#creating his own army of little terrors

[rt3nenbaum]

dad fernando is my favorite fernando actually 🫂

[mariacallous]

In early September, the U.S. Department of Justice unveiled a series of sweeping investigations and indictments into Russian information projects aimed at disrupting the 2024 U.S. presidential election. One of these projects, which secretly funded right-wing influencers to promote former President Donald Trump’s campaign, is an escalation from prior Russian information operations, such as their email hacks during the 2016 election.

But another Russian team, described in a planning document published by the Department of Justice, approached disrupting the election a little bit less directly.

The Russian plan describes the “Good Ol’ USA Project” as a “guerrilla media” campaign intended to target “sentiments that should be exploited in the course of an information campaign in/for the United States.” Written by Ilya Gambashidze, a figure already facing sanctions for his disinformation work aimed at smearing Ukraine, the document suggests focusing influence efforts on the “community of American gamers, users of Reddit and image boards, such as 4Chan,” since they are the “backbone of the right-wing trends” online in the United States.

The inclusion of gamers in this campaign points at emerging dynamics in a global struggle over human rights online—one that policymakers need to pay closer attention to.

According to the Entertainment Software Association, a trade group, around 65 percent of Americans—or 212 million people—regularly play video games. Globally, video games generate more than $280 billion in revenue, far larger than traditional culture industries such as film or book publishing. While a trickle of stories about other attempts to push Russian propaganda in video games have attracted some scrutiny from journalists, the question remains: Apart from scale, what is it about gamers that Russia thinks will make them receptive to its messaging?

For starters, video game culture has already become an important venue for extremist right-wing groups to share and normalize their ideas. Far-right groups modify video games to be more explicitly racist and violent than their designers intended. Even gaming spaces designed for children, such as Roblox, which allows players to create their own game worlds and storylines, have attracted thousands of people (many of them young teenagers) to use the game’s freewheeling mechanics to play-act fascist violence.

The prevalence of hate groups has shaped video games into a place where culture and politics are debated, often contentiously, with predictable fault lines emerging along U.S. partisan boundaries. While the industry itself has made considerable progress in improving representation and reducing acts of horrific sexual violence, it has received pushback from far-right figures who are angry at the so-called “wokes” for supposedly “ruining games.”

For a decade, repeated efforts to “reclaim” gaming from an imagined enemy composed of women, Black people, and LGBT+ folks have bubbled up from the darkest corners of the internet, often in places such as Reddit (where this Russian campaign aimed its influence activity). These movements have spilled over into more mainstream political movements that can shape election outcomes. Consider how Gamergate, a 2014 campaign to terrorize women working in the industry into invisibility, metastasized into an online troll army working to get former U.S. President Donald Trump elected in 2016.

These far-right efforts are ongoing, even without Russian help. Last year, a group of gamers who were angry at inclusive representation in games launched a harassment campaign—colloquially called Gamergate 2.0—against a story consulting company.

Earlier this year, when Ubisoft began promoting the latest installment of its popular Assassin’s Creed franchise, this time set in feudal Japan, the trailer prominently featured Yasuke, an African man who served as a samurai in 16th-century Japan. Despite being based on a real historical figure, this movement (egged on by X owner and billionaire Elon Musk) raged at the decision, as if acknowledging Black people in the past was somehow bad. In their quest to sow division within the United States, Russian information operations analysts do not need to look very far to find political allies in gaming communities.

It helps that Russia enjoys greater social legitimacy in gaming than it does in, say, news journalism. You can see this legitimacy reflected in the language gamers that use as they play. Around the same time as Gamergate, a vulgar Russian phrase began popping up in the chats that players use to communicate with each other in non-Russian game streams, primarily in the multiplayer first-person shooter Counterstrike: Global Offensive. The game has around 4 million Russian players, and as it grew in popularity in the mid-2010s, the Russian obscenity cyka blyad became common invective during frustrating moments of play. Its widespread adoption among non-Russian-speaking gamers struck many as odd.

Cyka blyad rose in prominence alongside Russia’s descent into becoming an international pariah, which has limited the spaces where Russian gamers can play games online. In 2014, Russia passed a law requiring websites that store the personal information of Russian citizens to do so on servers inside the country. This was compounded in 2022, when companies ranging from Activision Blizzard to Nintendo protested the invasion of Ukraine by either suspending sales or shutting down Russia-specific services. Despite its residents representing around 10 percent of Counterstrike’s player base, there are no host servers for the game anywhere in Russia.

So, when Russian players log on to find players for a match, they use servers based in Europe or sometimes North America. These servers place them into direct contact with players on the other side of international conflicts—something that many players within the European Union found deeply frustrating after Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, as their games became places where people would argue about the annexation.

But another reason why Russian slang began infiltrating non-Russian gaming spaces is that after years of censorship and exclusion from both Russian and Western governments, games are one of the only spaces direct exchanges between ordinary Russian and Western people. Russians lack access to many Western social media platforms—such as Instagram (blocked by the Russian government in 2022, though earlier this year some Russian users regained access)—and were locked out of Western game stores, even as they kept access to many online games. As a result, matches in a game such as Counterstrike or Fortnite became one of the only places where these informal cultural exchanges could take place.

This narrowing of exchange spaces highlights how video games can become useful conduits for propaganda, and it demonstrates that video games are becoming an important, if underappreciated, site for ideological disputes over politics, speech, identity, and expression.

Other countries have begun to use video games for strategic communication. The U.S. government operates semiprofessional esports teams through the Defense Department, whose remit includes convincing young people to become interested in enlistment. China launched a military-produced first-person shooter game to boost recruitment and to humanize the image of the People’s Liberation Army abroad.

The Chinese developers of the hugely popular game Black Myth: Wukong instructed gaming influencers who were given early access to avoid discussing “feminist propaganda” while reviewing the game, apparently to adhere to government censorship rules. And Russian propaganda about the country’s war with Ukraine has begun appearing in games that allow user-generated content, such as Minecraft and the aforementioned Roblox, as the Kremlin seeks to persuade Westerners to end their support for Ukrainian freedom. In response, the U.S. State Department has begun developing its own games intended to train players to resist Russian disinformation.

This isn’t an abstract challenge. Scholars have drawn linkages between Russia’s propaganda efforts and President Vladimir Putin’s decision to launch the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 as both bots and human agents aggressively pushed narratives about the need to “pacify” an ostensibly violent Ukraine by invading. The invasion was further justified by the myth of Novorossiya, or a pan-Russian identity that views Ukrainians as misguided Russians who need to be forcibly reclaimed.

These efforts to spread propaganda through gaming are rarely successful. Few people wanted to, say, join Hezbollah after the Lebanese militant group launched its own game, Special Force, in 2003. The terrorist group al Qaeda has used video games for recruitment since 2006, but there is little evidence that any meaningful number of people have been recruited because of it. Scholars have fretted for years over the “militarization” of video games as the Pentagon gets more and more involved in the industry, yet U.S. military recruitment is in long-term decline, and public confidence in the nation’s military is at a two-decade low. If games-based propaganda works, we do not yet know where or how it does.

The revelations about Russian video game propaganda hint at some intriguing innovation in how strategic messages might be spread through nontraditional channels, but they also point to the areas where traditional channels for propaganda have closed down. Despite efforts by Republicans in Congress to falsely accuse agencies such as the Global Engagement Center of partisan bias when addressing foreign misinformation, the U.S. government takes the challenge seriously and, as this 2022 report on the propaganda channels , is working to thwart many of Russia’s best efforts to target Americans with propaganda, like when they sanctioned several Russian oligarchs who had been financing US-directed misinformation.

But even beyond government counterprogramming, there are plenty of obstacles to Russia’s efforts within the world of gaming. For example, Ukraine’s video games industry is respected in the United States and Europe. The developer 4A, which was based in Kyiv before the invasion, produces popular games such as the Metro franchise. That company, however, had to fly its employees abroad to keep them safe from the indiscriminate Russian barrages against the Ukrainian capital and other cities. This sent shockwaves through the industry, as it made some of the consequences of the invasion seem more viscerally real even to people who do not follow politics closely.

As a result of American and European sanctions, Russians have a more difficult experience legally purchasing software and services such as online gaming. (Some Russian game companies have since relocated abroad to more neutral countries, such as Cyprus, to continue operating globally). Wargaming, the Belarusian company that makes World of Tanks, also fled to Cyprus, which has become an informal hub of Russian game companies.

Looking forward, there are real questions about what video games are going to become in the information war between Russia and the West. Russian censors have proposed deploying neural networks to search for banned content in games, but it is unclear whether those systems might disrupt gaming for everyone else.

Long before the invasion of Ukraine, Moscow forced Activision to censor the infamous airport sequence in the rerelease of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (in which players assume the role of a Chechen terrorist and can slaughter hundreds of screaming civilians at Sheremetyevo International Airport), and it has not been shy about using government coercion to erase LGBT+ people from gaming (paralleling to its embrace of the U.S. far right). Policymakers should look at ensuring that global communication platforms—and that is what video games are—remain open to free speech and safeguard other basic human rights.

While the latest Russian effort to target games seems to have been thwarted by the U.S. Justice Department, there will undoubtedly be more programs looking to repeat and extend the success of Gamergate in empowering the far right, perhaps this time by enabling it to obstruct effective governance in the United States. The Good Ol’ USA Project also targeted its influence operations toward websites such as Reddit and 4Chan, both of which are as central to the sustainment of far-right movements as gaming. Emerging platforms—which range from popular Chinese games to channels such as the online chat service Discord, which is difficult to monitor at scale and routinely hosts leaks of sensitive military documents—present new opportunities where Russian influence could be targeted.

These strange spaces are the frontier where a global battle for speech is being fought.

[halfagone]

A Mandalorian Halfa Jedi?

I am thinking... about my Danny Phantom x Star Wars AU again. I mentioned this in the Haunting Heroes discord server, but imagine this:

Danny gets lost in the Star Wars universe, maybe they're part of the same universe, maybe not. We know that Earth technically exists there, so it's possible. Nonetheless, Danny gets lost and is eventually picked up by the Jedi. It is during the Clone Wars era, at the height of the war. Ectoplasm either functions the same as the Force out in larger space, or it easily passes off as the Force. Therefore, Danny is considered Force-sensitive and brought to the Jedi council.

He's far too old, older than even Anakin was, but he already displays some skill with the blade (thanks to his mom's training), and he's far too powerful with the Force to leave for the Sith or Dark Side users running about to find him. Those like Count Dooku or Asajj Ventress or whoever Dooku's master is (and, depending on the timeline, Maul and his brother Savage as well).

It's decided that Obi Wan should train him, since he did well with Anakin despite Anakin's older age for a youngling and lack of familiarity with Jedi customs and culture. As well as Obi Wan's own young age as a Padawan himself at the time. Surely, Obi Wan could whip him into shape and they need all the help they can get on the field.

Anakin does not like Danny at first. Not at all. He might have joked all he liked beforehand about Obi Wan getting another padawan, but seeing it happen is an entirely different experience. Danny gets along well with Obi Wan, with his dry, witty humor and his tendency for unorthodox strategy. Worse still, Ahsoka likes Danny. These two are peas in a pod, partners in crime. It feels like he's been forgotten and replaced and by someone seemingly better.

And then one day, when the 212th and the 501st are stationed together, he finds Danny shaking with night terrors, the Dark Side so strong in him Anakin is literally freezing from the cold. It's only then that he understands Danny a little bit better, and sees himself in this kid. Danny fights the Dark Side within him just like he does, and he never lets it consume him. Maybe for once, he can learn a little something from this kid too, and not let it overwhelm him.

And here is the part where I realized a golden opportunity:

What if the Jedi think Danny is a Mandalorian that was cast out for being Force-sensitive? Danny has an affinity for weapons beyond the blade, like cannons and guns and snipers. He talks about how his family taught him to use these weapons, that he's known this all his life. He talks about how his family wears suits all the time and hardly ever takes them off. He talks about always being afraid to reveal his powers to his parents, and how ultimately he ran away because of them.

Oh all the scenarios that could come out of this~

But now I'm also thinking about how strong Danny would feel in the Force. How much Danny could do on the battlefield because now he doesn't have to hold back. Droids might have more intelligence than a lot of sentients give them credit for, but if it's between the very alive, flesh and bone, clones of the Grand Republic Army and the Separatists' metal droids, Danny is absolutely going to be ruthless if it means the clones are safe.

Danny can literally control the weather. Imagine what happens when Danny creates an electrical storm for the first time to take down an enemy starship and the clones just look between themselves, whispering about how: "I didn't know Jedi could do that." "Is that how the Force works?" "Kriff if I know-"

And that's another thing! Clones! Danny would be absolutely appalled that so many clones were created and their freedom at the end of the Clones Wars is still up in the air.

It also ties beautifully with his love for space and now he's living the dream! Except space isn't what he thought it would be. And there are planets out here that have barbaric standards. It's the adventure of a lifetime! But there's a part of him that still wants to go home.

Just- all the possibilities and shenanigans this could bring. ✨

[anika-ann]

made-up fic title: ever so softly

Hello dear 🥰 Thank you so much for participating in the game 😍

Since my brain does refuse to acknolwdge the concept so far, you too get a little drabble-ish thing 🥹 This time only with 600 words, Bucky, and a flavour of angst with hurt/comfort 😇

ever so softly

warnings: mentions of blood and violence, anxiety, sensory issues and hypersensitivity and PTSD A/N: divider by @firefly-graphics

Sometimes, your hands shake.

You’ve got a tender heart, people would say; a codename for those who get overwhelmed with the world, with people, with the noise and smells and strange textures and tastes, with emotions; with anxiety.

Your own body, your own damn brain was often your worst enemy. You were your worst enemy and you hated it with passion, especially on days when you somehow had no energy left but for that and spiralling down the void of terror made of your own synapses.

On days like these, like on every other, Bucky holds you, whispering soft words of solace and encouragement into your hair, tender lips and gentle voice, creating a protective bubble of silence and peace, tucked safe and far away from the world.

On days like these, he embraces you closely – unless you cannot bear his love for the moment, despising yourself for it all the more – and helps you put together the pieces of your tender soul you feel have imploded inside of you and suffocate you with every attempt of breath.

He sooths you and promises – begs, in truth – to keep you. Loving you,

ever so softly,

reminding you that you can choose and do the same and until you do, he will. For both of you.

And on some days, you do too.

Sometimes, Bucky’s hands shake.

It is a funny little glitch, he supposes, once he has the capacity to be sardonic with himself, which is always; his metal hand, science perfected, precious chunk of vibranium crafted to faultless functionality on engineerism, and it trembles as much as his flesh hand.

Bucky Barnes is an old man; a reborn man, haunted by an army of ghosts and undead. Doctors in his old days called it shellshock; the fancy modern name for it is PTSD.

Some days, images of blood, violence and death run on the silver screen of his mind like the most messed-up horror flick, following him through day and seeping into his nights, sleepless; or worst, consumed by nightmares than never end, because they are memories of his own actions.

His soul weighs too much to bear, drenched with blood and guilt that no penance can wash away.

Sometimes, you help with the cleanse despite it.

You take his shaking hands – sometimes his very own, sometimes the glorified invention attached to his body – and lead him to the living room where on the shelves stand his little treasures; one supposedly beautiful thing next to another, small wooden statues he had carved himself, rough around the edges but otherwise delicate, a reflection of his gentle torn soul. You do not speak a word, you do no point, letting him see what you see. To make him see that what he only perceives as a pair of hands soaked in blood and wrongdoings, had made good and beautiful too.

And even in the dead of night, you walk him to the most special room of the house, of your home, his steps hesitant, but his heart too weak to resist. Helpless and already yearning, he can never say no.

In those no longer trembling hands, you gently place the most precious thing he has had a generous hand in creating, with utmost love.

Tears burning in his eyes, he cradles your baby, his baby, to his chest with one arm, his other curling around you, pressing you to his side, lips attached to your temple. You linger in your embrace until his tears of grief and guilt turn into ones of acceptance and happiness.

Because he loves and he is loved,

ever so softly

and every beat of his heart, your heart and his child’s, promise him that despite all the pain, everything will be okay.

I hope you enjoyed the little angst but with a sweet note in the end for a change🥰

Thank you for reading and @murdock-and-the-sea for sending 💕

[blingblong55]

Great protector- Simon "Ghost" Riley

Based on a request:

Sooo forgive me if this makes you uncomfy or anything and please feel free to ignore this. I just officially had my leg amputated after a bad accident last year and I'm really struggling. Can I please request some Ghost comfort where he comforts reader who just had something similar?thank you so much for some niceness in these hard times

GN!Reader, loss of limb angst, platonic!relationship, fluff

After some great explosion during a mission, you sustained injuries that led to having your right leg amputated. For months on end, you were in the hospital, recovering and coming to terms with it all.

Through thick and thin your battle buddy, Ghost was there. All the doctor appointments, therapy sessions, night terrors and bad mental health days. He was the comfort your new life needed. The mornings were the worst, that's when you were all alone and he was not in reach. Price and the others did visit, but it was he who had the permission to be around always.

You eventually were honourably discharged and moved to a small flat. Ghost had then become your roommate, he went from living on base to living with you. Most nights he stayed up, waiting around in case you needed him.

Tonight was a difficult time, you were given a choice in the morning, a wheelchair or a prosthetic leg. You couldn't come to terms with being what you are, you called yourself a 'worthless member of society' You for days looked at your old uniform, wishing you could wear it once more and feel 'normal'.

After a much-needed alone time, your walls came crashing down, tears flowing as your sobs got louder. Ghost walks into your room, "Grim, what's wrong?" he sounded scared and concerned. You stayed silent, turning away from him so he didn't have to see this side of you anymore.

He sat beside you, hand holding your chin so you could look at him, "Please, Grim, please don't shut me out..what's wrong?" his voice low and soft. Gaze on yours as the tears blur your vision, "I'm tired, I... I don't feel normal..this isn't..me" your voice shaky, lips quivering. Your hands looking for the ghost of your now gone limb. He hugged you, for the first time since this all happened he hugged you. It wasn't an 'I have to do this' hug but more of an 'I want to do this...I need it too'.

He pulled back slightly, wiping away the tears with so much delicateness and care, it was such a foreign feeling to you both. "...I know it's hard...but think of it this way, you now can tell people a good story...and you can have new jokes..not like your usual shit ones.." Maybe he wasn't good with comfort but the way he tries and how he shows his care for you in his own way is beautiful. You chuckle a little, something he would add to his book of accomplishments.

"You don't like my jokes?"

"Not one fuckin' bit, Grim...like why include a parrot-"

"It's funny!"

He shakes his head and laughs a little. In some ways, you and him created a deep bond during this all, You see, before this all he was just your battle buddy and the lieutenant you had to obey and now you eat breakfast he made and at times are forced to listen to his stupid army humour.

It was strange, the way he had become your family and best friend in the whole world. He is your rock, a shoulder to cry on and the stand-up comedy he makes you watch from the sofa. Maybe life has different plans for you, At first the plan is cruel and heartless but it gives you more back. The missing limb gave you a loving friend, a gentle giant and a softie behind closed doors when you two watch some cartoon or romantic comedy and for his own sake please stop watching 'A walk to remember', he has to keep his cold-hearted reputation going.

A/N: I really hope you love it dear anon...wishing you the best during this time <3333

[sonicexelle-junkary]

Foreboding [a HungryHero.EXE short fic]

I'm finally including the Zeti in something again, something small but still. Set about after the main backstory. Sonic decides to go back to lost hex, he needs to have a talk with a certain group of Zeti about something. Though he might not get the answers he wants.

CW: Mentions and descriptions of Cannibalism, blood, and disassociation

Lost hex was a sight to behold. A planet hidden just out of view from the residents of earth down below. Its surface was made of many large slabs of hexagons, dissipating into nothing around each landmass. It’s a mystery how this world works, even to its own denizens.

Among this world lived the Zeti, powerful beings who only want to cause harm to any being they come across. They had interacted with the world below and the people that resided in it only a few times before, a most notable interaction was when Dr. Eggman had found their home and enslaved them, to use them for his own army. What a fool he was, and what a bigger fool that hedgehog was to. To be so dumb and arrogant that he’d free them from the mad doctor, unknowing of the terrors that these creatures could create, especially with the doctors own machines.

A bright red biplane landed not far from the Zeti’s base. It used to be Eggman’s but they had repurposed it to be their own, among the badniks that he had carelessly left behind. From the plane hopped out a blue hedgehog who looked a little worse for wear. He walked from the plane and into the base with ease. Standing in the main room was Zavok, the leader and the most ruthless of the Deadly Six. He was alone, for now.

“I sense you have something to ask of me, hedgehog.” Zavok rumbled. Sonic didn’t respond. He turned to him. “Why else would you be here other than to get something from us? It has been over a year since we’ve last interacted, if I'm correct.”

Sonic nodded lightly, he still didn’t say anything. Zavok folded his hands behind his back and looked at the hedgehog before him. He fiddled with his hands and didn’t look him in the face, that undoubtful confidence and immense heroism was not there anymore. 

The Zeti’s expression grew firm. “This is about the cave isn’t it?” Sonic froze in place, his hands closed tight into fists. The Zeti paused. “I am surprised it took you that long to find out. I figured it was obvious… That we like to feed on your kind.”

Sonic continued to not say anything, it made the red Zeti pause again. “…. I feel you found something else in there.” Sonic’s breathing hitched, he gritted his teeth. Before he realized it the Zeti had came up to him and bent down to his level. “Am I correct?”

Sonic slowly opened his mouth and struggled to speak. He felt weird, like he wasn’t in his body. He was nervous and numb, something he didn’t know how to deal with. He finally looked Zavok in the face, their eyes meeting for only a moment, but it was more than enough for them to fully understand what each other was thinking.

Zavok’s eyes grew firm. “I see that I am.” A smile was hidden in his voice.

“What did you do to me?” Sonic forced out.

Zavok simply responded. “Nothing.”

“What?”

“We didn’t do anything to you, Sonic. Any actions you have made are truly your own.”

“No. NO! That's impossible! I can’t- I can’t want-…” Sonic looked at his hands. His gloves were slightly pink from his failed attempt to wash the blood off in time. His teeth felt like they were digging through flesh, he imagined swallowing and tasting it in his mouth. As much as this made him feel terrible, it made him feel amazing, his mouth watering and dripping with saliva. 

“I…..” He looked up at the Zeti who still stood a few feet from him. “Am I… like… y-….”

Zavok took a glance at Sonic. “Would that make you feel better or worse if you knew the answer.”

Sonic stared vacantly into nothing. His emotions were mixed and a pit had formed in his stomach. He felt dizzy and lightheaded, like he hasn’t eaten in days, he hasn’t. Any food he would have wanted was shoved in a large cooler in the garage of Tails’ workshop. He would struggle to open it almost as much as he would struggle to stay away from it. Knowing what was in there, it called to him like second nature.

“If you would like me to help you, I’ll have to refuse. Though I think you already knew that.”  Zavok said.

“You don’t even care…” Sonic strained through a lump in his throat.

“Why should we? You know what we are. Beings who cause pain to others, using them for our own personal gain.” Zavok came closer to the small hedgehog. “And if you becoming a cannibal causes you this much distress, I’d be happy to relish in it.”

Sonic swung but missed the Zeti in front of him. He stared at him, scared and angry. Zavok chuckled. “If you are so instistant in going out for blood, then perhaps you are more like your enemies than you think, Sonic.”

Sonic turned and left. He jogged out of the Zeti base, his footsteps were heavy and loud. He didn’t want to be there any longer, didn’t want to hear another word coming out of Zavok’s mouth. He jumped into the Tornado and started the engine, he winced at the sudden loud noise that came from it.

 As the propeller slowly started to pick up speed, he looked back at the base that towered above. A big dark building that had various appendages and devices stick out of its almost smooth exterior. It mocked him. Sonic scrunched his face up at the tower, the knot in his stomach had loosened a little, but his dizziness didn’t leave. He exhaled as he finally took off and away from lost hex.

[oleworm]

Though unjustly reviewed as a film that one suffers through, or that is too brutal to watch, I enjoyed my experience of The Nightingale (2018) very much, especially the developing friendship between the characters of Billy Mangana, an Aboriginal tracker who has decided that he will no longer work with the British, and Clare, an Irish convict in unwilling service to the colonial forces—both of whom lost their families at the hands of the British and who can never go home, one because the land and his people have been destroyed through genocide and the other because she was transported with no means of return, as a consequence of the class system that drove her to commit theft. The music and the nature stand out, the sounds of Tasmanian birds and marsupials, the vegetation and the geological features—one of the most subtle horror details is the appearance of an English farming village near to the end of the film, the consolidation of British lifeways in a land that was not originally empty but that is being made so, to create scenes of country life that would not be out of place in an Austen film.

It’s interesting that though it came out the same year as The Terror (2018) and they deal with similar topics it appears to have appealed to a completely different audience. Perhaps because one work is more subtle in its criticism of imperialism, while also being an adventure story among other things, to the point where those who choose to ignore it can easily do so, while for the other it is a central theme, and the violence employed to enforce the structures of the empire is directly shown. The Nightingale has good acting and writing, proper costuming, beautiful landscapes and music, all the things that made The Terror great—maybe people never heard of it, or were put off by hypersensitive reviewers, but it does surprise me that not many have seen it. Myself included! I only watched it yesterday. But why I didn’t do so before is a subject to explore in a personal journal, not a blog post, though if I come to a conclusion I would like to share I will certainly do so.

One of the biggest contrasts between both works is how the hierarchies of the Navy and Army are treated. In The Terror, it is up to the viewer to decide how they feel about these structures and those at its head. I can’t think of any character at the top of the hierarchy who is portrayed with more negatives than positives, even Franklin—whose presence in Tasmania is alluded to, but not dug into, an Easter egg for those who have read about it—is portrayed more as a pompous fool than the overseer of a genocidal colonial government, and while Fitzjames’ exploits in China are explicitly described and he dies as a result of injuries received in the First Opium War his character is sympathetically portrayed, to the point that like with Franklin it is often treated as just a bit of historical flavour. Class and rank structures are deeply ingrained in both sets of characters, but where mutineers in The Terror were interpreted as villains for sabotaging and breaking away from the group, and imperfect leader Crozier becomes one of the best loved characters, in The Nightingale we have Lieutenant Hawkins, who while initially charming and played by a conventionally attractive actor—he even looks similar to Edward Little, a popular character in The Terror fandom—consistently brutalises not only the convicts and the Aboriginal people, but also his own men. They are both loyal and afraid, like dogs abandoned, threatened and killed when they have fulfilled their purpose or no longer perform to the level that their superior expects of them. One could say, they are in it for personal gain, but after a certain point in the film there is nothing that he can give them, and yet they persist. Why do they follow him? Why don’t they run away into the bush? When I was thinking about this question, I remembered the character of Thomas Hartnell, who after being lashed does everything he can to please Crozier, the one who gave the order, but except a few people (you know who you are!) many viewers saw this positively in contrast to Hickey who developed a hatred of Crozier and ceased to respect the hierarchical order.

There’s also the fact that we see what happened to the Tasmanians after the British arrive, but we only see the beginning of what will happen to the Inuit. At the time that The Terror ends, only a few of the many search-and-rescue expeditions have made it to the Arctic, whose explorations led to the establishment of a stronger European presence in the North, with all that it involved.

So what was it? 126 white men syndrome, which makes this show attractive to people with an especial interest in men? Are more realistic portrayals of imperialism and colonialism too uncomfortable? Since many fandom participants are women, is it too heavy to think that women can be—and regularly were—assaulted under such circumstances? Are we not too different from the Reddit men who love adventures and the friends we made along the way, to the detriment of other themes important to the story? You decide. For me it’s a little bit of everything.

[kats-fic-recs]

Best Naruto Fics I read in 2022

SNS

The sun is too bright, it hurts.

The first time Sasuke sees Naruto, they are six years old. Sasuke is not stupid, he learns fast, and there are three basic things about Naruto you can know after being five seconds in the same room as him: first, he’s noisy. Second, he talks a lot. Third, he’s annoying.

Years later, Sasuke thinks the same, but Naruto is much more than that to him.

Love is Just Another Word for Understanding

Maybe it’s because Naruto doesn’t know when to quit, because he’s always there in the periphery, because he’s loud and obnoxious and pushy. Maybe it’s because Naruto is the only one who’s been able to land a hit on him in a spar for months now. Maybe it’s because Naruto is the only one who’s not afraid to make him bleed.

Regardless, Naruto is Sasuke’s rival. And as such, Sasuke watches him.

And watches.

And watches.

---

In which Sasuke finds many aspects of Naruto's life objectionable, and as a result more or less abducts--I mean, adopts him.

Gaalee

All the Grain of Babylon

Sunagakure is an outpost’s outpost, the most hidden of the hidden villages. Situated deep in the bowels of the planet Kaze, aptly named for the devastating windstorms caused by its thin atmosphere, the village is mostly nomadic. Under attack, the entire village can close off its tunnel structure and relocate in less than twenty-four hours, so long as the location of the Seed Bank isn’t discovered.

With Gaara as its leader and a code of strict cultural mores, the small underground society has survived, perhaps even thrived. But their safety and stability is put at risk when a ship crashes on the surface of Kaze, a ship whose crew claim to be the last known survivors of the long-abandoned planet Earth. And what the outsiders bring with them causes Gaara to question everything he's ever known ...

not creepin', just stuck

And now here they were, squeezed into a cozy little corner booth at the real coffee shop just up the street. The one with the blackboard menu and overstuffed upholstery on the mismatched chairs and a barista who, Gaara noticed with no small amount of jealousy, was neither required to wear a nametag nor recite a pithy canned slogan before each order.

Or, the inevitable consequences of being stuck in a donut case together.

On My Way Home

There is nothing now that Gaara, the man, can do to heal the wounds caused by Gaara, the monster. He cannot bring murdered villagers back from the dead. He cannot un-traumatize the children he terrorized in his youth. He cannot even repair the desert ecosystem that he disrupted during his massive, sand-filled rages. All he can do is be a safe harbor - level, and steady, and reliable as the sunrise - for his village, for his family, and for his friends.

Return to Sender

For nearly a decade, Rock Lee and Gaara have written each other, like clockwork. Their friendship grew steadily over many years, and at some point, without realizing it Rock Lee had fallen completely and irrevocably in love with Gaara.

But when he realizes this, advice from his mentor gives him little hope of ever being able to confess.

And so he does the only thing he can think to do: he writes it all down in a letter he never intends to send.

Iruka fics because I love him

whatever you wish for, you keep

Iruka saves a young fox kit in the schoolyard, and is forced to deal with the (not so bad) consequences.

Maslow

The first four tiers of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Human Needs applied to Naruto’s depressing childhood. Alternatively: Iruka slowly becomes the best replacement mother a ninja could have.

a beating heart of stone

During Iruka's first year teaching — on his own, because apparently there is a severe lack of teachers — he loses his curriculum, gets into a low-key fight with Shimura Danzo and accidentally creates an army. To be fair, none of this was planned.

BONUS

One of the greatest Naruto rewrites of all time

from the corner of your eye

When a misunderstanding prompts Sasuke to take a deeper involvement in the growth of his teammates, no one is quite prepared for the way things... change. Especially Sasuke.

The question is - is it for the better?

[autisticsupervillain]

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to Stats Equalized!

This Month's Fighters...

Emperor Palpatine vs Her Imperious Condescension!

Conditions:

Dark Empire Palpatine. Legends material only. "Dubiously Canon" Homestuck materials are ignored.

Scenario:

Just when Palpatine returns from the dead and sets out to conquer the galaxy with his new Dark Empire, the Alternian Empire invades, forcing him to direct his new armies at the incoming threat.

Analysis: Sidious

Of all the Dark Lords of the Sith who would come to terrorize the galaxy over the centuries, there is one and only one who could be said to have been born pure evil. He was not a man. Not a monster. But the Dark Side twisted into a barely human form. To the Sith, he is remembered as Palpatine the Great, the last of the Rule of Two who conquered the galaxy and destroyed the Jedi as no one before him ever had. To the Jedi, he is Darth Sidious, a genocidal monster behind the greatest tragedies and wars in galactic history. And to the Galaxy at large, he is just Emperor Palpatine, ruler of the First Galactic Empire.

Palpatine (not Sheev, that's Disney exclusive) always felt that the Naboo royal lineage he'd been born into was beneath him. Even as his family spoiled him rotten, he always felt he was destined for more. So, when Darth Plagueis the Wise, awed by his limitless potential in the Force, offered him secrets of the Dark Side, Palpatine did not hesitate. He murdered his family as a teenager and took the name Darth Sidious.

Sidious would manipulate his way to the top of galactic politics to become the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic, before murdering Plagueis in his sleep. Then, under the guise of innocent, kindly Palpatine, he would instigate the Clone Wars, one of the bloodiest conflicts in history, to transition the Republic into a paranoid, fascist police state. Grooming the young Anakin Skywalker into the horrific enforcer Darth Vader, Palpatine would dispose of all his former allies when he took the throne, before purging the Jedi to grasp the galaxy in his iron grip.

Palpatine would reign unchallenged for decades, destroying planets with superweapons, instigating slavery and genocides, creating whole new forms of Dark Force magic, and crushing all resistance to maintain his iron grip on the galaxy. It was not until Anakin's son, Luke, reminded him of the man he was and turned him against his master that his mad reign would finally end. Palpatine would be cast into the reactor of his own Death Star, vaporized and obliterated. And at last, the Galaxy would know peace....

But, even after all that.... somehow, Palpatine returned.

Paranoid and meticulous, Palpatine planned ahead. He transferred his soul to a cloning station he'd prepared, letting the rebellion fight with the remnants of his empire as he rebuilt his armies and bolstered his strength, Palpatine would re-emerge to slaughter them all for failing and defying him. He would return not as a man, but as the embodies of the Dark Side itself. A being of the dark, twisted soul unconstrained by death or mortal morality.

Darth Sidious was a nearly unparalleled master of lightsaber combat, viewing it as little more than a way to mock the Jedi. Having mastered all seven forms, Palpatine would fight against some the greatest Jedi who ever lived, including Grandmaster Yoda, Mace Windu, Darth Maul, Galen Marek, and Luke Skywalker.

Despite their tenacity, the Jedi could not match Palpatine's sheer raw power in the Force. Galen Marek, who was powerful enough to pull starships out of the sky, Yoda, who could annihilate entire armies, and Luke, who had become an equal to his father Darth Vader by the time of Dark Empire. None of them alone could match his raw power on their own.

With Luke, Palpatine would spend months chipping away at his mind, driving him slowly mad to break him into his perfect apprentice, sucking out all his will the first time the young man challenged him. Palpatine could hide his darkness in the Force for years from all the Jedi in the Galaxy, flooding the Galaxy with his darkness so none could sense anything. Palpatine could slow down the Jedi Mace brought with him with a confusion haze, drive people mad with a thought, trap people in entire worlds made of illusions, bolster the willpower of his armies to effectively turn them into a hive mind, and even turn people into mindless drones with just a recording of his voice.

Palpatine spent so much of his time studying the Dark Side, he perfected every single power the Dark Side could provide at the time and could even invent brand new ones in a whim. He can vaporize you with lightning, suck the life our of you with Force Drain, crush you to death with telekinesis, fly, absorb energy, and will things to explode. He taunt Dooku how to create an army of zombies, can duplicate himself with hard loght copies, can shoot fire from his hands or freeze you solid, and can create fields of death that instantly kill any life form in their radius. Period. Alongside many.... many others...

Palpatine's being is nothing but a soul now. He doesn't need a physical body to survive. Whenever his current clone body dies or is defeated, he just transfers his soul to the next body or even to your body. He can take over your body and replace your personality, destroying your soul with his if you destroy his body through the power of Essence Transfer. Functionally, he is immortal so long as he has a body on hand.

But his most devastating ability of them all was dreaded Force Storm. This higher dimensional vortex in the fabric of space and time tears apart reality itself, wiping the life off planets and even punching holes in time. He used a Force Storm to teleport Luke across the galaxy and other Jedi such as Revan have tanked naturally occuring Force Storms only to end up getting teleported thousands of years across time. It is a literally apocalyptic power that could destroy the universe, higher dimensions and all, if Palpatine ever losses control of it.

So is this Dark Emperor the invincible god he says he is? ....No.

Firstly, Sidious strongly favors his force abilites. He thinks lightsaber combat is archaic, useful only to mock the Jedi. So, every single major victory against someone his own level came by way of his Force powers, with Mace and Yoda even disarming him outright before Sidious wised up. It says a lot that Palps doesn't even use his own lightsaber anymore. His old one was vaporized with the rest of him after his death, so now he uses a stolen blue Jedi one from a Jedi he killed personally. Probably one of the ones accompanying Mace. The only opponent Palpatine did beat with the blade is Maul who.... frankly, isn't even in the same galaxy as Sidious in any timeline....

Secondly, his own raw power is a detriment to his clone bodies. The more he exerts himself, the faster they rot under the weight of his might. Given that his clones range in age from fifteen to eighty, each body rots at different rates. After Leia freed Luke from Palp's control and gave him the strength boost he needed to overpower the Emperor, Palpatine had to keep transferring to weaker and weaker bodies that break down faster and faster.

Finally, if he fails to overpower the mind of his victim when possessing them, his soul will be wiped from existence, reduced to nothing and chaos. Though, for good measure, the ghost of every Jedi who ever lived did band together to destroy his soul forever and make sure he could never return.

Therein lies Palpatine's greatest achievement. He's bathed the galaxy in so much blood, that every Jedi who ever lived utterly despised him by the end. For as powerful as every Sith that came after him was, none was truly born evil like Palpatine.

Analysis: Her Imperious Condescension

The Alternian Empire. The ultimate terror in the universe, and eventually, the multiverse. A species of planet conquering trolls that has bathed the stars in blood, destroying countless civilizations and rending planets down to ash. What do you imagine when you picture such a fearsome foe? What diabolical mastermind do you see piloting the helm of this mighty empire?

Did you picture Betty Crocker, the baked goods brand? Because that's who it is.

Her Imperious Condescension was the immortal ruler of Alternia and all its colonies, forcing her empire into a bloodthirsty might-makes-right dystopia. Keeping her people in line under threat of being obliterated by an eldritch monstrosity and exterminating any blood caste that threatened her, she was a monsterous tyrant that banished all trolls to space upon reaching adulthood so they could immediately serve her eternal armies.

Until suddenly, her empire died out from under her. The eldritch monstrosity she used to keep her people in line cried out in hunger, signaling the end times of her people as their minds melted across the galaxy. Her people had died in a single cry. And now The Handmaiden, the grim reaper of her species, was staring her down.

The Condescension emerged victorious over the Handmaiden after a pitched battle and, with no one left to conquer, replaced her as Lord English's servant. She would now pave the way for her new master to destroy all reality.

Being second fiddle to the biggest threat Paradox Space has ever seen, The Condescension is monumentally powerful. As the highest of the sea dwelling high bloods, Betty is immortal and unaging, as well as completely immune to all psychic powers. She was conquering worlds for thousands of years before Lord English cursed her with "conditional mortality", keeping her from dying until her master had no further use for her. As a denizen of Paradox Space, she follows video game logic. She can store things in a hammerspace inventory known as a specibus, including objects she couldn't possibly be hiding on her person like her iconic trident, and can level up and grow stronger from any random action she makes.

Really, trolls are very hardy species just by baseline. The Condescension herself can survive the vacuum of space unharmed and several trolls could survive the heat of orbital re-entry as a freshly hatched grub. The fact that Condy stood as the unquestioned queen among them for possibly millions of years just showcases how tough she is.

With nothing but time, she manipulated the media and governments of Earth B until it was under her complete control, masterminding mankind's downfall before reducing the world to a flooded apocalyptic wasteland. In the meantime, she experimented on herself to unlock more of her latent abilities. While she could never quite get her psychic powers to work on humans, forcing her to rely on specialized mind control tiaras to deal with them, they did wonders on animals and half animal hybrids, bending them to her will absolutely. With her advanced telekinetic powers, she could throw around statues and even planets with ease, destroying entire worlds with her might, while her eye beans could blast apart entire planets.

Perhaps more daunting than even that was her power to control life. As a latent Thief of Life she could "steal" life from other people and give it to others or herself. In this way, she could keep the ones she cared about from dying, preserving the Helmsman's lifespan as he served as the battery on her ship, forcing him to live forever as the life was sucked out of him.

However, she couldn't restore the dead. As her competition might say... it was ironic that she could save others from death... but not herself.

Ultimately, the Condescension turned out to be such a formidable foe that even the heroes destined to destroy Lord English failed against her on the first go. She vaporized Kanaya with a single blast, snapped the neck of Aranea Serket, and stomped every God that stood in her way. So won so badly that John Egbert had to use an artifact that removed him from fate and break the laws of time travel just for anyone to have a chance at beating her.

Even then, she put up a very long fight. Going toe to toe with no less than four gods at once, many of whom could control space and time itself, all throughout the final battle. Next to her master, the Condescension was the toughest threat the heroes of Paradox Space had to face. Keep in mind, many of these Gods, such as John and Dave, could fight First Guardians, who could destroy entire multiverses and tank their destruction in turn!

But, eventually, even her bloody reign had to end. Millions of years of bloodshed and conquest were finally brought to an end by the Condescension's death, ending the legacy of the cruel Alternian Empire.

Throwdown Breakdown:

This fight would be a spectacle.

Both characters have plotted the rise and fall of empires through years of careful political manipulation and both are responsible for the destruction of countless worlds and the extinction of countless species. In raw power, both have the range to tear worlds apart and the power to crumble the multiverse if left unchecked. But... there can be only one.

Both Imperials have a devastating variety of powers and abilities, with both having a lot of counters to each other's arsenals. While his telekinesis doesn't quite match the sheer scope of the Condescension's, his Force Storms definitely do, tutaminus allows him to absorb her laser beams, any life force she steals from him can be yanked right back with Force Drain, and his trained immunity to mind control makes her tiaras useless. On the other hand, he can't control her mind either thanks to her natural immunity, Lord English's curse would counter out the Death Fields, and Condy's demonstrated toughness against the elements shows she could withstand Palp's fire, ice, and lightning for a long time before going down. Hard Vacuum is colder than freezing cold ice, while the heat of orbital re-entry and exploding planets can match the heat of fire, lightning, and lightsabers, giving Condy a buffer.

Now, I'm not saying she could just no-sell a lightsaber. Not at all. I'm just saying she'll endure the lightning and stabs a lot better than most people and should be capable of clashing blades with her trident just fine.

In terms of skill and intelligent, both are consummate chessmasters. Palpatine improvises his plans constantly throughout the movies to keeping coming out on top and has fallbacks for when things go wrong. Apprentice dead? Corrupt Dooku, then Anakin as a fallback when Dooku outlives his usefulness. On the Condescension's side, her first approach is usually to open with faux diplomacy before letting her armies swoop in on a helpless planet, a method that served her well when it came time to conquer the Earth. By the time anyone was ready to fight her, it was already much too late.

Sidious fought and defeated Grandmaster Yoda, someone who had been protecting the galaxy for nearly 900 years. But even that life span is a drop in the ocean to Condy, who has been conquering for thousands, if not millions of years. Sidious is a manipulative sorcerer first, warrior second, and he views combat as just a way to mock whoever he's fighting. The Condescension is the top rung of violent warrior race of planet conquers. She has more experience and a greater warrior's mindset than Palpatine. This exasperates the fact that, due to her immortality, Palpatine's win condition in this fight is to cripple the Condescension to the point that she can't fight anymore, which is much tougher to do if he can't chop her up with his lightsaber.

This fight is guaranteed to be an endurance run, and that's ultimately where Betty's victory lies. Lightning and lasers will clash through the vacuum of space, planets will be thrown around and destroyed, stars will explode until a chunk of the galaxy is gone. And through it all, Palpatine's body decays under the weight of his own power. Against an equal in power who surpasses his skill, Sidious will be forced to give everything he has even as his body rots around him, before ditching it to find another clone as it dissolves.

Despite being physically much older than him, Condy's body is stuck in her physical prime, while every clone Palpatine brings out will only grow more decrepit. Palpatine suffers from a snowball effect in this fight where once he starts losing, every action he takes to bounce back will push him down further, require exertion that makes him weaker, while every clone the Condescension kills will push her higher up her echeladder and make her stronger. Force Storms, duplicates, illusions, Palpatine surpasses in variety to be sure, but the Condescension has fought that, beaten that even during Game Over. It will be a long, drawn out batte of equals, and that's part of why Palpatine losses.

Darth Sidious's best shot is to launch the Condescension across time and space with a Force Storm, but I find that unlikely. Beyond Condy fighting Time and Space manipulators before, Force Storms are monumentally difficult to control and take an exponential amount of power, making the snowball issue even worse if it doesn't work.

Taking over the Condescension's body wouldn't work due to her in-built immunity. Interacting with the Horrorterrors does the exact same thing passively and the Condescension was raised by one just fine.

Out of trump cards, Palpatine would beg for his life beneath her heel before the trident spears his chest, the Condescension's laughter echoing through the ruins of his empire.

This Throwdown's Winner is....

Her Imperious Condescension!

[suppose-i-was-worm]

Iceberg Siren pt 7

**here we go! Final chapter! I hope y'all enjoy!**

Jason stumbled, trying his hardest to get to the middle of the fight. The newest Teen Titans member, Phantom, was gallantly holding a glowing green shield to cover Batman while Darkseid attacked them all, and he desperately needed to get to Bruce and pull him away.

When he got home to Danny, he would ask the man to marry him immediately. They had only been dating a year, but Jason was sure of his feelings for the other man.

If he was being honest, he didn’t expect to get home, not if he truly wanted a home to return to.

Robin ran forwards, wielding his katana, and both Jason and Phantom watched in terror as he was swatted away by the ruler of Apokolips like a gnat.

Phantom’s shield dropped and she dove to catch Robin, cushioning his fall. Robin had told him about her- how she latched on to the entire team with both hands, protected them with everything she had. It was sweet to see it, even with the heartbreaking reality that her efforts might be in vain this last time.

With dawning horror, Jason noted that his little brother was struggling to breathe after the hit.

And then Phantom screamed.

“Ď̸͔̮̯͖̞̎͝A̵̩̱͙͓̳͉̲͓͗̍͗̆̉̆̓̒̋͝N̷̡͍̣̜͇̼̬͆̆͘͘N̶̦̦͆͐͗Ỵ̸̞̤͙͙͓̈́̍̎̕”

Her scream created a shockwave, and Jason threw up his arm to shield his face from the force of it, his helmet long destroyed in the fight. A bright flash of light appeared above Phantom, and suddenly there was a tall man in black with floating white hair hovering above her.

The man looked around, taking in the situation, and then lit up green when his eyes landed on Darkseid.

The wannabe god was staring at the man, in shock or rage Jason couldn’t tell.

“Prince Uxas of Apokolips.”

The strange man’s whisper carried across the battlefield, and it sent shivers down Jason’s spine. The voice was altogether familiar and unfamiliar at the same time, and he hated it.

The man floated down to stand in front of Phantom and Robin, coincidentally in front of Batman as well. Jason couldn’t see his face anymore.

“Do you know what you’ve done?”

Darkseid slammed the end of his weapon into the ground, obviously intent on fighting the newcomer.

“I’m here as is my right, interloper! What horrors have I not committed in the search for Anti-life? What authority have you to stop me?”

“You. Made. My. Daughter. Cry.”

The ice and danger in the man’s voice made Jason cast a prayer to a god he didn’t believe in that he would at least die quickly. Darkseid was powerful, but the newcomer clearly wasn’t afraid. Something told Jason that this man could end everyone on the battlefield with a flick of his finger and not worry about any life except Phantom’s.

Without warning, the man in black grew, humanoid form warping and shifting until he had too many limbs and too many eyes, an avenging angel of biblical proportion in the midst of the ruins of Metropolis. A crown of green flames appeared on the creature’s head, casting dancing shadows that reached out and snatched the invading force one by one, dragging them into the darkness.

“My authority is that of the King of the Infinite Realms, and I am Justice. You have been deemed unworthy based on your actions in this world and those beyond. I sentence you, Uxas of Apokolips, self-styled as Darkseid, to eternal suffering in the stockades of the dead.”

A great flaming sword appeared and the creature wielded it, swinging down on Darkseid. As soon as it connected with the alien, he and all of his remaining army vanished into nothingness.

The creature turned, folding in on itself as it made it’s way to Phantom. Jason forced his legs to move, to get to the three heroes closest to the stranger. They were down, he had to protect them, he had to-

“He’ll be alright, Phantom.”

“But- he- he got hit and he can’t breathe and-”

The being placed a gentle hand on Phantom’s dark hair, kneeling down to her level.

“It isn’t his time, Phantom. You’re holding him too tight. Let yourself rest, and everyone will recover.”

“I- I couldn’t stop him.”

Shaking it’s head, the being cupped her cheek.

“No one expected you to.”

As Jason got closer, the strange tingle of familiarity sparked more and more. The being’s unruly hair, calm voice, and constellations of freckles were achingly familiar.

Then they looked up at him as he stumbled over a rock, and he fell to his knees at the eyes that met his.

“Danny?”

Danny Nightingale smiled sheepishly at him, all teeth and inverted colors.

“Hey, Red. I’ll explain- later. We’ve got cleanup to do.”

~~~

Once the cleanup was done- all the heroes in cots in the Watchtower medbay, Danny left the room to detransform, leaving Dani and Jason to watch over their injured teammates. Once he was human again, he noticed his hands were shaking.

What would Jason do now? Now that he knew Danny was more powerful than he’d let on? Would he end their relationship? Would he be mad at Danny for lying?

He hadn’t intended on ever letting his boyfriend know- he’d hidden his extended powers fairly well, but when he heard Dani scream for him he had to go to her, consequences be damned. She was his daughter, the only person he really had left from home.

When he returned to the medbay, he made a beeline to Dani, sitting slumped over by Robin’s bedside. She had pulled all of the Teen Titans’ beds close, and was keeping an eye on all of them. Jason was there too, sitting beside Batman, but Danny had to check his clone over first.

“Phantom. Injuries?”

“Negative, Phantom. Just tired.”

He ran a hand through her hair, let down from its usual ponytail.

“You’ve done well today- get some rest, okay?”

She mumbled her assent and then crawled into the cot next to Robin. Cute.

Danny turned to Jason next, who was watching Batman’s chest rise and fall.

“I’m sorry.”

Jason’s head shot up.

“For what? You saved all our asses out there, Cricket.”

The pet name soothed some of Danny’s worries.

“Lying? I mean…” he gestured down at himself and Dani. “This whole thing is a pretty big lie of omission.”

His boyfriend chuckled wryly, holding out a hand. Danny took it without thinking.

“You- I have to ask about the daughter thing later, but- you know I understand keeping secrets, right? I’m a not-dead vigilante.”

Breathing out a sigh of relief, Danny took the chair Dani had vacated, scooting it close enough to Jason to rest his head on his boyfriend’s shoulder, fingers intertwining.

“How did you know? To come help, that is.”

Danny frowned a little, glad Jason couldn’t see his face.

“Phantom. She- she called for me. I didn’t even know she was here, but I heard her. I would have ripped a hole in the fabric of reality to save her.”

Jason shifted a little under him.

“She’s that important to you?”

“Phantom is the last person I have left from home.”

“Oh.”

Danny let the silence wash over him and tried to keep his nerves under wraps.

Dani could be the breaking point between him and Jason, and he didn’t know if he could handle that.

“Hey Danny?”

“Hm?”

“I thought about this during the battle, but that doesn’t mean I don’t mean it sincerely and truly. I thought if I made it out alive, I’d ask you- will you marry me?”

Danny sat up again, eyes wide as he took in Jason’s face. It was his sincere face, the one he only made when he meant something sappy.

“There’s a ring in a secret compartment at my apartment- I don’t exactly carry it with me to high-stakes missions, but- I want this.”

Feeling tears well up in his eyes, Danny brought the hand that wasn’t holding Jason’s up to wipe a bit of soot off his fiance’s face.

“Me too. I want it too.”

They shared a chaste kiss, surrounded by the unconscious forms of the Justice League, as Dani’s snoring filled the medbay.

~~~

“Oh crap.”

Jason looked up from the report he was writing for an unamused Bruce to where his fiance was doing the same.

“Something wrong?”

Danny looked up at him with wide eyes.

“I forgot to feed Yinsen’s cat before I left!”

[tieflingfingers]

Karlach and the Great Pumpkin

What and who: Humor and fluff, Karlach letting out her inner child. Thomasin and Wyll keep the goblins in their place. Astarion has his own plans. Summary: Thomasin uses her half-drow heritage to her advantage as her and Wyll put on their stoic exteriors entering the goblin camp. Wyll spots an owlbear cub and Karlach becomes determined to take it home as a pet. Astarion sneaks off to figure out a way to thin the herd. Warning/Content: Just a little fun character building and expanding on the owlbear chase in the goblin camp. Part of series. More in the realm of character study, but everyone gets a little bit of the spotlight today. Word Count: 4,646 Ao3 Link

As the four walked through goblin territory, small beings seemed to flash their sharpened teeth with newfound confidence. The vigor of an army manned by an intangible god. They erected hazardous pathways made of scrap wood and rusty nails. Splintered wood patched splintered wood, creating watchtowers and multi-level platforms, rickety in every step weighing upon them. Heights that made the chip on their shoulders quiver with power.

One by one, groups of goblins introducing themselves as lookout militia interrogated the strangers approaching.  They insisted dung be smeared before entering out of respect. Requests and demands thrown about to clap for their achievements or bow before their god. All lackluster threats to Thomasin’s safety until the goblins' synapses connected the dots. 

It was the complexion of her skin. Thomasin was, in fact, a drow. At least, full-blooded by their perception. A woman plucked right out of the Underdark with a pension for apathy and terror. The right hand of the Absolute must’ve been eternally warmed by Lolth’s embrace to earn such submission.   

Thomasin took it in stride. Preconceived notions had been placed upon her since she was a child. Her existence was boiled down into what was to be expected in the vicinity of a drow. A series of half-educated discussions that followed her around and rarely ended in her benefit. Never had it succumbed to this. For once, she felt authority. 

The only factor quelling their fears of her seemed to be inebriation. Fat tongues and giggling dispositions blanketed by bitter alcohol. Ineptitude egged on by a celebration of homemade booch and crude jokes that made them clink their tankards. The taunting turned to circles of questioning as they remembered why they feared her kind in the first place.

They wondered if the drow ate food or if the souls of their victims were enough sustenance. Whether she had an audience with the drow stationed in the temple. If she, too, sought to thrash through the forests with unforgiving vengeance. If she would sprout the legs of a spider on command the instant they weren’t cordial.

Leaning into Lolth torture culture curdled within Thomasin’s stomach like a pit of congealed bile. It was the constant burst of her oblivion. The loving anecdotes of her father were being overtaken by light corrosive stinging, acrid and settled in her core. All she could do was hope Eilistraee would understand.

The goddess knew of her sister’s grasp. She, too, would empathize with what made the plight of conversation smoother. Tales spun were of no actual weight upon her character. Stories crafted were more terrifying than any truth, but she let the mythos live.

Eventually they met the arches of a temple lost to time. The entrance to stone ruins where goblins shone their most wily behavior. Thomasin’s muscles tightened, shoulder blades pinned back and posture self-assured. Bolts secured an expression of impassiveness upon her face, skin pulled taut and unimpressed. All was held by masonry welded air-tight from years of practice. 

Of course, their antics weren't scarier than most bandits she’d encountered. It wasn’t their hostility that clutched her nerves tight. It was a fear born from the sheer amount of goblins they waded through. All drunk far beyond their limits and chock-full of opinions. A rambunctious party had become well underway.

The companions now realized the extent of the alcohol in circulation. It didn’t take long for this batch to vocalize their true distaste for the outsiders. Liquid courage bubbled in their guts and strung together uncreative insults. Misused words formed jabs that dance like delight off their tongues. 

Morals misshapen, bent, and dressed in worn leathers and dark pigments. Small hands riddled with impulses swung dull weaponry without care. No blade discipline was needed in the name of the Absolute. No god had ever been as gracious in the pursuit of pillaging. Blind faith was worth the scarce ethics. 

Thomasin’s temporary truth made lips loosen. She became a vessel for the Absolute followers to vent, providing catharsis as they brought up a female drow spoken of like a necessary evil. A nuisance and a leader so vicious, her name embedded like deep splitting cracks of their lips. The name “Minthara” repeated, spit up with frustration and venom. 

Wyll had previously vented and ranted about his encounters with goblins over a bottle of his own. Nights where he felt the space to unveil true emotions and recognize the children that left permanent scar tissue around his heart. It all made the role of unwavering stoicism far easier to play. Scowls and short demands that contrasted the strategies, or lack thereof, of Karlach and Astarion. 

Their partners rode on the coattails of such leadership. They knew that half of intimidation came from blatant disregard alone. A tiefling of her stature was massive, running so hot that the air warped around her. A high elf rich in the performance of hierarchy walked at her side, his aura giving off its own presence in a metaphorical way. Although most wouldn’t consider his outward disgust as unwarranted. 

The goblins’ merriment wafted about like rising stale smoke. An odorous haze that left a pungent, almost acidic, film on one’s tongue if not careful. The stench of standing water, mud, and dung hung over the ruins like a canvas covered wagon, encasing every sense imaginable. An unkempt barn mixing with the aroma of mystery meat roasting over an open fire’s spit.

“Hells, I’m one for this sort of debauchery, but couldn’t they-I don’t know, freshen up?” Astarion disparaged with a crinkle of his nose. “Even the blood in this place smells of sour dirt.”

Karlach inhaled, cutting it off before revulsion could seep in. 

“It’s rough, but not as bad as you’d think once you get used to it. Goblins throw the best parties,” she said, waving a hand through the punishing air.  “You get drunk enough and even the booze tastes good. And lifting one of those guys up to do a keg stand? One hand, easy.”

Wyll hadn’t spoken much, surveying his surroundings for potential dangers. To his surprise, his eye landed upon an owlbear cub sitting beside its presumed master.

“Looks like that little fella got swept up,” he uttered with a subtle nod. The man’s usual poetics had flattened, as did the lilt in his voice. Octaves lowered to maintain his facade, but the whisper of optimism that colored his words could be heard peeking through. It had a grittier resolve now. “Wonder how long until it’s old enough to realize this place is one big meal.”

Karlach’s cheekbones rose, teeth clenching tight with a grin that cemented her jaw shut. Her tongue stiffened and pressed up against its cage out of instinct from a lifetime of traversing the hells. Although the joy seeped through the bars, snaking through with its own wisps of smoke. In this realm, no brass douter could snuff out her flame. 

Thoughts of their bonding ricocheted in her mind. The feeling of her claws ruffling through bushels of feathers. Rotund, wide-eyed, every chirping twist and turn of its head. Its circumference was perfect. The exact size made for her wing-span to cradle at night. 

“By the gods and everything unholy, please tell me you have a potion I can use to talk to that little guy. We need them in our camp,” she whispered with great restraint, thudding against Thomasin’s shoulder repetitively with a bandage-wrapped forearm. 

Thomasin had never considered the fact one could domesticate an owlbear. Common tales painted these beasts as fueled by murder. Countless illustrations in children’s books were published around Faerun to make them wary of the forests unsupervised. Now she had met a grove of druids electing to share small talk with cave bears and snakes’ unhinging jaws. Perhaps the creature would grow to have its own stories, jokes, and tips on the lay of the land.

Before the half-elf could answer, she felt an assault of sheer volume hitting her. From atop the safety of a crate, a goblin woman’s shouts carried throughout the yard. She was a proud mother touting the owlbear like a circus act, letting it fester in a pile of dust until there was a use for it. She squinted at the group of elves and horned strangers alike, the same pigments streaking her eyelids also staining her lips. Exposed soot settled in between the cracks of her teeth when she spoke.

“Ay, if you dont got plans to bet, keep on walking!”

Thomasin furrowed her brows. The drunken assertiveness felt like unpaved gravel roads. Like the pitch of her voice had become mauled by years of smoking dead dried herbs.

 “Gods–and what are you proposing we bet on?” she replied with quick reflexes, if only to stop the sounds of heckling. The half-elf’s hand tucked into skirt pockets so she could rub a thumb along the surface of a river-polished rock.

“It’s a chicken chasing game, get the rocks outta ya’ ears, murker. No dragon huntin’ or fairytale nonsense. You put in a few coin, if you chase ‘im through our maze, through the posts, to the goal line. If yer quick, you get your money and then some.” The goblin leaned forward, her height now nearly the half-elf’s, granting her quite the audacity. “If you lose, I don’t wanna hear it.”

As she began to respond, Thomasin’s heart dropped at a sensation nudging at her shoulder. It was only a second, but the weight of thieving fingers tugged at her posture, threatening her performance. A pair of resilient lungs always readied and prepared for mishap steadied her breath and settled once icy fingertips came into focus. 

Astarion was searching for a potion half-consumed. The remaining sloshing about in a repurposed wine bottle partially filled, glittering liquid dulled behind near opaque glass. It had been the same concoction he lifted from her bag days prior out of necessity. The birds nearby their camp had to have a heart-to-heart discussion. Or rather, lecture. His finetooth comb was an awful addition to their nest, if not for the poor interior design alone. Thieving was best left to those with thumbs.

“Not sure that’s a chicken, frankly,” Thomasin replied, stalling for time. Her bare shoulder rolled, playing off the fright like a heavy backpack strap had slipped from its place, immediate to be repositioned. 

“It’s got feather’s, don’t it? A beak? Elves always tryin’ to act smarter than they are… Stupid thing ate our last chicken, owes us for that. Want in or not?”

Karlach jumped to the forefront, her chin sizzling as a stream of glittering liquid was wiped with the back of her hand. Her weathered wraps glinted with iridescence and pointed ears twitched as the cub’s chirps began to form coherence to her common tongue. She flung the bottle forward, adding to a collection of glass accumulating, chunks of green shards shattering in its wake.

“I’ll do it! I wanna take a crack at it. Get me in there, coach.” 

The tiefling dug into a satchel hanging from her belt and pulled out a few coins, their metal turning shades of copper and crimson. Their surfaces blistered on impact in the goblin’s open palm and she shrieked, juggling the coins in the air to cool. The four could feel one another shoving down their amusement.

“Fuckin’ shit, the cost of makin’ a heap of coin. Follow me.”

Karlach departed with the cub as they walked to opposing sides of a makeshift maze. A section of the temple’s exterior had been blocked off with a series of crates, barrels, and fencing made of swollen rotted wood. Rags and discarded belongings scattered about like obstacles. Dull blades, lost boots, thick broken glass bottles had been thrown without reason. Torches secured with splitting rope sat atop posts, lighting a path under the shade of forgotten goddesses.

A smattering of goblins gathered behind the three tall strangers, peeking through the spaces between wrists and hips. Each was fidgety with coins pinched between dirt-stained fingers, exchanging last minute bets in hopes of riches. Those with little to their name merely watched and manifested that the tiefling would hit the ground like a tree collapsing in a forest. A giantess versus overgrown poultry. 

Astarion’s knees shifted side to side at the sensation of the crowd brushing up against him, groaning at their nonexistent personal space. A concept all too foreign for a place like this. They pushed and prodded, barked and bantered, until the elf had enough. He wiggled his way out, parting from the commotion to wander into nearby pockets of camp.

“Alright, everyone hold onto yer hides. This lucky lady is gonna try to outsmart a chicken! Fat chance, so keep take yer bets now.”

Karlach noted how the cub’s feathers splayed outward, puffing its silhouette up into a monster a fifth larger than its actual size. She knew those paws were still young. Their pads had not yet been callused by cragged terrain and aggressive tendencies were all it had left. So, Karlach played her role.

The tiefling wiped red clammy hands onto leather pants and lowered her stance. It was natural. Knees bent, hip wide, focus sharpened. This wasn’t the response to demons and death rattles, but visions of a young girl playing stickball in the city streets. A time where both horns were intact. Only the worrying aid of her mother when her daughter came home with scraped knees and a tooth cradled like a trophy.

The sound of a rattling bone flail was followed by the crowd demanding violence and showmanship. A metaphorical clock ticked down and Karlach used her same toothy determination to vault over each fence. Light feet often survived where hot feet stumbled, bouncing on toes and deliberately digging her heels to pivot where need be.

What was meant as a treacherous challenge made her giggle as she evaded debris. Posts being sped past were slapped to leave char marks. Documentations of her swift impending success etched into wood. Blackened streaks wove into its grain where her tail slid by and barrels knocking over with an occasional clumsy maneuver only worsened by her own glee.

Caught up in the game, it took a moment for Karlach to realize there was only a few feet left between her and the cub. Her adrenaline pumped in what felt like a frequency identical to the echoes and awes of her audience. Their comments intertwined into a pool of losing bets and winning screams. The sudden stop of her momentum interrupted her balance, catching her statuesque height like a ceramic vase swirling itself back onto flat ground. 

“Hey!—”

Karlach bit her tongue as she heard her voice bellow. From the angle of the crowd, her muscles flexed like prey about to consume its prize. What they couldn’t see was the enthusiasm flushing her cheeks. The lowering of her voice to a calm, approachable beckoning. Her nails’ gentle wiggling to release her warm scent to the creature before her.

”Hey, hey. Easy now, little baby. I won’t hurt you.”

The owlbear growled, confused but revving up its biological defense mechanisms. Her pleas became muffled beneath the cheer of the crowd as they witnessed a stand-off. Overstimulated and overwhelmed, it made the cub kick up onto its back legs to pivot to scurry off.

”Whoop!”

Karlach giggled, lowering further down, words rushed and urgent but softened like speaking to a child. A skill the tiefling hadn’t honed much in her adult years, but she recognized when a bark was louder than its bite.

“Sh, shhh, hey,” she whispered as the creature caught itself in another corner. A bundle of feathers wedged between posts. “If these guys are treating you bad, we can take care of you.”

“All I do is eat food and now they look at me like food,” the cub uttered, puffed up and ready to charge at any sudden movements.

“I’m not mean like them. I have lots of meat. Are you hungry?” Karlach glanced over her shoulder, recognizing the ticking seconds fleeting, before looking back at the cub. “If you run to the end, we’ll get you out of here.”

The cub’s feathery fur flattened a bit, considering how nice of a proposition she had given. What innocence was left in the youth latched onto the idea of safety. It bolted past her, back into the lanes, and began to attempt navigating the maze once more. Karlach gasped as her plan worked, glee whistling through her teeth. She followed, nose scrunching at the tiny paw prints left in the dirt floor beneath them.

“That’s it! A little more now!”

The crowd of goblins, including the cub’s unrightful owner, narrowed their eyes at the close call. Even in their camaraderie, Wyll couldn’t dampen his distaste for their behavior. Wily and uncouth with a backdrop of cooking flesh. The same distinct yet cryptic scent usually encountered in dens of depravity and enslavement camps. He felt Thomasin set a hand upon his shoulder, quiet with its consolation.

At this point, each of the companions had voiced their own traumas and gripes to an extent.  She recognized the passion of justice burning a hearth fierce in his soul. The ardency of one’s early twenties not yet jaded by a constant retaliation of life.

Wyll tilted his head downward at a couple of spectators rough-housing against his calves. His gestures were casual and unassuming, fingers only half-splayed to point at Karlach’s revelry. The looseness mimicked a form of himself usually unsheathed by late night drinking.

“Swift thinking and moves like that, makes the Blade of Frontiers look worse for wear, don’t you think?” he commented, dismissing his own nickname with false contempt.

“Bah, he wouldn’t show his face in here if he knows what’s good for ‘im. Heard he ran off all scared-like to some camp, but we got the best of the best out there looking for his ugly face.”

Both Wyll and Thomasin couldn’t help but snicker, her eyes flicking over at him to see his response. There was a subtle glint of recognition in both of their eyes. No overt crooks in their grins to break the cover of stony power plays. Wyll simply crossed his arms, nodding along to the insults as if he too felt the very same.

“Ah, of course. Hiding behind a sword. The type always known for coward, you’re right. Takes a keen eye to spot the imposters.” He chuckled, mingling himself into their conversation inch by inch. “Say, how do you think they’re gonna slay him? Been pondering the thought myself, hearing he was running around these forests.”

“Been spendin’ lots of time grindin’ arrowheads down with the best stones. Makin’ ‘em real sharp.”

“Yeah! So pointy, ya prick your finger if you’re not careful. Gotta save the sharpened bits to take out the Blade’s other eye. A keen eye for a keen eye!”

They two goblins began to laugh, clutching their stomachs. Coughs and congratulatory pats on each others’ backs buckled their knees as if there had never been a sharper wit. Rejoicing that made them trip over their own hypotheticals, stumbling into each sentence like they threatened to run away.

“Then we- Then- we-we beat ‘im real nice until he stops movin’-, I bet he’s got loads of gold weighing down those pockets,” one goblin said. “Don’t get a name like that without bein’ fancy. That bounty must come with a big ol’ prize.”

Wyll let out half-hearted laughs, but his amusement melted his persona into one of annoyance for a few flashing seconds. He looked to Thomasin with an eye roll before ramping up once more to accommodate those cackling at his knees.

“Creative. Sounds like this Blade’s got a fortune on him. We may need to pay him a visit.”

Thomasin smirked at the way Wyll conducted himself, feeling a sense of pride at his confidence and deception. Although her gaze shook from its focus at the sound of sharp popping flammables. Meager explosives and clacking ramshackle party favors had rang through the ruins in celebration. 

Karlach let herself hover over the cub to soak in the last morsels of attention, twisting and bulging her back muscles. She flexed without shame and cursed at those whipping insults at her. Through years of torment, the tiefling had bred a physique she often struggled to find gratitude in, but the owlbear found comfort in such. Under the shade of her towering presence, the babe was reminded of its mother.

Thomasin and Wyll weaved through the crowd the woman hosting, who had been surveying the game from a large stack of crates.

“Looks like compensation in order,” the half-elf said.

“Ahhh, actually, it's’ written in the rules that only goblins can win the prize of the pot. Don’t take it up with me, I don’t make ‘em up. “

Thomasin scowled. Not only from the rigged ruleset, but the nagging vibration deep within her skull. The wriggling assertion of dominance that left her restless. Its presence forced itself to be known, even if the sensation made the half-elf want to slip from her own skin. In the mental energy it took to suppress her discomfort, it came to her attention that the goblin felt it as well. 

In fact, it seemed to clutch on the host, aura gripping the weaker mind and jostling her nerves. Thomasin’s voice waned under the building pressure, lips pursed to exhale something shaken and uncertain. In her best efforts, she maintained authority. 

“This isn’t up for negotiation.”

Karlach had led the cub over, speaking in soft inaudible mews. Concealed baby talk half- disguised from the potion consumed. As they joined the conflict, the owlbear suddenly lifted its paw. A limp display of feebleness that Karlach pointed at with her thumb. 

“Looks like this one got its paws torn up before it even ran,” the tiefling added, sucking at her teeth at the sight of a lost cause.

Thomasin’s eyes flicked over at the creature. Whether it truly was injured or part of a ruse was none of her business. In times of being outnumbered, there was only grinding your heels deeper into the dirt and following your teammates’ falsehoods accordingly.  The half-elf’s voice got more severe, in a way rarely seen by the others.

“Conning us out of a bet? After all the shit this thing is causing you? Eating your food? Becoming the reason your blood spills on the floor?” Thomasin took a step closer, the aura of her tadpole buzzing down both of their spines. The vibrations of a foreign intruder sat atop their vertebrae, its grip feeling like the bones were being detached and reset on a microscopic level. 

“You return our money if you value where you stand and by Lolth, you won’t get crushed by the drowic goddess in your sleep. Minthara swears by it,” Thomasin continued before stepping back again, shoving the box an inch with the toe of her boot. Its force shifted just enough to make the goblin fall flat onto her palms.

“And we’ll take the owlbear off your hands,” Wyll said, stepping into the goblin’s view. His voice was calm, acknowledging the dread in the eyes of such petty financial theft. “If it’s close to dead, what makes you think it’s not gonna turn on you as a last ditch effort? Odd, you should have learned they’re known for flipping at a moment’s notice.”

Tucked to the side, Karlach used the points of her clawed nails to dig into a bag hanging with dense heft at the belt. From its contents, small chunks of meat were flung towards the cub, an assortment of raw flesh lifted from skewers and stuffed away. Although the affection earned her a nudge from Wyll as he begged for subtly with the rise of his brow. Karlach nodded and straightened her focus. What was left of a smile pressed flat, but remained charmed by the speed at which the cub inhaled its meal in thanks.

The goblin woman shook her head, speaking in a tone as if the final word and decision of her sole making. 

“Fine! For fuck’s sake. Take the damned thing. Must be a rodent ‘round these parts that’ll do better.”

“C’mon, we got plans with you,” Karlach commanded the cub, tilting her head for it to follow.

Within Thomasin’s hand, a tattered burlap sack of coin landed into her palm and was plucked from her in record time. The half-elf bit the inside of her cheek to hide her mild shock. Astarion’s idea of fun stemmed from his ability to creep up in total silence, not caring whether the opportunity would be suitable for his playful nature. 

“Looks like lady luck was on our side after all,” he exclaimed with a grin, letting the bag twist left to right before both of their eyes.

Thomasin tried her best to ignore frustrations toward the elf, opting to focus on what amusement could be siphoned by his comedic timing alone. She felt him run his hand up the small of her back, idly resting it there. Even though miniscule, the affection boggled her sense of space and time. At an already baseline state of stress, she realized she’d been present only from her outer body. As if floating above the crowd, she witnessed her muscles tense and the retreat of his hand up onto her shoulder.

The half-elf blinked, raising her own hand enough to reciprocate a quick squeeze of his. She couldn’t identify whether it was to soothe her or him, but the feelings passed just as easily. It wasn’t long before her posture reset itself.

“We’ll be back after we handle the vermin,” she said with cold unmoving confidence. “Keep yourself out of trouble.” 

As they all turned to walk away, the goblin host exclaimed one last time.

“Uh- yes ma’am!”

The unconventional sight of the four made their way through the camp with a cub limping in hand. Stoic and faced forward to not invite distractions, Astarion couldn’t help but leave them with a smug delight on his lips. The once cheering band of partygoers had simmered down into celebratory small talk and the coughing up of distilled bathtub brew. 

The moment they stepped past the threshold of the ruin's main arch, Karlach dug into the sagging bag at her hip. She tore apart a hearty chunk and tossed it with what stealth one of her size could muster. An easy feat as the cub caught it in its mouth with little issue.

“My boy’s gotta eat,” the tiefling stated, flinging another sliver of meat. She squinted at the creatures' bounce and what little she knew of biology. “Girl? It doesn’t matter. Your name’s Pumpkin.”

“Apt, a little round thing you are. Too fierce to be living amongst all these wily bastards,” Wyll chimed in.

Astarion raised a finger, leaning forward to announce his achievements out of goblin earshot. “By the way, I’ll let you all know I did my part. All the spittle from those beasts in there, far too easy. Considered a simple sleeping potion in the alcohol bowl, but poisons are just more fun. Whatever they mixed together in that excuse of a punch bowl looked atrocious anyhow. I did them a service.”

Thomasin raised her brows, hand settled upon her chest to keep an eye on her racing heartbeat. She took a second from deep breathing, to let out her own hushed chuckle. She knew his wandering could warrant mischief, but the man had lived through far more dire punishments. Although, it caught her off guard when he made contributions without listing its detailed plans out loud.

“Huh. Good job, darling. They'll be hungover or dead by morning at this rate.” 

“All of the above, I hope,” he said, laughing in the high pitched glee of a successful death.

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

The news that Palestinian Authority summer camps are training children to use weapons and glorify terrorists is a troubling reminder that some regimes view children as little more than tools to be exploited.

Hundreds of thousands of children have been used as soldiers in various international conflicts in recent decades, according to human rights groups.

The Ugandan rebel group known as the “Lord’s Resistance Army” has made the abduction and enslavement of children “its main method of recruitment,” experts say.

In Bolivia, an estimated 40% of the army consists of teenagers who were forcibly conscripted.

The participation of Palestinian Arab children in terrorism against Israelis has become so commonplace that it has attracted the attention of Palestinian advocates in the United States. They’ve persuaded a handful of members of Congress to introduce legislation to restrict U.S. aid to Israel if the Israeli military detains minors who engage in violence.

A Nazi Version of Cinderella

Dictators in previous generations likewise prioritized training children to hate and kill. Adolf Hitler, for example, viewed Germany’s schools as a breeding ground for raising an entire generation of Nazis.

Following Hitler’s rise to power, German school curricula were radically revised to reflect Nazi ideas, and traditional text books were replaced with Nazi versions. Biology texts now advocated the theory of “Aryan” racial superiority. Atlases focused on the alleged danger to Germany posed by surrounding nations and the supposed theft from Germany of various territories. History books presented justifications for renewed German militarism. The Nazis even concocted their own version of Cinderella, with the prince choosing a racially pure young heroine and rebuffing her racially alien stepmother.

At a press conference in September 1934, President Franklin D. Roosevelt expressed concern that the German government seemed to be preparing young people for war with Germany’s neighbors. He related a story he heard from an American tourist in Germany, about an eight year-old German boy who in his bedtime prayers each night would say, “Dear God, please permit it that I shall die with a French bullet in my heart.”

Unfortunately, that did not change FDR’s policy of maintaining friendly diplomatic and trade relations with Nazi Germany in the 1930s.

Disney Exposes the Nazis

During World War Two, Disney created a series of short cartoon films to support the American war effort and expose the nature of Nazism. They were shown in movie theaters, prior to the main feature. One especially striking nine-minute film was called “Education for Death: The Making of the Nazi.”

The storyline follows a German child, Hans, as the Nazi school system turns him into a worshipper of Hitler. When Hans’s teacher shows the pupils a fox capturing and eating a rabbit, Hans makes the innocent mistake of expressing sympathy for “the poor rabbit.” As punishment, he has to put on a dunce camp and sit in a corner, while another student gives the “correct” answer: “The world belongs to the strong…The rabbit is a coward and deserves to die.”

Finally surrendering to peer pressure, Hans agrees that the rabbit was “a weakling” who got what it deserved. The teacher then provides the moral of the story: the German people are “an unconquerable super race” who will “destroy all weak and cowardly nations.”

The Disney narrator describes how Hans’s upbringing then proceeds with endless “marching and ‘Heil’-ing, ‘Heil’-ing and marching.” The little boy becomes almost a robot, blindly heeding the Nazi Party’s orders to “trample on the rights of others.” The narrator concludes: “For now his education is complete–his education for death.”

Nazi-educated German children filled the ranks of the Hitler Youth movement. Its members took part in numerous atrocities, from forcing Vienna’s Jews to scrub the streets with toothbrushes in 1938, to the mass shooting of Jews swimming from sinking boats in the German harbor of Lubeck, just before Germany’s surrender in 1945.

In addition, many of those who graduated from Hitler Youth joined the Gestapo and participated in the mass murder of European Jewry. While other branches of the Nazi apparatus collapsed or surrendered in the waning days of World War II, Hitler Youth remained fanatically loyal to their Fuhrer to the very end, which is why they are often mentioned in accounts of atrocities that were perpetrated in the spring of 1945.

Menachem Weinryb, an Auschwitz survivor who was forced to take part in a death march from Poland to Germany, later recalled how when the prisoners reached the Belsen area on April 13, 1945, the German guards went to a nearby town “and returned with a lot of young people from the Hitler Youth [and local policemen]…They chased us all into a large barn…we were five to six thousand people…[They] poured out petrol and set the barn on fire. Several thousand people were burned alive.”

[beevean]

((this is a spoiler to CoD but I really wanna say this))

One of the things I hated the most in NFCV is how they literally reduced a Devil Forgemaster's power to only necromancy... When they're SO much more powerful than that. They can LITERALLY MAKE WEAPONS just from the RAW ELEMENTS ALONE. And the fact that Hector could fight Death and Dracula! He literally REDUCED Drac's curse in the end!! ((Also his sassy response to Drac is "I'm the Devil Forgemaster. I can make your curse into a harmless thing." Alhdkahsja I love him so much)). I HATE how they make them so... Useless??? I don't understand they're so much cooler than the show made them out to be

(CoD will turn 18 this November, don't worry about spoilers lmao)

So, I'm a bit torn on this because I actually don't mind the change in NFCV... in theory.

Do I think Devil Forging in canon is absolutely fucking cool and badass and underrated and ripe with potential? Yes. There is a reason I made the crest my icon :P I love that Hector calls it blasphemous in PtR, I love the idea that they're literally spitting in God's face by creating cursed life!

Devil Forgemaster

A blasphemer who can manipulate magic and life

^ tell me that isn't the rawest way to describe Devil Forgemasters, PtR doesn't shy away from the religious symbolism and it does so in a much more tasteful way than NFCV

I love that it's Dracula's magic itself that they're manipulating, which explains how Hector and only him could nullify the Curse! (and this is also why I believe Isaac was really spreading it, and it wasn't just Death's lie)

Human beings embued with dark magic directly from the Dark Lord himself. Tell me it isn't the coolest thing in the Vaniaverse.

And yes, they are absolute beasts that can forge their own weapons with alchemy and fight with all sorts of weapons. Normal swords? Rapiers? Zweihanders? Axes? Spears? Electric guitar? Hector has it covered. I wholeheartedly believe that both of them were the terror of Wallachia when they worked together: how do you defend yourself against multi-disciplined, super strong, super tough knights that can literally sic dragons on you?

also yes Hector vs. Dracula is so fucking raw, Hector is the ultimate gigachad and I will die on this hill. He literally asks "Have you forgotten that I'm a Devil Forgemaster?" with the smuggest tone in his voice <3

Catch me I'm swooning <3 Hector literally turning Dracula's hard work against him <3 oh ho ho I bet he regretted having a protégé <3

I also personally love Isaac's "Do not equate a Devil Forgemaster's power with that of an ordinary sorcerer!" dude's so mad that trevor dared to underestimate him and his ex. i love him too <3

However. I recognize that, without the gameplay element, they would have been a little too OP. I am perfectly fine with the nerfing of Devil Forging in the show: not only limiting them by tying their powers to a weapon would have been an interesting obstacle to overcome, but the promotional posters of S2 gave them a very low Strength stat.

Basically, the idea, I suppose, was to make them squishy wizards: they're not proficient at all in physical fights, but they don't need to be, when they can control a whole army of demons. And as for the necromancy aspect, well, it would have emphasized even more the dark, cursed nature of their power. It's a facsimile of life, nothing more.

The problem is that, of course, nothing was done with this. Isaac can simply... stibby stab people in a row, and with no effort at all they become night creatures. Yeeting him into the Sahara would have been a great opportunity to make him lose his knife, and force him to live as a vulnerable human, and maybe learn about the value of human life that way, but nooooo can't make the darling babyboy of the narrative suffer even a little! He has Deep Speeches about How Much Humans Suck to make! 🙄 And we barely see Hector actually do his job, only for Carmilla's sake, which will never stop make me wonder, why did Dracula and Carmilla want him so much to the point of resorting to manipulation? Nothing in the story shows me that he has any usefulness! He's not smart, he's not physically strong, he's easy to manipulate, we have little idea of how good of a Forgemaster he is... some General he is! Isaac could have easily run the whole castle by himself, for how badass and invincible they made him!

In retrospect, giving Isaac a lower Strength stat than Hector was a bold lie. By all means, Hector should have been the more talented of the two even in this version: he was the child prodigy who was resurrecting dogs as a child, while Isaac had to study hard to catch up. But no. Hector was relegated to torture porn. Okay.

Oh, and never forget that the plot forgot about the "dark, cursed" part of their power when Carmilla needed a priest to bless the water :^) because what's consistency when we have to favor our babyboys and girlbosses :^)

(also eh i guess being too op didn't stop sypha from literally steamrolling her way through the show, so yeah, the point's moot anyway)

[danganronpasurvivoraskblog]

//And with close 60% of the final vote, our 11th Match will be Hajime Hinata Vs Izuku Midoriya.

//What a LANDSLIDE victory, and one that's very well deserved in my opinion.

//But with that, we come to our GRAND FINALE, and I don't know about you guys...But there's only one person who can bring a spectacular despairful finale to this Death Battle series...

//Connections:

Afton: Both are antagonists from video games that are both psychopathic and intelligent, and they both started a horrible event with little to no rhyme or reason behind it, that kickstarted the main timeline of their respective series (the Tragedy and the end of the world for Junko and the multiple child murders that Afton committed). Both used their designated place of work/study as a death trap for their victims (Hope's Peak Academy and Freddy Fazbear's Pizza) and both are connected to mascots with animal themes, one of which they hide behind to keep their actual identities a secret from others (The Monokuma's and the Animatronics, more specifically the RC Killing Game Monokuma and Spring Bonnie). Both of them have control of a variety of gadgets and tech that help them kill their victims, the most potent of which are a small army of animal-themed killing machines (Monokuma for Junko and the AR Animatronics and Twisted One's for Afton). Ironically, their death would come from being crushed by the very thing that they used to commit their murders, as well as being brought on by their own victims (Junko died in the Ultimate Punishment after Makoto and the other Survivors of the first Killing Game defeated her, and Afton was crushed by his suit's spring locks when confronted by the spirits of the 5 missing children that he murdered), but they would soon resurrect in order to carry out their murderous plans; initially, they would take over a robot, and later, they would emerge as a virus that would infect users' virtual games and take over their minds (Junko created an Alter Ego AI of herself that initially took over Kurokuma and Shirokuma before it's concentrated code was uploaded into the Neo World by Izuru, where it then tried to possess the bodies of the Remnant's of Despair. Afton's spirit possessed the Spring Bonnie suit, becoming Springtrap, and then later Glitchtrap in the Fazbear Virtual Experience, where he tried to corrupt the minds of the game testers). These AI's also successfully took hold in the minds of young females, who became their most devoted follower (Yukari Koime and Vanessa). Both are also notorious for coming back from the dead time and time again, no matter how many times people try to get rid of them.

Chris: Both are twisted presenters of reality TV programs where teens are coerced into risky and life-threatening situations for extremely petty and illogical reasons (Junko did so for her own amusement and to spread the feeling of Despair to all of mankind for no reason other than boredom, and Chris not only enjoys watching people suffer, but he's obsessed with gaining views, clout and money through his show). The majority of their victims are a group of teenagers who are all centered around a single stereotype (The Ultimate's and the Contestants). Both also have/had a partner, whom they tormented and picked on all the time (Mukuro Ikusaba and Chef Hatchet), they both have armies of robots at their disposal, among many other traps and gadgets.

Major: They are both the charismatic, nihilistic, and completely insane leaders of their own personally corrupted terrorist followers (The Ultimate Despair/Organization Zetsubou and The Millenium Organization). They have unleashed unimaginable levels of terror and carnage on the world and are in constant conflict with an organization that works to fight the evils they bring about (The Future Foundation and the Hellsing Organization). They have long since passed away from what should have been their premature demise, but they still find ways to return and wreak more havoc (Junko comes back as an AI and by employing prodigies like Monaca to carry on her legacy. The Major was once revived as a cyborg.) Their pursuit of destruction stems from a single, overarching concept that defines their identity and motivation for wanting to see the world burn (Despair for Junko and War for The Major)

Joker: Both are insane manipulative masterminds who are fixated on a psychotic and flawed philosophy that emphasizes the negative aspects of humanity (Despair and Insanity respectively). Their obsession frequently drives them to manipulate and put other people in bizarre situations to demonstrate the superiority of their philosophy and drive people insane. Both drove admiring women in the medical field into a similar state of madness and twisted undying affection by manipulating them (Mikan Tsumiki and Harleen Quinzel) and they have both brainwashed countless others, have unpredictable personalities that cause them to act erratically, have hatched elaborate plans to bring about anarchy in society, and they both enjoy killing people in bizarre and inventive ways. Both are the nemeses of men who solve intricate crimes and directly contradict their ideology and thwart their schemes (Makoto Naegi and Bruce Wayne/Batman) whom also partner with a law-abiding individual who has ties to the police (Kyoko Kirigiri and Commissioner Jim Gordon). Both have multiple selves that they frequently switch between (with Junko continuously switching between different personas and Joker asserting that he had a multiple choice past and that he was even three people in the "three jokers" plot), are willing to harm and betray their own allies in an attempt to validate their beliefs (Mukuro and Harley Quinn, multiple times), and, despite their obvious mental health problems, are remarkably unsympathetic (Junko lost all sense of humanity and could only experience true life when she was in the depths of despair. Joker was a failed comedian who completely lost faith in humanity, and later fell into a vat chemicals during a heist)

Monika: Both are the main antagonists of Visual Novels who are initially portrayed as talented high school girls and possess an abnormal degree of control in the world around them (Junko is the Ultimate Despair/Fashionista/Analytical prowess, and is extremely powerful and influential for a mere high-school girl and regularly breaks the fourth wall, while Monika, who is the president of the Literature Club and a very popular upperclassman in the school, not only also breaks the fourth wall, but has access to the game files, which she can play with how she fits) They both commit graphic crimes on the world and their classmates/friends for seemingly petty and nonsensical reasons (Junko does it to feel Despair and spread Despair, while Monika actively deletes the other characters from DDLC's game files until she's the only available romance option left) however, they do it with slightly contrasting motivations which makes one more sympathetic than the other (Junko is hopelessly fickle and does terrible things simply out of boredom and a desire to feel any sort of excitement. Monika does it out of desperation and love for the player, since the game denies her any role outside of a background character, and not an initial date option). Both, at least at one point, are also AI/coded characters in a digital world that they desperately want to escape from (Junko came back as an AI after her death and tried to use the Remnant's of Despair's bodies to escape the Neo World Program and wreak havoc on the world again, while Monika desires nothing more than to get out of the coded reality she's in so she can be in a romantic relationship with the MC behind the screen.) As a side note, Junko's protégé from Ultra Despair Girls is also called Monaca, though it is spelt differently.

[IMPORTANT NOTE: To make sure everything is covered, this version of Junko will be a COMPOSITE version of her that combines all of her iterations across Danganronpa as a series. This includes AI Junko from DR2, UDG and Survivor, but DOES NOT include DRV3, as that version is Tsumugi dressed up as her.]

Also, here's the Narumi animation that was used in the promo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEt7l49Y87Q

[twittercomfrnklin2001-blog]

Cry Terror!

I’ve written before that sometimes a single poorly thought-out scene can sink a film. Conversely, sometimes a single well thought and executed scene can elevate one. Andrew L. Stone’s CRY TERROR! (1958, TCM) seems a tidy little thriller with a few improbabilities. Then three’s a scene in which Inger Stevens, as a woman whose family is being held hostage by extortionists, has to collect money from a room full of FBI agents. She’s on a tight schedule; she must deliver the cash in another part of town by a specific time, or her husband (James Mason) and daughter (Portland Mason, his off-screen daughter) will be killed. As she makes the transaction and races to the elevator, she tries to spit out as much information as possible as the agents bombard her with questions. Stone shoots her exit in one long tracking shot as lines overlap and build in tension until you’re almost jumping out of your seat hoping she’ll get out of there in time. From then on you forget the strange structure of the film’s opening or the thought that a criminal mastermind as meticulous as the one played by Rod Steiger would trust a speed addict and sex maniac (Neville Brand) to help execute his plans. Stone never lets the tension flag again. When the film ended, I wasn’t sure if I needed to check my temperature or take up smoking.

But there is that opening. An airline gets word there’s a bomb on one of their flights. Hearing the report on television (delivered by NBCs own Chet Huntley), TV repairman Mason realizes he was duped into building the bomb by an old army buddy (Steiger) who said it was a tryout for a government contract. Do you smell fish? It’s hard to conceive that anyone as intelligent as Mason would fall for such a cockamamie story. But he did, and before long, he and his family are being held in various locations by Steiger and a gang that also includes Jack Klugman and Angie Dickinson.

There’s a lot of good work in the film. Though Steiger seems to be channeling parts of his performance from THE BIG KNIFE (1955), at least he’s channeling a powerful performance that fits the character. Stevens makes a great damsel in distress who develops surprising levels of strength under adversity, while Dickinson is pretty much a revelation as a distinctly modern film noir femme fatale. You don’t get a lot of background on any of the characters, but between her character’s posh penthouse apartment and the way she breathes excitedly while describing how she’s prepared to off Stevens and her daughter with a stiletto, you get a vivid picture of a trust-fund thrill junkie. There’s an interesting tension in the film between the scenes with Mason’s family and their captors, which veer towards well-earned high drama, and more documentary-style scenes, some with non-actors, involving the airline and the FBI. You get a sense of the way terror can invade the real world. That tension’s elevated now by our knowledge of the many well-known actors in roles small and large. Throughout the film it’s hard not to think, “Oh, look, there’s Patty Duke’s TV father. There’s Quincy and Pepper Anderson. There’s Al Capone. There’s another Al Capone. There’s the three-eyed alien from THE TWILIGHT ZONE.” The horror is visited upon and/or created by people we’ve had in our living rooms. BTW, if you’re good, you can name all of those actors without looking them up.

[redrydersrequiem]

The red assassin

part 2

Part 1

I sit on the sandy beach waiting for my fish to finish cooking the sounds of the fire crackling mix’s with the gentle sloshing of the waves, my mind drifting off to thoughts of a certain one eyed prince. The plains of his face, sharp cheekbones, broad shoulders are beautiful lo..

Loud snoring breaks my day dream. Aurelius the lazy dragon he is shifts in his sleep, purring almost in his sleep. Content with his full belly of fish and wild boar, currently making a very good wind shield as hes curled behind me.

It's been almost five days since my visit to the Targaryens. I truly expected something by now either in the form of a messenger or an army, I will say I was hoping for the first but was prepared for the later.

“I'm sure you were”. Aurelius speaks, an eye now cracked up gageing my reaction.

“Your being real cheeky lately”

“And you've been day dreaming since that night don't tell me the mighty red assassin has finally found someone who catches her eye.” I simply flick sand at him, to which he just laughs

“So what if i have, you must at admit i picked an interesting one. Really that whole family is interesting”

“But they are also dangerous little ones,I don't want anything to happen to you.”

I know but allying ourselves with them for now could open a lot of doors for us, especially for you. Relius I want you to be able to have better things: actual meals, armor, somewhere safe for you to nest if you wish, you know the works.

“Scarlet.”

“No Aurelius I want better for us i'm tired of always being on the move

“No SCARLET!!”. Aurelius says with force his head now lifted to the sky. I now hear the roar in the distance. Aurelius swiftly stands haunches raised a low growl falling from his clenched jaw as we wait for the source of the sound to come into eye line

Vhagars giant form breaks through the clouds, the blond silver of her rider's hair reflecting in the sun behind them as they ascend toward the abandoned beach.

Aemonds pov

After the meeting with the girl, I've thought of nothing else. Grandfather's network of informants tried all they could to learn more about the crimson haired assassin, all coming up with nothing but tails of her triumphs. My favorite being the one of her taking out a group of bandits that was terrorizing a small farm town, kidnapping a girl to do gods know what to do if lady scarlet hadn’t intervened. Every story and praise for her filled my thoughts as brightly as her rose colored hair. She was a beautiful enigma, a puzzle waiting to be solved. Once the decisions had been made I plotted the course and took off as soon as possible wanting to bring the girl back to king's landing no matter what.

Scarlets pov

The second prince and his dragon landed on the far side of the beach the ground thudding as Vhagars giant form comes into contact with sand, creating a cloud around her and her rider. I see Aurelius step forward ready for anything but i motion him to stay back as i start making my way to the half way point between the prince and I.

Meeting him I can’t help but take him in. His beautiful hair and fine leather coat swaying in the sea breeze behind him. Looking as regal as he could instead of like he just road a days time to get here.

“What an honor it is for the prince himself to come calling on me i expected a simple messenger from your sister.”

‘A mere messenger could not be trusted to negotiate these very important terms”

“And you believe you can my prince”

“Why of course my lady.”

“Confident aren't you”

Aemond simply smirks his head tilting and pale blue/lavender eye filling with merriment and mischief.

“I won't deny it my lady im proud of my heritage, of my accomplishments

“I would be careful my prince A proud person could end up falling

“True but i hopeful this won't be the case for i'm here to offer you a deal

“A deal then you all have agreed to the terms i left behind.”

“Yes however we have conditions of our own.”

“And what would those conditions entail my prince?”

“It’s quite simple my lady. We wish to tie you to our family to ensure you and your dragon stay on our side.”

“And how do you all think you’ll accomplish this.?

“Well you are lucky indeed since you have several options to chose from.

“Oh?”

“Yes”

Aemond begins stalking around me as he speaks, his voice sounding like its everywhere, gaze burning into ease gages my reaction to his words.

“Originally the counsel simply wanted to kill you, but the king my sister, uncle and I all disagreed. Instead. We thought you would make an excellent addition to our court”

“Oh i left that much of an impression?”

“You did indeed”

“And how is it they wish to add a no name assassin to the royal court?”

“Well you would either be adopted by a trusted member of the court and given a title,”

“And if I didn’t want to be used as a pawn in some up incoming family’s chess game to get closer to the royal family then what

“I wasn’t finished my lady, as I was saying you can come be adopted and not only be a noble with your own dragon that has never been seen outside of my bloodline. You would also have access to. All the amenities for your dragon, and you would also become the fiancé of a royal.”

“Now. That info turned my head abruptly turning to face aemond as he was still circling around me. He has a calculated smirk on his face before shifting and bowing before me.on knee raised before taking out his sword and laying it at my feet.

“Call me selfish if you wish but I am the one who proposed this stipulation, after all the tales I've heard of your exploits, of helping the people. Of Westeros, no if i'm truthful it's been ever since thee night you ambushed the diner, you're all i've thought about.”

I'm frozen staring at the blonde. His eyes holding me captive in my place. My heart is ringing in my ear.

“Having you by my side i would consider a gift from the new gods and the old

“But you barely know me. In fact you should wish harm to me for threatening your brother”

‘What you did is nothing that Aegon didnt have coming to him for his actions i assure you i myself have threatened him multiple times.”

What if I don't wish to be your betrothed”

“Then you would simply be adopted by. My sister Rhaenyra an join our house that way until i can change your mind, either way i win.”

I look over aemonds shoulder straight at Aurelius, his voice filling my mind quickly. “Don’t not base any decisions on me, little one. We dragons are adaptable. I will follow you anywhere.”

It feels like time stops the waves still crashing around us before i taking a deep breath and look back at the prince before me.

“Ok my prince ill will come to court with you however i wish to be courted before jumping head first into a marriage.

The one eyed prince smiles his violet blue eye sparkling as he rises to his feet offering his hand out to me. I place mine in his as brings it up to his mouth. His lips planting a lingering kiss.

“That can be more than arranged my lady, please return to. Kings landing in three days time and we will welcome you and your dragon like royalty.”

“Very well but I want some guarantees first.”

“Hmm”

“You swear on your family my dragon will be cared for.”

“Yes

“Well we wills for i don't want Aurelius with the rest of he dragons in the dragon pit. I would never forgive myself if something happened to him because I choose to trust the wrong people.

“I understand my lady, they’re are cliffs with ample caves the dragons like to burrow in when not in the dragon pit, we will get one cleaned out and your dragon will be able to freely come an go as long as you can guarantee he will not attack the castle the people of kings landing”

“The only reason he would do anything would be if i where in danger. You all mean to take good care of me though dont you

“Especially so.”

“Fine then I swear as long as you uphold your end i will mine”

“Good well then my lady i bid you a good bye, there’s much to be done to prepare for your arrival”

Aemon flashes me a grin before. Bowing his head at me one last time and making the truck back towards vhagars slumbering form. A pep in his step as I watch in disbelief of what all just happened, but I guess I have three days to figure it all out.