#i want the bad kids to save them anyway and for the rage to go away and for them all to feel mortified over what theyve done

[recycledraccoon]

*chefs kiss* perfection

weathervane (adaine/oisin)

by heartfed (arundels) G rating, 1.5k words, canon compliant spoilers up to ep17

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“Bad weather, huh?” he says, shooting her a lopsided grin.

It's raining, Adaine is working at Basrar's, and Oisin comes by for reasons unknown.

---

my hand slipped and i wrote adaine/oisin fic cos ep17 had me losing my shit

[animentality]

How do I write good morally grey characters? (Genuine question)

you give a character a morality that makes sense, and could be understood by most rational human beings on this earth, but then have it also be harmful to others, whether that's intensely or mildly.

most people in this world are morally gray, you know?

selfish and self centered, and likely to do bad things in their own self interest, if they think they won't get caught...but you know. most people are not raging psychopaths who will go out of their way to harm others....nor will they make much of an effort to help others who are not their friends or family.

gray morality is sort of hard to pin down, but it always comes back to...

black morality is This Bitch enjoys killing, and does it for funsies. they cause suffering to others just because they want to, and can, and this is morally wrong, because...uh, well. the basics of human interactions suggest hurting other people without any cause at all is the lowest of the low.

white morality is This Guy is a hero, who saves kittens and little old ladies and refuses to harm others (intentionally or unintentionally). most people can agree, someone who saves other people from death or injury is good.

gray morality, though, is that guy is a selfish piece of shit, but sometimes, occasionally, he does good things. only for his own self interests, of course, but it's a net positive for the world.

he threw a bunch of people down river, when it suited him, but was there when it counted, or maybe, accidentally does help the good guys with his selfish actions.

let me give you an example... Jack Sparrow.

Pirate. Thief. Murderer.

Not a hero. Will sell out other people to save his own skin. Kills wantonly, drinks too much, steals anything that isn't nailed down.

Doesn't really go out of his way to save people...except occasionally, he does.

Except in the end, he does save his friend, and he does save his fellow pirates...who are.

you know. pirates.

bad people.

he's an agent of chaos. he's whimsical, lawless, lives as he likes, and causes all kinds of trouble.

and that's a good morally gray character.

someone who both helps and harms.

and that's something to keep in mind, when you write your morally gray character, btw, whether you want them to be more helpful to your heroes, or more of a hindrance.

either one works for the morally gray.

and then we have a character like say, Dexter.

A serial killer who kills serial killers, right?

Yeah, killing is bad, especially serial killing, but if it's other serial killers...fun, right?

Weird.

Interesting to think of.

So.

To come back to it.

My advice for morally gray characters is to sit down and think of a character who has good traits and bad traits.

Mix them together, according to how you want this character to affect, say, our villains or our heroes.

Then decide, well, are they more inclined towards helping the evil side, the good side, or is it more pure chaos they exude?

I myself tend to write a lot of morally gray characters.

But that's only because I love writing murderous MCs, and most people do see murder as amoral, for some reason.

Anyway.

That's my advice on the morally gray.

Give them rules. Give them motives. Let them have good traits and bad traits.

Let them be rude to old women, but have a soft spot for kids...and also do awful things that affect both negatively.

the most important thing to avoid, as that post indicates, is just making a grumpy hero who just seems kinda mean sometimes.

that's not morally gray.

morally gray, to me at least, implies that that character does actual harm.

if they're only mean to bad people, only negatively affect the bad people, then newsflash, they're just heroes. they're white morality, just not disneyfied into sterility.

make sure your morally gray characters do harm!!!

[kirbyoutofcontext]

Kirb Your Enthusiasm #2:

Fantastic Four Issue #4

This issue kicked my ass. I was not prepared for the shift that happened here so let's take a look at it.

We just had a falling out with Johnny who quit the team (already? three issues in?). Ben's growing feelings of resentment are boiling over, Reed has been holding on to so much blame for things himself and it's eating at him. Sue has been strained by their conflicts.

Johnny is actively hiding from them. They split up to seach for him in The Entirety of New York which is described in very interesting ways -- silent canyons and caverns and valleys -- and you get this building sense that it's just scary to be alone out here, you know? It's scary and it's sad. Note how Ben is talking about Johnny and looking at a fighter jet. Sue is thinking about the family conflict and looking at Ben.

This issue clearly wants to talk about anger.

We see Johnny actually having a good time pursuing his personal passions until Ben finally locates him. Ben, the person most upset at him, findss him by thinking about him. About what he used to do before being a hero. When they were friends.

They have their argument and you can feel how close they are to a potential resolution but their emotions flare and Ben experiences one of his human transformations.

I mean this alone should qualify the issue as an All-Timer but then they have the audacity to make the very next page say this

Oh it's so good. It's sooo good.

anyway, we go back to Johnny and he is hiding again. This is where we start getting a bunch of hulk stuff. Like just look at this page and see how many hulk flags you can spot. obvious ones like Johnny wearing a green jacket with purple pants and the guy looking over his shoulder at the comic having that green skin and kind of an early hulk appearance.

Johnny eventually encounters the sub-mariner and returns him to the ocean to help restore his memories. Look at this sequence of passion and ecstasy punctuated by "WHAT IS THE HULK??"

Anyway Namor discovers his lands destroyed and people gone. He's ALONE and ISOLATED in the CAVERNS and CANYONS of his city

He summons his big bad Giganto boy to aggress New York and the Fantastic Four finally reunite and face the threat.

Ben's issue with Johnny started with Johnny solo defeating the last big threat. So he takes the opportunity here to do his own Solo Triumph. He carries a nuclear bomb into the gut of Giganto and kills him. When Johnny catches up, Ben says "Save your cheers" as a way to say 'we're even now, kid.' after he processed Reed finally saying "Actually, Ben, this one specifically IS your fault. Go deal with that" finally not trying to play sineater.

It's also this sequence where we have a killer Comics Concept. Stan Lee says Time is ticking, The Thing says 'I might as well tackle that too!' second panel shows him pummelling something that has a classic "counterweight on a second hand" shape and in panel three, his posture looks like he's physically wrestling the time sfx. WHAT IS THE HULK??

I love how this story sets up Namor's rage response to "kill all humans" and how all of these characters are struggling to communicate past their anger. When i got to the final page and there was no Hulk, I gasped. I covered my mouth and audibly gasped. The tension is now Crazy Mode.

[jq37]

The Report Card – Fantasy High Junior Year Ep 19/20

Blinded By Rage

Welcome back for a final time this year to Fantasy High where we’re covering both parts of the finale in one go! 

Last we left off here, the Bad Kids had gotten control of the Hangman post dragon fight on election night and were flying back to a much changed Elmville, sky turned an angry red in the process of becoming the divine domain of rage. 

When we return, they’re running out of clouds to ride on and need to pick a place to land. Fabian is concerned about just plopping a chunk of his house randomly in town but time is of the essence so they land at school on the Bloodrush field. It’s 10:20 PM, so they have less than two hours until the polls close at midnight. All the non-Bad Kid students get the hell out of Dodge because they’re useless in a crisis as always and all the brave and competent students (read: The Seven) have graduated. 

Brennan rules that, despite how crazy it was, the K2 Divine Intervention was technically buttoned up and allows Kristen to choose a special effect. She wants K2 back to help with spellcasting which Brennan grants (and will live to regret). 

Elmville is NOT doing well. It’s like 107 degrees and they can hear sirens and gunshots. There’s some real The Purge energy. Mazey has the duffel bag of votes but says she’s not allowed to count them until midnight so they all take a short rest to get their stuff back. They send Jawbone and Ragh to make sure Lydia is OK. They also strategize and throw on a bunch of buffs. Gorgug drinks his crazy strength potion he got as a present from Riz that takes him to a 25 Str. Adaine casts Rary’s Telepathic Bond so everyone can communicate telepathically plus Fly on Fabian, Gorgug, and herself. Kristen handcuffs the duffel bag of votes to Mazey for safekeeping. Perhaps, most crucially, Kristen has K2 cast Ice Feat which has ascended from a mistake to a bit to a homebrew spell with the following effects:

Every creature targeted by this spell takes a level of exhaustion and 1d12 cold damage.

The targets are cured of all disease and poison.

All creatures targeted by this spell make constitution saving throws with advantage and their hit point maximum and current hit points increase by 2d10.

The targets gain immunity to fire damage and the stunned condition.

Remember that last one for later. 

Anyway, there’s a lot more that they do but I’ll mention stuff if they come up in a big way. For now, let’s bust into the gym where Porter plus Jace and the Rat Grinders are trying and failing to do the ritual because they never got the proper name (highlighted by Buddy who in his same blind earnestness from before he was rage star’d thinks Bakarath is the true name and they’re just not believing hard enough).

Porter is furious that he was tricked into using the wrong name and grows to an enormous size, doing the foot stomp stun thing from earlier in the season but Ice Feast gives immunity to the stun condition so with a successful “Loser says what?” from Gorgug, it’s time to roll for initiative! 

To set the scene, the gym (and all of Elmville really) is breaking apart. Team Porter has invoked all this energy but can’t do anything with it so it’s kind of like a ticking time bomb ready to explode. The floor of the gym is cracking and there’s bubbling lava underneath–lava that is actually the carcass of Ankarna and the rage domain is spilling into the material plane. 

I also want to mention that even though several people have abilities/spells active that allow them to see Invisibility, no one can see Kipperlilly. We learn later it’s because she’d never been truly invisible, she’s just that good at hiding. 

As always, I’m gonna just hit highlights for the fight but ooh man, there are some highlights:

Riz on his first turn does a super clutch casting of Slow which gums up the works for the Rat Grinders for a big chunk of the fight. 

Just as they planned earlier (both in game and as we learned during the AP, out of game) Oisin is the top priority to deal with. A tag team of Fig and Gorgug gets him off the board in the first round before he can even cast a single spell. 

Ivy attacks the Hangman on her turn and Fabian returns the favor by brutally one-shotting her his next turn. Like, *extremely* brutally. He has low key had it out for her since she was mean about Mazey way back at the top of the season. But even Mazey (who is joining the fight because they can’t actually kill her, logistically speaking since she needs to count the votes) is like hmm, don’t know if I *love* that. (For the record, Ivy is killed first but Oisin is attacked first. That’s why I have them in this order). 

After Ruben hits everyone with a 9th level spell (highest level a spell can be for anyone not familiar) Fig gives up on the dude. Once the 9th level spells get broken out, the time for talking is over. In disguise as Wanda, she rips a very confused Ruben a new one for not being receptive to any of her attempts to coax him onto a redemption arc. She eventually blasts him into hell which sounds brutal until you remember that it’s functionally just her office. 

Because the Rat Grinders are clustered together in a very non-strategic way, Adaine is able to hit them all with Synaptic Static which not only does damage but also forces a bunch of their spellcasters to lose Concentration on spells. Everyone but Buddy I believe. 

Kipperlilly gets Riz with 8 points of damage but he gets her with 21 damage on his Attack of Opportunity as she escapes which is almost triple. That’s crazy! 

And I wanna pause here to make a quick point. The Rat Grinders are kind of bad at this. Like, they have all these high level abilities–and we know Brennan can be brutal in how he runs NPCs cause we’ve seen them in Neverafter and ACOC. But the Rat Grinders are just seriously dropping like flies. And that’s due to a combination of three things. One, the Intrepid Heroes and by extension the Bad Kids are just really good at this. They’ve had a lot of practice and they’ve had time to strategize. They read the rules. They’re making clutch decisions. Of course they’re good at what they’re doing. Secondly, they got some great rolls. For instance, initiative worked out that they had the opportunity to merc Oisin before he could start slinging 9th level wizard spells. And finally, as we learned in the AP, the Rat Grinders had level 20 abilities but they were still very squishy because they didn’t level up properly. 

Anyway, back to the fight.

Jace splits himself into 4 copies and finally gets Ankarana’s name with a Detect Thoughts on Fig. That’s not the only road block for the Bad Kids. They’re doing really well considering but also taking some Ls. Fabian drops (as does Fig later) and Adaine gets caught with Flesh to Stone.

Riz tries to find Kipperlilly and, when he can’t, he goes under the gym floorboards, shoots at Porter, and introduces the last big element to this combat: with his last 5 feet of movement, he jumps into the lava to hide. Because, as Emily mouthed to him a few minutes earlier, because of Ice Feast, they’re all immune to Fire Damage. Brennan forgot to account for that. The lava is only a hazard for his NPCs. The Bad Kids are all immune. Kipperlilly is so baffled that she goes, “What the fuck?” and gives away her position. 

From this point on, utilizing the combo of Fly and fire immunity to stay out of range of enemies–either in the sky or below the gym floorboards in/near the lava–becomes a major part of their strategy. For instance, Kristen goes under there to do some Mass Healing without being a target.

Porter in this fight is very fearsome. He has Legendary Actions and he can attack so hard that you get hit just from the air moving so fast before his weapon even hits you. Later on in the two-parter, he stops on Gorgug’s skull and gives him two death saves. It’s a whole world of hurt. 

But, the Bad Kids also are no-selling him at every single turn. He insults them but they just say he was a shitty teacher. He tries to activate their rage crystals but, guess what? They all avoided taking a rage token all season so it has no effect. He even tries to give them a speech about how the school sucks and they should be on his side but they’re like, my brother in Ankarna, YOU’RE a big part of why the school has been sucking. Adaine and Fig have great back to back lines. Fig accuses him of having no principles, just pride. And Adaine says the school didn’t MAKE them waste their summer on the Night Yorb quest. That was their mistake and they fixed it. He seems a bit surprised and confused that they won’t engage with his philosophy but that’s really on him if he thought THIS would tempt the Bad Kids at all. They’re great at getting mad all on their own. All he’s offering is the destruction of their homes. 

Riz on his next turn sets himself up in a purposefully clumsy hiding spot where he will be easily visible to anyone looking for him but they will have to get in melee range to hit him and he readies an action to catch a spell. 

On Fig’s turn, she gets away from Porter to get in position but that earns her a nasty attack of opportunity from him that's so powerful it starts carbonizing her blood (which is what happened to Yolanda you'll remember so now we know for sure who killed her). But once she gets away from him, she is safe in the lava (which is also Ankarana’s body). She tells Ankarna that she needs to choose her own path and then does a huge Fireball (which is the actual killing blow on Ruben btw). The Fireball also breaks Buddy’s concentration on the spell he’s been holding all fight which was a Banishment on the ballot box. They now have a way to get the votes delivered! 

This is where part 1 ends but we’re rolling this all together for the recap so let’s keep going! 

(I also have to note that for part two, everyone but Brennan is dressed in emo gear. Do with that info what you will.)

Fabian pulls out Bakur’s gem and throws him out like a Pokemon. He doesn’t break out right away but Brennan takes the opportunity to intro a new mechanic where portals open and on a high enough roll, the Bad Kids can call allies to help. 

Fabian ALSO has the idea to push Jace (well, one of the 4 Jaces) into the lava which, surprise surprise, the fighter/dancer is stronger than the waifish sorcerer. And that’s 18d10 damage so yeah. This fight largely becomes the throwing people into lava challenge. And can you blame them? That’s so much damage!

We get a little bit of elucidation about how the rage crystals work. Porter is a kind of hive queen and he can exert influence over the people with crystals in their chest. We see him do it to Jace and we see crystals leave the chests of Oisin, Ivy, and Ruben (well not his chest cause he’s in hell but from where he was standing). The crystals are parasitic and jump ship to try and find new hosts. 

Mazey gets rage star’d. Bad! K2 Banishes Buddy. Good! (Extra good bc K2 is Invisible and can’t be Counterspelled) 

Porter chugs some devil’s honey and calls to Ankarna that he’s trying to rez her so he can worship her which we know is a lie cause his real goal is to usurp her. Fig and Kristen treat her like a friend who’s getting back with her shitty ex and are like girl he’s lying to you! 

In one of my fave moments of the ep, Kipperlilly falls for the trap Riz laid in part one, going to attack him where he’s awkwardly positioned and not realizing that he was actually forcing her to jump over a pit of lava. The moment she does, he hits her with a Hold Person which stops her in her tracks and causes her to fall straight into the lava. Riz gets in the last word in this one-sided rivalry, “Very good on paper, but no practical application.”

She sinks into the lava and, as she does, we see she doesn’t have a visible rage crystal (only a symbol) because, unlike the others, she is a full willing participant. (Note: She DOES have a crystal to be clear, Brennan mentions that later, it’s just put in a different way).

Mary Ann fully jumps into the lava to attack Fig, tanking the damage and downing a very injured Fig in one hit. 

Adaine gets a very clutch move next, whisking all her injured friends to safer parts of the battlefield and drawing a legendary action from Porter even though she’s one of the least tanky members of the group. But with her Mirror Images, she gets off scott free! Adaine, Battle Wizard! 

Since Mazey is under rage control, Porter tries to make her disband the school but a Clippy style pop up of Arthur Aguefort shows up to say that mind controlling the class president to make them do stuff doesn’t count, you have to win fair and square. The things that this man plans for vs what he overlooks is baffling. 

Not only that but with Kipperlilly dead (and no cleric to heal her since Buddy is banished) their plan is kind of screwed. Even if they can rig the vote, their candidate is dead. 

When Jace and Porter are squabbling about plan logistics, Porter says, “Figure it out Stardiamond or I’ll kill you again,” which confirms that Jace got roped into the plan that way. Maybe Porter knew he needed someone with spells?

Gorgug gets a Nat 20 to pop up (from Porter downing him and giving him 2 death saves as I mentioned earlier) and then destroy another Jace clone, again with lava. 

Gonna pause again to say that I am really skimming over a lot here. Battle episodes are just not conducive to straight up recaps when they’re this long and involved. I’m gonna steal a trick of Adaine and quickly reposition everyone so you know the state of the battlefield where I’m jumping back in with the plot-forward part of the fight. Bakur has busted out of his gem but isn’t sure which side to join at first. The Bad Kids eventually are able to roll high enough to get some allies on the field–Ragh/Lydia/Sandra Lynn/Jawbone/Gorthalax plus  Squeem and Balthazar (but don’t worry too much about them. The most notable things there are Lydia does a sick wheelchair jump assistant by Ragh to get an attack in and Squeem heals everyone with cortados). Mary Ann goes down to lava. Fabian is able to break Mazey out of her rage with The Power Of Getting Your Kisses In and they make it official vis a vis boyfriend/girlfriend titles. 

Fig and Kristen try to tag team to tell Ankarna that Porter is lying to her but they don’t make the Dispel Magic roll to get rid of the Devil’s Honey. You know who does though? With a crit? As she farts and days Blimey?

Yeah, I told you Brennan was going to live to regret letting her live. Zac takes over again and Brennan just says, “No,” and leaves for a bit while everyone else howls with laughter. 

Brennan is so over it that he rules that, after this fight, K2 will be granted true life (Pinnochio style) and then banished to real life actual England. (Which seems dangerous considering Unsleeping City takes place irl but dig your own grave man). 

ANYWAY, All Of That aside, the Dispel Magic does work and Bakur is able to see the lies despite the Devil’s Honey. He joins the fight on the BK’s side. 

Also the bird cop shows up to shoot the last Jace. Don’t worry about it. 

OK, so going into the endgame of this fight, All the Rat Grinders are dead except for Buddy who is Banished. Bakur is there, and fighting with our heroes. Some of their allies have arrived. Mazey and Fabian and both down. All but one Jace (the one who got shot) is fully off the board.  And they still have to convince Ankarna that Porter is a big liar. 

OK, pieces repositioned, let’s finish this fight up. 

Having just been brought up by Sandra Lynn (like I said, I skimmed a LOT), it’s Adaine’s turn and she decides to do something uncharacteristic for a wizard. She takes a leap of faith. She uses her earworm present from Fabian to cast Detect Thoughts on all of her friends in range (Kristen and Fig) plus Bakur and Porter. 

According to the wording of the card (which I assume has been partially homebrewed for the setting bc it’s a bit different than the one in the official book), using the earworm to cast Detect Thoughts sends the information gleaned to the nearest extraplanar creature. Which in this case is Ankarna.   

The Devil’s Honey is dispelled now so it’s just up to if Porter makes his save or not (Adaine tells her friends to fail on purpose). He makes it, but Gorgug throws one of his inventions–a flashbang grenade–at him with another great line. He goes out of his rage and says, “Hey. Don’t be blinded by rage.” FLASH! The grenade goes off and he’s distracted enough to fail the save. His thoughts get broadcasted right to Ankarna. 

Adaine says, "Is this justice? Is this a new dawn?"

In this moment, Brennan lets everyone roll as a cleric of Ankarna for Divine Intervention. I cannot BELIEVE he lets K2 roll but, thankfully, she doesn’t actually get it. It’s Fabian, unconscious and appropriately in a kind of liminal state that’s able to do it (Note: Mazey is supposed to be down at this point so I don’t know how this next thing happens–whether it’s just a continuity blip or in his head or whatever but I’m just reporting what happened at the table, OK?). In his unconscious state, Mazey is really emotional about Fabian going down. She says that he's a really great and caring person even outside all of the things that make him traditionally cool and she wishes they could have lost their V Cards together. Ankarna, goddess of justice, will NOT let such an injustice stand. That’s enough to make her emerge from the lava, fully formed (and Fig, who has the keys to her domain, of course lets her in). She pops up and immediately slices Porter in half with a huge ass god sword. Sayonara Porter! Maybe you can be a boat in hell with Goldenhoard. 

Things start to calm, but it’s still all weird and liminal as Ankarna’s domain is being reestablished. Everyone is separated and Brennan asks them all for a moment of something unfair that they regret accepting. What follows is a bit similar to the American Dream sequence in Unsleeping City where Ankarna offers each of them a chance for vengeance/justice but is turned down. 

Gorgug thinks of Porter unfairly writing him off. Kristen thinks of her bio family. Adaine sees her parents pitting her against her sister who she could have been loving this whole time. Riz sees how hard it was to connect with people but also how he pushed Fig and Kristen this year and sees a bit of Kipperlilly in himself. Fig sees all of her internal conflict from the past year from not being able to make a pact with herself to not being able to act for help. Fabian sees the burden of living up to his father's legacy. Ankarna heals everyone of their wounds but then sadly sends them to a Twilight Forest (presumably Cass’s domain) when they politely say that they appreciate the offer but don’t need vengeance.  

Fabian does have a moment come from this however as Gorthalax and Bakur tag team to bring Bill in for a little heart to heart with Fabian where he says that he’d love his son even if he wasn’t a Maximum Legend and he’d give up his legacy for one more day to spend with Fabian. 

(Also, Lydia and Bakur are cool now. They talked it out off screen.)

With all of that, everyone is now together and Cass is holding Ankarna who is badly injured. Ankarna kind of has the attitude that Cass had at the end of last season where it was like, it doesn’t seem like anyone really needs me and all I’ve done is cause trouble so maybe I shouldn’t be here. The Bad Kids reassure her that she’s more than just her usefulness and that contrary to her declaration that she has no followers, she has at least six in the six of them. Ankarna cries happy tears.

Cass and Ankarna are about to leave to have a well deserved reunion but Kristen holds them up to ask about where the hell Kalina is. Ankarna gets all agitated because she’s NEVER trusted that cat and she’s damn near about to go on a crusade to find her as soon as Kristen brings up her suspicions. Before they leave, they have some business to attend to. 

They raise Rat Grinders (sans Kipperlilly since she was a willing participant) and Ankarna takes her name off of Lucy and Yolanda’s bodies so they can be raised. Then, Cass takes a selfie with Kristen and Ankarna and drafts a social media post to send to Craig to post because Kristen may be great in a foxhole, but she’s not the most organized person in Spyre. 

With this all wrapped up, Aguefort (and Ayda!) finally show up but the Bad Kids absolutely refuse to let him take credit for their victory. Mazey counts the votes. Adaine gets Aguefort to remove the bit in the bylaws about drugs being illegal (he calls it “narc shit). 

Riz pulls Kristen aside to make sure she actually wants to be president and that she’s not just doing it for his sake and she says yeah, (though she later says she wants him to be VP with her which he is very down for). 

Bobby Dawn tries to leave town (without even taking his grandkid!) but Fabian is chasing his ass down for all of his bullshit against his friends. 

Lucy is brought back and confirms that her friends killed her but also says that Ruben was one of her best friends before this started, implying that he was fully personality changed by the rage stars (unlike Kipperlilly who was maybe made more extreme but was rageful from the start). We see this in action when Ruben is brought back, basically tabula rasa. He has no memories of his emo persona and is really stressed to have lost his puka shell necklace. Ivy and Oisin seem like they have more memories and are ashamed of what they did but there’s not an explanation given of why the difference in effect. 

Mary Ann is basically the same and has a very abrupt conversation with Gorgug where she asks him if he has a girlfriend, much to everyone’s delight. Gorgug is so baffled and frustrated but finally lands on, “She’s so hot,” to everyone's further delight. 

Time for epilogues y’all! 

Kristen decides to be a cleric for not just Cass but Ankarna too. She even talks to Tracker (who is on a break from both Nara and Nara's money) about maybe poaching Galacaea from Sol’s pantheon. She also drops Gertie for the possibility of getting into a situationship with Tracker, earning herself a nemesis. 

Riz decides to try and chill out a little and switch from coffee to tea. He still thinks change can be scary but he recognizes that without change, he never would have met his friends. 

Aelwyn delivers a letter from the Court of Stars to Adaine which they open over ice cream sundaes at Basrar’s. Apparently, some wizard is starting shit in Sylvere–their mother. They’re both ready to plan a road trip to go kill that bitch, but before their sister murder quest (a normal thing for sisters to do) Aelwyn says that she hopes she and Adaine can eat ice cream and do magic together forever, and that if the price to have Adaine was suffering their shitty parents, it was a worthy trade. Adaine happily agrees. 

Fabian gets the Tornado to put his house back and rolls for his first time with Mazey. The dice are not on his side but luckily Mazey likes him for his personality, lol. His mom and Gilear show up and announce that they’re expecting…a dog…to guard the new baby. Also Telemaine is moving in. Fabian is distraught, even moreso when he gets a ping on Nemesis Alert. The unborn baby has already declared themselves his nemesis. At least Cathilda is also back! 

Like Riz, Gorgug also takes some time to relax since he's no longer taking 4 classes at once. He hangs with his parents and gets some presents for Fig since she was such a big help to him this year. He also makes things official with Mary Ann. Aguefort asks if he's considered being a teacher after he graduates and Ayda boasts that she always knew he was special. Aguefort also stops just short of saying he might be the bad guy next year and disappears into a flock of birds when questioned. Maddening as always. 

Fig gets some time with Sandra Lynn who is very supportive of her (which is saying a lot considering Fig has Porter’s literal balls on a chain, do not even ask). She decides school isn’t for her and drops out which she is a little concerned Ayda might judge her for since she’s so studious but Ayda says that learning isn’t confined to a classroom and starts a spell to link Leviathan to her domain in hell. Ageufort is also OK with her dropping out personally, but he does warn her that attack robots WILL be tracking her down for dropping out. Insane, but she’s not too worried about that. She just wants some alone time with Ayda. 

And finally, two bits of unfinished business. Unseen to the Bad Kids, Buddy pops out of his Banishment, still a true believer in Bakarath. He believes SO HARD that a baby god comes into existence. Then, out of the shadows KALINA appears and says, "Buddy, we gotta get the fuck out of here. They are coming for us. Your grandfather is not gonna fucking believe this."

And that’s it! End of season. Class dismissed! 

Plot Post Mortem 

OK y’all there was a LOT going on this season and not everything was neatly wrapped up but I’m gonna take a little bit of time to try and put together what we do know. 

We know that Porter was the ultimate puppetmaster of his plot and everyone else was an underling of his to some degree. Jace had a visible rage star in him so it seems that he was forcibly drafted rather than being a fully willing participant. 

The Rat Grinders formed a party (at that time called the High Five Heroes) Freshman Year. They went to the Mountains of Chaos for Spring Break. Near the end of Sophomore Year, all of her friends killed her. 

The Rat Grinders are on record as just grinding rats which seems to be a half lie because we know from talking to rats that they WERE doing that for a time but eventually Porter recruited them and started farming XP for them.

And we know that Kipperlilly was a willing participant of the plan but the other Rat Grinders were forced. 

So my best guess for the series of events here are as follows. In Freshman Year or so, Porter forced Jace into having a crystal so he can have a minion with spells (again, Porter does explicitly say he killed Jace). He spends the year scouting for a good candidate for his plan and finds an already naturally aggro Kipperlilly. 

He starts showing an interest in her and lets her in on his plan. She’s super down because she’s already bitter about the perceived injustice of the system. He feeds her unhealthy thought processes. This is why she starts having more rage outburst in Sophomore Year.

Now it’s never made clear when the other Rat Grinders join the plan and how that goes down. The popular theory is that they all died in the Mountains of Chaos but that doesn’t quite make sense. The only way that works is if everyone died except for Lucy. Why would she leave Lucy alive though? Because she was the closest to her? Was it just happenstance? Another possibility is that once they got there, Kipperlilly was the only one willing to get rage star’d and everyone else got cold feet. So, once they got home, she started putting the pressure on everyone else and eventually started killing them one by one to forcibly recruit them, ending with the dogpile on Lucy. This is all speculation of course, I’m just trying to square the info we know to be true with the bits of lore we have. Kipperlilly expected Lucy to come back like the others and they didn’t. With her dead, they needed a new cleric for the plan which is why Buddy Dawn was drafted. 

Kipperlilly DID have a rage star–it just wasn’t put into her by force. She chose to take it on. It’s not entirely clear how much it affected her–or anyone’s–actions or personality. Emo Ruben still spoke fondly of Lucy and seemed sad about her death. Kipperlilly was more unhinged in Junior Year but it’s not like she was super hinged before. 

It’s also not clear how much autonomy you have when you’re rage star’d. It seems to me that the rage star doesn’t really mind control you so much as play up the rageful thoughts you already have–for instance Adaine when she almost gets rage star’d saying that if she was consumed by rage she’d destroy Falinel and Sylvaire looking for her mom. It CAN mind control you if Porter uses an action to control you but most of the time you’re just an angry version of yourself (though Ruben’s complete personality swap raises questions). 

Anyway, that’s the best I can figure. No need to keep spinning wheels now that the season is done. 

Honor Roll

Adaine Abernant for Some Unorthodox Wizardry 

I am biased towards Adaine but I think she deserves her props this episode. 

A Wizard putting themselves in a position where they have to tank damage is so risky, but she cares about her friends enough to Scatter them to safety and hope her Mirror Images do their job.

A Wizard getting in melee range with a Pally/Barb seems like a recipe for disaster but Adaine was able to parry Porter with her sword. 

And having faith isn’t really in a Wizard’s wheelhouse but she has enough faith in her friends to try a big swing in reaching out to Ankarna. 

(Big Honorable Mentions to Riz trapping KP and Gorgug using his grenade on Porter in the climax). 

Detention 

Kipperlilly for Being a Bad Rogue

I’m not even giving her this spot for being a bad guy. I’m giving her this spot for being a ROGUE and not HIDING when the plan hinged on her SURVIVING TO THE END. Girl, what were you doing in melee range??? You have a crossbow, bitch, use it! Frankly she shouldn’t have even been on the battlefield, but I know for story reasons she had to be. But if she had to be there she could have played it waaaaaay smarter. 

Random Thoughts

Oisin was rage star’d but I have to assume his grandma wasn’t, right? I mean she was buddies with Kalvaxus so she probably just is OK with pillaging and evil. From her POV was it just like oh thank Helio my nerdy-ass grandson finally got cool. 

The way that gods work in this world always kind of trips me up. Because gods have been established to not be autonomous individuals in the way that people are. Saying, “Choose your own path” is nice, but it doesn’t really make sense when your personality is literally decided by your followers. They’re more mirrors than they are people. Same thing with morality. If it’s not Ankarna’s fault that she was made into a rageful conqueror, it’s also not Helio’s fault that he’s a fratty college boy (allegedly, I still think that’s more what Kristen felt than what was textually there). Unless we’re saying that each god has a “true self” and anything that pulls them from that is anomalous, then it’s hard to have conversations about gods while viewing them as people with direct agency. 

What was up with the vision Adaine kept having? Was that a trick to get them to have that party? Because they probably wouldn’t have done that without her visions. Who did that? Was it a Dream spell like Fig was doing to Ruben?

I didn’t mention it but it was very funny for Adaine to pull a Brer Rabbit: Ohhhh noooo. Please don’t throw me in the laaavaaaaaa. 

Who was watching Fig/Wanda “die” in the window, Brennan????? You never told us!!!! 

I thought it was sweet when Kristen was like I do wish I had a sister and Adaine was like, I’m your sister :)

I’ll prob make a longer post on this later but I really do not understand why the Ankarna plot is what was picked for this season when it’s so similar to the Cass plot from last season: Goddess of a concept that can be good but people find scary/are skeptical about is changed by the actions of their followers into something monstrous that is being manipulated by bad actors in the current day who the Bad Kids win over to their side and one of them becomes the prophet/champion of. It even has the beat of the goddess, post-rezzing, being like, “Idk if you really need me.” They’re even married! I don’t have a problem with Ankarna the character but she does feel a bit like a rehash of Cass’s storybeats, just in orange instead of purple. 

I still have some thoughts but they’ll get answered over the next week as I go through the remaining asks in my ask box and I’ve been working on this for hours so I’m gonna cut this short. As a whole, I thought this season was so much fun! Plot-wise it was probably the muddiest of all the Spyre seasons and I would def have changed stuff but it didn’t hinder my week-to-week enjoyment and it’s always a good time hanging out with the Bad Kids. (Also you all know that the #1 thing I’m here for is Abernant Sisters content and I was extremely catered to in this regard, lol). 

Thanks for following these recaps this season! I really appreciate everyone hopping into the tags or asks to talk and theorize and stuff. 

If you wanna engage with more of my writing, you can check out my podcast: Absolutely No Adventures or my visual novels on itch.io. It would mean a lot!

[bulbabutt]

ok. elephant in the room or shit i thought about a while ago but didnt post, my going theory on the rise cancellation which idk if its a theory more-so as reading the room and putting the pieces together.

it seems like playmates fault to me on account of the toys being shit and then cancelled outright. like waves of toys ready to go in 2019, none saw the light of day.

obvs a lot of them were shit, not the point. the point being theres up to 6 waves of toys on the table at 2019 toy fair, only 1 and 2 were made. compare to the last toyfair showing the mutant mayhem toys.

playmates made both of these era of toys. do you see how much more effort went into one than the other. you can say movies are more popular blah blah blah. but playmates has made ALL tmnt toys since they ever existed, and comparing the rise toys to even the previous shows toys it seems obvious where they put the money.

anyway my theory here is playmates got told (or given or offered or whatever) mutant mayhem. they immediately went. oh. yeah this will make us money. lets start prepping moulds for this now, lets get ready to sell a shit ton of different stuff. and they just left all those rise things on the cutting room floor. they didnt tell anyone on the team they were gonna do that. they didnt say "yeah it doesnt matter what you do cuz we have this NEW thing coming" they just abandoned it. they pretended theyd give it a chance to come back if their movie went well just to appease them and us, cuz they saw more money elsewhere.

the dumb shit about that is like imagine saying that about like. batman or the avengers or something. yeah we wont make this cartoon anymore cuz we have a theatrical movie coming in 3 years. like. you can have more than one iteration YOU DID IT WITH 12.

truly this is nothing against mutant mayhem by all accounts it looks amazing, my point here is that im sick of playmates fucking over each tv show with their stupid hunks of plastic. it has in fact happened each time, rise was just faster

87 was good, then there were the 90s movies that got popular enough that the show needed to be closer in style to.

03 was good, then it got dark, told to be more fun (cuz kids like ben 10 now) so they made fast forward, which was also good but in its own way, but then tmnt 2007 came out and playmates literally said "nope nope, we want to save on moulds so change your show to look like this movie" then 07 didnt go well cuz warner bros didnt fucking market it (what i heard from a podcast w nolan north was that they were super preoccupied marketing the shit out of 300 at the time. which. ok very weird choice for kids toys)

then we have 2012 after nick buys the franchise. and 12 has the weird tonal dissonance of dark stuff and kid stuff, with the most "designed to be toys" characters in it, clearly messing w things in the show itself while it was going.

then bayverse comes out along side it and once its over we get rise, where the designs clearly take inspiration from that movie (donnie and raph specifically)

then mutant mayhem is announced and rise just. fades out of existence. planned seasons cut and cancelled. planned toys disappear.

anyway. none of those shows are bad. none of the movies that come out along side them are bad. its just the dumbassery of like. not being allowed more than one iteration at a time, and its nOT on account of popularity or brand synchronizing like youd think, its literally to not have to make as many DIFFERENT SHAPED hunks of plastic! its fucking stupid. rise's downfall seems to be POOR FUCKING PLANNING on playmates part for THEIR shitty toys and then also being cheap/unwilling to have TWO DIFFERENT KINDS OF TOYS AT ONCE (proof being the 03/07 thing)

anyway. thats my theory or whatever that fills me with rage. i hate playmates and i think its insane that the downfall of rise literally comes down to two stupid companies and their desire to sell garbage to children.

[falloutboylyricss]

Fall Out Boy and Love

Evening Out With Your Girlfriend

none

Take This to Your Grave

"Said I loved you, but I lied" - Tell That Mick He Just Made My List of Things to Do Today

"Hey Chris, you were our only friend, and I know this is belated, but we love you back" - Grenade Jumper

From Under The Cork Tree

"Dance, dance, and these are the lives you love to lead / Dance, this is the way they'd love if they knew how misery loved me" - Dance, Dance

"I took a shot and didn't even come close at trust and love and hope" - I've Got A Dark Alley And A Bad Idea That Says You Should Shut Your Mouth (Summer Song)

"We're the kids you used to love, but then we grew old" - Sophomore Slump Or Comeback Of The Year

"To the 'love,' I left my conscience pressed between the pages of the Bible in the drawer" - XO

"Love never wanted me, but I took it anyway" - XO

"Put your ear to the speaker and choose love or sympathy, but never both" - XO

"I got your love letters, corrected the grammar, and sent them back" - The Music Or The Misery

Infinity On High

"But I love the tree I used to lay beneath, kissed teeth stained red" - I'm Like A Lawyer With The Way I'm Always Trying To Get You Off (Me & You)

"I thought I loved you, but it was just how you looked in the light" - Hum Hallelujah

"I love you in the same way there's a chapel in a hospital" - Hum Hallelujah

"And I saw God cry in the reflection of my enemies and all the lovers with no time for me" - Golden

"In hotel rooms, collecting page six lovers" - Thnks fr th Mmrs

"Put love on hold, young Hollywood is on the other line" - The (After) Life Of The Party

The Carpal Tunnel Of Love (title only)

"Love songs for the genuinely cunning" - The Carpal Tunnel Of Love

"Better off as lovers and not the other way around" - Bang The Doldrums

"This is a love song in my own way" - Bang The Doldrums

"I've loved everything about you that hurt, so let me see your moves, let me see your moves" - G.I.N.A.S.F.S.

"It's a strange way of saying that I know I'm supposed to love you" - G.I.N.A.S.F.S.

Folie à Deux

"So boycott love, detox just to retox" - Disloyal Order Of Water Buffaloes

"These friends, they don't love you, they just love the hotel suites now" - I Don't Care

"But I must confess, I'm in love with my own sins" - America's Suitehearts

"Does he know the way I worship our love?" - Headfirst Slide Into Cooperstown On A Bad Bet

"I wanna scream 'I love you' from the top of my lungs, but I'm afraid that someone else will hear me" - The (Shipped) Gold Standard

"I love the mayhem more than the love" - (Coffee's For Closers)

Save Rock And Roll

"The war is won before it's begun, release the doves, surrender love" - The Phoenix

"I just gotta get you out the cage, I'm a young lover's rage" - My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark (Light 'Em Up)

"My heart is like a stallion, they love it more when it's broke in" - Alone Together

"You know I only wanted fun, then you got me all fucked up on love" - Where Did The Party Go

"You and me are the difference between real love and the love on TV" - Where Did The Party Go

"And now I'm here to give you all my love so I can watch your face as I take it all away" - Just One Yesterday

"Oh, how the mighty fall in love" - The Mighty Fall

"Your crooked love is just a pyramid scheme and I'm dizzy on dreams" - The Mighty Fall

"Baby, we should've left our love in the gutter where we found it" - The Mighty Fall

"Cue all the love to leave my heart, it's time for me to fall apart" - Miss Missing You

"So give me your filth, make it rough, let me, let me trash your love" - Miss Missing You

"But we are alive here in Death Valley, but don't take love off the table yet" - Death Valley

"We love a lot, so we only lose a little" - Death Valley

"If my love is a weapon, there's no second guessing when I say" - Rat A Tat

"You are what you love, not who loves you" - Save Rock And Roll

PAX AM Days

"You're just a black widow who fell in love with herself" - Hot To The Touch, Cold On The Inside

"Love, sex, death, 'til there's nothing left" - Love, Sex, Death

"Miss me? Me, love? Mr. Superstar" - Eternal Summer

"The lion paws his own teeth out so you can love him now" - Demigods

"Now I've got love flowing in my nightmare girl" - Caffeine Cold

"Now I smell like cigarettes 'cause I love to breathe your smoke" - Caffeine Cold

American Beauty/American Psycho

"And I love the way you hurt me" - Irresistible

"Truly free, love it, baby, I'm talking no inflation" - Irresistible

"You know I give my love a f-f-four letter name" - Irresistible

"I think I fell in love again, maybe I just took too much cough medicine" - American Beauty/American Psycho

"And your love is anemic, and I can't believe that you couldn't see it coming from me" - The Kids Aren't Alright

"Did you ever love her? Do you know?" - Jet Pack Blues

"Because they took our love and they filled it up, filled it up with novocaine and now I'm just numb" - Novocaine

"I wish I'd known how much you loved me, I wish I cared enough to know / I'm sorry every song's about you, the torture of small talk with someone you used to love" - Fourth Of July

"You were the song stuck in my head, every song that I've ever loved" - Favorite Record

"Keep making trouble 'til you find what you love" - Twin Skeleton's (Hotel In NYC)

MANIA

"That ultra kind of love you never walk away from" - The Last Of The Real Ones

"I love you to death, but I just can't, I just can't pretend we were lovers first" - HOLD ME TIGHT OR DON'T

"There's nothing more cruel than to be loved by everybody but you" - Wilson (Expensive Mistakes)

"If you were church, I'd get on my knees, confess my love, I'd know where to be" - Church

"Oh, the things that you do in the name of what you love" - Church

"I love the world, but I just don't love the way it makes me feel" - Church

"One look from you and I'm on that faded love" - Heaven's Gate

"'Cause everything else is a substitute for your love" - Heaven's Gate

"She said, 'I love you 'til I don't'" - Sunshine Riptide

"I fell in love, but I didn't fall down" - Sunshine Riptide

"You are my truest feeling yet, I love you so much, it's just like oxygen" - Sunshine Riptide

So Much (For) Stardust

"Sending my love from the other side of the apocalypse" - Love From The Other Side

"Every lover's got a little dagger in their hand" - Love From The Other Side

"Generation sleep, I'm falling in and out of love" - Love From The Other Side

"Give up what you love before it does you in" - Love From The Other Side

"And I love my life, love my life, running middle fingers through the red lights" - Hold Me Like a Grudge

"Love is in the air, I just gotta figure out a window to break out" - Fake Out

"But I didn't take the love when I had the chance, but I swear I'm not sad anymore" - Fake Out

"Tell me, when the party ends, will you still love who I am?" - Heaven, Iowa

"Scar-crossed lovers, forever" - Heaven, Iowa

"Twice the dreams, but half the love" - Heaven, Iowa

"I got love in my heart, so let's sneak in from the cheap seats, honey" - So Good Right Now

"I got all this love I've got to keep to myself" - Flu Game

"Permanent head-cold dreams awash in your love, falling in and out" - Baby Annihilation

Misc.

"Summer love on a gurney with a squeaky wheel" - Lake Effect Kid

"I love you, Chicago, you make me feel so summer fling" - City In A Garden

"My love isn't lost, it's all I got" - Super Fade

"Nobody will love you like, like I do, I guess that's half true" - Bob Dylan

"'Cause everyone loves Bob Dylan, I just want you to love me like that, yeah" - Bob Dylan

[blitz0hno]

Oh perfect it's Purge March day so anyway amane innocent sweep trial 3 let's Go

Listen listen listen it's p straightforward at this point

Amane does worldly medicine (on cat) -> breaking doctrine bc ur supposed to let god heal things -> punished severely, knows that's what is "supposed" to happen because it happens over and over as shown on Magic

Amane's "mother" kills the cat, presumably violently -> breaking doctrine on vulgar action (hurting/killing another living being; they make it a point to emphasize Amane's vegetarianism so it's obviously a very big thing in the doctrine) -> no punishment? No one around to punish her? No one else sees the contradiction? Well Amane is a big adult girl right? In her own eyes anyway, thanks to the cult. A FULL member of the group!! So it's her turn to deliver justice right????

I mean. Wrong but HOW WAS SHE SUPPOSED TO KNOW?? her mother and presumably her father CHOSE to raise her in that cult and abuse her. They showed in Magic how often she had those dogmas drilled into her head. It's not her fucking fault and she's traumatized if you care

Amane was shown in Purge March to be in almost a trance-like state. Yes, she's been "trained" for this, and no matter how she's related to the sinner "a sin is a sin." Did she probably go further than she wanted/needed out of pure rage and injustice?? Even if she did, she was NOT in control of the ideas and reactions she was LITERALLY TOLD TO HAVE.

I'm not saying she was right to kill a woman honestly but no never mind I am saying that child abusers deserve death haha anyway amane inno sweep 100 years

Like Jackalope DEFINITELY ain't tryna let inno Amane slide bc he sees a need for her to "take responsibility" even though she never denies responsibility at all?? She knows what she did, or at least is sure she knows. She isn't remorseless, she has been told that feelings are bad compared to God's word. Shocker that she represses them.

Also technically it was her mother's responsibility to not get herself murdered by abusing her child and killing a cat and raising her kid in a cult. I'm not a victim blamer but that's a 12 year old dawg if you messed up that bad in life nothing's saving you try again next time.

[cryptonymdc]

Headcanons -> How they Hide their Identity from you (GN Reader)

Pt. 3

Dove | Donald “Don” Hall 

With the power of going against his principles. Don hates to lie to you. It goes against literally everything he stands for. He would much rather be upfront with you. But that would put you in danger and distress, and he hates that more than lying. 

You know what older half-brothers are useful for? Alibi. I mean, it’s not like they go into battle without each other. So they are hanging out. They’re just not doing golf, or whatever excuse Don managed to stutter out and answer for. Hank will always back him up, so it doesn’t really matter what he says, he just feels bad anyway. 

And it’s not like you suspect anything in the first place. Hawk and Dove are known heros, but not ones readily on the general public's radar. They’ve done a few cases that catch public interest, like saving judges from assassination plots, but those are few and far in between. Mostly people in the magical community know about the avatars for the Lords of Chaos and Order, and so unless you fit that category you are less than lilley to bother. The most you probably heard about them is that they joined the Justice League recently, but that’s just pleasant news. More heroes, good for you. 

And if you did bother to suspect, your thoughts would quickly turn to another target. Don? A crime-fighting hero in spandex? Never. He can barely handle moving spiders outside of your home safely, because he feels so bad about evicting them. He has tried to convince you before to coexist. Never. 

He couldn’t possibly be punching people on the regular, never. 

Don could never be the Dove, he’s too much of a pacifist. 

Hawk | Henry “Hank” Hall 

With the power of Don Hall, who else? Oh, Don feels bad about abusing his partners trust and using his brother as an alibi, but Hank has no such trouble. He abuses that even when he isn’t going out as Hawk, just because he was stuck in traffic and didn’t want to confess he was late to your date because his road rage was so bad he broke the steering wheel and had to walk. No, his brother is definitely borrowing his car. Doesn’t he have his own? Maybe, but Hank’s got more trunk space. Don’t worry about it. 

And like above, if you Hawk and Dove were on your radar at all, it’d be a different story. Unlike Don, Hank absolutely looks like he could be Hawk? Bit of a temper, strong sense of justice, and a propensity to punch first and ask questions later? Sounds like Hank first and Hawk second, really. 

What’s really the kicker is that Hank almost reveals himself without even meaning to. He wanted to show off a bit, when the conversation about heroes came up, and he bragged that Hawk and Dove saved his father. Which made you ask, why his dad? Who are Hawk and Dove? Why is that the first appearance of them? What happened? And wow, that’s too many questions, with too many good answers that hit a little close to home. 

Best call Don, or hell, even his dad. Irwin could probably explain it in his unbiased way that leaves little doubt that Hank could never be Hawk. Nah, he was too much trouble as a kid to be a hero. Has that logic ever been used before? No, it hasn’t, but it’s what Hank is sticking with. 

No, Hank couldn’t be Hawk. Don would never let his brother go alone, and as long as Don isn’t Dove, how could Hank be Hawk?

[neerdowellnarrator]

hi hi hello, my love for greek mythos is being ignited SO strongly and you are a VISIONARY, so this is an open invitation to talk about jace and jaceclones as the women of mycenea! please share any and all thoughts and reasoning you wish 👀

Obligatory disclaimer, I am not a classicist and haven't read the Illiad or the Oresteia trilogy in a hot minute. I do however have a bachelors degree in Jace Stardiamond studies and am working on my vibes-based PhD thesis so actually I'm an expert and everything I say is correct. Now let's talk about the jaceclones:

J2 as Iphigenia:

J2 the innocent, J2 the acolyte, J2 the sacrificial lamb. Iphigenia was a priestess of Artemis, you know, before that same goddess ordered her death. She spent her life in service to her god only to be murdered for her father's fuck-up. What justice.

Iphigenia does not know she is going to her death. She thinks she is going to her wedding. She does not know until the last moment that the alter she stands before is for sacrifice, not matrimony. She's so busy looking into the eyes of her "fiance" that she does not see the knife.

I'll say this for J2. He sees the knife. He saw the knife a mile away and still put on the veil (obscuring his view) and went to the alter. His god has decreed it. Maybe he will get to die a married man. Maybe his blood staining holy stones is the closest he'll get to divinity.

In the kind versions, Iphigenia is spirited away by Artemis at the last second. God says to Iphigenia, to Isaac, to Bluejay: "I was only kidding. I don't want you dead. I just ordered your murder as a test and you passed. I love you."

We tell a lot of stories in our little circle. Very few of them are kind.

J3 as Helen:

J3 wishes his face would launch a thousand ships. He wants to be so desirable he starts a war and so empty that no one asks what he thinks about it. He wants a goddess of lust to declare him her favorite. He wants to be wanted so much that men swear to kill and die for the chance to have him.

He wants to stare at the bodies of soldiers who died for him and say "oh what a whore am I." He wants lustful men to put words in his mouth to degrade him. He wants to be mistranslated in a way that makes him sexier, more alluring. He wants to be so lost in translation he ceases to be a person and becomes only an hourglass silhouette on a much-fingered page.

He wants everyone to want him so badly they hate him for it. He wants them to never forgive him.

J3 wants to be Helen so badly and fails to realize that he is already her in every way that matters: trapped and miserable, with no agency over his own life.

J4 as Electra:

Electra's sister's blood starts her story. She sees her sister, Iphigenia, die with a trusting smile, she sees her aunt, Helen, be stolen and locked away. She sees that the only way out is through. She sees red.

Red as in anger, certainly, but also red as in blood as she murders her mother, who murdered her father, who murdered her sister, who murdered nobody at all and died first anyway. Is this justice? This is the justice the gods will give her.

Electra's brother will suffer for their crime. Electra herself, however, walks away. She washes the blood off her hands. She tries to build a life.

J4 would murder her creator and walk away. She wants to. She wants to kill her god and save herselves. In the good ending, she does. In the bad ending...

J4 as Cassandra:

J4 knows what's coming. She knows they're doomed. She can do nothing. She rages, she screams, she refuses to fall into Porter's bed, she tries to save the others from doing the same. It's not enough.

Cassandra is captured and ensalved by Iphigenia's murderer, and she herself is murdered by Electra's murder victim. An alternate version of herself trying to save her, but, like J4 being too late to save herself.

[thesoulspulse]

Danny Phantom Randomness (Vlad’s The Real Villain Here!)

I think I talked to someone about this before, but has it ever struck anyone else as odd that the Observants only went after Danny and not Vlad to quote “save the future?” Sure, Danny’s ghost half was the main portion of Dan, but if you stop to really think about it Vlad’s actually the one to blame for driving him mad because future Vlad tells the current Danny point blank:

“And when my evil ghost half mixed with yours, my evil side overwhelmed you...”

This is important to note because the Danny of that timeline was grief-stricken, angry at the world, and ashamed of himself for failing to save his friends and family. So when Vlad removed his ghost half, instead of making them go away all those emotions became twice as strong. Especially the anger part since Danny must have thought Vlad did this to him on purpose instead of doing what he promised which was to take away all of his painful human emotions. Mind you, Vlad might not have shown it but I think he was grieving Maddie’s death too and probably blamed Jack more than ever for that rather than Danny. Either way, Vlad’s evil side completely took Danny’s mind, creating this new person who both was and wasn’t either of them.

That said, even at his lowest moments Danny has never done anything I’d call “pure evil,” including when Freakshow had him under hypnosis. Sure he was a snarky jerk and attacked his friends, but in the end he snapped out of it before crossing the line. When he became Dan though...there was no one left to bring him back from the brink. Nothing worth fighting for except taking out his rage on everyone who ever hurt him and making sure that NO ONE would ever hurt him again by becoming someone far worse than Vlad could ever hope to be. At least at that point in time if we don’t count everything that happened in the new timeline once Dan was beaten.

So long story short you’d think the Observants would want to take care of the root of the problem, aka Vlad since I believe he's the true source of Dan’s evil. Danny was just a kid who didn’t know how to handle the loss of his friends and family whereas Vlad used his deep-rooted hatred of Jack to as an excuse for every bad thing he’s done since the portal accident back in college. Then again, they probably thought getting rid of Danny would be easier since to his credit Vlad is more than a match for them or anyone else they might try to throw at him.

As for getting Clockwork involved, while warning Vlad about Maddie and Danny’s possible death’s if he doesn’t change his ways might be enough to stop him for a little while, on the other Vlad might just do what he usually does and take advantage of that information instead which would only make him a bigger target. Vlad would most likely try to use Danny’s fear of becoming Dan as a manipulation tool or a way to throw him off his game during their battles. In a worse case scenario Vlad could go so far as to try to recreate Dan without anyone dying just so he could turn Danny into some kind of evil minion as a last resort since the cloning thing obviously failed...

Anyways, my point is it would be interesting to see an alternate version of “The Ultimate Enemy” where its Vlad being targeted instead of Danny to save the future from Dan. Who knows, it could end in another team up after Vlad finally realizes he IS the true villain here.

[thousand-winters]

After ASIAS and their sewing lessons how do you think Darius would feel seeing how Belos and the other coven heads treat Hunter? Especially since until recently he hadn’t been treating him much better

Oh, I love thinking about this one.

Honestly? I feel like he was probably going through the five stages of grief, as per usual once he bonded with Hunter and went from "ugh, a teenager is the Golden Guard 🙄" to "oh, sweet Titan, a teenager is the Golden Guard, and that teenager is Hunter 😰".

It definitely would hit him deeply to see how the other Coven Heads treat him because even if ignoring him is better than mocking him or shoving him around (the bar is truly in hell at the EC), he's now realizing this is a kid deeply desperate for affection, the only thing he wants is for someone to listen to him and to care. So perhaps he wasn't that bad of a offender in that sense but it still would make him feel like a prick. Couldn't he have been at least polite?

I feel like he would also have this weird combination of feeling absolutely infuriated on Hunter's behalf whenever one of the other CHs were rude or mocking toward him, but he couldn't do anything because it wouldn't be good for anyone to find out they're spending time together, and every time he also would be struck with a little voice in his head kinda going "oh, like you were so much better, what right do you have to be angry at something you gleefully ignored before?"

At least he could make Hunter not feel quite as miserable during their lessons and it's not as good as he would like, but it's something, and turns out "something" is more than Hunter's ever had during his whole life. Thinking about that probably doesn't help with the guilt.

Respect to how Belos treated Hunter, if he knew, I feel like he would have a hard time not wanting to punch Belos in the face every time he sees him.

The thing is Belos was really consistent with keeping the abuse behind closed doors, so I think Darius mostly would have context clues through the things Hunter would say without realizing there's something wrong with them. Very much like in TTT and his "I wasn't really allowed to talk to the other scouts" and he just wouldn't see what's wrong with that. Meanwhile Darius is at his side trying to school his expression into something that doesn't scream "murderous rage" because Hunter would assume he's angry at him and he can't give away that he dislikes Belos just like that anyway.

So I think with that he would just be hit little by little with realizations about how Hunter was raised and how he's treated by his own family even that would pile up overtime into a big "I have to get him out of here" feeling. I think he could feel guilty there, but that one would be more guilt about not being able to get him out immediately the more he realizes things are worse than what he ever suspected.

The saving grace was probably that there wasn't enough time for him to realize just how bad it was, because I'm a firm believer of Darius having impulsive emotional reactions and I think if he had known Belos had caused Hunter's big scars or that he could kill Hunter literally any day on a whim, he would have gotten him out of there whether Hunter wanted or not and it would have been messy from all angles, especially considering he was one of the three main rebels.

[adaines-furious-feast]

more work distractions, coming right up!

post sophomore year, the ratgrinders coming home, with lucy dead

that's right, porter went ahead and did the ritual anyways! because his rage took over and after getting kipperlily w/ her ritual, he went ahead for the rest of the ratgrinders

lucy, this time, doesn't come back from that temple and the ratgrinders are in pass/fail

bc they're not old enough for last stand, they have an easier exam thing (its only for juniors and seniors in the show i believe) and they get through it sure, but it's hard, not having lucy

and jace was supposed to lead them. they *all* know that. and because he wasn't there, porter killed them too early

which gives jace a fucking headache but the children he'd been helping train are now scarred like him, and one is dead

jace, with ratgrinders who he wanted to protect, now hate him bc he protected adaine (and the bad kids) instead

something, something jace will always choose nmk/arianwen/the bad kids over porter and the ratgrinders

but jace has to go with porter anyways. and thus he's back to watching the children he couldn't save, because he chose to save their (future) opposition

Jace puzzling over which decision is the right one to make, not realising that there have been no right options for years. I would blame Kalina for putting bad ideas into his head but really he should have seen this sooner.

(I am actually currently writing about the ritual, btw, while still trying and failing to work)

[uhhhhhhhhh-ummmmmmmmm-trollge]

NOOO YOU'RE NOT ANNOYING, PLEASE GO AHEAD AND RAMBLE, YOU'VE GOT ME INTERESTED...

Oh okat!!!

So basically. It's Just A burning Memory's Le realm in ruins vid was pretty cool. And uh. I like Lemon Demon so I was listening to Action Movie Hero Boy and made an AU where Troll Reeves was waaayyy less mature about what he was doing. Ended up making a lot of errors and just ignoring them. In the end this backfires horrifically and some entities get out while he ends up tripping near the exit and the ongoing explosions causes a pipe from level two backrooms to break and a piece flies into his head (DW death means I care/hj) - So that's the bad ending one, was made a while back. Pretty simple uhm the next one came to me while listening to Mr Fear and is more recent (I get a lot of my ideas from music it's my uh... muse ic (Badum tss) if you will) - This is a continuation au for the lore vids bc I am just. Mourning constantly. SO my fav First Encounter idiot is successful in killing Inquisitor and Darius Pridemore gets into power. Unbeknownst to him, when Trolls are stressed/in low points of life that's when they go all Trollge mode. Now Idk about you but being put down is uh. Pretty stressful I'd say. And they're all in one place. Yeah, so the apocalypse breaks out. Now. Here's where things get to the relatively good ending I made for this uhm. While the two friends are having a nice little picnic over their success, Devourer of Flesh, now cured and no longer trollging, is with his dad who went against protocol and saved him from the mass euthanization. They go fight the monster keeping the cure locked away (who was already pretty busted up from the first dude who came over and grabbed cure) together and end up killing it and getting just a crap ton of cure. They go around curing people and all that, pretty predictable. Uh then they fight the two guys and instead of them turning into normal Trolls when the cure is given, they bubble up and die. This is found out by the kid after shooting it into Maluma. (Ik that's probably not his real name but I don't want to just call him "The weed guy") (Dude got killed by the guy who he manipulated, just realized that now and I think that's sick, was not completely intended but I like that anyways) First Encounter idiot sees this happen and is completely distraught. (They care about each other SO MUCH OK) Then goes after the kid in a complete blind rage. This makes it so he doesn't realize the kid's dad is around and not willing to watch his kid die (sort of) again. While he's distracted trying to give the kid a slow, painful death through a million cuts of the blade, the dad aims and fires the cure right into the center of his head, causing him to explode. Yippee yay the world is saved. That was much bigger than I thought it'd be. Whoops. Uhm. If you want a simplified version of all that I can try if you want.

[doegirldaydreamer]

Diary entry #2 - 21/01/25

Okay so honestlt im writing this on the same day as the first one, so i might not do one for a few days so i dont burn myself out! (bc of my habit of getting obsessed and burning out in like a few days.) But i kinda already took notes about today so erm!! Youre all stuck w it! ᜊ( ᴗ͈ˬᴗ͈)ᜊ

Giggling forreal onto the actual day. Firstly i jsut wanna say i had to actually decipher my notes like an archeologist or sumet bc i wrote them under the table without looking. Ok forreal anyways omg nevermind tumblr closed this when i minimised the app and said it didnt save and jumpscared me so hard.

ANYWAYS. Let me yap!! Even tho i kinda just wanna sleep rn but shshhh ill just be lazy tmr.

So firstly it was raining on like my first good hair day in a whilleee so.. just why </3 Also bc jan’s been such a blur i realised its my mums bday tmr and i didnt even realise and i feel actually a little evil.. like obvi bc i dont have a job theres not much i can do, but like.. idk. Ill make sure to wish her happy bday tho! Anyways me and my friend mostly talked abt my other friends really nasty now ex bf. Like they shouldve broken up AGESS ago for.. so so many reasons that are probably worse than u think. But at least it happened eventually!! And now i can talk abt him bc he was kinda weird icel. omg also absolutely fantasising abt my dvds bc todays the like due date for package!! Love that!!

Anyways now school.. so basically my friend mentioned he bought cinnamon buns bc he loves them and hes like ‘yeah u can have one as well’ but the dread kinda kicked in in first period. Bit of a rude reminder i do in fact have problems and sometimes they make stuff suck for no reason which is.. ew but ill manage. But on a better note i totally have a little hallway crush (outside of my atrocious fat raging normal crush). Basically shes in my history and when we were lining up she was like sorting her bag and she looked back and smiled at me and UGH shes so pretty!! I also told her her bag was unzipped and fixed it for her 😇😇 But also my usual massive headache started this period. Like one of my eyes was watering headache. But also it kinda relaxed when i put my glasses on si like.. is it straining my eyes?? Idk i js really need new glasses bc my old ones are really old and a little broken and omg i need to stop im starting to feel bad for them. Girly things. Anyways fr ill be getting new ones sometime soon so i can keep my others as spares!! Anyways we were still soing abt.. ykw from ww2 germany and we were talking abt how he treated the church and how a lot of minsters and like preists opposed him and like. It reminded me that stuff isnt always black and white and people who are in a group with a lot of bad people can be good yk? Like a lot of my friends have bad experiences with religion but not all religious people are bad ykwim? And lastly my friend accidentally buttdialed his gf (also my friend) and she heard someone saying goodmorning to me and me going ‘omg he actually said rhat??’ bc i was talking abt someone else giggle. Funsies.

Okayayays anyways now p2 which was english. As usual, my teachers an icon, and also i got to highlight one of my pages really cute and i wanted to take a pic but no phones ufufjjfjf.. what id give to like take pictures w my brain or sumet. Maybe those meta glasses would be cool if they werent violently invasive and chunky as hell. But anyways the Mz kid was like even louder than usual somehow but it didnt bother me bc i had a rlly weird dream w him in it?? Jusy in one part but like. Basically in the dream was saying something about ‘birthday’ and i thought he was being rude so i snapped at him n he looked sad. Then i went around looking for him but found two girls like boxing in some random changing room???? Anyways there was more but thats what stuck w me lol. So yeah i didnt really mind him that much today. Also when we were leaving i was like stuck near some girls who dont like me but like.. i wasnt stressing abt it i just didnt really care. Sooo.. character development idk giggle

Anwyyayss at break i ended up eating half of that cinnamon bun which like. Win bc it was nice and recovery stuff idk. Anyways one of my other friends (R) whos like never in school was in today and we just yapped and hung out for a little and ralked abt the whole bf thing and i loved it shes so sweeet!! But yeah otherwise it was chill asf and we just hung out and stuff!

Okok now third which was physics that also has a teacher i adore bc hes so funny. He made a joke abt like someone thinking he was talking to them bc of his lazy eye and being dramatic abt it and i was GIGGLINF. Also he had like a thermometer gun or whatever and he made an actual gun joke and it surprised me a little lol. Ofmmgm and he made a joke abt b.ngs bc of how many people do the plant where we live and hes an icon for that. Alsoso me and my friend were listening to music and do i wanna know started playing and i didnt even know he had it on his playlist and it was a massive win. Last thing promise, i was thinking abt getting like a mini notebook to write this stuff down in bc i wrote it on my hand but my pens r gel pens so it smudged really bad and i had to type it up anyways sooo.. better pens or mini notebook giggle. Andndn lastly bc yes!! I like stayed behind for a sec bc my friend was getting a reward and when we left my teacher like pointed at me and was like ‘u should speak up in lesson more!’ And fucjkckf hes so sweet. Maybe its my daddy issues idk but it was like.. rlly?? :((( hes just so nice i love him smsmmm!

Anyways then maths. My normal teacher wasnt in again which liks.. miss come back pls </3 and also some kids were like making fun of the annoying kid which like.. ur not any better than him dude.. but tbf one of those kids was a little funny after abt sumet else so.. idk doesnt make it right but makes me him a little less annoying. Anyways i got reminded i need to clear oht my bag bc all my stuff in it looks so cute together but its an actual mess so eventually ive gotta sort it sigh..

Aaand then lunch. Was inside again bc it was raining, and I mostly just yapped w R. She did have this really nice spray tho (one of the sol de janero ones) and im thinking abt getting one bc apparently they actually last and theyre really nice. Also some mean girls came up like opposite me but behind our group and sat in the one place we were told not to sit.. but its fine they got moved eventuallt and we didnt have to deal w them so. Yay! R left for the second half of lunch tho so it was just the normal group again and we just chilled.

Theeenn p5 which was chemistry. Honestly reallt not much happened, i was spaced asf. Weve been over the stuff were going over now so i could clock out a little giggle. I did yap to another friend otw out which we love.

Andndn finallt freedom omg. Ofc my first priority was coffee which honestly is always one of the best parts of my day. But firstly my dvds got delayed which was like.. the worst thing ever. Giggle fr tho i mostly just scrolled tumblr and stuff. And also sorted out my blog a little bc unfortunately im just a girl and i need everything to look perfect. I have revised some for my exam tho and i think im getting better at it. Still stupidly snappy but im working on it! Also i hate that i have to like look at my food before i eat it bro. Like if it looks weird i will be one unexpected texture from gagging and its just. I know the foods good let me eat in peace </3 But its fine bc ofc it acc was good and we love that!

Anyways yayaa thats it for this entry. Ive just gotta wash my hair then im going bed finalllyy!! And tbh if its anytime near what it is rn for me you should too tbh. Get ur beauty sleep angell!!

Rue, signing out 𓂃۶ৎ

[teecupangel]

Ok ok hear me out (spoilers for HOTD but I think everyone's seen it now so idc) Desmond as a white dragon. And saving that poor kid and his bebe dragon from the mean uncle with the out of control big ass war dragon. Like instead of getting chomped to pieces, either Desmond dive bombs her head and knocks her off course or tries to lead the kid to hide between the big ass rocks he flew through the first time in the scene and have him wait out the storm before flying home (or helps him fly home idk)

Or or

YEET him into GOT as a dragon. Particularly when Dany is bout to lose her second dragon bc the fleet shot em out the sky while they're flying over the ocean. So either Desmond starts burning the fleet and they're like WAIT A DAMN MINUTE THERES A 4TH DRAGON? or he basically uses assassin skill to catch the spear before it takes out her dragon.

Idk I just want Desmond to be a big fuck off dragon.

Okay, so let’s say Desmond reacted on pure instinct. He sees one huge ass dragon terrorizing a bebe dragon while the rider laughs and he doesn’t really need any more information than that.

He goes in and intercepts them, scaring the freaking hell of Aemond because…

This.

Dragon.

Can.

Talk.

So he attacks the bigass dragon and the bigass dragon goes for him and he leads them away from the bebe dragon and the rider, going “Go, kid! I’ll keep this asshole busy!”

And Lucerys and Arrax go while Aemond is trying to control Vhagar as she starts to go wild, annoyed by this unknown dragon employing hit and run attacks.

Desmond doesn’t manage to kill Vhagar (although he did try) and, instead, manages to escape by taking out one eye to give himself enough time to fly away while the dragon trashes and screams in rage and pain.

Desmond finds a safe place to hide for a while and try to find out what the ever living fuck is happening.

Meanwhile…

Luke’s death was meant to be the trigger that “officially” starts the Dance of the Dragons but, instead, this random white dragon changes things.

Because no one has ever seen a pure white dragon…

But they know of the legend.

The legend of the ice dragon…

No one had seen it before but now they heard the tales of its power, of its speed…

Exaggerated even further by Luke and Aemond for differing reasons.

And now…

The starts for the hunt of the legendary White Dragon begins.

(I’m hc-ing Desmond’s White Dragon form is around the same size as Rhaegal so he’s on the small size compared to some of the big ‘players’ in hotd)

As for the GOT idea…

Are we talking about how one of Dany’s dragons got hit by a no-scope ballista which felt like it has aimbot on in Season 8 Episode 4 while they were just flying???

‘Cause…

Well…

Desmond could just be some random white dragon flying around that parts and the Iron Fleets would see him and assume he’s one of Dany’s dragons so they shoot at him. He manages to dodge out of the way because his entire lineage is a freaking cheat created by the Isus anyway and the commotion is what made Dany ‘remembered’ that “Oh yeah, there’s a fucking fleet we have to fight” (just remembering how “oh Dany forgot about the Iron Fleet” as an excuse for that scene, smh) and she’s surprised by this White Dragon but her attention is soon taken away by the ballista arrows aimed at her and her dragons.

Her dragon survives while Desmond just runs away because he wasn’t going to fight an entire fleet just because they shot at him, he’s a dragon, he gets it (no, he doesn’t, he’s just thinking “yeah, anyone would shoot at a dragon like me” because holy shit, he’s a dragon).

However…

The thing is… unless Desmond has been in this world long enough to have an idea of the power struggles and the big players, he wouldn’t join Dany’s side during that huge battle in Season 8 Episode 5, mostly because those dragons were burning ships and people left and right. He wouldn’t know which side was trying to do the right thing, only that this was starting to look like a really bad onesided fight filled with the screams of the burning.

And the burning?

Desmond would remember how he burned.

How he burned to save the world.

So, in this scenario, Desmond would actually fight off Dany’s dragons because, from his perspective, they’re the aggressors and the ones killing people mercilessly.

Then Dany tries to talk to him (maybe order him down) and Desmond shouts at her back off and they both realize that Desmond can talk so everyone just stops to watch Dany and Desmond talk because “holy shit, talking dragon!”.

So it would be up to Dany if she can persuade Desmond that she’s doing the right thing and that her enemies are in the wrong. Of course, since Desmond could talk to anyone, that means people on the other side (mostly the soldiers still alive) could also plead their case to him.

So Dany will also be fighting an uphill battle with Desmond since it looks to him like she’s the invading force since he doesn’t know the whole history of Westeros (and the other countries and continents).

[she-karev]

A Day in Hell (Amber Karev Angst Imagine)

Previous Part

Age Rating: 12+

Chapters: Four of Six

Fandom: Grey’s Anatomy

Fancast: Bruce Greenwood as Ian Talbert

Canon Episode: Season 17 Episode 2

AN: I wanted to do a story to showcase the hardships health care workers faced when covid hit. The doctors and nurses put our health first during a worldwide crisis and we should be forever grateful for that even without a pandemic to prove what should always be known.

Summary: Amber continues to monitor a dying Ian who gives her a gift.

Words: 1350

Chapter Links Here: 1,2,3,4,5,6

April 1st, 2020

Amber enters Ian’s room after stepping out so he can talk to his ex-wife over zoom. It took until tonight for Ian to gather the courage to contact her and by then his cough was getting worse and his lungs were flooded from Amber’s last physical exam.

The young resident tries to put her own emotions aside as she continues to oversee Ian. The sight of another patient of hers dying of a virus makes her heart break and her mind crack more but she knows that as bad as it is for her, it’s even worse for Ian who is lying in bed looking more sickly than he did this morning.

Amber clears her throat inside her PAPR helmet before closing the tablet, “How did it go?”

Ian speaks in a raspy voice, “Fine I guess. We just talked about our regrets and what we could have been. She was crying and telling me no matter what I’ll always mean something to her even after everything. It was pretty sad.”

“It sounds like it was. How are you feeling?”

“I’m cold.”

Amber grabs a blanket for Ian covering him head to toe, “Um…let me give you a little atropine for that rasp.” She inserts the IV with the medicine, “It shouldn’t be long now. Is there anyone else we can call for you?”

Ian shakes his head and speaks clearer, “Everybody else is dead or wishes me dead…on the bright side for some of them I’m fulfilling their dream.” Ian chuckles and begins to cough violently. Amber ups his oxygen intake making him breathe much easier and his coughing to stop.

Amber decides to talk to him to ease his pain, “You know some teenagers came in this morning after their car exploded. One had third degree burns on over 70 percent of his body, one had a wooden spike over in his abdomen. The reason they were even out there in the first place was to go to a party in the middle of a pandemic. I’m a doctor so I know that they don’t know what they’re doing, they’re neurologically stupid because their brains aren’t fully developed. Plus, a pandemic taking away prom and graduation and walking to the mailing box instead of a stage to get their diplomas there was bound to be teenage chaos.”

Ian grins seeing the ire in his doctor’s face, “But that doesn’t stop you from cursing at them for their stupidity.”

Amber nods, “Or their dads for fighting in the tent in front of other family members making it infinitely worse for everyone in there. And from what I heard one of the dads knew and he let his kid go out anyway it is…”

Ian nods, “We all have a blind spot for our kids…did the boys live?”

“Um the boy with the spike he was in danger of losing his kidney but they were able to save most of it.”

“And the boy with the burns?”

Amber sighs, “He died in surgery. Even thought what he did was beyond stupid he didn’t deserve to die and not like that and not while his parents are outside.”

Ian nods in sympathy, “It’s a terrible time for everyone, especially parents and their kids.”

Amber inhales to subside her rage, “It is enraging how much worse this world is getting and we’re all just following and bringing each other down like we did before…I hate this, I hate everything. I wish I wasn’t here to experience the world at it’s worst.”

“…You sound like me after my daughter died. I wanted to burn everything and everyone around me, I spent so much time raging and so much time hating myself for not doing more.” Ian swallows the lump in his throat, “There is no worse feeling in the world than knowing you failed to protect your child.”

Amber looks at Ian in sympathy, “Tell me about her, your daughter, what was she like?”

Ian sighs, “She was…She was life. I don’t even know how to explain it. I never saw someone take such joy out of helping others or tell everyone how she was gonna be a hero. Olivia was this force of energy that couldn’t be contained. Even when she was a moody teenager nothing could stop her and whoever tried she would put them in their place.”

Ian smiles at the memory with Amber grinning, “I saw this person coming out of her mother, she had my hair and my eyes but still I thought, ‘I don’t know who this person is.’ It was like having someone from another planet into your home and you’re just a host. I don’t know if that’s how other parents feel but it’s how I felt when I saw my Olivia for the first time.”

“She sounds wonderful.” Amber says.

“She was, she really was.” Ian frowns and tears glisten his eyes, “The only time I saw her without that light…was when my wife and I identified her body. They shipped her to the VA and my wife and I prayed the whole way that it was someone else that it wasn’t our Olivia. But it was. She was…she was so burned and so dark, but I knew it was her because she had her tags on. She never took those off and neither did I when they gave them to us at her funeral. Her mother couldn’t take them, she was so broken, she couldn’t take them, so I did. I made sure they would stay with someone so that she wouldn’t be forgotten. She deserved to be remembered.”

Amber nods, “Everybody deserves to be remembered. And I am gonna remember you Ian, I promise.”

Ian gets annoyed by the sounds of the monitor, “Can you shut that off?”

Amber moves to mute the monitor while she does Ian takes off his daughter’s dog tags around his neck and holds them out to his doctor. Amber looks at the tags held out to her.

“What are you doing?”

“I want you to have this.”

Amber shakes her head not feeling worthy of it from a man she barely knows, “No I can’t take that.”

Ian is insistent and explains in a raspy voice, “Take it, don’t let her go to waste with me. I don’t have anyone to give this to.”

Amber feels sad over the ordeal this man has gone through. It is bad enough he has to die inside a box but to die alone with nobody around calls her compassionate side forward so this good man has someone by his bedside. She holds his hand with the dog tags and sits down in the chair next to him.

“I’m here. I am not going anywhere.” Amber promises holding his hand as he tears up from her kindness.

“I don’t blame you.” Ian states to a guilty Amber who closes her tearful eyes and looks down in shame, “I’m gonna see my daughter. Do you believe that?”

Amber sniffles and looks back up at her friend with tears in her eyes still holding his weakening hand.

“I didn’t give it much thought until this happened.” Amber admits, “But yeah, I want to believe there’s something good for you after all this pain. I really want to believe it.”

Ian’s breathing gets shallower, and he lays in bed looking up at the ceiling waiting for the release of death. Amber is still by his side holding his hand making sure he is not alone, it’s the only thing she can do at a time like this.

“Everything I have…is yours.” Ian proclaims.

A few moments pass before Ian stops breathing and lays still in bed with his eyes wide open. Amber looks and sees the monitors flatline without the sound. She looks back at Ian and let’s go of his limping hand to close his eyes. Her lip quivers as her eyes fill with tears before she sobs by the bed, saddened by what the world has come to and how many good people it’s lost in the process.

Next Chapter Here