#hemlock-haven

[hugsqueeze]

Hi hi Jesse!! I hope all is well and that your day is going amazingly 🥰✨️ I was just wondering-- who is the blue bunny critter in your OC meme? Their design is so so cute and I'd love to know more about them if you have any spare facts to share!! 💕

EEEK HIIIII MEG!!!!!!! :DDDD <33333 💕💕💕💕💗💖💖 HELLO HELLO!!!! THANK U SO SO MUCH FOR ASKING, I always love talking about my OCs!!!!! :9 And I'm super happy that he caught your eye!!!! 💕💕‼️‼️‼️ I'd be more than happy to give you more info about him.....

THE BLUE BUNNY CRITTER is BLINKER!!!!! My wonderful Blinker...... He is actually just a regular guy in a BUNNY COSTUME funnily enough HAHA!!! His actual name is Pascal Howell! And Blinker is the name of the character he plays, which is strangely ironic in an intentionally cruel way 🙁 Because he can't see. Not just that he can't see out of his costume but he literally has no eyes. I FEEL BAD BECAUSE YOU SAID HE HAS A CUTE DESIGN BUT . His circumstances are 😭😭😭 contrastingly horrific ACK!!!

He's a performer at an extremely unethical circus/stunt show in which the performers are being purposely mistreated for """comedic""" purposes (though the audience doesn't know this). Blinker (as a character) is advertised as perpetually dizzy, clumsy, and endearingly confused. He is always bumping into things. But the real reason why Blinker is so poorly coordinated is because he HAS NO EYEBALLS. His EYEBALLS were forcibly removed and he isn't used to walking around without sight, so naturally he is very clumsy. ☹️☹️☹️☹️ Eventually, he gets used to navigating without sight, though! And this is how he wins... It just takes him a little while to figure out...

He is often very sullen/melancholy and panicky because of his maltreatment (which is a somewhat jarring contrast from the appearance of his perpetually grinning mask/costume).☹️ He tries to be unobtrusive, as to not attract attention to himself. But he's really quite a sweet guy with good intentions. He isn't an antagonist/slasher type character... I guess he's like a protagonist of horrible circumstances more than anything, if that makes sense!!!!!

AND I HOPE IT'S OKAY IF I MENTION ANOTHER CHARACTER FROM THIS SAME STORY: PRETTY KITTY!!!!! Who is a fellow performer with Blinker, though I haven't figured out their deal yet!!! The story is rather OLD and probably worth a little revision, but they're basically people in mascot costumes!!!!! ^_^ EEK SORRY FOR ALL THE WORDINESS AS USUAL!! I hope this answers your question!!!!!!! 💖💖💕💕💓💓💕💘💘💗💗💗💗 THANK YOU SO SO SUPER MUCH AGAIN FOR THIS ASK, I had a LOT of fun talking about them so thank you again for the opportunity!!!! <333333 AND I HOPE YOU'RE HAVING AN ABSOLUTELY AMAZING DAY MEGGG!!!! This ask genuinely made my day heehee T_T <333333 !!!!!!!!

[hoppity-scotch]

I know he's the biggest walking red flag known to man, but I can't help but find him adorably charming 🥰

Hope you don't mind that I doodled Connor interacting with my self-insert character! I just think he's neat ☺️💖

(Sorry if the photo quality of the images are distorted slightly; my phone has a tendency to destroy the clarity of any pictures transfered from my tablet 😭)

My visible reaction seeing this! AHHKKSAKDKHKJAKD- Hemlock I love you art so much 💖💖💖You have no idea, this literally made my day 🥰 I friggin love your OC! She is so pretty, I adore her!!! Also the kiss is absolutely spot on, Connor my guy would have no idea what he is doing 💖 The quality is spectacular, I want to devour your art so bad-

Thank you so much for your art, means the world to me 😍😍😍

[darling-to-death]

Down to clown at the disco. :3c

Art I did of my OC (Comedi-Anne) hanging out and partying with my friend @hemlock-haven 's ocs! (Ditzy the Clown and Mimi the Mime.) I don't entirely like how the lighting turned out, but it's something new for me, so I'll fiddle with it more and get better later. For now, this is the extent of my abilities. Please enjoy. UwU

[vivalasthedas]

there are these streamers i really like, but we clearly have such different taste in our farm sim style games cause everytime they talk about stardew i always end up laughing at how utter ass their opinions are

yet im watching them play fields of mistria and im just... really not interested in this game, and they're fucking loving it.

[its-opheliasgarden]

hemlock's books and antiques | sims 4 build (wip)

step into hemlock's, a haven for the bizarre and the mystical located on umbra boulevard. this isn’t just a shop—it’s a gateway to the strange and the supernatural. shelves overflow with forgotten relics, cryptic tomes, and artifacts—each holding secrets—or perhaps a curse. the eccentric owner insists that those who seek the truth may find it here, but beware—some mysteries are better left unsolved.

thanks for the love so far on this build. see reference picture below for which building is hemlock's. i finished downstairs but i'm not sure what to do with the other two floors. i'm thinking of doing an apartment for the shop owner (esp. if people want to play residential rental (beware)) and add either basement or attic with more hidden treasures/relics? still tbt...but hoping i can share this over the weekend or at least before halloween.

-d.

[yeyinde]

WILLOW TREE MARCH

John Price x Reader | Fae!AU

"They'll give you gifts," your gran says, shaking her head. "Things from their realm. Little trinkets and gems—" geodes, sapphires and diamonds, raw gold and coral; "—and you must never accept them," a whittled deer made of sequoia under your pillow; crow bones buried in the garden."Because if you do, if you do, they'll never let you go."  "Why?" You asked, blinking at her.  "Because it's a courting ritual, and to accept means… well," her mouth twists in wry disdain. "Just don't." 

—WARNINGS: 18+ | SMUT fae shenanigans, mythological nonsense; unsafe sex, smut in random places, slight exhibition kink if you squint; Dom-ish Price, soft Price, pining Price; fae trickery (dubious consent on account of the trickery but not really); unreliable narrator; ahhhhhh, body horror (??????????) —TAGS: Fluff, AU, mythology —WORD COUNT: 8,5k —Based on this ask

There's a thick forest at the edge of your town. It curves along the coastline, breaching the yawning maw of the inlet—the last safe haven before the open ocean—and can be found almost nowhere else in the entire world. A unique ecosystem comprising vaguely familiar flora and fauna. Brown and Black bears. Wolves. Sitka-black-tailed deer. Ravens. The waters that crest through the forest are full of salmon, steelhead, and river otters. On the coast of the inlet, you can find whales, sea lions, seals, orcas, and porpoises swimming offshore. 

It's protected, in large part, by its sheer vastitude. Spanning a massive chunk of your home, it stretches far north with curling fingers cutting through the granite of the crumbling coast, and as deep south as its knobby knees can reach. 

From above, it looks like a child curled on its side, knees tucked to its chest. It's this pose alone that makes others revere it as some sacred being, slumbering mindlessly until the day it cracks open its eyes, and awakens to the new world. A child god made of conifers, red cedar, spruce, fir, pine, birch, and hemlock. Mossy caves of granite and limestone. Thick colonies of moss, liverworts, plume moss, and common haircap. 

The forest is linked to your town only by a small strip of land that juts out from a raging ravine with currents too dangerous, too deadly, to try and traverse. An archipelago all on its own, untouched by greedy, human, hands because of its placement. 

It's insulated by the vast ocean on its front, and a series of insidious looking mountains ready to swallow wandering mountaineers whole if they get too close to the sleeping child. Protected and safe by anyone who might try to harm it. 

You used to dream about the forest. A nightmare dredged up about whispers and calls. Lured close to the edge of the river where a man would hand you his heart—sap-stained, and charred; a brittle piece of Bristlecone pine that felt fragile and worn—and told you to come back for him. To wait for him. 

You'd wake in a cold sweat each time, heart pounding so fast that it almost felt like you were dying.

(Maybe you were. Maybe you did.)

You don't know if you believe the stories told about people wandering into the gaping chasm of the forest and never coming out. It's not uncommon for people to get lost, after all. But it feels distinct and archaic. Old. Something about the way the wind howls sounds different from the other woodlands scattered around your home. 

It sounds like a beckoning call. A mother calling their child home for dinner. Come to me, the Chinook bellows. Come home now, dear. 

You never venture too close. You know all too well what happens to children who do.

His name is—was now, you suppose—Kyle, but no one called him that. To everyone in town, he was simply known as Gaz. 

Newcomers to the isolated archipelago are a rarity—so much so that news of the new family's arrival sent waves through the community, making Gaz an instant star overnight, all without him even setting foot on the shores. 

None of that mattered, though. He fit in with an ease that seems almost preternatural when you think about it, as if he was meant to be there. And maybe he was. Maybe the soft rolling valleys were destined to be his home where flowers bloomed in the spring, and Arctic tern trilled from the branches. 

Gaz was unique, different. 

He picked dandelions with the same intensity that picked fights with the bullies in the neighbouring town, the ones who tried to pick on the smaller kids in the community. 

With his fists always covered in dandelion oil and bruises, face caught between a grimace and a grin, like he was never sure if he wanted to spit at their feet or tell a joke, he stood against the onslaught with an anger that seemed to crackle in the air like fireworks. Ready for battle. Thirsty for blood. 

His anger never waned even when he turned back to the group, eyes cresting in satisfaction, and body trembling with adrenaline, and you could scent the rage in his smile, hear it in the soft words he muttered to the kids, telling them everything would be alright. 

Gaz was everyone's friend. The person you told your deepest secrets to, the one you planned adventures with. He was a rock—always armed with snappy jokes to make you smile, and advice when you needed it. 

He was everyone's friend—yours especially—but you can't remember if anyone was his best friend. He was polite. Distant. 

It started in the summer. His hands were always cold, and he kept them shoved deep in his pockets, clenched tight around the latchkey his parents gave him. 

He started to seem almost liquid then. Temporal. You'd reach for him, brushing your hands against his arms or shoulders just to assure yourself that he was really there.

You noticed that his eyes would list sideways, head tilted, slanting toward the forest. It looked to you as if he was listening to something. To some unheard noise or call that only he could hear. 

When you asked about it, he'd always blink, surprised, as if you'd woken him up from a dream quite suddenly. Then, he'd smile, and shake his head. 

"Don't worry about it," he'd say, shrugging. "Just the wind."

He'd bend down and pick a dandelion for you, holding it out between pudgy fingers with a grin that seemed to mimic the cresting moon. 

"For you."

He picked them for three springs before he, too, became another victim of the endless forest. Another empty tomb in the overcrowded graveyard.

Missing, they said, but not forgotten. 

You think about him often. 

(Even more so when you, too, begin to hear your name echoing through the forest.)

Beware the woods, your grandma says. Especially when it calls your name. 

(You never understood why something that sounds so comforting, so sweet, could ever be dangerous. It sounds like an old friend calling you over to play. 

"Never go," she snaps, her hands lashing out to grip your arms tight. You feel her knobby fingers digging into your bones. "Never listen, and stay away—"

"You're hurting me, gran—"

Her rheumy eyes burn into yours. "Stay away—!"

(You wisely never speak about the whispers in your head, keeping them to yourself. A secret just for you.)

You leave town when you're old enough, when the hisses in your head grow too loud to ignore, and it feels as though they're scratching at your skull. 

(Clawing at the walls.)

"Crazy weather, eh?" The first mate mutters nervously, eyes tilted upward as the sky darkens into an angry grey. "Came outta nowhere." 

You leave, and you don't look back. 

(But oh, how the forest screams.)

She calls you back several years later with a phone call. Your gran has passed. 

You think you should mourn, but it's been so long since you thought of home, that you don't remember what she looks like anymore. The sound of her voice is a whisper in your head—the cadence gone, the tone flat. 

But you don't cry, and you don't grieve—she's been dead for a long time now, after all. Ever since your mum went missing all those years ago, she's always seemed more of a ghost than a person. Living as if her body hadn't realised her heart was long dead. 

You go back only because you think your mum would have wanted you to. 

(And pretend it isn't because the silence in your head is suffocating. Without the whispers, it feels as if you're missing something. A part of yourself forever lost in the forest.

You wonder if anyone has found it by now.)

Nothing has changed since you turned your back on the town that raised you, the forest that stole from you. 

It's the same buildings. The same market. The same roads. The same houses. 

The people, too, seem largely unchanged by the years that have passed. 

The friends from your childhood who stayed meet you at the graveyard, eyes filled with sympathy as they ask how you're doing. 

She'll be missed, they lie sweetly to you. Everyone loved her. 

She was a hermit, you want to scream. A woman driven mad by ghosts and fairytales and terror. 

You nod, instead, and let them lead you around the town on a grand tour as if anything about this beautiful, haunting place had changed since you ran away. 

It gets easier to force a smile when they ask if you're okay. 

"Fine," you murmur and wonder if your voice even carries over the whispers. "Just—yeah. Fine."

North of the town is where the river separating the lonely forest carves a path, not at all dissimilar to an idyllic trough, through bedrock and sand, and flows into the sea. 

The estuary is dangerous in high tide when the rapid ascent of water on the sandy shores hides the rip current that is known to form when the two bodies of water meet. 

It's a dangerous place to get caught in. 

This beach was impressed upon you as deadly from a young age, almost in equal—if not greater—measure than the rapacious forest across the river. You know the dangers of standing on the slippery bedrock. 

But as the sun glows a burnt orange in the distance, and the endless ocean before you darkens into an almost unfathomable black, you can't help but find the view from the cliff's edge to be the most mesmerising thing you've ever seen. 

It looks like a painting. A brush stroke of tigers eye in the centre of the cresting sun that gradually fades out into xanthous, and rings of hazy peach; the light of diminishing star smears coruscating rings of persimmons into the indigo water. The gradual fade into gradients as the waves lap closer to the shore is reminiscent of liquid sapphire and smelting amethyst. 

The picturesque view is more befitting of a pastel postcard, an ethereal pastiche of the Ninth Wave—a moment of life imitating art, or—perhaps—the same view Ivan Aivazovsky stumbled upon when he set out to render the haunting beauty of the ocean in oil. 

The cresting waves arch into curled petals of white before setting upon the sloping beach with frenzy. It's the roar of those hungry waves that seem to, if only for a moment, drown out everything in your head. 

There are no whispers. No songs. No screams. Vengeful hissing can't climb to a higher decibel than the frothing waters slamming against jagged bedrock. 

All is quiet—except the sea. 

You lean into it. The closer you get to that precipice, the quieter everything in your head goes. Sounded sucked into the vacuum of the ocean. The endless song of the sea. 

Another step. Another. 

For a moment, you're free. 

The forest doesn't scream for you. Your grandmother doesn't dig her teeth into your gyri, hands clawing at the space behind your eyes. You don't think of her, or your mother, or Gaz, or anyone else unfortunate enough to get consumed by this damnable place where fairy tales split the seams apart, and merge with reality. 

It's peaceful. 

You take another step—

A hand curls over your shoulder, tugging you back. 

Anger pools, thick and acidic, on your tongue, but the flash of your ire, your vexation, is dashed by the sound the waves make when it slams into the spot you were just standing. 

It slashes across the concrete as the stranger pulls you into his broad chest, heat nearly liquifying your spine. 

He sucks in a breath. You feel his chest expand with it. When he breathes out, you taste gunpowder on your tongue. 

"Gotta be more careful n'that, love." 

You've had near-misses before. Flirted with the reaper. Ripped yourself from the jowls of death himself. 

This isn't anything new.

And yet—

Your eyes drag up, meeting flat black boring down at you. His hood is pulled over his forehead, casting shadows down to his jaw. 

"You—"

Your teeth sink into your tongue. Emotions lash through you like the flick of a bullwhip, shredding your skin until it's raw and oozing. The tail pulls away whenever you try to wrap your fingers around one of them—relief: you're not dead; embarrassment: how could you be so stupid; shame: saved by a stranger; and—

Visceral terror. Panic. 

It bludgeons its fist down your throat, barbed knuckles clawing at the soft tissue of your esophagus until you taste blood on your tongue. 

Panic tastes of ozone and leaks, thick and warm like molasse, down your throat. 

"Hey," he murmurs, and the sound of his voice, his low timbre, is porous, calcined. The rough scratch scours through the haze of fear threading through your sternum. "C'mon on, now. Gotta breathe, yeah?" 

It's his hands on your shoulder—hotter than grenade fire—and the thick scent of musk, of stale smoke and kerosene sweat, that break through the gossamer of your acrid panic. He spins you around to face him, eyes fixed on your face. 

"That's it," he says, soft, soothing. "Keep breathin'. You ain't dead yet." 

You come to yourself in pieces. The world bleeds with startling clarity around the blurred edges. Home, you think. Maybe.

Once upon a time. 

You blink. Blink again. 

The hand still on you—heavier, you find, than an anvil—lifts, his thumb brushing over the curve of your jaw, swiping over the sweat-stained skin.

You can't see his eyes through the shadows cast over his face. A stranger. You've never seen him before. 

They didn't say anyone new moved to town. 

"Who are you—?"

"You don't know?" 

And then his hand is gone, taking all the heat in your body with him. 

It lifts to his vest, thick fingers, gloved in yellow, curling over the butt of his cigar. 

You must make a face. A grimace. A whisper of bemusement. Whatever it is, it makes his lips twitch under the shorn burnt umber of his beard. 

"I'd share," he mutters, teething sinking into the hilt as he pats himself down for a lighter. "But I ain't got the time."

"Shouldn't be smoking in a provincial park, anyway." 

The words are dragged out of you. Numbed, gritty. 

It makes him snort. "Maybe—;" he cups his hand around the end, thumb striking the ignition of the lighter. He inhales, and the red circle at the tip illuminates the cerulean blue tucked away into the folds of his hood. The plume of smoke curls over him like a shroud. "But I doubt a cigar is gonna bring the whole forest down, mm? 'sides, we all have our vices, don't we?"

With that, he leaves you standing in the tendrils of smoke that billow out from his caustic mouth. No goodbye. No name. Nothing except the hum of his touch buzzing through your veins. 

Your head is numb. Thoughts congealing into hardened clay. 

Yeah, you think sluggishly, eyes dropping to the drenched pavement where the ocean narrowly missed you. Swallowed you whole. We do. 

(Yours is bad decisions that reek of napalm. 

Men who scour your hands raw when you touch their coarse surface.)

You find him again in some desolate pub on the fringes of town a few days later. It looks like it's one strong gust of wind away from blowing down. Dilapidated. Rusted from the harsh salt of the ocean to the north. 

He lifts his head when you slide into the empty chair on the left, but says nothing about your unexpected company. 

Instead, his lips curl over the cigar sawed between his teeth. A grin, you think. 

You wonder if he was expecting you. 

(Wonder, then, with a touch of something warm gnarling in your belly, if you surprised him.)

The barkeep wanders past, brows lifting at you in question. 

"Um, a vodka soda—"

The man, Price you learned from the locals with a great of digging, snorts. 

"Ain't got none of that here, love. Two scotches. Neat." He leans over, thick fingers grasping the middle of the cigar, an inch away from the bristles on his upper lip, and pulls it away, ashing it in the tray in front of him. "And a bottle of spring water." 

"Scotch?" You echo, leaning your elbow on the sticky counter. He reeks of smoke. Sweat. Blood. Gunpowder. You veer closer, soaking in the astringent tang of him. Everyone on this island smells of daffodils and cotton; clean and neat and innocent. He reeks of danger. Everything inside of you screams to stay away. "I don't drink scotch."

The cigar burns in the tray. He pulls back, shifting in the chair. His elbow rests on the counter, the other arm is slung over the back of his seat. The picture of appeasement, of a satiated tiger eying a little mouse sniffing past it. There's no immediate danger, and his posture is relaxed. Open. But his eyes—

Price turns to you, then. His legs are spread, knees notched apart, taking up more space than you offer him. A looming presence. Dominating. Confident. He's not doing it on purpose, you don't think, he's just—

Big. 

His legs are too long. Thighs are too thick. 

Something gnarls behind your ribs when you take in his bare face. It's different, smaller, without the bulky black hood thrown low on his brow. His hands bare, leaving him in only casual clothes that stretch taut around his broad body. 

The beanie on his head, pulled low on his forehead, makes him look roguish, rough. The picturesque presentation of a bad boy down to the pelt-brown leather Levi jacket stretched taut around his broad shoulders. 

He looks older, somehow, without the tenebrous of night shading him in dark indigo. Aged like a fine whisky. All burnt umber and ivory. 

The charcoal colouring brightens the heavy blue of his eyes—crushed bluebonnets and powdered graphite; a black hole centre—and the frame of his brown lashes dusting over his clean cheeks makes something pool in your lower belly. 

(You wonder if he'd taste of whisky sour.)

"Well," he murmurs, brow lifting. It makes the skin on his forehead crinkle. He has laugh lines cresting around the corners of his eyes. They stand out to you, now. Void of the shadows you're used to. "You do when I'm paying."

The scotch, the cigar, the dingy pub that reeks of stale cigarettes and is perfumed in a dusting of nicotine that films every surface coalesces into incipient vice. 

His hand moves from where it's loosely curled around his glass, and rests, heavy and warm, on your thigh. 

When he leans in, you taste calcine on his breath. 

The acrid tang is a balm to the blisters in your raw esophagus. You meet him in the middle, smaller hands curling over the wool lapels of his jacket, tugging him into you. 

"Never thanked you for saving me," you murmur, his beard grazing your lips. A tickle. A brush. 

Price sucks in a deep breath, eyes liquifying into an intense azure. "No need to thank me, love. As much as I love the ocean, you don't belong there, do you? No," he adds, decisively. Sure. "You belong on land. The earth. You're wild, like the forest, aren't you?"

It's an out. An escape. An option to flee from the cosm that folds around you like a nebulous cloud. 

You could take it. Back up, away. Walk out of this dingy pub on the wrong side of town, and forget the man who reeks of nicotine, smoke; who leaves ashes behind on your skin when he touches you. 

The only one who stares at you from the unfathomable black of his eyes, lashes shrouded in tenebrous, and makes you falter. Makes your heart lurch, jumping to sit at the bottom of your throat.

You should pull away. Stay away from the man who leaks ethanol and nitroglycerine. From the man who smells of acrid smoke. Gunfire. 

You should. 

But your fingers tighten in the lapels of his jacket, pulling him closer. Closer. 

The bridge of his nose is warm when it presses against your own. 

His eyes spark, wildfires. A blazing forest. 

"You said something about vices." His chest rumbles in response to your hushed words. 

"So I did." 

Smoke singes your nose when you brush your lips over his. Warm. Chapped. Dry. You taste ash. Humus. The bitter tang of dandelion oil. 

"Got some time tonight?" 

"Thought you said I shouldn't be smoking."

"We're not in a park, near flammable trees," your hand falls to his chest. His heart thuds beneath your palm. Thick, full. Your eyes lift to his, lidded and heavy. You gaze at him from under your lashes, coy. Demure. You wonder if he can see how eager you are beneath the sly cut of your lids. "Are we, Price?"

The use of his name makes his lips quirk. A small, secretive thing that you can't read. 

"No, we're not." His hand slides down, curling over your knee. "Don't know what you're gettin' into, love." 

"Oh, no?" You taunt, breathless. Even through all your layers, you still feel his searing heat on your skin. His eyes drop when your tongue lashes out, wetting your lower lip. "And what's that?" 

A frisson shudders over his face. Lashes fluttering. He leans forward, resting the rim of his beanie on your forehead. 

When his eyes slide open, all you see is arsenic white pooled around Prussian blue. "More than you could ever dream of." 

Your trembling fingers curl into the lapels of his jacket. For leverage, maybe; or to hide the quiver in your joints from his widening eyes. 

And so, you kiss him. 

A messy punch to the mouth with your sun-blistered lips. 

His mouth parts, wry curls flutter when he inhales sharply. And then—

He devours you. 

It's messy. More sealed lips glueing together than it ever could be considered a proper kiss, but it feels more like a homecoming than stepping off the boat, and you tuck that inside your pounding chest. 

(The whispers in your head seem to sing when his lips touch yours.)

You taste bark on your tongue when it slips over his. Loam. Moss. Something earthy and rich. His beard scratches your chin, your lips, but you pull him closer, hungry for more—for the taste of wilderness on his tongue, for the respite from the whispers, the screams. Like the ocean, he, too, is a vacuum, swallowing everything whole until just you remain, stripped down to nothing but sensation and want. Bare, raw. 

Your teeth ache when you pull away, fingers curling into the coarse hair along his chin. The whips of his wry curls scratch your palm. 

You never want to let go. 

Price's eyes are noctilucent clouds; a storm over a rainforest. He'll ruin you. Devour. Destroy. Take, and take, and take until there is nothing left. 

Your lips tremble when you speak, words tremulous with your desire, your eagerness, when they slip past your bruised mouth. 

"I can think of a few that are better than smoking." 

Price shudders. 

"Where did you go?" Your friend asks, eyes swinging from the cards spread out in front of him—the Idiot, Solitaire—to you. They burn into the side of your face, the same place Price touched with bare knuckles, and said you belong to the forest, don't you? "Missed dinner."

You ate Doro Wat in a small shop after Price fucked you stupid in the dingy bathroom of the pub, face scraping against the waterlogged wallpaper that chipped with each brutal thrust of his hips. 

Like that, hmm? Can barely take me, love, but you're so fuckin' greedy for it, ain't you? 

You're sure the barkeep heard your moans as they bounced off the jaundiced walls. 

(You still hear him hissing in your ear. Still feel him splitting you apart.)

You try not to shiver. 

"Ate already," you shrug, bundling your sleep clothes tight in your trembling hands. When you stand, his eyes follow you. "So. Um—"

"You okay?" 

"Yeah," you say, shifting on the balls of your feet. "I've—" You think of his eyes, gyre white, and wonder if this is what it feels like to get swallowed by the sea. "I've never been better."

"Good," he says, smiling. "I worry about you, you know?"

You nod. "Yeah," you say. "Me, too."

You break apart in the shower, falling into pieces as you make yourself finish, thinking about nothing but the phantom stretch of his cock seated deep inside of you, the taste of his come pooling on your tongue.

It balms the residual burn in your esophagus, and you know, then, when you throb, still wanting his touch on your skin, that you've always been terrible at telling yourself no. 

It can't happen. It can't.  

There's a strange magnetism about him—an uncanny sense of mystery and familiarity sutured together. 

It feels a little bit like staring at the looming maw, the event horizon, of a black hole. Unfathomable black. No way out. 

There's something that feels a bit like forewarning inside your chest when he brushes against you, and presses his lips on the skin behind your ear—a secret place only he knows, where only his fingerprints have ever been. You feel his touch even when he's gone. Haunted by the memory of his rough hands and rasping tenor. 

Running would make sense, you think, watching the ferries come and go. You have enough money for a ticket, and you've yet to even unpack your bag. 

You don't know who he is, but you've given him everything. All of it. There's nothing left inside of you to hand over, but he keeps looking at you as if he's waiting for more. 

"Waiting for a ride?" 

You glance back at the operator with a divot between your brow and cotton inside your ears. 

You want to say yes, but you shake your head instead. 

"No." I can't leave. "Just enjoying the view."

You find birch branches stripped of leaves, juniper berries, maple leaves, spindles of dogwood, bushels of fir, and bouquets of bog rosemary, northern bluebell, fireweed, and wintergreen on your doorstep each morning, laid gently against the old welcome mat. 

You should toss them out, and throw them away. How does he know where you live, anyway? It would make the most sense; be the wisest decision. 

Instead, you tuck them inside your notebook, pressing them against the pages where they'll be safe. 

(You try not to think too much about why they never die.)

It happens again. And again. Again—

It becomes a ritual for the few months you're back in town. The leaves, twigs, petals, pines, and seeds all show up at your door each morning and come nightfall, you're drawn to him like a moth to a flame. 

He finds the nastiest looking pub in the city, and you find him there after dark. 

He sits, smokes a cigar. Orders two scotches, and a bottle of spring water. Teaches you how to drink it properly—none of that sugary cocktail shite; just pure whisky, love, as it should be—and lets you puff on the damp end of his cigar, eyes gleaming in the soft yellow light above as he takes in the way your lips curl over the wet tip.

He stares at you like he's indulging you. 

Like he knows. 

And maybe, he does. 

Maybe he sees the way your jaw works, tongue lashing over the tip just to chase his taste. The heat in your cheeks, your eyes, as you gaze at him, open and raw and wanting. The way you list toward him. Eager for it. For him. His touch, his smell. 

He must, you think, but he's a right bastard. 

He doesn't give it until the end of the evening, when everyone has gone home. When it's just you and him and the barkeep that glowers at you something ugly when you stand on shaky legs, and whisper you're going to the washroom. 

Your fingers curl over the chipped porcelain, back arched as you stare at the face in the mirror. 

You can't remember if it's you. 

Whisky has polluted your synapses. The thick scent of smoke, the tobacco from the cigar, has congealed into resin over that little bundle of axons and nerves that control your impulse, logic. 

Stupid. 

You stare at the thing in the mirror, and wonder if the basal want on your face was so apparent to him as it is to you. If he saw the dark gleam of hunger, greed, impatience, swimming in your ink-smudged depths. 

The door rattles. Clicks. 

The squeak of the hinges is the only warning you get before Price is there, liquified in the doorway and clouded in smoke. 

His hand curls over the worn, peeling frame. Eyes dance with the same hunger, same want, as the ones that flicker across the surface of the mirror. 

"Couldn't wait for me, eh, love?" He breathes, his chest expands with his exhale. Scenting you, you think. You wonder if he can smell the slick pooling in your panties. The desperation brimming in your veins. "Wanted it that bad, huh?"

He moves. A mountain of a man now filling up the entirety of your gaze until all you see is him. 

You used to want to climb mountains. In training, they always warned of summit fever. Of that little part of your head that just wanted it to be over, to reach the very top of the precipice. Impatient, it couldn't wait. It made you spring up, and climb higher and higher before you were ready, prepared. 

You think of it now when your hands lift, curling over his broad shoulders. 

("Summit fever will get you killed," they say.)

"Just shut up and fuck me, Price." 

His eyes flash. "Greedy little thing, aren't you?"

You are. Painfully so. 

It etches in your ribs like a sickness, festering in your mouldering bones. Rotting you from the inside out. 

A crutch in the searing heat of skin, sweat, and sin. The feeling of him taking you apart, breaking you down into atoms and molecules that bubble in the lining of your head becomes so commonplace, so often forget who you are when you're pushed up against a wall, being filled to the brim by him.

He leaves madness behind when he goes, and the world that divides fantasy from reality begins to crack, to splinter. 

You hear his voice in your head late at night when the wind blows through the window, carrying the scent of the forest.

"Come home," he rasps in your ear. 

The scratch of his beard seems to scrape against the little thread keeping you tied down to reality. It's frayed and worn by his hands. You wonder when he'll sink his teeth in the silk, and snap the line. Untethering you from your binds.

Come home to me. Come back to where you belong—

Price takes you out to dinner three months after this—whatever it is—starts. After your house becomes more of a garden, writ with the wild remnants of the forest, after each passing day. Full of bushes, and branches. Twigs and precious gems. He gives you raw gold, and open geodes full of amethyst, and sapphire. Canopy leaves, and bark from the trees. 

He leaves a whittled deer made from the red wood of a giant sequoia, and the likeness of the little fawn makes you believe that one day, it'll come to life in your living room.

(You leave a dish of water near the doorway—just in case—and wonder if you're becoming just as mad as your gran.)

He shows up at your doorstep, the bleached antlers of a great pronghorn in his hands. It's decorated with vines and moss weaved over the ivory in intricate braids and knots that you can't even begin to unravel. You marvel at the gift as he tells you he's taking you out for dinner. 

There is no discussion. He doesn't ask, he just—

Does. 

"Found a spot," he says, arms crossed over his broad chest. The cable-knit sweater pulls, stretched taut over his bulk. "Think you'd like it."

You don't know what to say. The antlers feel heavier in your hands, and warm to the touch. You try not to shiver when you set it down beside the little fawn.

"Oh," you say, but know you've never turned him down yet. It's all—

So much. 

Your home is slowly becoming one with nature, with vines growing on the walls in great blooms of wisteria and lilac; the old floor boards under your feet shudder and creak as little saplings sprout through the cracks. You wake up at night and taste earth in your throat, feel the grass beneath your fingers. The breeze in your hair. The call of an arctic tern. 

You dream of running through the forest. Of being chased. You breathe and feel the little seeds inside of your lungs start to take root. Soon you'll bloom with dandelions.

"Okay," you say, and wonder if the madness rummaging around your head will turn into a beautiful sequoia in the end. "Let's go."

The tavern is busy on a weeknight, crowded with a swell of mainlanders who'd ventured out for a camping trip over the long weekend. 

You sit with your back straight, and listen to him talk about a hike he wants to take with you in the morning. Through the woods, he says, and you don't ask which one. You know. You know. 

(It's time. It's time.)

There are alarm bells ringing in your head, but they're drowned out by the crooning whispers. 

But the line is only frayed and worn, and despite the lure in his voice, the itch in your head to say yes, you hesitate. Falter. 

The woods are dangerous. 

You don't want to go. 

He seems to sense it. His brows knot together. 

"You want to, don't you?" 

You fiddle with your napkin and try not to meet his arsenic stare. "It's… dangerous."

"I'll keep you safe."

"It's probably time for me to leave, anyway." 

The air in the room turns frigid all at once. You think you can see white plumes of condensation when you shakily breathe out, teeth chattering. 

"Price—"

"Didn't wanna do this, love," he says, voice hushed. Barely a whisper. His eyes are lavascapes. "But you ain't givin' me much of a choice, are you?"

"What—?"

The words die on your tongue when movement flashes in the corner of your eye. A man weaves, liquid, through the mindless crowd, cutting a path like the parting red sea. 

His eyes are honeycombs. In his hand, he holds a limp dandelion. 

It takes you a moment to make out the strange man who looms in the background. A splash of colour among sfumato. 

It's Gaz.

The childish swell of his cheeks has sunken into angled, sharp bone. Slender fingers twirl the flower around, around, around—

It's hypnotic. You stare, horrified and awed—a strange amalgam of emotions that slip down your spine: worry, elation, panic, comfort—as his pink lips part into an easy, familiar grin. The cresting sun breaching the horizon. Eyes slanting in playful derision. 

He looks like he's torn between telling a joke and spitting vitriol. Making you laugh, and then making you cry. 

It buzzes in the air, electrified fingers dancing down your spine, and then just as quickly as the boy who disappeared reemerges into the land of the living, into this bastardised reality, he gives one last sharp, fanged grin, a mordant wink, and then he's gone.

He slips through the door, and without hesitating, you give chase. 

Price says nothing when you go. Or maybe he does, but you can't hear anything except the rustling of leaves in your head. 

Gaz, it whispers. Gaz, Gaz, Gaz.

(It's time for the lost little boy to come home.)

The rocks sit in a zigzag pattern through the frothing waters, a deceptive bridge that connects the valley to the coast. You feel the tremulous rattle of the water slicing against the hollow cavern beneath your feet. A ledge chiselled from the blunt erosion of the rapid currents below. One day, they say, the granite shelf will give and a massive hole filled with howling water will fill it. 

Try not to be the idiot standing on the ledge. 

You feel the power of the currents even on the peat-covered edge. 

The water in front of you is deceptive. A calm, rolling surface at the shoreline almost seems to beckon you inside. Come take a dip in the cool waters. Grow fins and gills and chase the river otters through the currents. Feast on the wily salmon, and see if your feet can touch the sandy streambed. 

But the river's fatality is nearly assured. No one has survived a dip in these waters that act as a serrated knife, carving chasms and channels through the granite below. The currents will rip into you, pulling you until your body is crushed against the wall, or into an unsearchable cave. 

One slip, you think. Just one. 

But—

The man in the bar flickers through your mind. His honeycomb eyes, fanged grin. Ethereal in his beauty like a painting of a god in oil and raw canvas. Carved likeness of a Stygian prince. 

It was Kyle. It was Gaz. You know it. Know it deep within your bones, your marrow.

Taking the first step to the jutting slate that peaks just a few precious inches from the raging waters is easier, then, when you think of the boy who plucked a dandelion from the earth, and tucked it behind your ear. It makes the risk less daunting when it's for him. 

For his parents who sunk into themselves, into the crater his absence left behind. A deep depression into the earth that swallowed them whole.

They moved last year after laying down a bouquet of flowers at the mouth of the forest. 

You toe your shoes off, leaving them at the embankment, and then you leap. The perch is slick with waterlogged moss, slimy. It wobbles under you, but you catch yourself, stabilising. Steady. You huff. One down, four more to go. 

Up close, they look so far apart. A chasm between each rock. An endless abyss that will rip you into pieces. 

Still. Still. You have to find him. Have to. 

You step, toes sliding in the algae. The rock beneath is stained green. It wobbles again when you bring your other foot down on top of it. The loud clack of rock scraping against rock is heard, unmuffled by the roaring water that tugs on the stone. You feel the push against your feet. 

Two more. Two more. 

You take another step, and then—

You fall—

The world drips into focus, a steady trickle of cognisance that paints the world in shades of greens and browns. An eagle soars above the canopy, their shadow swooping through the thick tangle of conifers reaching to the heavens.

The bed of moss beneath you is damp—lush with dew and softer than your mattress at home. You sink into the ground when you breathe, caught in an embrace. The vines curl over your wrists, your ankles, as if refusing to let go. 

It should scare you—and maybe it does—but there's something against your head, fingers digging into your temples, and you feel nothing except a warm serenity leaking in. Thought spool into liquid gold, threads that weave together in a knotted clump. Indistinguishable from each other, and unreachable when they slip deeper into the honeyed-thick fog that curls around your mind. A temper from logic, from fear. Anything that isn't pure, artificial comfort is filtered through and cast aside. 

You don't know why you're here. 

One moment, you felt the coils of the raging currents sinking its claws into your flesh, pulling you under the deep waters, and then—

Heat on your face. The sun's desperate attempt to filter through the corded canopy and touch the forest floor. The shrill call of an eagle on the prowl. The tender caress of the moss below cushions your body. 

You should be underwater. Pressed tight against the side of the rocks until you were swept downstream and spat out in the inlet, waterlogged and dead. 

You draw humid air into your lungs until it swells against your ribcage. The steady thud of your heart tells you that somehow, somehow, you're alive. An empty brag—thud, thud; thud, thud—that seems to call out to the birds in the emergent layer, the ones nestled in their branches as they watch your feeble attempt to reconcile how you survived. 

It's strange, you think, but the soporific warmth coursing through your veins does not let you panic. 

You are—

"Foolish." 

The warmth turns molten. You try to sit up, but the vines tighten around your limbs. If you weren't so vulnerable, you think it would almost feel like a hug. 

The soft crunch of the moss tells you the voice—the man—is moving forward, toward you. You want to scream, but your tongue is thick, and your mouth is numb. 

"What you did there was stupid," he says, and the forest around you seems to come alive in his anger. Pulsing. The branches sway and the leaves rattle without any wind. The trees bend down, coming inward. You hear the scream of a fox in the distance. The chuff of an agitated brown bear. 

Primordial signs tell you to run.

But you're trapped. 

Price steps closer, falling to his knees beside you. You can see him now, and suddenly you wish you'd been swallowed by the waves. 

His face is writ with anger, brows tightening together in displeasure. 

He seems imbued with the forest. One with the lush green that swells around you. Burnt umber and icy blue. Ethereal, unnatural. Something in your hindbrain tells you to run from that man that looks as if he could swallow you whole.

"Tryin' t'die on me, hmm?" 

His hand lifts, and you feel his warm knuckles graze your temple. Soft, gentle, despite the ire in his eyes, and the irritation clenched in his jaw. 

"Gonna hav'ta try harder than that, love." 

You weren't trying very hard at all, you think, dazed, dizzy. You weren't trying at all. 

"You're mine," his eyes flash, and you feel the press of gravity against your skin, pulling you down to the soft earth. Your fingers twitch. The fog inside your head clears. 

Blinking up at him, you catch the scattering supernovae echoing in the corners of his eyes; galaxies of pine and cedar, humus and tussock. They bloom from the black hole in the centre, surrounded by sapphire blue. He's not human, you think, but it doesn't surprise you because you already knew. Have known, really—ever since you asked around for his name and watched the same strange fog seep into their eyes as they struggled to remember a man they claimed to know. 

Ever since you found bushels of figs on your doorstep. 

A crown of pine needles and crow feathers. 

Price leans over you, brows knotted together like the gnarled, weaving trunk of a Great Basin Bristlecone Pine. 

There's a forest fire in his eyes. "You're mine, aren't you?" 

You think about the trinkets left on your doorstep. The whispers, the screams. 

"Did you ever give me a choice?" 

The tension in his brow snaps taut. Agony frissons through the spaced canyons; whet from ire and slick from sorrow. He bends down, and shakes his head. 

"I've always given you a choice," his words are smouldering logs, crackling with his pain. "I've always told you to go, but you couldn't stay away, could you?"

Price takes you on the mossy forest floor, fingers digging into the peat as you sink, down, down, down—

His hand under your head, cradling the back of your skull, keeps you from getting swallowed by the grass knoll that breathes and trill against your spine. 

Fire licks in the crevasses of his eyes, molten desperation you can't ignore. He rages above you, quivering in the fading glow of the sunset struggling to slip through the canopy. No longer a man but a myth. He hangs over you with his canines bared, and flashes of anger and sorrow scorch the path his teeth leave behind on your skin. 

You're becoming unmoored. Each touch, and brush; each sweep of his tongue soothing the indents of his razor-sharp teeth all seem to loosen the ties that thread through your soul, anchoring you to the world that stands in full bloom before you. 

The forest shudders with his frantic pace; each piston of his hips leaks his fervent anguish and makes the trees croon, and creak as they bow their foliage in sorrow. His pain lashes through their roots, and rent the air in two. A fox mourns his loss in the distance. A wolf yowls in agony. His brethren lifting their muzzle to the sleepy moon, and howling out the melody of their despair. 

It's too much, too much, and you fall into pieces in his hands, shivering beneath him as the woods around you tremble and quake. It's a mesmerising dance. 

He finishes with a grunt that makes the world shudder anew, spending himself as deep inside of you as he can, as if he could overwrite your empty spaces with himself. Fill you to the brim until you are bursting with him, with life. Tulips for your eyes. Furze for veins. Moss for hair. Peat soil for blood. 

When he speaks, the world falls silent. 

"You don't know it yet, but you will. You've always been mine. Always belonged to the forest, to the earth. To me."

Despite his words, he lets you go. 

And you run, run, run—

Your toes dig into the wet soil near the stream. The desperate catapult across the ravine halted at the very last moment, leaving you winded and shaking. Hands clenched into tight balls by your side. Quivering with fear, with the adrenaline rush still roaring in your veins. 

You don't know what you're doing. 

The whispers in your head go silent. 

The absence of sound makes you mourn, and you think about his agony. The pain when he took you, the resignation when he let you go. 

You think of him, and you know. 

I've always told you to go, but you couldn't stay away, could you?

You scent napalm in the air, cloying despite the acrid burn that scalds your lungs when you breathe in deep, holding it there. 

You think of the chest inside your closet. The pieces of yourself you left behind. The way he fits you like a puzzle, like he was made for you. Designed with your rough edges in mind. Softening your hard lines; scouring your gritty surface it was smooth and shiny like fire Opal and precious gems. 

Ever since you felt his hand on your shoulder, you haven't been able to let go. 

(You don't even think you ever really tried.)

Come to me, the forest says, honey in your ears. It sounds like the rapid beat of a million birds' wings, ready to take flight. Pulsing and alive and full of wonder, childish glee. 

The earth blooms in your chest. You feel the soft, tender caress of the leaves against your skin, the moss sinking between your toes. Clinging to your flesh, desperate to get inside, and take refuge in your heart. Come home to us.

Your grandmother warned you to stay out of the forest, that it was dangerous. Deadly. Wrong. But how can it ever harm you when it touches you so sweetly? 

The branches curl around your ankles as you walk, leading you, guiding you, to the place where you belong. The forest opens around you, spreads apart and makes room for you to pass, touching you as you go, taking little pieces of you. Strands of your hair, the salt from your tears. Pieces of clothes. Parts of your soul. 

You pluck your heart out of your chest, and leave it beneath a gnarled sequoia. She will protect it forever. 

Moss grows inside of the empty space. A tern makes a nest inside of it, filling it with a bed of pine needles, and twigs from the junipers. You feel a mouse make a home in your rib cage, burrowing between your bones. You place your hand over your side, and feel her nuzzle against your palm. 

"You're safe now," you say. "We're almost home."

It's Gaz who greets you with a crown made of sugi. When he cups your face, you feel raging rivers and streams in his palms, and now that you are home. 

"Missed you, dandelion," he breathes, and his voice turns into a Chinook that crests over the mountains. "But there's someone who wants to see you."

His hands slide down to your wrists, and you feel the sun grazing your skin when he spins you around, around, around—

"Now," he leans down, pressing his lips to the shell of your ear. You hear the Falcons nesting in his chest, and smell pine in his breath. "He's been an impatient bastard, you know? Just moping about ever since you left—"

A scoff. You lift your head and feel the swell of the earth beneath your feet. Dizzying. Wanting. 

He waits for you in the thicket, eyes made of sapphire and stone. When he breathes, the forest swells with his breath, and you taste loam when you swallow. 

"A sorry sap, thinkin' you were runnin' away, and all. But you won't, will you?" Gaz pushes you forward, and his laughter rings in your ears. "Not anymore."

Price meets you in the middle, his eyes sparkling embers. A baptism in fire. You feel the heat on your skin, and shiver. 

You used to be afraid of forest fires, but you know, now, that sometimes trees need to burn before they can truly grow. 

Lodgepole roots bud under his skin, rippling veins across a ravine. He rests his hand against your cheek, thumb brushing the dawn redwood needles that bloom under your skin. 

"Welcome home."

"They'll give you gifts," your gran says, shaking her head. "Things from their realm. Little trinkets and gems—" geodes, sapphires and diamonds, raw gold and coral; "—and you must never accept them," a whittled deer made of sequoia under your pillow; crow bones buried in the garden."Because if you do, if you do, they'll never let you go." 

"Why?" You asked, blinking at her. 

"Because it's a courting ritual, and to accept means… well," her mouth twists in wry disdain. "Just don't." 

You don't tell her that you already have. You don't mention the sticks and precious stones that always ended up on your windowsill. The whispers of the forest calling your name. 

You nod sagely instead, fingers tightening around the sap stained heart chiselled from Bristlecone Pine. The charred ends are warm in your palm. You feel it pulse. 

Will you accept this? My heart? Will you keep it safe for me? 

"I will."

This was meant to be light and fluffy and smutty but now it's. This. And um. Oops. I hope you enjoyed it!

JOHN PRICE MASTERLIST | NAVIGATION PART THREE OF COD X MYTHOLOGY ⁞ SOAP ● DRAGON PRICE

[niobiumao3]

So, here's what X-Men 97 did that TBB did not, for its main character death. Obviously, huge X-Men 97 and TBB spoilers.

The death happens at a pivotal moment story wise, but is NOT immediately abandoned for other plot.

Remy (Gambit) dies towards the end of an episode which is in and of itself a real jaw-dropper, much like Plan 99. Out of nowhere a safe haven for mutants is being glassed, and Remy sacrifices himself to put a stop to it, because he's a little crazy but also well aware of what he's capable of and knows it might be their only chance to save SOME of these people who are his fellow mutants. The episode ends with his lover, Rogue--who's finally decided she agrees with Remy on things and is going to choose him and the X-Men over an alternative--holding his lifeless body in her arms.

Tech, on the other hand, dies 1/3 into an episode and vanishes from sight. Our POV character here, Omega, is injured and doesn't witness most of the ensuing escape, so when she wakes up, she demands they go back for him, crying, and we see Wrecker cry and Hunter explain he didn't make it.

...and then the episode keeps going. They're betrayed. A villain tosses Tech's broken goggles at Hunter and threatens them. Omega is captured, the remaining members of the Batch barely escape. For almost twenty minutes of runtime AFTER Tech dies, the story keeps going and has NOTHING to do with him dying (save the dig about the goggles). His death gets maybe, at most, 2 entire minutes of focus between Omega and Wrecker's reactions, Hunter's when Hemlock gives him the goggles, and Echo looking at the empty pilot's chair. That's it; for the bulk of the episode Tech's death has next to ZERO involvement in the story. It's not the climax. it's just A Thing Which Happened, and that massively devalues it from a narrative viewpoint. No one stops for more than a single breath to react to it, thus we as the audience don't.

(If anyone is winding up with 'that's because they can't due to the everything', this is why it's NOT GOOD WRITING. If you want the death to matter to your viewers/audience then you need to MAKE the time for it in your story, somehow. This isn't real life, you DO in fact control the horizontal and the vertical when making your plot.)

In X-Men 97, the death is the immediate focus of the next episode and a character's entire arc of the ensuing episodes. In TBB, it's a footnote.

In the following X-Men 97 episode, Remy has a funeral which Rogue doesn't attend, not because she doesn't care but because she's off raging against the machines, trying to find those responsible and kill them. There's a gorgeous eulogy for Remy, some thinking back on who he was and what he meant to them, a friend angry at Rogue for not being with them. It's so good. We cut to Rogue, absolutely furious with grief and looking to take it out on, well, everyone. She winds up putting herself into a coma as a result.

Literally nothing like this happens for Tech. Nothing close. There's a several month timeskip in S3 eps 1-3 which negates any immediate mourning or revelations to people who wouldn't know (Crosshair, Phee, Shep and Lyana), and we see NONE of Wrecker, Hunter, OR Echo's processing. Just what we saw in Plan 99, which again, is almost nothing. For a main character who as of S2 had the third most screen time of any character.

In X-Men 97, Remy keeps coming up as someone to remind them of what they're fighting for, what he would want for them. Tech is a skillset and a pair of goggles.

Remy is the first thing on Rogue's mind when she wakes up from her coma. She's instantly grieving him all over again, and mentions him numerous times throughout the remaining episodes as someone who wouldn't want this for them, or would have hoped for that. He's a guide for her even though he's gone. The rest of the characters reflect on him off and on--not his skills or abilities, but who he was, his nature. Remy's death completely changes Rogue's behaviors, almost 180 degrees, as well.

Tech is mentioned for what he could do, not what he liked or didn't like, how he felt about things, save for once: when Phee reveals he told her all about Crosshair. This is the only time someone talks about him like people talk about Remy in X-Men 97, and it happens twelve episodes after he died.

No one's actual narrative course changes trajectory in the case of Tech's death either. No one is shown making different decisions based on his loss (just the lack of his skills), no one is bringing him up as a rallying call for themselves, nothing. He is excised from the show in terms of his emotional, character impact. The loss is of someone who can decrypt things or knows stuff, not of a beloved sibling.

Remy's presence remains throughout the rest of X-Men 97, despite him dying in episode 5 of 10. Tech vanishes and becomes an occasional reason they have to do something the hard way and a background prop.

If you want to know how to actually write a main character death and have it MATTER and make it good story telling, watch X-Men 97.

[butterfrogmantis]

Enough Red Deading led to this but it wasn't entirely their fault, I am pretty fixated on Wooly & Wrangler atm too after all.

But I decided to take Burdock in a slightly different direction. Indeed, perhaps even morally. This is to be expected since she's largely inspired by Arthur Morgan and Sadie her personality has pretty much been molded off of the honour system - there's social outcasts like Hemlock who do no actual wrong just give off unique vibes, there's trouble makers in the Smurf Village like Jokey and Surprise but they don't truly hurt people, just have some mischief up their sleeve. And perhaps a couple sticks of dynamite Surprise swore she wasn't really gonna use.

So Buddleia is a fairly down to earth kind of gal, overseas the grove agriculture - most of the grove help with farming in shifts but Bud works as the perma head rancher and is a good hardworker trying to make a decent and honest living. Her sis? Oh she picked up ranching and farming easily enough but it was never enough for her, she was always getting into fights with other grovers and ending up starting issues with other species in the forbidden forest.

There is no 'law' or 'outlaw' as far as the grove goes technically, Burdock is always welcomed in the grove, though the others may not want her around. Burdy's loyalty lies with her sister and niece and little else. Willow has stopped fighting her the older and more independent she got, it wasn't worth it. The grove is a safe haven technically because she's wanted for starting fights and perhaps robbery when it comes to other species (hey look they had a nice set of elven jewellery she wouldn't mind trading that in for some sweet dwarven duds, since smurfs don't use money she takes advantage of trade).

But honestly what sets Burdock apart from most other characters is moral ambiguity. She'll stop on a path to help a stranger soon as leap off a path to steal another's mount. She'll donate the money she just stole to feed a starving street kid without hesitation. Think that scene from Aladdin with the bread. She's unpredictable and deeply selfish but always brings home cool stuff for her niece and never forgets a birthday. You want her with you rather than against you but her reputation is never consistent.

Wooly wants to wring her neck. She thought she could get him on her side being cowboy and cowgirl and all but he's a much more morally upstanding man and although he may not always have been perfect either he's not getting into a life of crime with some rando grove girl with wild eyes. Besides he wants to be a good rolemodel for Wrangler and she should think about doing the same for her niece if she knows what's good for her.

Burdock, Buddleia and Fuchsia are mine

[spaceless-vacuum]

What if all three (WW, TP, OOT) Ganondorfs were yandere for reader?

All at once? Ok so I have an idea for this.

Windwaker Ganondorf is, on the surface, the most calm out of all of them. He will pull you aside when the other two fight. When you need space away from the chaos that can come from being around not one, not two, but three war lords he’ll arrange time for just the two of you. Offering a safe haven to unwind. Offering you the tie necessary to keep your wellness in check and to make you associate him with safety. Now whenever you think about someone to protect you'll think of him and make your way over.

He doesn't mind the way the other two fight each other. Even if seeing them with you drives him up the wall hi- in retrospect- handles it better than the others. He's patient. He waited under the waves of the ocean for his plan to fall into motion. He can wait longer for you to come to him willingly when you tire of the others. Leaving those two to fight while he runs off with you suits him better. It means there's less favourable visits to the dungeons when you try to escape because he doesn't always have you when he wants but he has you when he needs it.

He doesn't give chase either when the others show up. His era allows him to take the upperhand, but he chooses not to use it. These three can't play nice forever and when it all breaks apart- because mind you it will somehow someway- he will be the only one left for you to turn to. He gave you relative peace, and sure he isn't a normal man to court by any means; but it's more than what you were getting. This only doubles after OoT and TP Ganondorf turn into Ganons. After that he's the only one whose mind isn't twisted by the triforce of power.

His Hyrule is an ocean. No one can cross it without a boat and knowledge of the sea. He holds the upperhand in defending his fortress and in keeping you stuck by his side. What are you going to do, leave? Where would you get a boat, the knowledge to use it, the supplies? Oh you might be able to and when you do he lets you get as far as you can go. Either when your supplies run out or if you're lucky enough when you come to an island before he sends the Hemlock king to pick you back up.

TP Ganondorf is a mastermind much like OoT Ganondorf. They both attempted an insurgence on the royal family to make their goals easier. This takes a lot of time and effort. Both of them have such a blast trying to open up and outdo each other. However the way they go about their schemes is where it gets interesting. Twilight Ganondorf used a puppet and did not reveal himself. He spent a lot of effort to not be seen as the main culprit and it marks him as someone who prefers his workings to stay entirely in the shadows. He likes to keep his secrets and it makes him feel less miserable to know that no one can tell what he's up to. Evenwhen it comes to you, part of why he loves you so much is how much of a soft spot he has for you. Even if he appears more upset and like a classic male tsundere he has a soft spot a mile wide and will allow you space- assuming that space is still in the same room as him.

This Ganondorf takes his time to court you but the entire time he's planning for a violent takeover. Should one of the others try anything he has about six different plans to take you back and keep you by his side. The moment one of them even tries to take you away he's ready to bring the axe down. He doesn't necessarily want for this to fall through but it's impossible to keep track of you if the other two are planning something. If he loses you he loses everything so it must not happen.

Violent outbursts against the enemy are in toe for Ganon but TP prides himself on being able to keep a calm demeanour. Let the others make fools of themselves while he keeps his mind intact. His goal is to keep you no matter how extreme his methods may seem. By pure numbers he can overpower his enemies should they try anything. He has more troops. His efforts in the twilight allow him to negate the needs for soldiers of the humane kind. They may not be the most caring creatures to take with protecting you- his way of enforcing the rules- but they work well.

Zant can play babysitter when he's not busy enjoying his new seat in the castle. He doesn't see the other two as viable threats and he doesn't want to turn against them but he's prepared to do anything to keep you by his side.

OoT Ganondorf came around at a time where Hyrule was overcome with tragedy. The land had just recovered from the civil war and he was able to take advantage of their weakened state to get right into the castle. At the heart of it all he staked his claim and stayed there until the princess and hero made a fatal mistake. 

He doesn't care about the chaos the other two partake in. His main interest is courting and wooing you. While the malevolent guide through rocky weather and megalomaniac are both forming their own plans he is amusing himself with your company. Buying you expensive clothes and jewellery as bait to get you to dress how he wants.

His time spent in the company of Hyrules other knights is draining. He hates spending all his time with the enemy and along with your company the only thing to keep him sane is distracting himself with planning for Hyrules demise. His two greatest enemies are children and bureaucracy and he is not having a good time with all of it. After Links failure to draw the sword that leaves him with seven full years to court you. To treat you like the royalty you are.

I think that all three of them have the same tendencies, Tp and WW Ganondorfs will still try to court you and give you gifts but this is what I think those three lean towards to win you over. Windwaker sees himself as older and more calm than the other two willing to give you space and a well needed break. Spending time by the sea was the cure for many mental ailments back in the day after all. Maybe all you could use is some salty air.

Twilight princess Ganondorf sees himself as smarter than those who would oppose him. He knows he has the power and might to keep you by any means necessary. If you try to run, getting you back is as easy as sending an argorok to pick you up. Keeping others away is simple when you have so many powerful beasts from the twilight ready to open up portals at your call.

Then the last is honestly not too worried about you getting away. He has the money, political ties, and suave to charm you into his open arms. Once you realise it's already too late and he is quite the madman it's far too late as you're already trapped- but at least the gifts are nice. 

All three dabble in shared behaviours but this is what they would lean into the most if that makes sense. I hope you enjoyed this as much as I have! I've been in a real Ganon kick recently so this was sweet

[redbean-nom]

star wars by silm logic

for the silm-sw dual citizens:

I was wondering what would happen if star wars (particularly tbb bc that's the currently-releasing bit of star wars) adhered to silm logic:

Hunter is the local leader of a hidden city (Pabu)

Omega is the heir

Rex is the overall leader of a warring people (clone rebellion)

Hemlock is the local leader of a branch of the Forces of Evil

Palpatine is the overall Enemy

so therefore

Rex and Echo gather an army of escaped clones. They rescue Cody or Wolffe from the Empire. Song and fire are greatly involved.

Themes of rising hope are invoked as they make a stand against the Empire. The clone rebellion grows further.

They are initially victorious and manage to rescue the clone prisoners from Tantiss with few casualties. Hemlock is ousted and flees to the heart of the Empire (but his operation will return in time)

Echo goes to check on the Batch on Pabu and ask them to ally with him and Rex in the upcoming battle.

They march on Coruscant. Things suddenly go disastrously wrong. Cody is killed in battle. Rex faces Palpatine in single combat.

Rex dies tragically.

Eagles.

Echo tells Hunter about the battle. They are delayed on their way and attempt to ride to the rescue. The Batch arrives just after the deaths. Echo is sad.

Pabu is betrayed while the Batch is on Coruscant.

Pabu is invaded by the Empire. Hemlock subjugates the people into his weird clone experimentation program.

Dragons.

The Batch returns to destroyed/invaded Pabu and is unable to intervene.

While attempting to protect their city most of the Batch dies.

Echo is very sad.

Hunter is captured and killed in front of Omega.

Omega escapes and swears an Oath mourns the Batch.

Echo is broken by grief for the ghosts of his past and vanishes.

Omega later becomes a Rebellion leader, carrying the memories of the failed clone rebellion and the haven of Pabu with her.

Echo fades/dies on some random planet as the forgotten remnant of the GAR/Clone rebellion.

[not-enough-homestuck-upinthis]

How to treat cheese grater cut

No mac and cheese for Christmas dinner 🤷🏾

@clownboymcchucklefuck

@arklayraven

@hemlock-haven

@poutyrootveggie

Tagged by @leniisreallycool

[oh-three]

TBB S3E15:

HOUR LONG FINALE. I should've woken up sooner.

This week's opening titles >>>>

That thing actually slashed Wrecker's chestplate open, though. Youch.

"Because I was wrong about this place. And…I'm trying to do the right thing." Ayyy, you go, Emerie.

Lmaooo, they reprogrammed the droid, that's amazing.

Wonder what the difference between the commandoes in gray and the plain ones are. Just guard detail?

Oop, Echo and Emerie are about to be very confused.

GO FREE, ZILLO. GET 'EM.

YAY.

Echo caught onto Omega's plan quick, that's good.

"This puts him to sleep?" I feel you, Jax.

Crosshair's hand shaking the longer he looks at the patrol 😭

Wrecker, you are not fine.

"Clone Force 99 died with Tech. We're not that squad anymore." 😭 😭

Ayyy, you tell him, guys. Cross ain't allowed to sacrifice himself.

Man, that Zillo got out fast. Good for it.

Wrecker and Hunter knowing that Omega let it free when Echo was the one who did the diversion last finale is crazy to me.

Jax being afraid of heights is so real of him. I love this kid.

Oh, shit, Hemlock's kind of planning on letting the Batch in. That's…not good. Wonder what he has in store for them.

UNMASKED-FROM-BEHIND ASSASSIN.

HE LET ALL OF THE ASSASSINS OUT.

Y'know, some of these fellas are looking a little different. One of them has to be Tech. CX-2, probably. Still a bit too much focus on him.

DID CX-2 JUST CUT OFF CROSSHAIR'S HAND????????

That went so wrong so fast.

Batch comm signals "Havoc #" confirmed.

GOOD TIMING, ECHO.

"Hey, kid….and other kids." 🤣

Oh. Hemlock's trying to turn the Batch into assassins themselves.

Echo is not going easy with that trigger today. Good, he shouldn't.

"Hey, kid. What's going on?" / "We're breaking out." Oop, that includes Rampart again. And Nala Se.

"Clones don't leave our brothers behind." Ayyy, Echo speech time! I love him so much.

Nala Se acknowledging that Omega belongs with the Bad Batch >>>

RAMPART, WHERE ARE YOU GOING.

Ooooh, Tarkin's coming.

Oh, Rampart…

An operative on guard. Right. And now the prisoners are all dying 😭

Rampart planning on blackmailing his way back to Vice Admiral--oop, now he's fucking dead. Lbh, there was no redeeming him.

YES, WRECKER.

Why the fuck did Hemlock just steal CX-2's arm buttons for?

I was about to say that poor CX-2 was in rough shape, but what the fuck, Hunter. Guess that theory's debunked. 😭

Wrecker's not looking so hot.

WET HAIR HEMLOCK.

WET HAIR HUNTER!!! TOOK THEM LONG ENOUGH.

This is gonna be Crosshair's redeeming moment. Just watch.

Oooh, Hemlock sounds scared.

GET HIM.

FINALLY.

The fact that Omega hugged Crosshair first 😭

JUST IN FUCKING TIME. YOU'RE TOO LATE, TARKIN.

"Redistribute all funding to Project Stardust." Lmao. Saw that one coming.

Pabu really is a clone safe haven, isn't it?

"Our lives have never really been our own." / "Until now." These two have such a great dynamic.

Last week, I thought I'd accepted that Tech was finally gone, but…god, it hurts. He really is gone, isn't he?

Echo's never going to stop fighting, is he? I love him for it, but…

The fact that Crosshair successfully shot the binders off of Hemlock and Omega earlier with only one hand astounds me.

WE GET OLDER OMEGA?!?!?

GRAY HAIR HUNTER?!?!?! WITH A BEARD? He's put on some weight, he looks healthy and happy 😭

Omega following in Echo's footsteps and joining a rebellion 😭

SHE'S TALLER THAN HIM 😭

She still has Lula and Tech's goggles 😭

"She'll be fine." ❤️

Tech really is gone…but the others got their happy ending because of his sacrifice. Dudeeeee, the ending was so good, I want to cry. I can't believe it's over.

[bonefall]

some clanmew-ifications of clangen cats:

Pinnacleheather - Ob-wish (on top of bell heather)

pinnacleheather my blorbo pinnacleheather. he got abandoned in the clan at a young age and then adopted by one of the leader's many children. it turned out that he's paralyzed, and as a result of this, his grandma the leader decided to commit Canon Typical Ableism™ and force him to retire right after becoming a warrior. this was a mistake on her part; pinnacleheather is a) vengeful and b) a good mediator, and now he's dedicated his life to making everyone hate her out of sheer spite. his sprite looks like he has angry eyebrows. i love him

Hemlockwhisper - Mwssaf-hhass (poisonous whisper)

a dishonor title for a cat who turned her leader and her deputy against each other, such that the leader ended up killing the deputy in cold blood.

Gillpaw - Qiliao-pwyr (chaffinch paw)

starclan guide. current name is very much an approximation; i chose chaffinch both for the sound of the actual word and for its scientific name Fringilla coelebs.

Scalerise - ???

ableist grandma's deputy and/or most violent lackey. no relevant translations in the lexicon for either part of his name.

Havenweb - Kenkin-yyb (den large-flat-web)

was pestered by the dark forest for most of his life. telling people about this was a mistake; he was distrusted by most of the clan, and ended up being sent to the dark forest after his death for no real reason.

Primhollow - Prra-mwisk (early missing)

havenweb's mate, and a conscientious objector who willingly followed him to hell. missing a tail, which caused her accessory to show up weird.

Agent Smith - Eishen Smif (transliteration)

a kittypet who generated literally only one experience point away from the maximum. his twolegs abandoned him because they feared his power. whenever i do any file editing i blame it on him

Rimemark - Chiki-karm (frost glyph)

havenweb and primhollow's daughter, and agent smith's former apprentice. she grew up isolated from the rest of the clan for her parentage, and is kind of desperate to prove herself as a result. she died once and was sent to the dark forest for the same stupid reason as havenweb, but agent smith resurrected her from the dead by the power of file editing.

LIST OF REQUESTED WORDS

pinnacle - (mountain) peak

OR: pinnacle - best

hemlock - Conium maculatum

gill - fish body part

scale - fish/lizard/snake body part

rise - hillside

haven - safety; safe place

hollow - tree hollow

hollow - empty

EISHEN SMIF!! Piwarri rrehe pos rarrs!!

Words coming up for you! But-- I'm going to leave hillside out, because I have another request here for a hill-related expansion that I want to include that in.

Pinnacle/Apex/Vantage Point = Ochk The top of a tree, tall hill, or large rock. The very tip top, highest point one can reach. Also an adjective for prime or elite-- Ochkwish could mean the top of the heather, or the BEST example of the heather. Similar to the archaic English "Arch-(noun)," seen in Archangel.

Hemlock (Conium maculatum) = Pemwo (Cluster-of-tiny-Flowers + Killing-by-water) Named for how it causes you to suffocate to death on dry land through shutdown of the respiratory muscles. You do not survive hemlock poisoning without being immediately brought to a hospital and being put on a breathing device. FUNfact I'm not going to have BB!Cherryfall eat this. Again, you don't survive hemlock poisoning. She's going to get hurt doing something stupid with her friend Stormcloud, instead.

Gill = Malp Named for the wet slapping noise of a fish on dry land flapping its operculum. REFERS TO THE ENTIRE CHEEK, including the cheek meat, the operculum, and the gills themselves. Specific things here that RiverClan in particular has words for; Shegaw Malp = "Gill Mignon." The best bite of meat on the entire fish, just above the operculum. Pogur Malp = "Gill Overhang." A good place to hook a fish with your claw while fishing; the operculum. Russ Malp = "Gill Leaves." The actual gills themselves. Some cats like to chew on these for taste and sensory reasons, though they're too stiff to swallow.

Scale = Weesh The small parts on the skin of a reptile or fish.

Haven = Aferee (Peace + Place) VERY important as a word in RiverClan, where cats are taught to recognize "havens" while swimming. They use this word to mean a thing you can cling to, or swim near, that could protect you from getting swept away if you need help. Used standardly in other Clans.

Hollow (Attribute) = Hool The bones of birds, an empty firkin or turtleshell, certain types of plant stalks, a hungry belly. Compare to Lurre, which is a shallow dip in a forested area.

Hole in a tree/Knot/Hollow = Koen I'm gonna be honest, my WHOLE life I have called this a knothole or a knot. I can't see it as anything else. Anyway, this is where certain animals nest, such as birds and squirrels.

Snag (Dead tree that still stands up) = Bogko (From Bone + Limb + Tree) Also used to refer to "zombies," insects that are possessed by parasites that alter their behavior and force them to move while dead. Anything that should be dead, and yet still stands. Can be an insult to something you're trying to kill that won't die. (Jayfeather is going to tell the angel he punches, Moleflight, Bosgofba, that he should be called Bogkofba.)

[darling-to-death]

Mutual Fan Art Sketches Clownsona Mitzy by @hemlock-haven

Clove the Athlete by @digenerate-trash

Pippy by @pip-n-chips

Bobby by @bobsquatley

And @dollya-robinprotector and I aren't mutuals, but I just think Lya is so pretty, so I wanted to draw her too.

I follow so many talented artists with their pretty sonas. :3c I'm too tired rn to do real fanart, but I hope you all enjoy the sketches. <3

[warriors-rewritten-chaos]

Warrior Cats Prefixes- H

I had a WC Name Generator on Perchance that I made but I don't seem to have access anymore, so I'm remaking it here as just a simple list. The definitions used are the ones that Clan cats have for those things, and thus are the origins of the names. Definitions used are whatever I found when I googled it.

Haddock-: "[noun] a silvery-gray bottom-dwelling fish of North Atlantic coastal waters, related to the cod"

Hail-: "[noun] pellets of frozen rain which fall in showers from cumulonimbus clouds"

Happy-: "[adj] feeling or showing pleasure or contentment; [adj] having a sense of confidence in or satisfaction with (a cat, arrangement, or situation)"

Hare-: "[noun] a fast-running, long-eared mammal that resembles a large rabbit, having long hind legs and occurring typically in grassland or open woodland"

Harpy-: "[noun] a large crested eagle"

Harrier-: "[noun] any of the several species of diurnal hawks sometimes placed in the subfamily Circinae of the bird of prey family Accipitridae. Harriers characteristically hunt by flying low over open ground, feeding on small mammals, reptiles, or birds"

Haven-: "[noun] harbor or port; [noun] a place of safety or refuge"

Hawk-: "[noun] a bird of prey with broad rounded wings and a long tail, typically taking prey by surprise with a short chase"

Hawthorn-: "[noun] a thorny shrub or tree of the rose family, with white, pink, or red blossoms and small dark red fruits (haws)"

Hay-: "[noun] grass that has been mown and dried for use as fodder"

Haze-: "[noun] a slight obscuration of the lower atmosphere, typically caused by fine suspended particles"

Hazel-: "[noun] a temperate shrub or small tree with broad leaves, bearing prominent male catkins in spring and round hard-shelled edible nuts in autumn; [noun] a reddish-brown or greenish-brown color"

Hazy-: "[adj] covered by a haze; [adj] vague, indistinct, or ill-defined"

Heath-: "[noun] an area of open uncultivated land, especially in Britain, with characteristic vegetation of heather, gorse, and coarse grasses; [noun] a dwarf shrub with small leathery leaves and small pink or purple bell-shaped flowers, characteristic of heathland and moorland"

Heather-: "[noun] a purple-flowered Eurasian heath that grows abundantly on moorland and heathland"

Heavy-: "[adj] of great weight; difficult to lift or move; [adj] of great density, thick or substantial"

Hedge-: "[noun] a fence or boundary formed by closely growing bushes or shrubs"

Hedgehog-: "[noun] a small nocturnal Old World mammal with a spiny coat and short legs, able to roll itself into a ball for defense"

Hellbender-: "[noun] an aquatic giant salamander with grayish skin and a flattened head, native to North America"

Hemlock-: "[noun] a highly poisonous European plant of the parsley family, with a purple-spotted stem, fernlike leaves, small white flowers, and an unpleasant smell"

Hen-: "[noun] a female bird, especially of a domestic fowl"

Heron-: "[noun] a large fish-eating wading bird with long legs, a long S-shaped neck, and a long pointed bill"

Herring-: "[noun] a silvery fish that is most abundant in coastal waters"

Hibiscus-: "[noun] a plant of the mallow family, grown in warm climates for its large brightly colored flowers"

Hickory-: "[noun] a chiefly North American tree of the walnut family that yields useful timber and typically bears edible nuts"

Hidden-: "[adj] kept out of sight and concealed"

Hill-: "[noun] a naturally raised area of land, not as high or craggy as a mountain"

Hive-: "[noun] a container for housing honeybees; [noun] a colony of bees"

Hog-: "[noun] a domesticated pig"

Hollow-: "[noun] a hole or depression in something; [adj] having a hole or empty space inside"

Holly-: "[noun] a widely distributed shrub, typically having prickly dark green leaves, small white flowers, and red berries"

Hollyhock-: "[noun] a tall Eurasian plant of the mallow family, widely cultivated for its large showy flowers"

Honey-: "[noun] a sticky yellowish-brown fluid made by bees and other insects from nectar collected from flowers"

Honeybee-: "[noun] a stinging winged insect that collects nectar and pollen, produces wax and honey, and lives in large communities"

Honeycomb-: "[noun] a structure of hexagonal cells of wax, made by bees to store honey and eggs"

Honeysuckle-: "[noun] a widely distributed climbing shrub with tubular flowers that are typically fragrant and of two colors or shades, opening in the evening for pollination by moths"

Hoot-: "[noun] a deep or medium-pitched musical sound, often wavering or interrupted, that is the typical call of many kinds of owl"

Hop-: "[noun] a hopping movement; [adj] (of a person) move by jumping on one foot"

Hope-: "[noun] a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen"

Horizon-: "[noun] the line at which the earth's surface and the sky appear to meet"

Hornet-: "[noun] a large stinging wasp that typically nests in hollow trees"

Hornwort-: "[noun] a submerged aquatic plant with narrow forked leaves that become translucent and horny as they age"

Horse-: "[noun] a large plant-eating domesticated mammal with solid hoofs and a flowing mane and tail"

Hound-: "[noun] a dog of a breed used for hunting, especially one able to track by scent"

Howl-: "[noun] a long, loud, doleful cry uttered by an animal such as a dog or wolf; [verb] make a howling sound"

Howling-: "[verb] producing a long, loud, doleful cry or wailing sound"

Hum-: "[verb] make a low, steady continuous sound like that of a bee; [noun] a low, steady continuous sound"

Humid-: "[adj] marked by a relatively high level of water vapor in the atmosphere"

Humming-: "[verb] make a low, steady continuous sound like that of a bee"

Hummingbird-: "[noun] a small nectar-feeding tropical American bird that is able to hover and fly backward, typically having colorful iridescent plumage"

Hurricane-: "[noun] a storm with a violent wind, in particular a tropical cyclone in the Caribbean"

Hush-: "[noun] a silence"

Husk-: "[noun] the dry outer covering of some fruits or seeds"

Hyacinth-: "[noun] a bulbous plant of the lily family, with strap-like leaves and a compact spike of bell-shaped fragrant flowers"

Hydrangea-: "[noun] a shrub or climbing plant with rounded or flattened flowering heads of small florets"

Hyssop-: "[noun] a small bushy aromatic plant of the mint family"

[niobiumao3]

Sorry still on my Tech discourse

The thing is, the reason I don't think Hemlock would keep Tech and that Tech is actually in a prison on Eriadu is (aside from parallels with Andor and how Eriadu was a pirate haven until Tarkin cleaned it up after he came to power) Hemlock does not respect clones and their abilities. Like Tarkin he thinks they're, at most, subhuman. They're subjects to be used for experiments and not much else. Notice how quickly he's okay with killing Omega and Cross the moment they might escape?

Tech being 'smart' means nothing to Hemlock. HEMLOCK is smart, and has Emerie. he doesn't need Tech. I know as fans of the character it's nice to think Hemlock would agree with us on Tech's truly insane skillset, but I really do not feel Hemlock has been shown as having a single ounce of respect for clones' capabilities as people. He let Omega, an experimental clone trained by an elite Commando squad for almost three years, move about unsupervised in his lab. Who does that??

A guy who doesn't think her mentors and teachers were anyone important.

Hemlock doesn't have Tech. If anyone does, it's Tarkin, the guy who explicitly ASKED for Hunter, Wrecker, and Echo. Now, what Tarkin would be doing with Tech is an interesting question.

Edit: I also don't think he's the Clone X (except as a spy) because Hemlock explicitly mentioned trying to 're-educate' Cross and him being resistant. if you think CROSSHAIR was impossible to re-educate, I have NEWS for what that would be like with Tech. Also what was Tech's entire spiel in Aftermath? That the CT-99s are different and not susceptible to reprogramming. Cross only had issues because his chip turned on.