#but as this supernatural element she can’t control? absolutely the fuck not

[novelconcepts]

Like. I need more of the Lottie-Van-Taissa dynamic. I need it so badly. Because Van is acting as fulcrum to the two girls arguably MOST supernaturally linked to the Wilderness. She is Tai’s anchor and Lottie’s acolyte. She believes in them both without pause. She is accepting of the rituals presented: Lottie’s bone necklace and Taissa’s rope tether, Lottie’s meditation and Taissa’s nighttime travels. She is trying so hard to articulate to Tai why she should talk to Lottie, why that might help her. And Lottie is so easy, out of the two, because she is so accepting of what’s happening to and around her. But it’s Tai. Tai, Van’s love. Tai, Van’s purpose. From Taissa’s perspective, she’s the sanity, the logic center of this new world they’re in, but from Van’s perspective: she’s the soul to Lottie’s spirit. They are matched. They are one coin, and they could be so strong if they would just work together. Van knows this. Lottie would know this. But it runs in direct opposition to how Tai sees herself, who she needs to be, so she flatly refuses. It is such an excellent trifecta of a dynamic. Lottie as leader. Tai refusing to follow. Van stretched in both directions. You can’t guard the whole net at once. You have to be able to move. So how on earth will that play out?

[musical-shit-show]

Two Sides: Chapter 4

Previous Chapters: (1) (2) (3)

Characters: Musical!Beetlejuice, Female!OC, Lydia Deetz, Barbara Maitland, Adam Maitland

Warnings: anxiety, supernatural elements, cursing, kissing, sexual references, strange dreams (?), mentions of death

Word Count: 1,878

Author’s Note: So it has been a while since I posted this fic...I’ve honestly been distracted by other writing ventures but I forgot how fun this story was to write, so I will be updating more frequently (if anyone is reading, that is). As always, comments and constructive criticism are welcome! Enjoy :)

Chapter 4

“Oh, fuck oh fuck oh fuck what did I do—” Cassandra started to panic, all blood draining from her naturally rosy face. She checked the business card again, frantically scanning it for any more information on the frightening being that had suddenly appeared in her room. Beetlejuice looked absolutely elated. He straightened his tie as he eagerly crossed towards her, his hair still glowing a vibrant green that illuminated the entire room.

“Shh, hey, hey, hey, new girl, listen,” the demon cooed, fostering a false sense of security to quell her anxiety, “I just wanted to show my appreciation, what with you saying my name and all.” He extended his hand. Chipped black nail polish accented his fingertips. “Put her there.” 

Cassandra had barely extended her hand towards his when, like lightning, Beetlejuice yanked her forward, causing her to stumble. In one fell swoop the demon caught the living woman, dipped her clumsily, and placed an entirely non-consensual kiss on her lips. 

The ever-present smell of decay was increased exponentially now that Cassandra had come in direct contact with its source. She held her breath, paralyzed by the sudden and rather forceful kiss. When he finally released her, Beetlejuice sported a smug smile, licking his lips in what he thought was a seductive manner. Cassandra wiped off her mouth with the back of her hand, using every bit of strength in her to keep from vomiting at the taste of filth on her tongue. 

“I can’t thank ya enough for setting me free, doll,” Beetlejuice said, running his hand through his sickly green hair. His frantic energy made Cassandra even more anxious, “Being dead is fun and all but sometimes a guy’s gotta stretch his legs back into the world of the living, ya know?”

Cassandra’s head was spinning. ‘So, this guy is dead?’ she thought at lightning speed, ‘And I somehow set him free—whatever that means—by reciting some word from a fucking business card?!’ Beetlejuice noticed her slack jawed expression and grinned coyly.

“I take it you don’t know who I am, do ya?” he said, knowing the answer. If she had known who he was, she would’ve never been naive enough to read the card out loud. 

“No,” she said quietly, feeling a slight quiver in her voice as she spoke to the specter, “I mean, I’ve already met two dead people today, but they didn’t look anything like you. Who exactly are you, again?”

“I’m the ghost with the most, babes,” he replied, adjusting his coat, as if smoothing down the ratty suit jacket would make him look even the slightest bit presentable, “That word you so generously repeated three times is my name. Don’t wear it out.” The man grinned, and Cassandra scanned him again, noticing he had what appeared to be light green moss growing on his face. 

The striped suit, the green hair and moss…it triggered a strange sense of déjà vu. Suddenly, her mind flashed back to her eerie dream from the car ride. A look of dawning realization crossed her face, causing the demon to smile as if he were reading her mind.

“Yeah, that little vision you had earlier?” he said, smiling proudly, “That was all me. Breathers make it so easy to get into their heads, especially when they already have an affinity for the strange and unusual.” He quirked an eyebrow, studying her confused expression, “Though, not strange and unusual enough to see me when you arrived.”

“So, you’re invisible to everyone unless someone says your name three times?” Cassandra questioned. The specter nodded his head, “And I ‘set you free’? What exactly does that mean?” 

“It means I can affect the human world again,” he said with casually, whipping out a cigarette and beat-up purple lighter, “Lyds banished me a couple of months ago because I might’ve accidentally set fire to some shit around the house. Major bummer. But thanks to you, BJ is back, baby—” 

“Whoa whoa whoa,” Cassandra said, cutting him off, “You know Lydia too?” She felt her blood begin to boil as another secret her roommate kept from her was revealed. 

“Oh yeah, ‘course I do,” the demon said as he silently held out his pack of Marlboros, totally oblivious to the woman’s anger. Cassandra waved them away and he shrugged, taking a long drag of the cigarette wedged between his wide fingers, “She and I go way, way back. Adam and Babs too. In fact, they—” Suddenly, the door swung open, causing the demon’s mouth to clamp shut. Lydia stood in the doorway, her thin frame heaving with fury.

“Hey, asshole,” she said, her voice quiet and controlled, “How the fuck did you get back here.” Lydia marched up to the ghoul through a cloud of cigarette smoke, grabbing his tie and pulling him downward a few inches to meet her eyeline. 

Though Beetlejuice presented himself as a terrifying demon, Lydia’s rage had him shaking in his striped suit, the cigarette that hung loosely in his mouth moments before falling lightly thumping onto the hardwood floor. He silently pointed at Cassandra, who had her arms folded across her chest, her fingers gripping her arms tightly as she stared at her roommate. Lydia’s expression softened, and she let go of her ghostly companion and crossed to her roommate, who was growing redder by the second.

“Cassie, how—” 

“Oh, I don’t know, Lydia,” Cassandra snapped before the question could even be completed, “maybe if you didn’t leave weird summoning cards around, I wouldn’t have accidentally met another one of your friends. I take it that he’s a ghost, too?”

“Well, technically I’m a demon, but—” Beetlejuice started, thoroughly loving the drama. Lydia held up a hand to silence him once more. She pointed to the door.

“You,” she said, her blood still boiling from his shenanigans, “Out. Now.” Beetlejuice narrowed his eyes, and with a snap of his fingers, he vanished. 

“Look, Cass,” Lydia said, pinching the bridge of her nose, clearly overwhelmed, “I had nothing to do with the card. Beej did. I didn’t think I’d have to tell you about him because I assumed he was still good and banished. I’m really, really sorry.”

“Just, please tell me what’s going on?” Cassandra said, a clear strain in her voice, “I honestly don’t think my heart can take any more surprises today. Full truth, no secrets.” Lydia exhaled deeply and sat on the edge of the bed, motioning for her roommate to follow.

She recapped as much as she possibly could in a short amount of time. Lydia told Cassandra all of the important points: meeting Barbara and Adam after moving in, running into Beetlejuice on the roof, wreaking havoc, travelling to the Netherworld.

“He tried to do what—?” Cassandra blurted when Lydia mentioned Beetlejuice’s scheme to become human, “Were you not, like, 15?” Lydia shrugged.

“It was a green card thing,” she deadpanned. Cassandra cracked an incredulous smile, and Lydia broke into a giggle, “Seriously though, I weirdly understand why he did it. He wanted to be alive again so badly, and I had a plan to get rid of him. Turns out ‘marrying’ him gave him a dose of reality and me a chance to send his ass back to the Netherworld.” Cassandra raised her eyebrows in agreement, still trying wrap her mind around how marrying a ghost (demon? spirit? eldritch horror?) would bring them back to life.

“So why did you let him back, after all the shit he pulled, I mean?” Cassandra asked. Lydia picked at her black nail polish, which began flaking onto the bedspread. 

“I, well…I saw how lonely he was,” she confessed, “That’s what made us such good friends in the beginning; we both felt invisible.” Casandra smiled sadly, thinking to her own feelings of isolation; Lydia had partially saved her from those feelings. Although her loneliness had manifested in other ways, she understood how comforting it must’ve been to find someone who shared that feeling, even if they happened to be a dead guy with green hair dressed in an obnoxious striped suit.

“So, even after I killed him,” Lydia added casually, “it only took him a few months to show up again. Came topside again for some bio-exorcism a few towns over, and jumped at the chance to bury the hatchet.” She smiled fondly. “I didn’t mind, either. He’s a pain in the ass, but he’s my pain in the ass.” 

“Did someone say ‘pain in the ass’?” Beetlejuice materialized once more, this time with a bag of popcorn and a ‘Go Lydia’ pennant. “So, did I miss the catfight?” he asked gleefully, waving the small flag eagerly. Lydia pinched the bridge of her nose and Cassandra stifled a laugh. Her life had truly taken a turn to the ridiculously absurd over the course of one afternoon.

“Get off her bed, weirdo,” Lydia scolded, “I was just catching up Cassie on everything, since someone decided to be a dick about me banishing them for scaring the daylights out of some very important clients—” 

 “Now, now, Lyds, let’s not point any fingers here,” the demon retorted, brushing the dust off of his ancient suit, “You wouldn’t want to embarrass me in front of our guest, would you?” Lydia stuck her tongue out at him, and Beetlejuice sneered, the two of them acting like annoyed siblings. Cassandra suppressed another giggle, not wanting to encourage any more bickering. 

“Cass, this is Beej,” Lydia said, turning to her, “Or BJ. Don’t call him by his full name unless you want to banish or summon him. If you wanna get rid of his stupid ass, just say it three times in a row again. Really works when he’s being a prick.” She smirked while Beetlejuice still pouted. Cassandra was still studying him intently, fascinated with his entire being even after Lydia had explained his presence. As ghosts, Barbara and Adam were interesting to say the least, but Beetlejuice was something completely different.

Lydia gave an exasperated sigh, also feeling quite overwhelmed by the day’s events “Also, we were gonna maybe play a board game or watch a movie or something soon. You in?” Cassandra nodded, still trying to absorb all of the information that had just been thrown at her. She decided it was in her best interest to act as normal as possible now so she could bombard her roommate with even more questions after the weekend was over. Lydia then turned to Beetlejuice, who was oddly quiet, “You’re more than welcome to stick around too, Beej. If you behave yourself, that is.” He rolled his eyes, muttering something indistinct to himself. 

“What was that?” she asked, her tone far more threatening. The faintest streak of white appeared in the ghoul’s hair, indicating that he was actually afraid of her.

“Nothing, oh best friend of mine,” he said dully.

Lydia smirked again, and glided towards the door, turning her attention to Cassandra, “Seeing as you’re the one who summoned him, it might be in your best interest to get to know our little demon friend a little better while I set up tonight’s activities, eh Cass?”

“Lyds, I don’t—”

“Hey, what do you mean by little—?”

--------

Thanks for reading! Like/reblog/comment if you enjoyed or have any comments/suggestions!

[wingsofkpop]

Hiraeth - I.IV: Danced of the Damned

pairing(s):  Hybrid!Im Jaebeom x Reader, Witch!Mark Tuan x Reader, Werewolf!Jackson Wang x Reader, Vampire!Park Jinyoung x Reader, Supernatural!Got7 x Reader

genre:  Supernatual!AU, Dark Magic!AU, heavy Angst, slight Fluff, eventual Smut

warning(s): Mature language, mentions of death, hints of traumatic experiences, blood, etc. 

word count: 5k

synopsis:  How far are you willing to go to find out the truth about Moon Dye Bay?…

chapter directory

You don’t know exactly what you were expecting to find in the archives of the Town Hall. Maybe a couple old files holding the ancestral information of Moon Dye or a couple ancient photographs where the faces are too blurred and rotted to recognize. Even the finding of a mere rusted pocket watch would have crossed your mind—not a thick registry stuffed full of unthinkable truths. 

In your defense, you just happened to stumble upon the records in the dank, dusty basement where the town’s archives stay. It was hidden in a secret compartment behind chalky boxes of cold cases that were forgotten a long, long time ago—how else were you to satiate your curiosity? Inside the mess of cobwebs and dust, there sat the information that would both make and break your sanity. 

And maybe if Jaebeom hadn’t approached you in that alleyway and confirmed your suspicions… your mind would have been able to come up with some sort of rationalization. 

“Look, I wanted to tell you so many times…” You can’t bring yourself to meet Mark’s gaze, finding more interest in swirling the contents of your untouched tea. Through the corner of your eye, however, you can see your companion feverishly shaking his head, “But knowing about me would put you in danger, (Y/N)... I couldn’t do that to you.” 

“That wasn’t your choice to make, Mark.” 

“I know that, but—fucking hell.” Mark buries his face in his palms, still rocking back and forth, “It shouldn’t be like this… God, I never wanted this—” 

“And you think I did?” You hiss, uncaring about the pure venom in your tone. “How the fuck am I supposed to process all of this? That vampires and werewolves and witches and probably goddamn pixies exist? That my best friend has magical powers and talks to the dead?” 

“I don’t—” Mark timidly shrugs, “talk to the dead…” 

“Well, at least there’s that much.” A heavy sigh passes from your lips, expelling barely any tension from your aching chest. You toy with the handle of your teacup before finally gathering the willpower to meet Mark’s eyes. His irises are wild and filled with all kinds of emotion, you immediately notice. Probably a mere reflection of your own. 

As much as you want to stay angry at your best friend—you physically can’t. No matter how many times your head and your heart go back and forth. Mark lied to you. Mark has been lying to you all this time. But something inside of you won’t let your eyes see past the genuine remorse and hurt written along his face. 

He’s still your best friend. 

Mark sighs, “What do you want me to do, (Y/N)?...” 

“I want you to tell me the truth—the whole truth.”

“I can’t do that,—” 

“I at least deserve that much, don’t you think?” Mark withers beneath your murmur, dragging a hand down his face with a frustrated breath. After another moment of silence that seems to stretch on for hours, Mark grabs a nearby bottle of bourbon, pours himself a glass and finally nods. 

“If I tell you everything, there’s no going back… Are you sure you’re okay with that?” 

“Not really, but I don’t have that choice anymore.” You hum. “I need to know.” 

Mark nods again. “Where do you want me to start?” 

“At the very beginning.” 

The way Mark throws back the alcohol sparks uneasiness in your gut, but not as much as the gloomy darkness that overtakes his gruff tone. 

“The main story begins with the first ever vampires that came into existence, known as the Prime Two…” Mark moves to pour himself another drink, but changes his mind and ends up drinking straight from the bottle. You wonder whether you should ask for a sip as well. 

“But you know them already… as Im Jaebeom and Park Jinyoung.” 

  ☽ ☽ ☽ ☽ ☽ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ 

Youngjae releases a content breath as he steps into the warmth of the bookstore, effectively escaping the post-rain chill of the outside. He shakes the remaining coolness from his hands before heading toward the front counter, where Bambam is stationed flipping through a high-end fashion magazine. Youngjae fights the urge to roll his eyes. 

“Bam?” 

Bambam looks up at Youngjae’s voice. “Hey, man. What’s going on?” 

“I need your help.” Youngjae surveys the area of the store, checking down aisles and around corners for any signs of life. The racing of his heart somewhat slows at the lack of other customers, allowing him to turn back to the cashier and continue, “The coven is in danger. Nayeon-noona is dead.” 

“I heard about that. I’m so sorry, hyung.” Bambam nods his head, “What can I do?”

“Are you able to see an account of everyone who steps foot in this town? Visitors included?” 

“Yeah, I know some guys who can get whatever information you need. You feel like taking a trip up to the police station?” 

Youngjae hums in response, waiting patiently for Bambam to lock up the register. He watches the younger throw on his coat before meeting him behind the counter. With Bambam in tow, Youngjae leaves the comfort of the shop. After Bambam locks the door, the two continue through the cold in the direction of the police station. Youngjae again checks his surroundings, feeling more than just the chill of the air. 

“Did you… find what killed her?” 

“What?” 

Bambam repeats again a little louder. “Nayeon. Do you know what killed her?” 

“A hunter and another witch.” Youngjae explains, “We have records of them murdering countless covens before coming to Moon Dye.” 

“I may not know everything about this supernatural stuff, but don’t hunters hunt vampires...?”

“We’re not sure why either of them are specifically targeting witches.” Youngjae shudders, pulling his coat tighter around his shoulders. “I just hope we can find them before…” 

“Hey.” Bambam halts Youngjae’s pace with a hand on his arm. “We’re gonna find these douchebags and make sure they don’t hurt anyone else.” 

Youngjae weakly smiles. “Thanks, Bam.” 

“C’mon. I’m freezing my ass off.” Youngjae follows Bambam’s wishes and continues down the street, feeling less and less paranoid knowing the younger is by his side. Instead, Youngjae’s mind thinks back to your sudden entrance only mere minutes ago.

Youngjae wanted to stay at the mausoleum and help Mark deescalate the situation, but the older insisted that he continue the search. He can’t help but remember the betrayal across your features—the way you looked at him and Mark as if they were aliens. 

“Why did you give (Y/N) Mayor Bhuwakul’s old diary?” The question escapes Youngjae’s lips before he can stop himself. His inquiry visibly takes Bambam off guard, manifesting in the form of confusion along his features, before shifting to realization. 

“Because she deserves to know.” 

“But what about Mark-hyung? You know what this will do to him, right? To him and (Y/N)?” 

Bambam shakes his head. “I know Mark cares about (Y/N), and (Y/N) cares about Mark.” He peers at Youngjae through the corner of his eye and shrugs, “That’s not gonna change just because she knows the truth, hyung. I doubt that will ever change.” 

Youngjae doesn’t respond, keeping his eyes trained on the moving pavements at his feet. He knows Bambam is right, and knows both Mark and (Y/N), but something in his gut doesn’t feel right—like a sense that something is coming. 

Something bad… Something really, really bad. 

  ☽ ☽ ☽ ☽ ☽ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ 

“So you’re telling me that not only are there vampires almost a thousand years old running around without a care in the world, but you’re also the leader of the town witch coven who protects Moon Dye from supernatural threats?” Mark nods at your recount, holding back a smile at the cute furrow in your eyebrows. “You realize how absolutely unreal that sounds? Right?” 

“You said you wanted the truth.” 

“I’m only slightly regretting that decision now.” You sigh, smoothing a hand over your scalp. Mark notices a stray hair fall across your forehead at your movement. He’s not sure whether it’s the light buzz radiating throughout his veins or the way your eyes seem to glitter in the sunlight, but his mind has to warn his hands to remain glued to the table. Still, Mark can’t help but feel disappointed as you brush the strand away. 

You shrug your shoulders, “How… How do you do it?” 

“What do you mean?” 

“Like…” Mark carefully watches your expression, noticing the slight tremor in your tone as you trail on. “How do you… do magic…?” 

“Well, there’s a bunch of ways.” He explains, “Spells. Potions. Channeling objects. Control of the elements. Some witches can even see events from the past, present or future.” 

“So you don’t wave around wands and ride on broomsticks?” 

The first genuine laugh leaves Mark’s lips for the first time tonight. “No. Though Youngjae did try to enchant his car to fly one time.” 

“Where does it come from? The magic?” 

“It’s dependent on the witch, and the type of craft they practice.” 

Not desiring to scare you off, Mark chooses to show a more modest example. He focuses his attention onto your cup, still full of now cold tea, and murmurs a quick incantation beneath his breath. Your entire body flinches as the glass lifts at least six inches off the table, enough to hover at the level of your eyes. After a couple seconds, Mark lowers the cup back into its original place. When he meets your gaze, he expects to see fear embedded beneath your irises, but it’s the opposite: 

You seem fascinated. 

“I usually practice Traditional Magic, so I use the Earth and other natural elements to amplify my magic.” Mark says, “Most witches are born with their own powers, but that’s not always the case. 

“Youngjae—take him as an example—is a Siphoner. In order to generate magic, he has to absorb it from other things, be it objects or people.” 

“So he… siphons magic?” 

Mark smiles. “Exactly. You’re catching on pretty quick.” 

“I wouldn’t go that far.” You shake your head, curiously peering down at the stationary teacup before returning your attention back to Mark. “When I read through that book in the archives, I saw something about Lycanthropes… Does that mean what I think it means?” 

“Werewolves.” He states matter of factly.

“They exist too then?” 

“You remember Kim Yugyeom? Bambam’s best friend?” 

You nod. 

Mark nods too. “He’s the second in command of Moon Dye’s pack. I don’t think you’ve met the new Alpha, Bang Chan.” 

“I’ve heard the name from some of my kids.” Mark can practically feel the exhaustion from your sigh. He debates the idea of reaching across the table to take your hand in his—the loneliness of your fingers spurring him on even more. Before Mark can make up his mind, you’re already withdrawing your limbs and hiding them in the comforts of your lap. 

“I just—I’m just having a hard time processing all of this.” 

Mark shakes his head, “It’s a lot to take in, (Y/N).”

“I know, but—” You pause to lift your head, furrowing your eyebrows in his direction with the beginnings of a scowl overtaking your lips. “I’m still pissed that you kept this whole other world a secret from me. I mean, for fucksakes, Mark, you’re my best friend.” 

“I’m—I was protecting you. Knowing this stuff exists doesn’t come without consequence, (Y/N).” 

“Stop saying that, oh my god—” Mark waits as you bury your face in your palms, deeply breathing through the divots of your laced fingers. After maybe a minute of silence, you raise your head and murmur, “What is it about me knowing that puts me in danger? I was nearly killed by that vampire without knowing shit.” 

A wince overtakes Mark’s features. “It’s complicated…” 

“I’m so sick of everyone using that excuse.” You hiss, “You don’t keep something like this from me, especially the fact that you’re—” 

“Do you know how Nayeon died?” Mark can see how his sudden question takes you off guard by the widening of your eyes and pursing of your lips. You take a few moments to collect yourself, right your expression, before answering: 

“She was… killed by an animal.” 

Mark shakes his head again. “No. Nayeon was murdered by a supernatural vampire hunter and another witch.” 

You blink. “B-But… was she a—?” 

“She was a witch—an innocent witch that never provoked, nor hurt anyone.” Mark leans forward until the edge of the table presses harshly against his ribs. The uncomfort does little to garner his attention—too focused on speaking to you with his desperate eyes. “This world—my world is dark, (Y/N). The creatures in my world are even darker, including me.” 

He pretends not to catch the brief wave of unease that washes over your face. 

“Right now, there are two fucking crazies in town out to kill me and my people.” Mark gulps at the stone long formed at the back of his throat. “If I lose anyone else, I—” Unable to finish his sentence, Mark shifts his focus. “I just need you to understand, (Y/N). Please.” 

“Mark—” Tremors shoot through his veins as your fingers latch around his wrist—the warmth of your touch sobering the last remnants of his mind. He has to hold back tears at the pure sympathy that resonates from your bright irises. “I understand, okay?” 

He nods, not trusting the quality of his voice. 

You softly squeeze his arm. “No more secrets though… Promise me.” 

“(Y/N)—” 

“Promise me.”   

Mark knows he shouldn’t, but the way you’re looking at him—so calm, yet so determined—the way you always look at him… He can’t do anything but give in. 

“I promise.” He murmurs, placing a hand over your own with a weak smile. “No more secrets.” 

You nod approvingly, offering up a smile of your own. Your lips part again, as if to ask another question, when a knock sounds from the door. Mark almost verbally protests when you pull away, but holds back his annoyance to answer the unexpected visitor with a silent sigh. However, he can’t hold back his scowl at the sight of Jinyoung on his doorstep. 

“Mark. It’s good to see you.” 

“What the hell are you doing here?” 

“I apologize for my sudden visit, but I needed to talk to you about—” Jinyoung’s voice trails off, which Mark quickly realizes is because of your known presence. He watches, with narrowed eyes, as you and Jinyoung exchange an array of glances before he turns back to Mark. 

He shakes his head. “I didn’t realize you had company. I’ll come back—” 

“She knows.” An uneasy feeling erupts in Mark’s gut at the weak expression that crosses over Jinyoung’s face. He doesn’t like how Jinyoung looks at you again, nor the blank stare you offer the vampire in response. 

Jinyoung nods. “I see…” 

“What did you—?” Mark’s phone rings before he can finish his question, temporarily relieving him from the atmosphere of awkwardness and irritation. He steps aside to allow Jinyoung the space to enter while pulling his phone from his pocket. His eyes remain fixated on the interaction between both you and Jinyoung as he answers the call, lifting the device up to his ear. 

“Please tell me you and Bam found something.” 

“It’s not much, but we at least found a lead.” Mark breathes a sigh of relief at Youngjae’s answer. As to include both you and Jinyoung into the conversation, he turns Youngjae on speaker phone, avoiding the curious glint in your gaze.  

“There’s no record in the police database of any suspicious visitors entering town within the last few months, so we’re sure they probably got into Moon Dye undetected, or at least not on city file.” 

“How does that help us?” 

“You need to let me finish, hyung.” Mark can practically hear Youngjae roll his eyes over the line. “We may not have records, but some of Bam’s friends were able to look into the cameras stationed around the border of the road that leads into town. They caught footage of a bus dropping off two young women, who were then picked up by a 2018 BMW M6. We tried to track the license plate number, but the registration is private.” 

Jinyoung murmurs with a nod, “So someone who lives here in town brought them in. It’s possible we may be dealing with more than just a hunter and a witch.” 

“I don’t think so.” Youngjae disagrees, “The tracking spell would have picked up on every accomplice involved in Nayeon-noona’s murder.” 

Mark feels sick at the slight grimace that pulls across your features. He knows you're playing strong by the way you quickly mask your discomfort. 

“Anyway, we were only able to track the vehicle as far as Poison Square. But we do have the faces of the two young women that got off of the bus.” 

“That’s something then.” Mark sighs, sharing a wary glance with Jinyoung. “What do they look like?” 

“Both are probably somewhere in their early- to mid-twenties, have dyed blonde hair and are relatively around the same height.” 

Jinyoung shakes his head. “That could be anyone. Can you be more specific?” 

“The one woman has three distinguishing beauty marks: One on the bridge of her nose, another above her upper lips, and a third near the corner of her mouth.” 

“Shouldn’t the hunter have something on them? Like a mark?” 

“We wouldn’t be able to see the hunter’s mark.” Jinyoung shuts down Mark’s inquiry with a frown, “It’s only visible to other hun—” 

“This mark… Is it a tattoo, by any chance?...” Mark nearly flinches at your sudden question—Jinyoung almost doing the same. The latter resurrects from the surprise before releasing a hesitant answer: 

“Well, I’ve never seen it myself, but… yes.” 

“Oh my fucking god…” The pure shock that overtakes your face sends warning bells chiming through Mark’s mind. He sets the phone on the table before dropping to his knees in front of your sitting form, immediately noticing the trembling of your hands. Worst case scenarios play through his thoughts like creepy puppet shows, but he pushes them away to focus on you. 

“What is it?” 

When you meet his gaze, your eyes are wild with a blend of shock  and fright. Mark feels even sicker than before, and not because of the alcohol. 

You gulp. Not once. But twice. 

“I… I know who Nayeon’s killers are.” 

  ☽ ☽ ☽ ☽ ☽ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾

“Please, just let me go…” Jihyo sobs, hot tears beginning to spill down her burning cheeks. The rope around her wrists chafes uncomfortably at her skin, eating away at what little dignity remains in her heart. “I really don’t understand what you want from me…” 

Momo releases a huff—the sight and sound mirroring a dragon blowing smoke through his nostrils. Jihyo watches through terrified eyes as Momo paces across the living room floor, feverishly shaking her head and mumbling incoherencies underneath her breath. The fear continues to grow when Momo stomps to where Jihyo is frozen stiff on the sofa. 

“How many fucking times do I have to repeat myself?” Momo growls, shoving her tattooed arm in Jihyo’s face. “You see this mark, then you’re a hunter. It’s not rocket science.” 

Jihyo weakly shakes her head. “You’re sick, Momo… Th-This whole thing about vampires and witches and hunters doesn’t exist…” 

It’s a lie—Jihyo knows in her heart that a part of her, a very stupid part of her, believes every little detail that has left Momo’s lips. Some of it makes too much sense not to be true: The sudden animal attacks. The mysterious disappearances. The unexplained instances she’s had ever since she moved to Moon Dye Bay. 

“I told you that—”  

Momo’s voice cuts out at the sound of a slamming door. For a moment, hope swirls through Jihyo’s gut, thinking that either Sana or (Y/N) must have come to her rescue, but the burst vanishes at the sight of Mina stepping into view—Jihyo’s fear instead skyrockets. 

Momo said she’s a witch. 

“What is going on here?” Mina demands, her tone stern and expression cold. Momo only smiles in response. 

“Sister!” She skips over to the newcomer, delicately taking Mina’s hands into her own. The act actually surprises Jihyo, not expecting the supposed, rather sadistic hunter to be capable of such affection. “Jihyo can see my mark! She’s a hunter just like me, sister!” 

Mina immediately tears her hands away, glaring at her sister with such bewilderment and venom. “Are you out of your damn mind!?” 

“Wh-What do you mean?” 

“Jihyo cannot be involved in any of this!” Goosebumps rise over Jihyo’s skin at the hidden darkness beneath Mina’s words. Her eyes glance toward the hallway, wondering the success rate of being able to reach the front door without alerting either sister. “Do you not remember what happened last time you tried to train another hunter?” 

“Things will be different this time. I am stronger now—we are stronger.” “You don’t know that for sure.” 

“Think of how easy it will be to take out the rest of Tuan’s coven with another hunter on our side, sister.” Momo persists, striking more panic through Jihyo’s already stocked body. Against her better judgement, Jihyo tries to escape her rope bindings… and unsurprisingly, fails. 

Mina shakes her head furiously. “Tuan and his witches have sided with one of The Prime brothers. We can’t risk killing another member without putting our own lives in danger—”

“All the more reason to take on another hunter.” Jihyo shrinks in on herself as Momo grabs Mina’s hand and leads her to her prisoner on the couch. “Please, sister. Think about what those witches did to us—about mother and father.” 

Silence, save for the hum of rushing blood in Jihyo’s ears, hangs in the air, thick like a pool of humid fog. Like Momo, Jihyo carefully watches Mina’s expression, searching for any features that may determine the underlyings of her fate. 

“So many lives we’ve already taken for mother and father.” Mina pulls her hand free from Momo’s and shakes her head. The rope seems to dig harder into her wrists—as does the terror in her chest when Mina murmurs her next words: 

“When will it ever be enough for you, sister?…” Jihyo’s gaze remains transfixed on Mina as she makes her way back through the kitchen, pausing to offer the bound woman an apologetic glance. “I’m so sorry you were brought into this… but I’m even more sorry that you’ll have to die because of it…” 

Whatever remaining hope inside Jihyo snaps as Mina throws her one last pitiful smile before rushing out the apartment—leaving Jihyo to the mercy of her deranged sister. 

  ☽ ☽ ☽ ☽ ☽ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾

Jinyoung closely watches how your fingers seem to cling to Mark’s hands as you think over your words, almost as if his mere touch is enough to keep your mind grounded. And though he’d never admit it aloud… Jinyoung feels envy that Mark is the one who’s comforting you. 

“Mina and Momo are friends of Sana from when they were in high school.” You explain, peering between both Mark and Jinyoung’s curious expressions. Though Jinyoung notices how your gaze seems to avoid his seeking eyes. “I don’t know anything about them beside the fact they’re foster sisters, and they had a pretty shitty time in the system.” 

“Then how are you so sure it’s them?” Youngjae inquires, still over the phone. “And how did you know about the hunter’s mark?” 

You pause, and based on your expression, Jinyoung would guess you’re almost reluctant to answer his questions. He moves to soothe your uneasiness, but Mark beats him to it: 

“We have to know, (Y/N)... It’s important.” 

Jinyoung’s jealousy expands at the intimate glance you and Mark share. 

After another moment of quiet and a heavy sigh, you finally speak, “The other day, I heard Jihyo comment on a tattoo that Momo had—but there was no tattoo. Neither Sana nor I saw one, so I just thought Jihyo was imagining things until…” 

“Until now.” Jinyoung finishes. He inhales an unsteady gust of air, carding his fingers through his styled hair, and shakes his head with a solemn expression, “(Y/N)... For Jihyo to be able to see Momo’s hunter mark would mean she’s a—”

“We have to warn the others.” Mark interrupts Jinyoung, suddenly rising to his feet. “Youngjae, give a call to Lia, Jisung and Minho and tell them to get their asses over here as soon as possible.” 

“Already done, hyung. I couldn’t reach Minho, but I left several voicemails and dozens of texts.” 

“I’ll start on that linking spell we talked about. This ends tonight.” Mark lifts his phone from the tabletop, readying his thumb to tap the end call button. “Get here safe, okay?” 

Youngjae hums. “Fifteen minutes. Maybe ten.” 

“See you soon, Youngjae.” No sooner had Mark ended the call does your voice sound: 

“What the hell is that supposed to mean? ‘This ends tonight’?” 

Mark shakes his head. “(Y/N)—” 

“No. I want to know what that means.” You abruptly rise, sending your chair sliding across the wood floor with a shriek. Jinyoung waits for Mark to come up with an answer, secretly enjoying the obvious discomfort amongst his features, before answering himself after maybe a minute of radio silence: 

Jinyoung places a hand on your shoulder. “It means we do what we have to do to keep everyone safe. Including you and the town.” 

“But you won’t… kill them? Right? I mean, there’s-there’s other ways that don’t have to end with anyone dead, right…?”

“I don’t know.” Jinyoung murmurs honestly, “If they’re willing to talk, then maybe. But if it comes down to it—” 

“Please, don’t…” His heart practically breaks at the shakiness of your tone. “Just—do anything you have to, but don’t kill them…” 

Mark raises an eyebrow with a scowl, “They’ve killed dozens of innocent people, (Y/N). If anything, they deserve to die.” 

“Maybe…” You shake your head. “But killing them would make you no better than them.” 

Jinyoung feels as if you just punched him in the gut with your words. He has to let go of your shoulder to reach back and support his weight against the table, suddenly dizzy and light-headed.

“We’ll…” Mark sighs, “We’ll try our best, okay?” 

You nod before wiping your palms against the side of your jeans. 

As you and Mark engage in another round of small talk, Jinyoung tries to settle the nauseous feeling in his gut and focus on anything other than the fragrant waft of your scent. He knows he would never hurt you—his self control is too grand to allow anything like that—but the lack of human blood is beginning to affect him again. For the worse. 

Usually Jinyoung is able to hold his own with only a couple droplets of animal blood every few days or so. However, his strength and other abilities have long depleted since he began this strict diet, and while he may not be anywhere near desiccation—Jinyoung is certainly hungry. And weak. Very, very weak. 

He just hopes he will be able to withstand the upcoming battle. 

“But I want to help!” 

“And the answer is no fucking way. Absolutely not.” Jinyoung returns to reality just in time to see Mark shake his head indignantly toward your seething figure. Since then, he notices the two of you have moved to a nearby lectern, where Mark is currently flipping through a large grimoire.

“I can help, I mean—Mina and Momo know me and I swear I can��” 

“It’s not fucking happening.” Mark growls, slamming the book shut and leering down at you with a sneer. Jinyoung catches how your face doesn’t falter in the slightest at his angered expression. 

With a single finger, you poke Mark’s chest. “I’m not just going to sit back and watch while you and your damn wizard gang go and play hocus pocus with a pair of killers.” 

“It’s too dangerous—!” 

“Do I look like I fucking care!? Didn’t think so!” 

Jinyoung steps in, making sure to keep his tone calm so as to not infuriate you anymore. “Mark is right, (Y/N). I’m sorry—but you’d only be a liability for us to keep track of.” 

Your expression hardens. “A liability—? Are you serious?” 

Mark doesn’t spare a second glance in your direction and instead turns to Jinyoung. He points toward the countertop behind the vampire, “Can you grab the bowl that’s there? The one from yesterday’s ritual?” 

“So that’s it then?” Jinyoung  grabs the silver bowl filled with dried blood and the charm bracelet as you continue to rant, and hands it to Mark. The witch immediately dips two fingers into the crimson liquid, closes his eyes and begins to murmur a hushed incantation. 

You shove at his shoulder. “Mark? Are you kidding me?” 

“(Y/N), please—” Jinyoung steers you away from the witch, forcing himself to keep strong underneath your icy stare. “It’s for your own good…” 

With a clenched jaw and sparkling eyes, you shake your head. For a moment, Jinyoung hopes you’ll simply turn on your heel and leave the tense atmosphere of the mausoleum, but as always—you surprise him. 

“You know, I let your and Mark’s lying about everything slide because I wanted to move past it—for a fresh start.” You lean closer until Jinyoung can practically taste your minty breath on the tip of his tongue. “But you two are still treating me like some sort of princess that needs to be protected.

“And you know what, Jinyoung?” Your hiss strikes something deep inside Jinyoung’s soul—something even he can’t place. “I’m no princess. And I don’t need to be protected. You’ll do best to get that shit through your head.” 

Neither Jinyoung nor Mark try to stop you as you stomp out the door. 

Jinyoung bites his lip before turning to Mark. “Are we… doing the right thing?” 

“I don’t know.” Mark replies, and for once, Jinyoung can relate to the lost tinge in his tone. 

“I really don’t fucking know.” 

[carnistcervine]

Haunting AU

Hey everyone, it’s ya gurl Carnist with another AU that she came up with instead of sleeping.

*The Avatar is an ancient spirit amalgamate that is reborn into a new mortal body every time it's current one dies.

*However, since the attack on the Air Temples 100 years ago, no one has encountered any trace of the legendary being.

*It is with this knowledge that Ozai banishes his gravely injured son, sending him on a quest to find the Avatar.

*So, a freshly burned Zuko is send off with his uncle and a motley crew with a half-trained medic.

*At first Zuko's fever fueled nightmares are centered purely around the agni kai and his father burning his face away.

*However, it's not too long before the dreams evolve. The dark figure that looms over Zuko changes in shape, instead of burning him, it gently cups his chin.

*The figure is not Ozai, no, it looks barely anything like his father, it's hair is much too white, and the beard is too large.

*It is gentle with him, but he finds himself afraid anyway. Zuko eventually finds the strength to push away from the figure and run, but he finds that he's surrounded by familiar, yet unfamiliar figures.

*They loom around him, closing in on him, chanting his name.

*Thankfully when he wakes up, he's safely by his Uncle's side.

*By what is considered a miracle of Agni himself, Zuko recovers from his injury. The only reminder being the scar that now mars his face.

*Once he's well enough to stand, he demands to search the air temples.

*Iroh tries to get him to rest, as the old man knows Zuko will never find the Avatar, and needs this boy to take this time to rest and recover. But Zuko is too stubborn to listen. So Iroh assists the boy in getting around until he's well enough to walk on his own again.

*There is a heaviness in the temples that Zuko cannot ignore.

*He tries to anyway, leaving as soon as he's able to see the Avatar isn't around.

*He pushes himself to get back to firebending as soon as possible.

*Much to his dismay, he's developed pyrophobia. His terror over his own element drives him up a wall. Iroh is patient with him, but Zuko can't stand his lack of progress and nearly re-traumatizes himself trying to force himself to get over it.

*The Iron Slug roams from place to place as Zuko runs his crew(and himself) ragged tracking down every hint of the Avatar.

*He pours over any information on the Avatar or Air Nomads to find any info he use to locate the Avatar.

*He's absolutely obsessed determined.

*It's been three years, his crew have grown resentful of him, and his Uncle just keeps trying his best in the hopes that he can help his nephew.

*One fateful day, he spies a strange light while sailing through the south.

*"It must be the Avatar." He tells himself.

*His Uncle however, believes it to be nothing more than the southern lights and encourages him to get some rest, maybe drink some calming tea.

*Zuko persists and tracks the lights down to a small Water Tribe village.

*The village is nothing more than women and young children.

*Well, there are two slightly notable exceptions, a teenage boy and girl who hold the most vicious, venomous gaze towards Zuko.

*He simply brushes them off as he talks to the village's leader.

*The woman holds a firm glare at him, telling him that his people have already taken the last of the waterbenders, that their village has /nothing/ left.

*Zuko remarks that he's not interested in waterbenders, or warriors, or anything of the like. He's looking for the Avatar or information on the Avatar.

*The woman makes an odd expression, and tells him that the Avatar has been gone for a hundred years.

*Zuko knows that the woman is hiding something and threatens her at flamepoint, when suddenly his target comes out of hiding.

*A small boy, eyes burning with the purest light comes in from seemingly out of nowhere.

*The Avatar offers himself up if Zuko leaves the village alone.

*Zuko accepts these terms.

*He doesn't see the strange, pitying looks the villagers give him as he leaves.

*Zuko tells his men to lock up the Avatar, and they just look at each other, only opting to move when he yells at them to quit dawdling.

*Uncle looks very concerned and asks Zuko if he's feeling alright, Zuko says that his journey is finally over and he can finally go home, he's never been better.

*Iroh looks even more concerned at this, but Zuko brushes him off to go to his room.

*He's not surprised when he finds the Avatar sitting on his bed, head tilted like a curious puppy.

*Zuko's not really surprised that the Avatar has essentially been allowed to roam loose on his ship, his crew are a bunch of useless good-for-nothings and he has to do /everything/.

*The Avatar doesn't even so much as flinch as he approaches him, but the second he's on the stupid arrow head, he's all the way across the room.

*Like he teleported or something.

*Zuko pinches his nose. He should have known that catching and containing a spirit would be hard.

*The Avatar offers a friendly smile and calls himself Aang, he extends an offer of friendship to Zuko, but Zuko turns the spirit down.

*Aang frowns, glumly saying that he won't play along with Zuko's game if he doesn't wanna be friends.

*Zuko angrily yells that none of this is a game, when two new voices catch his attention.

*It's the Water Tribe teens from before.

*They're pretty pissed at him, ranting at him about how terrible he and his country are.

*Zuko yells and argues back until he's as blue in the face as their clothes.

*Eventually, he just yells at them to fuck off, and just like that, they're gone.

-Now for the other side of things-

*Iroh's already tired when Zuko goes on an impassioned rant about the southern lights. Like sure, they're very beautiful, but they've been down this road before.

*The Avatar is GONE. If they go and check out the lights, they won't find anything.

*They end up coming upon a tiny village, a remnant of the once might SWT. Iroh can barely bring himself to look at the place, seeing what his country has done to these innocent people hurts him deeply. But he needs to keep an eye on Zuko and make sure he doesn't get himself hurt.

*Iroh notes that the only people in the village are grown women and small children, and no one else.

*Iroh and the crew are very surprised at how easily Zuko agrees to leave the village.

*That surprise turns to muted horror when Zuko tells his crew to take the Avatar below deck.

*They want to ask Zuko exactly who he's referring to, as no one was taken aboard the ship, but Zuko is quick to get angry and yells at his crew to get on it.

*Not looking to get yelled at some more by the clearly agitated Zuko, the crew disappear below deck. They opt to gossip in the engine room like they usually do when Zuko is behaving strangely.

*Iroh tries to ask his nephew if he's feeling alright. He worries that some of their food might have gone bad or that the boy had caught something.

*Before Iroh can press further, or check for fever, Zuko disappears below deck to go to his room. He specifically requests that no one disturb him.

*Iroh hopes that Zuko is going to finally lie down and get some rest. He clearly needs it.

*The crew have grown used to tuning out Zuko's yelling, so they don't bat an eye at the shouting match coming from his quarters.

-Basically, Zuko is being haunted/possessed. The Avatar is pretty much a person that's possessed by a spirit amalgamate. Zuko is the Avatar.

*Aang is one of Zuko's past lives that's reaching out to him.

*Katara and Sokka are ghosts from the SWT that came to torment Zuko because they’re mad about being dead.

*Aang gets Katara and Sokka to slowly mellow out and chill a bit, and be a bit nicer to Zuko.

*Aang also convinces Zuko to go to all sorts of places in an effort to get him to have fun.

*He convinces him to visit Kyoshi, where Zuko is assaulted by the ghosts of the Kyoshi Warriors.

*When he inevitably gets captured by the locals after getting beaten and tied up by ghosts, Iroh has to come in and rescue his nephew.

*In fact, quite a few scenarios end up like this, where Aang somehow convinces Zuko to do something or go somewhere and Zuko ends up knee deep in ghost shenanigans, meanwhile Iroh's blood pressure could kill a komodorhino.

*Zuko has always been a bit off, but lately his strange behavior has taken a frightening turn. As no one else can see the ghosts(except Iroh, on few occasions) the crew go from near mutinous to deeply worried over Zuko and his mental state.

*Once they learn the truth of his scar, they want to go and kill Ozai themselves.

*A few times the Iroh Slug will dock at a port and a mysterious entity will be spotted. At first it's assumed to be a glow-eyed jiang-shi, only to be later identified as the lost Avatar.

*During these times, Zuko is overtaken by the Avatar Spirit and takes on one of his past live's appearances. Usually Aang's. He'll move in an unnatural manor, like something that isn't used to controlling a human body, or some limp, corpse being.

*It's not until Iroh realizes that he hears other distinct voices coming from Zuko's room, with no evidence of anyone coming in or out, that his nephew is being haunted.

*Slowly but surely, Aang drags Zuko northward so that they can "teach Katara waterbending". *wink wonk*

*It's only after they end up at the North Pole, fighting off waterbenders that Zuko goes into the Avatar state in front of his crew and they realize that /he's/ the Avatar.

*But the NWT also know that Zuko is the Avatar and they're like: 👀 so Zuko's crew is gonna have hell keeping custody of him.

*Especially when the ghosts keep trying to drag him away too.

*Speaking of ghosts, Yue is fairly ghost-like in appearance, with her pale brown skin, supernatural blue eyes, and snow white hair, but very decidedly physical and alive.

*But she is haunted/possessed by the Tui, and can empathize with Zuko on the being harassed by ghosts or possessing spirits.

*I'm still deciding on whether Toph should be a ghost or someone pretending to be a ghost.

*On the one hand: Ghost!Toph who kicks just as much ass and causes even more trouble than normal Toph, and haunted the shit out of the underground earthbending ring before she decided that harassing Zuko would be more fun. On the other: Little blind girl who dresses up as a spooky spirit and beats everyone's ass teaming up with a ex-prince who's possessed by an evergrowing, all powerful spirit amalgamation and constantly haunted by a pair of Water Tribe ghosts.

*It does eventually get back to Hakoda that the spirits of his children are haunting the Avatar and he just:  👁👄👁

[eldunea]

some thoughts on what wilhelmine von hohenzollern would be now that she is no longer fascist--

she doesn’t want to start ragnarök to wipe out “unworthy” humans anymore. actually, she wants to do so to wipe away “unworthy” POKÉMON. the prussian league’s blood sport and insane competitiveness is still based around an ideology of “survival of the fittest,” but instead of that applying to humans, she applies it only to pokémon. (humans still get killed though, because she believes that humans must suffer alongside their ‘mons instead of sitting back and just commanding while their pokémon kill each other.) a big thank you to my friend tea for giving me this idea, you literally saved my entire plot and kept it intact without having to touch gross ideologies. i like, always had a feeling that i could tell the story almost exactly the same except without literal n*zi villains given that in conversation with people, i seem to be able to keep a ton of the key elements intact without once bringing up the villains’ ideology……i just wasn’t sure how to do that for all aspects of the plot.

team valhallor is no longer called that, because valhallor is the in-universe fascist name for the prussian legendary aquilaeon. instead, they are called team aquilaeon. this is because they see aquilaeon as the ultimate pokémon, and one of their objectives is to raise all pokémon in the prussian region and eventually the world to levels of godlike strength. this makes them the only evil team who even remotely succeeded in their goal, because by the time lotor’s story starts the average fully-fledged prussian trainer could take on a legendary. their other objective was to bring together the five zygarde cores to create the dreaded final form of aquilaeon--a legendary created when a zygarde core fuses with a supernatural human that has a heart of iron and steel--and initiate ragnarök to wipe out the unworthy. they also succeeded in this goal, before lotor stopped them.

when she starts ragnarök, she only intends on killing the people she personally has a problem with, as well as unworthy pokémon. she doesn’t learn until later that she can’t have full control over who the apocalypse kills, but by that point she’s so far gone that she doesn’t care. she literally could not give a fucking shit that billions of people could perish in ragnarök, she just wanted to bring all five zygarde cores together to create her ultimate pokémon, fuck the consequences.

she hates fascists. she would, because n*zis are literally so rancid that even other absolutely rancid people despise them. as with the original plot, white nationalists in preuzien and the world are the first to go when she initiates ragnarök, and for the same reason too: she, as a divine being, feels insulted by their insistence that they are destined to use ragnarök to rule the world as nordic god-people. which brings me to my last point…

she is a pokémon supremacist. she believes that humans are inferior to pokémon and that pokémon should be the dominant species, not humans. in the new world that she creates when she initiates the end of the world, she intends to make humans subservient to pokémon. part of why she despises white nationalism is because she is like “you apes are equally inferior, stop arguing over who is the better monkey when you are all still monkeys.” the irony of this is of course that she is a human who has forced a pokémon, a zygarde core, to work with her, and only started being a pokémon supremacist once her now half-pokémon psyche got corrupted by her vile human ideals.

[alexmanesairstream]

Okay. Time for my ramblings. You're all free to not read a word of this but I just needed to put my thoughts out there. So. Going into s2, my only reason for watching the show was seeing Alex Manes (bc Tyler is one of my all time favourite actors and also just ALEX MANES). But after seeing the promo and fan chatter before the premier I admit getting my hopes up and becoming a little more open to the entire show as a whole again. I had hoped that s2 would be a huge improvement in terms of writing, consistency, good representation and overall storytelling. Anyways, here’s just some thoughts I’ve had after the first episode if you care to read it. I've left the Malex (and Maria) thoughts to the end bc I wanted to speak about the entire episode first. The Malex part is right at the end if anyone is reading this and only wants to read that part.

Firstly, the episode felt very disconnected. I know there was a time jump but that also left so many questions unanswered.

Kyle and Alex are well aware of the alien secret, so it made no sense that they were in the dark about Rosa being alive and Max being dead. I would've thought that both of them would've been made aware of it immediately.

This may be more of a personal preference but I've always been more interested in sci-fi aspects of the show since I always find supernatural elements on shows to become repetitive and far fetched (yes I know it's supernatural but I've always liked when there was a scientific or logical explanation behind something). Ep1 (and I know Carina said this season would explore supernatural elements and not the sci-fi aspects of it) hinted a very big supernatural storyline which I wasn't too keen on- it just gave off some big vampire diaries 'the other side' vibes. I really wish they would've explores a more unique and original storyline rather than something so repetitive with regards to Max.

Now for the science and little sci-fi parts, I know they're strained for time so there's a lot that they have to leave out but most of the science seemed far fetched or rather lacking any good grounding explanation. I get that it's a show but I would've liked for it to have made some sense rather than the random stuff Michael and Liz would say that seemingly came out of thin air. Especially when they were having their science Bro moments and interacting with substances etc- where are these substances from? What to they do? How did you get it? Idk maybe I'm being overly obsessive over this but it irks me bc I always lose interest when I can't coherently follow a storyline with logic

Rosa being back. I don't have much to say on this. The sister dynamic is kinda cute. I really don't like this weird supernatural connection thing she has with Max. Like I said, very vampire diaries like and it's just not making sense (maybe I didn't pay close enough attention idk). Also, can we get some clarity on her age. She was 19 when she died. So she should be 29 in the present day. But she mentioned something about being the hottest 31 year old when Liz told her to get a license in California. So what's up with that.

Isobel pregnancy : Yeah there's a lot I could say here. I'm assuming they're trying to do a storyline on abortion and a woman's right to her own body which I would be eager to see but at the same time, Isobel being pregnant with her dead abusive rapist's baby seems a lot like it was done for drama (sigh). It also has me wondering how since it was clear in s1 that Isobel didn't want children while Noah did- obviously she may have changed her mind after their reconciliation after she came out of the pod and also bc I accidents happen (do condoms even work with aliens???).

Now for the Malex and Maria part of it:

Since Alex was not aware of Max dying, wouldn't he have then made an effort to speak to Michael again in those two weeks since the finale. I would understand him wanting to give Michael space if he had known about Max dying but since he didn't know, did he just accept that Michael left him waiting at the trailer and leave it at that until after Noah's funeral? That just doesn't make sense to me but moving on

So Michael says that Alex told him he was going to leave the airforce to play music. Lol lots to get into here. Firstly, kinda strange that Alex would have told him that specifically that night in the trailer. Also, I was under the impression that what we were shown on screen was all that there was in that interaction. I don't see at which point Alex could've mentioned him leaving the airforce before Michael had to run out. Secondly, Alex leaving the airforce to play music? That just seems hella out of character and frankly completely unrealistic. Alex has spent the last 10 years gaining different skills, learning new things about himself, evolving and changing as a person. While he may have always had this dream about making music the fact is most people end up studying something or doing something in a different direction than their teenage self wanted. Alex is no different. While he may have wanted to leave the airforce it just doesn't seem plausible that he'd want to explore an entirely new career path as a musician. It would've made more sense for him to go into a career with cyber security and his skills in hacking, coding and programming instead. Also, unless he's got hell money from somewhere it's just completely unrealistic. He's a veteran (there are so many homeless, unemployed, uninsured, struggling veterans) who surely would need a stable income. It just feels like it's some a random storyline to have when there's been no indication of it, and it's completely out of character for Alex to decide to pursue music after 10 years in the airforce when we aren't even sure if he's done anything related to it in the last 10 years. Maybe I'm being harsh because personally I would've liked Alex to pursue something with the skills he gained in the airforce and also bc I rarely believe anyone is the same person with the same dreams and passions they had when they were a teenager. I mean, we all grow, evolve and change and that's okay. I would've really liked for Alex storyline to have been along those lines- taking what he's learned out of something he didn't necessarily want and taking control of who he is with those skills and his future (apparently in order to be a captain and also to be a code breaker Alex would've need to have gone to college while in the airforce). Idk maybe I'm bias bc I absolutely love seeing BAMF Alex Manes and how smart he is when he's working and code breaking.

Hmm Alex has a house. Like an actual house. And not a single person in the fandom knew this. In fact if Carina hadn't clarified on Twitter, we'd all be confused as hell. Literally everyone thought he lived at the cabin and rightfully so. It also makes me question why Alex had been at the cabin the day Kyle was there if he doesn't live at the cabin. But anyways small details. I'm trying not to be petty. I also really would like to know how Michael knows where Alex lives hmmm

I absolutely loved that Alex's first thought was to give Michael a guitar bc he remembers what he lost when Jesse ruined his hand. I am HERE for Alex Manes' kindness and wholesomeness.

Alex has PTSD. He would never be sitting with his back towards an entry point and music blaring loudly while he didn't have his prosthetic on. Carina responded on Twitter saying his PTSD is from childhood and not the war. I can't really understand how the war and losing a limb would not affect him and his existing PTSD at all. But again, I'll overlook this inconsistency

Michael's little confrontation speech to Alex- totally get it. It makes a lot of sense from Michael's perspective. I do however still have an issue with this thing of Alex 'leaving'. The ONLY time Alex actively left was when he enlisted. Any time after that was beyond his control. He was in the military. He had no choice. I really wish we could at some point see how all of this affected Alex instead of constantly seeing it from a one- sided Michael perspective.

And now Maria and Michael. Just a few words. What the fuck. I say all of this as someone who absolutely believes Malex shouldn't be together right now and who is fully on board with them just being friends right now:

- As someone who loved Maria in the first season and as a woman of colour, I fucking hate her storyline and what they're making her character do. It was cringe and desperate and humiliating for her to be running after Michael after one kiss. And also, SO out of character for her. Maria Deluca is her own saviour and would never run after someone who behaved the way Michael had in that ep. She would abso-fucking-lutely not chase after a man and put herself out there in such a desperate way like that.

- Secondly, has she just forgotten Alex exists? This is so not the Maria we know. Chasing after a man for something when he's not giving anything back in return and not even bothering to speak to Alex or attempt any sort of communication with him before she continues pursuing Michael. It makes no sense. I only see the Maria hate escalating at this point and I don't blame anyone for it. At this point she 100% deserves it. It's so so out of character for her not to have spoken to Alex and to continue pursuing Michael before speaking to Alex.

Honestly I've said it since the start- I hate love triangles and this one in particular rubs me the wrong way for so many reasons. I honestly don't see how we can redeem Maria's character after this mess. The whole Michael and Maria thing is just messy (and not in a cool dramatic TV show way), and is for a lot of us straight up character assassination for both Michael and Maria. I'm just so put off by both of their characters. If they were adamant about this storyline, I wish they'd done it and left Alex out from the start (I said Kylex rights!).

In conclusion, it's a shitshow. The show is just all over the place and the writing doesn't seem to have improved from the inconsistencies and plot holes. There's a lot more I could say but this was all I thought about right now for that episode. I also have so many thoughts on what Carina has recently said but I'm not in the right space of mind to address that rn. She's hell problematic lmao. But anyways, going forward, I'm just here for my Tyler Blackburn and watching him kill it as Alex Manes and I'm kinda really excited to see him with his new love interest.

[tanoraqui]

Some recap and musing on what to expect in the last several episodes of Magnus Archives s4:

From the start, this season has been about choices. Last season, we got pretty definitive answers on a lot of the big worldbuilding questions, most notably in the Gerry Keay Postmortem Seminar on Fear, and the gist of those answers was: everything is terrible. There are terrible Powers channeled by terrible people who want to feed on your fear forever. And you might be one of those people. S4 has added another fun element: the Powers themselves are almost certainly devoid of any human-ish thought; we’re all just idiots reacting to nightmares and everything is pointless but we still can’t stop.

Unless you die. Because somehow, your choices matter. Maybe not on any macro scale, maybe not enough to save your friends, maybe you can’t even make informed choices bc no one fucking tells you anything - because, in part, nobody knows anything. Nonetheless, the crux of this season has not been so much a driving mystery or looming threat (though the Extinction and Peter’s plans are somewhat), but a question for all the characters: given the above terrible world, how do you react? What choice do you make?

The question is mostly for Jon, of course, but building up to the finale, all the other character have been giving us their answers:

149. Georgie: you get out as best you can, try to pull people out after you if they’re willing to make the effort but don’t try for those who aren’t

150. Melanie: stay (bc she’s trapped) but stop furthering the terrible things, no matter what (note: yet unclear what effects to her health may be.) Try to get better, non-supernaturally, even if she can’t fully get out

151. Martin*: work with who/what you need to, become what you need to, but with a greater goal in mind that does matter, and keep all the sacrifice to yourself

152. Helen: accept that you aren’t going to stop terrorizing people and instead just stop feeling guilty, you nerds

153. Daisy: continue to further the terror in the little ways as necessary, but absolutely do not become the monster you could be. Die slowly instead (cost seems apparent)

*I don’t really think this is the last we’re going to hear from Martin of his vhoices before the finale kicks in properly. We only really have Basira left otherwise - and Jon, of course, who may come to some sort of conclusion before everything goes to hell, and may not.

I’m VERY excited for Basira. We’ve had a fair amount of her, but it’s always in regard to others - Jon, Martin - rather than her own choices for herself. I could ramble about her for a while, but tldr I think she’s desperately trying to maintain some control of her life and to that end, applying black-and-white thinking (us vs. them, not monsters vs. monsters) to the world - despite knowing, not even very deep down, that that’s wrong. She’s particularly in denial about how monstrous she’s becoming herself, “Detective” riding a line somewhere between Eye and Hunt. I REALLY hope 154 has some sort of stubborn declaration from Basira about where she’s landing, maybe including breaking down those walls she’s desperately maintaining. Though maybe it will just be her adamant declaration of denial?

And that would leave us 155 for a final statement from Martin and 156 for, oh, probably Jon to decide something just in time for it to be thrown out the window by whatever disaster of Peter Lukas’s they’ll all need to avert. The more I think about it, the more I think Extinction is more or less a red herring and Peter is the real antagonist we’re going to have to kill. The main problem of the next season gets mentioned clearly in the previous season finale, pre-finale a bit - Gertrude’s murder mystery and not!Sasha in s1, Elias and Leitner discussing the Unknowing in s2...Extinction didn’t come up at all at the end of s3, but you know who appeared in the last couple minutes of the finale? Peter Lukas. And the Lonely was the first statement we saw this season, after Jon’s ep121 first big choice.

[life-love-geekculture]

SPN 15x03: A Few Thoughts

*walks onstage*

There’s a lot to cover this episode. Finales are kind of like that. Because make no mistake, The Rupture is as close to a spiritual successor of Swang Song as we will ever get in this series. From the callback visuals in Rowena’s fall to the devastating character loses experienced by our leads. The entire episode is a redux of the season five finale, except this time others are making the sacrifice the Winchesters “should” be.

Which is part of the reason I find it bitterly hilarious the boys think they’re done.

I pointed out a couple times in my previous reviews that the tone of this season has been...tense to say the least. There’s this inescapable feeling we’ve intentionally seen all of this before. Like in addition to fucking with the Winchesters, Chuck’s decided to take his shit out on the viewing audience as well. It’s why I pointed out in my two parter that (like Dean) I was ready for the shoe to just fucking drop.

And it did. And the game has changed.

Losing fan favorites (and not so favorites) is hardly unusual. In fact, it’s practically SPN tradition. Charlie. Bobby. John. Crowley. Kevin. Almost all of them sacrificed themselves to fix TFW’s mess. And it isn’t that those sacrifices aren’t noble or they didn’t mean anything. But, there’s always been this air of resignation in the act. This tiny (or in Kevin’s case not so tiny) seed of blame that keeps online fan communities yelling at each other into the wee hours of the morning. We feel for TFW and the people we’ve lost, but we also can’t help but recognize the choices (stupid, reckless, brave, and sometimes the only ones available) that led to those deaths.

This was the first time in a long time I haven’t felt that. The current apocalypse has nothing to do with it. It’s not born of a selfish, TFW split decision. It’s a whiney response to a genuine act of contrition and forgiveness ....you know, those things god is supposed to want from people.

But I am getting off track.

There’s something absolutely devastating in the selection of characters we lost. Now, I’ve never personally been a huge fan of Ketch, given how much of an utter bastard he was for the British Men of Letters. While I appreciate the steps he eventually took towards redemption, he’s mostly been a lukewarm, utility character to me. There is something to be said, though, in his reflection of Dean. Some of the best and worst qualities of Dean are present in Ketch. His loyalty, which is shown to be a dangerous force if given to wrong power. His skill in battle. A blatant disregard for most rule of law...In many ways Dean is the man Ketch is unconsciously striving to be had Chuck-pocalypse never occurred.

I have, however, been on team Rowena since the very beginning. Even as a villain she was a fabulous character. There was always an element of humanity to her even at her most selfish. But, one of the things I loved most about her was her relationship with Samuel.

Fuck Destiel. Fuck Sam and Ruby. This is the ship I will go down with in SPN. In part, it comes down to the great natural chemistry between Jared and Ruth. Yet, the characters also really did share a unique understanding. Both knew more about each other than they were willing to share with anyone else in the universe. They supported each other even if they occasionally had to talk each other down from terrible decision making, and there’s evidence throughout the series of the trust they had in each other.

What hurts most about Ketch & Rowena’s deaths is that they died for the Winchesters not because of them. They made their choices so the boys wouldn’t have to. I mean take one look at Rowena’s face during Belphegor’s “plan” and the fact she tapped Sam as her assistant. She knew the only way this was going down was her death and that was her plan from the beginning. Ketch, meanwhile, finally surpassed Dean by realizing the one thing Cas was trying to explain last episode. What matters is the characters and what they mean to each other and it’s worth dying for.

The thing the boys don’t seem to understand (magic god-bullet accidentally trapping Chuck aside) is that this apocalypse isn’t a single world-shattering event. Like any good writer, Chuck knows his characters. He knows what bonds sustain them. Rowena has been willing to die to save the world since the return of alt-Michael (she said yes in a bid to kill him with Sam, fight me on this). Chuck simply provided the situation so she could do it again. He knows what buttons to push to slowly destroy the boys. By turning the love of their friends into a weapon against their support network. It’s as vindictive as it is clever.

Which brings us at last to this episode’s figurative namesake. I’m not going to defend Dean’s response to Cas at the end of this episode but nor am I going to villainize him. As both he and Cas made clear to Belphegor, Jack was their son. Right now what we are witnessing are two parents who have lost a child. Both are responding in natural ways and it’s not uncommon for the loss of a child to drive couples apart.

Belphegor as a character makes little sense. World-shattering event happening and a “low-level” demon is going to take over hell? Bull and shit. The thing Belphegor could do, however, especially wearing Jack, is add to Cas & Dean’s grief. By forcing Cas to smite him wearing Jack’s face, he made him live through Cas’ worse case scenario pulling the trigger himself. I mean, does no one else find it interesting Cas’ mojo returned in that precise moment? Right after we were told using the rook would make Belphegor god-like strong? And under any other circumstances, Cas would have had the boys support in changing the plan. But we know from last episode that Dean’s grief is formulating as undirected anger. Well, that anger now has an inadvertent direction.

My point is, I had guessed Belphegor was part of Chuck’s overarching plan and it turns out I was right. He used him to break one of the tentpole relationships supporting the Winchesters. The question is, where do we go from here?

As this episode ended I was reminded again of Cas’ “We are.” It’s a simple phrase, but one that carries a lot of thematic meaning. I have no doubt it will be what echoed once more in the mending of Dean & Cas’ relationship. I only hope it isn’t the last words they say to each other.

But the more pressing question is what’s going on with Billie? Death, the Empty, and now Jack don’t seem to fall within Chuck’s range of control. With Rowena now dead, one wonders if she’s been brought into this Supernatural cabal “underground resistance”. Part of me really doesn’t want that since her death, though painful, was an elegant end to a beautiful character arc. The other part of me can’t wait to see what her, Amarra, and Death as best friends would do to Chuck.

[yoolee]

IF LEE WROTE OTOME #11 | THE BACHE-LORE

Premise: A seer-turned-private investigator goes undercover on a supernatural reality tv dating show to solve a crime! Featuring love interests:

The (lady vampire) producer: shades of devil wears prada

Fellow contestant (faerie): Childhood rival and tricky, tricky troublemaker

Fellow contestant (fallen star): In love with love, basically an alien

Fellow contestant (fire witch):  Troublemaker with a heart of gold (liquid, scalding gold)

Onset medic (trickster spirit): a supposedly reformed descendant of Lady Luck

Assistant (kelpie): Scottish sweetheart, earnest but a little unrestrained

HEROINE: All the prophecies suggested the same thing--that the first child borne of the thirteenth generation of the heoine’s line would be a seer more powerful than any that came before. Well she is, but there's a catch--she can only See the past and the present. Great for detective work, not ideal for fortune telling (although as the saying goes, history DOES repeat itself). Works as a private investigator for the supernatural, she may be a disappointment to her family, but she keeps her clients happy. Even if it means going undercover on a reality tv dating show…Has the power to see the past and present in absolute clarity, but can't always control that power. Has a little bit of ex gifted child syndrome - where all the weighty expectations placed on her as a kid of how great she was going to be make her a sometimes paralyzed by perfectionism adult who struggles to enjoy doing things she isn't immediately good at. Perennially nervous unless she's in action. Uses snark as a defense mechanism. Has both an acute fear of failure and a gritty determination to put herself in positions where it's an option so that she can overcome that fear because she's pretty self-aware. Detail oriented and organized. Relaxes with lists and color coded spreadsheets with pivot tables. Loves old fashioned board games learned the hard way you can't live in your past. 

THE (lady vampire) PRODUCER: ancient, powerful, and totally sadistic in the sense that schadenfreude is her bread and butter (or blood and butter, if you will). Has an absolutely vicious sense of humor. Will not be shamed by societal niceties and if you try she might eat you. Had a child when she was still alive whose descendants became vampire hunters, so, that's a thing (She finds it charming and is very proud). Glamorous, successful, and makes it look effortless, but she's tough as steel and works like hell. Little bit of a devil wears Prada vibe. Has a very disturbingly spot-on understanding of the average human psyche and milks it for entertainment value. Soft spoken--but everyone listens. 

THE (faerie) CHILDHOOD RIVAL: a faerie who (supposedly) loathes the heroine on principle because her ability to See things makes her difficult to trick. Mischievous, but with a bit of a mean edge to it. Longtime rival. One of those people who is very, very smart but tends to vapid and fluttery, as she prefers to be underestimated. Pretty constantly uses magic (glamours, mesmerizing, super strength). Literally incapable of breaking a promise, so avoids making them. Wild and fun and unfettered. Definition party girl. Magician’s assistant.

THE (trickster spirit) ON SET MEDIC: coworker of the cousin. A (mostly) reformed trickster spirit (descendant of Lady Luck) who was forced to reckon with the chaos he sowed and is trying to make up for it now by taking care of people instead of screwing them over, but old habits and a chaotic nature make it hard to toe the line (especially on a set so ripe for drama). Foster dad to two werewolf siblings (all tied to aforementioned reckoning). Bundle of contradiction. Gets along swimmingly with the childhood rival. Reality-warper, but it’s sneaky (coincidences).

The (kelpie) ASSISTANT: Sent to keep an eye on the heroine by her selkie grandmother. Earnest, often friendly, prefers to dive in and figure it out as he goes. Plenty smart, just not a big fan of overthinking. A little wild. A sweetheart, but also has zero restraint. Unironically an underwear model.

The (fire witch) TROUBLEMAKER: Child of a nature elemental and a witch, which makes her powers a bit unstable. She doesn’t mean to cause trouble. It’s really more that she’s been labeled that her whole life and is presently embracing it. Has a wicked temper, but is really more bark than bite. Feels everything a little too strongly. Thought this was more of an Astounding Race reality show than a dating one. Fiery, though she resents the stereotype. Surprisingly detail oriented and an unabashed nerd, but not above solving her problems by setting them on fire. Mechanical engineer. 

The (fallen star) ROMANTIC: Fellow contestant, genuinely and unironically on the show to find love. Most romantic sap you will ever meet. Loves love. A sweet and optimistic soul. Has spent a very, very long time watching and desperate to experience. It makes her very impatient, and at times wilfully blind to things. Grants wishes, glows in the dark. Sometimes thinks people are super weird. Customer support specialist.

SUPPORTING CAST:

The cameraperson: actual incubus/succubus. Pretty standup person. Doesn't use their powers without explicit consent.

The bachelor: I guess he should probably be a love interest huh. Maybe he's the client? Or child of the client. IDK I’ll figure him out later. He’s around. 

Hotel manager: Kraken, ex-pirate, robs rich people in the desert now because that’s funny.

Cousin: younger than the heroine by two days. He was due (literally) to be the firstborn of the thirteenth generation, but the heroine was born three weeks prematurely. His parents have remained endlessly bitter about this. Some days, he is too, but most days he's glad to have the attention off and they’re black sheep together. A bit fickle in his moods, if it's not life or death he may or may not help, but if is he’ll close ranks and fight like hell. Technically a seer, but not a very strong one. Firefighter, and subsequently underpaid and overworked and tired AF literally all the time. Probably ends up hooking up with the bachelor in the end. 

Grandmothers: her dad’s mother is a selkie from Scotland who is a big believer in fucking off for a three year swim in the ocean when your loved ones are being dumbasses, and her mother’s mother is a seamstress from Korea who taught her the importance of small details and how to notice them. Both of them are staunchly and ferociously on her side, and a haven of support in a family where there is a lot of squabbling over who she is versus who she's supposed to be. Selkie grandma doesn't understand why heroine won't just find a nice fisherman and walk up to him in seaweed and a birthday suit to seal the deal, and seamstress grandma enjoys the heck out of reality tv and has a list of tips for how not to get turned into the villain when she's on air

[veganmikehanlon]

are there any other characters that you headcanon as vegan? if yes, can you explain why you do? 👀

in my lucky seven sanctuary au bev, richie, bill, and mike grow up in derry or just some small town, although the idea of the losers club being called to derry so that Their kids can defeat It like mike’s dad was is👌🏽👌🏽👌🏽 but without the supernatural element they grow up in a small town, mike on the farm that he swears he’s gonna get away from, maybe open up a sanctuary, create a new legacy. richie just wants to Get Away from all the small town small minded people, he wants to get out in the world. he’s also a total hippie. peace, love and happiness, my friends. bill is just regular and bev doesn’t know them.

so bill just completely fucks off for college like who knows what the fuck he’s doing there’s just some random obscure instagram posts and that’s it. then he publishes a book and suddenly he’s Everywhere, then he publishes another one you know a real stephen king insert and next thing you know there’s a movie! and wow! hot new celebrity couple bill denbrough and audra phillips seen eating at trendy vegan restaurants across europe! audra worked on a movie early in her career that totally changed her life and lead her to go vegan and bill was like this is the coolest woman in the world i’m gonna follow her to the end of the earth (which is 10 yrs away now according to the UN).

mike and richie go to separate but close colleges so they can stay together. richie majors in environment and sustainability and minors in theater. mike majors in business and dabbles in poli-sci and veterinarian studies which is where he meets eddie!

eddie had it rough growing up he was rly isolated and lonely and barely allowed to do anything. one day he’s exploring the woods by his house and he finds an injured bird and it just hits him the similarity between this helpless bird and himself. both in situations they’re unable to fly away from. so when he has the opportunity to leave for school he decides that he wants to be a vet bc animals don’t have the agency to decide to change their lives, but eddie can make them healthy and strong (and maybe he can make himself healthy and strong too). it isn’t until he meets mike though that he makes the connection between the pets he’s being taught to care for and the animals on his plate.

richie meets this really great guy, ben hanscom, around the same time. ben is studying architecture and has been getting really into sustainability and how to build for the future! ben and richie meet at this sustainability talk their school is hosting and really hit it off. after, richie is like do u smoke weed and ben who’s never had a weed in his life is like oh yeah ofc so they go get blasted in richie’s car where he just drops truth bomb after truth bomb abt sustainability and how animal agriculture has to fall for there to even be a future. poor ben who’s high for the first time in his life is just like oh my god oh my god oh my god but i want some doritos RN and richie is like i have a family size bag of sweet chili doritos in my dorm which are vegan. ben almost cries. and that’s the start of ben going vegan! it’s nice to have an experienced vegan (and snacker) to show you the ropes!

fast forward to graduation, mike and richie get engaged, mike buys the family farm, hires eddie as an on-site veterinarian and ben as a consultant (and hands on, bc it’s ben) for the redesign of the farm.

beverly rogan has a small clothing business in chicago. her husband tom works the finances and she makes the clothes. it’s nice for what it is, although her friend kay tells her she could have more than a shitty husband that controls her life and business. bev and tom go to derry for a funeral and while there happen upon this adorable little store. it’s got recycled fashion, art, tools. bev suggests starting their own sustainable fashion line bc this is awesome and worthwhile and tom is like lol fuck you no that’s not the way we’re going to do things. they leave the store but bev Remembers. she goes back by herself and meets mike hanlon, one of the owners. she tells him how she’s a fashion designer but never thought abt not using animal products. they talk for a long time and mike invites her to dinner at the farm. mike introduces her to his fiancé who she Immediately loves bc he’s such a weird guy, and to some cows. mike shares his own story about how all this came about and the importance of fighting for freedom for everyone and bev just, breaks down just cannot get it together crying bc holy SHIT there’s a whole world that she never knew about that alines with this missing piece in her heart. and mike let’s her cry on his shoulder for as long as she needs to and tells her that she’s welcome anytime.

she leaves tom shortly after, shows up at lucky seven sanctuary’s door, and never looks back. she’s got a home and a family and a part time job in the store. when she isn’t helping on the farm, she’s creating designs for new sustainable clothing lines made by beverly Marsh.

stanley uris has been an accountant for one whole year out of college and it’s fine, but he’s got no connection to the work, something just doesn’t feel right about his life. he’s always been a confident, decisive guy and so this new feeling of being adrift kind of makes him lose it. so he quits his job and pursues his hobby which is nature photography (birds). he travels all over and starts learning abt conservation bc a lot of the birds he wants to photograph are dwindling in numbers bc their homes are being excavated for, and this is the thing that really sends him over the edge, animal agriculture. and like. that’s Not Right. it Should be empirically impossible for one business to be so powerful. so he makes the change to veganism about a year into his new nomadic lifestyle. so he actually meets mike in a photography facebook group and they hit it off and are pen pals for awhile. stan happens to start thinking about settling down when mike tells him they have to hire an accountant bc the farm and their business ventures have grown so much and stan is like well shit, i’m an accountant! so he goes out there and meets everyone and gets the lowdown and just absolutely falls in love with all of it and the next thing everyone knows, he’s moved in.

eventually bill hears about lucky seven sanctuary and he’s like holy shit i grew up with those guys! i can’t believe they really did it! and so they reconnect and they all live happily ever after!

[qqueenofhades]

Medieval Magic Week: Witchcraft in Early Medieval Europe

Apologies for not getting to this last week, but I will try to be at least semi-reliable about posting these. If you missed it: I’m teaching a class on magic and the supernatural in the Middle Ages this semester, and since the Tumblr people also wanted to be learned, I am here attempting to learn them by giving a sort of virtual seminar.

Last week was the introduction, where we covered overall concepts like the difference between magic, religion, and science (is there one?), who did magic benefit (depends on who you ask), was magic a good or a bad thing in the medieval world (once again, It’s All Relative) and who was practicing it. We also brought in ideas like the gendering of supernatural power (is magic a feminine or a masculine practice, and does this play into larger gendered concepts in society?) and did some basic myth-busting about the medieval era. No, not everybody was super religious and mind-controlled by the church. No, they were not all poor farmers. No, not every woman was Silent, Raped, and Repressed. Magic was a common and folkloric practice on some level, but it was also the concern of educated and literate ‘worldly’ observers. We can’t write magic off as the medieval era simply ‘not knowing any better,’ or having no more sophisticated epistemology than rudimentary superstition. These people navigated thousands of miles without any kind of modern technology, built amazing cathedrals requiring hugely complex mathematical and engineering skill, wrote and translated books, treatises, and texts, and engaged with many different fields of knowledge and areas of interest. They subjected their miracle stories to critical vetting and were concerned with proving the evidentiary truth of their claims. We cannot dismiss magic as them having no alternative explanation or way of thinking about the world, or being sheltered naïve rustics.

This week, we looked at some primary sources discussing ‘witchcraft’ beliefs in early medieval Europe, which for our purposes is about 500—eh we’ll say 1000 C.E. We also thought about some questions to pose to these texts. Where did belief in witchcraft – best known for early modern witch hunts – come from? How did it survive through centuries of cultural Christianisation? Why was it viewed as useful or as threatening? Scholars have tended to argue for a generic mystical ‘shamanism’ in pre-Christian Europe, which isn’t very helpful (basically, it means ‘we don’t have enough evidence, so fuck if we know!’). They have also assumed that these were ‘superstitions’ or ‘relics’ of pagan belief in an otherwise Christian culture, which is likewise not helpful. We don’t have time to get into the whole debate, but yes, you can imagine the kind of narratives and assumptions that Western historiography has produced around this.

At this point, Europe was slowly, but by no means monolithically, becoming Christian, which meant a vast remaking of traditional culture. There was never a point where beliefs and practices stopped point-blank being pagan and became Christian instead; they were always hybrid, and they were always subject to discussion and debate. Obviously, people don’t stop doing things they have done a particular way for centuries overnight. (Once again, this is where we remind people that the medieval church was not the Borg and had absolutely no power to automatically assimilate anyone.) Our first text, the ‘Corrector sive medicus,’ which is the nineteenth chapter of Burchard of Worms’ Decretum, demonstrates this. The Decretum is a collection of ecclesiastical law, dating from early eleventh-century Germany. This is well after Germany was officially ‘Christianised,’ and after the foundation of the Holy Roman Empire as an explicitly Christian polity (usually dated from Charlemagne’s coronation on 25 December 800; this was the major organising political unit for medieval Germany and the Carolingians were intensely obsessed with divine approval). And yet! Burchard is still extremely concerned with the prevalence of ‘magical’ or ‘pagan’ beliefs in his diocese, which means people were still doing them.

The Corrector is a handbook setting out the proper length of penances to do (by fasting on bread and water) for a variety of transgressions. It can seem ridiculously nitpicky and overbearing in its determination to prescribe lengthy penances for magical offenses, which are mixed in among punishments for real crimes: robbery, theft, arson, adultery, etc. This might seem to lend legitimacy to the ‘killjoy medieval church oppressing the people’ narrative, except the punishments for sexual sins are actually much lighter than in earlier Celtic law codes. If you ‘shame a woman’ with your thoughts, it’s five days of penance if you’re married, two if you aren’t, but if you consult an oracle or take part in element worship or use charms or incantations, it could be up to two years.

Overall, the Corrector gives us the impression that eleventh-century German society was a lot more worried about whether you were secretly cursing your neighbour with pagan sorcery, rather than who you’re bonking, even though sexual morality is obviously still a concern, and this reflected the effort of trying to explicitly and completely Christianise a society that remained deeply attached to its traditional beliefs and practices. (There’s also a section about women going out at night and running naked with ‘Diana, Goddess of the Pagans’, which sounds awesome sign me up.) Thus there is here, as there will certainly be later, a gendered element to magic. Women could be witches, enchantresses, sorceresses, or other possible threats, and have to be closely watched. Nonetheless, there’s no organised societal persecution of them. Formal witch hunts and witch trials are decidedly a post-Renaissance phenomenon (cue rant about how terrible the Renaissance was for women). So as much as we stereotype the medieval world as supposedly being intolerant and repressive of women, witch hunts weren’t yet a thing, and many educated women, such as Trota of Salerno, had professional careers in medicine.

The solution to this problem of magical misuse is not to stop or destroy magic, since everyone believes in it, but to change who is legitimately allowed to access it. Valerie Flint’s article, ‘The Early Medieval Medicus, the Saint – and the Enchanter’ discusses the renegotiation of this ability. Essentially, there were three categories of ‘healer’ figure in the early Middle Ages: 1) the saint, whose miraculous power was explicitly Christian; 2) the ‘medicus’ or doctor, who used herbal or medical treatment, and 3) the ‘enchanter’, who used pagan magical power. According to the ecclesiastical authors, the saint is obviously the best option, and believing in/appealing to this figure will give you cures beyond the medicus’ ability, as a reward for your faith. The medicus tries his best and has good intentions, but is limited in his effectiveness and serves in some way as the saint’s ‘fall guy’. Or: Anything the Doctor Can (Or Can’t) Do, The Saint Can Do Better. But the doctor has enough social authority and respected knowledge to make it a significant victory when the saint’s power supersedes him.

On the other hand, the ‘enchanter’ is basically all bad. He (or often, she) makes the same claim to supernatural power as the saint, but the power is misused at best and actively malicious and uncontrollably destructive at worst. You are likely to be far worse off after having consulted the enchanter than if you did nothing at all. Both the saint and the enchanter are purveyors of ‘magical’ power, but only the saint has any legitimate claim (again, according to our church authors, whose views are different from those of the people) to using it. The saint’s power comes from God and Jesus Christ, the privileged or ‘true’ source of supernatural ability, while the enchanter is drawing on destructive and incorrect pagan beliefs and making the situation worse. The medicus is a benign and well-intentioned, if not always effective, option for healing, but the enchanter is No Good Very Bad Terrible.

The fact that ecclesiastical authors have to go so hard against magic, however, is proof of the long-running popularity of its practitioners. The general public is apparently still too prone to consult an enchanter rather than turn to the church to solve their problems. The church doesn’t want to eradicate these practices entirely, but insists that people call upon God/Christ as the authority in doing them, rather than whatever local or folkloric belief has been the case until now. It’s not destroying magic, but repurposing and redefining it. What has previously been the unholy domain of the pagan is now proof of the ultimate authority of Christianity. If you’re doing it right, it’s no longer pagan sorcery, but religious miracles or devotion.

Overall: what role does witchcraft play in early medieval Europe? The answer, of course, is ‘it’s complicated.’ We’re talking about a dynamic, large-scale transformation and hybridising of culture and society, as Christian religion and society became more prevalent over long-rooted pagan or traditional beliefs. However, these beliefs arguably never fully vanished, and were remade, renamed, and allowed to stay, without any apparent sense of contradiction on the part of the people practicing them. Ecclesiastical authorities were extremely concerned to identify and remove these ‘pagan’ elements, of course, but the general public’s relationship with them was always more nuanced. When dealing with medieval texts about magic, we have a tendency to prioritise those that deal with a definably historical person, event, or place, whereas clearly mythological stories referring to supernatural creatures or encounters are viewed as ‘less important’ or as the realm of historical fiction or legend. This is a mistake, since these texts are still encoding and transmitting important cultural referents, depictions of the role of magic in society, and the way in which medieval people saw it as a helpful or hurtful force. We have to work with the sources we have, of course, but we also have to be especially aware of our critical assumptions and prejudices in doing so.

It should be noted that medieval authors were very concerned with proving the veracity of their miracle narratives; they did not expect their audiences to believe them just because they said so. This is displayed for example in the work of two famous early medieval historians, Gregory of Tours (c.538—594) and the Venerable Bede (672/3—735). Both Gregory’s History of the Franks and Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People contain a high proportion of miracle stories, and both of them are at pains to explain to the reader why they have found these narratives reliable: they knew the individual in question personally, or they heard the story from a sober man of good character, or several trusted witnesses attested to it, or so forth. Trying to recover the actual historicity of reported ‘miracle’ healings is close to impossible, and we should resist the cynical modern impulse to say that none of them happened and Gregory and Bede are just exaggerating for religious effect. We’re talking about some kind of experienced or believed-in phenomena, of whatever type, and obviously in a pre-modern society, your options for healthcare are fairly limited. It might be worth appealing to your local saint to do you a solid. So to just dismiss this experience from our modern perspective, with who knows how much evidence lost, in an entirely different cultural context, is not helpful either. There’s a lot of sneering ‘look at these unenlightened religious zealots’ under-and-overtones in popular conceptions of the medieval era, and smugly feeling ourselves intellectually superior to them isn’t going to get us very far.

Next week: Ideas about the afterlife, heaven, hell, the development of purgatory, the kind of creatures that lived in these realms, and their representation in art, culture, and literature.

Further Reading:

Alver, B.G., and T. Selberg, ‘Folk Medicine As Part of a Larger Complex Concept,’ Arv, 43 (1987), 21–44.

Barry, J., and O. Davies, eds., Witchcraft Historiography (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2007)

Collins, D., ‘Magic in the Middle Ages: History and Historiography’, History Compass, 9 (2011), 410–22.

Flint, V.I.J, ‘A Magical Universe,’ in A Social History of England, 1200-1500, ed. by R. Horrox and W. Mark Ormrod (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 340–55.

Hall, A., ‘The Contemporary Evidence for Early Medieval Witchcraft Beliefs’, RMN Newsletter, 3 (2011), 6-11.

Jolly, K.L., Popular Religion in Late Saxon England: Elf Charms in Context (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996)

Kieckhefer, R., Magic in the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000)

Maxwell-Stuart, P.G., The Occult in Mediaeval Europe (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2005)

Storms, G., Anglo-Saxon Magic (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1947)

Tangherlini, T., ‘From Trolls to Turks: Continuity and Change in Danish Legend Tradition’, Scandinavian Studies, 67 (1995), 32–62.

[tk-duveraun]

“ you have to stop — at this rate you’ll — ” Fox, Ela and Amrita on the field. Your choice of Power Couple / Teenage Runaways.

Teenage Runaways, post Adamant with Amrita cameo. Warnings for minor violence, see my note on why no read more, though I do apologize for the inconvenience. I wrote this on my stream! :O

The rift pulsed with sickly green light that washed out what little color remained on the sand-blasted hillside in the Western Approach. Fox and Ada slowed their horses to look down into the canyon at the writhing tear in the Fade. Spindly terror demons stalked around it. To a layman, they looked like they were hunting for prey, but with their experience, Ada and Fox knew they were simply moving erratically in pain and confusion as the realness of the mortal world was inflicted on them.

“We can’t just leave them here,” Fox said. The green light from the rift cast harsh shadows on his face. He stroked his mare’s neck as she whinnied and kicked up sand. “The rest of the support caravans still need to pass through.”

“And the wagons can’t ride along this ridge, so they’ll have to follow the streambed right through…” Ada bit her lip. “But we can’t seal the rift. No one but Ciel can.”

“We can send these demons back to the Fade and then force it into a dormant state. Your father is with the bulk of the forces; if we lock it down he can keep it quiet until they pass.” Fox pulled his staff off of his back and channeled magic through it, trying to sense the demons down in the canyon. His elemental magic snapped and crackled along the ironbark, lightning up the enchantments as it passed.

“Are you sure you can do that?” Ada asked. “Ciel needed help from all of the rebel mages to seal the Breach and that was with my father and Dawen’s advice.

“What choice do we have? The Inquisitor is ahead the rest of the Inner Circle. We won’t be able to catch up to them without riding our horses to death and then by the time we got back the support staff will have reached the rift and we’d find them under attack at best.”

“This is a bad idea, Fox.”

“I agree, Ada’amata, but it’s the only option we have.”

“What about just waiting for Papae to-”

“And have the demons keep appearing and wearing us down through attrition? These terrors aren’t the last of what will come. They’re a week behind us. Can you spend that long constantly on guard? Barely sleeping?”

“Are- Are you- That is, are you going to suppress it? Like Knight- Um, Commander Cullen wanted to do with the last of Templars before they…”

Ada nearly fell out of her saddle with how quickly she spun around. She’d completely forgotten Amrita was travelling with them. It wasn’t difficult, with how silently and unobtrusively Amrita followed. Ada vaguely remembered the mage being more outspoken, but then again, her father had scolded the poor thing rather harshly after the battle at Adamant Fortress. Not that it was unwarranted with how she’d almost worked herself to death, but even so.

Fox didn’t look surprised as he dismounted. He handed his reigns to Amrita, wisps of fire now licking up his arm. “You or your spirits can shield you if anything comes up here, yes?”

Amrita flinched away from the fire, but still took the tack from him. “I can defend myself, yes.”

“Good. If the worst should happen, you are to ride back to the rest of the healers and tell them. Under no circumstances are you to try to assist.”

Amrita looked ready to rebel, and firmly, but instead bit her lip until the thin skin split.

“You don’t have to like it,” Fox said, then turned his back to her. He looked up to Ada. “I do you need your help, Belovèd.”

Ada nodded and jumped down. She removed her greatsword from the harness on her horse and stepped lightly over the sand. Through some trick of magic, Fox managed to keep his boots from sinking into the sand as he lead the way. Though the sparking of his magic should have suggested a loss of control, Ada was comforted by the familiar feel of it against her skin. If she wasn’t so concerned about the upcoming fight, she would have wondered if everyone could feel magic the way she did, or if it was because she had her father’s mage blood.

It didn’t matter. The terror demons attacked nearly from the moment their feet touched the streambed. Ada swung her sword in long arcs and jabbed the point into the soil when Fox’s Lightning magic burst out across the canyon. She didn’t hesitate in her strikes, lunging when she needed to, drawing back to block with her blade and leaping onto heavy vines that burst from the ground just ahead of a terror demon attacking from below.

Though Fox had only added Nature magicks into his fighting routine a year before they joined with the Inquisition, he and Ada may as well have fought with one mind as they danced across the streambed towards the rift. His skill with plants was still clumsy and fumbling, as Ghilenan always criticized, but precise enough for Ada to work with. He mostly used them as platforms to create distance from their enemies, but he could make a barrier in a pinch.

No more demons spawned after the terrors were dispersed back into Fade energy and then Fox and Ada were left staring at the green rent in the air. It was small, tiny enough that it was no surprise Ciel and her party had missed it as they passed, but comparatively. It was as tall as Fox and the edges pulsed ever-wider. He raised a hand and held it near the center where they could just barely see the endless black abyss of the Fade.

“What was it like in the Fade, do you think?” Fox asked, but his voice was not his own. It was distant had a dreamy quality Ada had never heard in all of their years together.

She grabbed his arm. “Fox. Fox- What are you doing?”

“Wha-what?” He blinked and lowered his hand. “Right. We need to force it into dormancy. Amrita had the right idea. I was just going to…”

“You were going to just make it up as you went?” Ada shouted, grabbing his shoulders. “Are you absolutely mad? Did you really think I was going to let you-”

“I wasn’t going to tell you I was making it up at the time. Only after it worked.”

Ada shook him roughly and considered slapping him for good measure, but he looked suitably chastised. Which was to say, not particularly chastised, but a little, and that was as good as she would get with him for now. “You’re not a Templar. Can you even do that?”

Fox tugged on the end of his braid. “I know the theory behind what Southern Templars do. It really is magic in its own right, so I don’t know what-”

“Not now, vhenan. Focus.”

“Right. Of course. The Fade is distracting me. It’s magic, the method is just incredibly ineffective. Seeker Cassandra doesn’t use her talents in front of me or your father and Dawen and I can’t imagine wh-”

“Fox!”

Fox shook himself and patted his cheeks. He took a deep breath and then reached into his pouch of potions. He felt around the corks until he grabbed the single vial of usable lyrium he had. It was rare in the South and so he’d trained to never use it, but faced with this… “Stand back a bit, Ada’amata.”

“Over my dead body.”

He sighed and closed his eyes, knowing he wouldn’t be able to change her mind. He pulled out the cork with his teeth and quaffed the horrific liquid. Mana surged through him and Fox felt his eyes glowing with power. He snapped them open and could suddenly see far deeper into the Fade than the small rift should have allowed. Suddenly he could hear the whispering of tens of demons, each fighting for his attention, each making their own offers. Oh yes, Pride could easily teach him how to close the rift. Look, there’s a blood sacrifice right there.

Fox ignored them and turned his supernatural sight on the edges of the rift. He could see the tear in the Veil, how the edges expanded like cloth unravelling. Oh, but if he could just weave it back together… He poured his magic into the Veil, fascinated by the flow of magic and twisting, contorting images from the Fade. Time ceased to matter. He could hear nothing and wasn’t even sure if his hands still held his staff, though surely they did, since he could feel the enchant-

“You have to stop!” Ada’s words crashed into his ears like thunder. Fox fell to his knees and clutched his head, but still his magic poured into the Veil. “No! Fox, at this rate, you’ll-” Ada lifted him up and threw him bodily away from the rift.

Stunned, Fox blinked up at the sky. It was night. The stars twinkled down on him with guilt-inducing winks. After several long breaths, he turned to Ada. She crouched, panting, next to just the slightest sliver of green. When she saw him looking, she growled. “You!”

Fox tried to speak, but there wasn’t enough breath in lungs. Once that thought processed, weakness crashed over him. He couldn’t even keep his head up. He tried to gasp, but all that he managed was a weak wheeze. Unable to turn his head again, Fox stared at the dark canyon wall.

Ada staggered into his vision and grabbed him by the shoulders, though he could barely feel it. “I am so fucking mad at you right now! How dare you! Don’t you ever fucking do that again!”

He didn’t have breath to apologize, so he just closed his eyes and accepted the rest of her angry rant in silence. She’d get Amrita in a moment, have the girl perform a rejuvenation spell and then they would spitefully make camp and Ada would grumble all night while clinging to him. She’d be mad until he recovered, but he would recover.

He always would, with her looking after him.

[ganymedesclock]

These is a clear hierarchy of importance in lions tho. Black is top, Red is second, Yellow and Green are middle, Blue is training wheels starter lion for dummies.

Right okay so, hypothetical, if someone cuts off one of your legs, but it’s just the right one, that’s totally fine because it’s not like that’s important or you need it at all right?

Like, if it was your left leg or your left arm that would be a bit more of a problem but as long as it’s not your right arm or your head right. Everybody knows those are the only two body parts you actually need.

You really don't get how this body metaphor works, do you?

But since you’re probably unconvinced: Blue is team nurturer and the literal emotional support/'heart' of the team, but sure anon you're totally cool and jaded and who cares about emotions, right? Not like your precious Black Paladin is a traumatized dude who’s quite frankly absolutely fucked without proper emotional support as has been artfully established in s1e9.

Not like Blue singlehandedly served as the catalyst for everything Voltron did in the sense of if Blue and Lance hadn’t been where they were, nothing would have happened: Shiro wouldn’t have been freed from the empire, Earth would’ve been defenseless against the galra, Team Voltron never would’ve gotten back together again, none of the other Lions would have found pilots.

I kinda get that in a culture that sometimes vastly overglorifies the lone wolf archetype, and wants to pretend that being able to accomplish things alone is just an act of being a big enough badass that it’s easy to devalue the role of support, especially psychological/emotional support because we clearly all know that’s a wussy thing for girls and not an integral element of human socialization.

But, here’s the thing: a lone wolf starves. A lone wolf can’t hunt larger prey, they’re unhappy, and they die alone. That’s the actual truth of a “lone wolf”. The reason why a “lone wolf” character seems hardcore is because they’re operating with a huge disadvantage.

You may hate to hear this, anon, but, Voltron is not a story about lone wolves. It never was. This is a story, this is a setting where the most powerful force in the universe, the thing everyone respects, is a hive mind of five separate individuals that needs five more pilots to operate, basically requiring concord and synchronicity between ten entities.

You know who tried to be a lone wolf? You know who didn’t listen to his team, didn’t get the support he needed, didn’t communicate properly?

Zarkon.

You know what happened to Zarkon?

He died in the rift and his corpse is still dragging itself around ruining everyone’s lives.

What part of this doesn’t sound incredibly damning on this attitude of there’s One Important Person, maybe a second-important underling, and everybody else is just a bunch of backup dancers?

What part of this suggests the Blue and Yellow Lions are useless, less important, or expendable when they’re literally the legs Voltron stands on?

What part of how Shiro, allegedly your most important mister champion of everything is probably the most frequently endangered or captured in a way that repeatedly emphasizes that he fundamentally needs his team, especially support from people like Lance and Hunk, because he’s enough of a survivalist to carry himself through but episodes like s2e3 and s3e5 show us just how much of an exhausting, grueling toll this takes on someone who’s already profoundly traumatized and physically missing an arm?

I get it. Interacting with people can be frustrating and this is a fantasy. You want to fantasize. And sometimes you want to fantasize about being superman who doesn’t need anybody.

That’s fundamentally not how human beings work. You know why wolves are a good metaphor? Because people are like wolves. Our evolutionary strategy is being social. We are so dangblasted hypersocial we look at dogs, cats, fish, tegus, whatever the hell animal you want to think of here and go “hmmm, looks like friend!”

Because even when fiction endeavors to create fundamentally unrelatable supernatural monsters that are supposed to inspire terror and revulsion in us, you will find a pretty solid chunk of the population that thinks they’re cute, or charming, or handsome, that calls them puppies.

Bringing this back to Voltron? You know how Lotor is totally hardcore and a threatening antagonist who’s accomplishing things that Zarkon never did, has thoroughly outfoxed the team on several occasions?

You notice how every major accomplishment Lotor has done relies on the support and communication with his team?

Why wasn’t Lotor blind on Thayserix? Because Acxa knew about Thayserix and recalibrated his fighter for him. Who set up the ambush in that episode? Generals, again.

How did Lotor set the trap on Puig? The generals took the planet for him and then Narti controlled the leader after Ezor captured him.

You know how Ezor was given arguably the toughest job, of singlehandedly hunting down and capturing the leader, with the added twist that she didn’t even realize until after the fact that he was seconds away from calling Voltron and dropping the strongest weapon in the universe on them?

Ezor is most likely Lance’s counterpart. So she’s the, uh, “training wheels dummy pilot”.

Y’know, the one who nearly ripped Keith’s arm out of his socket in a fight.

I could keep going but I think I’ve said enough.

[modernart2012]

Grave Robbing for Fun and Profit (Mostly Profit)

@sumigakure ​ Halloween Event 2017

Bonus Prompt: Grave Robbing

Word Count: 14170

On AO3

Summary: Aka - Kagami may have lost the battle, but he will win the War.

Takes place in the same Universe as You remind me of (Home). Consider this the sequel that also ate my brain

Kagami bursts into the room, panicking at a decent Level 7. “Profess - FIRE GOD’S FLAMING BALLS MY EYES!” He recoils trying to erase what he had just seen from his retinas, but then remembers who is following just behind him. “MINION NO!!!! DON’T COME IN!!!!” Trying to cover his eyes and block Orochimaru’s eyes simultaneously was pretty hard, especially since Kagami isn’t precisely sure where Orochimaru is.

  Orochimaru pauses behind him somewhere, unfazed, “Kagami, I am best friends with Jiraiya. I have undoubtedly seen and heard worse.”

  Kagami doesn’t think that’s a valid defense. “No! Bad! Minors shouldn’t be exposed to these sorts of R rated things!” He bops Orochimaru on the nose like a particularly misbehaved puppy, and gets a startled look for his efforts. He’s going to regret that when his coffee is exchanged for decaf pumpkin spice - a vile monstrosity on all parts - tomorrow. Today. Whenever the next most convenient time/place was. Whatever, live fast die young and all that. Then he whirls back around to his cousin and his … actually what are they? Dating? Boyfriends? Lovers? Is this the right time to ask if they’ve DTR’d?  Wait, that isn’t the point, “Why were you doing that sort of thing in a place where anyone could just walk in on you?!”

  Cousin Madara makes a high pitched whine of horror and abject humiliation, and Professor Senju simply quirks an Eyebrow of Doom at them. “This is my private residence. The door was locked.” Kagami wants to frown disappointedly at Professor Senju - they’d known each other how many years now? A locked door means nothing.

  Orochimaru calls over from the bookshelf, “Kagami picked the lock.”

  Cousin Madara groans harder, covering his face with his hands. Tough luck, but it really didn’t do anything for his disheveled hair and half-unbuttoned shirt. Or Professor Senju’s missing shirt. Which, good job Cousin Madara, Professor Senju is fit. Would this be the time to send a Subtle and Discreet Thumbs Up? “Is there a particular reason you broke into my home at … 8:16 pm on a Saturday, Kagami?”

  Oh. Oh yeah. “I,” Orochimaru interrupts with a pointed cough, “- I mean we - fixed the issue with the Reanimation technique.” Both Cousin Madara and Professor Senju blanch simultaneously. Kagami hadn’t known either of them could go any paler. “Wait, no, we made it work on a dead dog. There are no supernatural zombies this time.”

  “This time?” Orochimaru perks up, interest piqued. Oh, Fire God’s balls.

  “NO. BAD MINION. NO SUPERNATURAL ZOMBIES FOR YOU.” Maybe Kagami should invest in a spray bottle. Properly training and socializing one’s minion is hard work. How did Professor Senju ever get him trained? He catches Orochimaru glaring at him with calculation in his eyes, turns his head and sees the exact same look on Professor Senju, as if both are contemplating the best way for him to die. He resolves to work on his death glare. Clearly that’s what he’s been doing wrong this whole time.

  “And this couldn’t have been a text message why?” Ah, there’s that throbbing vein in Professor Senju’s forehead. Kagami’s old friend.

  “Well, see, that’s a long story….”

  500,000 ryo, two favors of his choice, a house, and a left kidney (extraction pending) was the final pot that Cousin Izuna won. Plus a second date with Tōka Senju, though that might have been incidental to the actual bet if the way he was walking funny was anything to judge by. Kagami wonders where he had gone so wrong, to lose out on that much stuff. Did no one pity the young and their student debt? Cousin Izuna didn’t need that stuff, he had a job that paid well. Except the date with the Senju lady, he’d been starry-eyed long enough over her. Kagami is still holding out hope on a double wedding - tensions are still rampant with the Senju, so having a two-for-one wedding would limit the amount of dead bodies created. Unless it was Uncle Setsuna, in which case, fuck Uncle Setsuna.

  Cousin Hikaku is unimpressed. “Kagami. Please stop clutching my leg and crying in public. You’re scaring the children.” Kagami looks over at where Orochimaru and his friends are staring at him impassively over various forms of ice cream.

  Kagami considers for a moment, “They are minors.” Genius minors that were revolutionizing their chosen fields of study, but still minors. It still wasn’t enough to stop him from flopping pathetically over Cousin Hikaku’s lap. He had no shame, and Hikaku was the best for cuddling.

  Jiraiya blusters around his mint chocolate chip mouthful, “We’re 16, not idiots!” Tsunade ducks his wildly gesticulating spoon, calmly sipping at her milkshake.

  Orochimaru eyes Jiraiya skeptically, “Are we absolutely sure about this.” When Jiraiya chokes on his ice cream in his haste to disabuse Orochimaru of the statement, neither he nor Tsunade made a move to help.

  “Aren’t you studying to be a doctor?” Kagami asks Tsunade distractedly. He didn’t know people could actually turn that color. Maybe he should take pictures? Jiraiya might want to know, he is a writer and he needs descriptions.

  “The Medic’s Oath only applies to those who are your patients. Jiraiya is not.” Over the sound of Jiraiya coughing, Tsunade adds, “Besides, he’s coughing. He can breathe.” With a move that spoke of years of practice, she punches his breathing back into normal pattern. “Are you finished having your pity party over losing one portion of the betting pool? I want to know so I can decide if I need to get another milkshake or not.”

  Kagami slumps over. “No, I’m done.” The youth were so jaded and cynical these days! Where were their hearts? Their sympathy for their fellow struggling humans?

  Cousin Hikaku decides that he’s going to be nice for a moment and scritches Kagami’s head like he did when they were little. Long suffering and patient. “There there, Kagami.” It felt good where his hair was still growing back in after having it burned off by Cousin Madara - who knew Cousin Madara had such excellent aim even without being able to see? Luckily he had been in a hospital already.

  “What’s the big deal about having debts anyways?” Orochimaru asks. Jiraiya and Tsunade nod, because genius and young meant that they had caboodles of money falling out of the sky into their laps for their achievements. “You just have to make something and patent it and you get money for it and pay off the debt.”

  “Says the Baby Experimental and Theoretical Magician Who’s Already Famous for Their Experimental Magic, the Kabillion-times Awarded Writer Renowned Throughout the Elemental Nations and Has People Falling Over Themselves to Buy Their Books, and the Medic Who’s Already Revolutionized the Medical Field Plus Invented New Magical Technology.” Kagami accuses. “The most groundbreaking thing I’ve worked on is already owned! By the military. A little to the left Cousin Hikaku, ah, right there. Perfect.”

  “It’s kind of scary, but you really can hear the capitals,” Tsunade muses. Orochimaru nods once in agreement. Jiraiya looks intrigued.

  “You know, this is giving me all sorts of ideas for my next novel,” Jiraiya comments over the edge of his notebook. “Kagami, would you say you’re feeling pampered and well-cared for?” He thinks for a moment, “Actually, would you say that you’d call Mr. Hikaku ‘Big Brother’ or ‘Master’ in this situation? Or is this more ‘Peon/Servant’ like?”

  Tsunade and Orochimaru exchange speaking looks, then Tsunade punches Jiraiya in the head. Kagami blinks blankly. Come to think of it, what kind of books did Jiraiya even write?

  “It doesn’t matter, the project is a dud for want of control of the subject.” Kagami groans into Hikaku thigh. They’re very comfortable, unlike Cousin Mikoto who apparently has never heard of skipping leg day and has thighs that could crush a man’s skull. Then the Idea hits him. “Wait! THAT’S IT! I just need to invent and patent a fool-proof control seal, then when the Man wants it I can name my price!” He grabs Orochimaru, “COME MINION! LET US AWAY!” He’s a good Mentor, so he makes sure Orochimaru has his ice cream cone and napkins before he drags him away. Rule One of Minion Keeping: Take Care of Thy Minion.

  As he dashes out of the ice cream parlor, he faintly hears: “Hey, Mr. Hikaku, how much is the minimum amount to place a bet in the betting pool?”

  “Tsunade-hime, no.” Jiraiya moans in despair.

  “Tsunade yes.” Kagami feels the fingers of the Lady of Death wrap around his coffin and shivers, but Experimental Magic waits for no man and he forges on.

  Kagami pauses as he hears a stomach growl. “Minion, why didn’t you say you were hungry?! This is unacceptable. Professor, I’m pressgang-ing your kitchen. Come along Baby Snake.” He marches confidently out of the room, because his cousin’s whatever’s house was his house too and all that.

  Cousin Madara splutters, “Kagami you can’t just tell people you’re taking over their kitchen.” Because Cousin Madara didn’t do the same regularly. The hypocrite. Besides, Kagami needs to know how Professor Senju keeps his kitchen before he gives Cousin Madara his blessing. Kitchens tell you a lot about a person, after all, and it wouldn’t do to have a kitchen heathen in the family.

  Professor Senju looks at his - whatever - in askance, “Is that the only issue you with that?”

  Cousin Madara shrugs, “It’s Kagami,” as if that explained everything. Which, maybe it did but that’s because he’s sensible and everyone else around him is slightly insane.

  Orochimaru seems to concur, “We had ice cream for breakfast yesterday because Kagami said he needed to eat his feels and it’s proven to be good for mental health.” Still he gets up and follows Kagami like a good minion, and receives a piece of candy for good behavior. Cousin Madara and Professor Senju trail behind looking perturbed. Whatever, they just don’t get his genius.

  He sets the dishes in the sink to cleaning as he pokes around for ingredients, because 1) eww, who wants to have to do dishes on date night?, 2) he’s pretty sure he’s going to need that spatula because Orochimaru likes eggs, and 3) it take less than a thought, so why not. “Professor Senju, where do you keep the rice?” Omelette rice was simple and tasty, but he’d been practicing making egg curry rice balls and he needed guinea pigs to taste it before unleashing it on the unsuspecting masses that was the grad student lunch-luck. He was going to beat out that asshole Inuzuka in the Medical Pharmacology department if it was the last thing he did in graduate school. Choices choices.

  Professor Senju ignores him in favor of asking, “Is this like the House Thing?” Oooh, fresh tomatoes. Curry it is.

  Cousin Madara nods while Orochimaru looks up from where he’s perched on the counter petting his snake, “What House Thing?” Then he pauses and corrects, “I don’t want to know if it’s something kinky.” Kagami passes him another candy. Good behavior must be rewarded. Cousin Madara makes a dying noise and collapses into a chair.

  “That doesn’t matter, you heard Tsunade make a outrageous bet and didn’t think twice about your course of action?” Professor Senju asks while pinching the bridge of his nose. He’s somehow managed to procure a shirt, boooo.

  Orochimaru speaks around his mouthful of candy. “To be fair, Tsunade is usually wrong.” She usually is - there was a reason all the local bookies were fighting over if it were fair to tell people what she had bet on. It tended to drive up business, but people tended to win more, so it’s pretty much an even split as to opinions.

  “Before we go any further, do we really need to know anything that transpired in the last 24 hours?” Cousin Madara sounds pained. Maybe he’s eaten something that doesn’t agree with him? Kagami isn’t surprised, the man likes his spice with extra spice and that’s not easy on the stomach.

  Kagami sets the rice to cook and pulls out the first of the (frankly lacking) vegetables to be chopped. “Well, yes, mostly because I’m pretty sure the military and international police are hunting for us.” At least one, possibly two, but that wasn’t important, really.

  Kagami is pretty sure Cousin Madara is praying for a lightning bolt to kill him dead right now. Someone really ought to keep an eye on that, praying to die is probably a sign of depression and/or suicidal thoughts.

    “Kagami, why are we breaking into the Restricted Archives.” Orochimaru nods and smiles at the librarian at the desk, because he’s somehow gotten in good with them and Kagami would like to note it’s entirely suspect because his minion routinely fails Socialization 101 so him being in good with anyone is questionable.

  “We’re not breaking in.” Kagami protested as he scanned his universal access card that he had copied from the Dean’s Office. “We have an appropriate pass and everything! And it’s broad daylight!” Nothing illicit happened in broad daylight.

  “A pass the administration doesn’t know you have and that I would stake my third undergraduate degree on you having obtained through less than legitimate means,” Orochimaru points out.  Kagami pretends to not notice as Orochimaru subtly picks his pocket and clones the pass on his phone. Of course his minion wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to have access to knowledge!

  “Baby Snake, have I ever led you astray?” Kagami leads the way down the long aisles of books, looking for the shelves with the advanced and forbidden sealing techniques. There was some book about mind control seals, something from the heyday of sealing in Uzu no Kuni. Kagami had seen it before, back when he had been packmule-ing texts for Professor Senju.  

  He walks confidently down the corridor to the rotunda where the shelves started.Forbidden fire magics, forbidden earth magics, forbidden water magics (oooh, Kagami would have to remember that there is a text on torture methods, that one’s new), forbidden air magics, forbidden nature transformations, forbidden bukijutsu (weren’t all bukijutsu forbidden?). They should be getting close, sealing was usually hidden deeper in the vault of libraries, where the wards were older, stronger, and more sensitive to intruders trying to forcibly break through.

“Kagami, you regularly get lost. Do you really want me to answer that?”

  Kagami swears the quality of minion has gone down since his day. That’s it, Orochimaru gets to re-calibrate the micro pipettes, no wet bench experiments for him. “Ah, here we go.” Finally the right shelf. A quick perusal of the titles gained nothing significant, so Kagami takes the most promising titles and then dumped the less promising ones on Orochimaru. “To the research tables!”

  Four hours of scribbling notes and painstakingly copying seal matrix elements later, they had exhausted the texts they had claimed and started in on round two. Upside, Kagami is pretty sure he could pass any pop quiz Professor Uzumaki gives on sealing and it’s theory in that moment; downside is that he’s running low on candy to bribe the minion with. He stares moodily at the latest betrayal: the right text (finally!) but one written in code. “If this ends up being a puzzle like in Full Metal Alchemist, I’m going to invent time travel just to go back in time to punch the author,” Kagami informs Orochimaru.

  At the blank look he gets in response, he fears the worst. Then, “Wouldn’t you rather use time travel for something … more humanitarian? Like, ending wars before they started?”

  “And jeopardize my own existence? I think not.” Honestly, did Orochimaru think he was born yesterday? Kagami has a healthy appreciation of the Grandfather Paradox. What if he were to end up with multiple Uncle Setsunas? He’d have to go to jail for pre-mediated multiple homicide, no matter that he’d be doing the world a service. Objectively, it’s not worth it.

  Orochimaru considers Kagami thoughtfully before nodding, “Fair enough.” Then, with slightly too much magic, he twisted air and lightning-flavored-fire together and the air was awash with books flipping through their pages madly, pausing open on certain pages. A second twist, this time water via a snake hand seal and the blank loose leaf surrounding them began to fill with information. As soon as the information from each paused upon page was noted, and the rest of the book checked for relevance, the books returned to their places on the shelves.

  Kagami had to admit it was a neat use of magic, but also, “Are you trying to blow us all up? Air and fire together is liable to cause an inferno! Channeling water through a primarily earth magic hand seal? It could have exploded the entirety of the University! Where would you get such an idea from anyways?” He keeps thwacking Orochimaru over the head until he steps out of range.

  Orochimaru rubs the back of his head where Kagami had whacked him petulantly, “Professor Sarutobi’s done it before.”

  “Professor Sarutobi has practiced in a controlled environment, with more hand seals until he could do his spell with only a few hand signs, and not just experimented on the fly. And don’t try to tell me that you didn’t just make up those spells just now.” At least Orochimaru has the sense to look guilty. “Seriously! You’re a genius, did you not think that through at all? Just… don’t do it again. Get the notes and let’s see what we have.”

  What they have is a hot mess. Not even the fun kind of hot mess. Time for trial and error then. “Grab your tablet, we’re going to have to test seal matrices.” Thank the Four for Professor Uzumaki developing a seal and ward prediction app. Draw in your proposed seal or ward, and it would spit out what it would do. No more explosions in the Sealing and Wards department! The only downside is the drawing - Kagami isn’t in the Sealing and Ward department for a reason. Glancing over at Orochimaru’s chicken scratch, it’s clear that there is a good reason he isn’t either. It was going to be a long day.

  “Actually, wouldn’t it just be easier to scry for the right elements?” Orochimaru, that sly bastard. “I mean, we should have enough moon-harvested water around, and we have a thrice-mirrored bowl?” Kagami waits patiently for the answer to become obvious - there’s a good reason they can’t use scrying here and it would compute in 3, 2, 1 … “Oh, the symbols.”

  “Exactly. Premontionary and Clairvoyant magic is a lost magic for a reason, and it isn’t because we can’t do it. We just can’t focus in on when or what we want to see.” Kagami chews his lower lip in concentration; the whorls of the external enclosing planes had to be precise for energy direction. Would an earth based element as a part of the directory pathways help or hinder the process? Air elements wouldn’t be right, they weren’t look for knowledge, they wanted mind control which was as opposite of knowledge that they could get, but water’s malleability conflicts with earth and it’d become a muddled mess.

  It was an unfortunate shortcoming, but the application wouldn’t, or rather couldn’t tell you where you went wrong. Just that the seal didn’t work, or that the energy pathways ruptured, or memorably, with one frustrated scribble, death and destruction to the bonds between molecules. From that point, things rapidly devolve as their eyes begin to blur with strain. They had created a 13th brand new variant of explosive seals - really, they’re easier to make than anyone wants the average person to believe - when the latest seal matrix is announced to probably have mind control properties. Kagami nearly drops the tablet in shock. “Holy Fire God’s blessed ashes. We did it!”

  Orochimaru catches the tablet when Kagami finally finishes fumbling it around. “It only says ‘probably’, though.”

  Kagami doesn’t stop dancing in celebration, “It’s good enough for a test! To the graveyard!” He moonwalks to the door and is halfway down the hallway before realizing. “Wait! Save that seal,and the rest, and print out like seven copies of each on seal paper. Plus the Reanimation seal! Let’s test the lot!”

  It wasn’t a long trek to the graveyard, but they’d stopped to pick up lunch and snacks, plus water bottles and a bag because who knows how long it’d take to get through all of these seals. Proper hydration and feed was the undisputed key to excellent research, everyone knew that. It was also around lunchtime and research did not wait for growling stomachs.

  Then they realized that it was an exotic pet cemetery and no one really needed a tiger on the loose on the off chance that the seal failed to work and had to go to the opposite end of town for the regular pet cemetery attached to the regular human graveyard way in the back.

  “This one seems promising!” The headstone read “Spot”, and that was a normal pet name. Easy enough, really. Probably a dog, maybe a rabbit if someone had a rabbit with a spot -

  “It’s a cat.” Orochimaru boggles from where he’s prized off the top of the casket. “This is ‘Spot’?”

  “Now now, minion, we can’t judge people on their naming sense. Afterall, ‘Spot’ is a human name too.” And he had always wondered what had happened that Uncle Tajima had agreed to that name. Aunt Akane really must have put the fear of the Four into him….

  Kagami shakes himself out of his spiral of thinking when he hears the crunching of gravel. “Quick, hide,” he hisses at Orochimaru, then scrambles into the bushes. Grave robbing is a crime still, no matter that this is in the name of Experimental and Theoretical Magic, and Kagami would like to not go to jail, thank you.

  Two figures in dark cloaks trudge up the path carrying flowers. Small Lords of Ash and Smoke, please let them not pause at the dug up grave please let them not pause at the dug up grave pleasepleaseplease - The figures stop in front of the dug up grave. Fuck the Water God’s sacred duck.

  “What’s happened to Madara?” The tall one with the face cloth cries, part horror and part vengeance-will-be-mine. He drops to his knees in the mess, sifting through the dirt and grass pensively. After a long moment, “They can’t have left too long ago, Hidan. The soil is still freshly overturned.”

  Kagami and Orochimaru exchange looks and in an unparalleled instance of reading each other’s minds sprang into action simultaneously. Orochimaru sprints in the opposite direction while Kagami leaps out and blows the strongest fire spell he can muster into the face of the two men.

That should take care of that - “Flame of the Fire God!” A scythe rips through the fire ball, closely followed by the bare-faced man, Hidan, who looks remarkably undamaged for having taken a fire ball point blank.

  Kagami makes the executive decision to run. He’s halfway back to his car, dodging sweeps of the scythe and vaulting over headstones, to where he hopes Orochimaru has gotten in and started the engine, when he feels a solid thwack to his skull and the world goes dark.

    Cousin Madara groans from where he’s watching tomatoes stew down on the stove, poking at the mass warily, “Every time I think this can’t possibly get any worse, it does. First with the breaking and entering, then the grave robbing, and now kidnappers.” He points the wooden spoon that’s been stirring the sauce in Kagami’s face. “You are never allowed out without supervision again. Ever.”

  Kagami pouts, “Excuse you, but you’re not the boss of me.” He sticks his tongue out for added effect.

  Professor Senju had pulled out a cooling compress around the time they got to the graveyard, and lifted the corner that was just over his eyes. “You did say ‘Hidan’ correct? Was he by chance with a man named Kazuku?”

  Orochimaru perks up from where he’s been patiently shelling field peas, “Do you know them Professor?”

  Professor Senju pauses, then states baldly, “Kazuku tried to kill me and Brother once.”

  He replaces the cloth just in time to miss Cousin Madara whirls around, “When was this?!” Tomato sauce flies off the spoon as Cousin Madara gesticulates frantically. Kagami really hopes it won’t stain the pale Iron blue Professor Senju had painted his kitchen. Even if it was mostly for show.

  Then the thought occurs to him, “Ah, to be fair, they were more like jacks-of-all-trade rather than just kidnappers? They did ransoms, sacrifices, assassinations, bounty hunting, serial killing/mass murder - what’s the difference by the way? - plus or minus some contract killing, but that could be the same as assassination. And odds jobs, as long as they paid.”

  It’s like a record had jumped and scratched. Professor Senju and Cousin Madara exchange a Look, and how sweet, they’re at the stage where they could hold entire conversations with their eyes! Practically married! “And how did you come by this information?” Professor Senju queries calmly and carefully.

  Orochimaru answers from where he’s digging his snake out of the pea shells, “Oh, we talked to them.”

    Contrary to what the movies would have you believe, getting knocked unconscious tended to be traumatic and leave one with a ringing in the ears and a throbbing in the skull. Unfortunately, the lack of light in what appeared to be a car trunk meant Orochimaru wasn’t able to check him from concussion, and the lack of room meant neither of them could risk a small flame to see either. As it was, someone had disabled the emergency escape latch in the trunk so rolling out and getting to a medical facility was completely out of the question. Or so Orochimaru tells him, Kagami is a little too nauseous to check for himself. The bouncing of the car tells him they’re not on asphalt, more likely gravel or one of the many forest roads that are covered in rocks and tree roots. Either one is not a good sign - neither of those are features of roads anywhere near the University.

  Telling Orochimaru that would do no good; Frightening the Minion is Not to Be Borne. So instead Kagami announces with as much dignity as he can muster laying on his side curled into the fetal position. “I think I am going to vomit.”

  The car comes to a screeching halt. “Oh, fucking no you don’t! I just got the Chariot of Fucking Destruction detailed!” Ah, the dulcet tones of yelling. They don’t help Kagami’s swimming head, or the building roiling of his gut.

  Which is how Kagami projectile vomits all over Scythe Dude when he yanks open the trunk. He flops over the rear bumper and moans pitifully. He wants ice like burning and the cloud-blanket Cousin Izuna had knit him that felt like a hug when he snuggles in. And his mom to pet his head like she did when he was little. That wasn’t too much to ask, was it?

  Apparently so, because he gets hoisted up into a fireman carry by Mr. Strong Arms and - Holy Fire God he has muscles. ”Do your workouts work out?” He squeezes the bit of bicep he can reach, and pokes at the trapezius on his other side. The robe gets in the way a bit, but thank the Four for partial nudists!

  Orochimaru follows sedately behind. “I apologize in advance for Kagami.”

  The Veil-Face nods sympathetically, “I as well; Hidan always uses too much force.”

  Orochimaru extends a pale hand, “Orochimaru. I’d say it’s a pleasure to meet you but - ”

  “Kazuku. Don’t worry about it, we’re consummate professionals. We will ensure that this is as painless as possible so you are inclined to leave a positive review about your experience.” The handshake they exchange is firm and cordial. Kagami thinks he needs to set up a module on Kidnapping 101. This is most probably not the proper thing to do when kidnapped. Professor Senju never had to give him that lesson; he can’t even trawl through Professor Senju’s archives for help. He moans, he doesn’t want to have to create a new Power Point, they take forever and what does he even say? If the University finds another incident of suspicious search history….

  “Oi! If you puke on me again I’m sacrificing you to Jashin-sama!” Hidan barks over his shoulder, apparently concerned by the pitiful sounds Kagami is making.

  Kagami thinks about it for a moment, over the murmur of conversation Orochimaru and Kazuku discussing … immortality and magic natures, or something like that? … before going for broke, “Who’s Jashin-sama?”

  He takes Kazuku’s, “Lady of Death preserve me in eternal life,” at face value. There’s only a select few people who would ever call on the Lady of Death and only the movies would have you believe they’re all crazy, much more likely he’s a follower of the Lady of Death. Weird, but much more plausible. Immortality was myth and legend, and not even a Lost Art myth or legend; at least those had some evidence towards being real and replicable.

  “Jashin-sama is a great and benevolent God, heathen! Take a page from this wretched soul and listen to the word of Jashin! Maybe you’ll be saved!” Hidan crouches to let Kagami down at the base of a tree, and then gestures at Orochimaru to get himself over there too. Then he starts rummaging through his pockets, apparently that cloak had a lot, and deep ones too. Kagami’s impressed, he’ll have to ask after the make and model and get himself one. It seemed useful, like a lab coat only socially acceptable to wear outside of lab.

  Kazuku sighs heavily, before stating blandly, “If either of you have people willing to pay ransoms for your safe return, and/or pay for repairs to Spot’s grave, speak now.”

  Orochimaru eyes Kagami speculatively, before taking the proffered call phone and dialing. “Professor Sarutobi? I’ve been kidnapped. So has Kagami. Yes, Kagami Uchiha. Please comply with our kidnappers requests.” Orochimaru listens intently, nodding to whatever Hiruzen says, before handing the phone back to Kazuku.

  Kagami can feel the disappointment from Hiruzen already. He’d bet last night’s authentic Uzu ramen that he’s going to be lectured at the next faculty meeting. He’ll have to bring a discreet snack, Hiruzen tended towards long-winded and unnecessarily complicated explanations and lectures that were probably best delivered in vernacular rather than high-brow concepts and metaphors. Where he even picked up that tendency was anyone’s guess, Professor Senju was concise and to the point and definitely was not a dick about things like Hiruzen. Maybe if he threw a glove to issue a challenge? Kagami could take Hiruzen in hand-to-hand combat. He only had nitrile gloves though, did that even count?

  “Aha! Found it!” Hidan bellows in triumph, breaking Kagami from his stupor. “Time to enlighten you heathens to the truth, to Jashin-sama!” He unfolds a small booklet, before straightening his spine to pronounce with gravity, “Tenet the first: Everything is destined for utter destruction.”

  “Makes sense, the second law of thermodynamics.” At Hidan’s blank look, Kagami expands, “You know, entropy? Everything is in a constant state of decay, everything in the universe is on track to be completely destroyed? Everything tends towards destruction? It’s basic physics!”

  Hidan looks conflicted, “Your heathen science has somehow found the truth, yet is still heathen and ought to be rejected.”

  Kagami crosses his arms, “You can think of it that way, or you can think of it as science being the explanation for the Unknown Mysteries of the Universe. ‘A Search is what They have wrought for length, and depth, and wideness.’”

  A series of thoughtful nods, then Hidan clears his throat. Kazuku reappears from between the trees, phone call over. Orochimaru asks him conversationally, “So, what is it that you do?”

  Hidan continues, “Tenet the Second: To wreak Destruction upon everything is the highest calling. Anything less is a sin. Tenet the Third: Discard those who fear death, for there is nothing more holy than the end. Death is the absence of fear. Tenet the Fourth: Those who undergo the mystic rituals will find immortal life by the will of Jashin-sama.” He pauses, then, “Remember these tenets, because they will be the core of your life henceforth! You, once you have accepted Jashin-sama and the teachings of Jashinism, will live and die by these fundamental truths.”  

  Kazuku looks up from his notebook and calculator, apparently tabulating something, “We do a bit of this and that. Whatever pays most at the time, kidnapping, ransom, contract killing, bounty hunting. Odd jobs, as necessary. Keeps the bank account flush.”

  Hidan spits, sidetracked, “Of fucking course, because this heathen piece of shit only worships money. He’s killed monks and destroyed temples for money. Blasphemous motherfucker, sold out his own country for a quick buck.”

  Kagami would like to point out the obvious, but it might not be a good time. Considering that Hidan pulls out his scythe - which, on second look, is really impractical, given that it has three blades on the same side, meaning that unless one uses it in a primarily overhand chopping manner only one blade is ever going to do the cutting - and Kazuku is queuing up magic like it’s a Magic combat tournament championship. “Are you going to sacrifice me to your Jashin-sama? Without praying? Am I neighborly enough to qualify for killing, Hidan?”

  And now would be the time to duck for cover. Because Kagami hasn’t heard that level of vitriol and barely leashed rage since the time someone made a sexist remark about women in front of Koharu. He’s willing to stake his life on the fact that they’re about to see a similar level of beat down, with the same exact sum number of witnesses: none. “Minion, move.” He pushes at Orochimaru’s shoulder with as much this-is-imperative-listen-to-me desperation as he can muster, because they are both in danger of dying and -

“Fucking rot in Hell.” Before Kagami can react- even think about shielding Orochimaru from what’s coming, because he’s too young to see something like murder - Kazuku’s neck is severed. Blood gushes forth, and then thousands of thin black threads that quickly attach Kazuku’s head with no other apparent damage beyond the new set of stitches to his throat. It is easily one of the most horrifying yet fascinating things Kagami has ever seen.

  “Fire God’s Eternal Flame.” Kagami can’t stop replaying the scene he saw over and over and over in his head. Orochimaru is the only thing holding him upright; his bones have turned from jelly to water. There’s no way - Kazuku moves lightning quick, or must’ve, because the next thing Kagami can see is that Kazuku’s fist is through Hidan’s chest. Hidan only laughs maniacally.

  “Like that sort of thing can kill me fuckwit.” The scythe swings down and slices through Kazuku’s arm for long enough that Hidan slides straight off the end of his arm. The gaping absence in the middle of his chest starts to close over before their eyes. Right. Immortality. Damnation of sulphur and ash.

  Luckily, the duo seems well matched in terms of ability and wholly focused on trying to murderize each other. “Orochimaru. Tell me you got the keys?” Kagami whispers lowly as they stumble blindly through the woods. Every now and again the sound of a massive collision roars by, tinged with different magic types equally. Monsters, the both of them.

  A cloud of dust and high-speed wind has them ducking behind one of the massive trees that Hi no Kuni is known for. It adds a new level to the ringing in his ears. Kagami wants to blame his still throbbing head, but he would swear that they’re not getting any farther from where the immortals are duking it out. “Come on Kagami, only 500 meters to the car, we can make it.” Orochimaru, such a good minion, being supportive… and supportive, given the fact that Kagami’s arm is around Orochimaru’s neck and the teen is half carrying him since his legs are failing to support him properly without assistance. Once Kagami got a chance, he was going to promote Orochimaru to Head Minion. Maybe Chief Lab Assistant. Definitely put him up for the “Best Minion Award” at the next departmental grad student meeting.

  The crack of a twig that didn’t come from their footfalls first alerts them that there is something else out there that isn’t just them and the still clashing monsters wreaking havoc across the landscape. There were red laser dots flitting across the tree trunks, but that was probably a hallucination - Kagami really needs to get his head checked out. “Shit.” And Orochimaru is cursing. Since the last last time Kagami had ever heard a curse exit Orochimaru’s mouth was after he paralyzed his arms, he’s suitably alarmed.

  Orochimaru picks up his pace, moving diagonally to flank the dancing dots. They’ve nearly gotten behind the shadowy figures gliding through the dappled shadows and dust clouds when a low and dangerous growl starts up behind them. “I would stop moving if I were you.”

  “Would this person happen to have white hair? In a completely non-regulation ponytail? Scary, but nice scary? Younger than Kagami but Older than Orochimaru?”

  “Uh, he had a wolf?” Really that was the most memorable thing about him. That thing was clearly suffering from gigantism, or whatever the canid version of Marfan’s Syndrome is. If it even was a regular canid and not some beast of myth and legend. Kagami got a hair sample. Just to be sure. Who knows, maybe Celestials and Spirits had DNA like normal mortal creatures. “Do you prefer vinegar and sugar rice, or just plain rice in your rice balls.”

  “This explains why I got a phone call about someone who looks like an Uchiha cavorting with known criminals and fleeing from the military.” Cousin Madara looks conflicted, then passes the vinegar and sugar. Kagami would have to be sure to add extra spice to the curry to balance it out then.

  “And you didn’t expect Kagami?” Thanks Professor Senju, Kagami’ll be sure to give him a rice ball with all the pickled plum. He didn’t get into trouble that often, and most of his family are employed in law enforcement.

  “Look, you try meeting the Wild Hunt and not fleeing. I have things to achieve and they all start with no getting scooped by the Fair Folk and spending eternity hunting things down. Or being hunted. Or being eaten. ” Kagami grumbles, then floats over a mug of coffee. Going 24 hours without the nectar of the Gods is pushing it, okay. He needs his fix.

  Cousin Madara makes a pinched face. Kagami adds a pinch of asafoetida, anise, and turmeric to the curry - indigestion and constipation is normally the cause of faces like that. “Sakumo Hatake isn’t Fae.” Shows what Cousin Madara knows.

  Orochimaru protests, “He had a massive wolf! That’s not normal for humans.” What’s left unsaid is that it’s normal in the stories for Wild Hunt to have large predator companions. Like massive wolves. That thing was easily the size of a bear. Not a small bear either, like a bear on steroids. Some Princess Mononoke animal shit.

  Kagami agrees, “Definitely a Heavenly Dog.” To add more garlic or more soy? He leans over to proffer a spoon to Professor Senju - whatever he says, the opposite. Unless he says it’s fine in which case both, plus chilies. Kagami’s sure he saw a dried Ghost Pepper in the spice cupboard…

  “Fuzzy isn’t a Heavenly Dog.” the statement is bald and matter-of-fact, but what does Cousin Madara know? It’s amazingly clear Cousin Madara knows nothing. Then Cousin Madara stops to think, as if reviewing the conversation because something’s not adding up. “Why would you even think that the military was the Wild Hunt?”

  Kagami is too busy trying to wrestle the soy sauce bottle away from Professor Senju’s control, Fire God’s Flame he was strong, so Orochimaru answers instead. “Immortals are a thing. Who knows what else is out there?” He pauses to consider, then, “But since you know the white-haired Fae, please apologize for us about the screaming. And running. And the fire. There was a lot of fire.”  Oh look, Cousin Madara can look even more horrified. Kagami should take a picture for the databook.

    Kagami would like to contend neither he nor Orochimaru screamed shrilly like small children. They scream like terrified grown adults, thank you very much. Even if the response is confused whining and pained distress on the part of the wolf and a startled look on the Fae’s.

  Granted, Kagami’s automatic response is to punch the human-looking one in the face. It’s sloppy, and Kagami resolves to return to the dojo with Cousin Madara and Cousin Izuna because apparently just being in academia does not mean that he’s exempt from needing to throw punches.

  Though, since it lands and has the Fae stumble back in surprise, Kagami will take it. He feels the cold-prickle-shhhh-shiver of Orochimaru’s magic, and ducks on instinct. He’s not surprised when a blast of fire flies over him, or the yelp of both Fae creatures as they scramble away from the flame. Idly, Kagami notes it’s blue, but then he’s too busy running in the opposite direction to note much more.

  Neither he nor Orochimaru are concerned by stealth anymore; clearly the jig is up and was always up since, you know, Wild Hunt. There is but one choice, and only one: to go sprinting through the underbrush at top speed (or rather, at a fast stumble) and keep firing the most destructive magic they know at whomever crosses their path and dodging the magic sent their way, plus or minus Heavenly Dog. Heavenly Wolf. Whatever. It’s not like they need to worry about  permanently hurting anyone they come across, since one group is immortal and the other is … immortal. Huh. Tonight has been wild on the things Kagami thought he knew for a fact. Maybe he should have Orochimaru research immortality for his senior thesis….

  Orochimaru pulls them both into the boughs of a particularly ancient oak with a fancy twist of air magic, bringing them safely out of the reach of snapping wolf jaws. “We’re - ,” there’s a crackle of lightning and Kagami tackles Orochimaru flat to the wood as the bolt flies through where their heads had last been. “We’re not good, Four Almighty.”

  Orochimaru snarls as lightning strikes the tree proper and shakes it violently. “Kagami, hold still.” He startles then feels the distinct feel of cold-prickle-shhh-shiver and his headache alleviating. Ooooh, healing magic. Magic fingers.Kagami could sigh with relief.

  “When did you learn healing magic?”

  “One of my closest friends is a prodigy healer. Where do you think?” Right, pissed off Orochimaru is snarky. Must remember. Kagami isn’t going to complain, because his head feels clearer than after a 4 coffee morning and it’s a minor miracle. He opens his mouth, only to be cut off, “No I will not be doing this regularly. Deal with your caffeine addiction like a normal person.”  then Orochimaru launches into a complex series of hand seals and Kagami takes that as his cue to be cute and distracting.

  “Hey~, Mr. Wild Hunt. Are you looking for little old me?” He calls innocently into the shadowy forest. “Wolfy?” Kagami almost misses the nearly silent exhale Wolfy breathes next to his ear, but does manage to stick his hand in Wolfy’s mouth just in time to feel it so it all works out anyways. He never knew that such a massive, powerful animal could look so startled, but then again, Kagami is also technically a member of an apex predator species and he’s definitely surprised to find his hand in a mouth unexpectedly. They make awkward eye contact, and carefully Kagami extracts his hand from Wolfy’s mouth. “Let’s never speak of this again,” he intones solemnly, and he’d swear Wolfy agrees.

  The forest around them rings with the sound of spells and shouting, but the bubble around the two of them is uncomfortably silent. Kagami likes to think they’re each trying to figure out where to go from here, because what does one do after they stick their hand in someone else’s mouth without prior consent? Is there some protocol after removing one’s hand? He’s probably already missed his window to apologize, and now the situation is stuck.

  Kagami’s about to ask how Wolfy’s finding the weather when he’s saved by Hidan and Kazuku bursting through the tree-line in a flurry of scythe and magic, swiftly followed by the Wild Hunt wielding guns and military-grade spells. It takes some creative dodging of what looks like a particularly well-executed evisceration magic, ducking of a three bladed scythe, and fleeing-for-his-life-ing of bullets - which, huh, Wild Hunt must have gone modern, who would’ve thunk it - to get away. For a given value of “get away”, since he’s muddy, covered in leaf litter, being chased by a massive wolf (though, Wolfy seems to be playing with Kagami and trying to eat Hidan and/or Kazuku, and that’s a small comfort really), the Wild Hunt (also aiming to kill Hidan and/or Kazaku, whomever’s more open), and Hidan and Kazuku (one of whom is bellowing about sacrificing Kagami to Jashin-sama to free him from his irrational fear of death, and the other of whom is hissing about Kagami being necessary for getting the ransom). This is also discounting the various tree roots, rocks, and …other things Kagami bolts over. The less noted about those the better.

  He’s about to dart over a river-creek-moving body of water thing when he sees shapes surface from the middle of the river. Fire God’s Fury, weren’t Fae supposed to be unable to cross running water? Or was Kagami confusing them with the undead? In any case it didn’t matter, because Orochimaru finally finished his overly-complex set of hand seals and the world turned to smoke and ash and roaring flames as far as the eye could see.

  Not that it seems to bother the water Fae. Kagami flails and backtracks back towards the chaos of the pursuing vanguard since he has no burning desire to experience the hospitality of the Fae now or ever. Running for so long has left him a little winded, but hey, there’s nothing like getting in a bit of adrenaline-fueled cardio in the afternoon. Plus the leaping, evading, sending spells blasting off in every which direction, and avoiding the general mayhem is easier said than done, even if the Wild Hunt are doing their level best not to hit him. Or hit Wolfy, who’s been following him like a cat playing with a mouse, and Kagami feels especially hunted - Wolfy seems to be herding him, but that can’t be right because wolves are not sheepdogs. Really, all the near-misses of nipping and circling is unnecessary. Can’t he just run for his life in peace? Is that too much to ask?

  Apparently so, because he’s just ducked Hidan’s electrically-sparking scythe - no clue if that’s because it’s actually electric or simply electrically-conductive - and managed to stumble his way out of the firefight with minimal physical damage. His magic pools are running low- he’s not a monster like Cousin Madara or Professor Senju - but that’s okay because that will fix itself with enough time and rest. And then he rests his eyes on what is possibly the most horrific sight today. This time his shriek is shrill. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!”

  Orochimaru perks up from where he’s pinning a very twitchy white-haired Fae to the trunk of a tree. “Oh good, you’re here.”  Still, he makes no move to release the Fae and Kagami curses whatever God decided that he needed a Minion like this.

  The Fae makes desperate eye contact while trying to maintain the maximum amount of distance between himself and Orochimaru, “Please get him off of me.” That was clearly begging. An extremely powerful Fae is begging.

  “But I haven’t finished seducing you.” Orochimaru purrs. Even worse then Kagami initially suspected. Wolfy begins to sidle away with a confused whine but stops and whines even harder, ears flat, clearly conflicted. Kagami is similarly conflicted, since on the one hand, this is horrifying beyond all reason and is completely inappropriate, yet on the other hand he wants to claw his eyes out and unsee this scene with prejudice. Unfortunately, there is only one correct answer.

  “Four Almighty, this is sexual harassment. This is so much sexual harassment.” Kagami fists his hand in Orochimaru’s collar and pulls him off the Fae. “I’m so sorry about this, I promise he was raised better than this.” Then to Orochimaru as Kagami shakes him, “What in the Twelve Hells possessed you to think that was okay?” The Fae looks traumatized - Kagami hadn’t known you could traumatize ageless beings who hunted people down in various gruesome ways for fun; he really hoped there wouldn’t be a complaint lodged with HR at the University. Given his luck, there would be.

  Orochimaru looks unrepentant, “But it worked! It bought just enough time for you to come without him messing with the seal.”

  “That doesn’t make it better!” Then Orochimaru’s response processes, and then Kagami has to double check that he heard that correctly. Suspicion colors his tone, “What seal.” It does not escape his notice that the Fae and Wolfy are sidestepping away as if they’re both insane and liable to go bonkers at any moment. He can’t decide if that’s good or bad - on the one hand, they’re too insane for the Wild Hunt, on the other, they’re too insane for the Wild Hunt. Kagami clearly needs to rethink his life choices.

  Orochimaru beams, “This one!” Then there’s a massive burst of magic and the world turns into a whirling light tunnel.

    “There are so many things I want to say, I have no idea where to begin.” There is a distinct air of resignation to Professor Senju’s tone, and Cousin Madara preemptively left 15 minutes ago to get medicines to combat both of their growing headaches. “The idea that you’d encountered Fae, the fact you ran from the military - and incidentally caused an International Incident, by the by, it was on the news- of not one, but two different countries, the fact you,” He glares over his steepled fingers at Orochimaru, “thought sexual harassment was a viable path for a distraction, or that you used a seal for travel.”

  “It worked!” Orochimaru throws his hands up in defeat, then stalks out of the kitchen. His snake remains curled happily on top of the still warm rice cooker, flicking it’s tongue out at intervals.

  Kagami exchanges a Look with Professor Senju, before saying, “The department is doing a refresher course on sexual harassment in a week, I already signed him up.” He has a spoon whirl between the oil poaching eggs cooking sous vide to make sure they’re not sticking together, then fishes out the seaweed from the drawer. “And in all fairness, the seal did transport us elsewhere. Just not where we expected to go.” He tastes the rice, before adding a dash of sugar. “What’s this about the news?”

  Professor Senju just groans.

  The seal has some of its intended effect in that they’re transported from point A through space to point B. Though given that Point B ends up being smack into a tree several hundred feet above ground, it’s a mixed bag.

  The nausea it causes isn’t ideal either. But hey! It worked! They’re not dead or lost to the space-time continuum! This is a win for Experimental and Theoretical Magic! With a little tweaking it’d be fine!

  “Where were you aiming for?” Kagami asks in between retching. It’s a small comfort that Orochimaru is also retching and green.

  “I was supposed to aim?”  Right Orochimaru is no longer allowed to transport them anywhere.

  “You didn’t pay attention in the lab meeting regarding the Teleportation seal?” If Kagami weren’t already alarmed he would be now. The lab meeting had only been preliminary, after all, and had only reviewed the basics of a Teleportation seal, or rather what remnants had been found and pieced together from ancient sealing treatises. That seal hadn’t been complete, and yet apparently Orochimaru tried to use it.

  “I usually tune out the lab meetings.” And that explains a lot. Kagami knew Orochimaru couldn’t be taking such detailed notes, the slippery little worm.

  Kagami really can’t wrap his brains around the fact Orochimaru used an unknown seal on live human subjects. “You could have killed us.” An unfinished seal, was a surefire way to die.Not to mention entirely unethical. Was this actually one of the Twelve Hells and Kagami just didn’t know? It might be, since everything due … left  is scrub. Were any of the Twelve Hells scrub land?

  Orochimaru winces as he twists onto his back. “I doubt I could get it to work again - Idon’t have enough magic left to try it again, and a few magic pathways ruptured in trying to get the seal to function.” Kagami winces at that proclamation. The only one of the two of them who had any clue how to do basic first aid was the one who was injured, with ruptured magic pathways, and Kagami has no clue where they are. It’s nearly nighttime, though, and Kagami has been forced through enough wilderness survival training camps/simulations/exercises by his relatives to be competent at navigating them via the stars.

  He fishes through the pack that’s miraculously stayed with them, mostly intact. “Here, have a sandwich and water. It should help some. Slowly.” It would go a long way to dealing with magic replenishment, but not if it was just vomited back up again. Rule One and all that. He digs around some more and finds a bag of candy. Oh good, ginger flavored - great of anti-nausea. “Suck on this too.” Kagami popped a piece himself, for the ginger and the sugar content. Neither of them had eaten since breakfast, and it shows by the way his stomach growls. If he’s hungry then Orochimaru must be as well. Kagami takes a moment to peer over the edge of the branch they landed on.

  It’s not too far down to the ground, not if he uses a few well placed bursts of air to slow his descent into something more manageable. There look to be some edible berries, and since Kagami has no clear idea of how long it will take them to get back to some form of civilization, it’d be best to gather some and save the snacks they had brought for if they ran out of edible foods. The act taxes his magic pools, but not noticeably enough given his magic’s already depleted state. At least he’s not completely exhausted like Kagami suspects Orochimaru is, no matter that the teen is trying to play it off like he’s got something left. Orochimaru isn’t finished growing, and so long as his body is in flux, so are his magic pools. They’ll even out eventually, and probably into the upper end of the spectrum, but for now they’re still developing.

  There’s a glut of blackberries, but Kagami avoids them. Fae fruit are suspect, and he doesn’t need another set of Fae on their case at the moment. He whispers an old rhyme to appease them anyways, because who even knew what rules ruled interactions the Fair Folk anymore if they were going around with guns - gunmetal had iron in it, right? A few meters away he finds a large strawberry bush, the berries brilliant red and ripe. Good fortune, which Four know they need more of. He fills his two handkerchiefs, and the already emptied sandwich container before eating his own fill of the berries. He knows they’re a stopgap measure at best - the terrain is rugged, and there probably isn’t much by way of travel options beyond “on foot”. With that in mind he pulls up some dandelion greens, and nettle greens nestled in among the branches of the strawberry bush and eats a handful. Mmmm iron.

  It’s only when he hears the low telltale hiss of an agitated snake does Kagami freeze. He knew he was forgetting something important; strawberry bushes attract snakes. Okay, that’s not necessarily true, but for all intents and purposes of this situation, Kagami is going to simplify into ‘strawberry bushes attract snakes’. Damnation of sulphur and ash.

  “Hello little one.” And now Orochimaru is involved. Professor Senju and Hiruzen would gang up and kill him dead, reanimate him, then kill him dead again if their precious prodigy is even slightly injured; Kagami is afraid to think of what would occur if Orochimaru dies out here. “And what’s your name?” He’s cooing at a snake. A - Kagami checks the shape of the purple reptile’s head - probably venomous species of snake. Fire God’s flaming balls.

  Kagami eyes where Orochimaru is petting the wild snake, then at the dandelion greens. He’s absolutely sure those are dandelion greens and not hallucinogenic, but he hasn’t been bitten by a snake - and snake species native to Hi no Kuni  don’t have venom that cause hallucinations. His eyes drift skyward, only to be met by twilight still. So either he’s hallucinating realistically, or this is reality. Kagami will take the hallucination, thank you very much.

  Orochimaru and the purple snake stare at Kagami judgmentally, which isn’t fair because hallucination snakes don’t get to be judgemental. “Why not?” And the snake speaks. Thanks brain.

“It’s not the little one, Kagami.” It knows his name. It knows his name. What. How. Why. Even Orochimaru looks surprised, so win for hallucination.

  “Kagami.” That’s an alerting-warning tone if Kagami ever heard one, and he turns to look behind him, where Orochimaru’s eyes are fixed.

  He makes eye contact with a massive black snake, one who’s easily as thick around as a tree trunk and could easily fit Kagami in it’s mouth if it chose to. And now it’s laughing. Why is it laughing. Kagami wasn’t built to deal with hallucination snakes laughing at him. Can he quit this adventure in favor of fleeing back to the University and Professor Senju’s lab? It was safe there, or at least it lacked hallucinogenic agents that weren’t properly labeled with warnings.

  “Greetings, Honored One. This one calls himself Orochimaru, and this one Kagami. May we be honored with what you are called?” Pros of Orochimaru and his obsessive compulsive need to know everything- he’s got a surprisingly good grasp of the classic tales.

  “This one is called Kuroda. The little one is called Manda. And I know your names human.” The tone is amused, and has an odd double timbre to it that echoes around Kagami’s skull, all the way back to the very recesses of his lizard-hindbrain.

  It clicks faster for Kagami than Orochimaru, feat of feats. “You’re a telepathic Celestial Snake.”

  “Indeed. You’re much faster on the uptake than most humans.” The last bit is tinged with idle curiosity-noted-respect. “You must have been well taught as a child. Rare these days.”

  With good reason, because Celestial Snakes are currently thought to be tiny (comparatively to the massive snake in front of them) tree dwelling snakes in the coastal forests of Uzu no Kuni and a tiny part of Hi no Kuni that ate birds and other small creatures and prized for their rainbow scales. The whole telepathic and massive thing was supposed to be just legend; then again, Kagami’s met not one, but two, count ‘em two Immortals and more Fae than he can count  in the last 24 hours so this doesn’t surprise him at all. Not even the slightest bit.

  “Honored Kuroda, can we request your assistance? We are far from home and would like to go back.”

  Kuroda raises himself up to squint down at Orochimaru, who is standing tall and composed before the Celestial Snake. “You are strange little human. Your soul is something cold, yet warm, deadly and safe to those you love, a thing that squeezes tight and sinks it’s fangs in deep and does not let go. A snake-souled little human if there ever was one.”

  “I am honored by your words, Honored Kuroda of the Celestial Snakes.” Orochimaru bows neatly.

  Kuroda continues as if Orochimaru had not spoken at all. “I think I shall have Manda stay with you to see what you become, snake-souled Orochimaru. He knows the way back to human civilization, and will lead you there. Travel well, little humans.” Kuroda must have deemed the conversation over, because he turned his huge body around the tree and disappeared into the encroaching twilight.

  “You thought you hallucinated a snake.” Cousin Madara paused where he was shaking out pills from the bottle that proclaimed it to be ‘migraine strength!’ anti-headache medicine, then shook out two more apiece for himself and Professor Senju. Awwww, significant others taking care of each other. Reminds Kagami of his parents being lovey-dovey and taking care of one another.

  “A massive Celestial Snake, yes.” He pauses in forming the rice ball, neatly packaging it in a strip of seaweed, before plating it before Orochimaru. A smaller rice ball with more egg and less curry is placed in front of Manda. “I’m not entirely sure it wasn’t a hallucination though.”

  Orochimaru strokes Manda’s head, offended. “But Manda is real and took us to Yu no Kuni.”

  “And how. I never heard Manda speak. For all I know he’s a normal snake.” Manda bares his fangs in an obvious threat display, affronted. Probably. In any case, Kagami gives him another rice ball.

  Orochimaru rolls his eyes, “Kagami, he’s telepathic. He was talking to me the whole way. How else did we find that multi-terrain vehicle?”

  “Luck? I had strawberries!”

  Cousin Madara swipes some rice balls, and gives half to Professor Senju before digging in. “So what’s this about Yu no Kuni, and would it have anything to do with why half of its hot springs district is demolished.”

  Kagami and Orochimaru share a Look. “The Hot Springs Destruction was entirely the fault of the Wild Hunt and the Yu no Kuni military. We just happened to be there.”

    By dint of winning rock-paper-scissors, Orochimaru gets to drive when they stumble across the jeep. Or Manda leads them to the jeep. Whichever makes the most sense, since Kagami hasn’t heard a peep from the supposedly asshole snake. Kagami takes a minute to demonstrate how to hotwire the car, but after that it’s all Orochimaru. It’s not like anyone’s around to call them out on the fact that Orochimaru doesn’t have a learner’s permit, and there’s no one around to crash into or injure, both important when teaching a beginner driver. This is a proper, normal learning experience and Kagami is willing to let his Minion have it. Plus, it’s nighttime and this can count as his nighttime driving experience! It’s a three-for-one!

  It’s also easier to navigate when he can stick his head out the roof and call out directions instead of having to keep pausing and rechecking directions. Though the point of that is rendered moot by Manda who is supposedly telling Orochimaru what to do - Kagami hasn’t heard a word out of the snake. At least so far, though, he and the snake are in agreement - they’re in western Hi no Kuni and headed to Yu no Kuni because that’s the closest site of civilization. Also, least likely to be suspicious of their lack of passports and the easiest way to reorient themselves into the direction of the University.

  On top of it all, Kagami found a massive wad of cash in the glove compartment, and it’s more than enough for a swanky inn for the night, including baths, and dinner. He knows he has enough grime, leaf litter, and other associated muck on him that a bath would be glorious.

  The moon and stars are bright and  light their path, so they make good time. It’s a little past 1 am (according to the probably wrong car clock) when they finally pull into the hot springs district of Yu no Kuni. The town is still bustling with activity, so they blend in seamlessly, for a given value of seamless. Some people look at him scandalized, as if he’s done something terribly illegal by tromping through the town disheveled and dragging his younger companion (also bedraggled) behind him, but it’s usually people who look like tourists rather than residents of the town.

  First things first, though. Kagami leads the way into a small clothing shop, since he’s fairly sure neither of their outfits can be salvaged. They’re going to need a first aid kit too, and then a hot meal and a bath. Actions one and two are completed quickly, and so is checking into a nice looking inn. The innkeep directs them to the baths,  saying dinner will be delivered after they’ve had their fill of the mineral rich waters. “Ahhhh, there’s nothing like a bath,” Kagami sighs happily as he pushes open the door between the dressing room and the baths proper, towel tucked neatly around his hips. He cleans off dutifully at the provided showers and stools, scrubbing away the accumulated grime and dirt from his hair and skin, humming happily. It was such an underrated luxury, to be clean. Orochimaru, with his long hair, will take longer and Kagami leaves him to it.

  The baths are sparsely populated at this time, with only a handful of other patrons lounging in the bath. The steam rising from the water occludes their faces, giving a nice hint of privacy, and Kagami gratefully slips into the hot water. The sounds of the night are muted, the laughter and noise of the crowd still on the streets dulled by the high walls surrounding the baths, the only discernable noise is … giggling? Kagami tries to tune it out, return to relaxing and letting the stress of the past day flow out of him, but the giggle rises in volume, and sounds…. Close?

  His eyes fly open -who the fuck giggles late at night like a perverted child flipping through a skin mag when sane people are trying to relax? - and Kagami whirls to confront the hooligan, temper snapping. “Oi, knock it off, or by the Small Lords I’ll make you.”

  His eyes meet Jiraiya’s startled (and guilty?) ones, then move to the notebook Jiraiya’s clearly been scribbling in, then the hole in the partition between the men’s and women’s baths. “Are you  peeping?!” It’s just Kagami’s luck that the quiet murmurs around them fall silent just as he speaks. In the blink of a moment there’s chaos, screams of outrage and terror filling the space. Someone on the women’s side - someone with spectacular aim - lobs over a stool, then a tub, then a rock, and each misses Jiraiya by centimeters as he scrambles out of the space.

  Orochimaru sighs from where he was just slipping into the bath. “By the Four and the Heavenly Courts, Jiraiya.” He gets up and rewraps his towel, disappearing into the misty after his erstwhile friend. Kagami decides it might be best to leave the area, since he knows that look on his Minion. Someone’s going to be eviscerated, and it’s still a 50-50 split on if it’s going to be verbal or physical. Getting viscera in his hair right after he just got clean is not a pleasant thought.

  A massive stone splashes violently into the bath from across the barrier - someone on that side must have a terrifying temper - tossing Kagami about like a toy boat caught in the currents of the Nanako.  He headbutts straight into a well developed pectoral, and he’s about to apologize, but - “Hey I know that bicep!” Just to be sure though he feels it up, and yup, he’s encountered that particular bicep before. Now, just where -?

  That particular question is answered quickly when Kagami ends up pinned by the throat to the side of the bath. “Oi! Heathen, ready to be sacrificed the Jashin-sama?” Oh good. Immortal One, Hidan. And where one immortal is, there’s bound to be - ayup, Immortal Two, Kazuku. They both look terrible, a mess of stitched over wounds, bruises, scabbed over cuts and burns plus or minus what look like bullet holes.

  There is only one recourse and that is to scream. Screaming in bath houses drew attention, and not of the good kind, and for good reason. No one wanted a pervert preying on someone in a bath. Hidan drops Kagami like he’s hotter than burning and starts quickly paddling away, but not quickly enough. One of the men at the other end stands, “Hey you! What were you doing?!” He’s built like a brick shithouse and is coming this way like a bull rampaging.

  Kagami takes the quickly escalating altercation as an opportunity to go fishing around his toiletries tub, thanking whatever God is looking out for him that he stuck a few disintegration seals in there prophylactically. He’s just about to pick one out from the bottom when he hears Kazuku loom up behind him. “We meet again Kagami Uchiha.”

  Sweet Flame of Heaven, could that man be any more menacing? Kagami turns rigidly, hoping that the Immortal won’t notice the crumpled wad of sealing paper in his fist, “Ah-hahaha, fancy meeting you here Kazuku! Are you enjoying your soak?”  Please please let societal conventions trap him like it had Hidan.

  Kazuku’s face veil hides any visible reaction beyond the narrowing of his eyes. “Better having found our missing ransom prisoner. I’m afraid I must insist you return.” Kazuku clamps a hand on Kagami’s shoulder, fingers digging in painfully. “We’re awaiting quite a sum of money in exchange for you. Pity no one specified ‘living’, though.” And there came the creep-factor. A+ Mr. Immortal.

  Kagami pretends to mull it over as he rises to his feet. “Just out of curiosity, how much am I worth?”

  Kazuku’s taken aback. “What?”

  “How much am I worth? Like, how much money are you expecting to get for me? I’m not a prodigy like my Minion, I’m not famous or rich, and I’m not paid all that much so I’m not someone with a massive net worth or anything. I can’t imagine anyone I know having the money to pay a ransom, except Minion and he probably wouldn’t because I’m pretty sure he’s not all too fond of me and is probably lulling me into a false sense of security so that when he finally decides that I’m of some specific use, he can play up the ‘favorite Minion’ angle and get away with whatever he needs, probably something entirely unethical, immoral, and/or illegal. It’s a toss up at this point. Either that or he thinks I’m a hilarious bumbling fool and is humoring me for comedic effect. In any case, he wouldn’t pay a ryo for me; nor would Uncle Setsuna cause he’s an asshole. All in all, I’m really not sure that you could’ve asked for all that much money, so I have to ask, how much am I worth? And is all the hassle of kidnapping me really worth the pittance you’re going to get?” Kagami hopes his nervous sweat is taken instead to be water from the bath. He’s only got one shot at this, and keeping Kazuku on the back foot with his anxious babble is imperative.

  “Aah- that is- Um, how should I say -,” Kazuku is frantically trying to think up something complimentary, and Kagami moves. The seal slaps down onto wet skin and adheres as Kagami forces magic through. Black veins scrawl out like a spiderweb of death over Kazuku’s silent scream of pain until they’ve covered the entirety of Kazuku in ink, and then with a underwhelming puff disintegrated into dust.

  Kagami sets fire to the ashes just in case - Immortals. One more thing to add to the list of traumatic incidences of the week, but on the bright side he’s got another functioning seal to patent. This one is all his, too!

  He trots towards the exit, hoping that Muscles McMuscley over there can keep Hidan occupied, but has no such luck when Hidan gets thrown across his path into the decorative stone wall. Experimental and Theoretical Magic holds that any result could be due to random chance, so repeated testing is necessary. Kagami looks at his spare seals, and goes for broke with a shrug. He’s already offed one person today, might as well  go for broke and collect the set. Hidan puffs off without so much as a farewell, and Kagami immolates his ashes too. For symmetry, and poetic justice. Unfortunately, it does nothing to fix the damage caused to the bath from the violent response to Jiraiya peeping, but Kagami is not responsible for that in any way shape or form. Things are looking up, finally.

  Almost immediately he has to reverse that opinion. The white-haired Fae is trapped in the entrance, Wolfy-less, by Orochimaru and Manda. The poor man - Kagami hopes the Fae is male, but really doesn’t want to go ask about gender and pronouns of the Fae since it’s really not his area of study - looks like he’s been through the wringer and then some, but also like he’s humoring Orochimaru who’s looking interested in all the worst ways; Kagami has to sympathize. A swift kick to Orochimaru’s butt fixes the situation nicely. “Minion! No sexual harassment in the the baths!”

  “Ah, no it’s fine, really we just bumped into one another -,” The Fae cuts himself off, then quickly does a double take at Orochimaru, then Kagami. “You’re the pair from the forest.”

  “And you’re Wild Hunt.” Kagami hurriedly ducks into the pants and shirt he’d laid out. “How’s Wolfy? I know things are still awkward about the whole ‘mouth’ thing, but can you apologize for me? Wolfy was pretty cool when he wasn’t trying to eat me.”

  “Wild Hunt? What mouth thing?” The Fae is perplexed, but shakes himself from it quickly. “Never mind that, you’re both wanted by the military. Stop!”

  “Oh, would you look at the time. We’ve got things to do, place to be, we should catch up some other time! See ya!” Kagami flashes the Fae a peace sign, then exits the room. He’s halfway down the hall when he hears the thunder of many feet pounding across the wooden floors behind him. Kagami bolts out back onto the streets, which are still crowded, and ducks around groups carousing drunkenly in the streets. Thank the Four for tourist destinations, this would never work anywhere else.

  He sees Orochimaru and Manda slip into the mouth of an alley, and follows. Just in time, as the mass of (uniformed! Since when do they have uniforms?!) people dash past. Some straggle behind, flashing badges and questioning drunks in the street. Orochimaru peers out, then starts digging through the pack. “Here, I think I can wrangle a disguise together, but you’re not going to like it.” Manda peeks out from where he’s acting like a hair tie for Orochimaru’s impromptu ponytail.

  Kagami stares at the assorted items Orochimaru has pulled out, and has a sinking feeling.

    “Does this explain the … outfits?” Cousin Madara asks around a bite of ice cream.

  Kagami has to take offense, because they look great. Arresting even. “ You’re just angry you can’t pull something like this off.”

  Orochimaru lays back and kicks a leg out like a pinup girl, crossed at the knee and everything, like it’s Exhibit A in their defense. Manda hisses, but Manda is biased and can be bought with egg yolk treats, so it might just be him begging for more food. Kagami obliges him either way.

  “This still doesn’t explain the destruction of the hot springs.” Professor Senju prompts around a spoonful of coffee ice cream.

  “The clothing - is- was rather integral to that. Still not our fault though, for want of us not doing much magic flinging.”Orochimaru shrugs.

  “That’s not no magic flinging.”

  “In all fairness, we only had one spell. Is that ‘no magic flinging’? No. But is it ‘town decimation level magic flinging’? Also no.” Cousin Madara opens his mouth, and Kagami slams on the coffee table, “THERE’S NO EVIDENCE BEYOND THE ANECDOTAL YOU CANNOT CONVICT US.”

    “Why did you even buy this stuff?” Kagami would like to lodge a protest with whatever court will take it that he is only doing this under duress. Not that he thinks it’s wrong to crossdress, if that’s your thing - and dresses are really comfortable, even though this one is kinda clingy and short-  but walking in heels. He is only wearing heels under extreme duress.

  “Here, heat the stick bit of this earring.” Orochimaru hands him a pair of dangly earrings. Kagami eyes them, then Orochimaru’s unpierced ears.

  “Minion no.”

  “I’ve wanted pierced ears anyways. Think of it as teenage rebellion.” Putting it that way helps, especially the bit where Orochimaru has him shove hot metal through his ears. Kagami considers the studs left in the pack of earrings, but ultimately decides against it for want of a mirror and stability. Seriously, he’s standing still and wobbling like a newborn fawn.

  Orochimaru pauses from where he’s sweeping on dramatic purple eyeshadow, lone bracelet sliding down his forearm, “Give me a minute, then we’ll sneak out.”

  “Remember, the game plan is drunk. Just until we get to the outskirts of town.” He once overs their appearance in a puddle, then has the hike the top of his dress higher. The lack of straps wasn’t doing him any favors, especially given the fact that raising the top meant raising the hem, and there was no way to make it non-scandalous. He looks at Orochimaru’s much more conservative dress, with it’s sleeves and leggings, and calls shenanigans. “This was rigged, wasn’t it.”

  Orochimaru links their arms at the elbow, then sniffs, “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” before they stumble out into the street. The soldiers give them a wide berth since two underage looking drunk girls is a recipe for a career ending headline should someone snap a badly staged photo, and Kagami gets a good look at their badges when he stumbles into one of the younger looking ones. Who knew Yu no Kuni had an active offensive military - last time he checked, they supposedly only had a defensive branch.

  All things considered though, the disguises work well. Entirely too well, as they stumble “drunkenly” into the woods. It’s nearing dawn, and they’ve been traveling across the Elemental Nations for almost a full day, they’re Four knows how far from home, and there are crows. Too many moving to count, though Kagami does try, because that old rhyme hasn’t steered him wrong yet. Orochimaru starts poking at some half moss covered rock, then starts digging.

  He stops counting when he feels a rush of magic - the size and quantity that makes people nervous when it’s not in a controlled environment. “Minion - “

  Then he sees the dog. Wolf. Massive Canis Whateverus. “Fire God’s flames.”

  Orochimaru looks proud, “The control seal works. Guess you have something to patent and sell for a lot of money to the military after all.” What. Right. What they set out to do. That thing. Somehow it feels tawdry, like it pales in comparison to the journey, but considering that had immortals and Fae and shooting and massive telepathic hallucination snakes and sky high heels… maybe it’s because it’s anticlimactic? Now whatever life lesson about messing with the forces of life and death, and the role of humans in the vastness of the cosmos, trying to take the easy way out, the value of thinking before acting - whatever he was supposed to be learning and internalizing - has become moot. He would have been successful even if they hadn’t been caught in the original graveyard, only with less property damage and displacement. Does that fact mean anything? Is it the journey, not the result that’s ultimately worth something, something better than financial stability and security? “Kagami, now is not the time for a meditative trance.”

  “What? Oh. Right.” Kagami scrambles up behind Orochimaru on the back of the … let’s just call it a dog. “Time to head home?”

  “Time to head home.” Poor Manda yawns and uncircles himself before draping himself like a particularly scaled scarf around Orochimaru’s shoulders. The eyeshadow - sharp like winged eyeliner, or whatever Cousin Mikoto likes to proclaim - and Manda match, for a given value of all purples match, and Kagami is struck by a wandering thought.

  “Hey, Orochimaru - “

  “Kagami. Duck.”

  “What duck?” Kagami whirls about on the gently trotting Reanimated dog. Then he sees. “Oh.” And promptly ducks.

  The flaming boulder is large, surprisingly so for Yu no Kuni, which according to legend (and famously) repurposed all its rocks for bathhouses. It still misses by a wide enough margin to be called a warning shot, though, which is a consternation best left for another time since the dog freaks out. It bounds into the town, leaping over buildings and landing neatly in streets as waves of magic buffet them - first an earthquake hemming them in on one side, a wall of fire bearing down on them from due north, a gust of hurricane force gales from above, and Kagami is just waiting for the tsunami of water as he hangs onto the patchy fur of their ride as it bounces around in what might generously be called evasive maneuvers. He tries not to think about the mass destruction such massive spellworks must be leaving, or that he’s still too low on magic to do anything about it. Also, considering that even a most basic shielding spell needs at least two other people (besides himself), he’s still up a creek about stopping the military from wrecking up their people and country’s main source of income. Kagami hopes they have good insurance.

  He stops caring for things outside his gastrointestinal tract around the time they smash a tank - which is painted a completely different design than the Yu no Kuni uniforms, so it might a completely different group, fun - ,though, since he’d rather not given his minion blackmail leverage from puking all over him. Also Manda is in the way, probably would take offense at getting human digestion peristalsis’d all over him, and is still probably highly venomous besides. Kagami decides that focusing on breathing would probably be best and leaves the heavy duty stuff to Orochimaru. It’ll probably be more appreciated long term.

  Maybe he should invest in an anti-motion sickness charm - it might be useful to have on hand, especially given recent events. “Oh, for the Air God’s sake,” Kagami vaguely makes out Orochimaru grumbling caustically, then his world goes black.

    “In all fairness, you were projecting quite loudly according to Manda, and making you go to sleep saved us all the hassle of having to clean up vomit.” Orochimaru shrugs unrepentantly, “I’m not sure why you’re complaining, we got back to the University in one piece.”

  “Doesn’t mean you couldn’t have asked. Also, there is no way you had enough magic to pull off the Reanimation, power the control seal, and knock me out.”

  Professor Senju sighs, resigned, “Not if his current research project is magic storage in crystalline structures.” Orochimaru waves regally, showing off the stone bead bracelet he had pulled on around the time of their outfit change.

  Kagami has never felt more betrayed in his life. “You are an awful awful person and I hope you get caught in shady business and end up in the weirdest situation you could ever hope to imagine,” he informs Orochimaru candidly. “And when that transpires, I will laugh in your face.”

  Cousin Madara takes a hard swig of the brandy bottle Professor Senju had unearthed. “So this is how you ended up on the run from international law enforcement, the military of Hi no Kuni, and the military of Yu no Kuni. Yet you came here why?”

  “Oh that’s easy. We need an alibi. And to patent the seals. Uh, plus we may have broken into the Registrar’s office.”

    Omake:

  “So, who all bet against Tsunade’s bet?” The show of hands was depressing. No one would have any reason to suspect that the regular goings on of a Friday night would make international headlines, much less cause International Incidents.

  Hikaku read the bet slip.‘There will be wild adventures by persons in this pool that cause an international incident tonight.’ Innocuously phrased, yet almost prophetic.

  “All in favor of banning Tsunade Senju or any proxies from betting in any future pools, raise your hand?” The show of hands was unanimous.

[booksummarieswithkatz]

Inquisitor by R.J. Blain, a summary

Okay, first we need the basic terms for this world.

Feneric: Werewolves, they’re weak to silver and must constantly keep their animal selves under control. There are three types of Feneric separated into four social strata.

TYPES

-Born Feneric: the children who are born Feneric to Feneric parents.

-Made Feneric: Humans who became Feneric through a special ritual, this usually requires the person’s consent but it can be forced upon them.

-True Feneric: Feneric born under one of two circumstances- a human baby born to wolves, or a wolf pup born to human parents- they are extremely rare, valuable, and powerful Feneric

STRATA

-Alphas: Protectors of the pack, they are the strongest and most dominant in their packs.

-Dominants: Feneric that have instincts pushing them to take control of their surroundings and protect those they see as reliant on them.

-Submissives: Feneric who do not feel the need to be in charge, they are valued in their packs because dominant wolves are soothed by their presence, since they don’t see them as rivals.

-Omegas: Feneric who do not feel the need to be in charge yet still have all the same protective instincts of dominants; they are the rarest and can play any role necessary to stabilize their pack.

Witches: Humans who have connection to a specific element of nature; fire, water, air, or earth. They gain powers based on that element as well as boosted health and lifespan. They can also form a pact with Feneric to help preserve their humanity.

Wizards: Humans who can basically break most of the laws of magic so long as they are able to afford the price. They are killed by other supernatural beings on sight.

The Inquisition: A shadowy group that is part of most modern government and was born from the Catholic Church. They “protect” normal people from the supernatural. They often demand witches join them and wolf packs register themselves in exchange for the lives. They kill almost all other supernatural beings on sight, and offer massive bounties for same, as well as “rogue” witches and wolves.

The Shadow Pope: this person with a dumb-ass name is the head of the Inquisition, below him are the Archeons and below them are the Cardinals.

Now that that’s out of the way let’s get on with the story.

Our main character this time around is Victoria Allison Elisabeth Mayfield Hanover, and she is old as fuck. Born in 1851 levels of old. However she is still looking romance novel levels of “oh im not that great but the boys still drool because lol self-esteem issues” because she, surprise, surprise, is both a Feneric and a witch. Now of course you can’t be immortal, attractive, and magic without some bullshit to rain on your parade, so dear Victoria (or as her current driver’s license says “Allison Ferdinan”) is also a rogue on the run after being held captive by the Inquisition and kept in a cage until they needed her to kill someone. Also, because protagonists need to be special™ she is also the Keeper of the Seasons, which is fancy talk for “I am a wolf who sometimes goes nuts and kills people who try to fuck with nature.”

Needless to say, she doesn’t like to draw attention to herself. Which is why she became one of the most powerful CEOs in the U.S. of a corporation called Marrodin Enterprises and then created the fake persona, Allison Ferdinan, who works as an accountant and travels around the country to stop herself from going stir crazy. Because becoming rich and powerful is the first step to making sure no one knows or cares about who you are. As you do.

And thus we begin with Allison (Victoria) standing in NYC’s Central Park having a chat with her client and acquaintance, Markus Dupree. You see, its Halloween and Mark needs to find a woman who (despite his handsome face and oodles of money) is willing (lol) to pretend to be his lover at a gala for the rich and powerful to impress his mother. Allison (Victoria) of course says “absolutely no-” “Pretty please I’ll owe you a favor and we’re friends and I already got us a room at the Plaza and-its-definitely-not-the-Honeymoon-suite-and-I-definitely-don’t-love-you-woudn’t-that-be-wierd-right hahahaa.” To which she says “yeah I guess.”

So after going to a jewelry store dressed like a hobo, being accused of credit card theft when she tried to buy a multi-million-dollar necklace, and scaring the shit out of the store manager because when he called the credit card company, her assistant and friend Samantha shows up to slap the manager with a stack of Benjamins. Also she bought the necklace. Allison and Samantha have a nice chat about how buying a necklace that costs more than some small country’s GDP when she’s supposed to be a middle-class accountant may have been a tactical error, to which Allison replies “fuck that I need a purse to match my dress” and they go buy a purse before taking her to the party.

Now at the party we learn a few important things, one: Mark’s mom is a witch and also a huge bitch, two: Mark’s mom works for the Inquisition and straight up kills a woman named Caroline at the party and disguises it as a Halloween murder mystery, three: the Inquisition used a Feneric as a party favor for the rich guests, and four: Allison is allergic to canines, including Feneric… and herself… yeah. All of these serve to tilt the shit out of Allison and after Mark’s mom straight up calls her a slut after Mark’s money she bolts out of there and kidnaps Samantha for a “time to disappear” roadtrip.

They drive to some woods and Allison shifts for the first time in about two decades (a really big no-no when you risk going insane by trying to not shift for one full moon) and as she forgets her humanity and runs off into the woods she kills a bunch of witches who were trying to turn Autumn into Winter early. Then after a brief encounter with an odd wolf, Samantha says Allison’s true name (Victoria Allison Elisabeth Mayfield Hanover) and gets her to change back before going on the road again.

On the road they get a call from Samantha’s boss, who says that Allison was spotted with a giant dog in front of a lawyer’s house and mauled him to death. So the “time to disappear” trip became a “time to fake our own deaths” trip and after paying a guy Allison new from when she and Samantha went on a wild bender in Saigon during the Vietnam war, Allison gets two bullets to the chest (only for the camera of course) and they blow up Samantha’s car. It’s then that Samantha takes off her soccermom illusion and reveals that she’s in her seventies. WOW! So surprising after the whole, 150+ year old wolf-witch thing right? So they drive down to Atlanta and do a big song and dance to swap Allison’s identity to that of Victoria Hanover, CEO of Marrodin Enterprises – a company so strictly controlled by her that only people who pass a harsh evaluation and can be called good people will ever be hired or promoted. She also hires Samantha (now old) to be her new secretary.

At Marrodin we meet a few important people, Elliot Anderson (CEO of a subcorporation of Marrodin and overall cool dude) and Amelia (Head of the legal divisions and former judge). So we then find out that the lawyer people thought Allison killed worked for a Marrodin law firm, and that a bunch of employees around Marrodin are getting routinely and professionally iced. So Victoria does what she does best, run out on her own and adopt some kids left behind by one of the dead employees. Then Samantha dies, and Victoria just about loses her shit. After “convincing” a doctor to do a full toxicology report on Samantha’s body, we find out that Samantha had a weird virus in her system that looked similar to ebola -er- sorry- *ehem* looked similar to ebola, and *gasp* say it ain’t so but it’s the plague! A disease that killed an assload of Feneric when Victoria was young! So Victoria calls up the guy who fake shot her and says “yo someone murdered my witch” to which he said “I know a guy, also if you dance naked on their graves when you’re done I want pictures.”

So Victoria buys a house, drives -by herself- to pick up the kids she adopted, and picks up a British hitman guy named James who decides to chill with her. Also the kids turn out to be Feneric. And they’re both omegas. And the boy (they are a brother and sister between 3 and 7y.o.) is a true born. Also it turns out that Victoria Allison Elisabeth Mayfield Hanover is actually a true born Feneric and part of the British royal family and was sold as a breeding bitch to a Feneric pack in Canada. That’s a thing. Also there is a huge bounty to capture her, because she’s ancient and magic and royal and shit.

Then Victoria becomes a cool mom and take the kids to a funeral for one of the employees in Washington D.C. and then someone lobs a bunch of grenades into the crowd and Victoria goes into a coma, and is brought to the Mayo clinic in Minnesota (land of lakes represent) where she wakes up two weeks later. After going back to Atlanta, Victoria realizes that all the dead employees are Feneric, so she looks up their bank statements and realizes that they all bought stuff at a gas station in Alabama around the time of the full moon. So she decides they were a pack and brings Elliot Anderson (remember him?) and the two kids out to the place.

We then find out that some dumb motherfucker has been going around randomly forcing people into becoming Feneric and then abandoning them without any guidance. She then decides to admit to Anderson what she is (only the wolf part though) and then they go and wolf out in the woods. Cuz werewolves. Victoria then circles back and finds SURPRISE it’s Anderson, James, Mark, and Mark’s mom having a chat in the open about killing rogue wolves. SWEEEEEERVE! 

So Victoria, now real shook, jumps out of the bushes and rips Mark’s mom’s throat out. Lovely. Everyone takes this really well, and they bring her to the Inquisition’s nearby base, and get her tested for the plague, cuz she’s ancient and shit. It’s pretty clear too since modern Feneric look like modern wolves kinda but she looks like the way extinct dire wolf species. Also the boss of the place is a Feneric named Devonshire who SURPRISE is the one who keeps forcing people into becoming Feneric because he wants an alpha or some shit. The book really just nosedives from here so I’ll try to condense it further.

They lock Victoria in a room and force her to turn human again, but she actually decided “fuck all of you” and summoned a hurricane and a blizzard to simultaneously strike the Inquisition base and she starts getting hypothermia. She is then awakened by James and Mark who have very different reactions to the revelation of what she is; mainly Mark goes “I-THOUGHT-YOU-WERE-DEAD-I-LOVE-YOU” and James the Brit goes “OMGOMGOMGOMG YOU’RE THE SHIMMER! THE ROYAL WOLF! I. AM. A. HUUUUUGE FAN!” And so she says “yeah ok bye” and commands the snowstorm to toss them out of the base. Then Devonshire and Anderson burst in and Devonshire goes “shoot her” and Anderson shoots her – really shoots her this time. Then Amelia (remember her?) busts in, shoots Anderson, and grabs Victoria. Then the two of them get captured by an Arab woman and some mercs who are like “sick, kill the witch and sell the bitch, lady wolves are big business.” But when the Arab woman gets antsy about the silver chains poisoning Victoria, the other mercs kill her and then Amelia goes “take the chains off bro she’s the Shimmer bro” (also Shimmer is a name for the Keeper of the Seasons i.e. Victoria) and the mercs are like “sweet” and then Amelia says “close your eyes Victoria” and she does and then the mercs are dead and then SURPRISE BITCH it was all an illusion and Amelia is evil and the whole thing where Anderson shot Victoria was a lie and also Anderson and James show up and so does Mark and they shoot Amelia and it turns out that EVERYTHING that happened in the book was Amelia’s plan to take over Marrodin and kill Victoria because Samantha was her coven sister and Victoria corrupted her or some shit. So everyone decides to act like all of this never happened, except that Anderson and Victoria might be swiggity swooty going for each others’ booty on the down low and Victoria promised Mark that if he still wanted to marry her in ten years she would consider it and James got nothing because he is a limey bitch. Also Anderson is the Shadow Pope.

[lesbianmichelmishina]

random ow au idea: they’re all unusual/supernatural beings who are trying to keep what they are secret from everyone else, but they’re all like... living in the same building at university. so it doesn’t really work.

hanzo and genji are dragon-summoning yakuza ninjas (so no change there) who maybe sorta kinda took their inheritances and ran for it. their family isn’t pleased. they’re trying to hide it but they are absolutely terrible at it - they keep climbing through windows when late, genji insists on using his training to show off, at some point they’re bickering and genji throws a fucking knife at hanzo and hanzo catches it without looking and EVERYONE FREAKS OUT.

lucio is a siren who can take a human form, except his human legs don’t exactly hold him up very well. he hates using his song because he doesn’t like taking peoples’ agency away, but he’ll do it if he has to. and he’s an amazing singer even without the song itself. 

mercy is descended from angels and hit the genetic jackpot. healing powers, summonable wings, all that jazz. it’s pretty awesome.

reaper is a vampire. everyone thinks he’s just really really goth and that’s why he takes a thick umbrella and a hoodie with him everywhere. 

mccree was blessed as a child with incredible luck and eagles’ eyes. never gamble with him. (at some point he and hanzo get into a poker game and it gets very ugly.)

pharah and ana are griffin tamers. pharah is literally trying to hide a griffin on campus. it’s not going well. please pray for her.

tracer’s a time traveller from several hundred years into the future. everything about this time period confuses her. winston is her “mission control” who is operating from a hidden location on campus. they’re investigating a series of strange events that occurred at this point in history.

sombra is a technopath. she gleefully abuses this power. no one can figure out how she pulls off half the things she does.

widowmaker is a drow who’s ended up in the sunny world to investigate humans. she pretends that she has a skin condition making her look blueish-grey. more than a few of her dormmates WANT to call bullshit but don’t dare. people stay out of her room because she has a lot of pet spiders.

d.va is a ghost that got fused with an advanced ai program, creating a being who can totally fake being human, but who can also possess technology, go through walls, etc. she has decided to use these powers to become the greatest starcraft player ever known.

junkrat is part fire elemental. this is not a good thing. it’s actually pretty terrifying. he sets his hair on fire just because he can. on the flip side, he can’t swim.

roadhog is a merman who, like a siren, can pretend to be human (albeit with more success on the legs and less success on the lungs). he’s been known to threaten to bite people, and with those teeth, it’s a major threat.

zenyatta in this au is human, except he’s also a very powerful psychic who has spent his life controlling and understanding this power. he’s very good at spotting when someone is troubled, but never really pokes further unless they approach him. (he also knows from like. minute one that most of the others aren’t human.)

torbjorn is literally a dwarf; like widowmaker, he’s from another world, and has just ended up in ours by chance. he’s okay with it though.

76 i’m having trouble on, but i can see him as some kind of blind seer who always knows more than he lets on. it’s very annoying for him. visions suck.

symmetra is a magician. she generally sticks to creation and conjuring, but if you piss her off she will totally curse you. (except her curses don’t always work how they should on non-human or otherwise supernatural entities...)

reinhardt is the descendant of a holy knight who had magical armour. reinhardt has inherited this armour, among other things.

mei is an ice spirit. she keeps accidentally freezing things and trying to hide it. she’s trying to become a climatologist because as an ice spirit she really really hates how the planet is getting warmer.

zarya was hit with a spell as a baby which gives her the strength of ten men. she’s nonsense strong. she keeps breaking things. please help her.

bastion is an escaped military “drone soldier”. they’re now hiding near campus with ganymede. no one knows they’re there. except d.va, who sensed them early on.