#i kill them and they reappear a few seconds later

[tesco-finest-aromantics]

not EA running background processes from the ROOT USER that you can't turn off no matter what

[cozage]

Taking a hit for them in battle

Characters: Luffy, Zoro, Sanji cw: blood, war, angst

You didn’t have foresight, not even close. But when the hair on your neck stood up, you glanced around the battlefield for him, and you saw it. A marine had managed to sneak up on him, and the blade would undoubtably connect. You could tell that, with luck, it would be fatal. And so your body moved before you even had time to think, and as you felt the blade connect with your skin instead of his, a cry of pain and relief escaped from your mouth. 

Luffy

“GET OUT OF MY WAYYYYYY!” He whipped his arm around, taking down 20 marines in one swoop. “Second GEA-" 

A cry from behind him made his blood run cold. He turned around slowly to see you on your knees, clutching your bloodied arm. “Y/N…why did you…”

Then, as he saw the marine raise his sword again, this time aimed for you, all of the dots connected and his horror turned to rage. You had protected him from his own careless mistake. He screamed out in anger, sending fist after fist into the marine’s body. He didnt stop until the Marine was a bloodied mess crumpled on the ground. 

The battle raged on around you, but he sank down to his knees to meet your eyes. He could only focus on you now. He needed to make sure you were okay first. “Y/N…” Concern was riddled all over his face.

“It’s fine, Lu. It’s better than you being killed.”

His fingers hovered over the wound, his eyes starting to water. “I can see bone.”

“Luffy. It’s fine. I’m fine. Everything is okay. We’ll get Chopper to fix it later, okay?”

Luffy rubs furiously at his eyes and nods. "Just stay put for a sec, I can handle these guys." He says, standing to his feet. Dozens of marines were already closing in on you.

He takes his straw hat off and gingerly places it on your head. “Hey Y/N?” He flashes his billion berry bounty smile. “Thanks for saving me! Don't do that again though, okay?”

Zoro

“Fuck!” How had he missed an attack so obvious? It was a dirty trick, one he should've anticipated. He had even noticed the attack before it struck, but had no way to deflect it. It would’ve been the first slice that had hit his back, but the blow never came. Instead, as he turned around, he saw you, crumpled to the ground, red staining the soil around you. 

“Dammit woman! What were you THINKING!” He readjusts his swords and cuts down the wall of marines that had crept up on him. 

“Scars on the back are…” you struggle to speak in a normal tone through the pain. “They’re a swordman’s shame, right?” You smirk up at him, which causes him to clench his jaw in frustration. Marines were now surrounding you two on all sides. 

“Just stay down for a second, okay?” You nod and lay back, scanning the clouds for any funny animals or shapes. You should care about the battle, you should try to get up and fight. But you can’t bring yourself to do anything more than look at the sky. Zoro can handle the marines, you've never doubted his skill in fighting before. He'll keep you safe from here on out, you're certain.

Zoro's face reappears above you after a few seconds. “Still with me?” His voice is strained, his face scrunched with concern. His eyes dart between your eyes and your wound, unsure which to focus on. You grin back at him in response, too tired to respond with words. 

“Just stay with me okay?” He pulls his shirt off and begins tying it around your wounded arm. “God, there’s so much…just stay with me.”

He picks you up as gently as he can and starts running. You can hear him screaming for a medic, and even though this is a battlefield, you can’t help but feel safe and secure now that you are back in his arms. You lean into him, trying to get comfortable.

“Are you cuddling into me as you’re bleeding out?!?”

“You’re warm.” Your simple answer makes him feel a little more at ease. At least you were speaking now, and responding normally.

“You’re insufferable!” He retorts, which makes you laugh softly. 

Sanji

He struggled to keep his footing while his eyesight slowly came back into focus. A surprise attack had left his vision blurry an his ears ringing. As he looked around the blurry battlefield, one thing came into focus. You. Right below him. Lying on the ground. Clutching at your side, which is slowly becoming crimson-colored. “Y/N-swan…”

Sanji lets out a guttural roar as he unleashes a fury of kicks against the Marines closest to you “STAY BACK!” He warns. “NOBODY TOUCHES HER!”

He positions himself over top of you, so nobody can ambush him again. He was supposed to be the one taking hits for you, not the other way around. Shame and rage fill his soul. Any time a marine comes close, he kicks them down in an instant. Getting revenge and keeping you from further harm was his only mission now. 

Seeing a break in the waves of marines rushing towards you, he scoops you up and begins to skywalk away from danger. There’s always time for vengeance, but he isn’t sure how critical your injury is. 

“I’ve never seen a battle from this view,” you murmur, trying to act as casual as possible. 

“My dear! You’re still awake! You’re still-" he can’t bring himself to finish the rest of the sentence. 

It hurts to laugh, but you can’t help it. “Did you think I would die that easily?”

He showers you in kisses as he takes you to safety. “Please, my dear, never do that again. I would rather die than see you ever get harmed even the slightest bit.”

[swaps55]

Mezzo - 11 - Gravity

Pairing: mshenko | Rating: M

Tags: Canon-typical violence, trauma, dealing with your problems poorly, body autonomy struggles  

Summary: The twists and turns of ME2, through the eyes of everyone but Commander Shepard.

Chapter Summary: The aftermath.  

Chapter 10: Gravity | Read on Ao3

12 December 2185, Shadow Sea, Iera System, Horizon, Kodiak 9755, Normandy SR-2 Approach

The Kodiak lifts off with a jerk that Miranda feels in her gut. Shepard stands rather than sits, gripping a handle hanging from the ceiling tight in his fist, eyes gazing out the shutter as Horizon disappears beneath them.

“Shepard,” she says quietly.

“EDI,” Shepard says into the comm before she can say another word. “I need that ship. Do we know where it was headed?”

“I was unable to extrapolate likely destinations based on relay vector. However, it is likely they are returning through the Omega 4.”

“Can we catch them before they get there?”

“Negative.”

Shepard slams his fist against the bulkhead. It leaves a dent.

“We can use the data from EDI’s scans—” Miranda begins, but Shepard cuts her off.

“What was Project Overlord?”

She stutters. “I—”

“What was Project Overlord?”

“Shepard, I don’t know. But I will find out.”

He holds her gaze before striding out of the hold in favor of the cockpit.

Silence reigns.

“Solus, if you don’t shut down these oscillators I’m going to rip them off,” Jack speaks up eventually.

“Certainly.”

A few keystrokes to his omnitool later, the gravity well shifts, that heavy, cold feeling evaporating. Grunt groans in relief. Miranda stares at her hands.

“You knew Shepard’s former crew was down there,” she says aloud, directing her attention to Vakarian.

“Alenko, yeah,” he admits. “Shepard didn’t say anything about the others. I…don’t think he knew.”

Her fists curl into her lap. The Illusive Man told Shepard, but didn’t tell me. Shepard had told Vakarian but hadn’t seen it necessary to inform his second in command. How can I do my job if I am perpetually left in the dark?

Shepard reappears moments later, eyes on Grunt. “As soon as we dock, take those salvaged weapons to Taylor. I want to know everything about them.”

“The more we know, the better we kill,” Grunt declares, smashing his fist against the arm rest. It buckles.

Shepard paces the compartment with an almost frantic, nervous energy, rattling off his orders like he’s afraid of the space between the words. “Solus, I want a personal debrief on the seeker swarm countermeasure in two hours.”

“Countermeasure effective, but hoping data collected during mission will provide insight for improving efficacy while minimizing side effects.”

“Thank fuck,” Jack says, eyeing Shepard warily. The gravity well ripples as she twirls dark energy in her fingers.

Shepard grits his teeth. “I need to know if we learned anything about their physiology. Technology. Communication. Get whoever you need to go through the data. I want answers.”

“Understood.”

“Lawson, I need a better plan than ‘figure out the Omega 4.’ I need a damned target. I’m not playing cat and mouse with these assholes.”

Read from the beginning | Read the rest on Ao3 | The Mezzo Playlist

[charms-cat]

Thoughts on TBOSAS

Disclaimers:

my memory isn’t the greatest + it’s been a couple weeks since I watched the movie + I only skimmed the book after watching

I don’t have the book on hand so I can’t fact-check this (my criticism is based on what I remember – feel free to correct me)

Buckle up bcs I’ve got an overthinking brain and a lot of opinions.

Coryo = Good, Other Students = Bad

They only had less than 3 hours for a movie that had enough content to be split into two (imagine if they’d cut it right when Coryo finds out he’s assigned to be a Peacekeeper). So I understand why they couldn’t flesh out every detail of Coryo’s relationships.

But lack of time doesn’t really explain why they couldn’t give the students some nuance. Obviously, we have the dehumanising comments/actions from Livia, Arachne, Felix, and Festus; a horrifying truth that hasn’t learned to disguise itself under ‘generous’ sponsors and ‘faith’ in a specific tribute winning. But why did they change the scenes of Clemensia and (more importantly) Lysistrata?

If you’ve read the books, you’ll know that Lysistrata is one of the kindest students. As far as we know, she didn’t suffer the same poverty as the Snows did and she doesn’t feel the same sense of kinship as Sejanus does with the kids from the districts. Still, she treats Jessup kindly. She brings him medicine when he tells her he’s in pain; she gets mad when Coryo’s angle for Lucy Gray’s image (that Lucy Gray’s more Capitol than District) meant that her angle for Jessup’s image (showcasing the District 12 tributes as a pair) would be jeopardised and thus his sponsors might be less; when she sees Jessup suffering from rabies, she offers to end his suffering by sending the water bottles; her final word about him, when it wouldn’t have given her any advantage to speak kindly about him and the Capitol had (until recently) been on high alert for ‘rogue tributes’, was to tell everyone that Jessup protected her when the arena exploded, even threw himself over her to protect her.

In the movie, she had one ‘prominent’ scene: Jessup’s attack. Maybe they were trying to showcase Coryo’s future ruthlessness by having him demand Lysistrata send the water bottles rather than use his own sponsors. But in the book, Coryo tries to send his own sponsor gifts before Lysistrata stops him and offers to send hers instead. In the original scene, Coryo’s care/affection for Lucy Gray is made obvious by how he’s willing to give up their hard-won sponsorships just to make sure that he can save Lucy Gray from Jessup; Lysistrata’s practicality also shows itself by how she willingly mercy-kills Jessup after seeing him going rabid on screen. He’s her tribute so she used the gifts that they won together.

It would’ve taken the same amount of time (or an extra minute) to keep her mercy kill and her final words on Jessup. Instead, we have Coryo’s demand + Lysistrata’s few seconds of hesitation to follow his words, despite them having an even better view of Jessup’s increasingly rabid behaviour.

Now, let’s talk Clemensia. She’s not particularly kind. Tbf in the book, she wasn’t around too long before she got bit by Gaul’s snakes. The next time she (properly) reappears, she’s cruel in how she withholds helping Reaper until he’s actually done something to ‘earn’ supplies. In the movie, she straight up disappears after getting bit (either that or the effects of the snake venom weren’t as horribly memorable as they were described to be in the book; if she really did disappear, then it also lessens the suspense of “what will happen to Lucy Gray?” later on since we don’t know the full extent of the venom’s effects). But the thing that cements my idea that “Oh, they’re trying to make Coryo look good compared to other students” is that they changed the circumstances that got her bit.

There are three key differences to her and Coryo’s meeting with Gaul:

1: when Gaul asks who came up with the ideas on the assignment, book!Clemensia claims that they both worked on it, but Coryo went by himself to drop it off; movie!Clemensia claims all the ideas for herself.

The decision to make Clemensia a selfish credit-stealer already deteriorates her likability to the audience, especially since Coryo (aka the person she’s stealing credit from) is our protagonist and, at this point in time, has ‘done’ nothing wrong. Hell, since the movie audience doesn’t know his less-than-flattering thoughts about Arachne, they only see that he was the one to rush to help her when she got stabbed. Clemensia, on the other hand, admonished him for seeming indifferent to Arachne’s death (when he told her that he had actually finished the assignment) but then goes on to claim credit for said assignment that she didn’t actually work on at all. Then the movie made it worse by changing Gaul’s dialogue from the book, namely:

2: Gaul asks/allows Coryo to fetch the paper first and

3: Gaul doesn’t explain the snake’s sense of smell until Clemensia has already put her hand in the tank (I’m 99% sure of this scene because I distinctly remember going “TAKE YOUR HAND OUT NOW, CLEMMIE” right as I read the lines).

Imo by making Gaul explain that “they won’t attack you if they’re familiar with your scent” before either Clemensia or Coryo could put their hands in the tank, it both lessens the suspense and makes it seem as if Clemensia is a very prideful person that would rather risk injury than admit wrongdoing. Which brings me to my next point ⬇

Gaul’s Depravity

There are three things I remember being weird about movie!Gaul

1: the aforementioned explanation about the snakes. The fact is that Gaul asking/allowing Coryo to take the paper first was her trying to lure Coryo and Clemensia into a false sense of security. If you don’t believe she was 100% baiting them, just remember that she doesn’t explain that the snakes might bite unfamiliar persons until it’s already too late for Clemensia to take her hand out. And when Clemensia does get bit, Gaul’s assistants rush in to inject the antivenom immediately, like they’re used to doing it. Gaul dismisses Coryo’s concerns by stating that it’s simply part of research. Then (just to drive in her callousness), Gaul dismisses him from her lab by saying it’s teatime. Coryo himself thinks Clemensia’s condition is a harsh punishment for such a simple lie.

2: she stitches up Coryo. I might’ve just simply forgotten about this, but I don’t remember a scene in the book where she personally stitches him up. After all, Gaul was willing to risk Coryo’s death in the arena (when he’s rescuing Sejanus) just to teach him the lesson that even he, with his good name and good education, would revert to predatory instincts to keep himself alive.

3: “rainbow of destruction” broadcast. Movie!Gaul indirectly warned the districts that there would be retaliation for the death of an Academy student. Granted, no one (except Coryo and Clemensia) would catch on to what “rainbow of destruction” meant, but she still warned them. When the snakes were released into the arena, people would know why they were released, why they were introducing a sudden new obstacle. Book!Gaul didn’t do that. iirc the Capitol didn’t even want the districts to know that they succeeded in dealing a blow to the Capitol (killing one of their top students/son of a prominent figure). Book!Gaul, as far as the general public knows, released the snakes for seemingly no reason than to make the Games harder. Book!Gaul didn’t even warn Coryo properly; she said there would be retaliation, but she never indicated that she would be specifically using those snakes. Coryo chanced upon the snake tank during the transfer; had he missed seeing the tank after hearing those words, he might not have made the connection that would eventually save Lucy Gray.

Positive point for the broadcast: they kept her cruel classism. They cut from the scene of the tributes killing each other to the broadcast where her opening statement was, “An important life was taken today”. I could’ve strangled her right then and there.

Modern Hunger Games

I’m sure other people have put it more eloquently than I have, but the 10th Hunger Games resembles the more modern (e.g., 74th) Hunger Games too closely. Imo the resemblance kinda strips away the initial point that the Games (without all the fanciful performance surrounding it) is a cruel and brutal punishment to force kids who don’t want to kill each other to have to kill each other to go home (does this sentence make sense?).

1: Communicuffs. In the book, the mentors used a glorified watch but, in the movies, they used TVs. You might think this is a minor thing and maybe I am overthinking it, but imo the use of a big screen makes the Academy mentors resemble the Gamemakers in the 74th/75th Games, who used big holographic screens.

2: Bloodbath. Now, I definitely remember that the 10th Games had no bloodbath. iirc Reaper was the only one ready to fight, but he took too long to get ready/get a weapon and, by the time he was geared up, everyone else had disappeared into the corridors of the colosseum. When no tributes appeared after a while, Reaper disappeared into hiding too. So, the focus was on Marcus who’d been crucified. The first death was Lamina mercy-killing Marcus.

If anything, changing the start of the Games into an actual bloodbath destroys the thesis that these kids don’t actually want to kill each other. Yes, they want to go home but that doesn’t mean they’re eager to get their hands bloody to do it. If anything, the bloodbath proves Gaul right that people are inherently predators who would do anything to survive; that compassion can be easily discarded in the face of survival. That’s the antithesis of what the Hunger Games are meant to be. Because we see time and again that compassion can exist among competitors for survival – Katniss singing to Rue, Thresh sparing Katniss in turn, Cato rushing to save Clove, Haymitch staying with Maysilee, Jessup protecting Lucy Gray, Reaper making a makeshift morgue for the dead tributes.

A bloodbath is only understandable in something like the 74th Games. Since, as far as anyone knew, the Games were here to stay. So Career districts trained their children, non-Careers grasped onto whatever knowledge they could take advantage of (Katniss’s hunting, Rue’s climbing/tracker jackers, Peeta’s camo, etc.) There were possibilities for sponsors if you were promising and a guarantee of a life of luxury if you won. So, what better time to cut down the number of competitors than when no one has supplies? Compared to the lack of…motivation during the first Games. You’d have the same type of trauma, but nothing to “soften the blow” like securing a better life for your loved ones after you win.

3: Cameras. What was with all those camera angles??? I understand having camera angles for the movie audience, but why did the Capitol audience see the same thing? One of the problems of the Games was that it wasn’t interesting to watch. The Capitol wasn’t chomping at the bit to watch an arena of nothing, for tributes they didn’t actually care about. That’s why betting was introduced, to motivate the Capitol to watch out for the tribute they were betting on, if only to confirm that said tribute was still alive.

Being able to know everything in real time undercuts the suspense of certain scenes – why was Lucy Gray running from Jessup? Why did Wovey(?) suddenly die after drinking from a water bottle? Why did Coral betray Tanner(?) In the book, we learn all this in time with Coryo. When Jessup attacks, Coryo quickly connects the aversion to water (I think Jessup swatted away the bottle Coryo was trying to send to Lucy Gray) + the bite Jessup felt on his neck + the rat poison needed around the zoo to conclude that Jessup had rabies. He had to come up with a strategy on the spot vs. when he already had an inkling by watching Jessup’s aversion to water and sudden aggressiveness to Lucy Gray in the barricaded room. As for Wovey(?), Coryo figured that the bottle was laced with rat poison vs. when we saw Lucy Gray dump in the poison. As for Coral’s betrayal, we never find out why in the book vs. when we see them having an argument in the movie (this one’s more minor, but the thing about “knowing ‘everything’ that goes on with the tributes” plays too much into the modern Games perspective; personally, her sudden betrayal made it more shocking compared to when their movie!argument already starts hinting to future betrayal).

4: Gaul’s Snake Mutts. I hate the decision to make the snakes gigantic (or normal snake size idk). The book!snakes were about as long as a ruler and were so thin that a single normal-sized tank could hold hundreds of them. They were meant for Gaul to play around with in the lab. Gaul herself didn’t intend to use her snakes in the Games.

But the reason why I really hate the gigantism of the snakes is that it dramatizes the Games in the same way as the sudden appearance of the dog mutts in the 74th. The shocking burst of the tank feels a little too close to how the Gamemakers added in mutts to up the ‘excitement’ vs. book!snakes that never burst out; they simply slithered their way out their opened tank and began surging towards all the unfamiliar smells.

Extra negative point for trying to convince us that a tiny handkerchief maintained its smell long enough to travel throughout the entire tank; this without even considering that Coryo inserted the handkerchief from the bottom. What, were the snakes passing the handkerchief up?

Infallible Coryo

Again, might be overthinking on my part, but I feel like the movie made it seem like Coryo was more strategic than quick-thinking. One of the things that made me like him was that he was intelligent in the way that he could come up with solutions on the spot. So it’s a bit disappointing that they replaced that trait, especially since it comes at the cost of Lucy Gray’s own intelligence/agency (I’ll explain this in the next point).1

1: Coryo checks out the arena the night before the Games. Again, might be misremembering but I don’t think he ever did this. Or if he even had the time since I think a lot of the Academy kids were hospitalised after the bombing and then the Games took place right after.

2: Coryo collects the rat poison vs. Lucy Gray collects it herself.1

3: one thing about Katniss’s Games that made it more realistic imo is that part of her survival relied on luck. If her dad hadn’t taught her how to hunt, she might’ve not even found water during those first days in the arena; if Cinna hadn’t chosen to be a stylist in her year and Peeta hadn’t made her look desirable, then she might’ve had less sponsors than she did. So, I don’t like that they changed how Coryo found out about the snake mutts.

As said in my previous point: book!Coryo chanced upon the tank transfer. If Gaul hadn’t called him for a meeting; if the scientists hadn’t left him alone with the tank; if he’d taken out the handkerchief beforehand – had any of his circumstances changed, Lucy Gray might’ve died from the snakes too.

But thanks to movie!Gaul’s broadcast, movie!Coryo knew/had strong suspicion of exactly what was about to happen. He knew where to go, he had an excuse to see Gaul (ig you could say the lucky part is that Gaul didn’t turn him away/direct him to the hospital instead), he knew he needed the handkerchief; all he had to do was execute his plan. If they wanted Coryo to look smart, I’d say it was more impressive that he could connect the tank transfer to Gaul’s retaliation almost immediately after seeing the tank.

Lucy Gray = Good, Other Tributes = Bad, Coryo = Worse

1: when I say other tributes, I mostly mean two instances –

Jessup’s abandonment. Like I said in my first point, Lysistrata said that book!Jessup protected her during the bombing vs. movie!Jessup attempting to run away/escape. Between Jessup’s constant protection of Lucy Gray and that Lysistrata had no reason to lie (especially about a specific action), I 100% believe that Jessup really did his utmost to protect Lysistrata at the time. It feels like a slap to the face that, in their attempt of making Lucy Gray look good, they took away one of Jessup’s kindest, self-sacrificial actions. It almost feels like they’re making him a bit classist himself since he doesn’t hesitate to protect a District kid, but they changed the scene where he protected a Capitol kid. Point is: they did my boy, Jessup, dirty bcs he (at the very least) wouldn’t abandon Lucy Gray while escaping!

Coral’s alliance. istg Coral’s alliance starting the bloodbath and hunting down Lucy Gray and Jessup was mimicking the scene of Cato’s alliance murdering in the bloodbath and hunting down Katniss. Especially since they also had a scene where one of them (I’m so sorry idk his name, but it was the kid that said he was scared to go through the door flap/Cato) tried to chase after them by going through the door/climbing the tree.

Idk if they were trying to ‘foreshadow’ District 4 eventually becoming a Career district, but no. They could be ruthless (forcing Lamina to choose who to fight), but they weren’t the same kind of ruthless hunters as the Careers in the 74th. (Going to repeat my point that these changes only prove Gaul’s point that we’re all inherent predators.) The worst part is that their bloodthirsty alliance is contrasted to Lucy Gray’s kind camaraderie with Jessup (her worriedly searching for him and dragging him away from the fight asap). Both Coral’s alliance and Lucy Gray should’ve been at the same ‘starting point’ – kids who resorted to killing, not ones who were so eager to get home that they start murdering as soon as they get their hands on a weapon.

2: Coryo does the thinking for Lucy Gray. Gonna elaborate on my two previous points…

Coryo checks out the arena. This one bothers me so much bcs can they really not give Lucy Gray something as basic as knowing how and where to hide? Why is it Coryo that has to tell her exactly where she can hide and how to get there? + for some reason, they added an underground bunker? Imo they could’ve had even more suspense if they kept the fact that there was no bloodbath and all the tributes were hiding in the stands/corridors. It also would’ve been the perfect scene to showcase Lucy Gray’s smarts by making it so that she had to figure out how to avoid/hide from multiple tributes in a confined, unfamiliar space.

Coryo collects the rat poison. This one bothers me a lot too bcs, even though Coryo gave the compact specifically to hold the poison, Lucy Gray is the one who decides to bring it into the arena. I feel like making movie!Coryo collect the poison instead of her takes away her agency how she wants to survive the Games. Book!Coryo doesn’t see her in the zoo so he can only hope that she’ll risk cheating by bringing in the poison; it could’ve been easy for Lucy Gray to lie and say that nobody took the bait or that she didn’t bring in enough poison since he had no proof whether she did or didn’t have poison during the Games. The fact that movie!Coryo pleads(?) with her to take the compact, knowing that it’s carrying poison, makes it feel more like he’s forcing her to take a risk rather than letting her choose. If the compact had ended up being empty, then they could’ve bs something like he wanted her to have a memento of him during the Games instead of it being an instrument in cheating.

3: Lucy Gray’s calculated kills. One of the things that makes Lucy Gray nuanced is that she does bad things of her own volition. She’s trying to survive the Games so it’s not as if it’s a despicable thing for her to be cunning. But movie!Lucy Gray’s too good to even be that, as proven by how she kills. Book!Lucy Gray kills Wovey, Treech, and Reaper; movie!Lucy Gray kills Dill and Treech (there’s supposed to be a third, but I don’t remember who).

Book!Lucy Gray was deliberate. She knows she isn’t as fast or strong as some of the others so she preps to take out the other tributes through other means –

Wovey: iirc Lucy Gray poisoned a bottle and then just dropped it in the corridor to make it seem like it was a lost bottle. iirc she says something along the lines of “Poor Wovey. I was aiming for Coral, not her”. Intended victim or not, she baited a thirsty tribute into drinking what seems like their only source of water.

Treech: he swings a weapon at her while she’s trying to retreat. In self-defence, Lucy Gray reveals that she kept one of the snakes and releases it on Treech. I’m highlighting the fact that she kept it bcs Lucy Gray keeps it despite seeing the frenzied assault the snakes launched on all the other tributes. (idk if this is before or after Treech, but she also counts the corpses so she must’ve seen the effects of the venom). Either way, she kept it with the intention of quite possibly using it.

Reaper: iirc she admits to poisoning the puddle Reaper was drinking from. Then, she makes the poisoned Reaper use the last of his energy to chase her. Coryo himself says that she was trying to “run him to death”. Unlike the previous two killings, Lucy Gray knew exactly who she intended to kill and what she’d need to do to achieve it. He wasn’t drinking from a bottle so she found out which puddle he was drinking from; he was protective of his morgue so she made him chase her by running off with the flag.

Movie!Lucy Gray still did things intentionally, but it felt more hasty than calculated. She killed Dill the same way she killed Wovey, but it felt less like deception (making her victim think that she dropped a perfectly good bottle) and more like force (every other bottle is empty so there’s really no choice). Not really much to comment on Treech’s death since it’s quite similar, just that her ‘last resort’ is different.

I get that they were pressed for time so they had to hasten the end of the Games, but it feels like such a pity to lose Lucy Gray’s cunning in the process.

Mentors

Quick aside here, but why did they make it so that the Academy kids didn’t know that they were going to be mentors? They already knew that they were going to be assigned a tribute. iirc Coryo was worried since he wanted a ‘good’ tribute and, when all the ‘good ones’ were gone, he hoped that Dean Highbottom forgot him instead of assigning him a tribute from District 12. It seems unnecessary, but maybe I’m missing something.

EDIT: got some thoughts on this movie change

Translating Thoughts to Expressions

I understand that a lot of Coryo’s more rancid opinions remain as thoughts. Esp since he’s constantly trying to look not-poor and so that he can gain any advantage he can get. So he doesn’t say anything about Sejanus (Strabo Plinth could give him money), Ma (she gives him good, free food), Arachne (he has tact), Gaul (have you met the woman?). But there is one thing that stands out to me; a good chance to show the movie-only audience that he’s actually putting up an act: Sejanus calling him Coryo.

I think it’s more obvious in the book, but only Tigris and his childhood friends ever call him Coryo. It’s a nickname reserved for people he’s close to. So, the fact that Sejanus says it so casually takes away the momentum of the moment where Sejanus feels like they’ve grown close enough for him to use it. Book!Sejanus says it in a moment of apology – “I’m sorry. Coryo, I’m sorry” – bcs Coryo had to save him from the arena and, not only was Sejanus’s action fruitless, Coryo ended up killing Bobbin and being hunted by the other tributes. Movie!Sejanus says it when Coryo finds him in the arena. I can’t remember the line, but it’s when he was trying to explain why he was there. He just blurts it out in the middle of the sentence like he’d always been calling him Coryo.

Anyway, the reason why I say this is an opportunity to show Coryo’s true feelings is bcs this is one of the few times where Coryo has the possibility and ‘safety’ to slip up. When book!Sejanus calls him Coryo, he’s emotionally overwhelmed and physically exhausted. He’s horrified by his murder of Bobbin, anxious about the tributes chasing him and Sejanus, frustrated/angry that the Peacekeepers didn’t help them until the last minute on top of his annoyance at Ma turning up at their house, disdain for Sejanus (Coryo being his only friend meant that Ma turned up at his house specifically), and his initial worry/fear of going into the arena. Sejanus assuming he could use Coryo’s nickname would be the cherry on top of an already hellish night. And when I say ‘safety’, I mean that Coryo’s expression could’ve easily been hidden from Sejanus by making it so that the shadows of the colosseum shrouded him.

Over-explanation

This might be my most overthinking one, but I feel like the movie treats the audience like they’re a bit stupid? Like they’re explicitly explaining rather than just letting us make inferences. There’re three changes I can think of for this.

1: Snake mutts. I won’t explain this scene again, but movie!Gaul specifies that the snakes would recognise the “sweat on your palm”. She’d already explained that the snakes wouldn’t attack familiar smells, like the ones that they’d been around all morning. This explanation + knowing the tank had been lined with their papers was (imo) enough info to clue in that “the snakes won’t attack bcs they’ve been smelling the papers”. The extra tidbit just feels like they’re not sure we’ll understand how lining the tank = snakes not attacking.

2: “rainbow of destruction”. Not explaining this scene again either, but the broadcast did make it seem very in-your-face about what was gonna happen. It doesn’t help that Gaul emphasises that distinct phrase.

3: Jabberjays. So, jabberjays singing like normal birds to blend in, but turn silent when they're recording. And while Coryo uses this knowledge of how jabberjays work, the scene falls flat a bit. Bcs book!Sejanus doesn't know how the jabberjays work. Coryo cleverly turns on the recording function and then gets rid of him quickly after he gets the info bcs he knows it'd be sus if Sejanus figures out that "hey, why was this bird silent the whole time but suddenly starts singing?" But, in the movie, they repeat the fact that the bird falling silent means it was recording bcs Coryo replays the recording. (Maybe I’m misremembering this)

Still, Sejanus dies without knowing Coryo was the traitor. Or he should, but they reveal the recording again right before they hang him. Just in case we couldn’t figure out why he was being executed ig 🙄

Well, that’s the end of my vent. If you’ve read this far, thank you fro reading, but also feel free to correct me if you think/know I’m wrong about something.

[deyisacherry]

TSAMS Drabble. — Moon. [Solar's Death]

The screen reflects his face. Sometimes he wishes he wasn't able to have facial expressions.

He looks tired.

Depressed.

He doesn't hear any sound. Ruin has done his part by not speaking to him unless Moon addresses him.

And Moon prefers to pretend he's not there when he's not talking.

He assumes that he must be watching something in his headspace for entertainment. Because of course he doesn't have to deal with any guilty thoughts.

Not like him.

This... this whole situation, he could have avoided it. Part of him wants to give himself the comfort of not blaming himself, of saying that he was doing the right thing by just trying, for once, not to kill as the only way to protect his family. That he was doing the right thing in giving at least a little of his trust to what he could see.

But, it is stronger, more stormy, the part of him that allows the guilt to slowly eat away bolts and bytes in his system until it leaves nothing but... emptiness. Pain.

No matter how much he tries to convince himself, he feels responsible.

He feels like an idiot.

Perhaps he deserves it.

He makes a sighing sound and weakly lifts his arm, opening the compartment in it to send information to his computer.

But...

Before touching any button, his hand freezes. His brow furrows as he feels as if his core is being hit mercilessly.

The sticker. That... silly little thing.

Something they only used when Eclipse had just reappeared and then it just stayed there. In them.

And yet...

"Ah, you're cute."

"Yeah, I know."

. . .

Solar's disappeared too, didn't it?

But... it wasn't part of the other dimension. It was just attached to him...

Maybe-... No.

Why does he think about that?

It's no use looking for it, checking, what's the point? It doesn't contain anything...

But it's-

Moon just wants...

A memory.

Physical.

He closes the compartment. His arms lower to their previous position.

Yes, Solar rebuilt the daycare, Solar worked in the theater. But just something small, something he can carry around with him while -... while he keeps trying. Something to give him extra motivation to continue...

God, how is anyone supposed to deal with this?

Death, loss.

He rushed to stop Ruin believing he would lose Sun. He lost Solar.

If it were the other way around... Moon knows he'd feel the same way. Or worse.

At least he has him.

But still Solar was-... Solar is an important part of his life. For the others, although it is only a short time since they had him with them, it hurts horribly.

For Moon, the short time he has been around since he was reset is what makes it hurt just as much or more. That's almost how long he had to know Solar.

He spent so much with him in his dimension, helping, coexisting.

That's why it hurts like this.

Because with Lunar, despite waking up without knowing him while everyone else did, knowing later about him and understanding that he was his brother, even if it hurt, they still had hope that he was already being rebuilt. That he would return, and he would be the Lunar that the others knew, and that he could meet once more.

And so it was.

But this?

This loss?

. . .

He would really like to erase from his mind the possibility of never being able to bring him back.

Of never hearing his voice.

His quiet, tired, kind presence next to him as they worked, or as they hung out. With family, with friends or...

Just the two of them.

Why does this feel this way?

He's so... broken.

He doesn't want to rest, he doesn't want to pretend he's being strong. He's not strong...

He misses him.

He wants solar back.

He wants to apologize for being an idiot. For not thanking enough.

He wants...

[Loading 23% of information out of 100%]

[10 hours remaining.]

“…” He makes a call. The tone rings for a few seconds. They answer.

“M-Moon?”

“Sun… Are you home?”

“Uh- yeah? I-I just got there. Did something happen?” He answers with nerves, or concern. Both.

Moon sighs. “Could you... check in- the guest room if there was... something left on the floor? Anything?"

“Ah- I thought there was... nothing left? I-I honestly haven't wanted to go in there again, to clean or something, since-”

“I know, I know- I just-... Please?” Moon's voice is weak.

On the other side, Sun squeezes both of his hands together. Hearing Moon this sad is not easy. "... Okay..."

Moon can hear Sun silently walking into the room. The door opening.

It takes a few minutes. Sun mumbles to himself. Moon just continues watching the computer screen in front of him.

For a moment Sun stops talking. Moon feels cold

“… What-… am I looking for exactly, Moon?” Sun sounds shaky when he speaks.

"What did you find?"

“... There's- uh-... it's- not that important I think, but... it's- it's something, I guess?”

Moon receives a picture. Solar's sticker

Cheesy. Childish. Just any idea they had.

But it was his.

“... Could you keep it for me? While I get home?”

“Uhm-... sure.” Sun answers softly. "It doesn't…” He hesitates in his words. “It doesn't work to bring Solar back, does it?”

"No..."

Moon doesn't explain why.

But Sun gets it. He really does, and he will support his brother in any way he can. “I'll leave it in your room, Moon.”

"Thank you..."

"No problem..."

Moon hangs up the call.

Complete silence once again

. . .

He can't leave yet.

He will charge his battery when he gets home.

[valkyrie1435atla]

@hannahhook7744 this was going to be another reply but it started getting too long, so here’s a bit of an explanation on Zuko’s situation.

I can’t always know if what I’m trying to portray in my comic gets across how I want it to, that’s a drawback of the comic format, I’m generally not able to include long, detailed paragraphs unless it’s in a format that makes sense in the context of the comic. (Yishengs Logbook for example.)

-SPOILERS(?) FOR PARTS 14, 17. OR NOT REALLY SPOILERS, JUST PLAIN EXPLANATIONS OF WHAT HAPPENED TO CLEAR ANY CONFUSION-

in Mortem Obire, we see a play-by-play of Zuko’s death and his time traveling from his own perspective, in his head. ‘Mortem Obire’ means ‘to face death,’ this is Zuko processing what happened to him. Azula’s lightning struck him, pain, blinding pain, and then it all stopped, and he was back on his ship. He is still reeling, though, every sensation is suddenly opposite, “it was loud, and it was burning-“ in a millisecond his whole world flipped upside down. “And suddenly it was quiet, and I was cold” Zuko is so disoriented from the switch he immediately collapses, slams head-first on the hard ship deck, and is sent back to the future. “And it was loud again, and I was burning again” He becomes stuck in this sort of in-between state, like a light switch you’re trying to balance in the middle, flickering on and off. “Someone called my name” Katara calls his name, Iroh calls his name. “I saw a pillar of light in the sky-I saw a comets trail in the sky” he sees both. “You ran to me” Katara ran to him, Iroh ran to him.

Iroh was holding him; he laid alone, bleeding out.

Iroh pulled him away, Zuko began to lose consciousness; he burned while watching Azula kill Katara.

He laid there in his dead, rotting body; he laid in a body that wasn’t his.

It all happens in Zukos head, though. In the present moment Iroh just asked him, “and then?” Zuko replies, “and then…” (Part 13) then falls silent for about 30 seconds. Iroh just stares at him, waiting for an answer. The flashback plays in Zukos mind, he starts to tremble and hyperventilate, Iroh calls out his name but Zuko cannot hear him. “Prince Zuko, can you hear me?!” The flashback ends and Zuko is pulled back to the present. etc. etc.

A Thankless Job is YiShengs (and partially Iroh’s) perspective of Zuko’s death and time traveling. (Obviously they don’t know that he died, they don’t know that he time traveled.) season one Zuko collapsed suddenly and for literally no reason at all, (they didn’t see the beam of light, there was no beam of light.) YiSheng and Iroh took him to his room, and he started seizing (“A seizure is abnormal electrical activity in [the] brain” (the Cleveland Clinic)). He was sort of awake for a few seconds at a time, YiSheng medicated him in a moment he could actually swallow, and then Zuko passed out completely. Iroh stayed by his side. It is important to note that there was no injury at first, and Zuko woke up a few hours later. Parts three, four, and five happen, Zuko has a brief conversation with Iroh, he still isn’t completely aware of the time travel, everything is very hazy. Iroh leaves, and the haze begins to clear. The lightning creeps back in, the scar starts to reappear on his chest and it grows and it burns and Zuko is burning burning fire fire I am melting from the inside I am dying. etc. etc.

In the revised version I am currently working on, remaking the first chunk of the story so far, these details (and many more) will all be displayed much more clearly. We will see Iroh’s complete perspective of the collapse first, followed by Zuko’s and Yisheng’s as has already been written. A short interlude of Jee’s perspective next?

Basically, Zukos injury carried over because he didn’t stay in the past when he first got blasted there. Everyone else in the gaang flipped once and that was that, the injuries that killed them stayed with the past timeline. Zuko’s did not. Just his luck, really.

[coraniaid]

Another AU idea, if you're not bored of these already! Spike, for whatever reason, doesn't come back to Sunnydale. (Maybe the flights are expensive or something.) What alternative bad guy could be an interesting new Scooby? (You know, like Dracula, or Glory, or Sunday, etc. etc.)

PS: Faith isn't a bad guy, so she doesn't count! :)

As I think I've mentioned on here before, if I ever get around to writing a sequel to my S3 AU fic Coexist (which, to be clear, is not very likely to happen), I would probably have Sunday be the vampire who gets captured and then chipped by the Initiative.

But just to be a different (and to keep my options open if I ever do end up writing such a sequel), let's go with somebody else: Willow's vampire alter ego from The Wish and Doppelgangland. There are, I guess, a couple of objections to this idea: namely that the last time we saw vamp!Willow she was (a) in another dimension and (b) dead. But these are easily dealt with, I think.

How I see this playing out is that everything in Season 4 happens much the same way it does in canon for the first few episodes (Spike either comes back for The Harsh Light Of Day but then not a second time, or we can replace him in that one episode with somebody like ... I don't know, Lyle Gorch?). Oz and Willow still break up, as in canon, and Oz leaves town after Wild At Heart. Then:

We go immediately into Something Blue [skipping The Initiative for now, and skipping Pangs forever because it's trash]. Willow still casts her will-be-done spell and things play out as much as like canon as they can. Obviously that's pretty different, with no Spike -- we probably need to rename the episode for a start -- but Willow can still make Giles blind and Xander a literal demon magnet. Let's say her suggestion for Buffy is a bit like Dawn's wish in Season 6; she's upset about Buffy going patrolling and not staying with her, so she unwittingly says something that makes Buffy both unwilling and unable to leave the dorms (but it takes them a while to figure out this is what's happened). The other key difference is that, while mourning the end of her relationship with Oz, Willow brings up her doppelganger from last season and says she had a point that "this world's no fun". "Why," Willow says, "She should come back from wherever we sent her so I can tell her she was right." Cue to vamp!Willow in the Wishverse, just about to be staked (again) ... only to vanish and reappear in Willow's dorm room. [With some work, you could play up the fact that human!Willow didn't realize Oz could hurt her so badly with the fact that vamp!Willow was about to be killed by him.] Before our Willow can say anything, her counterpart escapes into the night (and Buffy can't chase her, because of the wish Willow made about her, which is something that helps them figure out what's going on).

At the end of the episode, Willow breaks the spell as in canon. Everyone assumes that this sent vamp!Willow back to her original dimension again -- especially when she doesn't show up to cause any more trouble -- but it doesn't. Instead she gets captured by the Initiative, just like Spike did in canon. And a couple of episodes later, she breaks free again ... only to discover, just like Spike did, that she's been chipped and can't hurt anybody human. She probably finds out a little bit sooner that she can still hurt demons and vampires: in fact, given her MO in Doppelgangland she probably only finds out she can't drink from living humans after she's already taken control of the current vampire gang in Sunnydale and tried to attack the Bronze (again). When that doesn't work (and after her reputation has taken a bit of a blow as a result) she tries the Drusilla approach of being a power behind the throne for a bit (not hurting anyone directly but getting a proxy to lead the other vampires in attacking humans and bringing her fresh blood from already-dead victims), but unfortuntately for her credibility the only vampire she can find who's willing to take orders from a vampire who can't hurt people herself is Harmony (who I guess was dating Lyle Gorch in this AU but broke up with him pretty quickly). And between that frustration and the fact the Initiative quickly show up again looking for her, she doesn't have much choice but to throw herself on the Scooby Gang's mercy [which we know, from Season 3, that they're likely to show her, especially if she can give them any information about the Initiative].

Cue sitcom-worthy plots wherein human!Willow is going to class and (mostly) spending her nights in the dorm room she shares with Buffy and sometimes going home to visit her parents and trying to keep her new relationship with Tara hidden from her friends, while vamp!Willow is sometimes hiding out in a crypt somewhere and sometimes hanging out with Anya and sometimes pretending to be human!Willow in Buffy's dorm (to escape both the Initiative and Harmony). Harmony has at least three conversations with human!Willow which she walks away from thinking she's been talking to vamp!Willow (Harmony thinks vamp!Willow is the coolest person she's ever met but the feeling is not quite mutual). Riley is briefly convinced that human!Willow is the missing "Hostile 17" he and his men have been looking for, then is persuaded that Willow is 100% human and not a vampire at all, then almost immediately runs into vamp!Willow and assumes he's still talking to human!Willow. When Faith temporarily steals Buffy's body in Who Are You? she also completely fails to clock that vamp!Willow and human!Willow are different people (though she figures out almost immediately that both Willows are crazy about Tara). She does get on a lot better with the vampire version of Willow than the human one, but she assumes this is just because Willow has mellowed out a lot since high school. (Faith only learns the truth when she comes back in Season 7.) Anya can tell them apart easily and thinks it's weird that other people can't. She and vamp!Willow get on like a house on fire (which really highlights how much Anya and human!Willow don't); they trade stories about various atrocities they've committed when they're bored (they agree that Anya's are better but Anya cheers vamp!Willow up by pointing out she's a lot older and had more time to practice being evil).

When Oz comes back later in the season, we briefly tease the idea that having two versions of Willow might be a way of resolving Willow's putative love triangle (especially by having vamp!Willow delightedly refer to Oz as 'puppy' when he first starts to transform into a werewolf again). The problem is that both Oz and Tara can always tell the two Willows apart, and neither of them is attracted to vamp!Willow at all. (The fact vamp!Willow remembers a version of Oz trying to kill her is not, as it turns out, much of a problem.) Adam still tries to recruit vamp!Willow to sow dissension in the ranks of the Scooby Gang, but she isn't very interested in trying [she's not interested in playing second fiddle to some other demon] and wouldn't be very good at it if she was. Adam gets Harmony to do it instead, and she is surprisingly successful at it at first (in part because she doesn't think of herself as doing anything untoward: she's just helpfully pointing out facts [cf. that Cordelia quote about tact]). Harmony still can't tell vamp!Willow and human!Willow apart though, so she cheerfully tells human!Willow that she thinks she [i.e. vamp!Willow] has done a great job infilitrating the gang and all Willow's friends already like her much more than the original, which she means sincerely and our Willow does not take well. Vamp!Willow figures out what's going on (and decides to tell the Scoobies about it, mainly because she's annoyed that Adam is trying to take 'her' rightful place as the town's Big Bad). But not before Harmony tries to give her the speech which she'd planned to give human!Willow (which is mostly the same speech about how great vamp!Willow is, actually, but Harmony makes the point of telling her that she's not as smart as vamp!Willow "so you shouldn't even try to stop Adam's plan, because there's no way a loser like you will figure out he's going to have all the demons be captured bythe Initiative then stage a break out and hope they all kill each other").

Vamp!Willow also follows canon!Spike's lead in falling for Buffy in Season 5. She is, if anything, even more mortified on realizing this than Spike was. Buffy and human!Willow try very hard to pretend this doesn't make things weird between them, not entirely succesfully. This gets even more difficult to do in Season 6 when vamp!Willow and Buffy start hooking up.

[alezangona]

The Shadow of Khansar (Salaar Fic)

Part 8 - Dawn of a New Empire

Part 7 | Part 9

Note: Slight NSFW I think?

If Varadha was being honest with himself, he didn’t really know how they’d gotten to this point. The last vivid memory he had was of Deva being worshiped like a god in Mahit’s garden. Then the space cleared, leaving him and Deva behind as silence surrounded them like a blanket, unable to voice the emotions bubbling beneath the surface. The stillness continued to unfurl, shrinking and expanding in its journey, till finally they found themselves navigating an unexpected terrain, together yet alone. 

Then came the days of battle, where they had gained and lost so much in the span of so little time. There were many moments of glory that brought the men together in celebration and fewer moments of loss. Those are what stood out the most at the end of it all, where soldiers mourned for their fallen comrades, their will to fight vanishing just as fast as it would reappear when the unquenchable desire for vengeance was reignited by Varadha’s rousing speeches. 

Through many of those moments, Deva was physically next to Varadha, refusing to let any harm come his way. Yet, there was a fragile distance between them that he wasn’t able to give name to. Maybe he could’ve if he tried hard enough, but it scared him beyond measure to even consider it. Not when it had been days since they’ve felt each other… since they’ve held each other. 

So, their army continued to fight. Varadha and Deva continued to stay at a loss for words.

Now they are here, in his father’s throne room: Deva holding his sword to Raja Mannar’s neck. 

Varadha considers if he should be feeling more anger after their earlier interaction where his father expressed his disdain towards Varadha, how he regretted having him as a son, how he was a shame to the Mannar clan. Even now, Varadha knows he should be irritated as Raja Mannar refuses to dignify his presence by keeping his gaze firmly on the fuming outline of Radha Rama, his pride and joy, who stands by the entrance of the hall, unable to act. But at the moment, he feels nothing. So he gives the order and his father’s head rolls to a stop at his feet.

A few days later, the scene would appear in his sleep. He would startle awake and cry as regret consumed him. He would wish that he could somehow rewrite the past. He would wish he could’ve stopped his father from killing the Shouryanagas and that he could’ve preserved the loving relationship they had during the first ten years of his life. 

That was to come in a few days' time. 

Then it would continue to haunt him for the rest of his life.

For now, Deva removes the large bracelet from Raja Mannar’s arm and throws the husk of his father’s body across the room. Varadha doesn’t look, but he hears the corpse thud loudly against the wall. Deva steps to the side, gesturing for Varadha to take a seat on the throne marred by blood. He tries not to think too hard about the squishing sound that envelops him as he takes a seat… or about the barbaric scene in front of him, where so few people were alive to witness this hoax of a coronation. 

“All hail to Khansar’s rightful heir!” Deva’s voice booms through the room as he holds up the thick bracelet. “Your Kartha– Varadha Rajamannar!” 

Varadha hears shouts of joy from his soldiers and friends as they go down to their knees. The only emotion he feels in that moment is relief when he sees that his family is okay, bowing towards him with large smiles on their faces. Then his hand is lifted from its position on the throne and Deva slips the heavy band on his arm. Their gazes catch for a moment, grasping on with steadfast determination, forcing time to stand still. Varadha isn’t sure what Deva sees in him though, because within seconds, he’s also kneeling by the foot of the throne.

The only person who remains standing is Radha Rama, pure hatred oozing from her striking eyes, clouding the room in a dark fog that jostles Varadha to his core. He knows at that moment that he should let his guard execute her. That it would be the only way to quell the tempest that would approach in his future. Except, he’s sickened by the massacre and tired of how alone he feels in a position he firmly believed he wanted just a few days ago. 

So, he continues to stare at her, unfeeling and uncaring as he waits for the inevitable consequences that will follow.

~*~

He doesn’t know how it happens, but within the next few days, the palace is cleaned up so well that there isn’t a trace of blood to be found. Even the streets are spotless, soon filling with the chatter of people milling about in their daily lives, the gore of turmoil forgotten easily. The change in atmosphere is enough to give Varadha whiplash, but there’s no time to ponder it for too long.

Preparations are made promptly for his official coronation. Amidst that and all the meetings with delegates to figure out the logistics of his court and new policy implementations, Varadha doesn’t have time to breathe, much less relax. Even the evenings, where he should technically be free, are spent holed up in a room with Baba and Mahit as they draw up plans for the future of Khansar. 

When he does have time to let his thoughts wander, he thinks about Deva. Deva who he hasn’t seen or talked to in weeks. Not properly anyway. They would see each other during certain weekly meetings, where they would be situated on two different ends of the room, speaking no more to each other than was necessary. Then, Varadha would leave with his team to handle his duties as Kartha, and Deva with his own team to handle matters of national security. 

With how much their army and people admired him, it was a no-brainer to appoint Deva as the Commander in Chief. At least it was to Varadha. The look of disapproval on Mahit’s face made it obvious he believed otherwise. He later approached Varadha telling him it was a bad idea to let Deva hold so much power over the whole of Khansar. His opinions on that particular matter were never brought up again after Varadha’s angry rebuke. 

Finally, a few days after his coronation, Varadha catches sight of Deva wandering in the palace gardens and gives up on maintaining any semblance of aloofness. He pulls on a thin, black robe and makes his way through the wing, a single destination in mind. 

“Why won’t you talk to me?” Varadha believed the question would come out sounding a lot harsher and a lot more annoyed than it did. He just sounds tired.

“You’ve been the one keeping me at a distance for weeks now,” Deva doesn’t even seem surprised by Varadha’s appearance, turning to face him slowly. “So maybe I should be asking you.” 

“I haven’t been-”

“Don’t.” It’s the first time Deva has ever spoken to Varadha harshly, and it’s enough to stop him in his tracks when he hears bitterness layered beneath the word. “Don’t lie to me. You haven’t talked to me or looked at me the same way since that morning.” He runs his hand through his hair, tugging at it in frustration. “I was hoping we could fix it, but you gave me nothing. What was the point of trying after it became obvious that what we had was over? You made it obvious that it was time to move on.” 

“Over?” Varadha flinches harshly beneath the moonlight, the pleasant breeze suddenly unbearable against his skin. Deva doesn’t say anything, staring blankly at Varadha and it infuriates him that he can’t read the thoughts running behind those charcoal eyes. 

Still, the phrase is enough for a sudden barrage of memories to dance across Varadha’s vision. Every moment since that morning, seen in a different light than before. 

Nausea begins to set when he thinks vividly of his coronation ball. It was nothing more than an event Baachi insisted he throw to celebrate their victory and build his network within the inner circles of Khansar. Yet, every time he would jump from conversation to conversation, he would catch a glimpse of Deva sitting in the furthest corner of the room. At first, he was alone more often than not, a relaxed set to his shoulders that signified to Varadha that he was happy not being bothered. 

Then, at some point of the night, there was someone else. They were draped elegantly in a smokey, silver sari, thick hair plaited together in a braid that dropped over their shoulder, a bright red rose tucked into the top. They were introduced to him at some point as Ila, a journalist there to cover the event. Varadha didn’t think much of it then, mind filled with a checklist of duties to complete. But now, he remembered the way the two of them sat together the entire night. The way that Ila waited with Deva till the very end of the party, following him out the door… 

“Moving on as in, you’ve been seeing someone else?” Varadha whispers into the darkness. Deva’s brows pull together. 

“What?” 

“That journalist from the party? Ila.” Varadha can’t control the sharp edge to his voice, his eyes narrowing accusingly in Deva’s direction. “Or if not them, other people? Is that what you’re telling me?” 

“That’s not what–” Deva suddenly sucks in a sharp breath. “Hilarious coming from you when you’ve been attached to Mahit’s hip for weeks now. What right do you have to be mad at me?” 

“Stop it,” Varadha takes a step forward, hands fisting at his sides. “I would never do that. I would never insult what we have by moving on the second there’s a bump in the road. I wouldn’t do that to you because I’m not capable of forgetting you as easily as you did me!” 

They glare at each other, bodies wound tight with frustration as the sounds of night surround them. From far away, an owl hoots into the night, its melodious cry carrying gently in the breeze. Every so often, bats pass overhead, the strong beat of their wings echoing in waves around them. As the crickets chirp, uncaring for the plight of humanity, the fresh, green smell of the garden inhabits the space between them, imploring them to break their silence and join the conversations of night.

“I wouldn’t blame you if you did,” Deva starts, hands tucking into his pockets. “It would kill me, but I wouldn’t stop you from being with someone you deserve. Not when I’ve been a monster… and I don’t regret it for a second, Varadha. When I found out Rudra was the reason you got hurt, I couldn't think beyond that. I told you before and I’ll tell you again– no one is allowed to touch you, to harm you. If they try, they won’t make it a step past me. They both had to die that day.

“Then you came down that morning, and you didn’t know how to react. You didn’t know what to do. I never meant to put you in a position where you couldn't recognize who I was. Where you were scared of me. And I tried, I tried to come talk to you… but you looked at me differently than before and it broke me. I thought it’d be best to give you space, to let you approach me.” Deva shrugs. “You don’t owe me anything Varadha. I have no right to be mad. Regardless, I’m still on your side, I always will be. In whatever capacity you want me.” 

The words ring strongly just as they did that first night between them. It takes all of Varadha’s strength not to drop to the ground. Instead he moves closer to Deva, coming to stand chest to chest, his hand gripping the arm with the tattoo. 

“What made you think I was scared of you?” The incredulity rings strong. “I was taken aback because it’s always been too much for me Deva. Every time I start to believe I know who you are, that I know what your limits are, you do something I never could’ve expected. Every moment from the electrical shock, to Naarang’s head, to Rudra’s death… you go so far for me, and I can’t even begin to fathom why.” 

“You know why.” Deva turns his face up to the sky, begging for strength. “There’s no one else for me but you, Varadha. Your name is carved into every inch of my being.” He brings his hand up to Varadha’s neck, pulling him so close that their bodies finally align, slotting together perfectly. “You are my sun and I am your shadow… I simply don’t exist without you, ra.”

“Deva, I–” Varadha gives in, finally understanding the extent of Deva’s devotion, and reaches up to press their lips together. The feeling of being able to do so after so many days makes his knees quake and within seconds, Deva’s arms are wrapped around his waist, supporting him. “I love you.” He allows himself to say it, to voice the emotion that has consumed him since he was a child. 

Deva’s grip around him turns to vice, a strangled sound leaving his lips as he really looks at Varadha. Then he’s back to where he was before, devouring the taste of Varadha in the cold of night. He refuses to break, hands moving across the planes of Varadha’s body, re-exploring the length of him in fervor, and attempting to melt into him. By the time Deva pulls away, his thumb rubbing gently against his pulse point, Varadha’s pleasantly light headed, choosing to support himself by grabbing onto Deva’s bulging biceps. 

“I love you too, Varadha. So damn much…” 

~*~ 

“There’s a swing in your step today.” Mahit raises a brow at Varadha when he steps out onto the balcony for their meeting.

“What?” Varadha questions, blinking at the man through his sunglasses. “No there isn’t.”

“Mhm, could’ve fooled me.” Mahit doesn’t push him too much though, nodding at the seat across from him. “Anyway, I was going through the Nibandana and am worried that some of these regulations clash against a few of the laws we’re trying to implement. I wanted to discuss a couple of thoughts and concerns I had with you before my meeting with Krishnakanth and the legal team.” 

They spend the next hour diligently looking over any and all issues, cross referencing them with the pages of notes they had taken down, before putting together a file of information for Mahit’s meeting with the legal team. Anand approaches right on time, bringing with him a tray of coffee that Varadha downs all too happily.

“Okay come on, now that we’re done with this, what’s with the sudden burst of energy?” Mahit’s lips quirk up into a teasing grin.

“Is it a crime to be happy, Mahi?” Varadha shrugs, looking away as he feels himself flushing lightly. 

“No, not at all. Not when you look like this.” His eyes sweep up and down Varadha’s form approvingly. 

“Okay, that’s enough of that.” Varadha rolls his eyes and sits up a little, fixing his posture to be less casual.

“Fine, your wish. But I hope you know I’m just telling it how it is. Happiness is a good look on you.” Mahit shrugs casually. Then he notices something behind Varadha and his face brightens even more. “Devaratha! Come, join us!”

“Baba’s calling you Mahit,” He responds dryly, coming to stand being Varadha’s chair. “Something about drafting the trade agreement with the Russian Bratva.”

“We did that already, I thought?” Mahit frowns, pulling out his notes and flipping through them. “Did he say what exactly about them?” 

“No, just that he needed you.” Deva rests his hand on the back of Varadha’s chair and leans casually to the side. Mahit groans, standing up and grabbing the necessary files.

“Fine, feel free to make yourself comfortable. I’ll be back as soon as I’m done with Baba.” Once he leaves, Varadha turns to look at Deva, skepticism written on his face.

“I thought Baba was supposed to have a meeting with the Ghaniyaars today?” 

“He does.” Deva shrugs, coming to stand in front of Varadha. 

“Then what was that about?” He flicks his chin to the side, staring up at Deva in amusement.

“He was getting a little too comfortable with you,” Deva steps forward, leaning down to pull Varadha’s sunglasses off his face. “It was getting on my nerves.”

“Oh?” Varadha observes with open interest as Deva straddles him in the chair, placing the sunglasses off to the side, wrapping his arms around Varadha’s neck.

“Yeah…” Deva leans in, kissing him with teasing nips and licking between his lips. Varadha’s fingers dig themselves into the flesh of Deva’s hips, a low rumble forming in his throat.

“Not that I don’t appreciate this, but he’s going to catch us when he walks back in.” Even as he says it, he doesn’t really make an effort to nudge Deva off. 

“So? Maybe he’ll finally get it into that thick skull of his that you’re mine.” Deva gently bites into the flesh of Varadha’s bottom lip, pulling it out slightly before releasing it. He watches greedily as the skin begins to swell, sensitive to the assault, particularly after the events of the previous night. Varadha meanwhile, swallows hard.

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep Deva.” His hands lift higher, making their way to rest under Deva’s shirt, coming into contact with his warm skin. “If you’re going to show him I’m yours, I expect you to do it properly.”

Deva’s pupils darken and without further prompting, he tugs at the gray scarf wrapped around Varadha’s neck, peeling it away to reveal the love bites he had peppered on his skin earlier. He places soft kisses across the length of his neck, coming to nibble gently at his earlobe as he brings his hands under Varadha’s shirt to run his nails over the muscles of his abs. Varadha lets out a sigh of pleasure, tilting his head back against the chair and allowing for Deva to explore his body as he sees fit. 

Deva slips himself out of the chair, getting to his knees in front of Varadha, who acknowledges the action by gazing hungrily at him from hooded eyes. Deva wastes no time in reaching under Varadha’s black dhoti, wrapping his fingers around his hardening cock to pull it out. He runs his thumb over the tip of Varadha’s head, leaning down to blow at it softly and bites back a smile when Varadha twitches with anticipation. 

Deva begins to lick at the tip while his hands pump the length of his cock leisurely. He tightens his lips, inching his way down Varadha’s shaft, pulling back up before going back deeper each time. Soon, he’s bobbing his head at a rapid pace, his tongue exploring every inch of sensitive skin, lapping up pre-cum as the hairs of his beard scratch teasingly across the surface of Varadha’s dick. 

Varadha moans at the feeling, fingers twisting themselves into Deva’s hair as he begins to thrust up into his mouth, impatient and desperate to chase his pleasure. Deva hollows out his cheeks immediately, allowing Varadha to take control and to use him for his own gratification. Deva begins to play with Varadha’s balls, tugging and squeezing, while running his other hand across the skin of his inner thigh. 

“Fuck,” Varadha whimpers, his cock twitching between Deva’s glistening lips as he continues to shove his dick into the warm cavity. “God, Bangaram. You’re the only one who does this to me. You’re the only one who drives me crazy with need.”  

Deva watches from below as the Varadha’s face twists with pleasure. His eyes are closed, lips forming a small O, and chest heaving with aroused breaths. Deva slowly swallows around his cock, savoring the salty taste of him against his tongue as he manages to pull another groan from between Varadha’s lips. 

That’s when he catches sight of Mahit frozen in the room overlooking the balcony, shock painted across his features at the unexpected sight. Their eyes meet and Deva feels a burst of possessiveness overtake him. Instantly, he hollows out his cheeks further, taking Varadha so deep into his throat that his nose touches against his stomach. Two more thrusts is all it takes for Varadha to come crying in his mouth, falling back against the chair and swallowing heavily as he tries to control his breathing.

Deva meanwhile, keeps his gaze fixated on Mahit, swallowing the musky taste of Varadha, his tongue darting out to swipe away at any excess lingering on his lips. Mahit’s eyes snap to capture the gesture, his eyebrows furrowing for a second before he turns to leave the room, the door closing quietly behind him. 

“Come here,” Varadha grabs Deva by the collar, pulling him back into his lap to steal eager kisses. He then buries his face into the crook of Deva’s neck, laughing to himself. “God, I love you. Do I tell you that enough? That I love you so fucking much?”

“I think you could stand to tell me a little bit more, actually.” Deva replies, a burst of happiness exploding within him upon hearing the words from Varadha’s mouth. 

“I’m glad I have your permission, because I’m going to spoil you rotten with those words. I love you, Bangaram.”

[lemonyinks]

thinks about how love and sacrifice are major themes of one piece thinks about how love and sacrifice are major themes of one piece thinks about how love and sacrifice are major themes of one piece thinks about how love and sacrifice are major themes of one piece

Okay, but seriously, it was something I never noticed when I was young and reading One Piece for the very first time. Back then the emotional scenes were just that, emotional scenes. I never seen the parallels or the way the themes would often reappear in different ways. Now that I'm an adult and I'm reading it once again, it has become a whole lot more apparent just how much of a reoccurring theme they both are, and how they go hand in hand together. I've also begun to realize just how much impact on the narrative these scenes have on future events.

Shank's sacrificing his arm for Luffy is literally one of the first things to happen in the manga, which he did because he obviously loved and cared for Luffy. He calls him a friend only a few pages earlier. He would gladly lose and arm if it meant Luffy would live. It was right after this event as well when Luffy finally stops asking Shank's to take him out to sea with him and vows to become a pirate on his own, just before Shanks gives him his straw hat.

And that wouldn't be the first time someone would sacrifice a limb for someone they cared about in this series. Zeff quite literally ate his own leg so that he could give all of the rations they had to Sanji, hoping that the kid would live long enough to carry out the dream that the both of them shared. The All Blue may have been the initial reason he had for saving Sanji's life, but he undoubtedly grew to love Sanji like a son and I don't doubt for a second he would make that sacrifice a million times over for him.

And then comes Bellemere an arc later. Nami and Nojiko were her reason to keep living, she dedicated her entire life to taking care of those girls and she loved them with her whole being. To her, it was an easy choice to give her own life so that her girls wouldn't have to leave the only home they'd ever known and possibly die all alone out on the sea.

Hiriluk is a bit of a different sacrifice, but a sacrifice nonetheless. His decision to commit suicide was ultimately due to him not wanting Chopper to feel guilt over his death. He loved Chopper, he knew that he was only ever trying to help and that he loved Hiriliuk in return. The doctor couldn't just let that love and desire to help turn into what caused his death. So he chose to take his own life instead so that none of the responsibility landed on Chopper's shoulders.

Once we reach Alabasta, there is of course the iconic Pell scene. He was willing to throw his life away, not only for Vivi, who he loved dearly, but also for the country he served and it's people. I know some say that this scene isn't as impactful as some of the other sacrifices since he didn't truly die in that moment, but in my opinion that doesn't matter. He did it because he loved them all. His feelings were just as strong as those who died or lost limbs, and the Vivi's reaction is equally as real as the other's reactions to the sacrifices made for them. His intentions were to save everyone, and he did just that.

In water 7/Enies Loby (an arc that is itself basically one big love letter) we are introduced to Saul, who had only know Robin for a very short amount of time before the navy showed up to kill the scholars. And yet, in that small period he grew to care about Robin and had a real desire to protect her and ensure that she would not only live, but end up happy one day. He was willing to give up his own life so that this little girl, who he barely even knew, could live on.

Thriller Bark is where we see on of the most memorable Zoro scenes. While this isn't the first time one of the protags has sacrificed themselves for their crewmates, it is one of the most notable. Zoro here takes on all of Luffy's pain, simply because he loves his captain and believes that his dream is worth living on for. He was willing to give up his health, as well as what he thought would be his life, if it meant that Luffy would be able to live longer and carry on with his journey.

And this of course leads us to Marineford, where Ace threw himself in front of Akainu's molten fist in order to save his baby brother with zero hesitation. Ace loved Luffy deeply, he would never have allowed harm to come to him. The two of them loved each other deeply and would rather die than allow the other to be hurt.

Now comes a sacrifice that really parallels Bellameres, even down to their last words to their kids and the way that the both of them died. Cora cared for Law, he really did. He couldn't stand to see a child so young talking about how they were going to die and he wanted to help him, so much so that he all but abandoned the mission he was with the Donquixote pirates for in the first place just so that he could find a cure for Law's sickness. He inevitably came to truly love and care for Law. He gives his life in the confrontation between him and his brother, even going so far as forcing himself to hold on longer in order to let Law escape silently, just so that the child he'd come to love could grow up and live his life.

While Pedro may have sacrificed himself so that the strawhats could go farther on their journey, he didn't really do it for them. He may have thought of them as friends, but in the end his sacrifice was for the people of Zou. He did it for his people, because he loved them and wanted to do everything in his power to help save them from the cruel fate they were being subjected to. He knew that the only way this would be achieved would be if the Strawhats made it out of Big Mom's territory, so he did what he thought he had to in order to help them escape.

Finally, in Wano we have Oden's sacrifice. He let himself be boiled alive in a pot of oil for an hour straight while holding up the weight of nine other people, simply because he believed it gave his retainers, his family, the people he loved, a chance to escape the same fate. But he didn't just do it for them, he gave his life so that his entire country may have the chance at a better future. To the very end, he loved his country and he loved the other samurai.

And these are just a few select examples that I could think of at the time and some of the most memorable ones to me This doesn't even account for Nami giving up her childhood and teen years to free her village, or Sanji saving Nami and Luffy from the avalanche, or Tom turning himself in so that Franky wouldn't be killer, or Robin giving herself up to cp-9 to promise the Strawhats passage, or Luffy letting himself be tortured by Porchemy to keep Sabo and Ace's secret, or the way Dadan stayed behind to fight Bluejam for Ace, or how the Whitebeards all put themselves on the line to try and save Ace, or Pound stopping Oven several times to save his daughter, or when Scarlet tried to feed her starving daughter, or Sanji freeing the crew from Bege, or Killer eating the SMILE and doing Orochi's bidding to give Kid a chance to live, or Law giving himself over to Hawkins to save Bepo, Sachi, and Penguin, or Momo giving up his childhood, or the two times Bon Clay gave themself up to give Luffy time to escape, or the Going Merry sailing on despite being in no condition to, or how the minks allowed themselves to be tortured, or how Rouge literally killed herself to bring Ace into the world. It doesn't even cover the more subtle sacrifices like Usopp lying that there was no pirates so that his village wouldn't have to be afraid, or even Luffy's hunger strike.

There are countless sacrifices within this series that I don't think I could ever really hope of covering them all, unless I were to spend several hours that I don't have on them. But one thing is certain about every single one of them; they are displays of love. I mean, who else do you make sacrifices for, if not for someone you love.

[morally-grey-variant]

love is a dagger [loki x oc] [part one]

loki x oc

part one

[master post here]

Pairing: Loki x Original Character (she/they)

Setting: Canon goes out the window as Loki joins the Avengers Compound. He's not exactly "one of the gang" but, in a tentative truce with Thor, is allowed to live and train with the Avengers and other SHIELD agents living and working on the Compound.

Loki's trying to be better. Really, he is. But atoning for his crimes in the Battle of New York -- and processing more trauma than he has begun to comprehend -- hasn't been easy: Thor stuck his neck out to get him here and won't let him forget it. The other Avengers watch him like they expect him to spontaneously combust.

A particularly annoying SHIELD agent approaches him again and again during his solo workout sessions, insistent upon learning hand-to-hand combat and close-quarters weapons skills. Six months in, he's impressed by how far they've come, and falling for them... hard.

Summary: Six months into Agent Grey Forrest's precarious "are we more than friends?" alliance with the God of Mischief, he accidentally stabs her during a training exercise. (wc 2.6k)

(Grey Forrest - femme/nb, presenting androgynous femme, uses she/they pronouns interchangeably.)

Warnings: Later episodes become more explicit -- Minors DNI. Blood, hospital/surgery/sedatives/stitches, general angst, mild swearing, inferences of past trauma. (if I've missed something please let me know!)

(a cheesy title *and* an OC in my first ever Loki fic? we're going all in, agent. this one has floated around in a doc for a few weeks now and she's dying to see the light of day. future eps will include TWs for dark themes but right now she's a slow burn queen that might make you hate me a little. things will get smuttier, I promise.) inspired by the prompt, "loki accidentally stabs you while training."

My wrist pins Loki's arm against the concrete wall. 

“Checkmate.” 

Panting and grinning, I flick my ponytail back over my shoulder. My torso edges against his, the slick athletic material of my uniform sliding against his worn leather armor. Loki pants, his parted lips spilling hot breath across my face. The knife in my hand glints in the afternoon sunlight streaming in through the floor-to-ceiling windows and spilling over the blue plastic mat floor of the sparring room.

Loki's bright green eyes flash a half-second before he bodily shoves me aside, spinning us around. He pivots, and my wrist – still clutching my knife – is now locked into his grip. He twists it behind my back and tugs me into his chest. 

Loki's gold dagger finds my throat.

“Checkmate,” he growls playfully. 

Adrenaline spiking, my chest heaves. Damn him. Stupid mistakes like this will get me killed in the field. 

I raise my empty hand, reluctantly signaling surrender. I can practically hear the smug grin of success on his lips as he releases my other wrist, gently pushing me away.

My fingers spread in a gesture of mercy. As if I intend to let him have this one; he's bested me yet again. His answering grin, flashing a glimpse of perfect pearly whites, is infuriatingly confident. Cheeky. A fire blooms in my chest, even as my heart hammers with exhaustion.

He lowers his dagger, his own chest rising and falling beneath his heavily scratched black leather armor. Lulled into a false sense of security by his favorite sparring companion's unwavering surrender.

I lunge forward, taking advantage of that trust in my surrender. My knife strikes out towards his armored torso; my aim wavers, glinting off the worn brassy-gold panel at his waist. 

Loki snatches my arm, flicking it away effortlessly. “Cheating the Trickster?” he jabs, then vanishes in a blink of black smoke. We’ve both broken our rules of combat now: perfidy and sorcery.

“Little traitor.” He reappears to my left. My head spins, disoriented, as he lunges, and I parry backwards – 

His gold blade sinks into the slip of unarmored flesh at my side. Time slows around us as my gaze flutters from the blade to Loki’s face. His confidence melts into horror.

We gasp in unison as steel meets skin. My body recoils instinctively as blade strikes bone, glinting off my ribcage; the scratch against my rib resounds through my entire body. 

“Fuck,” I gasp. All the wind rushes out of my lungs. Loki's hand falters and his blade clatters to the floor. I clutch my ribcage as the room starts spinning around me.

“Grey, I'm so sorry,” Loki pants. He hesitates before stepping toward me, hands hovering over me, paralyzed by fear and indecision. Blood trickles between my fingers.

“Fuck,” I echo. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.” My voice is soft in my throat and I can't stop repeating the curse. All my training flies out of my head as my stab wound leaks onto my uniform and drips onto the blue mat beneath my feet. Apply pressure. Get help. 

“Are you alright?”

“Of course I'm not alright,” I spit, finally gathering my bearings. “You fucking stabbed me!” He flinches away, but I’m too rattled to feel particularly guilty. I’m shaking all over, trying to grip the hem of my athletic shirt with my other hand. I tug, but the fabric doesn't give; I can't get a good grasp with my trembling fingers, but I need a cloth to apply pressure and soak up the blood, I need to get down to the medical wing and –

“Stop that,” Loki says. “Come here.” He conjures a white rag in a flash of green light and takes another step towards me.

Before I can so much as blink, he's lifting my bloodied hand from my torso and replacing it with his own. The cloth beneath his palm presses into my chest. One arm slopes across my shoulders, curling me towards him. 

I finally look up at him.

He hovers over me, brows pinched. His chest is still rapidly rising and falling beneath his scarred armor, huffing through his flared nostrils, lips pressed into a flat line. His dark curls spill over his forehead; through them, and his eyes flash up at me, now darkened by swollen pupils.

He looks every inch a kicked dog.

I lay my hand over his. “I've got it,” I murmur. My heart pounds again; unhelpful. Quickening my heart rate will only increase the blood flow.

“Right,” he answers in a soft voice, nodding once and releasing his palm, transferring the pressure back to my hand. “Grey, I never meant to hurt you,” he continues quickly. “My hand slipped. I’m sorry.”

“I need to get to the medical wing.” My vision blurs and shifts; there isn’t enough room in my head for apologies. Dark red quickly soaks through Loki's white cloth. I take a single step forward, but my leg shakes unsteadily. 

Loki stops me. “You're in no fit state to walk. Let me help you.” There's an urgency in his voice. Fear laces the edge of his words.

My breath hitches and shudders. “I can walk.”

“Damn it all, Grey,” he barks, gripping my arm. “Let me help you.” 

I jerk my head up, eyes wide. 

It's been a long time since I've been afraid of Loki. 

He clenches every muscle in his jaw, the sharp cut of his chin barely containing the multitude of biting comments forming there. But there's no fury in his eyes. Frustration, yes; but no anger.

It's fear. 

Black fear sours his expression. Loki, who perpetually radiates cocksure swagger and irritating arrogance, is reduced to a frightened, trembling hesitation.

“Please.” A gentler tone, firm but tender. The vice-like grip of his long fingers loosens. I nod. My head swims and I clutch my forehead with my free hand.

Loki scoops me into his arms. My world flips upside-down; I squeeze my eyes shut against the onslaught of dizziness. Every step rattles my body, forcing me to bite back a groan of pain.

“I'm getting blood on your armor,” I say, tipping my head onto his shoulder. Anything to abate this dizziness; if I throw up on his armor, I’ll probably die of embarrassment – if the stab wound doesn’t get me first. The hand clutching my side, now pressed into his torso, feels sticky and wet. “Why am I losing so much blood?”

“Hush now,” he croons softly. My stomach churns.

I can't decide if it's from the stab wound, or from Loki. His arms curl around my body with strength and gentleness that might tear me apart. 

I can't stop picturing that fear in his eyes. Like a kicked dog. A dog who's been kicked over and over for the crime of loving. Who can't stop running back to whatever – or whomever – hurt him. 

I've never kicked this dog. Why is he afraid of me?

“I'm gonna be fine, Loki,” I murmur, my cheek pressed into a metal buckle of his training armor. I shift my head, tucking it into his chest. I'm getting tired. “Fine.” But my hand shifts against the wound and I can tell the cloth is soaked through.

Loki's chest rumbles, but I can't make out what he's saying. It's a frustrated noise, I know that much. He makes enough little noises of discontent that I've learned to differentiate between the sounds. 

Other voices fill the space around us. I think he’s telling someone what happened, though much of his voice is still a low rumble in his chest. My leaden head sinks into him.

Suddenly, he’s relinquishing me, laying me down on a hard, flat surface. It's my turn to grumble discontented noises. My arms stretch out back towards the safety of his, but other hands start prodding and grabbing at me. My eyes fly open, heart pounding again, I’m gasping for air–

“You're all right,” Loki murmurs in a low voice somewhere beside me. “They’re going to help you now.”

Medical staff swarm as the stretcher jolts forward. I squeeze my eyes shut again. Lights flash behind my eyelids at regular intervals. 

“Sir, were going to have to ask you to wait–”

“I'll stay right here, thank you.” 

The stretcher jerks to a halt. Fingers and needles pinch against my arm, unpleasantly shocking my brain in and out of the heavy sluggish fog. My athletic shirt tugs downward with a metallic snick of scissors– 

I blink my eyes open again, hands slapping against the hands and shears cutting through my clothes – no, stop, and I think the words gasp out of my throat but I can't be sure if I’m actually saying them out loud.

“Agent, we have to access the wound,” a voice snaps through the warbled haze. Someone pulls my hands away. My stomach flips – I can't freak out, if I freak out I'll lose control, I can't freak out, but now I'm totally freaking out – 

But then there's a gentle hand on my temple. “Let them help you.” Loki's voice is almost unfamiliar in its tenderness. A surge of bright electricity erupts in my heart, flooding through every vein and nerve ending; the blip, blip, blip of some machine in the room keeps pace. “You're safe here, Grey. Agent.” He tacks on the last word like a formality. An afterthought.

Although his gentleness sets my heart racing, his words have their intended effect. I don't fight back as the nurse cuts clean through my blood-soaked top, exposing my torso. Glancing down, I wish I hadn't when I see how my chest is smeared with blood. The nurse blessedly doesn't cut through my sports bra, since the wound seems to lie a few inches below the elastic band. 

Another warm, thick sensation spreads down my left arm, spilling down my fingers and out across my torso. My eyes drift closed again – everything feels better now. I can ignore the stinging of alcohol and iodine swabs around the wound, prodding fingers and soft gauze that catch against raw flesh. “It's a clean cut,” someone pronounces. Loki's hand stiffens against my temple. “Less than an inch deep, about two inches long.” A keyboard crackles as someone takes notes. 

“Agent Forrest,” someone asks, “we’re going to stitch up the wound now. All right?” 

“Mmm,” I hum, rolling my head so the elastic of my ponytail doesn't dig into my skull. Loki's thumb strokes against my temple. The needle and surgical thread tug against the tender skin over my ribcage, pulling and tightening and piercing over and over again.

Voices echo from down the hall. The warm, brain-addling sedative conjures up familiar characters for a dream half-rooted in reality. Shouting voices, and the tenor of someone familiar, authoritative, and very pissed right outside the door.

“You're fucking kidding me. You let him in there with her?” 

“Mr. Stark, the doctor is right in the middle of the procedure,” a female voice insists. 

“And I pay the doctor's salary,” Tony shouts as if he's right at my feet. I force my eyes open – I hate this dream. I don't want Tony in my dream. 

Oh. Red-faced and seething, what I can only assume is a very real Tony Stark looms over the end of my bed. Shame, and something like fear burn in my chest, tugging me to the surface of the drug-induced fog.

“Mr. Stark, I must insist, the patient's wound–” the doctor insists, turning his head but remaining hunched over my torso.

“Nurse, call security,” Tony barks. “Scratch that. I'll escort the threat out myself.”

“Tony, it's not what it looks like–” Loki says. His hand never leaves my head, cradling it tenderly even as he raises his voice. The doctor shakes his head and finishes up the last stitches.

“You fucking stabbed Agent Forrest?” Tony growls, lifting his arm – his finger trails along the metal cuff at his wrist, preparing to summon one of his suits. 

“Not in the hospital!” The nurse shouts, jumping to her feet. Her voice is weighted with enough authority that even Tony pauses. “Take it outside. We have seriously sick people here.”

“You let her attacker into the room with her,” Tony counters, thrusting a finger towards Loki. “He could slaughter all of you before you could scream for help.”

“He brought her here, Mr. Stark,” the doctor says, tying off the last stitch. “If he wanted to kill any of us, he's had plenty of time.”

“Tony…” I grumble. My tongue is thick and heavy in my mouth. Loki's hand slips away from my temple. I shift my head as the cradle of his fingers disappears. My leaden skull feels like it’s swollen twice its size. “Too much morphine.” I blink hard, my brow creased in concentration. Why am I so loopy? “If Loki wanted t’kill me, I’d’ve killed him. I'm fine. 's an accident.” 

“We’ll take you off the IV,” the nurse explained, coming closer to pinch and prod at my arm. “The wound is fairly shallow.”

“See?” I raise my arm, gesturing to the nurse. “Fine.”

“You got lucky, Forrest. This man has stabbed more Avengers than not,” Tony counters, ignoring my morphine-drunk threat. “You have ten seconds before I throw you out that window, space man.”

“Stupid, Tony,” I grumble, growing frustrated. Bracing my forearms against the bed, I push myself up. Loki stops me before the nurses can so much as flinch.

“Lie down,” he says, finally stepping into my line of sight. 

“Oh my god, Loki,” I gasp, blinking hard. He's completely drenched in blood – my blood. My hand flies up to brush against the front of his armor.

He lowers a hand to brace against my chest before quickly reconsidering and pushing down on my shoulder. Soft green light flashes in my periphery and a pillow cushions the back of my head as he lowers me back onto the stretcher. “Don’t hurt yourself,” he continues urgently. 

I resign myself to a more horizontal position, but I still reach out towards him. IV tubes tug against my arm, but my hand rests flat against the blood-smeared leather protecting his torso. “Fuck… bled all over you.”

Loki smirks. His hand wraps around mine, lowering it back to my side. “An excuse to requisition something new from the armory,” he answers. His hands are coated in my blood, too. “Something with a bit more gold, perhaps?”

“Black and gold,” I hum. “Green’s more your color.”

“Are we done here?” Tony snaps, and my tunneled vision explodes back out into the room. I'd forgotten the room was full of people.

“Tony…” I murmur. My head is starting to clear somewhat. “Loki wasn't trying to kill me. It was an accident. My fault.”

“Mr. Stark, the patient needs to rest,” the nurse interjects, clipboard chart clutched in her hand. “I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave.”

Tony storms out. In the hall, I can hear him demanding to have a word with someone about hospital security.

Loki smirks down at me, though his face is still pale. Paler than usual.

“You too, Mr. Laufeyson,” the nurse adds. She wedges herself between us, forcing him to step to the side.

“No,” I groan. “Let him stay. Loki, stay with me. I hate it here.”

Loki's hand strokes my temple again. The nurse frowns down at me as she changes the IV. A new bag, heavy with dark blood, sags from the silver pole behind her.

“We finally got your blood type from your file,” she explains. “Your… friend can stay while you receive the infusion.”

Loki pushes back hair that clings to my forehead, still damp with drying sweat. “Don't leave, Loki.” I wince against the pinching sensations and beads of blood welling up as she removes the first line and places another for the blood.

“I'm not going anywhere.”

[continue reading in part two]

[amazonworrier]

i know you did a hp au for brittana a while back, can you do one for what quinntana would look like in hp verse?

Quinn is a Slytherin but becomes a pariah in fourth year after hooking up with Finn, a Gryffindor (bad) and known dumbass (worse).

Santana, also a Slytherin, orchestrates Quinn’s downfall because she wants to be head girl one day and Quinn is her only real competition. They spend most of their later schooling years sabotaging each other in an effort to come out on top. They both firmly believe this takes priority over the impending wizarding war.

They are inseparable and feared by all until one day in third year when Santana becomes friends with Brittany, a Hufflepuff, who turns her into a puddle of goo whenever she’s around. Quinn condemns the relationship initially, not because Santana and Brittany are both girls exhibiting some serious gay behaviour together, but because Brittany is a muggle born. The real reason is that she’s jealous but she won’t realise this until several years later.

They are both beaters on the Slytherin quidditch team and have been since second year. On the pitch, they are formidable, always in perfect sync. Even when they hate each other. Slytherin rarely lose a game anymore.

When Voldemort and the Death Eaters start recruiting her classmates, Santana realises pretty damn quickly that she’s not quite as Slytherin as the rest. Mostly because she’s still hung up on Brittany, who is an active member of Dumbledore’s Army and constantly in Santana’s ear about switching sides. Quinn takes a while longer to come around because her Dad happens to be Voldemort’s main contact at the Ministry, but ultimately she chooses to be Good too after witnessing a group of first years be tortured for minor misdemeanours. No one deserves that. They don’t join Dumbledore’s Army or anything though. Too far.

Quinn is particularly gifted at Charms, Santana excels in Defence Against the Dark Arts. They both suck at Potions and frequently rely on Brittany, who is somehow top of their class despite never paying any attention.

Harry Potter is in the year above them and super f*cking annoying. When Harry dramatically reappears in the Great Hall prior to the Battle of Hogwarts, Santana and Quinn both immediately roll their eyes. Of course he’d insist on making a scene.

They fight alongside each other during the Battle of Hogwarts, and are two of very few Slytherin house members not locked away in the Dungeon. This is because Professor Mcgonagall knows they’ll be an asset, not a threat. She is correct. Together, they take out more of Voldemort’s crew than most of Gryffindor and Ravenclaw houses combined.

Quinn doesn’t realise her true feelings for Santana until she watches her get stunned by a nasty curse from a Death Eater during the Battle of Hogwarts. She retaliates by killing him in a fit of rage. This is the first (and only) time Quinn uses the Death Curse.

Santana doesn’t realise her feelings for Quinn until she wakes up in the Great Hall to find a blonde haired body concealed beneath a sheet beside her, which she mistakenly assumes is Quinn. She LOSES it and is just about ready to burn the whole world down when Quinn arrives back from the hospital wing with more medical supplies. Needless to say it’s an emotional reunion. When the dust finally settles, Brittany steps aside graciously (she’s had her suspicions about them all year).

[necnnights]

In the years of their careers, NEON NIGHTS has built up a repository of unreleased songs, unarchived performances, and other lost media. The following are a few of the most popular examples.

PRE-ZENITH ENTERTAINMENT MUSIC VIDEOS (2016-2017). It is a well-known fact that the band had a past with a few songs released prior to Zenith Entertainment, namely their debut song YOU and follow-up single ASPHALT. While the songs are still available on streaming services, their music videos have been wiped from all official channels. It is rumored that Hwajung and her brother, former member Sungjae, both have their own copies of all of their early work. Neither of them have ever confirmed or denied the rumors.

INCHEON PENTAPORT ROCK FESTIVAL PERFORMANCE (2018). The performance that started it all, given that it led directly to their signing with Zenith Entertainment. Their set list was short and consisted mostly of pop punk covers, though they did manage to slide their own two songs in. As they were unpopular at the time, the recordings of their performance have been lost to time. 

PRE-DEBUT VARIETY SHOW (2019). Prior to their debut in Japan, the band filmed a variety show focused on the production of their album. A teaser for the show was released officially on their social media, but the rest of the show never followed. It was instead edited down into a half-hour documentary released with the deluxe version of the album. Qiuyun has been the most forward when asked about it, saying it “didn’t turn out as planned” and it’s “really regretful that it had to be that way.”

DEMOS, DEMOS, AND MORE DEMOS (2020). Their second Japanese EP, ALIGHT, released in three editions: a typical CD and booklet only offering, a deluxe edition with further behind-the-scenes content, and a collector’s edition with an extra CD full of demo versions of most of their discography thus far. The collector’s edition sold horribly, as it was for sale only in Japan for a short period of time. None of the demos were ever released digitally, and are generally known only the most dedicated of fans.

POP ROCK ALBUM (2021). Before Neon Nights’ official Korean debut, they performed at many small clubs and bars around Seoul. In addition to covering a number of other popular rock songs—fan favorites include Paramore’s “Misery Business,” Scandal’s “Shunkan Sentimental,” and Halestorm’s “Love Bites (So Do I)”—they also teased their own music. The most notable of these is the song “BAD GIRLFRIEND,” which was officially teased as a single on their Instagram before being quickly deleted. A studio version of the song was leaked shortly after their debut. It is highly suspected that the song and album were both of Eunbyul’s creation, but forgone in favor of Hwajung’s EP that aligned more closely with their Japanese discography.

SECOND HALF OF DEBUT PROMOTIONS (2021). Their debut title track, “FLY AWAY,” was meant to be promoted for four weeks. They had the shows booked. They had the schedules posted on their fancafe. In the first two weeks, everything went well. In the second two weeks, everything fell apart and nothing that was planned was ever released. It is presumed that they took the time to record everything, and the lack of official releases came from factors outside of their control. The band is surprisingly mum about the issue. They simply disappeared after their debut and reappeared months later.

LIVE-STREAMED PRACTICES (2020-2022). In attempt to market the band to young, always online kpop fans or create some sort of viral moment, Neon Nights live-streamed at least one band practice a week. This did not achieve of either of their goals, but rather provided the fuel for Twitter speculation along the lines of “why do hwajung and yumi always look at eden like she killed their dog 😭😭” and YouTube compilations of “eunbyul playing qiuyun’s parts for fifteen minutes straight.” The practice lived and died with Vlive, and the majority of the recordings in their entirety have been lost.

NEW ISLAND OF UTOPIA DELETED TRACKS (2022). The band’s first full-length Korean album, NEW ISLAND OF UTOPIA, contains nine tracks. According to an Instagram live hosted by Hwajung, the album was originally supposed to have twelve tracks. She even went as far as to play bits and pieces of the deleted tracks. The one that drew the most attention was "ILLUSION," though the general consensus is that it was better to keep that one in the drafts. 

ACOUSTIC REPACKAGE (2022). Hwajung and Eunbyul made no secret of the fact that they and their management wanted to milk New Island of Utopia for all its worth. This meant that in addition to the album’s promotions and its four versions, they were also planning on releasing a repackage with acoustic versions of a few of their songs. While the songs have all been performed live and unofficially released in YouTube videos, there appears to be no official studio recordings of any of the songs.

I KNOW I LOVE YOU — NEON NIGHTS VER (2023). The controversial title track of their most recent Korean release features Fable’s Andrew and Mingeun, an arrangement none of them seem to be very happy with. Eden, most notably, has voiced her disapproval of her lack of lines. She also revealed that a version of the song without the features does exist, but will probably never be officially released, for the simple and succinct reason that “Taein-nim said no.”

[steddie-as-they-come]

blame it all on human nature - chapter 3

ao3 link || part one

  ☆Tuesday, April 1st, 1986☆

“Harrington, I’m taking your car!” Eddie shouts after school the next day, and is rewarded by a muffled shout from Steve - probably “No the fuck you’re not!” but Eddie’s already swinging Steve’s keys around his finger and exiting the house. 

He slides into the driver’s seat and starts up the car. 

Something moves out of the corner of his eye. Eddie turns towards the passenger seat fully and jumps. A blurry version of Mike is sitting there. 

“Oh, hey Hawkins.” Eddie relaxes. “What’s up?” 

“Bored.” Hawkins says. “Where are you going?”

“Gareth’s house.” Eddie responds.

“To do what?” 

“Play music!” Eddie hangs a turn a bit too quick, tossing an arm across Hawkins like a seatbelt. “Corroded Coffin is coming back, baby! Here, wait.” He leans over and rifles through Steve’s glove compartment, pulling out the tape Steve had complained about Mike playing. “Listen to this.”

Ride the Lightning by Metallica starts playing over the speakers, and Eddie grins, doing his best approximation of headbanging. He doesn’t want to go full out, since he’s driving, and Steve did say there was illegal stuff in this trunk. 

“I’ve heard this song before,” Hawkins complains, their layered voice getting lost in the music. 

“You gotta feel it, though!” Eddie says. “C’mon, Hawkins!” 

Hawkins sits stock still for a couple seconds, then begins to bob their head to the music, Mike’s dark hair flipping around. Eddie laughs. “Now you’re getting it!” 

Hawkins gives him a grin, getting more into the music. Eddie turns it up. “Hell yeah!!!” 

They pull up to Gareth’s house, and Eddie grabs his guitar from the backseat and jumps out. Hawkins doesn’t move. 

Eddie half-turns. “You coming?” 

A wide grin splits their face, and they disappear from the passenger seat, reappearing next to Eddie. “That was fun!” they say excitedly. 

“Yeah?” Eddie says. “We can listen more when we drive home.”

“Yes!” Hawkins cheers. 

Eddie reaches out and rings the doorbell. Normally, he’d throw rocks at Gareth’s window, or just walk in if Gareth knew he was coming, but he opts to be polite this time.  

Gareth gives Eddie a grin as he opens the door. “Hey! Come in! Everyone else is here already.” As he turns and leads Eddie to the basement, Eddie subtly holds the door open wider to let Hawkins scurry through. 

Sure enough, Grant and Jeff are in Gareth’s basement, both of them practicing their instruments already. “Hi, Eddie!” Jeff calls. “Anyway, Grant, my dad says we should leave soon.”

Grant nods. “We packed last night. My mom and I are leaving later today.”

“Leaving?” Eddie asks. “Going on vacation without me, boys?”

Jeff laughs. “Nah, man. We’re getting out of here. Hawkins is a shithole.” Eddie feels Hawkins stiffen beside him. 

“Hey!” he snaps. “It’s not that bad!” 

Gareth gives him a weird look. “Haven’t you been dying to get out of this town since you were ten? What the hell changed?”

Eddie slings his guitar from his shoulder. “I don’t know, I guess almost dying last week gave me a new perspective.”

The band members wince, and Eddie feels like that’s probably not fair of him to say, since they’re right. But he’s not gonna stand around and let them badmouth the deity who saved his life. 

“Well, we’re all leaving.” Gareth says after a few minutes of tuning their instruments (and in Eddie’s case, picking dried blood off of them). “My parents and I are moving out this weekend.”

“So no Hellfire this Friday, either?” Eddie says bitterly. 

Grant claps a hand over his mouth. “Hellfire! Man, I completely forgot about that.”

“Wow.” Eddie raises an eyebrow. “Really?” 

“In our defense, dude, you died. Of course we weren’t thinking about Hellfire. We were trying to get out of the town that killed our best friend!” Gareth says. “You don’t get to sit here and make us feel like shit for mourning you.”

Eddie looks at Hawkins, and they say, in a voice barely above a whisper, “Please don’t fight. It’s okay.” 

He lets the subject go. “Fine. Just…upset you’re leaving. You’re not gonna get to see me finally cross that stage.” 

Jeff shrugs. “That is, if you make it.” he teases. 

“Oh, I will. Not a doubt about that.”

They spend a couple minutes discussing what song they’ll start with, then jump into the practice. As Eddie shreds, he can’t help thinking that this is probably Corroded Coffin’s last practice ever. 

A movement in the center room pulls him out of his thoughts. Hawkins is in the center of Gareth’s basement, headbanging like their immortal life depends on it. 

Eddie grins, and Hawkins starts to mimic his finger movements, playing kickass air guitar as they jump off Gareth’s chairs and tables. 

It’s a nice distraction, since Eddie would have been way too preoccupied with thinking about the last time he played his guitar. It might’ve been badass, but he doesn’t think he’ll be able to play Master of Puppets again without feeling the phantom sensation of his own blood oozing gently down his sides. 

Eddie hugs them all goodbye as he leaves, Hawkins awkwardly by his side. “See you. I’m at Ste- Harrington’s, remember, so call me if you get a chance.”

They all nod. 

“I’m glad you came back, Eddie.” Jeff says quietly, and Eddie smiles at him, before starting Steve’s car and leaving, sliding the tape into the player for Hawkins. 

They disappear sometime on the drive back, and Eddie turns off the music. Grant, Jeff, and Gareth were some of his best friends. Hawkins (the town) isn’t going to be the same without them. 

He wonders if the next time Hawkins (the deity) speaks, three voices will be missing from the chorus. 

There’s a small murmur coming from the living room as Eddie walks back into Steve’s house. He kicks off his boots and hangs up Steve’s keys, following the muted discussion.

“Eddie!” Dustin says as Eddie walks into the room. Most of the kids are in there, but no sign of Steve or Robin. “When’s the next Hellfire meeting? We need to get Will and El in on it!” 

Will smiles nervously from the floor at him, and El grins next to him.

Eddie flops onto the couch. “Not happening. Grant, Jeff, and Gareth are leaving town. Too dangerous for them to stay.” 

All the kids visibly slump. “So no more D&D?” Mike asks.

Eddie sits forward. “I didn’t say that,” he says. “It’ll take a bit of time, but I can probably prepare a campaign for you guys if you’d like.”

“Yes!” Dustin says. “It’ll probably have to be short, though. My mom says we’re all moving this summer, after school finishes.”

“I can do that. You’ve got your stuff here, right?”

They all look at each other, but remain silent.

Will tentatively raises his hand. “I’ve got a couple of my figurines,” he says in a small voice. “But I don’t think that’s enough.”

“Probably not.” Eddie admits. “Anyone else?” 

Lucas folds his knees so they’re up by his chin. “I think mine and Erica’s stuff is with my parents,” he says. “I didn’t think I needed it.”

Dustin rockets to his feet. “Wait, we’ll ask Steve!”

Mike scoffs. “Steve won’t have anything. He doesn’t even know what D&D stands for.” 

“Yeah but he can drive us to our houses so we can grab anything we left behind.” Dustin says, like it’s the most obvious solution. He books it out of the room.

The kids all follow. 

Eddie allows himself to turn over plotlines in his head. He doesn’t want to use any demogorgons in his campaigns, now that he knows they’re real and also terrifying as hell. 

“No. No! Listen here, you little shits, we are not going on a fuckin’ field trip through the center of town so you guys can get pieces to play your dumb game!” Steve says loudly from the other room. Eddie gets up and follows the voice, sliding through the crowd of kids subtly.

“It’s not dumb, Steve!” Dustin yells, and all the kids start clamoring for Steve’s attention, talking over each other and arguing. 

“No!! Come on, guys, we’re staying here.” Steve shouts. “Eddie, back me up here.”

Eddie pauses from where he’s sitting and lacing up his boots by the door, looking innocently up at Steve. 

“Oh, for the love of…” Steve grumbles. 

Everyone waits. 

Steve relents. “Fine. Get your shoes on.”

The kids all whoop and cheer, and Eddie offers a sly high five to Dustin. Everyone beelines for the car.

Steve pulls up in front of the wrecked trailer park. 

Eddie hops out, sprinting towards the debris of his trailer and rifling through it, wincing as he scrapes his hands along cinder blocks and damaged aluminum siding. His heart sinks as he comes across Wayne’s shattered Garfield mug.

“Anything?” Dustin asks, dropping to his knees beside him. 

Eddie sits back on his heels. “Nothing,” he says. 

Steve looks at them, raising his bat. “Hey, me, El, Lucas, and Erica are gonna go grab some stuff from Max’s trailer, alright?” 

The boys (when did Will and Mike get here?) all nod, and Eddie looks anxiously up at the floating portal in the sky, worried a demogorgon’s gonna drop out of it like an ambush. 

Cautiously, he moves toward it, and kneels down again, digging through the rubble. 

His hand grazes across something, wooden and familiar. He gasps and moves the debris off of it. “My DM screen!” 

There’s a huge gash in the paint, but it’s intact, and that’s really all Eddie could hope for. 

He can’t find his dice anywhere, though, and he curses his lack of organizational skills. If they had all been in their nice little containers, he could bet that he’d have found them easier. 

He frowns at the tattered remnants of his mattress. His handbooks had been underneath his bed, right?

Hopping the broken beams, he lands shakily in the wreckage of his room, cringing at the destruction. It had been a really good thing he had his guitar with him, because if that had been left in his room when everything went to shit, he’d have been forced to throttle Vecna with his bare hands. 

His bedframe is basically kindling at this point, but Eddie can see the books, and he lifts up the wood to grab at them, grinning at his homemade player handbook from years ago. “GOT ‘EM!” he shouts victoriously, and Mike, Will, and Dustin cheer. 

The four of them leave the site, Eddie holding the books aloft like a prize. Steve and the rest of the kids are packing Max’s things into the car. 

“What’d you find?” Steve asks. 

“Just my DM screen and my handbooks.” Eddie says. “Sucks that the screen paint’s all chipped, though.” 

Will tugs it out of Eddie’s hand. “I can fix this,” he says. “It’s just a bit of paint, and I brought my paints to Steve’s. If you like, I can paint over it. I normally paint our figurines anyway.”

Eddie gazes at him in awe. “Baby Byers, where were you when I was developing arthritis painting all the Hellfire miniatures by myself?” 

The kids all laugh loudly, and Will joins in, still running his fingers over the chipped screen paint. 

“There’s a ton of dice at my house.” Dustin offers. “Enough for everyone, probably.”

Eddie swings into the passenger seat, and the kids pile in. He pats Steve on the shoulder. “Then, onward, Sir Steve, to our fair Dustin’s house!” 

Steve rolls his eyes, but he starts the car anyway, driving up to the Henderson’s house. It’s been less than a week since Eddie last saw it, but the house seems to have gotten worse. It doesn’t look normal from the front anymore. The porch supports have fallen down and the front door is cracked and half open. The second story is sagging unsteadily.

“I want you all to be very careful.” Steve instructs them all as he turns off the car. “No one’s allowed up on the second floor without mine and El’s supervision, got that?”

“Why El?” Erica complains.

Steve gives her the same look she normally gives him. Erica Sinclair’s patented are-you-stupid look, though on Steve’s face it’s more like think-before-you-speak . “Because if the floor crumbles beneath you, I trust El’s mind powers to catch you faster than my reflexes.”

They all nod, some more upset about the babysitting than others. Dustin leads the charge into his demolished house. 

“It looks like they took a wrecking ball to it.” Lucas mutters, peering around the dusty kitchen. “This is freaky.” 

“Steve?” Dustin calls. “Can you and El come here? I think my dice might be upstairs.”

Steve nods, and offers a hand to El. El takes it, and in a practiced move, Steve swings her, giggling, up onto his back. “Coming, Henderson!” he calls, and the two of them follow Dustin’s movements through the second floor from underneath.

El and Steve wince and flinch in unison whenever the floor creaks particularly loud, but Dustin makes it around the upstairs and then back down without any nasty incidents, like falling through the floor. 

He comes back down brandishing a large messenger bag. Eddie can hear dice clicking around in there. “Twenty-one sets!” Dustin says excitedly, and Lucas whistles, impressed. “My mom always got them for me when she didn’t know what to do for my birthday or Christmas.”

Eddie smirks, batting Dustin’s cap brim down to cover his face and stealing the bag. “Look at all of this!” he says. “Damn, Henderson, you got a huge haul here.” 

Dustin grunts, fixing his hat, and Eddie allows him to take the bag back, laughing. “I’m gonna give you the gross puke-green ones now, Eddie, just for that.” he says, and Steve laughs, carrying El and leading the rest of them back out to the car. 

“How long do you think it’ll take you to do the campaign?” Mike asks, and Eddie shrugs.

“I’ve got a couple ideas already, Wheeler. Don’t worry about that.”

☆Saturday, April 5th, 1986☆

Eddie walks through the empty house a couple days later, his DM books tucked under his arm and his dice folded into his hand. The kids were all at the arcade (they had been overjoyed when they found out it had been out of the way of Vecna’s destruction, and begged Steve and Robin to take them before work). 

“Hawkins?” he calls. 

A blurry version of Will appears next to him. “Yeah?”

Eddy pats a chair at Steve’s dining room table. 

“Sit down, I’m making you a D&D character.” 

Hawkins takes a seat, looking confused. “Wait, why?”

“Because I’m setting up the new campaign for next week, and I want you to join us.” He starts setting up his stuff, passing Hawkins a blank character sheet and a pen. 

Hawkins doesn’t take them. “I can’t,” they say.

“Why not?” Eddie asks, placing the paper and pen near them. “It’s gonna be fun, and they’d love to meet you!” 

“Eddie, please just think for a second.” they say. “They’ve been through hell since they were middle schoolers. What do you think they’ll think of me when they find out I’m the living embodiment of the town they hate?”

Eddie places a hand on Hawkin’s arm. “They won’t-”

“They would! I could have stopped Lonnie Byers. I- I could’ve stopped Steve’s parents. I could’ve helped Robin, or Max, or El.” Hawkins clenches their fists. “I’m not supposed to, though. I’m just supposed to be a home .”

Eddie swallows, his throat suddenly dry. “Oh.” 

“Please don’t tell them about me, Eddie.” Hawkins begs, and suddenly they just look like Will, teary-eyed. “They’d hate me.” 

“Okay, I won’t.” Eddie says. “But I want you to play D&D with us.” 

He bites the end of his pen, and starts to scribble into his notebook. “I just thought of the perfect way to do it.” he tells them, opening his player handbook. “I’ll put your character in the party as an ‘NPC’ and play them as normal, and whenever you want them to do or say something, you just tell me, okay?”

Hawkins nods, now looking excited. “Can I name my character Hannah?” 

“Sure,” he says. “What else? What class? Race?”

“Uh, can I be a human?” they ask shyly, and Eddie nods, helping them mark it down. “I don’t really know D&D, what class should I be?” 

Eddie taps the pen to his chin. “If you want it to be similar to you, we could make her a warlock. Then she could still do magic!”

Hawkins shrugs. “That sounds okay.”

Eddie smiles. “I’ll get the campaign finished soon. I’m trusting you to come back when we start, okay?” 

They nod, already beginning to fade away. “Sounds good!”

“One more thing!” Eddie says. 

They pop back into existence. “What?”

Eddie points his pen at them. “No reading my mind to find out the campaign plotline.”

Hawkins giggles. “I can’t do that anyway, but okay, fine!” They disappear. “Bye, Eddie!”

“Seeya.”

Eddie turns back to his notes. Time to put his ideas into action.

[lediableblancdotcom]

After the events of Knights of X #5 and the Death appearance some fans in a FB group questioned the past of Death and Gambit. So I broke out the archives at 3am and listed the Death appearances for them quickly. After a little sleep I threw together a better synopsis. Not only am I surprised how little Deathbit has appeared in the storyline, but how much time lapses between appearances. This is obviously a story that needs to be explained and explored, if anything to put it to rest. So here we go, buckle up for this ADHD fangirl rollercoaster.....

Deathbit first appeared in 2006 on the last page of X-Men (Legacy) #184. It was also followed up by a short story in the back of the comic showing the brutal and heroic creation of the Horseman Death by Apocalypse. This was where we all got a dose of how far Gambit's making stupid decisions for righteous reasons bullshit can go. Also a reminder of how stupidly strong Gambit can be, but no one pays attention.

After that the original story arc of Gambit as Death appeared throughout X-Men (Legacy) #185-#187, where his story was completed as a death gas wielding bipolar Horseman. Apocolypse's control was destroyed fully by the purifying fires of Sunfire, whom was a current Horseman too, but his appearance stayed that of Deathbit. After that Sunfire and Gambit walked off stage left and are not seen again until they are Marauders in their normal form (I think they forgot a few steps there....HELLO!)

Gambit re-joins the team, Death and the Marauders team-up was never really explained and then forgotten, as Marvel does. Deathbit does not pop back up into conversation until 2009, when we get a very random short story in X-Men Legacy Annual #1. Somehow a no name mutant manages to find and release Death just enough to get himself killed. Again, Gambit goes back to normal within a panel or two and it is never mentioned or worried about.

In 2010 we get the Second Coming story arc running through the X-Men titles. In that arc we get the 3 issue mini-series called Hellbound. They send some reject mutants they don't care to lose to Limbo to save Utopia. While there, Deathbit reappears and fully takes over as main persona after seeing Limbo as Horseman Disneyland, a nice place to rule. This is the first time we actually see him use his ability to take prisoners as little Death slaves. He possesses Dazzler and Northstar and controls them. Now this seems like it would have been a more useful power than the death gas we got in the first appearance, but hey. This time Death was shoved back down by Pixie and Magik combining their powers and stabbing him at the same time. Again, Deathbit exits stage left and never spoke of again.

Death is a fever dream to most, until 2022. Twelve years later they bring Deathbit back into play in Knight of X. After some magic and roundtable tomfoolery, he reappears and starts playing his murder spree among his peer circle, like usual. He does again try to use his death slave thing, but the death gas was never used or mentioned. In the end, he was again stabbed by a magic sword thanks to Betsy and burned by purifying fire by Sunfire, bringing him back to himself.

So, will this be the end of Deathbit? Or are we just going to have to wait another decade for his reappearance. It is obvious that Death was never removed permanently from Gambit, but it is being trapped in their somehow. It would have been nice to hear what happened between Gambit and Sunfire leaving as Horsemen and returning as Marauders in regular form. It would be nice to hear some history before all the readers forget what the hell happened a decade ago. Oh well, there is the information, do with it as you will. Until the next time I need to purge my brain.... - As an extra bonus, a "family portrait" appeared in All New X-Factor #17 of Deathbit and his Horsemen family, but there was no storyline to it, just a quick reminder that it happened in the characters' pasts.

[fandomzwriterk]

Smoke and Mirrors

Pairings: Tomas Vrbada/Smoke x OC

Warnings: slight gore + Amnesiac!OC + religious trauma (?) + characters dying + hinted innuendos later on + Kuai & Bi Han trying to be good brothers + Liu Kang as a dad figure (?) + Tomas just being his sweet lovable self + Bi Han being kind of a dick + Kuai Liang having no clue what it’s like to have a sister + confused “brother” Kuai Liang (?) + Raiden, Kung Lao, Johnny, and Kenshi being simps (mostly Raiden)

PT: 4/?

A/N: I love MK1 more than I should and my bf is laughing at me about it (he mains Liu Kang rip me)

Some time in the future…

The days and weeks went on for Angel, at least that’s what Tomas ended up calling her. Kuai didn’t mind calling her that either, especially since his brother was the one who came up with it. Bi-Han however… couldn’t care less. Not to say he was heartless, he just didn’t see why both of his brothers would drop anything to make sure she was safe. It annoyed him. It’s been four months since she’s been here, Liu Kang now sending her off on missions with the three of them. Tomas was giddy every time and Kuai wasn’t much better than him. Bi-Han didn’t like Angel one bit, and he made it clear every time they trained, practically almost killing her each time she was there. Today was the fifth time he actually went and tried to do it, much to the annoyance of Tomas.

“You are the worst Bi-Han. Just be nice to her. She’s doing us good. She’s been trying really hard.”

He almost smacked Kuai upside the head right there, but he refrained. He can’t have his temper in control.

“It’s cause she’s a woman. A women we barely know and isn’t even with the Lin Kuei.” He grumbled

He didn’t have to look at his brother to know Kuai rolled his eyes at the statement. Currently, they were watching both Tomas and Angel spar, Tomas just basically trying to see what the limits of Angel’s body was.

“There you go!” Tomas exclaimed as Angel rolled to the side

So far since she got here, she’s never once used any part of her “angelic” powers. No wings, no spears. Nothing. It was as if she wanted to train herself. She really didn’t need to, she’d been pretty good since day one.

“You have to agree she’s gotten better.”

Bi-Han stayed quiet, knowing his brother was right but didn’t want to admit it. However, watching Angel and Tomas spar each other to him, with Kuai standing next to him in case somebody decided to fight dirty.

“Come on Angel! You’ve got more power than he does! You just gotta get him on the ground!”

Kuai’s eyes focused on Angel, noticing she was dodging attacks and not attacking Tomas back, even when he would disappear and then reappear seconds later. She seemed pretty content in just making sure Tomas didn’t get her on the ground first. She seemed to, not even be thinking, she was just moving on her own. Still, Kaui was super confused that despite half her face being covered, she could still recognize attacks Tomas was giving her.

“Come on Angel! You just gotta knock him down!”

Bi-Han stared at the small female, noticing something he wasn’t sure Kuai was seeing. Her left hand was twitching in a weird manner, as if there was something controlling her hand that wasn’t her.

“Kuai.”

“What?”

“Whatever you do, don’t let her left hand hit you.”

Kuai looked between both Tomas and Angel, finally seeing the odd twitching her hand was doing.

“You think that’s normal?”

“I don’t know. As far as I can tell she can’t control whatever it is.”

Angel backed up once more as Tomas swung his karumbit once more at Angel’s side. Nobody could see into her mind right now… and nobody was noticing she wasn’t even conscious of her decisions. Her body was moving on its own without her control. Tomas smoked closer to her, causing Angel to jump into the air, her wings fully out as they held her into the air for a few seconds, seeming to look for a target to hit. Now she was on the attack… and it was not looking good.

“Kuai go!” Bi-Han yelled

“What?!”

“Get Lord Liu Kang!”

Angel’s attention focused on Tomas as her body slowly spun to regain her balance in the air, as her left hand went up to the sky, as if calling for something.

“Blades of Righteousness!” She yelled as she sent dozens of golden spears raining from the sky and straight towards Tomas

“Fuck!” Bi-Han added as he ran into the fight

“Brother!”

Bi-Han, with no idea how to stop her, flung an ice ball at her, only for her to cut it in half with a giant spear in her own hand. They had to get out of there or they were gonna get hurt or even worse killed.

“Angel calm down it’s us!”

Kuai threw his kunai’s into the air, trying to get Angel tied up and bring her back down.

“We have to work together. Shes not going down that easy!”

Tomas smoked behind them as Bi-Han and Kuai stood side by side.

“We have to time it together. Tomas you smoke up and try to bring her down while Kuai and I distract her.”

“Got it.”

And just like that he was gone. So, Angel’s attention turned to the brothers. Bi-Han wasn’t going to admit it, but he was nervous. He didn’t know how Angel worked either, and he just thrown into a blind fight with no clue how to take her down.

“Hope this wakes you up!”

An ice ball came crashing into Angel’s face, getting her off balance as Kuai got his ropes to tie around Angel’s body, effectively cutting off her ability to fly as Tomas came up and smoked behind her, pushing onto her shoulders to get her to fall.

“Kuai pull!”

And so he did. The ropes were so tight that Angel, or what they thought was Angel, let out an inhuman scream from the bottom of her lungs. It practically shattered the very ground beneath them. She hit the ground, Tomas lying on top of her holding her body down as Kuai and Bi-Han ran up.

“Shit. Lord Liu Kang is going to kill us for this one.”

“Well that’s what happens when you don’t listen to me.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Bi-Han stared at the unconscious Angel, still tied up and on the ground. She wasn’t moving anytime soon. So, he kicked her side trying to get her to wake up.

“This wouldn’t have happened if you two had just listened and made her leave months ago!”

“She was dying brother! Isn’t helping people supposed to be a good thing? Isn’t that what father wanted?”

“Father was a weak man. I’m Grandmaster now, so you two are the ones who listen to me, no questions asked.”

As Bi-Han went to pick up Angel by the back of her own gi, her wings snapped the ropes and she was up on one knee, one spear in hand right next to his neck. She was up and awake quickly, she had been playing dead.

“Angel it’s us!”

Tomas put his hands up as a surrender, looking to his brothers as Angel had her attention on Bi-Han.

“Angel. Look at me.”

So she turned her head, looking at Tomas who was right behind her. His hands were still up, he had faith that Angel wouldn’t attack, as if he could read her mind. He trusted her, so surely she wouldn’t break his trust?

“It’s me. Tomas. Im your friend remember?”

Angel made the spear disappear into thin air, standing up to look at the silver haired man.

“T-Tomas?” She spoke faintly

“Yeah it’s me!”

She started to sway slight. Kuai was fast on his feet, closing the distance between the three of them by putting a hand on her back as Tomas held her arm.

“I’m okay. Im okay.”

Her feet didn’t work for a few seconds, pulling her wings back into her body and looking up from the ground. She seemed to be awake, so Tomas let her go to walk a little and clear her head.

“What… what happened? I… I don’t…”

“It’s okay. Are you feeling okay?” Kuai asked with a quick glance at her left hand

It was limp for now, so that means it wasn’t doing whatever it was earlier. She shook her head, the hood over her face daring to fall off. She was tired and confused.

“I don’t… I don’t remember what happened… I.”

She went quiet, realizing it wouldn’t even matter right now. Her memory was barely together even after all this time she’d been with Liu Kang and his champions. She was alone, lost a place she didn’t know before she lost her memories. Why was there nothing?

“It was just a bad dream. I’m fine. That’s all it was.”

She dismissed it as she turned to try and walk. Only one step and she was having trouble staying upright. Tomas went to walk up behind her, but she flicked his hand away in annoyance.

“I need some time to think.”

And she was gone, leaving the brothers to figure out what just happened. Bi-Han was not happy, again.

“What in the name of the Elder Gods just happened?”

“Hell if I know. I can barely talk to her about how she sleeps at night. I sometimes hear walking in her room late at night, but it’s almost dead quiet every once in a while.”

“You think she’s having nightmares? Maybe sleepwalking? She doesn’t remember anything from before she came here and suddenly she spiked. Something is not right.”

“Fine. Tomas you get afternoon and night watch with her. Kuai gets morning watch.”

“What about you?”

“I’m not going anywhere near that creature. I don’t trust her, and she’ll never be Lin Kuei in my eyes.”

Kuai and Tomas looked at each other, watching their elder brother walk away to find some initiates to train.

“I’ll go find her. You go search the living quarters.”

Kuai nodded, silently using his fire to teleport somewhere away. Tomas was alone and worried about his friend.

“Angel!” He shouted running right for the gardens

Silence, there was not even a single sound except for a cricket. Where could she have gone?

“Angel! Where are you?!” He shouted louder than the first time

“Tomas?” He heard a meek voice say

He looked to his right, just barely able to see her hidden under a sakura tree. It was covering her, no light visible anywhere except a few holes from the branches. Slowly, Tomas walked as she sat there with her head against her knees, sitting beside her.

“I don’t remember what caused that. I-“

“You don’t have to explain yourself right now Angel. I’ll stay here with you until you relax, then I’ll hear whatever you have to say.”

Angel just nodded. Tomas sighed with relief, she wasn’t hurt. So, a few minutes turned into what felt like an eternity. Tomas had let her take a nap, watching over her so she wouldn’t get jumped by someone.

“I had a nightmare.” She spoke bluntly out of nowhere

“Do you wanna talk about it?”

“Yeah I mean… I don’t understand it. Maybe it was just all in my head.”

“It’s okay to tell friends things like this. I just want to make sure you’re okay.”

“Yeah… that’s true. But it didn’t make sense.”

“Do you remember it well?”

“Not much but there’s a few things that are still in my head.”

So Tomas sat in silence as she recounted the nightmare from last night. In her mind, she’d been flying in the sky, above the clouds with the sun just ahead of her. Then, she came to a place that was infinitely beautiful, filled with land and animals she didn’t know. Suddenly, the ground cracked beneath her, causing her to fall backwards as she reached out, seeing someone standing over the pit, sending golden-white spears her way. They were covered in golden-silver blood. She kept falling, seeing the light slowly get smaller and smaller as she started falling. The person above her, she couldn’t see, but she knew something was wrong. Then she woke up when she saw Tomas, just after getting tied down by Bi-Han.

“You don’t remember fighting me? As practice?”

“N-no. My brain gets foggy after that, like I was never here at all. But… I could see it all.”

“Speaking of which how are you able to see with that thing on your head. I think it looks cool but that has to be annoying.”

He was right, the golden material that made three circles around her head and over her face was always there, and they weren’t even attached to anything. Perhaps there could be another way for her to cover her face.

“I’ll figure something out.”

“SMOKE!”

The voice was loud, making both of them jump as it kept getting closer.

“Lord Liu Kang!”

To be continued….

[silversiren1101]

I would love to hear your take on Cheliax!

Ahhh Cheliax, my favorite Golarion nation! Everything about how it came to be with the Even-Tongued Conquest to the SHADOW that it has become. It is fascinating.

So Cheliax was formed in the earlier 4000s when this governor decided to just secede from Taldor when Taldor was dealing with Qadiran invasions, and he was so influential that he became known as the Aspex the Even-Tongue because of how little bloodshed happened with this 'conquest'. He took what would be Galt and Isger by force, but Andoran and the strix came through his diplomacy alone, and that is a remarkable feat. They even had a holiday for him called Even-Tongued Day!

You look at Cheliax now and it's like, okay, this nation that was formed from a relatively peaceful secession is now... run by literally devil fascist state where slavery is a state protected business and everyone is a second rate citizen if you're not a wealthy Egorian elite.

HOW?! It's uncomfortably close to some stuff in real life, but I really love to look at it in this fantasy lens.

Cheliax was the star of the Inner Sea. It was massive. It held everything from Korvosa in Varisia to Nidal to Isger to Galt and Andoran... that is HUGE. It was the fated land of prophecy, where Aroden was supposed to reappear in Golarion to herald the start of a new Age, the Age of Glory.

But it never came to pass.

Aroden straight up died (we think) and the entire country erupted into violent civil war.

For FORTY YEARS every noble family torn the entire country apart to take control for themselves. It was long and violent and bloody, with the areas that would be Galt and Andoren taking the opportunity to secede in the turmoil. The Hellknights even warred with each other, that's how bad it was. Different Orders pledges themselves to different families they thought backed their specific ideals and they tore themselves apart. Several orders rose up, unofficially formed from mercenary groups to desperately enforce order. Several Orders were erased from history with how ruthlessly they were eradicated by other Orders. That's how bad it was, that even the Hellknights were not a single unified force in this.

It wasn't until one family resorted to literally selling their entire line to Hell to win that the war started to turn. The Thrunes managed to convince the bulk of the Orders to back them (the Pyre and Thorn resisted, which, GOOD), and it was the single greatest mistake the Orders ever made. Restore law and order now and deal with the consequences later, because 40 years of civil war have passed and Cheliax won't be around any longer if we keep fighting...

And now the entire country has been sold to Hell by the Thrice-Damned House of Thrune. The once peaceful life with the strix is no more, as the armies of Cheliax try to eradicate them. They've lost Nidal and Korvosa and Kintargo and Galt and Andoran...

Cheliax is an infernal shadow of what it used to be, and nothing paints a better picture of this than the former capitol of Westcrown, whose pure white marble is cracking and still has entire districts left to rot, overrun with undead and thieves.

It's literally my dream to have a Civil War 2 AP. It's heavily implied that a few of the Orders are preparing for Thrune to turn on them: the Scourge in particular. The Erinyes Company is literally attacking Scourgeknights in the street and killing them. The Scourge has a hidden escape tunnel from Citadel Demain into the Barrowood. They are READY for this. I desperately want this AP. I want to drive a sword into Abrogail Thrune's heart and free Cheliax from her infernal chains.