvain and Felix can be thought of as the token cynics or more independently-minded characters. This is most obvious with Felix: He sticks out like a sore thumb, vocally expresses his dislike of the others and their values and basically keeps to himself on the training grounds, and its only through the other’s doormatsey dispositions that they seem determined to ignore his hostilities and continue considering him a friend whether he wants to or not. He doesn’t fit in with the other Blue Lions at all.

Sylvain, meanwhile, doesn’t stand out that much at first glance, he seems like another fairly common character archetype in the silly childhood friends lineup and gives Ingrid plenty of cause to get into Mom Friend mode,  but the whole thing with him is that while he pretends to be a hedonistic oaf, he’s actually something of a brooding intellectual type underneath, very ‘byronic’ overall.

Ultimately, both of them are motivated by a desire for, and love of freedom. (which is probably why a lot of ppl think they’d be a compatible and interesting as a romantic couple - for all their outward difference, they have a common ‘core’ there)  Sylvain has been treated all his life like his life and power don’t really belong to himself and he desperately strains against those binds by acting out, and Felix finds his countrymen to have a bit of a grostesque lemming mentality and wants no part of that.

At the same time both show their ‘cynism’ in very different ways, and neither of them is a ‘complete’ cynic, but the areas where you find their residual idealism are also different. I would say that Felix’ cynism is more apparent, while Sylvain’s runs much deeper, but more on that later.

Though he cares little about maintaining a reputation and indeed seems to sorta seek out or get a kick out doing what his father would hate, calling himself a ‘good for nothing/scoundrel/ someone who’s going to hell’, to sorta go against that pressure to be a good kid, when it comes down to it he’s actually still pretty honorable and does actually believe in The Power Of Friendship (as noted by both Ashe and Dimitri - it’s probably why they like him) He’s inclined to be a Good Guy, he just doesn’t want the pressure that goes along with it.

It reminds me a bit of that one Fiona Apple song: “Do I wanna do right? Of course./ But Do I really wanna feel I’m forced to/  answer you?/ Hell no!”

Felix meanwhile - well. Some might say he’s tsundere, and I suppose he is, stock phrases wise, but to put it more specifically what he is is counterdependent.  Which is a word commonly used to describe that teenage behavior of always doing the exact opposite of what your parents or the mainstream do, thereby being just as influenced as a dependent person. It’s closer to being dependent than indepedent - He wants badly to be independent, but doesn’t really know how. He still very much has attachments to his father and his oldtime childhood friends, he just rejects them fiercely, because between Glenn’s death and his first deployment to Sreng, he came to see that attachment as something that will destroy him, something incompatible with self-preservation. He still dearly loves Rodrigue, Dimitri and the others, but he doesn’t want to be like them. He wants to be free, he’s a reasonable man and sees that they’re all walking off a cliff and he doesn’t wanna jump of of it, but his opposition is so absolute because some part of his kind of wants to.

At the same time he’s not entirely a complainer for complaining’s sake. Though very fighting-focussed he has his own strong code of ethics and standards- Dimitri markedly falls short of them. They’re not that different, Felix too feels the wide open wound of being still bonded and attached  to people who aren*t there anymore (”Training for a duel with a corpse”, as he puts it) - But while Dimitri let it eat his life (though there’s more complexity here of course but that would derail this into a whole different essay), Felix kinda errs on the opposite side of pushing down all attachment, but at the same time, he does it because he’s concerned with saving the ones who are still alive. That’s the point he stresses in his paralogue where he argues with his father, “We’re here to protect our subjects”. He wants to protect himself, yes, but he also wants to protect other people. He’s all about that.  He wants people to protect themselves not glorify throwing their lives away.

Which is why despite all his vocal complaining he still ultimately hangs out with the others, cannot help but worry about their wellbeing etc.  They might be negative bonds now but they’re still very much bonds.

Meanwhile, in Sylvain’s case the cynism comes not from rejection but disillusionment and distrust. He’s a good guy but his ability to form bonds is almost completely destroyed. All his life he got showered with fake conditional love while being presented with an example of what would happen if he didn’t stay in ppl’s good graces: His brother, who’d been dropped like a hot potato. I don’t think he can think of himself as good; He kinda got treated as an unfair existence the moment he came into the world.   At least if you get no love, you still have the hope that you might eventually get love. But fake love? Fake love poisons everything. It’s disgusting wrong, it’s not really for you and it just makes you wanna get rid of it by any means neccessary. Speaking from experience here.

Apart from the bonds he got with his childhood friend and those with exceptional people skills like Byleth, Mercedes and Dorothea, he doesn’t really trust anyone beyond a certain level.

But that’s a subtle distinction.

At first the most apparent difference, and the first contrast to come up in their support chain, is focus. Felix responded to the unpleasantness in his past with absolute laser focus, particularly on fighting and becoming stronger, whereas Sylvain avoids ever the appearance of focus like the plague, downplays his capabilities and chases distractions in a way that may be rather relatable to those of us who had the whole weird-ass Gifted Child Experience. Hence, Sylvain might come off as extravagant/frivolous while Felix appears disciplined, even ascetic.

This is also apparent in how its implied that they “jump ship” - Sylvain does it on a whim because of fem Byleth’s ample bosoms, (whereas man Byleth needs to impress him with reason skill which ties more into his hidden dephts) whereas with Felix it would tie into his pursuit of strenght and how he focusses on that more than anything else. Byleth stands out as a badass, so Felix juins his class or that’s his reasoning in the dialogue he gets.

But at the same time what we see here is that both were born with great natural power but don’t want that defining their lives. Sylvain downplays and refuses to use his, while Felix is determined to get straight that he actually “earned” through his harsh discipline and dedication, and vocally disavows conventional wisdom (”Crests, lineagle, knighthood... all trifles. Only strenght and skill matter”)

Post-Timeskip

So while a lot of characters like, say, Dorothea, get alot of the same dialogues in each route, others kind of get different little arcs depending on where they end up - for example if you recruit Lorenz for the empire he will at first join out of pure opportunism (that, and trying to get mercy for his corrupt-ass father), but then towards the last few months, he’ll actually come around to Edelgard’s way of thinking.

Felix is one of the characters whose dialogue differs the most by route - church & Alliance overlap a lot though with a few pointed differences, and his ending narrations are totally different depending on whether you recruited him or left him with the Kingdom. Of course, this would have to differ to an extent as he can’t exactly become Dimitri’s right hand when there’s no Dimitri, but the outcomes are starkly different to the point that even his paired endings with different characters all have two versions.

In the Kingdom route he generally succeeds his father whereas in the other routes, he typically renounces his title and becomes a mercenary unless his partner or BFF convinces him otherwise.

Unlike, say, Ferdinand, who does about the same thing regardless of who he ends up working under, for Felix the decision to ditch his classmates is a big big turning point, a choice

Sylvain by contrast has rather more similar endings wherever he goes and his dialogues are more similar - one highlight being how he has the exact same “history is written by the winners, whoever wins will say they’re right war will probably always exist...” lines regardless of whether he’s fighting for or against Edelgard. Whenever he isn’t commenting on the weather of their next destination or the general suckyness of the war, he remains mildly sceptical of whatever side he’s on, including one memorable instance where he refers to poor Hubert as “Edelgard’s idiot sidekick” and thinks they should try more negotiating, though he’s not blind to Dimitri’s flaws either when they go fight him.

Not really a big joiner or believer, this one, no illusions about how they could always be wrong, which perhaps makes it more touching how he invariably ends up becoming a peacemaker and activist after the war, basically becoming a fulltime do-gooder.

Since the inner mechanics with Felix are quite different, so are his outcomes. Sylvain’s gonna be like “I’m not optimistic but I gotta try doing the right thing”, no atter who he’s following, but you get a whole different Felix depending on what route you’re playing.

Because for him, wether to stick with Team Kingdom or not kinda represents a choice between his lingering attachment and his drive to reject that.

In the Kingdom route, he stays a lot more like he was in his academy days: Complains a lot, but still sticks with everyone to the end. He sort of fills the role of the contrarian number two, the one providing a contrastic viewpoint (while, Sylvain, while not optimistic, is no less stubborn about sticking with a friend in need than the rest of Team Kingdom)

He comes across as the Only Sane Man at times, esp. when he calls Titanic on the whole Revenge Trip to Gronder, “Iceberg ahead? ya’ll seeing the iceberg right?” but of course if you’re just complaining you’re kinda part of the problem - He muses that he must be crazy too, if he’s going along with everybody. Can’t bring himself to leave. Eventually that attachment wins out and he doesn’t even bother hiding it especially once Dimitri gets his act together. At that point he figures that the best he can do is to keep him on-course. Though they don’t go back to the same dynamic they once had, they go back to being BFF and the new dynanic is probably more useful to Dimitri as a counterpoint, they pretty much each succeed their fathers in proper Kingdom Manner and stay an A-team for the rest of their lives just like their das were. Idealism triumphs, though it’s a more matured, well-thought out one that is less about high standards and more about forgiveness/redemption.

It seems like he kinda became what he didn’t want to be early on (in the paired ending with Dimitri he even winds up in one of those chivalric tales he used to hate!), but it also looks like that made him happy. Maybe because it resolved the contradiction and tension within himself, all the energy he expends in rejecting his feelings of attachment, to like, actively not care about Dimitri.

I mean in their B support at one point he almost accidentally lapses back into Nerding Out About Swords Like Old Times - He needs to actively remind himself that he’s supposed to hate Dimitri now, and he does an even worse job at No Longer Liking the others.

Indeed when he gets what he ostensibly wanted, or rather what he wants to want, it doesn’t seem to make him all that happy - This was indeed the realization that prompted me to do this analysis. He goes full lonesome cowboy and marches off and he doesn’t sound all that happy about what he’s done, and his paired ending with Sylvain is one of the ones that makes it very obvious - In the Kingdom route, they stay Together Forever as they were in childhood, like they never got estranged at all. In the other routes it’s a sad, melancholic, darkly romantic thing about how Sylvain inherited his title, Felix came to help him out once and they never saw each other again, and Sylvain eventually gets a keepsake from Felix... and this is if you recruit them both. They get a sad enough dialogue if you grab only one and make them fight each other, but even if they run away together, essentially, they don’t become happy together.

The circumstances aren’t that different, if they still wound up in the same faction - But Felix is different.

Because he doesn’t just leave because of Byleth’s heroic charisma like many of the others - He  goes because, in essence, he is putting his pursuit of strength over his lingering attachments for his friends. To leave the kingdom means to actually become what he pretends to be. To actually become a lonewolf warrior who cares only about strenght rather than an ultimately loyal tsundere.

Which is where the above rambles about counter-dependency come to bear: He says he doesn’t care but he does, so much he can’t stop. So to take this step, which at the time seens reasonable and sane and free to him, is to cut off part of himself.

Though even here there are different gradations depending on where you recruit him to.

In the Alliance and church routes he simply jumps ship on the kingdom out of self-preservation. Sanity before Honor, just like he was always talking about. The kingdom’s in horrible shape, it can’t win, or so he sees it, Sylvain’s reasoning is pretty much the same but more resigned/sad (”There was nothing I could do”), after all for all they know, Dimitri is long dead (though Felix, always one with keen insight, suspect him to be alive a bit before he shows up)

Then Dimitri turns up alive, but promptly gets himself killed, and Felix regrets it. Every bit as much as other kingdom characters. He wonders if he could have stopped Dimitri if he’d been with him. He channels this into avenging Dimitri first on the empire and then on TWSITD, and starts using his name at this point.

Tellingly enough, he refers to the local afterlife beliefs that are so prominently featured in the Kingdom route. The ones that Rodrigue taught to both Felix and Dimitri and that likely played a role in the latter’s inability to forgive himself for all that Rodrigue is largely a good man who was a positive influence. He talks about “facing” Dimitri in the afterlife or allowing him to rest in peace much like Dimitri’s own talk about appeasing the dead - As much as he’d like to be Felix was not actually immune to his upbringing. basically he really regrets it.

The church and alliance routes differ somewhat in the dialogue before the last stage in a way that makes the church route seem “milder” - He considers working under Byleth once they become King/Queen, so he doesn’t seem quite as “lost”, whereas in the alliance route he expresses interest in dueling Nemesis. Not that far beyond his usual “must fight worthy opponents/ blood knight attude” but certainly more of an embracement of it and also very reckless, since as far as we knew the zombie horde is blazing an almost unhindered trail through the land and pretty much had Hilda’s renowned invincible brother for breakfast.

The empire route, of course, requires him to go even further - it’s one thing to evacuate a sinking ship, another to go a path where there’s a good chance that he’ll have to go against, and even fight/kill his former comrades. The game sure included tons of unique dialogue for this. You can even have his feud with his father end quite lethally, and Dimitri will even comment on it when you engage him. Ouch!

Right after the holy tomb scene most the recruitees’ dialogues are either some variation of “I’m scared but I trust you sensei” or “Now that she’s actually explained her reasoning, Edelgard’s got a point” - Felix’ is neither.

Though he’d presumably agree that Crests and Status are overrated, that’s not what he talks about. He says he wants to forge his own path, one that isn’t his father’s or Dimitri’s.  

He may or may not be doing the right thing but it’s for the wrong reason.

It’s a decision that’s perfectly logical if you feature in all factors except for his own heart - by which I don’t mean some bullshit 19th century “head vs heart” contrast but simply self-knowledge, which is necessary to make choices that you won’t regret, especially when the ‘correct’ path is ambiguous.

He wants to be free, deeply and desperate but, there’s also the counterdependency in play. He’s not going with the Empire because he wants to go with the empire, but because he wants to go against Rodrigue and Dimitri. Rejecting them to prove to himself that he can.

And turns out he can. He can cut em all down, with fairly unfazed Dialogue about how he’s going his own path, will never bow to the likes of Dimitri, will pursue strenght no matter who stands in his way etc.

They all curse him for betraying him, only Sylvain who’s not the sort to have much certainty about being right, gets more of a “sad/tragic” line about their childhood promise.

But that’s on the battlefield. Back at the monastery it’s a different matter. In this route he shows significantly LESS regret about what happens to the kingdom peeps - after all, he knew he’d be fighting them. He’s just completely embraced the ‘living to fight’ thing here and you get the sense that some other parts of his may have been lost in the process.

Ironically he says he killed more ppl than he can count and that he’s practically as bad as Dimitri now (”Your better world better be worth this”, indeed...) and while he’s completely unflinchingly resolute he’s not exactly unphased.

You can certainly understand why he’d end up as a restless sorta wandering mercenary  (interesting, too that if you pair him with Byleth they’ll go with him - interesting enough in its own right since that’s the sort of life they use to have before coming to the academy)

So I guess this could all  ultimately be seen as a parable on ‘be careful what you wish for’, or, more accurately, ‘know yourself before making wishes’.

[fallencomrade]

𝐂 𝐎 𝐑 𝐎 𝐍 𝐀   𝐑 𝐀 𝐃 𝐈 𝐀 𝐓 𝐀  a  drabble  based  on  this  post  from  my  old  blog ( x ) PER REQUEST,  i will happily  turn this into a thread ! ◝(●˙꒳˙●)◜

     THEY HAUL HIS LIFELESS BODY INTO A DARK ROOM,  handling  him  the  same  way  a  proud  hunter  might  drag  in  his  latest  kill,  his  latest  TROPHY.  they  are  pleased  with  their  triumph,  but  the  muscle  required  to  take  down  such  a  beast  certainly  demanded  a  price.  TWELVE  MEN,  it  had  taken  twelve  men  and  a  locked  door  -  and  they  had  just  barely  managed  to  SUBDUE  him.  just  barely.  they  are  all  in  bad  shape,  the  majority  of  the  strike  team  absent  due  to  serious  injuries  that  required  immediate  attention.  rumlow,  disregarding  his  own  injuries,  the  tremendous  PAIN  livid  inside  his  own  body  ( ORDER  ONLY  COMES  THROUGH  PAIN  )  refuses  to  miss  this  though.  he  will  lick  his  wounds  later.  now,  it  is  time  to  bask.  

     ‘  heavy  fucker ,  ’  he  laments  as  he  dumps  the  body  into  the  reinforced  steel  chair  bolted  to  the  floor.  he  begins  the  arduous  process,  starting  with  the  leather  restraints.  he  wraps  them  around  each  arm  and  leg,  as  well  as  around  the  torso.  next  come  the  magnetized  cuffs  which  clamp  tightly  around  wrists  &&  ankles.  they  will  hold,  developed  and  proven  to  withstand  super  -  soldier  strength,  tested  on  some one thing  similar.  the  drugs  they  pump  into  his  body  have  been  tested  just  the  same,  and  if  his  serum  works  anything  like  theirs,  the  man  should  not  wake  until  they  are  ready  for  him  ;;  until  they  PERMIT  him  to  do  so.  rumlow  wraps  chains  around  each  limb,  just  to  be  safe. 

     once  finished,  he  glides  his  tongue  over  the  blood  pooling  from  his  split  lip,  and  spits  the  taste  of  it  out  at  his  prisoner’s  feet,  finally  stepping  away.  pulling  his  phone  free,  rumlow  dials  a  single  number.  ‘  connect  me  to  pierce ,  ’   he  orders,  heated  eyes  burning  as  he  glances  back  at  the  body  in  the  chair.  

      ‘  SIR.  we  have  him.  steve  rogers  has  been  CONTAINED.  ’

     rumlow  had  wanted  to  KILL  rogers.  (  for  personal  reasons  and  selfish  delights,  more  than  anything  else  )  but  he  also  understands  how  DANGEROUS  the  captain  is.  he  has  worked  alongside  him  now  for  a  while,  and  knows  the  RISK  keeping  him  alive  poses.  but  pierce  had  been  very  clear  with  his  orders.   he  wanted  the  captain  taken  in  ALIVE,  seemingly  confident  ‘guts  and  glory’  here  could  be  convinced  to  cooperate.  rumlow  is  doubtful,  but  questioning  pierce  is  not  in  his  best  interest.  whatever  the  secretary  has  up  his  sleeve,  it  is  time  to  start  putting  it  into  motion.   convincing  rogers  will  not  be  easy.  

            whatever  his  hand  is,  it  better  be  good. 

      THEY LEAD THEIR LIFELESS SOLDIER INTO A COLD ROOM,  handling  him  the  same  way  a  medical  professional  might  examine  a  CORPSE  -  with  cold,  clinical  hands.  they  remove  the  thermal  suit  clinging  to  his  trembling  body,  the  material  still  cold  with  the  lingering  breath  of  stasis.  they  hose  him  down  and  scrub  his  skin  raw.  the  technicians  spend  a  great  amount  of  time  washing  his  body,  which  is  different  -  but  if  the  soldier  notices,  he  does  not  say  anything.  the  asset  does  not  question.  they  order  him  to  sit  down  in  a  chair,  and  so  he  sits.  they  pull  out  a  blade.  no  -  it  is  a  razor.  the  soldier  expects  them  to  hand  it  to  him,  to  use  as  a  weapon  during  this  next  mission,  but  they  do  not  assign  it  to  him.  neither  do  they  use  it  for  testing  purposes  -  not  to  poke,  prod  or  slice  into  his  skin.  no,  instead  they  tell  him  to  lean  back.  he  complies.  they  tell  him  not  to  move.  he  complies.  then  they  rub  something  frothy  across  his  face.  they  glide  the  sharp  blade  across  his  skin,  scrapping.  it  doesn’t  hurt… and  that  is  surprising.  the  techs  put  away  the  blade  without  spilling  a  single  drop  of  blood. 

     they  cut  his  hair,  hacking  away  until  there  is  more  on  the  floor  around  them  than  on  his  head.  no  longer  can  he  HIDE  behind  dark,  oily  bangs.  they  are  sheered  away.  they  cut  until  his  hair  no  longer  lays  on  his  shoulders,  no  longer  covers  his  neck  -  and  it  leaves  the  soldier  feeling…  strangely  EXPOSED.  it  is  odd,  different  -  but  the  asset  does  not  question.  one  of  the  technicians  holds  out  a  piece  of  paper,  its  contents  unknown  to  him.  the  asset  does  not  question.  her  dark  eyes  flicker  back  and  forth  between  him  and  the  page  and  after  a  moment,  she  frowns  and  sighs,  shoulders  slumping  with  what  appears  to  be  DEFEAT.  ‘  his  eyes ,  ’   she  criticizes  and  for  a  brief  moment,  the  asset  wonders  what  it  is  in  his  eyes  that  DISAPPOINTS  her  so.  —  but  the  asset  does  not  question.  she  shrugs  soon  after  anyway,  with  a  dismissive,  ‘  it  will  have  to do.  ’ 

     finally,  they  strap  him  in  the  chair  and  REVIVE  his  mind.  the  ice  is  swept  away,  replaced  with  their  steadfast  CONDITIONING.  the  soldier  is  ACTIVATED,  once  again.  ready  to  comply.   —  &&  when  it  is  finished,  as  his  cerebrum  sparks  &&  flickers  with  electricity,  lightning  scorching  all  passageways  to  his  brain,  while  numbing  everything  else  -  they  prepare  him.  if  he  were  in  his  right  mind,  the  soldier  might  ask  why  they  decide  to  dress  him  in  the  attire  they  choose.  why  they  have  him  tug  on  a  pair  of  dark  jeans  instead  of  the  usual  cargo  pants.  why  they  have  him  in  a  soft,  navy  dark  cotton  shirt  instead  of  the  standard  kevlar  and  tactical  vests.  this  flimsy  long - sleeved  shirt  will  do  little  to  stop  bullets  and  blades.   

                        —  but  the  asset  does  not  question.    

     ONLY A SELECT FEW  are  allowed  inside.  secretary  pierce  certainly  is  not  intimidated  by  an  audience,  but  these  are  delicate  matters.  it  is  important  they  maintain  a  level  of  professionalism.  they  are  situated  in  a  sub – level  basement  located  in  the  underbelly  of  a  large  accounting  firm,  one  owned  &&  run  by  hydra.  it’s  a  well  respected,  legitimate  business.  perfect  record  of  excellence,  fortune  500  company  with  outstanding  company  morals  and  ideals…  and  growing  inside,  beneath  the  guise  -  a  hydra  head  breathes,  thriving.  

     when  pierce  arrives,  security  detail  in  tow,  the  captain  is  just  starting  to  stir.  ‘  his  serum  is  impressive,  ’  one  doctor  whispers  to  another,  glancing  down  at  his  watch  before  scribbling  notes  onto  his  clipboard.  they  are  eager  to  start  conducting  tests,  but  without  direct  authorization  from  pierce,  all  they  have  been  able  to  collect  thus  far  are  a  few  samples  of  blood.  they  are  also  afraid  to  get  too  close  to  rogers  without  him  being  properly  sedated  &&  restrained,  and  for  good  reason  too.  much  to  the  strike  team’s  chagrin,  the  scientists  were  privy  to  the  elevator  footage.  hydra  values  their  minds,  not  their  muscle  ;;  they  are  of  no  use  DEAD.  so  for  now,  they  will  maintain  their  distance,  jotting  down  what  little  details  they  can  obtain  based  on  observation  alone,  tucked  safely  behind  the  pointed  guns  of  what  remains  of  the  strike  team.  sectioned  off  in  the  middle  of  the  room  sits  a  makeshift  holding  cell,  the  space  completely  surrounded  by  sturdy  metal  bars.  at  its  center  sits  two  chairs  -  one  occupied  and  bolted  to  the  floor,  the  other  empty  and  unbounded.  it  is  an  accustomed  outlay,  especially  for  hydra.  still,  the  doom  and  gloom  of  it  all  still  makes  pierce  huff  and  shake  his  head  a  little.     

     POLISHED SHOES STEP FORWARD,  into  the  cage.  the  door  closes  behind  him.  he  removes  his  suit  jacket,  draping  the  expensive  material  over  the  back  of  the  unoccupied  chair.  a  single  light  hangs  over  the  cell,  illuminating  the  small  space  while  casting  the  surrounding  area  into  thick  darkness,  allowing  the  others  to  observe  without  being  seen.  but  not  pierce,  no.  alexander  pierce  wants  to  be  seen  ;;  wants  to  be  heard.  the  man  is  optimistic,  pleasant  even  when  steve  finally  wakes  up.  he  remains  patient,  reasonable  -  welcoming  the  captain’s  VITRIOL  with  calm  understanding.  ‘  i  would  like  us  to  become  business  partners,  captain.  i  was  not  lying  when  i  shook  your  hand  and  said  it  was  an  HONOR.  ’   but  steve  is  quick  to  spit  back,  ‘  you  killed  nick  fury  ’  and  that  has  pierce  amused,  knowing  smile  stretching  across  thin  lips.  ominously,  he  responds,  ‘  not  me.  ’ 

     but  pierce  should  know  swaying  the  captain  will  require  more  than  just  a  simple  invitation.  steven  rogers  is  STUBBORN  with  ferocious  tenacity  and  even  stronger  ideals.  no,  it  will  require  something  a  little  more  refined.  something  far  more  personal  than  the  promise  of  money  or  power.  hell,  even  the  prospect  of  saving  billions  from  an  out - of - control  overpopulation  will  not  appeal  to  the  captain.  he  is  too  HONORABLE,  and  when  pierce  points  out  how  they  are  both  fighting  for  the  same  thing  :  PEACE,  the  captain  scoffs  in  his  face.  the  captain  appears  to  be  INCORRUPTIBLE.  steve  rogers  however  is  just  a  man  underneath  all  that  righteousness  -  and  all  men  have  a  price,  a  breaking  point  -  a  weakness,  a  DARK SIDE.  hydra  needs  only  find  a  single  weak  point,  the  smallest  opening  to  burrow  beneath  -  and  then  it  could  grow,  consume,  overpower.  A  PARASITE.  lucky  for  them,  hydra  already  possesses  steve  rogers’  WEAKNESS.

     ‘  we  can  give  you  many  things,  captain.  but  you  don’t  TRUST  us.  i  understand.  maybe  i  could  offer  something  else…  in  exchange  for  your  cooperation ?  ’  

     the  secretary  stands  up  then  and  makes  a  gesture  over  his  shoulder.  the  cell  door  opens  behind  him  with  a  SINISTER  groan  and  in  walks  a  SHADOW.  the  older  man  steps  closer  and  turns,  perching  himself  at  steve’s  side.

            ‘  a  gift,  for  your  COMPLIANCE.  ’  

     A GHOST IS MEANT TO BE UNSEEN.  he  is  a  SHADOW,  meant  only  to  exist  in  the  dark,  chased  away  into  nothing  if  exposed  to  light.  his  presence  is  to  be  felt,  but  never  seen.  to  have  so  many  eyes  on  him  at  once,  it  makes  him  feel  exposed  in  the  worst  ways  possible.  his  skin  crawls  as  he  is  summoned  from  his  hiding  place,  the  heat  of  their  gazes  nearly  BURNING  through  his  composure.  focus,  soldier !  focus !  his  mind  berates,  shoving  him  forward.  his  orders  are  still  unclear,  but  he  has  been  trained  well.  he  knows  to  follow  directions  issued  by  his  handlers  ;;  knows  to  never  speak  unless  addressed  or  given  explicit  permission.  he  knows  to  always  do  as  COMMANDED  and  to  never  question.  they  want  him  inside  the  CAGE  and  so  he  enters  the  cage.  

     he  has  been  watching  this  whole  time,  a  SPECTATOR  and  he  is  ashamed  to  admit  his  mind  has  been  restless.  this  entire  time,  his  stomach  has  been  twisting  tighter  &&  tighter,  to  the  point  of  great  discomfort.  he  has  been  unable  to  identify  a  source,  a  culprit  to  explain  the  pain  -  but  it  hurts.  his  mind  wavers,  lulled  by…  the  voices  (  a  voice  )  in  the  room.  he  tries  to  chase  after  the  calm  DRONE  of  static,  but  he  finds  himself  getting  distracted,  which  is  concerning.  he  had  just  undergone  maintenance,  not  even  an  hour  ago.  it  shouldn’t  be  this  hard  to  concentrate  ;;  and  the  restlessness  in  his  blood  is  a  sign  of  stasis  deprivation.   —  but  he  had  just  come  out,  hadn’t  he?

     SOMETHING IS WRONG.  he  can  feel  it  in  his  bones.  there  is  a  heavy  weight  pressing  down  on  top  of  his  shoulders,  legs  dragging  as  if  chained  to  his  SHADOW.  he  wants  to  go  back.  the  soldier  realizes  with  muted  curiosity  that  he  doesn’t  want  to  step  into  this  cell.  he  wants  to  turn  back  around  and  BEG  to  be  put  back  into  stasis.  —  but  the  asset  does  not  want  and  the  asset  does  not  CHOOSE.  so  he  continues  forward,  despite  the  AGONY  cracking  his  chest  open.  each  step  PULSES  through  him.  he  feels  all  their  eyes  on  him,  but  when  the  captain’s  fall  on  him,  he  IGNITES,  insides  burning  away  into  ASH.          stop.  stop,  stop.  it  HURTS.         

     HE TASTES DEATH ON HIS TONGUE.   he  falters  -  mind  stuttering  into  WHITE  NOISE,  attempts  to  recover  quickly  -  but  he  can  tell  pierce  notices  and  he  is  displeased.  the  captain  is  forcing  a  REACTION  from  the  asset  and  he  doesn’t  know…  why?  for  a  half -  second,  their  eyes  lock  -  and  it  is  an  ONSLAUGHT  of  noise,  emotion,  and  PAIN.  gold  hair,  big  blue  eyes.  dumb  expression.  it  plucks  at  strings  in  the  back  of  his  mind,  a  melody  of  some  kind  whispering  across  his  subconscious  -  tugging  at  memory,  which  immediately  insights  sudden  PAIN.  in  order  to  SURVIVE  this  ordeal,  the  soldier  charges  forward  ;;  he  pulls  away.  eyes  retreat,  dimming  and  with  each  step  forward,  he  grows  more  and  more  distant,  DETACHED  -  until  he  is  empty,  ready  to  be  filled  with  orders.  ready  to  comply.  he  focuses  on  pierce  and  only  pierce.

     pierce  nods  towards  the  chair  and  the  asset  sits.  the  FEAR  is  slowly  draining  from  him,  like  pus  from  a  wound  -  leaving  him  feeling  cold  &&  tired,  but  he  notes  with  a  flare  of  perplexity  that  he  is  AFRAID  of  the  captain.  why  is  that?  he  avoids  both  their  eyes,  instead  choosing  to  look  down,  focus  coming  to  a  stop  on  pierce’s  hands.  they  dim  and  eventually  gloss  over  -  and  the  asset  awaits  orders. 

     pierce  smirks,  pleased.  his  hand  comes  up  to  rest  on  steve’s  shoulder  and  he  squeezes  the  muscle  tightly,  making  an  offer  steve  rogers  cannot  refuse.  ‘  hydra  can  give  you  many  things,  captain.  we  can  even  give  you  your  BEST  FRIEND  back.  ’  

                          ALL  YOU  HAVE  TO  DO  IS  COMPLY.  

[marithlizard]

Ace Attorney: Rise From the Ashes (part 1)

A couple of people expressed interest in a writeup as I play through the game, so I thought I’d give quasi-liveblogging a try.   It might have come out to be too detailed - let me know if the result is amusing enough to go through the next part.  

(I knew this already, but wow liveblogging is a lot of work.   And it must take twice as much effort to do this for a show and to include screencaps.)

(I’ve tried three times now to put proper line breaks/spacing in, and they’re just not displaying, at least on desktop. I’m sorry.)

A brief,  stylized opening designed not to give away much, except that a creepy-looking doll is involved.

 Two months?  Phoenix, you haven't taken a single client since Maya left?    a) are you depressed, and b) how are you paying rent on the office?

Ookay, you're not going to tell us why you've been moping around. I don't think it's that you have a crush on Maya.  Are you just not able to function without a partner?   That's not great for your ability to survive, but I can sympathize.  

 New perky assistant, right on cue.  (A partner who isn't a young girl would be a nice change now and then. (But not Larry.  Anyone but Larry. In fact, I take it back, this girl with the pink sunglasses will do just fine.))

Oof,  Phoenix still not being able to say out loud that Mia's dead.

In the first two minutes pink-glasses girl has asserted that he's his female boss, the coffee boy, and 'better than nothing'.   Aha!  The problem with all the clients he turned down was that they didn't insult him enough.

Kid, you can't be more than sixteen, and you have silly face buttons  on your lab coat.  You are about as much a scientific investigator as Photography Girl last episode was a journalist.   ...But apparently you have a future job lined up in forensics, so you're more organized than she was.  And this world certainly could use more competent crime scene analysis.  

"I promised her I'd bring Mia Fey".  Huh.  Is Mia's murder not well-known to the public,  then, even though the Edgeworth case apparently got famous enough to earn Phoenix a bit of a reputation?

A murder charge with an eyewitness, and an assistant who "kind of hates" her sister the defendant.  Sounds hopeless, let's do it! Off to the Detention Center. 

...Did we just overhear the defendant threatening their terrified guard with a pay freeze?  Is she their boss? And if she's someone that high up, why doesn't she already have a better defense attorney?

I like Lana Skye's character design. She looks as though she should be starring in a Takurazuka revue show, swearing eternal star-crossed love to a princess.  

She insists she did it.  By genre convention we know that can't be the case; my first assumption is that she's being forced to cover for someone, blackmailed  or coerced  by someone higher up in the system.   But it would certainly be interesting if it  turned out she was covering for Ema.  

Must....resist...plotbunnies...

Oookay.  A prosecutor should certainly know ways to commit murder without getting caught, and this sounds like the opposite of those ways.    WHY does she claim she did this?  You're not even going to ask her, are you?  *headdesk*

Ema:  "Please ignore that totally gay statement by my sister,  because I certainly plan to!"

Lana: "No don't help me, go away go away go away go away go awa-oh fine."

Hmmm.  From Ema's description of the behavior change,  Lana has been being blackmailed or coerced for a long time now.

Time to go investigate the underground parking garage.

Attorneys aren't supposed to examine crime scenes, and defense attorneys aren't entitled to a copy of the police investigation reports.  What does a "normal" defense attorney in this world do for their clients then?  Always assume a loss and try to negotiate a plea bargain?  I wonder if we'll ever get to see one in action.

It's...a cop with a cowboy fetish?  Do police not have dress codes here?  Maybe they're waived above a certain level,  and some people take pride in cultivating a unique style to show off that they can.  It would explain Edgeworth.  

You are dramatically pretending to shave in front of us.  Also you just called Ema a baby cow.  Although you know her and seem sympathetic - I guess Lana brought her little sister to the office sometimes?  Not sure what I think of you, Jake Marshall.

I am revising my stance. Being Phoenix's partner on a case requires precise and narrow qualifications.  Specifically, just enough sense to stop him from doing something breathtakingly stupid, but not enough sense to take the badge firmly away from him and do the job themselves.   Ema fits the bill perfectly.

Ooh, new mechanic!  And an ID card number for a Bruce Goodman who dresses like a white-hat agent in Spy vs Spy. (I was trained on games that would require you to write that number down and remember it later, but AA will certainly be more forgiving.)  

Using the new mechanic on Phoenix's attorney badge,  I deduce that at some point this game it will be stolen.  

It doesn't explain Lana's supposed actions, but that red sports car does kind of scream "My owner is a jerk, stuff a body in my trunk."   Instead of a chalk outline, they seem to have outlined the hanging body with string?  Is that actually a technique, and how do they get the rope to stay put in precise outline?

And the cowboy gives them a hint.  So he's  on their side but constrained by rules?

Lady put the boobs away.  Why are you selling sushi in a negligee under a fur coat, at a crime scene?  And why would anyone trust food from someone whose nickname is "the Cough-Up Queen"?

Angel Starr, dominatrix lunch lady.   It says something that this is not the weirdest witness in an AA game so far.

She hates prosecutors, and therefore especially Lana. Not a trustworthy witness. But it's probably no fun to cater for a group of (relatively) wealthy and powerful people you despise.   Especially if they're smugly giving awards to each other as they eat lunches.  (Eeeevil lunches.  She probably coughs on them.)

"The rhythmic beat of Lana Skye's knife"...  very poetic, but didn't Lana say the victim was stabbed only once?

We can't get back to the car, phooey, so up to the prosecutor's office we go.

Pink...everywhere...no question whose office this is, even if one of his outfits wasn't framed on the wall.  (why do you frame an outfit?)     I see a very ugly trophy on the sofa, so he's the one who won the award.

Ema:  "this is the kind of room that just screams 'I can do the job'. Actually it screams 'I don't need to pretend to be heterosexual', but the two aren't unconnected.    

Is it just me or is that trophy broken off at the top?

Edgeworth did you just roll with being insulted and make a joke about it?   I'm so proud of you, you've clearly relaxed since your murder trial!

BWAHAHA of course it was Edgeworth's car.

Wendy the security guard from the Steel Samurai case is sending Edgeworth expensive presents??   a) that's both funny and a little sad,  b) how can she afford it,  and c)  he keeps and displays them which is very courteous.

WAIT did you - did this game just heavily suggest Gumshoe hangs out in the office a lot?  Twice, once when you look at the shelves and again when you look at the desk?  I don't ship it, but this is the point where I start to see why people do.

Awwww he's embarrassed about the trophy, that's cute.    So he's the one who "devours the evillest lunches of all",  hmm?   I wouldn't have thought the Cough-Up Queen's weird not-even-fresh lunches would appeal to Edgeworth's refined tastes.

Ema actually has a bit of a crush, from the way she's rhapsodizing about Edgeworth sleeping on the sofa.  d'awww.   And I definitely want to know the story behind the outfit.  Made by his mom and too precious to wear?

Edgeworth, no one thinks you did it.   Sheesh.  He certainly doesn't sound happy about having to prosecute Lana,  even though he believes she's guilty.  His car, his knife... it almost seems like this is a plot aimed at him, or perhaps a plot against Lana with a healthy dose of fuck-you-too-Edgeworth to it.

Huh.  Maybe it *is* aimed at him. I've been assuming all this time from his behavior on the stand that Edgeworth has indeed been messing with evidence to convict obviously innocent people, and also assuming that it's common practice in this corrupt justice system. (Much as it is in Japan and in the US).  But the way he's talking about rumors right now, it sounds more like he's being slandered.  And he thinks the award he was given was out of mockery.  Ouch.

So yes, the trophy is broken.   (In RWBY, you assume everything is a gun;  in AA, you assume everything is a murder weapon.  It probably broke when it was used to hit someone over the head.)

Evidence transferal day, huh?  Was the murder timed to draw attention away from a case being closed?    And Edgeworth parked his car only three minutes before Goodman was stabbed  and thrown into its trunk?    No way.  He was there for the murder, or more likely that's not when the murder happened.   (Is he being coerced like Lana?  I don't think so, but it's possible.)

Enter an idiot mailman with a bandaged hand.  And exit, with sniveling. What was that about?

And a hint to go investigate at the police station.  Is Edgeworth being friendly, attempting to signal something, or merely aware that the most efficient way to get rid of Phoenix is to give him a clue to chase?

The police department entrance, with some sort of plywood jester figure in front of it.  We're offhandedly informed that it took 30 minutes to get there from Edgeworth's office, which means that will be important later.

This is the creepy doll from the intro! It's clearly meant to be a mascot. Was it made by the sniveling mailman?  There's  a certain resemblance...

No, I should've guessed that Gumshoe made it.   I mean ... mechanically it's pretty clever for someone who's not a craftsman or engineer?  Moving articulated limbs and all.  It's just the aesthetics and design he shouldn't have been allowed anywhere  near.

Yes, yes it is odd that only the top-ranked people are being allowed to work on the case. Are they all in on it?    A patrolman in charge of the crime scene instead of a detective - that suggests Marshall is part of the conspiracy.  I'm thinking the dominatrix lunch lady is too.

Gumshoe is so happy about the prosecutor's award - Edgeworth probably didn't have the heart to say that for him it's a mockery.  Daww.  (Also there's something endearingly cheerful about  his hopping-caterpillar eyebrows.)   He's also being much more helpful than his superiors would want, probably just because he thinks of Phoenix as an ally in general now.  

Back to the parking lot, with a letter of introduction in hand this time.

I genuinely can't tell if the lunch lady is a sex worker, if she actually has multiple boyfriends, or if that's code for her professional contacts in whatever she's really doing here.   (And that's an interesting cultural bit, isn't it - any of those options seem possible, and I'm not expecting any of the characters to question her competence or morality because of it, not even in court.   If this was a US-made game my expectations would be...different.)

"Good men always die young"...I see what you did there, Marshall.    

Autopsy report confirms one stab wound.  Lana and the victim worked together on "a case a few years back", ding ding ding.   Someone didn't want the evidence for that case transferred. Or looked at. 

 Marshall used to be a detective but got demoted?  And he's lying about why he was assigned to the crime scene, and telling us Gumshoe is off the case because he's friends with Edgeworth.  The police chief, whoever he is, is now at the top of my suspect list.

 Happily, the game will let me do dumbass things like show off Goodman's ID card without consequences.  Marshall seems very uninterested in it and why it was found so far from the spot of the murder, which I take to mean "we have our official narrative, don't go messing it up with facts or evidence." 

Finally we can examine the car!  First up, Lana's cellphone.  The whole business about hitting redial and somehow not knowing that Ema's phone rang was weird.  Phoenix’s lie couldn't possibly have fooled Marshall, who is bizarrely claiming there's no way to know who the last call was made to.  It's an odd thing to conceal, even given the “no facts please we have our narrative” stance.  Maybe he's trying to protect Ema somehow?) 

 Marshall said the rumors about Edgeworth came from Lana.  And we have a note found  in the trunk:  6-7S 12/2, on a piece of Goodman's stationery.  

 Er, yeah, Ema, why didn't you mention your sister called you 3 minutes after the claimed murder time?  If Lana hung up right away that's hardly incriminating for either of you.

 End of Day One!  We are, as usual, completely unprepared for tomorrow morning's trial.

[voidendron]

I've started getting a handle on the Star Wars AU Septic bois and it makes me happy! I’ve been changing quite a few things from my original plans for it, but they’re all coming together really nicely imo <3

uh...it’ll be under the cut because it got long ^^”

some things may still change, but for now this is what I’ve got!

Chase

Chase’s species is Bothan and he’s a smuggler, though he doesn’t actually use the term “smuggler,” himself. Literally everyone else does for him, but hey. His crew consists of three droids (Bolt, Beeper, and Slink) and two Corellian hound littermates (Kye and Sophe). He tends to prefer the presence of droids over people. Originally the only Septic he knew was Anti because he had a bounty on him for dodging payments, but he later met Marvin and Sam by chance and they’ve been friends since.

He was adopted by an Ithorian couple as an infant. His parents had a tendency to take in orphans, so Chase has five other siblings with only one of them being their parents’ biological kid. From oldest to youngest his other siblings are a brother (Ithorian, the biological kid), sister (Twi’lek), sister (Nautolon), Chase, brother (Quaran), brother (Human). I don’t have names figured out for his siblings yet, but his Twi’lek sister is married and has two kids; she lives on Ryloth, so if he ever mentions going there it’s probably to visit her. Their parents used to live in Coruscant’s lower levels, so they knew infants/toddlers wouldn’t last long on their own before they were picked up by someone undesirable, so they took it upon themselves to adopt these kids. As such, Ithorese is actually Chase’s native language and he doesn’t know any Bothese, and he has kind of an odd accent paired with throaty/growly way of speaking.

He stayed neutral throughout the war, smuggling for whatever side offered the best pay for the job. He tends to be indifferent toward former Imperials/Rebels after the war and gets annoyed when Jackie and Jameson fight.

Marvin

Marv’s species is Cathar, which is a feline humanoid. He’s also a Mandalorian and one of two survivors of Clan Magniif. He’s extremely protective of Sami (”Sam”), the other survivor from his clan and holds a grudge against both Rebels and Imperials for the deaths of their people. He only knew Sam and Angus (leader of a rival clan) to start off, then later met Chase by chance. Didn’t like him at first, but the smuggler quickly grew on him.

He was found in a destroyed Cathar settlement as a toddler, so Magniif’s leader took him in as a foundling. He was raised by Mandalorian customs as one of the clan’s own and remains loyal to it even after its destruction. He’s also extremely impulsive and thinks with his fists instead of his head.

During the war, Magniif tried to stay out of things, but was eventually talked into helping a Rebel cell. That resulted in the Empire making an example of them and wiping out most of the clan. After the war, he and Sam take whatever odd jobs they can for supplies or credits.

Jackie

Full name Sehnaj’akk’eedara, Jackie’s a Chiss, which look mostly human besides blue or silver skin, blue/black/silver hair, and glowing red eyes (Jackie has blue skin with darker blue hair). He’s known for being reckless and protective to the point of risking his own health.

While more typical of his people to be Empire or non-aligned, he agreed with the Rebels’ standpoint and joined them with no questions asked. It did take them a while to start trusting him, but he was eventually granted his own Y-Wing and made part of a squadron of fighters. Because Chiss weren’t known for being part of the rebellion, there were a few instances that Jackie was sent to sneak into Imperial territory to steal something or tell his comrades how best to attack an outpost.

Primarily though, he was a pilot during the war who protected Rebel supply ships. After it ended, he became a data courier for info too sensitive to be sent over transmissions. That’s how he met Jameson and Schneep, then eventually Chase, Marvin, and Sam.

Also, fun fact: He saw Vader in his TIE once and flipped out about it for days after because “Oh my god I could have DIED” if his squad leader hadn’t ordered an immediate retreat.

Jameson

A Human from Coruscant, Jameson had once been a politician’s right hand. He was known for blackmailing the senator’s opponents and doing shady business with bounty hunters, but nothing could ever be proved to pin the charges on him.

When he joined the Empire, he started as a spy, then a hacker, then eventually was granted an officer’s rank and took charge of a small espionage group. While only a low-ranking officer, Jameson (JSE-815) and his team often had their stations changed to whatever outpost or battle cruiser needed their aid. After his promotion, he rarely went on the field himself for spying and instead stayed behind to work at computers with his hackers.

During a Rebel raid on an outpost he was stationed at, Jameson ended up taking charge of the troopers when the colonel was gone (he’d taken a large group of troopers to attack the Rebels’ base, which turned out to be something they’d planned, and left the outpost ill-protected). Only having experience leading espionage, Jameson’s tactics were quickly overwhelmed and he and a few others ended up cornered in the command room. In a last-ditch effort to protect the information in the computers from falling into enemy hands, he and the remaining Imperials detonated grenades to destroy the information completely. Jameson hadn’t expected to survive; he received damage to his neck and now uses a vocoder to speak, lost three limbs (both legs, right arm), and received internal damage that required organ replacement. Shortly after the event, he also got an AJ^6 to improve his productivity, though at the consequence of affecting/limiting his personality.

After the Empire lost the war, he was sent to Sunspot Prison. He was later released a few years later under strict parole to aid Jackie with a mission that needed a hacker. He’s not fond of his current companions, but at least he’s not in a cell.

Schneep

Schneep (SN-334) is a modified surgical droid and was built shortly before the Battle of Geonosis and purchased as a Republic droid. He started out with a very flat personality as programmed in the factory that built him, but the more his owner joked with him and encouraged him to think for himself, the more he started to develop his own personality. He quickly latched onto sarcasm and grumpiness. His owner found it hilarious. His patients...not so much.

Throughout the Clone Wars, he’d receive a tweak here, an upgrade there, until it eventually came to the point it was hard to tell what his base model was (2-1B surgical droid), and sometimes even unclear whether or not he was actually a surgical droid. His programming was even modified to allow him to defend his patients if they were in danger (big no-no and cancelled the warranty on him). The first time he sawed a B1 battle droid’s head off was certainly a shock--to both the other droid and his patient.

After his original owner was killed in the war, he ended up passed around a lot, eventually somehow found himself under a Rebel general, then an intelligence gatherer after the war. So he somehow survived not one, but two wars and has never even had a memory wipe. 

Now carrying a piece of the divided information Jackie and Jameson need to deliver, he was sent with them. It wasn’t until eventually meeting Chase that Schneep was finally given a name instead of being called by his serial number.

Anti

Anti Septik is a bounty hunter of unknown species and planetary origin (though is believed to be a Rattataki from what glimpses of his skin have been seen). He wears a full suit of armor to hide his identity, and uses a universal translator to hide both his voice and accent. He’s ruthless, can find ways to track a contract down no matter where they go, and seemingly can’t die. A former partner claims she saw a target nearly cut Anti’s head off, but he got right back up and started shooting. 

Nothing is known of his past, but any hunters who’ve worked with him before refuse to do so again. He’s greedy and bloodthirsty; if a target is wanted dead or alive, he’ll kill them every time whether they’re ready to surrender or not, and has killed partners to get their half of the earnings, too. 

He has a green lightsaber that he stole from the body of a Jedi killed in one of the Temples after Order 66. He uses it more for show, keeping it hanging at his hip most of the time, but knows how to use it if he needs it.

I don’t have much on Angus or Sam yet (besides they’re both Human and Mandalorians, and that Sam lost an eye during a training bought), and I’d like to add Jacques and at least some Ipliers. However, the only one I have any ideas for is Host; the rest I’ll have to figure out!

[legendaryobservationpuppy]

The Most Effective FRESH DOG FOOD DELIVERY IMO: HEALTH AND CONVENIENCE FROM THE FARMER'S DOG

At an occasion years ago, I talked with somebody who was a quite pet-savvy person. We spoke about dog food, as well as I mentioned adding fresh veggies-- carrots, beans, peas, etc.-- to the young boys' food. She looked aghast. "I don't feed my dogs individuals food," she said. "I don't want to transform them into beggars."

OK, the habits issue apart, when she stated "people food," I could not assist yet question: Well, what is dog food made of otherwise ... food? A minimum of, shouldn't it be constructed from food, genuine food, like the kind individuals eat? If a bag of kibble states it has carrots in it, exactly how's that various from providing your dog a carrot?

The discussion seemed ridiculous to me, and now, say thanks to benefits, it's come cycle ...

THE FARMER'S DOG FOOD REVIEW

WHY FRESH DOG FOOD?

This is the large, underlying concern: Why feed your dog fresh dog food?

At the end of the day, food is food is food is food. What makes one meal different from another eventually comes down to just how it's made, right? Take the carrot example. Boiling and also steaming both prepare the carrots, however steaming protects its nutrients while steaming sheds 60% or more of the carrot's nutrients. Eating a raw carrot may not be best, either, though due to the fact that study shows that some food preparation techniques may really boost the carrot's antioxidant power. Basically, a steamed carrot is a carrot, a boiled carrot is a carrot, a raw carrot is a carrot, a dehydrated carrot extruded right into kibble form is still a carrot ... however they're not all nutritionally equivalent. I believe we can all settle on that, as well as I believe we can all concur that there's absolutely nothing grosser than a boiled carrot. (Actually, perhaps steamed asparagus is grosser?).

Anyway.

If you're mosting likely to eat food, which of course you are, and also if you're going to feed your dog food, which of course you are, wouldn't you want it to be the most nutritionally-rich food readily available? Obviously you do! We all do! And the advantage to our dogs is that they don't have to pick between, claim, a smoked poultry bust vs. drive-thru chicken nuggets because we make the decisions on their behalf. So, it stands to factor that if we know fresh food is best, as well as we're in position to make a decision the most effective food to feed our puppies, we 'd wish to go fresh, yeah?

There are a TON of fresh foods hitting the market (more on that particular in a minute), however we've found The Farmer's Dog to fit our way of living, spending plan, and Coop's belly peculiarities.

Backing up one fast action: When I wrote about The Farmer's Dog previously, we switched foods after getting the results of Cooper's allergic reaction examination. At the time, I really did not write a complete review due to the fact that I wasn't certain how handy it would be given that I was so focused on food allergic reactions. We were so pumped to find a recipe that really did not include a single allergen from Coop's list, and also while he's restricted to among the three solutions for that extremely reason, it's made measurable, obvious distinctions in his stubborn belly. I wanted to sing that from the roofs! However, SO numerous of you have actually connected with details concerns I really did not answer in that blog post that I believed I would certainly draw them together in a full evaluation nevertheless!

Note: Because I assume turning proteins is so very vital, we're still rotating in The Honest Kitchen due to the fact that 2 of the three solutions from The Farmer's Dog do include irritants on Coop's list.

The other large point is that our food manufacturing system is deeply flawed. Romaine lettuce, any person? I'm certain you've all seen the congeries as well as gobs of dog food remembers as a result of tainted active ingredients, too. Actually, there's a significant one underway as I kind this: FDA Alerts Pet Owners concerning Potentially Toxic Levels of Vitamin D in Several Dry Pet Foods.

It's critically essential to me that we're feeding Cooper a food where the active ingredients are properly sourced as well as the production is smaller range for much better quality assurance. I fully recognize that no food manufacturing system is excellent. For that, we would certainly have to expand as well as make our very own, which allowed's be straightforward, isn't taking place.

THE VERY BEST FRESH DOG FOOD DELIVERY.

I assume we can all concur that fresh food is the method to go, however that's not without a substantial list of pros vs disadvantages when it concerns pet food. It's not like you can stroll right into the produce area of your local pet store and also pick up a fresh dish, ya understand? Let's take a look at a few of the evident advantages and disadvantages of fresh dog food as well as fresh dog food delivery services:.

Price: Equal parts PRO/CON. I enter into this carefully below re: The Farmer's Dog, yet these services are definitely more costly than getting an average store bag of kibble (though there are several superior kibbles that are similar or even more costly). I do assume it's worth taking a look at the expense of health-related issues from fast food vs. wholesome foods. However you men understand me: I'm NOT somebody that says in a covering declaration kibble is bad. It's not. Although I advocate genuine, whole food, these solutions could not fit your budget plan. #noshame It's my viewpoint that The Farmer's Dog is priced at a reasonable worth. It's most definitely a stretch if you've been feeding normal kibble, however not if you've been feeding premium or, as we were, a dried alternative like The Honest Kitchen.

Packaging: PRO! Alright, you guys. You know I'm consumed with searching for green remedies to every animal care problem. Well, The Farmer's Dog can be found in recyclable packaging AND the insulation is corn starch that you liquify in your kitchen area sink! The brand is dedicated to sustainability, as well, so you can trust that their production techniques are gentler on the setting.

Website/ordering: CON. You can not see the formulas till you create an account. I feel like that's a disappointment for those people that have dogs that are SO sensitive to active ingredients that we can't choose till we see every last active ingredient.

Ease: PRO! Extra on this below, yet having the food automatically shipped is a life saver.

Small-batch manufacturing: PRO! For all the factors mentioned above. And also each packet comes identified particularly for Cooper.

THE FARMER'S DOG VS OLLIE (OR NOMNOM NOW, PETPLATE, ETC.).

Fresh food + shipment is the future, y' all.

Hopefully by now you're on board with the fresh food item, yet shipment?

OK, so I know that you're busy. I'm hectic, you're active, we're all essentially extended so thin it's difficult to maintain. Grocery store pick-up has actually changed my life! I truthfully can't stand entering into the shop-- really, grocery buying is my single most despised chore-- so buying online then driving over and having a person tons it right into my auto is, in my opinion, the best invention of my life time.

At the very least it was.

Till ... Delivery!

Distribution is the next wave of convenience foods, which is SO much better than "comfort" foods like McDonald's or microwave meals since you can pick all your very own healthy and balanced foods and have them given your doorstep. My neighbors, who have 5 youngsters, obtain their groceries provided, and also I'm certain it's altered their lives right! Well, that's just how I really feel regarding fresh food distribution for my pets. I think more people are demanding delivery for more and more things (I have 3 different apps on my phone for takeout/delivery services ...) so you can expect to see tons of fresh dog food shipment brands appear to fulfill that requirement.

After my previous article, I got a lots of inquiries regarding exactly how The Farmer's Dog compares to Ollie. Truthfully? We've never attempted Ollie. I did Google a bunch of the brand names that are currently around, and also almost everything I read placed The Farmer's Dog towards the top for convenience, expense, and also alternatives. Right here's a testimonial from a food blog site I like if you want to check out some particular contrasts.

Just How Much DOES THE FARMER'S DOG COST?

It varies. It depends on the dimension as well as age of your dog as well as his or her everyday calorie requirements. Let's say you enjoy a sedentary pug. Well, your price is going to be reduced-- and also appropriately so!-- than my high-energy, perma-pup Am Staff mix. He needs a great deal of calories in the day to stay up to date with his skittering as well as cat chasing!

That said, they do supply arrangements to do the dish as a mattress topper, which I believe would be an ahhhhhmazing means to blend whole foods right into a kibble or dehydrated diet plan in a cost-effective method.

My recommendations? Try it at 50% off as well as see. It's either going to work wonders for your dog as well as his diet plan (which I truly do think it will certainly) or it will not! But, it can't hurt to try, specifically at such a reduced cost.

ALL-TIME LOW LINE.

At the end of the day, every person wants to do what's finest for their pup. That's it. All of us do the best we can with the criteria we have. No, this isn't mosting likely to be for everyone. It might not be a square meal option for you, either, yet the topper situation might work. Or, possibly you're ready to dive into something brand-new. Everybody's doing their ideal, and as long as you're caring your pet dogs, you're doing terrific. If part of that includes attempting The Farmer's Dog fresh dog food shipment service, I would certainly enjoy to assist you start with a discount: Click below to try it for 50% off!

What rocks have I left unturned? I attempted to answer the inquiries I had obtained via email as well as DM, but in case I missed something, or if an additional question cropped up for you as you were reading this, please leave them in the remarks! I 'd love to supply as much info as feasible, and if I do not understand the solution, I'm always satisfied to connect to the business to find the right information!

[tendertenebrosity]

Archer looked around, his heart oddly heavy.

Their hunt was almost over, he knew. They’d chased the fugitive mage all along the river, and they were close. Very close. Even if they weren’t, this farm was one of the last before they reached the next town and its garrison of mage-watchers, who had already been alerted and were making their own way here.

Yes, they’d find Rill soon. And it made sense for Archer to be apprehensive about that, because a cornered mage was the most dangerous creature alive.

So that was all it was. Natural wariness. Made sense.

Carver, the watcher who was heading the hunt, was standing in front of the remains of the last spell they’d found. Archer went to join him.

“He’s made it safe,” Archer observed, after a moment of study.

Carver frowned. “Safe? One of these things broke Marcos’ leg.”

“Yes, but it could have sliced him in half,” Archer said. “In fact it would have been a lot easier to make traps that sliced us in half. Look at all of these safety caveats.”

The spell had two types of safety modifiers on it, to shut it off if it was going to slice through human flesh. Archer hadn’t taught these to Rill; he must have learned them from the Academy in Camris, or perhaps found them in one of his books.

Archer knew that the safety caveats weren’t easy or quick to write; each would have added perhaps ten minutes to the time it had taken to make the spell. Were they all like this? When the hunting party was a matter of hours behind Rill?

Carver flicked an impatient glance at him. “Your point?”

Archer shrugged. “He doesn’t want to kill watchers. He doesn’t want to strongly enough that he delayed himself considerably to make these non-lethal. I think that’s valuable to know.”

He pressed his lips together, struggling with an unidentifiable feeling. Rill still held to his morality as much as possible - he wanted to get away, but apparently he wanted to avoid causing death more.

Such scruples would not earn any mercy. Archer knew that.

“He probably just made them this way because that’s how he was taught,” Carver said dismissively. “I wouldn’t read anything into the fact that they’re non-lethal. I admit it’s an impressive feat of memorisation.”

Archer blinked, looking up from his brooding thoughts. “Wha- no, they’re not memorised,” he said, annoyed. “Didn’t you see – it’s specific to the location, how could he?”

Carver looked at the spell. Then he shrugged. “This stuff isn’t my specialty,” he said. “Takes too long.”

He can’t understand it, Archer realised. He can’t damn well understand this spell. Or he can’t be bothered to try?

“Well, it is my specialty,” he snapped, not even attempting to hide his contempt for a watcher that couldn’t read a fourth-level spell. “Trust me, these things require fine-tuning . You can’t just make one the way you made it before and have it work. ”

Carver looked for a moment as if he was considering what Archer had said. Then he shrugged again.

“All right, so he knows to change the distance markers. Easy enough. If he was taught the safe way to draw these, I highly doubt he has the knowledge necessary to modify it.”

Archer ground his teeth and tried to speak lightly. “Ordinarily, with any other mage, that assumption would be correct,” he said. “But I am telling you that this particular mage has the ability to compose more complex spells than this.”

Carver’s response was interrupted by a call from one of the other watchers searching the farm.

“The team over by the river found something!”

 ~

At this point in its course, the river had carved out a deep ravine; over twenty feet of tumbled stone down to the brown-and-white rushing of the water.

There had been a fence. It now had a hole in it big enough to drive a cart through.

The other watcher, Rhett, beckoned Archer through that hole and over to the edge of the ravine. His stomach sank like a stone.

Sure enough, when he peered over the edge, there was a body at the bottom of it, half in and half out of the water. It was charred past the point of obliterating all identifying features – and seemed to be missing limbs besides - but around the blackened meat were the scraps of a once-white robe.  

“God,” Archer said. He turned his back on the ravine, fighting the urge to throw up, his chest suddenly oddly tight.

Why was he so upset? He had known there would be a body at the end of this. This was better than he’d expected, actually, because Rill hadn’t had the opportunity to hurt anybody else, and Archer hadn’t even had to watch it happen.

Rhett steered him back from the edge. “A bit messy, yes,” she said, matter-of-factly. “Looks like he fell afoul of one of his own traps.”

Archer shook himself and went to study the fading spells that littered the rest of the field, because that was better than wondering whether the fall, the burns or the other injuries had actually killed Rill.

It’s probably still a kinder death than the one we would have given him if we’d caught him alive. Archer had been considering - no, he shoved the thought away. Archer would have helped take Rill into custody, if it was safe. He certainly wouldn’t have, what? Put him out of his misery? Tried to spare him pain?

“I – hold on a second,” he said, frowning. “This is – he didn’t make this one safe. This key would have killed whoever set it off.”

“Yes,” Carver said. He indicated the blood soaking the grass. “Looks like it did. Or, not that one specifically, but one a lot like it.”

“This looks… I can’t make heads or tails of this,” Archer said.

Rhett came to look over his shoulder. She, at least, could read spells.

“It looks almost like he started out trying for an Eastway variety here, but then by the time he gets to this part he’s abandoned it and gone back to standard,” she said.

“Yes,” Archer said slowly. He could not fathom Rill making such a mistake. “But that would… interfere with the placement notations…”  

“He caught himself in it,” Rhett concluded. “The other one over there is the same, but worse. I think he accidentally wandered into it.” She gave a grim smile. “If you’re going to fatally botch spells, you might as well be thorough.”

“No,” Archer said. “This doesn’t make any… I can’t believe he would make this big a mistake.” He stared at the key. It was in Rill’s hand, no doubt about it. He recognised the delicacy and precision of each stroke – and he would never have the chance to recognise it ever again, because the man who had written those precise intricate spells was dead.

He rubbed a hand over his mouth, trying to banish queasiness. “How could he be so foolish? This is the kind of stupid mistake you make when you don’t understand how glyph-linking works.”

Carver gave him a disapproving look. “Archer, you’re talking about a mage. He probably doesn’t have a clue what linking even is. Frankly I’m amazed there aren’t more mistakes.”

“No, he does!” Archer snapped. “He knows linking theory backwards and forwards.”  

“We’ve discussed this already,” Carver said. “You keep attributing things to this mage that there simply isn’t any evidence he can do. Mages don’t spell-write. They don’t understand complex theory.”

“I’ve worked with him in Camris, Carver,” Archer said, falling back on Camris as the reason even though it wasn’t true. If they knew I let him spell-write I’d be up on charges. Even though he’s safer than this dullard will ever be! Or - he was. “I know what this mage is capable of, and these-”

“Bear in mind, Archer, it’s been five days,” Rhett interrupted calmly. “There probably wasn’t that much of his mind left. What he could do when in full possession of his wits is not applicable.”

“Yes,” Archer said after a moment. “That’s… true.”

Rill, so confused and maddened by magic that he forgot what spell he was writing halfway through it. Yes. That would make sense. Why did Archer want to push the mental image away?

“I’m glad you understand that magesickness occurs, Archer,” Carver said sarcastically. “With advanced theoretical knowledge like that I can see why my superiors insisted you come along!” He turned away. “Let’s go. The place could still be riddled with traps, people need to be warned. I don’t see anything more for us to do here.”

“Are we retrieving the body?” Rhett asked.

“What’s left of it? No. Leave it for the crows.”

[dailyaudiobible]

11/04/2019 DAB Transcript

Ezekiel 10:1-11:25, Hebrews 6:1-20, Psalms 105:16-36, Proverbs 27:1-2

Today is the 4th day of November. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I'm Brian. It's great to be here with you as we move into our work week together and really get fully moved into this brand-new month that we’re engaging with. So, it’s great to settle into the rhythm, keep moving forward, taking the next step. We’re reading from the Contemporary English Version this week. Today, Ezekiel chapters 10 and 11.

Commentary:

Okay. So, let's have a little real talk here the beginning of this week. From the Proverbs today, we probably…probably know people who are really, really self-absorbed. Like, we might be that person, but you know people that when you when you have a conversation with them even though you love them, the conversation no matter what the conversations about is going end up being about them in one way or another and is going to be the subtle comparison. Like maybe you’re having coffee, you’re talking about, I don’t know. What…what your kids are up to, what they’ve been doing, but you can’t even finish your story before they have jumped over you and they're telling an even better story about their own kids so that…so...so that you'll see that they're just overcoming in every possible way and we should look at them and really acknowledge that. So, that…that's what Proverbs is talking about today. “Don't brag about tomorrow each day brings its own surprises. Don't brag about yourself, let others praise you.” The interesting thing about those kinds of relationships, at least in my experience, is that it actually can't hold up, like it can't last. You can't maintain an ongoing relationship with a person like that forever and ever without there being some kind of conflict along the way because eventually you’re repelled by that behavior. Like a person who's so self-absorbed that they're not even aware that everything is about them, you eventually get tired of it so you start making distance cause it’s not life-giving back-and-forth, right? It's a one-sided thing. Usually underneath that is somebody who really, really needs or wants to be seen, and they don't feel seen unless they’re being praised in some way. Bu the kind of “seen” that they’re kind of demanding isn't really being seen at all. Like, it's simply allowing a person to observe the life you've curated and given to them but they’re not really seeing you because of the self-absorption and the bragging that gets in the way and…and that's repellent. So, if you have... if you have people in your life that are like that then the proverb here gives some perspective. If it's you and you find yourself in that situation, then the Proverbs is inviting some pretty…pretty soul-searching reflection. And if we’re honest, maybe we’re not behaving to this extreme, like what we’re talking about but this actually does speak to all of us in some sort of way because it is all of us. We’re wanting to be seen, we’re wanting to be validated. On the path that we’re walking, often we’re looking in the wrong places for that validation and then if we don't feel validated by God, then we will do what we've seen all through the Bible we’ll chase the imposter. What we really want is to actually be seen for who we are and what we usually do is try to curate who we are so that what's seen, it is palatable and good but isn't true or real. So, the bottom line is that we need someone that we can trust that we can be completely vulnerable that we can actually truly be seen because a person only sees of you what you reveal. That…that's all they know. So, you can have relationships with people where you have just revealed a very, very small part of your life and that's who they think you are because that's all they've ever known of you, but that's just the tip of the iceberg on who you truly are. And we want to actually be seen truly, as we are and accepted and validated from that place. And, so, we’ll search for the imposter when there's only one place to get. We have to trust God, which brings us to a leap of faith as the Scriptures do and as faith always does. We have to step out into the unknown and believe that our Father does see us and He does love what He sees and He is eager about the possibilities that we could share together because the proverb tells us we don't know what the day will bring. And we can live in fear of the day or we can treat today as an adventure with God. So, what would happen if we did like throw caution to the window however you want to describe it and just take that leap of faith and go all in? The book of Hebrews talks about that today. It says now His promises should greatly encourage us to take hold of the hope that is right in front of us. This hope is like a firm and steady anchor for our souls. In fact, hope reaches behind the curtain and into the most holy place. That's what we’re really looking for friends. Isn’t that what you’re…that's what I'm looking for. And we won't get there by inflating ourselves and living as if the world revolves around us.

Prayer:

Father, we invite You into that. It’s challenging. It's challenging on so many levels but thank You for the challenge. Thank You for exposing us to ourselves so that we can even see what's true. And, so we invite Your Holy Spirit into what it is that we’re projecting out into the world. Are we being true because we know were being seen and validated and loved by our Father, our Creator or are we chasing the imposter? Come Holy Spirit Into this question we pray. In the name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is home base, it’s…it’s the website so it's home base for a virtual community like ours. It’s where you find out what’s going on around here.

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If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, I thank you. With all of my heart I thank you. We certainly wouldn’t be in his rhythm of life every day together if we weren’t in this together. And, so, I’m grateful. So, you can partner at dailyaudiobible.com. There’s a link on the homepage. If you’re using the app, you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner, or the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And, as always, if you have a prayer request comment, you can press the Hotline button in the app, the little red button up at the top and that just lets you start talking right then and there, or you can dial 877-942-4253.

And that is it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Hi Emily from New Mexico and I’m calling in for prayer for my aunty __ cousin __ and thank you for the Daily Audio Bible. Lord, thank you for all you’ve done for everybody and I hope that you can help my aunty in what she does and help her through trying times that she is going through and that she can make better choices in life. Thank you, Lord amen. Thank you for the Daily Audio Bible. __ you’ve given.

Good morning Daily Audio Bible community that I love so much. This is Diane Olive of Brown calling from new brand work Indiana. It is 1253 in the morning and I’m listening to the Wednesday, October 30th, 2019 podcast. And a few people have cried out for help. One dear sister was really missing and wanting her sister back. Nobody knows where she is, and she has a problem with drug addiction. And Bernie, you have family members who have…have dealt with some not so nice issues and one of your family members struggles with bipolar and drug addiction. And my son struggles with drug addiction and also sometimes we don’t know where he is. And I know it’s easy…it’s easy for us to look at the situation and be concerned and be worried but one thing has really helped me since I’ve been doing this and I hope this helps you, is to listen to the daily reading and listen to the heart of God. And also, I stand on Proverbs 11:21 that says, “the seed of the righteous shall be delivered.” That doesn’t have anything to do them but you are righteous so your seed shall be delivered. Shalom shalom God is good.

Hi community this is Shelley I called about 6 to 8 weeks ago to ask for prayer for a couple by the name of Katie and Cameron Martin. Just to give you a little bit of background, in late spring Katie was diagnosed with sarcoma. She’s also pregnant with their first child. Doctors decided…they moved to Texas…doctors decided that she needed to go undergo a leg amputation while she was still pregnant, and this happened late August. She bounced back and everything was great. The baby was healthy during the operation. She was going to physical therapy for her amputation. She was fit with a prosthetic and as her cancer progressed doctors decided that they needed to deliver the baby early. And, so, there was a baby born, Abigail, Abigail James Martin was born on October the 3rd and she is gaining weight and she’s doing really really well. And Katie had to undergo chemo treatment after just a week or two of Abigail being born, which required that she live closer to the hospit. And, so, she had to make a move and she’s been undergoing chemo which has been really really difficult with her. The good thing is that Abigail’s gaining weight. But last week they found out that she had some spots on her lungs and Katie’s had such a positive attitude up until now. But this really truly broke her spirit. They’re hoping, the doctors are hoping that it’s just…

Hello DAB church this is Janet and Mobil. I went to the doctor today in the news was not so good. The test results came back with pretty ugly test results as the world always gives us ugly results. And I thank you all so much for your prayers. I thank you all so much for being my brothers and my sisters and I look forward to the day that we get to commiserate about heaven and about how much time we spent together caring for each other on the earth, but in the meantime just please stand with me that I see in my creative energy a health, a wealth, and a well-being that Jesus died to give me. I love you guys. I appreciate everything that everybody has done to keep this thing on the air because it’s a mainstay, it’s a part of my life, it is my life’s blood, it is part of my life’s blood every day hearing the word of God spoken out of Brian’s and Jill’s mouth and just testifying to how steadfast the word of God is. God bless every one of you. My time is up. I appreciate your prayers and I pray for each of you. Amen.

Hello DAB family this is Lisa from Wisconsin it’s a glorious day here. Brian, I want to thank you for persevering in this ministry and serving your community of believers with this Audio Bible. I’m very grateful for it as my husband has never been able to get into the word because of learning disabilities and reading is hard for him. So, it’s a wonderful blessing for us. Thank you. I also would like to pray for believers who struggle with discouragement as I often do. And I just would like to pray with all of you and hope that you can join me in this prayer. Lord God we humbly thank You for Your many blessings. Help us to know that we are right where You want us to be and that Your hand is on our lives even when we feel that You’re not paying attention to our circumstances. We know that You are in control. Help us to be content and to continue to serve You and be faithful even when You are…as You are faithful to us. Thank You in Jesus’ name. Amen.

[sol1056]

set it up and pay it off

This was going to be part of another post which I ended up breaking into two. Finally had a chance to get to this tonight. 

I’m watching tDP and istg I’m trying my hardest not to compare it ... but every mistake [other shows] made, tDP is doing a right (and an amazing right). But in terms of writing?? The fact that they solve small issues without dragging it to the next season making the audience tired and not interested?? Amazing!!

Hello, payoffs! Not only does tDP do setups and payoffs right, it knows how to gracefully remind us, and then delivers those payoffs that’ll have the most bang for the screentime.  

For those unfamiliar with the term, if the classic chekov’s gun is the setup, the moment the gun is used (in whatever way) is the payoff. Payoffs are delightful things, and very little compares when it comes to satisfying readers (regardless of the nature of the payoff). Humans like getting the answers to questions.

Behind the cut: types of setups and payoffs, four things to remember, choosing payoffs and their role in the narrative, the dangers of doing them cheaply, and how to destroy a payoff’s weight. 

Spoilers for the first episode only; everything else is vague or uses non-tDP examples to illustrate.  

a bit about setups and payoffs 

When the story asks a question or raises a possibility, that’s the setup (aka the gun on the mantle), and the payoff is the answer. This is not the same as a character asking a question; setups and payoffs are designed for the audience. 

Frex, talking about bad weather is effectively asking, ‘what if the weather got really bad?’ Now when the tornado strikes, the audience was primed for the possibility. A setup can be to show a character’s skill, so the audience isn’t surprised when the character devises an ingenious solution in the finale. Odd descriptions and curious hints will spike the tension and raise the question, ‘what if this house is haunted?’ long before a ghost even appears on the page. 

Most stories have an overall question, like ‘can A win the Kentucky Derby’ or ‘can B find true love’ --- this is often what we call the throughline. But stories are also full of ongoing questions for the characters, and also about them (or their world, their backstory, their perspectives). Some get answered right away, some explained later, and some, well, never. 

Nearly every conversation between Viren and Harrow raises about twenty questions and answers perhaps five. The characters know (or think they know) the answers to a lot of these questions; their dialogue works on the level of exchanging information, and also to provoke or establish possibilities in the viewer’s mind. When we later see Ruunan’s skills or Amaya’s rank or some other detail that resolves the setup, it’s an aha! moment.  

four things to remember

1. Setups should make sense at that point in the story. If a character is busy trying to master unfamiliar machinery, it’s probably not the most appropriate time to mention the character is a croquet champion. If the character is in a room with no windows in the building’s interior, it’s going to be awkward if you decide it’s time for them to worry about the strange weather. 

2. A setup needs to make sense in hindsight. If the ghost died by drowning, and your tension-raising questions are all prompted by lightbulbs breaking and the smell of an open fire... that’s not going to make much sense, thematically. 

3. A setup must be intriguing. Say a story raises questions about a character’s animosity or honesty. If the reveal is, well, he always looks like that, or she’s always nervous, the reader’s going to apply that retroactively and decide that question had no point. (That’s a fast track to losing an audience’s trust, by the way.) If your setups are boring, the audience will find the payoff boring. 

4. Don’t delay all your payoffs until the end. You don’t want to answer everything too fast, or you’re losing a great source of tension. But you can’t put off answering for too long, or the audience will get frustrated and quit. (Or they’ll hold on just long enough to get the one answer they really want, and quit then.) 

answer this, not that

As tDP’s three protagonists move through the season, they know nothing of the larger intrigue going on, and they have no clue what lies ahead. Resolving any of those other questions might answer some world-detail for us, but they’re not an immediate concern for the protagonists. That makes those setups less valuable for an emotional payoff, because they don’t hold as much story-weight, comparatively.

What tDP did so well was that it never lost sight of the protagonists’ own questions. The writers then identified what they could answer without giving everything away --- and of those questions, they chose to answer the ones with the greatest urgency and emotional weight. 

To understand why you’d answer those in the middle of the story, it helps to understand what payoffs do, in the narrative. 

the role of payoffs in the narrative 

I’ve talked before about the promise of the premise, and the payoff of the setup is a parallel to that concept. When the story sets up a question (a premise), that payoff is where it delivers on the promise. It’s not always good news. Payoffs are consequences; sometimes it’s more powerful to have everything go wrong. 

Here’s an example of a mid-story payoff that doesn’t have emotional weight, vs several that do. In LotR, the fellowship is forced to go through the Mines of Moria. This is a double setup: one, can Gandalf remember his way through the labyrinthine halls, and two, can they get through without alerting whatever now lives in the mines. The tension hangs on those setups, and the story delivers four payoffs for it. 

Gandalf halts the party while he tries to remember which branch in the path is correct. When he does, it’s a payoff, and it does double duty: yes, he remembers enough to guide the fellowship (what a relief) and now they can proceed (as opposed to spending the rest of the book wandering around in the dark). We readers get a breather from the oppressive tension, and the story is pushed forward.

For at least a chapter or so, Gimli’s been insistent they should go through Moria. A marvelous place, distant kin sure to show them dwarven hospitality, etc. Seeing Moria is a question that only appears once they reach the mountains, and Gimli’s interest in it is mostly from a need to impress: his constant talk becomes another setup.

The second payoff comes Gimli forces a detour to investigate a tomb. We get a short passage where Gimli reads the eye-witness account of the mine’s last occupants. It’s an emotional payoff... but only for Gimli. It’s certainly not much of a payoff from the perspective of a reader who’s focused on the urgency driving them through the mines. Had the mines been a planned part of the route from the beginning, with the entire company desperate for the safe shelter, the mine’s disaster might’ve carried greater emotional weight.  

When Pippin knocks a helmet down a well, it’s a third payoff, addressing the setup created by Gandalf's strict warning about stealth. The tension rises but it’s alleviated in another way: the setup has been fulfilled. Now to find out the consequences: a fight scene, a chase, and the situation turns dire.

Gandalf’s fight with the Balrog is the fourth payoff, pushing the setup to its limit (whether they can all get through safely), but also resolving a setup planted much earlier in the story. That is, that Gandalf is what will make the journey possible, and keep them safe (and together). 

That setup (of Gandalf’s necessity) is fulfilled when the story yanks him out of the picture, and it comes with substantial emotional weight. We’ve had seventeen chapters showing how much Frodo admires, even adores, Gandalf. Not only is the result of that setup potentially threatening the fellowship’s success, it’s also emotionally devastating for Frodo and the other hobbits. 

In sum, payoffs do three things in the narrative: they remind readers of the stakes by delivering smaller consequences along the way, they deliver emotional beats (including the catharsis of laughter if the payoff is the punchline to a humorous setup), and they regulate the story’s tension and pacing.  

disingenuous setups make for cheap payoffs

If you look at some of the turning points in tDP, there are payoffs previous to the final episode. Think of every place the story is begging a question, and you end up with a whole lot of chekov’s guns; tDP practically has three mantles’ worth. 

If the elves swear an oath to fulfill their duty, what happens if they fail? If the boys can’t protect their prize, what will happen to them, to Rayla, to the humans and elves? If the boys trust Rayla with their prize, will she betray them? If the elves assassinate King Harrow, will the other human countries march to war? And what’s the deal with that mirror, anyway? 

What makes tDP especially satisfactory is how it plays with closure before any payoff. This can be a little tricky; it requires a narrative voice that’s gained the audience’s trust. In short, you take any given question, let the characters acknowledge the consequences of failure, and then let them accept this as the price of making their choice. Skip this step, and any reversal will feel cheap. 

Take the pivotal moment in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. From the moment Edmund meets the White Witch, he’s set on a path to betray his siblings. With Narnia’s prophecy hanging on the need for all four children to sit on the thrones at Cair Paravel, the story has setup Edmund’s actions to have significant payoff. If the White Witch kills him, the prophecy won’t be fulfilled. 

When the Witch delivers her ultimatum, and Aslan decides to offer himself as substitute sacrifice, Susan and Lucy end up bearing witness. Aslan explains his choice (but not all of his intentions), and the moment is heavy with emotional weight as the girls realize the consequences of their brother’s actions. The story doesn’t shirk from their grief, either; it’s a long passage of their distress as they do their best to undo --- or at least ease --- the worst of the Witch’s damage. 

The contrast of that seeming abject loss with Aslan’s return --- and his explanation of the loophole that only he knew about --- could’ve been a cheap trick. What makes it such a pivotal moment is that neither of the point-of-view characters (Susan and Lucy) have any idea of what lies ahead, nor does the story ever slyly wink in the reader’s direction. 

In tDP, there’s an ongoing looming consequence of Rayla’s choices, and she goes through the stages of handling that with all the gravity of what she believes to be true. The story never contradicts her beliefs; in fact, it reinforces them repeatedly, closing each additional option until only one terrible consequence remains. 

We can hope that some loophole might exist, but the story never winks in our direction: it does nothing to reinforce that hope, instead pushing the setup inexorably towards its logical payoff. Like tLtWatW, nothing breaks the looming anguish of the setup’s apparent consequences, just as Aslan’s resigned wish for the girls to look away closes the door on hope that he'll at least fight his fate.

embrace the weight of a payoff

There’s an excellent video that deconstructs the use of bathos in Marvel movies (good to watch if this paragraph confuses you). Bathos is an abrupt turn from the serious to the trivial, which parallels a cheap payoff in that it tips its hand. It tells viewers: hey, we’re not taking this seriously, so no reason you should, either. 

This is where tDP --- like Trollhunters --- really shines, because it never raises the veil to show the writers behind the curtain. Too often, stories (especially in current media) back away from committing to the payoff; it’s almost like we’ve got a generation of TV/film writers afraid to show any depth of emotion. The tension gets above a 2, and the writers retreat to a joke.

There’s plenty of humor in tDP; it’s filled to the brim with witty lines even funnier in context. What keeps it from being bathos (too much) is that it’s rarely an intentional quip on the part of the characters. Rayla is deadly serious when she tells the boys, “I’m not falling for that flashing frog trick, again!” If the writers expected me to laugh, the narrative doesn’t allow even a beat as indication. The story treats its characters --- and every payoff --- with a sincere gravity. 

I think the crucial ingredient comes in how the narrative understands itself: as an intimate portrayal of a character in this situation, vs that of an actor onstage before an audience. You may’ve heard that over-quoted bit about ‘dance like no one is watching’ --- the same is true for stories: they must unroll as if there’s no audience other than the characters in that scene, in that moment. 

This goes back to a setup that revolves around characterization such as honesty or duplicity. If a character cries in private, the reader’s assumption is that this character’s grief isn’t meant to be seen as feigned. With no audience (as far as the character knows), there’s no reason for pretense. If the payoff later is a reveal the character was faking all along, the story did worse than laughing at its own characters: it lied to the audience. 

It set up a premise which the audience trusted as valid, only to deliver a payoff that hinged on the audience's gullibility. If bathos trivializes an emotional payoff, a story’s duplicity mocks the audience’s engagement. 

A story can lie to its characters, can mislead them into thinking they have options when they have none, can maneuver them into thinking they have no options beyond one... but a story should never, ever, lie to the audience. If there’s a setup, its payoff must be honest. 

To paraphrase Gaiman, a story doesn’t have to be real to be true --- and the place we most often glimpse a story’s truth in how it handles its payoffs.  

[fallencomrade-a]

𝐂 𝐎 𝐑 𝐎 𝐍 𝐀   𝐑 𝐀 𝐃 𝐈 𝐀 𝐓 𝐀  a  drabble  based  on  this  post  ( x ) can be turned into a thread by request.

     THEY HAUL HIS LIFELESS BODY INTO A DARK ROOM,  handling  him  the  same  way  a  proud  hunter  might  drag  in  his  latest  kill,  his  latest  TROPHY.  they  are  pleased  with  their  triumph,  but  the  muscle  required  to  take  down  such  a  beast  certainly  demanded  a  price.  TWELVE  MEN,  it  had  taken  twelve  men  and  a  locked  door  -  and  they  had  just  barely  managed  to  SUBDUE  him.  just  barely.  they  are  all  in  bad  shape,  the  majority  of  the  strike  team  absent  due  to  serious  injuries  that  required  immediate  attention.  rumlow,  disregarding  his  own  injuries,  the  tremendous  PAIN  livid  inside  his  own  body  ( ORDER  ONLY  COMES  THROUGH  PAIN  )  refuses  to  miss  this  though.  he  will  lick  his  wounds  later.  now,  it  is  time  to  bask.  

     ‘  heavy  fucker ,  ’  he  laments  as  he  dumps  the  body  into  the  reinforced  steel  chair  bolted  to  the  floor.  he  begins  the  arduous  process,  starting  with  the  leather  restraints.  he  wraps  them  around  each  arm  and  leg,  as  well  as  around  the  torso.  next  come  the  magnetized  cuffs  which  clamp  tightly  around  wrists  &&  ankles.  they  will  hold,  developed  and  proven  to  withstand  super  -  soldier  strength,  tested  on  some one thing  similar.  the  drugs  they  pump  into  his  body  have  been  tested  just  the  same,  and  if  his  serum  works  anything  like  theirs,  the  man  should  not  wake  until  they  are  ready  for  him  ;;  until  they  PERMIT  him  to  do  so.  rumlow  wraps  chains  around  each  limb,  just  to  be  safe.      

     once  finished,  he  glides  his  tongue  over  the  blood  pooling  from  his  split  lip,  and  spits  the  taste  of  it  out  at  his  prisoner’s  feet,  finally  stepping  away.  pulling  his  phone  free,  rumlow  dials  a  single  number.  ‘  connect  me  to  pierce ,  ’   he  orders,  heated  eyes  burning  as  he  glances  back  at  the  body  in  the  chair.  

      ‘  SIR.  we  have  him.  steve  rogers  has  been  CONTAINED.  ’

     rumlow  had  wanted  to  KILL  rogers.  (  for  personal  reasons  and  selfish  delights,  more  than  anything  else  )  but  he  also  understands  how  DANGEROUS  the  captain  is.  he  has  worked  alongside  him  now  for  a  while,  and  knows  the  RISK  keeping  him  alive  poses.  but  pierce  had  been  very  clear  with  his  orders.  he  wanted  the  captain  taken  in  ALIVE,  seemingly  confident  ‘ guts  and  glory ’  here  could  be  convinced  to  cooperate.  rumlow  is  doubtful,  but  questioning  pierce  is  not  in  his  best  interest.  whatever  the  secretary  has  up  his  sleeve,  it  is  time  to  start  putting  it  into  motion.   convincing  rogers  will  not  be  easy.  

            whatever  his  hand  is,  it  better  be  good. 

      THEY LEAD THEIR LIFELESS SOLDIER INTO A COLD ROOM,  handling  him  the  same  way  a  medical  professional  might  examine  a  CORPSE  -  with  cold,  clinical  hands.  they  remove  the  thermal  suit  clinging  to  his  trembling  body,  the  material  still  cold  with  the  lingering  breath  of  stasis.  they  hose  him  down  and  scrub  his  skin  raw.  the  technicians  spend  a  great  amount  of  time  washing  his  body,  which  is  different  -  but  if  the  soldier  notices,  he  does  not  say  anything.  the  asset  does  not  question.  they  order  him  to  sit  down  in  a  chair,  and  so  he  sits.  they  pull  out  a  blade.  no  -  it  is  a  razor.  the  soldier  expects  them  to  hand  it  to  him,  to  use  as  a  weapon  during  this  next  mission,  but  they  do  not  assign  it  to  him.  neither  do  they  use  it  for  testing  purposes  -  not  to  poke,  prod  or  slice  into  his  skin.  no,  instead  they  tell  him  to  lean  back.  he  complies.  they  tell  him  not  to  move.  he  complies.  then  they  rub  something  frothy  across  his  face.  they  glide  the  sharp  blade  across  his  skin,  scrapping.  it  doesn’t  hurt… and  that  is  surprising.  the  techs  put  away  the  blade  without  spilling  a  single  drop  of  blood.   

     they  cut  his  hair,  hacking  away  until  there  is  more  on  the  floor  around  them  than  on  his  head.  no  longer  can  he  HIDE  behind  dark,  oily  bangs.  they  are  sheered  away.  they  cut  until  his  hair  no  longer  lays  on  his  shoulders,  no  longer  covers  his  neck  -  and  it  leaves  the  soldier  feeling…  strangely  EXPOSED.  it  is  odd,  different  -  but  the  asset  does  not  question.  one  of  the  technicians  holds  out  a  piece  of  paper,  its  contents  unknown  to  him.  the  asset  does  not  question.  her  dark  eyes  flicker  back  and  forth  between  him  and  the  page  and  after  a  moment,  she  frowns  and  sighs,  shoulders  slumping  with  what  appears  to  be  DEFEAT.  ‘  his  eyes , ’   she  criticizes  and  for  a  brief  moment,  the  asset  wonders  what  it  is  in  his  eyes  that  DISAPPOINTS  her  so.  —  but  the  asset  does  not  question.  she  shrugs  soon  after  anyway,  with  a  dismissive,  ‘  it  will  have  to do.  ’ 

     finally,  they  strap  him  in  the  chair  and  REVIVE  his  mind.  the  ice  is  swept  away,  replaced  with  their  steadfast  CONDITIONING.  the  soldier  is  ACTIVATED,  once  again.  ready  to  comply.   —  &&  when  it  is  finished,  as  his  cerebrum  sparks  &&  flickers  with  electricity,  lightning  scorching  all  passageways  to  his  brain,  while  numbing  everything  else  -  they  prepare  him.  if  he  were  in  his  right  mind,  the  soldier  might  ask  why  they  decide  to  dress  him  in  the  attire  they  choose.  why  they  have  him  tug  on  a  pair  of  dark  jeans  instead  of  the  usual  cargo  pants.  why  they  have  him  in  a  soft,  navy  dark  cotton  shirt  instead  of  the  standard  kevlar  and  tactical  vests.  this  flimsy  long - sleeved  shirt  will  do  little  to  stop  bullets  and  blades.   

                        —  but  the  asset  does  not  question.         

     ONLY A SELECT FEW  are  allowed  inside.  secretary  pierce  certainly  is  not  intimidated  by  an  audience,  but  these  are  delicate  matters.  it  is  important  they  maintain  a  level  of  professionalism.  they  are  situated  in  a  sub – level  basement  located  in  the  underbelly  of  a  large  accounting  firm,  one  owned  &&  run  by  hydra.  it’s  a  well  respected,  legitimate  business.  perfect  record  of  excellence,  fortune  500  company  with  outstanding  company  morals  and  ideals…  and  growing  inside,  beneath  the  guise  -  a  hydra  head  breathes,  thriving.  

     when  pierce  arrives,  security  detail  in  tow,  the  captain  is  just  starting  to  stir.  ‘  his  serum  is  impressive ,  ’  one  doctor  whispers  to  another,  glancing  down  at  his  watch  before  scribbling  notes  onto  his  clipboard.  they  are  eager  to  start  conducting  tests,  but  without  direct  authorization  from  pierce,  all  they  have  been  able  to  collect  thus  far  are  a  few  samples  of  blood.  they  are  also  afraid  to  get  too  close  to  rogers  without  him  being  properly  sedated  &&  restrained,  and  for  good  reason  too.  much  to  the  strike  team’s  chagrin,  the  scientists  were  privy  to  the  elevator  footage.  hydra  values  their  minds,  not  their  muscle  ;;  they  are  of  no  use  DEAD.  so  for  now,  they  will  maintain  their  distance,  jotting  down  what  little  details  they  can  obtain  based  on  observation  alone,  tucked  safely  behind  the  pointed  guns  of  what  remains  of  the  strike  team.  sectioned  off  in  the  middle  of  the  room  sits  a  makeshift  holding  cell,  the  space  completely  surrounded  by  sturdy  metal  bars.  at  its  center  sits  two  chairs  -  one  occupied  and  bolted  to  the  floor,  the  other  empty  and  unbounded.  it  is  an  accustomed  outlay,  especially  for  hydra.  still,  the  doom  and  gloom  of  it  all  still  makes  pierce  huff  and  shake  his  head  a  little.     

     POLISHED SHOES STEP FORWARD,  into  the  cage.  the  door  closes  behind  him.  he  removes  his  suit  jacket,  draping  the  expensive  material  over  the  back  of  the  unoccupied  chair.  a  single  light  hangs  over  the  cell,  illuminating  the  small  space  while  casting  the  surrounding  area  into  thick  darkness,  allowing  the  others  to  observe  without  being  seen.  but  not  pierce,  no.  alexander  pierce  wants  to  be  seen  ;;  wants  to  be  heard.  the  man  is  optimistic,  pleasant  even  when  steve  finally  wakes  up.  he  remains  patient,  reasonable  -  welcoming  the  captain’s  VITRIOL  with  calm  understanding.  ‘  i  would  like  us  to  become  business  partners,  captain.  i  was  not  lying  when  i  shook  your  hand  and  said  it  was  an  HONOR.  ’   but  steve  is  quick  to  spit  back,  ‘  you  killed  nick  fury  ’  and  that  has  pierce  amused,  knowing  smile  stretching  across  thin  lips.  ominously,  he  responds,  ‘  not  me.  ’ 

     but  pierce  should  know  swaying  the  captain  will  require  more  than  just  a  simple  invitation.  steven  rogers  is  STUBBORN  with  ferocious  tenacity  and  even  stronger  ideals.  no,  it  will  require  something  a  little  more  refined.  something  far  more  personal  than  the  promise  of  money  or  power.  hell,  even  the  prospect  of  saving  billions  from  an  out - of - control  overpopulation  will  not  appeal  to  the  captain.  he  is  too  HONORABLE,  and  when  pierce  points  out  how  they  are  both  fighting  for  the  same  thing  :  PEACE,  the  captain  scoffs  in  his  face.  the  captain  appears  to  be  INCORRUPTIBLE.  steve  rogers  however  is  just  a  man  underneath  all  that  righteousness  -  and  all  men  have  a  price,  a  breaking  point  -  a  weakness,  a  DARK SIDE.  hydra  needs  only  find  a  single  weak  point,  the  smallest  opening  to  burrow  beneath  -  and  then  it  could  grow,  consume,  overpower.  A  PARASITE.  lucky  for  them,  hydra  already  possesses  steve  rogers’  WEAKNESS.

     ‘  we  can  give  you  many  things,  captain.  but  you  don’t  TRUST  us.  i  understand.  maybe  i  could  offer  something  else…  in  exchange  for  your  cooperation ?  ’  

     the  secretary  stands  up  then  and  makes  a  gesture  over  his  shoulder.  the  cell  door  opens  behind  him  with  a  SINISTER  groan  and  in  walks  a  SHADOW.  the  older  man  steps  closer  and  turns,  perching  himself  at  steve’s  side.

            ‘  a  gift,  for  your  COMPLIANCE.  ’  

     A GHOST IS MEANT TO BE UNSEEN.  he  is  a  SHADOW,  meant  only  to  exist  in  the  dark,  chased  away  into  nothing  if  exposed  to  light.  his  presence  is  to  be  felt,  but  never  seen.  to  have  so  many  eyes  on  him  at  once,  it  makes  him  feel  exposed  in  the  worst  ways  possible.  his  skin  crawls  as  he  is  summoned  from  his  hiding  place,  the  heat  of  their  gazes  nearly  BURNING  through  his  composure.  focus,  soldier !  focus !  his  mind  berates,  shoving  him  forward.  his  orders  are  still  unclear,  but  he  has  been  trained  well.  he  knows  to  follow  directions  issued  by  his  handlers  ;;  knows  to  never  speak  unless  addressed  or  given  explicit  permission.  he  knows  to  always  do  as  COMMANDED  and  to  never  question.  they  want  him  inside  the  CAGE  and  so  he  enters  the  cage.  

     he  has  been  watching  this  whole  time,  a  SPECTATOR  and  he  is  ashamed  to  admit  his  mind  has  been  restless.  this  entire  time,  his  stomach  has  been  twisting  tighter  &&  tighter,  to  the  point  of  great  discomfort.  he  has  been  unable  to  identify  a  source,  a  culprit  to  explain  the  pain  -  but  it  hurts.  his  mind  wavers,  lulled  by...  the  voices  (  a  voice  )  in  the  room.  he  tries  to  chase  after  the  calm  DRONE  of  static,  but  he  finds  himself  getting  distracted,  which  is  concerning.  he  had  just  undergone  maintenance,  not  even  an  hour  ago.  it  shouldn’t  be  this  hard  to  concentrate  ;;  and  the  restlessness  in  his  blood  is  a  sign  of  stasis  deprivation.   —  but  he  had  just  come  out,  hadn’t  he?

     SOMETHING IS WRONG.  he  can  feel  it  in  his  bones.  there  is  a  heavy  weight  pressing  down  on  top  of  his  shoulders,  legs  dragging  as  if  chained  to  his  SHADOW.  he  wants  to  go  back.  the  soldier  realizes  with  muted  curiosity  that  he  doesn’t  want  to  step  into  this  cell.  he  wants  to  turn  back  around  and  BEG  to  be  put  back  into  stasis.  —  but  the  asset  does  not  want  and  the  asset  does  not  CHOOSE.  so  he  continues  forward,  despite  the  AGONY  cracking  his  chest  open.  each  step  PULSES  through  him.  he  feels  all  their  eyes  on  him,  but  when  the  captain’s  fall  on  him,  he  IGNITES,  insides  burning  away  into  ASH.              stop.  stop,  stop.  it  HURTS.         

     HE TASTES DEATH ON HIS TONGUE.   he  falters  -  mind  stuttering  into  WHITE  NOISE,  attempts  to  recover  quickly  -  but  he  can  tell  pierce  notices  and  he  is  displeased.  the  captain  is  forcing  a  REACTION  from  the  asset  and  he  doesn’t  know...  why?  for  a  half -  second,  their  eyes  lock  -  and  it  is  an  ONSLAUGHT  of  noise,  emotion,  and  PAIN.  gold  hair,  big  blue  eyes.  dumb  expression.  it  plucks  at  strings  in  the  back  of  his  mind,  a  melody  of  some  kind  whispering  across  his  subconscious  -  tugging  at  memory,  which  immediately  insights  sudden  PAIN.  in  order  to  SURVIVE  this  ordeal,  the  soldier  charges  forward  ;;  he  pulls  away.  eyes  retreat,  dimming  and  with  each  step  forward,  he  grows  more  and  more  distant,  DETACHED  -  until  he  is  empty,  ready  to  be  filled  with  orders.  ready  to  comply.  he  focuses  on  pierce  and  only  pierce.

     pierce  nods  towards  the  chair  and  the  asset  sits.  the  FEAR  is  slowly  draining  from  him,  like  pus  from  a  wound  -  leaving  him  feeling  cold  &&  tired,  but  he  notes  with  a  flare  of  perplexity  that  he  is  AFRAID  of  the  captain.  why  is  that?  he  avoids  both  their  eyes,  instead  choosing  to  look  down,  focus  coming  to  a  stop  on  pierce’s  hands.  they  dim  and  eventually  gloss  over  -  and  the  asset  awaits  orders. 

     pierce  smirks,  pleased.  his  hand  comes  up  to  rest  on  steve’s  shoulder  and  he  squeezes  the  muscle  tightly,  making  an  offer  steve  rogers  cannot  refuse.  ‘  hydra  can  give  you  many  things,  captain.  we  can  even  give  you  your  BEST  FRIEND  back.  ’  

                          ALL  YOU  HAVE  TO  DO  IS  COMPLY.