#i regret nothing and I think about them a lot in god of war game canon. Aphrodite just loves this red-haired dork

[upn-the-sky]

Ares: *minding his own business Kratos: *dramatically crying for help somewhere on earth Ares: Are you serious? Right in front of my salad? Ares: *throwing away all his business and running to an aid ___

Yes, here is Ares/Aphrodite and eating some sea salted salad, because as Haephestus said in GOW3, Ares is a conquered god of war. And Ares kinda feels absolutely not ashamed of it, you know. But at the same time he has duties in his domain and plan of Olympus's fall.. And he wants to live his life in between. Anyway, the point is that time is running a bit differently for gods and for Olympus, okay? That's why Ares managed everything during the Kratos's prayer and jumped from the sky right in the moment to save his life. A god of good endings!

[coquettepascal]

felicitas and her general

summary: general acacius has caught your attention after being the first mortal to worship you in decades. you only face one challenge: don't get too attached.

warnings: rated g, contains spoilers for gladiator ii, follows the timeline of the movie somewhat, reader is the goddess felicitas (who is the goddess of good luck,) this fic is basically just an add on to the movie.

tags: goddess!reader x general acacius, emotional infidelity, lots of roman mythology stuff, writer is basing all her knowledge out of what she remembers from PJO and HoO, worship, complicated feelings, marcus does not cheat on lucilla physically, yearning, pining, grieving, guilt, major character death(s), stalking (kind of), a lot of obsession/dedication, angst, hurt no comfort but also hurt with comfort.

a/n: i watched gladiator ii and then was too emotionally devastated to finish this fic the way i planned. i really hope you all like this!! also, this fic is also dedicated to my dear friend @pascalssbabyy because she is my biggest cheerleader and i love her <33

wc: 7.2k (not beta read)

It was he who woke you.

A quiet sacrifice in the evening that felt like the freshest breath of air you could have, more intense than what you could have atop any mountain, near any spring. The scent of burning meat and smokey vegetables grasped at your lungs, and you almost choked on it. How long had it been since someone had offered you something so kind? Real food, not just scraps of something they didn’t wish for. 

You’d never complain about how difficult it is to be a minor Goddess, you know that you could be a mortal, but most don’t think of how Gods can fade. It’s a physical process, one where you’d notice how your fingertips passed through things like chalices and bowls, how a spoon slid through your hand once. The clatter of gold on the table was embarrassing, even though you were alone. Nothing about being forgotten, or fading, physically hurt. It was only mentally taxing, knowing that you weren’t as important as you once were, that mortals found you insignificant.

Generals used to come and offer things frequently sometime ago, but you couldn’t even begin to understand how long ago that was. When you’re immortal, or supposed to be, mortal lives seem fleeting. You had taken them for granted, and regret it now, for all you have now are the empty clouds above your temple. 

The last offering you can gather was from a young boy, who wanted to win a board game against his sister the next day. He had given you half a bun with strips of meat. Sure, it was thoughtful, but this was something rich. 

You finish inhaling the offering, and then hear the offerer's voice. But it’s muffled, and you want to see who it is anyways, so you swipe through the clouds and create a window to see. Then you can hear him clearly.

Someone who is clearly a general kneels at your altar, which is chipped and dirty. The ashes of the food are in front of him, smoking still, and you can taste the wealth in his meal. It can’t distract you from him though, he is striking.

Broad shoulders support a heavy, curly, grey, head of hair, which is bowed in honor of you. His body is widely built, sturdy for battle, and his voice is just as powerful. You’re so focused on hearing his voice you only catch the tail end of his request.

“... Allow me to come home safely, if not for Rome, then for my wife.”

Your heart squeezes, and you swear you can feel the ichor gushing through your veins. Scarcely when a General came to give you an offering all those years ago would he mention a wife, only ever wishing for luck in the upcoming battle or war. But here, now, you’ve been given a respectful request and offering. It isn’t a thought in your mind to not favor him now, your eyes closing and your mouth murmuring a blessing to him. It feels intoxicating to use some of your power again, especially on someone who asked for it. It also feels intoxicating to watch this General leave.

He looks around before he goes, seeming to note how degraded your small temple has become. The statue of you that lies ahead of your altar is yellowing, and ironically, multiple fingers have broken off. The General seems displeased by this, sighing as he exits the temple.

His gait is heavy, sandaled steps weighted as he walks down them and into the torch-lit night. You find yourself looking for him even after he’s disappeared from your sight, the warmth of gratefulness hugging around you. Part of you knows better than to play around with the thought, but still you wish to know more about him.

—

It worsens when he comes back. A few times a week he returns, offering rich foods. It’s been a month now, and you are coming back to life.

Fading didn’t feel like anything, but coming back feels like so much more. The first few offerings had your body feeling alight again, like the ichor in you was flowing again, but within the last two weeks you’ve gotten your fingertips back. They were tingling for a day and then the next you were able to properly grasp things again, nothing was slipping through you.

In that time you had also learned his name. A guard had come looking for him one night, and stood behind him whilst he prayed. You had found yourself smiling when he didn’t interrupt himself, instead acting aggravated once he had finished. The guard had apologized for interrupting and let him know that “Your wife wishes to speak to you, General Acacius.”

Acacius. 

You still don’t know his first name, but it is enough. You can think of it when you feel lonely, when you are bored. Something to associate with the offerings, with the blessings. The fact he has been so consistent hints at a desperation, which would usually repel you from blessing him, but he is the only one who seems to recognize you. His efforts are not going to go unseen by you, not when you have so little to do.

You can feel yourself conceding to your need to know him more, but just as you begin to fight yourself again, he shows up.

Tonight he’s dressed a little nicer. Usually he arrives in a plain tunic but this one has golden trim on it, and his hair is a little more tousled. He stumbles into your altar holding something in a cloth, but he’s walking like he’s… drunk? 

Acacius meanders to your altar, grabbing a torch along the way, and then empties the contents of the cloth. It produces a small dessert bun, a Libum, or honey cheesecake, and your mouth waters. So much of the food that is given to you is savory meats, masculine foods that are heavy on the senses, but this is sweet and delicate. You can, of course, eat whatever you’d like. You’re a Goddess, and though you aren’t major, you are still very fortunate.

But this feels thoughtful.

The General drops to his knees after lighting the bun ablaze, swaying slightly, and now you know he must be drunk.

“Goddess Felicitas,” he begins as normal, “I am sorry I am later than usual. Though I don’t know if Goddesses sleep. I was… caught up in other affairs, but I made it in time.”

He is less eloquent than usual and seems particularly focused on how it is nearly past midnight.

“I brought you this though,” he gestures to the half burnt bun. “I wanted to bring you something different than meat and… things. I thought a dessert would be fitting for that task.”

Acacius pauses now. His thoughts are probably muddled from whatever he drank, and you find yourself smiling. Foolery has never been so endearing to you.

“You have been listening to me, I suppose. My requests for luck in battle have been answered, as well as my safety being ensured. Your blessings have brought my wife peace of mind, something I could not previously afford to her.”

He looks so small in your temple tonight. Normally he is not so vulnerable, but his shoulders sag as he mentions his wife. Some sort of shame runs over him at the idea that he could not ease his wife’s worries, but it makes you feel better that you could help. 

“Goddess Felicitas, I come here tonight bearing no requests, just gratitude. Your blessings have soothed wounds I could not see, and I feel like a young soldier again. You invigor me.” 

Then, he leaves. 

You watch helplessly as he stumbles back down the steps and away from your temple, and more than ever you wish to chase him. The love he has for his wife is clear, and you hold no jealousy of that, but you wish it were you. Something in you is deeply attached to this General now. He has awoken you so much more than rekindling your power as a goddess, more than releasing you from the grief that comes with fading. Yes, Acacius has made your heart beat again, your mind curious again, and you feel seen. Being worshipped is not the same as being loved, if that were true you’d have had many children by now, 

But after so long being forgotten, this feels like what you remember being loved as.

—

You try not to interact with the other Gods for the most part. They tend to meddle in things they don’t need to, and are sensitive. You are not exempt from this stereotype, but that’s only more reason for the distance. 

But today, you venture to meet another deity.

Morpheus is not hard to find. He is pretty stationery where he is, usually lounging on a rock or bench near his temple, or above it in the clouds. He is a bit…dramatic, from what you remember, but wise. 

Today he is stretched out on a cloud above his temple, eyes shut. His pale skin stretches taut on his bones as his lean frame breathes deeply. But, he is not asleep. 

“Morpheus,” you speak. 

His body rolls toward your direction, eyes still shut, but a small smile on his face.

“O young goddess Felicitas, what brings you to me?” He questions.

It’s hard not to feel embarrassed. You’ve spoken to Morpheus on very rare occasions, but he’s always been somewhat helpful, though nosy. Dreams tell a lot about people, and when he’s the one giving them to people, it’s hard to hide anything at all.

You don’t want him to know of your true affection for General Acacius, just that he is… worthy of a visit. 

And so you begin to describe it to Morpheus, your need to visit Acacius. He doesn’t open his eyes at all, but he raises his eyebrows a lot and seems bemused at your situation. You’re only halfway through your rambling before he raises a gangly limb and waves at your words.

“Felicitas, you think you are the only Goddess wishing to visit her admirer? You need no explanation,” he says jovially. 

Morpheus reaches into the air and pulls 6 black berries into existence, then drops them into your open palm.

“When you know he is asleep, bite down on one of these and think of him,” he describes to you.

The berries smell like nothing, but a powdery residue is left on your skin as you roll them in your palm. It doesn’t repel you at all.

Tonight, you will visit him and express the same gratitude he did to you. 

—

Marcus lays next to his wife, Lucilla, with her hand in his. She fell asleep sometime ago, leaving him to lie awake by himself.

He didn’t make it to her temple tonight and the guilt is festering in his body. Marcus knows that she is a Goddess, that he probably isn’t a thought in her mind. He knows that he is just another whiney mortal, giving her food that isn’t nearly as good as whatever Gods eat. His insignificance grows as he feeds into his guilt. 

Stress has permeated his life for much of it, from his time as a young soldier up until now, as a General. Battles, politics, and his family, have created a breeding ground for him to be wracked with anxieties, but he stays strong. Thanks to his time in Felicitas temple, it’s been better.

Which is why failing to make it to her temple tonight is making him feel so bad.

He grabs at the linen sheets of his bed, stressing and trying to reassure himself until he falls asleep finally.

—

Being in a dream is weird. It feels much the same as it does when you disguise yourself as a mortal, the out of body experience is semi-familiar, but it’s weird because someone else is there.

You’ve been watching the General enjoy the lake in front of him for a few minutes now. He hasn’t slipped into it, but just walks along the waterline. It seems like he is looking for something. Surely his dreams usually contain more action, or perhaps are memories, so you assume it may be strangely understimulating for him.

The appearance you’ve chosen is one of modesty, but elegance. A seafoam green peplos hangs off your frame delicately, with golden clasps at the wrists and waist. You did your hair so it would be tucked out of your face. There is no guarantee that Acacius will recognize you like this, but you look much like your statue that’s within your temple.

Swallowing your nerves, you shimmer yourself into visibility. The grassy field is odd beneath your feet, and you walk toward him with uncertainty in each step. You’ve never met with a mortal before, and you haven’t stepped on anything earthy in a long while. His broad stature only becomes more daunting as you get closer, especially since he seems so focused.

You will have to speak first. You’re much too quiet in this environment, and you must act fast lest he wake before you get his attention.

“General Acacius,” you speak firmly, though your hands shake. 

This is so unfamiliar to you. You’ve barely even seen his face, as he’s usually bowed at your altar. It is the first time you’ll see him at an equal level, the first time you’ll have brought yourself to him rather than him to you. 

He turns quickly, an instinctual aggressiveness toward the unknown. You stand about 10 feet from him, eyes widening.

Acacius is striking. His nose is what you focus on first, strong in shape and line, but behind it are his eyes which look to you with wide acknowledgement. His hair curls around his head in greying ringlets, like a permanent laurel crowning him. The wide expanse of his back was once impressive, but now you can see the solid wall which he becomes when facing you. Nothing could push him over it seems, a man built to stand.

Your heart squeezes the way it did the first time he gave you a request, a tender rush tingling your whole body. No words come out of either of your mouths, and the General drops to one knee instantly. 

He recognizes you.

“Goddess Felicitas,” he rushes out in a breath. His chest is heaving as he bows his head and no, no this isn’t how you want this.

Your feet are moving before you can focus on your anxiety, bringing you so close to him that you can kneel too. Maybe a goddess should not kneel before a mortal general, but you are just on your knees rather than putting yourself below him. Your peplos billows a little as air rushes through it when you hit the grass.

He is above you like this, and you tilt your head to see his face again. His strong brow is furrowed, eyes squeezed shut like he is afraid of you. 

“Acacius,” you say softly, “I am not here for… for ill reason. Please relax yourself.”

You lean back as he relaxes, head tipping upwards as he kneels in front of you as well. Now you can meet his eyes, see the crinkles that are beside them, and really take him in.

An energy of anxiety is shared wordlessly, with him stiff from the sight of a literal goddess, and you with the fear of… something. 

The identity of your anxieties isn’t something that you can figure out. Maybe it’s too much to see such a handsome mortal, or maybe it’s that you’re going to thank him for his offerings so personally. Maybe it’s humiliation from this act. What would other Gods think of this? Is it not degrading to become so attached to a mortal? Are you no better than Zeus or Hermes, the gods who interact too intimately with mortals? 

The sound of his labored breathing alerts you, calls your attention back to the present moment. 

“I wanted to thank you,” you admit meekly, “for your offerings. You have been very generous and… devoted.”

His eyes are shifty, and you can see the terror in him still. You don’t want him to fear you, but you can understand why. Visits from Gods or other deities can mean trouble, but you aren’t significant like that.

“General Acacius you are the first mortal who has acknowledged me in a long time,” you offer a vulnerability, perhaps trying to soothe him.

It feels so backwards for you to be kneeling in front of him, speaking. He has done so in front of your altar for many weeks now, but now the spots are switched, yet you are still in power. You avert your gaze as you speak up, wanting to request something of him.

“You’ve been so generous to me, General, I was hoping to know more about you.”

And now, rather than scared, he seems suspicious. 

“To know me?” He clarifies. 

You nod.

“I only know your last name. I think I could offer more luck and splendor if we were more… personal.” 

Gods that felt awful to say. You’re no better than the whorish brutes on their thrones, offering petty glories for intimacy. Everything feels flirtatious but that’s not what you’re looking for. Acacius has a wife he clearly loves, you would never want to interrupt that. 

He seems to hesitate, but he knows he cannot refuse you. So far your blessings have brought ease to his life, he wouldn’t want to lose that.

“Then… yes, I suppose I can offer myself if it would please you.” He responds stoically. 

And it does please you, to know his name. Marcus Acacius, the one who woke you, the one who has saved you from being a fragmented memory within the temples. 

Marcus Acacius, who you are too fond of.

—

You visit him 3 more times. In an attempt to space out the usage of the berries Morpheus gave you, you only visit him once a week. The bleak tasting berries are sour on your tongue, a rotten sour which lingers once you wake up, but it’s worth it.

The two of you have grown closer, with Marcus opening up more. He tells you about the stresses in his life, how much anxiety is buried in him. But, he’s confident for the sake of his wife. You’ve learned that her name is Lucilla, and much more about her. Marcus talks about her a lot, in passing or retelling something she told him. In the small amount of time you’ve gotten to know him, you’ve gotten to know her as well.

It burns you with a strange warmth, a desire and envy which makes your stomach growl. You are hungry for him to admire you in the same way, to speak of you, but doesn’t he already? Shame grips your throat when you think of it. You are a Goddess who he sacrifices to, who he wishes to have blessings from. What more do you need? A mortal couldn't offer you what another deity could. 

After the fourth meeting, you found yourself lonely. Lazing back in the clouds above your temple, you woke with a deep hunger. Marcus is beautiful, an admirable man, and he loves passionately. You are already being such a glutton for even speaking with him, meeting with him repeatedly, so why must you yearn for him too? 

Worship isn’t enough, you want what you will never let yourself to have.

Nothing hints that he might feel similarly. His starry gaze which lands on you is not due to your beauty, your personality, or anything more. You have blessed him, and that is why his eyes glitter. Goddess status has never made you feel so low and isolated. Still, you are happy to help him achieve what he wishes, even as it cripples your heart.

Tonight you plan on visiting him. That fourth visit was a week and a half ago, he may be wondering where you are. He still comes to your altar each night, but the prayers are less personal. Marcus saves his stories and ramblings for when the two of you are in the field, or near the lake, when the two of you are really alone.

—

You bite into the berry at around midnight. Its tangy yet death-tasting juice floods your mouth, clinging to the crevices between your teeth and staining your gums. Closing your eyes, you think of Marcus, and his curls, and his eyes, and his nose, and his strong hands.

And then you are there, and he is waiting. 

It seems like his subconsciousness has picked to be at the lake today, and he’s sat in the sand at the edge of the water. You walk over to him, but notice how… down he appears to be.

“She is not happy with me,” Marcus confesses before you even sit down.

You stand a few feet back from him, looking at how his curls fall around his bowed head.

“Lucilla?” You ask softly.

He nods.

A wicked feeling begins to steep in your heart. She is upset with him, he is in need of you for something more than a blessing. 

And so you listen. 

It’s one of the longer meetings the two of you have had. Marcus doesn’t cry, but he seems truly upset. He’s been called to go off somewhere far again, to fight and kill. Reassurances that you will protect him as best you can only soothe him so much. 

He doesn't care if he dies, he cares that his beloved is distraught over this. 

The more the two of you talk, the closer you get. There are marks on the sand from where you originally sat, but now you kneel in front of him, with creased brows and worried eyes. This isn’t something you can fix, you aren’t familiar with love and its intricacies. 

His knees were tucked closer to his chest before, but they’ve loosened now and his fists rest atop them, clenching. Frustration sits on his face like a mask, one you wish to take off him.

Touching is not… something either of you partake in. Sometimes your shoulders will brush when you sit together, but nothing more has ever been initiated. 

That is why it doesn’t surprise you when he flinches as your hand reaches out to rest on top of his right clenched fist. 

“Marcus,” you say softly, wanting to offer comfort, but he cuts you off.

“Don’t,” he replies swiftly.

At first it hurts, watching as he waves off your hand from his own, but then you look at his face rather than where your hands were joined. The frustrated look on his face is gone, replaced with something worse, something guilty. His eyes aren’t glittering at you like usual, nor are they hardened with anger.

They’re soft pools of conflict that mirror your own.

It doesn’t soothe your burn, satiate your envy. You can see in his eyes that maybe you aren’t alone in these feelings of admiration, of want, but maybe this is not what you want.

Maybe you want a different universe, one where he doesn’t have to be a mortal and you, a Goddess. So you wouldn’t have to worry about him dying, and have this friendship survive off death flavored berries. Maybe you want a universe where he isn’t married, where he could be yours and you wouldn’t feel like a spectator to his heart.

Maybe you want that, but you won’t get it.

Instead the flames of jealousy die in your chest and are replaced with tumors of guilt. Your whole body feels bloated, embarrassed, and ugly. 

The pair of you stare at each other, a stupid realization between the both of you as you realize that your secrets have been spilled, even though it’s the same one.

His eyes don’t move from yours, so you move from his.

The sandy edge of the lake does not look so bright now, even though there are no clouds in Marcus’s dream. 

“When do you leave?” You ask softly. 

You will not follow him into whatever battle he’ll win. Don’t embarrass yourself, Goddess.

He tells you two weeks. You say you’ll see him before then.

Then you wake on a cloud again, with a cavity of guilt in your chest.

—

Marcus wakes alone. 

Lucilla had not wanted to sleep with him that night, choosing to stay elsewhere. She didn’t tell him where, she left in a quiet flurry of tears and anguish.

It’s easier for him to feel guilt over his Goddess than it is to hurt his beloved, even if it is the same.

In a moment of frustration he grasps at the sheets, turning over and biting at his pillow. The bed is so cold, and the room smells like stale air even though the window is open, the night breezy. 

He knows she is beautiful because she is a Goddess. All Goddesses are beautiful, ethereal beings that mortals cannot even comprehend at times. Marcus knows he is lucky to even perceive her, for her to have chosen to visit him.

Yet through all her blessings, he feels cursed.

A plague of emotional infidelity is crawling through his body, sticking to his bones and making him stiff. Everything he does has felt flat for so long, from pretending he is grateful to the Emperors, to now pretending nothing is wrong in his marriage. He’s scared, and exhausted.

Marcus rubs a hand over his face after rolling over and sitting up in bed, groaning into his palm. 

At first he tried to blame her for it. What would a Goddess want from a successful General other than a demigod hero son? What could truly be so special about him? He assumed she was manipulating him, using some sort of power to morph his heart, but now he knows it is not true.

If she had wanted to, she would have had him by now, and he knows this. If she had wanted to, her hand would have stayed where it was tonight, and pushed him further. It isn’t unlike the Gods to force themselves on a mortal, but she didn’t.

Instead, his hand feels hot where hers rested, and his mind is spinning. 

Marcus doesn’t fall asleep again, afraid that he’ll see her. 

—

You wait for a full two weeks before you visit him again. He had been coming to your temple less, and you had assumed he was busy with preparations for the coming battle. 

The stubbornness you felt that night has not left you. At first you did not leave your temple in fear that you would grow attached, now you remain there because you have grown attached. 

“Enough is enough,” you had thought to yourself. 

But it is hard not to miss him, and his soothing prayers. The way his offerings tasted of smoke and sweet, and how he’d always burn such a large portion. Marcus never gave you scraps, he seemed to refuse to. 

However, you can only distance yourself so far. 

It is quiet when you approach him. He is sitting in the field this time, the lake a distant glitter in your eyes. He does not face you, but his head isn’t bowed like before.

“Marcus,” you greet, your voice muted.

He raises his head, turning over his shoulder and nodding, as if to direct you to come closer, and so you do.

Tonight’s visit isn’t vulnerable, or even pleasant. Marcus seems so distant as he dryly tells you about how he’s preparing, and his wishes to return safely. His eyes barely meet your own as he talks, and he continuously twists the ring on his finger.

It grows tiring, watching him ramble about politics you could care less about, listening to him say things that have nothing to do with him. He’s so far from the friend you thought you had made. When the air between you goes quiet, you don’t fill it for a while. You listen to the sound of the wind in the grass as his eyes still will not meet yours. It’s breaking you apart.

This is the last night you’re able to visit him, unless you visit Morpheus again. You will not waste it like this.

“What is ailing you, General?” You ask, deciding to prod more than you usually do.

To your surprise, he scoffs in light laughter.

“You,” he responds quietly.

His words don’t hurt, at least not yet. You have the option to walk away now, wake yourself and leave him with his final blessings, but of course you don’t.

“Me?” You ask, “what have I done?”

Marcus rolls his shoulders back, lifting his head to look into the everblue sky above the both of you.

“You have made my life difficult, Goddess.”

Difficult? You have made his life difficult?

You have half a mind to tear him to pieces, curse him with something awful like snakes for toes, or spoons for teeth. After all that you’ve done for him, all the safety you’ve provided, he is telling you that you make things difficult? How dare he? Be outraged, Goddess, for he disrespects the holy luck which you bestowed to him.

That’s what you should think, that’s how most of you should feel.

But instead you feel small, and hurt. Yes, he is disrespecting all that you’ve given, but also you feel like a failure. Your physical existence is because of him, because he did not let you fade. All you wanted to do was make his life easier, help him to have an eased mind and a safer life.

But instead, he’s telling you you’re difficult.

It feels like your body is shrinking in the white peplos you’ve worn, the sheer fabrics swallowing you. Shame is flooding in the form of tears behind your eyes, wetting your orbs with an unexpected outburst of emotion.

“I am sorry,” you manage weakly.

Marcus does not look at you while you cry, and you want to believe it is because he cares too much to watch, but you cannot verify that.

The wind picks up again, but it does nothing to hide the soft cries you can’t hold back. Once you were a fading Goddess, now you are just a failing one.

There is no luck involved with love.

Eventually he speaks again, with his head turned away from you.

“I am sorry too,” he says. There’s a finality in his tone that makes you ache.

So much is said in such little words. He is sorry to you, for you, and with you. A sorrow is shared between the two of you, knowing that your hearts ache for one another as they are worlds apart yet on earth together. 

This last berry was only supposed to mark the end of your visits, not the end of everything. It feels like this is all there is for the two of you, since it’s too complicated to continue on like this.

That’s why he doesn’t move away when you move closer and rest your head on his shoulder as tears leak down your cheeks, or at least that’s what you’ll believe. 

—

Time moves weirdly when you’re immortal, but it all happens so quickly.

Marcus stopped coming to offer things for you, and so you were blessing him less. Admittedly you had kept an eye on him, but not a keen one. It didn’t feel right, not when you and him weren’t… friends anymore.

But this feels too soon, too fast, too unfamiliar. Has your sadness caused you to be blind?

You watch as a man kneels in front of Marcus, panting and bloody with a sword beside him on the ground.

The only reason you are here was because you had felt the roar of a crowd all the way at your own temple, a wide distance away. It had drawn you in, and instead you had found this.

That roaring which you had heard crescendos to a new height around you as you shimmer into existence, cloaking yourself to the mortal eyes in the stands of the coliseum, but existing enough to touch him.

Arrows stick out of his front, more crushed beneath his back, as he is slumped on the white, gravel, ground. His hair is curled with tacky blood streaking through it, and he is so, so, still.

You drag your hand across his forehead, feeling the remaining heat, and in the echo of the crowd you begin to sob. 

Everything around you is moving, changing, fighting, and screaming, but you sit invisible in the center of the coliseum, running your hands over the now dead General Acacius. There is nothing you can do to bring him back, to ease Lucilla, to save him and apologize. He is dead beneath your fingers, with arrows lodged deep in his irreparable, mortal, flesh. 

You were supposed to keep him safe.

Hot tears run down your cheeks as you keep grasping at his armor, unable to move him or yourself. The last visit felt official, but this feels final. There is nothing more for you here, no friendship in a corpse.

Thoughts are running through your mind at the rate that your breath is puffing from your chest. The question of where he will end up in the afterlife is overwhelming you, and the chance for him to go to Elysium feels reasonable. It’s where he should be, where he deserves to go, especially after all he had done for Rome. You don’t even care why he’s here, or why he seems to have been brutally killed, but after the time you spent with him, Elysium seems right for him.

—

It’s where he should be. Elysium is where he should be.

And it’s where you find him.

His place there is somewhat similar to his and Lucilla’s home back in the mortal world, with lush greenery and airy drapes that flutter in various colours. It seems like he has left space for Lucilla here too, with space left in the chests for her things, and a permanently made half of the bed.

Elysium offers a true celebration of life for heroes, demigodly or not, and you’re sure Marcus has been enjoying that. Anything that he had been shackled to in his mortal life was gone now, and it seems that all he would have to miss is his wife. 

Most of your time is spent there, in his afterlife home. You peer from behind curtains when he comes back, hidden in drapes and keeping yourself small. 

He is already dead, but after the last time you abandoned him, you cannot bear to leave him alone again.

The vision of him, bloodied and murdered on the coliseum floor, flickers into your mind every time you see him lying in his bed. It’s an obsession to be near him, to be looking after him. Pluto might not even know you’re down here anymore, but what does it matter?

Marcus Acacius was the last living mortal to worship you. In the underworld, you are beginning to fade. Your fingers are slipping from you again, which is making it easier to lurk near him, but it is a painful process.

You want to speak to him. No longer do you yearn for his love, not after being in his home and seeing how dedicated his heart truly is to Lucilla, but you yearn to speak to him again. A panicked emotion runs through you at the thought of fading alone, of being entirely forgotten. 

It didn’t matter before he died, fading was just something bound to happen, but now it’s more. Is he forgetting you?

—

You’ve lost most of your arms by the time you work up the courage to speak up. Lucilla arrived sometime ago, joining Marcus in the afterlife. Watching them together brought some warmth to you, some kind of happiness that you couldn’t have for yourself, but seeing it for him was enough.

You sit on the terrace of their home, invisible to their eyes, and somewhat to your own. From the tips of your fingers to just below your elbows, you are a specter. Grey shadow fills where your limbs used to be, and they pass through all objects. You couldn’t tap his shoulder if you tried.

Oftentimes you sit, hidden, and ponder by yourself about more than Marcus. There were so many things you were adamant about when he was alive, and you regret it all now. Your determination to avoid your feelings, or at least not show them, and your need to not become attached… it bites at you now, a stinging, grieving, venom, that won’t leave. Your status as a Goddess blinded you to how tender that friendship could have been, and now you sit as a ghost spectator to his afterlife, obsessed with a mortal as a fading immortal. 

The tips of your fingers pass through the glass you try to grab as you think of this on the terrace. You’re glad that you’re such a minor deity, so at least you do not have to feel so humiliated about fading. A smile has just graced your face as you feel blessed for being so unimportant you can essentially stalk this mortal, when suddenly his voice cuts through the humid air of the space.

“Felicitas?” Marcus’ voice asks.

It’s so hesitant that you think you’re imagining it. You thought you had their home to yourself right now, thinking they had gone to do… whatever souls do in Elysium, but when you turn your face, he is there.

Marcus has not worn fancy clothing in a long while now, and right now is no different. He stands before you in a plain looking tunic, which just graces his knees. To see him at ease has been so nice, but he looks distressed at your sudden appearance.

You cannot find your voice as you awkwardly stand up, trying to think quickly. There is no good way to explain what you’re doing here, hidden away in him and his wife’s home. You could just vanish into thin air, but that feels wrong. He has seen you already, any attempts at pretending you aren’t here would be ridiculous.

His eyes scroll from your face down to your arms, and the smoking shadows that used to be there. Concern pinches onto his face with knitted brows and pressed together lips.

Something in you wants him to turn away, so you don’t have to think about why he is worried for you, even after all the trouble you caused, but he doesn’t.

His sandaled steps are heavy as he comes to you, reaching for your hands but finding the gesture fruitless as his own slip right through yours.

“Dulcissima,” he speaks weakly, shock woven in his words.

You had told him about fading a little while ago, when the two of you were in that field. Now it seems the severity of it has hit him.

What is hitting you is the name. Dulcissima, or sweetest. How long had it been since you had been referred to so fondly? All at once you are being remembered, recognized, and shown some affection. It feels like too much and tears are falling out of your control.

“I’m sorry,” you manage, “I was supposed to– to keep you safe.”

Marcus is shaking his head already, refusing your apology.

“No, no. You did keep me safe, you did. I pushed you away, I couldn’t control myself and I caused this,” he argues. 

It does not comfort you that you both blame yourselves. You wish to reach out to him and touch his face like you should have when he was warm and alive. You want to know if he is cold now, and it’s as if he hears you.

Marcus places a hand on your cheek, a softness in his eyes and hold that says that he missed you.

“I saw you,” he claims, “when I was on the ground. You were the last thing I saw.”

Somewhere between life and death for mortals, there are moments of godly clarity. Some see the light, others see their families and memories, but in that tiny glimpse of time, some see Gods. 

He was able to see you as you knelt over him, sobbing as you were cloaked to any mortal's naked eye.  You were the last thing he saw, and the last thing he truly regretted. 

All you can do is stiltedly nod at him, feeling like you were in trouble even though it seems he’s not upset.

For a moment, his eyes flick away, contemplative, but then he meets your gaze again.

“I told Lucilla of you, before I died. Not– not of my feelings which I struggled with, but that you were a close friend, a blessing in many ways.”

A blessing in many ways.

Another choked sob is wracked from your chest, your bottom lip curling out embarrassingly as your face contorts. He almost coos at you, the thumb on your cheek rubbing away your tears.

“Goddess, I have missed you,” he admits. 

Stupid nods are all you can offer, your voice imprisoned in your ever tightening throat which cries. When he was alive he was never this tender, too confused and insecure to ever touch you, but it seems he has been regretting things too.

“Felicitas,” he says quietly, “do you come here for ill reason?”

You shake your head this time, rather than nodding. You have no reason to be here, other than the fact that guilt has taken over your mind and heart since he died.

“Then relax, dulcissima. I have an offering for you.”

Marcus relaxes his stature, eyes still gazing over you. He looks at your fading palms and you watch him swallow nervously.

“I will worship you again, lending you offerings here, and all I ask in return is for our friendship again.”

It’s the opposite of how you met, almost completely, but it’s everything you need. You will not fade, he will not struggle in marriage, and you will have one another again. 

Again, you are nodding stupidly, but soon you’re embraced by him and nodding into his chest. His hands grasp at your back as he tells you how much he missed you in his final weeks, how he regrets losing you entirely, how he requires you as a friend. 

You are satiated in his arms as he comforts you, awakening you again there on the terrace. Unbeknownst to you, Marcus has let tears slip down too as he holds you close. 

“You will keep me safe here?” he asks jokingly.

It makes you smile, the idea of offering luck to a man who already died.

“Yes, General. I will keep you safe here, from all the horrifying glory and splendor,” you assure.

The two of you laugh, breaking the embrace but staying close. A passionate connection is still between the two of you, but in a different way now. Maybe when he was alive it was romantic because it is all you could think of, but through his death the two of you have come to understand it more. 

You require one another in a unique way, and leaning on one another does not have to be intimate the way he is with his wife. Marcus does need you, just as you need him, and now that you are both immortal in a way, you will never be separated again.

please leave a comment, like, reblog, askbox, or ANYTHING. i'd love to hear thoughts on this <33

tags (people who seemed excited for this) (sorry if these dont work)

@pascalssbabyy , @moonshapedflan , @gossipgirl-03 , @kyloispunk , @frannyzooey , @coocoolahh , @bug-boy32 , @honeymarvel , @magicalmorg , @1deakybass , @tuquoquebrute , @harryshousewhore , @teeagain, @chewie-bars , @vampyyweek , @queenslandlover-93 , @amijenn , @aquanatalie

[theninth09]

What kind of video games I think Thiam likes, a headcanon list

Theo's Favorites

theo loves souls games and hes incredibly good at them. his favorite used to be bloodborne until elden ring came out. he spent days holed up in his apartment playing it until liam dragged him outside for fresh air. liam played elden ring as well, but theo basically carried him the entire time and solo'd malenia for him

liam suggested that theo should play hollow knight and theo was skeptical at first because of the art style, but ended up really liking it

liam knows about theo having been a star wars nerd as a kid, so his first ever gift to him is jedi: fallen order. theo loves it and buys jedi: survivor (the sequel) as soon as it comes out

theo really likes final fantasy and his favorite is ffvii. liam has never played the games, but he thinks that cloud is really hot (iykyk)

Liam's Favorites

liam has always liked the god of war series, because of the references to greek mythology and the playstyle. gow: ragnarök made him extremely emotional and it immediately became his favorite from the entire series

he likes fighting style games, like mortal kombat and super smash bros. he doesnt mention this often, especially not around new people, because hes afraid that people will comment on his choice of game in relation to his IED. he just genuinely likes to play them, it has nothing to do with his disorder. the first time theo plays against him, theo is so normal about it and doesnt make a single mean comment. it helps liam to immediately relax and just have fun without worrying

funnily enough, liam also likes stealth games. especially assassin's creed (he likes the historical aspects of it) and hitman. theo finds this absolutely hilarious as liam kinda sucks at being stealthy in real life and teases him that he finds theo attractive because theo is so good at being stealthy

Games They Both Like

they tried playing outlast together but had to stop pretty quickly because it was too triggering for both of them (theo got triggered worse, but liam wasnt comfortable either)

they like playing two-player games together (eg: bokura, it takes two, unravel two) and while they argue and bicker the entire time, they're also extremely efficient and get through everything quite fast bc they make such a good team

they both like resident evil and compare the monsters in the games to real monsters they've fought before. liams favorite is re3 and his favorite character is jill, while theos favorite is re4 and his favorite character is ada

both like the legend of zelda. liams favorite is twilight princess (he likes that you can pick up the cats & dogs in it, he finds link, zelda & midna hot and you can turn into a wolf in it) while theos favorite is ocarina of time (liam thinks hes basic for that)

since they both like the spider-man movies and comics, they both also enjoy the games

DnD isnt something either of them is usually interested in, but liam buys baldur's gate three because he got curious. liam romances shadowheart on his first playthrough and theo gets interested after liam finishes it. theo ends up romancing wyll and liam teases him the entire time since theo has to play without picking the evil choices because of that

Games They Play with the Puppy Pack

Mario Kart (they all get extremely competitive)

Phasmophobia (liam and alec scream a lot)

Among Us (the entire puppy pack warns alec that this is not a good idea, but alec persists until theo indulges him. as predicted, theo is way too good at being sneaky & lying and gets banned for life from playing)

Games Alec forces Theo to Play

PlateUp! (alec regrets this almost immediately bc theo gets weirdly intense about it and orders him around)

Minecraft (alec just wants to show off all his buildings and the animals he tamed, but theo ends up helping him actually finish the game)

Dress To Impress (theo "secret fashion icon" raeken always gets first place and it really pisses alec off)

Doki Doki Literature Club! (alec has no idea what its actually about and theo is very unimpressed when they start playing it. alec is extremely shocked and has these teary puppy dog eyes upon the twist and theo laughs at him)

part 2 here

[peachyfnaf]

I'm sorry but "MY BEAUTIFUL PRINCESS WITH A DISORDER<3" really made my day and I needed you to know

🤣🤣🤣

I can't believe Nexus is bullying peepaw war criminal.

Do you think Nexus is going to be stopped by big bro Sun or do you think the lil guy is going beyond the point of no return?

(Please talk about baby cringe Lord Nexus, I want to hear about your blorbo 🙏)

That's because Nexus IS my beautiful princess with a disorder, I'll have you know <3 they're diseased but it's okay I can give them their tetanus and flu shots and it'll all be better I GOT THIS

But. ahem, okay, blorbo yapping time. I'm not even gonna say "I'll try to keep this short" because I know it wont end up that way HAHAHAHAHA

"Do you think Nexus is going to be stopped by big bro Sun or do you think the lil guy is going beyond the point of no return?"

I... have absolutely no idea!!!1! (and also it took me an embarrassingly long amount of time to realize peepaw war criminal was Ruin KJDFHSDF)

The most frustrating thing about canon Nexus is how his morals, motivations, and goals seem to see-saw back and forth all the time. at first, he became how he is now due to Solar's death. he spiraled in his grief, identity-issues, and abandonment. but... now his motivation is to become an all powerful god??? while it's most likely that NSP is at play and affecting his thought process, it's... well, it's really hard to take him seriously as a villain because of it, lol. for an audience to enjoy, and even sympathize in some cases, with a villain, their goals and motivations have to be concrete. they have to be relatable, or at least understandable, but Nexus' whole thing is... not, Imho. and I know I'm not the only person who feels this way!!!

I see a lot of people calling Nexus "cringe", and the thing is, when it comes to canon Nexus, they're not really... wrong??? The worst thing Nexus has done so far is make Old Moon see his past victims, which is fucked up of him to do, but.. so far, that's kind of it??? other than that, his "villainy" consists of saying empty threats and cheesy evil one-liners. hell, he was supposed to kidnap Sun yesterday but instead spent the whole episode yapping and venting to him, chasing Sun around in the worlds darkest game of tag before getting some lead right in the face dkfjhsdfsd

Also, notice how he's only targeted Old Moon when it comes to actual physical violence? not Lunar, Earth, Solar, or Sun, but Old Moon? yeah, I did too. we already know that Nexus does everything because he's lashing out, but as of rn the only target he's gotten his hands on physically being O.M...? well. I think it says a lot. cause' yeah, he sure as shit scared the life out of the other Celestials, but he's never put his hands on them!! the only other one of them he harmed physically was Earth- and not only was he not aiming for her, she was just in the way- he felt immediate regret for his actions once in space, and has yet to even see Earth ever since that day.

So, I really have no idea if he's going to be "redeemed" or not. one second he's showing signs he might be, and the next he's falling further down the "pretty badly written villain" rabbit-hole. if he does get something akin to a redemption arc, he'll prolly mostly be accepted in the eyes of the viewers, considering a lot of peeps sympathize or at least understand where he's coming from, but I seriously doubt the other Celestials would take him back. the only one's who might see him as family/a close friend again are Sun and Solar, but even then, nothing would ever be the same.

I hope he gets redeemed, or at least freed from the hold Dark Sun has on him and he's able to live his own life, I really do. at his core, Nexus is a good person. a good person who was crushed under the weight of the shadow of the man he was born under. and we know this because he used to be New Moon. sweet, dorky New Moon.

New Moon, who made inventions like sentient knives and whoopee cushions. New Moon, who had matching My Little Pony stickers with his best friend. New Moon, who bought a whole ass island-luxury-house for Sun because he wanted to make him feel better and give him the proper space to heal. and New Moon- the poor freshly-baked A.I who gave his all to make sure he could do everything that Old Moon could, but it just wasn't enough. he tried and tried and tried, but it wasn't enough.

So yeah, idk if he's getting one in canon, but to me, he more than deserves a good ending, for the life he was given. let him be at peace.

[cconfusedkat]

Ok w the power of autism i have a list of au's i wish to make drawings for more one day

from normal au's related to game

mystic pursuit (main au i talk and draw for anyways) (mystic seller & lamb ocs centered + lamb/allure)

six sheeps of sanheim: a hypothetical au where if mystic never got involved with the murders of the six lambs and instead lived a normal life (which means pre hurt bishops & normal childhood of allure & their mother zainab)

bad ending au: if mystic got ahold of the archangelo's horn relic and eventually (quite literally) ending the world (extremely cheesy i know but its still rlly fun to think about

regretful war & regretful wisdom (goat + ram centered au with the one who wilts) (also the only au to be within ANOTHER au! Crazy) (<- mystic pursuit & rwrw go together basically)

plague et death (ewe centered au + the one who rots) (the one who rots is a toww kallamar , cuz her ears stapled to a post are her form of punishment)

pestical hymn (sozo vessel centered au + the poisonous one) (the poisonous is toww heket , sozo upset heket cuz he was supposed to be sent to a different god when being sacrificed but ended up in Heket's domain)

fool's fidem (toww leshy au but i cant rlly figure out much plot for it yet still)

a lamb's rat (lamb/allure toww au) (lamb imprisons knucklebones crew nd ratau has to save each of them but he doesnt know that lamb imprisoned them til the end)

vampyrs of the old faith (already drew for it but still I want to make more stuff) (essentially a vampyr au with four big coven powers of each vampyr bishop && vampyr hunters such as sozo/monch/forneus etc)

And like four other modern au's lmao- one is a rockstar centered au with its cheesiness as a plot, another is where the bishops nd lamb/goat/ram live until the modern era and begin adjusting to the 20th century, another two idk how to explain the plots of but its definitely there Somewhere

Nd then media related nonsense-

lamby playtime (poppy playtime au) (might have to go back nd forth to one of my friends for this au though) (hi jyoung im gonna bother you so much more about this au-)

cultist kindergarten (,,garten of banban au) (im so sorry its a special interest PLEASE blame my mascot plagued brain)

great cult of 1712 (self explanatory reference to great comet of 1812)

ghost au with the bishops as the papas (self explanatory)

sister location au (self explanatory)

slay the fleur (stp au ,, except its wiltgoat && it sorta explains their doomedness together dldkskdsl)

stex (self explanatory) (sorta) (no not really. Umm starlight express except lamb is rusty probably)

cats (musical) (nothing can explain this. Im so sorry) (blame jyoung again /j.)

hocus pocus au (self explantory)

epic au (sorta self explanatory)

Ok thats all i got o7 when i say this game has ruined my life I Mean It. Nine months of brainrot nd more unmentioned au's i think about a lot

[aikoiya]

LoZ - Hylia as a Character

Honestly, I really like the fact that Zelda/Hylia admits, rather openly, in fact, that what she did was wrong. Then, she owns up to it.

They could've gone the route that "this is destiny, you must" or made it seem like something entirely righteous & that the fact that it saves everyone automatically makes it okay, but the writers didn't.

What happened. What Hylia put into place was a necessary evil, but still wrong by its very nature of being a necessary EVIL. She manipulated Link, not because she wanted to, or because she was a bad person, but because it was the ONLY way that she could see things working out for the benefit of as many people involved as possible.

Still doesn't make it right, but it makes it understandable. Which are 2 very different things. And I've seen a lot of people conflating the 2. For whatever reason not realizing that you can understand why someone did something & that that something can still be wrong or morally questionable. And that these are 2 things that can exist at the same time.

Because Zelda said it best, "it was a war." It wasn't like what SS Link had experienced, where he was fighting most enemies one on one & it was really only himself who was in danger at a given moment. There were battles with armies & even the game says that the demons killed without mercy. In situations like that, you might have to do things that compromise your own morals & I just...

It makes Hylia so much more human in a way. She's not like the 3 golden goddesses who you only really interact with individuals who have their names & who may just be people that resemble them. (Minish Cap, Oracle of Seasons, & Oracle of Ages.) SS Zelda actually remembers being Hylia.

Thus meaning that SS Link's interaction with SS Zelda in that scene before putting herself to sleep, was the closest interaction any Link has ever had with an actual higher deity.

You get her actual opinion. Her regrets, her apologies. Seriously, she apologizes repeatedly. While it may be filtered through Zelda, who obviously cares very deeply about Link (yes, I ship zelink here, what of it), as she said, she was both Hylia & Zelda. Specifically, still Link's Zelda.

And I... I can't hate Hylia as a result.

Which causes me to not really understand the Hylia hate that I've seen here & there.

Like, it isn't Hylia's fault that she, Link, & Ganondorf were cursed. That was all The Bringer of Demise & his toddlerish butthurt over losing to not just a mortal, but a mortal teen. He cursed them, not Hylia. And what exactly do people think Hylia could've done?

What were her other options? She wasn't a goddess anymore at the time! And we dont even know the rules regarding the Hyrulean gods! There could be some sort of rule of non-interference or only indirect interference unless you give up your godhood that we don't know about!

And, if she hadn't done something, then think about what could've happened as a result.

According to the information that we currently have, Demise would've taken over & made a wish that we don't even know. Not only that, but he had apparently been killing so many humans that Hylia felt the need to lift pieces of land into the air via nothing but magic to keep Demise away from them! Like putting a toy up too high for a kid to reach.

This suggests that they nearly went extinct!

Also keep in mind that she literally gave up her godhood to keep everyone safe!! That's... that's huge!

Also, I hate that there are fans out there who blame Sky for them being cursed!

Dude just finished a fight with a Daimaō (yōkai general). A battle that involved a LOT of lightning striking the Master Sword, which is known to cause temporary deafness, disorientation, ect.

He likely wasn't even aware that the Bringer of Demise had cursed him & Zelda both.

The only person anyone should be blaming here is Demise.

Though, that does bring into question why Fi didn't notify Link of this fact.

LoZ Cultural Masterlist

[fanficapologist]

Oof, here we go!! Maera went there!! I couldn’t believe what I just read. I thought I was hallucinating the words.

Oooh the nerve of Aemond, I mean if I were Maera I’d ignore him too. He doesn’t get any sympathy from me. In this universe, even if he’d lain with Alys as a means to an end, and not because he felt something for her, well, we can’t deny the proof of it now can we.

I was also seething at how the people around her - Alicent and even her father fully expect her to turn a blind eye to Aemond’s indiscretion all while she is held up to an impossibly high standard of always doing her best and just accepting it, as if she should be grateful Aemond still returns to her. I know we’re supposed to be judging them based on the standards of that time but it just reminded me that even now, little has changed. Just this afternoon my parents asked when I planned on getting married as I am nearly thirty. And the worst part is how marriage is seen as the solution to everything - because as they put it, what else was I going to do with my life if I didn’t get married? It just drives me mad because it implies that all my accomplishments amount to nothing until I secure a husband, not even that, as if my entire being is worthless until I got married.

Anyway, back to the story, we finally have the confrontation scene!! I had to process my feelings on this because my knee jerk reaction is to feel insulted, how dare Alys act like that as if she was the wife? But then, when I calmed down, I realized, it could also be a projection of my possessiveness to Aemond and to an extent Ewan Mitchell. Fanfiction makes me lose myself in the character so it’s easy to feel as if I’ve been slighted, yes, I’m feeling quite meta today. But in reality, or in canon, Alys isn’t really portrayed heavily enough for us to really get a glimpse of what she was like so it’s easy to paint her as the villain, the seductress who tempted Aemond but let’s not forget- Aemond also chose to lie with Alys. I want to be better and not just lay down the blame on the other woman. For all we know, Alys is amused because she’s past all that and finds the entire thing silly because she doesn’t want to steal Aemond. She already knows his heart belongs to Maera. I feel like she’s like this -taunting because Maera is wary of her. I mean I do want to give her the benefit of the doubt. But I suppose the only way I’ll find out is if I read the next chapter.

When you said drama I didn’t expect it on a Monday hahahahaha but this powered me through the day so thank you so much!! Hope you’re doing well!

I always live for your analysis of the chapters each time I upload 🖤

Aemond is so god damn stupid but think we’ve all gotta remember this boy is about 18/19 in this fic. That is so young! And what man doesn’t make dumb decisions at that age? (I like to think most of the wars in the medieval times are due to young men spitting their dummies out and acting on impulse, only to regret it later)

With Alys, you’re right. In the canon we don’t know an awful lot about her. I’m hoping to give her a bit more depth as a character with more interactions between her and Maera. I’m not sure how some of the audience will react to that. We’re all Aemond girlies and I’m sure there will be plenty of comments like “why doesn’t Maera just stab her ffs.” (Tbf id react the same 🤣) but we can’t just go round stabbing people, can we?

Maera’s got to play the game, and what a long game it will be. She’s going to have to be sneaky, clever and downright badass if she wants to succeed in this world, especially with a war going on.

I have the bulk of the next chapter, just down to editing now. (Spoiler: there will be smut 👀)

[broodwolf221]

act 1 - first, second, and third memories | first major choice

cws: death; blight; war; slavery

really just theorizing about why these are solas' regrets. the first feels obvious: the woman who ghilan'nain blighted, and the fact that solas had to kill her. rook & co. see this as cruel, but it's inevitable, isn't it, really? i suppose one read of the situation is that, because we don't see her die, perhaps solas did something worse to her... but i don't really buy into that, myself. he understands the blight, at least the risk it poses, and it wasn't like there was even an option to turn her into a grey warden at that time.

he killed one of his people because she became blighted. she became blighted because she carried out her role in this mission.

a regret.

the second one is different. solas and felassan liberating elves. spoke with a friend about this already (waves at u if ur reading this. hi skip!) and there seem to be many possible reasons this was a regret. i don't think he regretted liberating the slaves, but elgar'nan spoke of a payment to be made, and elgar'nan is brutal and cruel. my best guess is that solas' punishment for this was the death of some - or even many - of the slaves he had freed. obviously i don't know, but it seems like a viable possibility.

the other big possibility, imo, is that the injury solas sustained in that battle was somehow the beginning of the end for him, or for his rebellion. elgar'nan could have taken something from him, could have limited his powers somehow, or he could have simply - "simply" - wounded solas enough that he could no longer be in the midst of things. which, he always seems to be? he's an interesting leader, because he keeps showing up and pushing into danger right alongside those he assigned to the task.

the third is... it hurts. but the regret, in this case, is obvious. he used those spirits. he sacrificed them. it was brutal, and it was tactical, and very possibly it was necessary. but, as felassan said, they're supposed to be better than that. but i don't know that solas had that luxury, really; how do you war with numerous gods, your power not a match to any single one much less multiple of them, and remain ethical? he knows it was a horrible thing to do, but he still cared for those spirits. he used ones who would retain their nature unto their death.

solas is and has always been a tactician. felassan, at least what we see in the game, is much more earnest and idealistic. i'm not saying that's bad! it's not! but i can see some of the roots of solas' unwillingness to trust. because it feels like felassan would have stopped him, if solas had been open about his plan here. and they needed that artifact. it's horrible. but i understand, and i truly wonder if there were any alternatives, any other possible approach.

it also hearkens back to one line in the prologue, one of those lines that seems incredibly brutal upon first hearing, but upon further consideration, begins to make a lot of sense. "people always die. it is what they do."

people always die... because of what solas did. he took elvhen immortality from them - and more than that, he took their magic from them, much of it. he robbed them of the ability to defend themselves. he doesn't only care about elves, not at all, but he feels a great personal responsibility for them, because it was his actions that led to their current status.

but he did what he did to prevent the entire planet from being destroyed. the blight is not a war, seeking to claim a territory or a people; it is a force, a contagion, something that infects everything without hesitance. freed, it will destroy the entire planet. all animals, all plantlife, all people, even minerals and stone. dragons and titans. nothing will be free from its grasp.

and for all that rook & co criticize and condemn him... we're already beginning to do the same thing. choosing between treviso and minrathous. there's no moral option; no matter what you do, you're wrong. but we can only do what we can do, and there are choices that have to be made, and rook made them.

similar to the bad magic future timeline in dai. it feels like the only choice is to eradicate that future, but, as leliana says, all of it was real. it happened. sure, our inky rolled back time and prevented that blighted future. but how many children did our inky prevent being born? how many lovers did we erase? how many families did we prevent ever happening? there is no moral option here. there is only the best of bad choices, of impossible choices that have to be made - that's a cornerstone of the scale of things in da games.

all through dai - and now i'm seeing it in davg - we are slowly but surely following the same route solas did so long ago. starting out with an idealistic goal, and increasingly feeling the reality of impossible choices and constant no-win scenarios closing in on us.

[thelikesoffinn]

Do you play other rpg? It would be cool to read your opinion on cullen from dragon age Inquisition ❤️❤️❤️

Ooooh no, the question I've been afraid of ever since people started asking me stuff! For now I must out myself as someone who usually doesn't really...like classic rpgs?

Now, before we throw stones - let me explain!

I do like gaming and I do that a lot, but those things that are classically recognised as your standard rpg aren't really my cup of tea most of the time because, quite frankly, I. Get. Bored.

Really, I keep trying, but I'm rarely engaged. Like, I played the witcher II and III, oblivion, guild wars 2, teso and, as a wee lass, I played Fable. (And I think I did play Dragon Age Origins and Pathfinder but that was when I was a depressed teen in survival mode, so I'm not counting those for a hot moment because I remember nothing about them 👉🏻👈🏻)

In my experience, there's often a lot of running about and "go collect THIS in THREE VILLAGES AND EIGHT HOURS OF FOREST over and then come back!" and I can't deal with that sort of unnecessary grind that does nothing but make the game longer. (Now, we don't count cozy farming games or pokemon here, aight? Those are a different category in my book.)

Especially in new-ish titles where they, quite blatantly, go "yo okay you can only go HERE if you did all the side quests on that island over there otherwise you're too weak and that little wolf overhere will absolutely decimate you".

It's hard for me to stay engaged and actually finish the game, so they never quite managed to capture my heart, which is why I, at some point, stopped looking into RPGs as a whole.

(A few exceptions that I did enjoy were VTM Bloodlines and, more recently, Hogwarts Legacy.)

I'm more into narrower games that are a bit more story focused - like Stray Gods, omfg that one was so good - and don't let me wander off for 69 hours without to collect buckwheat for the farmers cousin twice removed, hehe.

(Btw, that's also why I'm so mad at the newer assassins creed games - ESPECIALLY Odyssey and Valhalla - because I absolutely love assassins creed as a whole, but I hate that they're so huge and open-worldy these days. Like, what is so wrong about a more story focused game? Let me enjoy this for a few hours and then back tf off please.)

The whole entire reason why I got into bg3 is basically the lovely @harcove because she was sharing a lot of clips and pictures - mostly of Halsin back then, haha - and I thought that game actually looked really fun so I decided to, potentially, throw almost 70€ into the fire and trust the opinion of someone I'd never talked to and here we are I guess 👉🏻👈🏻

(Haven't regretted it. I love bg3 dearly, and it's nice to find a proper rpg I actually do enjoy!)

So, to get back to your question: Unless you want me to tell you that Sebastian Sallow is actually a sweetheart if you look past his desperation or you want me to go on a rant of how amazing Malkavians are - which they ate omfg they so 100% are - or about how Geralt z Rivii is an absolute treat for anyone into the broody type, I don't think I can do a lot of talking about other rpg's, darling, I'm sorry!

[wurdulac]

i don't necessarily regret having played wh40k: rogue trader bcs i ended up getting a way better grasp on what wh40k is (a cesspit) and i also had fun (though it is a pretty bad game when it comes to plot and general... design of its systems; it's a very confused game), i just kinda uh. wished i didn't pay for it. i liked combat a lot, i liked creating my character as i go, just taking whatever new choices she has made and see what the broader picture of her it creates.. i was surprised to see some nuance in writing present in the romances too. also it's a game with longest ending slides ever, especially for a game with nothing much to say. tbh when i think about their fucked up endings for women who were punished for transgressing the inescapable social order i get mad.

also i guess i sort of knew it's a grimdark setting but i didn't know it takes the state propaganda it created to be the actual truth of the universe. i've been baffled when revisiting older rpgs i'd played and realizing they're libertarian etc. but this one takes the cake of being straightforwardly fascist. maddening given how it has all the telltale signs of being a caricature of the fascist system but then like i said everything it believes abt the world turns out to be true. workers are striking because it's the deamons corrupting them. mutated humans are genetically evil. the perma-war state is necessary actually. the non-human races need to be eradicated and they're also racist towards humans and would strike first anyway. the bloated corpse they worship as a god actually protects the people against the evil without so all those thousands of psykers sacrificed everyday are 100% justified and necessary.

[berrylover0571]

It's very exhausting that people say they hate feminism, when what they really hate is the repackaged pink veneer feminism that is sold to them by capitalism. The repurposed and co-opted version of feminism that lines executive pockets and doesn't actually fix anything is not feminism, it's meant to make you think it is, but if it was feminism, it wouldn't be doing half the shit it's doing.

Nothing has ever made me want to blow my brains out more, truly, then when somebody says they hate feminism, when what they mean is that they hate repackaged capitalistic feminism for neoliberal feminism that rehabilitates war criminals. No you don't hate feminism, there are lots of types of feminism that are antagonistic and generally shitty, but you don't hate feminism, you hate trans exclusionary radical feminism, or sex worker exclusionary radical feminism, or feminist Theory being repurposed by Christian fundamentalists, for neoliberal feminism.

You don't hate feminism that utilizes a Marxist lens, you don't hate intersectional feminism, or black feminism, or feminist liberation, because feminist Liberation is equality.

Do you want to know what's not equality? Egalitarianism. Egalitarianism was invented by a bunch of Libertarians and weirdo YouTubers because they didn't like the ideas of feminism because it actively peeled away at their fucking conceptions of reality and questioned them. Egalitarianism quite literally reinforced the very things it was supposedly trying to critique. Egalitarianism isn't real, it's a manufactured ideology by a bunch of conservatives who are now white nationalists or crazy people. If you say you are an egalitarian with a Capital e, unironically in 20 fucking 23, I have reason to suspect you are either Two Steps From fascism, A terf, someone with a word a day calendar who decided to use the word today, or so out of touch you don't see the social context and connotations of egalitarianism and who created it and why.

And yes, I know the social context and connotation of saying I identify as a feminist, of saying I believe and work with feminist Theory and it's a lot more substantially compelling than egalitarian theory, because egalitarian theory has never been academically published, and anything they critique and say definitely has a paper written on it under feminist Theory, because it's a reactionary movement invented by a bunch of fucking weirdos. A bunch of fucking weirdos mind you who got pissed about video games and now for some reason our pundits on the political stage. Seriously how the fuck did Milo yianopolis get on 24-hour news Cycles?

You want proof that egalitarianism is a lie, and feminism is what you're actually talking about, here's an anecdote for me: I used to identify as an egalitarian in some capacity. I used to be very heavily opposed to feminism. I would regularly share critiques of feminism, many of which I remember to this day because of how deeply I regret them and How Deeply they make me cringe. Ion ironically shared armored skeptic videos, Lauren Southern videos, shoe on head videos before she supposedly went left-wing, amazing atheist, thunderfoot, I was deeply immersed in all of this shit, and I believe that there was a better way than feminism, it was egalitarianism, it made sense. I remember following Sargon for God's sake, listening to bullshit talking points from Paul Joseph Watson, I was neck deep in bullshit and there was no signs of me stopping. The thing that snapped me out of it was actual skepticism that held people accountable and talked through things. The people listed above didn't have that, of the people I listed almost every single one of them have either abandoned egalitarianism in favor of leftism and a form of feminist Theory, they have recanted their statements, they have turned coat on each other, or, my personal favorite because it just shows you how egregiously bullshit it all was, are out and out fascists who have propagated conspiracy theories and utter bullshit like white genocide.

You want to say that you are not a feminist because men have it just as hard as women feminists would fucking agree, at least in some capacities, because the expectations put upon Men by Society are not in fact good and do in fact hurt people. It's no wonder that there is a problem with male suicide rates, it's no wonder that masculinity is for some reason in crisis, there was never a strong Foundation of masculinity under capitalism, there wasn't a strong Foundation of femininity under capitalism, it's all a marketing demographic to fucking sell you shit. That's why now we have a bunch of influencers trying to rebuild masculinity from the ground up like Andrew tate, or Jordan peterson, people telling men to be men, which doesn't mean anything when there's not been a foundation of masculinity and people aren't allowed to explore gender as they're comfortable. You're not pissed that fucking feminism is down playing the suffering of men, feminism isn't doing that, I've read enough papers to tell you that, there are plenty of books, reams and reams of data, countless quotes and people who actively agree that men suffer under current patriarchal standards, because we are reinforcing the ideologies of men who are now dead who believe that women were cows meant to be bred and left to fucking die, taking care of the home as there only responsibility, if that. The beliefs and predictions of a patriarchal society doesn't mean that men are the bad people, it means that a group of men, several hundred years ago, maybe even several decades ago, created standards that we cannot abide by and we cannot atone towards, and invalidate Us in the present. It disallows us from exploring gender and exploring ourselves, being the man or woman we want to be or whatever the fuck we identify with, and deny people the agency to define themselves.

The patriarchy isn't modern men, though certain Modern Men do in fact reciprocate it, because they directly benefit from it, no patriarchy is not just modern men, it isn't modern masculinity, it is the fact that we as a whole society, capitalism and every other system of oppression, reinforce standards of masculinity that we're put in place by people who are now dead and do not matter. The fact that the fucking well of discourse was so thoroughly poisoned by a guy who's Avatar was a PNG of a helmet with a suit under it, some jackass who had a fetish for humiliating a woman who dare to critique video games that absolutely needed to be critiqued because next to no kind of reporting is being critical of video games at the moment and that's fucking concerning, and some jackass who decided a picture of some dude from ancient Persia or mesopotamia, that wasn't even sargon.

Half of these motherfuckers got pissed by a bunch of college students, which is the most inane bullshit I've ever heard. I can't stress enough, I've gotten pissed at video games, I did not get as pissed at video games as these guys got pissed at people who made video games and were parts of the industry. It is astounding how much bullshit propagated because a bunch of guys, who didn't make video games and barely fucking had any sort of experience or know how of the fucking area, decided they knew more about feminist Theory than any fucking person on the planet. None of these dudes could critique feminism, not a single one of them could, if put in a room with an actual academic feminist, which one of them was and was wiped the floor with, if put in a room with an actual academic feminist none of their points hold water because most academic feminists have in fact addressed to the points they're talking about.

I hope every person who fucked over and made it impossible to talk about gender issues, simply because they were pissed about video games, gets a hot iron catheter stuck in their dick hole, just so that you can know the pain and discomfort I fucking feel having to navigate the world right now. You can trace a direct line from some of these motherfuckers to the current debates we're having about transgender issues, quite a number of them made fun of transgender people and emboldened people to do the same, escalating them down a fucking path that led them to nazism, it's no wonder that fucking Sargon was a member of the UK independence party, a nationalist organization with nationalistic ends that hinged on fascism.

It would be fucking comedic if it wasn't so tragic, how the ethics and video game journalism people just happened to ignore the ethical fucking dilemma and conflicts of interests that they had.

I deeply fucking despise every single person involved in this fucking problem, and I hope they fucking work their asses off to fix it or get busy fucking dying, because there's no fucking reason for this shit to be so fucking impossible to navigate.

You got played, you got fucked up, and now we can't use the actual language we need to fucking use to talk about issues that actually do fucking happen. It is astounding how many times fucking people have reinvented terminology that already exists because they can't talk about feminist Theory because, I cannot stress this enough, a bunch of weirdos got pissed about video games and decided to take it out on video game feminist who weren't doing anything in the grand scheme of things. A good part of our fascist backslide has to do with the fact that a bunch of people felt entitled to be jackasses.

[sandwrrm]

from the ask list thing— bo-katan, for whichever ones you want/all:D

Aaaaa thank you! I did almost all of them but left out a few that I couldn't think of anything good for. Without further ado--

— a fun headcanon

She is really good at video games, especially FPS and strategy games (naturally.) She grew up kind of a loner and spent most of her teens holed up in her room not knowing what to do with herself, and this was one of her major pastimes.

— a sad headcanon

The scar on her forehead came from a near-miss of being fatally stabbed during an attack on the palace during the civil war, when she was only about 6-7. Fortunately she managed to dodge just enough for the blade to graze her skin and nothing worse. (I have a lot of uh. much sadder headcanons from this same night/event, but I’m not revealing them yet because I want to turn them into a proper fic >:D )

— a headcanon that canon doesn't disprove (yet lol, this could change in mando s3 now that we’re getting more Bo history)

She joined Death Watch ~4-5 years before TCW canon, but continued to feign a normal life in Sundari and a relationship (albeit a strained and not-very-close one) with Satine while actively double-crossing her and plotting to overthrow her behind her back. Satine didn’t find out any of this until right after the shit went down with Death Watch being exposed in general.

— a headcanon to spite canon, specifically

She is somewhere between 23-26 during TCW. Not 17. Not the same age as Satine. Early to mid 20’s. I will die on this hill.

— a headcanon about their family

Mom Kryze was not born a Mandalorian, she was the eldest daughter of a prominent Kalevalan noble family, and was adopted into the culture when she married Adonai... who was not a Duke until he married into her family, just an influential warlord and the head of clan Kryze.

— a missing scene that definitely happened

Not so much a headcanon but a speculation… something fucking intense must have gone down for her to lose the darksaber to Moff Gideon because?? she’s amazing at weilding it as we now see???

— I recognize canon has made a decision, but given that it's a stupid-ass decision, I've elected to ignore it (+ what should have happened)

This is a bit controversial but in my headcanons, I tend to massively dial down her regret, deradicalization, and general arc towards redemption in favor of keeping her unhinged and villainous, just a bit more subdued with age. She’s just so fun and entertaining to me when she’s terrible….. I am happy with the direction they're taking her in current canon too though!

— something they believe about [other character] that isn't true

I headcanon that she had a lot of irrational, sometimes bordering on delusional, hate for her sister that often wasn’t based on anything true, but was founded on a twisted and dramatized misinterpretation of things she believed to be true about Satine and her actions, intentions, ideology, etc.

— their happiest memory

Having her dad's armor reforged to fit her and putting it on for the first time. I feel like it was kind of a “second birth” moment for her.

— favorite fanon relationship

I fucking live for anyone who writes Death Watch era Bo and Gar Saxon as antagonistic barely-frenemies who constantly give each other hell, I don’t know why it’s so funny and perfect to me but it is

— favorite should have been canon relationship

God. listen. not to get on my bullshit but Bo/Pre Vizsla…. Yes as a romantic ship because I'm trash of them, but I also just think more of their relationship and their past together “should have been canon” in the sense that I wish it was explained and fleshed out more, no matter what the nature of their relationship was. I’m dying to know what their history is, how they met, how Bo joined Death Watch, how she ended up his second-in-command, etc. I’m happy with my headcanons but I want to know what officially went down too!

Ask Meme post for anyone who wants it!

[notthestarwar]

WIP

Posted:

Talking to the dead (tangled au)

Mand’alor the lost

What the living do rewrite

How the living go on living and the dead go on living with them (what the living do sister story)

No children (looper au)

The glass wall

Not posted:

[So these are the ones i’ve actually started writing. i have another list of ideas/disembodied snippets. which is. yeah. there are a lot. oh my god there are so many. why are there so many.]

Amnesiac Fox- fox&maul. Maul finds fox on a distant planet, in a small town (one that bears a striking resemblance to small town americana) unaware of the greater galaxy and pretty convinced that he’s lived in this dead end town all his life. Maul is so utterly baffled by this, that he winds up forgetting that he isnt the type of person who would try and help, and tries very hard to help Fox.

Obi Wan and Jango’s dream(s)-  due to some kind of force event, Obi Wan gets trapped in a repeating cycle where he is living in a fantasy world, with no clue that this isnt his life. Each chapter is a different story cliche, (so theres a coffee shop one, one where he’s a dentist, a professor one, one where he’s an aerobics teacher) and he doesnt remember the last in the next. However, twist! he’s somehow dragged Jango in to this and Jango does remember, and he is not impressed. Jango thought that he died, but now he is not dead and he’s beginning to think he has some regrets actually and if he’s alive, he would quite likely to be back in the real world (which was all going to shit when he ‘died’) however, instead, he’s stuck playing pretend with a Jedi. he’s pretty sure that this is Obi Wan’s fault. he is also pretty sure that the Jedi is only pretending not to remember and that this whole thing is just Obi Wan playing games with him. pretty much wrote this to make myself laugh tbh

Fox gets a job- Post war. Fox is looking for a job but does a terrible job at each interview he gets given (presumably deliberately) and keeps giving overly honest answers to questions (not ideal when you killed your last boss). In the end, he ends up falling in to work as a private investigator, finding people who are victims of underground cloning ops? But he refuses to take any payment and also doesn’t tell anyone he is doing this. It’s a little bit crime noir if you squint. Its’s quin/Fox with background Cody/Obi Wan.

Prime, the worst clone. In which Jango steals Cody’s job after Boba dies on Geonosis and the clones all hate him for it. after a battle, while he’s pretending to be a clone (because he has nothing better to do.he wasnt supposed to be the one that survived) he stumbles upon a cave, empty aside from a furnace and a armorer (unexpected.) before he can say anything, the armourer gives him a prophecy, telling him about the night of 1000 tears and saying that if he lets things continue, all Mandalorians will be dead in a few decades. meanwhile, Cody, away from jango, is not actually that concerned about being usurped, because being forgotten about has actually given him quite a lot of freedom and he’s completely worked it to his advantage.

Undead Fox- Where Palpatine messes with sith ruins he doesnt understand, and accidentally makes an unkillable clone. When Fox returns from the unsurvivable, acting creepy and like a man most likely possessed, Palpatine knows he’s messed up. There is something very wrong with this clone, people are going to notice and they’ll start asking questions he doesn’t want asked, so he kills him. Problem solved. Then, the next morning, Fox reports in to him, like every morning. Palpatine is disturbed, but resolves to do a better job next time, and then, Fox reports in again the next morning. In which, the guard, very loyal to their commander, resolve to look after whatever their commander has now become, and work very hard to cover up his many ‘deaths’ while Palpatine, continuously tries to kill him, before the Jedi trace back the eldritch horror residing in the guard barracks, to him. Palpatine is increasingly unsettled and finds himself too uncomfortable in Fox’s presence, to even consider trying to harness his power/experiment on him. He can’t bear to be in his presence and so rather than just locking him up, keeps trying to kill him in increasingly more inventive ways. Meanwhile, Fox is very strange, seems to be gettting stranger and is decidedly not human anymore, the guard find themselves trying to grieve for a man that can’t die.

Who killed chancellor palpatine-  also wrote this one to make myself laugh tbh. half of it is written on paper? don’t know why i did that because i lost it and now i can’t remember what happens aside from an outline. i’m hoping i’ll find it because i want to read it again as i found it very funny the first time.

so it starts, with the Jedi launching an investigation as chancellor palpatine has been found dead.over the course of the story, literally everyone confesses to this murder, because they all think they are covering for someone, but then the person they are covering for is covering for someone else and so on. it’s in two parts, because when they finally establish that none of these people were involved. and actually rex and ahsoka were covering for each other, so thats the end of that line, it turns out that they don’t even have the right time of death, because palpatine was already dead during his ‘last few days’ and that was also a coverup, starting a whole new chain of people admitting to crimes they didnt comitt.

The unwanted and unintentionally abandoned- Post order 66 Boba and Korkie (Kenobi) team up. Exploration of what it is to be a bad father and how trying, isn’t always enough.

Post order 66, Obi Wan finds Cody. (reverse Cody finds Obi Wan on Tatooine.) Cody is not happy.

Venators are haunted-  This is a long desc. cause i love it very much but don’t have much of it written (apart from the end and the begining).  i want to get a ghost story vibe building throughout. where it goes from ‘obviously it’s not ghosts’ to ‘oh shit it’s ghosts’ and i’ve yet to figure that out lol

Palpatines plans end up falling apart because the Jedi are the only ones that will spend any time on the venators and so he has little to no control over the war as all of the non clone officers quit. The venators all have very bad vibes. cold spots. flickering lights. (initially blamed on the ships themselves) but then, as time goes on things are less easily explained (a childs laughter heard in the corridors, equipment unexpectedly breaking sometimes when they are about to head out in battle on the senates orders) at first the officers just refuse to live on the ships, saying that its too uncomfortable to live there, and then, they find that this stuff happens whenever clones are around and they start to become unsettled by the clones at large. the clones are entirely used to all of this and take it in their stride and the jedi are like. well. odd. but. what can we do about it.

As the war goes on, more strange stuff starts to happen, with fog coming out of nowhere in battle when things are turning bad, saving clones time after time and the other things are happening more and more. then, the fog starts to appear on the ship, and strange things begin to be written in spilt salt, fogged up mirrors, anywhere really. saying things like ‘sith senate’.eventually, the jedi start to pay attention to youngling rumours that the clones are haunted, but they are very nice about it and are like ‘well the ghosts seem to have their best interests at heart and they don’t seem to mind (the clones dont know any better)’.

Nobody can see the ghost/ghosts and there are many theories as to who they are (lost padawans, the clones that didnt make it, including those that died as children. ect) but actually, it’s Arla. in this AU, she does die with Jango’s parents, and when the first clones are born, she makes it her mission to stay with them. she cant really do anything, but over the years she finds more ways to make her presence known, and to influence the living (to try and help the clones). The story ends as a fixit, and when the clones are ‘safe’, the ghost moves on. (theres a bit at the end, where out of the view of the living, ghost arla reunites with jango (now that she’s fixed his fuck up) and they walk on to whatever is next together.

The one where everyone runs away-  technically a sequel to ‘part of me died here so another could go on’ which I did not want to have a sequel. The whole point of it was that nothing changed. But then I started thinking about the idea of his brother being out there just eating Cody alive and began this. Cody has a fuck-it moment and starts sleeping with Obi Wan, but they end up having a full blown secret relationship, and then Cody runs off to find Ponds. Rako Hardeen happens and Obi Wan is like- Cody is going to see that I died! I have to find him and explain. Then Anakin finds out Padme is pregnant and decides that he needs to find Obi Wan. In Anakins absence, Ahsoka and Rex actually investigate the chips. Palpatine is sweating cause he wants to set off order 66 but like, Anakin is off trying to find Obi Wan so he keeps delaying things and then when he can’t delay any longer, he sets off order 66 and it… just doesn’t work. Literally, a chain of familial love just really really fucks up palpatines plans. Cody/obi Wan

Those that are forgotten and those that are just lost-  Jango/Obi Wan. they meet on Mandalore during the civil war and within minutes of meeting, Jango sees a vision of himself killing Obi Wan years in the future. He ends up falling for him anyway.

A violent product of a violent world- Cody/Obi Wan. Chip CC2224 finds himself in competition with the man he once was for Obi Wan’s love. And then Cody starts trying to take over CC2224’s body.

Modern AU- The most convoluted backstory ever. There are Jedi but no force powers. There are no clones but there is a army of ‘brothers’. Palpatine is a billionaire with his hands in way too many pockets and is behind the wars (worldwide) but nobody knows.  Obi Wan leaves the Jedi as he feels he can do more help as a civilian. Plo Koon and Quinlan leave as well and they are running a small civil rights advocacy venture in a tiny office. Obi Wan and Cody are in a long term relationship but Cody is still in the military which Obi Wan isn’t happy about. Jango is tied up in this series of wars but nobody (including him)  knows how, just that his employer sends him on a job and next thing you know, there is a war in that place. Jango leaves a trail of almost identical looking babies behind him over a period of about 30 years, doesn’t acknowledge this until he finally decides that he wants to know who the hell is behind this all and whats actually happening and hands baby Boba to Cody.

The cycle ends with me- in which Luke runs away to tattoine to try and raise Ben Solo’s child and ‘end the cycle.’ Literally takes nothing from canon but names. I can not stress this enough, Rey and Ben Solo are at no point anywhere near being together. Rey is a lesbian and living her best life.

Slavery canon divergence- Jango & Obi Wan were slaves together in the past. Cody ends up driving Anakins redemption?

The dream/the pond- University prof AU in which all is perfect and actually a dream, reality starts creeping in and corrupting the beautiful

End credits- Codywan reverse happy ever after. (post order 66 happily ever after slowly unravels)

Cody tries to find himself by moving in to Rex and Ahsoka’s spaceship roomshare.

Obi wan raises anakin Modern AU- where Qui Gon (irresponsible absent dad) visits (just about) adult Obi Wan, turning up on his doorstep with a child (this is Anakin, your new brother) and then dies in an accident.

Suburban life- post order 66 Anakin and Padme living in perfect suburbia, on some distant planet, nobody knows them. They are desperately trying to make friends but everyone thinks they are utter weirdos. So they plot to bring Cody and Obi Wan to live there, to show everyone how normal they are. Cody and Obi Wan get completely strong-armed in to this (anakin and padme buy them a house without telling them and ask them to come ‘for a visit’). It goes badly, because Cody and Obi Wan are only normal, to Padme and Anakin and are really really strange to anyone else. Nobody in this neighbourhood knows about the war or the Jedi, and it seems very apparent to them that Cody grew up in some kind of cult, and Obi Wan is the kind of rich weirdo that doesnt think twice about marrying a guy born in to a cult. Padme and Anakin decide that the best way to go about things is to pretend they don’t know each other and then, when they’ve got an in, Obi Wan and Cody can spread the good word. It is immediately really obvious they know each other. so the neighbours just view Cody and Obi Wan as like some kind of plant sent to spy on their bbq’s/parties by Padme and Anakin.

Council chambers- Obi Wan walks in to a council chambers type limital space, full of representatives all of a possible future, each of them are terrible

Canon divergence where Obi Wan arrives on Kamino and finds it burnt out.

The Orb- Codywan on tattoine in which Obi Wan tries to tear apart reality to fix the past

The one where Cody’s chip breaks and he sets out as a bounty hunter after a woman hires him to find her husband

Genres.- the OG story (prequels and original trilogy) but each chapter is a different genre.

Anakin dies-. Padme living in the aftermath. Obi Wan can’t stand to see her as she reminds him of Anakin.

Bedtime stories from an alternative universe- A collection of stories from various universes running parallel to the prequels and what comes after. I started this one as a way to write the au’s that never got past the point of being ‘this is what happens’. it’s going to be a collection, of someone telling a kid a bedtime story and those stories, are actually some of my abandoned au’s lol. (believe it or not none of the au’s in this list so far are actually abandoned. these are the ones i’ve started writing (some of them are like. almost finished. thousands of words lol.) and intend to finish (lol). so this collection is the ones that i have truly abandoned.

What the living do sequels-

-And when the time comes to let it go, to let it go (Boba, Rex and Cody in the aftermath)

-Nothing is lost in life or love (Cody and Obi Wan live their best life after the war. Obi Wan hasn’t seen a ghost in years. Anakin is raising the twins by himself and so visits often to make this their problem.)

-You could make this beautiful sequels

-the one where Cody confronts Obi Wan about running

-the one where Luke tries to have a family dinner

The Not tangled au’s associated offshoots including:

-Rex and Ahsoka adventurers

-Boba Fett, criminal little brother

-The faceless warriors- In which Fox and a group of his brothers are a ghost story, but actually they are real.

-Cody the tired innkeeper, pining for the king. (Cody/Obi Wan)

-The sequel in which Luke gets engaged to Din, the prince of Mandalore and the Mandalorian’s tell the royal family where the Jedi went.

[yostresswritinggirl]

@butterfly-mochi​ Rewrote this freaking thing thrice because it keeps getting deleted wth tumblr agjvahkfajkvk- I enjoyed writing it a lot tho and since I’m too weak to the characters I ended up writing for all of them (except for Sucrose, im sorry bb huhu, I ran out of brain power). This is my first time writing for so many of them in one go so please excuse me for any mistakes or blandness ywy thank you for letting me write for my baby Ganyu too hhhhh

Universe Reversal 2

Genshin Impact Character Reader and Modern Players with Zhongli, Childe & Ganyu (how they simp for you) (event masterlist / Part 1 / Part 3)

Zhongli the F2P

The most relatable out of the bunch because this man is still broke and can only rely on the primogems he can farm. And he had a LOT. The one thing he doesn’t have a lot on, however, is his luck.

So how did he manage to pull you?: Well after exhausting all his primogem on your banner with nothing but weapons and other characters, he has lost his resolve. But by some weird luck, there was a character bug that was fixed and in his email was the almighty consolation primogem. Enough for ONE pull. And by the Gods he FINALLY got you.

He’d nonchalantly post his screenshot of pulling you using a single acquaint fate in his friend group without any words and everyone else just loses their shit. “You got them in one pull?!” “Yeah” A riot.

This was partnered with the fact that not only is Zhongli an F2P player, but also barely has any five star characters.

He looks calm and apathetic over the news, but behind the screen he’s exhausted and relieved, silently livid.

He has no primogems left to squeeze for a constellation so you’re instead pampered with the best weapon suitable for you (because that’s all he keeps getting).

Zhongles spends most of his time farming for materials to quickly level you up, unlocking all your stories and voiceline, but he fucked up on your build (his artifacts are messy).

He follows communities, forums and videos regarding your character to know all the things he needs to perfect your build. You can barely make a dent against normal mobs, so he knew he was doing something VERY wrong.

Is the type of person to keep refreshing the page for new content, very updated.

Ask him a question about your character and he’s gonna bring you the word vomit that is his research. He’s not gonna stop- probably accidentally developed a copypasta for you.

Also follows your VA in both Tiktok and Twitter to indulge in every bit of content. He also has that screenshot of his pull saved and locked.

On his birthday, a friend of his gifted him a chibi plushie of you and he has treasured it ever since, treating and handling it like its a figurine.

“It is merely pure luck and grace from the gacha gods that I got this character, and I will make sure that they know I am very grateful for this fortune.”

Favorite Voiceline: Birthday Message

Childe The Whaler

This lucky wealthy bastard with no remorse for his money whales for EVERY character. He’s making a collection, which is to get all the characters, especially the five stars. So when your banner finally popped up, he’s gonna square up and trigger a whole ass meteor shower.

How he pulled you: Money. His luck with this games are actually not the best so he always compensates with money, he got you halfway through the first failed pity, almost giving him a heart attack that he might actually break the bank just to get you.

And then he pulls more to raise your constellation lol.

The first thing he does is look over your character info and read through it all; constellation infos, your base stats, artifact compatibility.

At the end when he’s maximized everything, he would then focus on playing around with your character *coughs climbing noises coughs*

He thought you’d just be another part of his collection but playing with your character was very enjoyable and in-line with his playstyle- oops 100 screenshots with the Kamera-

Any and all merchandise that he fancies would be his, and he’s definitely flexing it to the other sweetie nerds who call themselves simps. He’s fighting for the simping title, and he’s currently neck and neck with this fanartist in Pixiv.

Speaking of that fanartist, he definitely commissioned an expensive and detailed portrait of you, full rights and everything. No one else was allowed to use it but him.

Was also the first one with the audacity to call out your VA to create an account on Tiktok to create more content with your voice. He was successful.

His obssession also comes in the form of self-indulgent contents, and had been keeping track of the ship wars happening. During conventions, he cosplays as the character shipped with you the most (or the character he thinks should end up with you).

Silently scrutinizing those who cosplay you, only ever taking pictures with/of the best looking one, sorry haha

Definitely flaunts that you are his waifu/husbando and will fight for best girl/best boy during debates or polls. Has mobilized the community to vote for you once. He’s very persuasive.

“Hm? Why I’m just the best collector in the game, and I am more than happy to let everyone know that I am their number one fan haha, everyone who claims otherwise is definitely wrong!”

Favorite Voiceline: More About (Y/N) I-IV, (Y/N)’s Hobbies...

Ganyu the Employed

Ganyu, our dearest overworker, is one of the players in the older stage who actually has a job but still plays Genshin for their past times. The gorgeous sceneries and the music is her main focus in playing the game, not much of a try-hard but still decent in the combat mechanics.

How she pulled you: You came home within 50 pulls! And you appeared again after another 10 pull! Ganyu was so SHOOKT and so distressed because oh goodness, what does she do? She doesn’t know anything much about you!

Will rewatch your three trailers to try and understand your skills better, ended up saving the soundtracks from them because that was such a nice trailer music! Tnbee gains a new follower!

Ganyu will take a while before she can properly play or build you up because she’s so busy with work, she only ever plays when she feels fully done with her work.

During her break she plays with your character while multi-tasking on eating, earphones plugged in and sight on the phone as she farms materials and artifacts for you.

The moment she gets more help from her player friends tho, holy shit, you just ended up being so OP. She had so many good artifacts and weapons for you because she didn’t know what they were for before.

She loves how you’re so easy to use and can easily solo the enemies and even the boss fights. A huge breather, because now Ganyu can cheese the battles that takes a while, to give her more time to focus on the storyline and lores.

Since Ganyu plays for the story and aesthetic, she’ll find you almost always in her team. Still very proud of her pull, she makes the best screenshots of your fights or in the best angle through exploration.

Treasures you so much she starts talking to her phone- “Ah, no, please don’t fall.” “There’s violetgrass up there, let’s try and get it”

Blushes everytime you produce a sound when climbing, doesn’t change you anyways tho

Hums to your trailer music while working, and if permitted, would have the song on repeat while she buries herself in work. She finds it really refreshing and the time she spends in work miraculously flies by fast when she gets lost in the sound.

At one point, when she was given a day-off or if the convention was on her free time, she attends to look for cosplayers of you and take a picture. No one rejects her because she’s so adorable and cute when asking shyly.

Had brought a decent amount of merchandise, preferably the functional/practical ones like a phone cover, mug or keychain. Also has an earphones clamp with your little chibi self as the holder.

When asked, she would shyly announce that she likes your character the most.

“Their character theme and music really soothes me during work, it feels nice to have them, and I have not once regretted ever pulling for them. They are the best.”

Favorite Voicelines: Good Night/Afternoon..., About Us, Something To Share..., Interesting Things...

so enjoyable...

@moaa @zelos-simp @legionqueensav @dandelion-dreams @snackgod @rxsalinee

[riotbrrrd]

AND LIKE (sorry I lied I'm just gonna keep rambling under this) I need to be a little more indulgent, I think it is trying on purpose because there is a big thing about Regret as an emotion that is supposed to be the emotional core of the story. It's just that it doesn't work that much because the way the missions are designed, the fact that when I arrive the people are dead is too rarely presented as me failing to help. Mostly it's presented as me confirming that their disappearance is because they died somewhere, victims of the war. It doesn't feel like I get there too late, or fail to convince them to move to more secured places, or fail to put up defenses. It feels a little bit like salad dressing. It's war, so people are victims of war, it's sad, it's not your fault.

In general, there is an efficiency to the story that I think is the core or what I have been trying to rotate about the writing. It makes the writing feel really good: the way that a good, self-contained action movie feels really good to watch. No loose ends, no part of it where the explanation for why it works feels stupid, everything circles back to the emotional core, it's very neat. Very clean. All the companion quests are built in a similar manner of discovering who they are. All the faction quests are built in a similar way of cleaning up a new part of the map. Very tidy. It's nice! I love when a story rubs my brain the right way.

But it also makes the writing lack generosity. There never is any mess, it's all very gently and cleanly trimmed. There is no little side quest that isn't connected to the main storyline, you think you're tracking some guy performing random acts of cruelty but no, he's mind-controlled by the bbeg like every other bad guy you've seen so far. There is no part of lore unrelated to the main quest that you sort of discover accidentally while fucking around - obviously, it's also because it's the fourth game and a lot of the lore I already know by that point, but, you know what I mean, no one or nothing has an existence outside of the main problem we are solving. Ancient Gods descend on the world and it doesn't feel like it's even interrupting anything because the whole world was doing nothing before the story started.

pulling this out of the replies because I need space,

but I was thinking back on da2 and, sure, I don't remember a lot of it, I've only played it once years ago, but to me da2 was precisely doing what I wanted veilguard to do, which is give you people to talk to. Like, sure you don't save them in da2, but you can meet them and have a conversation with them. I remember Anders' friend who you can't help out of the tranquil state but he's here and alive and you can question how he feels about it. I remember fleeing mages that you can defend against templars and even if it doesn't work, you can speak with all the involved parties at some point and understand their point of view. The helplessness also comes from the fact that you feel like you can make plans with these people, and then turns out the plans fail or are impossible to execute.

What I'm complaining about in Veilguard is that almost all your quests are given either by your companions or your faction leaders, and you can only ask them utilitary questions about the mission, and then you have zero interaction with other characters at all during the quest. You go where you're supposed to go and fight enemies through empty spaces and you find corpses, or traces that someone was killed, or you find the person who had disappeared but they're locked behind an enchantment and you have to fight some more to free them and you don't get to talk to them. You can't even meet back with them in faction camps to ask them if they're okay. So it doesn't feel like it's been made on purpose to make me feel bad about not helping, it feels like it's been an accidental consequence of development hell that either didn't leave them time to write more people or cut all the "noise" out of the story at some point or another.

[mt10lt20]

I think I will be back to crack-posting because, to find a mental resolution, I sort-of came up with a HC on how Cipher and Pixy resolved their mutual solo dumping issues & found their wings again... So.. HC-ing away & a make-up sketch (hugs are so hard to draw =(. Also my HC is LOONGG... & inspired by the many awesome fic-writers and other AC HCs that suggest they do meet again: 

- Pixy goes to fight at the border after the events of Zero, and that’s where he found his way to the sky again, back with A World With No Boundaries. Cipher might have crippled them but there is no way AWWNB dies that easily.  

- However, this was not without some convincing as I think Pixy would have gotten more of a nuanced perspective of the war after being rescued by the border inhabitants and living alongside them. So.. AWWNB had to be persuasive and they were, because they also resurrected with a new, charismatic leader (Someone like Proj Wingman’s delusional but cool Crimson 1). He also talks a good game about how they, as a new squadron, will be able to face anything, even the Demon Lord, if he ever appeared again. Pixy’s unsure what to think about Cipher’s disappearance but is a mixed bag of disbelief (Cipher, of all people, gave up?) and regret (realizing they will forever end on a bad note). Unconsciously, Pixy was looking for a decisive flight lead like Cipher, but with more purpose than flying like a god and bounty hunting, but he doesn’t know it yet. 

- Cipher disappears after the events of Zero. Though victorious, the battle/ Pixy’s words impacted him more than he thought and he decided to hang up his wings until he found a real purpose to fly. 

- He’s good at disappearing and, wanting a clean cut from everything, starts again in a small city in Aurelia - far from Ustio, Sapin and Belka. Prob deposited his merc money into 5 bank accounts and 7 Venture funds for war rebuilding (yes, after introspection, he does get haunted by the houses and windmills he mercilessly eradicated) and picks up a very ordinary job that is still connected to flying. Maybe? he became the world’s best delivery pilot (everyone gets their parcels 1 week early unless there are special instructions for birthday/ anniv surprise gifts, and there is an explosion of 5 star reviews). He also picks up friends along the way that makes him realize, there is a lot more to living than just doing a great job, COMMUNICATION IS IMPORTANT, and that money’s nothing if not shared.

- Pixy and Cipher have a lot of time to think about the future.. Cipher starts to make new friends, realizing how much things could be different if he only knew how to communicate instead of giving solutions. || Pixy realizes his new flight lead does have a purpose to fight but this time it is worse - evolving AWWNB's vision from a rule-by-the-people to dictatorship. He’s brutal and efficiently ends anyone who doesn’t share the same loyalty. As his new leader amasses power in the vacuum the Demon Lord left behind, Pixy realizes he is in too deep. And as he flies formation, carefully towing the line, he realizes perhaps.. he knows someone who broke AWWNB once and who can do it again... 

- Cipher is aware that AWWNB is alive again and more radicalized. While flying he thinks about throwing his name back into the mercenary “deadpool” before they get to Aurelia and blow up nice people, like Jim his “co-pilot” who keeps asking him to “do another of that turn-y things with the plane!”. The sky on his 4 is empty this time, and he really dreads having to fight Pixy again. (He never got rusty.. to Cipher flying a plane is like riding a bicycle, and his employer doesn’t know but if they looked at the delivery plane cockpit cam, they will prob be shocked at the moves he pulls to get those 5 star reviews. Jim is keeping his lips sealed.)

- Pixy on the other hand is picking up every lead to try and find his old flight lead again, realizing the clock is ticking till AWWNB nukes everything for good, but not before abducting a “representative population” for repopulation and subjugation in the new world. 

- They meet again at the half-repaired Valais air base. Cipher had been contract-abiding and after taking proper leave, took to the skies again on short mercenary missions and Pixy, exhausting a lot of blank leads, decided to fly over to the old place where so many memories were made, and victories shared. He’s made some excuse to the AWWNB squadron that he’s there on recon and nearly blanks-out mentally when he sees the Demon Lord again after 5 good years. 

- Cipher’s on to him in an instant, and the familiar dread of missile alert sirens start going off in Pixy’s cockpit. He waits for impact, wondering if it would be better if he didn’t attempt to eject this time.. Cipher was back and surely he would start taking AWWNB apart one by one. But the impact doesn’t come. Cipher on the other hand doesn’t know what to make of Pixy not doing ANY evasive movements at all and holds the shot. And for a minute that feels like hours... he brings his plane level to Pixy’s. 

- Pixy’s mentally kicking himself to move, to do anything, to explain 5 years in 1 minute.. but wait.. Cipher is real... and he’s signaling to him? That snaps him out. It’s so natural to follow his old flight leader’s instructions and Oh.. he forgot to switch to the common comms channel. And as the channel comes to life, he hears “Hey. I’m still alive. Are you?” And Pixy finds his voice “Yo Buddy, go ahead tell me “I told you so”.. I am really not supposed to be here but things have gotten bad.. Can you tell the guys at the base to not shoot me down? I’ll explain when we land. It’s going to take a while.”

- And they talk.. over beer about the impending war, Pixy’s insider information, about purpose, about PJ... about them. At the end Cipher asks Pixy if he would fly with him again, but says “but if this ends with you firing at me without warning again...” and Pixy cuts in “No. It won’t... I’m.. sorry”.

- Galm is reborn the next day. (For the sake of it I am going to call him.. -->) Crimson 1 bears down on them with fire and brimstone. But a Demon is at home in hell, and Cipher takes him on. They fight like they are on another plane of existence. Pixy takes on other targets, reprising his role as Galm 2 as if he never left. He knows them both - brutal till the end.. and as it looks like both will go down in flames, he prays salvation for a Demon, and wishes for a second chance. They had so little time after all..

- Flares and chaff gone. Fuel down to reserves. One missile left and Cipher takes the shot. Crimson goes down in flames, and Cipher goes down without fuel. The last of the fight was at low altitude and one has to catch the right angle for a good bail-out. Pixy sees both blue and red disappear and he feels like he has gone down too.

- Pixy spends the whole night at the Valais air-base bar, unsure what the victory party is celebrating, blindly accepting thanks and congratulating the other fighters and ground crew. Some ask about Cipher and when he says he didn’t see a chute deploy they turn pensive and go “well.. he would get a memorial for sure. But he’d want to see you drink up!”. And Pixy accepts the beer shoved in his hand but doesn’t drink.

- Its 4am and the victory party is about to die down when the door slams open with too much force and people turn around. But it slams shut again too quickly and people hear a “Fuck. My hand’s screwed up too?” Pixy recognizes that voice. When Cipher finally gets the door open he can’t stop himself and embraces his flight leader, as if he wanted to make sure this “apparition” was real.. and he thinks.. men like him do not get second chances often. The gods are finally kind...

- Epilogue: A new team of aces is formed, meant to be a cross-national team comprising the best-of-the-best, to combat huge threats like these and Cipher and Pixy are drafted. Valais will be the temporary base and others.. will join them in time. Cipher’s done with doing things half-legally and puts in his 1 month’s notice at the Delivery company. Jim and the boss are both excited and sad to see him go... but they have a hell of a blast over Cipher’s last month. [Also... some sketches of Pixy and Cipher missing each other... =]