#five LOVES his powers. five LOVES the freedom that his teleportation gives him. five LOVES being strong and powerful and untouchable.

[tempportal]

sorry but the idea that five wouldn't immediately snort every last ounce of that marigold is absolutely fucking ridiculous

[casliveblog]

Custom Toonami Block Week 168 Rundown

Spy X Family: We’re back to the two vignette format which I’m not the biggest fan of but what can you do. Becky wants to seduce Loid despite that being illegal for several reasons and heads over to Anya’s house to both accidentally flex her wealth and steal Yor’s man. Anya’s surprisingly on board with Operation Bed a Married Man Eight Times Your Age because Becky is rich and flashes through a montage of how cool having a rich six year old for a mom would be. Loid is just asking questions for spy intel shit cause you can never have too much of that but shenanigans ensue and Yor of course comes in and freaks out initiating a high-speed chase down the street when she thinks she’s gotten Becky sick. It’s funny because not only are the adults oblivious to the plan but like they wouldn’t take it seriously even if they knew, SHE’S SIX. Becky eventually learns to respect Yor’s strength and see her as a kind person and potentially figure out some polygamy shit I guess because now she’s just trying to prove she’s strong so Loid will like her like Yor, that makes three women trying to have a shonen tournament for this man’s oblivious affection. Speaking of which the second half of the episode is Fiona running around doing Loid’s makeup work while he’s on the cruise ship and going through a full-ass training arc to beat Yor that I’m absolutely sure will make zero difference next time they meet.

Inuyasha The Final Act: A lot’s going on in this episodes and we’re juggling like four different plotlines because The Final Act decided to say fuck it to the drawn out storytelling and be like let’s get this shit done, it’s like reverse filler. Kikyo has taken Midoriko’s soul to once again extend her fleeting life by a bit longer and reveals what I assume to have been her plan all along with purifying Naraku’s soul with the completed jewel which is why she gave him the half the jewel back when Kagome had a bunch of shards before Shard Inflation occurred, like I think she’s making a bigger deal out of this than it has to be, Naraku’s not completely invulnerable despite what she says even without his heart and there can be and are other ways to obliterate him on a molecular level but at least seeing her game plan now makes some of her previous actions make more sense. Since Kohaku has what is ostensibly the last shard standing and isn’t able to make nice with the group reminding him of his crimes, he decides to go with Kikyo and go all in on the complete the jewel plan.  Meanwhile Koga undergoes his trial to obtain the Goraishi and finally catch up with the power creep that hit like a hundred episodes ago like Koga was essentially power crept from his introduction but I do love him and the Goraishi is one of my favorite anime weapons so it’s cool to see him be the first of Final Act’s ‘oh yeah other characters besides Inuyasha probably need upgrades too’ list. Last but not least, Kagura is running from Naraku which seems kinda pointless since he literally has her heart in the palm of his hand like I don’t think it’s like cell phone signal like if she just gets far enough away from it, it won’t work. To prove this point Naraku just teleports in front of her and fucking gives her the heart back only to stab her full of poison a second later and be like ‘cool story bro, enjoy the freedom, all five minutes of it’. Meanwhile meanwhile, Sesshomaru is fighting Moryomaru and fucking breaks the Tokijin over his head and spoils the ‘imma steal all his energy’ that is every Sesshomaru fight because they made Sesshomaru way too strong so every fight has to revolve around trying to steal his power. Still once he’s done he rushes to where Kagura is to at least be with her as she dies, telling her as much that he came to see her which is a frightening display of honesty and openness for Sesshomaru, like their relationship kinda came out of nowhere idk why Sesshomaru cares at all about her at this point and I’m not entirely sure when Kagura’s infatuation turned from ‘he’s a strong guy that can beat Naraku’ to ‘I think I kinda like him’ but it’s a good moment, like maybe it’s better paced in the manga but I do like their dynamic as the only two that really understand each other precisely because both are so guarded. Also like that Sesshomaru just tells Inuyasha that Kagura was at peace when she died instead of like ‘bitch it’s not my job to stop your women from dying’ like he did with Kikyo on Mt. Hakurei.

Castlevania: Now that all of the preamble with Dracula is out of the way, we get to our hero…ish guy, Trevor Belmont, who introduces himself as the best fighter in the world while getting his shit kicked in by a bunch of drunken nobodies and still somehow coming out on top. He makes his way around getting scraps of food and talking to marketplace people D&D vagrant style, it’s kinda funny how this kind of conveys how people in video games walk around talking to people to see what the plot is better than the Shenmue anime which is like they actually animated the video game. But yeah in classic anime hero fashion they find someone being picked on by assholes and proceed to… gruesomely dismember them, okay that’s not usually how that works but I’ll roll with it. Apparently these dudes are part of a monk-like sect his father knew and they’re kinda just chill dudes but the Church is like ‘motherfuckers the peace monks did this shit’ when Dracula comes despite the fact the church literally did this shit. And these guys are just hanging around being persecuted out of the goodness of their hearts and also because the elder’s grandkid is down looking for the Jesus-like soldier guy that’s supposed to come stop Dracula-type shit from happening, so minor conflict of interest but being the pragmatic-type hero Trevor is he just wants the peace monks to get the fuck out of dodge so that they’re still around to save anyone that’s left to be saved once everything inevitably goes to shit because if the hordes don’t get them, something more dangerous will: Catholics.  

Jujutsu Kaisen: So yeah as expected, Megudad wasn’t Edo Tensei’d just to fight Ino and then go back, turns out he’s pulling a Madara and reversing the revival and taking control of it himself because the series is really having fun with the ‘the body is the soul’ thing which basically means whatever the plot wants it to mean but they literally said a few episodes ago that it will mean whatever the plot wants it to mean so I can’t really blame them. The next most pressing issue is hand-holding guy is going around killing all the Middle Managers and he’s finally reached the two we know, Kento manages to save Ijichi and Nobara is protecting the blonde lady but hand-hold guy manages to get a blow to her jaw which I feel like ‘a blow to the jaw rattles the brain and temporarily paralyzes you’ is fiction’s new favorite fun fact about fighting because I’m seeing that around a lot lately. Shame because I feel like this guy vs Nobara would be a pretty evenly matched fight but Kento comes in and demolishes him for murdering all the mook Middle Managers. Sadly he’s not dead and as things get worse in this arc I feel like not double-tapping all the random bad guys is gonna come to bite someone in the ass but everyone’s safe for now. I don’t know how to feel about Nobara’s part in this fight because she always seems to get the ‘not now, the big boys are playing’ moments and the only reason she’s not dead is because hand holding guy is a fucking moron but the only reason she was even in trouble was because he got ridiculously lucky so idk I guess coincidences cancel each other out. Also Yuji’s come face to face with Blood Man who’s pissed his less humanoid brothers got murdered by Yuji and Nobara so that’ll be something to deal with next time. Also Mei Mei’s fighting Smallpox or something idk.

Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End: Before I begin with this episode I gotta say this is like the chilliest anime in the world like the pace is so slow and no one talks above a light tone and I think it’s an interesting way to portray the way Frieren views a slow and quietly changing world where milestones aren’t large but simply pass by one by one. Frieren is continuing to train Fern to shoot her rock and passes by several years with Heiter, enjoying an amount of time with him that she didn’t get with Himmel even if it is short and near the end of his life. Fern expresses that she wants to be fully trained by the time Heiter dies so he doesn’t have to worry about her and he can go knowing his decision to save and take care of her wasn’t in vain. It’s funny because we get to see both sides of this as Heiter’s doing this as a final act of goodwill in Himmel’s spirit. Turns out the ominous grimmoire had absolutely nothing in it as expected but unexpectedly Heiter knew that and was using it as a stalling tactic to get Frieren to train Fern to the point where Fern can join her on her journey without being a hinderance, like I feel like once Frieren got like 90% of the way through translating the grimmoire and there was no immortality she was probably safe in the assumption they weren’t gonna sneak it in on the last page but it is a cute little flip on that. Heiter tells Frieren to take Fern and go so she doesn’t have to watch him die but Frieren says fuck that shit she’s done missing out on time with people she cares about and having improper farewells on their deaths so she stays until the bitter end. Frieren and Fern then set off to… not really do much of anything honestly, Frieren seems like the kind of person that would get all the Korok seeds in Breath of the Wild you know, she’s a completionist and wants to get every kind of spell she can which is interesting because it seems magic in this world is made through a combination of fundamentals and culture so you can almost homebrew magic like messing with the source code of the mana which actually sounds really neat if that’s how it works and she can just get spells and make new ones no matter how small and simple some are. One day they come across a statue of Himmel and fix it up and Fern wants to create a spell to summon his favorite flowers from his hometown but no one’s seen it in years, so they fucking search for six months for this fucking flower which probably ranks up there as one of the most tedious sidequests of all time. Now the conflict here is kind of interesting since Frieren is now traveling with Fern she can’t just dump a decade into finding one thing for a side project she’s been working on, but also Fern has to come to understand Frieren as well and why she does things the way she does. There’s no explosion of frustration or anything they just legit quietly talk and end up figuring out a way to find the flower once all is laid bare and that’s kinda neat and it also means Fern has the patience of a fucking saint because most people would be done with this shit by now, Frieren also never really gets mad about it despite that wound likely being very fresh and her getting a little obsessive about doing something for Himmel and being a perfectionist about it HAVING to be this particular flower, I could see an alternate drama-filled version of this episode in a different writing style. The note we end on is also really nice with Frieren nothing that Fern and her both got into magic not really for any grand reason but because for a combination of enjoying it and it connecting them to people they care about, it was the choice they made, sort of reminds me of the ending of Soul, it’s more pleasure driven than purpose driven since this seems to be a show about making your own meaning out of life.

Vinland Saga: So Canute sends his rudest men to go tell Olmar to fuck off so he can kill one in a rigged fight and they can arrest the lot of them. Funny thing is Olmar STILL almost loses the rigged fight and then Thorgil gives him a pep talk to complete the rigging and then murders the rest of them which kinda ruins the plan because Thorgil’s a fucking sociopath and murders all of Canute’s guards rather than go to jail which idk why they didn’t have that stone throwing guy give Thorgil some wounds while he was murdering everyone like the guy’s basically Bullseye from Daredevil and he let the situation get completely out of hand. It’s funny how Thorgil’s like ‘yeah we murdered five to ten people but we had no choice, they were talkin’ shit’ and like really puts a fine point on how stupid this whole culture is and why Canute’s trying to change it. Also Olmar does not seem to be doing well with the reality of being a murderer even though it was almost an accident, like kid’s a little screwed up but he’s not a sociopath like his brother. Either way the three of them get away on Leif’s ship so Leif can go see Thorfinn and Canute is ready to bring war to Ketil’s farm.

[astaroth1357]

Demigod MC Series: Hermes

Hey guys, still doing what I can to stay healthy (and entertained) in quarantine. Staying still, keeping calm, and trying not to exert myself too much because of the shortness of breath thing going on. My lungs just can't get enough air it seems… 😅 Anyway, I've gotten a lot of suggestions on this series and I'm excited to keep it going. Just going to be a tad slow until I'm feeling better. Thank you for the support, y'all!

Demigod MC Series: Intro, Aphrodite, Hermes

Lucifer

Oh no… it’s everyone’s worst nightmare… Another Mammon, but competent. Devil help us all…

Had he known who their father was, he'd have never assigned Mammon to watch over them. Hell, he would have made sure those two never even met. They became a new handful for him to manage from the day they first arrived…

When even more things started going missing around the House than normal, he knew he had made a grave mistake… They were clever, quick, and skilled. About the best WORST combination for a burglar to be…

Worse still, they were fast on their feet. He would pretty much have no way to nab them on foot and always had to resort to his wings or magic to have any hope of catching up to them… At least Mammon usually gets himself cornered!

But, paradoxically, he also came to notice that the mortal had an odd honesty streak to them... Like, they’d steal but they’d always admit to it, unlike Mammon who would try to deflect till he was blue in the face.

Were they proud of their work, maybe? Or just didn’t see the point in trying to get away with it...?

There would be several occasions where they’d take something, sell it with Mammon, and then steal the thing back later just to put it back where it belonged, seemingly never with Mammon’s permission to do so either… 

Is it better that they returned the stolen item or worse because their actions went from just robbery to a full-on scam? Either way, it gives him headaches trying to deal with it…

He pretty much gives up getting the mortal to stop after 6 months, they are legitimately that good, but makes them swear to always put back whatever they take at some point. It seems to work out and he lets more things slide, but please someone get them out of here soon… 

Mammon

Soulmatesoulmatesoulmatesoulmate, or maybe more accurately “Partner-in-Crime” but that means pretty much the same thing to him anyway. 🤷‍♀️

He’s never met a person better at thievery than they were. The day they met, they managed to pick his pockets without breaking a sweat (or a finger) and that was it. He was in love.

They could teleport! Actually teleport!! Suddenly, NOTHING was off limits to him any more! Lucifer’s rare records? Easy. Levi’s secret safe? Cakewalk. The Castle vault?? Child’s play!! It was like they could steal anything they put their mind to!!

He didn't even have to worry about them when they made getaways because they were fast too, the two actually have parkour races through the streets for the hell of it!

On top of all that, they were wicked creative. He’d come up with a money-making scheme then they’d offer him all sorts of little tricks to help get away with it...

HE’D have never realized that they could turn themselves into rats in order to frighten and sneak past Barbatos, but they thought of it the instant they heard of his fear of things. They're a mad genius!!

The only real downside was they seemed to like stealing for the sport of it instead of for the money… so they always steal back whatever they took.

That kind of defeats the purpose of all that work in the first place, right? Ah well, at least that's more money for him.

These two pretty much became a walking menace to Devildom society- Sorry, not sorry.

Leviathan

Not another Mammon!!! WHY?! What did he do to deserve this?!?

When he started noticing that EVEN MORE of his stuff was going missing than usual, he straight-up flipped! Like, had the mortal not been pretty tough in their own right they would have been Lotan-chow. End of discussion.

… And then they started using their powers for good? Kind of?

Like, first off they would always give back what they stole, which was a nice change from Mammon. Annoying, but at least he didn't have to go buy replacement games or anything…

And then they started stealing him limited edition merch or tickets and stuff because they… liked him?? He guessed???

Why else would they go to all the trouble of swiping one of the five ultra-rare Kitsune Ruri-chan figurines from its original collector? He would have had to pay Mammon half his tail for something like that but the MC just brought it to him one morning because they could!

Is… is this love? Has he grown to love that which he hates?! What is even happening anymore!?! Who is he?!? 😫

Eventually he has to reconcile his conflicted feelings by dubbing them the real life Peony Phantom Thief, Jane and even making them a cosplay. Yes, they have to wear it when they bring him things. No, it's not weird, shut up.

Satan

He wants to be irritated, no - furious, that they keep taking his stuff… But he’ll be damned if they aren’t making Lucifer’s life a living hell right now. 😏

He's honestly not even sure how they managed to swipe half of the priceless portraits in the Castle (a considerable feat since there's one for Every. Room.) but they pulled it off in under a week. Barbs didn't even notice the replicas…

If that's not mildly terrifying, he doesn't know what is. Who knows what things he could be missing at any given moment...?

At least the mortal had the good sense to return his things, unlike Mammon, which gets them off his shit list for the most part. 🤷‍♀️

It helps that they’re also impressively well-traveled. They claim to have been across every human continent and sailed every ocean. Though he was skeptical at first, just hearing their stories eventually convinced him.

What sort of person has sailed the Amazon River, hiked through Arctic tundra, seen every major capital city, and still had time to explore the sights of the French Riviera?

One that has magical teleportation powers apparently.

Frankly, he could listen to their stories of the human world all day and still ask for another. He's told them that they may as well just write a book of their own for him at some point, it'd be beneficial to their poor vocal chords.

Asmodeus

Ugh! Really? Another thief in the House?? Wasn’t one hard enough to deal with?!

Honestly, stolen beauty products aren't exactly something you can just sell or give back, so unfortunately a lot of Asmo's clothes/accessories get targeted and he is NOT happy about it...

Around the time his favorite scarf was stolen for the third time, he was about to gut the mortal himself, but they struck a deal with him. They could nab his clothes SO LONG as they returned them with an extra little "gift."

Jewelry, perfume, creams, nail polish, etc. Asmo kept a running list and pretty much treated his thieving friend like a less moral version of Akuzon. Whatever he asked for, no matter how rare or expensive, they always got their hands on so who was he to complain?

He once decided to test them by asking for the Hope Diamond - which they got for him - but he made them return it after a week after the curse on it made him ruin a particularly intricate manicure so…

Like Satan, he's also pretty impressed with all the places they've seen. He's pretty traveled in the human world himself so they exchange travel stories all the time!

He may bother them to him out traveling from time to time. There are so many gorgeous and romantic places to visit in the human world after all, it's not like anybody could stop them from just… popping in to have a look. Right? 😏

Beelzebub

They learned very quickly that his food is absolutely off limits and after that, they were good.

Seriously. Beel caught them once trying to swipe a piece of pizza from his dinner and he nearly ripped their arm off for it…

But on the flipside, he also knows that he can go to them if he REALLY needs a snack and is short on cash. 

It's pretty comical watching the fleet-foot mortal running from angry demon vendors with a basket of stolen apples for their buddy… But he appreciates their enthusiasm! 🙂

Beel actually likes to hear about their travels too, but mostly what they've eaten. They can keep him enraptured for hours by describing all the food they've come across in the human world…

Watch out for the drool, though.

Since they can teleport, they'll sometimes pop up with a human world treat for him and the man internally swears his undying love for them every time...

Outwardly, though, he just smiles. 'Cause he's a sweetie.

Belphegor

They… they opened the attic door on, like, the first day they met… They didn’t even make it look that hard, they had some kind of knack for breaking and entering…

Seriously, imagine the look on his face when they just walk into the attic to say hello… He had this whole, “Lure and Trick the Human” plan all thought out then they pulled out a magic lockpick or something and BOOM! Freedom!

He laughed, perhaps a little closer to the edge of sanity than he was intending, and he tried to attack them but they were so damn fast he couldn't land a single hit!

Damn was it embarrassing when the others came in…

MC: "LUCIFER! LUCIFER!! There's a monster in your attic!!!"

Lucifer: "That's not a monster that's my brother!!"

MC: *stops midway through kneeing Belphie in the stomach* …. Ooooooooh!

MC: Whoops. 

It was a… rocky start.

After they settled their differences quelled Belphie's bloodlust he found that they kind of grew on him rather quickly… Something about that mischievous energy and how much they gave his brothers (minus Beel) grief with it.

He absolutely helps them with their plans if it will annoy Lucifer in any way. Occasionally, they'll even take Belphie out on raids instead of Mammon.

Turns out he's surprisingly good at distractions because all he has to do is pretend to fall then take a nap. People around him will legitimately believe that he needs medical attention so the MC can sneak through crowds undetected...

Of course, Mammon gets PISSED when they do this, though. How dare his baby brother try to steal away his perfect partner!! Get your own damn mortal, Belphie!!! 🤬

[fallen-in-dreams]

Mon Amant

Also on AO3. Pairing: Sakura/Kakashi. Summary: She wasn't a fantasy to him. She wasn't a wet dream. She was the real thing. For KakaSaku Month 2021. Post-war. *Mon Amant - my lover* Prompt: (Week 2, Day 4: May 13) The Heart Wants What It Wants. Rated: Mature Words: 7,346. Status: Complete.

Author note: Lots of angst and post-war life evaluation and some smut.

Thank-you so much @kakasaku-haven for hosting this. It’s already the 13th where I live so I hope it’s okay to post this now. :)

Enjoy. ^_^

. She bit her bottom lip in both nervousness and consternation. All these warm bodies gyrating, and she was beginning to think this party was just an excuse to hook up. But the funds raised were going to a good cause, so there was no point in complaining. Everyone wore their masquerade masks well, especially the man currently holding his hand out to her, silently asking for a dance. She smiled and accepted his hand, letting him lead her to the dancefloor. He had a henge on and so she couldn’t tell if his mask covered his upper or lower face, which was frustrating. But he held her delicately, danced like he owned the stage, and looked at her like she was the world, and she was quickly and easily enamoured. And when they slipped out the back to fuck, everything just came naturally. There was groping that came with one-night stands in alleyways. There was murmuring but very little kissing, as one would expect from clandestine trysts. And when she wrapped her legs around his waist, moaning at the wonderful feeling of him filling her, there was no pretending she didn’t like it rough. He was still a mystery to her, then. There was no way that he didn’t know exactly who she was, but his mask stayed on his face the entire time. .

Images of her wrapped around him, biting her bottom lip, clawing his back and scrunching her eyes as he came inside of her...they tormented him. Not because his lusting after his former student was some wet dream fixation he couldn't get out of his head. Not because he couldn't have her, and imagining her breasts bouncing as he fucked her against some random wall was a major factor of his night-time fantasies. She tormented him because he couldn't get enough of her.

The first time they had sex was in the back room of a bar during the first annual allied shinobi celebrations – a masked function that was so successful that the powers that be decided to keep the theme for every event. It was supposed to maintain the appearance of cooperation and friendship between the nations while giving people the freedom and confidence to mingle without previous prejudice. During the seven days leading up to it there were competitions and friendly tournaments but on that final (and only masquerade) night, the lines between their countrymen blurred and the drink flowed as heavily as the reduced inhibitions did.

Relations between nations had never been so good.

The original plan was to hold the masquerade in neutral areas until Naruto suggested they rotate the host between each nation. That meant that it would take five whole years for every village to have their turn, and five whole years of people hooking up with a foreign shinobi; the allure of the mystery and no-strings-attached sex brought in hordes of ninja. Not to mention the village pride that spiked during the friendly matches leading up to it. They had to have multiple festivities and new buildings set up to cater to everyone. Which was also seen as a competition between the Kage on who could hold the best event. And who could help out war victims more. And who had the best booze. The list of things they competed over were endless.

If it meant peace would reign, it was worth it. But Kakashi’s problems were more important.

Every year and new festival brought him closer to Sakura. Each time he’d don his henge and backwards mask he’d take her to a secluded area and do things to her that he’d never imagined she would love to have done to her.

Every inch of her skin was his to worship.

But the months between their trysts were the hardest. Lonely nights remembering how she felt wrapped around him were driving him mad. She would never accept him in the light of day, so he was resigned to taking those annual moments when Sakura Haruno let loose enough to fuck a complete stranger.

And he was an impatient man as much as he was a self-hating masochist.

His heart wouldn’t be able to take it forever.

.:.

As she came down from her high Sakura gripped his butt with both hands and squeezed, giggling when he jerked slightly. It wasn’t a teasing, flirtatious smile that adorned her face when he looked down at her, surprised. Was she making fun of him? She’d never done that before. Sakura giggled again, and she pressed herself further into him. She let herself relax. He was still inside her and softening but she liked it. The slow circles she traced over his back were born from laziness and contentment. It felt like she was attempting to haphazardly cover him in ninja symbols but due to the drag of her movement, he couldn’t tell which ones. “Are you drawing jutsu on me?” Sakura pulled back and looked up at him. His voice was deeper than usual. She smiled. “Are you pretending to be a shinobi?” He couldn’t help but chuckle. “Maybe I am.” “Hm. And I’m pretending to be Cinderella. Fuck me until midnight, but I’m the one that turns back into a pumpkin.�� That was a weird thing to say to someone you thought was a stranger. He frowned. “Who does that make me?” “The Prince-who-isn’t-actually-Charming.” “Huh.” He smiled at that. “That sounds like me.” She just hummed, wiggling her butt as it started to numb, pressed against the brick-and-mortar wall behind her. Her fingers grasped at his chin, feeling bare skin and her question on what type of mask he was wearing behind that henge was answered. Kakashi’s hand flew up to grasp her quickly and she gasped at his speed and the intensity of it. He didn’t want to show her. He’d flee if she pushed him. She released her hold and he reciprocated. But Sakura wasn’t finished yet. She would push him in other ways. “Why the disguise?” .

And fucking her was the only thing keeping him sane.

That was a bad thing. He should be able to handle this post-war funk he'd found himself in without banging his former student. He was a sick, sick old man. And to top it off, she didn't even know it had been him. Every. Single. Time. They. Fucked.

Made love...they made love.

Kakashi shook his head, trying to dispel the thought from his head. It wasn't making love; they'd only ever fucked in crowded pubs and clubs or the back alley of said establishments. The end of the war saw a rise in celebrations, and everyone knew that Kakashi Hatake didn't do celebrations. He always made his excuses on that masquerade night and disappeared until dawn. He didn’t do big crowds and frolicking, so no-one questioned him.

I just do Sakura.

Bad thoughts...he covered his eyes with his right hand, fingering the flask of sake in his left hand, and groaned out loud. Sakura didn't know her mysterious lover was him. But he knew full well it was her. He was taking advantage of her. He had been since she turned eighteen, and he hated himself for it. Their first time had happened because Sasuke had rejected her and refused to let her on the list of approved guests during his stay at the new allied prison – and then when he got out, he treated her like she was a stranger; the only times he acknowledges her was in team missions, outings and spars. She had been suffering that night, which was why she’d gone to the masquerade, and Kakashi had known it.

“Kakashi?”

He didn’t turn to acknowledge Yamato; the other man had made it his mission to get Kakashi out of his funk, but it wasn’t working. Sometimes Kakashi day-dreamed about strangling the wood style user with his own jutsu. Wrapping vines around his throat while pretending he couldn’t hear his cries for mercy calmed him enough to not try it. At least, that’s what he told himself.

“Just thought you should know that the council is trying to make you Hokage again.”

Kakashi groaned loudly; it was the only reaction Yamato was going to get from him, so the wood style user quietly shuffled away.

Maybe he’s finally learning to just leave me alone.

Or maybe it was just his only reason for hunting him down this time. It didn’t matter. His turbulent thoughts weren’t large enough to house concerns over Yamato’s interruptions as well. Kakashi set aside time to wallow in self-pity – over the years he’d perfected that art – and didn’t like being interrupted while doing so. But after the war that self-pity had turned into anger which eventually morphed into fear (of the future) and finally settled into what he supposed was a mix between wistfulness and regret. Add Sakura to the pile of things he did to hurt himself and something was going to burst soon.

How had his life come to this?

Kakashi frowned down at the broken memorial that once held Obito’s name. How could a rogue ninja have screwed him over so thoroughly, twice, that the only time he felt whole and complete was when he was fucking his former student? Obito’s pain had turned him into something twisted and blind but Kakashi had promised himself never to take that path. He’d fight that lingering darkness even if it meant taking something he didn’t deserve.

He groaned. That was enough whining for the day.

“You got off easy,” he told the epitaph before teleporting away.

.:.

“I’m going to fuck you so hard you can’t walk.” She frowned as he ran a hand down her side; letting out a sigh of anticipation. What kind of line was that? Did that really work on other women? But oh gods, when he rubbed her clit just like THAT she couldn’t complain. He hit her hard and fast, moving those talented fingers right over the spots he’d learned were her weakness. Fuck it, she needed him. But they always did it against a wall and she was beginning to think he believed it was the only way he could take her. What about a bed? What about letting her on top? But those rebellious thoughts quickly lost cohesion as he drove into her. All she was now, was a puddle of wet, slap happy moans and quivering pleas to an unknown deity. She was definitely going to have trouble walking after this. When she did finally come down from the white-hot bliss that Kakashi never failed to provide for her, Sakura decided she’d bug him about changing things up next time. But twelve months was a long time to wait for what she desperately wanted from him. .

The war had left many orphans, shinobi or not, and the homeless outnumbered the dead – most of which were civilian. This count included all nations, as it was public knowledge that the world's shinobi force had been cut by the thousands. So, in light of this, the great nations set up a number of fundraisers, the funds would go to rebuilding homes and replacing personnel. Even the Feudal Lords were getting in on it, donating money to make themselves look good – it was a political move, given that they hadn't had anything to do with the success of the war. But it was still welcomed. And needed.

And nobody deserved that praise more than people like Kurenai. She was determined to find love again, one day, after Asuma, but for now her attention was on all the children also caught by the ravages of war. She had her daughter as inspiration and Yamato’s help to set up a new complex on the outskirts of Konoha – the existing orphanages were too overrun to take them all.

It became her raison d'etre.

Kakashi knew all this because he’d volunteered his dogs as a weekly entertainment for the little brats. After the first few months he let himself be dragged into babysitting a few, nostalgic for the good old Team Seven days when someone was both surprised and in awe over his charming wit. Kurenai must’ve been doing something right because these kids were far more well-behaved than his old team had ever been.

Sakura.

Unbidden thoughts were best shoved to the back of his brain.

Kurenai’s Home for the Homeless also took over a portion of Kakashi’s life. After his role in the creating of the war he needed to give back something. The ninja nations would quickly recover their old strength, but the civilians would be slower to mend. So, he focused his efforts there.

“Don’t think you’re getting out of helping us this time,” Pakkun warned him.

Kakashi gave him his best smile. “Nowhere else I’d rather be.”

Pakkun huffed at him but said nothing more as he dived into the group of kids who were waiting for him. Their laughter and squealing made Kakashi’s eye twitch, but he kept the smile plastered to his face. And even with his mask on – which the kids had already repeatedly tried and failed to remove – they could tell it was a genuine smile, nonetheless.

This was his seclusion away from his ninja life. So, when Sakura came into the home one late Monday afternoon, Kakashi had a moment of panic – he’d gone out of his way to either avoid her or schedule their unavoidable interactions and he never would’ve believed that homeless shelter was a place she’d willingly visit. Sakura had her own demons regarding the war; her failed attempt at a relationship with Sasuke was the least of her concerns it seemed. She frequently woke from nightmares. And he’d heard she’d had some bad news regarding her fertility.

I’m such a stalker.

So, the reminder of innocence – the children who bore the brunt of the fallout of a war that should never have touched them – should be too much to bear, right?

She looked over at him and smiled her tired smile. He found himself instinctively smiling back. A tugging sensation began at his navel and twisted and heated up as it quickly travelled south.

Not now.

But then Kurenai caught her attention and that coil snapped.

Kurenai.

Kakashi contemplated mimicking Kurenai and trying to move on from his pathetic mindset. He could ask her out, or someone out, and forget all about the calming warmth and somehow simultaneous ferociousness that Sakura invoked in him. But he knew from experience that he would just mope. He would just use it as an excuse to internally ramble about his life mistakes and hate himself. He was still going to Obito’s so-called grave, after all. The man had murdered innocents and started a war but Kakashi still mourned him.

He wasn’t ready to move on, though. Not yet. And certainly not with anyone but Sakura. Or with her.

Kakashi sighed, rubbing his eye where the Sharingan used to be. And he was still moping.

.:.

The fundraiser was in full swing again; the familiar sight of shinobi from all nations done up in masquerade and dancing and drinking warmed even the most aloof and stubborn hearts among them. The Raikage had outdone himself with floating baubles and lanterns with music that played off the masked theme. He’d imported some band from across the Northern Sea to play until midnight. Like it was some Cinderella ball and the Raikage was looking for his own prince. Sakura smiled at that as she made her way through the streets of the village hidden in the cloud. It was her first actual visit to this part of the land of lightning and she was buzzed from the excitement of it all. Ino was off doing her thing – or doing some cloud ninja, who knew – and Sakura was content to lazily explore the village while keeping her eye out for her ex-sensei. He always made excuses to not directly participate in the festivities, but he was Hokage now. He needed to at least be here. She pitied the ninja who had to remain in their home village as a part of their skeleton crew during these festivities. They were mostly just lower levelled shinobi (and those who either didn’t want to travel or couldn’t) anyway. Ones that didn’t participate in the war were usually shafted to that position too. These festivities were mostly for the survivors. It sounded elitist, but Sakura wasn’t too worried about that. They deserved this. It took her an hour to realise she was being followed – she blamed the alcohol now swarming in her system. But like she couldn’t tell who he was, the baka. He never did fully appreciate her natural talents with genjutsu. She led him on a bit of a merry chase and allowed him to catch her near the temporary accommodations for foreign ninja but the moment his hands found her waist he manoeuvred her toward the nearest alley way. What was with him? Sakura could do little other than moan as he pressed her against the stone wall, face first. He worked on her clit as he grabbed her tits, seemingly not wanting to be tender, again. When he did let his guard down and be gentle with her, they headed into territory that neither was ready for. Okay. She could go with this. Sakura pushed her arse into him, rewarding him for his attentiveness to her body. “Yes, fuck, like that! Please!” He quickly dispensed of any more formalities and Kakashi undid his pants in record time before driving into her, squeezing his eyes shut to the hypocritical mantra in his head. He didn’t want this but so desperately did at the same time. Sakura didn’t bother keeping quiet, ignoring the occasional passer-by of the alleyway who was momentarily drawn by the sound of her cries. When they realised it wasn’t someone being attacked, they quickly scuttled off. She didn’t even care if any of them recognised her as the former Hokage's protégé. Sakura came hard at that thought and trembled as Kakashi rode out the last few strokes whispering naughty things in her ear. She didn’t want this to end here. It wasn’t her orgasm making her tremble as the thought occurred to her. She wanted to see ALL of him. She pushed him to pull out of her and then shakily spun around on the spot. Sakura sucked in a deep breath for courage and forced herself to sound calm as she asked, “my place or yours, next?” Her fingers were like fire as they caressed his arm. Kakashi could only pant in response, struggling to hold himself up as she put bad thoughts in his head. She waited patiently, clearly expecting a response. Did he dare to hope? Maybe she was just basking in her own afterglow and didn’t mean it. Because she had no idea who he was. But when he finally recovered enough to pull back and stare into those unfathomably beautiful, emerald eyes of hers he realised she was serious. She wanted to know who he was. There was no doubt he was the same man she’d been fucking annually, this whole time. And she was ready to really know him… maybe? Kakashi felt shame and fear rush through him. And fled .

He was such a coward. It was so easy to love and leave her. Much easier than admitting how he felt. And infinitely easier than removing his henge and accepting whatever recriminations she had for him.

“You still sulking?”

Gai couldn’t come and annoy him as often as he used to so Yamato had taken up that mantle. But at least he didn’t wax poetic about youth and all that crap. Not that Kakashi wasn’t feeling like he didn’t need a pick-me-up, but Yamato’s style was decidedly less annoying. When sober.

He decided to humour him, since masochism was the least he deserved after that last run-in with Sakura.

“Just about the naughty fun I had in Kumo last week.”

Yamato scoffed. “I don’t drink nearly enough to be hearing that.”

“You drink enough for the both of us.”

He wasn’t going to pull the I-missed-out-on-the-war-so-I-get-to-complain-more-than-you card. Yamato may have been captured but he didn’t watch his comrades die in front of him. Not this time, anyway. Kakashi had no idea how much of the experimentation Kabuto did on him that he remembered. Did it change his chakra? Did it leave him with nightmares? Did he have to buy new sheets for his bed every week because of how much he tore them up when he could actually get some semblance of sleep?

Did he remember nothing at all?

Kakashi would’ve liked to have slept through the war, if it was still a guarantee they’d have won. That Infinite Tsukuyomi might have been beyond stupid, but the lure of peace was enticing. Still, he bore his pain. Even if he did run from it from time to time.

From Sakura, you mean, old man.

He chuckled, surprising Yamato.

“Did you hit your head, Kakashi-senpai?”

“You know you don’t have to call me that anymore.”

He was Hokage now, after all.

“Some habits are worth not breaking.”

“Hm. If they annoy me, you mean.”

“That’s the spirit. Laugh at my expense, like you always do.”

Kakashi looked over at him and felt himself relax at the teasing look on the other man’s face. It was a welcomed respite that he knew he didn’t deserve. “Right.”

“By the way, Sakura’s looking for you. Might want to head on over to her place later to find out what about or risk the almighty wrath. See you later.”

Yamato left him to his thoughts then, not knowing how dark they’d turn in his absence.

As far as he could tell she wasn’t dating anyone, though he didn’t stalk her enough to know if she occasionally scratched the same itch that he scratched every year. He didn’t want to know if some other guy had been inside her.

Kakashi was well aware that the best way to combat this would be to confess to her and hope she didn’t pound him into the ground, but like he said: he was a coward. He was too used to seeing her as his student. Too used to the self-flagellation of only getting to hold her once every twelve months. He was too comfortable with the barely-see-each-other routine they had going that didn’t make his heart race. He didn’t even know how to begin that conversation with her.

And the Hokage shouldn’t be dallying with a former student.

Kakashi sighed again, running a hand along the graffiti on Obito’s memorial.

As the years droned on so did his monotonous excuses.

.:.

This time he let her pin him to the wall. Because she liked it. And because she could. He groaned into her mouth as she worked her hand over the bulge in his pants, her knees on either side of his left leg. Dry humping seemed to make him even harder, so she kept at him, working him into a tizzy. It was going to be even harder for her this time, if she didn’t slow down. But Sakura was the one in control, so she used her strength to keep him from flipping their positions and taking charge, kissing her way up his bare neck as she did so. When she bit his earlobe, he bucked against her and Sakura slid her hand back down to his pants. But this freed him up somewhat and the disguised Hokage grasped her hips and pressed so hard she knew come morning there’d be a bruise. “Let me show you how much you deserve to be fucked.” Old words that never failed to turn her on, regardless. The fucking part of this interlude was over and before she knew it, her back was against the wall again. So he’d only let her take over for the foreplay? Arsehole. Sakura was feeling petty as Kakashi lifted her left leg over his hip and pushed into her with no more preamble. She gripped his butt harder than necessary, scratched down his back knowing it was going to scar if she didn’t heal it soon, and bit his lip when he leant into kiss her so hard, she tasted blood. “Fuck.” And he liked it. “Fuck,” She echoed his sentiments and cried into his mouth as he took her in the familiar position. She focused on hurting him wherever she could and was rewarded with his groans and fast approaching orgasm. There was no way Sakura was letting this become a once-a-year thing anymore. She wanted this forever. She needed him. “Kakashi…” Did she just…? It didn’t matter, his orgasm was ripping through his body and he was helpless to focus on anything else. Her sudden need to cause him physical distress didn’t bother him – he already had too many scars, anyway. It was a form of masochism and he wondered, as he spilled into her and screamed his release, if she would be up to donning the master title if they ever took this to the bedroom. He could be a very good slave. Fantasies drifted away from him as reality sunk in and he pressed the full length of his body against hers, his face in the crook of her neck as he breathed in her unique scent. It never failed to do him in. But this, whatever it was, needed to either stop or become something more. Sakura was the first to move and adjust her clothing. He stood there, his dick hanging out and unabashed about it, and watched her tuck her knickers back into place. “I won’t wait much longer,” she said enigmatically before turning away from him. Did she realise she’d called out his name? Sakura sashayed away from him. He watched her hips as she went. And narrowed his eyes at her. Yes. She knew. .

Sakura pressed a hand to Bull’s head as the dog stared at her blankly. Kakashi’s ninken was warm to the touch, unlike the man in question. He’d been so cold with her, except for those nights. The annual celebrations had become her ritual too, not just his. One night to forget who she really was, who she was supposed to be. To put her troubles aside and just feel again.

But her time of mourning was over. Even if she did occasionally flit between this fact and her self-pitying thoughts in her head.

Kurenai watched her quietly. As the only person Sakura had confided in, regarding her feelings for Kakashi, she was also a very good listener. The older woman didn’t know they fucked once a year, but she knew more than anyone else.

Sakura removed her hand from Bull and returned it to the brush she’d been using.

“You should ask him out.”

“He deserves better.”

“Maybe you are that better,” Kurenai said, smiling at Sakura’s snort of derision. “Just because Sasuke didn’t have the good taste to like you back doesn’t mean you’re not good enough for anyone else.”

Sakura stilled, the hand brushing Bull now shaking slightly. Sasuke had done more than just not like her back, but Kurenai didn’t know that so she forced herself to keep brushing. The repetitive motion was cathartic, and she took a deep breath, finding herself calming as she inhaled the lingering scent of Kakashi that all his ninken had.

“This isn’t about Sasuke,” she said.

Kurenai sighed. “No, I suppose not.” She stood up. “Need anything, kiddo? I’m heading to the cafeteria.”

“No.”

“Mummy!”

Sakura watched as Mirai came running in and jumped at her mother. She paused in brushing Bull to smile and take in the wholesome moment of the two talking animatedly as they slowly made their way out of the room. She knew that she and Kakashi deserved their shot. She was just so used to waiting a whole year that Sakura sometimes forgot that he was waiting for her, too.

She smiled and returned to her chore. The dogs got weekly baths from Kakashi – one of the few things he wasn’t lazy about was his ninken – so they didn’t need the pinkette to fuss over them. But they seemed to enjoy it so she kept at it. It had been a whole year since she’d first walked into this place. She’d done it to have an excuse to spend more time near Kakashi. Even though the man in question wasn’t here right now, she still did it.

Avoiding this place for her own personal reasons were no longer necessary. She could move on.

“Next?” She asked, when done with Bull. He reluctantly moved away and Guruko bounded up to her, his tail wagging in anticipation.

It was over an hour before Kurenai returned, glowing with happiness while apologetic for how long she took. Sakura simply waved her concerns away. She’d finished the grooming herself and was content to sit back and watch as the kids played with Kakashi’s ninken. The dogs were so sweet to let them pull on their ears and snuggle, the way they did. The kids adored them.

Shiba started telling them a story about how he saved Kakashi from an evil ninja by biting his bum. It had the kids in giggle fits and the other ninken rolling their eyes. Sakura knew, because she’d been there, just how embellished this story was – though Shiba had indeed bitten a rogue ninja who was about to skewer Kakashi, it hadn’t been on his arse.

“Reminds me of the good old days,” Kurenai said, interrupting her thoughts and giving Sakura a cheeky smile. “Asuma and Kakashi would argue over who had the best stories and both of them always embellished.”

“I can imagine.”

“Yeah, they were such polar opposites in so many ways.” Kurenai lost her smile and stared off into one of the adjoining rooms, where Sakura assumed Mirai was playing with the art supplies (she always did that instead of joining the time with the dogs, like she was trying to hog them; it was cute).

The older woman sighed. “One related to a Hokage and rejecting that connection, the other Hokage material who’d take the role readily, even though it never appealed to him.”

Sakura fingered the hem of her skirt absentmindedly. “He’s still griping at Tsunade for being named the sixth Hokage.”

“Who was it that really put him forth for Hokage?” Kurenai asked, teasingly. Tsunade liked making fun of the now-Hokage for not liking his position but it was clear to everyone (except Kakashi, it seemed) that the blonde had had nothing to do with it.

Sakura looked away from her, her face tinging pink. It hadn’t been until his inauguration that she found out he hadn’t actually wanted the position. Why must he hide his feelings so much? “I did.”

.:.

He left her a message to meet him at his favourite drinking spot. It was a place with a similar look to it as Ichiraku, except it sold alcohol – to shinobi only. Her shishou also knew about it and Tsunade raved about the place – it was apparently a new stall set up in the last few months. It was called Shochu, or something like that. Sakura glanced up at the sign before ducking under the flap, half expecting to see Teuchi and Ayame; it was that similar to Ichiraku.

“Welcome!” The owner beamed at her; his eyes squinted closed as a genuine smile graced his battered face. “What’ll you have?”

She glanced at the menu. They also sold Onigiri sandwiches and Renkon chips which made her mouth water just looking at. Sakura decided to splurge, since she’d arrived on time and Kakashi was bound to be late, even to this.

She swallowed nervously. Whatever this was.

“A bowl of Renkon chips and Amazu sauce,” she said, forcing a smile onto her face. “No drinks, please.”

“Coming right up! Oh…”

Sakura frowned at him as the man’s eyes opened and widened. He grinned. “It’s on the house.”

“Uh…”

“The name’s Kohaku.” If possible, his grin only widened. “And you’re Sakura Haruno. The beautiful pink haired kunoichi with a dazzling smile.”

“Uh…” She felt her face warm.

“Lunch has been paid for,” he continued. “By a secret admirer.” He handed her a note. “He also said to open this only when you’re done eating. Oh, and I’m adding a sparkly to your order. You’ll need it.”

He winked at her and she palmed her face, embarrassed. Did Kakashi set this up? And why?

As Kohaku got started on her order, Sakura fingered the note, feeling Kakashi’s chakra embedded into it. Her heart was fluttering, and she squirmed in her seat. She hadn’t realised he had a romantic side. But why lunch here? And why alone?

“Sakura?”

Her head snapped around at the other patron, not realising until now that she wasn’t alone.

It was Yamato.

“What are you doing here?”

“Eating.”

He grinned, holding up a beer. “Drinking.”

“Damn you, Kakashi,” she whispered.

Yamato frowned. “Yes, he said he was joining me for lunch this time. Even told me to tell you it’s his treat for all those times you paid.”

He burped loudly and Sakura realised he was already drunk.

Yamato seemed kind of bummed out, too. She also just noticed he had a few glasses of sake next to him, too; the beer had run out. Downing another glass before turning back to Sakura, he side-eyed her, like she was the one responsible for all his problems. “Are you just going to sit there sulking all day or is there something you need of me, senpai?”

“Senpai?”

He narrowed his eyes at her, his vision clearly becoming impaired. He thought she was Kakashi, maybe? The wood style user was beyond drunk, it seemed. And in the middle of the day! She bit her bottom lip, wondering if he’d been like this since the war and she’d just not noticed. Shame filled her and she made a mental note to get the hospital psychiatrist to track him down.

Just to talk.

Or strap him down then talk, as he’s likely to be stubborn about it.

Yamato shook his head. “Oh, it’s not him. It’s you.” He patted the stool next to him. “Sit, I don’t bite my teammates.”

Sakura wasn’t convinced.

He sighed. “Lady Tsunade told me to kep… I mean keep an eye on Kakashi. He was supposed to be here drinking but in-instead I got you.” He patted the stool again. “Sit, blossom tree. Sit.”

He had to be harmless when drunk. Sighing, Sakura got off her stool and instead sat down next to him, grudgingly. “She mentions he’s over drinking.”

“No, he hasn’t. But I have.”

She sighed again. “That’s what I meant.”

Yamato just shrugged and loudly ordered a bottle of sake and another glass.

“I’m not drinking with you.”

Yamato swayed and shook his glass in her face. “Who said it was for you?”

She didn’t need this. “I’m going.”

“No-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no! I’ll behave!”

Sakura was half-way off her stool when Yamato grabbed her hands and pouted at her. She sat back down to avoid making things worse and he brightened up, humming and grinning when the sake bottle and glass arrived. He slid the glass to her and, unsurprised, she accepted as he poured her shishou’s favourite drink into it. But she didn’t drink.

They waited in silence and Sakura eagerly accepted her food when Kohaku handed it over, complete with a smile and twinkle of his very white teeth. Maybe he was related to Gai sensei?

Yamato watched her closely as she ate, then darted his eyes away when she glared at him. He kept throwing her weird looks but waited until she was done and had the bottle of bubbly in her hand before asking, “so, what’s got you looking f-for drinksies?”

“I was looking for…”

Him.

They’d been shagging on the alliance celebrations for five years now and she knew very well that he knew very well who she was the entire time. Talking with Kurenai about moving on and finally being able to put Sasuke behind her, she felt different. Like she was coming out of a black haze of morosity that had been engulfing her and Sakura was finally waking up. Giving into Kakashi every year and spending the rest of the twelve months pretending nothing happened had broken her more than she realised.

And now.

Now she wanted her life back. Kakashi was a loose end that needed to either be severed or restitched. She knew which one she would choose, so the resolution to this weird tryst would depend on what he wanted from her.

Why does my love life always have to be in the hands of others?

Yamato made a grumbling noise, breaking her thoughts and mumbled something she couldn’t quite catch.

"What?"

He slammed the drink down on the counter and eyed her suspiciously. "I s-saaaaid, he has a fuck bu-buddy."

Sakura sighed, nursing her drink and wishing she didn’t have to deal with this; she didn’t really want to hear about how Kakashi had found himself a new piece of arse and how his friends were so happy for him. She knew very well that she was the piece of arse and didn’t want to know all the lewd things her sensei had told his friends.

And then it hit her.

She was just another fuck.

She was usable.

She was recyclable and replaceable.

She was disposable.

Sakura had never pictured Kakashi having a sex life – the man was so reserved; she’d begun to think his only lover was those Icha Icha books of Jiraiya’s. It was why she’d been surprised the aloof man had instigated their trysts. How often did he sleep around? She felt her stomach twist at that thought.

Am I just another toy? Is that why he’s been so reluctant to reveal himself? Is he ashamed?

She squeezed her eyes closed, trying to stop the tears. This was ridiculous. A drunken comment from her former taichou didn’t determine her worth to Kakashi.

“Some of the guys thought he was gay or asexual for a long time,” Yamato went on, and the pinkette found herself frozen on the spot; her body rigid and the drink getting warm in her hand. “Not that there’d be anything wrong with th-that, you… you judgy… uh, thing.” He gave her the stink eye.

The wood style user balked for a moment, as though he was about to vomit in front of her, but then seemed to get a hold of himself, throwing back another shot and coughing loudly. “Uh… that smarts.” He wiped his mouth. “Where was I… oh yeah, turns out Kakashi-senpai has a fuck buddy.”

Yamato spun around on his stool and stopped after the second spin, peering closely at Sakura. “You look awfully familiar.”

“Hm.” She found her voice only to clamp her mouth shut.

“Well anyway,” Yamato went on, indicating to Kohaku.

But the older man shook his head. “You’ve tapped out.”

“Whaaa?!” Yamato grabbed his bottle and Kohaku swiped it out of his hand.

“No,” he said fiercely. “No more for you. I told you only three bottles.”

Yamato pouted but it got him nowhere. He turned on the stool, looking like he was going to stumble away, but he didn’t budge.

“Sakura?”

“Y-yes.”

“Why does Kakashi-senpai get to find someone special and I d-don’t?”

“Special?”

He nodded. “Wants to spend his life with her. ‘Fraid he won’t be able to.” He sighed and smacked his lips together. “I want that someone t-too.”

He groaned, turning back to the bar and flopping his head down on it. "What the fuck does that even mean?"

Sakura wasn’t paying attention to him now, sliding off her stool. "I have to go. Sorry!"

Yamato groaned; pushing his glass toward the bemused barkeep, he tapped it, silently demanding more even though Kohaku had just told him no. "Fine!" He yelled, waving his other hand at Sakura's retreating back. "Stick me with the bill like you always do, Kakashi-senpai!"

.:.

The note had very little to say, but it was his chakra that led her on. Sakura ran like the wind. This was a jutsu she’d never heard of and he was so teaching it to her later.

But right now, she needed answers from this adorably annoying man.

It didn’t take her long to realise it was leading her to his apartment.

“My place or yours, next?”

Her desire to get him into a bed had started so long ago. Was he finally relenting? She wanted more than the sex though, so if that was all he was really after…

Stop obsessing.

She slowed down as his apartment loomed in front of her and walked a natural pace up the stairs and to his door. She gasped as he opened the door and Sakura focused on the man in front of her; he looked tired by happy.

Did he really want this?

He smiled but said nothing, clearly waiting for her to start talking.

But Kakashi was averse to blunt confessions. And if she learnt anything from Sasuke she knew that emotionally stunted men – even if they were as emotionally needy as Kakashi – needed a lighter touch. Like a startled animal in the wild she needed to approach with caution.

Play it cool.

“So,” she drawled. “Shochu huh? Couldn’t afford a fancy restaurant?”

He huffed and stepped aside. “Would you like to come in?”

“I don’t know, I’ve already eaten.” He raised an eyebrow and she ignored it, continuing. “What other reason could I have to enter your apartment at this time of day?”

He chuckled suddenly, startling her. “You’re not subtle, Sakura.”

She groaned and stormed in. He closed the door and turned to face her, leaning against it and crossing his arms over his chest.

“You sent me the note, Kakashi. The ball’s in your court.”

“Is it?”

She swallowed heavily. How could he look so calm about this? Okay, no more preamble bullshit. She wasn’t going to try (and clearly fail) to be subtle about this anymore. She stepped over to him, palming his chest and smirking as she felt his heart race under her fingertips.

“Sakura?”

“Hm?”

“What are we doing?”

“I have no idea.”

He smiled under his mask and didn’t pull away when she touched it gently.

“But I’d like to see where it takes us.”

Kakashi tugged on the edge of his mask without pulling it down. “I don’t know. You might not like what you see.”

“I’ll close my eyes.”

“Then you won’t see all the good things, Sakura-chan.”

“Drop the chan.” Sakura inhaled deeply; the look on his face, from what she could see, was amusement. “And drop the mask.”

They’d danced around each other enough. She could feel the tension in his body as she pressed against him. He was as worried as she was, just hiding it better.

Indeed, Kakashi felt very little other than trepidation as Sakura demanded he let it go. For five years he’d hidden behind a masquerade to take what he wanted not knowing if it was what he needed. So, he talked a big game, but could he let go of the angst and self-loathing he was so well-known for?

He trembled as her grip became mildly painful. She was determined but scared, her eyes widening slightly as she stubbornly held his gaze. This was so much harder than whispering dirty words in her ear and fucking her warm, writhing body into a non-descript wall. This required courage.

But he needed to do this.

One step at a time.

And the first step was dropping his mask and kissing the woman he loved. Without shaking like some teenage virgin.

But once his face was bare, she took over.

Her mouth was on his and an instant later all the tension left his body. They pulled each other in, gently and lovingly caressing; there had been enough rough fucks, this wasn’t about that. This time they could take it slowly. And do more than just stand against walls. He steered her toward his bed as she started exploring his mouth and finally, he leant into the kiss with no self-pity or angst. Only with hope for the future.

…

[magic-and-moonlit-wings]

Reaction to ‘Wizards’

There were some elements of Wizards that I was quite pleased with and others I found disappointing.

Here are some notes I took while watching it: 

“I was busy,” says the guy who was ASLEEP.

Cuckoo clock in bookstore looks like Bular’s head.

Green Knight can teleport, confirming potential parallel character to Angor Rot and Tronos Madu, both yellow-eyed assassins with teleportation and tragic backstories (later confirmed, yes, there are parallels between this character and those two besides the visual one)

Jim always tips at the cafe; yup, that sounds like Jim 

Gunmar saving Jim: irony. Is Jim going to go to the Gumm-Gumm camp now? 

Confirmation that portrait was Arthur and Guinevere and she is “gone”, presumably by magic or killed by a troll - is she dead or did she just leave? (Later confirmed, dead)

Morgana’s name is carved on the tree under Arthur’s and Guinevere’s - was she in love with Guinevere too? 

Is that Nari with Morgana and Guinevere? (Later confirmed, yes)

Stone doll Callista finds looks like Angor’s totems - same village? He said it was “Gunmar’s war” that destroyed it, and she says it was a human attack, but Angor might’ve seen it as a retaliatory attack by the humans which Gunmar’s actions had provoked?

Arthur being the one to cut off Morgana’s hand makes Merlin SLIGHTLY less of an asshole for using it in the Amulet, but a lot of this still could’ve been avoided if Merlin had been willing to shut up and listen. 

Oh, except it wasn’t Arthur who cut off Morgana’s hand the first time anyway? 

Episode 3 ends without Steve getting knocked on his back, so that scene must’ve been his sparring match with Lancelot in Episode 2 instead of keeping it an Episode 3 tradition (like how Zuko and Iroh hug in Episode 18 of each season of Avatar the Last Airbender)

Why would Douxie be grossed out at the idea of swimming naked? Swimsuits have only been around for, what, 80 years? Presumably it was a specific lack of desire to see Steve naked.

Neat take on the Lady of the Lake. 

AAARRRGGHH used to have a triple set of horns - what happened to the other two? Receded, amputated, knocked off? Also, Gunmar says AAARRRGGHH is ‘holding back’ when they spar and has yet to win against him - if AAARRRGGHH was doing that on purpose, this supports my theory that he was debating how safe it was to stay on Gunmar’s side for some time before deserting. 

Morgana possessed? 

Angor Rot saved Morgana/recovers her body and gives a funerary-sounding blessing, showing he was sympathetic to humans before losing his soul  

Oh, and Nari gave her the new hand 

Wait, so who steals Angor’s soul in this timeline? 

Called it on that servant guy being a Changeling - he appears in the background of, like, every scene that episode where they’re talking about Morgana using unexpected strategies to sneak into Camelot. 

Wait, except his human form is an adult - so is he a polymorph? Or Familiars can be taken as adults but babies are easier to contain and have less ‘established personality’ to match after replacing them? Or has Morgana already been creating Changelings? AAARRRGGHH calls Jim “impure” when they meet in Dwoza, suggesting Gumm-Gumms already know what Changelings are, except Morgana wasn’t working with them yet

Is Callista going to be Deya? (Later confirmed, yes)

Show seems to be matching up with old theories about Deya being the first Trollhunter, confirming that the show, comics, and novels are all separate continuities (since comics and novels show pre-Deya Trollhunters). 

Gumm-Gumm berserkers - mind-controlled or grit-shaka’d (talisman of “no fear”), to throw themselves into sunlight like that?

Steve seems ready to refer to any half-decent older man as his dad, like when he refers to Merlin as ‘Wizard-Dad’. Maybe it’s because I was watching Brooklyn 99 recently but I’m reminded of Jake Peralta.

Big Jim’s crystal neck protrusions look like Strickler’s knife collar back when I thought that was part of his body. Glowy lines look like Gunmar; tie-in to Gunmar born of a “corrupted Heartstone” since Jim is “corrupted” now?

Aw, Krel called Ricky his dad. 

How did AAARRRGGHH fit through the HexTech door to the backroom?

“Cat and mouse” line cuts to a shot of Archie obviously imitating Nari (confirmed a few minutes later)

Toby has obviously seen Ghostbusters. “When someone asks you if you are a god, you say YES!”

Decoration in bookshop looks like Angor’s head.

Was that lightshow of Nari searching the world for Jim’s soul just a visual metaphor for her powers or did literally everyone on Earth see that?

“There’s a force neither of us can escape - gravity!” says the woman who can fly.

Morgana’s occasional echo-y voice in Trollhunters matches Bellroc and Skael - possession/magical-influence related?

So did Merlin have that book on him or did his body turn into the book?

Are all dragons fluffy and/or shapeshifters in this universe? 

Might’ve been smarter to keep Merlin’s staff intact and destroy the Grimoire so the Arcane Order never knows where to find the Genesis Seals, just saying.

If Morgana didn’t become “the Eldritch Queen” until, like, IMMEDIATELY before Angor approached her (therefore days earlier at most in the unaltered timeline), how had he heard of her to seek her aid? Was he actually reaching out to the Arcane Order? At least this explains why he didn’t go to the Trollhunter for help - there was no Trollhunter to approach yet.

Big Jim ‘dies’ in the same pose as AAARRRGGHH in Trollhunters Season 1 and Draal in Unbecoming, both false death scenes, for five-second foreshadowing Jim was alive. 

Mixed feelings about him being human again - like I’ve said, I didn’t think the Troll Jim subplot was well-executed but I also felt like, now that it’s been established, the show needs to stick with it. Since everything’s over I’m going to headcanon Jim having shapeshifting powers now and being able to switch between human and troll at will, he just didn’t think to try to do so on-camera.

Also, I feel like Jim’s relationship with Claire is once again completely overshadowing his relationship with Toby, instead of them being different kinds of relationships with equal weight. 

Barbara is going to be pretty shocked when her human son shows up again. She and Strickler don’t appear at all in this series, even in cameo. 

Maybe Jim’s not a troll anymore because, with Merlin and Morgana both dead, their magic is “broken” and that’s what was holding his transformation in place? Merlin’s through the potion, Morgana’s through the Changeling femur, both through the Amulet.

Is Jim still going back to New Jersey? Blinky’s got to, unless the trolls there have elected a new leader or they’re bringing the New Jersey Heartstone back to Arcadia.

Series ending scene also would work as the final scene of a movie, setting up a sequel hook even though it’s supposed to be over now. 

Seems like wizards are long-lived and age really slowly? Possibly a “will not die but can be killed” situation, like vampires, or unicorns (at least in The Last Unicorn) 

Additional thoughts after finishing the show and thinking for a while: 

I don’t get how Morgana could end up with such a reputation among trolls - enough to have superstitions about her, seen when Dictatious objects to Usurna saying her name - when they only interacted with her for like a few days at most. I guess she made a pretty strong impression on Gunmar, who passed that on to everyone else? Or maybe she cultivated that reputation over time via the Changelings?

Speaking of the Changelings, does this mean that, while Morgana designed the process to create them, she doesn’t make each individual one? Otherwise she would’ve had to pre-make a bunch in the time between getting her new hand and being trapped in the Heartstone. Although, if she can steal Angor’s soul remotely (with the idea she was already trapped in the Heartstone when that happened), she can probably also make Changelings remotely. 

I’m kind of sorry the Changelings got invented so quickly; I figured there would be some trial-and-error to that process.

How I think the Original Timeline went: 

Morgana would’ve turned to the Arcane Order seeking magic allies, later in the day that gets changed when the time-travelers arrive. Possibly she seeks out Nari, specifically, remembering her from childhood. 

Merlin then sees Morgana as the Future Threat and he or one of the knights (not Arthur) cut off her hand in the resulting fight. 

Merlin makes the Amulet. It chooses Callista, who is still in Camelot’s dungeon at the time, and she agrees to fight Gunmar in exchange for her freedom. 

She fully intending to go back on the deal and run for it, but then something-something-something and she learns her original name and saves the world anyway. Probably she’s the one who took down and imprisoned AAARRRGGHH in Dwoza, which inspired the other trolls there to follow her. 

Morgana finds out about the Trollhunter shortly before Angor arrives to ask her for magic, which is why she orders him to hunt the Trollhunters down.

Arthur thinks Merlin killed Morgana and wants to avenge her, leading him to the Arcane Order for the original not-time-loop-prompted attack.  

Show did a good job establishing and developing Douxie’s relationship with Merlin

Also, how did that bookshop end up a center of Merlin’s power? He’s only been in the modern world for a few months. Did he set a shop up off-camera while the trolls were travelling to New Jersey and the Akiridions were discovering Earth? 

How did Ricky Blank lose his head, anyway? Can Hex Tech fix him? Krel says magic and Akiridion tech combine harmoniously. 

[sunstar-of-the-north]

Bionic the Hedgehog

Warning: This is going to be a long bio.

Age: 24

Height: A foot taller than Sonic

Weight: Unknown

Ø  Original Bio:

   “Bionic the Hedgehog is Sonic's long-lost (But not for long) brother. He's 16-years old, and he's a hot dude. His favorite sport is Basketball. He's so terrific at basketball, he can score 100 points in any one quarter. His favorite food is a Taco-Style Pizza (Hot and spicy). He's terrific at electrical devices, such as: robot factories, teleporters, and all other difficult, mechanical devices. Like Sonic, he's an adventurous, impatient, hedgehog, and he's a good guy.

   Here's the story about him. A long time ago, when Bionic was 6-years old and Sonic was 5-years old, Bionic and Sonic were playing catch. When sonic threw his sixth throw, he accidentally threw it in a bush. Bionic agreed to retrieve the ball. When he got to the bush, just picking up the ball, he was being sucked in by a trans-dimentional [sic] portal. He cried for help from Sonic, but when Sonic got there, he grabbed Bionic's hand. Sonic tried to pull his brother out of the portal, but Bionic's hand slipped out of Sonic's hand, and he was falling. Sonic tried desperately to save Bionic, but he couldn't reach him. So, Sonic forgot about Bionic.

Bionic ended up in a world of Basketball players. So, he was stranded for years and years. During the time he was there, he learned enough about Basketball, enough to give him the ability to do that "100 point per quarter" thing.

   Meanwhile, back in Sonic's dimension, you probably know his story. Here it is in a short story though, Sonic was delivering 300 Chili-Dogs. His Uncle Chuck was captured by Robotnik and his Swatbots. Sonic meets Sally after realizing Chuck was in danger (He dropped off the Chili-Dogs). Sonic and Sally try to save Chuck, But Robitnik already Robotsized Chuck. So, Sonic joined Sally's Freedom Fighters, and made new friends, like: Tails, Bunny Rabbot, Rotor, Antoine, and many other Freedom Fighters. One day Sonic and Tails, flew to a Chaos Emerald-powered Floating Island, and met Knuckles the Enchidna. Knuckles thought Sonic was an enemy, but realized he was a good guy. They didn't get rid of Robotnik for good, but they became friends. But Sonic left Knuckles so that he can do his job of guarding the Floating Island. Later, Knuckles rescued Sonic and his friends from danger with Robotnik, by forming his own team, the Chaotix. And, Sonic turned his robotisized Uncle Chuck's personality back to normal (Chuck was still a robot).

   One day, when he was eating a Chili-Dog in his bedroom, he found an old picture of himself and Bionic together. Sonic recognized himself, but he didn't remember his brother. He went to his Uncle Chuck, so, that he can talk to him about who was the other hedgehog in the picture. When he got to his Uncle's home, Chuck invited him in. Sonic asked him, "Uncle Chuck, who is that other boy with me in this picture?" Chuck studied the picture and replied to Sonic, "Sonic, this other boy was your brother, his name was Bionic." Sonic said, "Uncle Chuck, I didn't know I had a brother. What happened to him?" Chuck replied, "You saw what happened, and you ran to me and told me the whole thing. But, I'll tell you what you told me.

   "Sonic, you were 5-years old, and Bionic was 6-years old." Sonic said, interrupting, "Uncle Chuck, you're saying, he's my big brother?" Chuck replied, "Sonic, let me finish, please. You and Bionic were playing catch, on your 6th throw, you threw it in a bush. Bionic went to get it, as he was getting it, he got sucked in a trans-dimentional portal. You tried to save him, but didn't succeed in saving him." Sonic said, "Well thanks for telling me, but now that I remember it, I feel so sad!" So after he stopped crying, he said, "Good bye," and went home. While he was sitting on his bed, thinking about Bionic, in Bionic's world, he found a way to get out of there. He said good bye to his friends and thanked him for a nice time. He jumped through the portal leading to Sonic's bedroom. Back in Sonic's world, a portal opened up on the wall to his left, and to his suprise [sic], a figure poked out of the portal. When Sonic got a good view of who was coming out of the portal, he recognized him, it was Bionic. Sonic asked, "Is that you, Bionic, my long-lost big brother?" Bionic replied, "Sonic?" When they both saw each other, Sonic rushed up to him and gave him a big hug as the portal closed. Bionic said, "It's good to see my little brother again." Sonic replied, "It's good to see you again, too." Sonic introduced him to all his friends, and Sonic asked him if he would like to join the Freedom Fighters and stay with himself (Sonic). Bionic, said yes, and Sonic and Bionic had many adventures fighting Robotnik.

The End.”

-Christian Weston Chandler

   Ø  New Bio:

   Bionic the Hedgehog was born and raised on the planet Mobius. He lived in the country side with his parents, who did the best they could for their only child. Bionic’s parents tried to make visits to the capital so he could play with his distant cousin Sonic. However, Bionic’s life would change dramatically. When Bionic’s family was visiting, Doctor Robotnik attacked Mobius. Fearing for their son’s safety, they ran to the nearest rocket they could and put the five year old in the machine. There was only room for one passenger. With a heavy heart, they sent their beloved Bionic into space, sacrificing their free will for his.

   The poor little hedgehog was confused, scared, and all alone. For many weeks he traveled the stars, their light being the only thing that comforted him. Eventually the rocket came to a planet that looked similar to Mobius. Thankfully the rocket was on auto-pilot, thus it landed safely in a nearby field. When the hatch opened, Bionic cautiously jumped out of it. He was surprised to see a man standing near the ship with a gun pointed straight at him. Afraid, he jumped back into the rocket. After what seemed like hours, the man tried to coax Bionic out. He put his gun on the ground, hands in the air. At first the child watched him fearfully but did eventually climb out of the rocket again. When the man figured out he wasn’t a threat, he asked Bionic if he would like to come back to the man’s home. Tired, hungry, and lost, the boy accepted.

   The man’s name was Jeremiah Jones, a farmer and the basketball coach for the Manchester High School in Midlothian, Virginia. When Jeremiah heard of Bionic’s sad tale, he took pity on the hedgehog and decided to adopt him. He taught him everything he knew, such as attending crops and playing basketball. At first Jeremiah tried to keep Bionic hidden from the rest of the town. He knew however that the hyperactive boy wouldn’t be able to stay a secret for long. After many days talking to the Manchester principal, Bionic was able to attend the school. It was here he was able to excel and make many friends.

   When Bionic was 16, he was playing basketball with some of his friends when he lost control of the ball. It was heading straight for a kid in Bionic’s class. He shouted a warning to the boy but he was too zoned out to hear the hedgehog. It smacked him right in the head. Bionic rushed over to him to make sure he was alright. It was because of the incident he met Christian Weston Chandler. They two had a tight friendship, despite Jeremiah’s misgivings about it.

   As the orange hedgehog got older, he made quite the name for himself in the basketball world. He was able to get a full sport’s scholarship once he graduated high school. In college Bionic majored in electrical engineering just in case if his basketball career didn’t work out. However, things took a dark turn after a night of practice. When Bionic was driving home, he was hit by a truck driver who passed a red light. The next thing he knew, the basketball player was lying in a hospital bed. Bionic was devastated to find out he lost his left eye, leg and arm in the crash. Not all hope was lost though. There was a small chance he could regain his lost limbs with the aid of robotic prosthetics. He accepted the surgery after talking to his father.

   A few months after the surgery, he was able to make a full recovery. There was the concern though that Bionic’s new limbs would give him an unfair advantage against the other players. The doctor who performed the surgery assured the coaches that his prosthetics had the same strength as his other limbs. With that, Bionic was able to continue playing the sport he loved. He’s currently playing for the Virginia Cavaliers and lives in Charlottesville. He makes sure to set aside time to visit his father back in Midlothian. Redesign/New Bio (c) Me Bionic the Hedgehog (c) Christian Weston Chandler

[riverteatime]

A burning soul (MC, Snatcher, Vanessa fic)

“Warning : Mention of blood, pain, torture, violence, hurting feelings of love, painful past, a very angry noodle and an ice bi*ch. I warned you !

“Snowing ?! At this state of year ?! But we are not even in winter !” You thought at watching the news in your TV

It’s the evening and like every days you have regain your spaceship after passing a day on the planet. It’s the autumn so you are not very surprised that temperature are more and more colder. But at the point of snowing…Yes you are very happy to see the snow but the air of this part of the planet is much hoter than in the Arctic.

“Perhaps it is the consequence of climate change. I mean that maybe that temperature raise in this planet too. I hope that this planet is not going to change as a big desert” You say sarcastically to yourself. But that thought brings back painful memories about your past. You shake your head to not think about that and you switch off your TV to sleep on your bed.

—————————————————————

Meanwhile in a certain ice castle…

“WHAT? SHE AGAIN PASS THE DAY WITH MY PRINCE?” Yells a feminine voice in the shadow

Even if the ice statues are headless, they don’t like how their queen scream. Even if they can’t see her head they can feel her expression. The expression of surprise, anger, rage and disgust. And they know what is the cause. This human-alien who land on their planet some months ago had build a very strong relationship with what would have become their king if this accident did not arrive. Now that this person is very close to her prince, the queen is so jalous. She hate her, she want to murder her.

“But maybe if we make her disappear, MY prince will be mine.” She says thinking “Headless statues, I know your power of destruction is explosive like a dynamite. But pay attention to my words! It’s clear that you are not lights but we are talking of queens and even you can think about this. So prepared of the chance of your life, be prepared sensational news !!! A shining new path open in front of us…

“…And what we have to do…?” Asks one of the statues

“Just don’t cut your queen. I know it sound morbid but you’ll be rewarded and become my minions! Do what I tell ! BE PREPARED !!!”

“S-sorry to cut your speech majesty, b-but they love each oth-” Starts an headless statue. But with a movement the icy-queen destroyed him.

“Fool! I know that” Says the queen with a disgusting voice “But she is not immortal like us. My statue, today is the day that start our freedom ! Stick with me and you’ll never going to be banish again of this kingdom!” And with this fact the headlesses statues jump of happiness and say “Long life the queen!” in harmony. 

“But at one condition. Capture this human alive, BUT NOT DEAD !!! I deserve her a nice treatment for her. She will remember my face even in the death. No one take the prince of the queen Vanessa” Says the icy-queen before laughing cruelly.

——————————————–

You wake up earlier today. You thought that it would be nice to see Subcon Forest covered up by the snow. So you dress up warmly because you don’t want to catch a cold like the other day. And you set you teleport destination to Subcon Forest.

Arrived at Subcon Forest you feel something different in the atmosphere. Subcon is always a quiet place good for the rest of the dead people that are buried in all the forest. But it is too quiet. Normally some minions are walking through the forest and spirits are flying. But you see none of them. And the snow start to be a snowstorm. You decide to go in the house of Snatcher to protect yourself.

In front of the house you knock at the hardwood which serves as a wall. 

“Snatcher?” You ask, waiting for an answer. “And you are not there. Geez, what’s happen here?” You ask yourself while you enter the house. Your friend is not there and his minions are not guarding the forest. “Maybe he is at the village or with Moon.” You think.

So you go outside. The snowstorm calmed down but you cannot see very well because of the cold. You walk in direction of the village despite of the road that is cover by the snow.

But before you can arrive at the village you see something at your right… or seemed to have seen something. Indeed with the snow that covered the ground and trees, it’s difficult to recognize something. But you are certain that you have seen a shadow. 

“Snatcher? Is that you?” You ask immediatly. But no one answer. 

“Come on! I know it’s you! And it’s not Halloween so you have not reason to scare me!”

No answer

“Don’t be stupid with me! I’m here since five months and I know you!”

No answer. Just silence and the wind.

“Snatcher?” You say, starting to shaking. You start to walk on the direction of where you seem to have seen your friend. But you see what it is and it’s not your friend. Instead of, you see something else. Two humanoid creature are in front of you but they seem to not have seen you. Your reaction is to hind behind a tree and to watch what they do. Wait?…. Is that a Subconite laying on the ground ? 

“What we have to do with this living soul?” Asks one of the humanoid to the other

“Bring him back to the queen and find others insurgents. And if you see the human catch her” Says the other

The humanoids monsters go on opposite direction. When you certain that they are far enough, you get out of our hiding place. What was these things? And why one of them as a Subconite. Suddenly you have a revelation. Perhaps they are ennemies of the Subcon Forest and they bring a Subconite for torturing him !!! You yell but you think that if they hear you they can make the same thing to you. You have to find Snatcher and quickly. But you can’t let this poor Subconite with us. And don’t know where THE HELL is Snatcher. 

So you make the choice to follow the humanoid who have the unconsious minion. You follow him, paying attention that you don’t make ANY noise. You hide sometimes behind the trees when the humanoid turns around. Fortunaly, you were the one the most quiet in your colony when you hunted for surviving in your former planet.

After following the humanoid thing for what you seem an hour, you arrived at a big old mansion covered by ice. Here, the snow is more heavier, like a snowstorm. But you keep your goal. When the forest end to an cleairing you think that is safest to wait behind a tree. The humanoid go inside the house and you follow him.

—————————————

You slowly open the door. You watch if they have no danger and you go inside. You walk carefully in the woody-corridor. Painting are hanging on the wall and a elegant red carpet is on the floor. The one who live here have a wonderful taste for luxury objects. You watch from the opening doors if there have the minion. 

Suddenly you hear some noise at the first floor. You go upstrairs, walking slowly and carefully and hid at one of room. It is a nice bedroom with a big bed and others furnitures that can make think of a room for a woman. A diary is on one of the tables. You open it at the middle and start to read.

     “Why? What have done wrong? In his letter he talks about her. A ‘tutor’

      He say he loves me. But SHE see him. I get letters and SHE get his time

      He is MINE. Once his studies are finished I will have him back”

“What the hell?” You ask to yourself 

The other pages talk about a “princess” that wait for his prince. But at what it is write you think that the princess is like possessive with her prince. You think instantly at a bad fairy tale. 

You hear again some noises but now closer. You watch where you can hide. A wardrobe is your choice and fortunally it is empty so you can go inside. Two humanoids enter the room. They are like earlier but you can see a detail that you don’t pay attention before. They are both headless. One of them try to immobilize a Subconite. And you cannot let the minion fight two headless things. 

So you jump of your hidding spot. Earlier you saw two spears hanging on the wall. Even if it is a decoration you grab one of them. And even if you haven’t fight for years with a spear you try to hurt the headless. Key word is try. Indeed, they are like stone statues or ice… Ice headless statues. Even you don’t hurt them you succeed of to draw the attention and the Subconite is now free.

“FLEE!” You yell at him. With reluctance the minion ran away.

You fight with your spear and you paying attention to the door of the other room which is open. An idea come to your mind. With your spear you protect yourself and at the ideal moment you give at one of the headless a violent kick. The headless fall with his companion behind him and you shut the door. You move the wardrobe in front of the door. You succeed of trapping the headless on another room.

“Headless! It’s more brainless!” You tell

“Indeed. I’m agree with you” Says a feminine voice behind you.

“Oh NO!” You think. You turn around to be face to a shadow. “Oh peck” You say.

“I am very surprise that you come here without hurting you! But you cannot stay here safe, MC” Says the shadow

“What the f-… You know my name?” You ask holding your spear and ready to fight.

“I know you. And you know me.” And before you can say no she tells “I’m HER”.

“HER? … Wait you are the rival of Snatcher it’s right” You ask. But behind you the headless are breaking the door. You are surround by enemies now.

“Yes and no. I’m his … Killer? It is like that you call this type of person?” You think at something. She as a crown in her head. She is the “princess” of the book? Right?

“You are a princess?” You ask, keeping her in front of you. 

“I was a princess. Your shadow friend was my prince” At this though you gasp “We were happy before he let me here for his studies. I waited him for years. For so long years-” She grabs a glass and and throw it at you. You protect yourself but you feel cold on your hands. Your spear start to be heavier and turn to a ice spear. You drop it. Now you are in front of a wall and you are ready for fleeing. 

“When he comes back I was so happy… But. I saw him. He was with a girl. He was holding HER hands. I ran away.” She walks at your direction. “When he go to my castle he try to convince me but I ordered my guard to bring him to the jail” She is now in front of you. You shake like a leaf for the fear and for the cold. Indeed, even if you have warm clothes, you are cold.

Suddenly she grabs you to the neck, strangle you with so much power. “You are a beautiful lady. Perhaps on another life we will be friends but. I . AM . THE . ONLY . QUEEN . HERE .”She yells at you. You try to breathe but you can’t.

Suddenly a big blue fireball breaks the window, making melt one of the living statue. Surprised, the queen throws you. Strings that come to the door fly to the other statue, wrap the headless like a cocoon. The headless break up with a detonation noise. 

You are lying on the floor and try to stand up. Two hand that you know grab you and help you to stand up. You raise your head to be face to Moonjumper.

“Moon…” You say with no voice. The corpse ran away in the house with you in one off his arm. “What you do?” You ask now with your voice. 

“I keeping you safe” He says quietly.

But you don’t think the same way. You succeed of being free. You run to the bedroom, grabing the other spear that is laying on the floor. You think at one thing : help Snatcher with this demon. Moonjumper try to grab you but he lost track of you. 

When you enter the room you look at ruins. The bedroom is totally destroyed. The bed is now laying on the floor with the ice shards of the headless statues. Wood furnitures are now burn and the two shadows are looking to the other like deadly carnivorous animals.

“My prince~~~!” Says Vanessa

“Don’t approach me !!!” Says Snatcher, hissing like a dangerous snake

But the two are tired and you can fell it. Vanessa run in the direction of Snatcher with her clawed hands. You know that he cannot dodge this. So you go in front of him making a shield with your body.

“MC !!!” He yells but too late

You fall on your knees. You let your spear fall. You touch your stomach. A warm red liquid sink of your clothes. Blood, she have hurt you. 

Snatcher looks at you, then look at Vanessa “What did you do?” He asks to her “You. Have. Hurting. My. Wife” he says before jump on her, making everything to kill her. 

“My prince! Stop this! I have to kill her for you!” She yells at him trying to breack free. And she succeed. She ran to one of the wall. “I am your wife! Your queen! But if you don’t hear me so die for a second time!” She yells at him

“NO!” You scream. And with a invisible power you stand up. Your spear that was ice is now make of fire. Like a zombie you walk to the dead queen. “NO ONE KILL MY HUSBAND” You say with a shaking voice. You turn to yourself, hurting her so badly. You kicking her with your spear, backing her to the bathroom. When she is in front of the door, Snatcher opens it and you kick her to the room. Then Snatcher closes it more violently than you with the headless. He locks the door with some incantation. When the fight is done Snatcher breath heavenly.

“God!” He whisper. “What a day.”

But your invisible power that keep you stand up leave your body and you fall again on your knees.

“What?! MC STAY WITH ME!!!” He yells and grabing you in his arm. You touch again your bloody stomach and now you can feel the pain. Moonjumper who was in some part of the manor finds you and your friend.

Then you don’t remember the rest of the day. You fall unconscious but your eyes are opening. You watch with no reaction your friend carry you to the house.

————————————-

You slowly return to the consciousness. You are laying on a cushion. And you can see Snatcher reading a book. 

“Snatcher…” You slowly whisper

Like an electro-shock Snatcher jump of his chair and float to you very quickly.

“MC? MC YOU CAN SEE ME?” He asks very conscerned by you. He grabs you but your stomach is hurting.

“Ouch! You silly! I can see you!” You yell at him.

“Oh excuse me! You were unconcious before. Don’t make such things again.” He tells to you

“Such things like what?” You ask slowly trying to sit on your cushion.

“Such things like become a super fighter and be a shield-body with no warning.” He says frowing at you.

“What your are saying?” Then you remember what you done earlier. The Subconite kidnapping, the headless, Vanessa and the fight, it was not a dream.

“I am very impressed by you of your surviving but the next time don’t go to the danger” He says.

“But it was for keeping you safe…” You start.

“ENOUGH” He yells.

“But…” You try.

“DON’T” He lays you on his body.

“But…” You whisper.

“TALK” He grabs his book to continue his reading

“Umf…” You whisper grabing his fluff

On Snatcher’s book it is writing :

 “Fire souls

  A very rare soul that can survive of the spell of the ice soul. A strong fire soul      can destroy an ice soul with one shot. A very rare portion of the people who       have a fire soul can become strong fighters near the death. But, causing of   the immense power that is require for this, the people who have become the       fighter become unconscious after this fact. It is primordial of a fire soul people     to regain strengh after such a fight.”

[katwritesforfun]

Jackie Bell’s Guide to Being a Hero

This is somewhat of a WIP re-introduction because my GENIUS BRAIN decided to revamp the whole thing out of the blue so just ignore the other one this is the new name.

Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult, Adventure

Current Status: Halfway Through Planning

Plot:

Step 1: Don’t be a hero.

Finding out at the ripe age of eleven that you are the protagonist in a young adult novel is damaging, to say the least. The fact it wasn't even that good just adds insult to injury. Jackie Bell has spent the last five years of her life ensuring that she won't save the world. Plans of shitty apartments, cats, and a big middle finger to the frankly lacking author that created her universe ruled her world. But she's forgotten something important.

She wasn’t the only character in that book.

An assassin, a mage, a soldier, a starlet, an oracle, and a trust-fund kid walk into a diner, looking for a hero. Jackie wishes it was the terrible joke it sounds like. Are these six beautiful, fucked-up people willing to pay her so much money to save the world going to be the one to break her pettiness? Or will her fear win out?

Because for all her jokes about tropes and the villain with the stupid name, saving the world means more than giving in. It means admitting the book was right, and she was supposed to die last year. 

Setting?

The whole story takes place in the future, in the town Glasscliff Coast. Glasscliff Coast is something of a glitzy beach town in California, famous for its red sunsets and bustling technological community. It was once thought to be the edge of the world. Due to the amount of technological development, certain criminals took advantage of that. While uptown Glasscliff is glamorous, downtown is a cesspool for illegal weapons development. This much experimental illegal shit has resulted in rupturing the reality of nearby communities, and downtown is riddled with multi-dimensional portals. Not that that’s anything new. Portals haven’t been new since before Jackie was born. 

What’s the deal with the magic?

As I mentioned before, portals aren’t anything new. Magic, it seemed, has come through the portals years and years ago, and affected more than a few people around the world. Magic is passed down autosomal recessively (is that how you say it?), so it sometimes skips a few generations. Luckily, a good number of them joined or started cults that think they’re the wizarding world or something, and enough powerful magicians joined that they do a good job of covering up and recruiting magical people. A few people did try to take over the world, but none of them had been powerful enough to succeed. This generation of mages has had a few anomalies, though, of concentrated magic. 

Characters:

I’m going to make individual posts eventually, but this is just a few quick bits. 

Jackie Bell is our reluctant protagonist, with a tragic backstory, that, in her eyes, isn’t even that tragic. She has been living in her room for the past five years and has two goals in life: to spite her creator and buy a kitten. She’s practical, adaptable, and wields a metal baseball bat.

Kara Nakamura was supposed to be the foil. A trained assassin from birth, cold and snarky. But she’s hyper-empathetic, not cold in the least bit, and Jackie likes snarky. And after Jackie gave up the prophesized heroic magic, Kara became the accidental holder of it, manifesting in her care as teleportation power. Freedom is what it meant, and if she could just thank the girl that gave it to her...

Spencer Willis is the ‘smart one’. There wasn’t much else to do after his cowardly parents abandoned him in a forgotten theater near Glasscliff. He raised himself on books and the colorful pamphlets in the dressing rooms on costume and acrobatics. But there was a reason his parents were scared, and that much power can’t hide forever.

Miguel Lopez is the knight in shining armor. Ever since he was a child, he was groomed to be Prince Charming carbon-copied from a picture book, gallant and chivalrous and smooth. Blue eyes, blonde hair, skill in magic and battle. But Jackie Bell doesn’t love him, and, horrifyingly, it seems he doesn’t love her. And even worse, he’s starting to realize he was raised in a cult.

Jade Phillips was supposed to be the heart of the group. ‘Sweetheart Starlet that moonlights as a healer for the ragtag gang’. That’s who she was in the book, but it’s becoming increasingly clear it is that it was just a part Jade played. This Jade is controlling, sickly sweet, and has an uncomfortable knowledge of human biology. And she is willing to do anything to get what she wants. 

Amelia Walker is the picture of an old oracle, with her mysterious smile and smoky magic. But she also makes a lot of dick jokes and hasn’t told a real prophecy in thirty years. She is tired of sending children into battle because of some stupid thing like fate. So she scams the cult she belongs to, she sets up a spy network, and tells destiny to suck it. She’s going to save the world. 

Ren Park is a 'bad boy’, and Jackie was supposed to fall in love with him. But he’s a grade-A douchebag with a lot of cash, using ‘rebel-without-a-cause’ to excuse his needless destruction. Someone Jackie has no time for. But his father owns a lot, and they kind of need him to chill out. And it seems nothing makes one question themselves more than saving the world from someone too familiar.

Nadia Carter is Jackie Bell’s best friend, and she wasn’t supposed to be here. With her slight obsession with boys and paint-twisted hair, she’s meant for a different sort of book, the kind with indie-rock montages and sepia tones. But, while she might not be a genius magical super-spy, she has does have a knife. Jackie is her best friend too, and Nadia will not eat alone at lunch.

--

@writeblrshowcase

[storiesofwildfire]

v; death is not an escape ( Dead by Daylight verse )

tracktag ( CURRENT )

status; OPEN ships; MULTI

CHAPTER ONE – Ragnarök

Survivor: Loki Laufeyson Killer: Jörmungandr Lokison (aka The Serpent)

For many years, Loki Laufeyson eluded all those who came looking for him. A lonely God doomed to wander the Nine Realms alone, exiled by himself to keep a far distance from the rest of the Gods who deemed him and his children monsters. Odin sent search parties to find him, spies to keep tabs on him, and even the occasional bounty hunter to take his head from his shoulders for a high price.

No one succeeded. Most never found him and those who did never returned to Asgard. No one could catch him.

Until the Entity spawned.

By the time the Entity made itself a known problem, Loki had taken to traveling on Midgard with his Earthbound son, Jörmungandr. Being the only one of Loki’s children with any real freedom, Loki had an easy time meeting up with him and touring the world. Some much needed and long overdue mother-son bonding was just the thing to take Loki’s mind off of the horrors he left behind on Asgard.

The duo didn’t get very far into their travels, however. While Aesir agents had an impossible time tracking the rogue deity, the Entity certainly did not. By that time, numerous people had gone missing, snatched up, never to be heard from again. Loki and his son never bothered to pay attention to a few missing Midgardians. The world was full of terrors and people did horrible things to one another for no reason at all. Getting worked up over every single person that went missing would make for a pretty awful existence.

But Loki should have listened, should have paid more attention to the warning signs, and, above all else, should have kept to more populated areas. The Entity only seemed to pray on those isolated from society, those who did not mingle with the other people in their surroundings. People who would not be missed, people who would not be noticed if they simply... weren’t around anymore. People who weren’t even supposed to exist in the first place, perhaps?

A deity from a religion long past and his monstrous child, even?

They took a brief break from their travels when the opportunity to liberate Fenrir from Odin’s prison came to them. Naturally, they took the opportunity and brought Fenrir to Midgard, but he was wounded. Resources needed to be gathered to care for him properly, so Loki asked a dear friend of his to keep watch over his son while he and Jörmungandr went searching for the artifact they thought they needed.

Exploring the forests of Scandinavia, no one knew where to look for them. No one knew that they should, in fact, be worried about them at all. The pair decided to explore the lands of those who worshipped them so many moons ago, the birthplace of their Midgardian mythos. It seemed like the best spot for the artifact to be. They spent three days and three nights in the forests without incident. The fourth day proved difficult, though.

The density of the forest grew overwhelming, blanketing them in darkness even during the brightest hours of the day. They couldn’t seem to tell North from South and continuously walked around in circles. Eventually, they wound up at the exact same campsite they’d been the night before and were forced to make camp, lest they risk getting lost even further. Even teleporting wasn’t an option. The forest seemed to dampen both of their magic, making it difficult to use.

“Mum?” Jörmungandr murmured as he settled down beside their fire.

“Yes, darling?”

“What’s going on in these woods?”

“I don’t know, but I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about. We’ll be out soon enough.”

Silence fell over the pair. They both knew it was unlikely that something could truly hurt them, but the unease lingered. Jor, despite being several inches taller than his mother and fully grown, moved to sit right beside Loki, even going as far as to lean again the God for comfort.

“We’re going to be fine, love,” Loki reaffirmed.

“What if the Aesir find Fenrir while we’re gone? Or what if they find us while we’re stuck out here without our magic? They’ll take you back to Asgard and they’ll murder me for being the monster that they believe me to be.”

“You’re not a monster, Jor, and no one is going to do anything to us. I won’t allow that.”

If only Loki understood what was keeping them trapped in the thickening fog of the nighttime forest. The Entity spawned above them, casting its shadow onto the area. It never took such powerful beings hostage before, but their misery and their isolation drew it in. They were perfect for its methods of sustaining and entertaining itself, but it took the creature a few days to truly rob them of all of their escape routes.

Loki and Jörmungandr were never heard from again, but the Entity could not strip them of everything they were.

It could, however, pit them against one another.

SURVIVOR PERKS AND ABILITIES

Rare Loki Laufeyson Perk – Mirage Grants the ability to project brief mirrors of one’s self wherever the survivor is standing. The mirror becomes instantly visible to the killer and will even move about the immediate area to points of interest (generators, pallets, chests, etc.), while the survivor goes completely undetected for 15 seconds. In those ten seconds, the survivor cannot be seen or heard by the killer. The mirror will fade if the killer interacts with them.

Rare Loki Laufeyson Perk – Charmed Electrician Skill checks are wildly increased, granting a better chance at a great skill check and less chance of missing a skill check. Survivors with Charmed Electrician are immune to certain generator tampering such as Hex: Ruin and Overcharged. When two or more survivors are working on a single generator, grants a buff of 20% faster repair rate per survivor.

Rare Loki Laufeyson Perk – Storyteller Unlocks potential in survivor’s aura reading abilities. Killer becomes visible for five seconds upon finding a survivor, standing within 18 meters of a survivor, or picking up a survivor’s trail by blood or scratch marks. Other survivors still present in the trial will also be alerted to the killer’s location.

KILLER PERKS AND ABILITIES

Rare The Serpent Perk – Friend or Foe Grants the killer a fifteen second period of placing an illusion over their form, giving them the appearance of one of the survivors in the trail so they can quickly gain the trust of those around them and make a quick strike after backing their prey into a corner.

Rare The Serpent Perk – Eye of the Serpent Unlocks potential in killer’s aura reading by allowing the killer to track the heat signatures of nearby survivors. If a survivor is within 20 meters, they will become visible for 3 seconds. Killer’s sight is also heightened and widened. Precision is key in everything, including how well you see.

Rare The Serpent Perk – Poison of the Fang Every strike you deliver has the chance of implementing the poison effect on the injured survivor. Poisoned survivors have 90 seconds to cure themselves at various ritual sites around the map. If they fail to do so, they automatically enter the dying state. If the survivor is not healed by another survivor in 60 seconds, the survivor will succumb to the poison and perish.

CHAPTER TWO – The Binding

Survivor: Sebastian Castellanos Killer: Fenrir Lokison (aka The Dweller)

Perhaps a less likely duo than our first chapter, Sebastian Castellanos found himself taking in a shape-shifting wolf by the name of Fenrir. Naturally, Sebastian never would have believed such a creature existed, but after his time in STEM and meeting a literal God, it became easier to digest. Loki came to him with a request.

“Please watch after my son. He is still recovering and needs someone to look after him when I cannot. You’re one of the few on this realm that I trust. Can I count on you?”

“Of course.”

The God promised he would only be gone for a few days, gathering supplies with Fenrir’s elder brother during one of their trips. Sebastian thought little of it. While many stories and people painted Loki’s children to be monsters, Seb knew what a real monster looked like and Fenrir definitely did not fit the bill.

But Loki and Jörmungandr never came home. Several days passed without word. Sebastian didn’t worry. What could harm a God and his offspring? A foolish question, he supposed, since he met Loki inside of STEM and the whole reason Fenrir needed so much time to recover was because he’d been so badly injured during his time in Odin’s captivity. Still, the detective tried to stay positive while he looked after the disguised wolf. Fenrir hardly woke for anything more than food anyway.

A week passed, though, followed by another, and while Fenrir grew stronger, no word came from the wolf’s mother. Sebastian tried to reach Loki, tried to reach Jörmungandr, but failed every time.

“We ought to go searching for them,” Fenrir suggested halfway through the third week. “This is unlike my mother.”

“Loki didn’t even tell us where they were going. Where do we begin?” Sebastian asked as he dished out some homemade stew. The detective wasn’t the best cook in the world, but Fenrir didn’t seem to mind. As long as it was high in protein, he’d eat just about anything.

“I could track them,” the wolf suggested.

“By scent?”

“No.” Fenrir fixed Sebastian with a rather annoyed expression. “With magic, idiot.”

“Oh... right. I just thought, because, ya know, the wolf thing, you might...” He sighed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you, I’m just... still getting used to the idea that magic and gods are real.”

Fenrir nodded, excusing Sebastian’s stumbling as a human lost in a world that made no logical sense to them. They had more important things to worry about, anyway, like tracking Fenrir’s missing family members. The wolf, despite still trying to recuperate, set to work on tracking his mother and brother, only to find that they... weren’t turning up. He contacted Hel, hoping that she may have some answers or, at the very least, could confirm if they were dead, but his sister only reported back much of the same.

Hel, however, had always been wildly gifted in the ways of magic, even in ways that her brothers were not, and she was at least able to track Loki’s last known location.

“Wait for me. I will come with you to locate them,” she instructed.

“We don’t have time,” Fenrir insisted. “Sebastian and I will go now.”

And they did...

SURVIVOR PERKS AND ABILITIES

Rare Sebastian Castellanos Perk – Light the Way Survivor starts the trial with an old lantern with enough oil to burn for 2 minutes. Burning the lantern makes generator repair easier, increasing the speed by 50%. Searching chests, sabotaging hooks, and healing are also increased by 50% when the lantern is lit. It also makes finding other relevant points of interest easier to spot, making the survivor’s line of sight further and clearer. Oil can be found around the map to replenish the lantern’s supply but be careful! The lantern may make tasks easier, but the survivor will be much easier to spot.

Rare Sebastian Castellanos Perk – Catching Fire Survivor starts the trial with an old lantern and a box of matches. When the lantern is lit, the survivor can smash the lantern against the killing, momentarily stunning them and setting them on fire. The survivor can also toss a match at a flammable object to start a fire that will spread and create a temporary barrier that the killer cannot cross. Lantern light makes the survivor easier to locate. Other survivors can be harmed by the flames as well, instantly putting them into the dying state if hit.

Rare Sebastian Castellanos Perk – Trick Shot Survivor starts the trial with a revolver with an empty clip. Upon killer attack, the survivor can hit the killer with the handle of the gun, momentarily stunning the killer. There is, however, a single bullet in one of the chests around the map. If the survivor finds it, they have one shot to hit the killer. A body shot will stun the killer for 90 seconds. A headshot will stun the killer for 3 full minutes and grant 50% generator repair speeds. As soon as the gun is fired, regardless of if the bullet lands or misses, the survivor becomes visible to the killer for 30 seconds upon killer’s first step.

KILLER PERKS AND ABILITIES

Rare The Dweller Perk – God Eater Power from the Entity flows freely through your veins, granting you the ability to mori the first survivor you come across without having to put them into the dying state or hook them. One remaining survivor will be granted 100% chance of escaping their hook once and luck for all survivors increases moderately.

Rare The Dweller Perk – Howls of Rage You let off a serious of loud snarls, growls, and howls. Nearby survivors are so frightened by your presence, they scream in terror, revealing their location for five seconds. The more you frighten the survivors, the easier they are to track. Their anxiety causes louder breathing and panting, off-balanced skill checks with smaller zones to hit while healing or repairing generators, and more screams of terror when you are near.

Rare The Dweller Perk – Pack Hunting Your ability to track survivors by scent of blood and fear grants potential in your aura reading abilities. Any time a survivor within 24 meters of you enters a closet, it is revealed to you straight away. Any time a survivor sits in a closet anywhere on the map for more than ten seconds, they become visible to you.

CHAPTER THREE – The Gates of Helheim

Survivor: Hel Lokidottir Killer: Hel Lokidottir (aka The Damned)

In search of her missing mother and idiot brothers, Hel left the safety of her realm and went to Midgard to the last known location of Loki and Jörmungandr. When Fenrir insisted, he would go with a friend without waiting for her, and Hel never received word back, she knew that she needed to find them herself. It didn’t come as a shock or a surprise, really. Out of the lot of them, she seemed the most likely to actually preform correctly under pressure, but even Hel, the Goddess of Death and the Queen of Helheim could not escape the Entity’s hold once she stepped foot into its domain.

Splitting her into a survivor or a killer, however, proved to be tricky. Her true, half-dead appearance made her perfect for a monster that would tear apart survivors without so much as batting an eye. Her living side, however, lent itself to that of a survivor. Despite Hel’s cold and hardened exterior, she had a deeply caring and passionate heart, one that could very well put her at the forefront of a pack of survivors, one that made it nearly impossible to condemn her fully to a life of endless killing.

Nor could the Entity strip away what made her such, so what to do?

For the first time in the stretch of the Entity’s exsitence, it decided to manifest both sides of the coin in one person. A young, beautiful, and intelligent survivor that, when touched by darkness, flipped the script entirely.

At the beginning of each trial, Hel starts as either a survivor or a killer. As a survivor, Hel has incredible abilities, but must keep a close eye on her comrades. Signs of betrayal will pull her closer and closer to the darkness, as judgement must be passed on fellow survivors. If Hel is the victim of a betrayal or she witnesses first hand a betrayal, power surges through her, turning her into the half-dead judger of the damned. Her first kill is automatically a merciless blow on the current killer, wiping them out of the trial. Then the survivor who ignited her change becomes her obsession, always visible to her until they, too, are dead. Other survivors are penalized for helping the betrayer.

As the Damned, the killer ruthlessly passes judgment on the survivors, but the survivors have an added ability to perform cleansing rituals. These rituals force the Entity back, pulling the Damned away from it’s hold. There are four ritual sites. Each site must be cleansed by a different survivor. If the survivors manage to cleanse all of the sites, the Damned will revert back to Hel, a survivor. Without an active killer, the trial ends, and all those still alive will escape.

SURVIVOR PERKS AND ABILITIES

Rare Hel Lokidottir Perk – Gifts for the Giving Any time a survivor performs a coop action, the time it takes to complete that action is cut by 50%. At the same time, the killer is distracted by a false audio cue on the far side of the map, putting as much distance between the killer and the survivors as possible.

Rare Hel Lokidottir Perk – Ghosts of the Damned The survivor is infused with the spirit of the half-dead queen, giving them a second face hidden from view. Other survivors are unaffected by revealing what lies beneath but revealing the true face of the queen will spook a killer. Directly seeing the reveal will stun the killer, forcing them to drop their victims in the process. Being nearby but not in direct contact will fill the killer with a sense of terror at the Entity’s displeasure. The killer’s sight will be impaired severely for 60 seconds, making locating and hitting survivors extremely difficult. Restricted use of 3 times per trial.

Rare Hel Lokidottir Perk – Bridge Between Realms As a survivor, the killer’s instincts run strong through your veins. This unlocks potential in the survivor’s aura reading abilities, allowing them to see the killer’s position every 20 seconds regardless of what the killer is doing.

KILLER PERKS AND ABILITIES

Rare The Damned Perk – Judgement Passed When a survivor leads you to another survivor, you gain a buff to hone in on the betrayer and teleport right behind them. You can grab them without downing them into dying state, but you are not allowed to harm the other found survivors until your catch has been dealt with by hooking them or killing them by your hand.

Rare The Damned Perk – Survivor’s Savior If you catch a survivor assisting another survivor, you have the choice of rewarding that survivor rather than harming them. You will pull the survivor to your side, recruiting them to help you throughout the duration of the trial. They will be forced to assist you in sabotaging generators, protecting totems and ritual sites, and locating survivors. You are not allowed to kill this survivor. They will automatically be guaranteed a survived status at the end of the trial.

Rare The Damned Perk – Rites of Passage There are four ritual sites where survivors can perform the cleansing ritual that will drain you of your power. You must protect them at all costs while hunting your charges. To do this, you can set traps at the entrance of each ritual site. If a survivor steps through this trap, they will instantly be transported to a rune etched into the basement where they will be trapped for 20 seconds. You can choose to retrieve and hook them, but that will leave your ritual site vulnerable to the next survivor.

[one-of-us-blog]

Licence to Kill (1989)

Today Drew is forced to watch and recap 1989’s Licence to Kill, the sixteenth James Bond adventure. Bond’s goin’ rogue, baby! When a drug lord almost kills his good friend Felix Leiter, Bond takes it personally and sets out to get revenge. Will Bond need to dig two graves before setting off on this quest for vengeance?

Keep reading to find out…

Eli, it was so great to hear how much you enjoyed both parts of “Seems Like Old Times”! I agree that it was wonderful to see Dorothy again, and I’m really glad this was a positive experience for you. I’m also glad that we had some real talk about James Bond Jr., because you really saved me from falling into a rabbit hole. I had some big ambitions about tackling the whole series, but after watching those first ten episode I had the wind taken out of my sails in a major way. I love some cheesy cartoons as much as the next guy, but the idea of covering all 60 or so episodes of that show made me dread making a new post every time I thought about it. I feel like a bit of a failure for not being able to power through the whole series, but you giving me permission to abandon that little side project took a lot of weight off my shoulders. Now I’m ready to finish off the rest of the Bond movies, so let’s get to it!

Buttocks tight!

Screenplay by Michael G. Wilson & Richard Maibaum, film directed by John Glen

Bond and his good friend Felix Leiter (David Hedison) (I can’t believe we’re getting two movies in a row with Leiter in it, and this Leiter even looks a bit familiar!) are on their way to Leiter’s wedding (I wonder how Gordo will feel about his new stepmom?) when they’re snatched up by some dorks from the DEA. Turns out Leiter has moved on from the CIA and taken up a post at the DEA, and now his new friends want his help in rounding up a drug lord and all around loony Frank Sanchez (Robert Davi). Leiter only lets Bond come along as an observer, but this is Bond so naturally he’s got to get involved and also make the moves on Sanchez’s shaken and abused girlfriend Lupe (Talisa Soto). We get a brief aerial chase and we see Bond grapple down to hook Sanchez’s plane to the DEA helicopter, and with the drug lord successfully snagged Leiter and Bond are both able to parachute down to the wedding. We get a genuinely funny sight gag of some kids lifting up Leiter and Bond’s parachutes like they’re trains on wedding dresses and then we jump right into this movie’s title sequence.

Miss Gladys Knight herself belts out “Licence to Kill”, which is a solid bop, as we get some shots letting us know that a casino is going to be involved in this plot somehow. Were you worried that we wouldn’t get some silhouettes of naked ladies dancing around? Well rest easy, because the ladies are back and the same as ever.

To just about everyone’s shock, the bit we saw before the title sequence wasn’t inconsequential to the actual plot of the movie and we rejoin Sanchez as he’s being interrogated by DEA officers. Sanchez tries to bribe his way to freedom, but it seems Officer Killifer (Everett McGill), who shares a name with my sexy teen serial killer OC, can’t be bought. We jump back to that whole wedding thing, and Bond and Della (Priscilla Barnes), Leiter’s new bride, share several kisses because that’s the kind of friend to Leiter that Bond is. Bond goes to Leiter’s office and finds him talking shop with Pam Bouvier (Carey Lowell). Bond chides Leiter for working while there’s a part going outside, but Leiter’s a real dweeb and would rather talk about Sanchez than get wasted at his own reception. Killifer shows up because I guess this is more important than cracking Sanchez, and that reminds me that I really need to get to work on finishing the ending for Killifer Krisch and the Case of Maul Madness (in which Killifer visits her local mall and gets into a competition with her rival Tuffany to see who can kill the most people before closing time). Killifer leaves immediately because everything he came to tell Leiter could have been said via a telephone call and Leiter goes out to finally cut the cake.

Killifer teleports back to the DEA so he can help transport Sanchez to jail or wherever, only it seems our beloved Killifer was not as innocent as he seemed (a similarly shocking revelation took place in Killifer Krisch and the Christmas Eve-il, in which Killifer reveals to her friends Tanja and Briff that it was, in fact, she who mutilated that Salvation Army Santa) as he immediately crashes Sanchez’s transport into the ocean and has a team of scuba diving friends of his scoop the drug lord up and doggy paddle him to safety. Bond is finally leaving Leiter and Della so they can get on with their honeymoon, and Della inadvertently stirs up some bad memories by tossing Bond her garter and pointing out the gross belief that a man who catches a bride’s garter will be the next one to be married. After Bond leaves Leiter lets Della in on the whole Tracy situation which I’d honestly kind of forgotten about at this point.

Leiter and Della prepare to leave, but they’re ambushed by Sanchez’s men. Sanchez’s henchman Milton Krest (Anthony Zerbe) wants to kill Killifer and make a break for it (a similar almost-double cross took place in Killifer Krisch and the Game of Truth or Die, in which Killifer’s friend Clairna attempts to sell Killifer out in order to survive the deadly sleepover they find themselves trapped at), but Sanchez is a man of his word and won’t leave without paying Killifer the money he’s owed. Sanchez’s personal henchman Dario (Benicio del Toro in the roll no one saw coming) lets him know Leiter has arrived and Sanchez goes to greet his friend from the DEA. Della is nowhere to be seen, and Dario implies that she’s been raped and killed. Sanchez arranges for Leiter to be eaten by a shark, and we see his leg ripped off. These movies sure are fun!

Bond’s at the airport and about to leave when he finds out about Sanchez’s escape. He arrives at Leiter’s bungalow and finds Della’s dead body waiting for him. He finds Leiter horribly mangled and barely alive. Leiter’s friend Sharkey calls and Bond tells him to get help for Leiter. Leiter’s in the hospital and Sharkey’s spirit bond with his namesake lets him know that it was a shark that got Leiter. A DEA agent arrives and says their case on Sanchez is somehow caput since Sanchez had all of Leiter’s notes destroyed, but Bond says he and Sharkey will take care of this themselves. Sharkey takes Bond to Krest’s aquarium and Bond knows Killifer is lurking around. That night Bond and Sharkey (by which I mean just Bond) break into the aquarium after almost getting attacked by an inflatable shark pool toy.

Bond finds drugs hidden in some maggots that were being fed to fish, then locks a guard in the maggot pit so he can be eaten alive (a similarly gruesome death took place in Killifer Krisch and the MRSA-cre of St. Joseph Hospital, which won both a Bram Stoker Award and a Hugo). Another guard starts shooting at Bond, which results in some tanks getting smashed and some fish who ain’t never done nothin’ to nobody dying. Bond kills the guard by yanking him into a tank with an electric eel and electrocuting him, because why not get goofy from time to time? Killifer arrives and holds Bond at gunpoint and prepares to feed him to the shark that bit off most of Leiter. Sharkey manages to pop up like a whack-a-mole and knock Killifer off balance, and Bond seals the deal by tossing Bond into the tank where he’s chowed down on by the shark. I haven’t been this shocked by a character’s early death since Tuffany got killed off in Killifer Krisch and the Battle for the Gore-eria! The DEA is unhappy about Bond taking matters into his own hands, and Bond is taken to see M and his army of cats.

M tells Bond to drop the Leiter vendetta, so Bond quits. As we all know, Bond absolutely loves revenge and doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with it at all. M revokes Bond’s license to kill and demands him to turn over his weapon, but instead he beats up M’s goons and flees. Aw, shit, y’all, Bond’s gone rogue! We get a disgusting scene with Krest gearing up to rape Lupe on a boat when he’s interrupted by some goon telling him their sonar is picking up something moving toward them. Krest says it’s just a manta ray, but it’s actually Bond in a manta ray fursuit. Bond manages to infiltrate Krest’s ship and finds more drogas stashed onboard. He holds a knife to Lupe’s throat and makes her lie to Krest when he comes to ask her if she saw anyone sneak aboard. Bond sees that Sharkey’s been killed by Krest’s men, and now he’s feeling like going roguer than rogue. He kills the guy that killed Sharkey with a harpoon and steals the man’s scuba gear as Krest tries to get a drug deal over with. Bond foils the deal by tearing open the bags of drugs underwater before they can get back to Krest (and presumably gets a bunch of fish high af in the process) and then after some waterskiing antics manages to get onto the plane that delivered the drugs, kill the two men onboard and fly away with about five mil.

Bond heads back to Leiter’s house and finds a disk that Sanchez’s men missed. It holds a list of informants, and the only one on the list who isn’t dead is Pam Bouvier. Bouvier had a meeting scheduled with Leiter, and Bond goes in his place. Bond barely has time to sit down before Dario arrives and joins them at their table. Bouvier plans ahead and has had a shotgun in her lap this whole time, which makes Bond’s pistol look a little inadequate. How’d she get into the bar carrying a shotgun, one might ask? Who cares! A barfight breaks out and Bouvier shoots a hole in the wall so Bond can shimmy out into a speedboat. Dario shoots Bouvier in the back as she joins Bond, but she’s wearing a bullet proof vest under her tank top. Bond condescends to Bouvier about almost getting herself killed, and she correctly points out that she saved his life back there. If there’s one thing Bong hates it’s a capable woman who doesn’t need him to save her, so he’s pretty miffed. The boat runs out of gas and Bond tells Bouvier that he’s going after Sanchez. Bouvier was an Army pilot, so he hires her to fly him into Sanchez’s compound. The two haggle over money and then have sex for no damn reason (a similarly unnecessary sex scene took place in Killifer Krisch’s Fifty Shades of Gray Matter, but in my defense the whole Fifty Shades thing was in full swing at the time and my publisher was really breathing down my dick to get something hot on the market).

Back in MI6, M chides Moneypenny for making typos or something and Moneypenny puts in a call to Q Branch. Bond and Bouvier arrive in Isthmus. Bond wants Bouvier to split now that she’s flown him in, but she insists on staying and getting revenge on Sanchez. Bond deposits the stolen drug money in a bank owned by Sanchez, and later he and Bouvier visit a casino also owned by Sanchez. I knew a casino was going to turn up sooner or later, but then again casinos have been on my mind ever since I finished Killifer Krisch and the Game of Texas Stab’em, in which Killifer, Briff and Tanja visit Las Vegas only to find themselves playing for their lives as the stakes get higher and higher. Anyway, Sanchez is busy being creepy with Lupe and smooching his pet iguana when he’s informed that Bond is betting a ton of money in the casino.

Sanchez sends Lupe in to take over as Bond’s dealer. Lupe recognizes Bond, and she tells him it would be best for him if he left. Bond demands that Lupe take him to Sanchez, and he ignores her protests and drags her into an elevator while Bouvier gets drunk at the bar. Bond is allowed to meet with Sanchez and tries to get himself hired as an assassin. Bond is sent away and he and Bouvier return to the hotel, where Bond is informed that his uncle is waiting for him. Turns out his uncle is none other than Q, who tells him he’s here at Moneypenny’s request. Q has all sorts of gadgets, including a Polaroid which fires a laser and takes X-ray images of both people and pictures of people.

Q poses as Bond’s chauffer and Bond leaves Bouvier at the bar once again as he poses as a waiter to get close to Sanchez. Sanchez is meeting with an international conglomerate of drug dealers, and one of them, Kwang (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa), insists on being shown to Sanchez’s drug production facility. Bond plans to use some Q Branch explosive toothpaste to break Sanchez’s bulletproof office windows. Bond tells Q to get lost prepares to snipe Sanchez after blowing the windows. He spots Bouvier seemingly making a deal with one of Sanchez’s men and panics. He blows the windows, but before he can take the shot he’s ambushed by two masked martial artists who knock him out and drag him to a cabin in the woods. Turns out they work for Kwang, who’s a member of the Hong Kong Police here to infiltrate Sanchez’s business. They’re joined by Fallon, an MI6 agent sent to arrest Bond.

Fallon and Kwang prepare to knock out Bond so he can be taken back to London, but Sanchez’s men have followed them and fire on the shack with a gotdamn tank. Kwang, his sidekicks and Fallon are all killed while just trying to do their jobs, but Bond survives. Bond wakes up in the heart of Sanchez’s base, and Bond says Kwang and Fallon were trying to arrest him for being an assassin or whatever. Sanchez assumes they were responsible for his windows being exploded last night, and he sends Bond and Lupe off for a tour. Lupe tells Bond he should stay put, but then she helps him escape by distracting some guards long enough for him to sneak onto a speedboat. Q and Bouvier are just chilling at the hotel when Bond bursts in, tosses Bouvier onto the bed, climbs on top of her and shoves a gun in her face while asking if she’s working for Sanchez. Bouvier explains she was trying to set up a sting in Sanchez’s office, and Bond blew all that to hell by being the big dummy he is.

Bond makes a plan involving Bouvier, Lupe and Q. He withdraws all of his money from bank and then his crack team infiltrates Krest’s ship and frames Krest for the theft of the drug money by planting the money on the ship. The money is found and Sanchez kills Krest by locking him in a decompression chamber and ramping up the pressure. Bond tells Bouvier and Q to get lost for the hundredth time and goes off on his own to get back to Sanchez’s compound before Sanchez notices he’s missing. Now that Krest is gone there’s an opening in Sanchez’s inner circle, so he invites Bond in. After Sanchez leaves Lupe lets herself in and she and Bond have sex. The next day Lupe goes to Bouvier and Q and tells them Bond needs to get the heck out of there, which is surprising to Bouvier as she assumed Bond had left the country. Lupe lets slip that she and Bond banged one out last night, and I haven’t seen a character feel so betrayed since Killifer discovered the truth behind Briff’s parentage in Killifer Krisch and the Die-NA Test of Doom.

Bouvier is pissed that Bond slept with another woman, because she’s a normal human being and that’s how you feel about that sort of thing. Q tells her that’s just how it is on this bitch of an Earth, and they plan to help Bond. Bond is taken to Sanchez drug lab, and Bond barely escapes being recognized by Dario. Bouvier plane is being worked on, so she has to hitchhike to the religious compound façade located over Sanchez’s lab. Bouvier tricks the fake cult leader working as Sanchez’s middleman into letting her tour the facility, while in the lab the process of smuggling cocaine out by dissolving it in gasoline is explained. I have seen science this faulty since Killifer went on vacation to Transylvania and wound up in a game of cat-and-mouse with a mad scientist in Killifer Krisch and the Clones of Dr. Funkenstein!

Bouvier pulls a gun on the fake cult leader and locks him up. Dario recognizes Bond, so Bond causes a distraction by lighting the lab on fire and making a break for it. He gets caught by Dario and Dario tells Sanchez Bond is an informant and Bond gets strapped to a conveyer belt headed for an in industrial shredder. Bouvier manages to sneak into the facility as it’s headed toward meltdown and shoots Dario before he can knock Bond down into the shredder. Bond tugs Dario down into the shredder instead, and we get a shot of Dario’s legs being torn apart that would make the biggest Killifer Krisch fan blush. Bouvier saves Bond for the hundredth time and the two barely escape the facility before it bows. Bouvier steals a golf cart so she and Bond can pursue Sanchez at break-neck speed. They make it to a plane Bouvier stole earlier and Bond hijacks Sanchez’s tanker full of cocaína-flavored gasoline.

Bond uses his tanker to crash a different tanker, which then gets accidentally blown up by one of Sanchez’s men with a rocket launcher. I haven’t come across vehicular mayhem like this since Killifer snuck into a monster truck derby in Killifer Krisch: Fury Road! Bond’s tanker gets its tires blown out, but luckily Bouvier arrives to spray Sanchez’s men with a cloud of Roundup. Bond’s tanker falls off a cliff, crashing into a bunch of other tankers and causing them all to blow up. Sanchez drives off in the last remaining tanker with Bond in hot pursuit. Bond puts his truck on cruise control and manages to climb onto Sanchez’s tanker. Bond turns on the tanker’s spout, causing all of the cocaine gas to spill out. Sanchez blows a hole in Bouvier’s plane’s tail with a rocket launcher, and she has to make an emergency landing. I haven’t experienced aerial drama like this since Killifer had to fight for her life against a talking bear while visiting the seaside town of Cape Suzette in Killifer Krisch: TaleSpin!

Bond and Sanchez fight while the tanker drives off a cliff. Both men are badly injured, but Sanchez gets to his feet and prepares to kill Bond with a machete. Bond stalls long enough to get a lighter that Leiter and Della gave him after their wedding (that’s right, the married couple gave this dude a gift at their wedding!) and uses it set the gasoline-soaked Sanchez ablaze. We watch a man roast alive for a minute or so while Bond scurries away and the burning Sanchez causes the last tanker to explode. Bouvier arrives in yet another truck and she drives Bond to safety.

Bond calls the one-legged Leiter, who’s conscious now I guess, and Leiter seems to be completely done grieving for his one-day bride. Bond and Leiter both presumably bond over both having wives who didn’t survive long enough for them to reach their honeymoons, then Leiter lets Bond know M has a job for him. Bond’s not interested and hangs up on his mutilated friend. There’s a big party at Sanchez’s house and Lupe puts the moves on Bond. Bond tells her to go jump off a cliff and jumps into a pool near Bouvier. He pulls Bouvier into the pool, ruining her gown, while Lupe, Lupe’s new man who’s the president or something and Q look on. Bond and Bouvier screw in the pool while an apparently sentient fish statue watches them.

The End

~~~~~

Phew, that was exhausting! Jumping from people getting limbs ripped off by sharks, torn to pieces by a shredder or roasting alive to goofy truck stunts practically gave me whiplash! I really liked Bouvier, but I wish Bond hadn’t been such a dick to her. It was fun to see so much of Q in this movie, but I wish he’d actually had a reason for being there. I know Bond going rogue is a pretty common thing nowadays, but I think this was the first time that happened so that was fun. I think this movie took itself way too seriously most of the time, and it made up for its own lack of dramatic tension with an excess of explosions and goofy stunts. Giving Bond a personal motive for going after a villain is an interesting idea, but making Sanchez a glorified drug dealer makes him seem kind of lame compared to villains who wanted to start a nuclear war or flood the planet. The treatment of Della was completely disgusting and unnecessary, and it set a pretty gross tone that never quite went away.

Overall, I give Licence to Kill QQ½ on the Five Q Scale.

Up next Eli will be covering the next two episodes of The Golden Palace, “Just a Gigolo” and “Marriage on the Rocks, with a Twist”, and after that I’ll check back in with my recap of the next James Bond romp, GoldenEye.

Until then, as always, thank you for reading, thank you for exploding and thank you for being One of Us!

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I think I will my family during the losing dependent upon who is and so must a similar initiativeand eventually back in the word of his particular now gems they could to Botswana last week we Particularly get some Petri by Wednesday to the city on the festival I had to know is what times you are looking for this American trivia any reaction at eight anything to gang as well as both the collective response about the day that the big movements gang be a beetle because the folks you by the way the Detroit University of costand how to become the no I think your American Bars Any of the Soundsand the Is Very Nice Indeed to Get Especially to Get One Needs Because We Use Out Of It so Cutting the Name for Decide Singles Me Thank You Very Much for Giving Us This Syllable List of Things to Get Mom to Good Old Mr Wilson Noses on One Another Speaks on to Say Things like the Purple Hearts along the Filmand Stuff like Viewing in Timing of the DSand in Which the Thought of Being a Politicianand You Been to Move out Only to Go Someplace Other Than Knowing Louise Arrington It’s a Hard Life Is a Hard Days Grind Says in the Many None of the Finalist Most Is You yet We Especially Nearly Days on the Job against Shelterand Bringing Things to Everyone the Minister at Any Moment Any Encompass a Accident Computer Any That I Was an Interesting American Girl Hoping the Police Protecting the Receiving in the City Is Knowledge the Denigrate Job in the Crowd Light Is Expected Now We Can Extend Any Library but the Most Interesting Offer You Ever Receive anand Just Enough to Vacate No Comment Now Know What You Want to Go Bowling No No They I Don’t Know You Will Straighten Was Watching Kellyand Thinking That Things Will Go to Drink from George How You Feel If Anyone Last Night I Enjoyed It Because We Seen the Film before down None of Us Were Very Excited until He Saw It with Youand Others Is That with All the People John Was the Next Secondand Friday Defendant in the Mobile Phone Will Then Rest Is Not Visible Many Congratulations on Your in the Getting Very Delighted Indeed but You Can about a Full Delighted Indeed I’m Glad You like I Loveand Is It Fun for You Loosening You Know Be Fun for You You Are Morningand He Said in a Way That Here but Probably Had a Lie Six Weeks Agoand We Got the Forms to Fill inand Then We We Knew That to Get It Two Days Ago These Forms Straight to the Store When I Was Just about Envelopes Delivered by Somebody by Handling One of Ryan’s Second Set out for You Send the Prime Minister Downing Street to Law Manager’s Officeand They Would Delivered from That to Take the Wheel Assumingand Then Ending How about a Day Later We Just Found Them How We Thought We Were Being Called the Armyand Then Reopened on Monday Then Everyone Outlined ITV the Other Long As Youand Be Awardedand I Don’t Know I Do Not Know Nothing about It Consistently Got It on the It’s Nice to Just Make You More Respectability I Don’t Think You May Be Other People Think to Make Me Any More Respectable I’m Still Scruff One You Had to Be about to the Palace in the Morning to Let I Don’t Know so I Went to Bible You You You Have Don’t Know That I Will Need to Know Well Did Wanted to about His Only Pajamasand an Auto to Get the Equipment Business to Things in the Family Got Them Then Put into the Transitand Then We Got Pushed around One the Lansing toand Only You Can’t Do Nothing about Organizing Thingsand Villains All of Youand the Weather Was Taylor Myself Finding about Heaven with Doing Actual Kickingand Unbelieving Now I’m a Very Delicateand Movedand Began to Me Now Currently the Title about That Just Has Joined It’s like Both onand They Go through the Streets of Making a Film Only Ever Going to Be Called to Reading. Coming out is able to building in a year Warner Bro is all in I mean they are all inand they’re going to be goingand buzzing on top of all that stuff Harry Potter movies were announced we knew about the Lego movies coming outand then this can be all the great dramatic stuff that Warner Bro puts out as well so I mean there’s a whole should appear as I know to start except I know let’s start with this is pulling out of thin airand humility to be the flash now this puts the final year we keep telling peopleand your people keep asking me sitting across green arrow into the movie universallyand now when you bring the flashing TV show an empty calendar not if said forever there to keep their televisionand their universe a separate which listen is the one thing they have gotten far more right than marble has this whole crossing TVand movies I’ve almost wore a movie stupidity is just stupidand heand I met Jaime magna why thing keeping them separate is far more creative freedom to the movie universe far more creative

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I want them to kill someone I don’t want to die at that at this point it’s just THIERRYand iSCSI has been clever there was talk out is the onlyand John is a fucking idiot how many times in the same mistakesand is all of the last episode I will fucking med start to wake the fuck upand One of the most horrible dream elsewhere for God’s on both out on the government’s utilities like still talking to Robert raffia in which phone is that’s what I can’t go to Kingsland authorities wild imagination is going not goingand that was actually the point where I was like my view is really good is really good when Rob Stark went offand I was my son this is probably the best of those see if you’re like me you spent another is one or two years investing emotionally in Rob Stark is good to make this right I hated him all I did on opportunities status is spinal I warning you all okay okay no I was he was I put all my soon hated signs the current stance on this amazing I still hate her now here now even was you came as a jazz molecule fucked is bizarre so I’m on your team I’ve been in just fine I hated signs of who owes directly Circe given erasers on over Joffrey oh my God Joffrey’s performanceand scripted whole package was so amazing I was able to separate the character from the actor until the actor outlived them I himself was that a thing about meditation was after he died out I was like will appreciate what you did for me when I felt something on around John who actually fucking sucked to the worst character in this whole show is is your on great joy that fucking pirate who can teleport around it just wants to get Circe answered no to the best part’s character was motivated by fucking Circe they thought Circeand he died that’s an art I can get on board with him when he when he washed up on the beach in the exact same spot where Jamie is yeah is like I’m gonna take your head to Circeand it’s like why you’re not in a duel that didn’t need to happen like they were never really at odds with what was it set up it was I was like that before right I don’t got so is happy met with the weight right when they brought the birds on the wrong the year I’m thinking what fortitude is one of hisand his youand what you know Jimmy had the hand is what I’m not Jamie Lantos so you just know just what modelsand amontillado that make’s women choose the one what they are because of your move from the right of the Circe deserve a way worse definite will she had the easiest way out she died in like this romantic way leg with her do you rejoice slowly poisoning individuality your loved area Mario stick the needle throat like 17 what if aria were Jamie’s faceand year I expected that Swiss already is a phase Jamie says something to Circe that that would her heartand the betrayaland then you find out if you don’t want the best moment was of the whole series was for me it was when aria killed Walter Frei went when she pulled a white light like that that’s an underrated moment right there because I like for two years ever since a red wedding lately whenever we were discussed as the show were all big things obviously I’d be like you know people do it when the dragons building thisand what’s what was to happen in the city over Ness Olson was Robin RRR you know what’s a John Snow going to do if he becomes more commanderand I was like fuck buddy when are we going to do with this fucking phrase there still fuck it down their childrenand their castle laughing about the ship with her silly ass hatI hated there I hate those fat girl costumes bad magnetic so they killed of one of the document to the two women on the show was presented to meand then Johnson Rob Stark’s girl didn’t know what he a friend she was bad already had the underwater no no the Rodarte area is we will search for also thinking that got stabbed in the belly was in as part of the whole series as a whole series is learned areas other porn finish off what was the pregnant one man suggested an old woman old pregnant you have down like a blonde Johnny in his auto about the bedroomand you will it was a like he was pretty established that after the battle of winter felt that Danny’s army had been demolished like the unsullied had been slaughtered in the top Iraqi tens of thousandsand thousands of them wiped outand then now even in like the the teaser for the next episode after this episode like she’s got a huge army it’s notice will be beyond that she had a huge army what you said but I felt like at the end of the battle of winter fell we didn’t know what they had like we didn’t think they would beat Searcy that was a real questionand I was even the characters relate to his old other thing now Circe’s plan of wiping us outand not being able to beat her is a problemand are doing the strategy the strategizingand they acted like it was even like it could go either way by two episodes ago suddenly there like looking should really just quit we all know how this ends we are so OP compared to youand they were eight minutes in there like ringing the bells that they want to close it was it was invited all one Dragon it is is is so fucking overpowered bit like episode I really like source I one thing I I did like was Circe’s reaction she was light well neuron you know he’s killed Dragon before you kill anotherand and is much like we know the Oregon fleet is burning at the bottom of the bay we have plenty of scorpions on the walls of the abutment but it all was all the scorpions of the destroyed well the Golden company has never been defeated in the field of my lady the golden company with burntand then the survivors were raped the death of metal lattice Nami five is better than any cell sort related lattice army has thrown down the weapons as there was slaughtered by the North menand then they were raped by the next thing she said was well the red keep has never fallen asleep which made the red default aside from me always being absolutely right here as welland then my father a few years before that were all ended that time way before that when the tour Garyand stated public just three times before now what the like but lately I should own a little bit of a positive spin on the upside area like what will the stuff that you liked about devising I like I like that Circe died I did like that but I didn’t like how she died she deserved a considerable degree were done know denied that she should give a fuck about you logo is character arc I want to see Baghdad ringwormand how he finishes thousands of beside no sign that he does musicand is fucking though it’s really no resumes is a dick in real life is not a surprise in the military Messiah not I like to is a legacy I don’t look at it like I would’ve done this or that you have Xanax I enjoyed I enjoyed it was old this has taken years from my lifeand I appreciate that the that they have a momentous end in this wrists comes inand wants people to say this about D D they do a book adaptation better than anyone has done a book adaptation perhaps in the history of cinema describing also I literally wiped throughand perhaps that was also very good in the paramilitary don’t do is original workand as best what they did with the last couple seasons so read anything that Michael learned from Hollywood movie watching use D D for book adaptationsand not for like grass field open projects yet all I’ll say what I hope happens next upset I hope periods in big fucking trouble for letting Jamie goand there is a trial by combatand and she chooses gray worm as her championand John Snow steps up for Syrianand andand John Snow fucking kills gray worm and then theand thenand then he kills Dannyand then he takes the blackand the that the kingdom ends up being ruled by like some sort of fucking tribunal or some shit like Sam well Charlie light like like fucking if it Sam ran to get put in charge especially by example Samsung you put in charge because he doesn’t even like you enough for some family apparently like world that is the lost Arkansas John wants to go take the blackand so you are Stark’s mobile brand this fucking weirdo was the oldest male I guess he gets to be in charge like he’s on my nerves the Zalman matter which one artist brought Ron Bramwell Guerin is on his cryptic shipment is a woman should tell it was happening is happening is a litigious Soviet process is is was going to ask you we should do about Toby original to go for walks to wait until three is trying is almost anyway brand is going initiate bum he has given no useful advice to anyone I hope they just wheel him into a cornerand facing laid out is trying to move this break it would be so funny if nothing ended up happening with him though was the storyline that Tyler is my friend is in Leo I want to watch the teaser for the next episode like I am with you but I could I noted spoilers like mother was on Reddit they have proven to be reliable thus farand a mattress anymore you don’t do that for millennia. The vast difference in your story sound from my home state of Texas mission you are a school nurse and mother in El Paso are you in a new school year over the returning to start when we went farm which is their home and career are doing okay there were scores for committed students and school do whatever it takes and said they did a perfect score for to move forward went for everyone to watch the bank to Michelle I think there’s nothing like difficult grasses burns to be our children suffer and tell I think they do a great job in guiding interdisciplinary difficult training think if you want to do is nurse truly heroic and really enjoy talking to all of you I think I question you believe that change is coming to you believe that better days are yes thank you for two to speak with us and sharing your thoughts you either we and we the people and you I guess convention is about we only through to be so made the and you are we the we are festivals walking with fear of course we were able to do will be in several out with leaders throughout See Other related products: unicorn shirts and shirt

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Black Bolt #6 Review

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The first arc of  Saladin Ahmed and Christian Ward’s tremendous Black Bolt comes to its conclusion and it’s an absolute triumph.  Full review following the jump.

The story up to this point has seen Black Bolt stranded in a mysterious space prison, lorded over by a cruel Jailer who seemed to posses the powers of a god.  Black Bolt had made allies among his fellow inmates, including Crusher Creel, The Absorbing Man as well as a Skrull pirate queen named Ravva, Molyb the Metal Master and a telepathic alien child known only as ‘Blinky.’  Black Bolt had managed to escape this terrible prison with the aide of his teleporting dog, Lockjaw, and the one-time king of The Inhumans chose to return to the jail to free his friends and put an end to the Jailer’s sadistic reign.  

As Black Bolt and his comrades ventured deeper into the prison, fending off its security drones, they came to learn that The Jailer was once an inmate himself.  He is an ancient Inhuman who possesses terrible psychic powers that made him like a vampire needing to feed off of the emotional suffering of others.  This being had been captured and incarcerated in the space prison, yet he was somehow able to free himself and destroy his jailers, taking their place as the new warden and using the prison as a veritable buffet wherein a constant stream of new inmates quenched his insatiable hunger for suffering.  

This Jailer has long since lost his physical form and now exists as a physic energy bound only to the last remnants of his body dissected and incased in jars and tubes.  It would appear that The Jailer is a master of psychic illusion and the various deaths and sufferings that Black Bolt and the others have endured may have all just been telepathic tricks meant to provoke anguish for the Jailer to feed on.  

Black Bolt and the others are intent on ending the Jailer but this monster is not going down without a fight.  He has manifested ghosts from the minds of his attackers, acting to cripple them with terrible feelings of guilt and sadness.   Black Bolt has used his powers of molecular manipulation to project a protective shield around him and his comrades, neutralizing the power dampeners and offering others full use of their super powers.  

Blinky’s telepathy allows her to see through the Jailer’s illusions and she encourages the others that these ghost are not real.  Black Bolt, Creel and Ravva are able to see through the illusion, but Molyb is not.  He has been in this jail much longer than the others, his guilt is too deeply seated and he cannot disabuse himself of the Jailer’s psychic manipulation.  He begins to turn on the others and Ravva sees no other choice than to stop Molyb herself, stabbing him through the back with her sword.  

The others are shocked by the Skrull’s gruesome resolve, but there isn’t time to pause nor grieve; they must move forward.  They travel deeper into the heart of the prison where The Jailer lays in wait.  They engage him and Jailer cuts loose with the full extent of his powers.  This power creates an impenetrable shield and it take all that Black Bolt has to maintain his own shield and protect the others.  

Creel comes up with a last ditch plan and instructs Black Bolt to direct his sonic powers onto him.  Creel can absorb and take on the properties of anything he touches.  He can take on the properties of metal or rubber and can also take on the properties of energy.  Black Bolt screams, opening up the upper limits of his sonic powers and Creel absorbs the energy in full, become a being of pure molecular disruption.    

He knows that he can only contain this energy for a moment, that it will result in his own destruction and he asks that Black Bolt seek out his wife and let her know that he never abandoned her and will always love her.  And with this, Creel leaps headfirst into the Jailer’s being resulting in a terrible explosion.  Black Bolt uses everything he has to protect himself and the others from the detonation.

He awakes some time later and knows that the terror has past.  The Jailer has been killed and the prison destroyed; what is left of the inmates have all fled.  It turns out that Molyb’s alien physiology allowed him to survive being stabbed and he, Blinky and Ravva help Black Bot to his feet.  The happiness of their reunion marred by the sad truth that their freedom has come at the expense of Creel’s sacrifice.  

Molyb and Ravva depart, returning to the lives they had prior to their incarceration, leaving Black Bolt and Blinky behind.  The effort Black Bolt had exerted in the battle with The Jailer has taken a drastic tole on his powers.  These powers have been halved, perhaps permanently, and Black Bolt can sense that his voice no longer possesses the highly destructive properties it once had.  Before Black Bolt can despair in this realization however he is overjoyed by the sudden reappearance of his loyal fried, Lockjaw.  

Lockjaw can take Black Bolt home and Blinky is ready to say goodbye, ladened that she has no where herself to go.  She asks if Black Bolt might take her with him.  It is a lot to ask and Black Bolt is taken aback by the request.  He has been such a terrible father to his own son, Ahura, the prospect of taking on this duty for Blinky seems to fill him with apprehension.  Yet he seems to no there is no choice to be made.  Of course he will take Blinky with him.  

Black Bolt is not the same man who first entered this prison; he has been changed by the experience.  The old Black Bolt might have turned his back on Blinky, thinking only of the needs of his own people.  But he is no longer that man and he pauses for only a moment before accepting Blinky into his care.  And it is here on this warm and optimistic note that the first (hopefully the first of many) arc of Ahmed and Ward’s series comes to an end.

What a ride!  This six issue arc embodies everything I love about comics in general and The Inhumans in particular.  The ideas are huge and wild and fun, with the high concept weirdness ballasted in deep, fully fleshed out character studies.  The story and art is synched up hand-in-glove with both sides of the comic lining up so seamlessly that the narrative and art finish each others sentences.  One would think Ahmed and Ward had been working together for years.

Although Black Bolt was advertised as a solo book, the extended cast that Ahmed and Ward created played a pivotal role in the first arc.  Black Bolt has felt more like a team book with the other cast members (especially Creel and Blinky) being just as important to the story as Black Bolt himself.  And I feel that this was a very good decision.  Black Bolt is a festinating character in the context of The Inhumans as a whole, but has been a bit shallow in terms of standing on his own.  His inability to speak coupled with the cold, withholding fashion in which he comported himself has left Black Bolt as someone who is quite hard to relate to.  Ahmed and Ward chose to reintroduce Black Bolt to us by way of his relationships to the extended cast.  The juxtaposition has generated a new avenue for exploring who Black Bolt is and how his feelings and attitudes have been shaped by all that he has gone through.  The interplay between Black Bolt and the rest of the cast allows us to get to know him in a fashion that hasn’t been done before and has made Black Bolt a much more fully realized and dimensional character.  

That street has gone both ways in terms of both Blinky and Crusher Creel.  Creel in particular was made into a wonderfully sympathetic character.  It was sad to see him die in the end, although I doubt this ‘death’ will prove a permanent condition.  Creel has survived similar such deaths in the past and it likely won’t be too long before The Absorbing Man reappears somewhere else.  Still, it’s sad to see him die here just in that Ahmed does such a great job writing him and I’m left wanting more.  

Blinky is someone we will likely get to learn more about in the next story.  So far she is just great fun and absolutely adorable.  Putting Black Bolt in a position where he is forth to act in a parental fashion was both an unexpected and hugely satisfying decision.  

Alright! no more gushing!  I loved this book and loved this arc.  I’m psyched that the trade paperback will likely be released around the holidays; it’s going to be a gift I plan on giving to all my friends and family who enjoy comics and science fiction.  

Five out of Five Lockjaws for the issue...

...and an impossible Six out of Five Lockjaws for the six-issue arc itself!  

[smokeybrand]

Smokey brand Movie Reviews: Straight to the Dark

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. I hate this movie. I hate it. It’s bad, man. Fundamentally terrible. It’s a bad Star War. It’s a bad film in general. Everything is terrible. All of it. It’s so terrible. Here’s a list of the terrible stuff:

The Bad

Movie gives away the massive twist in a test crawl. It literally says that Palpatine called the galaxy and said, “Surprise, b*tch. Bet you thought you’d seen the last of me.” That’s how this movie starts. That’s how i knew it was going to be a bad time.

Sh*t goes into montage of Kylo Ren murdering a bunch of nameless asshole. No plot progression of thematic weight. We don’t know who any of these assholes are, he’s just in the woods, with an entire battalion of Stormtroopers, murdering cats for one of the many, many, mcguffins in this fetch quest of a goddamn film.

Where did all of the Stormtrooper bodies go? They just f*cking disappeared. There’s, like, three of these asshole. Kylo had an entire ship of troops. The f*cc is shot continuity??

The movie doesn’t tell you this because f*ck being good at telling a story, but the people Kylo is slaughtering are Vader Occultists. hat’s right, they worship Darth Vader as a god and yet, here they are trying to murder his living, breathing, grandson? For real? He’s their version of Jesus and you’re going to fight him to the death over some sh*t that probably belongs to him anyway by birthright? Okey-dokey.

gain, none of that is stated or shown in the actual film. F*ck thematic weight or unique story telling, we got an entire original trilogy to wank instead.

So, five minutes in, Kylo finds Palpatine and the “Emporer” is like, “It was me, Barry.” and shows him a bunch of Snoke clones in a jar or some sh*t. Wat. What the f*ck ws all that sh*t Snoke was talking then? About being older than the Sith and talking all that good sh*t? How could Snoke have trained anyone in anything if he was a f*cking puppet the whole time??

Smash cut to Finn yelling about some sh*t. F*ck, they murdered the agency in this character, man. Former Stormtrooper, abandoning his space Nazi rhetoric to became a freedom fighter, who is possibly force sensitive? And he’s one of the six black folks in a galaxy, far, far, away? Hell yeah! Two movies later, syke! Finn is a weenie that can’t do anything by suck Rey’s dick. Welcome to Kathleen Kennedy’s “Force is Female” agenda, boys! Take all of the agency and creativity for the male leads and give it to Rey because f*ck you!

And before you brand me some neckbeard chauvinist, i have no problem with all of the mary sueness that is Rey. There are ways, in-universe, to explain that. No, i am upset that all of that mary sueness came at the expense of literally every other main character in this goddamn trilogy! It’s dope Rey is so strong for no goddamn reason. whatever, f*ck you, but to sacrifice and semblance of an interesting supporting cast? Really? are you serious right now? How does that a good story, make? specially when there was so much fertile ground to develop at the end of Awakens.

Uncanny valley Carrie Fisher. They cut old footage of her into this flick because Rey needs a master. guess what? Se had one. Guess what? Mark Hamil is actually still alive! Why did you need Fisher when you could have just not killed Luke or had him actually train her in Last Jedi or not killed him off so he could be around to enrich Episode IX like everyone had signed up for? Instead, yall decide to Frankenstein old footage of Carrie Fisher into this flick in the most clumsy way possible.

How the f*ck is Carrie Fisher versed well enough in the force to teach Rey anything?? What does she even know?? She literally stopped 30 f*cking years ago! How are you a master of anything?

So, the exposition in this movie is absurd. Cats just sit round in a group and tell you the plot. Constantly. There is literally no time for this film to actually show you hings barbecue we gotta get this sh*t done, so they just TELL you EVERYTHING in a goddamn MOVIE!

This movie feels like the climax of a film, for 2nd a half hours. And not just any film because Endgame did that to wildly different results, but a bad film. Like, a Michael Bay film. It feels like the ass shots and explosions of the end to a Michel Bay film, but the entire movie. It has about the same amount of substance and urgency as f*cking The Rock or some sh*t, with all of the narrative strength to boot.

They keep referring to Anakin’s lightsaber as Luke’s, this entire trilogy, and it’s pissing me off. Luke’s saber was green because he was a Jedi Sentinel. He wanted to know the ways of the Force. That was his path to Mastery. Anakin’s was blue because he was a Jedi Guardian. He wanted to use the force to protect those around him since he had lost so much. That’s why he was so skilled at dueling. Luke’s lightsaber f*cking disappeared or some sh*t. It ws never addressed.

Bro, this teleporting sh*t. For real? The Force is basically telekinesis and telepathy. It’s not magic, my dude. What the f*ck is this teleporting bullsh*t all of a sudden? There is no precedence for this in Legends or canon. you can’t keep ex machina-ing sh*t, especially when the driving force of your narrative is a goddamn mcguffin chase!

Jetpack Stormtroopers that launch from the back of desert motorcycles. The entire sentence is some sh*t a fourteen year old try-hard would write in his fan fiction. It has no place in a proper Star War. Bad J.J. Bad.

Stormtroopers can hit the broad side of a barn yet, this one jetpack trooper not only blew up both of your getaway vehicles, but did it mid flight? For real? b*tch, how? Were THEY using the goddamn force??

Nope! Plot contrivance because they needed to get tuck in that specific quicksand, right specifically now!

Force Heal? Really? F*ck, whatever, man. Force Heal. Force Teleport. F*ck, I’m surprised there’s not Force Time Travel. Sh*t man, there might be. Palpatine is alive and he blew the f*ck up when his Death Star did!

Everything about C-3PO and this stupid Sith dagger mcguffin. Everything.

Oh, Poe. I thought they did Finn dirty bit you? Holy sh*t. Dude was a Spice runner? Really? Not even a hint to any of that before but now, because there’s no time to actually flesh out his character properly, you just drop that? When we first met, you were an ace pilot and hero for the Resistance. Rian Johnson got his claws into you with Kathleen Kennedy’s blessing, and you became a mutinous manbaby. Now, you’re an outright space coke runner. Character assassination at it’s finest, if you can call what they gave Poe a character to begin with.

First Order blockade mcguffin, i choose you! Thank you faceless character i just met that Poe has apparently known for decades or whatever, f*ck you!

More Force Teleport fighting!

Dyad in the Force, huh? okay. I thought Snoke did that to f*ck with Kylo in the last movie but whatever. I don’t care anymore. F*ck you.

So Rey finds out she’s a Palpatine and has an emotional crisis. For less than a minute because f*ck emotional levity or character growth, we gott get this sh*t done!

So you introduce an entire platoon of Stormtrooper deserters, give Finn a non-Jedi love interest, and just gloss over all of that with a single conversation of exposition? Really? That could have been a really great part of his person journey but NOPE! F*CK YOU!!

Leia dies for no apparent reason. apparently, when you use your Force powers after a long time, you just croak? Okey-dokey.

Kylo Ren outright dominates Rey until he feels his mom die and Rey take an opportunity to sucker stab him in the gut. AND THEN she feels Leia die. Really? Why do you never see the force when you’re supposed to? Your f*cking master just just croaked and it visibly traumatized her sun and your first instinct is to f*king murder him? for real, b*tch?

Han Solo ghost. Apparently, that n*gga was a secret Jedi or some sh*t. I dunno. F*ck you.

So Rey heals Kylo, steals his ship, and flies off to Luke’s hermit world just to throw a goddamn tantrum until Luke’s Force Ghost shows up and tell her to calm her tits. He physically interacts with her. He raises his old X-Wing so she can fly to Pappy Palpatine’s Ice Shack.  WHY HAS HE NOT BEEN HELPING TO TRAIN HER THIS ENTIRE F*CKING TIME???

Speaking of that X-Wing, how the f*ck can it even fly?? It’s literally been underwater for at least two decades.

Also, Luke had a Jedi wayfinder? n*gga, how? Rey destroyed the one she got off the Death Star II corpse. Where the f*ck did this other one come from??

Pappy Palpatine has spent the last two or three decades creating a fleet of Star Destroyers with Death Star cannons connected to them and, in that time, he couldn’t clone himself a proper body? Are you serious?? I feel like resources probably should ave been devoted to that first. Motherf*cker has jars upon jars of Snokes but you expect me to believe that they couldn't create one, legitimate, clone? Are you serous? These motherf*ckers hollowed out an entire planet and put a gun in it that use suns as bullets, but you can’t clone a decent body to put yourself in? For real?

Speaking of these Death Star Destroyers, why do they still have the same goddamn weakness of the Death Star I?? Bro, you had sixty f*cking years to fix this ONE goddamn problem and Nope! Blow up the gun, blow up the ship! My guy, two Death Stars and a Starkiller Planet but you ain’t fix this one flaw??

Okay. Okay... Palpatine’s grand plan, aside for try-trying-tryinging-tryinginging the world gun plan again, is to have Rey kill him so his Force Ghost can Force Possess her body. What is she just walks away? What is he just says no? This is a bad plan, man.

Oh! i forgot. Hux was the spy. Because he outright says it, audibly, in the middle of a First Order starship, which is notorious for having all sorts of monitoring system like cameras and microphones, right before he’s murdered for being the spy! Bruh.

Ben Solo shows up, redeemed for some reason, and promptly gets his ass handed to him by the Knights of Ren. Until Rey Force Teleports his grandad’s light saber to him, at which point his entire style changes and he slaughters his bros. MAGIC!!

We Force Draining life  to regrow my zombie body out’chea, manq!

After Rey properly Mace Windu’s Pappy Palpatine into oblivion, she dies for no apparent reason. WHY??

Wasn’t this EXACTLY what Pappy wanted? he WANTED her to kill him so he could haunt her titties or some sh*t? You did exactly the plan, man! Why didn’t it work?? PLOT CONTRIVANCE, THAT’S WHY!

F*cking Reylo, dude. F*cking Reylo...

Ben dies at the end. For no goddamn reason. And fades away to Jedi Ghost immortality. Proper Skywalker boss sh*t!

I hope he Forced Knocked Up Rey. Gotta keep that line alive and Ben was caressing her tum-tum real passionately.

Why the f*ck would she just move into Luke’s house on Tatooine? That place is the worst! it’s got terrible history with all of the Skywalkers, including Anakin! That’s just bad juju right there.

Where the f*ck did Rey get that Yellow Kaiburr crystal from?

“I’m Rey. Rey Skywalker.”

You had forty, real life years, worth of material to pull from and seven years to come up with a way to stick this landing and you sh*t the bed this hard? Really? Nothing is earned. Nothing is deserved. It’s all just a sticky wet fart.

The Verdict

Admittedly, those are issues i had as a fan. I would put on my movie critic hat and properly critique why, functionally, this is a bad film but i am too tired to do that now. Look, man, this thing has potential. There are so many plot threads that could have gone somewhere but Rise is not about that life. They’re here to do everything in their power to retcon everything Last Jedi and Kathleen Kennedy allowed to happen therein. And they do that well enough but at the expense of their own goddamn narrative. This was course correction that should have been two, entire, separate, films. So much good sh*t could have been gleaned from this narrative if it was two proper movies but corporate was like nah, bruh. Get this sh*t done. We’ll stop making these things for two years and people will forget. Nope.

You can’t forget this sh*t. I can’t forget this clusterf*ck i just wasted my life watching. And it didn’t have to be! That’s what kills me! There is more than enough in this film to redeem the franchise. If this specific story was broken up; If these plot points and characters were given enough room to breathe, sh*t could have worked! Ther eis so much fertile ground here to craft a dope story for fans, old and new but NOPE! F*ck that! Cowabunga it is! We’re going to cram all of that sh*t into one movie and f*ck you! We’re going to spend half the narrative erasing The Last Jedi instead of progressing this plot because f*ck you! We’re going to bring back someone who had to be unspoken, impossibly, resurrected to win back the fans because f*ck you! Give them some goddamn Reylo because f*ck You! That’ll shut you the f*ck up! F*ck this movie, man. This sh*t could have been special but you let an ego driven, misandrist ruin forty years of canon for the clout.

Watching this goddamn movie made me piss blood, man, that’s how much it hurt.

[acustardduckling]

GUYS I MADE AN OC ASK MEME

It’s under the cut! Here’s the blank version if you want to do it : [Link]

Custard's cool new hip OC meme: now with rules for your convenience. -Pick as many of your ocs as you like! Let's say, five, as an example. -Answer the questions! -You can answer AS the OCs or just ABOUT the ocs, either is fine! -Tag your friends!!!

 I’ve chosen to use:

Rosie the Dragon (I haven’t posted a drawing of her in ages  Y I K ES )

Finn the Inkling

Pansy the . . . humanoid

Neo the . . . also humanoid

Dewey the Duck

1. Hello! Let's start with a dreaded, simple and boring question: What are your OCs favourite colours?

As she’s a dragon, I can easily say that Rosie’s favourite colour is gold. Silver is a close second, but she’ll like any colour if it has a glittery sheen.

Finn’s favourite colour is a sort of minty-turquoise. Since it’s his natural ink colour, he’s grown quite fond of it!

Pansy loves the colour green; she’s come to associate it with thriving plant life- although she’s also quite a large fan of the colour pink.

Neo likes… well, I’m not too sure what she likes, but green is far from her favourite colour. She seems to gravitate towards blue clothing, but has made no comment on whether this is her favourite.

DEWEY LOVES EVERYTHING ABOUT THE COLOUR PURPLE AND WILL WEAR PURPLE DRESSES AND HATS UNTIL THE DAY SHE DIES.

2. Do any of your OCs have a secret? Shh, don't worry, I won't tell anyone . . . 

It’s not really a secret that Rosie used to be a really nasty dragon that almost destroyed a village near her cave. But her fear of sharks. . . it’s so bizarre that she’s never told another dragon about it.

Finn secretly has a crush on Marie, but everyone already knows this!!

…The same goes for Pansy, if she had a secret she’s probably already told you about it so many times that it’s not considered a secret anymore. Some AUs may imply she has a secret man-eating plant in her garden shed, or a secret basement where she keeps a mysterious power sealed away. . .  but given her looseness with classified information, that’s PROBABLY not true.

Neo secretly likes people and wants to have friends. But she’s also secretly scared of the unpredictability of human nature and being double-crossed, too. . .

Dewey is still quite sad about her brother’s death, but she tries to keep this to herself. 3. How about supernatural powers? Do any of your OCs have those, and what are they? If no, what powers would they LIKE to have?

Rosie… is a dragon. I don’t know if that’s a supernatural power, really. She can fly and breathe fire. I guess if she were to have a supernatural power, she’d want to be a PSYCHIC DRAGON that can CREATE BARRIERS and SHATTER BOULDERS WITH HER MIND but she’s pretty okay with not being able to do that.

Finn’s an inkling, so his ‘powers’ aren’t really supernatural, but if he had any he’d probably think reading minds was cool. OR SHOOTING INK WITH HIS BARE HANDS INSTEAD OF USING A WEAPON, 10/10 there should be an inkling comic book that has something like that—

Pansy’s pyrokinetic! She also has a (very) weak telekinetic ability that was taught to her by her mother, but using it too much gives her a headache. She’s trying to use this to learn teleport, but that’s even W O R S E . …then again, learning these wouldn’t be considered ‘supernatural’ where she comes from, so. . .

Neo can use weak electrical force to her advantage, though it wouldn’t be a particularly strong attack. (She’s trying to improve on that.) Her real ability lies in being able to turn herself into code and travel the internet and computer data this way.

Dewey can talk. That’s supernatural!?! That said, she quite enjoys being normal otherwise. . .

4. If your OCs found an unopened bag of gummy bears on the ground, would they eat them, or be more cautious?

ROSIE WOULD EAT THEM STRAIGHT UP WITHOUT EVEN THINKING ABOUT IT,, though she’d also eat the bag whole and be really upset that there were no more. It’s like eating a single gummy bear for her.

Finn probably wouldn’t even go near it. After all, it could be a trap, or they could actually have been poisoned, or . . . well ew they MIGHT be open and could just be plain dirty.

Pansy might want to make sure no-one had dropped them first, and then investigate… by eating one. If that one’s good, then OH BOY, FREE SWEETS! If they’re bad? 1,000 years of embarrassing shame and regret.

Neo does not care for your gummy bears, she claims, scooping up the entire bag and bringing them home to share with her brother.

Dewey doesn’t like gummy-anything, so she’d probably pick them up to throw away or put somewhere that isn’t on the ground.

5. Oh no!! A SCARY BOSS MONSTER HAS APPEARED, TERRORISING YOUR PEACEFUL(?) TOWN!! Will your OCs try to fight, run away, or ... something else ?

Rosie IS the scary boss monster—ok yeah she’d probably fight, after all she’s probably the biggest and strongest thing currently around to match the monster’s strength. Featuring tons and tons of property damage, yaaayy!!

Finn would be unsure about his chances, but as resident hero number . . . four, he’d probably be roped along to fight it, though he’d only do so if Molly and some others had his back. He’s not reckless enough to throw himself into an impossible fight.

PANSY INSTANTLY FEELS LIKE THIS IS HER JOB AND SHE NEEDS TO PROTECT THE POOR HUMAN BBS LIVING IN HER TOWN THAT CAN’T DEFEND THEMSELVES. IT’D BE NICE IF SOMEONE HELPED TOO THO,, SHE’S DONE THIS BEFORE BUT WITH A PARTY OF HEALERS/BRAWLERS/MAGIC USERS AND SHE’D RATHER NOT DIE TODAY THANKS

Neo is. . . out of there. There isn’t really much she can do about it, unless she happened to be tagging along with a group of other people she can fight with (…which would be extremely unlikely). If it poses a threat to her personally, though, she wouldn’t go down quietly.

Dewey can’t really help fight, so she’ll spend her time helping others evacuate to safety! 6. Beach day!! What are your OCs favourite seaside activity?  ...or do they hate beaches with a fiery passion?? (Why??)

Rosie isn’t too good with beaches because SHARKS ARE THERE!!!! But if there is DEFINITELY NO SHARKS IN THE WATER she’ll probably just sit there, or have a swim and splash around, opening her mouth in the hopes that fishies will just come swimming in.

Finn likes beachcombing so that he can add to his never-ending collection of junk for making sculptures, as well as building things out of sand, but Molly doesn’t like going to the beach for extremely justified reasons, so he hasn’t been there in a while.

Pansy has this thing about staring at the ocean for a long period of time. It’s probably because she’s too scared to go in. She also enjoys bothering- uh, I mean TALKING to beachgoers, and attending BBQ’s that don’t just have grilled fish in them.

Neo isn’t sure what she likes about the beach. She sunburns easy, but there’s a certain sense of freedom about being on the beach that she enjoys, even if she does just… stand there. She’d probably be interested in the arcades on the beachfront, too.

Dewey loves to swim!! Swim, and meet new people! AND SWIM!!! 8/10 not quite as good as ponds.

7. What would each OC see inside the mirror of erised?  (If you don't know what that is, google it!) 

Rosie would probably see THE GIFT OF POPULARITY AND FRIENDSHIP . . . and like a MOUND of riches. Because they make good beds. She’d also probably be wearing a ton of fancy dragonmade jewellery.

Finn would probably see himself standing next to Marie, his best friend Molly patting him on the shoulder as he receives recognition for his artistic talent. His parents and little brother are also there, looking really, really proud of him.

It’s likely that Pansy would see herself with a family she’d (evidently) raised herself, as well as showing off a PhD in botanical science and looking a lot taller and more beautiful than she perceives herself to be.

Neo would be smiling. Her brother would be there, too, and so would their missing dad. Her brown hair would be back.

YUP DEWEY WOULD ALSO SEE HER BROTHER BUT IT’D BE MORE SAD BECAUSE HE’S DEAD N’ STUFF. . . That and a way fancier new hat. 8. Oooh, a spooky forest. Rumour has it there's ghosts, tricks and traps in there... but also treasure. Are your OCs interested?  ROSIE ISN’T SCARED OF NO GHOSTS. Although, traversing spooky forests isn’t that easy when you’re a HUUUGE dragon. She probably wouldn’t be too interested in such a small promise of treasure . . . now, spooky CASTLES . . .

Finn reeeeeeeeeeaally wouldn’t be interested, but if Molly wanted to go (which she NO DOUBT WOULD) he’d follow suit. He isn’t sure he believes in ghosts, but he’d still be the first to get spooked. . . . and the REAL treasure would be the friends they made along the way - -

Pansy doesn’t like ghosts, but it wouldn’t be an ADVENTURE if there wasn’t a bit of fear involved. If she can round up some friends to go with her, SURE! She’ll go in.

Neo DEFINITELY isn’t buying the whole ‘ghosts’ deal. She waltzes straight in there without batting an eyelash; she could really use the money if there IS treasure in there.

Dewey … prooobably wouldn’t want to go in. Ghosts? Traps? Tricks? It’s not her thing, and she’d rather leave it up to the hero types. If you go in, though, be sure to tell her AAALLL about it, yah!

9. Do your OCs have any embarrassing stories? ...If no, how do they deal with secondhand embarassment? DO THEY FEEL SHAME AT ALL?

I guess the time Rosie almost destroyed a village is embarrassing to her now she’s friendly with the villagers . . .

Finn discovers embarrassment in the smallest of things, but his biggest embarrassing moment was when during one of his first turf wars he got stuck in squid form, and had to hide in a corner away from other players. . . including his own teammates. B U T since he wasn’t very good yet, he kept getting spotted . . .

Pansy could probably put a TON of instances on this list, like the time she drunkenly challenged an entire bar-gang to a fight and almost burned the place down, BUT she’d probably go for the memory of high-school prom, where she ate WAY TOO MANY fancy seafood nibbles and then puked it all onto her crushes shoes. Who she also then discovered was attending the party with someone else. She’s not been able to eat fish since.

I’m almost certain the concept of embarrassment is foreign to Neo. Or, at least, she acts like it is. Her idea of ‘weird’ is being absolutely 100% normal, and she’s a bit behind the times, so will unabashedly perform actions that might be deemed ‘embarrassing’ by the general public.

Dewey’s embarrassing stories probably revolve around her inability to read well, even though she’s been provided with encouragement about it. Whenever she’s asked to read something, she gets flustered and asks if she can do it in her own time- thankfully, since most people know about her learning difficulty, they hardly demand she read anything out to them. 10. Describe your OCs as if they were the COMPLETE OPPOSITE of who they are now.

Rosie used to be super sweet and nice, but now she’s RUTHLESS AND BLOODTHIRSTY AND SHARPENS HER CLAWS ON THE INNOCENT. She lives wide out in the open countryside, no hoard to her name, eating grass and THE FLESH OF HER ENEMIES. She is greatly respected by all other dragons and uses this to her advantage.

Finn is the most confident octarian you will ever meet. He mains a charger and his favourite ink colour is an angry red, but he doesn’t have much of a passion for turf battles. He has a ton of ‘friends’, none of which are particularly considered the closest, and he treats them all disposably and quite nastily. His favourite squid sister is Callie.

Pansy is graceful, distant and exceedingly cruel. She doesn’t care much for others and despises human filth most of all. She specialises in the water element, and uses it to swamp land irreparably so that hardly anything can grow there and hardly anyone can reach it, where she will set up residence. She is extremely secretive and despises socializing.

Neo is a precious, gullible social butterfly. Short and chubby, she specializes in powerful earth magic, and can get along with just about everyone, except her brother. All this might make her seem like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, but deep down she is planNING EVERYONE’S DEMISE. SHE WILL NOT HESITATE TO PHYSICALLY RIP OUT YOUR HEART IF YOU BECOME TOO DISTANT FROM HER.

Dewey is an altogether unpleasant individual that almost never says a word. She can read astoundingly well, but has immense difficulty with numbers and arithmetic. Her hobbies include tripping up the elderly in the street, stealing candy from children, and burning library books.

11. Aw, looks like there's only this question to go. How well do your OCs deal with prolonged goodbyes?

Rosie can deal with goodbye – it won’t be forever, and she can wait for  Y E A R S . Until then . . .

Finn is crying. Like, weeping. Begging you to stay, do you really have to go? Now? He tries desperately to wipe away his tears and assure you he’ll be fine.

Pansy pretends to be strong but, oh no, she’s already blubbing endlessly. You’ll write, won’t you??? GIMME A HUG!!!!

Neo just. Nods. Yup, bye. She’ll see you around someday. Maybe she’ll shed a single tear after turning around.

Dewey is optimistic that everything will be okay, wherever you’re going, and she can’t wait to see you again!! Goodbye!! Wave, wave!! She’s still waving!! You’ve gone, but she’s still waving, just in case!!!!

OK I’M GONNA TAG SOME PEOPLE WHO I THINK MIGHT WANNA DO THIS . . . PLEASE: @thegoldendoorknob @agentchimendez @mintfizzles @bardiclnspiration   uhh and anyone else if i can think of ‘em

[clevernewdimension]

Inhumans Part Five

Parts: One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine,

Genre: A/U, Angst, Violence, Fluff, Romance, more in the future.

Pairing: Yixing x Reader

Word Count: 5.4K

Summary: Inhumans are people born with powers, feared by most all over the world. Inhumans are often killed before the age of three or kept locked up and tested on. EXO is a rogue group of Inhumans who broke free and are now looking to free fellow Inhumans as well as get justice for their kind. However, with their powers come limitations. With these limitations, they sometimes need a helping hand.

“Are you sure about this,” I ask nervously, “We could just fix it easily, you know.”

Baekhyun shakes his head, “Look, he already said I could try since it’s not that bad, right?” He turns his head to Minseok, giving him playful, pleading eyes.

“I’m going to regret this,” He mutters. Looking up, he finds my eyes, “Besides, some of us should learn to do this just in case we can’t get to you in time.”

I sigh, handing Baekhyun the needle with the thread. “I don’t see why you’re learning first. You’re always in here giving instructions!” I point all around me, computers buzzing and screens taking up almost every inch of the walls. One was end to end, completely covered which, when not using it to look at security cameras, made for a pretty damn good movie watching screen. Cables all neat until you get to the desk, where there are some tech torn apart and a number of laptops that Baekhyun was slowly going through and hacking. The floor was completely plain, smooth concrete. We were all seated in chairs in the middle of the room. Three computer chairs that were kept here, two that were often pushed into the corner.

“It was MY idea,” Baekhyun says grinning, taking the needle from me, summoning the ball of bright light closer to Minseok’s arm, making it even brighter. “Here I thought you’d think it would be a great idea, since it would help keep Yixing safe!”

“Anyone else, yes. You with the needle? Not so much. You’d probably hurt anyone you’re stitching up more,” I tease, looking at the cut on his arm. “Clean the cut!”

“Rude,” Baekhyun pouts, pouring rubbing alcohol on the wound in a very ungracious manner. It pours it onto Minseok’s arm, as he lets out a hiss of pain.

“OW! A little warning next time,” Minseok yells, glaring at Baekhyun, yanking his arm away on instinct.

“Your bedside manner is atrocious,” I sigh, “Alright, now that the bleeding has slowed, you can begin AFTER you put on gloves!”

“Why? Why? I’ve washed my hands!”

“I don’t want to catch something from you,” Minseok explains, a smirk on his face.

“Like what? A sense of humor?”

“’Pain in the ass syndrome’ is more likely,” I laugh.

“That’s not a real thing,” He yells as he pouts. He puts on gloves, snapping them to his skin. Over the next few minutes, I instruct him on a basic suture, explaining calmly and slowly, just to be sure he’s learning right. His hands were quite shaky, showing that behind his jokes, he was actually fairly nervous.

I look over his handiwork, nodding, “A bit of a mess, but overall it does the job. Though try to keep the spaces between each stitch even.”

Baekhyun spins in his chair, holding up a V sigh. “Being a doctor is easy!”

I roll my eyes, shaking my head. I’d love to see him say that to a brain surgeon.

The screens all suddenly come to life, making a calling sound. Baekhyun slides over quickly, picking up a headset. “This is Baekhyun, the greatest doctor to ever live, who is this?” A second he pauses, taping on the keys quickly, bringing up multiple cameras, “Take a left now!”

“Whats happening,” Minseok asks, looking worried as he rolls his chair over.

I stand, moving next to them both, worried.

Baekhyun points to Minseok’s left. Minseok reaches over, getting two headsets, he hands one to me, putting one on himself.

I place it over my ears, hearing tires screeching and the sounds of guns.

“They’re gaining,” I hear Sehun yell over the coms.

“Get ready to take a left when I tell you,” Baekhyun instructs, bringing up something that looks like a jumbled mess of words and numbers. He clicks around, typing fast as he finds what he’s looking for. “Now!”

I watch on a security cam as they turn, barely beating the railroad crossing gates. They use to be just posts that come down, but now they’re like full blown walls that come down or, sometimes, up. The cars that were following them slam into them causing a huge accident.

“Alright,” Baekhyun says, “You might want to find a new vehicle, they’ve got the word about the van you're in now. They’re watching the cams. I can buy you time by playing previous footage of you on different streets to confuse them, but you have to make it quick!”

“We’re carrying small kids,” Yixing yells, “We can’t exactly switch cars!”

“Fuck,” Minseok yells and clenching his fists, “That was today?!”

“You’re close to a drop off,” Baekhyun explains, ignoring the man to his left, “Two rights, under the bridge, you know the one. The door is Neon’s. She can smuggle them out the country to freedom. After, you have to ditch the car and get somewhere fast, I can’t stop them for much longer. Seems like they’re getting use to my tricks.”

“How did you manage to get them out,” Minseok asks, “I thought their security was at it’s best at sundown.”

“They were hiring a new security team today,” Kyungsoo explains calmly, “It was the only chance we’d get to free them when their security was weakened.”

I hear Yixing speaking in another language, softly. A smaller, barely there voice speaking the same. The person he was speaking to was clearly scared. I sigh, trying to keep my heart rate even. I was worried, hopeful they’d be fine.

“Alright,” I hear Sehun say, “We’re almost there.”

“Playing footage from last night for the security cams near there,” Baekhyun says, “Don’t be seen, you’ll blow Neon’s operation and she’d kill us.”

I see on one screen, the footage from yesterday that the people chasing them would see, and next to it I see their van pull up, watching as Sehun jumps out, ushering children out. I see Yixing hop out, holding a small girl, hearing him still muttering words I couldn’t understand. They got them all inside quickly. I see a woman with bright green hair come out, saying things to Sehun. I gather that that is Neon, and that neon is her code name. He nods and I hear Sehun thank the woman. Barely a minute and they were speeding off once more.

“Alright,” Baekhyun says, “Now, ditch the car and have Jongin teleport you guys here. They’re shutting the city down trying to keep you all contained, you won’t be able to hide and drive off.”

“Right,” Junmyeon says, “Will do. Be in the main entrance soon.”

I took off my headset, beginning to walk to the entrance, Minseok quickly following my lead.

“I should have went today,” He complains, “I wanted to be there to help.”

“I’m sorry, but I’m glad it went well.” I say, our footsteps echoing in the hall.

He laughs, “Didn’t just go well, it went completely better than expected. Last time we tried to free those kids was… well, the night we went and got you. Needless to say we failed last time.”

Soon, five men appeared in sight. They all looked tired, and some of them with blood on them, but if it was their own, they’ve already been healed. Yixing had a nasty cut over his eye I didn’t notice in the security cams. The other four men were happy and grinning, while he looked lost in thought. Sehun was smiling and laughing, “We finally did it!”

Jongin grins, “About damn time, too! Calls for a celebration!”

“First showers,” Kyungsoo says, nodding towards the bathrooms. “You smell awful.”

Sehun crosses his arms, “Pretty sure you’re smelling yourself, Hyung.”

I stepped in front of Yixing, making him bump into me. I lose balance, about to hit the floor but he catches my arm, easily pulling me up. “Oh,” He says, “I’m sorry, Y/N.”

“You need stitches,” I point to the opposite direction, “To the medical room. Now.”

Baekhyun who joined in, who was hugging Sehun, “Can I do it?!”

I see Junmyeon put a hand on Baekhyun’s arm. He mutters something to the younger man, quietly. Baekhyun nods, “Um… nevermind. I’m going to do… stuff…”

“What is going on with them,” I question, looking to where Yixing was, only to see him halfway to the medical room. I couldn’t help but wonder how someone so tall could be so quiet. I frown, wondering why he’s acting weird since getting back. These past couple weeks since the day I was almost killed, we’ve been talking and friendly. A lot better than before when he was avoiding me. That only meant that Sehun and Baekhyun’s teasing got worse, bringing Jongdae and Chanyeol in on it too. They were relentless.

I walk into the room, seeing him hold a rag to his eyebrow, a bottle of disinfectant in his hand. “I’m cleaning it,” He says, his voice which is usually happier now dull and almost emotionless, but there was a tiny hint of emotion there.

Sadness.

He sits on a stool that’s fairly tall, but I could see his cut easily from a standing position. I silently stitch his cut up, trying to go slower than normal to see if he was going to speak first. I know it’s quite painful, since he had no anesthesia, we had none. He didn’t flinch at all, his eyes avoiding looking into mine.

“The little girl,” He says, finally breaking the silence. His voice more timid than usual. “She… she’s from where I’m from. Changsha.”

“China,” I say, “So, you were speaking Chinese…”

“What,” He asks, looking at me confused.

“Minseok and I were listening in on the comms,” I explain, walking to find a new, clean rag. “And… well, when I first got here and showered, I hear someone singing in a language I didn’t know. I heard you singing. Now I know it was Chinese.”

“Oh,” He says, looking down, a blush forming on his cheeks, “I didn’t know you heard that. I should have put it together.”

“Don’t be embarrassed,” I smile, “You have a really nice voice! It was very calming.”

“Thank you,” He says, looking to the right. “But… she was taken from her family and sold to the Kiyoung corporation. They illegally buy Inhumans from other countries where it’s legal to be one.”

“What kind of an asshole would do that to people? Ugh. I’m glad you got her out of there, then,” I say, walking over with a new rag and wiping off blood from his face. “I can’t imagine what they do to them… to you all.”

He still avoids my gaze, “That happened to me. I was taken from my mother and sold here. To the Hyunsik’s company. I was alone and scared, just like her. Thankfully she was only there for a year, but… that’s still too long.”

I examine the stitches I did on him, “It is too long. I’m done, by the way.”

He looks up at me, “I’m glad you never had to go through what we did. It’s… like living a nightmare you can’t escape from. Now it’s like I’m living in a dream in comparison.” He stands, towering over me, smiling. “It just just a bit weird, like I was looking into the past in a way.”

“Yixing,” I start, “I… I want to ask you something, but I don’t want to upset you.”

“I doubt there is anything you could say that would upset me,” He says, stretching his arms.

“You said you were taken from your mother so... how come you haven’t gone back to China? To your mom?”

I see him freeze, tensing. I instantly knew that it was a very sore subject, one that was like a fresh wound. His hands turn into tight fists, but his face didn’t show anger. It showed pain. “You… you can’t return to someone who is dead.”

“How do you kn-”

“I just do,” He says, his voice growing stronger. It wasn’t mean, and he wasn’t yelling. He was just hurt. He turned away from me, taking a few steps to the door.

I frown, reaching out to him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t me-”

“I should go wash up,” He says, quickly exiting the room before I could touch him.

The air was forced out of my lungs as I laid there, looking up at the ceiling. I was panting heavily, sweat on my forehead. I see Minseok smile from above me, holding his hand out, pulling me up. “You’re getting much better. Stronger, too.”

“Yeah, she’d actually beat Baekhyun now,” Jongdae says, laughing, leaning into Baekhyun who was pouting. Chanyeol was laughing hysterically, also leaning into Baekhyun as he was sandwiched in between two people making fun of him.

“Remember, keep your feet apart, and knees bent a little,” Minseok instructs, “Your fast and excellent at dodging, but sometimes speed can’t beat someone who is a lot stronger than you.”

“Well, seeing as how I haven’t ever beaten you, or even Sehun for that matter, doesn’t seem as if speed helps at all.” I get myself ready, doing as he instructs. Taking a deep breath, I watch as he gets himself ready.

A second later, he steps forward, taking a swing, I move to the right, catching his wrist and hit him in the side as hard as I could. Before he could react, I step away, out of range of another one of his swings. What I wasn’t expecting was for him to swing his leg around. It hits me in my stomach, making me bend over. Before I knew it, I was, once again, looking up at the lights. I groan, grabbing my stomach, “Damn.” I frown, I can’t even beat them when they’re taking it very easy on me. How could I beat someone who was trying to hurt me?

“What’s going on here?”

I turn my head to the door from my spot on the floor, seeing the five who went out today coming in. They were clean, all of them with wet hair and smiles on their faces. Except one. He was still upset, but Yixing had a look of worry on his face.

“Junmyeon hyung,” Sehun says, “Remember, we’re teaching her to defend herself.” He glances at me from the floor, “Seems like it’s all been in vain, though.”

I frown, “I’m trying. I just… I don’t like hurting people!”

Sehun, who was now crouching over me, rolls his eyes. He glances over at Minseok, giving him a knowing smile and a wink. “Yes, yes, we know. But what happens if you’re taken and they try to kill you? What then?”

“I mean, it wouldn’t effect me really, if I died,” I say, taking a deep breath, closing my eyes.

“What does that even mean,” Kyungsoo asks. I glance over at him and he was giving me a confused look as he sat down on the edge of the trampoline.

“Well… when you die, it’s just over. No more pain. No more sadness. It’s just done. Dying is the easy part, it’s living that’s hard.” I say, my voice becoming softer. “Being the person left behind when your loved one dies is the worst, and my mom is already gone so there’s really no one to miss me.”

Everyone was quiet except Sehun, who scoffed. “‘No one to miss you’? Bullshit. We would miss you, idiot. You hate hurting people, right? Getting killed would hurt us all. More than you even know. So, learn how to protect yourself so that doesn’t happen.”

I sigh, sitting up, “Fine.”

Sehun smirks, looking over at Minseok. “She’ll be fighting me.”

Minseok shrugs, walking over and taking his water to the trampoline, where he hopped up to take a seat.

“I’m just going to lose again,” I mutter, putting my fists up.

“Feet apart more,” Minseok yells.

I shift my feet, looking at Sehun who just stand there and smirks. “Oh, you’re going to fight,” Sehun confidently says. “Though, you’re so weak it’s a wonder how you can do anything.”

I roll my eyes, taking a swing at him. He moves to the left, smirking even more.

“I’m not even sure if you were captured if you’d even be able to save yourself,” He grins, “You’d probably just take the easy way out and let yourself die.”

I go to kick him, but he just catches my foot and shoves it back, making me stumble. Before I could regain my balance, I feel a fist connect with my face, sending me back more, but I was still on my feet. Sehun wasn’t taking it as easy on me as he normally does.

“Hey,” Yixing yells, “You’re suppose to be teaching her!”

Sehun ignores him, grinning wickedly at me. “What happens if one of us was captured and it was you who had to save us? What then? Would you be too scared to move? Would you be so terrified you’d piss your pants?”

I glare, trying to keep myself calm as I regain my posture, dodging one of his punches and punch him in the gut. If it hurt Sehun, he didn’t show it. He kicked me in the chest, sending my flying backwards. I hit the mat the a loud thud, my head colliding with it. My vision blurs for a moment, a weird metal taste in my mouth. My ears ringing, as I look up and see him standing over me. It was like I had tunnel vision, feeling anger rise up. My hands were shaking as I continued to glare at him.

“You’d probably be selfish and let us die,” He taunts.

I move to get up, but he shoves me down, crouching over me. I glare at him, “What?”

“You’d have to be willing to fight for us, Y/N. Hell, we’d all do it for you. We probably don’t matter to you at all. You’d let them take us so we could be tested on again!” He yells down at me.

I shove at him, “No! I’d never!”

“What happens if they get us? What if they kill us? Me, Minseok? Junmyeon? Baekhyun?” He sneers at me, “What if they attack Yixing? Threaten to hurt him? Would you run in, knowing you’d have to possibly fight in order to save him?” He was smirking, knowing he was pushing a button. Sehun takes my shoulders and slams me down, “Or would you be selfish and let him die? Because, honestly, it seems like yo-”

I bring my fist back and slam it into his jaw, getting him off balance as I shift back, kicking him in the chest. He falls backwards and lands on his back. I struggle to stand up, seeing him getting onto one knee. I rush over and punch him in the face, “I wouldn’t do that! How could you think that?!”

Sehun, despite having a bloody nose, was smirking. He grabbed my ankle, pulling me down on one knee before I feel a fist hit my face. I heard some yelling from behind me, but I was too angry to care. I was quicker to stand up, getting over to him and kneeing him in the face, causing him to fall. I kick him in the ribs, tears of anger falling from my eyes, “I wouldn’t let that happen! I wouldn’t! You have to believe me!”

I feel two hands grab me and pick me up as if it was nothing. Looking back, I see Kyungsoo holding me.

Sehun was smiling, blood pouring from his nose. He sits up as he laughs, “She did it, Hyung! It’s not that she can’t fight, she just doesn’t want to hurt us!” He stands, grabbing at his ribs with a hiss, “Fuck, that hurt, Noona.”

I watch as Yixing walks over, looking at Sehun. “You’re nose is broken, and you have a fractured rib,” He says, before even touching him, his voice tense. He grabs Sehun by the shirt collar, “What in the hell was that?”

“I had to make her angry,” Sehun explains, looking at him. “She’ll be fine. Split lip and a few bruises is all. I was still holding back.”

“Try a concussion, idiot,” Yixing exclaims, glaring at the youngest member. He sighs, placing his hand on his arm for a second before he turns to me. Kyungsoo was still holding me in their air, so that I was eye level with Yixing. “How do you feel,” He asks, looking in my eyes. They were softer than before, but still upset.

With my rage subsiding, it was hard to focus on anything. “I kind feel like I’m drunk.”

I see Yixing turn to glare at Sehun, who shrugs, “You can fix her, it’s fine.”

“That’s not the point,” Yixing growls at him, before turning and placing his hand on my forehead. I shiver at the cool feeling, closing my eyes as Kyungsoo sets me on my feet. I stumble slightly, grabbing Yixing to keep myself steady as I regain my balance. The world was clearer now, that was obvious. The taste in my mouth gone and my head was no longer spinning.

“You don’t believe what you said, right,” I ask timidly, glancing over at Sehun.

“Actually,” he says, standing up with a grin, “I believe the exact opposite. I thought you would have noticed I was lying when I was saying it seems like you would.”

“My head was kind of all over the place then. When people lie to me, I get this warm feeling all over the inside of my head. I couldn’t really tell if I felt anything or not.”

“I’m sorry,” Sehun says sincerely, “I didn’t mean to actually hurt you. I guess I’m so use to fighting people like Minseok that when I wasn’t taking it completely easy on you, I went a bit harder than I thought. I forgot you're a bit more fragile.” He turns, walking towards the door, “Besides, I have a feeling that if it ever happened again, SOMEONE would beat me to a pulp.”

“Yeah,” Beakhyun yells angrily, “Me! I can’t believe you did that!” He rushes after him.

“Baek, I forgave him already, stop,” I say with a sigh, knowing they’re too far to hear me. I look up at Yixing, “Thank you, again. I should go stop them before Baekhyun gets himself hurt.”

Kyungsoo laughed at that as I bolted past them, running to catch up.

After I managed to keep Baekhyun from antagonizing Sehun, we had dinner. It was a lot of rice, pork belly, and a multitude of sides. What’s different this time is a couple bottles were being passed around in celebration of freeing the children. Two soju and one wine, though there were also some beers in the refrigerator. Other than the one shot they had me do with them in celebration, I declined the rest. I was a light weight and i’m really embarrassing when i’m drunk.

Many of the five that went out today are getting completely wasted. Sehun, Jongin, Chanyeol, Yixing and Jongdae were all completely drunk. Minseok was like me, didn’t drink besides the shot, so he was the most sober besides me. As the night went on into the early morning, everyone was getting separated, sober ones helping drunk ones to their rooms.

Junmyeon pulled Sehun’s arm around his shoulders, lifting him to his feet. “Come on, let’s get to to bed.”

“But Suho,” the maknae whines, calling him my his code name. “I just wanna stay and talk some more.” His words slurring into each other.

“Not happening,” Junmyeon says with a laugh, looking over at me, “Think you can handle Yixing?”

“I’ll try,” I say, putting my hand on his arm, “Come on, let’s get you out of here.”

He smiles with his eyes closed, standing before stumbling a bit, “Ohhhh okay!”

I get his arm over my shoulders as we start to walk slowly to his room. If I wasn’t here he would have ran into a wall. He leans on me, resting his head on mine. “Where are we going?”

I pull him up as he was almost falling to the ground, “We’re going to your room. Got to get to your bed safe and sound.”

I hear him laugh, pushing himself away from me to look me in the eyes, His face was flushed and his eyes hazed over from the alcohol. He smirks at me, leaning close to my ear. “Y/N, that’s a bit forward, don’t you think,” He asks in a whisper, his words also slurring together.

I blush, “Um… that isn’t what I meant!”

I hear him chuckle. “Are you sure it’s not?” He stumbles and I barely hold us up as we finally reach the door to the clock tower stairs.

“I’m not going to take advantage of you,” I says as we slowly climb the stairs. “I don’t want to do that while you’re drunk.”

“What about when I’m sober,” He murmurs in my ear before pulling away and smirking.

My face was burning red as I ignore him. “I wish someone would have warned me you were a horny drunk,” I mutter to myself.

We continue up the stairs, him mumbling in Chinese words I can’t understand. It took another 15 minutes, but we finally get into the room as I help him onto his bed that’s up the stairs. I push him onto the bed, taking a deep breath. He’s really fit, but he was still heavier than I expected. “Goodnight Yixing,” I say, turning.

“I’m sorry,” He says, a small hiccup following right after. “I didn’t mean to get upset at you earlier…”

I turn back, looking at him, “Yixing, it’s fine. You don’t owe me any answers if you don’t want to give them.”

“It’s just painful,” He says, looking up at the ceiling. His bloodshot eyes filling with tears. “I understand what it feels like to lose a mother, Y/N. I did all I could and I still couldn’t…” He closes his eyes. I sit next to him on his bed and watch as tears fall from his eyes.

“They had her,” He says, his voice trembling. “I know she died because they had taken her from China and brought her here. I refused to use my power. They did so many awful things to others, but I still refused. Minseok still has the scar from when I didn’t heal him one time in there.”

I lean forward, wiping away his tears, “You don’t have to tell me this Yixing. You’re drunk and not thinking straight.”

“I made the decision to tell you before I was drunk,” He says, looking at me. I don’t feel the warmth in my mind, knowing that was the truth. His breath smells of beer and soju, words still slurring as one of his hands takes mine. “I drank that much because then I’d have the courage to talk about it. To think about it.”

“Then I’ll listen,” I say, rubbing my thumb on his cheek, wiping away another tear.

“I refused, so they took her from China. My own father helped get her here. He didn’t know I was an Inhuman until I was six. He got a really bad cut on his arm, and I put my hand on him in worry and it just happened. Once he found out he was disgusted,” Yixing says bitterly, glaring at the ceiling. “He hated mother after that, knowing she had the Inhuman gene. Fucking hypocrite. It takes both parents to have it.”

I stay silent, rubbing his shoulder comfortingly, trying to make it easier for him to speak. My own eyes were filling with tears as I listen to him speak. I was afraid that if I spoke right now, I’d scare him away like I did earlier.

“They told me ‘If you won’t heal them, you’ll heal her’. Then they shot her in the chest. They kept me chained up just far enough away so that I could barely touch her. They didn’t want me to shield her with my body.” He clenches a fist, “And every time I heal her, they did it again. Again, again, again, again!” His fist hit the mattress every time he said again as he did everything he could not to start to sob.

Tears fell freely from my eyes. My mind only filled with worry for him.

“It went on for days. Every minute of every hour,” He yelled, “I kept healing her, and she’d kept getting shot. She’d scream every time. It’s one of the worse sounds I’ve ever heard.” He started to sob, sitting up with his head in his hands. “I often wondered if she hated me for trying so hard to keep her alive. The pain she must of felt each time… it would have been more merciful to have just let her die the first time.” His hands grip his hair as he shakes, “I was so cruel to keep her alive to suffer that. And in the end it did even fucking matter. I passed out due to exhaustion after healing her one last time, and when I woke up, they shot her again, only this time, I was chained away where I couldn’t reach her.”

I pull him to me, hugging him as he rests his head on my shoulder, wrapping his arms around me. I rub his back as he cried uncontrollably. My heart hurting for him as I cried silently, whispering to him sweet words and trying to take the pain away, knowing that it was impossible. He squeezed me tighter hugging me as if I was the last thing keeping him on earth.

Soon, his tears slowed and stopped as he looked up at me. His eyes redder from crying. “I’m sorry for making you cry,” He says, wiping my tears away.

“Don’t worry about that.” I take his face in my hands, “Yixing. I want to ask you something.” He simply nods, removing his hands from around me. I close my eyes and hope this wouldn’t upset him. “What… what was the last thing your mother said to you?”

He closes his eyes, trying to turn his head from me, but I kept his face where it was. “She said, in Chinese, ‘I love you, my little lamb. I always have and I always will.’”

“A mother’s love is unconditional,” I say, making him look at me. “She told you she loved you. Never doubt that. Why would she waste her last words on something that she didn’t truly feel with her whole heart?”

He looks at me, trying hard not to cry once again. He sits up completely straight, leaning forward. He pulls me towards him, his lips meeting my forehead. The skin there warm as I blush. My heartbeat going faster as he pulls away, looking deep into my eyes. “Thank you,” He whispers.

I hug him tightly again, rubbing his back. It wasn’t long until he’s asleep in my arms. I gently lay him down, pulling the blanket over him. I sit there a few moments more, smiling at the look of peace on his face. Soon, I get up, quietly going down the stairs as tears flowed down my eyes once more. The second I open the door that leads to the clock tower, I see Minseok and Baekhyun standing there, looking at me sadly.

“We know,” Baekhyun says quietly, “We know he told you.”

“He told us he would,” Minseok says sadly.

For the first time that night after hearing what those awful people put Yixing through, I pulled them both to me as I broke down sobbing. They both calm me much like I did with Yixing, and as they whisper sweet and kind things to me, I couldn’t help to wonder what they have been through as well.

An hour later of them talking to me, I finally made it back to my room.

“Are you sure you’re going to be ok,” Minseok asks, worry on his face.

I couldn’t bring myself to speak, so I nod. After a few more moments of them asking if I was fine, they left me with my thoughts. I flopped down on my bed over the blankets, pulling my knees to my chest. My thoughts filled with thoughts of Yixing as I finally start to drift to sleep as the sun started to rise. My rest plagued with nightmares as my mind creates what he confessed to me a few hours earlier.

[getters-blog-index]

Ka’rta Tor

Chapter 3

 In another time and place, a much more peaceful planet enjoyed a brief moment of respite between the forces of good and evil. Birds chirped and flowers were in bloom in the spring breeze. On the plains beyond the nearby city, a blue wind blazed across the land. It was the hero of this planet, a beacon of hope during its darkest hour. Sonic the Hedgehog ran with the breeze, feeling the wind on his face as he zoomed across the Kingdom of Acorn, a place where the free people of this world lived in harmony. It came under attack many times by the villainous robotic forces of a roboticist that goes by the name of Dr. Ivo Robotnik.

       Sonic came to a stop from his immense speed before allowing himself to fall backwards onto the grass, looking up at the blue sky and sparse white clouds. He could lay here forever, or at least until he got bored and started running again. For now, he was just enjoying the peace and quiet. It felt like a few hours before he heard the crunching of the grass nearby. The blue hedgehog turned his head to see the chipmunk that had showed up.      She certainly didn’t look regal, but she was the princess of the kingdom, Sally Acorn. She was tapping her foot, but her face held a smile. “Well, if it isn’t Lazy the Hedgehog.” She said teasingly to the resting hedgehog. He smiled and hopped onto his feet. “Hey, what about all those times I beat up robots for you? Don’t those count?”          “It doesn’t outweigh the number of times I could’ve used your help surveying the area around New Mobotropolis. After all the times we’ve been attacked, we have to make sure that there aren’t any surprises in store for us in the near future.” She was referring to the capital of the kingdom that her brother ruled. The city was the first line of defense against Robotnik alongside Sonic the Hedgehog. The people of the kingdom, mutated animals called mobians, were made up of a diverse group of creatures that came together under the rule of the Acorn monarchy, who led them into times of prosperity over the course of generations.            Sonic chuckled and nudged Sally’s shoulder. They’d all come a long way since they were younger, fighting what seemed to be a hopeless fight against Robotnik’s Empire. Who would have thought that a speed demon and a princess would’ve grown as close as they did, and that their little group would become celebrities and heroes in their own right for the world at large. Now, thanks to their actions, the world was rebuilding. Sure, the threats weren’t gone, but they were at a much better point in their lives now.           Sally seemed to get an idea of where Sonic’s train of thought had gone. “It’s pretty amazing, isn’t it? The work’s never done, but you can’t stop the Freedom Fighters that easily.” She assured Sonic, maybe more for herself. “Evil Scientists, Vicious Wizards, Ancient Masterminds, Crazy Mirror Alternates. It’s hard to believe that this has been our life. It sounds like it comes straight out of a TV show.”           “Well it wouldn’t be an adventure if it was mundane, Sal.” Sonic responded. They both nodded in agreement as they continued towards the city itself. The high wall gave way to a sprawling city with simple buildings towards the outside and grew more diverse and complex towards the center, where Castle Acorn stood proud and tall over the subjects, acting as the heart of New Mobotropolis.           “I need to talk to Elias about the places the Royal Guard has already checked out, and you can pick up where they left off.” Sally explained, heading to the castle by herself, leaving Sonic to his devices. He shrugged and went to his Uncle’s restaurant, where he could grab a snack while he waited. He wouldn’t have to wait for long as his friend, a two-tailed fox named Tails, found him in the establishment.            “Hi Sonic. How’s it going?” He asked his blue friend. Sonic scarfed down the remainder of his chili dog in order to answer. “It’s been chill. Not much going on around here. Sally wants me to check out some places around the country for signs of Eggman, but I’ll be done with that in a flash. You wanna race when I get back?” Sonic challenged. Tails couldn’t help the smile that grew on his face. “You bet! I’ll beat you this time, Sonic!”            Sonic ruffled the kid’s fur playfully. The two had become close brothers, going on adventures together all the time. There was not a way in the world you could possibly separate the two. They were a package deal, and they were among the best of the best.          Almost as if on cue, Tails’ communicator rang. It was the princess. She probably expected the two to be together. “Tails, if Sonic is there, tell him that there was something suspicious going on in the western sector. The Royal Guard said they saw some weird robots, but there were none on the sensors. Nicole is doing a scan for whatever might be out there, just in case its trying to cloak itself, but you’re the fastest thing alive. If anyone can find it and stop it, it’s you.”           Sonic couldn’t help but smile. He loved action, and chances like this were growing rarer and rarer. He hopped off of his stool, Tails following his lead. “I’m on it, Sally. I’ll meet you there! Just try to keep up!” He and his friend hurried back out to the outskirts of the city. He moved swiftly across the rolling fields and the trees. There wasn’t even a sign of footprints. They could’ve been buzzbombers, but they’re loud. They would’ve heard them if it was those badniks. Something was out of place here. He settled beneath a tree next to Tails and started tapping his foot as his eyes scanned around, waiting for Sally to arrive.        The chipmunk wouldn’t keep them waiting for too long, as she arrived with Amy, another of their friends and fellow Freedom Fighter in tow. They all seemed to be perplexed by the lack of any hostile presence. “It’s not like the Royal Guard to jump at shadows. If they saw something, it’s still nearby.” Sally mused. Amy took a peek at the console that Sally had, which also housed the AI Nicole. It seemed like the Ai was processing information from the surroundings.          Sonic huffed. “Look, there’s nothing here. I’ve checked. The guards must’ve been daydreaming or something.” He concluded. The three looked at him with a stern look. “....What?” Sonic responded to the gesture. Amy saw something of note. “Hey, Nicole? What was that spike you just showed on the screen.” The AI moved back to it and revealed a holographic form of a lynx. “Hmm, I saw it earlier but I dismissed it as an error in the reading. I can take a closer look at it though, if you think it’s not just something random.”         “That would help. Thank’s Amy. Maybe that’ll be our key to solving what’s going on here.” Sally spoke up. “Tails, what about you? Did you notice anything strange since you got here?” In response, he seemed to hum as he looked over his own console screen. While Sonic was running around, he’d been searching for traces of power sources. Anything from electrical discharge, diesel, or otherwise.        Then, both Tails and Nicole piped up. “Chaos Control.” They spoke at the same time. The lynx spoke first. “You were right. The outlier actually had a frequency that we have on record. It was Chaos Control, similar to what Shadow’s used. It caused a slight space-time blip. The guards probably saw a vision of badniks. Though the source of the phenomenon seems to elude my sensors.”         Tails continued. “It’s possible that it came from the future. It’s not as strong as the Time Stones, but Chaos Emeralds HAVE shown some amount of temporal flux capabilities. Maybe someone was trying to time travel.” He elaborated on the possibilities that surrounded the mysterious circumstances. The group of five looked to each other with concern.         “So, do you think there’s going to be an invasion anytime soon? From the future or just plain from Eggman?” Sonic asked.          “It’s entirely possible. Chaos Energy is unpredictable, and just with what we’ve heard and found here, it’s not exactly enough for us to plan for. The best we can do is keep an eye out for any more phenomenons.” Tails answered. Sally and Amy both nodded. They were about to return when a burst of light struck, giving the five a vision of a far off place; A Temple, where two factions were fighting. The vision disappeared as soon as it came, barely giving them any insight on what they saw.           Nicole was the first to say something. “That was another blip. It...It might be Chaos Control...but...I’m not so sure anymore.”         “You’re right. I’ve never seen Chaos Control do that. Usually it just teleports, transports, or freezes time. Unless Shadow’s done something like that, I have a hard time believing this was just plain Chaos Control.” Sonic said sourly. Things were getting more confusing by the second...