#five-rivers

[icos-x]

@five-rivers Choose your own adventure index

Part 1

Should Danny leave his parents to continue working or try to bribe them?

Part 2

Should Danny go to his friends as Phantom or Fenton?

Should he stay home?

Or should he try and bypass the DNA lock?

Part 3

Should Danny go to bed?

Should he proceed with equipment or without?

Part 4

Too many options here, go look for yourself! It's worth it!

Part 5

Should Danny tell the truth about how tired he is?

Part 6

Should Danny remove the tools from his grandfather's belt?

Part 7

Who should Danny go to?

Part 8

To be continued

[kawaiijohn]

Happy birthday! 🎂

Hope it was a good one!

it was! ty rivers ilu :D

[the-haiku-bot]

“Bet I could do a

pretty good imitation

with drones,” said Tucker.

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

“No fireworks? But you love fireworks. You said they're the only good part of the holiday.”

“Before I realized how bad they are for the environment and people with PTSD,” said Sam.

“Bet I could do a pretty good imitation with drones,” said Tucker.

“I am not financing your drone obsession.”

“I could do them,” said Danny, absently finishing the last of his ice cream.

“What?”

Danny put down his spoon and aimed two fingers at the sky over Fentonworks. Twin ectoblasts shot up before dissolving into gentle showers of sparks.

“I can't believe I forgot you could do that.”

[dead-girl-tells-stories]

DC x DP Idea

After several years, Danny and Damian meet each other again at a gala. But there was no heartfelt reunion since the moment they led eyes on each other it was all-out war. Damian takes out a sword from somewhere and Danny just starts throwing hands.

The fighting is intense, and blood is being spilled (what are those glowing green specks?). They are screaming at each other in Arabic as it's easier to slip back to your mother tongue when in rage right? This makes the fight more personal.

Most people don't understand what they're saying but those who do look at the boys then Bruce. Bruce then back to the boys again. Like B, we know you're stupid but you fucked this person twice.... did you NOT see the red flags the SECOND TIME!?!?

The fight ends with Damian on the ground with the sword grazing his neck. He looks up to Danyal with the fear of god in his eyes, knowing that with one swift movement, he'll be dead on the dance floor. But Danny's eyes were cold and tired, they were dead. No spark, no sense of life in those chilling blue depths.

Calmly, Danny spoke to Damian. His voice was crystal clear, cool like a mountain stream.

"Just because you jumped into the fire behind me doesn't mean you felt the pain I did.  Your hand was held above the flames while I was being burnt in the fucking fire."

Damian begins to cry because he knows that Danny is right. No matter what he went through, it would never compare to what happened to his big brother. Even more so, when he feels long lanky arms wrap around him, a cool hand rubbing his back soothingly, and whispers of sweet nothingness entering his ears.

He cries because no matter what he does he will never be like his big brother.

[hellenhighwater]

I think I accidentally toggled on the "summon woodlands creatures" feature and I can't find the setting to turn it back off

[sesamenom]

interesting how in the FA "beyond lay the wilderness of Dungortheb, where the sorcery of Sauron and the power of Melian came together, and horror and madness walked", then in the TA the Fangorn-Lorien-Mirkwood triangle of Weird Sorcery Forests exists between the domains of saruman, galadriel, necromancer-sauron, and radagast

[cdyssey]

the eldest river in "the impossible astronaut" is always so fucking distressing to me in hindsight. the way she knows what's going to happen at lake silencio, but she can't say anything to the people she loves most. she constantly has to lie, always has to play pretend. spoilers. the fate of the entire universe depends on it.

and the doctor, her doctor, doesn't trust her because of it.

because of all the lies. because of what she has to do to necessarily protect them both.

how she has to revisit her ugly childhood and fractured youth and watch it from afar, incapable of helping that scared little girl in a spacesuit, the young woman submerged in the water.

and she watches her husband and parents, too—watches them watching her own making—and they don't even know it.

There's this exchange between her and her mother that becomes all the more harrowing when you realizing that she's talking about herself.

River: I know what you're thinking. Amy: No, you don't. River: You're thinking, "If we can find the spaceman in 1969 and neutralize it, then it won't be around in 2011 to kill the Doctor." Amy: Okay, lucky guess. River: It's only because I was thinking it, too.

and then there's the moment where she catches a glimpse of the Silence in the tunnels and all that pain and trauma comes rushing back to her in an sickening instant, and even when they disappear from her memory, that horror still lingers in her body, but she pretends to keep it together anyway for other people's sake anyway.

in those dark tunnels, she only allows herself five minutes to fall apart away from prying eyes.

and she would have gotten away with it, too, had her father not shown up. he's concerned—even though he doesn't know her very well yet—and he's there, and he's asking all the right questions.

Is she okay? what did she mean when said there's a worse day coming for her?

And River opens up to him in a way that we've rarely seen her do.

River: The trouble is, it's all back-to-front. My past is his future. We're traveling in opposite directions. Every time we meet, I know him more, he knows me less. I live for the days when I see him, but I know that every time I do, he'll be one step further away. And the day is coming when I'll look into that man's eyes, my Doctor, and he won't have the faintest idea who I am. And I think it's going to kill me. 

fucking gutting.

[cringecompanionapologist]

Seriously, the Doctor just has a Thing for people who threaten/try to kill them:

The Master. No elaboration needed.

Jamie held the Doctor at knifepoint when they first met.

Turlough was sent to kill the Doctor.

I haven't read the EDAs but apparently Fitz goes on this list.

River Song was sent to kill the Doctor.

Rogue nearly executed the Doctor after mistaking him for someone else.

Conclusion: All the best Doctor ships have a threat of violence at the beginning.

[magicwhiskers29]

“You don’t always have to be the Hero!”

“It doesn’t always need to be you!”

As I understand, this line has been thrown around a bit because, well, it’s just a really good line, for any situation it can fit for. It’s impactful, the voice work on the original is really good, and it summarises a lot of LMK season 5’s core themes really well! Heck, it probably summarises a lot of themes really well, but I think there’s something interesting to be found in the fact that it’s Macaque saying it, originally.

Let’s roll back a second to Shadow Play, s2e7, because I think that can really recontextualise it.

“The Hero and the Warrior were like the sun and moon, their light a protective glow, shining upon the world.”

“Together, there was nothing that could stop the two of them, in either the Celestial Realms, or on Earth.”

“As time went on, the Hero gained power beyond comprehension.”

“As his light grew, so too did his shadow, and soon, the Warrior was cast in that shadow.”

“In the darkness, the Warrior was forgotten by the Hero.”

…okay, so I’m pretty sure a good half of the fanbase already has this monologue memorised, but I digress. Because the loaded meaning behind the words “Hero” and “Warrior” are never forgotten by the show. If we cut ahead to Embrace Your Destiny, the s3 special, we get a direct reference to these titles in a practical setting.

“I’m not a Hero, bud.”

“Then be a Warrior!”

This is the moment which really kickstarts Macaque’s turn to start working with the Monkie Kids. He doesn’t work against them again, after this point! (As of season 5) MK tells him that to do good things, and save the world, he doesn’t have to be the Hero in limelight – he can be the Warrior, doing good from the shadows. And for as much as Macaque does take quite a prominent role in the fight after this, literally taking on Wukong 1v1, it’s still MK who ends up with the glory, in the end.

Macaque needed to hear this because he does these antagonistic things out of self-preservation, yes, but also out of a spite which he knows isn’t especially heroic. And because he doesn’t want to be the guy who leaves stuff behind. But after this, he doesn’t act as an antagonist again, and he does stuff which he really doesn’t want to do, like confronting his past with Wukong in the scroll, in the season 4 special! What MK says sticks with him.

And to get it out of the way, not every time the word “Hero” is used in the show is necessarily a reference to the Hero and Warrior. For instance, when Mei yells at a possessed Wukong and LBD in the season 3 special, she says “Because that’s the hard part of being a hero!”, but I don’t think she’s talking about the implications of limelight, or Wukong and Macaque’s story. I mean, she never even saw the play in Shadow Play, so she likely doesn’t even know the deeper meaning behind that word...

A lot of these other moments can carry interesting implications when examined through that lens (E.G. how Mei fits into the Hero-Warrior dynamic, or the nature of LBD’s “Save your hero speech, child” from the end of season 3) but I think those would better be left for a different analysis.

These two lines from season 5, at the beginning of this post, have a direct connection to the Hero-Warrior stuff though, because they're from the character who invented that metaphor, to the only other character who understands it. It’s like a coded message, I suppose.

Throughout a lot of Macaque’s screen time, especially in the earlier seasons, he preaches about self-preservation, specifically under the advice of “look out for number one”. He believes that people like him, and later MK, need to be the ones to look out for themselves, because otherwise, no one will. This is expanded upon to seem a little more heroic and noble in later seasons, to be similar to a sentiment that Wukong expresses about choosing your own destiny, and forging your own path. The core of the advice is still centred on trusting yourself, and prioritising your own beliefs, but it’s no longer about something that could be perceived as selfish, and more a tool to use for good.

Macaque is shown to want MK to look out for himself less selflessly. His advice in season 4 is this choosing your own destiny stuff, but it also mirrors the end of season 5 really well. He tells MK that the two choices of fighting Azure, or not fighting Azure don’t have to be the only choices. If MK goes to fight Azure as is, he will lose, and there is a good chance that he will die. Like, obviously Macaque doesn’t want the whole universe that he lives in to be destroyed, but he’s also not yet fighting for it, at this point. He does want MK to do what is most likely to save everyone, but the reason he pulled MK aside was to appeal to him to take care of himself.

Season 5 already mirrors and is a true continuation of season 4 in a lot of ways, with the main threat once again being the sky cracks that symbolise the end of the world due to the death of the Jade Emperor, but it’s thematically that we can really see that. Macaque even literally brings up that MK is misconstruing his advice from the previous season in the line right before the ones I’m supposed (haha, we're getting there) to be analysing.

Once again, MK has two choices, functionally: save the world at the cost of himself, or do nothing. Once again, Macaque is advocating for MK to make a third choice, one where the world can be saved without MK likely dying in the process, but MK had taken the whole “choose your own destiny thing” to be choosing the choice that only he can. Macaque’s biggest argument to this are these two lines. That MK doesn’t need to be the Hero, this time, or any time.

The Hero exists a public figure that people can rely on. He represents absolute power, as well as recklessness. In Macaque’s story, the Hero gains power, and then leaves his friend behind, so he’s strong, but doesn’t stop to think about consequences. Now, obviously Macaque is very biased in his story, because we know Wukong very clearly does still care about Macaque, but to what the story represents between MK and Macaque, that’s not necessarily important.

Macaque is just telling MK that he doesn’t need to be someone who’s the public picture of heroism. He has all of this power, but it’s his choice how to use it. Sometimes, it’s okay to take a backseat and be a Warrior, someone who can look out for themself, and who doesn’t always have to do everything themself. Once, the Hero and the Warrior were ultimate power together. The fact that the Hero became that by himself suggests that he still does the job he once did – he just doesn’t need to have anyone help him with it.

The Hero is supposed to be presented as a selfish figure, but that can also flip around to be someone who’s selfless, so selfless that they try to carry the weight of a good mission on their shoulders alone. The Hero’s sin was abandoning the Warrior, not unspeakable evil or something. And… Isn’t that sort of what MK is doing here? He’s trying to an act so selfless that it really could only be called heroic, but to the friends he’s leaving behind to make a sacrifice that’s really a not-so-subtly-disguised suicide allegory, it’s selfish. He abandons them all to fulfil his supposed destiny, but they don’t need him to sacrifice himself – they want to find another way with him.

If you want to look at it that way, MK is playing out the story again. Seems fitting, when later in the same episode, Wukong, the original Hero, tries to take his place and make the same sacrifice.

Macaque’s statement to MK is so loaded because of his history as the original Warrior, and what being a hero really means to him, and across the show with MK’s actions as a whole. He doesn’t need to always be the Hero – sometimes it’s okay to just be a Warrior. And it doesn’t always need to be him – just like the original Hero, there are people who would want to help him, if he just doesn’t leave them behind.

[ghost-bison]

part 4 here

[thinkdoctorriver]

a couple that gasps together stays together

[stalkedbytrains]

We call with the seven for the magic circle to...

The autumn night was very cold and very blustery. It was a perfect autumn day if it wasn't so damn frigid.

June had been dreading the text that was coming all day. She knew it was. She knew what day it was. It seemed like everything in the world had gone out of it's way to remind her that today was October 6th.

Finally the dreaded text came.

"Olivia finally found a sitter. We're meeting at 8pm tonight."

The last text from Lauren was from exactly one year ago, it was almost the same thing. And again from the year before and the year before that.

June never replied.

Now well into her 30's June friends often sent texts that were less demanding or certain. More along the lines of 'hey we're thinking of maybe hitting up a happy hour sometime next week? when can you make it?!"

But this meeting. Tonight was mandatory. It was as required as any ritual.

Everyone must attend.

She wished they could let the dead ghosts rest and banish them to leave her in peace.

But she'd felt the creeping cold, the claws at her back all day. She knew what day it was before she even woke up in the morning after fitful sleep and terrible nightmares.

No matter how scalding the shower was, how busy and demanding the job was, she would not be warm until the 7th.

June couldn't forget.

It was October 6th.

That night, after the sun had set, June set out to meet with her five other friends.

Well, to be perfectly frank, to call them friends now was nothing short of a misnomer. They were acquaintances at best. They had been friends, once. But no longer.

Not for years.

But they still had to meet every year on the same day. Every year for the last seventeen years.

June walked into the darkness of the forest preserve.

The girls all used to wander deep into the woods, as far as they dared away from the civilization and the safety of the parking lot.

Not anymore.

They were all older and more careful and lazier.

It was barely thirty feet into the woods, the lights of the parking lot could still be easily seen.

Hell, this year they had it set up on a picnic bench.

June was thankful, she didn't want to sit on the ground, her knees were already sore from this long, cold day.

This year was colder than all the others. It seemed that every year for the last seventeen years October 6th was setting records for the coldest day on record.

June, as always, was the last of the girls to arrive.

She took the open seat.

There were a smatterings of quiet greetings.

No one wanted to be here. They wanted this over and done with so they could leave and be on their way to somewhere else, back to their lives.

Lauren pulled out the chalk from her large purse.

"Everyone ready?" she asked as a courtesy. She didn't wait for a response and was already drawing the magic circle.

No one answered. It was the sixteenth time they've gathered to do this, they knew the ritual very well.

As Lauren sketched the circle and the patterns and the runes, each woman took out their candles. Each had prepared their candles according to the old rules and placed them at the indicated portion of the circle, with one space absent at the head of the table.

Three women on each side of the table. Six candles.

One empty space.

"Alright, done," Lauren said without need.

There was a collective intake of breath as the women prepared themselves.

Lauren as always started the ritual. She let her candle with the tiny extension of what small reservoir of magic she had left.

"With this magic and this meeting there is one for the light."

June instantly felt the temperature drop. She felt the shadows grow.

Olivia went next and let her candle with a snap of magic, causing the light to flare and burn brilliant for just a split moment before settling into a soft, cold, light. "With this candle and these gathered there are two for the sight."

The darkness grew by another large measure. Another snap of cold and wind rustled the dying leaves on the trees.

June's heart was in her throat. Something felt different this time.

But she couldn't stop the ritual. Better to get it over and done with as fast as possible.

She snapped her finger and lit her candle. Her candle didn't burn nearly as bright, nor flare as big.

"With this circle and this pattern there are three for the Night."

She had to choke out the last word. It felt like she was trying to push out a word as a physical object from where it lodged inside her throat. It hurt to physically say.

Sweat beaded her forehead as the ritual continued despite the fact that she could no longer see the lights from the parking lot. They should have been so close, but they were miles away now, distant pinpricks in the dark forest.

Her breath misted in front of her as the temperature dropped again.

She was shaking, both from the cold and because of the other thing.

Jessica was next. She lit her candle, but she grimaced as she did so, almost like the act physically hurt her.

"We call with four for the silver," she said as she dropped a small silver coin into the middle of the magic pattern Lauren had drawn.

The coin smashed into the table with a loud thud. It didn't bounce or move. It was like it was magnetically pulled right to the center.

The area was totally dark now. The only light came from the four lit candles. June could see the breath of the other women. All coming out in shallow clouds, all at the same time.

She swore she saw something moving in the pitch black forest behind the girls on the other side of the table.

She couldn't move. She couldn't say anything.

Too quickly, without stopping or realizing what was happening, Fiona went next. She lit her candle and it barely burned.

Her hands were shaking with the cold.

She dropped a gold coin that slammed into the table, denting it as she said, "And five for the gold."

June swore she heard another voice speaking in tandem with Fiona. Somewhere at the head of the table where... no...

She tried to move, to do something, to call out, to stop Rachel from saying the next part.

But the candle was already lit. This time blazing high and bright like a railroad flare.

June swore she saw a dark figure standing behind Rachel.

Her mouth was frozen shut, from fear, from the cold, from the other thing in the back staring at her over Rachel's shoulder.

Two voices this time. "We call with the six for the secrets, never to be told."

For the last sixteen rituals, this is where it would have ended. This is where it should have ended. But this wasn't like the last sixteen. This was like the first one.

This one was the real magic. The Deep Magic. The Old things that they never should have meddled with.

The darkness should have snapped away. The candles should have gone out. The parking lot should have beckoned sweetly. Home and safety.

When the ritual was not completed because their seventh had been missing these last seventeen years, it should have ended.

Then the voice spoke from the entity that was hiding in the shadows.

"We call with the seven for this magic circle to," it said with a slow, deliberate tone. There was a harshness there, a rawness, like a voice after a concert of delightful yelling, but worse. "Hold," the voice finally finished.

The ritual was close to being completed. For the first time in years.

"NO!" June yelled, but she was too late. She couldn't move fast enough. She couldn't stop the last candle from being lit.

What looked like the edge of a knife reflected the soft candle light as the seventh candle materialized and was lit with a cold blue flame.

The paralysis that took over all six women finally broke as the darkness retreated slightly.

Standing at the head of the table, dressed in something that June could only think of as a battle nun outfit (some kind of form fitting black habit, pieces of steel or iron armor clinging to arms and chest and head) was a worn, scarred, and tired looking, much older Natalie.

"Sisters," she said in her worn voice, with a smile that had no warmth, "so good to see you again. Thank you for joining me."

Olivia was the first to recover. "Natalie! You're alive!"

She moved to get up and presumably hug their long lost friend, but Natalie moved a single finger and Olivia was slammed back into her seat with an overwhelming force of Natalie's magic.

"This is not a happy reunion for you," Natalie said as she reached behind her to produce some object from the darkness.

She dropped a black mass of something on the table in the middle of the circle, on top of the silver and gold.

After a moment, the candle light illuminated a grotesque form, the severed head of some kind of horrible amalgamation of goat, man, lizard, and bird.

"One of you sold me to this demon, the Lord of the Frozen Wastes, Farimelligion. Unfortunately for you, I did not die. I fought off my captors for these long years. My powers grew and grew until I was able to slay him and free myself from your spell. I intend to find out, exactly, betrayed me. And I will collect my pound of flesh."

To illustrate her point, she dropped the sword she was carrying, a cracked and bitter looking silver blade covered in frost and radiating cold.

"I regret to tell you that forgiveness was something that was taken from me out there. There is no repenting. But I will spare anyone who turns on their sister like they turned on me."

i have a kofi

[kawaiijohn]

If you watched Secret Saturdays, I think you'd like Fisk and Beeman.

Oh swag idk who they are but you know me pretty well so I will take ur word for it!

[catastrophic-crow]

haha hey—quick question...

(spoilers for @five-rivers' incredible BNHA fic Long Night in the Valley on ao3)

what is this? what relationship is this???

is was? (do vestiges count?) is hibiki AfO's child?

(i just double-checked and it sure seems like it in the fic. how many kids has he had?? clearly he's not that close to all of them...)

that's wild, and i can't wait to learn more about the contest of that. (wait. izuku makes the second time AfO's kid has had OfA?? dear gods.)

also—shouldn't there be a link one of these places?

or did [Shigaraki Hibiki / Shimura Souma / Four / the Fourth OfA User] marry into (or at least reproduce with) someone from an existing family named Shimura, and just took that name while a different member of that family line had a descendant who later married into the "multiple generations" descended from [Three / the Third OfA User / Harmony Trey(?) / "Miura" / Thunderclap]? that [Shimira Nana / Seven / the Seventh OfA User / Skyrunner] came from? (dear gods they really all do have a bunch of names you weren't hanging a lantern for nothing when izuku said that)

that's—okay; let me rephrase that.

did [Four] create the name Shimura? or marry into it?

was Shimura [Seven]'s original family name, or did she marry into it?

did [Seven] get the Shimura name from [Four]? either by being a direct descendant or having married a direct descendant?

if not, did [Four]'s spouse have a relative of the same family name, whose descendant passed it along to [Seven] (again, either through marriage or having been born into it)?

or were [Four] and [Seven] just. separate Shimuras? because to be quite honest it would be hilarious if in this family wreath of a genealogy chart, there were two people who came by the same last name and didn't share an additional relation for it.

also! hey! Doctor Garaki is supposed to be on here somewhere! oh, nevermind—there he is. garaki's parent was the original user of stockpile? stockpile came from AfO and [One / first One for All user / Shigaraki Kazuki]'s nephew?? what, did it mutate to stockpile years for Garaki Kyūdai's longevity quirk or something?

just. dear gods. i am very impressed by this family tree (now that I've spent a while wrapping my head around it) but as many questions as it answers, it just raises more 😅

My current, noodle-like family tree for LNitV.

How much of this will be relevant? I don't know. But the parts that are...

>:)

[rinmemesuoka]

[Video Description: the octopath traveler party going down three flights of stairs in rowboats in the city of Ku. End Description.]

Having a normal one in Ku.

[mariathechosen1]

Genuinely impressed by how they manage to do this every single time they interact:

Bonus: