#corona fighter

[thewardenshand]

best part of the locked tomb is if it was ANY other story naberius would be the number one guy. he’s a prince and somehow also a bodyguard and he’s a gifted fighter and devoted to the princesses and he has swoopy hair and dreamy eyes and no one gives a shit, because they’re all married/gay/focused on the actual plot. naberius is the lost love interest from a shitty ya fantasy novel that culminates in a love triangle between him, corona, and silas. this man is harry styles in a room full of lesbians

[katakaluptastrophy]

I want to continue pushing my 'Magnus Quinn wasn't actually a terrible swordfighter' agenda.

Obviously, he wasn't on the same level as professional duelists Babs or Pro, or soldiers Marta or Jean. He was a guy who did some kind of fencing in high school and then picked it up again in his 30s, presumably with some degree of seriousness.

When Gideon joins the other cavaliers in the training room, Magnus and Jean are sparring. He jokes about how badly Jean is beating him, but he must have some degree of competence for aspiring soldier Jean to find him worth training with. Babs then mocks him for getting beaten by a teenager and Magnus jokes, describes himself as "absolutely no good", and praises Jean's abilities...before giving Babs such a death glare he gets obviously embarrassed.

It's worth bearing in mind that there's some degree of tension between the Third and the Fifth. Babs will have know Magnus since he was small and has almost certainly seen him fight before. But the Fifth, their relationship, and the relative freedom that Magnus has to not be a perfect fighter (because his necromancer values him as a human being) is clearly something that rankles the Third. In TUG, when Ianthe talks about Babs, she explicitly references Abigail and Magnus. And what's interesting is that she makes a comparison not just between Abigail's husband-with-a-sword and her perfect tool to be moulded and used, but also to Corona's aspirations to swordcraft:

IANTHE (Playing a card) She’s not here, so let me be fully honest, Sextus: my sister is not a swordswoman. She loves to wear big boots and wave a sword around, and she looks wonderful doing it, but her actual competence … well, put it this way: she’d lose to Magnus Quinn.

PALAMEDES Magnus Quinn was a cavalier primary.

IANTHE No, I mean Magnus Quinn now.

There's...a lot...to unpack here: the comparison of Corona to the husband-cavalier is intriguing in and of itself on a psychosexual level, as is the contradiction between Ianthe and Corona's own versions of Corona's competence. But Palamedes' response is also interesting, suggesting that Magnus was up to an acceptable standard for a cavalier, which Ianthe's joking response seems to back up.

So Babs' rudeness towards Magnus and Jean may have a lot to do with the internal dynamics of his own necromancer-cavalier relationship and not necessarily be an accurate reflection of Magnus' abilities.

Likewise, Judith's comment in the Cohort Intelligence Files that the Fifth is 'undoubtedly chagrined" to have "schoolboy fighter" Magnus representing them had to be read against the fact that we know from the Sermon on Necromancers and Cavaliers by Second House stooge M. Bias that the Cohort has a very low opinion of unranked "social cavaliers". And Judith Deuteros may have her own reasons for being disdainful of a cavalier who is so...cavalier...about his intimate relationship with his adept.

Magnus' own self-deprecating comment on his ability is:

"I didn’t get to be cavalier primary due to being the best with a rapier. I’m cavalier primary only because my adept is also my wife. I suppose you could say that I—ha, ha—cavalier primarried!”

But again, there's a difference between becoming cavalier primary because you're the best sword fighter and getting up to a vaguely competent level once you've become cavalier primary (guys in their 30s with high powered jobs tend to be scarily into their hobbies...) He is definitely the worst cavalier there (or would be, if Pro were actually alive), but on a general standard he probably isn't as terrible as people like to joke.

Another important bit of context here is that all of his comments about his own ability occur in the context of Corona trying to get him to fight Gideon. The shy, silent 18 year old from the cult planet whose practice of cavaliership is generally acknowledged to mostly consist of carrying buckets of bones.

She gets paired with Magnus because they assume she's not going to be much of a fighter and Magnus - neither a professional duelist nor a soldier - would therefore be the fairest opponent. Magnus is clearly uncomfortable. And Gideon is certainly Intimidating. But when you consider that most of his previous interactions with her have been trying to coax her out of her shell and clearly feeling rather sorry for her, his comments take on a bit of a different tone.

Does Magnus worry Corona has dragged along this poor kid out of interest or curiosity, and that she's going to be humiliated and never want to interact with them again? As Corona says “Come—Gideon the Ninth, right?—why don’t you try Sir Magnus instead? Don’t believe him when he says he’s rubbish. The Fifth House is meant to turn out very fine cavaliers," Magnus is politely dissembling, telling exactly the sort of jokes that would appeal to a teenager.

As everyone else mocks or is intrigued by Gideon's knuckle-knives, Magnus is trying to look her in the eye through her sunglasses, bewildered that she doesn't know to take off her robes or glasses to fight and then...suddenly realising that she is dead serious and perhaps he has dramatically underestimated her.

After his defeat, we hear him saying to Jean "I'm not quite that out of form, am I?". Gideon's abilities were totally unexpected: she severely tests a top duelist like Babs, and Magnus is surprised to be beaten in three moves. That suggests he's been holding his own rather more comprehensively in previous sparring.

And while he certainly wasn't up to Gideon's standard, he may have managed to draw his sword before Cytherea took him out...

[thisisnotthenerd]

statting out the rat grinders

this analysis is based on what we've seen of the rat grinders and their abilities in ragenarok. a few assumptions: if we follow my original xp analysis of the rat grinders that puts them at a comfortable level 19. however, we know that they've been doing far more than that, and that they may be unevenly leveled.

we know from the adventuring party that they have 20th level class/subclass features, without the benefits of leveling through it: no ASIs or feats, no additional hit dice, no hit points reflecting 20th level. the rat grinders are glass cannons to the extreme. i would guess that their stats and hit points are roughly equal to the bad kids at level 14, which leaves them vulnerable to being taken out within a round or two: if they fail a couple of saves they're stuck. what they do get is high level spell slots and the improved proficiency bonus for their best skills.

i'm presuming that the rage stars have this effect; granting access to power that your body can't support, using rage and deep emotion to sustain this state. they're functionally equivalent to the bad kids, given the bad kids' other resources and tactical cooperation. the bad kids do big damage every time because their resources are more measured--they don't have a 9th level spell to drop on the first turn.

kipperlilly copperkettle

class: mastermind rogue

level: 20

estimated hp: unknown (21 damage taken)

abilities: 10d6 of sneak attack, expertise to stealth, bonus action help, insightful manipulator (read for abilities), misdirection (move attacks to others in your space), reliable talent, soul of deceit (mind can't be read), elusive (no advantage against you unless incapacitated), stroke of luck (turn a miss into a hit/check to a 20)

commentary:

i can believe she's a level 20 rogue based on her damage output. i don't think her weapon is enhanced, so it's likely not adding much to her output. riz regularly does more damage because he has magical enhancement to his weapons.

she seems more like an assassin rogue than a mastermind--she does a lot of sneaking around the battlefield to get the drop on people. she could have thrown bonus action help but stayed out of range despite having ranged options. she also doesn't have magical means of her own to hide, presumably because she wasn't using it during this fight. not much on her hp at the moment, but i'd guess she's squishy based on her strategy.

buddy dawn

class: light cleric

level: 20

estimated hp: unknown (75 damage taken)

abilities: full suite of spell slots, warding flare (impose disadvantage on an attack roll), channel divinity, potent spellcasting (wisdom modifier added to cleric cantrip damage), divine intervention, corona of light (enemy disadvantage against fire/radiant damage)

commentary:

buddy has spent two turns of this battle holding concentration on a banishment and trying to dispel a slow on ruben. not really doing too much to help his party. he could have healed oisín but didn't. it speaks to their priorities as a group that he wasn't healing. he was there to banish the poll box and participate in the ritual, not really as a functional combatant.

honestly he's the purest example of what the rage stars do; they can give you power, but that means nothing if you don't know how to effectively use it. buddy hasn't protected himself or his allies at all

ivy embra

class: gloomstalker ranger | arcane archer fighter

level: 11 | 9

estimated hp: ~78 (78 damage taken)

abilities: action surge, hunter's mark, dread ambusher (extra attack on first turn), extra attack (1), iron mind (wisdom save proficiency), 4 arcane shot options (2 uses), indomitable, land stride (no difficult terrain), indomitable, stalker's flurry (on a miss you can make another weapon attack)

commentary:

i split her at 11 | 9 because we know she doesn't have 2 extra attacks, and she attempts stalker's flurry but fails. the arcane shot she used (halving an opponents speed with a con save) isn't technically a standard arcane shot option.

she really doesn't have the hit points to suggest she's 20th level. even assuming no bonus to con, average hp from from 20d10 (10 from ranger, 10 from fighter) would be 110. it's closest to 14d10 with no con modifier. also this would put her on even ground with the bad kids. this is what i used to estimate the rat grinders being similar to the bad kids.

oisín hakinvar

class: conjuration wizard

level: 20

estimated hp: ~90 (121 damage taken)

abilities: full suite of spell slots, arcane recovery, minor conjuration (summon an object), benign transposition (30 feet teleport swapping with a small/medium creatures), focused conjuration (concentration can't break on conjurations), durable summons (all summons get 30 temp hp), spell mastery and signature spells

commentary:

even though he died before his turn, i can believe oisín is a level 20 conjuration wizard, based on what we saw at the party. i'd guess what he did is some sort of ritual on top of a control weather.

hp-wise he falls in the range of for 14d6+40 assuming he has +2 to con. it works on the high end. i'd guess his actual total is lower than the damage he took, since brennan said he was on death's door after taking 86 damage, so i'd say no higher than 90, even though he took a total of 121.

ruben hopclap

class: whispers bard

level: 20

estimated hp: ~75 (75 damage taken)

abilities: full suite of spell slots, bardic inspiration, psychic blades (psychic damage from weapon attacks), words of terror (1 minute to seed paranoia), mantle of whispers (steal shadows of the dead), magical secrets, shadow lore (charm a creature for 8 hours)

commentary:

the only spellcaster of the rat grinders to actually use their high level spells in this fight, with the psychic scream that didn't stun the bad kids. he actually did get both spells off despite the slow, but couldn't counterspell or grant inspiration.

hp-wise he's in the normal range for a 14th level bard at 75. he did roll nat 1s on both the slow and the fireball saving throws, and failed synaptic static by 1. man is bad at saving throws.

mary ann skuttle

class: berserker barbarian

level: 20

estimated hp: unknown (52 damage taken)

abilities: rage, frenzy, mindless rage, intimidating presence (action to frighten a creature), brutal critical, resistance to psychic damage, relentless rage (drop to 1 while raging instead of 0), persistent rage (rage only ends if unconscious), primal champion (STR & CON go up by 4, for a max of 24)

commentary:

we haven't seen very much of mary ann--she got slowed and then couldn't effectively get anywhere for 2 rounds of combat. i'm excited to see what she has in store. i'm guessing she has more hp than the rest of the party by virtue of being the barbarian, but as a berserker she only halves bludgeoning/slashing/piercing, and the bad kids have a lot of other damage types that they work with.

i'll be back with more next week: covering the gaps in this analysis and maybe hitting jace and porter.

[liesmyth]

locked tomb characters ranked by how cringe they are

because this post by @wifegideonnav reminded me that they’re all losers, but some are even more losers than the others

Hot Sauce: 1/10. This girl is cool in all possible ways and definitely future lead researcher material. No cringe, zero notes.

Pyrrha: 2/10. By far the least cringe of The Olds. Yes her nicknames for Nona have dad joke energy but she’s very earnest about it and it’s cute.

Juno Zeta: 2/10. Total MILF. Very smart and should know better than to get flirty with We Suffer, but I get it.

Marta Dyas: 3/10. A complete badass with a very sensible outlook on avoiding unnecessary forms. Call me Judith because I would also make a pass at her at the first possible chance.

Commander Wake: 3/10. She made Pyrrha fall in love with her, seduced ever-loyal G1deon into hatefucking and galvanized a dying resistance movement. She was genuinely nice to Gideon those 3 seconds they interacted in passing! Then she had to go and hide under the bed of a mentally ill teenager.

Dulcinea: 4/10. Her horniness for revenge is epic. Let down Pal as nicely as she could and managed to outwit Cytherea when it mattered. Not cringe at all.

Camilla: 4/10. Yes, she could kill you in seconds but she did once sell cigarettes, her most liquid asset, for about a third of their market value.

Alecto: 4/10. Scary eldritch woman-shaped creature with a sword, comes highly recommended by Pyrrha Dve. Loses points for confusing Middle English and thinking John was the best possible Sailor Earth when he was clearly the worst.

G1deon: 5/10. Utterly willing to burn for what he believes in. Yes, he probably needs some perspective but he made sure the baby had enough air before kicking Wake out of the airlock and Matthias Nonius thinks he’s an okay dude.

Pash: 5/10. She has that freedom fighter swag and the cool hair but she is a terrible bodyguard coasting on nepotism, sorry to say.

Palamedes: 6/10. He didn’t clock the serial killer pretending to be his ex because he was too busy going to painfully extreme lengths to avoid interacting with her.

Naberius: 6/10. My controversial opinion is that Babs is the least cringe of the Third House throuple. Yes he looks and acts like a peacock but he puts up with Corona snacking on him for no reason and is still nice to her, and gives Ianthe solid romantic advice.  

Nona: 6/10. Cringe in the unselfconscious way of a young teenager, and put this ability to use making Pal fess up to his nurse kink. She will never be cool but it’s part of her appeal.

Mercymorn: 7/10. Speaks in onomatopoeias. She knows she is insufferable so she’s gonna do her best to make sure to be the most insufferable person in every room. Once called John Gaius “the best man I who ever lived” to his smug face and not even blowing him up later makes up for that.

Ianthe: 7/10. Looks like a wet rat. Hopelessly dramatic but she pulls it off. Declares her love for Harrow at every turn in the most transparent possible way then pretends she’s just being snarky. Some cool points for actually getting shit done

Coronabeth: 7/10. Terrible taste in love interests. Her freedom fighter era was hot but she thinks pompadour hair is a good look? Also, the way she spent her whole life lying about necromancy speaks of extreme conflict avoidance. Cringe move.

Judith: 7/10. She deserved to suffer and has suffered more than she deserves. It’s cringe how she clings to her imperialist brainwashing but she gets a point for rightfully understanding she should be wary of Corona, something Ianthe still can’t even grasp.

Ortus: 7/10. Yes he quotes his own epic poetry WIP at people but he also had to grow up on the Ninth with nothing better to do. Genuinely a very nice guy.

Cytherea: 8/10. Her unhinged vibes are very hot but she killed a couple of nerds and two teenagers instead of anyone who was actually dangerous. Cringe of her!

Silas: 8/10. Smarmy cloud-looking motherfucker. He is a child Pope and I guess he can’t help the inherent cringe of the Eight. But that’s still no excuse for bringing a portrait of John all the way to Canaan House just to hang it in your bedroom, dude.

Gideon: 8/10. Babygirl is a horny virgin with the vocabulary of a nerd. Harrow is bones over tit in love with her and she fails to notice after living in Harrow’s brain for eight months. Gets points for managing to maintain impressive biceps on a diet with no protein.

Augustine: 9/10. Extremely cringe because of how hard he tries to pretend he’s not cringe. Cigarettes on a space station and effectively performing swag don’t make up for how much he clearly wants to suck John’s dick. Which he did at least twice.

Harrow: 10/10. Spent most of her life being mean to Gideon because she was too hot to deal with and lobotomized a coffee shop AU into existence. Thinks Ianthe Tridentarius is beautiful. Once built a bone cocoon to sleep in after not drinking water for two days. Should’ve told God months ago that she just didn’t want to eat his fucking biscuits and stop offering.

John: 10/10. Unfortunately, this scale only goes up to 10 but we all know it’s not enough. Deeply cringe in a myriad of ways, chiefly among them the way he inflicts his barely veiled incest kink on all his friends. That one dad joke was gold, though.

This was getting too long but for the record: Aiglamene is cool and so is Abigail Pent. Magnus is not cool but he’s a fun time. The Terrible Teens are exempt from judgement on account of being 14.

[dawneternal]

The Benevolent | Eris x Healer OC | one

☁︎ summary: The Lady of Autumn hires a healer behind Beron's back. Sworn to secrecy, the healer helps Eris when he is punished by his father and forbidden to see a healer from their court. Eris did not expect to find himself growing attached. He comes to realize that he may know plenty about sacrifice, but he has a lot to learn about choosing to live for the ones you love.

☁︎ notes: let me know how you feel about the order of this chapter. I felt like it didn't read the same to have that last scene at the beginning, but if it's confusing I will change it:)

☁︎ warnings: descriptions of wounds and blood, talk of physical abuse, implied domestic violence

☁︎ word count: 2.8k

☁︎ AO3 Link // Masterlist

“Hurry,” Lady Edana hissed, a sound like pinching a candle flame. It echoed in the quiet, the only sound in the dark hallway.

The silence was so immense it seemed to roar. Every hall and passage was empty and utterly dark. Aya would have thought every court had secrets veiled by this hour between night and morning. But there was no sign of life in the Forest House.

And yet, Lady Edana led the way with a knife in her hand, poised to attack. It was not even a hunting knife or one of the jeweled daggers gifted to young boys of the court. Just a knife, likely stolen from the kitchens or even the dinner table. Aya had to wonder if it was the only weapon Lady Edana had access to.

To her credit, she held it like a fighter, blade pointed down and out so she could still strike if pinned. In her other hand she held her shoes, her stocking feet making no sound as she shuffled across the stone floor. Urgency radiated from her. If it were visible, it would have given her a corona. An aura of flames.

They came to another corner and the Lady tugged Aya against the wall before peering around the corner. She deemed it safe and pulled the healer after her. One last eerie hallway and then they stopped at a large wooden door. Lady Edana fished a chain of keys from its place tucked into her bodice and unlocked the door. It opened without a sound, like the hinges had been oiled or silenced with magic.

The lady snapped and the fae lights came to life in their sconces, revealing the heir of Autumn laying face down on a large bed, bleeding profusely into silk green sheets.

Aya had been warned of his condition but it still sent a jolt through her. He was so still, his red hair stark against pale skin and moss colored bedding. His mother tossed her knife onto the side table and knelt by the bed.

“Eris,” She whispered, her face nearly as pale as his, “Are you awake?”

“Mother,” He croaked. Something in Aya’s chest twisted at the utter brokenness of his voice. It hurt more than looking at the torn up flesh of his back.

“I brought a healer,” She said, beckoning to Aya.

“Mother,” He said again, reprimanding. Pleading.

“Worry not,” Aya whispered, unable to resist the urge to brush back a strand of copper hair. She understood the urgency now, as her gaze flickered to the blood pooling around his body.

“I will take care of everything.” She stepped back to let the healer take her place, disappearing into the washroom to fetch water. Eris’s eyes, surprisingly alert, locked onto Aya’s face. They roamed over her features, assessing.

His eyes softened at her touch, chin trembling like he was a thread away from shattering. So she took her hand away from his forehead, hovering it over his injuries instead. He flinched and she closed her eyes so he would not see the anger in them. The anger at whoever had done this. He needed tenderness and she would give it.

Aya reached into the spring of power within her and willed it to the surface. Willed it to pour from her fingertips into his being and soothe the pain. She urged the bleeding to slow to a stop, for his body to numb enough that she could clean his wounds before the true healing began. She felt his energy begin to pull away, lulled by sleep.

When she opened her eyes she saw that his own had closed, his breathing deep and even.

“You are as talented as the High Lord said,” Lady Edana whispered from beside her. She held a pitcher of water and an arm full of towels.

Aya stared at the mess, wondering where to begin. Even with all her doubts and wariness, she had not pictured an injury this severe when she accepted this position. She had known to expect the sneaking and the secrecy, but not to be led to Eris’s deathbed.

It did not help her uneasiness in the slightest when the lady said, as she mopped up her son’s blood, “Whatever we can’t get clean by morning, just throw into the fireplace. We’ll have to burn it all.”

It was a long moment before Aya said anything. Perhaps it was a risk to ask questions, but Eris’s blood coating her hands felt like justification enough.

“Why?” She murmured, keeping her eyes on the work before her. Lady Edana took her own time answering, lips pursed as she dabbed at the prince’s back.

“The High Lord forbade Eris from seeing a healer. It is part of his punishment.”

“So that is why the job was a secret,” Aya said quietly. They still avoided each other’s gaze.

“Yes.”

“What is the prince being punished for?” Another risky question, but Lady Edana seemed to think her questions were deserved, too. Or maybe she just wanted Aya to understand. From this perspective, dishonesty seemed to be built into the foundation of the Autumn Court.

“He visited the Winter Court without telling his father first. His father wanted to know why. And decided that Eris must be granted permission to leave the court borders.”

Aya clenched her jaw, looking back at the deep wounds on Eris’s back. No doubt from a whip or a belt. They would leave deep scars, and would have easily become infected without a healer. Though that seemed to be what Beron wanted. She decided not to ask what Eris was doing in the Winter Court.

“Beron will be called away first thing in the morning,” The Lady continued, “Not that he would have checked on Eris, anyways. But you will be long gone before he wakes, just in case.”

Aya wondered for a moment how Beron would know that Eris had obeyed his order not to see a healer. And she realized with a sick feeling in her stomach that he had likely left the enforcement of that order to Edana. The entire structure relied on their fear. They would do what he said because they had to, to protect themselves and each other. So what would happen to Lady Edana if Beron knew what she had done? What would happen to Aya?

She looked down at the ring on her forefinger, the blood on it glimmering like a ruby. She wondered how much Thesan had known any of this. It didn’t matter now, anyways, since she was bound to Edana by that golden ring. And looking at Eris, his brows furrowed and skin shining with sweat, she knew it was all for him.

How often was he destroyed this way? Torn apart in mind and body, forbidden from being put back together? Often enough for Aya to be paid a monthly salary. A very handsome one. But perhaps that part truly had been to make sure she wouldn’t change her mind.

As if she had a choice, now.

⋆｡˚ ☁︎ ˚｡⋆｡˚☽˚｡⋆

Upon returning to the Dawn Court, Aya headed straight for the throne room. She did not bother to change first, her clothes still covered in ash and blood. Her whole body was stiff from sleeping on the floor and heavy from how little rest she had managed to get.

The mammoth wooden doors opened before her, revealing Thesan and a few of his councilors lounging near the throne. Their easy laughter rose into the air, dancing with the cool breeze. The open archways of the throne room showed the pastel skies and fluffy clouds around them.

It was such a stark contrast to the last hours of her life, dimly lit and painted in the dark tones of the Autumn Court. It blew a puff of air into the fire burning in her chest.

Thesan’s brows rose as his gaze landed on her, jaw clenched and eyes blazing as she strode through the room.

“How much did you know about this job?” She demanded. The irreverence shook the High Lord more than her appearance. This was the way she spoke to her cousin, and not Thesan the High Lord. And never in front of others.

He asked the councilors for a moment, keeping his eyes on Aya as they scurried away. One dared to flash her a disdainful look and click his tongue. Aya ignored it.

“What was your question?” Thesan asked softly when they were alone.

“You told me this job would require discretion,” She said, her tone cooling a touch, “Did you know why?”

“Lady Edana requested a healer for personal matters,” He took a sip from his goblet, “I did not think it would be polite to inquire about the details.”

Aya shifted on her feet, her rage slowing to a halt. How delicate was this secret? Thesan could always be counted on for his discretion. But surely there were political implications that she didn’t know or understand. There always was, and figuring them out had never been one of her talents.

“Did you not ask the details before you accepted the job?” He pressed. His curiosity about the state of her clothes was rising into anxiety.

“I assumed the details. I thought maybe she was having age-related troubles. Or perhaps an affair.”

“And you were wrong,” Thesan prompted, “You are very troubled by whatever this secret is.”

“Yes,” Aya admitted, her shoulders drooping.

Thesan’s gaze flickered to the ring on her finger. If he was surprised to see it he did not let it show.

“You bound yourself to her?” His voice still smooth, collected.

“She said a physical contract would leave evidence.”

Thesan groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose. He did not believe Edana to have particularly evil intentions, but she had played Aya like a piece in a game.

“Are you able to tell me this secret?” He sighed.

Aya considered the contract. It seemed that Thesan should be exempt from the secrecy. She would find out if she tried to say it out loud, anyways.

“Beron tortures his son for information,” Aya said, dropping her gaze to the marble floor. The heaviness of her body returned and she resisted the urge to let her wings rest on the ground.

“Lucien?” Thesan tilted his head to the side. He did not seem all that surprised.

“Eris,” She whispered, lifting her eyes to his. She knew he would see how haunted they were. Filled with imagery of her long night.

Thesan pursed his lips, his own eyes sparkling with anger. Many things clicked into place with this new information.

“And that is the secret?” He asked, “Beron mustn't know you heal Eris?”

“Yes,” She felt much smaller now, all of her fury laid out before Thesan, “He forbids him from seeing a healer. But he would have died if I wasn’t there.”

They did not speak of what this meant for Aya. The danger she would be in every time she stepped foot in the Autumn Court. It passed between them without words, the worry forming like storm clouds.

“I think I should speak to her,” Thesan rubbed his chin in thought.

“Please don-” Aya began, rushing forward to plead with him. He held up a hand to stop her.

“Worry not, little bird,” He soothed, “I will make sure you keep your job. I just want you to be safe. Now rest, I can see the weariness in your eyes.”

Her mind was far from settled, whirling with countless thoughts and worries. But Eris was well and her own safety was in Thesan’s hands now. That was enough. So she obeyed, gathering the energy to trudge back to her room and rest.

⋆｡˚ ☁︎ ˚｡⋆｡˚☽˚｡⋆

“Thesan tells me you are looking for work experience outside of the Dawn Court,” Lady Edana took a sip of her tea, amber eyes locked on the girl in front of her.

The Lady of Autumn had requested to meet with Thesan’s best healer in training. In private, in a quiet place. Thesan did not see a good reason to deny her. And he knew that she worked hard to separate herself from her husband in any manner she could. He’d heard the whispered rumors and seen the bruises hiding just beneath the fine lace of her gowns. If he could help to enable her independence, he would.

“Yes, my Lady,” Aya nodded, resisting the urge to ring her hands, “It is the last requirement I need to complete my training.”

She was proud that Thesan had chosen her as the best of her class, but now she was nervous. Edana had come alone, save for one guard who loomed off to the side of the balcony. His eyes were fixed on the glass doors behind them, but Aya had no doubt he had been listening to the entire conversation. Which, up until then, had been all pleasantries and small talk. But now the Lady’s eyes were narrowed, her focus sharp. It sent a shiver through Aya’s feathers.

“There is a certain situation in my home that requires a healer with greater skill than my court can offer,” The Lady began, “And the position requires discretion. I cannot ensure that a healer from my court will not betray me.”

She paused, watching Aya and waiting for a reaction. Aya knew her brows had drawn together, but she willed all other emotion away.

“There are many distinguished healers in a court, my Lady,” Aya said slowly, “Surely you would want someone who has finished their training?”

“No one with a title,” Lady Edana pursed her lips.

Aya only nodded, feeling ever more confused. The lady’s secret was that salacious? Perhaps it would be wildly foolish to get wrapped up in this situation. But offers for work outside of the court did not come along very often for trainees. And Aya would be lying if she said she was not itching to experience something outside of the soft colors of Dawn.

“I would pay you a monthly salary,” The Lady tilted her head to the side, looking as if she knew exactly where the girl’s thoughts had gone, “You will receive the same amount no matter how many calls you receive in a month. Sometimes, I may call on you often. Other times I may not need your help for a long while.”

“You need not pay me if you don’t use my services,” Aya frowned. Many healers in training took positions without pay.

“I was hoping the salary may make the strange requirements worth their while.”

She named the amount and watched Aya’s eyes widen.

“So you need a healer on call to help with private matters. And I must keep the job a secret?” Aya clarified.

That did not sound so suspicious when summed up concisely. Or perhaps the money had dulled the warning signs. She had never let Thesan spoil her just because they were related. She insisted on living in the healer’s dorms and earning her own living like the rest of her class.

“That is correct,” Edana nodded.

“And I would be under contract?” Aya asked. Another common facet of training positions.

“Three years. And it would be through an Autumn Court bargain, and not written,” She said, still watching with those bird-like eyes. She would fit well into Dawn with all of those avine features.

“Very well,” Aya said, “But I would like a written copy of what the bargain entails.”

Edana’s lips twitched up into a smile that Aya couldn’t quite decipher.

“I will write it up and send it your way,” The Lady stood from her chair, “It should be in your hands by this time tomorrow.”

Lady Edana held out her hand. Aya told herself later that she should have been clever enough to wait before shaking hands. She should read that bargain first and study the details. But she did not think of that.

When the magic snapped she let out a yelp and snatched her hand back. Her forefinger was adorned with a simple golden band. She tried to twist it but it did not move, as if it were now a part of her.

“What is this?” She asked, incredulous, turning her hand as she examined the ring.

“A symbol of our contract,” Edana said, straight-faced as ever, “It is a tradition similar to the tattoos in the Night Court.”

Aya stared at it, the pit in her stomach growing larger. How she would be scolded for her oversight. She was certain a version of herself from the future was watching this conversation and screaming at her for being so foolish.

As all of this raged in her mind, she missed the flash of guilt in Edana’s eyes, quickly overtaken by something else. Something too desperate to be sorry.

[spookyscaryfox]

i thought about canaan house crowd ascending with cytherea as catalist and made myself sad.

need to establish my vocabulary first though:

to pull a cristabel — kill yourself as a sacrifice with no apparent danger outside of your necro stagnating in her studies and aging.

to pull a gideon — kill yourself because there's an immediate danger to life and your necro's survival is more important than yours.

so. judith does not ascend unless really backed into it. marta would 1) cave in and pull a gideon 2) prefer fighter's death. judith anyway bears guilt for millenias.

ianthe is ianthe. though corona would absolutely pull a cristabel and/or gideon if only she knew.

poor isaac is against this shit much like abigail but both jeannemary and magnus can (and in case of jm will) pull a gideon on them. grief.

with palamedes and cam i see many paths. 1) they make paul from the beginning even though they didn't have enough time to discuss and research. paul is wobbly and cyth is livid at them for doing something she couldn't so she decapitates them. 2) pal pulls a reverse gideon and explodes as per canon, then they make paul. 3) camilla pulls a gideon on pal. i am not interested in thinking about paul paths because anything i come up with pales in comparison with tamsyn's imagination. so in case of traditional lyctorhood pal is grieving and has cool knives. and maybe develops some muscle.

dulcie will pull a reverse gideon just so protesilaus doesn't do it on her. she's so sick of this shit already, she's not spending myriad like cyth. pro wouldn't pull a cristabel and would prefer a fighter's death to pulling a gideon anyway.

silas would like his nephew NOT TO DIE. colum would not pull a cristabel, he has seen enough of the river for a lifetime. colum could 1) choose to pull a gideon because as much as he doesn't want to die he absolutely should like a good cav, shouldn't he? 2) choose to not pull a gideon because silas is against it/stopped him midway screeching tome proverbs at him entire time.

gideon is gideon. harrow does lobotomy.

[sabrinahawthorne]

Meet The Vessel and The Beast

[image ID: a black & white illustration of two characters. The first is the Vessel, a sad teenager, cast in shadow. They stand hunched, wearing loose, covering clothing. Their hair, a long undercut, covers one eye, and they are frowning sadly.

The second character is a large creature who emerges from the Vessel's back, surrounding them from above and to the sides. It has black skin that drips off its bones like tar. It has six arms, each wearing ornate gauntlets, and six angelic wings. It wears a white cloak which drapes its shoulders and eyeless, smiling face. Around its head, it bears a floating halo. End ID.]

The Vessel does not matter. They aren't a person, not really. They're just the chariot, bearing the really important one: The Beast. That great and powerful thing which, through benevolent kindness, grants their Vessel some tiny portion of their power. For a price, of course.

Vessel Touchstones:

- Crona (Soul Eater) - Gaara (Naruto) - Yuji Itadori (Jujutsu Kaisen)

No one really pays attention to the Vessel, when the Beast looms behind them. So when someone treats them kindly, they are doubly grateful. The Vessel is Loyal to the first person who helped them regain control of their body, as well as to the Fighter who they think stands the best chance against The Beast.

Like the Specialist, the Vessel's Techs often come with altered tags. Whenever they learn a tech with the unique Pact tag, that Tech acts as a conduit for the Beast's power, and gives it a chance to take over. When it succeeds, The Beast in Human Skin emerges, wielding its full power in pursuit of its own ends, until The Vessel can wrestle back control.

Vessel Icon: Lux

They/Them

Lux is on the run, harboring a dark secret. Kidnapped as a child by a cult calling itself The Corona, they were subjected to harsh training and numerous rituals, in preparation for their role in the Corona's plan to summon their god, with Lux as its host. They almost succeeded before they managed to escape. Now, in hiding from the powerful organization, Lux carries within them Eclipse, an ancient, powerful Chimera bent on reshaping the world to its own twisted preference.

Eclipse wields two Pneumatic Powers: Cleansing Light and Blanketing Darkness, which allow it to vaporize solid matter and create thick, tar-like matter, respectively. At great risk, Lux can also access a fraction of this power.

To learn more about Lux, Eclipse, and The Corona, pledge to the CLASH! Crowdfundr at the Otaku: The Vessel tier, to receive a mini-manga when you get your physical copy of CLASH! Shonen Battle Roleplay.

[usafphantom2]

America’s Mach 3+ fighter, Bill Sweetman investigates

Hush KitFebruary 23, 2017

August 2, 2024

HOLY KEDLOCK by Bill Sweetman

If speed and range are your goals for an interceptor, you can’t beat the Lockheed YF-12. It’s hard to beat as a confusing story either. Technology demonstrator? Stalking horse for something quite different? Opportunistic effort to save a program in trouble? Possibly, all of the above.

North American’s F-108 Rapier Mach 3 interceptor was cancelled in September 1959. The F-108 was only eight months past mock-up review, following an on-again, off-again initial development. But the Rapier’s ASG-18 radar and GAR-9 missile combo, developed by Hughes, had started earlier than the F-108 itself and enjoyed more consistent support, and was not canceled along with the aircraft.

A few months later, in January 1960, the CIA awarded Lockheed a contract to build 12 A-12s. They would be purely photo birds, with a single pilot and one camera bay, and the goal was to operate them out of Area 51, thereby evading the British and German anoraks who had rumbled the U-2.

On May 1, 1960, Frank Powers’ U-2 was shot down near Sverdlovsk. No parades or hot hors d’oeuvres for him. Eisenhower approved a cover story that Khrushchev shot to smaller pieces than the airplane. The furious President banned any further overflights.

This left OXCART without a mission, barely six months into an expensive program, without a mission, and competing for money with the politically favored CORONA. Skunk Works boss Kelly Johnson proposed armed versions of the OXCART to the Air Force. It was risky because Air Force Chief of Staff Curtis LeMay was mounting a stalwart defense the XB-70 Valkyrie, but the interceptor version did not threaten the bomber. A contract was issued in October 1960 under which three A-12s would be completed as AF-12 interceptors with the F-108’s Hughes radar and missile system.

The AF-12, codenamed KEDLOCK, would feature some important differences from the CIA jets. Heavier and carrying more fuel, it would have a second cockpit replacing the camera bay, the massive ASG-18 radar in the nose, and four large weapon bays built into all-metal chines. (On the A-12, the chines were purely there to reduce the radar cross-section and were partly made of plastic material.) The GAR-9 was a 900-pound chonky boi and could carry either a high-explosive or blast-fragmentation warhead, with a range at launch up to 100 nm.

KEDLOCK benefited from the A-12 OXCART, which ran a year earlier and wrestled with the many basic problems of titanium use and propulsion development, and from the early start on ASG-18 and GAR-9. Wind tunnel tests showed that the huge ogival radome loused up the directional stability, so KEDLOCK acquired strakes under each engine nacelle and a large folding ventral fin.

Launching a weapon from a bay at Mach 3.2 was a challenge. Johnson’s deputy, Ben Rich, later said that the initial GAR-9 ejection system resulted in the missile passing between the front and rear cockpits, which would have been bad.

Flown in August 1963, the interceptor required little further work. Six out of seven missile shots were successful, the final shot from Mach 3.2 and 74,000 feet hitting a low-flying QB-47 drone—the first look-down, shoot-down interception and a trailblazer for the Navy’s AWG-9 and AIM-54 Phoenix programs.

KEDLOCK did a lot of the heavy lifting for the next version of the Blackbird, a reconnaissance-strike aircraft. First called RS-12, the project ran about a year behind KEDLOCK and emerged as the SR-71, with weapon bays converted to accommodate cameras and SIGINT gear.

The AF-12 had one more mission: deception. During 1963, as the pace of testing increased, observers started to notice the fast-moving A-12s and AF-12s, and the usual CIA/USAF tactic of confusing their reports with UFO sightings wore thin. Also, the project was far larger than the U-2 and involved more people and subcontractors, and many people in industry began to connect the dots. Bob Hotz’s staff at Aviation Week went to the Air Force with the news. Hotz would hold the story but not if anyone else got near it.

McNamara decided that the interceptor could be unveiled without compromising the A-12, and his view prevailed over the CIA’s caution. On February 24, 1964, two side-view photos were released of what was falsely described as the Lockheed A-11, and Johnson announced that a number of A-11s were being tested at Edwards Air Force Base. To keep the facts consistent with the President’s statement, two AF-12s were rushed from Area 51 to Edwards and quickly rolled into a hangar, where the heat from their airframes set the sprinklers off.

Had there been anything for it to shoot down, the YF-12 (as it was retrospectively designated, sometime before August 1964) might have been the ultimate interceptor. But the Soviet intercontinental strike force, even into the 1980s, amounted to a small and dwindling number of early Tu-95s, which Air Defense Command’s F-106s could cope with, and the YF-12s lived out their days as NASA test assets.

@Hushkit.net

[thegayestcat]

Boston Miku!!!

First is Miku smoking a joint after getting coffee and weed (the first dispensary was NETA in Brookline so I went with that), I made a version with Marylou's and another with Dunkin - pick your fighter, I'm going with Marylou's 🙌

The second is every bi girl in the queer night club drinking what more than half the club is drinking: a corona with lime (my bi friend wore almost the exact same fit one time lol)

(And I didn't use the state flag bc it's going to be redesigned FINALLY)

[cetaitlaverite]

Why All This Music?

Masters of the Air - Rosie Rosenthal x OC

link to the masterlist is here <3

12. A Drop in the Ocean

Freddie’s first real assignment as part of Operation Corona was a baptism of fire, to be sure. Some of the new wireless operators panicked and froze under the pressure when they made contact with the German fighters. Others rose to the challenge. Freddie had to keep an eye on them, ready to jump in and bail them out of trouble if they forgot their training, while also keeping a firm hand on the German fighters she was tuning into herself, calling them off of the American bombers when their real orders had been to shoot them out of the sky.

Three promotions did not come without its share of responsibility. Freddie was responsible not just for her own sabotage and the efforts of the wireless operators in her outfit but for determining which types of subterfuge they were to use, an attempt to predict the fighters’ orders. For this mission, over Berlin, she had told everyone to focus on making the Messers avoid trying to take the bombers out. “Tell them the likelihood of German civilian casualties and casualties of the Nazi brass has been deemed too high to account for American B-17s falling out of the sky,” Freddie had ordered everyone in their briefing. “Call them off of them, tell them the anti-aircraft guns on the ground have been deemed safer. Call them out of formation as a last resort.”

It was stressful. More so than any assignment Freddie had been given as a normal wireless operator. But it was exciting, too. There was no denying the thrill she’d felt as adrenaline had flooded her veins upon hearing the first few German words out of the foreign fighter pilot’s mouth over her radio. She had been completely in her element for the hours she’d spent helping to defend the B-17s. Here was something she could do to really help - not only that, here was something she was good at. A German-speaking wireless operator with a reason to want to protect American bombers. Who could possibly have been better at it?

When the B-17s came back they were relieved of duty. No Luftwaffe fighters had followed them to England. Freddie wasn’t sure how many had made it back, who had made it back, but she had to force herself to trust that Rosie was among them.

She hated not being the first to know. She loved her new position and the hand she played in keeping him safe but resented that she could no longer be the first to talk to him as he came in for landing.

Freddie led countless sabotage operations in just her first month in the role. Her tactics for manipulation became stronger as she better came to understand which orders the pilots responded to without question and which they were suspicious of. She became better at pre-empting their orders, their formations, and their reactions, too. As the Luftwaffe realised there was some sort of British interference in their orders they changed all of their own wireless operators to women. As such, all of the men and boys who had originally been under Freddie’s leadership were swapped out for new, freshly trained women and girls. She was mother-henning two huts’ worth of women both while on duty and off, but they all soon found their feet.

Before anyone knew it, Christmas was coming. Gone were long summer evenings where Freddie could convince Rosie to come and sit with her in the grass, Meatball lying across their laps to demand attention even when their eyes were firmly on each other. It was too cold out now to go anywhere without gloves and a coat. Everyone piled into the officers’ club every evening more to keep warm than to celebrate, but as Christmas decorations were slung on the walls and festive tunes started to be played on the gramophone it was hard not to be just a little bit taken in by all the cheer.

It was set to be Freddie’s third Christmas without Daniel. It was the first one she hadn’t felt like a bullet to the heart. He had loved Christmas. He had loved spending time with his family and Freddie, loved going on walks to look at the Christmas lights before the blackout, had loved giving gifts even though he’d been remarkably terrible at it. 

This year, Freddie was determined to enjoy Christmas. Daniel would have hated to have turned it into a sad time of year. She took to wearing red ribbons in her hair - against uniform regulations but she ranked so highly these days no one ever said anything to her about it - and to playing whichever Christmas songs she knew or was able to learn on the piano when the club wasn’t yet quite so crowded. She started planning her gifts early and thought hard on what to get her nearest and dearest. Her new rank gave her leave from Christmas Eve to Boxing Day and she was dragging Rosie and Meatball home with her.

“Daniel’s parents will be coming over on Christmas Day,” Freddie briefed Rosie as they sat in an otherwise empty compartment on the train to Oxford, “and they won’t be massively weird with you but they’ll certainly ask if we’re together. More out of curiosity than resentment, I imagine. They’ll probably try to show you old photos - if you’re not comfortable then tell me and I’ll intervene. My mum and dad will also probably ask you if we’re together, just so you know. Sorry in advance for all the interrogations you’re about to endure.”

Rosie smiled softly at her from across the compartment. “I’m a lawyer,” he reminded her, “I’m kind of used to it.”

Freddie grinned. “Glad to hear you’re thoroughly prepared.”

“What should I tell them?” he asked abruptly. The words seemed to leave him before he’d properly decided to say them. Even still, he didn’t blush or try to take them back or even start to fiddle, as he may have a few months ago. He sat still and watched her, patiently awaiting her reply.

Freddie paused. “About whether or not we’re together?” she asked. Rosie hummed his affirmation so she continued, “Whatever you think the answer is.”

“What do you think the answer is?”

Freddie sighed and turned her eyes out the window, watching idly as the British countryside rolled by. They hadn’t kissed or anything, but they spent a lot of time together. They held hands sometimes, she sat in his lap sometimes, and she’d given him the occasional kiss on the cheek when she wished him luck before missions. Did that make them together? Or did it just make her too afraid to let them be?

“I don’t know,” she confessed quietly.

“Still deciding?” Rosie asked. He didn’t sound unkind - Rosie was never unkind, especially not to her - but he did sound a little bit put out. And why shouldn’t he be? They’d known each other since August and now it was December. How long was she going to take deciding whether or not she wanted him?

“Still scared,” Freddie corrected him, resting her forehead against the glass of the window.

Rosie sighed quietly but even in her periphery she could see him nodding.

Meatball was resting across Freddie’s lap and she buried her fingers in his fur. “Do you want to open your Christmas presents tomorrow morning with the rest of us or do it privately?” she asked instead of pushing the topic further.

Rosie’s eyebrows rose with scepticism. “What do you mean, ‘presents’?”

Finally, mercifully, Freddie grinned. “Come on, Rosie,” she teased, “don’t tell me you thought you were coming home with me for Christmas and you weren’t going to get anything for your troubles.”

“It’s not any sort of trouble!” Rosie protested, grinning back at her. “I’m glad to be getting to see where you go when you’re off base. And excited to get to meet your dogs, of course.”

“Ah, yes,” Freddie acknowledged. “I did say they’d be your honorary pets, didn’t I?” Back during only their second full conversation, if she recalled correctly, when they’d gotten to know each other beneath the stars just before getting drenched with the sprinklers. The memory made her smile. 

“Anyway,” she continued, getting back on track, “I know you don’t celebrate Christmas but it would have felt strange to me not to get you anything, so I got you a gift - which I think you should have expected, honestly. And since I gave my parents fair warning that you’re coming home with me they may have gotten you something too.”

Rosie laughed as he shook his head, getting all bashful all of a sudden. He was so endearing sometimes it hurt. “You didn’t have to get me anything.”

“Well, I wanted to,” Freddie replied. After a moment’s thought she added, “Sorry if you feel weird getting Christmas presents when you don’t celebrate. None of us mean to offend you.”

Rosie brushed her aside. “You haven’t,” he assured her. “I promise. It’s… it’s really thoughtful of you all, to have thought of me.”

Freddie smiled. “Of course.”

“Do your parents know?” Rosie asked after a moment. “That I’m Jewish?”

“Of course,” she said again. “My dad thought about getting a menorah for the occasion since it’s Hanukkah right now, isn’t it? But he didn’t want to offend anyone since we’re not Jewish. They wanted to try to combine the celebrations a bit - Hanukkah and Christmas, this is - to make sure you feel included, but didn’t know how to go about it, really.” She sighed out a self-conscious little laugh. “I know it’s probably not at all helpful to hear what we might have done and what we thought about doing but I just want you to know that they are fully aware that you’re Jewish and will understand if you don’t want to partake in any of our Christmas traditions. So please don’t feel weird about it or anything.”

Rosie was smiling wide when Freddie next looked across at him. “Your parents,” he began around his beaming smile. “They sound wonderful.”

Freddie herself smiled at this. “They are,” she told him. “You’ll like them, I think. They already like you just from what I’ve told them in my letters.”

Rosie smirked. “Oh? And what have you told them?”

She shrugged coyly. “None of your business.”

When their train finally pulled into Oxford Station, Freddie jumped up, beaming. Rosie took care of both of their bags while Freddie focused on getting Meatball off in one piece, and as soon as they were on the platform Freddie’s parents started calling to her from the other side of the ticket barriers.

“Wils!” her mother was shouting, jumping up and down and waving wildly.

“Mum!” Freddie called back, grinning. “Dad!” She turned back to Rosie and gestured at them. “Those are my parents.”

Rosie chuckled. “I figured.”

Meatball was barking as they attempted to get him, the two of them, and their two bags through the ticket barriers, causing as much commotion as he could, but he calmed once they were through. Wordlessly, Rosie took the lead from Freddie to hold onto Meatball while she greeted her parents, standing back with a small smile as he watched her hug them both tight.

When, eventually, her parents had finished gushing over her, Freddie turned to gesture at Rosie. “This is Rosie,” she told them. “And the nuisance he’s holding onto is Meatball.”

“Hello, both,” Freddie’s father greeted, while her mother approached Rosie with outstretched arms.

“Rosie, dear,” she greeted him, drawing him in for a hug. “It’s so lovely to finally meet you.”

“It’s wonderful to meet you too, ma’am,” Rosie replied, hastily dropping his and Freddie’s bags to reciprocate her hug.

Freddie’s mother scoffed good-naturedly as she let him go. “You can just call me Alma. Or mum, if you prefer. I don’t mind.”

Rosie nodded. “Right.”

“And you must be Meatball,” Freddie’s mother - Alma - went on, turning her attention to Meatball. Freddie laughed as she watched Rosie stand there awkwardly while her mother fawned over the dog at his feet.

“Mum, you can say hello to him once we get home,” she reminded her. “I’ve been stuck living in a freezing cold hut for however many months and I’d rather like to get out of this uniform and sit by the fire, if it’s all the same to you.”

“Back five minutes and already throwing around her demands,” Alma whispered to Rosie conspiratorially as she dutifully rose to her feet. She turned to Freddie with a fond smile. “I hope you don’t order Rosie around the way you do me, Wils, or else I have no idea how he puts up with you.”

Freddie rolled her eyes indulgently and took Meatball’s lead back from Rosie. “He’s a grown man who is quite capable of telling me to piss off if the situation so requires I can assure you, mother.”

Thus, all the way back to the car Freddie was berated by her mother for her foul language.

They spent the journey from the train station to the house all scrunched into the car, discussing everything which had transpired since Freddie had last visited home. Millie was doing fine, she told her parents - was feeling better now about Brady’s fort going down because she’d received a couple of letters from him since, assuring her he was being looked after well enough in a prisoner of war camp (though how much truth there was to the sentiment Freddie wasn’t sure). And Freddie’s work was intense but gratifying - no, she still couldn’t tell them exactly what she was doing, but her father lit up from behind the steering wheel when she assured him she was using her German everyday. 

Freddie’s parents asked Rosie about his work and he told them about his recent missions - as much as he was permitted to in the interests of secrecy, of course - and about his wider responsibilities as a pilot. They asked after his family back home in Brooklyn and what he would be doing if he wasn’t in England and lamented to him that they hadn’t quite managed to work out how to add some Hanukkah celebrations into their Christmas revelry. 

By the time they reached Freddie’s house, Rosie already felt ten times more comfortable with her parents. She had been right. He liked them. Her mother was a lot warmer than he’d expected - she seemed to have accepted Rosie as one of her own before she’d even met him - and her father was more awkward and self-conscious than he was disinterested or standoffish. Freddie described him simply as “Austrian”, which had made Rosie laugh. He hadn’t honestly met enough Austrians to know whether they all behaved that way but he liked her father even still. 

Freddie’s house was beautiful. Not huge but big enough for being relatively close to the city centre. They had a guest bedroom, even, which Alma had made up for Rosie to stay in. There were paintings on the walls and family photographs following him up the stairs. He got to watch Freddie grow up every time he walked up there. There was a grand piano in the living room and an ornate fireplace decorated with traditional Christmas stockings, each with the name of a member of the family embroidered, including the dogs. And at the end of the line, beside Freddie’s stocking, was a new one with Rosie’s name embroidered, and for some reason the sentiment made him want to cry.

Alma mistook his reaction for offence as she showed him into the living room, Freddie long since having disappeared into the kitchen to greet the dogs instead of getting settled in her bedroom as Rosie had. 

“I’m sorry if it’s too forward,” Alma told him, watching him as he looked at the stocking. “I know you don’t celebrate Christmas, I just didn’t want to leave you out -”

“It’s wonderful,” Rosie told her, offering a shy smile as he ran a gentle finger over the red embroidery. “Really. Thank you, ma’am.”

“Alma,” she corrected him, smiling again now. “And think nothing of it. I know you’ve been looking after our Wils for us. This is a drop in the ocean of the thanks we owe you for it.”

Rosie grinned. “I didn’t know that was her name,” he said, instead of risking getting more emotional and responding to her thanks. He inclined his head in the direction of Freddie’s stocking, which had Wilfrieda embroidered on it. 

At this, Alma laughed softly. “She never told you her full name?” Rosie shook his head and she scoffed. “I know she goes by Freddie now - I’m sure it makes her life easier, too - but I think we gave her a beautiful name. Probably a bit too German to give her a quiet life so I understand why she hides it, I just wish she wouldn’t.”

“Wilfrieda,” Rosie read aloud, trying the name out for size. He hadn’t honestly thought very much about what Freddie was short for but it made sense. And it suited her, he thought. Elegant and beautiful, just like she was.

[jbm04]

Coronabeth is a good sword fighter. I don’t care what Ianthe says. She doesn’t know her own sister.

Just listened to that part of GtN where Corona starts to duel Gideon.

Gideon doesn’t once make it sound like Corona can’t sword fight.

It just bugs me that Ianthe is so certain that Corona can’t sword fight but there she was! Fighting! And holding her own against Gideon!

So Ianthe was either trying to misdirect people from thinking Corona should have been her Cav or Ianthe does not know her sister at all.

[queeoretician]

Initial thoughts on The Unwanted Guest below the cut:

Well, damn. There sure is a lot going on here, and I'm all about it.

Front and centre is the concept of the permeability of the soul, and there's so damn much to chew on around that. Then we have Dulcie! Dulcie! She and Pal finally get to talk, both dead but still kicking! She would have liked Gideon! And we get more direct insight into Ianthe's psychology, which is a nasty little treat.

The first place my mind went was to Paul - if Pal and Cam were already experiencing memory transference, then maybe they saw some kind of soul merger as inevitable, and that was another push towards doing it intentionally, doing it right. But writing it down now I'm less sure of that inference. And the fact that Pal and Dulcie got to talk, really talk, was both wonderful and all the more bittersweet if (I'm assuming) Pal's and Cam's individual souls no longer exist to reunite with Dulcie in Alecto. I have to say, when I first read Nona I didn't really get why people found the birth of Paul to be so sad, but I've come around on it since then. (I should write more about that sometime...)

Regarding the permeability of Ianthe's soul, one thing that occurred to me is that her genderfuckery vibes over the past two books are probably not Ianthe Tridentarius's identity, but a new thing formed of the (imbalanced) gestalt that is Ianthe Naberius. I really hope Alecto gives us more on gender and lyctorhood and soul permeability! I imagine this is all the more jarring for Ianthe with how she's so deeply anchored to her relationship with Corona, to find her ego boundaries to be permeable in relation to Babs. I firmly believe her shell-shocked reaction to the birth of Paul was at least in part her thinking "oh shit, did I eat the wrong person?" If she had wanted this kind of erosion of self with anyone (and I'm not sure she did), it would have been Corona. Having it happen with Babs by accident is a real slap in the face.

Which brings me back to my wild theory for Alecto - Corona will (at least try to) pull a Paul with Judith, and Ianthe will utterly lose her shit. This story really underscored just how little Ianthe understands her sister, which we already saw some of in the embassy scene. Sure, Corona isn't the flawless sword hand that Babs was, but in BoE she's shown herself to be a canny operator and a decent fighter, which Ianthe is steadfastly in denial of. At the end of the day I believe the story of Ianthe will be of someone who loved without understanding, who put her love up on a pedestal and at the same time belittled her as someone both more and less than she actually was.

Another thing that I latched onto was the argument about whether lyctors' cavaliers' souls provide a truly perpetual source of energy or not. Ianthe was pretty adamant that they do, but that honestly came across as arrogance or bravado. There's a strong parallel between lyctoral power and nuclear power, and all kinds of nuclear activity eventually reach a point past which they no longer emit appreciable energy, so I feel confident in saying that lyctoral power also diminishes over a long enough timespan. I'm less sure of whether this will come up in Alecto, though - I would be quite surprised if we saw a 100,000-year timeskip (but if we did that could be super fucking interesting).

Back to more direct applications of soul permeability, I have to imagine there's been some exchange of something between Jod and Alecto, at least before he locked her in the Tomb. That could go in all kinds of interesting directions that I haven't yet had a chance to contemplate adequately.

Speaking of Alecto, the John chapters of Nona seem like a pretty clear case of transference between her and Harrow. I wonder - were those happening concurrently with the Nona chapters? If so, it would make for a nice symmetry between Harrow and Alecto/Nona.

Either way, we've got a gross messy soul transference hookup graph with Gideon<-->Harrow<-->Alecto<-->John (gross) - I'm dying to know more about what this means for each of them (especially with Tazmuir's "if Gideon's soul is a happy meal" line from this interview).

So as usual, Aaaaaaa there's so much to chew on and so much more I want to know and I can't wait for Alecto aaaaaa...

[ariyougood]

tangled, pjo

in which the daughter of apollo is a drop of sunshine but one hell of a healer and fighter and everyone knows it

↳ or

reagan corona is constantly compared to a fairytale princess and percy jackson has never seen a more fitting description of a person

𖤓

pre tlt → tlo

act zero : the prologue - in progress

act one : the lighting thief - n/a

act two : sea of monsters - n/a

act three : the titan's curse - n/a

act four : battle of the labyrinth - n/a

act five : the last olympian - n/a

Posted on wattpad and AO3 under username AriYouGood

[camplease]

can you imagine if coronabeth HAD actually been allowed to fight gideon?

i so desperately wish i could see that go down. my initial instinct is that gideon would wipe the floor with corona - but maybe not!

corona has demonstrated that she's very good at hiding her talents/lack of talents. and i realize now with blood of eden she's mostly been training with guns, but i doubt she entirely eschewed knives, and that's also not going to erase her 21/22 years (minus however many years before the age people typically start at) prior to her capture by them of secretly learning the rapier

not to mention that during the brief spar they actually had in gideon the ninth, sure, corona did have the benefit of having caught gideon off her guard in the extreme, but i do think it still does say something to her credit that she was holding her own in a length of time that was probably longer than gideon's match against magnus, which would've been at least long enough for gideon to start to get her bearing a bit

plus there was gideon's observation of corona visibly overflowing with excitement at getting to fight her. i think even if corona wouldn't be a very impressive sword fighter (which i'm not even convinced of), she'd at the very least be a really entertaining one

[mindblowingscience]

NASA's sun-touching Parker Solar probe has flown close enough to our star to spot the fine details of the solar wind — including its origin, "coronal holes" in the sun's atmosphere. Armed with this information, scientists may now be able to better predict solar storms that can supercharge auroras over our planet but can also disrupt communication and power infrastructure and pose a threat to satellites, spacecraft and even astronauts. The Parker Solar Probe tracked the solar wind — a stream of charged particles flowing continuously from the sun — back to where it is generated, a new study reports. This allowed researchers to see characteristics of the solar wind that are lost as it exits the sun's outer atmosphere, or corona, and before it reaches Earth as a relatively uniform stream. The spacecraft saw that the streams of high-energy particles that make up the solar wind match so-called "supergranulation flows" within coronal holes. This discovery pointed to these regions as the source of the "fast" solar wind, which is seen over the poles of the sun and can reach speeds as great as 1.7 million mph (2.7 million kph), around 1,000 times faster than the top speed of a jet fighter. 

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[ariesgamesandminis]

Restocks are up for BattleTech!

20-206 Huitzilopochtli Assault Tank "Huey" (Standard) 20-217 Crusader CDR-5K 20-236 Marauder IIC 2 20-298 Archer ARC-6W 20-324 Tundra Wolf 20-347 Galahad "Glass Spider" 3 20-350 Ghost GST-10 20-361 Thorn THE-N 20-367 Spider SDR-7K / SDR-7K2 20-385 Scarabus SCB-9A 20-398 Shrike SHK-VP-A 20-410 Malak C-MK-O Invictus 20-431 Ocelot 20-481 Maultier Hover Vehicle (2) 20-485 Balius Prime / B / C 20-5001 Eagle Fighter EGL-R6 20-5008 Flamberge Prime 20-5019 Kestrel VTOL 20-5040 Mad Cat MKII (Enhanced) 20-5049 Carnivore Assault Tank (Standard) (2) 20-5059 Septicemia E 20-5080 Vulture MK IV Prime 20-5088 Hollander III BZK-D1 20-5102 Eyrie (Standard) 20-5105 Cardinal Transport VTOL 20-5110 Carronade CRN-7M 20-5117 Kodiak II (Standard) 20-5122 Tenshi TN-10-O Prime 20-5126 Gun GN-2O Prime 20-5133 Gotterdammerung GTD-20S 20-5134 Juliano JLN-5A 20-5139 Roadrunner RD-1R 20-5140 Ostscout OTT-7J 20-5148 Flea FLE-14 20-5151 Avalanche AVL-1O 20-5153 Uziel UZL-2S 20-5183 Locust LCT-1V 20-5187 Dominator 20-5193 Hierofalcon Prime / A 20-5197 Wolverine WVR-6R / 6D 20-5204 Stormwolf Prime 20-623 SRM Carrier (2) 20-627 LRM Carrier (2) 20-634 Epona Pursuit Tank Prime (2) 20-638 Rakshasa MDG-1A 20-642 Berserker BRZ-A3 20-645 Ha Otoko (Standard) 20-702 Corsair Fighter CSR-V12 20-712 Shilone Fighter SL-17 20-722 Anhur Transport 20-725 Cavalry Attack Helicopter 20-727 Karnov UR Transport 20-741 J-27 Tow Vehicle, Thumper towed gun, trailer, and boxes 20-766 Lynx LNX-9Q 20-779 Manticore Heavy Tank (2) 20-780 Hussar HSR-200-D 20-786 Hachiman Fire Support (Standard) (2) 20-790 Salamander PPR-5S 20-800 Hex Bases (4) 20-822 Demolisher Tank 20-825 Bulldog Medium Tank (2) 20-912 Kingfisher 20-956 Tessen TSN-1C 20-990 Lightray LGH-4W 99-201 Large Flat Top Hex Base #1 99-202 Large Flat Top Hex Base #2 BT-004 Afreet Battle Armor BT-006 Phalanx Battle Armor BT-028 Cavalier Battle Armor BT-128 Tornado Battle Armor BT-129 Infiltrator Mk I Battle Armor BT-133 Corona Battle Armor BT-134 Gray Death Legion Battle Armor BT-178 Jade Hawk JHK-03 BT-187 Djinn Battle Armor BT-188 Nighthawk Battle Armor BT-189 Kobold Battle Armor BT-198 Tengu Battle Armor BT-199 Asura Md. Battle Armor BT-200 Shedu Assault Battle Armor BT-201 Nephilim Assault Battle Armor BT-208 Triton ProtoMech BT-209 Se'irim Medium Battle Armor BT-214 Deva Dominus BT-222 Tau Wraith BT-226 Fast Recon BT-230 Kopis Battle Armor BT-236 Ravager Battle Armor BT-244 Heavy Infantry - Standing BT-245 Heavy Infantry - Firing BT-250 Ignis Infantry Support Tank BT-269 Sling SL-1G BT-293 Hitotsume Kozo HKZ-1P BT-319 Wheeled APC BT-321 Hover APC BT-335 PWWKA S-PW-1LAM (Air Mech) BT-364 Gabriel Hovercraft BT-370 Kurita Infantry (3) BT-371 Davion Infantry (3) BT-372 Savannah Master Hovercraft BT-374 Roc Protomech BT-381 Basic Inner Sphere Battle Armor (3) BT-383 Longinus Battle Armor (3) BT-385 Grey Death Legion Battle Armor (3) BT-387 Gnome Battle Armor (3) BT-388 Salamander Battle Armor (3) BT-390 Fa-Shih Battle Armor (3) BT-391 Fenrir Battle Armor (1) BT-413 Marauder Battle Armor BT-414 Niso Attack WiGE (Standard & Support) BT-433 Warwolf H BT-476 Ares ARS-V1E Apollo FT-027 Gotha Mech Scale Fighter OP-080 Mad Cat E Left Arm OP-115 Heavy Lasers 20-203D Solitaire Main Gun 20-410F Malak Hatch Cover 20-917ARM Nova Cat (Omni) Arm Sprue BT-292G Shiro SH-2P Banner BT-294F Hatamoto-Suna HTM-30S Banner Sprue