#and when I see someone confused about the lore my first and only instinct is to immediately set the record straight always

[magicalgirlfia]

Shiver and their clan were never part of the Octarian military…

And to add to this not only is it not a pothole whatsoever but it makes perfect sense in universe!

You see, The Great Turf War was a civil war not a world war! It took place in Inkadia and the only octarians affected were the ones who hailed from that area! To prove this we have…

1. The Circumstances in Which Octavio is in Alterna

In game it’s implied and in the art book it’s stated that members of his army went missing and that’s why he’s in Alterna, making him and his people’s presence there something that isn’t ordinary. And while you could argue that it’s the hair that’s what’s out of the ordinary, the art book says “The Octarians who suddenly disappeared while under DJ Octavio's strict management who were somehow discovered to be in Alterna.” directly implying that they went missing first and were found to be foozified later.

2. Warabi

1/2th of the band Diss-Pair. Not only are his parents are famous actors, but it’s stated that “He grew up with classical music education for gifted children” (something that doesn’t fit in to what we know about the Octavian army) and that he’s traveled to 20 different countries in a year, which would’ve been difficult if he were underground. While you could say that he did that AFTER leaving, his bio also includes the fact that “He met Ikkan [the other member of the duo] on a tour overseas” meaning that even though the band debuted AFTER Octo expansion they’d have to have met BEFORE it.

3. Out of Universe Terminology

There has been an interesting trend in some translations, and that is 8 being referred to as an “Octarian octoling” not just an “octarian” but specifically “octoling”. This implies the existence of NON Octarian octolings, which we see in game.

As we know, the inklings and octolings spread themselves out around the globe. The idea that all of them rallied together under one leader to wage a war in one specific place is something that could not have happened, and it has been proven that it did not.

And unless there are any questions or objections, I rest my case.

I love the detail that both Octoling idols consistently emphasize how important friendship is to them.

It makes me wonder if that could even be considered a part of Octoling culture. Considering that it’s likely that all biological family most Octolings have had to be left behind when they defected from the Octarian military…

[beautifulterriblequeen]

Hello!! This is kind of a stupid question but do you understand who the Moonshadow assassins kill and why? At first I assumed it was just human rulers/generals from all kingdoms but when Viren was talking about how they were a threat in season 2 the other rulers didn’t seem to think it was as big of an emergency and I was a little confused. I hope you have a great day!!

I actually love questions like this! There's some nuance in the answer, and also some uncertainty, but I'll share my take for ya:

The Moonshadow assassins don't seem to pick their own targets, they accept assignments from the Dragon Throne. The full nature of that relationship hasn't been explained in any detail, so it's a tricky, complicated area of lore for the moment.

Basically, we don't have any information on how the Dragon Throne chooses the targets it passes on to the Moonshadow assassins for taking, aside from the one that happened just before the show's plot began, with Zubeia sending Runaan and his team to kill Harrow and Ezran. All we know is that these targets are supposed to be so threatening to Xadia that the world would be better off if they were no longer in it.

It's not impossible to imagine Avizandum telling his assassins to take out someone who didn't actually deserve it. It's relatively easy actually, knowing how he liked to stomp on humans, and how long he lived. It's probably happened. The only question is: how often? (angst)

I would guess - because again, we don't really know this for sure yet - that Avizandum generally chose actual threats, or people who could easily become threats in a war. But when you're a long-lived dragon, maybe you see different patterns in the mortal lives and cultures of humans. And Runaan and all the assassins before him wouldn't live long enough to recognize those patterns themselves, so they probably had to accept their targets out of either trust or duty. (more angst)

Some of them would definitely be military type targets: generals; shining young hero types with a chip on their shoulder; stealthy human assassins; dark mages if they dared risk it; and etc.

But a dragon might see strange harmless patterns beginning to form and decide to nip them in the bud before they led to anything truly threatening: a craftsman who just had a design breakthrough with a prototype ballista; a baker who just invented hardtack that could keep an army on the move for weeks; an armorer who just made a much safer design; a clever miner who found a rare and valuable source of iron.

People like that aren't dangerous on their own. But the knowledge they might share among the humans during a long drawn-out war with Xadia could be devastating in a decade or five. A dragon who already doesn't like humans would probably have no trouble sending his best assassin to snipe unsuspecting ordinary people like that.

We're still not sure if assassins must take an assignment, or if it's just dishonorable or something not to take it. But Runaan's a pretty regimented guy, and he's not fond of humans either. Between his trust issues and his protective instincts, I don't think he'd look too hard at his assignments these days even if he had a choice - he'd believe he was doing the right thing for his people, and then he'd stop thinking and go shoot someone.

I think sometimes Runaan definitely was doing the right thing by killing someone. But it's impossible to say which missions were and which weren't the right thing. Life is way too complicated for clear-cut answers like that.

Okay, onward!

The other part of this answer is about the Pentarchy itself. I think their hesitance to commit right away, and the reason Aanya got so much time to smack Viren with her sass, happened partly because Viren lives in a border realm like she does, and the other three rulers have a nice safe buffer between them and the brunt of the war efforts.

Basically, Del Bar, Neolandia, and Evenere don't have any skin in the border game.

They don't have big standing armies, and the only threats they deal with are small incursions - either assassins from other human realms or occasionally Moonshadow assassins.

Which is the topic at hand! But when Viren tries to convince Harrow to do the switching spell in S1, he claims that Moonshadow elves are an unstoppable force. Almost a force of nature, kind of vibe. If they come for you, you're just gonna die about it. Harrow even agrees with him! It's common knowledge how deadly the Moonshadow assassins are. And that's what happened despite all of Viren's plans - he still lost his king because Moonshadow assassins are scary good at their job.

So it's plausible that the other rulers didn't see any point in committing resources to an unsolvable issue - if Moonshadow assassins were coming for them, then they'd die. Why risk anyone else? Anyone in the assassins' way would die too. (Which they did in Katolis)

Another option is that Viren has been wrong before, and the other royals did commit resources to deal with the threat he claimed was coming, only to have time and money and forces wasted. If Viren had brought them costly mistakes, they could've been hedging their bets this time around.

There's a funnier possibility though: maybe they just didn't like Viren. People in power sometimes say polite things to an underling or a petitioner, and then have no intention of ever following through with it. They might've all been blowing smoke here, telling Viren "oh yeah sure if we're all in, let's totally do war, bro" and absolutely never meaning it even a little bit because they simply did not like the messenger.

Which is mean. But: royals.

tldr:

there's a few things affecting the Pentarchy scene all at once. We don't know all the factors involved yet, and the Pentarchy probably doesn't either. But at the end of the day the Pentarchy chose to hesitate, and that left Viren on his own.

[ejsuperstar]

Psssssssst. Hi. I wish to know about ur au with the Injured Messenger I am extremely intrigued. Dead people hell yea

YAY! INTEREST ABOUT MY CHILDREN! This is a very long post cos I ramble a lot lmao

So my au starts with a bunch of sky kids falling down from the stars (presumably after eden) and a new moth joining them, one of the sky kids crashes into the moth, and knocks them wildly off course, causing them to crash into wasteland.

After crashing into wasteland with no idea what they're meant to be doing, the moth, who I like to refer to as "Local Baby", ends up wandering the outskirts of wasteland til they come across darkness. Before realising what it is, they're initially fascinated, finding it beautiful, until their sky kid instincts kick in and they realise "oh this stuff is probably bad". (This is another theme I want to explore in this au too, about how darkness can be beautiful, and how not everything to do with darkness is inherently evil, but that's just a want rn)

Thats when they realise something is under the darkness, they pull at the darkness with their hands (too baby to know how to use a candle yet) until the something is revealed, a dormant spirit (Messenger). Since they dont know how to use a candle (and quite frankly have no idea whats causing their new friend to be made of stone, only that "yay new friend :D") they attempt to wake them up, fail, and just kinda, lie down next to them and fall asleep.

Sky kids, unlike spirits, are a powerful source of light. Even without candle use, kinda sitting next to one for 8 hours is good enough to wake up a spirit. So Messenger wakes up. Initally confused about why they were face down in the dirt, they turn to see the Local Baby staring at them. At first they're like "A child??" before realising "A SKY KID????"

They question why (and how) the sky kid got there, until they realise what happened. This sky kid has just been born, has no clue what anything is, and most importantly, has no wing level.

This is where lore gets interesting for spirits and wing levels. Spirits can fly, but their method of getting wing levels is different than sky kids. A sky kid gains winged light by recollecting their memories, either of past lives they no longer identify with (like our moth here) or simply re-remembering memories they already know (like how our sky kids work). These memories show up in physical form to them as Winged Light, but spirits cant see them.

Spirits gain wing levels differently. Spirits gain wing levels via sky kids, specifically, sky kids who fall down from the stars not fully formed, or perish on the fall. Kind of like being stillborn, or not simply dying shortly after birth. Spirits can absorb the high concentrates of light these sky kids to gain a wing level (this act being referred to as catching stars), but this is very rare, especially in places that don't see as much light (ie wasteland and forest).

Messenger ends up freaking out and realising they still have stuff to deliver, and they cant dilly dally, until a sharp pain strikes them in their stomach and they fall to their knees, remembering "OH YEAH I GOT STABBED BY A SPEAR". Local Baby notices and goes up to them, touching them, and the pain seems to fade. They assume that, the sky kid healed them using the power of light (they didnt) and thank them. In reality this was just Local Baby viewing Messenger's memory, like in the actual game.

Since Messenger needs to deliver things to Vault anyway (a neutral zone from the war) they decide to take the baby along, so they can get somewhere safe where they wont have to worry that someone will take this baby and harvest them for their light.

After this my ideas for this au are a lot less set in stone. I have some general plot beats set out, Messenger and Local Baby walk for a few days until hitting an abandoned outpost, taking an old boat they find, and flying it over to the temple where they arrive from the left (a usually cloud blocked area in game). Messenger sees the aftermath, wound hurts again, Baby helps. They get into vault, some other sky kid accidentally reveals to Messenger that they're dead, they try not to cry. Baby gets their first WL maybe, stuff happens from there idk. They also probably got krilled at some point, well, almost krilled (Yay Messenger for saving their child!!)

As well as some other general lore, like Sky kids eating light as food (and also just fucking biting down into candles sometimes cos i think thats funny), Local Baby only remembering how to get their candle out after getting a WL (because WL are memories and they have no memories nor braincells). Messenger not eating at all because they're dead and not realising cos they're too distracted with the child and/or assuming the sky kid did this to them (things aren't really known about sky kids, so they just kinda go along with it). Sky kids needing to light each other to understand each other, but spirits being able to understand just fine. A lot of minor stuff really I guess.

I'm also currently in the middle of doing some art of them in wasteland because I love them!

[redd-byrd]

AAAAAAAAAAA I LOVED IT SO MUCH

MY DAD WENT WITH ME AND HE ALSO LIKED IT

I’m so glad the theatre was almost empty, I was so excited that I was doing full-on hand-flapping, which I almost never do, and squeaking and giggling like a crazy person, I was stimming like crazy cuz I was so happy to be there

MASSIVE FNAF MOVIE SPOILERS BELOW THE CUT

And friendly reminder that this is my ✨OPINION✨

This will be long and very ramble-y so bear with me

OK SO FIRST OFF THE ANIMATRONICS

- I loved how they acted like kids??? Like you tend to forget the ghosts are actual children when looking at the games since they’re constantly all “murder monster-y” so I love that they got to act so childlike

- Kids’ drawings being a massive plot point was so cute, I actually didn’t mind how sudden Afton’s defeat was since like,,, they were only on his side in the first place bc the drawing showed that he was their friend, so it suddenly switching around made a little more sense. Probably could’ve been executed better but for what it was I think it was fine

- And of course THE DESIGNS!!!! Holy shit I loved how they looked!!! The prop team did an AMAZING job with both the animatronics and the background props!!!

- The interactions with Abby were adorable, I loved the fort scene because of how goofy it was to watch giant machines dressed like animals put that together

- Also I know we were all skeptical when the red glowing eyes were shown, but honestly the scenes where they DID glow would probably have looked good even if they didn’t change it, though I will say that the final look is really nice by itself

NEXT IS THE MAIN CAST

- Matthew Lillard did an INCREDIBLE JOB as William Afton, when my dad and I came out of the theatre he said that he had a feeling that Lillard would be the antagonist (mind you my dad knew nothing about the games or the movie), which really shows how well he does at playing horror villains and playing up that gut instinct

- I loved how creepy he was in the final fight scene, just creeping out of the shadows with those two glowing pinpricks was SO cool

- Also Afton being retconned to not be British anymore is so funny to me askdjhsjjdhdj

- Abby didn’t annoy me at all, I actually thought she was super cute!! Which is surprising bc I usually find kids annoying but I’d die for Abby

- When I say that I got WHIPLASH from the animatronics being nice to her and later Mike after she introduced them, I MEAN IT (in a good way)

- Mike taking Abby seriously and believing her when she said her “imaginary friends” are actually ghosts was a nice change of pace

- The group that broke in honestly didn’t need that much characterization since the main thing the plot needed was Max, so that was fine

- I am confused about why people aren’t more concerned about the murders that took place throughout the movie??? Like a missing poster in the background would’ve been fine, or maybe Mike reacting to Max being missing?? They don’t give much context on their relationship, I have no idea if they’re friends or if she’s just someone he hired and doesn’t have much emotional investment in, so maybe that wouldn’t work

- VANESSA MY BELOVED

- Vanessa was great, I love her character so much, but idk if I love her by herself or it it’s cuz she didn’t get much characterization in the game,,,, doesn’t really matter ig

ABOUT THE STORY

- Story was really fun, I love the unexpectedness of some of the scenes (dance scene, fort building, Freddy blade mask, etc) I thought it was so funky

- Afton using a separate identity to lure people to Freddy’s was cool, though I have no idea why he’d do that to other people. I can understand Mike, he likely knew about his brother through the last name, but why other people???

- I am a bit sad about Henry n Charlie Emily being left out, considering how big of a part they both play in the game lore, but idk if it’s explicitly said whether they exist within the movie universe or not, so we’ll see in the next movie ig

- THE SPRINGLOCK SCENE!!!!!!!! I loved it <3 idk how they didn’t go off after Afton was bouncing around in it earlier but when they did go off it was SO COOL!!!

- “I always come back” YES HE DOES!!!! LETS GOOOOOOOOOOO

- End scene of him bleeding out in the storage room hinting towards the full Springtrap character??? Loved it

- Also HELLO FREDBEAR??? GOLDEN FREDDY?? YELLOW BEAR???? WHAT

Extra info:

- No Markiplier was not in it, he was too busy with his own movie

- WAITER MATPAT?????

- Corey was awesome, I thought he was so funny for his short time on screen, esp the post credits scene

- THE FNAF 1 SONG MADE IT IN OH MY GOOOOOOOOD CONGRATS TO THELIVINGTOMBSTONE

Random plot holes or inconsistencies I found:

- Foxy had a scene where they forgot to switch the red eyes to the new glowing ones

- Despite the animatronics killing the group that broke in, spilling plenty of blood, they’re perfectly clean afterwards

- My dad found it weird that they didn’t show any part of the kids’ bodies in the suits, since it’s apparently known that they were stuffed inside (or maybe only Vanessa knew??). He thought an arm or a leg poking out would’ve worked. I said I think it’s either cuz the bodies were removed, are kinda mangled and pretzel-twisted to only be in the torso, or it’s just bc they didn’t think to do that lmao

- He was also confused on how Afton was able to jump around and move so easily in the springlock suit when the suit in the back snapped off the broom handle after a single jab. I said I think it’s bc it’s meant to be used to move around in and not harshly screwed with, or maybe it’s another plot reason

All in all, 8.5/10 movie. There were a few times when I was confused on why something happened or why someone behaved a certain way, but none of it was outright bad or boring. There also could’ve been more to the gore, definitely could’ve pushed the boundaries of the PG-13 rating, but it was good for what it was. It was fun, cute, and knew when to be serious :P

[majorasnightmare]

2 + 9 + 13?

THANK YOU FOR UR PATIENCE ANON for once i was NOT chronically online enough to post regularly

2. Who would your OC least expect to modify their memory? How would they feel if they learned that person actually had modified their memory?

playing the pronoun game here with figuring our which they belongs to who, but interpreting it as someone modifying dirges memory, itd have to be shadowheart. thatd be a deep cut that would confuse him well before it started to hurt, and hed assume blame should fall on shar before he lays it at shadowhearts feet.

interpreting it as dirge seeing someone else modify their own memory, astarion would be a surprising one for him. hed want to be supportive but hed have a REALLY hard time wrapping his head around it, and would probably privately look into ways to reverse it in case Astarion ever asked, but wouldnt offer. dirge understands memory as a series of decisions and choices and the idea of astarion willingly changing that record to be MORE inaccurate for something that FEELS better would be a concept he couldnt fully grok. itd make more sense to him as payment of some kind for a bargain with some kind of fey entity or creature, and then dirges first instinct is exploiting loopholes to fix it so astarion can have his cake and eat it too. really in general if anyones making memory modifying bargains, dirge will always turn to Fantasy Tax Evasion: Warlock Edition

9. If your OC were terrorized by the specter of a man with a large sword, would they tell people about it? Why or why not?

so were all on the same level, this is my first thought for "specter of a man with a large sword terrorizing me". and if dirge got bodied by the ds2 pursuer he would NOT say a fucking WORD about it because thats just shameful. fuck this guy and the eagle he flew in on, dirge should be better than this what kind of loser is he taking a shieldbash to the face and not even dodgerolling out of that sword combo? SHAMEFUL.

dirge is very much a "im not posting that shit, i got my ass beat" kinda guy who holds himself to a high standard when it comes to Skill Issues, so even taking the question literally, if the bastard isnt there when he had company, Dirge wont ask for it. He wont turn people away if they happen to be there but its not a thing he seeks out.

realistically, the only specter of a man with a large sword hypothetically capable of terrorizing dirge would be sarevok, but dirge hasnt had respect for that guy since he was 12 and amnesia hasnt improved his opinion. at most hes irritated about the situation, because hes encountered enough situations and people that DO terrify him that sarevok lost any cred he mightve been able to leverage

13. If your OC were to craft a conspiracy theory board, what conspiracy and/or theory would it be centered around?

Hes unironically already bit of an unhinged crackpot when it comes to Forbidden Knowledge and Eldritch Lore, and its almost definitely what led the Chosen Gang to the absolutes colony in the first place. If its not that then its following a trail of happenstance and coincidence straight to Caiphon's doorstep in a process Gortash had zero faith would actually produce results. And if it isnt either of those then its toying with the concepts hinted at within the Necromancy of Thay to try and create a hithertho unseen form of Necromantic spellcraft powered by Aberrant magic to produce a new form of organic organism that is animate but not alive, but neither is it undead. Ideally chimeric in form but he isnt picky.

In general when left to his own devices and without a general goal to strive towards, he'll pick something to obsess over and he WILL be IASIP_pepe_silvia.jpg about it and you CAN speed this process up by offering your own unhinged ideas for him to chew on

IRL hed probably be really into cryptozoology but only the incredibly niche semi plausible ones, and he almost definitely would throw his weight behind your supernatural-adjacent Mothmans and the like. he isnt super into government conspiracies like flat earth or its related theories, but he is a passionate lover of the weird and potentially deadly. Sadly a lot of things can be explained by sunbears which takes the kick out of it

as thanks for dirgepost enabling you getttt

flower crown dirge edit made by @villalunae !!!

[primofate]

Smile for Me (Part 3) Zhongli x fem!reader

Summary: Zhongli never smiled at you the way that he smiled at his memories of Guizhong. Thinking that the only way Zhongli would ever be happy is for Guizhong to come back again, you secretly set off on a journey to bring her back to life. But it comes with a price: Your life.

Warnings: pining, angst, one-sided (at first), hurt, angst again, drama, some Guizhong x Zhongli, hints of Xiao x reader, MAY NOT FOLLOW THE ACTUAL LORE.

Read: (Part 1) (Part 2)  (Part 4)  (Part 5)  (Part 6)

Zhongli jerks awake, his head half up from the pillow. He tries to remember his dream while sitting up, the sheets that were covering his bare chest falling and pooling around his waist.

He's silent for a moment. In a place where he's half awake, trying his best to rewind his memory of the dream.

"Welcome back, would you like some tea?" he has a hard time seeing the person's face. Like a smudged oil pastel painting. Just a blur. But he chuckles in the dream, as if he was familiar with them.

"You know my preferences," he simply says as he sits at the table.

"Hard day?" he's amazed how the person always seems to know when he's had a hard day. "...Yes, it seems that someone has damaged the ballista, the traveller and I inspected it,"

"... The ballista...?"

"The Guizhong ballista,"

"Ah..."

There was a small pause. He couldn't see the other person's expression but he gets a sense of loneliness, and he doesn't quite know why. Suddenly, she speaks up again,

"When's the last time you ever did something for yourself, Zhongli?" he's surprised, it was such a mundane yet difficult question.

"... Does drinking tea with you count? I quite enjoy it," he chuckles and the companion laughs, though it seems to be a bashful one.

"I mean it though, you're always looking out for others. The people of Liyue. Xiao. The traveller. I just want you to remember yourself too," he's struck with a tender feeling of gratitude. This person looked out for him. He feels slightly uneasy, because the person didn't include themselves in the list. He asks, tone carrying a playful tune to it.

"Pardon me for asking but you didn't include yourself in the list. Do I not look out for you enough, xxxxxxx?" he stops. He tries to say your name again but is only met with silence as his mouth moves. 

It's because he doesn't know it. 

He doesn't know who he's calling.

He doesn't know who's in front of him.

He doesn’t know your name and horror strikes him, yet he doesn’t know why.

You’re still standing in front of him, unmoving. Face still blurred. Not saying anything. The silence that hangs is starting to feel uncomfortable. 

He tries again. Opens his mouth. Lips move. 

But he doesn’t know.

In the dream, his usually calm and collected self starts to panic. What was this sorcery? Why was he unable to recall anything, anything at all about this person who seemed to be a good companion to him.

“Zhongli,” his head snaps up to look at your blurred face. “Zhongli, I’ll eat dinner with you,” his head starts to pound. “I’ll wait for you to come back,” and it’s as if something in him clicks. His eyes flutter wider, and his mouth opens to say your name--

Just as he wakes up. 

The longer he stayed awake the more that the dream blurred away from his memory. He wasn’t sure anymore if he was mixing up his memory, his dream, and real life. 

He felt as if it hadn’t been the first time he’s dreamt this.

In the end, he sighs, and decides to put it off. His eyes wander over next to him, Guizhong peacefully asleep and wrapped in the covers. Her long hair splayed out, the hairpin she always wore on the bedside table. Zhongli tenderly brushes some hair away from Guizhong’s face, and smiles. 

It seems like it’d been forever since he’s done this and then... again... he’s struck with a strong sense of unease. Why did he feel like that? Guizhong had been with him this whole time, hadn’t she? 

With many thoughts flitting in and out of his head, he manages to fall asleep. 

The next day as he awakes, drinking tea while sorting out papers, there’s a knock on the door. Guizhong had gone out today so Zhongli answers. 

It was the local painter.

“Master Zhongli!” The painter was a man who looked to be in his late 40s, he was youthful looking but you could tell his age by looking at the crinkles around his eyes. “Master Zhongli, here’s the portrait you’ve ordered to be painted a few months ago,” the painter had a canvas covered in brown paper, tucked under his arm. 

The canvas wasn’t too big, it was the height of a toddler just taking their first steps, and would probably be a little heavy on the hands, but otherwise manageable. 

“...A...painting?” Zhongli says, confused. 

He doesn’t recall asking for a anything to be painted. 

The painter, seeing the confused look on Zhongli’s face, continues “You’d said it was for a 500 year anniversary of some sort, and asked for it to be delivered... On this particular day," Zhongli reels back at the words, it feels as if something has hit him square on the head.

“You’ve been serving me for 500 years, it’s an occasion to celebrate, if you ask me,” Zhongli says and you just laugh under your breath. “It’s not a big deal,” but he insists that it must be celebrated. Or at least that he had to repay you with something for the help you’ve provided and so, when he asked what you had wanted, you simply and shyly replied. “A portrait, of you and me,”

The painter tears off the brown paper and reveals the painting. A beautiful rendition of you and Zhongli. He stands next to you, at least a head taller and you stand next to him with a sort of clumsy yet endearing smile. Your shoulders touch in the painting and yet... 

“Who... is this?”

Zhongli’s eyes are glued to your face on the painting. The way your lips curve up is so familiar to him. Your hair cascading around you and the simple yet elegant blue qipao that you wore.

He’s struck with the same panic that he feels in the dream last night. “I...I don’t recall--” and then he suddenly snaps up, turning to look at the painter. “Pardon me sir. You’re the one who painted this, yes?” The painter also has an uncomfortable look on his face, but answers. “Y-Yes, that’s correct. It was... Here. In this living room,” 

“Then could you perhaps tell me...this girl’s name? Was she a guest in this house?” Perhaps it was strange to ask the painter about this, seeing as, according to the painting, you and Zhongli were supposedly close. 

“...Sir...about that, you see...I... can’t quite recall who this girl is and... I don’t think I’ve seen her around at all,” 

And that’s how Zhongli knows that something’s wrong.

That’s how he knows that he must have been missing some piece of his memory because--looking at your face in the portrait again, that smile taunting him--it would be difficult to forget a face like yours. 

That’s how he knows that the twisting feeling in his heart is because he had forgotten something and someone important. 

And where were you now? Were you alone, and lonely and lost?

Things didn’t add up, and Zhongli was a man with strong instincts.

He remembers your face, but nothing about you. He grips at the portrait as flashes of you consume his mind. Like a reel of film. Your smile. Your annoyed glare. Your patience. Your tears. Your concentration. Your pout. Your frustration. Your calmness. Your patience.

Your selflessness.

For the first time in a long time, he wasn’t sure what to do.

Suddenly the nights spent waking up and missing a part of himself made more sense.

It didn't even matter that Guizhong was next to him.

He realizes it wasn't her he was looking for.

He sends the painter off with some money, leaves the portrait on the table, and sets out to get a breath of fresh air.

He would figure something out. He had to do something about the missing gap in his mind and the gaping hole in his heart.

Taglist:  @larkspyrr @rim0na @sweeti-pie @l3mon-mxshroom @hai-q-haikyuu @tkshoki @kyquu @kimbapsana @leefletter @hentaje @tempehlust @rinnesy @hallohun @softlybeloved @volleybloop @ssalamanderr @ben6ett @rytszk @guilixi @reiluvbot @mondstadts-favourite-traveler @xxcrowfeatherxx @b-trld @mkazuyuh @shittyeditsofwhatiwant @ayra2452008 @simpingover @soft-like-sunshine @lnrchii @scheophi @fkng_kumiko

Masterlist

https://primofate.tumblr.com/post/653296890583154688/masterlist-for-mobile-version-main-links

Taglist (Want to be notified when something new comes out? Sign up!):

https://forms.gle/VZmJXQssHcv7YzQc6

If you like my work, consider supporting me by buying me a coffee

https://ko-fi.com/primofate

[ghost-ghost-baby]

We're Just Friends! (Omega!bakugo x alpha!reader x omega!Izuku) pt. 3/?

Pt. 1 / / pt. 2

A/n: cannot believe we made it to pt. 3 I’m sksksksksk,,,, they finally get together! Pt 4/5 will b them all together and adjusting and then it’ll b readers bday so 👀👀

Lore: Once an Alpha reaches 21 they get their first rut, they’d either already have their mates or the rut will act as a push for them to get together and bond.

Summary: Reader and Katsuki have been friends for years, and everyone expects them to get together, until reader rescues an omega that lives in their building, and things get a touch more... complicated

Warnings: swearing, omegaverse, mad pining, Katsuki get exposed for going to therapy lmao, Izuku is kinda a shithead, Katsuki b mad insecure, reader is still dumb- everyone except for Izuku is bad at feelings

The two of you had gotten sidetracked, really quickly, it wasn’t even twenty minutes before you were putting a horror video on the tv. That was almost an hour ago, and you were about to doze off now, laying on your back with your head on the arm rest, Izuku right on top of you with his head tucked under your chin. You didn’t know how you got into this position, but you weren’t complaining, it was… nice. Perfect, almost, but something still felt like it was missi-

“Y/n- why the fuck are our stupid friends asking me about your new- Deku?” Katsuki burst through the door, already yelling, and his scent took on a burnt tinge that almost had you gagging when he slammed the door behind him.

“Kacchan! I didn’t realise you were Y/n’s roommate!” Izuku perked up almost immediately, sitting up so he was straddling you with his eyes fixed right on Katsuki.

“Wait, you two know each other-“ You tried to sit up, barely managing to turn your head to see Katsuki, Izuku was stronger than he looked, and he obviously didn’t want you moving-

“Yeah we go way back, childhood friends, right Kacchan?” Izuku’s tone was light, but you couldn’t see the feral look on his face from where you were trapped on the couch.

“Right… that doesn’t explain what the fuck you’re doing here, Deku.” Katsuki snarled, and Izuku giggled at the blonde. What the fuck kinda thing were you stuck in the middle of-

“What does it look like, Kacchan? We’re courting now! And Y/n’s already been such a good alpha, I’m surprised you didn’t ask them-“

“What does he mean you’re courting?” Katsuki’s tone was something you’d never heard before, and your heart twinged at it. “Get the fuck off of them Deku.” He walked closer to the couch, until he could grab onto your arm and haul you off, Izuku sliding back to the couch and pouting.

“He asked me on the way home and I accepted-“ Katsuki’s heart sank, he’d been too late? “I didn’t think you’d care, aren’t you courting Kiri?” Your scent was far too comforting, and the way it accompanied Izuku’s had Katsuki feeling something he definitely didn’t want to. Deku was a stalker! A creepy little nothing stalker! With great hair- no! And you looked so cute when you were confused like this-!

“Katsuki, are you okay?” You waved your hand in front of his face, and the blonde only let out another snarl. What if you found out about what he’d done to Deku, you’d never look at him the same, and from the way Deku was smirking the bastard knew it too.

“Whatever- I’m fucking going to bed.” Katsuki pushed past you, and you could only gawk as he disappeared down the hall and into his room.

It wasn’t supposed to go like this, you were meant to be with him, it had been the two of you for years! Why were you such a fucking idiot! Katsuki was fuming even as he hugged the pillow he’d stolen from your room, how dare Deku come back and steal you! Still, the nagging thought that coming back to the two of you… had felt like home wouldn’t get out of his head and it was only making him angrier.

“Katsuki? Izuku went back to his apartment, do you have any requests for dinner?” Your voice floated through his door and Katsuki opened his mouth to respond on instinct. No, if you wanted to be with Deku so badly you clearly didn’t care about him, and so he would stop caring about you.

“Katsuki? Please come out, I don’t understand why you’re upset but I want to.” You tried to keep the desperate tone out of your voice. It didn’t work, and Katsuki was biting the inside of his cheek to stop himself crooning in an attempt to calm you down.

“Okay… I’ll uh, just be in my room if you want to talk.”

This was getting out of hand, it was like you were living with a ghost. It had been three days of Katsuki ignoring you, three days of no contact whatsoever, and even though you had Izuku, and he was just… amazing, it still felt like something was missing. You actually didn’t think you’d gone this long without talking to Katsuki in- well since the two of you had met. But, it was finally the weekend, you’d have to run into him at some point, and then you could finally talk, even if he didn’t feel like it.

You were pulled into Izuku’s apartment before you could even knock, the omega giving you a deep kiss before quickly tugging you into a hug and rubbing his cheek over your scent gland.

“I missed you, Y/n! What took so long?” Izuku only pulled away when he couldn’t smell anything except you, and pride filled him when he saw you were wearing his sweater.

“Sorry Bub, I was trying to get Katsuki to talk to me but he’s still giving me the silent treatment.” You shrugged as he walked you over to the couch, something already playing in the background, and Izuku pushed you down without hesitation. You let the omega position you how he wanted, wasting no time wrapping your arms around him once Izuku settled down next to you with his head on your chest and your legs tangled together.

“You know… it does seem like he likes you, maybe you could suggest a triad? I know I wouldn’t object.” Izuku’s tone was so nonchalant you’d expected him to ask what you wanted to watch, not suggest bringing Katsuki into the relationship.

“You’d be okay with that? Really?” You hadn’t even considered that, you felt kinda stupid, honestly. Why hadn’t you- oh, right.

“I think he’s courting someone else, actually, I’m sure that’s why he’s being so weird.” You pushed any hope you had down when you remembered how much time Katsuki actually spent with Kirishima, and how close they seemed to be.

“If you say so, but I wouldn’t write the idea off, Kacchan’s always been good with surprises.” Izuku shifted to press a kiss to your scent gland, before he grabbed the remote and returned his attention to putting on a show.

It was Sunday, you hadn’t seen your roommate all weekend, this really wasn’t going how you planned. A sigh left you as you pushed open the door to your apartment, you’d been with Izuku for most of the day, and you were so, so ready to just go to sleep. You’d been exhausted for the last few days, and Denki kept commenting about how snappy you were and asking why your scent was ‘so weird man’ when the three of you had met for lunch. It was sweet how much they cared, but annoying as fuck nonetheless. You were wide awake outside your door though, almost missing the sweet caramel smell that leaked out until you had your hand on the handle. Your room didn’t usually smell like that, not unless-

“Katsuki-? What’s going on?” You pushed open the door to a very, very startled Katsuki, like a deer in headlights, really, and your confusion only grew when he was holding onto an armful of your clothes. “You could have just asked if you wanted something for your nest, but isn’t Kiri helping with that?” You closed the door behind you, and Katsuki’s eyes darted from you to the door. Fuck, you weren’t supposed to be home for another twenty minutes, you’d usually spend at least two hours at Deku’s place, why the fuck had you come back so early? Katsuki clutched the clothes tighter against his chest as neither of you spoke, you really still thought he was with shitty hair when all he really wanted was you?

“Katsuki? This is ridiculous- what’s going on with you? Why won’t you talk to me?” You stepped forward and Katsuki growled when you got within a foot of him, the sound setting you on edge and making you release a growl of your own on instinct.

“We’re gonna talk about this, I’m not letting you ignore me anymore, it sucks! It feels like there’s a piece of me missing-!” You stepped forward with every word, flinching at yourself when you heard your voice crack at the end.

“What does any of that matter? You have Deku now, the two of you are perfect together, you don’t need me anymore!” Katsuki yelled back, everything that happened the last day and the confused puddle that the state his feelings were in finally bubbling over. It was too much, he’d barely seen you and now here you were, reeking of Deku of all people, and accusing him of liking someone else.

“How could you say that? I need you, Katsuki-! I always need you! These last few days have been hell without you! It’s bad enough I have to deal with you courting Kiri, but now you don’t even talk to me and I don’t understand what’s going on!” Tears kept welling up in your eyes, and Katsuki dropped the pile of clothes on the floor, his hands balling into fists by his side.

“Because I don’t know- I don’t know what the fuck I’m feeling!” Katsuki’s voice broke, and you barely had time to open your mouth before he continued. “I thought that we- that we were set in stone, and then I come back to you and fucking Deku on the couch and fuck that hurt! But it fucking- it fucking felt like home, and all I wanted to do was join you and I don’t understand why!” He turned around to wipe his eyes, and your jaw hit the floor as you tried to process. He wasn’t… courting Kiri…?

“You’re such an idiot- you couldn’t just tell me this?” Exasperated didn’t even begin to cover how you felt.

“How could I say anything? I was horrible to Deku in school because I couldn’t deal with my feelings, why would either of you want to be with me after how awful I’ve been?” There was no anger in Katsuki’s tone anymore, and the guilty scent he was putting out was just putting you on edge.

“You regret it though, don’t you? And I know you’ve worked really hard to be better, and you even go to therapy now-“ Katsuki snarled at the last part, he hated whenever you brought up therapy, but at least you weren’t yelling.

“We actually talked it over and… Izuku and I both like the idea of a triad with- well with you, if you wanted.” You reached out to grab Katsuki’s shoulder, though he refused to look you in the eye when you turned him to face you. You had to be lying, you had to, you couldn’t mean that and he didn’t want to get his hopes up for nothing.

“Katsuki, you gotta talk to me, I can’t read your mind.” Your cards were all out on the table now, and your anxious scent was a dead giveaway to your feelings. What if you’d ruined everything? What if you’d gotten everything wrong- you were never good at guessing-

“You’re being serious? This isn’t some kind of payback?” Red eyes finally met yours and you could only nod, you still got caught of guard by how pretty he was. “Okay, I’ll join your shitty fucking triad.”

Taglist (pls lemme know if any of em r wrong)

@pasteldaze @hopeless-ro-simptic @ntngann @somerandominternetgirl-blog @ianem005 @lalaluvzen @antisocial-minnie @rogueofbullshit @hakunamatatayqueen @so-uncute @therealwalmartjesus @unlightedfool @all-the-kings-reblogs @cth-l

[the-silentium]

Rock Bottom

Masterlist - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2

Fors is an Original planet. I do not give permission to people to use it for their own fics, the planet, the animals, the Nightmares, the lore or anything related to Fors. Thank you.

Pairing: Bad Batch x Reader

Words: 4150 words

Warnings: Blood, gore, monsters, killing, ANGST, cruel world in action.

A/N: I just reached 500 followers?! This is crazy! I love you all people who somehow put up with my insanity  ♥️

Taglist:  @haloangel391​ / @lightning-wolffe​ / @cherrydemon5​ / @and-claudia​ / @clone-rambles​

______________________

The vice grips around your upper arms burned as the talons cut through the fabric and tore through the skin. The humanoid creature hissed in pain when your bodies switched position and he got the worst of the branches. Soon, you found yourself falling on top of the Algax, out of breath and in pain. 

It quickly rolled over, throwing you to the ground right under itself. You heard yells and saw lights illuminating your surroundings, but more importantly, you saw the eyeless, noseless face mere centimeters from your face, the hideous lining that you thought was its mouth looked burned and sewn shut as if to prevent it from feeding on its prey. 

You would have been relieved of the fact if the pain in your arms hadn't moved to your whole torso. He was crushing you to death! 

Out of your daze, you trashed around, feet kicking what would be its chest, attempting to push it away. Screeches erupted from tiny slits at the side of its hectically rotating head, the Algax abruptly jerked away from the ground, your body still in its grip. It started moving away from the clones, unbothered by the blaster bolts hitting its back successively or by your movements. 

Orders were barked in your ear but they didn't register. All you could acknowledge was the building pressure around your bones, how it was becoming almost impossible to breathe even the tiniest of breath. You were positive that your ribs would start to break at any second now. 

The primal part of your brain then took over, reaching for your knife and plunging it forward in the dark blue arm holding you above ground. 

The effect was instantaneous. You were thrown like a rag doll to the side, right into a trunk. The thud of your head hitting the wood resonated through your skull, stilling you. Your whole body seemed to completely stop functioning for a whole second before remembering that this wasn't the time to chill out. 

A moan nearly escaped your mouth as the first satisfying breath of the last minute filled your lungs. How could you never realize that breathing felt so right? Breathing felt so good. So much better than being squished like a miserable insect. Oh no. Was this how they felt every time you'd step on them? This was so crue-

"Are you okay?" Confused, you blinked at Tech's question. 

"Me?" You pointed to yourself as if the question wasn't clear enough. 

Then the pain in your arms registered and-

"Holy mother fucker that hurts!" You whined, experimentally poking the bleeding skin to see if this really was the source of the pain. 

"Don't touch it!" Tech chastised, slapping your hand away, to which you glared in return. 

"I'll die of a blood disease." You pouted, watching as your wound touched the disgusting bloody mix you spread on your clothes earlier. 

"Highly possible." You felt the color leaving your face. Maybe you said it, but you didn't want it! 

"But we won't let that happen." You jumped at the gauze tightening around your wound unexpectedly, your opposed hand almost shooting out to hit him instinctively. 

"That was an Algax, correct?" Hunter approached behind Tech, keeping an eye on the surroundings while the engineer fixed your other arm. 

"Spot on. He ran away, right?" The dark blue monster was nowhere to be seen, not that it bothered you. 

"Right after you stabbed him." He handed you your knife that you apparently dropped at some point. "Look like those things are blaster proof or something." 

"Maybe it has something to do with the fact that there's no blaster in the lore." You gladly took the life-saving weapon back, securing its handle in your grip where it belonged. 

"Does your head hurt?" Tech inquired, getting up when he was satisfied with the makeshift bandages. 

"Nope. All good." It was pounding in there, but whatever. 

Getting back on your feet with Tech's help, you took a second to stabilize yourself before giving a heart attack to the nerd. 

"Don't do that!" He yelped, catching everyone's attention on your stretching self. 

"I'm just stretching..." 

"You just hurt your back! Don't flex your spine like that!" He successfully got you back straight with a slap to your abdomen. 

"We have to leave." Crosshair cut you off, pushing between the both of you to get ahead. 

"I agree with Cross. No more fuss." You speed-walked to catch up to the abrasive clone, desperately trying to keep the laugh in at the rhyme. 

"Thanks for that." You whispered to him, eyes already moving from shadow to shadow. 

"Don't thank me. If you stretch again I'll make your life more miserable than it already is." Oh how this only made you want to stretch to push his buttons. 

"Can't make it miserable if that means you'll be around." You grinned, unabashed by the meaning of your words. It was time for him to warm up to you a little more.

Every second of silence made you cheer inside. Rending the snarky sniper speechless was an exploit after all. 

"I can figure something out." He countered weakly after a while. 

Chuckling, you rotated the handle of your knife between your skilled fingers, alternating it from pointing forward and backward to pass your sudden regain of energy. Why did he have such an effect on you? It still was a mystery that you'd have to elucidate later. 

"I hear a voice." Hunter informed the group. 

"Is it calling you?" This was never a good sign, the Venuste were really effective critters in their task of enchanting everyone around. Keeping him with you and away from them would necessitate Wrecker's muscles. 

"No, it's a kid's voice. Whining about flee- fleeing? Something like that. It's not clear." 

"A kid?" You stopped dead, deeply confused. Had the council gone mad?! What could possibly justify sending kids out to their death? Or did they get caught outside like you did? "Where?" 

"Sure it's not a trap?" He pointed over your shoulder to your right. 

"One way to be sure." It genuinely hurt to stay in position and not speed walk through the trees to verify if the council had gone from a bunch of imbeciles to a cohort of assholes running the whole village to their doom. 

You had to remind yourself that when you agreed to join the commandos, you'd made a promise to fight for them as well as with them and that you'd be a reliable asset at any time in any given situation. You weren't alone anymore. 

It didn't change the fact that it was hard. 

"It's personal?" Crosshair clearly saw the shift in your mood, from the tightness in your muscles that wasn't there before to the sudden lack of motion of your armed hand. 

"I just want to know if I'll break my hand again or not." 

"Break your hand?" 

The question passed over your head when you heard the young boy's voice. He wasn't from the village, you knew every kid there mainly because you liked to help them build traps for strangers to fall in and they liked your prank ideas. You didn't know how to tell Tech that you were the one to propose the phosphorescent bird poo mixed with loth wolf puke idea. Maybe it was better to take it to your grave.  

You halted at the edge of the clearing illuminated by the moon and its stars, eyes glued to the young boy walking in circle a couple of meters away, his bare feet bleeding profusely from the incessant walking he endured for who knew how long. Your heart squeezed at his fate. No one deserved this kind of torture, let alone an innocent child. 

Your eyes adjusted to the new light, a new serene pallet of color taking over the gradually fading shades of blue and black. 

The boy's clothes were torn up and dirty to a point where you couldn't say for sure what color it was initially or if there was a design on it like most children liked to wear nowadays. 

"What's wrong with him?" Wrecker's worry hit you in the gut. You shouldn't have to tell him this because this shouldn't exist. 

"He's a Wanderer, now. A Lumsin got his soul." You slumped, defeated. 

"His soul?" He tilted his head and although you couldn't see it, you were sure there was a frown hidden under the customized helmet. 

"Yes. Everyone has a soul and Lumsins feed on them. When they eat a soul, the body becomes lost and wander around, walking and walking until it dies." 

"His soul got eaten." He reiterated in a whisper, the hand lifting to his head not lost on you.

"Y-" Your heartbeat shot through the roof when your eyes found a crest necklace around the kid's neck. 

You knew that crest all too well. And those beautiful red hairs, they should have made you realize sooner. Way sooner. 

"I know him." It unconsciously escaped your lips before you leaped forward, not able to repress your urges anymore. 

Crosshair was hot on your tail, the others staying in the shadows to keep an eye out. 

You jumped before the boy, hands rising to his cold cheeks, wishing that the gesture would pull him out of his spell. He merely rammed into you with his small 6 years old emaciated body, barely making you budge. 

He continuously mumbled the same sentence, the last thought his body heard from his soul before the contact was lost. 

"I want Fleena."

"Nixon, buddy." You grazed the freckles on his cheeks with your thumbs. He was so familiar. 

You'd never met him when he was still a lively boy, their village wasn't one to be in close contact with the others, but you've seen extremely detailed drawings of him. Plus, he looked so much like his sister. 

"We have to go." Crosshair pressed, anxious to be so out in the open. You knew you were being delusional and were basically putting him in danger for someone who couldn't be saved, but you had something to do. 

"I'll be quick." You assured the sniper before taking the robin carved necklace off Nixon's small neck to store it in your pants pocket. 

"Your sis' loves you very much, Nixon." You tenderly kissed his forehead like any child should be kissed, with utter softness and care. "And she wants you to be free." 

You could easily remember the nights out between the local cantina and the general store, where Fleena would show you drawings of the beasts that attacked her village when their gates got breached. You were terrified. Her whole village was wiped out in a single night, leaving her behind with a mind plagued with nightmares and grief. 

She talked often about Nixon who had turned 6 the week before it happened. She would relive her best moments with him, where laughs and smiles were a common occurrence. Then she'd close on herself, praying to the merciless gods above to at least let her brother be in peace. 

It broke your heart to know that it wasn't the case. That he was still trapped, may his soul be somewhere else, hopefully, in a better world, his body was still living in a wicked world. 

"You deserve to rest Nixon." You ruffled his hair like Fleena used to do. 

With a quick movement of your hands, you freed him from his torment in this cruel world. 

The world numbed for a moment, mind blocking the events for your own sanity, but it wasn't enough. It didn't stop all the injustice of this world. A vast beautiful world that you couldn't explore because of monsters waiting for the right moment to bounce. You were forced to live in a cage when the world was so vast. Kids were forced to grow up too fast or couldn't grow up at all. This world was sick. 

It took 2 hours for your stomach to empty itself on the ground for the first time of the night. In all honesty, it was longer than you initially expected. 

Oh. You didn't expect either to find yourself back into the woods, without any memory of making the way back. Hands alternate from patting your back to stroking up and down between your scapulas. 

Someone's tears fell onto the bile, or maybe it was raining. Yes, it was raining. You felt the water stream down your cheeks like rivers, the two trails joining at your chin to fall on the ground. 

"You freed him." Crosshair crouched to your level so you'd not tune him out like you did the others. "You helped him." 

"I helped him." You repeated. It was true. 

"You did." A finger moved across your cheek to remove the remaining rain from your face. No. They were tears. Your tears of pain. 

"I hate to force this on you, but we have to get back to the rav-" 

A scream of distress pierced the night, cutting off the sergeant in the worst way possible. Everyone froze, listening to the yells asking for help that only you understood. Another hunter. He wasn't that far away. 

"He's asking for help." You mumbled slowly coming out of your daze. 

Your eyes moved away from the bile splattered before your knees to meet the black and white helmet of your sergeant. You were in no position to decide, the fog in your mind only beginning to dissipate gradually. 

"We can't help." The requests for assistance had already morphed into screams of pain and agony that they didn't need to be translated to understand. 

"We hurry back and get off this rock." He cut short, the yells fading quickly in intensity. 

Hands under your armpits helped you up. Shaky legs stilled after a couple of seconds and a few deep breaths. Slowly as if you'd double over at any second, Wrecker's huge hands let go of their grip on you. With a muttered thanks you harshly wiped your face with your hands to get yourself together. 

You needed to bottle up every event happening tonight for later. You'd have time to scream, thrash around and cry when you'd be safe within the Havoc Marauder. 

"Ready." You affirmed after swallowing the lump in your throat. 

The night was silent again, meaning that the beast could either be feasting or roaming around again. The group will have to be extra careful to return to the ravine and stay under the radar. Many species could have caused this kind of screams and they weren't to be messed with. 

Hunter took the front while you took his place in the middle, just behind him. Crosshair grazed your right arm, Tech your left and Wrecker got your back. 

You purposefully ignored the worried glances coming from Tech, it surely must have been a shock to see you do what you did in the clearing. It was so out of nowhere for them. But it wasn't for you. A big part of your brain simply wished they would not abandon you on the planet once you all make it back to the ship. 

This time, you were the first one to notice the change in the atmosphere. What was interpreted by Hunter as the wind humming through the trees was in fact a very angry Kribat protecting its territory. 

"Hide!" You whispered harshly in the comlink you hurriedly pulled out of your pocket. There was no way they'd see your hand sign at your current position. 

It was so sudden that they stopped for a millisecond, unsure of where to hide. You pushed through them to lead the way to a deeper line of trees on your left, feet moving faster to get more distance between the Kribat and your group. 

Your feet slipped under yourself when you ducked behind a particularly large tree. Despite your best efforts to stay upright, gravity pulled you down to your fall, as it clearly enjoyed to do, both physically and mentally. 

The ground wasn't as hard as you remembered, a bit soft if you were to define it, and warmer. 

It wasn't until Wrecker pulled you upright once again that you realized that your fall had been broken by a shredded body. Dread washed over you as you saw the two other hunters who'd suffered the same fate, laying close by in a pool of their blood, missing some limbs. 

You knew them. They never had a place in your heart, but you knew them nonetheless and would never have wished them to suffer like they did. You knew two of them had families waiting at home. Well. Maybe they weren't waiting, merely hoping that they would come back by some miracle. 

Two feet away from a Kribat's preys was the worst place to be right now, but you couldn't move to another spot. Not with the howling Kribat right behind yours and Wrecker's hiding spot. 

It was awfully close. Too close to your liking and way too angry to hope to survive its attacks if it were to find you. 

Wrecker had you pressed to his chest by a hand right over your breast, detail that flashed into your mind although it was totally irrelevant. He was just stressed like you were. His hands simply reached for you in his haste and happened to find the friends-are-not-supposed-to-touch spot so you dropped it. At least he wasn't groping. 

The ragged breathing of the feral beast passed as it reacted to a movement nearby, giving chase to the unfortunate creature. For a painful second, you thought that it might be one of your teammates, Tech and Hunter were out of view while Crosshair was peeking back to get a glimpse of the retreating beast. 

Just as you tried to push away to see if the missing clones were around, Wrecker's hand pushed you more into himself, crushing your boobs like they were never crushed before. 

"Everyone's okay." He informed you to keep you still, not releasing his grip. You hummed in acknowledgment. 

"Wrecker." He hummed back, waiting for you to continue. "Hands off my boobs." 

You've never seen a hand fly away as quickly as Wrecker's did. Yours didn't even move that fast when you accidentally put your hand on a lump of red coal and you remember having a good reflex then. 

"Hands off what?" A harsh whisper in your right ear caused the demolition expert to sputter. 

Apparently, the comlink in his helmet caught your voice. 

"I didn't know Sarge!" He explained without any more delay. "Sorry Y/N." 

He kept his free hand far from your body now that the danger has passed. It would have been hilarious if only you weren't at the lowest emotionally. 

" 's fine Wrecker." You shrugged, unbothered by all of it and way too exhausted emotionally to care. It was an accident in the midst of action, nothing more, no need to create a whole drama because of it. 

A piece of wood in the bloody mess caught your gaze. Your heart skipped a beat at the recognizable darker tint of the object, tonight was getting slightly better. 

Crouching, you reached for the thick wood stick, fingers moving along the carvings etched into its length. Both in relief and satisfaction, you found the energy in yourself to smile. 

"Found something?" Tech approached from your side, the remaining missing soldier in tow. 

"Yeah. Most useful stealth weapon on this planet." You showed him the bloody bow, your other hand sliding your knife into its rightful place in your boot. 

Rolling the body to the side respectfully, you checked for the quiver that you found still strapped to his back. Slowly, you pulled it over his head to pass it over yours.

"This is a fine piece of work." Despite his words, you could hear that he clearly would never use it to defend himself if he had the choice.

Taking back the weapon, you cleaned the grip and loaded an arrow, muscle memory doing a splendid job into positioning yourself perfectly in a flawless shooting stance. A sigh of relief almost escaped your lips at the feeling of finally being adequately armed. 

"Think it will hurt them more than our blasters?" Crosshair gave you some extra arrows he found laying around, still unconvinced that wood sticks with metal points could surpass their own advanced technology. 

"We'll know it now." 

You frowned, quickly grabbing an arrow to arm the bow, pulled on the string while aiming over the engineer's shoulder and suddenly released the tension on the string, scaring the shit out of Tech but hitting your target perfectly. 

The Algax screeched as the arrow hit it right where its left eye would be, retracting its dangerous talons reaching for the goggled clone to grab at its face. 

The troopers jumped at the unexpected screech, although they recovered in record time, turning around, blasters at the ready. They only had time to shoot at its already retreating form. 

"Don't lose that." Hunter turned around, pointing at the bow in your hands. "Now let's go." He urged everyone forward. 

Quickly, you grabbed the arrows in Crosshair's hand and stored them with the others. 

As you took your position back at the front, a hand softly grazed the small of your back, by possessiveness or just to ensure that you were alright, you weren't entirely sure. But Hunter's gesture was very much welcome. 

The bow was a game-changer. The weapon may not be able to kill them, but it could very easily gain you some time when needed. 

Now, if luck could still stick by your sides, the next useful thing you'd find was a shelter. 

In the following hour, you managed to scare away the next 3 Algax you encountered with a single arrow neatly shot between the hollows where their eyes should be and avoided another Kribat. 

Apparently, these two species were the main population of these parts of the jungle, it was a two-edged knife. The boys got used to hiding around the environment and knew how to react properly at an Algax jumping on them out of nowhere, but you knew those weren't the only danger around. Would they react adequately when a new monster presented itself?

Tech changed his opinion on your weapon, affirming that he'll have to build one himself, more technological of course, improved like he said. You kicked his shin at the 'less-primitive' insinuation behind his words.  

"It's a great weapon that deserves respect Tech." You reprimanded, arrow pointing to the ground and ready to engage if needed. 

"It does need improvements!" He countered on the defensive and he proceeded to explain what he would do to add more strength to the bow, allowing it to shoot further and at a greater impact. 

Just as Hunter shushed the engineer, you heard your name being whispered in the distance. Fear tensed your muscles in apprehension, expecting claws to tear at your skin any second now. Time went on without any foes jumping out of the shadows, prompting you to continue your route with the others, passing it for the wind or a trick of your mind.

That is until everything went downhill. 

"Do you guys hear that?" Wrecker suddenly asked, immediately catching everyone's attention. 

Silence followed, seconds after seconds passed in utter silence until, "That! Heard that?" 

"No." Hunter stopped the group to ensure that they weren't missing something important. 

"Wrecker, what is it? What do you hear?" A cold sweat ran down your spine, already knowing what he was going to say but praying otherwise. This couldn't be happening. 

"It's 99." Even without knowing who was 99, you knew that it would end badly, there was too much raw worry in his voice to calm him down in so little time. "He's in danger Sarge!" 

"No! Don't listen to it!" You jumped out to grab his armor, his hand, his blaster, anything really, not that your small muscles would have been able to stop the bear of a man anyway but your body thought it could. 

He was unexpectedly fast for someone his size, easily dodging your hand to push through his brothers like they were nothing. He ran like a desperate man chasing a dream and it hit you like a punch to the face. This was exactly it. His most desperate dream finally came true to haunt him. 

As you expected, the boys were on his tail in a heartbeat. 

But as you ran after them, you realized that for a team comm that should be flooding in orders for Wrecker to stop and pleas for him to understand that this was a trick, it was dreadfully quiet. 

Your blood froze in your veins as soon as realization dawned on you like a an ice cold bath. 

They all believed it.

[crowtrinkets]

Your Weary Widow Marches

A Gender Neutral MCxFelix fic in which our dear barista educates their teacher and shows him some music from their home.

I’ve never really written fanfiction before but I thought Id give it a shot. The formatting looks weird on my end so if it looks weird after posting I apologize I couldn’t figure it out. Hope you enjoy!

—-

The crackling fire and pages being turned were the only sounds heard for the past few hours. Felix and I sat on either side of a couch placed in Anisa’s office silently reading our respective books. I’ve been in Astraea for nearly a week and had I known that Felix’s teaching method would be done via reading books the size of an encyclopedia I probably would have chosen Sage or Anisa instead... probably

I glance up at Felix, he’s sitting with legs crossed slouching on the arm rest of the couch, glasses on and enthralled in his book. I'm leaning with my back against the arm rest facing Felix, peering at him from behind my knees. I watch as his eyes scan the pages, partially hiding behind my book so he doesn’t notice me stare. I rub my eyes, dry from the endless reading of Astraean history. I know plenty of history and lore from this world thanks to countless hours of playing Last Legacy and stalking forums, but I don’t think I could’ve convinced Felix of that without having to explain what video games are let alone the internet. He thought if I were to learn magic I should at least know part of its history and it’s contribution to their society. 

Despite spending some time with Felix I'm still amazed at the attention span he has for reading. I scan the room trying not to move too much lest I be scolded by the warden. I glance over at the high back chair across the room. The one Anisa sat me in after my jaunt through Felix’s portal and painfully onto Anisa's desk. My mind begins to wander. 

I’ve only been here a short time but I feel like I’ve adjusted well. I wonder what's happening on Earth. Does time pass the same at home like how it does in this realm? World? Alternate universe? I still don’t exactly know how to explain my predicament. Has anyone noticed I'm gone yet? I wonder if I’m on the missing persons list, someone at work will have noticed I didn’t show up for my shifts. I cringe slightly at that last thought, my open book now resting on my chest. Ah damn it, I’m definitely fired aren’t I. How am I gonna pay my bills.... and my home, I miss my bed....my plants. SHIT MY PLANTS. I bring my hand to my face and cringe, my beloved house plants they’re going to wither away in my absence. Fate is such a cruel mistress.

“Bored of reading are we?” I slightly jump at Felix’s comment. I bring my hand down and look at him. Staring at me through his glasses a smirk on his lips. I flush slightly and close my book.

“No I just, got to thinking about Earth, and my life, I guess I’m just a little home sick,” I mumble out those last words. I want to be honest with Felix but I don’t want him beating himself up for my situation. I mean yes he is the reason I’m stuck here but I don't hate him for it. Felix frowns and closes his own book.

“Ah... I am sorry about that, I-“ I sit up interrupting him.

“No no no, I'm not mad at you, I’m actually quite enjoying my time here. I mean I don’t have to make drinks for annoying customers everyday here,” I force a laugh but it comes out awkwardly. Felix gives me a quizzical look. I then realize, with the amount of times he calls “dear barista” I just assumed he knew what it meant. “Yknow, my job? A barista?” Felix flushes and avoids looking at me.

“I must admit.. I do not actually know what that is,” I cant help but chuckle, the great necromancer Felix, is embarrassed to not know something.

“Well my dear teacher," I emphasize the word teacher mimicking the way he calls me, "allow me to educate you on some Earth information,” I sit cross legged and scoot closer to him book in my lap. Felix adjusts to face me properly and removes his glasses. I clear my throat and smile at him. “My part time occupation of being a Barista, requires me to make drinks for customers and sell them, more often I make coffee but sometimes people order tea. We sell pastries as well,” Felix gives me yet another confused look.

“All you do is prepare drinks and flakey confectioneries?” I nod in response with a smile, I can only imagine what he assumed a Barista was. Felix chuckles and runs a hand through his hair, “All this time I thought it was something more complicated, you described your customers as being annoying? I am assuming you do not like this particular job?”

“Well, I don't hate it but the customers can get a little rude and for the dumbest reasons too. One time a woman threw her drink at me claiming I added 3 1/2 shots of espresso and rather than 3,” I laugh to my self looking back at the memory, chuckling more when I see Felix’s horrified expression.

“A woman... threw a drink at you? Because she deemed it made incorrectly? I did not except Earth customs to be so. . . Barbaric,” Felix looks at me astonished and confused but all I can do is laugh. “And why are you laughing? Are you alright did she hit your head when she assaulted you with a beverage?” Felix is now standing while I clutch my stomach in pain, the combination of the story and Felix’s confusion is too much to bare. After a minute I manage to calm down enough to speak.

“No no, she did not hit me in the head, I’m just laughing cause it was funny, well at the time it wasn’t but my co workers took pictures and I looked ridiculous. I can laugh about it now,” I wipe a stray tear from my eye as I recount the experience. Thank god her drink was iced. 

“Picture?” Felix chimes in. I try to think of how to explain how photography works but I come up with an idea.

“Why don’t I show you?” I stand handing Felix my book and I jaunt over to Anisa’s desk. I let her peruse my backpack because she seemed so interested in my “Earthly items” as she called them. I walked back over and sit on the floor, patting the ground next to me so Felix can join. 

“You known there is a perfectly good sofa right next to you, I don’t understand why you wish to sit on the ground like we are mere children,” but despite his protests Felix sits next to me still clutching our books. I rummage through my back tossing the other items to the side. My wallet, a flyer, a jacket, that granola bar which has definitely crumbled to pieces in its package. Until I finally find it, my phone. My first night here I instinctively tried to use it, forgetting I am now stuck in a world without wifi or cell towers. In an effort to hopefully conserve its battery I hard shut off my phone I did not think I would need it but now is an opportunity for me to educate Felix about my world rather than his and tell him a little about myself. Really I just want a reason to prolong my time from reading anymore history. I hold the power button and silently pray. Please have some battery left, please please. Felix is leaning towards me, his face inching closer to mine, I glance at him studying his expression. He looks confused, and curious at the same time, there's a slight scrunch in his brow like he’s trying to seem like he understands what I’m doing, but I know he doesn’t. In that moment his eyes meet mine, I turn my head to fully face him, a blush creeps up his face and I can feel mine begin to warm as well. “Felix-“

BING

We both jump at the sound of my phone turning on. Damn phone, well I guess I kinda asked for that. Felix sits back and clears his throat.

“Um, what, what is that?” His voice wavers slightly but I choose to ignore it to save him some dignity.

“Its my phone, on Earth nearly everyone has one of these. You can use it to communicate with other people, take pictures, look things up, and listen to music.” I begin to unlock it and open my photo album.

“You can communicate with other people? On this... this flat brick?” Felix points accusatory at my phone the scrunch in his eyebrows have intensified creating deep crevices on his forehead. I nod while I scroll through trying to find the photo. 

“Yup and take pictures, such as this one,” I turn my phone to face Felix revealing the image documenting the after affects of being assaulted with coffee. He leans over to get a better look. In the picture I'm standing by the cash register, soaked through my clothes in an extra large coffee's amount of liquid. The brown liquid stains my apron and the parts on my white shirt poking out from underneath. There's smeared whipped cream going across my shoulder up my neck and partially along my jaw, and the scowl on my face could kill a man. The instant I show the picture to Felix he plants a hand over his mouth to stifle his laughter. He turns away in an attempt to hide his amusement but I know he wont last.

“Im-I must apologize I did not mean to laugh but, but the look on your face is hilarious,” Felix faces me again trying to hide his smile with the back of his hand. I start to chuckle, I turn the phone back to me and swipe to the next picture. Its a similar picture but in this one my co worker put whipped cream on top of my head, something about it “completing the look”. When I show this picture to Felix it breaks his terrible attempt of remaining poise. He laughs loudly, and it’s extremely contagious. I laugh along with him reminiscing in his beautiful laugh. Every once in a while we calm down until we look at the picture and we start up again. After a bit I’m able to calm down enough to speak.

“Don’t feel bad for laughing, at the time I was pissed but my co workers cheered me up and now I have these memories to laugh at,” I start to look through my album again as Felix calms down from his laughing high. I find more pictures to show him. Some are of me at work with my co workers, one picture of me laughing as I held a dog that jumped through the drive through window. I show him more pictures, some are of earth sunsets which Felix claimed to look like they belong in a painting. I also show him a picture of some Geese I saw while on a walk, and then a picture of said Geese chasing me. This gets Felix to laugh again but not as hard.

“You lead an interesting life on Earth, it seems similar to Sage you are also prone to provoke others into attacking you,” I roll my eyes at Felix’s joke and give him a friendly shoulder bump. Its at this moment I realize how close he’s sitting. Our books set aside and Felix is leaning on one arm politely looking over my shoulder at my phone, I can tell he doesn’t really understand how it works but it seems he’s enjoying this moment to much to ask. In an attempt to keep the sweet moment I change the subject.

“Hey do you want to listen to some Earth music?” With a nod from Felix I close the app and instinctively go to press my streaming app. Damn no Internet. I think for a second and remember I have some music I bought in times before streaming apps existed. I find the app and open it. Dear god my taste was cringey. I scroll through the songs until I stumble across a less than embarrassing song. “This is a classic where I come from, everyone has heard this song at least once. I lay back onto the floor so I can properly listen to the music. Felix looks at me and awkwardly lays down as well, I click on the song allowing it to play.

Just a small town girl

Livin' in a lonely world

She took the midnight train goin' anywhere

Just a city boy

Born and raised in South Detroit

He took the midnight train goin' anywhere

Felix gives me a puzzled look but I just shrug and look up at the ceiling. I close my eyes and take in the song as it plays. If I concentrate hard enough I can imagine my self back on Earth. Sitting in my room listening to 80s music while I do laundry or cook my dinner. I start to feel nostalgic again but I try not let my emotions take over. The song ends and I pause it before it plays the next song. I roll onto my side and rest my head on my hand.

“So what’d you think?” I beam at Felix, I genuinely want to know what he thinks of Earth music, and more specifically a song that I am quite fond of. Felix is laying flat on his back, he ankles crossed and his hands laying on his chest. He looks nervous to be laying on the ground next to me but has made no attempts to leave.

“I thought it was... interesting to say the least. It had quite a captivating story although I was confused when the subject changed multiple times, and what exactly are they trying to “not stop believing” in” Felix does air quotes and seems genuinely enthralled in the “story” of the song. I smile and start to look for another song. 

“How about you choose the next one?” I tilt my phone towards him. Felix sits up at my question.

“I dont feel very well versed in Earth music though,” He mumbles. I shrug at his comment.

“Just pick one with a name that sounds interesting to you” I show Felix how to use the phone and hand it to him laying back down. I peek at Felix, he’s holding the phone in one hand and is scrolling with the other, he’s holding it like an old man. I watch his face, he’s thoroughly looking at every single song title and determining whether they are interesting or not. I find it... cute, his concentration face is cute. Oh if he caught me staring I know he would become a blubbering blushing mess, I mean I would be too. I close my eyes again as I wait for him to pick. 

“This one seems interesting,” I hum in response, but when Felix says the title out-loud and panic seizes through me. I sit up and shout WAIT but I'm too late. He already pressed it. And then I hear it.

That dreaded, infamous G note. Felix turns towards me surprised and hastily hands the phone to me, I pause it before another note can play.

“Hells MC what will that song make my head explode or something??? You nearly made my heart stop.” Felix takes a deep breath with his hand on his chest.

“I'm sorry, that song its kind of embarrassing actually,” I can feel myself flushing, I look away in embarrassment at the fact that I had that song downloaded and the fact that I nearly sent my teacher into cardiac arrest.

“Embarrassing how?” Felix looks at me puzzled. I open my mouth to speak but then stop. Hold on a second, Felix doesn’t know this band, let alone what an emo phase is. Well judging by his raven skull necklace he does but not in the way I do. I guess it wouldn’t be so bad if we listened to it. I do still like their music. But god did it HAVE to be this song. I clear my throat and look back at Felix.

“Nothing, it’s nothing I was just being dramatic,” I stifle a laugh. “We can listen to it, I actually quite like this band,” Felix nods and turns to face my direction, were now both sitting cross legged and I press play on the song. I smile a little as the song plays and close my eyes again. I cant even remember the last time I listened to this song. My mind begins to wander again, to my younger years when I first heard this song.

 I was such a try hard back then, wanting so badly to “be different” but also to mend the emotional pain I was going through, and this band really helped me through it. This song is a little more narrative than the last one so I hope Felix would like it. I can’t believe I freaked out like I did god he must think I'm crazy, or maybe that lady really did hit my head when she threw that drink at me. As the song plays I silently hum to it, quiet enough so that Felix might not hear. I drink in the lyrics and instruments and it feels like I'm listening to it again for the first time. 

The song ends and I open my eyes again to pause the music before it plays another one.

“So what did you think of tha-“ before I can continue I'm stopped by the sight of Felix’s face. His eyes are misty and his nose is colored pink. Was he... was he crying? Felix looks at me and his eyes go wide. He quickly turns away and rubs at his face.

“There-there is quite a lot of dust on this floor, honestly you would think Annie would have any sense to clean in here every once in a while,” I cant help but smile, wow he really is a goth child. 

“It’s ok Felix, this song makes me cry sometimes too,” Felix side eyes me and sniffles.

“I-I was not crying, yes I admit the song was... moving to say the least…. But, but I will not be mocked by you for my emotions,” Felix turns to face me again refusing to meet my eyes, his voice turning accusatory. I scoot closer to Felix and place a hand on his shoulder. He looks at me astonished and slightly flushed, either from the contact or the crying, I mean dust, I will never know.

“Congratulations” I say with a smile. Felix’s puzzled look twists even more.

“What ever are you talking about,” Felix questions.

“You’re emo now,”

[finaledenialist]

Okay, your tags on The Empty Post have showed up in my notes and I have to ask. Tell me more. Tell me it all. All of the feelings and thoughts about that scene because what I’ve seen so far? Absolute perfection and I agree wholeheartedly.

Thank you! Okay I basically unloaded most of my thoughts in my tags here but let’s go through this one more time. I may add: this was already said a thousand times by better meta writers than me 3 years ago when season 13 was actually airing. And I will ramble a little about Purgatory, too. Now with that out of the way: 

The Empty. Canonically it is a being, a living immortal being that rules the place or an ‘anti-place’ where angels and demons go are sent to when they die to dream of their regrets forever (this sounds awful and like a punishment for dying despite being immortal, for getting themselves killed or something). Also: the Empty was there before Creation, the Nothingness before Darkness and before Light. 

Okay. But let’s see what other things the Empty represents: lack of anything. Complete nothingness that Cas got sucked into (by Lucifer but also by helping the Winchesters). Now we know that Cas‘I am afraid I might kill myself’tiel had his issues, right (I still can’t believe that we are praising 8x08 thee Hunteri Heroici for being a filler episode with Cas - which is awesome, don’t get me wrong - but we all keep forgetting what he actually did say to Dean there!!! Dean says: are you afraid the angels will kill you if you show up in Heaven? And Cas looks straight into his eyes and says: After all I’ve done, when I see Heaven, I am afraid I might kill myself).

Please remember that it’s not only Dean, Mr. ‘Purgatory was pure’. Cas, after all he did in season 6, after his death in s7, after coming back and being literally haunted by everything he’s done, must have felt that Purgatory was liberating, too. It was some kind of an Alternative Universe where he didn’t have to face the consequences of his actions. He was free of them. It was literally his escape AND additionally it was (well, according to good old christian lore, maybe not specifically spn lore) a place where you are supposed to atone for your sins so there must have been the feeling of atoning, of making things right without actually doing anything specific, where having to survive and not get eaten by the Leviathans was his main problem (= surviving was just enough, nothing was asked of him), which, compared to all he’s done, wasn’t that hard or difficult. He found himself running away from Leviathans which could mirror running away from consequences of his actions - but it was Purgatory, it was at the same time atoning for what he did. It was EASY.

Cas basically confirms that he officially stayed in Purgatory because he didn’t think he deserved to go back to Earth and that is true but what he doesn’t say is: ‘Purgatory was pure and easy and kill or be killed and no other worries than that, no thinking, no real responsibilities which actually was a nice escape from the real world after all I did and been through in the past 3 years’. He wanted out, he wanted an easy choice. Okay, maybe he wasn’t actively looking for an easy way out but when it presented itself - when they appeared in Purgatory - he took it like a gift. We’re talking about a character who spent all his life following orders, who finally broke free and found himself completely lost in the freedom of choices, directionless and maybe wanted an escape. He must have felt overwhelmed but all this freedom (which he basically confirms in 6x20 freedom is a length of rope and god wants you to hang yourself with it). I COMPLETELY understand that choice to escape. 

So in seasons 8-12 Cas has a lot of stuff going on in his head, he gets lobotomized for most of season 8, he is hurt and tortured and treated like shit for most of season 9 and 10 and he ultimately gives himself up to Lucifer in s11 and then he almost dies in 12x12 and he never really got to talk about all of this or work this things out with anyone because Sam or Dean are not really the most talkative guys and Dean in 10x09 basically tells Cas to ‘let it go and not think about it’ which is a shitty advice to someone who suffers from some mental issues if I am being honest (this is like. ur depressed? oh go for a run and smile and stop being sad!!! kind of advice if you ask me). So these issues only grow and grow and start eating him up and please remember that at the very same time Cas is falling in love. I said it previously but I think the moment he realizes what he really feels is 12x12 when he is dying. In that moment he is able to name this feeling but it’s of course covered by: ‘I love you. I love all of you’. 

Now in season 12 he finally gets a proper arc with Kelly (god bless her, honestly, she and Cas had one of the most healthy relationships ever portrayed on tv and it wasn’t even romantic, I could go off about this but it’s getting really long anyway). So he kind of is on his way to find a purpose again - Dean is saved (from hell, from Michael, from the Mark), so he focuses on Kelly and unborn Jack and maybe in his relationship with her he rediscovers love (not necessarily romantic but he sees how she loves Jack) and he does all he can to protect her from basically everyone including the Winchesters. And he promises he will take care of Jack and then. Then he is killed by Lucifer (shattered at the altar of Winchester because he gets involved in the Apocalypse World because of them while having built something for himself with Kelly and Jack BUT still not having properly processed all his previous trauma). 

Okay, so fast forward: Cas is woken up by Jack in the Empty. He is of course confused and stuff (we still don’t know what was he dreaming about all this time he spent there now that we know this is a place where angels and demons dream about their mistakes and regrets <- fanfiction gap #1). He wakes up, he is ‘greeted’ by the Empty and one of the first things he says is that he has to go back because Sam and Dean need him. 

This is his first, automatic thought - I (probably) don’t want to go back, but Sam and Dean need me so I have to, I don’t want to go back for myself because I never wanted to since Purgatory but I know I have to. He doesn’t even think about Jack in this moment. I... maybe it is a stretch but I sense a kind of fear in these words. It’s like he thinks: ‘if I had the chance to come back and chose not to come back from selfish reasons then if the Winchesters ever find out about this they will be angry at me’. But I might be reading too much into this, but on the other hand Jesus fucking Christ this is precisely what happened in Purgatory. He chose to stay although he had a chance to return and the effect was Dean being mad at him. Talk about trauma--

Then the Empty (who was in Cas’ mind) voices his biggest fears: 

'I know who you love, I know what you fear. There is nothing for you back there. Wouldn't you rather be a fond memory than a constant festering disappointment?'

There is a lot to unpack here because this is the Empty’s (who, as stated at the beginning can be read as a manifestation of not only death but also Cas’ depression and self-worth issues) reaction to Cas saying that Sam and Dean need him. She says: uh oh you’re wrong<3 I know who you love, what you fear, the is nothing there for you, sweetie. Essentially: they don’t need you. No one needs you or wants you there. They are better off without you. Wouldn’t you rather be a fond memory (of actually being useful as in: saving Dean from hell, helping to stop the Apocalypse, helping to fight the Leviathans) than a disappointment (failing powers, makes mistake after a mistake, chooses to protect the unborn Antichrist rather than killing him before he’s born - and not to make this whole thing worse but this is what Dean has the audacity to say to Cas in 15x03: why if something goes wrong it always seem to be you).

I will now allow myself for some privacy, because I am a person who dealt with these kind of thoughts in my head for years, these are straight up suicidal thoughts: no one needs you, no one wants you, you are a disappointment and if you die you will be fondly remembered, everyone is better off without you. And we know Cas was suicidal because he literally tells us in 8x08 and we have no proof that he somehow got rid of these thoughts, ever. If anything, they were always there, present, if not growing. Thoughts like that don’t just disappear. Please remember one more time what was happening to Cas in seasons 8-11. He wasn’t healing. He was getting worse, while all this time managing to keep his head above water for someone else, while the guilt was rising and rising. 

If the Empty represents all his issues: depression, suicidal thoughts, guilt, self-hate, lack of self-worth, and what she offers is: eternal sleep. Maybe not entirely peaceful sleep, but sleep nevertheless, no consequences, no facing your fears, no dealing with anything, an escape, sleep - 

And she prompts him to stop fighting, to go back to sleep because there is nothing to fight for (now the symbolism of him being waken up by JACK who was his new found purpose just before he got killed), but she makes a mistake to confront his thoughts and fears with him. She makes a mistake of taking a ‘physical’ form, putting on his face and voice his fears. And Cas is a warrior and he kind of hates himself, so his instinct was to fight. Of course it was easier not to think about all of these stuff at all, to push it back, to try to forget. But once he was forced to face all of these? He fought back. AND HE WON!!!!! 

WHAT A MESSAGE TO SEND RIGHT?!!! You might have all these issues and not want to face them because you feel you will crush under them but look: when you are forced to face them it turns out you are somehow way stronger than them!!! The moment you choose to fight you already won, you are already saved!!! Because ultimately these are your thoughts and this is your mind and you control it, no one else! The moment you decide, you choose, to take control: you win. You are saved because you chose to save yourself because you decided you are worth saving. And the Empty (and everything she represents) immediately gets angry and lets him go, ultimately annoyed because he dared to defy her and she just can’t win with someone who decides he wants to be free. WHAT. 👏🏻  A.  👏🏻 WONDERFUL. 👏🏻  MESSAGE.  👏🏻

So... Having said all that. There is only one thing left: I have NO IDEA. NO IDEA. HOW HE FOUND THE STRENGTH. TO STAND UP AND SAY THIS:

I'm already saved. You can prance and you can preen and you can scream and yell and remind me of my failings but somehow, I'm awake. And I will stay awake and I will keep you awake until we both go insane. I will fight you. Fight you and fight you for... ever. For eternity.

A FUCKING ICON. STRONGEST CHARACTER EVER. YOUR FAVE COULD NEVER--

[borathae]

Goddamit, sent my first ask/review ever last chapter and now you're hell-bent on pulling more out of aren't ya?! So I've changed my username and am no longer an anonie I guess 🙃

Well, on this chappie of SA:

Exsqueeze me, how dare you take me on an emotional rollercoaster?

Its been nice to get a glimpse into the backstory of the Sanguis lads, especially with Seokjin and Hoseok being so "human" (if you'll pardon the pun 😅)

I love that you didn't make Jungkook the youngest! Seeing Hoseok as the youngest is a very refreshing take on any stories involving the boys and I think if there was any time to do it, it's in a Vampiric setting.

I fully agree with y/n when she said that it was weirder that Hoseok and Jungkook were the ages they were than finding out Taehyung was 800 because we don't have a concept for 800, therefore we assume either the ethereal or the grotesque and I know for a fact I'd be in the same state of confusion.

Moving along, my two cents on the big debate. Neither is sad but I feel for Hoseok, like, gal fully brought him to the brink only for things to go from heaven to horror real quick. Seokjin I feel has made his peace with what happened to him, (and I'm sorry but "I trusted her"... Seokjin, you trusted a 19th century prostitute... ChoICeS) but I think Hoseok still high-key pissed and I don't blame him.

Okay, but I'm in love with this Jungkook, I usually hate characters that are so self-sacrifical and martyr-like, but I feel the way you've set up and written Jungkook avoids this beautifully. It's not necessarily revolving around y/n per se, but around his personal principles and all the hard work he has done to get himself to the point of being able to be around humans despite his instincts as a Ripper.

I am curious as to how a vampires "species/type" is determined upon turning: is it based upon the person being turned, or the vampire that turned them? And if so, is there then people in power in vampire society exploiting that to create vampires loyal to them of a type they want? Hence why the masked dude from the last chapter referred to Jungkook as "hidden". Were Rippers previously used as soldiers in inter-clan warfare like Berserkers and now they are a treasured commodity in power struggles as they all got killed in such battles?

SO MANY QUESTIONS ABOUT THE LORE IM SO FREAKING EXCITED TO DELVE INTO IT MORE!

Anyways, back to Jungkook. The fact that he recognises that his instincts are able to overwrite his will to not heal just so he can have a(n) y/n-sized midnight snack is a testament to his discipline (hence my soldier theory from this review and the previous one) and his dedication to living as "pure/clean" an existence as he can, in short, ya boi is a big-ass sweetie through and through and I'm here for it. I just can't wait to see someone get on the wrong side of him though can't lie 🤣

And now to y/n. Now, I know what I want to say here, but I can't articulate fully so this is not fully formed or coherent (so if you can make sense of it feel free to try and explain for me 😅) I feel like as much as y/n and Jungkook were interested in each other from a somewhat superficial perspective, I do wonder if y/n is, not misplacing, but expressing her feelings of gratitude in a way she wouldn't otherwise had they not gone through this trauma together. Especially because I think, deep down, she's still undecided about Taehyung, like she thinks he betrayed her on such a deep level but he's still caring for her and her head is all over the place from all the mind-games and head fucks she's endured recently and therefore because she has this shared experience with Jungkook, and it's the only thing she's sure of, she's putting all the things she's feeling at the moment into that because so far, Jungkook has been the most reliable and trustworthy and least duplicitous person to her, because even Seokjin and Hoseok weren't exactly subtle with their meddling, whereas Jungkook has stayed fairly quiet in comparison.

Overall, another great chapter and a nice, measured out from the major events of the last chapter, as well as a smooth introduction to another branch of this story.

-🌸

oh you are so lovely!! I love you lots and lots :( also omgmg should I still refer to you by 🌸anon or your username? let me know and I will 🥺💜

I love that you didn't make Jungkook the youngest! Seeing Hoseok as the youngest is a very refreshing take on any stories involving the boys and I think if there was any time to do it, it's in a Vampiric setting.

Thank you so much! omg I worried that people may find it weird, but I think it’s so sweet that Hobi is the youngest. It just fits with his vibe in the story hehe 

I fully agree with y/n when she said that it was weirder that Hoseok and Jungkook were the ages they were than finding out Taehyung was 800 because we don't have a concept for 800, therefore we assume either the ethereal or the grotesque and I know for a fact I'd be in the same state of confusion.

YES OMGMG HAHAHA I AM GLAD THAT YOU GET HER I also like “wait a minute this feels strange” HAHAHAH LIKE TAE IS THE ETERNAL BEING WHILE HOBI IS JUST A VERY YOUNGLOOKING GRANDPA HAHAHAHA 🤧

and I'm sorry but "I trusted her"... Seokjin, you trusted a 19th century prostitute... ChoICeS

FASJDFJADFJ BYE SEOKJIN GOT BURNED AHHAFHAH, I also love how he is all like “well I even paid her handsomely” bruh- hahfajasdj

I am curious as to how a vampires "species/type" is determined upon turning: is it based upon the person being turned, or the vampire that turned them? And if so, is there then people in power in vampire society exploiting that to create vampires loyal to them of a type they want? Hence why the masked dude from the last chapter referred to Jungkook as "hidden". Were Rippers previously used as soldiers in inter-clan warfare like Berserkers and now they are a treasured commodity in power struggles as they all got killed in such battles?

THIS INCLUDES SO MANY GOOD QUESTIONS TO WHICH I KNOW THE ANSWERS BUT I CAN’T TELL YOU IN ORDER NOT TO SPOIL THE STORY I AM GOING TO SOB 

ya boi is a big-ass sweetie through and through and I'm here for it. I just can't wait to see someone get on the wrong side of him though can't lie

I ghost wrote this sentiment :----)

Also I think your take on OC’s & JK’s relationship so interesting. Like, I didn’t even think of it that way, but now that you are saying it like that I can totally see it being possible 👀 all I can say that the traumatic event they went throuhg together definitely brought them closer and gave them something to connect over 😔

Thank you so much for your sweet message, I would love to say so much more, but the story is going to answer most of your questions naturally as it progresses and uff I wanna keep the tension and mystery up EVENTHOUGH I WANNA YELL ABOUT IT HAHAHAH 😭🥺💜

[irwinkitten]

black cat magic | l.h

notes: look i am alive! things have been hellish but i got this out for the writers collab event that @maluminspace and @h0tsos created! since i had to bow out for the last one, i was determined to do this one and had an idea inspired by this comic strip. despite life being particularly shitty, i still enjoyed this idea. also not using my old tag list because effort to find it all and go through, so my apologies. warnings: none? just injured kitty who gets some love. word count: 2k prompt:  Person A finds an injured black cat, and takes it home to take care of it, not knowing the cat is actually a shapeshifter

donate to my ko-fi?  

-

There was a legend from days of old, when warlocks and witches ruled in tandem with the fae and shapeshifters. ‘Should you want to meet your match, then try to befriend, or trap, or catch, the black feline that lives where the grey door is told, to be a secret gateway for jewels and gold. But do not fool the cat with thieves or you shall pay with your misery.’ It was a legend that no one ever learned if it was true, but the house with the grey door was never sold, never had any kind of people live there in the years. 

Many attempted to rob it and those who had tried suffered in life with struggles which left them with nothing but misery. Most ignored the black cat with startling blue eyes as it watched the world go by. But not you.

The first day you greeted it, you were slow, knowing better than to trust any kind of animal that could bite or claw you. 

It purred once your fingers threaded through its fur, content to let you stay there and pet it. 

“Aren’t you a handsome kitty?” You crooned, scratching under the cat’s chin. As it tilted it’s head up, you glanced underneath it to read the tag on it’s collar.

‘Luke’

“Luke, huh? Are your owners in or do you just roam freely?” Not expecting an answer from the cat, you chuckled when he meowed back at you before hopping off the wall and heading to the door.

“See you soon, I’ve got to get back to work.” You weren’t sure why you were reassuring the cat, but you headed back home, with your thoughts drifting to the black cat that had startling blue eyes.

On one of the sunnier days, you chose to bring one of your books with you and you’d found a small hill beside the house that had tall ivy plants hugging the walls. Atop of the hill was a tree that gave you good shade to hide from the heat of the day and as you sat down and studied, it wasn’t much longer until you had a visitor in the form of a black cat.

“Hi there Luke.” You greeted the cat as he came up for fuss. It made you chuckle how he settled himself in your lap, content to sleep whilst you read on, occasionally biting your hand gently when your eyes grew sore.

“You must have a sixth sense or something.” You murmured after tucking the book away, switching to one for pleasure instead. 

This time, he maneuvered himself under your hand so that your fingers were running through his belly fur, purring non stop, making you chuckle.

“Maybe I should bring some toys with me for you to play with. You’re more likely to turn my hand into a scratching post should I pet your belly for too long.” You laughed at your own joke, but he simply meowed in return and stayed sprawled across your lap on his back.

Ignoring all instincts that told you to stop petting him, you carried on, surprised at the lack of teeth or claws, and when you next looked up from your book, you found him fast asleep under your ministrations.

“Weird cat.” Was the soft murmur from you as you carried on reading until it started getting dark and you had to make your way back home.

You found yourself returning until the day you found him on the side of the road, the pitiful whines breaking your heart as you realised he’d been run over.

“Oh my poor boy.” You whispered, carefully scooping him up. He seemed to know you were there to help him, claws digging into your shirt as you cradled him. “Let's get you to the vet and make sure that they can help you. If you’re still fighting to hold on, they’re not gonna give up on you.” 

The journey to the vets was harsh with his painful meows ringing through your soul. But he behaved as the vet helped him, biting the technician only once when they caught him unawares. 

You’d been right in your assumption, however. They weren’t willing to put him down because there was still the chance he would survive. So you made the decision to nurse him back to health.

The first few nights were tiring. They warned you it wasn’t going to be easy, but it was also the most rewarding watching as he snuggled down into the bedding on the first night.

It was weeks of falling in love with the cat, knowing that it wasn’t yours. Despite the owners not seemingly answering, there had been a letter in your post, with money to cover costs and a small thanks of taking care whilst the owner was currently away. 

You had wondered how they’d found out, but in the small town, news travelled fast and more often than not, everyone knew everyone, so someone had to have informed the owner.

When he was allowed to walk again, you found yourself with a small black shadow, almost like he wasn’t willing to leave you alone. And this didn’t bother you, but it didn’t help with the heartbreak that you had, knowing you couldn’t keep the furball of joy that was changing your life.

After six months, he simply vanished one evening and you wondered if he’d made his way back home and part of you felt your chest ache, but you knew you couldn’t keep him. He wasn’t yours and you had to remind yourself that constantly as you carried on about your evening and settled into bed.

That was the first night you’d had a strange dream, a man with golden curls and bright blue eyes sat with you under a familiar tree as he talked about an old tale that you’d heard from your great grandparents when you were a small child.

“The lore is as old as the town itself. I wanted to find someone worthy to share everything with.” That pulled your attention, even in your dream state.

“You wanted to? Then wouldn’t that make you like, well over two centuries old?” He laughed and you wondered if it was real or not because it sounded beautiful.

“Three and a half actually. Time has no essence when you’re immortal though.” His lips were curved up into a smile as he shifted so that his head rested in his lap.

The dream felt familiar as you threaded your fingers through this stranger's golden locks.

“But you look so young...” You trailed off in confusion.

“Benefits. I could choose to grow old, but I want to be with someone who I love. Maybe then I’ll grow old. But I’ve waited for so long now, I shouldn’t be bothered waiting any longer.” 

You hesitated.

“What’s your name?” This made him chuckle as he turned onto his back, his eyes holding yours as your fingers slowly stopped.

“Luke.” And then you noticed the familiarity of his bright blue eyes.

You woke up with a gasp, glancing at the clock as you did so. The numbers read three am, and without even thinking, you wrapped yourself in your jacket, barely remembering to collect your house keys before stumbling along the streets towards the old house that had sat there for centuries.

The lights were on when you reached the home and you felt uneasy for a second before pushing open the gate. Before you could knock on the door, you heard the meow.

“Luke.” Your voice was quiet as you turned, studying the cat who was sitting underneath a window. You watched as he stood on all fours, turning tail to head around the corner of the house, and in the dark, you could see his bright blue eyes shine against the lights of the house and without thinking, you took a step forward, only to be stopped by the door opening.

Your heart left your chest as the very same man from your dream opened the door, a kind smile on his lips as you felt like a deer caught in headlights.

“A spot of tea, perhaps?” His voice was exactly as it had been in your dream, and it had jolted you back into reality as the wind picked up and you shivered. “And maybe an extra blanket?” He sounded amused as he stepped back to let you in, and you felt your skin tingle.

“So you were telling the truth in my dream?” He smiled.

“Lets get your coat off and get some tea for you, love.” You didn’t hesitate to follow, part of your mind concerned, but a larger portion thinking you’d follow him anywhere if he asked.

You both sat in silence whilst he was making the tea and you couldn’t help but stare at him. He was exactly the same in your dream. Part of you wondered if this was real.

“Are you really a cat?” Finally came the question as he set the tea in front  of you and you looked away in embarrassment when he laughed.

“Not the first question I expected, but I expected it.” His answer was encouraging as you glanced at him and watched as his entire body began to shrink and then suddenly Luke, the very black cat that had slept in your bed, sat on the table in front of you.

He shifted back and you felt your body slump as your eyes rolled backwards and he lunged forwards to keep you upright.

When you next woke, the scenery was different. You were in a lounge of sorts, the still hot tea, resting on the coffee table.

“That was a lot of you to take at once, I’ll admit. Are you feeling better now?” Luke crouched in front of you and you didn’t stop yourself as you reached out, your fingers touching his face.

His skin felt real and you watched as his eyes fell shut at your touch, a noise of content escaping him.

“Holy shit this is actually happening.” You finally whispered and he smiled, letting your hand drop from his face. 

That was when you noticed that you had a warm blanket thrown over you and the comfort that it offered was reminiscent of the nights that Luke the cat had spent curled up with you on the harder days.

“It’s a lot to take in, but I’ve got all the time in the world for you.” His smile was reassuring and you took in a deep breath.

“Reckon I can sleep with Luke the human?” You finally asked and he grinned.

“I think I can do that.” 

You could feel the couch shift underneath you and you realised that the back was moving so that it lay flat. Glancing at Luke in surprise, he looked unconcerned as pillows zoomed down the stairs, followed by a heavier quilt and then the couch cushions seemed to meld together and turn soft.

“Magic. Right. I’ll probably have more questions in the morning, but I certainly need more sleep.” You muttered and Luke laughed as he climbed under the covers with you, his arms pulling you against him and suddenly everything felt better, for just a moment.

“Everything that is mine is yours should you so wish it. My things, my home, my heart.” He whispered as you cuddled closer and although it felt like a lot, you also knew in your heart that you weren’t going to let him go.

“I’m happy with just the last one. The rest are bonuses.” You sleepily murmured before succumbing to your dreams once more. 

“And that’s why everything I have will be yours, love.” Luke whispered quietly before he too, followed off in the land of dreams.

When you woke the following morning, you knew in your heart that you weren’t to be parted from Luke. So when one day the house suddenly vanished from sight, those that grew up with the lore, silently toasted to the one who had won the sorcerers heart. 

-

@sexgodashton, @loveroflrh, @maluminspace, @h0tsos, @cashtonsangel, @mermaidcashton, @malumsmermaid, @5-secondsofcolor, @devilatmydoor, @lashtonswildflower, @karajaynetoday, @calpops, @rosecolouredash, @goth5sos, @cakesunflower, @calmlftv, @spicycal, @talkfastromance4, @wildflowergrae, @wildmichaelflower, @pinkbubbles-and-bigtroubles, @superbloomirwin, @superbloomed-c, @ashtonlrwin, @colormekaykay, @thecurlsofgod, @treatallwithkindness, @kiwijulia​

[jeanmoreaux]

Hey there! Disappointed anon on Poppy War here 😂 I finished the series, for the sake of completion by the time I reached the last book. I hear you friend! Even if I didn’t enjoy the series, it’s still good to hear when someone enjoys a story

I only loved Kitay, and found everybody else (especially Rin) very very™️ irritating. I just felt it was turning into a mess around 70% of the first book and although I get that the shifting of allegiances and decisions was probably meant to keep readers intrigued, I only saw it as chaotic in a very confused way. It’s almost like Poppy War was marketed as a certain story but then the author twisted it differently by the time we get to the event inspired by Rape of Nanjing in the first book.

I was expecting to be fed with Chinese lore and mythology but it kind of flew by very quickly and suddenly after Rin’s first year, if I wasn’t reading carefully I would’ve missed the (1) sentence that was saying years were passing by (which jarred me since a good chunk of the book was very detailed about Rin’s journey step by step); also there wasn’t much going on except Rin doing drugs by the end and then wasting away. A lot of what happened I feel wasn’t earned by the characters or was missing in terms of lore and backstory by the author

And I agree I’m also a very emotional reader, but I could not connect with any of the characters (except Kitay and maybe the twins for some reason) and it just wasn’t enough to keep me invested. I just couldn’t stand how gullible Rin was the entire time until the end, she will think one way and switch the next every time somebody else simply tells her to (even if instinct and history should have taught her better); I also did not like that she never learned any lessons at all or learned from her many mistakes, there was no growth but more of a deterioration and not in a way that felt like it made sense for the character

I really should make a proper essay to let it all out but I think this is mostly what I had a problem with! I felt it had so much potential. I was honestly thinking we’d have a drug war but that’s not what happened at all and too many things were being inserted at random times and an incredible amount of subplots that we never get answers to half the time

Pls don’t hate me 😔

omg no why should i hate you??? just because you didn't like a book series i love?? that would be really silly of me i think 😅🙈 i can definitely see the value in your criticism!! i am by no means saying it's a perfect series—i think that would be a little much to ask for any debut (i mean, there is always room for improvement, especially with first time published authors). i think a lot of the enjoyment of the series comes from personal interpretation and emotional connection to the characters? like i already mentioned, i absolutely love many of the characters, including rin! i totally see why people would find her irritating and frustrating, but for me she seemed so? palpable? idk i could sympathise with her struggles and fears and decisions. she was incredibly flawed but in a way that made sense considering her past and everything she goes through in the story. i understand why she might seem gullible at times or like she doesn't grows, but i don't think that's an entirely fair critique of the character in my opinion. like, she's a traumatised child that grew up to be an even more traumatised young woman. there isn't really a possibility for her to grow when she's hasn't even had the opportunity to deal with her trauma—there is only deterioration since she is trapped in this violent cycle (which in a way mirrors the cyclic nature of history). i think the part about never learning from her mistakes is partly rooted in her inability to move on. also, i think a lot of people make the same mistakes over and over again. she's definitely not alone in that. but i completely get how it's frustrating to read about and also a thing that might be annoying or seem like it doesn't make sense. for me, the deterioration—or corruption arc—made sense. it felt like the natural consequence in the absence of healing. as far as i remember, her responses to many situations and people is in line with what you could expect from someone dealing with complex ptsd.

in terms of marketing for the book, i don't really know much about that? i got into it pretty blind bc it was recommended to me (so i didn't expect a drug war or anything at all really). but i know that sooo many books are marketed as something that they are ultimately not, so i don't see why it couldn't have happened in this case too. your other criticism, too, is definitely valid! but a lot of that didn't bother me while reading, so it wasn't really anything i had an issue with. ((especially the subplot thing. that's quite fair.)) i'd actually love to read that essay!! sometimes you just gotta let it out and put it out there!! while i am sorry you didn't like the series, i understand all your criticism and disappointment even though i feel differently about some things. a lot of the enjoyment that we derive from books is often subjective, and i just think it's super neat to hear opinions form both sides of the spectrum!

[carcinized]

Hey hey hey I don’t have Tumblr BUT I saw your post about C!Tubbo dissociation headcanons and here I am, asking for them. And possibly more C!Tubbo headcanons. Preferably angsty. Just. Any of them. Please. Thank you.

oh, a fellow starved c!tubbo enthusiast. hello there, i do have some headcannons to spare luckily, hope you enjoy!! mostly this is the dissociation ones but i have some miscellaneous ones & songs at the end for you :]

so obviously uhhh tw for dissociation/depersonalisation/derealisation in this post!!! also going to put them under the cut bc this is long lmao

oh and disclaimer: this is very much based off my own experiences with (near constant) chronic dissociation so it might be different from other experiences!! yeah.

oh ALSO this is disorganized and probably missing stuff because i am going through a bad bout of spaciness as of right now, so apologies if anything is confusing, feel free to ask for clarification!

idk background timeline stuff so it fits into the story

at first he didn’t even realize he felt disconnected from things. it started off as a coping mechanism during combat and felt so similar to the feeling of being “in the zone” he’d known before that he didn’t question it

after a bit, it spread from only being there during battle to during conflict in general. still, he didn’t mind it—it actually made arguments more bearable because they felt almost secondhand.

eventually he came to use it as a crutch so much that it became constant.

that was when he started wanting it to go away.

and then because i can’t bear to give my precious c!tubbo constant dissociation he probably gets breaks from it sometimes idk lmao

his experiences:

gaps in memory

auditory processing issues

lots of depersonalisation and not recognizing himself in the mirror (which is even more fun/terrifying if you add in shapeshifter headcannons)

a lot of the time he feels like his actions aren’t his, which helped him to feel less bad doing morally ambiguous things (spying, exiling tommy, hunting technoblade, etc)

after it all he was left with near constant dissociation almost all the time.

it nearly always feels like the world is secondhand to him and he has no control/impact (ironic considering the power he has, and he knows that, but)

often wonders if he is dreaming and just waiting to wake up from a coma he’d gotten from one of his many battles.

when things get really bad he wishes he could just wake up from it.

often doesn’t recognize his hands looking down at them, especially with the burns he has now. they’re not his hands, right? but they are. they’re his hands. huh.

uhhh examples of where it could have been shown in plot if you squint lol

for example, that famous clip of him dancing while wilbur and tommy argue in the background would be a physical representation of him zoning out (dissociating) to get out of/away from an argument.

the whole yes man thing could have either been an auditory processing issue where he replied yes to wilbur without hearing what wilbur had asked OR a gap in memory where he didn’t remember telling tommy the opposite

he pulled away for like 5 months into snowchester and talked to hardly anyone but his husband and son. dissociation is hard to interact with people during because you feel so isolated for so many reasons—sometimes you feel you’re the only real thing there, sometimes it feels there’s a glass wall between you and everything else that IS real. and even ignoring that, most people can’t relate to feeling that way, leaving you even more alone. he could have pulled away because it was too much too keep going through that (i did that don’t recommend it tubbo JSJD)

miscellaneous headcannons that i don’t see very often:

after winning a battle, his instinct is to play a disc and look out at the sunset because that’s what he and tommy always did (see his lore yesterday (june 18th)—he did it with ranboo despite tommy not being there)

i’m rather fond of my original-l’manberg-citizens-consider-haircuts-and-fixing-up-appearances-affectionate-because-wilbur-did-it headcannon so i’ll add that here—basically wilbur gave everyone military cuts and new suits and everything. and while that was just for war, it was also because he cared about all of them. ever since, they all considered fixing up someone’s appearance an act of love.

tubbo refused to let anyone cut his hair after the red festival, not trusting anyone. he would probably let ranboo do it now, only he’s rather attached to the way it hides his burns and some of his horns and keeps him warm in the freezing snow.

he builds walls like how tommy builds cobblestone towers—a reflex, a coping mechanism, a habit. he built the l’manberg walls and ever since the defense has been second nature, whether for the best or the worst.

ive been waiting forever to share these i have way too many. i pass the hours staring out the window listening to misterwives and imagining c!tubbo animatics to it and now i have a chance to share them oh my god

so without further ado,

c!tubbo animatics i have in my head:

whywhywhy by misterwives: ok this one isn’t chalked out but it has him vibes

alone by misterwives: just him and ranboo. figuring things out. helping each other heal. i legitimately have an entire animatic in my head to this lyric by lyric and could make a fucking storyboard for it if only i could draw. if anyone wants me to write out lyric by lyric what it WOULD be though feel free to send an ask aHAHHAHAHA

over the rainbow by misterwives: a montage of c!tubbo just. finally going apeshit. that would be so cathartic alright and it’s such a badass song he deserves it

it’s my turn by misterwives: pretty much any times that tubbo finally got to do something back at someone who wronged him—the butcher army going after technoblade, him yelling at quackity about borders saying “well don’t i get to put my foot down too?” the lyrics “i know you’ve got your version of the story, i’m sick of saying sorry, i’m sick of always having to explain” during his spy arc PLEASE he had to justify everything he did and the “are you happier?” comment and schlatt breathing down his neck aAAAA give my boy a break (also the instrumental uses a lemon demon-type sound which makes me think of ranboo so i love imagining a cool bee dup building the outpost montage there snhshagahffn)

find my way home by misterwives: idk the vibes just fit man

oxygen by misterwives: hhhrnggg clingy duo angst oW

i did say i spend a lot of my time listening to misterwives and daydreaming c!tubbo animatics didn’t i?

anyways yeah. here’s some c!tubbo content to help us poor starved c!tubbo enthusiasts :’D also misterwives propaganda go listen to them female led band with a fucking badass lead singer with banger songs and incredible vocals and lyrics ANYWAY

[rawliverandcigarettes]

Mass Effect Retribution, a review

Mass Effect Retribution is the third book in the official Mass Effect trilogy by author Drew Karpyshyn, who happens to also be Lead Writer for Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 2.

I didn’t expect to pick it up, because to be very honest I didn’t expect to like it. 9 years ago I borrowed Mass Effect Revelations, and I still recall the experience as underwhelming. But this fateful fall of 2020 I had money (yay) and I saw the novel on the shelf of a swedish nerd store. I guess guilt motivated me to give the author another try: guilt, because I’ve been writing a Mass Effect fanfiction for an ungodly amount of years and I’ve been deathly afraid of lore that might contradict my decisions ever since I started -but I knew this book covered elements that are core to plot elements of my story, and I was willing to let my anxiety to the door and see what was up.

Disclaimer: I didn’t reread Mass Effect Revelation before plunging into this read, and entirely skipped Ascension. So anything in relation to character introduction and continuity will have to be skipped.

Back-cover pitch (the official, unbiased, long one)

Humanity has reached the stars, joining the vast galactic community of alien species. But beyond the fringes of explored space lurk the Reapers, a race of sentient starships bent on “harvesting” the galaxy’s organic species for their own dark purpose. The Illusive Man, leader of the pro-human black ops group Cerberus, is one of the few who know the truth about the Reapers. To ensure humanity’s survival, he launches a desperate plan to uncover the enemy’s strengths—and weaknesses—by studying someone implanted with modified Reaper technology. He knows the perfect subject for his horrific experiments: former Cerberus operative Paul Grayson, who wrested his daughter from the cabal’s control with the help of Ascension project director Kahlee Sanders. But when Kahlee learns that Grayson is missing, she turns to the only person she can trust: Alliance war hero Captain David Anderson. Together they set out to find the secret Cerberus facility where Grayson is being held. But they aren’t the only ones after him. And time is running out. As the experiments continue, the sinister Reaper technology twists Grayson’s mind. The insidious whispers grow ever stronger in his head, threatening to take over his very identity and unleash the Reapers on an unsuspecting galaxy. This novel is based on a Mature-rated video game.

Global opinion (TL;DR)

I came in hoping to be positively surprised and learn a thing or two about Reapers, about Cerberus and about Aria T’loak. I wasn’t, and I didn’t learn much. What I did learn was how cool ideas can get wasted by the very nature of game novelization, as the defects are not singular to this novel but quite widespread in this genre, and how annoyed I can get at an overuse of dialogue tags. The pacing is good and the narrative structure alright: everything else poked me in the wrong spots and rubbed how the series have always handled violence on my face with cruder examples. If I was on Good Reads, I’d probably give it something like 2 stars, for the pacing, some of the ideas, and my general sympathy for the IP novel struggle.

The indepth review continue past this point, just know there will be spoilers for the series, the Omega DLC which is often relevant, and the book itself!

What I enjoyed

Drew Karpyshyn is competent in narrative structure, and that does a lot for the pacing. Things rarely drag, and we get from one event to the next seamlessly. I’m not surprised this is one of the book’s qualities, as it comes from the craft of a game writer: pacing and efficiency are mandatory skills in this field. I would have preferred a clearer breaking point perhaps, but otherwise it’s a nice little ride that doesn’t ask a lot of effort from you (I was never tempted to DNF the book because it was so easy to read).

This book is packed with intringuing ideas -from venturing in the mind of the Illusive Man to assist, from the point of view of the victim, to Grayson’s biological transformation and assimilation into the Reaper hivemind, we get plenty to be excited for. I was personally intrigued about Liselle, Aria T’loak’s secret daughter, and eager to get a glimpse at the mind of the Queen Herself -also about how her collaboration with Cerberus came to be. Too bad none of these ideas go anywhere nor are being dealt with in an interesting way!!! But the concepts themselves were very good, so props for setting up interesting premices.

Pain is generally well described. It gets the job done.

I liked Sanak, the batarian that works as a second to Aria. He’s not very well characterized and everyone thinks he’s dumb (rise up for our national himbo), even though he reads almost smarter than her on multiple occasions, but I was happy whenever he was on the page, so yay for Sanak. But it might just be me having a bias for batarians.

Cool to have Kai Leng as a point of view character. I wasn’t enthralled by what was done with it, as he remains incredibly basic and as basically hateable and ungrounded than in Mass Effect 3 (I think he’s very underwhelming as a villain and he should have been built up in Mass Effect 2 to be effective). But there were some neat moments, such as the description of the Afterlife by Grayson who considers it as tugging at his base instincts, compared to Leng’s description of it where everything is deemed disgusting. The execution is not the best, but the concept was fun.

Pre-Reaperification Paul Grayson wasn’t the worst point of view to follow. I wasn’t super involved in his journey and didn’t care when he died one way or the other, but I empathized with his problems and hoped he would find a way out of the cycle of violence. The setup of his character arc was interesting, it’s just sad that any resolution -even negative- was dropped to focus on Reapers and his relationship with Kahlee Sanders, as I think the latter was the least interesting part.

The cover is cool and intringuing. Very soapy. It’s my favorite out of all the official novels, as it owns the cheesier aspect of the series, has nice contrasts and immediately asks questions. Very 90s/2000s. It’s great.

You may notice every thing I enjoyed was coated in complaints, because it’s a reflection of my frustration at this book for setting up interesting ideas and then completely missing the mark in their execution. So without further due, let’s talk about what I think the book didn’t do right.

1. Dumb complaints that don’t matter much

After reading the entire book, I am still a bit confused at to why Tim (the Illusive Man’s acronym is TIM in fandom, but I find immense joy in reffering to him as just Tim) wants his experimentation to be carried out on Grayson specifically, especially when getting to him is harder than pretty much anyone else (also wouldn’t pushing the very first experiments on alien captives make more sense given it’s Cerberus we’re talking about?). It seem to be done out of petty revenge, which is fine, but it still feels like quite the overlook to mess with a competent fighter, enhance him, and then expect things to stay under control (which Tim kind of doesn’t expect to, and that’s even weirder -why waste your components on something you plan to terminate almost immediately). At the same time, the pettiness is the only characterization we get out of Tim so good I guess? But if so, I wished it would have been accentuated to seem even more deliberate (and not have Tim regret to see it in himself, which flattens him and doesn’t inform the way he views the world and himself -but we’ll get to that).

I really disliked the way space travel is characterized. And that might be entirely just me, and perhaps it doesn’t contradict the rest of the lore, but space travel is so fast. People pop up left and right in a matter of hours. At some point we even get a mention of someone being able to jump 3 different Mass Relays and then arrive somewhere in 4 hours. I thought you first had to discharge your ship around a stellar object before being able to engage in the next jump (and that imply finding said object, which would have to take more than an hour). It’s not that big of a deal, but it completely crammed this giant world to a single boulevard for me and my hard-science-loving tastes. Not a big deal, but not a fan at all of this choice.

You wouldn’t believe how often people find themselves in a fight naked or in their underwear. It happens at least 3 times (and everyone naked survives -except one, we’ll get to her later).

Why did I need to know about this fifteen year’s old boner for his older teacher. Surely there were other ways to have his crush come across without this detail, or then have it be an actual point of tension in their relationship and not just a “teehee” moment. Weird choice imo.

I’m not a fan of the Talons. I don’t find them interesting or compelling. There is nothing about them that informs us on the world they live in. The fact they’re turian-ruled don’t tell us anything about turian culture that, say, the Blue Suns don’t tell us already. It’s a generic gang that is powerful because it is. I think they’re very boring, in this book and in the Omega DLC alike (a liiittle less in the DLC because of Nyreen, barely). Not a real criticism, I just don’t care for them at all.

I might just be very ace, but I didn’t find Anderson and Kahlee Sanders to have much chemistry. Same for Kahlee and Grayson (yes we do have some sort of love-triangle-but-not-really, but it’s not very important and it didn’t bother me much). Their relationships were all underwhelming to me, and I’ll explain why in part 4.

The red sand highs are barely described, and very safely -probably not from a place of intimate knowledge with drugs nor from intense research. Addiction is a delicate topic, and I feel like it could have been dealt with better, or not be included at all.

There are more of these, but I don’t want to turn this into a list of minor complaints for things that are more a matter of taste than craft quality or thematic relevance. So let’s move on.

2. Who cares about aliens in a Mass Effect novel

Now we’re getting into actual problems, and this one is kind of endemic to the Mass Effect novels (I thought the same when I read Revelation 9 years ago, though maybe less so as Saren in a PoV character -but I might have forgotten so there’s that). The aliens are described and characterized in the most uncurious, uninspired manner. Krogans are intimidating brutes. Turians are rigid. Asaris are sexy. Elcors are boring. Batarians are thugs (there is something to be said with how Aria’s second in command is literally the same batarian respawned with a different name in Mass Effect 2, this book, then the Omega DLC). Salarians are weak nerds. (if you allow me this little parenthesis because of course I have to complain about salarian characterization: the only salarian that speaks in the book talks in a cheap ripoff of Mordin’s speech pattern, which sucks because it’s specific to Mordin and not salarians as a whole, and is there to be afraid of a threat as a joke. This is SUCH a trope in the original trilogy -especially past Mass Effect 1 when they kind of give up on salarians except for a few chosen ones-, that salarians’ fear is not to be taken seriously and the only salarians who are to be considered don’t express fear at all -see Mordin and Kirrahe. It happens at least once per game, often more. This is one of the reasons why the genophage subplot is allowed to be so morally simple in ME3 and remove salarians from the equation. I get why they did that, but it’s still somewhat of a copeout. On this front, I have to give props to Andromeda for actually engaging with violence on salarians in a serious manner. It’s a refreshing change) I didn’t learn a single thing about any of these species, how they work, what they care about in the course of these 79750 words. I also didn’t learn much about their relationships to other species, including humans. I’ll mention xenophobia in more details later, but this entire aspect of the story takes a huge hit because of this lack of investment of who these species are.

I’ve always find Mass Effect, despite its sprawling universe full of vivid ideas and unique perspectives, to be strangely enamoured with humans, and it has never been so apparent than here. Only humans get to have layers, deserving of empathy and actual engagement. Only their pain is real and important. Only their death deserve mourning (we’ll come back to that). I’d speculate this comes from the same place that was terrified to have Liara as a love interest in ME1 in case she alienated the audience, and then later was surprised when half the fanbase was more interested in banging the dinosaur-bird than their fellow humans: Mass Effect often seem afraid of losing us and breaking our capacity for self-projection. It’s a very weird concern, in my opinion, that reveals the most immature, uncertain and soapy parts of the franchise. Here it’s punched to eleven, and I find it disappointing. It also have a surprising effect on the narrative: again, we’ll come back to that.

3. The squandered potential of Liselle and Aria

Okay. This one hurts. Let’s talk about Liselle: she’s introduced in the story as a teammate to Grayson, who at the time works as a merc for Aria T’loak on Omega, and also sleeps with him on the regular. She likes hitting the Afterlife’s dancefloor: she’s very admired there, as she’s described as extremely attractive. One night after receiving a call from Grayson, she rejoins him in his apartment. They have sex, then Kai Leng and other Cerberus agents barge in to capture Grayson -a fight break out (the first in a long tradition of naked/underwear fights), and both of them are stunned with tranquilizers. Grayson is to be taken to the Illusive Man. Kai Leng decides to slit Liselle’s throat as she lays unconscious to cover their tracks. When Aria T’loak and her team find her naked on a bed, throat gaping and covered in blood, Liselle is revealed, through her internal monologue, to be Aria’s secret daughter -that she kept secret for both of their safety. So Liselle is a sexpot who dies immediately in a very brutal and disempowered manner. This is a sad way to handle Aria T’loak’s daughter I think, but I assume it was done to give a strong motivation to the mother, who thinks Grayson did it. And also, it’s a cool setup to explore her psyche: how does she feel about business catching up with her in such a personal manner, how does she feel about the fact she couldn’t protect her own offspring despite all her power, what’s her relationship with loss and death, how does she slip when under high emotional stress, how does she deal with such a vulnerable position of having to cope without being able to show any sign of weakness... But the book does nothing with that. The most interesting we get is her complete absence of outward reaction when she sees her daughter as the centerpiece of a crime scene. Otherwise we have mentions that she’s not used to lose relatives, vague discomfort when someone mentions Liselle might have been raped, and vague discomfort at her body in display for everyone to gawk at. It’s not exactly revelatory behavior, and the missed potential is borderline criminal. It also doesn’t even justify itself as a strong motivation, as Aria vaguely tries to find Grayson again and then gives up until we give her intel on a silver platter. Then it almost feels as if she forgot her motivation for killing Grayson, and is as motivated by money than she is by her daughter’s murder (and that could be interesting too, but it’s not done in a deliberate way and therefore it seems more like a lack of characterization than anything else).

Now, to Aria. Because this book made me realize something I strongly dislike: the framing might constantly posture her as intelligent, but Aria T’loak is... kind of dumb, actually? In this book alone she’s misled, misinformed or tricked three different times. We’re constantly ensured she’s an amazing people reader but never once do we see this ability work in her favor -everyone fools her all the time. She doesn’t learn from her mistakes and jump from Cerberus trap to Cerberus trap, and her loosing Omega to them later is laughably stupid after the bullshit Tim put her through in this book alone. I’m not joking when I say the book has to pull out an entire paragraph on how it’s easier to lie to smart people to justify her complete dumbassery during her first negotiation with Tim. She doesn’t seem to know anything about how people work that could justify her power. She’s not politically savvy. She’s not good at manipulation. She’s just already established and very, very good at kicking ass. And I wouldn’t mind if Aria was just a brutish thug who maintains her power through violence and nothing else, that could also be interesting to have an asari act that way. But the narrative will not bow to the reality they have created for her, and keep pretending her flaw is in extreme pride only. This makes me think of the treatment of Sansa Stark in the latest seasons of Game of Thrones -the story and everyone in it is persuaded she’s a political mastermind, and in the exact same way I would adore for it to be true, but it’s just... not. It’s even worse for Aria, because Sansa does have victories by virtue of everyone being magically dumber than her whenever convenient. Aria just fails, again and again, and nobody seem to ever acknowledge it. Sadly her writing here completely justifies her writing in the Omega DLC and the comics, which I completely loathe; but turns out Aria isn’t smart or savvy, not even in posture or as a façade. She’s just violent, entitled, easily fooled, and throws public tantrums when things don’t go her way. And again, I guess that would be fine if only the narrative would recognize what she is. Me, I will gently ignore most of this (in her presentation at least, because I think it’s interesting to have something pitiful when you dig a little) and try to write her with a bit more elevation. But this was a very disappointing realization to have.

4. The squandered potential of Grayson and the Reapers

The waste of a subplot with Aria and Liselle might have hurt me more in a personal way, but what went down between Grayson and the Reapers hurts the entire series in a startling manner. And it’s so infuriating because the potential was there. Every setpiece was available to create something truly unique and disturbing by simply following the series’ own established lore. But this is not what happens. See, when The Illusive Man, our dearest Tim, captures Grayson for a betrayal that happened last book (something about his biotic autistic daughter -what’s the deal with autistic biotics being traumatized by Cerberus btw), he decides to use him as the key part of an experiment to understand how Reapers operate. So he forcefully implants the guy with Reaper technology (what they do exactly is unclear) to study his change into a husk and be prepared when Reapers come for humanity -it’s also compared to what happened with Saren when he “agreed” to be augmented by Sovereign. From there on, Grayson slowly turns into a husk. Doesn’t it sound fascinating, to be stuck in the mind of someone losing themselves to unknowable monsters? If you agree with me then I’m sorry because the execution is certainly... not that. The way the author chooses to describe the event is to use the trope of mind control used in media like Get Out: Grayson taking the backseat of his own mind and body. And I haaaaate it. I hate it so much. I don’t hate the trope itself (it can be interesting in other media, like Get Out!), but I loathe that it’s used here in a way that totally contradicts both the lore and basic biology. Grayson doesn’t find himself manipulated. He doesn’t find himself justifying increasingly jarring actions the way Saren has. He just... loses control of himself, disagreeing with what’s being done with him but not able to change much about it. He also can fight back and regain control sometimes -but his thoughts are almost untainted by Reaper influence. The technology is supposed to literally replace and reorganize the cells of his body; is this implying that body and mind are separated, that there maybe exists a soul that transcends indoctrination? I don’t know but I hate it. This also implies that every victim of the Reaper is secretely aware of what they’re doing and pained and disagreeing with their own actions. And I’m sorry but if it’s true, I think this sucks ass and removes one of the creepiest ideas of the Mass Effect universe -that identity can and will be lost, and that Reapers do not care about devouring individuality and reshaping it to the whims of their inexorable march. Keeping a clear stream of consciousness in the victim’s body makes it feel like a curse and not like a disease. None of the victims are truly gone that way, and it removes so much of the tragic powerlessness of organics in their fight against the machines. Imagine if Saren watched himself be a meanie and being like “nooo” from within until he had a chance to kill himself in a near-victorious battle, compared to him being completely persuaded he’s acting for the good of organic life until, for a split second, he comes to realize he doesn’t make any sense and is loosing his mind like someone with dementia would, and needs to grasp to this instant to make the last possible thing he could do to save others and his own mind from domination. I feel so little things for Saren in the former case, and so much for the latter. But it might just be me: I’m deeply touched by the exploration of how environment and things like medication can change someone’s behavior, it’s such a painfully human subject while forceful mind control is... just kind of cheap.

SPEAKING OF THE REAPERS. Did you know “The Reapers” as an entity is an actual character in this book? Because it is. And “The Reapers” is not a good character. During the introduction of Grayson and explaining his troubles, we get presented with the mean little voice in his head. It’s his thoughts in italics, nothing crazy, in fact it’s a little bit of a copeout from actually implementing his insecurities into the prose. But I gave the author the benefit of the doubt, as I knew Grayson would be indoctrinated later, and I fully expected the little voice to slowly start twisting into what the Reapers suggested to him. This doesn’t happen, or at least not in that slowburn sort of way. Instead the little voice is dropped almost immediately, and the Reapers are described, as a presence. And as the infection progresses, what Grayson do become what the Reapers do. The Reapers have emotions, it turns out. They’re disgusted at organic discharges. They’re pleased when Grayson accomplish what they want, and it’s told as such. They foment little plans to get their puppet to point A to point B, and we are privy to their calculations. And I’m sorry but the best way to ruin your lovecraftian concept is to try and explain its motivations and how it thinks. Because by definition the unknown is scarier, smarter, and colder than whatever a human author could come up with. I couldn’t take the Reapers’ dumb infiltration plans seriously, and now I think they are dumb all the time, and I didn’t want to!! The only cases in which the Reapers influence Grayson, we are told in very explicit details how so. For example, they won’t let Grayson commit suicide by flooding his brain with hope and determination when he tries, or they will change the words he types when he tries to send a message to Kahlee Sanders. And we are told exactly what they do every time. There was a glorious occasion to flex as a writer by diving deep into an unreliable narrator and write incredibly creepy prose, but I guess we could have been confused, and apparently that’s not allowed. And all of this is handled that poorly becauuuuuse...

5. Subtext is dead and Drew killed it

Now we need to talk about the prose. The style of the author is... let’s be generous and call it functional. It’s about clarity. The writing is so involved in its quest for clarity that it basically ruins the book, and most of the previous issues are direct consequences of the prose and adjacent decisions.The direct prose issues are puzzling, as they are known as rookie technical flaws and not something I would expect from the series’ Lead Writer for Mass Effect 1 and 2, but in this book we find problems such as:

The reliance on adverbs. Example: "Breathing heavily from the exertion, he stood up slowly”. I have nothing about a well-placed adverb that gives a verb a revelatory twist, but these could be replaced by stronger verbs, or cut altogether.

Filtering. Example: “Anderson knew that the fact they were getting no response was a bad sign”. This example is particularly egregious, but characters know things, feel things, realize things (boy do they realize things)... And this pulls us away from their internal world instead of making us live what they live, expliciting what should be implicit. For example, consider the alternative: “They were getting no reponse, which was a bad sign in Anderson’s experience.” We don’t really need the “in Anderson’s experience” either, but that already brings us significantly closer to his world, his lived experience as a soldier.

The goddamn dialogue tags. This one is the worst offender of the bunch. Nobody is allowed to talk without a dialogue tag in this book, and wow do people imply, admit, inform, remark and every other verb under the sun. Consider this example, which made me lose my mind a little: “What are you talking about? Kahlee wanted to know.” I couldn’t find it again, but I’m fairly certain I read a “What is it?” Anderson wanted to know. as well. Not only is it very distracting, it’s also yet another way to remove reader interpretation from the equation (also sometimes there will be a paragraph break inside a monologue -not even a long one-, and that doesn’t seem to be justified by anything? It’s not as big of a problem than the aversion to subtext, but it still confused me more than once)

Another writing choice that hurts the book in disproportionate ways is the reliance on point of view switches. In Retribution, we get the point of view of: Tim, Paul Grayson, Kai Leng, Kahlee Sanders, David Anderson, Aria T’loak, and Nick (a biotic teenager, the one with the boner). Maybe Sanak had a very small section too, but I couldn’t find it again so don’t take my word for it. That’s too many point of views for a plot-heavy 80k book in my opinion, but even besides that: the point of view switch several times in one single chapter. This is done in the most harmful way possible for tension: characters involved in the same scene take turns on the page explaining their perspective about the events, in a way that leaves the reader entirely aware of every stake to every character and every information that would be relevant in a scene. Take for example the first negotiation between Aria and Tim. The second Aria needs to ponder what her best move could possibly be, we get thrown back into Tim’s perspective explaining the exact ways in which he’s trying to deceive her -removing our agency to be either convinced or fooled alongside her. This results in a book that goes out of his way to keep us from engaging with its ideas and do any mental work on our own. Everything is laid out, bare and as overexplained as humanly possible. The format is also very repetitive: characters talk or do an action, and then we spend a paragraph explaining the exact mental reasoning for why they did what they did. There is nothing to interpret. No subtext at all whatsoever; and this contributes in casting a harsh light on the Mass Effect universe, cheapening it and overtly expliciting some of its worst ideas instead of leaving them politely blurred and for us to dress up in our minds. There is only one theme that remains subtextual in my opinion. And it’s not a pretty one.

6. Violence

So here’s the thing when you adapt a third person shooter into a novel: you created a violent world and now you will have to deal with death en-masse too (get it get it I’m so sorry). But while in videogames you can get away with thoughtless murder because it’s a gameplay mechanic and you’re not expected to philosophize on every splatter of blood, novels are all about internalization. Violent murder is by definition more uncomfortable in books, because we’re out of gamer conventions and now every death is actual when in games we just spawned more guys because we wanted that level to be a bit harder and on a subconscious level we know this and it makes it somewhat okay. I felt, in this book, a strange disconnect between the horrendous violence and the fact we’re expected to care about it like we would in a game: not much, or as a spectacle. Like in a game, we are expected to root for the safety of named characters the story indicated us we should be invested in. And because we’re in a book, this doesn’t feel like the objective truth of the universe spelled at us through user interface and quest logs, but the subjective worldview of the characters we’re following. And that makes them.... somewhat disturbing to follow.

I haven’t touched on Anderson and Kahlee Sanders much yet, but now I guess I have too, as they are the worst offenders of what is mentioned above. Kahlee cares about Grayson. She only cares about Grayson -and her students like the forementioned Nick, but mostly Grayson. Grayson is out there murdering people like it’s nobody’s business, but still, keeping Grayson alive is more important that people dying like flies around him. This is vaguely touched on, but not with the gravitas that I think was warranted. Also, Anderson goes with it. Because he cares about Kahlee. Anderson organizes a major political scandal between humans and turians because of Kahlee, because of Grayson. He convinces turians to risk a lot to bring Cerberus down, and I guess that could be understandable, but it’s mostly manipulation for the sake of Grayson’s survival: and a lot of turians die as a result. But not only turians: I was not comfortable with how casually the course of action to deal a huge blow to Cerberus and try to bring the organization down was to launch assault on stations and cover-ups for their organization. Not mass arrests: military assault. They came to arrest high operatives, maybe, but the grunts were okay to slaughter. This universe has a problem with systemic violence by the supposedly good guys in charge -and it’s always held up as the righteous and efficient way compared to these UGH boring politicians and these treaties and peace and such (amirite Anderson). And as the cadavers pile up, it starts to make our loveable protagonists... kind of self-centered assholes. Also: I think we might want to touch on who these cadavers tend to be, and get to my biggest point of discomfort with this novel.

Xenophobia is hard to write well, and I super sympathize with the attempts made and their inherent difficulty. This novel tries to evoke this theme in multiple ways: by virtue of having Cerberus’ heart and blade as point of view characters, we get a window into Tim and Kai Leng’s bigotry against aliens, and how this belief informs their actions. I wasn’t ever sold in their bigotry as it was shown to us. Tim evokes his scorn for whatever aliens do and how it’s inferior to humanity’s resilience -but it’s surface-level, not informed by deep and specific entranched beliefs on aliens motives and bodies, and how they are a threat on humanity according to them. The history of Mass Effect is rich with conflict and baggage between species, yet every expression of hatred is relegated to a vague “eww aliens” that doesn’t feed off systemically enforced beliefs but personal feelings of mistrust and disgust. I’ll take this example of Kai Leng, and his supposedly revulsion at the Afterlife as a peak example of alien decadence: he sees an asari in skimpy clothing, and deems her “whorish”. And this feels... off. Not because I don’t think Kai Leng would consider asaris whorish, but because this is supposed to represent Cerberus’ core beliefs: yet both him and Tim go on and on about how their goal is to uplift humanity, how no human is an enemy. But if that’s the case, then what makes Kai Leng call an Afterlife asari whorish and mean it in a way that’s meaningfully different from how he would consider a human sex worker in similar dispositions? Not that I don’t buy that Cerberus would have a very specific idea of what humans need to be to be considered worth preserving as good little ur-fascists, but this internal bias is never expressed in any way, and it makes the whole act feel hollow. Cerberus is not the only offender, though. Every time an alien expresses bias against humans in a way we’re meant to recognize as xenophobic, it reads the same way: as personal dislike and suspicion. As bullying. Which is such a small part of what bigotry encompasses. It’s so unspecific and divorced from their common history that it just never truly works in my opinion. You know what I thought worked, though? The golden trio of non-Cerberus human characters, and their attitude towards aliens. Grayson’s slight fetishism and suspicion of his attraction to Liselle, how bestial (in a cool, sexy way) he perceives the Afterlife to be. The way Anderson and Kahlee use turians for their own ends and do not spare a single thought towards those who died directly trying to protect them or Grayson immediately after the fact (they are more interested in Kahlee’s broken fingers and in kissing each other). How they feel disgust watching turians looting Cerberus soldiers, not because it’s disrespectful in general and the deaths are a inherent tragedy but because they are turians and the dead are humans. But it's not even really on them: the narration itself is engrossed by the suffering of humans, but aliens are relegated to setpieces in gore spectacles. Not even Grayson truly cares about the aliens the Reapers make him kill. Nobody does. Not even the aliens among each other: see, once again, Aria and Liselle, or Aria and Sanak. Nobody cares. At the very end of the story, Anderson comes to Kahlee and asks if she gives him permission to have Grayson’s body studied, the same way Cerberus planned to. It’s source of discomfort, but Kahlee gives in as it’s important, and probably what Grayson would have wanted, maybe? So yeah. In the end the only subtextual theme to find here (probably as an accident) is how the Alliance’s good guys are not that different from Cerberus it turns out. And I’m not sure how I feel about that.

7. Lore-approved books, or the art of shrinking an expanding universe

I’d like to open the conversation on a bigger topic: the very practice of game novelization, or IP-books. Because as much as I think Drew Karpyshyn’s final draft should not have ended up reading that amateur given the credits to his name, I really want to acknowledge the realities of this industry, and why the whole endeavor was perhaps doomed from the start regardless of Karpyshyn’s talent or wishes as an author.

The most jarring thing about this reading experience is as follows: I spent almost 80k words exploring this universe with new characters and side characters, all of them supposedly cool and interesting, and I learned nothing. I learned nothing new about the world, nothing new about the characters. Now that it’s over, I’m left wondering how I could chew on so much and gain so little. Maybe it’s just me, but more likely it’s by design. Not on poor Drew. Now that I did IP work myself, I have developed an acute sympathy for anyone who has to deal with the maddening contradictions of this type of business. Let me explain.

IP-adjacent media (in the West at least) sure has for goal to expand the universe: but expand as in bloat, not as in deepen. The target for this book is nerds like me, who liked the games and want more of this thing we liked. But then we’re confronted by two major competitors: the actual original media (in ME’s case, the games) whose this product is a marketing tool for, and fandom. IP books are not allowed to compete with the main media: the good ideas are for the main media, and any meaningful development has to be made in the main media (see: what happened with Kai Leng, or how everyone including me complains about the worldbuilding to the Disney Star Swars trilogy being hidden in the novelization). And when it comes to authorship (as in: taking an actual risk with the media and give it a personal spin), then we risk introducing ideas that complicate the main media even though a ridiculously small percent of the public will be attached to it, or ideas that fans despise. Of course we can’t have the latter. And once the fandom is huge enough, digging into anything the fans have strong headcanons for already risks creating a lot of emotions once some of these are made canon and some are disregarded. As much as I joke about how in Mass Effect you can learn about any gun in excrutiating details but we still don’t know if asaris have a concept for marriage... would we really want to know how/if asaris marry, or aren’t we glad we get to be creative and put our own spin on things? The dance between fandom and canon is a delicate one that can and will go wrong. And IP books are generally not worth the drama for the stakeholders.

Add this to insane deadlines, numerous parties all involved in some way and the usual struggles of book writing, and we get a situation where creating anything of value is pretty much a herculean task.

But then I ask... why do IP books *have* to be considered canon? I know this is part of the appeal, and that removing the “licenced” part only leaves us with published fanfiction, but... yeah. Yeah. I think it could be a fascinating model. Can you imagine having your IP and hiring X amount of distinctive authors to give it their own spin, not as definitive additions to the world but as creative endeavours and authorial deepdives? It would allow for these novels to be comparative and companion to the main media instead of being weird appendages that can never compare, and the structure would allow for these stories to be polished and edited to a higher level than most fanfictions. Of course I’m biased because I have a deep belief in the power of fanfiction as commentary and conversational piece. But I would really love to see companies’ approach to creative risk and canon to change. We might get Disney stuff until we die now, so the least we can ask for is for this content to be a little weird, personal and human.

That’s it. That’s the whole review. Thank you for reading, it was very long and weirdly passionate, have a nice dayyyyy.

[dickspeightjrs]

What If I Never Love Again? (canon / 1.8k words)

ao3 link

based on ‘All I Ask’ by Adele - I recommend listening to the song first but it’s not essential

I will leave my heart at the door

I won't say a word

They've all been said before you know

So why don't we just play pretend

Like we're not scared of what is coming next

Or scared of having nothing left

Look, don't get me wrong

I know there is no tomorrow

 There’s nothing left to say. They know that the big fight will go down tomorrow. They know there’s a great chance of one of them not surviving tomorrow. 

Sam had finally been able to track down Chuck. He’d been hiding out, causing destruction from afar but he’d finally slipped up. Sam had shared the news with Dean and Castiel and they’d formed a plan for tomorrow.  

Now, Sam is in the library reading as much lore as he possibly can in the slight hope that it will help them. Just like he’d crammed for exams in what feels now like a previous life. The irony that the college life he’d left behind all those years ago was helping him even now is clear as day. 

As he’d left Dean and Castiel alone, he’d given Dean a look, eyes flitting momentarily to Castiel. Dean had known what that look meant but he’d just closed his eyes to it. He is terrified of what tomorrow might bring. Terrified that they might not survive it this time. Looking at Castiel, he imagines the angel is thinking the same. Though, neither one of them wants to express their fears, scared that the other doesn’t feel the same. 

The room has been silent since Sam left. Dean and Castiel remain seated at the table in the kitchen. But the quiet encourages Dean’s thoughts to travel quickly to dark places and endless ‘what-ifs’, so he rises from the table to flick on the radio. Normally, Dean scoffs at the radio, instead finding solace in the familiar sounds of his records. But now, he needs some white noise to shine away the shadows creeping into his head. 

Castiel’s gentle gaze remains on Dean as the hunter moves around the kitchen, setting the music to a low volume. Dean can feel it like a spotlight. A sharp, bright focus, solely on him. He can’t help but feel like he should say something comforting, or let out a sarcastic quip like he usually would to dispel the tension. But he finds he can’t. He doesn’t want to think about the truths of tomorrow but he also can’t bring himself to plaster on his go-to false confidence. Not this time. 

All I ask is

If this is my last night with you

Hold me like I'm more than just a friend

Give me a memory I can use

Take me by the hand while we do what lovers do

It matters how this ends

'Cause what if I never love again?

 One song bleeds into another. Until, the soft but heartfelt tones of a woman filter through. Dean recognises the voice but can’t place the name. As the opening lyrics begin, he can’t help but chuckle internally to himself at the irony of hearing everything he wants to say being sung out instead. 

With a deep, steady breath, and a small burst of confidence, Dean rises to his feet. Castiel follows the movement with his eyes, which become confused when Dean holds out a hand wordlessly. Trusting Dean instinctively, Castiel takes the hand and rises to his feet. 

Avoiding Castiel’s eyes, Dean gently pulls the angel into his chest, continuing to grip his hand like a lifeline and carefully slipping his other hand along Castiel’s back. He’d touched the trench coat Castiel wore many times before but he’d never felt it. The rough but consistent feel of the material under his fingertips is distinctly Castiel in a way that Dean could never properly explain. 

Castiel’s confusion seems to disappear with Dean’s movements. He grips Dean’s hand right back with a fierce certainty, and moves a hand to the small of Dean’s back. Their heads rest against each other in such a way that means they can’t see the other’s face. Even without being able to see it in his expression, Dean is assured that Castiel understands what he’s trying to do, trying to say, by the way he naturally matches the way Dean sways their bodies to the smooth timbre of the singer’s voice. 

At this moment, the only people that exist in the entire universe are Dean and Castiel. The hunter and the angel, who gripped him tight and raised him from perdition. 

Anything else outside the room just falls away as Dean lets himself sink into the way Castiel’s embrace feels. He allows himself to pretend that this is real. That he’d finally had the courage to voice his feelings aloud. The feelings he’d had bottled up for years. 

As they continue to step together, Dean lets his head shift down slowly to rest on Castiel’s shoulder, turning his face into the neck of the angel. He takes in the scent from Castiel. An unassuming but strong essence to him that Dean has never experienced before, but now could surely never live without. 

 I don't need your honesty

It's already in your eyes

And I'm sure my eyes, they speak for me

No one knows me like you do

And since you're the only one that matters

Tell me who do I run to?

Look, don't get me wrong

I know there is no tomorrow

 Castiel pulls away ever so slightly from their embrace to unclasp his hand from Dean’s and reposition it against his other at Dean’s back. Dean mirrors the action and allows himself, finally, to look into Castiel’s eyes. 

He feels foolish that he’d been worried about whether Castiel would understand what he was trying to express. 

It was all in the eyes of the angel. Eyes that were once so cold and unmoving towards Dean, and anyone else they set their sights upon. But now, they show nothing but warmth and love. 

Dean would never kid himself into thinking that any of the looks, the gazes that lasted a touch too long, that Castiel gave him were anything more than friendly. But now, with only he and Castiel in the room, Dean could deny it no longer. The look of complete adoration in Castiel’s eyes tells Dean all he needs to know. 

He only hopes that his eyes are shining the same. 

 All I ask is

If this is my last night with you

Hold me like I'm more than just a friend

Give me a memory I can use

Take me by the hand while we do what lovers do

It matters how this ends

'Cause what if I never love again?

 Quickly, Dean becomes overwhelmed and rests his forehead against Castiel’s, breaking the connection. Reality crashes through the door and Dean is left with the realisation that Castiel could be taken from him tomorrow. He could never see those beautiful blue eyes again, smell that increasingly intoxicating scent.  

He wouldn’t let it happen.

From the outside, Dean continues to sway peacefully with Castiel in his arms. But on the inside, his brain is working over time. 

He curses himself for wasting so much time. Being scared of what others would think. Of Castiel being taken away. And here they are on the eve of another showdown, possibly their biggest yet, and he can’t help but regret all the time lost. All the excuses he’d given himself for not confessing his true feelings to Castiel seem so stupid now.  

He’d never felt this connection with another person before. Sure he’d loved Lisa and even Cassie. But even a year spent with Lisa and he could never let himself relax. The stress of constantly being on guard, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Waiting for one of their many enemies to show up, or for Lisa to realise what a mess Dean was and leave him - whichever came first. 

But Castiel, god, he knows it all. The first time he ever saw Dean, he was stripped bare, down to his beaten soul, and Castiel still thought he was worth saving. He’s seen all of Dean’s lowest moments (of which Dean knows there have been far too many for one man’s lifetime) and he still sees Dean’s significance to the world. 

To have found a love that is all-consuming with someone who knows every one of your demons and still reciprocates that love? It certainly makes the life Dean has lived seem worth it. All the sacrifices he’s had to make. All the days he’s wanted to give up and let the monster take him. All of it is worth it because it has led to this moment. 

And now Dean knows what it’s like to be held by the angel, in a way he’d never dare dream to be. He knows that if Castiel were taken from him tomorrow, he wouldn’t ever find this again. 

 Let this be our lesson in love

Let this be the way we remember us

I don't wanna be cruel or vicious

And I ain't asking for forgiveness

 If Dean survives and makes it to an old age, he wants this moment with Castiel to be the one he remembers until his dying breath. Because in this moment nothing else matters, not the times they’ve argued, not the times they’ve betrayed each other. Only this. Only the feel of each other’s breath against their faces. Only the beating of their hearts against each other. 

As the song begins to draw to a close, Dean stops their subtle dancing and looks Castiel in the eyes once more. Moving a hand up to rest on Castiel’s jawline, Dean knows immediately what he needs to do now. If he doesn’t, he might just burst. 

Without a second’s more thought, and with Castiel’s trusting eyes watching Dean’s every minute movement, Dean leans in to capture Castiel’s lips in a deep, eager kiss. Castiel joins Dean and matches his desperation. 

To Dean, it feels like when he finally took a gasp of air after pulling himself out of the grave. He feels like he’s got new life within him. A spark of potential that has just been created. He knows that he’ll never deny himself of this feeling again. 

Little does he know, regardless of what occurs with Chuck tomorrow. He’s just made Castiel happier than he had ever been before. And with his first true and ready expression of love, Dean has already sealed their fate. 

 All I ask is

If this is my last night with you

Hold me like I'm more than just a friend

Give me a memory I can use

Take me by the hand while we do what lovers do

It matters how this ends

'Cause what if I never love again?

-

A/N: I’m not sure how I feel about this. But the idea has been floating around in my head for a few days since I heard the song. My brain hasn’t been functioning properly so I feel like it’s not as good as it could have been but it is what it is. 

I also feel like my fics are too dialogue heavy sometimes so I feel like I wanted to challenge myself to have a fic completely without it. Not sure if I pulled it off. Guess you guys will be the judge of that lmao

-

TAGS: @eccentriccas @starrynightdeancas @credentiast @imbiowaresbitch @starclaire @cockleslovesdestiel @bend-me-shape-me @destielfactory @dea-stiel @wendeano @wingsandimpalas @aggressivedean @flowersforcas @chill-legilimens @pancakesofthelord @saltnhalo @caslikescoffeeandfreckles @assbuttboyfriends @jhoomwrites @breathingdestiel @simplymisha @thekingslover @aelysianmuse @2musiclover2 @cas-you-assbutt-dean-needs-you

(let me know if you’d like to be added/removed from the tag list, we don’t have to be mutuals!)