#but like with an epic fight to the death with the half brother

[lorillee]

WE GOT ITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT

[chugging-antiseptic-dye]

seventeen as greek demigods 🔱 :

Hyung line I Maknae line

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Scoups: Child of Nike

competitiveness is choi seungcheol's middle name and he never ever going to let anyone forget it. the nike cabin is still young compared to others but half of the solo awards presented at the end of summer ends up there because of him. cabins fight almost to the death over who will have scoups in their team during team challanges and it is the number one reason why campers end up in the infirmary. scoups still doesn't know why the head healer gives him a stink eye every time they meet and when he asks jeonghan about it, he only receives a laugh in reply.

Jeonghan: Child of Hecate

when jeonghan first came to camp, everyone thought he was a shoe-in for the aphrodite cabin even aphrodite, watching from olympus, was somewhat sure he was one of hers so it was the talk of the town when the symbol of hecate (crossed spectral torches) flashed above his head during claiming. as the years went by, no one doubted who his godly parent was. the control he has over the mist, and spells in general, is the best the camp has seen in the last five hundred years if only he was a bit more serious about what to use his godly powers for.

Joshua: Child of Aphrodite

the head camper of the aphrodite cabin, joshua hong, rules it with a velvet iron fist his nickname among his brothers and sisters is margaret thatcher. from the outside, the pretty, pretty man is the picture of innocence. but the military-esqe efficient way the cabin operate tells a different story. joshua, however, balances hard work and reward equally. charm speaking demigod and mortals alike, he ensures that the aphrodite cabin gets the best of the best. he is also one of the more approachable seniors because of his kind and patient nature when he is not egging on others to create chaos of course

Jun: Child of Iris

if there was anyone who has the outmost respect of a bunch of over-powered teenagers and children, its wen junhui, the only member of the iris cabin. he, along with all of the members of the athena and hephaestus cabin, spent a whole summer creating a type of gadget that worked as a mini wifi router. as long as you had enough drachma to offer iris, non-monster honing internet was at your fingertips. the uproar it caused had apollo campers weeping and singing epics in jun's honour. but when asked why he worked so hard on this, jun's reply was that he missed watching cute cat videos on instagram. when not being a part of a groundbreaking project, jun is seen practicing archery or teaming up with hoshi and jeonghan to pull pranks on unsuspecting campers.

Hoshi: Child of Ares

the head camper of the ares cabin was the most happy go lucky person in camp half-blood. he is mostly seen bouncing around with the hermes kids and jun to create havoc and get into trouble. the only reason he is not yet demoted from the head camper position is because 1. no other ares camper can beat him in a fight, 2. minghao doesn't want the responsibility, 3. and most importantly, hoshi is one of jeonghan's favourites. but the actual reason is that he is a damn good strategist and the key person behind ares cabin winning 'best cabin of the year' three years in a row.

Wonwoo: Child of Athena

being one of the more senior campers at camp, wonwoo is usually seen mentoring and guiding other demigods. his calm and relaxed demeanor means that chiron usually leans on him a lot at the start of summer to help the new campers acclimatize. and because of this, most baby campers imprint on him like ducklings. by now everyone has gotten used to seeing, at least four to five, children toddling after wonwoo wherever he goes. other than that, after wifi was installed in camp, wonwoo had a hand in the creation of the first camp half-blood esports team. currently he is training with them to beat the demigods of camp jupiter in a 'friendly' match of league of legends.

Woozi: Child of Apollo

lee jihoon is one of more mythical figures around camp half-blood. in fact, he is so mythical that most people swear that they have seen the minotaur's reformation more times than they saw him. the only time his attendance is guaranteed is during campfire night at the end of summer. but, they forget to bother him then because his mastery over musical instruments leave everyone in a trance. together with dokyeom, jihoon also presents a duet that makes even demigods believe in another kind of magic. and every year he changes the instrument. one year it's the clarinet, another year it's the lute, another year it was the guitar, and this year it's the lyre. so each performance is a once in a lifetime opportunity that no one wants to miss.

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[menelaiad]

Why did Agamemnon and Menelaus part on bad terms from Troy?

athena made them fight! she and zeus are angry at the greeks for how they handled the whole troy thing and i think athena has particular beef about the palladium? and the cassandra/ajax incident, so they just want to make the homecoming for all the greeks unpleasant.

so she makes menelaus and agamemnon fight (which divides the greek army). they fight because menelaus just wants to leave and go home but agamemnon says that they should wait and try and appease athena, with sacrifice and offerings because she's clearly pissed at them. but menelaus doesn't wait. and he goes with nestor, diomedes and odysseus (but odysseus goes back to agamemnon after a stop at lesbos). whilst agamemnon stays behind.

nestor tells it in book 3 of the odyssey:

“Gray-eyed Athena, daughter of the Thunder, became enraged and brought about disaster. She set the sons of Atreus to fight each other. Hastily, they called the people at sunset, not observing proper norms. The men arrived already drunk on wine; the brothers told them why they called the meeting.                Then Menelaus said that it was time to sail back home across the open sea. But Agamemnon disagreed entirely. He wanted them to stay and sacrifice to heal the sickness of Athena’s wrath— pointless! He did not know she would not yield. The minds of the immortals rarely change. So those two stood and argued angrily, and with a dreadful clash of arms the Greeks leapt up on two opposing sides. We slept                that eerie night with hearts intent on hatred against each other—since Zeus meant us harm. At dawn one group of us dragged down our ships into the sea piled high with loot and women, while half the army still remained there, stationed with Agamemnon, shepherd of the people.”

and a fragment from Nostoi of the epic cyle also gives details about it. proclus' chrestomathia ii talks about it!

so it wasn't like bad terms in that they grew to hate each other or anything. it was just a disagreement that, had agamemnon lived longer, they probably would have resolved or even forgotten about. but. like. agamemnon doesn't live long after coming back from troy. menelaus never sees him again. the last time they speak to each other is a fight. is them divided and one of them leaving the other behind. and considering throughout the homeric works menelaus and agamemnon are such a Unit. they're a team. they're seen together a lot in the iliad. it's just really sad.

and i think menelaus' reaction to agamemnon's death makes it even sadder because OF COURSE he will be sad over his brother dying, but you can't help but think does he feels guilt that they left on such bad terms? that he won't get the chance to rectify it. their last memory of each other is a huge fight. and that's so sad. because that's not who they were or what their dynamic was shown to be for 99% of the time.

[drakaripykiros130ac]

I see TG comments left and right constantly laughing about Rhaenyra’s death. Most of them even claim to know about it because Joffrey Baratheon spoiled it in GOT.

Which just proves my point: The great majority of TG stans have never read the book.

They see the show writers’ fake version of how the greens are soooo “misunderstood” and are under the impression that this is how GRRM wrote them. Wrong.

What exactly is so hilarious about Rhaenyra’s death?

Her death is pretty epic/heroic (as is every TB death). She dies a dragonrider’s death by fire. She faces the broken-ass dragon of the usurper without fear and with her final breath loudly curses her half-brother. A curse which worked. His line died out, and Rhaenyra’s survived. That was after all the whole purpose of this war - each side fighting for their blood to continue on the Iron Throne. Rhaenyra and Daemon both accomplished their goal. The greens - not so much.

The lot of TG stans heard about Rhaenyra’s death on GOT and think it’s funny, which proves they don’t know the details.

I can’t wait to see the looks on their faces when they see how Aegon dies: choking on his own bile like Joffrey Baratheon. Poison (women’s weapon - ironic, huh?).

I would say that the usurper’s death is hilarious/pathetic (as are the deaths of all TG members).

No heir. No legacy. The only way he is remembered is as Aegon the Usurper, one of the worst “kings” in history, right next to Aenys and Maegor.

[yoddhasblog]

Mahabharat is and will always be my favourite tale to reflect upon and talk to people about. This book was immensely hyped up along with the author. I have now read three of her books. The Last Queen, which admittedly I adored. Then, the Forest Of Enchantments, the book I'd been looking forward to for such a long time. That one left me in a rage.

I went into this book expecting to be pissed off and disappointed. And I wasn't let down on that assumption.

The Palace Of Illusions is a retelling of the great Indian epic-Mahabharata. A tale incorporated so deeply into our hearts that everyone has their own takes and beliefs and opinions about it. I sincerely believe that you cannot write a retelling without angering a number of people. Well, I'm one them.

The writing style:

I didn't have too many issues except i did not get why there were so many rhetorical and philosophical questions? Literal, paragraphs that were nothing but questions.

Draupadi, the enigma, the fire-born, the one person I would fight for as long as there is life in me, why was acting as though she was a little more than a sullen child? In the book that was supposed to be from her point of view, the person, the author did the most injustice with was-Draupadi.

The plot assassination:

As I mentioned above, most of everything in the plot of the epic was butchered and mangled to fit into the author's narrative of women, good-men,bad. It is common knowledge that women's position in society was as downtrodden as depicted here. Don't get me wrong, horrific crimes happened against women and justice was also delivered adequately but the author pulled apart the entire social structure only to be able to say that every bad thing happened to Draupadi was because she is a woman.

~ In the very first chapter, Draupadi said it was egoistic of her father to give her a variation of his own name when her brother, Dhrishtadyumna got an original name. In Vyas Mahabharat, her birth name was Krishnaa but like many people in Hindu beliefs, she was also known as Draupadi, though that is the most commonly used name. So, no points to the author trying to convince everyone that this was sexist.

~ Draupadi was highly educated and trained in many things including economics and she was the one who was in charge of the treasury of Indraprastha. She was a finance minister of sorts. So, saying that King Droupad refused to let her train because she is a woman is stupid.

~Also, I've grown up listening to that Draupadi stepped out of the fire as a young woman. She wasn't a child. Some sources say she was around 16 some say around 25.

~ Are we still stuck about 50 years ago that we're going to be okay with authors portraying that all women in power are evil? Kunti and Draupadi viewed each other as rivals? Draupadi throwing temper tantrums over other women? wtf

~ Draupadi as a pick-me? Half the book Draupadi's internal dialogue is nothing but I don't know how to socialize with other women, they're jealous of each other, they're always giggling, I won't survive the world of women, I can't dance, people don't find me pretty because of my dark complexion(where did white supremacy even came in this conversation) but suddenly out of nowhere Draupadi just knows that every woman is envious of her. She adores the saris and jewellery that she used to find impossible to handle.

~ Maharishi Vyas giving Draupadi Divya drishti to see the battlefield of Kurukshetra came out of nowhere. It felt a forced action done only to show Draupadi's emotions about the deaths.

~ Draupadi harbouring hidden feelings for Karna and him secretly returning those feelings felt like a teenager's fever dream. A teenager who's hellbent on sexualizing everything they come across.

~Bhagvat Gita was witnessed by everyone on kurukshetra including the Virat roop? Again, it felt like a move forced that was done in order to show Draupadi's internal dialogue. How did the author even think she could fit Bhagvat Gita in half a chapter?

~The Pandavas just had no personality whatsoever outside of being obedient to their mother and scared of Draupadi's temper tantrums.

~Krishan ji was told to be this charismatic, carefree, silvertongued diplomat but he was simply shown as someone who randomly showed up and gave unsolicited advice.

~And I don't know what that ending was but you can't be serious telling me that Karna and Draupadi somehow end up together in heaven?

~WHAT WAS THE AUTHOR'S PROBLEM WITH RESEARCHING ABOUT MAHABHARATA???

There was no way the entire plot of Mahabharata could've fit into one book. She tried too but this book sucked. I understand it's a retelling and sometimes had to change but everything here felt so forced. The author broke everything in context to fit into her supposedly feminist ideal. Don't get me wrong, i dislike the Pandavas, the Kauravas and their elders with all my heart but they all had one dimensional personalities. They had caricature-ish depositions. I had no emotions attached to anyone in this book whatsoever. This was a headache.

[unfinishedslurs]

LOUMAND EPIC DIVORCE FIGHT PT.3

if loumand has 1 million fans I am one of them if loumand has 5 fans I am one of them if loumand has 1 fan it is me if loumand has 0 fans I have been removed from this mortal plane if the world is against loumand I am against the world. failmarriage enjoyers come get y’all’s juice

“What happened to those ‘Great Laws,’ Armand?” He asked, fury rising in him again. “You know, the ones you killed my daughter for?”

“What do you want me to say? Would you have me apologize again so you can refuse it? To tell you that if I could go back and change it, I would? To turn back the wheel of time itself and undo it all? I cannot.”

Louis wanted to strangle him. Would, if he didn’t know that Armand would just sit there and let him, not feeling a damn thing. “I want you to feel fucking sorry!”

Armand rolled his eyes, but Louis had spent over seventy years sleeping next to the monster under the bed. Had decades to learn his tricks and tells. Not all of them, like he might have thought once, but enough to spot the minuscule shift in his expression. The brief twitch of his mouth and the shuttered blink before his face flattened.

There he is, he thought triumphantly. A reaction, a real one. Something that alluded to the man beneath the mask he always wore, not nearly as impenetrable as he thought it was.

“‘Sorry,’” he scoffed, lifting his chin haughtily. “Sorrow is for mortals. We are vampires, Louis. We do not have the time to waste on regrets and what-if’s.”

As if he hadn’t seen into Armand’s mind countless times. As if he had not held him through a thousand nights of wishing he could go back and save his Maker, save Riccardo, save his brothers. As if he had not once confessed to Louis that he sometimes wished he could go back and die a human death in Marius’ arms. The audacity of the lie was almost like a slap in the face of their entire companionship. Or was Armand telling the truth, and those memories the lie? How much did Louis know him, really?

He couldn’t be sure anymore, but he was confident that it was better than any living being on this earth. Enough to get through the lies and rip into the man underneath, the fragile heart in the photograph. If Armand owed him anything, it was this.

“No time? We got nothing but time! You really expect me to believe that when your fledgling is flaunting himself in front of millions with no Maker in sight? You telling me you’re a deadbeat ‘cuz you don’t feel regret?”

Armand’s mouth pursed before he stepped back. “Don’t speak of things you don’t understand,” he warned, eyes darting back and forth. Settling on the closest window like he was thinking about an escape.

Louis didn’t give him one. “Oh, I understand plenty,” he scoffed. “I probably understand better than you. What, you thought you’d make our ‘symbol of love’ immortal for shits and giggles?”

That finally got a visible reaction out of him, swiveling his head back to look at Louis with wide eyes. “I didn’t—“

“You let your coven fucking lynch me because of my fledgling, but eight decades later you’re doing the same damn thing! To the ill and infirmed, no less.”

“What do you want from me?” Armand finally burst out, whirling around on him in an incandescent rage. Louis felt himself smile, could feel his lip splitting as his fangs dropped. “I have apologized time and time again—“

“Only ‘cuz you thought it would fix things!”

“—spent years throwing myself at your feet for your mercy—“

“Mercy? Did you show my daughter—“

“Will it ever be enough? Over seventy years devoted to you—“

“A drop in a bucket compared to the fact that it was over half my life—“

“I don’t know what else I can do!”

“Say sorry and fucking mean it this time!” He roared. “Feel fucking sorry for lying to me throughout our entire companionship! Say something real for once!”

They both fell silent at that, chests heaving through some faded muscle memory. Puppets just going through the motions yet again. What was it that Armand said? Mark it on the calendar, align it with Ursa Major. Louis and Armand’s tri-annual blow-up fight to kingdom come.

Louis’ voice trembled as he said, “I want to know why. None of that ‘I could not prevent it’ shit. I want you to tell me why you let them kill my daughter.”

Armand sank down on the couch, shoulders slumping. Submission and acceptance coloring every inch of him. “Why?” He murmured, staring at his knees. “It will not change anything.”

Louis sat on the other end, keeping as much distance between them as he could. “Humor me.”

“…it is true, that it was because of Madeleine,” he finally admitted. “She was somewhat of a last straw. I had told you before, the creation of more creatures like us was something I could not condone. If you did not love me enough to understand and accept that, how could I trust you over the people in my coven? How could I believe you would not leave me to whatever caught your fancy next?”

“And saving me?”

“Lestat—“

“I don’t mean on stage. Why didn’t you let me die in the coffin? I was almost gone. It would have been over, and then you would have had your coven and spent the rest of eternity directing plays, fooling an audience, listening to Santiago blabbering on…”

“So you’d submit me to a punishment worse than death,” Armand said dryly.

He almost cracked a smile before he remembered himself. “I’m not in the mood to be funny right now.”

Armand sighed, as if Louis was some insufferable child he was humoring. It pissed him off, but yelling wouldn’t get him what he wanted right now. Even if it would be cathartic and incredibly deserved. “The coven wasn’t the same, after,” he said. “They had lost respect for me. In part, I suspect, because they could sense the regret you seem so insistent on. Santiago had never liked me much—“

“He wanted to fuck you.”

“He got off on forcing me to submit. He knew the name I had told you. I don’t know how, whether he heard you say it or if he plucked it out of your head through the appalling shields Lestat had not trained you on—“

“Don’t talk about him. This is about us.”

He looked briefly incensed at that, and he could almost hear the retort, “But you can speak about Daniel?” He didn’t say it, though, because Daniel was different. Daniel had been theirs, in a way that Louis couldn’t put to words.

Armand must have known that too, because he moved on without comment. “The coven could sense my guilt, my regret, and they closed in on me. Is that what you wished to hear? That I saved you to save my own skin?”

“Okay.”

Armand looked at him in surprise, frowning. “Okay?” He echoed.

“That was about what I expected to hear.” He learned back against the couch, letting the cushion swallow him and his regrets. It stung, but he was still too angry to really feel it. What was one more betrayal? What was one more petty grievance eighty years in the past?

Armand considered him for a moment. “It was also because I love you,” he said softly. “I do not want you to doubt that. The coven was only part of it. I found I could not bear the thought of your death.”

Found out too late, but hindsight is 20/20. What did it matter that Louis still had stones rattling around in his ankles? The constant reminder weighing him down, never as badly as the memories that came with them. If Armand had decided to wipe the trial from his mind, would he have removed them as well, or left them? Would Louis know why his footsteps felt so strange, what the aching in his heels heart meant when it echoed in his heart? He wished they were back in Dubai, so he could feel the comfort of his rock garden beneath his feet.

“Okay,” he said again. “Now pause the bullshit for a minute.”

Pause. Blink. Head tilt. He could see the cogs turning in Armand’s head like clockwork. For a master manipulator, he was always incredibly predictable. Or maybe Louis had spent too much time with him. “I’m not lying to you.”

“No,” he agreed, “but we’re going around the real problem. You said Madeleine was the last straw, but that was me. Let’s go back to that. Why did you kill my daughter?”

“The Great Laws—“

“I didn’t ask about them.”

Armand fell silent, studiously not looking at him. Louis settled back and waited him out.

Finally he spoke, very quietly. If they weren’t vampires he wouldn’t even have heard him. “I fear that if I tell you the truth, I will forsake the last bit of affection you may still hold for me.”

“If you don’t tell me, you’re gonna get the exact same result,” he said. “So I don’t think it matters.”

The blow struck. Armand swayed as if taking a physical hit, taking a deep breath he didn’t need. When he looked at Louis, his eyes were lined red with tears he didn’t let fall. Truth, or another tactic for sympathy? It didn’t matter. He had plenty of experience ignoring Armand’s tears in the bedroom, he couldn’t let himself falter when it mattered most.

“She reminded me of myself. Of the youth I once had.” It came out of him in a rush, as if he’d been holding the words back for centuries. “Amadeo begged his master to turn him for over a decade, and each refusal battered his very soul. As he grew older, taller, as hair began to grow on his face and chest and between his legs, as his master took him to his bed less and less. Amadeo was loved, yes, yet it was not until I was nearly thirty and dying that my master saw fit to give me the gift. I was jealous, Louis, is that what you wanted to hear? She had everything Amadeo had ever wanted, yet she cursed her own fortune with every breath she took. I forced her to reckon with it, quietly delighted in watching her perform a song that made her more miserable with every note. I thought she was a spoiled, inconsequential flea who would not make it another fifty years. I believed her to be the reason you refused my companionship. A hundred reasons, each of them more petty than the last. What does it matter? You will hate me no matter what.”

Louis thought he might be sick.

Armand closed his eyes, drawing back into himself. “If that was the only reason,” he said almost gently, “I would not have done it. But I had seen dozens like her over the centuries. Children are not meant for the gift. Either madness takes them, or they cannot bear the constant infantilization, or something else, it doesn’t matter. One by one they walk into the sun. The absence of choice can be a mercy.”

He clearly believed what he was saying, which just made it even worse. How much “mercy” had Armand offered over the years?

Even deeper down, Louis wondered if he was right. The first vampire they ever met in Europe had cast herself into the flames before their eyes. Louis himself had run headfirst into the sun and nearly succeeded. How many others had destroyed themselves because they could not bear the Gift they were given?

“Not Claudia. She was strong.” Stronger than Louis had ever been, certainly.

“They all say that, and yet they all succumb eventually.”

“She wouldn’t have”

Armand sighed. “I supposed we’ll never know,” he acquiesced. Louis could tell his heart wasn’t in it.

He let it slide this time. At least the words were true. “No, we won’t.”

They sat in silence for a time, not looking at each other. The only sound from the cars driving outside. They did not need to breathe, to blink, to move at all. As still as the pictures Louis used to take, back when things seemed like they might turn out okay.

Finally, Louis exhaled slowly. Armand turned toward him, but said nothing.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay. I don’t forgive you.”

Armand didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink. Just stared at him motionless, as if he was waiting for something.

“I don’t forgive you,” he repeated pointedly. “But I’m not going to kill you.”

“I don’t understand.”

Of course he didn’t. Hadn’t that been what he was aiming for when he turned Daniel? If you touch him, Louis had said, and Armand had given his fascinating boy the worst curse he could imagine as soon as his back was turned. 500 years passively yearning for an end no one would provide. Louis wouldn’t be the one to grant him mercy.

His final gift to Armand, or maybe his final “fuck you.” A long life. An eternity at his fingertips, exactly as Amadeo had once begged for. The chance to grow even more powerful until little Arun could never be hurt again. A chance to torture himself for the rest of time in a hell of his own making. A chance to better himself, if Louis was feeling generous.

He wasn’t sure, but after seventy-seven years of standing hand in hand with this man, this monster, this little boy trembling in the midst of all the power he held, he thought it was a kind of salvation. For both of them.

Besides, Daniel was thriving better than either of them in the throes of the Gift. Armand had to have known he would.

“I don’t either,” he said. “You’d deserve it. But I’m tired, Armand, and I loved you once. I think that counts for something.”

Armand’s eyes widened. He stood quickly, putting distance between them, but not before Louis saw a bloody tear slip down his cheek. “Don’t say that to me when you don’t mean it. I cannot bear it.”

He looked as pained as Louis had ever seen him, despair twisting his features at the words Louis had never afforded him when they were together. He was beautiful in his misery, as beautiful as he was in anything. He hated him for it as much as he’d loved him once. The Temptation of Amadeo, rendered in flesh and blood and the viscera of honesty.

“I do. I did,” he said, twisting the knife just to be cruel. “Guess it doesn’t matter now.”

Armand shook his head. Opened his mouth, then froze, caught between words. Still as a painting in the low lamplight. Louis could see the brush strokes on his face, see every piece of art he had shown him overlaid with the real man in front of him.

“Right,” Louis said, when enough time had passed that he was certain Armand wouldn’t say anything. “Glad we had this talk.”

“Are you?”

Louis surprised himself when he answered, “Yeah, actually. I am. You?”

“I don’t know.” He looked frail, sad, tired, but no closer to walking into the fire than he had been when Louis had cornered him.

He thought that deep down, he was probably relieved by it. The confirmation that Louis wouldn’t kill him, that the love between them hadn’t been a complete lie. Still, how would he know? His lack of understanding of Armand’s innermost thoughts had been made abruptly clear to him with a script marked in red ink.

“Anything else we should talk about?” He asked. “Any other lies? Any other Danny’s knocking around in my brain, waiting for me to remember them?”

“No. No, there was only one. Daniel Malloy is not an experience you can replicate, I suspect.”

“Thank God for that.”

He almost smiled at that. “Indeed.”

“Speaking of Daniel Malloy,” Louis said, standing up. “For fucks sake, pick up the damn phone. Give our boy a call.”

Our boy. A slip he hated himself for instantly. It was too easy to fall into their old patterns, something that was probably by design. Shock flashed over Armand’s face before it was replaced by humor. “He hates it when you call him that,” he pointed out.

“I’ve had to deal with that shit for a century, he can handle it.”

“He finds it arousing.”

“You’re not the only one who can read minds around here, you know.”

“Are you going to do anything about it?”

As if Armand still had any right to know who was in his bed. “Are you? Don’t think I didn’t pick up on his thoughts about ‘Rashid.’ You feeding him your blood was probably a dream come true for him. Did you get to pick his brain about it before it was closed to you forever? What did he think of the taste?”

Armand’s lips thinned, and he turned away.

Louis didn’t let him leave without a final blow. “You gonna tell him about the other memories you erased?”

He stiffened. “You have no right—“

“I have every right, and you know it.”

“If you must know, the answer is no. What difference would it make?”

A pretty damn big one, if you asked Louis. He felt it every time he talked to Daniel, the yawning cavern of curiosity surrounding the blank afterimages in his memory, the way he could clearly sense something wasn’t right. Searching the globe for Armand, chasing him in some kind of fucked up role reversal only one of them was aware of. And then Armand, clearly punishing himself with every echoed heartbeat, every kill Daniel took to like a shark in a reef. Only making them both miserable as he hid in solitude.

“Honesty, Arun,” Louis snapped.

They both froze. Fuck. Fuck. Falling into old habits indeed, the world's most ill-timed Freudian Slip. He’d tried so hard to stay away from it, to wrangle Armand’s honesty from him in a way that didn’t depend on the command of his submission. He’d finally gotten what he wanted, and then he had to go and screw it up.

“I am not Arun to you, anymore.” Armand’s voice trembled. “I would prefer you did not use it.”

Louis nodded, even though Armand couldn’t see him. Bit back the instinctive apology on his tongue.

“I do not see the use in continuing this pointless conversation. Is there anything else you want of me, anything else you require?”

Yes. He wanted to shake him, tell him that they weren’t done here. He still had questions. He wanted to strip Armand down to the bone, rip his flesh off piece by piece and expose the skeleton underneath. Would that finally reveal the truth, or would he have to go deeper? Into bone marrow, the stem cells, his DNA. Would that allow Louis to know him?

It didn’t matter. The mask had gone up, and Louis didn’t have the energy to pull it back down again.

“No.”

Armand nodded once, his back still to Louis, before walking to the door. He paused with his hand on the knob. “I have always been a coward, Louis,” he confessed, still staring straight ahead. Louis could see the set of his shoulders, the clench of his fist, but not his face. “There is your truth.” He twisted the knob, opened the door. “You will not see me again, if you do not wish.”

Before Louis could reply, he was gone.

[korkiekenobiconfirmed]

funny enough, I think this scene was the closest the show ever got to realizing the actual point of the Dance.

the throne, was it worth it? it's too late, blood has spilled and the dragons danced and your brother is burnt half to death. peace is long since past but you must see this horrible, bloody thing to its unsatisfying end while you can do nothing more than fight and rue and pray. it was all for a crown, but was it worth it? when the price you pay is everything and everyone and nobody even wins, was it worth it?

miss me with that "only people who don't want a crown deserve one" and "the horrors I have loosed can't just be for a crown blah blah" boooorrrriiiinnngggg. the Dance was about two factions who were SO intent on their own power and SO adamant in their superiority that they ultimately became their demise. almost every character met a horrible fate, even the ones who survived the war! it's a tragedy of epic proportions and everybody's miserable and it can't even be blamed on any one person or death or catalyst. it was so deliciously, horribly unavoidable because targaryens, like their valyrian ancestors before them, cannot stop bringing about their own doom!

[ghostofmyth]

Ermmmmm, chat I think I just unlocked some hidden meanings in Epic: the musical's song 'No Longer You"? And It reveals what already happened in the Thunder saga and what's going to happen in future saga's like 'Vengeance' and 'Ithaca'-

idk if it was intentional or not, but Mr.Jalapeño had REALLY outdone himself on this one 👍

Ok so there's a lot so let me break it down:

I was trying to figure out the chorus at the end of 'No Longer You' when I realized some things that are happening in the song.

The prophet is literally telling us what is going to happen (Thunder + Vengeance + Ithaca saga's), the chorus in the background at the end is giving us hints of when these events will happen in future songs, and the prophet is directly telling Odysseus that he will make it home and what is going to happen when he gets home.

1) Now most of the prophet's lines are directly referencing to the Thunder saga, that much is very obvious. Let me go through each one to show you.

"I see a song of past romance"

This line is referencing to the siren songs 'Suffering' and (maybe?) 'Different Beast', because the siren pretending to be Penelope is trying to lure Odysseus (and his men) into the water by singing, but since Odysseus and the crew had wax in their ears they were able to resiste the song and thus Odysseus commands her and the rest of the sirens to be killed right after he gets his needed information.

"I see the sacrifice of man"

This line is referencing to the third song 'Scylla', where Odysseus tells Eurylochus to light up six torches after he tells Odysseus that he was the one who had opened the bag, the fact that the 'man' is singular and not plural speaks volumes, that means that Eurylochus was going to be the sacrifice to Scylla but instead he passed around the torches, sacrificing six other men to Scylla unintentionally. Odysseus was, either way, ready to sacrifice his crew.

"I see portrayals of betrayal and a brothers final stand"

This line is referencing to the first half of 'Mutiny' and here's why. Eurylochus feels so betrayed by Odysseus because he gave up six of their men to Scylla that he decides to fight him to the death, Odysseus loses and almost dies while fighting Eurylochus (the two called each other brothers in multiple past songs, including this one), that is when the crew fully sides with Eurylochus, betraying their original captain for another, if not worse, captain. Also to mention it was Eurylochus that betrayed Odysseus first because he was the one that opened the bag that set them off course from Ithaca and right towards Poseidon.

"I see you on the brink of death"

This line is referencing to the second half of 'Mutiny', Odysseus almost dies but since he was healed by Eurylochus he lives. That's when things start to go down hill.

"I see you draw your final breath"

Now this line would be referencing to the very end of 'Thunder Bringer', where (as seen in a trailer to the Thunder saga) Odysseus is drowning after Zeus strikes a lightening bolt at the ship, thus killing everyone except for him.

"I see a man who gets to make it home alive, but it's no longer you."

Now the very last line has nothing to do with the Thunder saga. It has more connection with the 'Vengeance' and 'Ithaca' sagas (not the Wisdom saga though, that one is Athena trying to convince the other god's to free his dumb self from Calypso's island). All that we know from this line is that he is alive, he is going home, and that he is the monster rawr rawr rawr. (Also doesn't Scylla say that she and him were alike? Monster era fr 🦖)

2) Now to the chorus part, I can't really hear very well so I can't tell what have of it is saying after lighting bolt, but I do have a good theory on what it could be telling us.

At the very end, while the prophet is retelling his prophecy thing, we hear the chorus, which is telling us what events are going to happen in songs.

"I see you on the brink of death" is connected to the 'Siren song' and 'Scylla throat' part. In the first three songs of the Thunder saga, Odysseus is facing murderous monsters like sirens and Scylla who are actively trying to kill him and his crew. The monsters could be shown as the brink of death because of how dangerous both are.

"I see you draw your final breath" has the 'Mutiny' and 'Lightning Bolt' part of the chorus, the last two songs in the Thunder saga happen to have Odysseus draw his final breath twice, first in "Mutiny" while fighting with Eurylochus and second while he is drowning and passes out at the end of "Thunder Bringer" (as seen in the trailer).

It seems the lyrics are what is going to happen to Odysseus and the chorus is what songs its going to happen in. That's why we hear more than one word during the last lines "I see a man who gets to make it home alive, but it's no longer you". It's multiple song names that are going show the aftermath of Thunder saga through the not yet released saga's.

3) Now the very last one is a doozy so bare with me here-

In the beginning/middle of "No Longer You', after the prophet tell's Odysseus his future, Odysseus says,

"This can't be, we suffered and sailed through the toughest of hell's now you tell us our efforts for nothing?!"

You can tell in these lines that Odysseus is at the point of giving up, he thinks he might never make it home after hearing the prophets words. But the prophet continues.

"I see your palace covered in red, faces of men who have long believed your dead"

This line could be a reference to either the Vengeance saga or Ithaca saga, but what is happening is that the all the suitors are killed, hence the covered in red part.

"I see your wife with a man who is hunting, a man with a trail of bodies."

Again, could be referencing to either the Vengeance or Ithaca saga. But the prophet is saying that Penelope is with the man who hunted down and killed all the suitors, leaving a trail of bodies in his wake, and that they are reunited/are together.

Oh course, Odysseus doesn't understand what he is talking about so he asks "WHO", who is with Penelope? But the prophet DOES tell him who the mysterious man with blood on his hands is, who the man that Penelope is with. Multiple times in fact.

When the prophet repeats himself he is emphasizing his words. "I see you" is sung more stronger than the last time and at the end "I see a man who gets to make it home alive, but it's no longer you" the last word is sung more slower. The prophet is telling Odysseus that it's him "You".

Basically to sum it up, when Odysseus says "our efforts for nothing", he thinks that "om-gods this was worthless I'm never going to make it home". The prophet is like "Uh what, you do make it home it says right here?" Then Odysseus is like, "WHO IS THAT MAN WITH MY WIFE? I'LL KILL HIM!" Then the prophet is like, "DUDE CHILL OUT ITS YOU???"

The prophet is telling him that he will in fact get home, and tells him what's going to happen when he gets home.

Ta-da, that's what I figured out! Either that or I'm just going insane! (My thought process on this whole thing has been going on since 1am, it is currently 5:30am)

Now that I have shared my thoughts with the world, I shall now go finally sleep, night!

[wonderlandsakura]

Saw this thought of this ↓

Hannigram "No Longer You" (from EPIC) AMV

Specifically set in Will's whole fisherman/betrayal arc btw (or like half, it's actually like the whole thing)

"I am the the prophet": The prophet is the stag or sth

"With the answers you seek": It reaches out it's arm to Will, it has the answers to his questions about who the Chesapeake Ripper is, how his brain works

"Time, I've unlocked it": Will's closed eyes, the pendulum swings

"I see past and future running free": Will's time going backwards thingy + hallucinogenic dreams or sth

"There is a world where I help you get home": Will standing in a yard it's uncertain whether it's Molly's or some dream one, there's dogs and a child smiling at him, face cut by sunlight (his son? Abigail? Who's to say)

"But that's not a world I know": Will wakes up covered in blood, Hannibal is there, smiling at him

"What?": Will angrily says this

"I see a song of past romance": Hannigram circling each other warily/before Abigail's death romance scenes

"I see the sacrifice of men": The deaths they saw when they worked together before Abigail's death

"I see portrayals of betrayal": Hannibal betraying Will

"And a brother's final stand": Will seeing Beverly's body

"I see you on the brink of death": the gut cut

"I see you draw your final breath": does he get choked out around the gut cut fight? Put that here then

"I see a man who gets to make it home alive": Will going home after false imprisonment? Or after a whatever with Hannibal while he's honey trapping him?

"But it's no longer you": One of those zoom ins after Hannibal killed Abigail, the exact moment when Will's like, I gotta get Revenge™

"This can't be": says Will, shaking his head

"We've suffered and sailed through the toughest of hells": Those gorgeous sad wet puppy dog eyes lol

"Now you tell us our effort's for nothing?": Angy Will

"I see your palace covered in red": the stag, his house covered in graffiti/the bloody mansion after the meeting with the cannibals/AFTER THE DEATH OF THE RED DRAGON

"Faces of men who had long believed you're dead": Jack, The dudes at the FBI, all the peeps that thought him crazy cause of Hannibal's accusations, Fredrick Chilton, Randall Teir, The guy who had the hots for him what's his name idk

"I see your wife with a man who is haunting": Hannibal smiling at Will, the two standing close together

"A man with a trail of bodies": zooms into will, his eyes downcast

"(who?)": bloodstained Will from the beginning asks

"I see portrayals of betrayal": Will betraying people for Hannibal

"I see a song of past romance": Romantic scenes during Will's whole honey trap

"I see the sacrifice of man": Will murdering people with Hannibal

"And a brother's final stand": Them standing against the Red Dragon, in a lull in the fighting/about to kill him

"I see you on the brink of death": them hugging on the cliff

"I see you draw your final breath": still the cliff, maybe the "it's beautiful" dialogue

"I see a man who gets to make it home alive": Will and Hannibal walking into/sitting in the church/ mishmash future they could have had

"But it's no longer you": them sitting side by side at the church? Idk a zoom in on cleaned up murderous trophy husband Will

[depressedhatakekakashi]

Tsunade

There’s a lot of things to love about Tsunade. She’s one of the strongest female character’s in the entire series as well as being a very damaged character who’s fighting just to get through every day.

She comes back to Konoha and takes the job of Hokage because of a kid she has only just met and procedes to lead the village for five years through some of the worst fights it has had to deal with. It’s under her leadership that Konoha works with the other villages, and unlike her Sensei she is actually unafraid to put the elder’s in their place.

Epic moment’s for Tsunade are numerous, but i’ll try not to get too carried away.

(Movie only) Poking Kakashi in the face and reminding him that accusing Naruto of attacking A, and thus throwing him into prison, was HIS idea and he has no right to judge her for being harsh (he looks like a scolded child. I love it. The auntie vibes are STRONG in this movie)

Speaking of Kakashi, remmember when she found out that he died and she proceeded to destroy one of the pillers on the roof of the Hokage’s mansion? Because i do and i LOVE it. Tsunade has seen enough death in her life but that doesn’t stop her from taking a second to morn Kakashi’s death and literally destroy something in anger (also while looking for pics i saw a conversation about how her destroying that piller wS representative of Kakashi’s death being the destruction of a piller of Konoha and oh boy i had FEELINGS).

Also, just the whole Pein attack in general was some bad ass Tsunade. I think Hashirama is the only other Hokage who could have protected Konoha and saved as many lives as Tsunade did. Her skills really shone through her as well as her connection with Lady Katsuyu.

(Anime Only) showing Ino and Sakura what she looked like when she was younger. Tsunade looked so proud of herself while she was showing off her younger look. It’s clear that she just loves looking young and that her keeping herself looking younger has never been about sexual appeal but just enjoying being young. If she could turn back time and be 12 again i think she would, and not just to save Dan and her brother.

Caving in Madara’s Sussano. This woman stood there and listened to Madara bad mouth her for the crime of not being as talented as her grandfather and instead of crying over it she proceded to destroy every judgement Madara made against her. She got stabbed through the abdomen and cut Madara’s sussano sword and shoved it out if her body. She got cut in half and still healed the other Kage’s using Katsuyu. SHE PUNCHED MADARA’s SUSSANO, A NEAR PERFECT DEFECE, AND SHATTERED THE RIB CAGE. Sure she was never going to win that fight, but damn did she do some major damage.

The fact that she taught Sakura to gamble? Delightful. Love master and student bonding over non training activities.

Calling Kakashi stupid for how he faced Itachi? Fair. Man didn’t know what he was getting into because he didn’t have all the necessary info, but she’s still valid for calling him out on acting before thinking. He was so protective of Asuma, Kurenai and specifically Sasuke (and then Naruto when he realized Itachi was actually there for him) he just threw himself into a fight. Tsunade had every right to call him dumb.

Telling Naruto his only disease was being dumb XD one of my fav moment’s ever. Boy was not ready.

(Book only) yelling at Gai for ditching his position to catch a ride on the fancy new air balloon/plane. Also, her asking Gai to tell them what Kaiyo looked like always felt hilarious because this man forgets all the faces and i can only imagine that it was a stressful af conversation to have.

(Book only) ‘Kakashi take my job’ ‘no’ Kakashi take my job’ ‘no’ ‘kakashi take my-‘ ‘fine’ ‘ABOUT DAMN TIME’

[taraljc]

It's weird sometimes to look back at around this time in 2011, and writing crackfic with Loki and Darcy bonding over being adopted and him just like showing up in her apartment unannounced and the two of them watching How To Train Your Dragon. because, you know--crack.

There's an epic fuckton of me rambling about STUFF behind the Read More, about Thor, about Loki, and about the process of writing Simple, Not Easy and the delight of seeing where the characters have ended up in canon in the 10+ years since.

When I started writing Simple, Not Easy, all I had to build on was the Thor movie and the Avengers trailer and the comics. okay and the encouragement of folks on livejournal particularly from the Darcy community and the kinkmeme folks actually.

So yeah, my Loki killed people and was scary as fuck. But he also did things like bring the statues of Alice in Wonderland in Central Park to life to fight the Avengers just for the lolz.

But what's been interesting is seeing the Darcy and Loki that I saw in my head and whose speech patterns I had mimiced and wrote insane and silly and heartbreaking and stubbornly genuine appear in these little flashes in WandaVision and Loki.

There are just these little moments where I'm like you know what, I did a half-decent job, building off of not a heck of a lot, but still somehow being true to their voices.

that doesn't happen all the time. in fact it's pretty fucking rare to see the characters 10+ years later and still recognise them.

But that's part of why Thor is my favourite MCU movie. Because all of the characters are really strongly drawn with unique voices, and excellent storytelling where you knew who these people were from the first second they showed up on screen.

Like, specifically look at Jane Foster who is like 'look at him he'll be fine. you go take him to the hospital, I'll stay here and SCIENCE'. I mean we're not even getting into the part where you do not go out into the middle of the desert in New Mexico and drop somebody off in the middle of the night and then come back for them later because coyotes and coyotes and also other things but mostly coyotes.

But the biggest thing I love about the movie is that it's about ego death. It is only when Thor loses everything that he begins to genuinely change. And it's not because of Jane, or even midgard itself. It's because when Loki tells him that their father is dead and Frigga will not end his banishment, Thor accepts responsibility for his actions and it sets in that he has lost everything and that he deserved it for breaking the hardwon peace with Laufey because he has grown up on epic tales of his father's prowess as a warrior and completely missed what Odin was actually trying to teach him about the horrors of war.

The humility that he displays, the empathy, is completely new. Because the guy who was banished to Earth was banished for a very good reason--he was a complete douche canoe. Total spoiled dick and he wasn't ready to be king. He really wasn't, and the way Loki went about trying to prove that was the worst possible way he could have and everything rapidly spiraled out of his control until it became something too big and it began controlling him instead of him controlling it.

But at the same time you have Loki also going through a form of ego death because he finds out that not only is he not who he thought he was he's not what he thought he was. He's not even a person, according to the way that the æsir view jötnar. and you know that internalised self-hatred is on its own pretty dangerous but when you weaponise it and decide to commit genocide then yes it's absolutely right for your father to be like WHAT THE FUCK because he saw everything. I don't think Loki really processed the fact that his dad saw absolutely everything he had done up to an including Thor's death at the hands of the Destroyer and it was only by accepting that he had treated his brother pretty much like shit and bore some responsibility for what was going on and then sacrificing himself for others that made Thor worthy.

And that's what the series is giving Loki the chance to discover: what it's like to act selflessly. He genuinely puts Sylvie's well-being above his own. He acknowledged the importance of the lives of all of the people in the TVA and his responsibility to them because of the results of his actions.

He's owning his shit. He's doing the work.

And as someone who spent a huge chunk of autumn 2011 writing Loki coming to a place where he was able to actually own his shit, and accept responsibility for his actions and even entertain the idea of change, it's really cool seeing that even though I took a vastly different road to get there, I was on the right track.

(and okay yeah like at least 50% of the story is also about Darcy and Clint figuring their shit out and then start banging like a screen door in a hurricane which obviously is not the way the movies went. But again I was working off of the 2 minutes of Clint Barton that's in Thor. To be fair, there's more character development for Clint Barton in those two minutes in Thor than there was in the entirety of the Avengers. and the only thing that actually redeemed bringing in the storyline from Ultimates to bring in his family just to fridge them was the way the Hawkeye series made them into real people instead of your average superhero tragic backstory.)

anyway I know that the current generation of Loki fans almost certainly have never heard of Simple, Not Easy and they sure as hell haven't read it and why would they? It's not cool or sexy or even particularly violent. It's ridiculous and cracky and has Loki shape shifting into a baby sloth and falling asleep while hugging a bottle of Goldschläger like a teddy bear.

But I had a moment, after the drunken singing on the train, where I thought yep. That's my Loki.

This moments are precious and rare and really freaking cool when they do come along.

[deludedfantasy]

Trimax Vol 8 Ch 1-3

I'm losing my mind over this volume, I swear to god. It makes me feel like I'm chewing on glass. Anyway, here are some unhinged thoughts about the first half of volume 8.

Ch 1

The fact that the broken posts of the bridge look like crosses reads as very ominous to me…

Ok, this page. This page has lived rent free in my head for two months since the first time I read this. At first, I didn’t notice that Vash was balancing on the stump of his arm, it just kinda looked like he was doing one of his insane workouts but then. Oh but then. I looked closer and I Realized and the cold dread set in. 

You know what else gets me? Knives stripped him of his clothes. He left Vash in only his pants. But worst of all, he took away his arm. You could argue it was because it has a gun in it, but all he’d really have to do is take the bullets out and it wouldn’t be useful anymore. Taking away his arm is just adding insult to injury and in particular shows his just blatant disregard for Vash’s bodily autonomy. Just because it’s not flesh and bone, doesn’t mean it’s not a part of his body! It’s his arm, goddammit! And Knives said, I’ll take this away from you, this isn’t part of you and I just don’t think you need it. It’s pointlessly cruel and punitive. I think he’s doing it just because he can, to show how powerful he is, and how Vash is his.

Knives really said, “I was going to use Legato’s powers for my evil plans, but actually, it’s better for just torturing you.”

Vash is right! Knives is going on and on about how humans abuse and misuse Plants, but Knives was the one who crashed humanity on a desert planet. These people are trying to survive with the only resources they have. Vash knows it’s horrible and unfair, but what choice do they have? They’ve been forced into a trolley problem of epic proportions and somebody has to die, either a lot of humans or a single Plant. What kind of choice is that?

Oh, Wolfwood. What are you thinking about? His mission is over, he’s led Vash to his doom, and now, he’s just smoking another cigarette. Is that a face of regret? Or despair, that he couldn’t do anything to stop what was coming?

So Knives’s ship is something of an anomaly. It seems like humanity doesn’t have the capability to make anything that flies anymore, so it’s a shock when it appears over the city. No wonder that one kid is asking their mom where their camera is. 

Wolfwood isn’t shooting to kill! How interesting, I say with tears in my eyes. He’s always listened to Vash and now, he’s started to take it in. That he doesn’t have to be a killer, even if that’s what his mentor made him to be and is still trying to make him be.

Another instance of Wolfwood’s magically appearing handgun. 

But man, Chapel is fucking evil. He sends Double Fang to slaughter those soldiers to teach Wolfwood a lesson, to make him hurt, for not doing it himself. Because Double Fang doesn’t give them a quick death like Wolfwood would. His is hard and bloody and revels in the carnage and you just know it makes Wolfwood sick. 

Vash asks Knives, “Do you really believe people cannot change?” He’s not just asking him about humanity, Vash is asking Knives if he doesn’t believe he can choose a different path too. That even though he’s started all this and is intent on destroying humanity, he can’t find another way. Vash still sees something of his sweet brother in Knives and he’s begging him to stop.

OMG TESLA. The mention of her makes Vash so angry, he actually manages to fight against Legato’s control of him! This was what I was talking about in my meta, the hypocrisy of Knives using Tesla for his crusade, and Vash directly calls him out for it!!! He’s using her to fuel his rage and hatred rather than looking at the fear inside himself. 

Oh, I love this conversation so much. Vash is right, they do have a duty to Tesla, but not in the crusade Knives created. “Only the victims of violence can truly describe its essence.” Because they know what can be done to them and have seen the results of it, they’re the only ones who can stop it. They’re the only ones who can change the story because they know the ending and the pain it causes. They’re the ones that can stop the cycle. Instead, Knives is just continuing it. 

Also!! Vash calls out Knives for bottling up his feelings and letting them morph into something big and ugly and toxic, enough to motivate him to do these terrible things, to turn Tesla’s death into a crusade of hate. When he asks, “Is that who you really are?” it hits really hard, because we know what Knives used to be like, that sweet curious child. By never letting any of that fear out, it turned that cute little kid into a hateful, murderous man, and despite all the terrible things Knives has done to him, Vash still sees that little boy. He wants Knives to see it too. But he won’t, because he’s gone too far to stop now.

Ch 2

Ugh, Chapel is really twisting the knife here. Wolfwood already feels like he doesn’t recognize himself, that he can’t go back to the very place he gave everything up to protect. To then hear it from the man that twisted him into this shape only makes it sting more. 

Look, I already hated Chapel from my first read of the manga, but now I hate him even more. He’s so cold and cruel. He’s telling Wolfwood all these things to hurt him, and he does it with such glee. He looks down on Wolfwood’s love and care for the orphanage. It’s straight up fucking evil to tell Wolfwood that the place he gets most of his assassins from is the orphanage, that Wolfwood didn’t manage to protect those children. 

These moments, as the soldiers are trying to figure out what happened across the bridge and we see the carnage Knives left behind, were particularly chilling on my first read. I was kind of in denial about where this was all going and really didn’t think we were going into what’s essentially an Apocalypse scenario. The way it’s revealed is so fucking brutal and it still makes me so tense.

And then it just keeps getting worse and worse. Knives accused humans of only being able to cause death and destruction, endless suffering, but look at what he’s doing. The empty cities, the riots, the kid crying over his dead parents—he isn’t doing anything that humans haven’t done before. Another instance of his hypocrisy. 

NOT VASH IN THE OUBLIETTE. 

And Wolfwood…poor Wolfwood. He’s just sitting there and looking so angry that he can’t do anything. I personally think that he’s also feeling guilty so his part in it and that’s only making the anger at himself and the world worse.

In one chapter, the world is completely decimated…but at the end a ray of light. The girls are back! They’re still alive and they’re working with Luida! I love how every time we leave them, we’re reintroduced to them in a similar way. But this one is so very silent, with two lone, cloaked figures riding across a barren landscape. When they enter the building, rather than the usual jokes and talking, they’re greeted warmly as equals and we get the feeling that someone is still fighting for humanity when Vash can’t.

Ch 3

Really hoping that a chapter called “Counter Attack!!” will give me a little hope after all that despair. 

This chapter, and the reveal that Meryl and Milly have spent seven months traveling around the planet trying to bring aid to people, leaves me with a great hunger to see some of their growth and adventures during this time. It would be such an interesting spin-off series.

Especially because Meryl looks so different. She’s always been serious, but somehow she seems even more serious and determined. There’s a darkness behind her eyes that didn’t used to be there before. How did she deal with all her trauma surrounding Vash and the subsequent breakdown of society, not even knowing if he was alive, if she’d ever see him again and be able to work through what happened between them?

I’m sure many people have pointed out this panel, but man, Meryl’s face here. The circles under her eyes, the grimness. She knows everything, she’s seen so many horrible things, but there’s still a spark of determination. 

Luida and everyone from Home knows exactly what kind of enemy they’re up against. They understand how powerful Knives is and that they stand little chance against him. But they’re going to fight anyway. For Vash and everything he stands for and everything he did for them. 

I love Luida so much. Everyone else in the hangar gets really worried after Meryl tells them what happened in July and what Vash is capable of. But Luida, as usual, sticks up for Vash and reminds them of all the good things he has done for them, how he’s always fought against Knives. And how they owe him, not just to fight, but to help him out and rescue him. He’s not just the destroyer of July, he’s also, above all, always been a protector. And now he deserves someone to save him. 

Oh and Luida’s moment of doubt, her wondering if she’s a coward. Meryl comes forward and admits she’s had the same thoughts. She’s worried about the same things. They both have such a sense of duty and responsibility, but it comes with the burden of never knowing if you’re doing the right thing. 

It’s interesting to think about much, much earlier, when Meryl had her doubts about herself way back during her early days with Vash, when she wondered if she was too cold and calculating. Luida is having a similar moment. There’s something so human about it, their fear that they aren’t doing enough or the right thing. I just love the female characters in this story and their complexity so much. 

Oh my god, this Plant memory. It has lived rent free in my head for months. For all Knives’s talk that humans abuse Plants and don’t care about them, look at this little girl and how joyful she is about it. How the humans thank her for her work. It’s a drop in the bucket compared to Knives’s rage, but it’s wiggling its way in. It’s making him doubt everything he’s ever believed about humanity’s cruelty. 

Vash in that cage/coffin thing fucks me up so badly. You know Knives locked him up like that to “protect” him, so he wouldn’t get in the way of Knives’s work and not kill himself quicker trying to stop him. But it’s so, so cruel to shove him into that small space and isolate him like that. 

Is Knives getting overwhelmed by all of the Plants’ memories? He did absorb so many of them. That’s a lot of minds for any one person to handle, even if he’s a hyper-intelligent Independent. 

YES YES YES. WOLFWOOD TO THE RESCUE. The ambush of the fighter planes was just a distraction for him to get in and get Vash out!!!

Still wonder exactly how he managed to get on the Ark during all this. Was he hiding out on it from earlier? Or did he somehow jump from one of the fighter planes?

[bmblboop]

RWBY X Justice League... TWO!

Gonna do another liveblog while killing some time. Here goes!

-cut for length-

UHD is 480p? This movie has been out for two weeks and it's not 1080? I thought the first one was only that way bc I got it day-of!

Ugh, I wont get mad over it. The YT edition gave me trouble the last time too - let's just see how it goes.

Recap! Took me a minute to realize this is the Weiss vs Bruce music from the first movie - which is definitely the closest we've gotten to classic RWBY music.

"'Grimm' as in, "The Brothers"?" For half a second I thought she was referring to the Gods of Light and Dark but no as in the authors 'Brothers Grimm' because the DC universe is supposed to be Earth and fairytales are just fairytales here. Are they gonna lean more into the allusion aspect of RWBY et. al now that we have a world where Red Riding Hood and the others are just stories?

Jurassic Park moment with the Pterrorsaur. Except this time they can literally smell fear.

Epic Ruby moment vs the Taijitu (first time in Maya), love how creative the fights are.

Grimm on Earth turn to gunk? Hopefully it's just goo and not regeneration-goo (like the Wyvern 'Blood' in v3).

Ooh, when the Kilg%re/Goliath gets punched the cracks are yellow. Color scheme: red, white, black, yellow.

When I saw the flash of purple tailing Batman I thought TYRIAN!? Nope, it's just a Scorpion with a modified tail... suspiciously like Tyrian's. Guess Watts is involved after all.

Saw this preview clip, but ow. Weiss is still hurting from losing Atlas, and I honestly don't blame her. That was her home, and it's straight up gone. Glad to see this carry through from v9, as well as Ruby's post-renewal mindset.

Voice changer to keep the mystery voice a mystery.

Mmm Flash angst. Reminds me of v9 Jaune. Blond boys get no sleep.

Had to pause on Weiss' contacts screen and I love that shes got all her teammates, all her family, and Maria just, lurking. Lol

Clearly Maria has her own scroll but I do have to wonder how good she is at tech things given she has such a close-cropped image. Or maybe she doesn't give a shit XD.

Love love love that conversation with Klein, I love that this is the direction of Weiss' character arc and I love that daddy issues whammy of 'He abandoned Atlas long before it fell.' 'Do you mean Atlas, or your family?'

Time dilation double pun. The 'when you are needed most' line at the end of v9 and Weiss being the one saying 'we have experience with that' considering one of her glyphs is Time Dilation.

Blake breaking down the door feat. Yang's flirty wink.

XD Ruby entering the portal in style

We finally got a 'not in Kansas anymore' referenceeeee.

Oh, split up along Weiss/Blake and Yang/Ruby this time, glad to see it! Time for sisterly conflict.

Heh. Joker and Harley watching the city burn.

Oh now I see why Blake went to Gotham. Cat. Bat. "This is where he's from. I get it now."

The way Ruby just knew that she'd still be able to move like she did on Remnant. My girl. (Was worried for a sec she was gonna try to Silver Eyes it and that would fail)

"You learn not to question Flash's villain roster." That got a laugh out of me and I don't even know about Flash's lore.

Something about Weiss mentioning "Mr Freeze" while dressed as an Ice Princess is funny to me.

The particles on Blake and Jessica's fist bump :D

Aw man, it IS regeneration goop!

I guess 'consciousness is stored' is how we can get Watts in a post-v9 crossover. Technomagic stuff.

Weiss proving she's the queen.

Hope Cyborg isn't corrupted.

Love this Cobra/Dragonfly grimm. Clip it's wings!

'We need more firepower.' Enter Yang with an epic save.

Hold on, are Yang's flame punches the color of the lesbian flag?

Are we gonna a get a 'speedsters need to slow down' moral here? With Flash also rushing into danger and nearly getting killed?

Anyway, planning session time.

The truth revealed.

Honestly, 'no body no death' kinda applies here like we KNOW that Watts died either burning to death via Cinder's wish or when Atlas fell but he was surrounded by computers at the time as well. It could have literally been the last thing he ever did. (Or he did it during v7 since he already wormed his way into the Atlas network via Jacques).

Via Jacques. Man. Watts really is Weiss's personal villain.

The whole 'transferring consciousness' thing also reeks of the Aura Transfer machines used on the Maidens, but I always assumed that was Pietro's invention so he could give life to Penny. Maybe Watts stole or twisted the concept for his own use.

Yang seeing the Ruby in Flash mmmmm. The way he looks at her arm and asks 'what happened?' and Yang explains how she felt ooooooooo. Flash explaining that Kilgore is no longer in his brain but he hears and sees him all the time.

Blonde PTSD buddies WOOOO-

Meanwhile Ruby and Clark orphan bonding. Not entirely sure how Ruby will take the 'I make my parents proud for fighting for the things they died for'

Also given that some of Summer's first "lines" in the show was Red Like Roses Part 2 "baby please don't do what I did/I don't want you to waste your life in vain"

And on that somber note -break time!

[ronearoundblindly]

The Stark Legacy (24)

Tony Stark's daughter (OC) x Bucky Barnes epic slowburn

Daybreak, part of Book III: Power (see previous or series)

Summary: An emergency hits Wakanda, leaving Bucky to race against the current threat. Tony lands in the aftermath, stunned.

Warnings for descriptions of painful Inhuman transformation/canon-level gore and action. Rated Teen/15+ ONLY, please. WC 3.2k A/N: eeee! We've reached one of my fave chapters 🤩 Hope you enjoy 😘

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR—March 2039

“The King of Atlantis and his sentries are still searching the seas for Doom, and our ground intel has garnered no further sightings,” T’Challa finished his portion of the brief in a mumble of disappointment. “I cannot ask Namor to continue to expend resources when weeks have left us no closer to capture or proof of death.”

Shuri nodded toward her brother. “At least the threat of a wide release of D-Lite seems to be handled for now. Romanoff has completed her trace of the tainted heroin from Marshall’s facility after it arrived in Hong Kong and will return to New York soon.”

Bucky remained seated, quiet and watchful. He and the white-haired Ororo were the only two that did not speak. T’Challa’s betrothed sat quietly, eyes turned away towards the windows. Ororo, Storm they called her, always became the most concerned when the weather was beautifully clear. Nature spoke to her, and when nature was quiet, she listened harder. Bucky was mostly distracted by her hair, a silkier, lighter version of T’Challa’s mother’s, and Ramonda had the loveliest hair. Sam Wilson nudged him to participate, but Bucky lifted a palm to indicate Wilson could proceed without him.

Falcon started the hologram, describing several mutated figures captured from across Northern Africa. “Unfortunately, these appear to be victims of the same drug Nat tracked down in China. A portion of the shipment must have been smuggled into a Mediterranean port before we were able to intercept. Less than half of those we’ve found took it voluntarily, but none of those can describe their attackers.”

The whole group sighed in exhaustion. While this was a lazy, mid-morning gathering, mission after mission fighting for a semblance of control across the world left them ragged. T’Challa scanned the information but asked nothing. That part was Bucky and Wilson’s assignment, and the King of Wakanda left it in their hands. Monsters, creatures, mutants, inhumans—whatever you wanted to call them needed to be captured, questioned, and distributed to the proper authority. Criminals to the police, victims to the proper hospital or therapy, and children and young adults to Xavier’s School. 

Bucky was a soldier, neither a babysitter nor a therapist, but witnessing the confused, violent suffering of newly transformed people took its own special toll. When a Dosed woman screamed “Who could do this to someone?” with tears streaming down her face before her insides boiled out through every orifice, Bucky thought of Sam’s apparent “choice” to become something else. That woman died in transformation. When another Dosed man viciously slashed at him with thorny tentacles, growling about his right to be as powerful and deadly as he could manage, Bucky thought of Sam becoming an unrecognizable enemy. However, since that first meal after the team dropped Doom off the coast to supposedly drown, Wilson had conspicuously failed to mention either Samantha or Bucky’s new arm. Big Sam did seem to eye him knowingly whenever Bucky’s thoughts wandered to a new sensation or her condition. Bucky thought to say something aloud a few times, but what he wanted to say changed constantly, multiple times a day, for weeks. So while Falcon remained methodical and cool-headed, Bucky felt as though the unknown outcome of each mission was unravelling him like a single thread pulled from a parachute. At some point, his mind wouldn’t hold up his body anymore, and he’d crash.

”Stark is due back today,” Wilson added after a long pause. Bucky jolted from his reverie.

Shuri nodded again. “We have tracked his progress in the solar system, a few hours at most an—.”

Ororo snapped up from her chair. “Something is wrong.” 

Dora Milaje burst into the room.

“My King, there is…we must go.”

Shuri furiously swiped through her tablet to view the alarm. “The border registers a sea level disturbance.”

T’Challa straightened. “I am not fleeing from an earthquake.” Storm grabbed his arm, eyes clouding as white as her hair briefly.

“It’s not an earthquake, brother,” Shuri stood this time, shuffling across the room, “it is a tsunami.” She said no more before bolting down the hallway.

Without pause, everyone seated rose and rushed out after her. T’Challa ordered transports sent to villages to remove civilians from the ground back to the highest buildings. Shuri sent evacuation instructions to crowded rural populations on higher ground, then divided any remaining areas to select guards and their Kimoyo beads. Falcon got his assigned location and jumped from the nearest balcony. Storm descended to assist the transports heading to the coast outside. The terrain of Wakanda flashed through Bucky’s mind as the orders were given, allowing a sickening thought to awaken: the annex lab sat in a gentle valley closer to the cost.

He spun Shuri around to face him. “What about Samantha?”

“There is no time, James. We must get as many civilians above it as possible.”

“She is a civilian.”

“The cryo tanks should survive the impact. We built them outside of the barrier for a reason, and you know that Barnes. You cannot go—”

Bucky was out the door before Shuri could finish; ‘should’ was not good enough. He took his bike from the platform and raced towards the secluded building where he’d first been stored decades ago when Steve hid him in Wakanda. He had been given the chance to reclaim his mind and his life; he could not let Sam die submerged in a tomb of his own making. He feared her changing, but he feared her death more.

His bike had never felt slower though he topped the speedometer as high as he dared. He could feel the heavy impact of his steps on the soft ground, the concrete floor, the suspended stairs, and finally on the clanking metal scaffold in front of Sam’s frozen, serene face. Bucky tapped the panel to the right of the container. It showed only her unchanging vitals and temperature control; he was not authorized to change it.

“Shuri,” he shrieked through the comms. She didn’t answer right away. “Shuri!”

“I’m sorry, Barnes. I’m not going to expose you both. Get to the highest lev—”

Bucky cut off his comm. He slammed his fists against the clear, solid wall between him and Sam. There must be a failsafe on impact, something, anything to trigger the door. It was only when he stopped beating the glass to pry the seal that he heard the small beeps.

The screen to the right had changed. It showed neon green text against a black screen, like an ancient computer: James Buchanan Barnes? Yes/No

He tapped Yes. Another question: Will you save Samantha Stark? Yes/No

He tapped Yes again. Almost before he hit the response, one more question popped up: Do you promise? Yes/No

What the hell? He tapped Yes, and the modern screen appeared again, flashing the start of the reversal sequence. The vapor and frost seemed to take an eternity to dissipate, and Bucky could see nothing outside of the fogged windows facing the valley. He willed the chamber to warm faster, but a thought sprang up in the back of his mind. If the sequence isn’t complete, or the whole process is rushed, what happens to her? His stomach churned. Time slowed to a crawl.

The fear left him when the glass slid away from a flesh-toned Sam. It had to; there was no time for fear. Bucky gracelessly heaved Sam over his shoulder and fled the building. When the rhythm of his run slowed, approaching the motorcycle, he noticed her moving. The excitement he felt died when he saw her face as she clawed her way out of his arms. Sam screamed, eyes fixed on the bike. What the hell?

“No,” Sam screamed over and over pulling away from him with every ounce of energy she could muster which was shockingly strong.

You idiot, Buck. Her accident. “Sam, I promise I’ll keep you safe. Stop, quit fighting—you have to get on.”

She didn’t relent. For a moment, Bucky thought of knocking her unconscious, but he couldn’t bring himself to swing. Then he saw her skin, orange and raging into a glowing yellow, like a twinkling star up close, but that wasn’t all. Whole areas over her body shone blue and flashed as if the yellow beneath were trying to escape. They still had to move. “Get on the damn bike!”

Dragged forward by his arms, Sam fell to her knees. She’d stopped screaming, now only taking huge rattling breaths, no longer loud enough to hide the rushing sound of water nearby. 

If the wave is that close, Bucky thought, it’s too late, and the water slammed him back into the corner of the building.

The flash of the barrier nearly blinded him on reentry. Unable to reach anyone on comms, Tony jetted towards Wakanda pulling so many g’s, he nearly passed out and crash-landed outside the glistening dome. His body fatigued by Earth’s gravity, he kept the entire Iron Man suit on to prop up his weakened skeleton. The fog was thick, the ground covered in nearly two inches of water that rippled slowly as it slid back downhill. Bit odd for this terrain. He looked around. He had to use infrared sensors to perceive anything over two meters away. His scan showed rubble to his right, two prone bodies, and an warning that one more approached from behind him.

He squelched through the mud towards the bodies. Friendlies?

“You filthy, selfish surface dwellers,” a deep voice echoed from behind him. “My wave should have crushed you.”

Not friendly then, but familiar.

 “Payment is required for your missteps, human.” This time the growl was personal, delivered with acid irritation, but no form or shadow could penetrate the mist. 

Tony leaned down to the first body. Friday sensed a pulse, scanned, and found no other injuries. He rolled the mud-covered figure to face him, wiping hair away and out of the receding water. It was Sam, barely. From a video connection across space, nearly a year ago at Harvard, and a boozy-fog of a wedding reception, he had little reference for her features beneath the caked earth, yet his daughter was laying unconscious in a field with an enemy 15 meters away. He looked at her scan again: no indications of a healed fracture, or any injury at all. Had he been wrong? Worried these weeks for nothing?

“He took her because of you, Stark,” the voice shouted.

Tony spun, blasters ready, struggling to raise his heavy arms. There stood the King of Atlantis, shimmering in the low light of the mist, hardly dressed and dripping wet.

“What did you do?” Tony blurted. His interactions with Namor were more limited than those with Sam. Namor always struck him as an even more arrogant and fool-hardy version of himself, or perhaps just a younger version, except with zero humor. Add in the additional intensity of blood royalty, and King Waterworld embodied everything that irritated Tony.

A long, sharp trident lowered towards Iron Man’s neck. “What have I done? You and that cheeky princess have enabled terror and destruction upon my city. You killed my people.” 

Tony touched a finger to the foreign sea metal to nudge it away from himself and Sam. “I literally just got here, so you’re gonna need to be more specific. Last I saw, you were helping zap a zit off that coast,” he pointed, taking the opportunity to stand and step away. Friday beeped that the second form was stirring.

The king’s nostrils flared. “A mutant dosed with my genetic code—the containment for which Princess was solely responsible—attacked my home. My betrothed was taken,” Namor seethed, gripping his weapon anxiously, “Tigershark, he called himself, and when he razed our palace, he claimed we could ‘thank Young Stark.’”

Tony’s mind went into overdrive, processing years of information told in pieces or briefs all at once: Namor’s DNA, ‘Young Stark,’ the glow he’d seen Sam inject into Bucky’s shoulder. Extremis samples in the Wakandan shipment stolen a year earlier, among samples of multiple mutants. Simon Marshall’s experiments to produced new mutants. Marshall taught at Harvard. Sam went to Harvard. ‘Young Stark.’ No trace of a healed break… Stall.

“Yes,” Tony stumbled before catching his stride, “our lifespans must be very comical down below. You look marvelous for being twice my age, by the way. You know, I diet, but—”

“Enough,” Namor bellowed then advanced. “Dorma,” the king whispered, “deserves justice.”

“And just out of pure curiosity,” Tony added, “what would satisfy your…justice? I’m not up on my Atlantean law—”

“You cheek, as the Princess up there does—” Tony kept his eyes fixated on the direction of the trident, now raised to the hill of the city—“It seems the guilty of the surface can do nothing but belittle the lives of my people. You,” Namor snapped at the newly risen figure behind the rubble. “They call you Captain. Are you the one who stopped my ocean’s advance? I doubt it, weak as you appear after a little splash.” The king smirked.

Tony shifted to see Barnes covered head to toe in thick, dripping muck. “You look like shit,” Tony stated flatly. On any other day, Tony would be thankful for that small victory. That irritatingly naive soldier never aged and still acted oblivious to having fangirls across the world ogling his blue eyes. Tony watched those blue eyes roll across the ground, slowly sweeping back when he saw Samantha’s body a few feet away. Today, Tony was simply thankful Namor had no clue Samantha Stark existed. Bucky met Tony’s gaze, a question silently conveyed and answered in an instant. Bless you for being sharper than you look, Terminator—wait, no arm. What do I call you now?

Bucky raised his hands slowly, stepping away from Sam. “You can deal with me.”

“You did nothing,” Namor advanced savagely. “What good does a lap dog do me?”

Tony jumped in to further distract the Sub-Mariner. “Actually, that one is definitely more of a cat. Very anti-social, gives everybody dirty looks. The original Cap, now he’s your golden retriever typ—”

“How then—” the tines of the trident laced around the iron throat “—do you propose to make amends?” Namor slid his hand up the shaft to tower over Tony, face to mask.

Inside the suit, Tony’s eyes shifted to Sam. She hadn’t moved yet. The helmet split open to reveal his own haggard face to the king. “I can bring her back to you,” he said honestly, “Dorma, was it? But for the record, I did not knowingly help anyone to attack you—”

“Stark,” Bucky mumbled in warning.

“I can offer you…myself, as a hostage and helper in finding this—this Tigershark.”

Namor regarded Tony thoroughly, sizing up his ability and his sincerity all in one raking with his pitch black eyes.

“I know what that feels like,” Tony quietly added, “to lose her.”

This seemed to refocus the King on his answer. “And Wakanda’s Princess will give me the tool to rip apart that murderer,” Namor said finally.

“We’ve got all sorts of tools,” Tony chirped, “take your pick.”

Namor twisted his trident to pinch the suit’s jaw and shoulder. “I require the Cosmic Cube.”

Except that one, Tony thought, holy shit, you are not getting an infinity stone. “That’s…not currently available for loan,” he started, though the trident twisted more, “but Cap here will take your request straight to top brass, yes?”

Tony could only assume Bucky nodded behind him when the scraping metal slid away from his own neck.

“There will be other consequences,” Namor allowed, “once Tigershark is killed and Dorma is safe.”

“Of course,” Tony said, “I’ve heard shark is delicious.” From the look returned to him, Tony knew he’d need to hold his tongue as best he could.

“Humans are disgusting,” Namor grunted, yet tossed his head to lead Tony away. 

Stark sighed in relief for equipping that suit to be air-tight and pressurized when necessary. Tony checked his oxygen supply left from re-entry. The marker read 79%, so maybe he wouldn’t die…right away. The king grabbed the suit’s arm when Tony delayed, a grip as tight as a vice, and led them back towards the sea. Poetic justice if he snaps my arm, Tony mused. “I will not drown you,” Namor added, “as long as you are useful.”

Ah, there it is, the warm tingle of friendship. As Tony shut and sealed his helmet again, squelching through the mud, he hoped Barnes understood to protect his daughter in his absence.

Bucky was attempting to get an arm under Sam and enough traction under his feet to lift her when Wilson yelled from above that he was incoming.

“Sweet Barbecuing Betty,” Falcon sassed as he landed beside Bucky kneeling in the mud. “Look at the crisp on that wall.”

 Bucky looked up to see some of the fog clearing. A black, charred streak defaced the entire side of the four story annex building. Towards the center of the mark were indentation with white ash peeling away in the damp.

Falcon continued, hands on hips, taking a few steadying, wet breaths. “When did Shuri create that bomb, you think? Wish she would have told you about it before you drove right into the line of fire. Your comm wash away?”

“How many did it get?” Bucky asked. 

Falcon shrugged, lifting his goggles to rub his eyes. “No one past that hill at least. We’re checking the coast now.” He finally looked down towards Barnes before panic rose in his voice. “The hell— Is she breathing? Lil’ Sam, can you hear me?”

“She’s—” Bucky didn’t know how to describe it, but Wilson bent to check her regardless. Pulse fine, breathing slow and unhindered, but his hands and her face were too dirty for him to check her pupils. Instead he changed the subject. “What do you mean—what did you see?” Bucky planted a foot against a root in the ground to push him and Samantha upright.

“From up there,” Wilson rattled, eyes on Lil’Sam and using a palm to scrape excess muck off of her, “the water was a strange shape, like it pointed to the city, and then it just…exploded—evaporated really. Looked like a bomb went off. Turned the whole thing to fog and mist and rain… Man, it’s hard to breathe in this. Think she’s having trouble?” Falcon checked her for the third time, looking towards the building for the next safest step. The blackened facade distracted both men for a moment, specifically the bottom of the scorch mark that showed a perfect outline of a human bust. Wilson spun around, assessing the newly visible terrain. They were standing in a wide, shallow hole approximately ten meters across, spotted with sharp blades of sunlight. “You’re gonna tell me what the hell happened here, right?”

Bucky remained fixated on the Annex wall, unflinching. “As soon as I know,” he mumbled before meeting Falcon’s eyes. Bucky shifted Sam’s weight to keep the mud from slipping them apart. “We need to see Banner.”

[Chapter 25: Compound]

[Main Masterlist; Light Masterlist; Ko-Fi]

[rubberduckrobin]

𝗦𝗮𝘃𝗶𝗼𝘂𝗿𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝗮 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗳𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗹𝗱.

Fandom: Obey Me!

Summary: The brothers bickering, as usual. But this time it comes at the cost of a life.

Word count: Around 1k.

Authors note: This was originally meant to be a knights/princesses sort of thing but I wanted an epic battle with a dragon... but I also wanted it to be sad, so here we are.

[R/N stands for Readers name.]

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/55778944

TW/Content warnings: Injury/gore, blood, death.

[GIF from IceGif.com. This does not belong to me.]

It looms over you. 

You'd seen dragons as tameable, beautiful creatures. A staple of fantasy, the only harm they bring being fear - for the purpose of narrative; the romanticisation of them in the books you read and the games you play lessened the thoughts in the back of your mind that if it were a real being, without a ‘hero’ to save you a dragon could kill. And what’s even scarier is that most of the time it has no motive, because at the end of the day it’s an animal born into the world blind - as everyone is - relying purely on instinct.

The dragon before you is not the kind from fiction. You need to now delve deep into the drowned thoughts: the realistic. It’s real and it’s standing in front of you, defensively as if you are the threat. Because, essentially, you are in its instinctual-driven perspective - survival of the fittest.

And as its form, almost quadruple the size of you, towers up between you and the Devildom sky, you realise that stories are rose-tinted from the imagination, and that the reality is blinds you with tears. Never would you have thought them to be true blood lusting and ravenous beasts. 

You were entranced by it, a deer in bright headlights, and because of this were brought into its territory as its next prey; now you need to fight back.  

It was foolish of you to approach it, to be your own ‘hero’, but you had nowhere else to go. 

If it were a perfect fantasy world, you would threaten to slay the dragon, but instead caress its 'smooth' scales and hush it to calm, the world brought to applause - but this is the Devildom, and the closest you are to being saved by a ‘hero’, other than yourself, is a last minute arrival of one, or all, of the brothers. A reliance on a close scrape is all you have.

Your flesh loathes the gaping claw wounds as they tease you, trying to rip themselves off of your skin, before you do it yourself, no longer able to endure the agony. 

It hasn’t yet torn you apart but it’s taking your strength. You’ve now turned to foetal, curled up into a ball, clutching the lines of the bloody split carved into your stomach, the rocks of the ground adding to your agony.

The dragon has so far only managed to scratch you twice, pick you up by its claws and drop you from half its height, but it’s enough to make your body surrender. But no, not your mind; it’s still clinging onto the hope that somebody - it doesn’t even have to be one of the brothers - somebody is coming.  

Excruciating. Hot streamed sweat and blood boils the wounds, streams into your eyes and you are not sure whether you’re blinded by this or by the tears cascading down your face like bullets. 

You can hear muffled voices.

It burns, it burns. The blur turns red. Is it now blood or is it flame around you from the dragon's breath? The only thing the stories and games were right about. This is crazy - dragons are real, just not tameable, beautiful. Only partially beautiful. You were entranced. But now you see the ugly in its sharp skin, the tangled, matted, burning, smoking fur and you can hear its furious empty growls.

It slashes you, again, then curls you around its nails. It drops you, again. Your breath hitches. Over and over. Over and over. It’s not steadying, it embodies the panic you feel. The ash blocks your nose. You have to breathe through gritted teeth. 

It stops.

Not the pain, but the dragon. Why is the dragon now just watching you? 

You turn. 

No, it’s not watching you. 

Four of the brothers are there, almost as expected.

“I was ‘ere first, back off! I can do it myself!” Mammon.

“I’ll save them!” Leviathan.

“I need to be the one to save them. I need to apologise.” Satan.

“Can’t you guys see that just fighting each other is not going to fight the dragon?” Asmodeus.

Magic takes concentration, and it’s not something they’ll have if they continue to bicker; in a perfect world, they would all work together. 

You realise that this might be your own last fighting moment, so you take the dragon's distraction as a chance to run, and where else would you run to, other than into their arms?

You choke on the things you long to ask: if they were there the entire time, why didn’t they act sooner? Aren’t they strong enough? 

Your breath catches up to the pace of your feet - the dragon is not yet defeated and is growing impatient. 

The first to catch you is Mammon.

“R/N!” 

He’s shaking, and as you grasp for the rest of them, you realise they all are. Or maybe it’s just you. 

“Ah, you’re bleedin’, you’re bleedin’! Alright, R/N, we’re ‘ere. I promise ya you’ll be alright.”

They didn’t act soon enough. In the absence of their action, you feel even more of your strength fading. 

You turn to your knees, limp.

“Woah! Woah! R/N! Are you okay?” 

More arrive. The dragon watches keenly.

“Idiots! Why didn’t you do anything? Idiots, idiots!” It’s all Belphegor can say. He's loud and this taunts the already-ringing deafness in your ears.

Beelzebub remains silent. Frozen in fear…but you know it's not the dragon. You know deep down that it's because he’s scared of losing you. Like he did with Lilith. 

And he doesn’t know it’s your fault not his. 

“Everyone. Leave. With R/N. Now.”

“Oh, great. Lucifer gets to save the day, as usual.” Does Satan not care?

“Then let's all do it then, for fucks sake.” Belphie cares, you know this. But he's making things worse - everyone is. 

The only people left in your embrace are Asmodeus and Leviathan, but it's grown less comforting over time as they realise the severity of your wounds and also as the tension increases.

Your bloodied hands stain their shirts as they drift away from your touch to confront the dragon.

You reach out to them, unable to do much more.

“I said leave, did I not?” Lucifer is tired. You know he is.

 Will any of them ever defeat this dragon?

⋆｡ﾟ☁︎｡⋆｡ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡⋆⋆｡ﾟ☁︎｡⋆｡ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡⋆⋆｡ﾟ☁︎｡⋆｡ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡⋆⋆｡ﾟ☁︎｡⋆｡ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡⋆⋆｡ﾟ☁︎｡⋆｡ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡

The dragon is defeated, but at what cost? 

You hear the dragons’ wail and thud as it collapses. You see the flash of light from the magic. You watch all of the brothers turn to you. 

You see Diavolo arrive. You see him point at you, an expression never seen on a king's face before.

Why is he pointing at you? You can’t tell through your half-shut eyelids.

Your blood is warm, the ground is cold. Your head hitting the ground from the side.

Your last feeling is the blood dripping from your forehead. Your last smell, the blood. Your last taste is metallic. Your last sound is lost voices.

Your last sight, your heroes. 

​🇦​​🇧​​🇴​​🇺​​🇹​ ​🇲​​🇾​ ​🇧​​🇱​​🇴​​🇬​

​🇹​​🇺​​🇲​​🇧​​🇱​​🇷​ ​🇲​​🇦​​🇸​​🇹​​🇪​​🇷​​🇱​​🇮​​🇸​​🇹​

[gasha40k]

Many things are happening! Much work has been done! The wheels of change are ever turning. Not in a Tzeentch way, though. Let’s start off with my Astartes stuff before we get super chaotic.

Let’s welcome some new buddies to the Thunderbearers. I’ve got around 20 Intercessors now, so I decided that it’d be wise, both competitively and fluff-ily-y, to grab some Infiltrators. I’ve yet to really convert these dudes (plaster them with purity seals) because, frankly, I like a lot of the sculpts as they are. The Phobos Killteam kit is one of the best Astartes kits I’ve had the pleasure of building. I did, however, go a little ham on the Sergeants.

As the Killteam kit comes with 10 models but only one helix gauntlet, I decided to split them into two squads with different specialties. This first guy is unnamed as of now, but Sergeant Beakface here leads the Infiltrator squad that’s equipped with a comms array, as he specializes in reconnaissance and espionage. His look is remarkably similar to that of my kitbashed Phobos Captain because those Thunderbearers more inclined to stealth and precision tend to get cozy with the Chaplaincy through the Priest of the Divine Kill, or the Chapter’s 10th Captain.

The Sergeant of the helix gauntlet squad and the leader of the Calthradia Crusade’s Infiltrator unit, Sergeant Gaius, specializes in ruthless, brutal ambushes and hyper-aggressive stealth assaults. He’s incredibly tight with the Chaplains, considered by many in the Chapter as part of the Chaplaincy’s unofficial military arm.

Gaius’ gamer skirt was maybe my second or third time working with greenstuff, and while it sure ain’t fancy, I managed to produce the exact sort of side-half skirt effect that I wanted. I’m incredibly pleased with this model and I’m excited to get him painted up and on the board.

Speaking of the board, I don’t really have time to do battle reports anymore, but I wanted to chat about a fun game I played recently in the Calthradia Crusade. 500pts of Thunderbearers and 500pts of Cobalt Lancers faced head-to-head against 1000pts of the dreaded Zysian Dynasty.

This was the first time the Thunderbearers of the Calthradia Crusade had faced the Zysians and their Dread Lord. The Cobalt Lancers, however, had been warring with them for weeks over scraps of territory. The Zysian Dynasty is an expansionist dynasty built upon insanity and death, as their leader long ago forsook his court for the Destroyer Cult. The Astartes were definitely not equipped to fight a melee battle, but they bravely strode into battle nonetheless.

The Cobalt Lancers and their heavy armaments held down the backfield, saturating the air with lascannon fire and bolter rounds. The Thunderbearers, lead by the freshly christened Brother-Chaplain Taranis (no longer a Devastator Sergeant), took the front of the field and pushed into the horde of Necrons.

Squad Cambarn lead the spearhead, the squad leader sharing his glory with Sergeant Sachiel of the Cobalt Lancers. The decision to split squad command was forced upon Cambarn by the commanding Lieutenants Sadrian and Vigilus, in an attempt to encourage Cambarn to work better with his team. And work better he did.

Spurred on by the brotherly rivalry, Cambarn and Sachiel cleaved through the Necrons, felling leagues of Skorpekh and a Canoptek Doomstalker before the day was won.

But as they cleared the field, the Zysian Lord made his presence known. Did the warriors survive? Did an epic battle conclude this battlefield rivalry? No, I had to go home so the game ended. Whoops.

I’ve used up the photo limit for Tumblr, so I’ll continue on with progress in the next post. There’s a bit of painting and a lot of Chaos.