#but also wanting to get as far away as possible from an incomprehensible threat

[a-e-redacted]

YES!!!

*Bursts into the room screeching and throwing pots and pans*

YOU!! YOU GET IT!!

I can't stop thinking about the fact that Collie is a teeny tiny eldritch horror(headcanon). Knowing the darkness secrets of the universe. Possessing a knowledge about the nature of existence, time, overall scientists far beyond mortal comprehension. The little god, raised as a one in a belief of their superiority over mortals. Allowed to decide about fates of those beneath. The eldritch who adores the life and wants to both understand and protect it, while being the greatest threat to living. Also they are extremely similar to the creatures from the deepest and darkest trenches of ocean. Relaying on lowest instinct, primal force who brought then to being. Moving blindly through the emptiness of the universe in search of the precious energy, the life to fill the endless void, which consumes them from the inside. Never meant to experience satisfaction nor rest. Left only with vague sense of purpose, which they will execute at all cost. But they are an actual kid, who loves games and warmth of other creatures. And those natures of Collector are equal and complement one another, forming whole picture of who they are. Leading to those "clashing situations" when Collie is a kiddo and just "breaks the character". It could be the most unsettling, unhinged behaviour/information about themselves, casually explaining the most complex theories from all the science studies like it's common knowledge with no reason, reacting weirdly to any old cultural/history texts, but never mentioning why, treating the mortals with some distance, sympathy and objectify or just entering a little hunt mode out of nowhere. Casually remind that they surely a kid but the primal god's kid. The moral backbone, all the social cues, all acceptable behaviours might simply not apply to them, never been taught. All this burden to show Collie how to be good mortal is on their surrounding. Not always in the best way, but still. A cute, adorable and perfect for snuggling kiddo, but that uncanny feeling being around them, similar to facing a wild dangerous animal, knowing it could tear you apart, but it just passed by, never leaves.

[me-beef]

i am going to finally start posting what I’ve been working on!!!

my girlfriend and I have been world-building together for a homebrew pathfinder campaign that she started running for us and some friends- this is a character i’ve had for 3 years now, but only really started developing her story and whirling her around in my brain at mach speeds in the last couple months or so

i’ll put some lore and a couple other sketches under the cut. i’m also going to try and set up a queue for the other art and sketches i’ve made for the campaign so far, so watch out for that!

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

Have you heard of a whale fall?

Imagine being a creature living on the bottom of the ocean floor- life is hard. It's cold, it's dark, food is scarce. Suddenly, a giant, incomprehensible being floats down from the heavens. You and hundreds, maybe thousands of organisms clamor to the remains of the beast, a sudden beacon of prosperity in this wasteland, desperate to get even a scrap of its of life-giving nutrients. Every creature that partakes will have a piece of that being inside of them forever- fueling them, giving them life, becoming a part of them. Do you think these creatures would worship such a being? Would they consider it a god? Salvation? In the world of Omna, remnants of old gods past have fallen down from the divine realm and settled in the mortal plane. Their remains are what have created the landscapes of this world (mountain ranges, valleys, islands, etc). Mortals who live and dwell upon the remains find themselves changed slowly throughout the generations- changed by the faint fragments of the gods lingering power. --------------------------------------------------------

ok. now for my character Name: Felise Pfeiffer (Fell) Age: 19 Class: Cosmos Oracle Background: Scholar (Arcane) Felise is a cosmos oracle- which means her powers come at the cost of a curse that slowly takes over her body. Instead of something like stars, I wanted her curse to appear as this sort of.... corrupted, glitchy, chaos-y aura. It's very closely tied to her emotions, so when she gets really worked up, the static progressively expands around her. After she was "cursed", if she let her emotions get away from her, she risked hurting herself or other students at her academy. In order to avoid becoming a threat to the other students and faculty, and ultimately getting kicked out of school, she devised a number of strategies to help keep her emotions in check. (mechanically this is her settle emotions/refocus action. I'd like to think she uses the time to focus on slowing down her breathing. She uses her dancing lights cantrip to help- i imagine her spinning the lights around in her hands meditatively, kind of like baoding balls if you know what those are) (also yes, her curse magic manifesting is the equivalent of a panic attack) She's covered up a lot of her body to try and hide as much of it as possible, but her hair is always a dead giveaway. She leaves her fingers exposed since it's easier to channel magic through exposed skin (gloves, unless made of a special magic-conducting material, tend to dampen spells just a bit) - but this means others can see her fingers start to shift into static as she uses her cursed magic. I had a lot of really intense anxiety in junior high/high school/college, so she's become a really neat vessel for me to conceptualize and process those experiences and emotions. But, like, instead of having undiagnozed ADHD and RSD she gets like. cool magical girl powers BIO: Felise was the sole child of local inventor and archeologist, Atticus Pfeiffer. Her father's lifelong devotion was to study and uncover the mysteries of the ancient winged people known as the Featherfolk, who had seemingly vanished some 1000 years before. She grew up in a cottage built on the coast of a mysterious bird-shaped lake, where she and her father would excavate broken murals, walls of hieroglyphs, and other artifacts that hinted at the lives of this forgotten feathered-society. Until just under 10 years ago- when her father mysteriously vanished. From then on, reports of strange attacks began sprouting up all over Aton and other neighboring regions. Attacks fronted by giant, chimera-like bird monsters that would descend from the sky to snatch up unsuspecting victims- carrying them away to some unknown in the sky. Felise did her best to pick up the pieces of her father's research- hoping to find the cause behind the sudden appearance of these monstrous aberrations, the reason for their attacks, and maybe, just maybe, where her father disappeared to all those years ago.

-------------------------------------------------------- you did it!! i give you tasty treat for reading my lore dump! even if you didnt thats ok, you must have at least clicked the read more and scrolled down. you can still have a little treat

an unfinished reference sheet for her dad, atticus

these are my girlfriend @im-ashl sketches - Skraaw, The Carrion King - the BBEG of the campaign, an Evil Bird who is Awful

and finally some sketches of- whos this? the featherfolk princess??

[coolstuffeee]

Phenomenon: Getting “yeeked”

I’m sure a few iterators have experienced these, and were left with nothing but confusion, distress and astonishment afterwards.

To those who haven’t had one happen to them, and those who have had it happen to them and want context, allow me to elaborate on what they are.

Yeeks, the vibrant white, orange, bouncy creatures that jump around constantly, make tons of noise, and and alert everything in its presence, almost seems to invite predators to take a bite out of them.

This doesn’t work in their favor, and often gets them killed in places infested by caramel lizards, which are specifically adapted to hunt them.

However, those are the ones that stick outside of packs and stay where they are, and most travel a lot and stick together.

These yeeks are playful, daring, curious and like to explore, even seen sniffing other creatures like scavengers and slugcats, and taunting slow predators like green lizards by jumping over them.

Due to their curious nature and tendency to travel, they often find themselves in places where yeeks shouldn’t be, like above the clouds, beneath the crust, and inside iterators.

You would think they would never get that far, and get picked off by predators, but their main defense against predators is quite efficient, and is why they travel in packs.

They overwhelm their predators by working together to jump around wildly and make loud noises all at once.

They don’t just do it when they are threatened though, and will actually strike first and jump towards them to make it seem less like just a defense, and more like an active threat.

They also ambush predators very suddenly, funneling themselves through pipes all at once to surprise whatever’s on the other side, before filling the room with chaos.

Though this may not seem scary upon reading it, but imagine being a white lizard, casually just camping a pipe like the jerk you are, when all of a sudden you are jumpscared by 20 vibrantly colored creatures, aggressively lunging at you, bouncing off walls in all different directions at high speeds, filling your vision with nothing but a bright white and orange, changing direction and depth before you can even process what their direction and depth even was.

Everything is cut off from you, as your mind desperately tries to grasp the incomprehensible threat in front of you, behind you, above you, to your side, in your face, everywhere, to no avail.

You can’t make out a single thing, you still see, feel and hear it anyways, but you don’t know what it is, making everything you pick up feel like a violent static contorting your mind, shocking you into a paralysis and driving you mad.

There’s so much noise all at once. The noises sound like they should blend together, but they’re all at different times, frequencies and directions, broken apart, scattered and unnaturally mashed together with the ones they shouldn’t be, creating some kind of chimera for your ears.

Your not getting enough oxygen, everything is being pulled away from you and pushed at you all at once.

You can feel so many different textures and shapes on your skin, all touching you with different forces and staying for different times.

They poke, they cling, they scratch, they hit, and the difference between air and solids becomes a blur.

Bruises and cuts blossom on your skin, hurting you, and you finally grasp on to one feeling, one thought, one command.

Fear.

You run from the hurricane of madness, but it chases, kicking and pushing you off poles and platforms as you scramble in desperation to get away from it.

You find a pipe, and immediately slide through as fast as you possibly can, reaching for the fresh air, solid ground and peace.

Finally, your free. You don’t know how long it’s been, all you know is that your never going in that room again, or anywhere near whatever that was.

You look like you’ve been put through a blender, which you can’t say you haven’t, because it’s the best guess you have.

They might also do this for other reasons besides defense, like out of spite or sadism.

But they most commonly do it out of curiosity, and when they don’t view the target as a threat, they might be a bit more gentle and calm down after they’re done having fun or inspecting the target.

They may also target things, chase after them and return to do it again.

And unfortunately for iterators, they are a prime target for being yeeked, being a large source for curiosity or hatred from yeeks.

Luckily, more hateful and aggressive ones aren’t as common, but they exist, and you can come across them.

Just remember, while yeeks are usually only seen scavenging for food, they are omnivores, and whenever they please, they can be predators.

[five-rivers]

Danger First

Chapter 6

@pocketramblr another :)

.

Shouta trudged back to the staff break room. His counseling session with Midoriya had lasted a little over an hour, so while there were still teachers in the building, many of them had left. With the exception of semi-retired heroes like Recovery Girl, everyone working here had two full time jobs. Hizashi, despite his carefree air, had even more than that in the form of his radio show. Hizashi had probably left with the students.

But Hizashi wasn't either of the ones he wanted to talk to. Not today.

He opened the door. Three, no, four teachers were there, but Snipe didn't count, seeing as he was completely passed out on one of the couches with his gas mask half off. He must have had an early shift patrol today, poor sucker.

Nemuri was there, too, with most of her hero outfit on. She was applying her hero-grade makeup (water proof, resistant to three common contact poisons, and guaranteed not to react badly with mace).

More importantly, Kan and Yagi were both there, poring over papers on the same desk, no less. Shouta walked up to the table and looked down at sheets and sheets full of incomprehensible numbers.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"We-"

'Don't tell him!" said Kan, urgently. "This is going to be my class's leg up on Aizawa this time around."

"Haha! Good one!" Yagi slapped Kan's back, and apparently even in his skeletal form he could pack a punch, because Kan had the air knocked out of him. Before he could recover, Yagi continued, "I'm making personalized nutrition plans for his class!"

"What?"

"One of my undergraduate degrees was in nutritional and health sciences, after all!"

Wow, there was a lot to unpack there, but Shouta was more than happy to leave it in its box. He had other fish to fry and topics to interrogate. Small talk requirement fulfilled, he moved on.

"How well do you know Midoriya?"

Yagi blinked and put down his pencil. "Moderately so? We met about this time last year and have been meeting regularly since then."

So, so much to unpack.

"Why?"

"Ah, he... impressed me, I suppose? He was involved in the bodysnatcher incident last year."

That was an understatement.

"He had a lot of heroic spirit!" continued Yagi. "But... not so much in the, ah, body category. I thought it would be a shame, a waste, really, if he wasn't able to pursue his dream, and a hero school prep course wasn't really in the cards for him, considering his quirk status and the timing... And I did have this degree..." He waved his hands vaguely at the table. "I just gave him a little help."

"What brought all this on, anyway?" asked Nemuri. "Midoriya is the little green haired kid, right? One of Chibiida's new friends?"

"If you keep calling him that, I won't be held responsible for when he snaps and attempts murder. But, yes, that's Midoriya."

"So...?"

"He told me I was the best teacher he'd ever had."

Nemuri started laughing.

"Oh," said Yagi. "I'm glad the two of you are getting along so well."

"I think he's pulling your leg, Shouta," said Nemuri, coming over to pat him on his shoulder. "Man, I didn't think a friend of Chibiida's would have it in him. Such youth!"

"I cannot even begin to tell you how much he wasn't."

Nemuri's laughter died off.

"Judging from some comments he made today," said Shouta, "not to mention the discrepancies between his record and his observed behavior in the classroom, I'd say he's been the target of severe quirkism in the past, particularly from his teachers. Did he ever mention anything like that to you?"

Yagi's face darkened and the mood in the room grew much more somber. "Not in so many words, no. However... some of his comments about his teachers disturbed me enough to bring it to the attention of the Musutafu Educational Services District, but as an unrelated stranger without concrete proof..."

("You can use the acronym, you know," muttered Vlad.)

"You're telling me they ignored the number one hero."

Yagi made a face. "I didn't go to them as All Might. Can you imagine the media frenzy if I did that? I didn't want to paint that kind of target on young Midoriya's back."

That was fair, actually. If largely-anonymous Shouta had enemies, All Might had ten times as many. Not to mention supposed fans.

"Other avenues of inquiry were also fruitless," said All Might, countenance darkening. "I asked some of my police colleagues, but they don't have full discretion over the direction of their investigations, and, again, if I were to use my weight to move them... It would get out, and people would wonder why I was so concerned with an apparently normal middle school."

"Did you try talking to Nezu about it?"

"No? Why?"

Shouta reminded himself that although Yagi was an alumnus, he was also very new as a teacher, and was as of yet unfamiliar with Nezu's more interesting traits.

"I'm going to," said Shouta, "and you're going to come with me." He turned to Kan. "Have you heard anything from Bakugo about quirk discrimination?"

"All I've heard from him are explosions, threats, and some kind of complex I don't have nearly enough psychiatric training to- They're from the same school," he realized.

"Yeah."

Kan pinched his brow. "So, the sweet shy kid you keep gushing about-" Both Shouta and Yagi attempted to reassure Kan they weren't gushing, "-and the demon brat are from the same school."

"That is what their records say," agreed Shouta. "Did you know, Yagi?"

"Oh, that they knew each other? Yes. Actually, I was rather under the impression they were childhood friends, as Midoriya ran out to help him during the bodysnatcher incident."

Shouta grunted. It was possible. He hadn't seen the two of them interact, at any rate.

"I'm going to Nezu with you," said Kan, standing up. "No matter what else this hell school did, they deserve to suffer for inflicting Bakugo Katsuki on me with those recommendations full of lies."

"Why don't you just expell him if he's that bad?"

"Because he's talented, hardworking, and hasn't actually broken any rules except for the swearing. He's just a pain I wasn't prepared to deal with and will probably contribute more to my hearing loss than Yamada by the end of the year."

"Wait, wait," said Yagi. "What exactly are you expecting Nezu to do in this situation?"

"Well," said Nemuri, who still hadn't left yet, "let's just say there's a reason hid name is 'god' in the staff group chat."

.

Terrible did not even begin to describe how Izuku felt when he woke up. His skin was static. His mouth was dry in a way that hurt. It felt like a siren was going off in his brain, and also like it was too quiet. He wanted to both run all the way to the school and hide in his closet.

This, of course, left him paralyzed in bed.

He hadn't felt remotely like this since the first time someone had left spider lilies on his desk at school. What was wrong with him?

No, that was the wrong question. All signs pointed to him having Danger Sense. He was in danger. And also immobile in bed.

With a great deal of effort, he turned to his bedside table and grabbed his phone. The clock in the corner read 4:42. Far too early to call anyone. And yet...

With shaky fingers, he navigated to Mr. Yagi's contact information and pressed dial. To Izuku's surprise, it only rang once.

"Young Midoriya? Is something wrong?"

The sound of his voice loosened the terrible knot under Izuku's breastbone. "I- May-maybe? I don't- I don't know, I think so."

There were sounds of movement on the other side of the line. "What happened?"

"I just- just woke up, and I- I think it's Danger Sense. It- Something bad is going to happen."

"I'm on my way. Is your mother with you?"

"N-no. She's at a- at a tech conference in Tokyo. She won't be back until- until tomorrow. Mr. Yagi, I don't- I don't think it's something here. I think it's later... at the school."

There was a pause. "My boy, are you quite sure?"

Izuku's laugh was just a little hysterical. "I mean, I'm- I'm pretty new to this, but..." he'd like to think his flight or fight reflex would have a more constructive response to am immediate threat. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have woken you up, I should have waited-"

"Nonsense! Forewarned is forearmed, and time is one of the most valuable resources a hero can have! I'm still picking you up, I'll just-" Mr. Yagi coughed, "-take the car instead."

"The car? You mean Hercules!?" The excitement was enough to free Izuku from his paralysis and propel him into a sitting position.

"Well, yes, but, my boy, how did you know? I don't think I've ever mentioned the name in my interviews..."

"But you did! In one of your American interviews. It was for a local station and you and Mr. Shield were on together."

"But those were in English."

"I know! When I found out about them, it really motivated me to work on my English! I think I could probably pass the Level Two fluency test..."

"Young Midoriya, have I ever told you how glad I am that you aren't a villain?"

.

"Hikage, did Danger Sense ever make you feel this bad?" asked Nana as Yoichi fussed in the background.

"Super Anxiety made me feel this bad all the time. Sometimes, it made me feel worse. I got used to it."

Nana let out a sigh of relief. It sucked to Ninth right now, but if it was normal for the quirk...

"That's good, then," said En. "Not for Ninth, obviously, but if that's just how the quirk works, he'll be able to figure it out. What did it usually mean, when you felt like this?"

"Generally, that someone was planning on killing me in the next few hours."

Dead(er than usual) silence.

"Ah," said En.

"You know," said Nana, "sometimes the kinds of lives we led slips my mind, but then the universe is always real happy to turn around and slap it back into me."

Yoichi started screeching.

.

"Do you feel any worse now that we're here?" asked Mr. Yagi after shutting Hercules down.

"Not really," said Izuku. He slumped down in his seat and looked away. "I'm sorry, I dragged you out of bed and this is probably just a stupid pointless meaningless panic attack..." He felt tears begin to prick at the edges of his eyes. He was so stupid. And selfish. All Might could be out helping people right now. Or taking care of himself (which, according to Recovery Girl's comments during their training sessions, he didn't do nearly enough of).

"Hey, hey, there's no need to cry, it's alright."

"Because you're here?" asked Izuku with a sniffle.

"Well, yes, but also, even if it was 'just' a panic attack, I'd still want to be here for you." He reached across the central console to pat Izuku on the shoulder. Then his face twisted into something rather sheepish. "But on the subject of panic attacks, something did occur to me on the way here."

Izuku looked back down at his knees. "What is it?"

"This is the anniversary of the day we met."

Izuku... had known that, actually. Waking up as he had had driven it from his mind, but the date was marked on his calendar. He'd even gotten All Might a gift, although he hadn't yet talked himself into being brave enough to give it to him, and with what happened today, it would most likely languish in his desk drawer for an indefinite period of time as the idea of giving it became progressively more awkward.

"My boy? I can't quite make out what you're saying. You're mumbling."

Izuku clapped his hands over his mouth. "Sorry."

"It's quite alright. I'm just an old man with hearing problems."

"You're not old! It's... I just- I just don't see how- how that's connected to this." He gestured at himself in all his vaguely-trembling glory.

"Young Midoriya... you almost died three separate times that day. That's traumatic. And sometimes anniversaries are... reminders."

"I only almost died once?"

"The first time with the sludge villain, grabbing on to my leg- and I don't think I ever apologized for telling you to let go, I was just so surprised- and then the sludge villain again."

"But I only almost died the first time..." He trailed off as Mr. Yagi gave him a look. He'd thought his mother was the only one who could give looks like that... "Do you really think this is connected to that?"

"I don't know," said Mr. Yagi. "Do you feel like it might be?"

"I don't know," said Izuku. He bent over and knotted his fingers in his hair.

"Do you think it might help to stay home today?"

"No!" yelped Izuku. "No," he repeated, trying to calm his racing heart.

"Alright, alright. Never fear, my boy." Mr. Yagi gave him another steadying shoulder pat. "In that case, let's go into this with the assumption that this is danger sense, and it is attempting to warn you of a real threat."

"Okay," said Izuku. He rubbed at his eyes. "What do we do first?"

Mr. Yagi tensed and looked up at the top floors of UA. "Well..."

.

"Hm!" said Nezu. "That is something of a conundrum! The extent of your quirk is unclear, and it is not properly registered, so we cannot go through the official routes we normally would for a warning given through a precognitive or clairvoyant quirk, even given that we are aware of One for All and the probable nature of Danger Sense."

Nezu knowing about One for All had been a bit of a surprise. In retrospect, maybe it shouldn't have been. All Might would have had to tell Nezu something so that Izuku was allowed on campus before he was really a student, and seeing as how All Might was originally teaching here to find a successor... well, it made sense. Izuku just wished he'd been told.

How many other people knew was a question for later, however.

"Your inexperience with the quirk and other circumstances further complicates the matter."

"Sorry," said Izuku.

"Whatever for? It isn't your fault." Nezu did not wait for an answer. "Then there is yesterday's incident to consider... You say you felt something with the reporters?"

"Y-yes, sir."

"Hm. Yes. Toshinori, I so believe you have a contact who could clear this up much more efficiently."

"I know," said Mr. Yagi. "He isn't picking up his phone."

"You don't think-?" started Izuku.

"No, no, he just hasn't been speaking to me lately."

"Oh? I was under the impression you had been communicating with him regularly since returning to Musutafu."

"He thought I would change my mind about something I didn't change my mind about, apparently. It doesn't matter. What else can we do?"

"A good number of things, luckily. Midoriya, I am going to make a series of phone calls. I would like you to tell me if the sensation you are experiencing changes at all while I make them."

"Yes, sir."

Nezu began methodically going through Izuku's list of teachers, warning them that something 'like yesterday' might happened and going over lesson plans and safety procedures. Nothing really changed. Until Nezu called Thirteen.

(Oh, gosh, they were going to go to the Unforeseen Simulation Joint on a field trip today? That was so cool!)

But after Nezu talked to Thirteen about checking safety systems, a little bit of the tension he'd been holding onto leaked away.

"Interesting," said Nezu. "Perhaps we should reschedule rescue training until-"

Izuku dove for Nezu's garbage bin.

"-or perhaps not," mused Nezu as Izuku expelled the meager contents of his stomach.

It was a good thing he hadn't eaten breakfast.

.

"Hikage," said Banjo. "I'm sorry for calling you a dead-eyed emotionally stunted bastard with a warped sense of humor if this is what you had to put up with all the time."

"You called me a dead-eyed emotionally stunted bastard?"

"Not to your face, but yes."

"Well. It isn't as if those things aren't all true..."

.

"I'm okay," said Izuku. "That just... felt bad."

"No cancelations in that case," said Nezu as Mr. Yagi hovered.

"Y-yeah. Oh gosh, now I know how Uraraka feels..."

"Perhaps you should stay home-"

"No! I can't! That would be..."

Nezu held up his hands- paws? "It was merely a suggestion. Can I offer you some tea?"

"Yes, please," said Izuku, voice catching uncomfortably on his raw throat.

"I do have a few more calls to make. Do you feel up to staying, or would you prefer to head down to Recovery Girl? Or perhaps even the cafeteria? I imagine you haven't eaten breakfast."

"I'd like to stay."

"Very well." Nezu picked up his phone again. Izuku could just make out the click on the other end when it was picked up. "Am I a mouse? A dog? A bear? One thing's for sure! I'm the principal!" There was laughter on the other end of the line. "No, not at all! I am in fact calling for you, Tensei. Or should I say, Ingenium? I'm aware this is last minute, and you were planning on taking the day off- How do I know? It was quite simple, really- but between the break-in yesterday and a tip I received this morning regarding a threat to the school, I would like a few more hands on deck than usual. Why, yes, you can stay with your brother's class. Do try not to tease Shouta too much. He has a reputation to maintain." After a few more pleasantries, Nezu hung up. "Midoriya?"

"I... think that's better? I'm sorry, it's hard to tell what could be the quirk and what's just me feeling bad."

Nezu nodded. "In that case, I do recommend that you head to Recovery Girl's office. My other calls will be similar, and the other heroes will not be with your class."

"Why not?" asked Mr. Yagi.

"Because Midoriya's reaction to the field trip being canceled suggests that the danger may not be limited to himself or his class. Oh! And one more thing. Midoriya, I noticed that you put in some costume alteration requests. Naturally, most of them will not be finished until some time next week, however, some of the support items you mentioned are fairly common. If you have time before the field trip, you should pay a visit to Power Loader."

.

Izuku hadn't expected it, but he did feel much better after eating, despite his continuing sense of impending doom. It was also about half an hour from the beginning of homeroom, so he had the time to go to the support department and check if they had anything he could take.

He hoped they had grappling hooks. Izuku had always wanted a grappling hook.

Mr. Yagi took him most of the way there, but students had started to arrive at this point, and Izuku convinced him to go prepare for classes (and hide in the staff area so that no one would wonder why he, a skeleton man not recognizable as a hero, was at the school). Before too long, Izuku stood in front of a rather sturdy-looking metal door. He hoped this was the right one.

He raised his hand to knock just as something crashed into him. Ah. This was it for sure. The way he would die. The danger he had foreseen.

No. Wait. Never mind. He was fine, just on the ground.

"Oh! There was a person there! You okay?"

"U-um," said Izuku, sitting up and rubbing his head. "I'm fine, just a little startled."

"What're you doing here, anyway?"

"I- I'm here for... support... gear?" He sort of trailed off as he looked up.

It was the intense pink haired girl from the other day. As he watched, her expression changed from one of mild concern to calculating interest.

"Support gear, you say?"

.

Shouta answered his phone as he walked down the hall. "Nezu, I've already done every security check I can think of that'll fit-"

"Not quite why I was calling, although I can see why you would think so. One of your students needs to be rescued from the support department."

Shouta changed direction without missing a beat. "It's Midoriya, isn't it?"

"Why, yes."

"Did you send him down there without warning him?"

"Yes, again. You know me so well!"

Shouta hung up.

[astradrifting]

While Tyland seems to mirror Tyrion, the latter has already experienced all that in the book, hasn't he? Serving the wrong regime, being hated by the people, being badly disfigured etc. But now he's bringing an enemy with dragons to Westeros. Isn't that far beyond Tyland? I keep thinking the Lannister in the service of a rotten regime and for the wrong reasons (Cersei) might be Jamie. He too is disfigured. Is there a parallel for him in DoD?

(referencing this post)

Well, Tyland was sent across the Narrow Sea to Pentos to get sellswords for the Greens but failed, so maybe Tyrion bringing Dany across is meant to be him succeeding where Tyland failed. But you’re right, the foreshadowing events have already happened for Tyrion and it seems repetitive for his story to progress in exactly that way again. The show seemed to indicate that this was his endgame, but I could see D&D giving him this ‘happy ending’ purely because he’s their favourite, maybe swapping his ending with another character’s to facilitate it. The removal of the Tysha reveal so completely stagnated Tyrion’s character arc, which might be why D&D seemed to have no idea what to do with him post s4 aside from get him sucked into the Dany-cult.

There’s definitely meant to be a link between Ser Criston Cole and Jaime, though more of a mirror reflection than parallels. Cole was known as the Kingmaker, for his crucial role in playing Aegon II and Rhaenyra against each other at the start of the Dance, and was later made Aegon’s Hand. He was once Rhaenyra’s loyal sworn sword, until one of them spurned the other before her wedding to Laenor Velaryon. Either he asked her to run away with him to the Free Cities and she rejected him, or she tried to seduce him (for a second time) in the White Sword Tower and he rejected her. Either way, they clearly had a falling out, after which Rhaenyra turned to Ser Harwin Strong and Cole became a supporter of the Greens and Queen Alicent’s new sworn sword. This is similar to Jaime turning away from Cersei for her infidelity, though he doesn’t go so far as supporting the younger brother that will kill her and keeping her from the throne just yet.

Cole’s death is clearly a reference to the Red Wedding - at the Red Wedding, Robb was hit by three crossbow bolts, before Roose Bolton killed him while saying “Jaime Lannister sends his regards.” Criston Cole died at the Butcher’s Ball, a battle in the riverlands near the God’s Eye, killed by three arrows. The man in charge of the archers, and one of the men who killed him, was called Red Robb Rivers. His head was later put upon a spear and marched to another battle. But considering this is already a reversal of Robb’s exact fate in the books, I don’t know if Cole’s death is meant to provide foreshadowing for Jaime’s ending. He seems to be more of Jaime’s foil than a true parallel - Cole appeared to truly hate Rhaenyra in the end and worked to destroy everything she had, but I think Jaime is going to find it harder to give up on Cersei no matter what he says.

Some of Tyland and Tyrion’s parallels could actually apply to Jaime too, in some ways mapping closer to Jaime:

- Tyland was the younger twin of Lord Jason Lannister, as Jaime is Cersei’s younger twin.

- both were tortured and disfigured by the opposite side in war.

- Tyland’s policies benefitted lords, but made him hated by the smallfolk - similarly, Jaime’s slaying of Aerys actually benefitted the nobility, since it was they that Aerys tended to target, but has made him reviled by the smallfolk as the Kingslayer.

- Tyland advised Aegon II to kill his nephew Aegon the Younger instead of just gelding him or sending him to the Wall, because he would always be a threat to his reign. Tyrion has never threatened Bran (yet, at least), but Jaime has already tried to kill him, and later said that he should be killed, ostensibly for mercy but really because Bran was a threat to his and Cersei’s secret.

I’m still more inclined to think that Jaime and Cersei’s endings are linked in some way. But there’s also a lot of possible foreshadowing for Jaime being Hand within the books - @fedonciadale wrote a meta about Jaime possibly becoming Hand before s8. He also spends much of Feast riding around the Riverlands trying to clean up the war, during which he dreams of becoming known as Goldenhand the Just, instead of the Kingslayer. Of course, right now it’s incomprehensible why exactly either Bran or his council of regents would choose to make Jaime his Hand, aside from possibly appeasing supporters of the old Lannister regime, but Tyrion becoming Hand is pretty baffling too. I’d think that either of them would be especially insulting to both Sansa personally and the Martells, but if both the North and Dorne go independent at the end they probably wouldn’t have a say in who becomes Hand in the remaining kingdoms.

I don’t know why it would happen politically, but I could see why it might happen thematically. It might be a bitter, full circle of sorts for Jaime to end up loyally serving a king he’s already wronged.

In Jaime’s last AFFC chapter, he makes plans to eventually return to KL, but not for Cersei. He intends to separate Cersei from Tommen and find him a new small council, considering a slew of lords who could become the new Hand (even Baelish, bizarrely enough), but conspiciously not including himself, even though he’s already planning political manouevres and there have been previous Lord Commanders of the Kingsguard who have served as the Hand e.g. Ser Ryam Redwyne, and Ser Criston Cole during the Dance. He even wants to tell Tommen that he’s his father.

And he had done his own part here at Riverrun without actually ever taking up arms against the Starks or Tullys. Once he found the Blackfish, he would be free to return to King's Landing, where he belonged. My place is with my king. With my son. Would Tommen want to know that? The truth could cost the boy his throne. Would you sooner have a father or a chair, lad? Jaime wished he knew the answer. 

(AFFC, Jaime VII)

He seems to want a second chance, with Tommen after years of not truly acknowledging him as his son, and as a knight of the Kingsguard. The last king he truly served, he ended up stabbing in front of the Iron Throne. Robert barely even counts, because Jaime never had any real loyalty to him. Now he has grand plans to guide Tommen as king that will ultimately be disrupted, first by Lady Stoneheart, then likely by Aegon coming out of the woodwork and taking the crown from either Cersei or Tommen. If Jaime survives to the end of the series, he might end up serving a final king.

Bran and Tommen have often been linked to each other and contrasted throughout the series. They’re the same age, both second sons, and Sansa thinks explicitly that Tommen reminds her of Bran in ACOK. At the very beginning of AGOT, they have a sparring match, in which Bran knocks Tommen down:

There was a shout from the courtyard below. Prince Tommen was rolling in the dust, trying to get up and failing. All the padding made him look like a turtle on its back. Bran was standing over him with upraised wooden sword, ready to whack him again once he regained his feet.

(AGOT, Arya I)

There’s a more oblique link made when the Lannisters are discussing Bran’s fall:

“[...] There is nothing Lord Eddard can do for the boy in any case."

"He could end his torment," Jaime said. "I would, if it were my son. It would be a mercy."

"I advise against putting that suggestion to Lord Eddard, sweet brother," Tyrion said. "He would not take it kindly."

(AGOT, Tyrion I)

In AFFC/ADWD, Jon bitterly remembers the spar between Bran and Tommen:

"At Winterfell, Tommen fought my brother Bran with wooden swords," Jon said, remembering. "He wore so much padding he looked like a stuffed goose. Bran knocked him to the ground." He went to the window and threw the shutters open. The air outside was cold and bracing, though the sky was a dull grey. "Yet Bran's dead, and pudgy pink-faced Tommen is sitting on the Iron Throne, with a crown nestled amongst his golden curls."

(ADWD, Jon II)

Except Bran isn’t dead, and it’s Tommen’s prospects that aren’t looking good. By the end of the series, their positions will likely have reversed entirely from Jon’s statement - Bran will be the boy with a crown in his curly hair, while Tommen might be the one tragically killed in his home.

There would be something bitter and darkly ironic in it, if the boy-king Jaime gets a second chance with isn’t the son he desperately wants to know, but the boy he threw out of a window.

[sylvie--laufeydottir]

an obligatory analysis of sylvie’s character (aka: who betrayed who?)

in case you can’t tell, i like sylvie. but here’s a big fuckin post where i share my thoughts on her role in the finale in a sort of disjointed kind of way.

NOTE: this isn’t about sylki. i don’t ship it personally, but that isn’t really relevant to this at all. this also doesn’t go into the criticisms i have of the show because this isn’t really the place for that. maybe i can do that later, whatever.

also, this is gonna be a long post. i have a lot of thoughts.

sylvie’s introduction and motivations

one of the first things we learn about sylvie is her opposition to the tva. (okay, it’s literally the first thing, whatever.) in episode 3, we get to see her entire plan - overthrow whoever’s running the tva, and... that’s it. loki questions her about the power vacuum that would leave, to which she shows that she’s not interested in running the tva. (this is also stated in ep 2.) her goals are clear. she wants rid of the entire organisation, and doesn’t care about or want the sort of power that would come with pulling the strings.

her reasoning for this seems pretty simple. she doesn’t want the power ruling the tva would entail because she knows what it’s like to be on the other end of that deal. she had everything taken from her as a child, and doesn’t want that to happen to anybody else. she believes that that kind of power belongs to nobody, not even herself.

this easily establishes her as a character who, despite having an ego, has principles that trump everything else. she’s very dedicated to her cause; the ‘never at the expense of the mission’ line in ep 3 just states it out loud. her entire life has been dedicated to this cause. this is a good time to segue into the next section...

sylvie’s personality, character and flaws

she’s fuckin stabby.

despite only really being present for 4 out of the 6 episodes of the show, we manage to get a pretty good idea of sylvie’s personality right from the start thanks to episode 3 being largely a character study with both her and loki. she’s shown as a very competent and strong character - however, contrary to marvel’s guidebook on writing female characters, those aren’t personality traits. what we actually see of her is that she’s very confident, and has a tendency to be rude or dismissive of other people. episode 3 has a bunch of examples of this, but the easiest one to point to is the fireworks scene. after loki does something nice to cheer her up, something which visibly works, her response is to waive it away as ‘not bad’.

her coldness in this scene even after bonding with loki is likely due to her upbringing. sylvie spent the majority of her life, including her childhood, on the run, unable to form relationships with people who weren’t moments away from dying. it feels a bit redundant for me to point this out, but this is, as they say in the medical field, mega fucking traumatic. not only did sylvie not have the opportunity to form these kinds of connections, she couldn’t even develop the ability to form them. loki is a bandaid to cover a bullet hole in this regard, one she needs years to heal from. while she does bond with him to an extent, she is physically unable to trust him to the point where they can be considered close.

another thing we learn about sylvie is that she’s very violent - and that she enjoys it. being a character that grew up running from an organisation that wanted her dead, it makes sense for her first instinct to be confrontational. however, despite having to fight to survive, she visibly takes pleasure from fighting. this was brought up in an interview with sophia (that i am not going to link here, because tumblr is kind of a hellsite and i’m not in the mood for that today). here’s a nice extract instead.

“She's not trained like Loki is,” Di Martino continues. “She can't do some of the flourishes that he would, but she's figured out how to brawl. She's a street fighter and she loves it. That was a really great key to unlocking part of Sylvie for me, was how much she just loves a fight. She knows that she's either going to win, or if she isn't going to win, she'll survive. She's that damaged character who's dangerous because she knows she can survive.”

her tendency towards violence is actually a key part of sylvie’s character. this works as both a strength and a flaw. on the one hand, she’s able to survive scrapes most other characters wouldn’t, and she knows that. she’s not one to freeze in most (note: most) scenarios, because she knows what to expect. on the other hand, violence isn’t always the answer, and she’s very unlikely to consider any other option than a fight.

her enchantment abilities tie into this - they’re another weapon for her to use, and one she’s not afraid to call on. however, her eagerness to enchant people without hesitation puts her in a pretty bad place morally. her enchantment clearly leaves hunter c-20 traumatised, and yet she’s more than willing to enchant people for the sake of the mission. she’s also relatively dismissive of human sentient lives. an early example of this is in episode 2, where loki asks her if the person she had enchanted was dead, to which she responds with a casual ‘they usually survive’. additionally, she’s more than willing to fight the guards on the train in episode 3, despite them seeing her as a threat for completely understandable reasons.

in the case of the guards, her reasoning for placing such little value on their lives is likely that they’re about to die anyways. everyone on lamentis is doomed, so from her point of view, whether they die at her hands or at the hands of the moon from majora’s mask isn’t really important. however, c-20 is a different story. sylvie places next to no value on the lives of the tva’s workers, content to slaughter them en masse for the sake of her goal. this is despite her knowing that every one of the tva workers is a variant plucked from the sacred timeline. this sets up a weird sort of transactional nature in how sylvie views other people - to her, they’re less important than the mission, and she doesn’t hesitate to eliminate threats.

was this a long section? this was a long section. i would like to call back to the fact that this is not a sylki post for this next part. and also to praise anyone that got this far, because fucking hell, is this excessively long or what? who would have the time to write this out?

sylvie’s bond with loki

i want to go back to that whole thing about her relationship with loki. he’s the first person she’s really spoken to since she was a child who isn’t about to face imminent death. furthermore, despite their differences, they have quite a lot in common - enough to hit it off surprising well for two people who kind of want to kill each other. they’re able to relate on common ground like frigga, and even though they clash due to loki’s initial carelessness, they’re overall able to get along well enough aside from occasional bickering. the blanket scene from episode 5 is probably the best example of this. sylvie allows herself, albeit briefly, to be vulnerable around loki.

except, not really. one of the first things she does is tries to ensure he won’t betray her. i’ve seen somebody cite this before as proof that her fondness towards him isn’t real, and that she was planning on betraying him from the start, hence why it was on her mind. that’s definitely possible, but i think it’s far more likely that it’s just her difficulties connecting to people stopping her from feeling safe around him even as they share a nice moment. she really does seem to care about loki - an easy example of this is her asking how he is during episode 4 without being prompted. she’s just unable to properly process these kinds of feelings due to an incomprehensible amount of trauma. as loki puts it, she can’t trust.

and loki can’t be trusted. she knows - or at least, thinks she knows - his nature as a trickster and a villain. loki embodies a part of sylvie that she considers herself completely separate from; the tva-approved liar whose purpose is to bring out the best in others. while she does show him more decency than to treat him like that, at the end of the day, he represents something that makes her deeply uncomfortable, hence her rejection of the loki name. despite what they have in common, loki is an incredibly difficult person to trust, especially for somebody who has deep-rooted trust issues. so, this brings us onto...

who betrayed who?

so, sylvie and loki make it to kang’s castle. after all this time, she’s finally about to reach her life’s goal. she’s clearly nervous - this is out of her comfort zone, unlike most fights. loki reassures her, and they head in. they meet kang, learn the true nature of the tva, have the opportunity to kill him...

and loki stops her.

loki’s motivations are left ambiguous. the uncharitable interpretation is that he wants to rule the tva for himself, as per kang’s offer. he’s expressed such an interest to sylvie before. for the loki we know in avengers 1, this seems perfectly in character.

however, for the loki we’ve seen in the show, there’s a different option. he believes kang’s threat that there are multiple of him, and that killing him won’t solve anything. to him, he isn’t willing to risk unknown horrors for the sake of taking his revenge out on kang. this is the loki who offered diplomacy and guile to counteract sylvie’s brute force.

but sylvie, who can’t trust, assumes the worst.

to her, loki was the one who betrayed her. they had a plan - find whoever pulls the strings, and destroy them. to her, loki’s hesitation isn’t caution, but treachery. taking kang’s offer to rule the tva is exactly what she thinks she should’ve expected from the guy who hurts everybody who loves him. her fight or flight responses kick in, and she chooses the one she always chooses. loki’s attempts to reassure her fall on deaf ears, not just because she doesn’t want to trust him, but because she’s physically incapable of it. she makes the short-sighted decision of brute force, just like she did back on lamentis, because it’s all she’s ever known, and the cause she’s dedicated her life to.

from the outside, it looks like sylvie was the one who betrayed loki, but things look pretty different from where she’s standing.

this is why i take issue with people calling sylvie a ‘villain’ or questioning whether this was her plan for the start. in my opinion, her motivations line up pretty clearly as a creature of habit, one who panics at the first hint of smoke and pushes away the first person she’s been able to bond with for the sake of self-preservation. did she make the wrong decision? unquestionably - the effects of her actions will no doubt plague the multiverse (and the mcu, for us) for as long as they go unchecked. but she made the only decision she was capable of making, and that’s not villainous, just tragic.

conclusion

well, this is a kind of depressing way to finish this post. for what it’s worth, though, i don’t think sylvie is a doomed character. regardless of how brief it was, she did show a real connection with loki. just because something requires a lot of healing doesn’t make it impossible. this is why i like sylvie as a character so much; she’s deeply flawed and complex, but that complexity makes her interesting, and relatable. marvel has a long history of sexy lamps and supposed ‘tortured backstories’, but sylvie is the first time they paid attention to this with their character writing without having to give somebody a wholeass prequel movie. with loki confirmed to appear in multiverse of madness, i’m hoping we see more of sylvie - not as a villain, but as a hero who can overcome her past experiences and rise to better things.

or maybe another kang shows up and kills her immediately. who knows.

[the-writer-reem-shadili]

#Guardians of the temple Ankhritos

or

Cursed Book of Temple Keepers #

( a novel )

✍✍✍✍✍✍✍✍✍

By Reem Shadili

Translated to english

part One ( 1 )

✍✍✍✍

"The Cursed Book", that might sound like a proper title for a movie, right??

Starring as James Bond

Fida in all international cinema halls.

But hey!!

Does the hidden government allow this??!!

Does the one-eyed antichrist allow this??!!

I don't think so at all, it's impossible!!

Because this book is one of the most dangerous cursed books on the face of the earth, which caused wars and bloody epics for kings who suffered from horrific endings, including revolting and chilling, and princesses and princes from royal families whose end was tragic because of this cursed book that, if it entered a land, a city, or a palace, but made Whoever in it is like the dead, and the ghosts of demons play and plunder during the day and howl at night, and lie in bed with the great people, having sex with ease and giving birth to the young demons who will rule the world later, after their blood is mixed with the blood of royal humankind.

It is a book that makes everyone who reads it crazy and unbalanced, making everyone who reads or touches it wish for death.

Because it is the gateway of demons to the human world,

Therefore, reader, do not be alarmed by what you will read in this novel, for the truth is more difficult to say once or to believe a single sentence, not only now, but as it has been throughout the ages.

The truth will not be seen in its entirety, because not all minds comprehend the events and observations going on around them.

And not all souls can stand the truth that is stripped of all artificial paint or colors with the taste of sugar and vanilla.

In this talk, you will know many things that you are not aware of... but let me tell you something very important...

I'm just telling you the truth,

And because the truth is absent from you, I will tell you in parts, piece by piece.

And because your small mind may not comprehend these great things.

So focus on me well, from now on you will only hear my rough voice in your big ears.

Where do you want to start?!

Shall we start centuries ago?

Or do we start from the terrifying palace (Satan Caesus)??

Or do we start with the era of the pharaohs??!

Or from the time of "George Washington"??!!

Or do we start with the church in which “George Bush” learned and how he came to see God in his dreams, and how he used to give him orders to conquer the world??!!

Or do we start with the bohemian jungle??!!

Or from the time of the Soviets??!!

Or from the time of the great conspiracies??!!

Or from the Church of Vice and Sorcery??!!

Or how do the "temple guards" practice immorality in

Daylight with the people of Lot??!!

Or how did the “temple guards” come to rule the world from money to politics to women to rulers??!!

Or are we talking about the influence of the underworld on the world of humans and how they can control them??!!

Or are you afraid and want to know only the part that interests you in how to get rid of this bad world, the world of immorality and demons. And how to get rid of them and overcome them all??!!

What do you think??!!

Are you afraid??!! Are you afraid??!!

I apologize to you, the reader, and you, the reader, but the truth is in order to be able to know it, you must also know the dark side of it that controls it, otherwise there is no salvation for you without knowledge.

The question now is: Have you chosen the topic you want to talk about?!!

Or are you confused and he is confused as usual??!!

So let me choose for you, um, what do you think?

Shall we start from that (church) which is in the middle of the city of Rome, the “Church of Saints and Mujahideen” who left

The world and what is in it, that they may worship their “god.”

This is the desired day when the bells are sounded and human sacrifices are sacrificed to be presented to their bloody god, the “God of Light” “Lucifer” as they describe it, so I tell you do not panic.

Do not be afraid of what you will know and hear in a world full of darkness.

Do not run away, dear reader, and do not close your eyes when the scene shocks you, so I warn you.. If you cannot, do not approach this church, because it is the church of Satan.

And do not approach this novel because it is my story..not

The writer's novel.

Come on then I will take you with me from history to history and from dimension to dimension and from layer to layer, if you are not psychologically prepared, do not continue reading, and run away very far..even without shoes.

So, would you like to enter that church with me???

Do you see it now??!!

It's right there where it was hundreds of years ago.

We will not enter through the big door, but from

《Pastor Lombardo's Entrance》This entrance will lead us to what's under the church, let's go down the narrow stairs quietly, we are now six floors underground, and now tell me do you smell this??!!

It is the smell of satanic "incense" to prepare the place,

Do you hear those loud noises???

They are not the sounds of celebrations, but rather the sounds of people being tormented.... Yes, it is. I told you that if you are not ready, go back, do not enter with me through this door, because if you enter it, you will not leave it until you complete the novel

Yes, as I heard, it is not a threat, but a warning!!

If the decision is up to you,

.........thought

.........Think well

.......... Rethink

So you decided to continue the novel, right??!!,

Well, I'll open the door quietly...

Do not be afraid, because they will not see you, because you are hidden from their red eyes.

But .... if your soul is foul and they smell your scent, do not blame me ... I have nothing to do with it,

They can reach you anywhere on earth

If you are the owner of a bad breath, be sure that you will see them tonight, and they may torture you and the Jathoom may visit you... Yes, the Jathoom... But please tell me if someone visits you, you may be innocent... Only I can help you get rid of them.

So try to enter quietly.

Come on in, do you see this blood scattered everywhere and these bodies??!!

Exactly here the (vampires) of the human beings were celebrating sacrifices, do you see that man standing there in the middle of the circle cheering incomprehensible words??

Yes, that person who wears a red cloak,

It's the head of the church 《Antonio》 cast a spell to bring demons, do you see those naked girls there and handcuffed on the table??

They are the sacrifices of (Satan Caesus) and his disciples.

Now in the presence of “majestic” priests and veteran clergy will declare their allegiance to “Lucifer”, so be prepared that you will see the most heinous crimes,

It is a crime of survival,

crime of force,

crime of lust,

crime of pleasure,

That's how they call it

...

After slaughtering the sacrifices and drinking their blood, the declaration of loyalty and obedience is an obligatory matter.

So do not look at those naked and stripped bodies lying on the church table,

And leave you those beautiful women who are standing there while they are having sex in the most horrific way possible, because they are in fact just demons in human form, Here in this world that you entered with your feet, you will see and hear the ugliest words and the worst possible letters.

Here in this world you will see the dead eating the living, then you will see them eating the children while they are alive.

And you will see who among them still drinks blood and practices vice with the priests who claim to protect the sanctuaries and and and ... and all

These slogans...

Forget everything they say on TV .

and color magazines, all that absurdity,

Never mind, oh, hear me well, and do not look there, for I see those looks that made you see the world in black, and listen to those words that I shall say to you, perhaps they

Never leave your thick head

Do not believe a religious man whose eyes are round... Nor a politician whose eyes are glaring... Nor a man who claimed your friendship and eyes on your life and your pocket... Do not believe anyone... Because the time of friendship

is over , Just believe in yourself...Believe in yourself,

Did you know who I am??

No of course . . . .

You certainly will not know me.

How do you know who I am??!!

But it's okay. I will tell you my news. I am the servant of the Bible. My name is ( Jamon Lombardy ), from the village of ( Jericho) , and my mother is from the town of Khan Yunis. I wrote this book with ink of blood. Anyone who reads it will be cursed, and it is a forbidden and cursed book. .

You will ask me why??

And I will tell you the story and the truth that you will not know in

any other place.

I will be very frank with you to the point of astonishment,

Five thousand five hundred years ago I made a deal with

(Lucifer) in order to convey all the secrets of the underworld to this book, but on its terms and requirements, and in exchange for it that I obtain supernatural power and life without death .

I was a very ordinary young man from a Jewish family, plowing the land and watering the crops. All the girls and women of the village wished to see me, and because I had the physical strength and intelligence that made me special and among the strongest of the village’s youth, a rich man asked me to be his bodyguard who guarded him from bandits, For a very large sum of money, I agreed at once because it was an irreplaceable opportunity.

He was a wealthy man, and had a luxurious mansion, which he filled with all that he wanted, but he had no wife or children. He was a reprehensible man, with a hump on his right shoulder, glaring eyes, and curly hair, and they called him "Komoro bethawon "

Throughout my work with him, I did not see him eat like humans, sleep like them, or even look at women!! ,

Sometimes I saw him entering the palace door, although I'm sure he never came out!!

How did he get out again??!!

After a year, completely and completely, he asked me a very strange request,

He asked me to share his dinner with him, and the problem was that his dinner was disgusting. Every day he ate one of the children who were kidnapped at sunset, in addition to drinking the blood extracted from their bodies. At first I categorically refused, but he took me to a room I don't know about. Although I know the palace, inch by inch, but it was the first time I saw this room, as if it had no end, filled with gold, mountains like mountains my eyes had never seen before, treasures and statues of gold, something like an incredible imagination.

While I was touching those jewels and that stored gold, the owner of the palace called "Komuro" spoke softly, saying: Do you see all this gold?

I said to him with confidence: Why are you not afraid that I will kill you and seize everything you own, especially since you have no family, and I am a strong young man that no one can confront me??!!

But he laughed loudly and turned to me and said, "I hope you'll try just to see what happens to you, handsome one."

While (the owner of the palace) was leaving that room, I saw bright eyes everywhere, and they were scary eyes, so that they started making noises like the sounds of wild beasts, which made me go out quickly, as soon as I came out until I closed the door hard as if someone had locked it, I went quickly Behind "Komoro bethawon "

And I ask him and I say: Who the hell are you??

Who was in the room??

But he did not pay any attention to me. He sat down on his chair and asked me to sit down to share his supper, while he drank his glass full of blood. All my prey trembled with fear, and I, who had never been afraid in my life, sat down and shared dinner with him, though it was disgusting to the point of nausea.

My plate was raw, uneven steak with blood still on it.

But all my thoughts were in that room full of all those treasures and precious gold, I was thinking how I could get it and it had its guards guarding it, so there was no solution to take all those treasures except with this "cursed dinner", I said it was dinner for one day and it became From the rich, it's okay.. I will bid farewell to poverty once and for all, and I will bid farewell to the miserable life I was living,

Today if you ask me do you regret that night??

My answer: I have reached a point where regret is no longer useful.

This heart no longer feels remorse or fear,

My body is empty of feelings and emotions.

And I reached the point to be or not to be.. It's only the end,

After we finished dinner, he asked me to go down with him to the basement of the palace, there in a room I had never seen in my life. It was a black room filled with half-human monsters and snakes. As soon as they saw me, they threw themselves on my body and tore my clothes and had sex with me over and over again without my will. I was as if I was a tool to satisfy their sexual instincts, and as if they were thirsty for sex with a human being, I could hear them screaming in different voices??!! ,

As for me, I did nothing but be completely submissive to them.

On the morning of the second day, he asked me to go with him to the same room, but I refused, except that he told me this time it would be different,

When we went down, no one was there but a small desk, red ink and a blank book, and he asked me to carry everything

Found in these leather manuscripts to the book,

When I asked him what this was, he said that it was the "Secrets of Solomon" and that I had to write them all with this red ink, which is the blood of cursed demons mixed with the blood of men.

The wrongdoers and the blood of virgin girls.

Throughout my time in that room from which I did not come out, I could hear frightening noises until morning, except for those serpents that would circle around me every night until the last third of the night and then disappear after they had sex with me

Until I completed (The Cursed Book), which took me forty days, which was full of incantations, types of magic, how to use them, their rituals, and the names of demons and servants of the underworld.

And on the last night the serpents came and brought me news that they had given birth to me young serpents and that they were my children. My shock was indescribable... Four serpents gave birth to thirty-three serpents. The upper half looked like humans and the lower half looked exactly like a serpent, except for one that was completely human, except That her eyes are like the eyes of a serpent, I called her "Leona"

After forty days I came out of the room with the book in my hand and thirty-three serpents named after my name (haha)

really strange,

(He is the one who can sleep and wake up in the morning, he has the flu and he does not have a clogged soul to eat, not even how many dishes are stuffed.. but he enters a room and when he comes out, he has a pile of meat, excuse me, life, in the name of God, Masha Allah.. Thirty-three live except one and a cursed book.. From you to God, Komoru... Haha)

It was " Komoru bethawon"

He is waiting for me in the gold room, and he is happy to say to me : Today you have the right to all this wealth.

Surely you will die now of envy and wish you were in my place, forty days have passed and I will become one of the richest... Rather, one of the richest men on the face of the world.

But I apologized to him and asked him to leave me alone , I was no longer greedy for that gold or that wealth , My intuition was telling me that it was not the end... but only the beginning....

And my hunch is true.

And because I am talking to you from the underworld .

Here there is nothing like above .

There is nothing like humans .

Nothing like what you know .

There is nothing here but murder, sex and conspiracy.

Here you hear them plotting against human beings, how to kill them and enter them into wars, and how to make them obsessed with sex and money.

Here no one sleeps but a little as if they are taking an evening nap .

Here everyone is practicing with everyone .

Here there are no morals or mercy .

Here there is no emotion or comfort.

Here you are either with them or you will never be .

It is a base...!!

What did you say, reader ??!!

Did I hear you correctly ??!!

Are you asking me what I did ??!!

The question itself is wrong,

You have to ask me what I have become ??!!

"Four thousand years later"

Do you see what I see today??

Do you smell this scent that fills the streets??

The world is struggling with death, all the streets of Rome are fighting

black death again .

Today is Sunday of the year 2020, I am here witness to the terrible event, in the middle of " the Vatican" , witness to the history of " Rome" and "europe" with this outbreak.

It's a "devil epidemic."

Whoever believes in him become one body, and whoever does not believe in him turns away from him, but he is one of our secrets, we are the hidden world .

Don't tire your little mind thinking, we don't get anything wrong,

We are "holy"

You make me laugh....because you are arrogant, arrogant, and a selfish person who only thinks of himself, yet you want to know everything, you curious one.

Listen to me well.. it is one word I will say, and because the journey is still in its beginning and we are still in the first chapters, then hear me :

It is the epidemic that we have been working on for centuries to kill humanity and reduce its increasing growth!!

Do you think this pandemic is the last??!!

So, you are naive and stupid !!

İt's just because...

it's only the beginning

✍✍✍✍✍✍✍✍✍.

End of the first part of the novel

" Guardians of the Temple "

" Ancheretos"

✍✍✍✍

______

I apologize to the reader for the harsh terms and images that were mentioned by the central character in this novel, but they are scenes of their filth that explain the truth.

🙏🙏🙏

by

#Reem_shadili

[captainkurosolaire]

Heavy Ammunition

Undone from defeat the Ser now turned into a nightmarish knight of a chipped skull. Began moving his lower-extremities. All them prone and wheezing or unconscious. Silv’a stayed above. Like he always was anyway in his viewing beliefs. Glowering with resentment at Judas. Animosity laid with that one the most of all. If his older age and wisdom didn’t act on intuition his plan would all be foiled. By the most plain of the lot. Execution was being readied to be served up as the thawed bone’s arm began skeletal functioning between.

“Shalt have to disagree with you most unpleasantly. O’ dread, I beseech you to meet red-comet. Often fate can sting like a piercing hornet.” A lute played in string. Before a rocketing crimson-lance of bottom hilt flashfire swept over and sent the puppeted knight being attached and stuck to the wall from impalement. With such a terrifying might.

An obnoxious laughter of jolly a battle-thirstier. As a Roe came inbound following suit with thuds of heaviness. “It’s so difficult to watch my strength within this dinky little hole.” Even though the chamber’s were massive the building wouldn’t be able to contest with his fire which was unfortunately too risky to use with allies. The last squadron of the Crew showed up in a pair five. A lalafell brought in a beach chair and propped it down and sat down just drinking her juice. Now the reinforced firepower had arrived. Facepalming while enthusiastically screaming Silv’a “Really more?!!?! They just keep lining up to die!” Irritation was demonically being infused as his undoing. This Band of Gold was truly an annoying bunch. One falls another to take front and center. It actually benefited them that they were all distant apart and didn’t all arrive at once. The louder gallant voice of Roe heartily broke a shout, “Kid ya’ alive?” Captain mumbled between the floor. Gark quipped, “Kay.” He'd take that as enough. A viera hopped with a spiritedly step before leaping over and coming between the duo of Noble and Captain. “Sorry we’re late. Me-Me wanted a detour, she insisted… You know how it goes.” She bubbly said. The Lalafell kept slurping on her straw with the continent with a massive slurpee. That terrifying um, ‘little’ menace was quite possibly the most fearsome of all the mates. Don’t refer to her by any tiny stature or treat her as such. Captain just murmured <Mmm-hmm> trying to remind, of mortally bleeding out over here and in agony. The short Viera huffed her puffy cheeks before recognizing what she needed to do and began grabbing the duo by the wrists to drag into a corner away from the center again and get into obstruction. “I’ll have to decline you. Those sinners haven’t suffered enough. I’ve grown to want them to see me in succeeding with all this resistance, have a taste and join them would you!” An intense fire came hurling at the preoccupied bunny who’s pink hue sparked defenselessly. Water came raining and doused it effortlessly. Two prayer hands together came with a Sea-Maiden looking Roe woman now intervening. “Gark. I shall contend with the Caster, would you please rid the Knight?” A bone crackling thud of his own collar bone snapped out a muscle knot, “Gladly m’lady.” He’d chivalrously advance with clacks of chain-mail, draconic by the etching making. The material would make the most experienced blacksmith quite impressed. Right when Silv’a nearly cradled this end he foolishly met a dinging bell signaling this was still to begin. Among the Crew. There was a structure of power-hierarchy when it came to independence and also those who excelled better in support or team. Each matey held their own extreme weaknesses and flaws whether personality, or, ability. Some weren’t yet pushed or aware of them. Whilst others with their age nearly were incomprehensible with their battle prowess and room commandment. Far above even their own Captain escapades. Weak or strong it mattered little for the same course required all but the tentatively steer of all roles aboard that’s what ruled reign to spoil in all the hoards. Sheik Sphere jotted down this entertaining showdown for the records. Never losing his passion to share and kindle this with fellow passionate readers or to sing it among those of all. While he never combated harm. He had a unique unwavering charisma to avoid it personally remaining seen as too neutral. This was literature fascinating to savor! The matron Sea Wolf gingerly came advancing in against this most heinous. Her white-shark spectacles were softened with a brow. Almost showing pity for this demon. By some strange sensation she felt too eerily familiar as if something was buried beneath every depth of the surface. Trying to explore it would certainly risk drowning and being sunken to the bottomless sea. Her posing pray set him off, radiating apologies. His demonical outlook would handle this manner. One swift hand motion he’d unleash a wall of icy that rapidly drew forth her aspected water was meaningless to his mastery. While it may be true. Elastically watering the most manipulatively potent she stacked and built a tide large enough to withhold density and overly reach bigger heights than his initial walls. Closing her eyes. “Thine trencherman born salt to sea, I call upon thee, children of the deep!” Intense powerful glowering of her irises came as the ice and water connected, freezing at the surface and spreading rapidly. Before trident’s broke through as two conjured Sahagin Egi’s came bellowing out with their own glowing golden eyes.   Their flipper leave the containment, and puncture the demon from midair in the shoulder each. One more elementally made, while the other was scale made and naturally. “Ravage thou land-savages who bring equal pain throughout the sea.” Each of them growing empowered by her boisterous wishes. “He who hurts until one welts, deserves the tide’s sweeping without remorse.” They kept piercing the demonical wizard over and over unrelentingly with a feverishness. His immortality made quite resilient. Organs constantly being gushingly punctured like tarp bait flapping over a boat. Each erupting step of blood from his puncturing and mouth.

He found wherewithal to grapple their trident’s and conduct electricity attempting to fry the Sahagin from the link as the one who was more watery based let go and vaporized it was rapidly reformulating. The scale seemed null too as it didn’t let up. Before lifting up the kabob pierced the treacherous foe and let him go upstream into the ceiling from a non relenting geyser. Pinned he was struggling to contend with this might, unable to get his counter in. Her magic didn’t grow weaker, it was continuously building up and getting more vast. She fearsome conveyed as a magnificent threat he identified. Ever overpowering wrath he began trying to loosen it but he wasn’t finding success. To attempt to resist the current was a foul law he wouldn’t find. He brought upon his ice only for the temperature of the water to become steaming hot. The Inside and entire body was screeching in boiling water. A merging water induced egi found it’s regeneration and binding into the same waters only able to reformulate acidic properties, make the water start melting flesh. Reaching out his fingers he’d point outwardly in the distance before a humongous fallen column pillar broken in half came wedging between him and the hard place and then engulfing the geyser’s source using telekinesis. Which gave destruction to the combined aetherial Egi. Shaking completely before charging at the other Scaly-Egi before the other could pursue. Grappling it’s face and soaring himself with a push of heel electrical aether he’d return that favor of being dismantled against the wall. A trident once again snagged into him and linked the duo close. Regeneration was slow because of the acid as equally contesting the forces. His own palm began to get the same from grappling the jaws of this beastkin. Flame came out of SIlv’a as a response as they would wager against each other two destructiveness. The trident began again creating a vortex of water trying to push and repel him away from the wall or once again setting Silv’a back but his demoniacal fury became even more enlarged and massively maddened.                         (Previous) << (Voidal Relics) >> (Next)

[tailorvizsla]

HCs - Jealousy and First Fight

Hi everyone! I got several requests for 🎭 (Jealousy): Din Djarin, Armorer, and Paz Vizsla. Paz also got a request for 💥(First Fight). So, without further ado, here we go! 

📚 My Master List 📚

1. Jealousy – Din Djarin Word Count: 700 Rating: PG13

● Din Djarin is a quiet, unassuming man with little desire for anything but to protect his little family. Din does not talk much, which means it took you a very long time to learn how to decipher his body language. He tends to keep things bottled up inside himself, so even if he is feeling something strongly, he never shows it to you. At best, you will recognize that his tone is slightly off. After that, it takes a few minutes of cajoling before he speaks.

● That is why it takes months for you to realize that he actually likes you and anticipates your company whenever the two of you can spare the time to hang out together. And for the past month? You have been starting to suspect he has romantic intentions toward you.

● One day, he offers to take you to town to pick up some supplies you need, and you eagerly agree.  You look forward to a bit of fresh air, too. You know he isn’t good with small talk, so you keep it to things you know he likes – his sweet, tiny goblin of a child and blasters.

● The supply run goes by faster than either of you anticipated, which means that you can linger in the market for a bit. There, you find a toolkit that you know one of the mechanics needs. It, however, is way out of the price range that you find acceptable, so you start trying to haggle the price down to something you can afford.

● The shopkeeper does not seem to care that you are Mandalorian. He does not seem to care about the fact that you are Mandalorian. In fact, he seems to be gazing up at you in fascination, a blush on his cheeks and a grin stretching across his lips. Sighing to yourself, you flirt back, directing his attention back to the toolkit. He finally knocks it down to what it’s actually worth and you accept his offer. As you start counting out credits, the man cheekily asks if you’d be interested in grabbing a drink later tonight.

● Before you can answer, you feel Din come up behind you and wrap an arm around your waist, pulling you toward him. With the way you are pressed up against him, you can feel tension radiating from every square inch of his body.

● “That won’t be possible,” Din says in the rudest tone you’ve ever heard him use with someone, “She’s having drinks with me.” The shopkeeper blinks and nods rapidly.

● “I wasn’t aware that you were with someone!” he says to you.

● “Can we get that receipt?” Din asks tightly, unaware that your mouth is flapping uselessly behind your visor, “My girl and I have plans.”

● You look up at Din, then at the shopkeeper, then back up at Din, your brain fizzling into a state of utter incomprehension. Once the receipt has been handed over, and you have the toolkit in your bag, Din leads you away, his hand possessively low on your hip.

● When you’re back on the Razor Crest, he tries to make a break for the cockpit, but you’re faster than he is, and you cut him off. You fold your arms under your breast plate and stare up at him.

● “Din,” you say quietly. “What was that about?”

● He stays quiet for a few moments. “I didn’t like the way he was looking at you,” he finally admits.

● “Were you jealous?” you ask.

● “Yeah,” he admits grumpily. He tries to retreat, but you stop him with one hand on his wrist.

● “You don’t need to be jealous,” you say softly to him. “I…I’m yours, Din. If you want.”

● Din freezes in place. Then he gently leans in and presses his forehead to yours in a brief keldabe kiss.

● “There’s no need to be jealous,” you say. Then mischievously, “Though, I wouldn’t mind you wrapping your arm around me like that again.”

● He stammers something out in response, ducking his head in mortification. It’s true – you do like the idea of him claiming you publicly.

2. Jealousy – Armorer Word Count: 752 Rating: PG13

· Armorer is a woman who has spent many years looking after others before herself. She has lost many loved ones over the years, so she is quite possessive of those who still remain. When she meets you, and finds that she wants you as her own, she makes it known that You. Are. Taken. The Tribe hunters keep a respectful distance from you, knowing that their Alor has claimed you as her own.

· Initially, you are quite shy, but as soon as you get settled into the Tribe, your personality begins to shine. The hunters often call you the runt of the strill litter – you’re the smallest one there, yet you’re the most aggressive.

· (Before leaving you here, Din had taken you aside to give you some advice. “If you want something done, you must not hesitate to assert yourself. Hunters are used to getting their way with outsiders. You make the mistake of giving them an inch, they’ll try to take the entire fucking parsec. Put your foot down and let them know that you are not rolling over for them. I know your society tells you to be nice, but here, be the assertive warrior I know you have locked up in here.” He very gently poked one index finger into your sternum. It was an awkward pep talk, but…it worked.)

· The first attempt to overstep you had happened in the Foundry. Some idiot hunter just shoved his cloak into your arms and told you to go repair it. You had faltered for a half second before getting up and sweetly saying to him, “Of course, I’ll take care of it right now. It won’t take long to fix the problem.”

· Armorer watched you apprehensively as you marched to the Forge. When she realized what you were about to do, she almost stopped you, but she didn’t. (Secretly, she wanted to watch the ensuing meltdown.) You wadded up the smelly, ratty cloak and pitched it straight into the bright blue flames. As the cloak burned away into dust, the hunter spluttered indignantly before making a threat toward your continued existence.

· She stepped in then, warding him off with one hand, “You said you wanted the problem fixed. There is no longer a hole in your cloak.” He had stomped off like a spoilt child then, muttering something foul under his breath about your ancestors. Then she turned to you, “In the future, do not toss a hunter’s property into my Forge. It is not a waste receptacle.” (You turned bright red and stammered out the sweetest, sincerest apology she’d heard in her life. From then on, you insisted on helping clean to make up for what essentially amounted to sacrilege.)

· That ballsy show of a backbone had certainly endeared you to her. You wanted nothing more than to help the Tribe succeed, to learn more about the Mandalorian way. She liked seeing the way your eyes lit up on seeing the children playing (and often, you’d go join them). When you shyly brought her a bottle of cold water at the end of a long, hot day spent at the Forge, Armorer realized that she had fallen hard.

· Other people would have taken time to think about it. She, however, knew how unpredictable life as Mandalorian could be. So she started courting you on the spot, making her interest in you known to you and to the Tribe. No one overstepped…until that one idiotic hunter tried to woo you. She had been jealous for seconds before realizing how stupid it was to be jealous.

· As he tried and tried to convince you to join him for ‘private sparring lessons’, you refused, just smiling, waiting for Armorer to come say something. Armorer finally grew fed up and came to you, wrapping her arm around your waist and pulling you tight against her breast plate, relishing in the tiny sigh you let out.

· That was all it took for him to realize the mistake he was making. When Armorer let her fingers drift down to her side, he backed off. (If it’s one thing Mandalorians learn early in life, it’s that the armorer of their tribe is the last person they want to cross.)

· You turn to Armorer, burying your face into the fuzzy capelet she wears, inhaling the scent of smoke and fire. Her hand drops to your ass and squeezes, making it clear without a doubt that you are most certainly taken. Then she gently presses her forehead against yours.

3a. Jealousy – Paz Vizsla Word Count: 1210 Rating: PG-13

● As an older man in his forties, Paz Vizsla has had many years to learn how to temper that passionate part of himself. When he grows angry or jealous, Paz instinctively forces himself to stop and think, which is a lesson that many hunters learn far too late in life. Anger blinds people, which leads to mistakes, and can cause devastation. Anger can drive people to do or say things they normally never would. The last thing Paz ever wants to do is to hurt someone he loves.

● He is a walking bucket of contradictions: he is passionate, emotional, and prone to violence; he is logical, rational, and will never hurt the person he loves.

● As Alor’ad when it comes to the military aspet of their Tribe, he is personally responsible for ensuring that everyone is well-trained in a variety of combat techniques, including hand-to-hand, shooting, aerial maneuvering, and survival skills. This is a job he takes Seriously. When he feels someone needs improvement, he will dedicate himself to improving their skill, even if that other person feels like they are being smothered to death by him. (No one will ever complain about this, though, because Paz’s tutelage has saved more than one hunter from a mistake of their own making.)

● One day, while hosting a group of homeward-bound hunters, he sees you talking to one of them. Paz can’t remember his name. All he knows is that the kid is young and cocky, and halfway decent with his rifle. To his dismay, you and the kid get on like a house on fire, as if the two of you have known each other for your entire lives.

● For the first time in many years, Paz finds himself burning with jealousy, and even though he tries his best to hide it, everyone picks up on his body language, his terse speech, and the murderous stares he throws in the kid’s direction.

● Paz would never dream of asking you to end a friendship to make himself feel better. He also knows he needs to make his feelings known to you, but you’re having so much fun he doesn’t want to keep you from shooting with a friend. Or sparring with a friend. Or reading with a friend. Or… Paz shakes the thoughts from his head.

● There is nothing sexual there, he tells himself firmly. (That doesn’t stop him from watching the kid from afar, waiting for him to fuck up just once so he can put him in his place.)

● It takes nearly a week, but the kid finally steps over the imaginary line Paz had put up as his own personal boundary. The kid wraps his arm around your neck, pulls you down, and gives you a good whack on the noggin. Paz sees red at the assault on your person. Rather than blow up at him, you elbow him in the side and laugh at him.

● Paz can handle the banter, the playfulness, and the sparring. But physically putting his hands on you? That is where Paz draws the line, especially since you’ve stabbed other hunters for doing the exact same kriffing thing in the past. He gets up and approaches, keeping his posture calm and relaxed to avoid alerting the little shit of his intentions.

● “Hey, Paz!” you say to him. “Come sit with us!” He wants desperately to sit with you, to feel your warmth against his own, but he has other business to take care of first. He declines with a gentle shake of the head and a brush of his fingers against your shoulder.

● “I actually came over to talk to you,” Paz says, turning to the young man. “Let’s talk about this morning.” The kid cocks his head, relaying his confusion.

● “This morning?” he asks, and Paz nods in response. “This morning,” Paz says. “Let’s go.” He puts one hand on the kid’s shoulder and squeezes just hard enough to let him know that he means business.

● Out in the hallway, out of your sight, Paz turns to the kid and stares him down. Then he leans in, making the kid back into the wall in surprise. Paz takes a deep, dark pleasure in watching his rival back down without a fight.

● “Let me make one thing clear to you,” Paz growls. “She’s mine. You put your hands on her again and I will break every single bone in your body.”

● Paz expects the kid to respond with “Yes, sir, I understand” or maybe “Oh, shoot, I didn’t know you two were together” or something like that. What he doesn’t expect is to hear the kid laugh. Stunned, incandescent rage fills him as the kid continues to laugh, unintelligible gibberish escaping his modulator as he tries to speak.

● “What the hell are you two doing out here?” you ask from the doorway.

● “Nothing, cyare,” Paz says. “Just having a talk.”

● “This – this di’kut,” the kid gasps out, “He-he thinks I’m hi-hitting on you!”

● “What?” you ask incredulously. “Paz, what the hell?”

● He almost snarls at the kid as he turns back. While he laughs, the kid shrinks back against the wall, a shriek of laughter escaping him.

● “Paz!” you say, putting your hand on his bracer. “Paz, you idiot, he’s my brother!”

● Like a popped balloon, the rage leaves him, and crippling mortification seeps in to fill the void. It all makes sense now. Paz bemoans his temper. He should have known from the kriffing start. He and Din treat each other the exact same way – the playful wrestling, the banter, and the constant pestering. He takes a half-step back and exhales.

● “Sorry,” he says grumpily. “I didn’t know you were siblings.”

● You shake your head at him, “Paz, I told you my brother was coming to visit. Were you not paying attention to me?”

● “When did you tell me?” he asks in confusion. You press your bucket against your hands in a clear show of your exasperation. The kid just starts to giggle again.

● “I told you right after our last shooting lesson,” you say to him. Paz thinks back on that moment and feels an uncharacteristic blush crawling up his cheeks. He turns back to the kid and slams his hands over the kid’s audial receptors.

● “They’re off, they’re off!” the kid says, and Paz withdraws his hands.

● “Cyare, as I recall, you were quite undressed at that time,” Paz says. “Surely you cannot expect me to actually be able to focus on anything but those little lace panties?”

● You gasp in mortification at his lewd words. Indignantly, you turn on your heel and march away without another word. Paz turns his head back down at the kid and waves his hands to get his attention.

● “Are they on again?” Paz asks.

● “Yeah,” the kid says.

● “Let me get you a drink to make up for my shitty behavior,” Paz responds.

● “You in the strill house now?” he asks.

● “Yup,” Paz responds. “By the way, you’re good with your rifle. I can give you a few tips, if you’d like.”

● After buying your brother a drink, giving him a proper apology, and some shooting lessons, Paz feels like he’s made up for his behavior. Now, he needs to get back on your good side…

 3b. First Fight with Paz Vizsla Wordcount: 663 Rating: PG13

● Despite what everyone says about hunters, Paz is quite intelligent. He is acutely aware of your emotional state and your needs. It is exceptionally rare that he slips up and upsets you. The two of you have your disagreements, like any other married couple, but it has never gotten to the point where the two of you actually fight. Despite your best efforts, it is inevitable that you and Paz have your first true fight.

● The day starts off like any other – you wake up with Paz’s arm around your waist and his face buried into your hair. After getting ready for the day, the two of you head to your respective workstations. The first disagreement is over something ridiculously stupid. You’re already tense, and Paz accidentally brings you the wrong ration. You thank him – a hint of sarcasm in your voice – and he responds in kind. Normally, you and Paz have no problems communicating, but today has been extremely stressful for the two of you.

● Staggering in through the bedroom door, you immediately trip over Paz’s boots and fall flat on your face. Rather than scold him, you blow up at him. He tells you to watch where you are going, rather than apologize for leaving his shit in the way. From there, it escalates, turning into a fight about everything that each of you has done to wrong the other.

● He shuts down when he’s angry, so he stalks off to go hide in the bedroom, locking the door behind himself to keep you away from him. (Honestly, hearing the door shut behind him hurts worse than the fact that you two are even fighting.)

● For the first time since the start of your marriage, you two go to bed angry at one another. You take the couch while he keeps the bed. (He really is too big to fit on the couch, and even though you want to wring his kriffing neck right now, you don’t want him to aggravate his back injury.)

● Later, you curl up on your side and pull your pillow over your head. You can’t help but to cry – you have never been this angry with him or yourself before. You’re frustrated, sad, and alone. Paz didn’t do anything to deserve your anger or your attitude. You don’t want to fault him for responding in kind – he’s a patient man, but he isn’t going to sit there and take someone’s attitude endlessly.

● You sit up and wipe the tears off your face. As you’re wrapping the blanket around yourself, Paz comes out into the living room. He sits down next to you and wraps his arm around you. You don’t hesitate to bury your face against his shoulder.

● “Cyare,” you say softly, “Why are we fighting?”

● “I don’t know,” he says. “I truly don’t.”

● From there, you apologize for snapping at him, your poor attitude, and the things you had spat at him in anger. He apologizes as well for the same things, pulling you into his lap and holding you close. He exhales and kisses you on the forehead, making you blush lightly.

● “I don’t like fighting with you,” Paz says quietly. You nod in agreement, “We are a team, cyare. No one – nothing – should come between us, especially our anger.”

● Over the next hour, the two of you work things out, figuring out where all the anger had manifested, where those hurtful things came from. Once everything is settled, Paz carries you into the bedroom and tosses you down onto the bed. Then he curls up behind you, resting a heavy arm around you, grunting as he buries his face into your hair.

● “Much better,” he says. “Couldn’t sleep without your hair in my mouth.”

● Quietly, you giggle at his words. The two of you will overcome these differences together, just like any other problem that arises.

All in all, this has been a very informative exercise, and I think this shows me where I need to improve as a writer. I definitely need to work on getting a personality hammered out for Armorer. (That pun was not intended, but I’m leaving it in.) Thank you so much to everyone who sent in a request! I really appreciate it! :D

[tisthepoetl]

There are many stressors in a modern day lifestyle.

Usually these include the looming threat of death, the monotony of working for currency that stopped being useful years ago and deer.

There are so, so many stressed people. Made worse by the apocalypse that didn’t happen, the riots that most definitely happened, and the negotiations that have been “in progress” for the last few years.

The amount of rapid budget changes are stressing out some people. The amount of rapid cultural exchange is stressing people out. If you work in any field, any field at all, you are likely to be stressed as all hell.

Eventually, they have to pick someone on the ship to be shown as an expert negotiator. No one is prepared for this. Most of them are middle men, most of them don’t have a clue what they’re supposed to be doing, and all of them are panicking.

So they drew straws. The most important decision of all time is made by dumb luck, and honestly that’s a pretty good metaphor for everything happening right now.

Name someone on their haphazard crew and they will have a conflict of interest. Name one member and they will be grossly under qualified.

America has four ambassadors out of the eight chosen. Not because they’re the most presentable, or the most qualified, or the best possible choice, but because they overpaid for a privilege nobody wanted.

If all of this goes to hell they're getting the blame. And if they get the blame the only plan is to point at whoever was voluntold to be leader and pray for leniency.

Every part of this is a desperate attempt to stall before the actual powers back home have found a way to bullshit having any actual control of things.

It shows.

It really, really shows.

So, who was the unlucky scapegoat for the possible downfall of all of humanity?

If you guessed Samantha who wasn’t supposed to even be on this ship, you would be correct!!

Seriously, she was the back up for someone who was almost conceivably qualified. Sort of, if you squinted and ignored the fact they were only there via nepotism, only to be pulled out once everyone realized they were sacrificial lambs.

And then the replacement was also saved from this bullshit via bribery and blackmail and probably some other third sketchy thing she doesn’t know about.

So, here she is, Samantha who had planned on changing her name before realizing she wasn’t getting out of this. Samantha, the replacement for the replacement who was chosen by a lottery held only for the illusion of equal opportunity.

There are literally billions and billions of people whose lives will be affected by whatever she ends up doing. Countless children, parents, lovers and friends and siblings. All of whom would either die or live by whatever ends up happening.

Luckily, she has one coping mechanism which never fails: Repression!!

So she thinks about literally anything else. Thinks about her favorite song as the ship nears the giant towering shape of the Galactic Senate’s meeting place. Thinks about fluffy dogs as she is led by the hand through walls and portraits and treasures with descriptions she can’t read because there are no translators yet.

Thinks about her mother, thinks about her sibling, thinks about the fact everyone could literally die and it would be her fault, and wow she’s already here.

The meeting place has a mouthful name that she could only pronounce if she managed to dislocate her jaw, grow a new set of teeth, and get a proboscis. Everyone calls it the Meeting Place, because again, there are no working translators, they all have to rely on vague equivalents.

The Meeting Place is a moon sized ship, so incomprehensibly large that any species will be able to fit. It has a dock, and a large empty room with nothing in it except for alien leaders who could slaughter them all at a whim.

There are no chairs. The temperature is set to “Mildly unpleasant but liveable.” Unity and democracy means that everyone is equally uncomfortable, because this exact temperature is workable for most species.

Samantha feels a chill down her spine, both from the cold and the fact that so many of them are glaring at her. She is in the center, her crew is placed too far away to help her, and their borrowed ship is miles away from where they are now.

She prays to the gods she doesn’t believe in and hopes she can stall well enough for the clusterfuck back home to get their shit together.

“H…” she starts eloquently. She tries to refind where the rest of humanity’s first impression was stationed, but her view is blocked by the hundreds of giant aliens. “He..llo?” she finishes.

There’s a click, and she flinches back because what if that’s a weapon. A small cube clatters to the ground in front of her, before popping up and showing a hologram.

She would be visibly impressed, in awe, if it weren’t for the fact she’s half sure these diplomats could take any reaction as an insult.

She wouldn’t be able to explain herself either, it’s too early for any sort of translator to have been made, it’s too early for anything about human body language to be common knowledge.

The crowd surrounding her rustles, fins are raised and noises are made and colors are changed. It means something, probably, but she can’t tell what.

The hologram cube makes a loud, ear splitting sound, like a mix between a flatlining heart in a movie and a fire alarm going off. It snaps her out of her spiraling.

There are two large lines pointing at a screen that is pulsing with the most neon red she’s ever had the unfortunate luck of seeing. She stares at it, and realizes it’s a quiz.

Well, more like a shitty rushed powerpoint. Like something you would make in under an hour for the fun of it.

It says, “What Human Want [Ask],” and she has the sneaking suspicion that whoever made this wasn’t trying very hard. Underneath are barely recognizable butcherings of numbers, listing answers from one to three.

“1. Want hurt. Want no us. Lone want.”

“1nd. Want love. Want share. Want us help.”

“1rd. Want no meet us. Want late meet. Want lone.”

All of it is….confusing to say the least. At this point she doesn’t even know if this is a joke or not.

Then again this wasn’t supposed to be her job, she doesn’t understand them either, and maybe they were genuinely trying here. But then again there are so many of them, they probably have enough resources to make at least a dozen Earths and this meeting took multiple years to take place.

The red that flashed before flashes again, than flashes a disturbingly real fingerprint on top of the answers.

She presses the second one, and wills herself to not regret it immediately. Love, sharing, help, all of that sounds good.

Except what if the help is from humanity? What if their definition of help, share, love is killing everyone ever living and she just doomed it all?? What if it means—

“[Greeting] [Greeting Happy] [Greeting Love] [Greeting Happy Angry Bored] [Greeting (Deragotory)]” a voice drones through a translation of the crowd. Samantha wonders when this will be over, and if she’s going to die of anxiety before that happens.

“[Greeting Small Childish] [Greeting Sad Fear] [Greeting (Endeared)] [Greeting Pain Hurt] [Greeting Love Fear Pain]” it doesn’t stop, running through every risen scale and moving limb to translate some vague approximation.

The aliens have translators. The translators are awful. This is taking so much time, which is good for the mission of stalling and bad for Samantha’s sanity.

“[Species Name (Derogatory)] [Mother (Derogatory)] [Criminal (Deragot—]“ the whole crowd is making noise, some like barks and some like tweets and some like a monster out of hell.

And all of them seem to be arguing? Or insulting each other? Either way it continues on for a long stretch of time with nothing but noisy aliens and a robotic voice reciting nonsense that always ends in “(Derogatory.)”

“[Wrong: Too long.] [Wrong: Too fast.] [Wrong: No word Human.]” The sounds are longer, most of the crowd making them rising and puffing out to be bigger. “[Plea Slow.] [No Word for Our Word.] [New Local Child Pet Ally speak.] [No word for Our Word.]”

Samantha realizes once again, that she should’ve left when she had the chance. And never entered that stupid lottery.

“[I hate every single one of you.] [Stop! The Ally-New-Child-Local may hear.] [You are all stupid [Species Name]]” the noises transition into understandable sentences. “[The small Diplomat-Traveler will be confused. Stop.] [They are doing fine. They will not understand our words.] [When is that useless translator going to update, Myy-Rrr-Pl?]”

Humanity as a whole can only take so much. One human as a whole can only take so much. She is halfway to a mental breakdown, fully confused and honestly she just wants to go home. This is the kind of wonder she would love if she didn’t have to personally deal with the consequences.

So she goes the way of most unqualified, underpaid workers, and gives up. She isn’t going to scream or sabotage anything, but her ability to feel was already warring with the tempting concept of not giving a fuck.

She speaks, for the second time. “I can hear you. And I don’t much appreciate being called a child.”

“[.....]” the crowd is finally silent. She basks in the peace.

“[I told you to stop confusing the Ambassador.] [Shut up Myy-Rrr-Pl. You didn’t even get these made right, we had to make a presentation, that’s how awful you and your tech were.] [It's working now, okay?]” The peace was lovely while it lasted.

“Humanity wants, uh, to not be dead,” she says. “And to not be enslaved either. Or like used as food.”

“[Can you understand it?] [Of course I can, I’m the one who learned the language.] [You barely learned it. You put half that presentation into a free-use translator.]” they keep talking, keep barking, chirping, hissing over her. “[This is a disaster.] [It’s not that bad. My presentation went over well enough.] [Myy-Rrr-Pl shut your beak about that [intercourse (derogatory)] thing.]”

“CAN YOU BE QUIET FOR ONE SECOND??” Samantha shouts above the arguing ambassadors. There is only so much she can tolerate, the noise alone is irritating but the senseless, contextless bickering is unbearable

“This is ridiculous,” she continues. “I don’t even know what’s going on, none of you dropped us an explanation. Why can I suddenly understand you? Who the hell is Meer-er-pull? And what the fuck is going on?”

There is no more translation, and nothing to translate into constant robotic rambling. There is no peace in the silence, just an underlying tension as every alien in the room turns to stare her in the eyes.

She wonders if she’s fucked up, if she’s doomed literally all of humanity because she couldn’t tolerate it all and lashed out. There’s an apology on the tip of her tongue, but she can’t manage to push it out through the indignation and fear.

No one breaks the silence. None of them speak. Samantha’s momentary confidence wavers and she considers making a run for it before realizing there are more of those giant aliens stationed at every exit.

“[....Aumko, I think we may have [intercourse (deragotory)] this beyond fixing.] [Feces (Derogatory) Feces (Derogatory) Feces (Derogatory)—]” Luckily, it doesn’t sound like she’s going to be executed for this. Unluckily, the aliens are just as unprepared as they were, and it wasn’t going to get any less confusing, was it?

“[I told you [Anatomical Feature (Exapserated)] that we should’ve started with a smaller group of diplomats. Instead of a “proper” meeting with everyone involved, we should’ve picked one from each of the 3 species, then gone from there. That would’ve been—]”

“I’m not getting any less confused here!!” Samantha cuts off the alien. “I’m not getting any younger either, I’m sick of your childish bickering, get over it and give me an explanation. Please, for the love of god.”

There’s a moment of pause as the translator spits out a bunch of meaningful white noise. It takes a couple moments before one of the birds speaks up.

“[We should cancel this until another time,] the bird chirps. Which isn’t satisfying, which isn’t an explanation, but hey it does technically fulfill the mission of stalling. And honestly she’s taking any win she can get from this. “[We’ll meet up with one of their diplomats, in a less noisy location. They’ll meet with one ambassador from each of our species.]

“[That doesn’t make sense though!!] [How will we even choose?] [A smaller meeting would be a sign of disrespect, we must show that we don’t view the New-Ally as lesser.]” the noise starts up again immediately.

“[SHUT UP!!]” roars one of the giant bears in a show of irritation that she can relate to on a spiritual level. “[Myy-Rrr-Pl will serve as the [Error: No suitable translation]’s ambassador. I’ll be the second ambassador. The third will be Kss’ta.]

There are ruffled feathers, low growls, no outward arguments but no agreements either.

“[I will quite literally fight anyone who decides to waste my time any further.] the bear is...puffing up? The mane of fur around its neck is puffed up like the pelt of an angry cat. “[Myy-Rrr-Pl is the only one who can even half speak the language, and who has the most context. Even if her presentation was awful.]”

“[I’m going to be there personally to ensure this doesn’t happen a second time. And Kss’Ta is the only one of you [Species Name] [Intercourse (Derogatory)] who doesn’t argue around in circles.”

The crowd is unhappier than ever. The bear speaking sounds done with it all. Samantha is too exhausted to give a shit at this point, and just decides to be glad it’s finally over, for now.

“[Is everyone here agreed with me?”] it flares about the room, ears pinned flat to its head and mane big enough to engulf the whole of its neck. All of the crowd flinches back, no one argues too vehemently, though complaints are muttered.

The bear turns to Samantha. “[You have my apologies for my own behavior, and the behavior of these [Species Name (Derogatory)]. We’ll escort your ship back to your station.]”

Relief hits her in a mix of “it’s finally over,” and “thank fuck no one died.”

Everyone leaves, with the mission sort of accomplished, with the peace talk sort of working, and a compromise no one is happy with. Except for Samantha.

But then she learns she’s the ambassador for humanity again, and a piece of her dies at the revelation.

Humanity’s welcome to the galaxy was chaotic, idiotic, ill prepared, and an overall clusterfuck of literally galactic proportions.

At least no one died.

[sagurus]

01. “no, come back,”

So, I’m doing my own sorta... write-tober thing, based off of multiple prompt lists that other folks have made! I’m going to do my best to do one every day, and it might not necessarily be all that good because I’m just trying to smash out the story concept and get it in writing. Each day that I do one of these, I intend to post it here, and any that I’m especially proud of / want to polish up will get put onto my ao3 at a later date.

This one was inspired in part by @fictober-event​‘s day one: “no, come back” (here’s the prompt list)

---

Saguru stood in the company building’s surveillance room, gaze flitting between various screens as he tracked KID’s movements and watched the task force scramble. Into the radio provided to him by Nakamori, he said, “It would appear KID has tampered with the cameras in the east hall leaving the display room.” This was a lie. It was true that the camera’s feed was corrupted and incomprehensible, but he knew it was not KID that had induced it. This had been his own doing.

The bait was laid. New orders and affirmatives barked down the line and the officers all veered, rerouting to go where Saguru had pointed them.

Into a separate communication device, better-secured than the task force’s line, he said, “Coast is clear.”

“Thank you, Tantei-san,” sing-song cooing from his ear-piece. Saguru held his breath, straining to see if Kaito would fail to evade any of the cameras. Misdirection was well and good, but Saguru could risk scrutiny if he failed to report a sighting elsewhere.

Movement on a monitor.

It wasn’t KID, though, or if it was, it was a disguise he hadn’t been expecting. Instead, Saguru saw Officer Hirata, apparently inspecting a room near the stairwell. Saguru watched the stray officer look somewhere toward something in the camera’s blind spot. As Saguru watched him lift the radio, the camera’s feed cut.

He said to “No—come back. Something’s strange—”

Saguru broke off; he heard the sound that came before someone spoke into the radio along the task force comms, the signal of input. He strained to listen. There was never a voice, though. Saguru readied to report the loss of another camera, this one not his doing and as far as he knew, not Kaito’s either, but he was interrupted.

A single resonating, calamitous noise.

A gunshot.

It was certainly from within the building, although Saguru could determine only so much directionally beyond not in this room and not near enough to deafen. Before Saguru could say a word, voices poured over the radio. Saguru couldn’t hope to get a word in edgewise over the racket, so he turned attentions to his communication line with Kaito again in time to hear KID’s voice, thinly, “—Shit—”

“Are you with me?” Saguru managed, airless with rising panic. A gunshot. The cut camera. Had that been Kaito in disguise? Had it been a task force officer?

“Wasn’t shot. Where’d—nevermind.”

“—Where are you?”

Silence.

Saguru’s insides knotted with unease and he accepted that Kaito had, for whatever reason, disabled the communication device. With no time to hesitate, Saguru tucked his own away. He had to fumble a little with the power button, leading him to realize somewhat detachedly that his hands were trembling.

Over the task force comms: “—It’s Hirata-san. He’s—”

“Where?!” Inspector Nakamori’s voice cut in, turning the feed garbled and broken.

“The display room near the southern stairwell,” said the other voice, the same as the one that had reported the discovery of…the body, Saguru’s mind supplied, before he desperately shook the thought away.

His ears were ringing as he careened out of the surveillance room, bounding down the hall to reconvene with the task force. It occurred to him that nobody knew who the shooter was or where they had gone. Perhaps one person had an idea, but—Saguru dreaded the logical conclusion.

Saguru reached the inspector before he reached the room. Urgent and clipped, he reported, “The camera in that room cut just before the shot. I saw Officer Hirata there—looked like he had noticed something. I don’t know where the—”

Inspector Nakamori growled a litany of obscenities, crashed into the room ahead of Saguru. Saguru’s stomach lurched. I don’t know where the shooter went, he had been trying to say, but the inspector charged ahead anyway. In Saguru’s mind’s eye he saw the inspector stagger back from the impact of another gunshot. The sound of the imagined scene resounded in his ears at the same frequency as the awful ringing.

No such thing occurred, however, and Saguru followed the inspector into the room. Saguru could see a corridor which would have existed outside of the camera’s view. He could see three total escape routes the culprit may have had—the corridor itself, the entry to the stairwell (to which the door hung open), or the other entrance into this particular room, leading to an exhibit hall.

There was a smear of blood against the wall adjacent to the camera’s blind spot. The smear led to what should have been Hirata. Lifeless eyes confronted Saguru head-on, and Saguru’s throat felt as if it was closing up.

As he sought to steady himself, Saguru found himself making eye contact with the officer standing nearest to the corpse—that being a handful of metres away, but still closer than the rest of the task force had yet managed. Saguru recognized this to be the owner of the voice of the individual who had reported the scene in the first place. Officer Daita stood ashen and horrified, seeming to look past Saguru before looking back to the body.

From a purely unemotional perspective, there was nothing exceptionally horrible about the scene, other than the profuse blood from the apparent shot to the heart. What was horrible was that it had happened here, at a heist, where these sort of tragedies were not meant to happen. That KID’s playground truly was a place where things could go terribly, horribly wrong, even if not by the thief’s own making.

Saguru’s mind ran on repeat—escape routes, blood spatter, dead eyes staring into nothing, the gunshot, the black screen, possible vantage points for additional attacks, possible hiding places for the shooter, Kaito’s voice over the communication line, ‘Wasn’t shot. Where’d—nevermind.’ The movements and voices of the task force muted and distant, as if rooms away.

Nobody noticed the way Officer Daita backed away as the inspector and others surged forward.

Saguru registered that he lost track of Officer Daita only when Inspector Nakamori demanded details from him. Daita, from beside his partner, insisted that he hadn’t been the one. It didn’t make sense—the inspector snarled as much. Saguru threw his mind back to moments ago (124 seconds, to be precise), recalling Daita’s clearly terror-filled face as he stood metres away from Hirata’s corpse. His attention had been overtaken by the gorey details, and he’d lost track, although he could recall the notion of the officer melting into the crowd. From there, he was gone without a trace.

Kaito?

The gunman?

Saguru wanted to tear away from all this noise and go searching for Kaito just as much as he wanted to stay and get to the bottom of the murder.

The logical part of him reminded: if you run off, you’ll look suspicious.

He remained where he stood.

 Two quiet hours of fruitless searching later, Nakamori sent Saguru off with his driver. He wasn’t sure if the inspector had noticed how rattled he seemed, or if he just wanted a teenager out of his hair when there was a murder investigation afoot, but the result was the same. Saguru was at once relieved to get some distance from the dead body, and tied himself in knots at the fact he hadn’t gotten a handle on who, specifically, the culprit could be, yet. He knew it was entirely possible that it was one of the dark-clad gunmen after KID, but he also knew it was possible that someone in the task force was working for the enemy, and the idea that one of the officers he worked alongside could be responsible for this was—reprehensible. Terrifying. All too likely.

In the car, Saguru risked a glance at his phone’s notifications. Baaya said very little to him, expression grave, and he was grateful for the quiet.

No texts from Kaito.

“Baaya?”

“Yes, Bocchama.”

“Please take me to the Kuroba residence, if it isn’t too much trouble.”

“Of course, Bocchama.”

 Saguru worried that he would have to let himself into Kaito’s house, worried that Kaito wouldn’t be home, worried that everything was even more wrong than he thought it was.

After ringing the bell, though, it only took twenty seconds for Kaito to open the door for him. He was coiled tight, Saguru saw immediately. His gaze darted past Saguru’s shoulder, scanned the street. His expression was taut, face lined with tension. He studied Saguru as if seeking out any sort of threat, as if distrusting that it might actually be him. Kaito seemed to arrive to the conclusion that it really was Saguru, though, because Kaito ushered him inside.

Behind them, the door fell shut. Kaito locked it.

“—Are you—” Saguru struggled to find the right words. He toed off his shoes as he sought them out. “—hurt?” He couldn’t ask if Kaito was okay. Because of course he wasn’t.

“No,” clipped and almost harsh. “No, I’m fine. Not a scratch on me!” This came out thin, a pained sort of giddiness. Forced, shattered cheer.

Saguru’s mind drifted back to the last time there had been a death at a heist. That time, it had been the corrupt Interpol officer, a murderer who’d claimed numerous lives. A life Kaito had tried to save, except he’d slipped quite literally out of Kaito’s grasp. It had been a great tragedy, and Kaito still held himself responsible.

But there’d never been a murder. Certainly not of an officer working at the heist.

Kaito’s hands were shaking.

If Kaito held himself responsible for the death of a man beyond his reach, beyond saving, Saguru could only imagine that the weight of this death was immeasurable in comparison.

Saguru reached for him, and Kaito drew away on automatic. It stung.

Kaito was hurting, Saguru couldn’t blame him. But he burned for reassurance that Kaito really was intact, that he had at least in some ways gone untouched by tonight’s violence. He persisted, grasping Kaito’s hand tenderly.

The tremors were still there. Kaito didn’t pull away this time.

“I’m glad you aren’t hurt,” Saguru said, trying to act as an anchor even as he ached for something to hold him steady. “We’ll get to the bottom of this. Everyone else is safe.” For tonight, at least, he didn’t say.

After a few beats of this cautious contact, Kaito pulled away in a swift motion and started walking up toward his room. Saguru hesitated, let Kaito get some ground ahead of him, before following after. He hadn’t been told to leave, so he was going to stay.

“I’m not great company right now,” Kaito said after they both reached his bedroom, him sitting on the edge of his bed, Saguru lingering just at the threshold. Being in Kaito’s room still felt like an intimate and treacherous thing, even at this point in their entanglement.

“I’m not looking for good company,” Saguru said after processing Kaito’s words, turning them this way and that as he tried to discern everything that may lie beneath them. “I just—” don’t want to leave you alone. “—don’t particularly like the idea of being alone, at the moment.”

Silence fell, and Kaito scrubbed a hand over his face, not looking at Saguru.

Saguru could venture a guess as to the things going through Kaito’s mind right now. The shame of someone dying ‘on his watch,’ a sense of dark, spreading self-loathing as he considered the events that led to the shooting. The terror, that something so final could happen, and that it wasn’t him acting as the target despite his best efforts to be the primary focus of violent intent. The goading, garish target, clad in glowing white, impossible to miss. And yet, it had been an officer, and not only had he been hurt, he had died.

A man with a family. A man with prospects, a future, aspirations.

He felt sick with the pain of it.

He awaited any kind of protest from Kaito as he edged closer, ensuring that he moved slowly, but apparently. Kaito said nothing. After a great amount of deliberation, Saguru eased himself onto the edge of the bed, leaving half a metre of space between them. He opened his mouth as if to speak. “…” There was nothing to say. He didn’t want to speculate about the murder. He’d spent the past two hours and change spiraling over it. He could only imagine Kaito had done the same. “I’m staying here,” he said finally.

Kaito didn’t protest. His hands continued to tremble. Saguru wanted to still them, but he let Kaito have his space.

It was mere minutes later that Saguru felt a weight against his side. Kaito, having edged closer, leaned against him, a heavy weight pressing into Saguru’s side. Saguru put his arm carefully behind Kaito, not holding him, but helping to brace his weight. Silence stretched. Saguru strained his ears, and heard breath catching, halting, continuing. Tremulous.

“Stay,” Kaito said, barely audible, as if Saguru hadn’t already affirmed that he wouldn’t be going anywhere.

“It was you who found him, wasn’t it,” Saguru murmured, recalling Officer Daita’s ashen face, and then Officer Daita’s denial of having been first on the scene. The tightening of Kaito’s shoulders was answer enough. 

Saguru exhaled, slow and steady. “I’m here,” he murmured.

[scriptaed]

the redmail | 01

♡ genre: angst/fluff; college!au; e2l!au;

♡ pairing: reader x yoongi;

♡ length: 2.4k; 

♡ synopsis: stoic, indifferent, and aloof, you’ve always wondered what made that oddball yoongi the heartthrob of the school; that is, until one day, when you finally catch him red-handed and the origins of his popularity are unveiled—that bastard’s been writing himself his own love letters! [...] // a drabble of the redmail but written in yoongi’s pov because things aren’t always what they seem. 

♡ commissioned by @shadowsremedy​: thank you so so much for the support! eeespecially for requesting this because it was so much fun to write. i hope you enjoy this c: 

The silence she leaves in her wake is overbearing—but then again, how stupid am I to assume otherwise after having just witnessed the outbreak of a ferocious tempest? I knew it would hurt. I knew she would explode, being the untamed girl I’ve come to know much too well. I knew she would face dejection, even if she vainfully concealed it, because she’s never been completely honest with neither me nor herself; and as certain as I was of her dismay over my threat against her necessary albeit forced confession to Jin, the one and only thing of much more certainty was the hurt I would inevitably face. She might not know it—and I, myself, wouldn’t have believed such an absurd claim just a month ago—but I would rather sit through another dozen of her outfit checks than to be the cause of her pain again. 

And that says a lot.

Tsk. Winter is especially relentless tonight. I’ve never been the type to reel at the bite of cold, but the ghost she left behind has me balled up and shivering. I glance around the stretch of the lengthy street overlooking a river and lit by cold blue post lights, drowning myself in the chirps of crickets only to prim at the absence of any passersby. At least no one had to pay witness to the horrific argument that most would only cringe at while watching all those rom-coms that Y/N had forced me to sit through. Not that I really cared what others thought. Knowing Y/N, however, she would have been whining to me about how others would misconstrue the situation and spread false rumors about our lover’s quarrel… that is, if she were even willing to speak to me again.

How long has it been since she stormed off anyways?

I could only scoff at myself in disbelief when a pathetic epiphany dawns upon me. Here I sit, in the middle of a stranded street after spending my entire Sunday night acting as a pretend boyfriend for a girl whose eyes lied elsewhere—and yet, despite having been scolded by said girl and deservedly so, my body remains affixed to the bench and every and any efforts to budge are in vain. 

Why? 

It’s shamefully dumb for me to admit—and I would never do it aloud, for no one, including myself, should have to endure such torture—but I’m clinging onto our last: the last time I shared a seat with her, the last time she held my hand even if in the name of “practice,” the last fragment in time I could relish and smile stupidly over her but only secretly at my own discretion.  

A small puff of white followed by a larger, heavier cloud fills the air as I release the weight along with the burden that remains in my chest. The winter cold sends chills to my bone and the white lights blind me as I unintentionally challenge it to a staring contest, but they all pale in comparison to the daunting possibility of a tomorrow without the daily bother she had forced me to become accustomed to. 

God, I always appreciated quality time with silence, but it’s too damn quiet around here. Where is her endless blabbering when I need it?

Nonetheless, I stumble onto my feet. It goes without saying: my conviction is undeterred. I don’t regret telling her the truth nor do I regret having blown some steam over her silly, Jin-driven fanatic antics that I had allowed for far too long. I had to tell her. It was for the better. She had to get over it, and when she finally does get over it… would she finally recognize her true value? Could she finally appreciate a man who could treat her right? 

...and in her own treacherous words that reverberates through the silent night and wreaks chaos in what was once my perfectly tranquil state of mind: what would I do if, someday, her heart really found its way to me? 

“Pft, second choice to Jin?” I scoff to myself, shaking my head, burying my hands into my pockets, and kicking the rocks to the curb along with my pathetic skip of a heartbeat, “Don’t ‘kid around with me.” 

♡ ♡ ♡

“Oh, Yoongles!” Jin kicks a leg over the other, quickly catching his toppled laptop and returning it to his lap just as I enter the room, “you going out on evening dates now, too, or wh—” he pauses and grimaces once he notices something, whatever it is, on my face, “—what happened?”

“First, you don’t get to call me ‘Yoongles,’” I deadpan, “and second, we need to talk.” 

“Talk? Us?” Jin articulates but I don’t really need to answer for him to realize the gravity of the situation. Propping a pillow behind him and the wall, Jin finally sits up and chuckles nervously, “what’s with you recently? Given, you’ve always been a moody grandpa, but you seem… particularly bothered nowadays.” 

How was I supposed to bring her up without being bombarded by his inevitably nosy questions? And how do I ask him for a favor without spilling the secret Y/N had entrusted me with? It was a hard task, one that I really would rather not go through the hassle of doing, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight otherwise. 

For her, I had to do it. 

Strolling across the short span of our tiny room, I don’t even realize that I’ve been pacing back and forth between our two beds before finally leaning against my desk. The next thing I know, I’ve been staring at Jin far more intently and probably more intensely than a person asking for a favor should have been.  

Thankfully, Jin being the usual albeit irritatingly perky guy he is, he waves my silence off as just another normal day with me, “you need my assistance? What is it? Dating advice? Haha, I knew it! It’s okay, you don’t have to be shy—”

“—it’s about Y/N.”

I make sure to cut him off before he establishes a steady rhythm. 

“Oh,” a smug grin stains his face and I have to remind myself exactly who I’m doing this for in order to hold the click of my tongue, “so that’s who this is all about. What’s up? Finally taking a liking to girls, eh? Well, I don’t blame you. Y/N’s a good catch—”

“—she’s not some fish you can just ‘catch,’’” the words slip from lips just as my tongue clicks. Clearing my throat, I cross my arms and shuffle in place… hopefully enough of a surrender for the favor I’m about to ask. A momentary pause follows but after peeking at him from the corner of my eyes and finding him indulging in his own incomprehensible mumbles, a scoff escapes along with my own unnecessary worries.

Damn, I’m really starting to sympathize with Y/N because he really is a dense one. 

“...although I do have to say she’s changed a lot. Say,” Jin babbles, finally turning to realize that his words have been going in through one ear and out the other, “did you start liking her before everything or after everything?”

“‘Everything?’” I quirk a brow at his question. 

“You know, like, makeup and clothes,” Jin pauses, “well, I guess you’ve never been too close with her until now, so you might not remember—”

“—I remember,” I say much more adamantly than I intended, having to clear my throat before continuing, “she might not look like it, but she’s the same person as she’s always been.”

“Oh?” Jin purses his lips and nods admittedly. “Well, of course you would know. So, after breaking the hearts of half the girls in school, what is it about her that’s finally enraptured the heartthrob himself?”

Of course the heart-breaker himself would ask that. 

A simple roll of the eyes is enough for him to understand that the last thing I would give him is an answer to his question. 

“Oh! You might be silent but you’re also not denying it! I’ll take it as a victory,” he chimes proudly but I only wrinkle my nose at him in distaste, especially when he bounces forward far too enthusiastically and almost tips his laptop off the bed. “Ooh! Oh my God, does she like you, too?” 

“What?” 

Silence befalls the room for what seems to be an eternity. I don’t even realize the extent of my glare until I notice Jin flinching backwards and bracing himself for the scolding I surely would have given if it weren’t for what I’m about to ask of him. 

What is it with Y/N and Jin today? Proposing the most absurd scenarios that could only exist hypothetically? It’s odd, considering how questions don’t usually agitate me like this, but...

I mean, does she like me? How ironic is it that her crush, himself, questions her feelings for me, someone who is simply her wingman only under the conditions of blackmail? 

And if, supposedly in the rarest of chances, her attention has really averted elsewhere, how pathetic would I be as a mere second choice? 

“No,” I grimace, purposely staring him down to get the point across, “no, she doesn’t like me.”

“Oh,” Jin pouts in sudden dismay, “I’m sorry, man. Do you know who she likes then?” 

“Don’t know, don’t care,” I shrug. I don’t know why but something about this topic has me wanting to walk out of this room this very second; and before I know it, my discontent had somehow manifested in what I had always thought to be incomprehensible mumbles, “but if she really did like someone, they’d probably be almost as dumb as her decisions.”

“‘Dumb?’” Jin almost shrills. “You’ve never called anyone dumb before except for me—”

—shit. 

What did I even say? How did he hear me? Never mind that, had I given away too much? Surely not, right? Jin, the most dense of all guys, wouldn’t be able to decipher the message from something as simple as that, right? 

“No,” I quickly blurt, recomposing myself by shuffling in place and putting on a blank canvas that would be my best joker face, “you’re not the only one. I mean, Y/N’s dumb, too.”

“Well, if you know so adamantly for a fact that she doesn’t like you, then you do know that she likes someone…” Jin mumbles to himself. “That would mean you’ve been lying to me thus far… which means…”

Should I stop him now? Should I throw him off track or would that only raise more suspicion? Worse yet, what is this dreadful pain that’s hammering against my chest? It’s almost as if I’m helplessly staring at an impending doom that would soon take my life by storm… because, even if I had threatened Y/N with her secret, what on earth would I do if I really were to have confessed for her? 

“...does Y/N like me?” 

Betraying her is the last thing I wanted. 

“Jin,” I say through gritted teeth because nothing could alleviate the tension brought upon by the drop in my stomach, “I know you have a big ego, but that’s a stretch for even a dumbass like you—”

“—no, no,” Jin purses and my heart almost stops when his eyes flicker from the ceiling and back on me, “you usually don’t care enough about my silly remarks. If I really were being stupid, you would have rolled your eyes and walked off mumbling ‘dumbass,’ but seeing that you’re still here…”

Silence ensues—each second dragging on even longer than its precedent. Shit, why does he have to be fucking Sherlock Holmes now out of all times? If I could, I really would like to strangle my roommate right here, right now. 

I gulp, “what?”

“Well,” Jin frowns at the newly reached epiphany, “I have two conclusions. One, Y/N does like me and that would mean I’ve been completely blind to all her obvious hints. In fact, I feel like shit for being so oblivious!” 

“Pft.” 

I probably shouldn’t have scoffed because that only confirms his statement, but how could I hold in the pleasure of finally witnessing the horror that dawns upon his oblivious self?

“Oh my God,” he gasps in horror, eyes darting to find me in distraught with a finger pointing at himself, “did she change how she dresses because of me?” 

“She could care less what you think.”

“So she did change everything for me!” he cups his cheeks in panic. “And to think that I even laughed at her over dressing up for study sessions!” 

As much as I would like to sit back and watch him frantically putting two and two together, the worry that weighs heavily in the forefront of my conscience screams all the more for my attention with each dire second. 

“Jin.”

His panicked eyes dart to me from his waving mess of a paired hands and he answers meekly, “...yes?”

“Don’t you dare tell Y/N you figured it all out,” my mutter comes with a threatening point of the finger, “and if in the case that you and your dumbass big mouth lets it slip, you better fucking be gentle with her or I swear I’ll crack your skull open in your sleep.” 

Jin arches a brow at me, but the surprise is quickly overtaken by the smallest of smiles. At least the slight upturned corner of his lips is able to put me at somewhat of an ease, knowing that Jin would at least try to keep his word. “Of course. I might not like Y/N that way, but she’s still a good friend of mine.”

“And,” I continue, mumbling, “could you possibly take her out for dinner at least once? She’s been dreaming of it since forever... please.”

Nodding his head, he answers, “sure can do.” I can finally sigh a breath of relief. When a quizzical, smug grin replaces that look of ingenuity, however, I find myself staring him down once again. “But you wanna know what my second conclusion is?”

“No,” I click my tongue,” I don’t.” 

This time, I wasn’t lying. Truthfully and wholeheartedly, hearing his second conclusion was the last blow I could handle after the merciless whirlwind that was today… especially considering how his deductive reasoning has been on an eerily spot-on streak tonight. 

“Well, seeing the usually indifferent you trying to do everything you can to stop me from figuring it all out, I’ve arrived at my second conclusion,” the shithead persists while ignoring your death glares, “you, Mr. Min Yoongi, must be head over heels in love.” 

Shit, I can only cross my arms and look at anything but those irritatingly sparkly eyes of his, because—out of all the most oblivious men in the world—that dumbass has caught me red-handed. 

[chimericarchitect]

The Science of Dreams

Saness 

Another night has come and gone. All the peanut butter jars have been returned to their shelves. Tolight, Saness has told Ringleader of her dreams, and of her fears. He has offered to use his voodoos to inspect her mind once she's fallen asleep. After a pumpfelt conversation and a shared bath, the time for such may finally be approaching. It was tricky to coax her into unconsciousness, not for fear of what may come, but because she can't quite will herself to take her loving eyes off of him. 

Eventually though. Eventually she manages to drift off, seemingly falling into an easy slumber, face soft and clear of paint and troubles.

Ringleader 

He doesn't have to take his loving eyes off her and he assures her he ain't goin nowhere. He is paintless as well, and hopelessly in love, and he threatens to knock her out just to see if she takes him seriously. (She probably doesn't.) 

Once she's fully sleeped, his eyes will light up, and he'll sink into her head.

Saness 

(She doesn't.) 

From behind closed eyelids lime does glow purple with his power as Ringleader attempts to join the intangible whisper of Saness's sleeping mind, only for him to succumb without warning to a sensation unfamiliar, a great mental slide moving his awareness physically away from his own body, and hers. 

Except... not from hers? His awareness schlocks to a halt inside of Saness's, and the dreaming girl pauses her action, gaze taking on that same purple glow. He can feel her mind process the looming nature of his presence within her. 

"You're here..." 

To his externalized senses, Saness is OBVIOUSLY in a physical body, in a physical place. Though Ringleader retains his psychic attachment to his own body, his ability to return to himself intact, the physical distance is incomprehensible. Within his awareness of her mind, however, he can feel the translucent haze of slumber, faintly dulling Saness's senses. She's Somewhere Else... but she's not awake.

Ringleader

... Yikes.

Uh? Yikes?

He fumbles vaguely for his dex where he thinks his horn wands might be-- 

Hmm. Apparently he can't control his own body from this distance. Deeply disconcerting! Alright, fine, this is fine, everything is fine and alright and what the fuck where is he-she-they? 

He pushes love at her mind, encouraging her dreamself to consider the surroundings. They may as well get some information, cuz this is gonna Suck in a bit.

Saness 

Saness falls as readily as ever to the press of his familiar will, though she is notably far easier to command in this state, even given the threat of distance-related strain. The feeling of Love makes her smile, a bubble of easy fuzziness that fits so naturally with Ringleader's urging. 

She rises in a swish of comfortable fabric, the sensation of it on her legs having very little to do with weight as she abandons the lounge and closes the uncomfortably short distance between her bed and the wall of her enclosure. 

It's hard, incredibly solid beneath her lavender-washed skin, but it doesn't feel like much of anything. It bears no resemblance to glass nor steel. The color fluxes through opaque and transparent purple, giving only brief snatches of their shared surroundings.

Ringleader 

Hm... He'll have her trace the edge of her surroundings, with her foot and with her hand to see if it's straight or curved. This is... Not what he expected to find, in the realm of her dreams. Aren't there supposed to be castles or something?

Saness 

Ringleader-as-Saness scuffs her lime-slippered foot along the base of the ground, hand trailing over the slowly surging color, no temperature and no texture to speak of. 

It's curved, a nearly perfect dome all around, with a darker seam where it connects with the floor. It's impossible to tell if that's just the color of the floor interacting with it, and whether or not the barrier passes all the way through in a sphere.

Ringleader 

... This is... Deeply disconcerting. He thinks he is tired of bits of her being trapped where they don't need to be. 

He tries to coax her into using her psi to pokey at the wall.

Saness 

He'll find rather swiftly that Saness has no psychic ability, for some reason or another. She operates on muscle memory in her attempt to use her psi, but nothing comes of it. Her own mind flexes uncertainly as she fails to perform the task set out before her, nerves fluttering in her chest. It doesn’t feel the same as wearing a suppressor, it’s like she’s... psych-null, or something.

"That doesn't seem right... So is this a dream, or...?" 

His control over her falters for a moment as a ruffled Saness moves to lean her forehead on the barrier, squinting fuzzily into the beyond. It's the same view as before, dizzying slopes and tiles bent all out of shape; though she notes to herself that she feels clearer than she did the night before.

Ringleader

He soothes at her without trying to overtake her, before his voice manifests in her mind. 

"Definitely a dream. But also definitely real."

Saness 

There he is. She was getting nervous, and the 'voice' to match his presence is immediately reassuring. Also, being a little freaked out helped with the clarity thing for sure, Saness is still growing more wakeful in this dream. 

She takes a slow breath and eases mentally toward his presence of her own accord, sleepily treating what little of him she can engage as a tether. 

"It's harder to feel you than usual... Than when I'm awake, maybe..."

Ringleader 

"It's harder for me to feel myself like this. Don't worry, though, I'm here to help you remember."

Saness 

"Not that there's much to see..." 

She rubs the edge of her fist along the energy-wall in a circle, as though cleaning glass. It does not disperse the color.

Ringleader

"No, there's not. Still. Once we've gotten all the info we can, I'll try to change your dream over."

Saness 

She perks up and nods a "hm!" to nothing, ready to gather... whatever else he thinks he might want.

Ringleader 

... Hm. He doesn't really know. Look at the lounge? Squint up at the sky, see if there's any weirdo buildings up there? ... Try to find some weirdo game sense?

Saness 

Saness really can't sense much of anything! It's a far cry from her usual ability.

The lounge is sturdy, and heavy. It doesn't match the floor underneath, seemingly brought here from somewhere else. In fact, it better matches Saness's bright golden dress. Up above, a ceiling curls away and around the room to somewhere else, viewable whenever the fog clears briefly enough to see out of the dome.

Ringleader 

... He might have the patience to sit and stare and observe if it were his own husk that were trapped and he weren't inside a little dream body, but...

He asks her to check her body last. Make sure it is hers.

Saness

It FEELS like hers, mechanically, but she can't really check for familiar scarring on her waist more than to press through the fabric of her dress, and that... doesn't reveal much. She feels along her neck, however, and THAT... is perfectly smooth, no sign of the damage she took from that collar when she was imprisoned. 

How thoroughly should she check? Is this enough?

Ringleader 

... Final check to make sure she bleeds?

Saness 

Saness obediently puts her claws to the back of her hand and starts to press, but...

... :( 

...Can he do it? 

She seems softer, in her dreams.

Ringleader 

Precious Lumina... He will have her close her eyes and then prick the back of her hand as quick as possible.

... Or at least. Try.

Saness 

Her dreamself jerks the smallest amount when her claws flex against her delicate skin, but no blood has welled forth when he opens her eyes to check. 

The pain was real though.

Ringleader 

... A moment of yearning, before he makes her take her pulse.

Saness 

Ladies and gentlemen, she has a pulse. I repeat, she has a pulse.

Ringleader 

... C...check for finger prints...

This is way more steps than if she had just bled. But maybe this is a robot, he doesn't know.

Saness 

The pads of her fingers are equipped with fanciful fleshy swirls - as is the standard - and what's more, when she presses on her skin it leaves an ordinary and very temporary mark.

Ringleader 

"You are so smart~"

Saness 

She shuffles her slippered feet bashfully, soft soft soft. 

"Will that do?" 

Is it time to see if he can change the dream? She's eager to be rid of this cage.

Ringleader 

"I think that'll do, sweetest beloathed." 

And he will try to shift her dream.

Saness 

He can, as any other time he has Saness under the power of his voodoo, control her perception of her environment. 

Unfortunately, as Ringleader is riding solely on Saness's awareness of the area, it's not immediately evident that nothing has ACTUALLY changed. To all appearances, whatever he makes becomes her reality. It only becomes clear that Ringleader has no effect on the environment when Saness steps forward blindly into the illusion, only to conk into the barrier that remains physically intact. Ouch!

Ringleader 

!!!!!

!!!!!!!!!

He stops directing the dream.

Saness 

The illusion vanishes, and all that remains is the lounge, the dome, and a limeblood rubbing her unpainted face.

Ringleader 

... :o(

"I could try to... Stop you from dreamin?"

Saness 

"...Yeah, okay." 

Saness ambles over to her lounge and stretches out flat on it, looking up to the top of her tiny cage, hands folded daintily over her stomach. 

"But, just try it."

Ringleader 

He tries to pull her away from dreaming at all. Not simply dreaming of nothing, but Not Dreaming.

Saness 

It is akin to forcing someone into unconsciousness, a thing he has to hold down and pin in place. The Saness in the dream passes out, dragging her consciousness into some sloppy rodeo limbo, like it doesn't know where to go. If his reflexes aren't quick or if his psychic strength fails him, Ringleader may be ejected from Saness's mind as though flung from the curve of whiplash, slammed an unknown concept of distance back into his own body.

Ringleader 

He's never had to have reflexes with a willing person, and his psychic strength was running low by the time they got to this point. 

For at least 30 seconds straight, he's out himself.

Saness 

The Saness in the dream flutters back to awareness, slowly, and sits up, confused and alone. 

"Ringleader?" 

Curled up peacefully with the now-unconscious Ringleader of the waking world, Saness's original body dozes on, oblivious.

Ringleader

When he returns to consciousness, his first priority is swearing like a motherfucker.

His second is slipping tentatively into her head to see if she's unconscious.

Saness 

Touching her mind, just skimming the surface as he does when passively scanning for life, will inform Ringleader that the Saness that lays with him has brain activity that is uniquely distant from the surface, like an echo of a dream. 

Actually slipping in to any depth brings him immediately back down that slip-n-slide, all the way to Saness's dreamself with nothing to hold onto along the way. Her eyes turn purple again, and Saness pauses to sigh. He can feel that she was frightened.

Ringleader 

She can feel that he's worried. 

"Ow."

Saness 

She puts her hand on her cheek to reflexively attempt to touch at Ringleader, who is nothing more than a voice inside her head and the feeling of a shadow hovering over her shoulder. Her brow furrows in concern, a pout on her lips. 

"Are you okay...?"

Ringleader 

He loves her for a moment. 

“You threw me out like a fuckin trebuchet."

Saness 

"What? I didn't mean to, I mean, I wouldn't..." 

She curls her toes and gives them a tippy-tap on the floor, thinking, anxious. Her mood is more mutable while sleeping. 

"...Don't do that again, then..."

Ringleader 

.... :o(

"I'm okay. It just was sudden, and my pan is spinnin from the distance... I think I might have to wake you to break you out. Maybe I could keep you out out after, but I think I'd have to keep at it the whole light."

Saness 

"That won't do." 

Her thoughts are poking at his presence with things like 'is he hurt,' 'spinning, spinning-' 'I woke up and you were gone :<' and other similar bubbles of pitiable sadness and loving concern, broken into unspoken chunks of thought. 

"Nothing happens in here. I'll be okay."

Ringleader 

"But can you be alone?"

Saness 

"...I wish there was something to do," she says so sadly.

Ringleader

... Check for dex?

Saness 

Nada.

Ringleader 

:o(

"... I could try to stick with you long enough for a half decent rest...?"

Saness

"You're not tired?" 

She can't help but be obvious when he's inside her mind; dream Saness so blatantly perks up at the thought of being anything but alone.

Ringleader 

"Not so much. Might need to take a break to tend to a bitta a headache, but."

Saness 

"A headache," she whines, sitting down and swinging her weightless legs loosely off the side of the lounge, swish swish swish.

Ringleader 

"Ain't the end of the world. I'd rather deal with that than you alone."

Saness 

She tips her head sideways to squish her cheek into her shoulder, with the intent of expressing 'snuggle my spade' in a movement to no one. She’s trusting, and easy to convince.

"Okay Ringleader. Thank you."

Ringleader 

Her hand rises to press to her lips in a soft little kiss.

"I'll be right back, okay?”

Saness 

She nods, and kisses her own fingers like a dweeb. 

"'Kay."

Ringleader 

He departs from her as gently as he can manage, for his own sake, and then comes back as soon as possible, medicined and holding his wands. Time will be spent entertaining her in whatever way he can without actually being there. And then when the evening comes and she wakes up, he will go the hell to sleep for himself. Not for long, but for long enough to recover.

Saness 

While awake in his stead, Saness will keep watch over her tired spade and contemplate what they learned together in the dream. It feels real, and it feels fake, both at once. 

She checks to make sure her empathy works by keeping Ringleader comfortable and at peace, warding away the fitful demons of his sleep as they come for him.

And so the beginning of her night passes in quiet note taking, gentle frowning, and tender motions.

[slasherscream]

billy x reader x stu moving in together w/ their s/o headcannons?

A/N: the sheer level of stress this would cause is incomprehensible. 

     billy loomis x reader x stu macher            ft. moving in together 

                                                     ——————– 

Billy is the one who suggests it honestly. He’s possessive. He’s clingy. He’s insecure. Triple threat? Dream guy? Precisely.

It’s not that he doesn’t trust you (or Stu) it just is what it is. So after you graduate high school he wants you all to move in together like …. yesterday.

You can resist him for a little while on it but he wants it so bad that he doesn’t instantly turn into a huffy asshole the first time he’s told no (even though this is his natural state).

Instead he dials his manipulation and charm up to a solid ten™. He’s gonna get what he wants and for something this big he's willing to play it sweet and understanding until he gets it. The bastard.

It's just as much about keeping an eye on you as it is just a regular, clingy boyfriend mood of always wanting you around. Stu agreeing with the idea so readily and eagerly is mostly due to the second reason because he does #Not have the same ...issues...Billy has. He is, however, just as needy!

Once you get worn down by the constant badgering and annoyance ahem TLC?? Get ready because you ain't seen nothing yet in terms of trouble coming your way!

Rich boy Stu is obviously going to pay for this. No apartment because of their little “hobby”. He’s an only child so he can just get whatever the hell he wants so y'all wind up in a rented house (he offered to buy it but that was just #Too Much).

Just picking the places to look at was a nightmare. Stu wanted something close to people, ever the extrovert. Billy wanted something as far away from people as possible since people are fuckers (he should know). Constantly driving to places they've each picked out and having to stop fights before you've even gotten out the car.billy: in the middle of downtown?? are you fucking serious?? stu, mockingly: in thE MidDLE oF DOwntOWN?? aRE YOu sERioUS??                          and that’s just a disagreement in location. 

You want to know what fucking HGTV shows they’ve been watching behind your back to make them so fucking obnoxious about this. Did Billy just say something about the lighting of the kitchen?? You're going to have a fucking conniption. 

Eventually you get fed up with how extra they’re being about the whole process, which is already naturally stressful and time consuming, and confront them.

Determined to make you feel bad they reveal that they’re actually just stuck on picking the perfect place because this is such an important step in a relationship. It’s the start of a life together. Your first home (not a house       a home). They want it perfect. As perfect as the future they can imagine having with you. Sappy?? Yes. 

Stu did most of that admittance while Billy kinda looked out a window, busy grinding his teeth to dust at the emotional vulnerability pervading the room like too much perfume in a department store. This turns into sex which he is infinitely better at than talking. Also he admits to more shit (feelings) after sex like he can just pass off anything he says as?? Orgasm mush mouth?? Idiot.

Once you’re all on the same page you can work as the well oiled machine you truly are. It doesn’t take long to find a place after this.

Your suffering isn’t over by a long shot though. This is your first place together and other than clothes and personal items they want everything in the house to be brand new or new to all of you at least.

So now you have to fully furnish the place. Billy the edgelord surprisingly wants the place very cozy? Talking warm and bright colors. Soft throw pillows. Shit ton of trinkets. Picture frames. He wants your place to look like a family could live here. Wants it to look like it'd take forever to move out. The word minimalism (though he doesn't know it) makes him want to throw up.

Getting a mattress is bullshit because Stu likes his beds soft and Billy likes his firmer. It's like trying to pick a very permanent fixture of furniture with two equally annoying Goldilocks. The mattress salesmen wanted to die. You wanted to die.

You guys almost got kicked out because at one point to test the mattress you all made out on it? Also?? Jumping on them. Jumping on them like five year olds. How did Stu convince you to do it? Unknown. Billy sat on the bed dignified as you two did this. He’s being jostled but his face is absolutely impassive. The chaos jumped out. Stu tipped well at least.

They can both agree they want a TV in the bedroom though. Hooray for agreeing on something! But honestly? Don't let them do this. That means you'll never again know peace. Imagine knowing you have class tomorrow morning while Stu is sitting next to you in bed?? Spilling popcorn on the sheets and talking about the random final girl's breasts while Billy is telling him to not "get the fucking sheets dirty" while he is going off on a tangent about the unrealistic blood splatter?? Veto the bedroom TV.  

Stu doesn't really care about the decorating much?? Because he's not uptight like Billy. He just wanted to get a really nice place for the three of you. Now you've got a nice place            "Anything else is whatever man."

If pressed about something though he doesn't like white walls very much? Would rather some other color. Nothing crazy? Just ...not white. Light grey? Maybe a blue? Tan? Brown? He doesn't care! But if he's asked now he for sure wants to paint everything a non-white or only have white as an "accent wall" (seriously you're going to cry where are they hearing this shit??)

He starts to paint. Gets brushes. Rollers. Tarp. Tape. The whole nine yards. Gonna do this the right way! Doesn't even splash Billy with the paint more than twice (because he's an adult dammit ... and also because the second time it got too close to Billy's hair and the look on Billy's face was... scary).

He runs out of steam for this project so fucking quickly. Bless his heart. Admirably he probably gets one entire room done. Other than that? :/

The only things he doesn't half-ass are murder and loving you and Billy. He will never change! He will never improve! His brain power is limited and he's chosen his tasks. Like how you can only equip a Sims character with like three traits? That's Stu.

Doesn't just leave you and Billy hanging to finish it alone though (because Billy would literally stab him). He throws a "house party" where a whole bunch of his friends come over and help to paint. Then they get all the free booze they can drink and pizza they can eat while they watch whatever sports game happens to be on. You had to tell him booze comes specifically after the finished job because he doesn't have the foresight to know drunk twenty-somethings painting a house would be a nightmare. Crisis averted before it starts. 

The house has all new appliances of every sort because Stu wants the best of everything and has no impulse control. He doesn't even drink coffee but you have a brand new coffee maker in your kitchen one day. Billy the rat doesn't let things go to waste so he starts drinking coffee every morning. 

Are you into decorating? No? Better get into it! Stu did his one thing to personalize the house and you have to do something too. It's part of Billy's fucking...the word is anxiety but he'll never use it. He wants you to be so involved in the making of this space for the three of you like that would stop you from ever leaving it one day? Show visible enthusiasm or god help everyone. Can we get a therapist in here? Can we PLEASE get a therapist in here-

This is literally Stu annoying the shit out of you and Billy during the ikea trip. Stu wants so badly to get kicked out of IKEA just for the purpose of saying he was once kicked out of IKEA. Billy won't allow it because this is "fucking serious, Stu" and “we have shit to do”. Stu can thus only release his chaos energy with puns and he does it to the fullest extent. 

Setting up/assembling the furniture literally gets put on pause so the two can go out and murder someone because if they don't?? They'll kill each other. "Did you drop the fucking screws for this somewhere?? Do you want me to stab you with this screwdriver?" and "You know what? This is why I laughed when that shelf you put up fell on you, you dick-"

They come back in the dead of night soaked in blood and you come out the bedroom squinting at them. The coffee table is now set up. Yay?? 

Honestly all the aggravation and tiny fights are worth it once you're fully settled in? There's a sort of peace to Billy that he'd been lacking before. You guys have carved out this little spot in the world that's distinctly the three of you and just for the three of you and he loves it. 

He's much more confident about the relationship now than he ever was before. Let him make you a shitty cup of coffee in the morning and kiss your forehead only for Stu to grumble about how everyone should still be asleep because it's Saturday guys-

                           *cue sappy but quirky romcom music*

You're living a domestic fairytale that features a little bit more blood than average but hey? Isn't that a low cost to pay for true love? 

                                                     ——————–

[damienthepious]

i am out of ways to say hi it’s tuesday fic time. but hi, it’s tuesday! fic time.

Scattered On My Shore (Chapter 8)

[Ch 1] [Ch 2] [Ch 3] [Ch 4] [Ch 5] [Ch 6] [Ch 7] [ao3] [Ch 9] [Ch 10] [Ch 11] [Ch 12] [Ch 13] [Ch 14] [Ch 15] [Ch 16] [Ch 17] [Ch 18] [Ch 19]

Fandom: The Penumbra Podcast

Relationship: Lord Arum/Sir Damien/Rilla, Sir Damien/Rilla

Characters: Rilla, Lord Arum, Sir Damien

Additional Tags: Second Citadel, Lizard Kissin’ Tuesday, Pre-Relationship, (for the three of them. it’s established r/d), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Injury, Injury Recovery,  Hurt/Comfort,  (this will also be), Enemies to Lovers, (for damien and arum eventually lol)

Fic Summary: Strange things wash up out of the lake near Rilla’s hut, on occasion. But this monster… this monster is certainly the strangest.

Chapter Summary: Rilla is starting to feel a little like they're bonding. Arum is unconvinced. Damien is on his own journey.

Chapter Notes: Fam this one gets weird. Chapter specific warnings for overt threats of violence, characters being restrained, implications of a canon-compliant death, and I think that's it? Oh forgive me, this chapter is long and my day has been even longer. Hey, I love you. <3

~

Rilla fills a basket with anything she thinks might interest him even a little. She doesn't have much of a fiction section (most of it is borrowed from or gifted by Damien, actually), so she just kinda scoops that entire little shelf in with the rest.

"Obviously I don't know what you might like," she says later in the afternoon when he's woken again, and he stares at her in alarm over the assorted pile as she sets it down next to the cot, where he'll be able to reach without much strain. "But I figured that now that you're awake more often, you might want some reading material."

"I don't-" he sputters, frowning down at the books in indignation. "I cannot imagine any human storybooks could hold my attention for a single moment."

"That's fine," Rilla says with a shrug. "I'm pretty sure I don't have any kids' reading material, so you should be safe on that front. There's a bit of fiction in there, but that's not really my thing so I can't give you any personal recommendations there. Mostly it's field guides, bestiaries, treatises on certain scientific concepts, collections of recipes, censuses of certain herb families, medical guides- just a whole bunch about a whole bunch, really. If you get bored enough, I'm sure something in there will be worth a read," she says casually, and then while he's still stammering through a growl she gives him a bright, disarming smile (he actually pulls his head back, blinking) and then she skips right back to the door. "I've got an experiment I gotta keep an eye on for an hour or so, I'm sure you can keep yourself out of trouble for that long, but if you need me just shout, okay?"

He stares at her, mouth hanging just slightly open, so she grins a little wider and leaves him to it, keeping the door cracked just an inch or so as she goes.

He'll never pick a single one of the damn things up if she's there to gloat about it, but if she just leaves him to stew in his own inactivity unsupervised for a while, she's sure the temptation right there next to him will do the trick.

Sure enough, the next time she comes in (current pretense: a little cadre of plants by the window require watering. Could it have waited? Almost certainly), he's pretending to sleep (she can tell the difference) and the books are definitely rifled through. She's almost positive that it's at least one tome lighter, actually, and she's pretty confident that if she snooped she'd find the missing book tucked into the covers or under the lizard's pillow.

When she comes in with dinner he's given up the pretense on his end, scowling and waving one particular book in the air between them.

"What is this nonsense? " he snarls. "This information is spurious at best, Amaryllis. Some entries are passable, perhaps, but clearly you know nothing about-"

She tilts her head to try to figure out which book he's taken such offense at, and she's moderately unsurprised to see that it's one of the bestiaries. Okay, fair.

"Which ones are wrong?" she asks as she sets his food down on the table beside him, making no effort to disguise her enthusiasm, and he pauses, blinking at her. "I had Damien snag that from a library in the Citadel so I could make my own copy- with corrections, obviously. Actually, hang on-"

She spins on her heel and jogs to retrieve her half-written pile of unbound notes and her recorder from the front room, and she's already recording and shuffling through the pages when she returns.

"Which ones are bunk?" she asks with relish. "Frankly I've never trusted that author, I don't think he ever actually came within ten miles of the Western Wastes. His descriptions of western monsters always seemed the most vague, and they don't match up with other reports and firsthand accounts I'm aware of."

Arum snorts. "That stands to reason , " he growls, and then he smacks the page with the back of a hand. "Sickle-Claws are feathered, obviously, and half the size he has claimed."

"I knew it," she says, pulling the stool close and sitting by the bed. "That fraud wouldn't know an Everdead if someone whipped a branch back in his face."

He laughs again, apparently just as amused by that mental image as Rilla is, and then he starts flipping through the book, pointing out mistakes and false claims and outright fabrications with a smug sort of pleasure, and Rilla shows him her own notes, her amendments and additions from her own research, and he wrinkles his snout but he can't seem to find a complaint to voice, except specifically regarding her sideline notes on the magic involved in certain creatures.

"That isn't how magic works, Amaryllis." He shakes his head. "You can't predict it, because it is by definition unpredictable. If you try to shove it into a single labeled box all you will do is cut your hands in the attempt. Humans cannot possibly comprehend the true incomprehensibility of the larger universe."

Rilla raises an eyebrow. "I can comprehend quite a lot, Arum."

"Perhaps," he says with a sneer. "But if you expect magic to conform to consistent rules like your other natural and mathematical laws, you will be sorely disappointed," he hisses, gesturing to another book from the pile. "Magic is larger than that. It is outside of such constraints, as the Universe itself is."

"Just because it has different rules, doesn't mean it's incomprehensible-"

"No, no-" he shakes his head sharply and then then winces.

"Careful, Arum, c'mon-"

"Hush, it is simply sore, little doctor. As I was saying- magic does not have different rules. There are no rules. "

"Everything has rules, Arum. It's just a matter of figuring them out, regardless of how complex or granular-"

"Your assumption that everything in the Universe can be understood is precisely why you will never be able to understand, human. You cannot see outside your own level. I have moved beyond that."

Rilla frowns, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. "Cool. Good for you."

He chokes, almost a third laugh. "That- you ridiculous little-"

"I'm sure all that big picture stuff is real fun, Arum, and if you actually tried to explain any of it I'm sure it would be fascinating as hell, but if it doesn't have structure, if it can't be used reliably, I don't really see the point."

"It- it is not meant to be used, Amaryllis, it simply is."

"See, and that's cool too, but my needs as a doctor and a researcher mean that I'm less interested in the whole cosmic mystery and more interested in practical application," she says, tapping the book in his claws. "I learn the rules so that I understand how they can be used. If there aren't any rules- well, that's not exactly going to expand my toolkit, is it? Either it's understandable and useful to me, or you're right and it's incomprehensible, which means it's not much more than a curiosity, y'know?"

He frowns more deeply, turning his face away from her and making a noncommittal noise.

She pokes at the book again, and he blinks at her warily. "Hey. What about this one? I've never seen any other documentation of Syokoy as far northwest as he claims."

His snout wrinkles again, but his posture relaxes slightly as he growls into another scathing correction, and Rilla relaxes too. It's almost easy, like this. Almost comfortable.

~

One thing that's become more awkward now that Arum is consistently lucid: bathing.

And, like, Rilla is a professional, obviously. She's needed to give sponge baths to bed-bound patients more times than she could count, and she's already bathed him once while he was much less coherent, but-

He's so, so embarrassed to need the help.

Now that he's strong enough, she can let him do most of the work at least, and the only embarrassing, strangely charged part of the process is when she needs to help him wash his back. He can't really reach behind himself, yet, with how torn up his front is, with one of his wrists broken, so she has to scoot behind him and scrub down his gently gleaming scales.

He really doesn't seem to have many scars, beneath his newer injuries. She wonders about that, but she knows better than to ask. She just does her job, doing her best not to flinch when he does.

~

Rilla tries not to revive the argument about magic if she can avoid it. She's definitely interested in it, she wants to know what he'll say, really, but- it agitates him to a degree that she figures is probably not great for his current state. His throat is nearly recovered (his voice is still rough and fascinating, but there's a sort of murmuring musicality to it, too, now that he's had enough time to recover from the near-drowning part of his injuries), so she would really rather avoid making the monster shout. She'll pin that one for later.

Not that they don't argue. He's remarkably opinionated, and he takes umbrage with a number of the books in her collection. He seems baffled by just the structure of most of her instructional and encyclopedic tomes. Anything that's arranged alphabetically infuriates him.

"It is entirely arbitrary, takatakataka. They may as well be in an order that is entirely random."

"In what way would that be helpful?"

"There is a list at the beginning, and it tells you exactly where everything can be found!"

Rilla raises an eyebrow. "Uh… and?"

"Anyone may read this and find the information!"

Rilla blinks. "That's… kind of the point? To share the information?"

Arum pulls his head back, eying her in alarm. "That- I- but- if anyone can access it, how can it be useful to you? If anyone can do what you can do, how can you barter your skills?"

"Hm," Rilla frowns, just slightly. "I mean, just looking at my own profession- just because someone reads a book of remedies, doesn't mean they'll have the skills to implement them. It's less than half of it, even. You need training, too, an apprenticeship, and then personal experience. Practice. The books are important to the learning process, and no one can be expected to hold all that information in their head at the same time, but it's not the whole of it."

He tilts his head, considering that. "I suppose."

"Besides," she says, "I'm sure there are books with secrets, books that aren't meant to be shared, but those are probably kept somewhere hidden."

"Interesting," he hisses.

"Okay, so- if monster books aren't meant to give information to others, what's the point of them?"

"To save information for yourself. My predecessors-" he pauses.

She knows that look, by now. He thinks he's said too much. She rolls her eyes, sighs, and changes the subject.

~

Rilla isn't sleeping well.

Her sleep is strange apparently by nature; she sleeps deeply but in short bursts, and she has a habit of rising in the middle of the night for some water or to relieve herself only to be distracted by a book or an idea or an experiment clear until morning. Hell, she'll sleep whenever, for an hour or so at a time. It amuses Damien, but his own sleep habits are so firmly regimented by his work (when he isn't being plagued to sleeplessness by his mind) that he rarely wakes when she slips from the bed at night.

Currently, though, she's having a little bit of a hard time falling asleep at all.

Damien knows how to take care of himself. She knows that. She's not entirely sure he's capable of losing a fight. He might get hurt, that's happened entirely too often, but- he wins. He always wins, eventually, even if he has to put himself through hell, first-

She turns over again, presses her face into the pillow, sighs into the dark.

They have an argument to finish, she thinks. Damien would never leave a narrative arc like that unsatisfied.

She gets to sleep eventually. It's enough.

~

Arum isn't in his cot when Rilla comes in with dinner the third day after Damien leaves, and that's-

That's so entirely surprising that Rilla just kind of- stops, staring at the empty cot with the blankets kicked down for an extended moment, her brow furrowed in confusion, and she's almost relieved when she hears the distinct click of claws on hardwood behind her before she has a moment of wait that's probably not good-

The scaled arm wraps around her midsection from behind, and Rilla jolts, automatically pulling forward and away. He holds tight, though. Shockingly tight, actually, and then there is cool metal by her neck and Rilla knows her own damn scalpel easily and she goes still, because Rilla may be stubborn but she's not stupid.

"Arum," she says, and he growls behind her. She's not- scared, really. The scalpel almost makes it ridiculous, considering the claws. "Arum what the hell are you-"

"I'm leaving, you foolish little primate," he hisses.

"You aren't well enough-"

"I don't care what you think."

"Well you should, Arum, because you can hardly stand and if you think you're going to make it ten steps-"

"I appear to be standing perfectly well just at the moment, little doctor."

She twists just slightly, glancing back towards him as best she can, and she sees that he's stolen one of her crutches. It's not big enough for him, he's remarkably tall when he's not tucked into her cot, and it doesn't look at all comfortable tucked under his lower arm like that, but it's working enough that he's upright, at least. He adjusts his arm around her slightly, growling low.

"Arum," Rilla breathes, and she knows the exact pressure the scalpel in Arum's hands will require to break the skin. He is nowhere near that pressure, but she's very aware of it as an abstract concept, regardless. "Arum this is stupid and you know it."

"Can't even treat me with some respect when I could slit your little throat," he snarls, and she can hear how labored his breathing is. He really shouldn't be standing like this, stolen crutch or no. "Not an ounce of self-preservation in your absurd, fragile body."

"I could say the same damn thing about you, you ridiculous-" she cuts off as Arum shifts his grip on her, not because she's afraid of what he'll do, but because the hiss he gives as he moves sounds more like he's in pain than trying to threaten. "You're gonna get yourself killed because you're too stubborn to just wait until you're actually well enough to-"

"You don't have the first clue what you're talking about. I do not have time to convalesce. I have one purpose, I have one duty, and every moment I lie in that absurd little bed I am failing it. I cannot think, I cannot- I need to return home. I do not care if you understand why, Amaryllis."

"Arum-"

"I thank you for services rendered, such as they were, little doctor. My death would have been assured without you, that is undeniable. And for that, I will not harm you, so long as you do not force my hand," he hisses close by her ear, and then he lifts the last of his hands, and he is holding one of Rilla's syringes with it.

"Arum," Rilla breathes, "what-"

"This is the injection you gave to me before you plucked the basilisk's claw from my ribs. It kept consciousness from me rather effectively for a number of hours. So, little doctor, I must now trust to your expertise."

He adjusts his grip again, meeting her eye over her shoulder and pulling the scalpel further away from her skin.

"Have I gotten the dosage correct, Amaryllis?" he asks, quite seriously, his tone quiet and measured though she can feel him trembling very slightly against her.

She pulls her eyes away from his with some effort and looks at the syringe in question, and then she bites her lip. "It- I mean, good job because you matched exactly the dosage I gave to you, but the thing is-"

"I'm leaving, little human, and nothing you say is going to stop-"

"If you inject me with that I'll go into a coma, and there's a distinct chance I could die." She inhales shakily as Arum blinks at her, then narrows his eyes suspiciously. "You're a monster, Arum, and your metabolism and internal structure are much different from mine. What was perfectly fine and low-risk for you could absolutely kill me."

He stares hard at her for a long moment, frowning hard and trembling lightly, and then he apparently decides she must be telling the truth because he exhales deeply and moves the syringe much further away from her. She tries not to sag in relief, but the tension in her muscles eases enough that she's positive that he must feel it.

"Thank you," she says. "Now just- put down the-"

"I am certain you must have some form of binding in this little hut of yours," he interrupts in a growl, and Rilla blinks, not quite understanding him for a long moment. "Ropes, or scarves or some such. Bandages, those will suffice."

"Arum you can't leave," she tries again, but he's ignoring her now, edging the both of them across the floor towards the cabinets where he's definitely seen her store her bandages. "You won't make it four steps, you'll just get killed and after you've made so much progress-"

"You can stop acting at your leisure, Amaryllis. I am perfectly aware that you do not have the first clue what will happen when you are unable to keep me beneath your thumb any longer. I am simply skipping the intermediary steps. I will not wait for either your pet knight to return with his bow again, or for you to attempt to make me into another pet for yourself. I am leaving, I am going home, and you will not stop me."

When they're close enough to the cabinets, Arum sets the syringe down, then knocks it further along the countertop, out of Rilla's reach. He pulls out a roll of bandages, then glares down at her as she scowls back up at him.

"This is a completely stupid plan," she reiterates, but Arum only frowns more deeply and pushes her to sit on the stool.

"Possibly," he growls, and she rolls her eyes as he pulls her wrists behind her back with surprising gentleness, binding them together at the wrists. "But at least it is a plan, instead of this nonsense inaction."

Rilla tries to pull away, tries to make things difficult for him, but only for a moment. He does still have that scalpel- but really, honestly, she's been working so hard to treat him, to make him well again, and the idea of jerking away too fast or elbowing him to get him away, of twisting his broken wrist (the one wrapped around her, least needed for dexterity, not a bad maneuver), the idea of doing something that might reopen his wounds or hurt him worse- it makes her feel a little sick, actually. She's terrified of what's going to happen to Arum if he tries to walk out her front door on his own with no weapons and a flimsy crutch that can barely support his weight, he's going to get himself hurt, get himself killed-

He's going to hurt himself, but Rilla can't make herself hurt him, to try to get him to stop. She just can't.

"Please," she tries, and his violet eyes flick up to her from where he's knelt to bind her ankles to the legs of the stool. "Arum. Don't do this."

He stands slowly, and she really hasn't gotten the chance to see him at his proper height, yet. He does look a little more dangerous, when he can glare down at her like that with his frill half-flared (he just won't stop pushing himself, the giant ass).

"And what, precisely, do you propose, then? You and your knight had a rather unproductive argument the other day, I must say, though it did rather effectively clarify a number of points for me. The first being, my land is in danger, without me. The second, that your Damien can only be collared for so long before he decides to put an end to this. The third, that you, little doctor, do not have a strategy for how your treatment of the monster will end. You don't have the first clue what you will do with me, when I am too strong again to push and prod and poke-"

"If you die-"

"Then I certainly will not be your problem anymore, little doctor," he hisses, and then he turns to limp his way towards the door.

"All of this is for nothing if you just- Arum, please, I know I've been- stuck in the moment, I know I haven't been thinking about what comes next, and yeah, a lot of that was because I don't know, and I'm scared because I hate not knowing, but- but you don't have to do this. We can figure it out together, please Arum-"

He pauses at the door, leaning heavily against the frame, and then he looks over his shoulder, vivid purple fixing on her one more time.

"Farewell, Amaryllis," he says, his voice almost gentle, "and… thank you."

He closes the door behind him, ignoring the way that Rilla shouts after him, the way she keeps calling his name until she hears the front door open into the night. After a long moment, charged and quiet even of Rilla's voice, that door closes as well.

~

Somewhere distant, on a gently lapping shore, Sir Damien digs a grave.

His stomach turns, and turns, and his palms hurt against the wood of his shovel. His companion has sweat on her brow, but that is the only indication of any strain. Her expression remains stern and immobile, and Damien cannot possibly say whether she feels as he does, just now. In truth, he does not know if Sir Caroline ever feels… conflicted.

Dirt scatters as it falls. Sir Damien digs to lapping-wave rhythm and intermittent pigeon-coo, with his heart pounding as if it wishes to escape.

He wonders, in a continual refrain, if this was truly the right choice, if there was no other way. If this man could not have been saved .

Monsters, witches, and mercy.

Sir Damien knows good from evil. He knows monsters from man. He knows dark magic from miracle. He knows what is right, and he knows what is wrong.

(The shore laps soft as breath, the lake stands mirror-still, and he has not heard Saint Damien, has not so much as felt a hint of him since-)

Sir Damien wonders if he knows anything at all.

~

When Rilla finally, finally hears the bandage start to tear, she could just about shout with triumph. Instead, she grits her teeth, grins hard, and pulls harder. It rips more, pulling against her wrists, and then her arms are free so quickly that she almost smacks her hands into the bedside table in their wide swinging arc. She pulls her hands in front of herself first, rubbing at her wrists and assessing the damage (bruised, a little raw, very minor friction burns, nothing a little aloe and time won't fix), and then she reaches for a drawer. Arum may have been paying a little too much attention to where her medical supplies are housed, but Rilla has more than one damned scalpel, and she has it in her hands and slicing through the bandages tied around her legs in no time flat. She hasn't been pulling on those, so no damage to inventory there, at least.

She stands and stumbles just a bit, her muscles rubbery from sitting in that position for- for however long she had been, but she doesn't have time to do some stretches because Arum may be slowed down by his injuries and she knows what direction he'll go, but he still has a hell of a head start on her, and she can't afford-

Rilla nearly trips over her own feet when she bolts into the front room, and this time it isn't because of sore muscles.

It's because Arum is still here.

He's curled up on the floor, his back against her front door, his arms wrapped loosely around his knees. He flicks his eyes up towards her for less time than it would take to blink, and then he looks away, his eyes vaguely on the floor.

"Arum. Oh, thank the Saints you didn't-"

"Apparently even my stupidity has limits, yes."

"Arum," she repeats, uncertain and honestly a little scared that he's managed to hurt himself between his room and the door, somehow.

"You did not inform me precisely how close we are to your Citadel," he mutters into a palm, and she holds her own hand over her heart as it tries, valiantly, to slow its racing. "Within sight, even in the dark of night."

"You- Arum-"

"Congratulations," he growls dully, still not looking at her. "You were correct. I did not take a single step outside your little abode. Foolishness, all of it. Without my- without- even at my best it would take a week and a half at the least to reach my home from here unaided. Hobbling in unfamiliar terrain with this-" he pauses to kick the crutch beside him, sending it spinning across the floor, "thing, in this condition, it would be impossible. Pointless. And I-" he pauses, his lip curling down miserably, "I want to return home alive, in spite of it all."

She steps a bit closer, and he turns his face away so that he is no longer looking at the floor by her feet. "I… Arum, I'm sorry. I know this must be… I know you're probably homesick-" he chokes out a bitter, unpleasant laugh, "and- and I know how hard it is, to be pulled away from your home. From- from your family," she suggests, and he flinches, curling his arms more tightly around his knees, pulling himself into a ball in front of her door and scowling. "I should have tried to talk to you about it sooner. Look, I- I'd be lying if I said I know exactly how I'm going to make it happen, but- but I'm not helping you so that you can run off and get killed by knights or whatever trying to get home. I'm not putting in all this hard work just for you to die," she says dryly, and she's gratified when he gives a smaller, less choking sort of laugh at that.

She takes another step, and when she's almost beside him he still won't look up, so-

She turns, leans her back against the wall, and slides down to sit beside him, sighing. He finally glances her way, then, if only to give her a look of distinct alarm.

"I want you well again, Arum. I want you healed, and I want you safe."

"Why? " he hisses low, his voice shaking.

"It's my responsibility to look out for my patients. In your case," she smiles, very slightly, "I think that means I'm gonna have to get you home. I don't know how, but- but we'll figure it out."

He blinks at her, then ducks his head. "We will figure it out," he repeats, skeptically.

"Yeah," she says. "We."

Slowly, she turns her hand, not exactly reaching for him but just- opening her palm towards him, spreading her fingers in gentle invitation.

He stares at her hand for a long moment, his eyes darting to the reddening mark on her wrist, his tongue flicking nervously in the air, and then he looks away.

She tries not to feel too disappointed-

A scaled palm settles uncertainly over hers, clawed fingers loosely curling around her own. He won't look at her, he's frowning and his damned frill is flared again, but-

"We," he murmurs, and Rilla smiles.

[->]

[stevenuniversallyreviews]

Episode 128: I Am My Mom

“Maybe you can help us out.”

Ten episodes ago, Steven witnessed Yellow and Blue Diamond hatch a plan to bring more humans to the Zoo. Ten episodes in the future, Steven and Connie will finally reconcile from the fallout of the actions he takes to stop that plan. Thirty episodes ago was the first half of a double-sized story where we got our first major hint that Rose was imperfect, ending in a fight over whether Steven and Rose are the same person. Thirty episodes in the future is the second part of a quadruple-sized story about how imperfection is okay, ending in a fight over whether Steven and Rose are the same person. So yeah, in case the name didn’t give it away, I Am My Mom is central to Steven’s identity arc.

I’d argue that the arc revolves around I Am My Mom even more than A Single Pale Rose, and not just because the latter comes so late to the game. As huge as the Pink Diamond reveal is for the series, this isn’t Rose’s story. It’s Steven’s, and his story is about finding peace with his identity and growing out of his martyr complex, so it hinges around an episode where he assumes his mother’s identity to save his friends at his own expense. Solving The Case of the Shattered Diamond is crucial, but when it comes to big Steven moments, nothing beats the sacrifice we’ve been building to since he lost his Rose-tinted view of the past.

We start with a bang, setting up the stakes in record time: it takes mere moments to recap that Homeworld is stealing Steven’s human friends, there’s no way to chase them if they leave the planet, and Steven isn’t taking it well. When asked whether Aquamarine and Topaz are important, Deedee Magno Hall gets an early knockout with Pearl’s “Uh, yes!”: it’s vintage Frantic Pearl, but just a little snobby as well, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world that these are dangerous foes. We already have a great first impression of the pair, but this line read amps up their reputation in a way only Garnet or Pearl could provide context for.

It’s quick, but I also love that we establish how Amethyst leads the charge on gathering information and getting things moving. After confirming that their ship is gone, she asks Steven about who the kidnappers were, asks Pearl about whether these Gems are big deals, and asks everyone why only Steven’s friends were taken. She’s even the one who asks Steven if Connie sent more photos during the search. These questions could’ve been divvied up among the Gems, but it’s Amethyst who’s sensible enough to pose all of them, subtly informing her thoughtfulness and understanding of Steven’s concerns when he’s too upset to step back and think the situation through.

Rather than draw out the search to fill the entire episode, we keep up this fast pace by veering right back to horror: the use of Connie’s ringtone from Alone Together is just a killer, taking one of the most joyful moments of the series and letting it echo throughout the empty boardwalk until it’s drowned out by Topaz’s heavy drone. And after more bratty intimidation, Aquamarine even gets the question of why Steven’s friends are targets out of the way, so we can spend the episode focusing on the aftermath instead of scratching our heads.

Planting the seeds of this story all the way back in Marble Madness is, as I said in that review ages ago, some Rowling-level plotting: it’s so long ago that we get an honest-to-god flashback instead of just explaining what happened, complete with Andross Peridot. This not only ties the plot together in a way that makes logical sense, but after a season of Steven stewing over his mother’s actions and their consequences, we now have a consequence of his own actions to stew over.

Yes, he’s somewhat culpable in Greg's kidnapping, in the sense that if they hadn’t gone to Korea they never would’ve met Blue Diamond. But it was still Greg’s decision to talk to her, and Blue Diamond’s decision to “rescue” him. He magnifies his own involvement until the only person he blames is himself, because guilt has become a cornerstone of his identity of late, but it’s clear to us that it’s not his fault. But this time is different. He and we barely need to do any work to connect his friends’ kidnapping to his actions, because he literally told Homeworld who they were.

There are obviously mitigating factors here as well, namely that there’s no way he could’ve anticipated that a casual listing of names would lead to Homeworld targeting those specific people in an eventual human hunt. There’s also the vast distance of time and maturity between the Steven of Act I, who knew virtually nothing about Homeworld, and the Steven of today. But that second point just makes the theme of the past catching up with the Crystal Gems all the stronger, because it’s not like Rose Quartz shattered Pink Diamond a week ago. It took a while, but the bill came due, and Steven doesn’t even need his guilt complex to pick up the check on this one. The episode keeps on rolling after Steven’s big reaction, as its explanation of Aquamarine’s confusion over “my dad” seems to be the major takeaway, but his shame isn’t going anywhere.

As a temporary salve for the escalating tension, the first fight of I Am My Mom is full of cartoony elements, like Garnet’s impact leaving a Garnet-shaped hole in the wall and Pearl being launched into a glint in the sky a la Team Rocket  (I know it’s a common trope beyond Pokémon, but I doubt anything with the blasting off again twinkle touched mainstream America in the same way). It mirrors the similarly slapstick battle of fellow second-parter Ocean Gem, complete with the shift in seriousness as the fight continues. In the Lapis fight, this occurs when Steven and Connie are nearly drowned in bubbles of water, but Aquamarine and Topaz manage to top it.

Aquamarine is horrible from the start, smug and impatient as she merrily bullies everyone around her. Her cruel sarcasm sets her apart from villains like Jasper and Yellow Diamond: while all of them drip condescension, at least the latter two are earnest about it. She sees the fight as a game, toying with the Crystal Gems’ emotions as their human friends are put on the line and employing her all-powerful wand to embarrass instead of wrapping things up quickly. But as soon as she’s bored, she goes a step beyond and drags the show into uncharted territory.

Shattering has been on the table a few times before, but it’s shocking for a villain to threaten to murder Steven’s friends. Aquamarine dances around the subject in her own trolling way, but her intent is intensified when Topaz grabs Jamie—a source of comic relief in the series as a whole and during this episode—and squeezes his head. Slowly. Effortlessly. As he quietly begs for help.

The intimacy of this threat packs a far greater punch than Yellow Diamond’s desire for the entire planet to die for a few reasons. First, it’s easier to wrap our heads around a smaller horror than an incomprehensibly huge one: as the classic possible Stalin quote says, a single death is a tragedy but a million is a statistic. Second, Yellow Diamond is light-years away and is talking about what she wants, while Aquamarine and Topaz are right in front of our heroes and demonstrating what they’ll actually do. And third, while we can assume that this show would never allow Earth or Jamie to die, it’s at least more likely that a single character is killed off than the entire planet.

Aquamarine’s threat does so much for the show beyond establishing her as a significant villain. The stakes of the series, which were already pretty high, ratchet right up. The possibility of human characters dying is introduced, which puts us in the right headspace for Lars’s shocking death; even if he comes back, he still dies on camera. And it steels Steven’s resolve to protect his friends by any means necessary. He might have let himself and his friends all go to the Zoo with a plan to escape later if their safety was assured, but it’s not worth the risk to have anyone he loves anywhere near this maniac.

But even now, Aquamarine remains monstrously petty. Far from the hardcore loyalists like Peridot, Jasper, and Holly Blue Agate, she’s lazy and willing to do a poor job if it means ending her mission early. Her overconfidence allows her to be fooled into bringing Steven along, but his overconfidence allows him to get captured for real as he tries and fails to make his bubble from inside Topaz.

As with the battle, we get another easing of tension as Steven struggles to escape. Given the circumstances we might expect more drama as the Homeworld ship escapes with the humans still stuck, but Lars expresses his fury through little smacks to the face, and Jamie recovers from his tight squeeze by going Full Jamie, to the annoyance of Onion and Aquamarine alike. And when the bubble finally does work, it makes Topaz look ridiculous as she inflates like a balloon.

Both the fight and this interlude help push this episode from great to outstanding, because I Am My Mom is enough of a downer that it needs some levity to get us through it, but too much levity could undermine the tone. It’s a delicate balance when the situation is this grave, but despite two major opportunities to falter, the crew pulls through.

With freedom comes Steven finally verbalizing his guilt, not acknowledging Connie’s suggestion to fuse and instead muttering in despair as the ship takes off. As he puts up a shell that foreshadows his imminent sacrifice, we cut to Lars similarly isolating himself from Sadie; while Steven’s stoic determination is traditionally considered heroic and Lars’s instinct to run as cowardly, neither is healthy for their relationships with Connie and Sadie. Sadie isn’t even mad when Lars flees after seeming to steel himself up to save her, it’s just one more disappointment she has to swallow before biting Topaz’s finger and skedaddling with an assist from Connie.

I think it’s this, more than the events that follow, that hurts Connie the most. It’s bad enough that she’s left on Earth while Steven goes off to space again, but on the ship, when she’s fighting her heart out to help everyone, Steven has already given up. As mentioned in Are You My Dad, Stevonnie wouldn’t have done much against the sheer might of Aquamarine, but Connie and Steven don’t know this in the moment, meaning he’s willing to put himself in danger but doesn’t consider her as an option before making that call. It’s not an unfounded complaint that he doesn’t consider her a true equal, and he unfortunately reinforces this mindset with his dismissive attitude in Dewey Wins.

Steven briefly escapes his rambling funk when the door opens, and we get one last moment of humor when Onion performs a dive perfect enough to elicit a double take, but Aquamarine’s wand proves powerful enough to keep even Alexandrite at bay. And now, when all hope seems lost, Steven pulls his decisive gambit. 

Steven has danced around identifying as Rose Quartz here and there, most notably in Joy Ride, where he tells the Cool Kids about Homeworld Gems thinking he’s his mom but adds “...and maybe I am?” to the end. But otherwise he firmly asserts himself as Steven when misnamed, even as he struggles with the sins of his mother’s past; Rocknaldo, of all episodes, reinforces that he knows he’s a different person at this stage of the show. So telling Aquamarine that he’s Rose isn’t a matter of him believing it, but deciding it doesn’t matter if it isn’t true, because he doesn’t matter if his friends are in danger. 

The complicating factor is that his sacrifice is noble, and despite the protests of his friends, it is the best way to guarantee everyone else’s safety. So it’s hard to just say he does the wrong thing: Aquamarine presented a threat so great that fighting wasn’t an option, and has an attitude so toxic that talking wasn’t an option, so surrender is an understandable position to take. From this point of view, his baffled reaction to Connie’s later disapproval makes total sense.

But this is a show about working together, about love in all its forms and how it can overcome incredible odds. Steven refuses to put his friends in danger, but what if they all rose to the occasion at the Zoo, the way Lars does on Homeworld? Who’s to say that Steven as a uniter couldn’t bring the Boardies, the Zoomans, and the Famethyst together and stage a grand escape, leaving Earth fuller than it was when they left at the story’s end? Their safety wouldn’t be guaranteed, but at least it’s better odds for the group than Steven’s odds upon surrendering himself as Rose Quartz, and he doesn’t allow them the chance to prove themselves.

I don’t bring up this hypothetical because I wish it’s how the show went, even though it would’ve been great: Steven needs to fail to grow, and while it can be seen as a heroic deed, by sacrificing himself he fails himself. If he inherited one thing from his mother it’s the ability to inspire, and he can do it without her subterfuge, without even trying. He fails to value this ability, just as he fails to value his own safety, and his pathological selflessness wraps right back around to selfishness. It doesn’t matter if his absence makes his friends and family suffer, and it doesn’t matter that they have hidden depths that would allow them to work together and come home together, because by blaming himself for everything, Steven makes everything about Steven.

It’s a good thing to want to help people. And it’s easy to write a story about a self-centered soul becoming generous, because it’s a clear arc from Bad Trait to Good Trait. But it’s hard to write a story, especially a story for kids, that teaches the value of tempering helpfulness with self-respect, about setting boundaries and not taking the world’s problems on your shoulders alone. At a glance, Steven is doing what a hero does, but this is a show whose boy hero has the powerset of a support unit, a show that devotes two whole songs to the explicit lesson that strength isn’t about muscles. It challenges the norms of stories kids are told over and over again, and with luck, it might change some minds about the value of Stoic Loner Badasses over forging healthy relationships.

In Ocean Gem, Steven saves the ocean by talking to Lapis Lazuli in his own Steven-y way. In Gem Drill, he saves the world by talking to the Cluster in his own Steven-y way. And in I Am My Mom, he saves his friends by talking to Aquamarine, but through the same language of lies that his mother was fluent in, and this tainted methodology leads to a tainted victory. Steven Universe isn’t Rose Quartz, and I Am My Mom thrives by showing why he shouldn’t be.

Future Vision!

This is perhaps the harshest instance of Pearl’s inability to reveal what actually happened to Pink Diamond. It’s always tough to watch her cover her mouth post-Single Pale Rose, but this is the moment where the truth might matter the most in terms of immediate consequences.

I’ve never been to this…how do you say…school?

A nice, quiet image for a cacophonous finale. But I would’ve loved to see Aquamarine as a greaser or a goth or something, considering she’s already in uniform.

We’re the one, we’re the ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR!

It’s low for being such a downer, in the same way The Good Lars struggles to reach higher in my top list, but even if I rarely rewatch I Am My Mom, it’s hard to deny its greatness.

Top Twenty-Five

Steven and the Stevens

Hit the Diamond

Mirror Gem

Lion 3: Straight to Video

Alone Together

Last One Out of Beach City

The Return

Jailbreak

The Answer

Mindful Education

Sworn to the Sword

Rose’s Scabbard

Earthlings

Mr. Greg

Coach Steven

Giant Woman

Beach City Drift

Winter Forecast

Bismuth

Steven’s Dream

When It Rains

The Good Lars

Catch and Release

Chille Tid

I Am My Mom

Love ‘em

Laser Light Cannon

Bubble Buddies

Tiger Millionaire

Lion 2: The Movie

Rose’s Room

An Indirect Kiss

Ocean Gem

Space Race

Garnet’s Universe

Warp Tour

The Test

Future Vision

On the Run

Maximum Capacity

Marble Madness

Political Power

Full Disclosure

Joy Ride

Keeping It Together

We Need to Talk

Cry for Help

Keystone Motel

Back to the Barn

Steven’s Birthday

It Could’ve Been Great

Message Received

Log Date 7 15 2

Same Old World

The New Lars

Monster Reunion

Alone at Sea

Crack the Whip

Beta

Back to the Moon

Kindergarten Kid

Buddy’s Book

Gem Harvest

Three Gems and a Baby

That Will Be All

The New Crystal Gems

Storm in the Room

Room for Ruby

Lion 4: Alternate Ending

Doug Out

Are You My Dad?

Like ‘em

Gem Glow

Frybo

Arcade Mania

So Many Birthdays

Lars and the Cool Kids

Onion Trade

Steven the Sword Fighter

Beach Party

Monster Buddies

Keep Beach City Weird

Watermelon Steven

The Message

Open Book

Story for Steven

Shirt Club

Love Letters

Reformed

Rising Tides, Crashing Tides

Onion Friend

Historical Friction

Friend Ship

Nightmare Hospital

Too Far

Barn Mates

Steven Floats

Drop Beat Dad

Too Short to Ride

Restaurant Wars

Kiki’s Pizza Delivery Service

Greg the Babysitter

Gem Hunt

Steven vs. Amethyst

Bubbled

Adventures in Light Distortion

Gem Heist

The Zoo

Rocknaldo

Enh

Cheeseburger Backpack

Together Breakfast

Cat Fingers

Serious Steven

Steven’s Lion

Joking Victim

Secret Team

Say Uncle

Super Watermelon Island

Gem Drill

Know Your Fusion

Future Boy Zoltron

Tiger Philanthropist

No Thanks!

     6. Horror Club      5. Fusion Cuisine      4. House Guest      3. Onion Gang      2. Sadie’s Song      1. Island Adventure