#how has nobody talked about just how overpowered this weapon was

[iamsonormalaboutninjago]

Okay just cause it’s so so interesting to me and no one’s talked about it:

The actual bullshit level of powers the Mega weapon had: 💅✨

1. Fuckin Time powers! Garmadon had the power of the four Time Blades in his back pocket and used it to fuck with the Ninja??

2. Access to the Departed Realm?? It brought back the pirate crew of Destinys Bounty from a 400 year stay in the departed realm??

3. Yeah the gift of Life. How did Garmadon recreate the ninja in perfect form, yet make them opposites??? Like that’s a power that’s never been been seen in Ninjago since omg. The only person who has similar powers IS THE OVERLORD

4. Gift of Life Pt2. NECROMANCY???!! HOW HAS NO ONE TALKED ABOUT HOW IT CAN BRING ANIMALS BACK FROM THE DEAD TOO?? WHO PROB DONT GO TO THE DEPARTED REALM SO WHERE DOES HE EVEN GET THEM FROM HUH?!!!

Also it rebuilt the bounty without even needing a charge or to be properly smelted into the weapon??

Idk if including the Golden Masters powers makes sense, but if we do we can add: Total telekinetic control of billions of square feet of objects, instant learn Spinjitzu, plus tornado of creation!

[humanjeff]

Scarlet Nexus

got gifted this 2021-era game randomly by a friend, and ... it's kinda great actually?

it calls itself "brainpunk", which is exactly like cyberpunk only with the word "brain" stuck in front of everything to denote that it's weird psychic technology. this doesn't quite work, but I freely admit that I would definitely 100% call psychic texts "brain messages".

"I AM SENDING YOU A BRAIN MESSAGE. FROM MY BRAIN." <- all my friends would get this Brain Message every single day, until they Brain Blocked me

anyway, first I should cover the bad: this is an anime-style game; some of the characters have semi-skimpy outfits (however there's zero fanservice). the main character in the male playthrough is of the Romantically Oblivious subtype that - naturally - all the girls incessantly flirt with. some of the jokes are ... dated, or poorly translated. at it's heart it's a JRPG, so there's a fair bit of grinding. etc.

now the parts I like: the game is all kinds of fucked up.

[I'll try to stick to non-plot spoilers (i.e. background info) but I probably won't 100% succeed.]

at the start of the game, you pick one of two different characters, which follow two radically different plotlines - I chose the male, Yuito. both characters are psychokinetic (though their weapons differ), both are new volunteers in the psychic branch of the military. after selecting your character you get to watch as the special brain equipment is attached to you and your fellow volunteers/conscripts and you all collapse screaming in agony. perfectly normal start to a game.

yeah so straight away it's revealed that most of the soldiers - not just the new guys - look like teenagers, and are being given grown blockers to slow their aging (to various degrees). if you pay attention to what one of the characters says about how she was forcibly conscripted a few years earlier, you start to realise that the occasional Actual Children you see walking about are extremely powerful psychics subjected to mandatory enlistment when they were very young; they invariably outrank you.

older-looking soldiers are either new adult conscripts (that everyone expects to die) or child soldiers that the growth blockers are ceasing to work on.

also hey there is government censorware in your eyes that prevents you from seeing certain things. don't worry about it!

so on to the game itself. first of all, you don't have skills as such - you modify your own brain. sometimes the map of your brain gets larger and more irregular. don't worry about it!

you are in a squad of guys with variable powers (different to your own) that you can briefly share. as you hang out in your Secret Teen Hideout and become closer and more compatible, this sharing will start to last longer, and you will begin to have visions of your friends that will help you out. sometimes you become them, just for a second. this is normal and fine. sometimes you forget little things, like who is supposed to be giving you orders, or which side you're on, or how you got here, but on the other hand nobody is stopping you from dressing as bad as you could ever want.

haha you can put a stuffed owl on your head! there's a hole in the sky that nobody talks about any more.

after a while, you unlock the Brain Field power, or as I prefer to think of it, AKIRA MODE, where you become psychically overpowered and get to smash everything. your character staggers around drunkenly, clutching their head and laughing and saying things like "I'll destroy EVERYTHING!", "WITNESS my POWER!" and so on. it's unbelievably fun, and will immediately kill you after a few seconds. none of your friends - who see all this - ever tell you to stop doing it.

none of this, though, prepares you for the moment when the media - having had all their computers trashed - releases a sketch of a suspected criminal (the other playable character). I'm putting it behind a break for reasons that I hope will be self-explanatory.

(the effect this picture has on your squad is devastating, by which I mean it immediately cures them of all some of their ailments.)

[balkanradfem]

I've been listening to "Roots and Refuge" podcast, it's been great and calming, and today I heard something so funny it inspired me to write about it.

If you've read my blog a while back, you'll know that Roots and Refuge is a youtube channel on gardening and homesteading, led by Jess, a woman who picked her entire family and moved into nature to grow food and live healthily. Something I didn't mention before, is that Jess is religious. She does change pretty much everything about religion so it would fit her unique sense of kindness and fairness, but it's still a bit painful to see her give credit to an invisible god for all of her personal accomplishments.

On this podcast, she was with her husband, and they were answering questions from viewers. One of the questions was 'How did you encourage your family members to go along with homesteading?' and she laughed and commented she got this a lot, and how kindly it was phrased 'encourage', when it's more like making her husband do it. And I wasn't even aware that her husband was not into the whole homesteading idea at all, but she was about to tell the story about how she got him to do it anyway.

She described first about how she was sure they were supposed to do it, because she could hear god's voice (her own gut feeling) telling her it was right for them, and it was the correct thing for their family. Sure in herself, she lead the entire family in that direction, and she used the word 'leader' for herself multiple times, with absolute confidence. I was thinking how funny it was that this was exactly against what religion was saying, but I was loving it. Hearing a woman lead her family with full confidence and nobody being able to stand in her way, gave me heart.

Then she talked about how much pressure she was putting on her husband to support her, and he chipped in and explained, that it was very difficult for him to do it under pressure, and that at one point the pressure stopped, and then he was able to choose it for himself. He repeated several times, 'it was my choice, I was able to choose it and it was my choice that I did it', almost trying to convince himself.

And I'm like--- she put him right in the spot where he had to go to 'choice feminism' to resemble some sense of control of where his life was going! She overpowered him so completely with her 'god told me this is what we have to do' (her gut feeling) that he basically had no choice but to eventually come around to it. He even uses the phrase 'came around to it' multiple times. It made me laugh.

One thing I adore about them is how Jess is in control of everything, makes almost all of the decisions, plans projects, draws out her visions, controls all of the media and created content encouraging others to do so as well, possibly not realizing what a powerful woman she is for doing so. Her gut feeling is excellent and lead her in a direction where she now has a huge farm of her own, a family taken care of, an abundance of healthy homegrown food and adoration of the internet. There are some bad side-effects she admits to; she often feels overwhelmed, like she's carrying the whole world on her own shoulders, and needs a bit of time off from the family, to go camping or just sleep somewhere else, to feel at ease again. I believe this is because in this scenario, she really is holding it all together on her own. She does it exceptionally well, but she's still, the sole leader, the only one who has to make it all happen.

I like that she was able to weaponize religion and call her gut feeling 'the voice of god', I think that's a good way to deal with religious people, how could they possibly counter that? (except, you know, institutionalization and fire, but in her case it works.) The side effects are still pretty severe though, and that's why I'm thinking, multiple women, all together, sharing the burden and responsibility of leading and protecting, that would be something.

I think every woman has that gut feeling that she's usually very discouraged from listening to, but this gut feeling is also the closest thing to a god we could possibly have. Women are creators of the entire human population, human species even. We are the only divinity that exists. If we have a voice inside of us, telling us what we want to do next, how do we want to go about life, is that not the voice of creators, voice of divinity? If all of us got together and made some choices together, about the future of this world, that would be the most divine thing to happen on this planet. Here we can see how just one woman trusting her inner voice created a paradise for herself and her family - her husband too, because even though he needed some 'coming around', her plan was ultimately incredibly good and beneficial to him, he now has everything, because he listened to her. Women's plans for their families include benefits for the entire family, unlike male's, who usually prefer to put their families into roles of servitude in favour of his personal success.

Trust your gut feeling! That is the divine voice of what you want and need. And it's better than what any male thinks is right. It should trample all of their opinions and needs. Women are natural leaders, and we can make incredible futures happen.

[mythicalm0thii]

My thoughts on HBL !! I dislike Hell Breaks Loose. Anyways spoilers ahead!! Hell Breaks Loose started off strong for me by introducing the fact it was pre-Lord Vile, I don't know why I was so hyped for silly dead men adventures as Skul tried to recover from his crimes, but that was sad... I can't say it was Derek's fault, however. Anyways I liked the sisters, I guess, sister Stone was interesting. I don't know why Ghastly had a romance, however. Maybe its because I'm an avid Ghasduggery shipper, or maybe it's because I knew for a fact they wouldn't stay together until the events of the first book, but sure. I was actually warming up to all the characters, enjoying the book, and getting behind how dark and broody Skulduggery was. (Side note: IT IS COMPLETELY FINE TO NAME YOUR FUCKING WEAPONS!!!! SKUL WAS GRIEVING OK??? ALSO IT WAS A KICK-ASS NAME!!! I WOULD NAME MY WEAPONS!!! HE'S MENTALLY UNWELL, SURE, BUT NAMING HIS SWORD HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH IT!!!!) Anyways, then Valkyrie showed up. I don't need to even try and explain the sound of absolute anguish that came out of me at that moment. Like, I put down the book to sob. I was so excited for silly pre-Val adventures, and I was kind of sick of her.... (I'M SORRY BUT SHE'S SO OVERPOWERED AND I HATE THE TIME TRAVEL) So when she showed up, it completely ruined the entire book for me. Thanks Derek <3

I don't really remember what happened, I'll be honest. Something about the Hidden God? Guy gets sucked into portal, becomes OP? Anyways I want to talk about how Derek fucking ruined Lord Vile for me. WHY WAS HE HERE?? WHERE WAS ABYSSNIA?? WHY WASN'T HE WEARING ARMOUR??? HUH??? It was so confusing istg Lord Vile, to me, is Skulduggery's grief. The only reason he's scary is because he's just a guy in some armour. A man with enough power to level cities, yet nobody even knows the sound of his voice. SO WHEN HE SHOWED UP AS A GODDAMN SHADOW SKELETON-- I went apeshit. I cried, sobbed, even. YOU DON'T DO THAT. It literally destroyed all my thoughts on him as a character, and really watered him down. As well as reminding us that Skulduggery has this OP power that he doesn't fucking use. The Sexter kiss was like a sentence. It was the only motivation I had to finish this damned book. Oh yeah also new villain ig The end bit was kind of dry but ok I guess I liked Ghastly, and it was cool to get some lore on Skul and Ghast's past + HOPELESS !!!!!!! I felt my self sob every time they talked about Skulduggery getting better, but that soon faded out by the time Valkyrie arrived I'm simply going to take out the bits I liked for my own timeline in my head, like a crow pecking at a carcass, and discard the rest :3 All in all, 3/10. I thought it couldn't be as bad as UtE.

[intimidating-fettuccine]

Is it me or haven't we talked much about the omegaverse lately?

Anyway, I'm here to revive the topic, (if you don't mind, of course) alpha jeff and beta liu and sully defending their omega from other alphas (separately please xd)

It HAS been a hot minute! Nobody's requested it in a long time so it hasn't been written!

For those unaware of what the omegaverse AU is because they haven’t seen it before, or those that have forgotten, click here for a refresher!

Also just an extra thing for anyone interested, here is a link to a post of how I categorize all the creeps in the omegaverse if you aren’t aware

Jeff:

Jeff is incredibly protective over you in general, always making sure to scent you in the morning, and always looking out for you whenever he's around you to make sure that nothing ends up making you uncomfortable, making sure that nobody gets too close to you. He's incredibly territorial, and the second he notices your own scent growing sour, the second he can tell you're distraught, Jeff is rushing over to you with a loud growl tearing out of his throat. His arms are swiftly around you and his eyes are narrowed, teeth barred at the offending alpha as he pushes you behind you. If the offending alpha doesn't get the hint, Jeff is NOT afraid to get physical to defend you, although he will give a verbal threat first to try and get them to back off. If all else fails, Jeff sends you off to hide somewhere he knows you'd be safe while he ends up taking care of the other alpha. Jeff never loses a fight when it comes to protecting you, not with his incredible strength and drive.

Liu:

Liu, on the other hand... Has a bit more trouble. As a beta, Liu is naturally weaker and calmer than alphas, so it is a lot harder for him to stake his claim over you. Liu can still scent you all the same, still claim you with a mating mark, but that doesn't mean it'll deter alphas, after all, you are an omega. But! That doesn't mean he'll allow someone to take you from him. First and foremost, Liu is an incredibly smooth talker, and with his naturally calming scent that's effective on omegas AND alphas, his first line of offense is to try and talk the alpha out of it. If that doesn't work, Liu isn't afraid to fight dirty with a few weapons to scare them off, but, if he ends up getting overpowered, he can try switching in Sully. Sully is even more protective over you than Liu is (which is saying something), and Sully won't stop until he's physically unable to move when it comes to defending you. They may be ranked as betas, but neither of them are to be messed with when it comes to you. 

[shadyteacup]

Hello! If you’re free, I was wondering if I could have a request where 15y/o Dazai meets his future s/o which he feels comfortable around them and has good impression abt them. Like he’s wandering somewhere and suddenly run into them. They have a chitchat abt their thoughts on something and have fun talking to each other. Then leave and meet again when he joins ADA. (s/o is a weird kind of person, like out of this world)

I’m not an English speaker so sorry for my terrible English y-y. Btw, i love your writings!!💟

This is such an amazing idea! I had fun writing this! And dw, your English is spectacular ♡ Enjoy, dove!

Dazai Osamu x gn! Reader||Reader has a time traveling ability

Timeless

You were a time traveler. Your ability allowed you to visit places from different timelines. The only drawback was that you aged no matter where you were, even if you were using your ability. This meant that if you wanted to enjoy the present, you had to ensure that you didn't spend much time in the past. You couldn't visit the future.

But that was okay. You loved finding out the root of all problems. That's why you joined the ada. Your ability helped them to identify who the perpetrator was. You would travel in the past and be there at the crime scene at the right time. Then you'd come back and reveal important information like the hiding place of the murder weapon, or if they had been looking at the wrong suspect all along.

You were currently investigating the death of a businessman. His body had turned up near the docks. It was highly decomposed, and probably atleast 2 years dead. You decided to travel 2 years into the past, and made your way to the docks. While searching for the potential crime scene, you bumped into someone. A mop of brown hair stood a few steps ahead of you. The boy wore bandages all over his arms and neck, and had an eye covered. Judging by the absence of any outline of his eye on the bandage that covered it, and the lack of moisture, his eye probably wasn't injured at all. He was probably only wearing bandages to appear weak. But this was just an assumption on your part.

"Ah, I'm so sorry, boy. I didn't see you there!"

He looked at you with a dead look in his eye, then gave you the fakest smile to ever exist.

"It's alright. May I ask what you are doing at a place like this?"

You were taken aback by his cold demeanor. It reminded you a lot of your own self.

"I'm here to investigate a death."

You said. His eyes darkened at your words.

"You see, the body will be discovered two years later. No tangible evidence will be recovered, then. So I must find something useful here, now."

The boy smirked.

"Time traveling ability?"

You smiled.

"Yup."

His smirk dropped and he glared at you.

"I see. This is a dangerous adventure, dear. You might get caught in a string of trouble, one that might lead you to harm."

The boy's aura and dark look had made you suspicious about his employers, but now you were certain that he worked for the mafia.

"Don't worry. I'm pretty positive that the murder wasn't committed by someone from the mafia."

His surprise was momentary, but obvious. It caught your eye.

"Before you ask, no, I don't know your future self. Also, the method of the crime doesn't match the mafia's M.O."

He nodded, thinking.

"Well in that case, I don't think you and I should be enemies."

He chirped, a happy look on his face.

You were taken aback by the sudden change in his mood.

"Sure, kid."

You said, patting his shoulder and walking away, trying to find the crime scene. The area was littered with compartments and shipment goods. It all looked so similar, almost like a maze.

"Hey, kiddo, can you lend me a hand?"

He blinked in confusion.

"Um. Sure."

He was confused as to why you weren't afraid of him. You clearly knew he was from the mafia, but you still acted so casually around him. It made him think that you either represented somebody powerful, or worked for an influential employer.

You rummaged through your pocket, trying to find the picture. Handing him the the snap of the crime scene, you observed him as he peered into the paper.

"This way."

He said, walking between two cargo containers, and leading the way.

"I never got your name, boy."

He shrugged, peering at you over his shoulder.

"Does it really matter?"

You mimicked him, raising your shoulders in a lazy shrug.

"Maybe, maybe not. But I'd like to call you something other than 'boy'."

He hummed in thought.

"How about 'knight in shining armour'?"

You scoffed.

"I get the whole 'I'm helping you, so I'm a knight' thing, but I'm no damsel in distress."

He smirked.

"Oh? And what if I were to abandon you here? What would you do?"

You smirked.

"I'd find my way on my own. I don't need you, eye-patch."

He grinned at you smugly, stopping in his tracks and moving towards you. He leaned in, his face almost touching yours.

"And what if I were to overpower you, hmm? What would you do then?"

You shuffled closer to him, much to his surprise. You whispered near his ear.

"I'll ensure that you'll never be able to have kids."

Pushing him back, you snatched the picture from his palm, and continued searching for the location. He was astonished at your bravery. He always comes across as intimidating, and that was putting it mildly. You were very courageous.

Following you like a lost puppy, he watched you hide behind a bunch of wooden crates.

You patted the space next to you, beckoning him to sit there.

"The show's about to start, eye-patch."

You took out your camera and were ready to click.

That's when two men, clad in expensive suits walked over. One of them was explaining something to the other.

You began clicking a few snaps.

The guy who was observing, turned his back on the other for a second. That's when he brandished his knife and plunged it into the other's back. You were furiously tapping away on the camera's button, determined to get every detail of proof.

The victim suffered atleast 50 stabwounds, 53 to be exact, when the killer decided to stop and hide the body. You snapped every single second of the ordeal.

When the killer left the crime scene, the two of you got up, and dusted your clothes.

"Do you have any plans after this?"

He asked you.

"Well, not really. I was planning to grab a drink, maybe something to eat, before heading back."

You said.

"Or heading 'ahead', since I'm going to the future. I don't even know."

Dazai nodded his head.

"How about I treat you to a drink?"

You eye him suspiciously.

"I have no reason to harm you. You literally don't belong here, so I've got no reason to hurt you."

You hum in acknowledgement.

"Okay then. Lead the way."

....

"How old are you?"

He asked, swirling his drink in his glass.

"A few years older than you."

"Cryptic."

"Intrusive."

"Touche."

"You have so many questions, don't you, eye-patch. "

Dazai hummed, taking a sip.

"Consider me intruiged by your... ability."

He turned in his bar stool to face you.

"Why didn't you prevent it from happening?"

"Because if I break the flow of time, or even mess with it, everything will go haywire."

"And if you were able to prevent it, without disrupting the flow of time, would you have intervened?"

You gaze at your own glass.

"I would do some heavy research before I make my decision."

Dazai was curious. Did you not want to save people?

"Everybody has a reason for murder. Nobody wakes up one day and decides to kill someone. I'll dig into their lives and find out why the killer did it. And I'll decide whether or not preventing the murder would save an innocent life, or harm many others in the future."

"So, in short, you intend to play God."

You chuckled.

"If given the power, who in their right mind would turn down the offer? Everybody wants to play God. Our entire society is built that way. The one who has more money, more power, more influence, has the right to play God to those beneath them."

Dazai found you very interesting. The way you viewed the world was so unique. You were a textbook 'good person' but could easily become the 'bad guy' if given the resources. Good or bad doesn't really matter to him, he finds the difference between the two very confusing.

"Doesn't that make you, and everybody who has power, a "bad" person?"

You chuckled.

"Funny coming from a mafioso."

Downing the rest of your drink, you answer his question.

"The distinction between good and bad is so distorted. The same set of actions can be termed as good for certain circumstances, and bad for others. The villain is always the hero when you try to see the world through his shoes, and the hero is always the villain for those supporting the so called 'bad guy' ."

"I agree. I don't care about what's 'good' or 'bad' ,either."

"Then what do you follow?"

"What do you mean?"

"There must be some set of rules that you abide by. What are they?"

"I.. Don't have any. I'm a free bird!"

You tap your chin in thought.

"One must have something to fall back on when they don't know what to do. Something to blindly follow. For example, I follow a set of rules created by my morals and values. When I don't  know how to proceed, I remember them and act accordingly. "

Dazai observed you as you spoke, absorbing every single syllable that floated out if your luscious lips. He was attracted towards opinionated, strong and focused people. He adores the look on people's faces when they speek about their passions, and express their opinions on matters. Even if he disagreed with them, the fact that they have a strong reasoning behind their actions, and the way they calmly portray their points so skillfully, makes him like them more.

The way you were effortlessly articulating your inner thoughts was something that he was fascinated by. He had so much going on inside, so much turmoil, that it was impossible for him to express it out in words. But you seem to be so sorted and disciplined. He loved that about you.

"You'll get there someday, eye-patch. Don't worry. "

You comforted, smiling at the young man.

He smiled back at you. For the first time that day, he had given you a genuine smile.

"You should smile more. It suits you."

He blushed at your words. It was a weird feeling for him. He didn't understand why his face was heating up, or why his ears felt like they were on fire.

Flicking your wrist to check the time, you sighed.

"Well, time to leave."

Dazai held your wrist as you were about to get up.

"Wait!"

You looked at him quizzically.

"Will we meet again?"

You tilted your head and smiled at him.

" I can't say for sure, but I do hope that we do."

With that, he watched you walk out of the bar. He only respected Odasaku. But now, he respected you, too.

....

Time skip to a few weeks later.

....

"L/N san, please get yourself together, we're expecting a new member to join us, soon."

You laid on the couch of the ada as Kunikida rambled on about how everyone must be in their best behavior to greet their newest member. Yosano was handling most of it, so Ranpo and you had no work to do.

"Yes, yes, Doppo. Also, it's Y/N."

You said, stretching your arms above your head.

"Y/N kun, you need to try this new type of cookie. It has two different flavors!"

Ranpo said, offering you a cookie from his bag.

You smile at him, accepting it.

"Yum!"

"I know, right!"

"Ranpo san, Y/N san! Please come here! Our newest member has arrived!"

Both of you lazily got up and strolled over to the front of the office.

"What is the big deal, Doppo-"

You stopped mid sentence when you saw the person standing at the doorway.

"Eye-patch!"

Dazai's eyes widened when he saw you, the one person who had managed to intruige him other than his deceased friend, standing in the office. The office where he was to work at, today onwards.

"Damsel!"

He said, pointing at you.

You scoffed at his choice of nickname.

"Ha! I knew your eye was fine!"

"Do you both know each other?"

Kunikida asked.

"Ofcourse they do. They met a long time ago, right, Dazai?"

Ranpk said, muching on his sweets. Ofcourse, he figured it out.

"Well, not that long ago for me."

You smiled.

Dazai had finally met you. He was elated.

"I'm glad we met again."

"Don't worry, eye-patch, we have a lot of time to catch up. ;)"

[wri0thesley]

sparring practise - sorbet x reader x gelato

you realise how helpless you are after an attempted burglary, and sorbet and gelato attempt to help you defend yourself. things do not go as planned. 

warnings: not sfw. reader is gender neutral and neutral of body. mentions of fighting, guns, knives, blood, home invasion, choking, cannibalism, serial killing, violence, general sorbet and gelato type warnings. 

yes this is self indulgent no i do not care

The home you share with Sorbet and Gelato is cloaked in civility. It’s in a nice neighbourhood that has a low rate for crime, and Sorbet dutifully tends to the flower beds – Gelato paints your front door in a shade of yellow that makes the neighbours whisper under their breaths even more than the nature of the relationship the three of you share, but nobody comes out and says it because as a whole, you seem like three perfectly well-adjusted and functional members of society who keep to yourselves.

They figure that Sorbet and Gelato work nights, perhaps as a security guards or some kind of manual labour – in the dark, bloodstains can look like all kinds of different things. They greet you when you go to the supermarket and gather your shopping, not blinking when you buy another new sharpening steel with the laugh that all three of you are foodies, and you seem to have an unfortunate habit of breaking them--

The house is your domain. The careful windows, the flower boxes, the neatly vacuumed carpets and the sigh as you stare at Gelato’s muddy boot prints in the entrance hall. They do their best – but sometimes, it is half past one in the morning, and they are weary and simply want to come to bed and embrace you.

The basement, though . . .

That is Sorbet and Gelato’s domain, and you are very rarely in it.

Not because you disapprove of what they do – but because they worry about you, you think. You are smaller than they are, not as scarred, not quite hardened by the years of their past.

“It’s better if you don’t get involved in Passione shit,” Gelato has said, a hundred times. “We need you here, amore! Who fuckin’ knows what we’d do without you?”

“He’s right,” Sorbet has intoned, wrapping his arms around both of your waists. “Bad enough we’re involved.”

“You love it!” Gelato accuses, leaning into Sorbet’s shoulder despite it. Sorbet’s mouth tilts at the corners, a small smile on his face. You know that a hundred men or perhaps more have had that smile be the last thing they see, Sorbet’s eyes dark, his face streaked with blood. It should strike fear into your heart – but all it ever does is make you want to poke his cheek, kiss him until you can feel the curve of his lips echoing all over you.

“Yes,” he says simply. “I do.”

Sorbet and Gelato keep their weapons down here, mounted on the wall. There’s an iron-topped table like the kind one would find in a butcher’s shop beneath the knives, shining brightly despite how often you’ve poked your head down there to tell them dinner is ready and seen it practically bathed in blood. The training mats to one side of the room, a table and chairs and fridge on the other side. Opposite the side of the room with the table and chairs are four iron manacles set into the brickwork, for times when hits have to be taken home and interrogated before being brought to an end – and for some of Sorbet and Gelato’s other outside of work activities, though they don’t talk to you much about those.

And tonight, you are here too.

“You leave me a gun in the bureau,” you’d said to Gelato, a night after a would-be attacker had attempted to burgle you, seeing that your house was neat and pretty and hearing on the grapevine that one homeowner was often alone. “But if someone overpowers me, I’m useless--”

(Sorbet and Gelato had not treated the man kindly. The basement is soundproofed, but you had still heard rhythmic thumping, and the next morning Sorbet had come into the kitchen with several unusual cuts of meat.

“They won’t fit in the fridge down there,” he’d said. Sorbet does most of the cooking. His meals are always delicious.)

It had been Sorbet’s idea to try sparring with you.

“We could leave you some knives too,” Gelato had suggested. “Maybe some other guns? A chainsaw?” and Sorbet had had to point out that none of those things would actually assuage your fears – in fact, if the perpetrator managed to wrangle them off you, you were left much worse off facing a chainsaw than you would be if you had never had one in the first place.

Gelato is closer to your height, so Sorbet makes him wrap his fists and take off his shirt. You do your best not to stare at his torso too much, though he is all lean, wiry muscle dotted with scars and starbursts that you have kissed a thousand times over. He sees you looking and gives you one of his most manic grins, his teeth all sharp – you repress the shiver that runs through you at that, trying to remind yourself you are here to learn and not merely to ogle your boyfriend. Though he does look very good, with his gold hair all tousled and a rush in his eyes that you always see when he feels like he has the dominant position.

Sorbet had taken a seat at first and told you to approach Gelato as if he were hostile, to see if you could get a punch in and so they could work on that – you had made a valiant attempt, despite every bit of common sense you had immediately whispering that Gelato was a predator and you were a prey animal.

You had not been surprised when he had flipped you easily, and you had landed on your back on the training mats with a great thump of air, all of the breath knocked out of you. One of Gelato’s heavy military grade boots had landed, gently, on your abdomen, as he’d bent over you with his eyes glinting in the fluorescent lighting of the basement.

“You look cute like that!” He’d laughed. “Come on! You can do better than this, tesoro!”

He’d been delighted as you’d dragged yourself back up, and as you had made attempt after attempt to get ahead of him. All of them had inevitably ended with you on your knees, or on your back – or once against a wall with a knife far too close to your back for comfort, Gelato’s hand easily around your throat.

That one had almost pushed you to the brink, your breath coming in little pants, a hot jolt of arousal coursing through you at just how Gelato was looking down on you. Gelato had obviously felt it too, because his grin had widened just a little, pressing closer to you so you’d felt the stiff, hot heat of something in his fatigues pressing heavily against your thigh--

“Come here,” Sorbet says. He’s stood up from the chair now, his hands coming to unbutton his own shirt. He is not quite as covered in scars as Gelato is – the blond is more reckless, and you have gathered his previous military experience was more dangerous than . . . whatever Sorbet did, after leaving his church school. That does not make any difference to the fact he is broad and muscled, sculpted from training and years of violence. “You’re not starting right. Your stance is all wrong.”

“I started that last one sittin’ on the floor to give ‘em a chance,” Gelato says, breathlessly, as he peels himself away from you and your hand flies to your throat, recalling the echo of Gelato’s calloused fingers. It wouldn’t be the first time you’ve had one of their hands about their necks, but . . . well. It never gets old, does it? “’N I’m doing fine.”

“You have experience behind you, caro,” Sorbet’s tone is patient. “Of course you do.”

Gelato grins as he gets back into position opposite you, clenching his fist.

“Sorbetto,” his tone is sing-song, wheedling. “You’re not gonna tell me what a good job I’m doin’? C’mooooon--”

Sorbet chuckles, crossing the room to wrap an arm around Gelato’s smaller form, using one hand to tip up his face and place a chaste kiss on the tilt of his crooked nose. Gelato’s had two broken noses in the past six months.

“You know you’re doing wonderfully,” he coos at his boyfriend, who dutifully reddens despite asking for the praise. “But that’s not what we’re here for, is it?”

“No,” Gelato admits, with a sigh – he looks at you, and he gives you a nod. “You’re not doing too badly! Look, Sorbet could knock me down without blinking, if you’re gonna learn from him, some low-life fuckin’ thief is gonna be a piece of cake.”

Sorbet kisses him on the sweaty mass of his pale curls and comes to you.

“Here,” Sorbet murmurs, getting in very close to you. “Your feet are too far apart.” One of his feet kicks gently at your own, forcing you to widen your hips. He grabs a hold of those next, rearranging the tilt, his body so close that you can feel the heat radiating from his chest. Your breath catches as he takes your wrist, helping you curl your fingers into a fist. “Not too tight, don’t put your thumb inside or you’ll break it--”

He’s bent over you, his dark gaze on your hand – and you feel the puff of air he dispels in a breath, warming your neck and shoulder. You can barely breathe. Your heart is beating ten to the dozen.

You know Gelato is turned on – you’d felt that when you were pinned against the wall. You hadn’t realised until Sorbet had come up behind you that watching you was doing the exact same thing to him.

“Alright,” Sorbet says. “When you throw the punch, aim to get it through him, you’ll need the follow through.” You nod, but your throat is dry and your head is spinning.

“Yeah,” you say, “I will.”

Sorbet gives you a pat on the shoulder, before pausing and leaning in to whisper against your ear;

“Aim for his ribs. He’s got a weak spot, left side. You should be able to kick him and sweep him off-balance too.” A hand on your hip drags down, squeezing your ass. “If you manage it, he’ll fuck you into next week.”

“Don’t give ‘em too much of an advantage,” Gelato says. “Can I rush on them now?”

Sorbet gives a small smile again.

“Be my guest,” he says, but he does not go back to his chair – instead, he steps to one side so he can observe. Gelato bounces on the balls of his feet, all buzzing and unrestrained energy. You keep your fists as Sorbet told you to, re-running everything you’ve been told about punching today--

And Gelato moves like a wild animal, chaotic and quick. You dodge one of his blows by inches, sliding your foot forward towards him to alter your balance slightly, your dominant hand coming out with as much force as you can muster, everything you can remember about how to hold your fists running through your mind as it connects hard with Gelato’s left rib and the blond sputters.

Kick. Sweep. Under the ankle, despite his heavy boots--

Gelato stumbles to one side, balance lost, coughing – and then Sorbet is in the fray too, pushing you down in between the two of them so that you’re trapped between two of his legs and topple onto Gelato. The blond snarls hungrily, grabbing a handful of Sorbet’s hair and dragging him into a hungry kiss.

Sorbet’s stiff erection digs into the meat of your ass whilst Gelato’s digs into your front, stuck between the two of them, your glory at getting Gelato off of his feet seeming much less important than the frantic beating of your heart.

“You told them about my ribs,” Gelato grumbles. “Asshole.”

“Your asshole,” Sorbet reminds him, and kisses him again, before pulling away to wrap his arms about your middle instead. “Besides.” Sorbet’s voice turns low and smug. “You can’t tell me you didn’t notice . . .?”

Gelato snickers. He lets go of Sorbet’s hair to cup your face roughly.

“Cucciolo mia,” he says. “How long have you wanted to be fucked?”

Your face grows hot, but that just makes him grin harder, sparks fly from his dark eyes. He grinds his crotch into your thigh and you swallow the thickness that rises in there.

“M’sorry,” you say, after a moment, as Sorbet joins in with the bullying, grinding his hips against your ass. “I--”

“Nothing to be sorry for,” Gelato says, with a laugh like a rusty iron grate. That’s one of those laughs that his victims hear – one you should be scared of, but that makes nothing rise in you except want. “As you can probably feel--” Sorbet’s lips brush your ear, teeth worrying at the earlobe so you moan aloud. “We’ve got the same kinda problem ourselves. Y’know.” His teeth flash, sharp, bright, and you imagine them coated in blood. “If y’wanna help out some.”

You don’t respond to him in words. Instead, you press your lips against his hard, and when he bites hard enough to draw forth blood you moan.

---

When everything is over and done with, you lay sweaty and panting in between both of your boyfriends – Sorbet’s front pressed protectively against your back, Gelato clinging to your waist as he tucks his head beneath your chin.

“Next time,” Gelato breathes, already looking ahead, as if you three did not just spend several hours tangled hot and heavy within each other, biting and moaning and groaning and making the entire basement smell like sex. “We should teach ‘em to fire a rifle. I think they’ve got potential.”

“Mm,” Sorbet says, very low, making his chest reverberate against your spine in a way that has you shivering. “I think you’re right.”

[kutscene-kestin]

Ahai friend! I took a moment to scroll through your blog and I can't even find out your character's name 👀 she's a dragonhunter, apparently, and has fire-phobia, and likes fishing, but that's all. I also saw a comment saying you didn't talk much about her because you have nobody to talk with 👀

SO! Tell me about your Commander! If you need prompting, have a #1 from the Commander asks: Which dragon scared your commander the most? But feel free to pick any from the list or make up your own! Mostly tell me her name. The absolute lack of such has got me antsy XD. And maybe have a screen of her?

Much rambling ahead! More to come later too. I won’t do a formal writeup or anything, I’ll probably just drop bits and pieces as they come to mind, and then expand each bit and piece into a massive paragraph because that’s how I roll, as you will soon see.

Ahah, well...when I first start playing a game, before I get involved with the story, I default to seeing the character as "my account" rather than, well, a character, so I tend to use my own username. So her name is Kestin. Yeah. Her last name is Fortuna because of my friends who got me into the game in the first place, but she doesn't use it much -- she didn't even know her own last name until she was 14 or 15. Her life story before and up through level 10 is sort of an adaptation of someone else's adaptation of the storyline as presented in-game. She was your standard self-sufficient wannabe-badass street orphan, and spent some years as a gofer/occasional enforcer for a brutal street gang. Then the human tutorial and everything happened and she helped the Seraph weed them out, at the cost of her best friend and surrogate brother, Quinn (who is a character in game but is not really given much characterization there so I kinda just made shit up). In her childhood she often looked up to Balthazar as an inspiration and motivation to keep fighting when times got hard. So, y'know, it sucked killing her own god later on and everything, though of course he wasn't the last person/figure she looked up to.

She's technically a dragonhunter in game but I do consider her fighting style to be much more like what I've seen of a willbender. She moves around a lot, uses her limbs as much as her weapons, and she used dual swords before the game said she could, heh. She was kind of the archetypal scrappy little kid who had to teach herself to fight, though she learned a lot more later on both in the Vigil and from pure experience. Like I've said, she's really an amalgam of a lot of clichés. And definitely overpowered. And I don't even care. c:

The pyrophobia isn't a huge factor (it really can't be, because it would interfere with the plot) -- it's more of an aversion (actually kind of like my own; I can stand being in a room with a fireplace, but lighting candles makes me nervous, for one example) and a general preference for cooler temperatures. At least according to her. She pretends that nothing ever affects her, so even I'm not always sure where she really is psychologically, other than "a ticking time bomb". The whole "go to sleep in a nice puffy snowbank, really, it's fine" thing Jormag tried to get her to believe also probably influenced her, making her feel calmer in the cold even though she knew that was an attempt to make her, y'know, die and stop being a threat to the new world order.

As for which dragon scared her the most? I've been thinking about that one for several days now, but she had issues with both Zhaitan (due to 1. her general inexperience with apocalyptic shit and 2. the undead are really freaky you guys) and Jormag (due to the way they could get into her head). She refuses to admit that either of them outright scared her, but she's probably lying. Everyone knows she's probably lying. She still lies. The last person she was ever really honest with was Trahearne. And then she had to kill him. (I don't ship them -- it's hard for me to ship her with anyone, really. She's not supposed to be aro/ace, but I am, and that limits my imagination capabilities.)

Here’s a screenie. If I could draw, I’d provide you with a much better estimate of what she (and her armor) looks like, buuut I can’t. One thing I can tell you is that she’s kind of small, though. Not outrageously, but enough that strangers would underestimate her. Moar clichés yay.

[that-one-fandom-vore-blog]

hi please tell me about your hatchetfield among us au O: who does it include

AUSJSHDHJSNS THANK YOU FOR INDULGING ME OKAY I’M GONNA DO REALLY QUICK CHARACTER OVERVIEW STUFF SO IF YOU WANT PLOT SPECIFICS 🅱️LEASE SEND MORE ASKS

Tom: Crewmate. Captain of H1V3 thanks to his service in intergalactic wars, Tom is a hardened vet who doesn’t fuck around when there’s a job to be done. He’s dealt with aliens before, wears the red suit, and if he has to deal with aliens again on his ship... it’ll end in blood. Guaranteed. After all— he has a son to get back to. With experience in killing aliens, he knows the best solution is tossing them into the airlock and letting them fly, and if that’s not an option, one clean shot to the head will do it. God, he hopes his arm doesn’t shake.

Becky: Crewmate. Hired as a nurse and for her skill with weaponry, she’s second in command on ship H1V3 and one of the most powerful players in the game when it comes to telling who’s human and who’s not thanks to knowing what humans should be able to do. She’s smart, strong, and wears the cyan suit. She’s the first one to find an impostor, and when she does, she fights tooth and nail to get the damned thing into the airlock and send it to the fucking stars. Like hell she’s dying in space.

Linda: Impostor. Leader of the non humans smuggled aboard, Linda was hired as a risk analysis to keep them from getting into trouble. Cunning, smart, and with a good head on her shoulders, she’s ready to lead her team to victory. Only real problem is that she gets found out before managing to kill a single soul by Becky... and that she lets slip that there are three non humans still aboard. Well. At least she tried. For the short time she was alive, her suit was white with a long, black cloak— a dead giveaway.

Emma: Crewmate. A strong navigator for H1V3, she specializes in cartography thanks to extensive time spent travelling. She wears the green suit, and for the most part, does her job well, though when aliens are introduced to the mix, internally, she becomes a bit of a mess. She clings to Paul’s side whenever things on board get bad and crewmates start to properly disappear. Her sister, Jane, was a skilled pilot, and Emma thought this’d be a good way to follow in her footsteps— though death isn’t somewhere she wants to follow her older sibling.

Bill: Crewmate. Donning the orange suit, Bill is an expert in communications, and works to keep them constantly in touch with their destination. He keeps a journal, does routine checks with other ships, and will chat about his daughter to whoever’s near. A real sweet guy. Hannah takes a liking to him immediately, and to be honest, the crew always loves when it’s his turn to cook. His meals are always the best, and he never complains about whatever he’s sent to do. The only thing he has trouble with are the aliens— when people start to go missing, he makes a point of checking in with Alice more and more, just in case he’s next.

Charlotte: Crewmate. Hired onto H1V3 to mostly clean and do janitorial duties, Charlotte is a breath of fresh air to have aboard. Wearing the pink suit, she treats life as a song and is constantly singing under her breath in time with the headphones she wears while working. Her and Becky are both vulnerable with each other, and both were there to overpower Linda once she revealed her true colours and attempted to murder the pair of them. She wants a cat but doesn’t actually own one— though she intends to use her funds from this job to get one if she gets back down to Earth— or anywhere, other than where she’s trapped.

Hidgens: Impostor. It should be obvious to the humans aboard that Henry isn’t what he seems, what, with his manner of speaking and over the top demeanour— but he’s cunning. He’s been at the impostor thing a long, long time, and he doesn’t plan on giving it up anytime soon. Although he’s an older alien, that doesn’t slow him down in the slightest when it comes to being merciless. After all, the three of them need to feed, and with a skillset that makes it easy to swallow up a couple of humans... Henry’s fairly damn certain he’s got this whole thing in the bag. After all, his white suit is clean of blood, so that means he’s innocent, correct?

Ted: Crewmate. A bit of a prat when it comes to talking to Bill and Paul, Ted, frankly, is concerned with one thing: himself. He’s an expert at fixing up weapons, however, so he’s valuable once the impostors start rallying against the humans on board through sabotage. His suit’s brown, his attitude’s shitty, and he has no qualms about slitting a few throats if it means he gets to live. If he so much has an inkling of someone being an impostor, he’s on their case about it, and although he’s usually full of shit and knows it... he’s been right a few times. Shame that the crew brushes him off so often.

Paul: Impostor. Wearing a dark blue suit to hopefully mask the blue that drips from his lips, eyes, ears, and nose, Paul is trying his best to do one thing: follow his orders. Hired as a tech whiz alongside Bill, Paul’s usually the one to run sabotages, though... they never last long before he helps get the ship back online and running. For an alien, he’s gentle, and can usually be seen with Emma at his side as he fiddles with the monitors, or Charlotte when she sings. He seems to like music, though he more than likes it. He’s attracted to it. Any time there’s a note, his accute hearing will pick it up, and although Bill’s cooking is good... there are some things that aliens have to eat that’d make any good person’s stomach turn. Paul’s included.

Lex: Crewmate. A spunky, trigger-happy teen in purple, Lex operates the weapons and works alongside Ethan as a mechanic aboard H1V3. She’s light on her feet, and when impostors make themselves known aboard the ship, she’s always on her toes. After all, she knows what it’s like to trust nobody. This is nothing new— though the threat of death hanging over her head isn’t exactly her favourite thing. She lives with it. After all, she has a radio, and a shitty pistol if she gets cornered, along with her wits about her. She only really took the job to do a cargo run to get herself and Hannah out of danger. Stupid fucking move.

Ethan: Impostor. Brought aboard as a mechanic in a black suit, Ethan’s damn good at what he does. He knows the ship inside and out, and before the first day’s truly over, has a firm grasp on the ventilation system. The youngest impostor aboard, he’s cautious, and refrains from devouring people to an extent despite how it makes his stomach ache. His visor is always tinted, hiding features that normal humans shouldn’t have. He’s been told not to get attached— time and time again, he’s been told the humans are nothing more than food and that the escape pod is for the impostors to use— but when he and Lex get to talking... he can’t not tell her where the pod is.

Hannah: Crewmate. Only aboard because of Lex, she spends most of her time either in her room or out with Emma and Lex. Before the aliens are even exposed, the child is wary of Linda— and although she doesn’t know who’s human and who’s not— not exactly, anyway— she’s smart enough to stand on her own and small enough to squeeze through a vent despite being in a yellow spacesuit. Ethan makes her uneasy, she refuses to be alone with Paul, and has never looked Hidgens in the eye without wincing and looking away as though she’s been burned. Webby’s shown her a few things. She’s shown her something dark. Something green. Shown her a scattering of features that don’t belong to humans and never will. Shown her hidden rooms and hidden thoughts, but the one thing she hasn’t told her is what all the crew members need to know.

What, exactly, is among them on H1V3?

[lokilickedme]

Road Trip

I woke up about twenty minutes ago to answer a text and realized halfway through my reply that I’d just surfaced from a dream that felt ridiculously real - and that all the details were still with me.  It was too good to let slip into the oblivion of wakefulness, so here I sit, still groggy, haven’t peed yet, typing it out.  I’m putting it in shortfic format but all the details are as they were dreamed, nothing’s been changed or added.

‘Twas a good one.  Sort of.  If you like that sort of thing.

Warnings for general unease and suspense and ambiguous ending, because yeah, I dream like that.

Starring a couple of familiar faces.

I’m driving.  Endless interstate, late afternoon, there’s snow on the median where the plows have pushed it but it’s been warm for days.  It’s melting off, leaving behind dirty patches dyed by splashing mud and blown debris.  Pale yellow grass pokes out here and there, like a warning that Spring has either come or gone.  I don’t have a clue which, but there’s a coat slung over the back of my passenger seat.

My husband is on the other end of my phone.  I need a map, I tell him.  I’m not supposed to be making this trip, this yearly pilgrimage to visit his old and demented father.  I don’t like him, I never have, and I don’t know the way.  But for some reason our standard placeholders have flipped and I’m in this car, on this interstate, driving to Wyoming while he stays home with the kids.

I’m driving East, and I know that makes no sense.  I’m winging it.  He’s giving me directions the way he always does, in a way that my nontypical comprehension center unsurprisingly doesn’t comprehend.  Stay right.  The road will merge.

And then it doesn’t, so I keep going straight.

I must be a thousand miles off course before I decide it’s time to stop.

The scenery changes abruptly, as if it’s been listening to my thoughts.  Concrete highway becomes rocky dirt road, traffic becomes trees, and eventually, as dark begins to replace the sunny warmth of late afternoon, I pull up at a cabin, sort of.  A half screened, half enclosed crackerbox square bungalow, flashing me a new coat of brown paint as if it’s proud of its spiffiness.  It’s been painted a thousand times, I know if I dig my fingernail into the brown coating it will scrape away at least a dozen layers of the browns that came before it.

The key is in an unlocked lockbox out front.  Someone knew I was coming.

Inside I find a bed, as square and frequently made and remade as the bungalow itself.  A heating unit the size of a refrigerator in the corner next to the bed with a stiff lever switch that I can’t flip, maybe because it’s been turned on and off as many times as the walls have been painted and the bed’s been made.  I struggle with it for a while, then give up.  The bathroom is small.  It has a shower, small and square, and a sink with a mirror above it in the same shape.  Everything here seems determined to go against the nature that surrounds it, refusing to be anything but...square.  The hardwood floor clacks unnervingly loud with my footsteps.

I realize I’m in a cabin in the woods.

And I know this doesn’t bode well.

I call my husband, tell him I’ve stopped for the night.  He asks where I am and I make something up, because I really don’t know.  I tell him I can’t turn the heat on, he tells me to look around for some tools, I tell him I’ll be back on the road in the morning.  He reminds me I’m on a deadline.  I see my father-in-law’s face in my head, and I hate it.

I know he’s been dead for two years.  The dream doesn’t seem to care about that.

The bungalow is single-room.  One wall is screened, exposing me to the view of anything that might be out there.  I know there are others, peppered here and there throughout the woods, each numbered with a lockbox out front, waiting for someone to go inside and sleep, take a shower in the tiny bathroom, fight with the heater switch.  I’m not alone but all I can see are trees.  I don’t care much for the screened wall.  I also don’t care much for the long built-in open toolbox that stretches the length of that screened wall like a windowbox for deadly implements instead of flowers.  A goddamn liability if someone decided to come kill me during the night.  I pull several hammers and what looks like a machete out of the toolbox and push them under the bed.

I’m staring at a map, trying to sort just how far off course I am, when a knock on the door startles me.  It opens to reveal a tall man in a Sheriff’s uniform, smiling the sly smile of a man who’s friendly but cautious and maybe just a little bit suspicious.  He wants to know if I’ve settled in comfortably, but mostly he wants to know what I’m doing here.

Donald Sutherland, circa 1990.  White hair, white beard, the laughing eyes of a serial killer.  I wonder how much they paid him to play this role even as I’m telling him I’m only here for the night and will be leaving in the morning.  I’m not really listening while he goes through his spiel - a mom and pop convenience store up the road, gas station further on, Ranger station a mile over, is there anything I need?  I’m thinking of the machete and hammers under the bed and notice he’s eyeing the toolbox as if he knows something is missing.

The heater I blurt out.  I can’t get it to come on, the switch is stuck.

Let me get my Deputy to fix that for you, he’s good with things like that.  Gonna get cold tonight.

His Deputy steps out from behind him, and I wonder if he’s been there all along or if he simply walked up without me noticing.  He’s instantly familiar.

Tom Hiddleston.  Why does the Deputy look like Tom Hiddleston?

Likely for the same reason the Sheriff looks like Donald Sutherland, circa 1990.  I step back as he comes through the screened door, taking off his hat and greeting me, friendly and helpful and not waiting for permission to come inside.  The Sheriff grins and tips his head to me.

See you in the morning he says as he turns to leave.

And then he’s gone, but I see no car drive off.

I have a million questions, but he wasn’t the one to ask.

The Deputy doesn’t stop to look around the room.  He’s been here before, he knows where everything is.  He looks at the heater switch, laughs like he knows something but doesn’t share the joke or the information with me.  My phone is ringing and I silence it.

You’ve been traveling a long time.

I nod, even though I haven’t.  I’d left that afternoon, it had only been a few hours.  I stand near the foot of the bed, watching early evening fall suddenly into the deep dark of night through the screened wall, my feet just inches from the tools under the bed.  They’re weapons, I know.  Nobody needs that many hammers.  The Deputy knows they’re somewhere in the room but he makes no show of looking for them.

He’s handsome.  His hair is a bit shaggy and he’s bearded.  And he’s moving around the bungalow as if it’s his house, doing the things one does when in familiar surroundings.  He goes into the bathroom and I wait, wondering if I should call my husband.

It never enters my mind to leave.  There’s one last glow of sunlight slipping down beneath the edge of the horizon through the trees and I make my decision, though it’s not at all clear what that decision is.  My head simply makes it without telling me.

He’s talking to me, the Deputy, from the bathroom.  Chatting comfortably, friendly - he’ll check the place over, make sure it’s safe, get that heater going, look under the bed for boogeymen.  I know he’s not here to do any of those things.  He’s at the sink with his back to me, washing his hands, or maybe he’s rinsing the razor he’s holding.  I could do any one of a number of things but I don’t do any of them, and as I stand behind him I know why.

None of it would matter.  If I went for the tools he would simply overpower me.  If I ran, he would catch me.  If I screamed, nobody would hear me.  If I hid, he would find me.  This is his territory, I just arrived.

He looks at me in the mirror.  He’s not the least bit concerned about me doing any of those things.  He lets his lips curl gently into the soft smile of a kind predator, and then he reaches over to turn out the light.

He’s standing between me and that last sliver of sunlight now, and as it disappears behind his head and darkness takes us, I tell him I’m cold.

Don’t worry about that, he says.

[zedecksiew]

“Exotic Warrior”

(Am writing this because it’s been bubbling over in my mind. This post is an exorcism of bad vibes over bad ideas that have held me hostage, the past few days.)

+

There is now criticism on Twitter arguing that the “Exotic Warrior”, one of Troika!’s d66 Backgrounds, is racist because it is coded as Orientalist / Asian.

I would like to respectfully disagree.

(There are other arguments in the initial complaint. I am commenting the “Exotic Warrior” specifically. Because by being actually East Asian -- part of the diaspora, living in Southeast Asia -- I feel I have some standing to comment.)

+

When I encountered “Exotic Warrior” in the book it stood out as a neat background and helped sell me on Troika!.

As I read it, the Background is a deft piece of work: it references the “adventurer from a foreign land” thing, but occludes said trope’s usual Orientalism -- an attempt at deconstruction.

A foreigner, in Troika!, can be anybody. This isn’t just a platitude; it’s supported by the book’s implied science-fantasy setting -- is essentially Spelljammer, but on more acid.

It is similar to Electric Bastionland / Planescape / etc in that it features a melting-pot, nobody’s-local “city at the centre of creation”-type deal. (I have Thoughts about RPG setttings that focus on metropoles, but that’s a separate post.)

+

Here’s the “Exotic Warrior” ’s text, in full:

24 EXOTIC WARRIOR No one has heard of your homeland. Your habits are peculiar, your clothes are outrageous, and in a land jaded to the outlandish and new you still somehow manage to stand out.

POSSESSIONS - A WEIRD & WONDERFUL WEAPON. - STRANGE CLOTHES. - EXCITING ACCENT. - A TEA SET or 3 POCKET GODS or ASTROLOGICAL EQUIPMENT.

ADVANCED SKILLS 6 Language - Exotic Language 3 Fighting in your Weird Weapon 2 Language - Local Language 2 Spell - Random 1 Astrology 1 Etiquette 

Honestly? None of the above reads as particularly problematic. It’s a legit, characterful beginning point for a player-character.

Sure, my Western-media-battered brain jumps to Samurai Warrior -- 

But immediately also to Sufi Missionary or Varangian Guard. And indeed comes to rest at Indeterminately White Gentleperson Naturalist -- the kind of exotic visitor Southeast Asia got, a lot, those scouts of European imperialism.

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These readings are possible because of the illustration the entry is paired with. Here they are together:

Setting aside the surrealist stylisations:

The shape of the costume, the belt, the “skirt” -- these look like Europeanisms, to me. And the figure’s laughing abandon opposes the standard Orientalist tropes of wise inscrutability or red-faced savagery.

The choice to run “Exotic Warrior” with a decidedly non-Orientalist-coded illustration isn’t an unintentional piece of art direction.

(PS: any critique of an illustrated text that only focuses on the words is incomplete. Image is half the text of an illustrated text.)

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The nondescript-ness of the entry plus its accompanying image is an open door. Opening this door isn’t without risk: whatever assumptions you make about your particular “Exotic Warrior” are drawn from your own biases.

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Regarding “Etiquette” and “Astrology” and “Tea Set”?

With my biases: I don’t read these things as uniquely East-Asian. (When I first encountered “tea set” in Troika! I genuinely thought: “English tea service”, instead of: “temae”.)

The one that I did read as real-world Eastern was “Pocket Gods” -- but many human cultures had this, pocket gods are a part of Troika!’s wider fantasy setting, and “Exotic Warrior” isn’t the only Background to start with them.

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A note on “exotification”:

The criticism of “Exotic Warrior” fundamentally seems to be: “Playing a character from the Other / that is Other-ed = BAD”.

I fundamentally disagree with this notion.

I have no lived experience of a society where being other-ed (in terms of culture, race, class, gender expression, etc) isn't an ever-present thread in the fabric of one's life -- and therefore a crucial and profound source of conflict and insight into the human condition.

(The ethnic fault-lines in Malaysian society have become so unbridgeable today primarily because it was official policy to sweep all that other-ing under the rug of “Malaysia Truly Asia”, as opposed to working through our ugly whispered prejudices towards understanding.)

We are not all the same. Cultural, geographic, and material differences exist. The mismatch in knowledge and understanding this creates? It matters.

In fact: To insist on universal cultural-knowledge parity; To push for “nobody’s born here, everybody belongs” melting-pots as the default framing; To nudge questions of difference and arrival into ghettos (to paraphrase one of the tweets I saw: “you can only explore issues surrounding the Other in a game specifically designed to do so”);

All that comes off to me as a very neo-liberal position, designed to safeguard and disguise the privileges of “mainstream” metropolitan melting-pots.

I read it as:

“Post-modern cosmopolitan societies want to be inclusive but don’t want to pay the admission price of history and discomfort, so they generally opt for erasure instead.”  

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Throughout this post I have been careful to speak from my particular context. Because context matters.

More context:

I like Troika!. Like, a lot. I think its creator, UK-based Daniel Sell, strives and succeeds at making thoughtful work. I consider him a friend, whom I’ve had personal (albeit Internet-bound) interactions now and again.

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I have BJ Recio to thank for the following insight. Talking to him about “Exotic Warrior”, BJ brought up a crucial point that I’ll paraphrase here:

Roleplaying the outsider can be bad, especially when it is used as an excuse by the West to do fucked-up shit. But it is not default bad. Assuming it is default bad centres the discussion on “Will White people fuck this up? (Yes.)”

Essentially, the argument against “Playing a character from the Other / that is Other-ed = BAD" assumes two things:

(a) Western participants as default; (b) harm (because of ignorance or bad faith) as default.

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If your context -- your Background, hah! -- prompts you to experience Troika! with those assumptions; and therefore read “Exotic Warrior” as necessarily Orientalist, and racially-charged?

Your context is your context; I’m not going to invalidate it.

If you are located in a society where the binary of White / non-White overpowers everything, I certainly understand the whys and hows of your position.

Your context matters.

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So does mine.

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I think I’m reacting badly to this because I personally feel turned away by this RPG Discourse Around Representation (tm), supposedly done in the name of my East-Asian ass.

I resent the idea that “Playing a character from the Other / that is Other-ed = BAD”. It threatens to render verboten the entirety of my RPG work.

I am a SEA creator trying to explore and be true to my context. If there is one constant throughout SEAsian experience, it is difference.

Our peoples have ever encountered and glamourised and hated each other, all of us simultaneously Us and the Other:

Japanese and Malay enclaves in Ayutthaya; Mongol invaders in Java, who never left; Luzones mercenaries, employed by both the Sultan of Melaka and his Portuguese enemies; The reputation of the Ilanun / Bajak Laut; White conquistadors (aforementioned above); The entire history of diaspora Chinese identities (my identity!) in SEA, generally;

Foreigners from foreign lands -- feared, not fully understood, not fully understanding, simultaneously conquering and settling and finding modes of belonging, becoming a part of the land.

Always arriving.

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That the background music of my geography, discordant though it may be, is somehow so harmful it may only be meaningfully depicted in the hermetic context of a “game specifically designed to explore that”?

This feels bad, and extremely unwelcoming. It feels like a shut gate instead of an open door.

I refuse to be turned away.

+++

(Hopefully I can finally stop thinking about this shit.)

[blackypanther9]

Part 22 - Oh Shit...We won...

Your POV....

I was in the air and killed the most Chitauri I could. I fought and attacked and killed. I was trained and skilled to do that. Suddenly I got shot, from behind.

"GAH !!"

I fell down to the ground. A hard landing but I still live. I stood up.

"Hey Lucie, are you okay ?", Tony asked me worried, over a communication device in my ear.

"I just got shot, from behind in my left lung.", I replied.

"Don't die ! I am coming !", he screamed.

"No. Continue fighting. I am fine."

"Are you kidding ? You got shot in an organ of yours ! Let Tony help you.", Steve said.

"I can heal myself I just need time. Continue fighting. I will survive it."

"Okay. But if you lied to us, we're gonna kick your ass.", Tony warned.

I laughed. After 10 more seconds I was healed and started to fight again. I looked at the portal and saw something big coming out of it.

"....Oh shit....", I said.

"We see it too. That thing is big as fuck...", Clint said.

"Holy shit of Odin. I am dead now.", I mumbled.

I flew in the air and killed some more Chitauri.

"Where are you guys ?", I asked.

"We are at the Grand Central Station, right infront of the building.", Steve answered.

"And I am in the air over New York at the big ugly thing.", Tony answered.

"Okay. And where is Thor ?", I asked.

"He is fighting Loki.", Natasha informed me.

"Okay. Steve I am coming to you. I see some trouble coming towards you.", I warned.

"Okay.", he responded.

I flew in their direction. I needed to dodge the flying Chitauri. I saw Loki infront of them.

"Didn't you guys tell me, like 10 seconds ago, that Thor is fighting Loki ? He just flew past me !", I yelled.

"They were fighting...", Natasha corrected.

"Well, fucking great !"

"Don't come here. Play with Stark in the air. We play on the ground.", Steve told.

"Fine !", I yelled annoyed.

We had an very interesting fight...for 15 fricking minutes... After this time Banner finally showed up.

"Tony, Banner is here.", Steve said.

"Good then tell him to suit up. I am bringing the party to you.", he replied.

"Dusk, how are you doing ?", Steve asked me.

"Doing fine...I think. I have a little too much work here... I need to kill Chitauri and save many people out of buildings...without dying...", I informed.

"You will do this. We have a party here soon.", Clint said.

"I rather have the party, than this...WAIT WHAT ?! You have a party and I have to work my ass off ?! NOT FAIR !!", I said sacastically.

"You hate us now...do you ?", Stark asked me.

"Nope. I am not the person for parties anyway.", I said.

10 Citauri surounded me now. I kicked one of the Chitauri in the nuts and the other in the chest. The others did all at the same time. I flew up and they crashed together. I summoned black flames in my hands and threw it at them. They all screamed while they burned. But I felt a little weak, now. I need to change with someone...soon.

"Guys...I need to warn you. Please warn Thor too. I won't be myself in a few minutes anymore. I will talk different, have another mood and maybe look different. Don't worry about it and don't worry about me. It's someone of me. Don't kill me. Not even hurt me. I swear I am no threat.", I informed them.

"Okay.", Steve and the others said.

'Listen Ratchel...don't attack or even try to find Loki. Kill the Chitauri and save the others, please. They need more help than we need to kick Loki's sorry ass. And after that, set me conscious again. '- You

'.....Fine. At least I can kill something with joy.'- Ratchel

'Great. I let you out now.'- You

Everything around me went black and I was unconscious. Better I was in my black void with the others.

Ratchel's POV....

As I saw the city around me in chaos, I was shocked. Everywhere, where I looked, was chaos. I saw the Chitauri running at me and I called a dagger which can also be a sword. If I press a button, while it's a dagger, it changes into a sword and the other way is the same. 6 of them were coming. I pressed the button and ran at them too. I changed my appearence to my actual body. I looked almost the same as Dest. Just the eye-, skin- and haircolour was different. (Chose on your own how she looks like.) I killed the six and suddenly all the Chitauri screamed.

"What's going on here ?!", I screamed.

"We killed one of the big Chitauri things...", Tony answered.

"Oh great...", I mumbled.

I stared up at the portal and saw more of them coming out.

"Oh Shit....", I mumbled.

Then I saw the big things.

"Oh fucking shit.", I cursed under my breath.

Then I remembered that we were outnumbered and these things have Loki as leader.

"Oh holy fucking shit....", I cursed again.

And then I remembered that it was war, we will die, Loki is an ass, we are probably wounded and exhausted and we don't have a useful army.

"Oh holy bloody fucking shit...", I mumbled again.

All the Chitauri on the ground attacked me now. I dodged and killed the first 3 with a slit open throat, the next 5 with cut away arms, the next 9 with an open stomach and the last 15 with a stab in their heads. I looked around and saw no people anywhere. Not even with my roentgen stare. I flew back to the others. They seemed fine and I searched Hulk. I found Hulk after 6 minutes.

"Hulk !", I called.

He turned around.

"I need your help to smash someone.", I said smiling.

"You friend of Lucie ?", he asked me.

"Yes I am a friend of hers."

"What you want Hulk do ?"

"You hate Loki right ?"

He nodded.

"Jump on him on Stark Tower. He will be there in 5 minutes.", I said.

"And Hulk then does what ?"

"You do what you can best. Smash him into the ground 5 or so times. Then leave him there and fight outside again. Show him no mercy."

He nodded again and smiled.

"But don't kill him, Hulk ! I still need his sorry ass ! Alive !", I screamed after him.

I took a short cut to the tower and hid in the shadows...well better said I made myself invisible. And after 2 minutes I saw with my eyes exactly what happened. Loki tried to shot the flying...something, where Natasha was on, down.

(Too lazy to write and it's funnier if you see it, or more painful, cause you like Loki.)

Wow...that must've hurt...Welp ! I love Hulk. I have problems to hold my laugh right now...This reaction of Loki...like he forgot that he got Hulk smashed in the basis once. Well, maybe he wasn't that hard the first time. That event must be traumatizing. How he lays there and stares in shock...I can't hold it anymore. I teleported away and laughed like an idiot. I made the others see it too. Heiko laughed too. But Mimi and Destiny didn't. Destiny flinched and Mimi looked away. Sheesh... I got back to work. I suddenly heard Natasha say...

"I can close the portal."

"Then do it.", Steve said.

"No.", Tony said.

I wondered why, but I turned the communicator off. I had other things to do, like stopping the other Chitauri from exiting the portal. And then- Oh.... What the hell is this ? A bomb ? What is that what Tony has there.... I looked closer. Nope no idea...

'What's that thing Tony carries ?'- Ratchel

'It's a missile. It can destroy maybe the whole city.'- You

'Oh...shit...'- Ratchel

I stared at Tony. He overpowered his thrusters and pushed the missile with himself through the portal. They were there and after maybe 5 minutes there was a sound of an exposion. We waited 40 more seconds for Stark. I saw Natasha then closing the portal and in the last second Tony fell out. All the Chitauri were dead. Better deactivated. I teleported to the others and saw Hulk catching Tony. Thor riped off the metal mask and Tony had closed eyes. No...

"Oh Shit....", I cursed loud.

They turned around and raised their weapons.

"Hey, hey ! I am Ratchel. Lucie told you she wouldn't be herself, right ? I am the other one. I am here in peace.", I said.

They all put the weapons down again. Hulk screamed angry and suddenly Tony awoke. I jumped and was happy he was still alive.

"What the hell ?", Tony asked shocked.

Thor smiled a little smile.

"What just happened ? Please tell me nobody kissed me.", Tony said.

Steve and I answered him then.

"We won."

Tony sighed relieved.

"Alright yay ! Hurray. Good job guys."

"We're not finished yet.", I said.

They all looked at me.

'Come out again, it's over.'- Ratchel

'Alright.'- You

And around me was all black.

Your POV....

I opened my eyes. They all still stared at me.

"We need to get Loki. Before he is able to run away.", I said.

"Well then...lets go.", Tony said.

"And then we take a day off and maybe go to try Shawarma.", Tony added.

"Fine by me, now lets go.", I replied.

After 10 minutes we were there and we saw Loki crawling to the stairs to sit down. He must be exhausted. He groaned by every painful move he made. After he stopped and wanted to sit down he noticed our presence. He slowly turned around and stared at the others. I was behind them, hidden. Nobody noticed.

"If it's all the same to you, ugh, I'll have that drink now.", he said.

He looked at them with almost asking for mercy eyes. And turned fully to us around.

Thor turned to me.

"So...you were the whole time here, Dusk ?", he asked smiling.

"Yeah...", I scratched the back of my head, "I knew Loki would appear here, but not like that...."

Thor nodded.

"Luciella ?", Loki asked.

"Shut up Loki. I don't think we need to talk now.", I said coldly.

"I just wanted to apologize."

"I know Loki, but...that won't help you now. You killed, kidnapped and hurt people here. A simple apology won't undo it. And about everything else before...too."

Loki was quiet.

"So you weren't lying with you and Reindeer Games, being best friends ?", Tony asked.

"No. We were best friends. In our childhood he was for 2 years and then after 352 years he was still my friend, but now...I am not sure anymore...", I answered.

I summoned chains with cuffs and cuffed Loki. He stared at me with eyes, that showed that he was still broken as hell, maybe even more and I still saw my best friend there. Trapped in a cell, which is slowly faiding away. I gave him a cold stare. He looked away. I stood up again and turned to Tony.

"Can I use a glass and fill water in it, for the chained princess, before she whines ?", I asked.

"Sure. I have nothing against it.", Tony replied.

I nodded, went to the bar, took a glass and went off. After 5 minutes I came back with a glass of water. I went to Loki and took a sip infront of him.

"I didn't poison it, like you see. Take it, drink it, be happy and shut up.", I said.

I took his right hand and pressed it into his hand. He looked at me, then at the glass and took a sip. And then another.

"Break one of these 4 rules in the next 10 minutes and I will set the poison in the water free.", I warned him.

His eyes widened and he spit it out. I laughed.

"As soon as it touched your lips, you can't get rid of it. It will not work anymore in the next 10 minutes. Within it, the poison just waits until I set it free. Are the 10 minutes over, it disappears."

Loki stared at me in shock.

"Drink the rest, or I set it free.", I told him.

He quickly drank the whole glass empty. I reached out my hand, he gave it to me, silently. I lifted my right hand and petted his head and hair softly.

"Good boy. You are such a good God.", I said with a small smile.

He looked at me. I slapped him across the face, starting at his right cheek, he didn't say anything.

"That was for New York, worrying me, not listening to me at the Bifrost and hurting me.", I told him.

He looked at me again. I grabbed his chin, moved it slowly but forcefully to the left and kissed his right, now red cheek.

"And that for being alive.", I told him.

Part 23

Masterlist with all Chapters of this Story click here !  

[mapleandgingeroatmeal]

CR2E76-Refjorged

HOLY SHIT THIS EPISODE HAD EVERYTHING. WHERE DO I EVEN START?? This is gonna be a long one for sure.

The spontaneous Mead Pong game was so fun. I love how they all just went for that, and Caleb getting a perfect shot only when nobody was watching? Priceless.

They haven’t really done a heist w/ Caduceus. have they? Unless you count boarding that one ship, but I don’t think you can since that wasn’t a stealth thing. It’s weird, but that detail felt like almost a mark of how far the Nein have come already

I’m sure people have written a lot about this (I’d love meta recs if anyone has ‘em), but that makes me think about what may have changed about the m9′s path if Molly had stayed alive. Clay has been such a huge force in pushing the nein to do good in the world, and although he has plenty of his own issues, I think the fact that he believes in everyone’s ability to be good people has really had a huge impact. This may be a Hot Take, maybe I’ll regret this cause idk what Molly fans are like, but I really don’t think the group would have made nearly as much moral and emotional progress w out Caduceus. They would probably be at least a lot closer to crossing over that line into Bad People.

THE BREAD. This is another famous joke that I new existed, but had no context or knowledge for. I was so excited when I heard it come up! Caleb and polymorph is such a delightful combo. The dumb brain really lets him escape his misery I think, and he had such a gleeful face and relaxed posture for that whole scene.

“Last time we did this, you put a sword to my throat”. Whatta callback! Despite how much everything has changed, Fjord and Caleb still have this interesting intensity to their relationship. The moment when they start a mysterious blood ritual and Caleb’s accent confrontation come to mind. I hope we get more in the future about how these two interact in a more casual setting, tbh, because at this point I have a hard time pinning down their dynamic. The trust is definitely there now, and all the Nein obviously love each other, but in many ways it feels almost delicate? Like in the scene from this ep, I think both of them probably reflect on that day thinking they were in the right, even if they’ve moved on. Interesting stuff!

The reactions when Nott murdered that guard were so priceless. Little moments like that are kinda sobering reminders of how broken she is. Since probably the moment that Veth killed that Goblin leader with a vile of acid, she’s led a life that seems to have been very much kill-or-be-killed. Empire people aren’t taught to see Goblins as much more than kill-on-sight monsters, and in a self-defense situation Nott is so small that she would really have only one chance before getting overpowered. It’s upsetting and definitely bad, but I think it makes a lot of sense that her first instinct when panicked is to go for the throat.

Caduceus is truly such a dummy and I love him for it. The man knows two things: Death and People. Nothing else. Strategy? Never heard of her. High-stakes stealth mission with an important decision to make? “it’s always nice to see my friends :)”. 

Whats in the book they stole! We didn’t find out for the entire episode if I’m not mistaken! Caleb just gave to Fjord with some cryptic comments! Wtf kind of book isn’t useful/ interesting to Caleb? This is going to drive me insane.

The pack-rat elf lady wearing Reani’s crown finally was v sweet. She was a character that Matt seemed to hint at a lot of depth for. I wonder if we’ll ever get back to Uthadorn? I’d like to see her again

The dusts are also a bunch of npcs that I kinda wish we’d gotten more time with! The way that Matt had the whole family and their personalities mapped out makes me feel like there was a lot that didn’t get explored there. Clay has a tendency to minimize his own priorities and as much as it’s a neat character choice, I wish it didn’t mean that we see less of the neat stuff around his arc!

Fjord’s dream sequence had me tearing up. Matt’s writing is just so emotionally intelligent and deep. The specification that the Wild Mother can ease the pain but the wound will always be there? That hit me so goddamn hard. I love this character. 

If I think too much about what this sword-collecting arc means for Fjord I’m gonna start crying again. Here’s a guy that grew up unloved, with nobody that ever cared enough to give him anything. He was so recently convinced that the Nein only cared about him while he was useful. And what happens once he looses all utility to the group? They give him magic weapons, and circle around to protect him, and face down a fucking ancient white dragon, all just to get him a gift from the Wild Mother. What does that feel like to a man who’s never ever had a family before? Can he even really recognize the kind of devotion the m9 just displayed? I hope once he has a quiet moment he can do some reflection and appreciate how much he is just unconditionally supported now. I want him to understand that he is loved.

Beau and Reani! I did remember right! They are adorable and everyone’s reaction at the table was priceless. That moment had a neat meta-level feel to it w/ the addition of Mica as a guest character. I could tell she was feeling out if this was a role-play boundary or not, just like Reani was feeling out if Beau was interested. Beau going in for the kiss out of nowhere was also Marisha signaling “yes please bang my hot gay monk”. A perfect ending for a wonderful character!

Jester and Caduceus almost judgy convo was actually fascinating to me, because it kinda highlighted one of my favorite things about Beau in that she breaks the norms arounf sexualy agency that you usually see with female charecters. She’s an action movie protag, casually banging hot ladies and hiring sex workers, and she’s celebrated for it like you would celebrate that behavior in james bond! I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a female character that does that before.

I could talk about Caleb and Nott’s conversation here for fucking hours, and I think I’m gonna actually do a whole separate post about it so this doesn’t get too long. Why is every interaction they have just the most poignant beautiful incredible moment ever committed to film?  What did the world do to deserve this? Nothing. We do not deserve them. 

Fjord getting his powers back and celebrating and the callback to Nott turning into a tiny Fjord and Eldritch Blaaaaaaayyyst returning and being wrapped up in seaweed and awkwardly objectified by Jester and Caduceus big goofy grin and all of it was such a joyful, hopeful note to end on! More than ever the Nein are feeling like a family, with all the wonderful messy things that entails, and I couldn’t be happier about it. I’m going to go watch Nott and Caleb and cry again.

[howtofightwrite]

Q&A: The Drawbacks of Teleportation

bakahimesama said to howtofightwrite:

I’m trying to write battle scenes in a war with an overpowered MC. The main character is 1 of only 5 mages in the whole world (she gained the favor of a God). Her power is the ability to teleport herself, and up to 2 other people, anywhere she can see. She has been knighted, and is currently being used as a “secret weapon” against to weaken and confuse the enemy. Would guerrilla style tactics be the best method? And how would the enemy effectively counter her, without a mage on their side?

When you call a character overpowered, it’s because you’ve already decided in your mind that they’re unbeatable. This is bad for your tension, and your combat sequences, and your story in general.

If you don’t know how a character can be beaten, then it’s because you haven’t given them, their powers, their strengths, and their weaknesses enough thought.

Your character is only one of five mages in the world who can do magic, but if all she can do is teleport and is limited to being able to see where she’s going then that’s not really overpowered. You just need to acknowledge the power’s weaknesses. She’s also not going to be a “secret weapon” for very long, extended encounters with enemies will solve that problem. (If you’re justification is, “no one will believe that!” then you may want to re-think it. First time? Yes. The next five or six? No.) If she’s actively using her powers and lacking in mental modification powers like telepathy, she’ll never kill enough of them to keep the secret safe. At some point, the secret will be blown. Likely sooner than later. Also, just in general, people talk. If your character was a nobody who got knighted after they received their powers, people (not just the enemy) are going to want to know why.

Don’t underestimate the characters without powers and their ability to both acknowledge and adapt to new situations. Don’t underestimate intellectual curiosity, or curiosity in general from side characters. Many writers do to their detriment. Remember, your main character isn’t the only one who can affect the world around them or the narrative.

Now, let’s talk about teleportation.

Teleportation:

By itself, teleportation isn’t actually an OP superpower. Like all superpowers, it can feel overpowered in the right hands with a character who can use the skill effectively and creatively. Teleportation can have devastating results, but, by itself, with a character who can teleport themselves (and two friends) rather than teleporting other people at range, they’re already limited in what they can do. If their reaction times are human (rather than supernaturally enhanced), if they don’t have the ability to read the situation before they jump then they’re going blind, and they’re even more limited. They’re also not that difficult to counter.

A character who can’t teleport an opponent at range, can’t teleport their opponent into space, into the sun, into the Marianas Trench, or kill them with fall damage (and the added psychological horror of dropping them on their comrades) without significant risk to themselves. They also can’t teleport themselves to total safety if things go wrong. If they have to look and see where they’re going as opposed to seeing where they want to be in their mind (like say five miles in the air or on a mountain peak), then their ability to use teleportation in combat will be significantly slowed.

If they can only teleport places they can see, then they can’t get to someone who’s outside their line of sight. They can’t conveniently get to high priority targets like commanders and generals who may not be on the front lines, and are unable to surgically disrupt the enemy’s ability to plan their battle without significant effort prior. There’s no casual, “your general’s encampment is way over there, right? Imma gonna go kill him. Peace.”

The teleportation/telepathy/precognition combo is brutal if the character is an assassin. Rip the secret location from your enemy’s brain, check what trouble you’d get into if you went there, and then go there.

If the teleportation is a conscious decision which requires focus rather than a reflexive ability, allowing for movement without thinking, then it’s combat advantage is also more limited.

Martial combat, for reference, is reflexive. The goal of training is for you to be able to decide what to do and do it without needing to think about the mechanics. You’ve trained your body to react to specific stimulus, meaning you can react and even attack before your conscious mind has time to catch up. When the focus is in your conscious mind, requiring concentration, you can only perform one action at a time. This means your MC would be at her most vulnerable in the moments before and after her jump, and that would be the point an enemy would exploit.

This translates into: teleport then attack versus teleport and attack.

One way to get around this issue is to have some physical component to the teleportation which allows for the port to also become an attack by itself. There’s lots of singular teleportation powers/gap closers in games which do this, but it’s something to consider for your mage character.

Personal Transport versus Ranged:

The problem with singular teleportation versus ranged teleportation is your only real advantage is surprise. It’s a great power for someone who specializes in ambush tactics, but can quickly turn into a one trick pony if the writer and character aren’t careful.

The key to understanding any power is grasping both it’s strengths, and it’s limitations. Most characters you see in fiction that have OP teleportation skills like Ciri from The Witcher or Nightcrawler from X-men either have a subset of secondary powers they can utilize to enhance those powers or the teleportation itself is a secondary to their greater abilities. 

For example: if you want a character who can appear multiple places and attack the same enemy in the same moment like Ciri does in The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt, then you also need a character who can control time and space. In Ciri’s case, her teleportation abilities are a byproduct of her true powers, which are primarily instantaneous dimensional travel and the ability to control the flow of time. 

Teleportation does not allow you to appear in multiple places at the same time, unless you’re also breaking dimensional physics, have the ability to spawn clones, or speed up the flow of time so it’s actually your after image someone else is seeing as you complete multiple attacks (seemingly) in a single moment.

The problem with ambush tactics are they’re not built for prolonged conflict, if the MC’s reflexes aren’t better than the individual they’re attacking then it’s possible they and their teleportation could be defeated or driven off by an unpowered human opponent of superior combat ability.

Combat teleportation can come with a lot of issues: 

Visual Tells —  when the character is moving in and out. 

Audible Cues — sound of the air they’ve taken with them disappearing and reappearing, or similar disruptions. 

Timing – time delays for them in the moment they disappear and reappear. If they’re not actually carving holes and moving through a different dimension for travel, they may not be able to completely control the timing of their re-entry. So, they have to mentally calculate it. This means if their opponent figures out their attack patterns and strategies, they can predict where they’ll reappear and be waiting with a surprise of their own.

Reflexes – a character who is gifted with powers, rather than having them naturally occur, is going to need to train their reflexes even more thoroughly for combat teleportation than the one who came by it naturally. While regular teleportation isn’t going to be much of an issue, short burst teleportation in a high stress environment where you could be coming out into an opponent’s weapon, or getting shot at range is a different beast. If teleporting isn’t a reflexive action to protect from danger that doesn’t require concentration, this is easier.

Remember, a character can only protect themselves from dangers they’re aware of. This leaves them incredibly vulnerable to weaponry, tactics, and ambushes outside their perceptions. They are limited by what they know, what they see, what they hear, and their own strategic and tactical abilities.

Don’t get so caught up in your character that you give them access to everything you know about the world they live in. You need to keep them separate from you and let them make their own mistakes. When you’ve got a character who is supposed to be hyper-competent, your first instinct might be to cheat for them. If they’re your protagonist, do yourself a favor. Don’t.

Countering Superpowers: Target the person, not the powers.

This one may seem counterintuitive, but it shouldn’t be. Counters are about your techniques, yes, but long term strategy is also about sussing out the habits and preferences of your opponent. Their strengths and their weaknesses. An army is not one person, it’s a lot of people working together toward a common goal. They have an advantage your MC doesn’t: multiple creative minds working to solve a problem. More importantly, the combat strategists and tacticians are also usually backed up a solid network of spies and informants about all the strategies/advantages their opponent has.

The longer a technique is in the wild, the more opportunity the enemy has to see it and develop counters around it. The clever enemy general will use battlefield observation and your MC as their guinea pig for developing a means to kill them.

The problem of the teleporter is you don’t know where they’re going to show up. This is true if you don’t know who the teleporter is, but familiarity breeds contempt. The more your MC participates in battles, the more familiar their enemies are going to become with their style, their strategy, their preferences, how their morals and personality quirks affect their battlefield choices. They can move quickly, yes, but they can’t take an army with them.

There are some easy counters like ranged weapons. (Can they escape a bullet, an arrow, or a cannon barrage if they don’t know it’s coming?) Martial combat is predictive by nature, put the blade where they’re going to appear and let them impale themselves (less difficult than it sounds.) Bait and bodyguards, wherein you set a rather nice trap and put everything you’ve learned about them to use. 

If teleportation relies on concentration — disrupt it. 

If the teleportation is reflexive — exploit it.

You don’t attack the powers, you attack the person wielding them. If you don’t need to kill them to achieve victory then this is even easier, all you have to do is distract them away from the battlefield. Distract them. Delay them. Feed them poor information. Lead them away from the fight so that by the time they realized they’ve taken the bait, hook, line, and sinker, the battle is over.

Your MC is both empowered by and held back by human emotion. Their feelings like fear, rage, embarrassment, hatred, overconfidence, etc, can be used against them. You need to figure out their personality flaws, and then craft enemies who can use those against them.

Don’t just think about your MC as the only target for these villains. If they’re fighting an enemy army, then that army will be interested in more than just them. Your MC is an impediment.

Your villains also need to stand on their own as strong characters. Find the internal and external antagonists for the narrative. Your villains should get just as much love, if not more love, and care as your hero. Antagonists are the backbone of the novel. Without a strong one, you’re dead in the water.

– Michi

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Q&A: The Drawbacks of Teleportation was originally published on How to Fight Write.

[fantastic-secrets]

Butterfly Wings [2]

Fandom: Bleach

Characters: Ichimaru Gin, Aizen Sousuke

Warnings: Threat of Violence, Dubious Consent, Oral Sex

Word Count: 1.9k

[Part 1]

When no more uncharacteristic, unsettling incidents occurred, even when the two men were alone together, Gin allowed himself to relax slightly. As he'd hoped, Rangiku hadn't come to Fifth Company, instead taking a position in the Tenth. Still, even though it wasn't the worst case scenario, it wasn't the best, either. If she'd been able to join the First or Second… but as he'd truthfully admitted to Aizen, she was nothing more than an ordinary, average shinigami. Shiba-taichou didn't seem like he would be an impediment to Aizen's plan, but Gin had secretly resolved to cut him down if he ever got in the way, before she could be exposed to danger.

Since she'd graduated from the academy, though, Rangiku seemed to have much more free time, which she sometimes spent trying to cajole Gin into spending more time with her and others. For the most part, he managed to brush off her invitations with vague excuses about work, all the while being acutely aware of warm brown eyes following him. Aizen already knew that she was the only person that Gin really talked to besides himself, so Gin struggled to maintain the illusion that he didn't have any particular feelings for her. If his fukutaichou seized upon the idea that she was his weakness, Gin had no idea what he might do. From what he knew of the other man, he was just as likely to pick her for his experiments as he was to promise Gin that she'd be perfectly safe from them. Still, he couldn't refuse all of her invitations, so he'd occasionally end up on the sidelines as Rangiku simply celebrated life while he quietly accumulated others' discomfort and distrust despite being a model shinigami.

He was returning from one such gathering when the soft grinding of a door sliding open caught his attention. Looking in the direction of the noise, he saw Aizen standing in the doorway of his rooms, a freshly lit taper held in a candle holder. Once their eyes met, the older man disappeared into his quarters, leaving the door open. A quick glance around told him that nobody else seemed to be present--it was late, after all--and the only light in the compound came from the fukutaichou's room, since everyone else was likely asleep. Silently, he obeyed the unspoken order, following the flickering light until he paused on the threshold of what was clearly Aizen's private quarters. The man himself lounged casually on a futon, his robes draped loosely around his body.

"Come in and sit down," Aizen suggested, his tone no different than if they had been in his office. Gingerly, Gin stepped into the room and knelt beside his commanding officer. For a brief moment, a sly smile slid across Aizen's face as he reached out to clasp Gin's thin, pale wrist. Gin's mind had barely begun to process what was happening when it froze at the touch of cold steel at his throat. Suddenly, the bloodlust in the room was nearly suffocating, and he held himself deathly still, certain that any movement would be his last.

"Aizen-fukutaichou? What're ya doing?" he asked quietly after a long minute of silence, once he was certain his voice wouldn't shake. The feeling of overpowering dread lessened slightly, though it didn't dissipate, and the keen blade continued to rest against his neck. Even if he'd been inclined to reach for his own weapon, he couldn't do so without alerting the other man, whose hand remained loosely encircling his wrist.

"What does it look like to you, Ichimaru-kun?" The more formal method of address, which Aizen hadn't used in years, confused Gin. Of course, that wasn't to say that he couldn't think of a reason for this whole scenario, but he would never admit to it out loud. Still, he had a feeling that his usual blasé attitude wouldn't fly in this situation, either, so he chose to remain silent, studying Aizen's expression even as the other man studied his. In the end, the older man was the one to break the silence with a light chuckle, withdrawing his blade and setting it aside before releasing his grip on his subordinate.

"I apologize for that, Gin," he said, full of sincere contrition that Gin didn't believe for a moment. "I'd only wanted to surprise you. You're quite skilled at hiding your feelings behind that mask, so it's always a pleasure to see something else. And, of course, I'd also hoped that I could see your eyes again. Most people seem to think they're red, you know. It's an understandable mistake, given your coloration. Is there a reason you don't open them normally?"

"Ya said yourself that ya didn't want others seein' them, right?" Gin replied with a smile, the aforementioned mask back in place over the turmoil of his thoughts. "But even before that, this is just how my eyes are. Walkin' around with 'em wide open would be like ya walkin' around with yours shut. 'least, long as I can remember, I've always been like this."

"You're quite obliging, aren't you? I really do hope you're not this way with anyone else, or I might have to kill them." Though it sounded like a good-natured joke, there was an edge to the statement that made him wonder how serious Aizen was. Deliberately, the fukutaichou stretched into a sitting position, placing a hand on Gin's shoulder and pushing him down. When he started to loosen the younger man's shihakushou, everything clicked together.

Gin wasn't so innocent as to be unaware of sex, though he'd never engaged in it himself. Nor was he ignorant of the fact that, especially in the worse parts of Rukongai, rapes sometimes occurred. He'd seen the looks of some men when they saw Rangiku, leers that filled him with a cold rage that was only sated when their hot blood spilled at his feet. But he'd never considered that Aizen might want this from him, whether from actual desire or as another test of loyalty. He didn't have to fake the tremor in his hands as he reached up to wrap them around Aizen's wrists in a reflection of their earlier positions, not pushing the man away, just holding them. Still, it was enough to make the fukutaichou pause, looking up at a pale, drawn face devoid of its usual smile.

"Is this your first time? Or is it just that you're opposed to having me as your partner? If you don't want to do this, you only need to tell me so."

"It… it ain't that I don't like ya. I'm just surprised. I don't think there's ever been anyone who wanted me like this. And I respect ya, fukutaichou, but I dunno if I'm capable of lovin' anyone, either. I toldja before, didn't I? I don't have a heart. So I don't want ya t' end up disappointed, or hurt."

Aizen laughed, a warm, soft sound, as his right hand shifted to rest on Gin's chest. "I don't think you could ever disappoint me, Gin. For now, I'll be satisfied with just your body while I try to capture your heart, if you'll give me the chance. I think you sell yourself short, though. You're quite beautiful, in an unconventional way; I can't be the first person who has ever wanted to do this to you."

He leaned down to press a soft kiss against Gin's lips, his tongue lightly probing. Hesitantly, the younger man released his hold on the other man, though his body remained taut with tension until Aizen pulled back, leaving a breath between their faces.

"Don't worry, I'll be gentle… this time, at least. I'm glad that I'm your first, so I don't need to break any bad habits," Aizen murmured. The words sent a chill through Gin, and a dark smile spread over Aizen's face as he felt the brief tremor. When Gin didn't make any moves to resist or push him away, a flash of satisfaction appeared in Aizen's eyes. Slowly and deliberately, he continued to undress his subordinate, tracing the defined muscles under the thin, pale skin as they were exposed. Despite the harsh training he must have gone through to graduate from the academy in just one year, Gin's skin was remarkably smooth, with few traces of scars. But for each one that he did have, Aizen's fingers traced its edges, lingering for a long moment before continuing their work.

Finally, Gin was fully disrobed, and Aizen sat back to take all of him in. The younger man's body seemed tense enough to snap, unable to conceal his nervousness laced with a touch of fear. Again, Aizen smiled, his eyes fixed on Gin's face, as he grasped Gin's cock. The touch made the silver-haired man flinch, and a shudder ran through his body as Aizen began to stroke him into an erection.

"Relax. I want you to enjoy this," Aizen murmured, every inch the considerate lover. Gin's body was slow to respond to his ministrations, but it eventually did, and he flinched again as the older man lowered his mouth over his engorged head. The tension between them changed as Aizen's tongue swirled around him, his dexterous fingers playing along his shaft with an ever-changing pattern. He seemed determined to keep his subordinate on the very edge of ecstasy as ripples of pleasure spread through the young body.

"Aizen… Aizen-san… please…" Gin wasn't even sure what he was asking for, and just when it seemed that he would be pulled under and drowned, the other man swallowed him deeper, just before Gin's hips thrust upward and he emptied himself.

Once he'd fallen limp, Aizen pulled himself off, crawling back up the pale body to clamp his lips over Gin's in another kiss. A trickle of something warm, salty, and a little bitter slid into his mouth, and Gin's first instinct was to spit it out, except that Aizen had drawn back and placed a finger over the younger man's lips, a light touch that forbade him from opening his mouth until he had swallowed it.

"That's good, Gin," Aizen praised him softly. "And you taste exactly as I imagined. Go ahead and rest; we'll talk more in the morning."

When he moved to pull the covers off his futon and over the younger man, Gin sat up, protesting as he drew his discarded clothes around himself.

"I can't letcha do that, Aizen-fukutaichou. Ya need t' sleep too. I can just go back t' my room. 'sides, it prob'ly wouldn't be good for your reputation, if people found out."

"They won't find out, just like with the former third seat. It would please me if you stayed, Gin." The reminder of the incident that had brought them together made Gin fall silent. He still wanted to ask how the man had pulled off that cover-up, but he wasn't sure if Aizen would answer him truthfully at this point. Yes, it would probably be better to wait a little longer: with this change in their relationship, he had a chance to establish himself more firmly in Aizen's plans and gain his trust.

If Aizen knew what he was thinking, he gave no sign of it. Instead, apparently taking the silence for assent, he nodded toward his futon. "It'll be more comfortable there. Don't worry about me; there's still some work I need to finish up, but I'll join you later. I won't do anything else tonight, I promise."

Hesitantly, Gin obeyed, rearranging the blanket on the futon before lying down. He watched quietly as Aizen worked by the flickering light of the candle, listening to the soft scratch of his pen. Eventually, exhaustion claimed him, and he drifted into sleep with the older man's profile burned into his eyes.

[violent-optimism]

Rey’s Coolest Moments - Top 10 List

Hi Everyone!

Here I am again, ready to gush over my girl Rey and showcase how awesome she is. This is not going to be super serious or analytical unlike some of my other Star Wars/Rey posts; just something fun and spontaneous. I think we could all use a little distraction right now and I guess this is my small way of contributing to that.

Obviously I can’t include all of my favourite Rey moments (we’d be here all day) so I’ve done my best to condense it down into a Top 10 list. As usual, this list is my opinion and nobody has to agree with it or even read it. For those of who are interested, please enjoy!

10) Protecting BB-8 (TFA)

I’m starting this list with a moment that I think is kind of underrated. Right before Rey meets Finn she encounters two thugs that try to steal BB-8 for Unkar Plutt. A small fight breaks out, but Rey doesn’t need any help to defeat her attackers. She takes them out quickly and rescues her new droid friend. That’s some fast loyalty!

 9)  Lightsaber Twirl and Scream (TLJ)

Oh, you know exactly what part I’m talking about. Rey goes head-to-head with one of Snoke’s Praetorian Guards. As he comes at her with his weapon, Rey gives an impressive twirl of her lightsaber before letting out a bad-ass, feral scream that says: “Come on, I’m not afraid of you!” Unfortunately, we’ll never be able to see that guard’s reaction, but I’m sure he was surprised!

 8) Using the Falcon’s Gun (TLJ)

 I’ll never forget my joy from seeing this for the first time. After a grueling start to the Battle of Crait, the Falcon makes a triumphant return to help the Resistance. Hold on a second…if Chewie is flying the ship, then who just shot 3 TIE fighters at once? It’s Rey! She’s taking out enemy ships left and right, and enjoying it too!

 7) The Training Course (TROS)

This is another really fun scene. It’s very short but it shows just how skilled Rey has become between the events of the two movies. I get such a rush of excitement when I see her balancing on that rope…with the blast shield on…deflecting shots from a training droid. How cool is that?? All the while a very intense version of her theme is playing in the background. Gotta love it.

 6) Defeating Luke Skywalker (TLJ)

Okay, this one might be cheating a tiny bit but I still think it’s a cool moment for Rey. When Luke won’t tell Rey the truth about what happened between him and Ben, she’s determined to literally beat it out of him. She stumbles a bit, but eventually manages to win the fight and force (ha) Luke to confess. Sure, Luke is much older, not as fast, and was probably holding back in that fight, but Rey sure wasn’t! I mean how many people can say they bested Luke Skywalker?

 5) Stopping the Transport (TROS)

Now we’re getting into ridiculously cool territory. When Finn rushes over to Rey and frantically tells her that the First Order has Chewie, you think for a second that there’s nothing they can do, right? Wrong. Rey takes one look at the transport and immediately uses the force to try and bring it back down. It’s an unexpected and totally awesome moment that showcases just how strong Rey has become. She’s never done anything like this before, but attempted the impossible to save her friend. Even when Kylo makes it a game of tug-of-war, Rey doesn’t give up.

 4) Destroying Kylo’s Ship (TROS)

This scene and the transport one go almost hand in hand, but in my opinion I think this one is just a tad cooler. Rey knows that Kylo’s SILENCER is on the way. She knows she has to stop it but doesn’t know how…at first. After calming herself down, Rey presents her lightsaber and turns around, ready to run. But she’s not trying to outrun the TIE fighter. She’s trying to get enough speed in order to perform an insanely impressive backflip to dodge the ship and attack it at the same time. It’s basically the Star Wars version of keying someone’s car, in the coolest way possible.

 3) Lifting the Rocks to Save the Resistance (TLJ)

Another scene that absolutely stunned me the first time I watched it. I know it might seem like this part is not as cool as the last two entries, but I think the implications of it are actually cooler than the act itself. Think about it…if Rey hadn’t shown up to Crait and hadn’t found the rockslide at the back of the tunnel, the entire Resistance would have been SCREWED. In this one scene, Rey pretty much single-handedly saves the Resistance from total annihilation. Plus, up until this point, Rey had never done anything like this before, and some of those rocks are HUGE!  Don’t get me wrong, Luke’s distraction is equally important, but Rey’s efforts truly saved the day and proved that she does have a place in this story.

 2) Defeating Kylo Ren (TFA)

For me, this is the scene that basically cements the idea that Rey is a very special character who is destined for great things. In the beginning of the fight, Rey is not doing well at all. Here is a young scavenger from Jakku, who has never used a lightsaber and only just learned she could use the force a few hours ago. Her opponent, Kylo Ren, is clearly more experienced in in the force and lightsaber combat, even though he is injured. Things look grim until Rey reaches a breaking point (or rather, an “awakening” point). She realizes that she does have the strength to defeat Kylo. All she has to do is dig deep within and find it. And she does, oh boy she does! The dynamic of the fight instantly changes as Rey is able to easily overpower Kylo and eventually defeat him. This scene proves that you should never give up, no matter how hopeless things seem.

 1) Defeating Palpatine (TROS)

Here we are at number one! Here is a scene that gives me an intense rush and goosebumps pretty much every time. After hearing the voices of the Jedi who came before her, Rey squares off against Palpatine, using Leia’s lightsaber to deflect his powerful force lightning. The Emperor taunts Rey, calling her “nothing” and saying she is no match for him. But Rey has all the Jedi backing her up, along with a trick up her sleeve. After using the force to summon Luke’s lightsaber, Rey ignites both blades in order to push the lightning back towards Palpatine. With a powerful rendition of the force theme, Rey is able to use the Emperor’s own abilities against him, effectively killing him for good this time (hopefully!).

Much like entry number 3, even though the scene itself is absolutely fantastic, I think the implications of it are actually what make it so cool. Rey is using both of her Master’s lightsabers, as well as the power of all the Jedi to defeat Emperor Palpatine. This scene also makes me a bit emotional because I think about the fact that Rey thought herself as no one from nowhere, and yet she is the one that makes the ultimate sacrifice to defeat the Emperor once and for all – not to mention saving the entire galaxy! It’s just awesome. There’s no other way to describe it. God, I love Rey.

Well, I suppose that wraps things up! If you clicked on this thank you so much for taking the time to read it. If there’s something you think I missed, please feel free to message me with your favourite Rey moment(s)! Thanks again. Bye for now!