#holy fuck I'm alive it's a miracle

[try-set-me-on-fire]

@devirnis @eddiebabygirldiaz @rewritetheending @wildlife4life @lover-of-mine @daffi-990 all tagged me for fuck it Friday and I wasn't going to post anything but then as I climbed into bed the opening of a buddie supernatural au popped into my head and then tapped it's way into a google doc. I'm not actually going to write a full fic for this (probably) but sharing this little scrap feels in the nature of this tag game. It's not even Friday anymore so not going to tag anyone unless you, dear reader, see this and feel compelled to share something kicking around in a document somewhere. Fuck it! It's always Friday somewhere (if you forget how days work)! Uhhh canon typical violence warning....

Eddie isn’t a stranger to being called a miracle. A miracle baby, he was; born almost two months early when a ghoul out for revenge had tried to snack on Helena’s gray matter. Neither of them should have survived it, but a few weeks later she brought her little bundle of joy home from the hospital, wailing real loud from his big strong lungs. "It was a miracle you were there, mijo," his father told him when he was six years old and shot a man dead, a man with black eyes who’d broke into the house when he was there alone with Sophia, three years old and screaming, Ramon out on a hunt and Helena at the doctor with the baby. "You’re a miracle worker, Diaz," hunters all over the country have told him with a gritty handshake when he’s helped them put something terrible in the ground. (When Shannon had kissed him under the bleachers for the first time, that had felt like a miracle, too. Her lips were soft and her hands had the same calluses as his, she had the same faint lines across the back of her arm from the testing bite of silver blades. Here was someone who knew, who he didn’t have to lie to, who liked him enough to press all that scarred and unscarred skin together with his. Things fell apart, over and over, in the years after that, but still. That first kiss. Not feeling lonely for maybe the first time ever in his life. Was it not a divine act?) He's 28 when he crawls out of his own grave, dirt clinging to clothes and flesh and coating his mouth, his teeth, stinging his eyes. He stumbles home on wobbly legs like a newborn thing, and maybe he is one, freshly alive as he is. He knocks on his front door however many days it's been since he'd watched his own blood mix with Shannon's on the floor of some old and haunted house — clinging to life long enough to see it start to coagulate because please, god, please, they have a kid at home — and after the holy water and the silver and iron and any other test anyone in the family can think of his abuela takes his face between her hands and weeps “Es un milagro! A miracle! A miracle!”  And in a week, in a barn somewhere outside El Paso, he will learn that this time she is right. 

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

Choir: ♪ Holy infant So tender and mild ♪

John: Wait, who describes an infant as mild?

Ted: Yeah, I'm more hung up on tender.

John: Yeah, somebody's eating this baby.

Priest: It's important that we remember just why we celebrate Christmas. We observe the holiest of all days to rejoice in the glory of the birth of Jesus Christ, born not from the seed of man but from divine origin. Never before or since have we, God's children, been blessed by such a miracle.

Ted: Excuse me. Yeah, over here. Hi. Ted, local bear. You're talking about a guy who came alive out of nowhere, right?

Priest: Yes.

Ted: Yeah, me.

Priest: I'm sorry?

Ted: I'm just saying, he's not the only one.

Priest: I don't think that's the same thing.

Ted: Well, you said, never before or since. But… You know, this guy.

Priest: The birth of Christ was a heavenly miracle.

Ted: I mean, what do you call this? I mean, I don't see any Pound Puppies or Monchhichis walking around.

Priest: Christ's birth was clearly ordained by God, marked by the star of Bethlehem, a miraculous beacon from the heavens.

John: There was a star there. Ted: There was a star, right?

John: Yeah, no, it was a shooting star.

Ted: I had a star. John: Yeah.

Priest: Jesus had a divine purpose. God sent him to us to spread the word that He loves us.

Ted (recorded voice): "I love you."

Ted: Your move, Friar Tuck.

Priest: I just want to finish the sermon.

Ted: I'm just saying, I might be Jesus. Might. I'm not saying for sure. I'm just saying it's a possibility. I might be Jesus.

Priest: That is incredibly disrespectful.

Ted: Says the guy eating babies.

-

John: OK, we can't read this whole thing.

Ted: Well, if we're gonna figure out if I'm actually Jesus, we at least got to skim it.

John: I have never seen pages so thin.

Ted: I know. It's like Kleenex with boring stories on it.

John: You know, I was thinking. How do we know that Dennis isn't Jesus?

Ted: Johnny, Jesus walked on water, all right? Walked! That means he had feet, not wheels.

John: Yeah, that makes sense.

Ted: Oh, wait, hang on. Stop right there. Look, look, look. Matthew 21:31, "Truly I say to you, the tax collectors and prostitutes go into the kingdom of heaven before you." Look at that. Jesus hangs out with hookers.

John: Yeah, and he says there's hookers in heaven too. He sounds a lot like you.

Ted: Oh, yeah, heaven is probably mostly hookers.

John: Wait, so you're paying for sex in heaven?

Ted: You're not paying them for sex. You're paying them to fly away.

John: Oh. Let's see. "And behold, I come quickly, and my reward is with me to give"…

Ted: What was that first part?

John: "Behold, I come quickly."

Ted: Jesus said that?

John: Yeah.

Ted: Yeah, that's not the kind of thing I'd start with "behold." What else? Well, look, look, look. Right there. Right there. John the apostle. Jesus had an apostle named John.

John: Holy shit. Those were, like, his buddies, right?

Ted: Yeah, yeah, there was Sleepy, Sneezy, Dopey, Johnny, Blitzen, and Larry, Darryl, and Darryl. There's no doubt anymore. I'm the Lord Jesus Christ.

Ted: Holy shit. Does this mean you have, like, powers and stuff?

Ted: Yeah, but I probably got to learn how to use them. Flip to the spells.

John: OK, spells, spells, spells. Ted: Spells, spells, spells.

Ted: Wonder what my alignment is.

John: Chaotic good.

Ted: Ah, yeah, yeah. Good, but, like, you know, I might fuck around a little bit.

John: Yeah.

Ted: Shit, we supposed to have dice?

-

Ted: OK, what do you say we try one of them spells, huh? Water into wine, here we go. "Meka leka hi, meka hiney ho. Meka leka hi, meka chiney ho." All right, try it.

John: Still water.

Ted: Fuck! Oh, you know what? It's 'cause we don't have the wand.

-

Blaire: Shit. I mean, how the fuck am I supposed to share a house with somebody who treats me like I have some fucking disease Guess there's no chance he's gonna apologize.

Ted: You know, if I can offer a bit of Christly wisdom, Blaire? You're smarter than he is, so you might have to go talk to him.

Blaire: Oh, fuck that. I am not extending an olive branch to somebody who's against basic equality.

John: Well, that's the thing, Blaire. I don't think he's really even against anything. Think he just didn't want to look stupid in front of his truck.

Blaire: Listen to yourself!

John: OK, then don't do it for Dad. Do it for Mom. Look, she's really bummed out right now, and it's all just 'cause Christmas is messed up. Look, I know it's gonna suck, but…

Ted: But it's like I say in the Book of Romulans: turn the other cheek. Do unto others. Say it, don't spray it. I'll have what she's having.

Blaire: You're an idiot.

Ted: Oh, what do we say to that, Apostle?

John: Four hell points.

Ted: Four hell points.

Blaire: What the fuck is a hell point?

Ted: It's how I determine which of my children, who I love, will be tortured forever.

Blaire: Oh, God. Ugh, all right, all right, I'll… I'll talk to him.

-

Ted: Well, I Jesus-ed the shit out of that one.

Blaire: You? You didn't do anything.

Ted: Eh, I worked in mysterious ways.

Sarah: How?

Ted: Where there was only one set of footprints, that's where I carried you.

Blaire: You watched 18 hours of TV yesterday. You barely moved.

Ted: When it most appears I'm not Jesus, that's when you need faith.

Sarah: Ted, you do know what happened to Jesus, right?

Ted: Yeah, he gave back the Gobstopper, and they gave him the chocolate factory. I mean, I think that's what happened. I'm reading, like, two books at once.

Sarah: They nailed him to the cross and crucified him for our sins.

Ted: Wait, what?

Susan: It was so nice of him to let them do that for us, wasn't it?

Ted: They killed him?

Sarah: Yeah.

Ted: Oh, shit. Yeah, fuck that. I'm out. Wait, maybe I'm Buddha. Buddha was lazy, right?

[zeramalgamate]

"Holy shit! What in the hell- Are you okay?! As somebody who has experience with genetic modification, I know for a fact that there is no way in HELL that can be comfortable! Seriously, the fact that you're even ALIVE is a miracle itself! Who did this to you?!"

Well, I've got no fucking clue what my IE is doing in the slightest, am generally feeling a bit claustrophobic all the time just from the presence of my own limbs and am mildly concerned about being accepted into society especially given I haven't got the slightest clue what kind of society I'm actually IN at the moment, but I'm fine, really, this is nothing.

Okay, but actually, I don't feel like I have any major health issues, vital scans aren't flagging anything, so I'm probably fine, or at least stable. The fresh air's a hell of a lot nicer than being suspended in a glass fucking tube.

And for the person who brought whatever this thing I am into being, given the name of the facility I think her name was Liss. Can't be sure though, couldn't hear a bloody thing from in there.

[jamisonwritestf2trash]

minific :) hope u like it!! it doesnt have much of canon lore applied, and its Mann Vs Machine. Spy bein a dad when its far too late :(

----

The team had been split up when the robots attacked, and Scout and Sniper had gotten stuck together. Not that it was any issue for Scout, though. He figured the Australian wouldn't mind sticking with him for a little while, and so far, he hasn't left. But it's too quiet, even for someone like Sniper, the least talkative member on the team.

"Hey, you think the others are alright?" Scout looks at the marksman.

"Why wouldn't they be? They've better aim when close up than I ever bloody will." Sniper glances at Scout before returning his gaze to the hallway ahead of them. Broken robots lay littered about.

"Someone was here." Sniper frowns. "They must not be far."

"No shit, Sherlock-- is that blood?" Scout frowns, the red stain on the floor catching his attention.

"Yeah. Trail o' it, too..." Sniper frowns. "You follow it. I'll make sure there's no more of the bloody boltheads comin' down the halls."

"Gotcha." Scout quickly begins to follow the trail until he reaches the end of the hallway, where the rough smell of cigarette smoke fills the air.

"Ah. It's you." The voice of Spy says from the dark, and Scout flicks the lights on. Whatever he had been expecting, it wasn't... this.

Spy's injured badly. There's blood staining his suit in multiple areas, and what appears to be a gunshot wound to his upper body seems to be the main cause.

"Holy crap...!" Scout quickly snaps out of the trance he was in, and opens the duffel bag slung over his shoulder. He digs through it, pulling out bandages. Of course he'd forgotten the medkits. Fan-fucking-tastic.

"Scout, I am no doctor, but I don't think a simple band aid is going to heal a bullet wound." Spy glares at the runner.

"I'm tryna help you, man! Cut me some slack." Scout scowls, and Spy just sighs.

"Scout. Just... stop. I'm not making it out of this room alive. My leg is broken and I've been shot four times. It's a miracle I'm not already dead." Spy pushes the bandages away, fllicking his burned-out cigarette away with his other hand.

"Well... that's just morbid. I can use comms to get Snipes to find Doc?" Scout reaches for his headpiece, but Spy shakes his head.

"I want you to listen to me, boy. I don't want to be saved. I've accepted that I'm not going to make it out of here. It's better this way."

"Spy--"

"Shut up!" Spy raises his voice to a yell, before letting out a pained sigh, propping himself higher up against the wall. "Just... listen to what I have to say, Jeremy."

Scout's eyes widen slightly. He isn't wearing his dog tags, there's no way Spy could've known.

"How--"

"This will... sound familiar, I hope. I hate repeating myself." Spy lights a second cigarette. Hesitating. "27 years ago, I met a beautiful woman. She was everything I could've wished for... and we were happy together. As Tom Jones would say, I... dropped a 'sex bomb' on her. I was young then, and I ran from the explosion."

It all sounds so familiar. Had Scout heard this before? Where? When...? He can remember someone saying this to him...

Holy. Crap.

"You... You were the Tom Jones that I saw." Scout whispers. Spy just nods.

"I... It is one of my many regrets, leaving you and your mother behind. I was a coward. I suppose I still am, since it would seem I can only admit to this on the edge of death." Speaking is getting more difficult for Spy, and Scout can tell, hesitating before lowering his headpiece.

"Snipes. Find Doc. Hurry."

"Mate-? Wha--" The Australian's cut off as Scout tosses the headpiece aside, and Scout kneels at Spy's side.

"You're my dad. I-- I can't let you just... die here! There's... so much lost time to be made up." Scout starts unravelling the bandage. Maybe it's the shock stopping him from feeling the pain in his leg from a loose nail digging into his knee, maybe it's the sudden adrenaline rush. Doesn't matter. Spy needs to make it out of this alive.

"Jeremy." Spy's voice is calm, with the slightest hint of pain in it. Scout looks up at Spy, who takes his mask off.

He looks just like how Scout's ma had always described him, just... older, with streaks of grey in his styled-back hair and dark circles under his eyes that Scout had never noticed before. But they share the same blue eyes.

"I am proud to see the man you've become. You've made good friends. Your mother did amazing raising you." Spy pulls a photo from his suit pocket, holding it out to Scout. "Here. I kept this when I left. I always have it with me."

It's a photo of 2 year old Scout, with his mother and Spy sitting beside him, watching him open his christmas present: A baseball bat.

Scout looks back at Spy, his vision blurry. Spy smiles at him, whispering something in French that Scout can't understand, and Scout can see the life leave Spy's eyes.

"Dad?" Scout's voice is small, his eyes wide, staring at Spy's motionless body. He tentatively reaches over and shakes Spy's shoulder, but the Frenchman doesn't respond. He's dead. Forcing back a sob, he pulls the corpse into a hug as the sound of footsteps behind him come closer and closer.

Scout never got the chance to learn his father's name.

I AM SOBBING

THIS IS SO GOOD, I LOVE THIS! THIS IS JUST OUGH.

The angst got to me. I'm not gonna lie. This is so amazing, Anon. If you ever start writing these on your blog (or if you already do), please let me know because I will be your number one fan, I swear 💪

Thank you for sending this in. It is very much appreciated. Keep up the good work. You're an amazing writer, and I literally can't compliment you enough!!!

[miraclesnail]

Helloooo 😊

Literally EVERY title PJO intrigued me but I'll just ask about some of them (for now...).

The mains ones being :

-Kronos AU

-Camp Jupiter AU

-1000 ways AU

-Torture AU

-Our Beginning, Our Ending

Which is basically almost all of them, I'm sorry to ask this much 😅😭

thanks for the ask! I think most of them have something written, so I'll just post little snippets of it.

Kronos AU

(It's titled Kronos AU, but it's more like Canon!Travis meets an AU!version of himself that worked with Kronos. 😅This isn't posted on ao3 yet. I thought it would be easier to just write most of it out and then begin posting on ao3 once it's near completion. But I have been writing this thing since 2017 lol and it's like about ~70k. Is it close to being done? No. Not really, but it'll get there one day 🤞)

Nico cried.

Travis thinks about that for a second.

Nico cried. 

He looked and acted like the 15 year old he actually is. 

“TRAVIS!”

On the 2nd second, he hears Connor screaming his name. Faces are zooming past him, the holograms unable to keep steady with him falling. Somehow, he’s still clutching the phone in his hands. Wow. Thought he would have dropped that by now. 

On the 3rd second, he hears everybody else yelling at him. 

“You have to slow yourself down!” 

“You land with that speed and you’re going splat!”

“Travis! You fucking idiot, get it together!”

The 4th second, the fog clears and he sees the ground coming fast at him. The math computes itself in his head. He was thrown from a 400 meter tall building. He’ll have just a bit over 9 seconds before he hits the ground. 

The 5th second, Travis scans his surroundings and finds nothing. The nearest building is too far to veer towards. Directly below him is a clear path to the asphalt. There’s nothing to grab, nothing to hit, nothing to slow him down. Nico really did pick a good spot to drop him from. Good for him. Sucks for himself though. 

The 6th second, his friends argue with each other. 

“Make an ice slide, Percy!” someone says. 

Percy yells back, “With what ice?!”

The 7th second is the same. 

“Then a water trampoline!”

Annabeth snaps, “At that speed, it’s like falling onto concrete. He’ll die.”

And so is the 8th second.

“Katie! Grow a tree or something like how your other-self did.”

“You think I haven’t been trying?” Katie screeches, “But I can’t — It’s not growing — It’s not appearing— it’s not. It’s not. It’s not. It’s not. Why isn’t it?” 

He’s going to die. 

He’s going to die. 

There’s no surviving this. 

But his body still braces itself. He still rights himself to land feet first. He still moves like he will survive. He pictures Connor’s face, his little brother that stuck with him since they were toddlers on the streets to young children finally finding safety at camp to fledging co-counselors after Luke left them the torch. Nico’s arrival and departure. The Battle of the Labyrinth. The Battle of Manhattan. The war with the Romans then against Gaia. They survived together, from infancy and toddlerhood and those awkward, awkward pre-teen years and two wars. There have been two wars. So many of their friends died, but they’re still alive. There’s still a whole future ahead of them. He can’t die yet.  

Even if his legs shatter. Even if every bone in his body breaks. If by some miracle, if by some good fortune, if there’s even a measly chance he’ll survive then he needs to take it. 

8.5 seconds into his fall, he’s hit with a strong gust of air from below. 

Jason, he thinks, holy cow. What a save. 

Then he slams into the ground and his world goes dark.

xxxxxxx

Somewhere in between, Travis dreams. 

He dreams of the days before the War with the Gaea, before the war with the Titans, before Percy, before Luke and Annabeth and Camp. 

He dreams of the days when it was just him and Connor. He dreams of cold nights. Of starry skies. Of hitchhiking. Of aimless wandering. Of a hand in his, a face identical to his own, smiling back at him under the canopy of a tree while they wait for the rain to pass. Laughing in tattered, stolen jackets as they wait for the blizzard to pass in the stale, musty inside of a dumpster. Running in old and worn sneakers down Lower Manhattan from a lady with a tail instead of legs. Swinging their legs up on an oak tree as they point at the nigtt he sky with many twinkling lights

“It’s not so bad,” Connor always said to him with a beaming smile, “At least you’re here with me.”

“Suffering together,” he nods in agreement. 

Connor laughs. 

But at the very least always together. 

xxxxxxx

There’s people screaming his name when he comes to.

They’re panicking. They’re begging him to do something. Wake up. Get up. 

But his mind is a mess right now. He can’t breathe. Every inch of his body hurts, burning and throbbing with excruciating and stabbing pain.

That’s good though, isn’t it? It means his spine isn’t broken? He can still walk. 

But what if his mind is playing tricks on him? 

“T-Travis? Travis?! Is he dead? Someone please tell me he’s not dead!”

“Please get up. Please, please, please. Please get up.” 

Connor’s voice cuts through the others — wobbly and shaky. He doesn’t need to see to know Connor is scared.

I’m fine. It’s all good. Don’t worry.

But it’s taking all he has to open his eyes. 

And when he finally manages it, his vision is blurry.

He’s laying in a puddle of water several inches high. Little waves lap against his face with every plop plop of raindrops. There’s something red and wet, shimmering almost, right next to his head. Is that blood? His blood? 

He blinks to clear his vision and — a stabbing pain behind his eyes. 

His eyes clench shut and he curls in on himself. Bad move. A rippling pain shoots through his body. He’s sure he whimpers.

Don’t cry. Don’t cry. You can’t cry in front of Connor. 

He takes a deep breath — and immediately stops when his sides just under his ribs scream bloody murder. 

Okay. No deep breaths.

Travis takes a small breath, shuddering, and forces his eyes open again. He’s lying on his right side, head tilted just enough that he’s not drowning in the puddles of water. He sees the pool of red and yes, that’s blood, raindrops making little holes like gunshots in that pool of red. 

He sees people kneeling in front of him — Annabeth and Percy — yelling words at him he’s not processing. They’re pointing behind them, something in the distance. Those squiggly blobs. 

He squints, not understanding what’s so urgent.

Then Connor’s voice cuts through the haze again. No. Not Connor’s. Other-him.

“Get up! Get up. Get up. Get up! GET UP!”

The squiggly blobs become people —3 of them, skinny and malnourished — and they’re running towards him. They’re sprinting towards him. And fuck. Fuck. fuck. Fuck. 

His heart pounds faster as realization dawns on him. His fingers scrabble on the asphalt but he can’t find strength to even roll over. He’s hyperventilating. Every breath he takes is short and sends a stab into his side. 

He struggles to stand, arms failing to lift higher than an inch. His legs refuse to budge too and maybe he did break his spine. 

Another strong gust of air blows past him, pushing against the three running zombies. One falls over but they just simply stand back up. They’re still making their way over to him. 

“He needs to fight. You need to fight them off, Travis,” Annabeth says to his left, her voice tight. 

“Not in that condition,” Will says on his right, hologram hands fluttering over him. There’s a hint of panic cracking through Will’s calm persona he always has on in a crisis mode.

5 broken ribs. A fractured femur. Breaks on both tibia. A crack on the right humerus. Another on his shoulder blade. An undetermined level of traumatic brain injury. Severe internal bleeding. Class 3 level of hypovolaemic shock borderlining on 4. 

Will is saying more, but it’s all medical jargon that Travis can’t spare any brain power on deciphering.

Camp Jupiter AU

(This is the Camp Jupiter! Connor fic. The next chapter is like... nearly done. Sort of.)

“Wanna see something cool, Annabeth?” Luke had told her once upon a time, a time from before the war, from before Kronos, from before the quest with the apple, from before even camp half blood and before Thalia’s death and before Grover had found them,  as they stand outside of a hotdog stand.

And her, 7 years old and enamorated with Luke and all his surface perfections, nods her head rapidly.

Luke smiled at her, warm and loved and kindly, before turning back to the hotdog stand they’re loitering around. 

His eyes glowed dimly, just a bit brighter than their usual blue. And they shimmered. The blue irises swirling in a circle clockwise, slowly, just barely noticeable.

Luke rested an arm on the stand and the vendor scowled at him, sizing them up and probably chalking up they have no money. He’s right. They don’t have any money. But Luke still asked anyway. 

“Can I have a hotdog?”

And the man handed them three without a question. He didn’t even ask about payment. Luke snatched the three hotdogs, thanking him quickly before quickly walking away. Annabeth followed after just as fast.

“How did you do that?” she asked, even more enamorated. Luke is so cool. She remembered that was her exact thought. 

And Luke, with sweat beading his forehead, eyes back to normal again, chuckled, his laugh weak and wobbly. “Uh… my powers. I don’t really use it all that much though. It’s kind of exhausting to be honest.” 

But he did it anyway. For me and Thalia, Annabeth thought, Luke really is the best. 

Luke never really used that power afterwards. But Annabeth can never forget it. 

The glow in those eyes. The shimmering irises. The slow swirl. 

When Annabeth met Travis Stoll at Grand Central Station the summer she turned 14, a couple weeks after Thalia’s ejection from the pine tree, that was the first thing she noticed.

He has the same power as Luke, was Annabeth’s first thought of Travis. 

He’s working with the titan, is Annabeth’s second thought. 

We can’t let him into camp. He’ll spy on all of us.

But Percy with his soft heart didn’t see what she saw. 

He’s just a lost demigod without a home, Seaweed Brain told her with these puppy-eyes as he held onto Travis’s wrist so he didn’t run away. Travis looked like the type, chuckling nervously as he hid behind Percy from her piercing gaze as he looked side to side for an escape route. Percy stood taller and broadened his shoulder as if to the shield Travis, 

But Annabeth wasn’t as kind or soft as Percy. 

“He’s lying to you,” she snarled, brandishing her dagger at this Travis person taking advantage of Percy’s good heart. “He’s with Luke.” 

“What? No. No way,” Percy said, nose flaring with the beginning flames of anger as he stood his ground. “What is your problem? You judged Tyson just like this. How can you know all that when you just met him?” 

Because he has the same power as Luke, the same power that’s blossoming in Drew Tanaka, their newest camper. The power that can make whoever they speak to do their bidding. But whereas Luke can only perform a simple action before the power wanes all his energy, Travis has been active with no signs of stopping. No exhaustion like Luke suffered from. No sweating. No weakness. 

Travis’s control over his godly power was better than even Luke’s. Then that must mean Travis is powerful and no powerful demigod this old hadn’t already been pulled to one side. 

Travis Stoll had to be working for Kronos. 

She just didn’t have the proof at the moment. But what other explanation can there be? To have survived for this long from monsters and elements alike, he had to have help from the titan. 

But Percy won their argument in the end, dragging the now reluctant Travis (suspicious) to Camp Half Blood. There Travis was claimed at the spot (highly suspicious). Hermes himself even arrived at the Camp to see Travis in person much to the guffaws of the other unclaimeds in the cabin (incredibly suspicious). 

No way Travis wasn’t a spy. 

So Annabeth waited.

Waited for the ball to drop.

Waited for the mask to come off.

Waited for Travis to show his true colors and betray them all just as Luke had. 

But the hours became days that became weeks that turned into months and then to years.

Travis ate with them jovially, excitedly, eyes going starried eyed at the variety of meals he can bring forth with his mind.  Annabeth was staring at him so she spotted it, the moment of genuinity. The moment of relief that can only come from the experience of scarcity. And she looked away quickly. It’s just an act. He’s pretending. He’s acting. Just a ploy so she’ll lower her guard, she told herself then. 

Travis played volleyball and decimated her reigning champion title effortlessly and unknowingly. He doesn’t spike all too hard and his serves are nothing. But the way he dives for the ball, he never once allowed it to touch the ground despite who she set the ball to. They can only make the rally go on for so long before someone makes a mistake. Then he had the nerve, the hudslaw, to try to throw the next match when he found out his crime. Annabeth didn’t let him, of course, because a win is not a win if one of them was only trying half-heartedly. Athena would disown her if she claimed victory like this. 

Travis sparred playfully and half-heartedly with Percy, losing on purpose and tapping out too early. I’m tired. You got me. I lost. Hahahaha. Travis said it all with this weird edge in his voice. 

Travis helped Will and Michael out in the infirmary and then initiated a rubber band war when there’s down time. Travis learned how to knit and crochet from her so he could make thousands of little bunnies to plant all over Demeter’s Cabin and in Katie Gardner’s bed. Travis strummed his lyre happily in the weekly sing-a-longs much to Lee’s delight before taking the campy songs more towards a rock theme. Travis listened attentively to Beckendorf’s rantings about his creations before using newly found knowledge to create his own contraptions for his pranks (that never works thank the fates). 

Travis was there with them at the Battle of the Labyrinth, guarding his cabinmate’s back. Travis comforting the younger campers. Travis cried when they burned Lee’s and Castor’s shrouds. Travis cried at Percy’s faux-funeral then at Beckendorf’s shroud burning. Travis followed them into Manhattan and did as told without a single complaint. 

Travis fought for them, fought with them. 

Travis risked his life for their cause the same as all of them. 

Travis held her hand when he got back from his trip to the drug store with Will’s requested supplies.

Travis talked with her as Will treated her wounds, told her about what he saw on his way to the drug store, about this pair of puppies sleeping side by side beside their human in the middle of the street and how he moved them away, how his cabin is doing, how her cabin is doing, what the weather is like. 

Travis stayed beside her for a moment longer after Will left when Kayla and Austin came to tell him something, their face haggard. 

Travis told her in this quiet voice that Michael had died, voice cracking while on the other side of the door she can hear Will’s sobbing. 

And when they won the war, when Kronos had been vanquished, and they’re all back safe and sound at camp, Travis smiled at her so warmly, with such genuine affection, with such a gentle look, it can’t be mistaken for anything but sincerity. 

She was wrong. 

Travis wasn’t a spy. 

He’s just a liar. 

1000 ways

(Drew is the only one with an intro I liked out of the 3 I have ongoing in this doc. She's probably next.)

Drew (14) - Travis (14) - Connor (13) 

Summer 2007

If Drew tries really hard, if she closes her eyes and shuts out the world, Drew can remember the counselor before Silena. 

She had been kind. A warm smile. She loved hugging them. She loved saying how proud she is of them. She loved making these little knickknacks to give them at the end of summer. A little clay figurine. A crocheted beanie. A knitted hand warmer. 

There’s more too. She talked too much about her dog, a little doodle puppy in California. She complained about the long flight whenever she came to camp for the summer and how jetlaggd she is. She always spoke about their mother in a stilted way whenever she spoke of Aphrodite, always shifting the topic away as fast as she could. 

But she did seem knowledgable about their shared mother. 

Drew doesn’t remember much more of Karen. 

But she remembered how she always looked stressed at curfew when she checked each of them to make they’re accounted for, when she listened to their complaints about other cabins bullying them and how they want to make it stop, how they wish their mother would give them some kind of message or sign that they care.

She remembered thinking that a counselor seems like a sucky job.

And now here Silena is, standing before them with a shaky smile, legs quivering as she addresses all of them, “Welcome back, Cabin 10. Let’s have another great summer! I’m your head counselor this summer, Silena Beuragard.”

“What happened to Karen?” someone in the back asks, “Is she working or taking summer classes?”

“Karen? Oh, um,” Silena says pitifully, eyes darting around the room in an obvious attempt to buy time. 

Weird, Drew thinks and thinks no more of it.

That should have been clue 1.

“Karen…” Silena gulps and her lower lip wobbles. “Karen died in May to hellhounds.”

A heavy, unbearable silence consumes their cabin. Of course it would. Why wouldn’t it? As much as Annabeth likes to tell everybody new that arrives to camp that they, the children of Aprodite, do not attract monsters, the fact of the matter is that they do. They fucking do. It’s a reality for them as much as it is for every other demigod. Karen always stopped her from telling Annabeth off, saying some bullshit about how ‘we need to maintain peace, Drew.’ 

Well, she’s not here to maintain the peace and Drew is going to say whatever she wants. And the first on the list is telling Annabeth she’s wrong. 

The somber silence in their cabin is annoying though and it looks like Silena isn’t going to do anything about it. In fact, their new counselor is doing nothing but staring at her shoes. Come on, Silena. Read the room. 

Drew huffs and crosses her arms, raising her voice, “Well, we expected this, didn’t we? It’s part of the deal that comes with being demigods. Time to take training more seriously so we all don’t become like poor old Karen.”

A girl beside her punches her in the arm and hisses, “Drew! That’s too insensitive!”

But that seems to snap Silena out of her stupor. “No… No. Drew is right. Let’s take training more seriously. No more deaths from now on. I want to see you all again next summer… yeah?” 

Silena ends it with a weak smile, a guilty smile once Drew looks closer. But why? What would Silena have any guilt about?

“Thanks, Drew,” Silena tells her after everybody clears the cabin, still with that wobbling lip. “You really saved the mood there.” 

Drew scoffs and flips her hair over her shoulder and  rests a hand on her hip, looking her half-sister up and down. “Yeah. It’s no big deal. Are you sure you can do it though? That’s not a very strong start there, you know. Not a very respectable start either. If anything, you seem kind of like a pushover.” 

Silena shakes her head and bites her cheek as she rubs her arms. “No, no, I can do this. I have to do this. After everything I had to do just to get this position, I can’t just… I can’t just make you do it. What kind of sister would I be?”

Silena is such a piss-poor liar. She definitely just changed what she was about to say. 

Torture AU

(Basically Travis gets kidnapped by Luke and locked away because he wouldn't help Luke. Then Luke someone had someone infiltrate and take over cabin 11 to help Silena with spy/sabotage duties while Connor was busy looking for his brother. It was suppose to be a 5 part story but I've been stuck on the first part. So I just add like a word every week or so lol)

He’s just a child. Baby fat rounding his cheeks. Limbs, thin and gangly. Voice, high and squeaking. A face that is undoubtedly trying to appear tough, but it’s just a baby pout. Just a child. 

I wince as he’s dragged by the arms, legs digging into the steel floor to no avail and screams echoing, through the hallway. He catches my eyes, catches my polearm beside me next, and his eyes widen just a bit in fear. But Marcus and Adwin pull him further along. I bring my halberd polearm, just a bit taller than me at 5 and a half feet, closer and follow after them. 

He’s yelling about his brother who will ‘definitely come for me’ and ‘you’ll all regret it’ and ‘I am so hungry why couldn’t you kidnap me after breakfast, huh?’

They toss him into a cellar, pull the steel bars close, and lock it with a padlock, tossing me the key. 

Keep watch over him, Marcus tells me as Adwin leaves without a glance back. 

Don’t let him out.

Don’t let him escape. 

Don’t talk to him. 

Just ignore him. 

Easy enough to do.  

xx

“Hey,” he says as soon as we’re alone with a bright, easy smile, fingers wrapping loosely around the metal bars. “How are you? What’s your name?”

By reflex, I smile back.

And by courtesy, I answer.

“It’s Carwen. And yours?”

xx

Travis is his name. He really is a child, just barely turned thirteen, five years younger than me. Oldest in his cabin. A son of Hermes. Luke’s younger half brother. It's hard to believe they’re related. Luke is ice cold and harsh edges and bitter scowls but Travis is lively laughs and wide smiles and bad jokes. 

Nothing at all like Luke. 

xx

Travis talks.

Like, a lot.

About everything, about nothing. The weather. The food. His cabin. His brothers and sisters. Luke. His feelings. His dreams. His aspirations. His hobbies. His pet peeves. 

It’s refreshing honestly. No one ever talks here, least of all mundane stuff like this. 

It’s all war, war, war. Plans, plans, plans. Strategy this and strategy that. Revenge, revenge, revenge. 

Sometimes all Carwen wants is a nice conversation. 

Just a nice, casual “I'm good. Went scuba diving. Made some kimchi fried rice. How are you?” to her “how are you? Anything fun happened today?” rather than “I performed a splenectomy on myself.” or “Threw up because I ate rotting meat.” or even “I did nothing but train today and so should you.” 

xx

Food comes twice a day. Early morning and late evening. It’s not really special. Just white rice with unseasoned chicken and an apple. It’s boring and unappetizing and Travis tells me for every meal for the last three days. 

He tells me how the food at Camp Half Blood is so much better, so much more diverse, so much more tasty. 

And I couldn’t disagree. 

xx

There’s no vegetables at all in his bidaily meals! That’s not a healthy diet for a growing boy.  

Well, today I cut and steamed some broccoli with a soy sauce and mustard mix. I hope he likes it. Travis stares at it for a long time, his face lowered and hidden from me. I fiddle with my polearm as I wait for his reaction. 

When he breaks into a smile and thanks me, I don’t know why but I go warm. 

xx

Travis tells me how he was caught. Went running along the border with the newest camper. Got chloroformed. Last thing he saw was the camp’s rising sun as he’s dragged down half blood hill. I listened, nodded in understanding a couple times, but all I could think about was Abbie, the nine year old we sent over there for spying purposes and undercover missions. 

xx

Why are you fighting? Travis asks with wide eyes. Why are you doing this? 

xx

Flower. 

That’s the name I gave my halberd. Travis watches it with a lackluster expression. It looks too heavy. It looks dull. It looks slow. All of which I deny exuberantly.

I ask him what’s his preferred weapon, Travis hums and ponders and drums his fingers on the bed. Something inconspicuous, he tells me later. Something he could always have with him without suspicion.

Our Beginning, Our End 

(It's supposed to be a companion piece to the Kronos!AU where I put all the side stories that explained events in the main story but were too clunky to somehow add in there.)

The whole school saw it at the same time. That wave of water. Thousands of meters high and racing towards them. Like something right out of a disaster movie. Laurel stares, transfixed at the coming wave. We’re going to die. We’re all going to die.

Even when her twin sister socks her in the arm and yells at her, Laurel can’t move. 

“Laurel!” Holly screams right into her ear. “Get a grip! We have a run now!”

A hand grabs her wrist and tugs hard. She doesn’t budge from the window. 

“Laurel! You big, fucking idiot! Move, Laurel!”

She still doesn’t move. 

And her twin sister, her other-half, her equal, the one person she can’t stand, can’t live without, the one person who knows her inside and out, says the only words that gets through.

“This settles it. I’m the one best suited for apocalypses, you pansy.” 

It’s like fire fills her veins and Laurel snaps out of whatever stupor she was in. 

“Huh?!? What? You? We both know I’m the better one.” she snaps, but she’s jesting. The truth is, she’s scared and so is Holly.

“Yeah? Show me then,” Holly challenges with a crazy smile, “Survive longer than me and we’ll see.” 

A game. To be the best. To be number 1. They played that game for as long as Laurel can remember. 

No matter what. Winning is everything. Winning is the only option.

Holly shoving her out of the way of the trampede, even that means she gets caught in the crowd, that was an admission of defeat. 

Laurel guessed when she just sat there and watched her sister’s head roll underneath her schoolmate’s feet. That was also an admission of defeat.  

Holly’s dead. Her skull is split in two. There’s so much blood. There’s no pulse. But admitting that means Laurel has no reason to live.

So she lifts her precious sister onto her back and runs as far as she can before the waters catch up. 

“I’m going to win,” she pretends, a quiet whisper that sounds more like a question. The fear in her voice makes her sick

“I’m going to win! Just watch and see!” she yells to no one’s ears. 

“I'm going to win, you loser,” she says to the still body. 

The tsunami hits her and she’s swept up in the waters. Her vision becomes darky and murky. She doesn’t know which way is up. Something large and heavy crashes into her. She loses her grip on Holly and Laurel screams no, water filling her lungs. 

Not my sister. Don’t take my sister away from me. Holly. Holly. Holly, don’t go. 

When she wakes, she’s floating on top of a lake with a pile of bodies. Alone and her sister nowhere in sight. 

She’s dead. 

She can’t breathe. Everytime she tries, everytime she focuses on it, its like she’s drowning again. 

But if she ignores it, if she doesn’t think about it, she can talk. And she’s moving despite being dead. 

She should question the logistics but all she can think about right now is finding her sister. Find her sister. Find Holly. Find holly first Then she can figure out why she isn’t dead. 

But the minutes of looking turn into hours of looking.  The hours turns into days and then weeks and then months. 

She can’t recognize anything. Nothing is the same. There’s no landmarks. She can’t tell where she is. All the houses are washed away. All the buildings torn down to just their foundation. 

She gives up her dignity and asks for help. But nobody, not the shambling drowned corpses, not the thin skeletal corpses, not the chewed and bitten corpses, not the corpses with bullets in their heads, none if them know where her sister is. 

She asks. And asks. And asks. And there’s still no Holly. 

And day by day, the panic settles and grips her heart. What if she never finds Holly? What jf this is Hell? What if this is her personal hell? To forever look and never find her twin? 

The desperation gets worse. Her fear gets wilder. She tries harder. She struggles more. She stops being nice. If a corpse or a still alive being gives her no answer, she shoves them away. If they’re too slow to move aside, she jabs her hand-made spear into their stomach and tosses them aside. 

There’s a small part of her, the moral part of her, that knows what she’s doing is wrong, but Holly is still missing. Everybody — mostly everybody — is already dead so what does it matter?

Times pass for whoever knows just like that. Searching for her sister, cutting people in half, searching for her sister, cutting people inbalf, over and over. Monotnous and repeating. 

Until it isn’t. 

She bumps into someone alive as she rounds a corner of the office building she’s searching in and the pain is searing and immediate. The pain lingers even after the person jumps back. 

“Shit! Watch out guys.”

There’s others behind her. Two girls. Three boys. They’re all different somehow. There’s this certain strength coursing through them that she never sees in others — both corpses and alive. They’re like her. They’re special like her. 

But this person she bumped into is more special. This still alive person she comes across, this… person is different. Being around her hurts. Being around her makes her unable to breathe. It makes her feel like she’s drowning. It makes her rememeber her death, the dark murky waters and twirling in complete darkness, of her last contact with her sister. It makes her afraid. it makes her feel the pain all the worse. Run. Attack. Those are her two options.

[lunchtimebedamned1997]

A journal entry of a truly fucked (fictional) man

An excerpt from the diary of Sebastian L. West (A character from my WIP series, Ashland Bites, CW: He's a simp)

(Please forgive the messiness of these quick sketches, they're all the art I have of him currently <3) ...

The taste of her skin - my god, I can't forget it though the memory has faded.

It's the cruelest kind of torture, to know something, to covet it, but to not be able to live solely within your own memory.

To only ever be able to regain it by not only the miracle of her forgiveness - but added requirement of the unlikely return of the feelings she once held for me.

How am I supposed to live knowing what I know of her? Knowing the depth of her soul and the luscious sounds and smells and tastes of her pleasure?

To not feel her against my lips, my tongue, wrapped around me in what must be a truly holy embrace.

Gods what I wouldn't do to have her back.

I can't think of a single thing.

I'd kill myself if it'd make her forgive me, forever rob myself of a future chance if it meant we'd be at peace with each other.

I have never known a creature more divine.

I wish she'd get over what I'd done - that she could, for even the barest, briefest moment understand that it was all for her. Even if it's not how she would have wanted things to go. Yes, I'll admit some of it was my ego, my pride - but how could I call my devotion love if I went to her destitute, with no real skill or craft fit for a man of low station. [Redacted] didn't want a man. Didn't want a husband, but her family demanded it. Our friendship and mutual lack of interest was a light in the dark of my shallow former torment. I know it was the lying, the deceit, more than anything that grated against [Redacted] - I knew it was of value to her, honesty, but I was willing to betray her trust if it meant having my Cecilia.

I knew it wouldn't truly hurt [Redacted] beyond the lie itself. And I could have never known the wound it would cause to my love. That both would want me dead so swiftly - I try to convince myself it was the heat of emotions, too soon an opportunity after the awfully timed reveal of my play.

Perhaps the universe forgives me for my follies even if they do not. I've been granted an eternity to chip away at her hurt until I am allowed a chance to make it right.

I am convinced, especially and increasingly over the last few decades of testing the waters of interest with others, that Cecilia is the only person in the world for me. That I will never love another.

I loved none before her, and i will love none after.

Even if she hates me for the rest of our lives, if her disdain stretches to the brink of eternity, I will love her still. I do not need her to love me to know she is the finest person to ever grace the Earth.

I do not need her forgiveness to feel that she is the beginning and end of my heart's wants.

I will wait - if ever death comes to greet her, I will slaughter who or whatever called him forth, and then I will join her in whatever awaits us, heaven, hell, the blank nothingness. There is no world without her light; even if I'm kept behind a curtain, if she is alive the light filters through.

How many journals must I have filled now with my aching?

Every time I see her my mouth opens and I am lost. My mind blanks, and any pretty words I may have written here evaporate between my tongue and the air, leaving me with only the most foolish, stupid things that only increase her dislike of me.

My only comfort in her hatred, beyond the proof of her continued existence, is the pure radiance of her rage.

An emotion so ugly on others, only highlights her beauty. Not as much as the peaceful bliss of comfort and trust I was once blessed to witness, but gods, its close enough to feel as though I am the chosen of a most generous god.

[tobiasdrake]

Do you hear that? What's the sound? Oh, that's the sound of the BESTIE TRAIN COMING THROUGH, CHOO-CHOO!!!

A day in the life of Fubuki Clockford, let's goooooo!

Aww! The fortune teller says we're going to have good fortune. ^_^

Hey, don't laugh. This world features genetically-engineered homunculi and shinigami detectives who remotely kill people. Who says divination can't be real too?

I mean, she's probably trying to upsell a nearby casino but I'm going to remain optimistic. This will be our BEST. DAY. EVER.

Good for you, Fubuki! With your spotty memory and distractibility, you're exactly the kind of person that casinos prey on. Someone who could easily lose track of how much they can afford to spend or get swept up in the theatricism and not realize how they're being swindled.

Like... like off a building or something?

I dunno, let's see what the title card thinks.

That's a resounding yes! Come on, Fubuki! Gonna be sunshine and roses today!

Well. Probably not sunshine. In Kanai Ward. In fact, I think that would constitute a tremendously bad day, all things considered.

...protective rainclouds and roses!

Okay let's go see what "Someone fell from the sky" is about. Maybe they brought presents.

Aww, but I want to know your lucky number. It might be important later.

Also SQUEE I get to play as Fubuki. Y'all, I have been wanting to dump Yuma and go play as Fubuki since chapter 3.

...okay, chapter 2. As soon as Yakou was like, "She has an ability that will let her evade Peacekeepers with no trouble," I wanted to forget whatever shenanigans Yuma's going to get up to and go with her instead.

IT'S NOT MY FAULT, FUBUKI'S GREAT. FUCK YOU.

Incidentally, the window sign reads "COFFEE EQUALS *ONE* HAPPY DAY" so I am thinking we should get some coffee. <.< Though that might just be me falling victim to marketing.

Oh shit. There he is. In the middle of the street. Feral Population +1.

He had to have fallen from a building, right?

Okay, thanks for that clarification. Anyone know which building?

I realize you may find this hard to believe, and maybe harder with each passing moment that we talk, but I am a trained professional.

Or we can go with that as our opener, sure. I figured we'd slowly whittle down their confidence in us over the course of conversation but Fubuki's a master at going from 100 to 0 in record time.

HOLY SHIT HE'S ALIVE

We don't know how long he'll be conscious. Ask him questions quickly and see if he can answer. Then if he passes out, we can turn back time and ask different questions, over and over until Fubuki passes out. Straight-up min/maxing this interrogation!

I mean. She isn't wrong. These buildings are several stories tall and he landed on his face. On cement. His skull should be chunky salsa right now.

Clearly, Fubuki's great fortune is keeping him alive.

Three? What about three? Three what? Three muggers? Three rungs on a ladder? Three-

IS THAT A FUCKING D6 NEXT TO THE BODY!?

Did this guy use his final breath to read off the value on his die?

Oh my god, we're going gambling, aren't we? This case is going to involve gambling. Oh fuck.

...

We should go find out what our lucky number is.

I. Don't. Think he can, bestie. It's okay. Your Lucky Day powers scored us a valuable piece of testimony, unassuming though it may seem. Could you cast a glance at that die on the ground? I want to confirm what value it's showing.

Guys, it's nothing short of a Lucky Day miracle that he lived this long. He doesn't need an ambulance at this point. He needs a coroner transport truck to move him into the Restricted Area.

We have our mission. We must solve the mystery of the number three. At this time, our suspect list includes:

1 - The fortune teller lady. She seemed interested in pushing a number on us, and three is a number. Seems suspicious, lady. 2 - The Count from Sesame Street. There may be more bodies lying around. ONE! TWO! THREE MURDERS, ah ha ha! 3 - Yomi Hellsmile. Because he sucks and should always be considered suspicious. 4 - Halara Nightmare.

Right now, I'm honing in on Yomi as my prime suspect. Because he's number three on the list. Three's a pretty suspicious number to be at, Yomi. What else do you know about threes?

Let's go! Maybe we can get a little more context for the three.

You know what, that's a much better idea. We'll call that Plan B.

Because we should try it B-FORE trying to hear his dying words more clearly! If Plan B fails, we resort to Plan A-lternative.

...okay but I still want to know our lucky number. We can spare some time, right?

Drat. But. The number. It might be three. That could be a clue.

Plan B was a good effort but we didn't hustle fast enough. That might be because I stopped to try and get our lucky number from the fortune teller lady. I'm sorry for that.

How's Plan A looking?

Rudimentary first aid says that in the event of a possible broken neck, jerking the body around is--

I can't even finish my joke because look at his face. He can't take his eyes off that fucking d6. I wonder if it's a three again?

Nope, this time came up two. That's interesting. It implies probabilistic differences between "runs" of the same time period. I'm getting flashbacks to Zero Time Dilemma.

Hm... Okay, let's try again and see if we can get there faster.

[meggannn]

i saw another "Garrus accepts Shepard in ME2 when they come back, why can't Ashley/Kaidan" post the other day and was gonna reply, then i realized my response was less about discussion and more about info-dumping/being right, so i decided to just make my own post. so here is the long explanation of why I don't and never will hold it against Kaidan/Ash for reacting as they did on Horizon just so I can point to it for later

I'm not gonna go too far into Garrus’s POV to Shepard's resurrection, just the VS's (Virmire Survivor's). I want to add crucial context for the VS's Horizon POV that is rarely mentioned in these sorts of comparisons, which is: TIM has been spreading rumors about Shepard being alive and with Cerberus that the VS is fully aware of by the time Shepard's boots hit Horizon. if you accept the comics as canon, then TIM's actually been seeding those rumors since before Shepard even woke up on the operating table. (see this panel in which one of TIM's Citadel operatives gets caught pre-ME2 trying to steal classified info about Shepard. TIM is pointedly not too bothered about it.) when you talk to Anderson and the Council at the Citadel, they both already know you're with Cerberus. how? you certainly didn't tell them. it was TIM, and he confirms this himself as well after Horizon. (Joker also says "[Horizon] was probably a set-up" if you talk to him after the mission.)

so the VS hears these rumors pre-Horizon. Kaidan says he asked about Shepard, and Anderson stonewalled him. by the time they're posted on Horizon, Kaidan/Ash have been hearing "Shepard's with Cerberus" for weeks, possibly months. if you’re the VS, you probably don’t want to believe someone you trusted to lead you into hell, maybe even trusted enough to break fraternization regulations with, would 1) lie to you about being dead, and 2) work with a terrorist organization. but then they get there and find out not only are they fucking alive and didn't contact you (not knowing they COULDN'T contact you because THEY were also stonewalled by Anderson); not only that, they're now trying to recruit you to said terrorist organization. they’d be questioning everything they thought they knew about their old CO.

the VS meeting Shep on Horizon after Shep saves the colony is not a "holy shit, you're alive!" moment like it was for Garrus's rescue. it's a "fuck, you're alive, and you have a Cerberus crew with you just like I hoped you wouldn't" moment. a "the rumors were true, I just didn't want to believe them because that means you're either a traitor or compromised" moment.

imagine after Anderson dies at the end of ME3, he suddenly shows up in ME5 going “Hey Shepard I’m back, also come join my team in my mysterious quest, let’s talk it out together in this private room over here and you’ll see my reasoning.” do you think I’m an idiot, Leviathan? we-as-Shepard saw Anderson die ourselves—like the VS was on the SR-1 when it crashed. the player would be 100% in the right to think the real Anderson was dead and this was a mangled copy of his corpse the Leviathan or some new fucking thing was puppeting from afar.

for Garrus, who was just told "Shepard's dead" after the fact but didn't see the crash, Shepard being alive is an unexpected miracle he doesn't want to think twice about. (Garrus was drowning on Omega, but Shepard arose from the dead just to save his life; Shepard knows what to do; Shepard can save him from his fuck-ups. Garrus is finally free from the burden of being a poor leader and can fall back on following someone else; everything is right again in his world if Shepard's at the helm.)

but for the VS, some small part of them may even be hoping the rumors aren't true, that Shepard's NOT alive, because if they are, it means Shep lied to them, or isn't who they thought they were.

then, for the VS to be told on Horizon “you’re overreacting, of course working with Cerberus is the only logical conclusion here!” honestly? sounds like radicalization.

“I was dead for two years!” = of course you were, that was Cerberus brainwashing time, baby. Shepard, how do you really know what happened those two years? was it really just "reconstruction"? maybe the real Shepard IS dead. (especially after the Citadel DLC confirms Cerberus did make a Shepard clone, we know the VS actually has a point.)

“fine, but then why doesn’t Shepard just explain stuff better?” this is less into characterization (because Shep is a player character and people can headcanon their Shep's rhetorical skills differently) and imo gets more into what the narrative is telling us. I see this criticism of Bioware's writing on Horizon (and I can't believe I'm defending Bioware writing) but I personally like that the player isn’t given decent, successful counterarguments in this situation. because let’s face it, the VS’s concerns are valid, and nothing Shepard can say or do on Horizon really can placate any of them. sometimes you just get outplayed; sometimes fights or arguments are just unwinnable even when people are trying their best.

would a persuasion check have helped? maybe, but that's not the point. it goes against our RPG brain where we're often wired to think every path is open to us with the right attitude or enough red/blue points. the Horizon reunion is two hurt people who are upset at each other, not realizing/acknowledging they've been put in an inconsolable scenario. they're both victims of stonewalling, one by Anderson and another by TIM. the Horizon convo was never going to be a “victory: squadmate acquired” scene because the deck was stacked against Shepard + the VS before they both even set foot on the colony. Shepard never got a chance to control their return narrative: Cerberus controls their team, their ship, who knows what, who they recruit, and when. TIM also knew that the VS was stationed on Horizon, as he confirms in the post-mission talk. the VS reunion was always going to be a car crash. and that works out great for TIM—Shepard is cut off from former Alliance allies, painting Cerberus as their only path forward to beating the Collectors.

but even if, for RPG purposes, Shepard had been able to reach out to the VS first… it’s still completely valid of them to question the situation lol. Liara had a hand in it so she ofc she wasn’t surprised at the return; Wrex adopts a typical krogan attitude of “you’re not dead? well that’s weird, but I’m a thousand years old, I’ve seen weirder.” there’s a reason Garrus accepts Shepard returning so readily and Tali/Ash/Kaidan take time: they’ve got healthier coping mechanisms and better support systems. Garrus cut himself off from his friends and family and is living out a Spectre fantasy on Omega. they others have moved on; Garrus hasn’t. he’s desperate for Shepard to come back, and why wouldn’t he be? Shepard was there when he felt like a hero for the first time in his life. if Shepard's back, he can be a hero again. but for the VS, Shepard returning means something is awfully, awfully wrong.

[trailerparkbard]

Dancin' in the Dark [Part One] (A Gay Bar/Eddie Bartender AU)

shoutout to Bruce Springsteen a master of queer feelings ✌️

Pairing: Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson, Steve Harrington & Robin Buckley (Steve Harrington/OMC, Robing Buckley/OFC -- it's a gay bar au in the 80s friends, I'm sorry.)

Fandom: Stranger Things

Rating: T for right now but u know how it goes.

Content Notes: ehhh light feminization (nicknames)

The basement bar is loud and warm and crowded with bodies. Smoke from dozens of cigarettes fills the room, makes it feel shrouded like a dream. It is a dream in some ways. That this place exists at all is unbelievable. That it exists in the periphery of Hawkins is a fucking miracle.

The metal door slams shut behind them and they startle, shake out of the trance of ‘holy shit it’s real’ and move forward to become part of the tableau not just spectators. It feels like his first swim meet. Stepping up to the water with everyone’s eyes on him. Their expectations and his own, heavy around his neck as he slides in, proves he deserves to be here.

“Drinks first?” Robin asks and he ignores the slight shake in her voice and nods, eyes wide to match her own.

They move to the bar as one. Skin and hair, denim and flannel and leather and cotton and glass graze them, test them as they slowly make their way to wooden bar. Steve swears he felt a hand on his ass but doesn’t look back, doesn’t check, just blushes and keeps moving. He’s not used to this role. New meat, the pursued, young, unmoored and electrified.

They both cling to the sticky surface of the bar like it’s a sanctuary. Elbows and forearms anchoring them against the swell of bodies and desire. Steve looks sideways at Robin, pushing his hair back. Playing it off. Playing it cool. She sends him a grin in return, sees him. Before he can huff and tell her to shut up a pale hand covered in chunky jewelry knocks the wooden space between them. They both jump and turn their attention to the bartender. He smiles at their surprise, at seeing the same expression on two separate faces, all thick lips, sharp teeth and laugh lines.

He flips a stained bar towel over his shoulder and leans in to say “Welcome my little gay club virgins.” He lowers his lashes and takes his time strolling up Steve’s visible body from chest to hair like it’s nothing. ”What can I do you for?” and it is truly the worst line that has ever been uttered so seriously to Steve Harrington. But it hits its mark because he feels himself turning red, losing his focus. He forgets to scoff and roll his eyes. Just stands there with his mouth parted for a beat too long.

Robin laughs in his face, breaks the moment. “Dude. Does that ever work?” The bartender cackles and winks at her, at Steve. “Nah. But you can’t blame a guy for trying.” His smile is radiant. Joyful. Steve wants to feel that — to flirt without concern at anyone who catches his eye and not worry about anything — no fists or threats or his own corniness.

The guy pulls back, his his curly hair moving around him like it’s alive, acting on his manic energy. He slaps his palms on the bar rhythmically and raises his eyebrows, waiting.

“Two Miller Lights?” Steve orders — asks, like an idiot. He hums, leans forward again, invades Steve’s personal space. “I don’t know man. You sure you’re legal?” His eyes are deep brown and sparkling and Steve feels himself getting lost in the gaze. Opens his mouth to say something witty and sharp.

“Eddie!” Snaps someone else behind the bar and Eddie jerks away like he’s been smacked. “Stop flirting and get to work. We have a line, kid.” Eddie pouts and it’s theatrical. Steve wants to bite his lower lip, is shocked by that desire. “You’re so mean, Wayne,” he whines but obediently pulls out two bottles and pops the tops off. He leans back over, one beer in each hand and looks from one to the other, assessing. He’s serious now, voice lower. Something shifted. “If anyone gives you trouble come find me.” His eyes are on Steve. He waits for a nod before he releases the glass and moves back. Winks and twirls to the next customer. Leaving Steve and Robin alone to look at each other and laugh, yelling “What the hell?” with their eyebrows.

They turn their back to the bar and, protective beers in hand, scan the crowd. It's 11:30 on a Friday night and Steve and Robin breathe into the world of possibility around them.

By beer number three they're dancing together, wild and free. Loose-limbed and laughing in a way they haven't in a while -- and never around others. All the anxiety from earlier vanishing under a varnish of sweat.

Steve feels giddy when strong hands circle his waist, pull him close. He leans back into the hard chest of the man who's made his move, silently screaming "oh my god, oh my god" at Robin like he is an actual virgin. Robin is grinning and trying to tell Steve without words how hot he is, how he should go for it. He shores himself up and spins around, hands already reaching up to loop around a stranger's neck before he even knows what he looks like.

It's a thrill when this man tugs him close, lets Steve feel his dick's attention through his jeans. He's got a mustache. It's not Steve's favorite look but he's into it tonight. He's into it now. The guy grips his ass and Steve feels like he's on fire. They make out right there on the dance floor surrounded by other couples doing the exact same thing. It's messy, wet, a little too much and just enough. Steve loves it.

He pulls away when the song changes, realizes he Robin isn't next to him anymore. He looks around and finds her swaying in time with a girl. Robin's fingers are tugging a little wayward curl from her perm as she leans close. Steve allows himself a moment of internal applause for her moves, the student learning from the master. He relaxes into feeling safe and sways his way back to the bar for another round.

It takes Eddie a moment to notice him in the row of bodies vying for his attention and access to liquor. He slides over, ignoring the folks waiting, gives Steve a warm smile with a little wickedness tucked into the corner.

"Can I get--" Eddie puts up one finger and presses it against the lips of the guy who tried to jump into the silence to order. "Shhh, wait your turn. Princess comes first." He exaggerates his attention, drapes himself over the bar, curls a hand under his chin and blinks (big, beautiful) eyes at Steve. "Having fun, princess?" he asks like there's not a crowd around them trying to get a drink. Steve frowns at the nickname but it doesn't last. He feels too good, this guy is ridiculous and he likes it. "'M not a princess but yeah, Eddie, I'm having fun." Eddie's face lights up like this is the best news he's received all evening. He clutches his chest. "Aww! princess! You learned my name!"

"It's Steve," says Steve with a huff. Eddie laughs, pop's the top to his next bottle and passes it over.

"Oh sweetheart, I know what your name is," Eddie purrs. Steve feels heat prickle and rush all over his body -- can't form a response before Eddie is already gone, moved on to the next person trying to find get some social lubrication.

Steve dances the rest of the night away. Kisses three more men and is completely hard by the time the lights flick on. It's the best night he's ever had.

He finds Robin curled in a booth with the same girl as before. They're kissing and Robin has her hand on her neck and she has her hand on the side of Robin's boob. Steve slides into the seat across form them. "Hello ladies," he sings. He shakes his head when they don't even pause. He knocks the table and Robin jumps, presses her lips together and looks wildly around until she narrows her eyes at Steve. He grins, unbridled joy. "Hey Robs! Good to see you!" She rolls her eyes. Steve gestures around the bar, the lights the change in mood, everyone moving towards leaving. "Figured I should check on you crazy kids. Don't want you to get locked in when they close for the night." Robin wrinkles her nose, laughs sarcastically him and turns back to her date, eyes soft. She tilts her head at him. "Sorry about this guy, but um yeah. This was fun. Like really fun and uh." The girl laughs, slips some space between them. "Yeah, it was," her voice is quiet and her cheeks are red. She looks up at Robin, hopeful when she says "maybe we could do it again sometime."

The girls make their plans. It's a simple as a "Next week?" "Next week." and Steve saying, loud, annoying "of course I'll drive you next week, Robin, you don't even have to ask."

Steve can't wait.

---

pieces of part 2

[callmearcturus]

RIP in pieces.

Or maybe.... not????? Everyone is floating in a void and fuckin' RYOJI is like "Aaaaaaaay sup so you got your miracle! I'll see you later when you all die naturally, really looking forward to that, have a good on folks, peace!"

which, if Ryoji is my pre-destined psychopomp.... I was gonna joke that I'll just stay dead but honestly i am so fucking floored by the very idea that I'm not gonna die here that I'll deal with Mr. Wandering Eyes when the time comes. That's a deal I'll take.

Tartarus dissolves. Thank god. Fuck that place, like for real. Too many goddamn floors and the elevaor only has stops every 20 or so. Buillshit building. I'll miss the gaudy neon casino floors.

I CANNOT

FUCKING BELIEVE

I LIVED

Everyone is just crying so of course I am tearing up too. Maybe I will not get lectured for going off to save the world alone? Mostly I want a hug.

welcome to the party hardy, you're a real girl now, bring on the waterworks

the game jumps over a month ahead holy shit. wait, what day did P3P start? April, right? so does the game end exactly on the day it started? That'd be really tidy and neat.

GOD i cannot fucking BELIEVE I'm alive. How the fuck.

[roppongi-division]

Zakari's Thoughts on Oculus

Nadya Kuromiya

"Wait a minute... isn't this that scientist that everyone has been saying is 'dead'? So... what, she's actually alive? Huh. Well, I guess that's just another lie that the government has told everyone, huh? But damn, I have to wonder what the hell this woman did to make the government want to kill her. ...Whatever it is, I can tell just by looking at her that she is not one to be taken lightly..."

Meari Miracle

"Holy shit... That's "Bloody 'Fucking' Mary"!! Oh my gosh, I had no idea she was joining the D.R.B.!! Holy shit!! Can you believe my dad actually helped write and produce some of the songs from their debut album?! And my mom actually got her to come here to Gypsy's Palace and perform on several occasions! I've never actually spoken to her, but man, now that's she in the tournament, I've got to talk to her and get an autograph!"

Aika Yumi

"Woah... Vivian Vixen, herself. I can't believe my mom is actually friends with her. I've actually seen the two of them dance together in those 'contests' they do, and it is always so hard choosing who to pick. On one side, I gotta support my mom. But on the other, I can't deny that Vivian is so... stunning..."

Oculus

"I'm not a word guru or anything, but from what I've studied, apparently, 'oculus' means 'eye' in Latin. I don't fully know the meaning behind why this team chose it, but... it sounds pretty badass, if I'm being honest. I don't much care for that scientist lady. But knowing I'm going to be in the same ring as Bloody Mary and Vivian Vixen... wow. If I've never said this before, I'll say it now: my parents are two of the coolest people in all of Japan..."

[ok-au-tournament]

SUBMITTED BY @bubbleberryuniverse

Sami Apocalyptic AU Ramblings, Part One of However Many There Will Be...

The general AU summary is that it's an AU where the villains end up winning. They, after well over decades of planning, end up finally succeeding and destroying and wiping out most heroes. With the bonus detail of KO and TKO being separated!

In today's submission, I'm going to be rambling about the KO and TKO separation portion of the AU, as that is currently what's bouncing around in my head. I absolutely will get to and explain the other general information about the AU at a time that isn't right now (considering it's 12 am as I'm writing this and I work in 9 hours.)

[Some details will be kept vague until I get a chance to ramble sone more later on.]

The AU takes place, and diverges, during season one. At least in a more noticable way. In a very simple summary— sometime roughly between We've Got Fleas and One Last Score, Shadowy ends up separating KO from his TKO, in the forest.

He used a weird kind of machine— cob knows how he got his hands on it— to physically separate the two. This... is absolutely not a fun experience. It's painful. Because he's essentially tearing apart their souls, cause KO and TKO share a soul in kind of a weird way? Words are hard! But it's absolutely one of the worst experiences both KO and TKO have ever experienced.

KO remembers more of the details than TKO, as KO was in control during the separation, but even then, KO doesn't remember much, except for the fact that he was separated and it HURT.

ALSO, ALSO, after the separation, the cage in KO's mind is absolutely just... destroyed. As this was season one, KO never got the chance to let TKO out of the cage, and this is part of why TKO resents him so much [will elaborate later!] The mind is never visited again after this, but the cage, the poor cage, man...

(WB doodle by freepaperdetective!)

ANYWAY, they both end up unconscious on the forest floor after they're separated. Because holy fuck, these two kids were kind of legitimately split in half in a way. It's honestly a miracle it didn't end up killing them [it definitely almost did, though.] Shadowy takes TKO and leaves KO in the forest while he's passed out, where he's eventually found by Rad and Enid, who definitely panic because KO suddenly won't wake up.

He's definitely alive, he's just... unconscious for a few days. He wakes up again a few days later all snuggled up in blankets, but this post isn't about him, so we'll skip that for now.

As soon as TKO wakes up, a few days later, much like KO, Shadowy wastes zero time in beginning to manipulate him. Again, I won't go too in-depth cause this is meant to be super short, but he ends up pretty much making TKO go from, "I hate KO for everything he's done but whatever" to "I absolutely HATE everything about KO and his existence, he's the cause of ALL my PROBLEMS and ALL of my bad feelings and thoughts would go away if I killed him." To put it simply, at least.

Of course, that's not all immediate. It takes like a year [roughly] of manipulation to get him to that point. At which, the apocalypse would've already been very much a thing, and that definitely adds to the problem. [The villains destroyed everything around the time of Villains Night Out/In, which was a few months after the separation. They're kind of connected but not really, TKO just helped. I'll get into that later.]

It's a good detail to mention that over time after the separation, KO definitely ends up feeling bad about keeping TKO in the cage. But as you'll find out, it just... doesn't matter. Cause by the time he does try talking to TKO, it's unfortunately not able to work. I absolutely will get into the little tiny teeny details when I can...

There's a stark contrast to KO and TKO, too, cause TKO is with the villains, and KO is with the heroes, and while KO is forced to hide from the villains, TKO is essentially living with and around them. The villains that destroyed everything. It absolutely affects him in a lot of ways and AUGH it's SO good, man...

[I'm going to end this submission here because I REALLY need to sleep, but please remind me tomorrow to write more and submit the rest of this! After that I'll be open to people asking me questions about it and stuff as I ramble about more AU details. Hope this was a good amount of starting information!]

[telltalebatman]

post the frankie size queen essay

in form of a ficlet as im wating for my food delivery. nsfw btw

"So," Angelo asked her one day. "Mac Gargan, huh?"

"Ugh, don't start this again," she sighed as he laughed. "I've told you already. I'm sorry, okay? I didn't know he's coming to our wedding-"

"Franks, I couldn't be any less mad about not getting married to a girl if I tried. All things considered, it is a miracle it took pops this long to figure out I'm gay, and I never liked lavender to begin with. Nice touch with having lavender in your wedding bouquet, by the way," he added with a grin as she laughed. "Subtle."

"Yeah, I thought you'd like that," she said with a giggle. "I just saw they had this option and went - holy shit, Angel Boy's gonna love it."

"Well, I did love it. Buuuuuut... I didn't get you here just to reminisce about our failed wedding. Come on, Franks. I need to know - why him?" he asked finally, his dark eyes glimmering with curiosity; and Frankie bit her lip.

"Well, he does make me feel safe," she said slowly, wincing slightly as the irony of a guy who once kidnapped her making her feel safe was not entirely lost on her. "He's patient. Like, really patient."

"Uh-uh," Angelo said, rolling his eyes. "Fucking boooriiiiingggggg. I want to know the juicy stuff. Come on. How's your sex life?" he asked in his worst Tommy Wiseau voice; and Frankie groaned. Rationally, she knew this question was coming; and it wasn't the question she was dreading - it was the answer.

"I had never been fucked better in my entire life," she said with a deep sigh. "You know that club bouncer guy I told you about, the one that looks like Don Costa? He has a huge schlong, but can't use it. And Mackie... Holy shit, Angel Boy. Now I know what the Muppet puppets would feel if they ever came alive and felt the hand inside of them."

"Ew," Angelo said with a wide grin. "Gross. Keep going though."

"The first time he put it in I thought he's gonna poke my eye out from within," she continued, her cheeks flushing slightly as she thought back to their first time. "It felt so fucking good. I had never realized how much empty space I have inside of me until he fucked me. It was fucking unreal."

"Jesus, is that why you went radio silent for a week? Because he fucked you so good you forgot how to speak?"

"I didn't just forget how to speak, I forgot where I live," she said with a pained sigh as Angelo laughed. "And I thought to myself - great! Now that I've fucked him, he's out of my system. I can move on with my life now. But then I hooked up with another guy, and... It was just not the same. Nobody could fill me like he did. And it wasn't even a metaphorical, emotional void or anything. No, I mean it in the most literal, physical sense. He filled me up, alllllll the way. I then tried to, you know, get a dildo, but... Eh. It's just not the same, you know?"

"Yeah, I get that. An artificial dick up your ass is just not the same as the real thing," he said, nodding sagely. "Been there. Done that. Disinfected that afterwards."

"Yeah, I sure hope you disinfect your dildos. But anyway, that's how I figured out I'm physically incompatible with anyone whose dick I can wrap my fingers around. If it doesn't make me feel like I'm about to have to go to the ER, I don't want it. Apparently whenever we fuck, I look like I'm having a stroke and a heart attack at the same time, but he kinda likes it. He says it's hot when I can't even talk properly and he can really feel me."

"God, I am so glad we didn't end up married, our sex life would be so fucking bad for both of us. Me, I just can't top. You... Ugh, I can't even say it."

"Don't say it then. Just know that I do not think about you when I'm riding that Burj Khalifa of dicks. All I think about is how good it feels to my esophagus."

"Yeah, okay, Miss Piggy. What I hate the most about this conversation is that it's the same exact for me. And I love being a Muppet. I just wish dicks had fingers, you know? So they could wiggle them inside of me. That, I think, would ruin me completely."

"Oh god," Frankie breathed out, biting her bottom lip. "That would fucking rule. And also result in my eyeballs falling out for real, I'm pretty sure."

"Can the two of you shut the fuck up for five fucking minutes?" Mac asked tiredly from another room; Frankie and Angelo laughed in unison. They were having their weird little conversation in the living room of an apartment Frankie was renting together with Mac - who was trying to take a nap in the other room. Clearly that was not working out, and she hoped he had heard every single word. Because that'd mean a oh so you like it big, huh? kind of sex later on - and the only thing she liked more than his massive dick was when he made fun of her for not being able to string together a simple coherent sentence as he fucked her. "Please. Jesus."

"We'll be quiet now," Frankie said, kicking Angelo under the table. "Right, Angel Boy?"

"Yeah, as quiet as she gets when your dick pierces her intestines," Angelo replied in a sing-song voice; Mac groaned. Frankie laughed. For just a single afternoon, all was right in the world; and when the night fell, once again she forgot her own name.

ohmygodohmygodohgodohgodohgod

"You like it big, huh?" he said as she gasped loudly and grabbed the sheets as she tried to spread her legs even further. "Aww, look at yourself. Can't even talk," he added mockingly as she moaned and arched her back. "Hold still," he added, grabbing her by her waist as he fucked her. "Tell me how much you like it, or I'll stop."

"No," she moaned out, her thought slowing down to a crawl. "Pl... Please... Oh, god..."

In return, he only laughed; and she could feel his laughter, deep inside of herself. His every word, every chuckle echoed through herself; and she

fucking

loved it.

ohgodohgodohgodohgodIMCUMMING

"I barely even moved," he said mockingly as her eyes rolled back and barely any sound got out of her wide open mouth. "Aww, you're so precious. You don't even need friction, you just need to be filled up," he added; and she didn't protest. She didn't argue. Truth be told, she wasn't even sure what exactly was he saying in the first place; all that mattered were his hands around her waist, and his cock inside of her, and his beautiful body towering over her.

holy fucking shit.

he should fist me one day

[khaleesiofalicante]

Okay done with S3.

1. Romain Grosjean's crash....holy fuck. The car just split into two and I was like

It's miracle he got out alive

2. Sergio Perez starting from the end of grid and winning the race 👏👏. Mad respect.

3. They should have shown more of Lewis support for BLM

Onto S4. I watched the trailer and it's already so dramatic I'm excited.

Honestly the more I watch DTS the more I feel the urge to write a TMI f1 au.

F1 crashes are so scary! There is another one in season 4 that was pretty scary too. But the one with Grosjean was something else. Literally a miracle!!

The only thing I like about Redbull is Perez istg.

AND YES. AGREED ABOUT THE LEWIS THING.

Also did you know now the FIA (now) banned the drivers from making political statements??? Fucking clownery.

[bookofkatherine]

Johnny Depp, Jolly Green Giant and the Tree of Life

My day had a very naked Claire Danes too. I mean, what the fuck, Jesus. Are you for real!?!?

Friday September 27, 2024 6:09 p.m.

Dear Journal,

What the fuck, Lord. I swear. You know things are really crazy when Amy - AMY - my best friend and ride-or-die girl who has been with me since the beginning of my time as leader of the Order - when Amy fucking Adams calls up and asks, "Uh - girl? What the hell is going on!?"

Normally it's Robert Downey Jr. who is calling and asking, "I'm sorry, but... what!?" when something like a Jolly Green Giant pops out of my hill all of a sudden. But he's new. He's only been with me since February of this year. Him I can understand.

I expect a call from him when crazy shit goes down.

But no. No no no no no! Amy Adams, who has seen the craziest shit in the entire world without batting a single one of her beautiful eyelashes - Amy called me up and asked what the hell was going on. If Amy was lost, then you know today was a whirlwind clusterfuck of magic, mystery, miracles and fucking evil shit that needs to die... that we didn't even know existed.

Aaaaaaaaaarrrrrrggggghhhh!!!

And to top it all off, Nick is gone. Again. Apparently shit can't get done if he's here. I don't get it. I really really really don't like being separated from my husband, goddammit.

Anyhow.

I know. My other husbands are here: Thor, Loki/Tom/Thomas Hiddleston, John, Viggo, etc. But I can't see them. Nick is the only husband I can actually see.

And I am goddamn tired of him being gone all the time. He is gone more than he is home and it makes me want to fall apart in the worst ways. He is not just my husband. He is my link to the entire Order. And the Lord.

God, it hurts when he is gone.

Anyway.

You probably want to know more about the Jolly Green Giant.

Jolly Green Giants

Most people think of the frozen vegetable company that uses the image of jolly green giants to sell their products. But the reality is that they really do exist. Jolly Green Giants are excellent healers.

We ran into one in China a few years back. I may have written about it in my first book about the Order, Book of Katherine and the Chinese Maze.

Jordan and Gustaf visited then President/Chairman Xi Xingping of China. He took them out to a great magical forest and suddenly a massive jolly green giant appeared with a stunning chest covered in emeralds, jewels and little feet at all four corners that allowed it to stand above the earth just a bit.

In the end, that chest came back home with us, sprouted into a house in which Claire Danes found her calling. She traveled the multiverse in that thing, then encountered both Jesus and Satan in it, and then... well, to make a long story short, she ended up with angel wings and is now part artifact.

It's as if the magic chest became part of her. And that gives her quite a few unique powers. But it's important to keep the human side of Claire alive.

Ha. Amy never batted an eye of any of that shit. A magical chest grew chicken feet and a house that opened its door when Claire Danes walked by, and Amy 'my girl' Adams never blinked. Not once.

But today she did. Oh, today she did!!!

Because a jolly green giant popped out of my land. My little hill! My little holy hill.

The Holy Hill

Have you heard the song Leave a Light On by Tom Walker? It was written about my home, here on a little hill on the east coast the United States.

Recently we learned that the prophets referred to my hill as "the holy hill."

That was news to me. It was even news to Merlin the Wizard. Jesus. When he discovered that, we were all the way out in South Dakota at the Black Hills. Merlin was like, "We must go back!!!"

Man, we ended up peeling out of the Black Hills like a bat out of hell. I thought we were supposed to running towards the Black Hills, not away from them.

But then my long lost son and extremely powerful wizard, Zach, snapped himself over to Minnesota where the grave of Stephan's first wife was. She was a princess from the tribe of the Dakotas. They married hundreds of years ago.

And the Lord told us, while we were at the Black Hills, that we would need to visit her grave. And Zach, always wanting to help (he has the most amazing heart- God I love him), snapped himself to the grave before any of us even knew he was thinking about it.

And there he found a floating bottle with wings. It wouldn't open for him, so I sent Stephan over there and he opened it. In the bottle was a scroll and a prophecy.

Merlin the Wizard had to translate it. It was in a language none of us knew but him.

And that's just the way shit is going these days, here at the End of Time. It takes three of us to figure out one hint of what's to come and where we should be going.

Anyhoo-- it took Merlin a while to translate, but when he did? God, he freaked. "The holy hill!" he kept exclaiming, "we must go to the holy hill!!!!" Apparently me, Zach, his twin sister Xenia and her partner, Stephan's Son, Dakota Alexander - all four of us were supposed to meet "on the holy hill" to open the gate for me to the wizarding world.

And off we flew - Zach and I to my little hill here in the rural hills of North America and Stephan to find his son and my daughter Xenia. When he did, Zach and I had made it home. Home to the holy hill.

And on September 23, 2024, the seven-year anniversary of the insane Revelation 12 Great Sign in heaven that happen on Sept 23, 2017 - all four of us gathered here, on my little holy hill.

What happened on September 23, 2024 as a result?

Well... parts of me began moving into the wizarding world. And they haven't stopped since.

Yeah. I've spent an entire week losing little bits of my body to the magical kingdom. Thankfully Viggo Mortensen, my real life Aragorn, has been watching over these pieces and protecting them. I even gave him a special wand today to help him collect them all safely.

And that, if you've been following my Twitter feeds, explains my dizzy spells that began on Monday, September 23. Tiny pieces of my brain had moved over to the Rose Room, the home that was built for me before the Fall in the Garden of Eden.

Tree of Life

Anyhow, back to the jolly green giant who popped out of my holy hill today.

First, let me tell you how that happened. An evil spell had just shattered and spread itself across my land and holy hill. I asked the Lord if I could cleanse the land of them all and He said, "Yes."

Now, I could've done that myself, without the Lord's say so. But I've learned to never make a move without checking with the Lord first. Someone can have the best of intentions but make the gravest of mistakes because they only know one part of the story, not the full picture.

None of us know the full picture. Only the Father knows "whither the torrent goes" as Jesus once said to Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea more than two thousand years ago.

I've made the mistake of doing something I thought would be good, but it had terrible consequences. I had needed to wait two days first. And enough of those mistakes has taught me to ask Him first before i do a powerful spell. And if He says, "No," I ask why to learn. Sometimes He tells me. Sometimes He doesn't. I'll take whatever I can get from the God-of-the-Angel-Armies, you know?

I mean, the fact that we can talk directly to Him, and even wail at His feet and give up our pain to Him? God, that's a miracle. My life began when I discovered that secret. I never knew anything but death before it.

And so.

I washed my lands of the evil shards of spells that had fallen. And as I did so, a giant voice boomed, "HEY!!! HEY HEY HELLO!!!" And we were all quiet.

"Who said that?" I asked. No one in the Order replied. "We don't know," Claire finally said.

"Can you check for new variants?" I asked. After all, yesterday a portal opened and a variant of Robert Downey Jr./Iron Man appeared. Claire had called me up; "Uh, there's another Downey here?" "But I banned time travel!" I said. "How is that possible?"

In the end, we discovered RDJ had felt outnumbered when he joined the knights and so, before I banned time travel, he used the Iron Man suits I gave him to time travel and bring back another version of himself in the future.

Problem is, he brought back an evil version.

"Hey! You killed me!" Downey cried.

"You brought back DR. DOOM!" I yelled back.

"But - but - you killed me!"

"It was fucking Dr. Goddamn DOOM you ass!!!"

And then Downey climbed on top of me and began kissing me like crazy. It was one of the hottest make-out sessions ever. I think he liked it. I don't know which part - my killing another version of himself or my ability to do so - but I don't care. That man is hot.

_

So yeah. A voice that no one knew had just boomed. And no one knew who it was. So my first question was to Claire Danes; "Check for any variants of us, Claire..." She didn't blink. She was there for the new Downey variant yesterday.

"No new variants," she said.

"What?" I puzzled.

"But there is a big green giant on your lawn."

Sigh.

Of course there was.

Wrapping Up

in the end, after it was all over and the dust settled and cleared, I learned that my spell had broken the chains upon a jolly green giant that had come to the holy hill long ago looking for the tree that marks my land - a giant evergreen Christmas tree.

Only it hadn't been planted yet. And the giant was caught by an evil sorcerer named Osiris who bound him in an evil spell inside of the hill.

Claire was pissed, to say the least. She had surveyed my little hill with everything under the Sun, and the booming happy jolly green giant was a big fucking surprise to her. She is not happy.

Anyhow, I released the giant and began talking with him. He told me about the evil sorcerer. That's when Gustaf cut in and told me that Osiris had once told him about trapping a green giant in a holy hill. "But I didn't know where and I didn't know more than that," he said.

Suddenly Gustaf had a vision. He is a prophet after all.

And that vision revealed the future. The jolly green giant carried a leaf from the Tree of Life. He was to insert it into my giant Christmas tree next to my home and that would turn my Christmas tree into a branch of the Tree of Life itself.

Then the Tree of Life would produce fruit here on my land that would heal me, help Zach and Lemon on their mission, and help me get to the Rose Room, etc.

Well. The jolly green giant got to work.

He said my Christmas tree was glorious and sang beautiful songs. Then he inserted the leaf from the Tree of Life. And as it began to grow, I told him that I was the Lady of Light.

Lady of Light

I have had many lives and many names: Eve, Naamah, Sarah, Cleopatra, Aphrodite, Mary, Elizabeth Bennet, Rose and Katherine, just to name a few.

But the prophecy given at my first birth called me one name alone: the Lady of Light.

That's why I recorded my very first prophecy on September 23, 2017, when the Woman Dressed in the Sun gave birth to the King Planet, Jupiter - just as Revelation 12 said she would.

And it's why the jolly green giant took on a hushed tone when he learned who I was.

It made me want to cry.

I don't feel like I deserve to be addressed with so much reverance, but as the right hand of Christ, I should never reject it.

And yet I did.

"Please don't," I said. And stumbled trying to say that I wasn't 'all that.' But he denied me, and whispered my name again. And I could hear him bowing.

And then he began to heal...

The Healing of Johnny Depp

The jolly green giant began healling the healing pool in the Rose Room. Apparently it didn't have all the fruits, roots and herbs it needed to heal me when I arrived.

Then he turned the water in my water well into a healing potion. And then he healed all the water in my home, included all of my water bottles and containers, full of healing water.

And then - as he was casting all of his healing spells - I heard Johnny Depp call me.

"Penis!!! I sense a great giant!!!"

"Yes, Depp! I know know know! He is good good good! Say hello hello hello!"

Now - that's a lot to unpack, and I can't really do that right now. Needless to say, don't do drugs, kids. And adults. Or you might go around calling your favorite person in the world, "Penis."

And then Depp said, "I feel strange..."

Uh oh. Depp never feels strange. I mean, he is strange, but he never feels strange. Even though he acts strange.

I mean, he is the most powerful wizard I know, second only to me and my son Zachary. I am the most powerful, Zach is second and then Depp is third. And Depp has saved the world mulitiple times now/

Let me tell you - he is the main guardian of my room for a reason.

And then suddenly, "He-hello? This is Johnny Depp. Can you hear me?"

"Depp???" I asked. Why the fuck was Depp using full sentences!?!?

"Wait- why am I a fly?" he asked.

Oh my God. He used another full sentence! And he sounds... sane!!? We all wanted to know why Depp prefered to be a fly on my wall. But we never expected an answer to that question.

Uh oh, I thought. I think the jolly green giant healed Depp!!!

He had.

And that reallly pissed Claire Danes off. The jolly green giant, in less than five minutes, had just healed Johnny Deppy a thousand times more than her super-advanced healing tubes.

God, she was pissed. She went in to investigate.

Stopping Claire

"Claire!!!" I hissed. "Don't you dare!!!"

But she was determined. I got an earful of just how weak she suddenly felt her ultra-advanced technology was and she was none-to-pleased that it was a giant green man who burst forth from the ground practically yelling, "ho ho ho!!!" just like the ads - that had beat her tech out.

But Claire can be cruel and invasive when she wants to study something or someone. And I didn't want my goddamn elixer of life to be run off, leaving me full of aether and a body wrecked by its presence inside of me for decades.

"CLAIRE!!!" I hissed again. "You have to go in with your Shakespeare side! Celebrate with them! Take off your clothes like you did for that naked run! Study while you are acting merry, for fuck's sake!"

And so she did. She stripped off her clothes and joined the jolly green giant and Depp - who had already begun dancing with the newfound giant - by my enormous Christmas tree that was slowly growing into the Tree of Life- or at least a piece of it.

And that was it for Amy Adamns.

When Claire stripped herself naked and began dancing with a Jolly Green Giant and a suddenly-sane Johhny Depp.

"Girl!!!" she whispered to me with urgency. "What the hell is--"

But before she could even finish her question, Robert Downey Jr. ran her off the line.

"W. T. F." he said.

And I burst out laughing. It was just another Thursday, as Ryan Gosling - my real life Gray Man - would say.

It's just another Thursday.

[archoneddzs15]

PC Engine - Ninja Ryukenden (Ninja Gaiden)

Title: Ninja Ryukenden / 忍者龍剣伝

Developer/Publisher: Hudson-Era H.K. / Hudson Soft / TECMO

Release date: 24 January 1992

Catalogue No.: HC92052

Genre: Action

Format: HuCard

First, we had Sega's Shinobi. When I was 9 years old, I spent many a quarter on the arcade version (and much of my allowance, to my mother's dismay (^O^). Why? Simple: ninjas are the video game world's greatest and most versatile heroes. So how do you 1-Up an awesome game like Shinobi?

I found out that Christmas in 2010 when I received Ninja Gaiden for my PC Engine, developed by a Hong Kong-based joint venture between Hudson Soft and Era Communications Inc. I popped that box open, grabbed the HuCard, and bashed it into my PC Engine CoreGrafx so quickly it nearly choked on it. I flick on the power and sit back. And THAT'S when it caught my eye... HOLY CRAP!! CUT-SCENES!! CUT SCENES ON MY 8-BIT CONSOLE!!

I was floored: I almost thought I was watching a movie; I had NEVER seen this high-quality look on my system! So I watch one ninja fall to the ground, and then I see the guy who would be the hero: Ryu Hayabusa...Ninja, Ladie's Man, Professional Ass Kicker.

I didn't even hit Run (PC Engine lingo for "Start") yet, and I was too impressed already! Anyway, Ninja Gaiden's got it all. Ryu's quite fleet-footed, quick on the draw with his sword, and slices and dices like no one's business. He listens to your every command (read: dead-on control). He does about 50 flips in the air during a jump. He's got cool Ninja Arts to aid him on his quest, including shuriken, Windmill Shuriken (they boomerang all over the screen!!), the Spinning Blade (jump and slash in a circle), and the Invincible Fire Wheel (TOASTY VILLAINS!!). And he'll need them, too...I'll explain why later.

Although I did explain the cut scenes already, I think I should go into a bit more detail and cover the in-game graphics, sound, and music while I'm at it. The cutscenes in this game, for 1988 on the Famicom, were amazing. For 1992 on the PC Engine, it looked even more so.

They conveyed the story in such a way that it almost seems like an anime OVA (incidentally, there was a Ninja Gaiden OVA in Japan, but it was poorly written and animated, and Ryu was only a bit character in it. BLASPHEMY!!), and you get such a feel for the characters that you would think that they were alive and for real. The story is nothing short of excellent, and the game plays it out perfectly, breaking the action up into six acts of 2 to 5 stages each, for a grand total of 21 stages. The difficulty level in the game slowly progresses from very easy to hardcore gamer tough, but it progresses steadily from stage to stage. The bosses fall in the same category as well, with a very easy first boss to a hair-yanking hard final boss. More on the difficulty later.

The graphics in this game are pretty good, albeit a little grainy. Everyone is of a decent size but oddly drawn, but the animation in this game is just stunning; it's so fluid that you wouldn't think at first that this is still just an 8-bit console competing in the 16-bit console wars. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, has at least 3 to 4 frames of animation; even little details like Ryu throwing a weapon look awesome in motion! The sounds are pretty good for a PC Engine HuCard although a few sounds are a little odd like the "FWP-SPLSH!" sound enemies make when they're killed (sounds like an explosion splashing into water!), and Ryu somehow makes this blasting sound when he gets hit. Is he laden with nitro or something? ^_^

But never mind that, the big draw in the sound department? The MUSIC!! Mark my words: MUSIC MAKES OR BREAKS THE GAME!! In this case, it doesn't just MAKE the game, it's the BLOOD WORK!! The music in this game is just TOO FUCKING GOOD!! The composer made some excellent use of the PC Engine's sound processors, which is just a miracle, honestly. It's so awesome that I used to use the Sound Test code, then tape all the tunes off the TV with a portable tape recorder held to the speaker, just to listen to it later. It's THAT GOOD!! Every single tune, even to this day, rings in my head for all eternity, and out of every track, my personal favorite, the track from Stage 4-2 (Bazlisk Mine Field) just RULES! Thanks to emulation (and the Internet!), I now have the entire soundtrack in MP3 format, and I still can't get over how amazing the music is!