#id rather just have the knowledge that i used to be human so i only have one thing to mourn

[semisolidmind]

Considering the idea that Angel could find a LOT of information, either on tapes or in files. During their time in the factory. Do you think they'd share with the toys who they once were?

Or would they just... Let the past stay in the past?

if they could even get to each of the surviving toys' files, which, unless they're lying around in the open, are probably locked in a filing cabinet somewhere.

if they did manage to find their files, y/n would ask the toys first. do you want to know?

and i think that the toys would say no. poppy seems like she may already know who she used to be, kissy would be too upset by it, and dogday doesn't think it matters.

they appreciate y/n going through the trouble of looking for them, but there's no way for it to be fixed. there's no way for them to become those people again, so what would knowing change?

(some wonderful fics take the idea that y/n gathers up all the evidence of playtime co.'s wrongdoings and gives it to the police. files, tapes, any evidence they can find is bared to the public. they can't fix what happened, but they can at least get a little justice for the victims)

[angelwishess]

You have been invited to the Fairytale Soiree! ‧₊˚ ⋅.𖥔

Angel’s 100+ followers event!

a/n: Hi hi everyone! I’d like to thank everyone so, so so very much for 160 followers!! When I first started this blog about a month ago, I genuinely did NOT expect to get this much love and attention. It was such a surprise, but I’m so very thankful nonetheless! During my short time running this blog I have met so many wonderful, talented, charming, amazing people, and I appreciate all of you so much! Thank you once again for supporting me until now! ♡

Story:

Every 100 years, a group of fae gather together to host a grand party to celebrate the beginning of a new century. And tonight, once the clock hits 12 it will be the genesis of a new era once more. The stars seemed to shine brighter than usual on this evening, and magic swirled around as the faeries gathered to sing, dance, feast and party the night away.

But of course, there was one more thing they had to do. Every Soiree, the three hosting faeries summon a group of humans, beastmen and merfolk alike to join them on this joyous occasion! Once every one hundered years, it truly would be a waste not to share the joys of tonight.

It just so happened that this time, a group of students seem to be the ones that were chosen! Waking up in an unfamiliar palace-like building, lush with gorgeous flora and hues of pinks, blues and purples. Although skeptical at first, they soon joined the fae with their grand soiree.

That was, until they swiftly picked out Kyra from the crowd. Declaring her as the “Dreamer of Tonight”. They explained, that at the end of every soiree, just before the clock hits 12, all of the fae come together to grant one wish. Whether it be riches that overflow into mountains of gold, power beyond imagination, or knowledge of the unknown— whatever it is, they grant it. And it may even shape the course of the next century.

Kyra pondered this for a moment, sitting upon an elegant throne-like chair as she looked at the faces of all her friends. She frowned, and the faeries were curious. That was until she asked,

“Could I share my wish with my friends?”

Taken aback, the faeries asked why she wanted to do such a thing.

“Well… It just seems kind of unfair. They all deserve to have their wishes granted, too.”

An air of silence filled the room. Only to be broken by a rampaging laughter from all of the fae. They laughed, and laughed, until tears prickled in the corners of their eyes. No one had ever asked for something so ridiculous. The very first time anyone had asked for such a thing!

Amused, the fae agreed to let her share the wish— but with only one person. Now, its up to the rest of the group to decide whether they want to convince Kyra to share the wish with her, or simply just enjoy the party. But they better hurry up, because the clock is ticking! Either way, the faeries are expecting a good show out of tonight’s soiree.

Why, it might just be the most exciting one yet!

“Share this wish with me!”

Dress Code:

There isn’t a really stict dresscode— but of course the characters will all be wearing clothing suited for an extravagant ball!

And, if the name wasn’t obvious enough, this event is very Fairytale themed! So I suggest taking inspiration from fairytales! Whether it be characters, tropes, or items in the fairytale! Go crazy!!!

Theres not really a certain colorscheme either, Id rather you use the colors you think fit the characters you choose the most !!

Featured Characters:

Kyra Lovelace SSR (Fairytale Attire)

Floyd Leech SR (Fairytale Attire)

Ace Trappola SR (Fairytale Attire)

Vil Schoenheit SR (Fairytale Attire)

Azul Ashengrotto SR (Fairytale Attire)

Leona Kingscholar SR (Fairytale Attire)

Jamil Viper SR (Fairytale Attire)

Sebek Zigvolt R (Fairytale Attire)

Jamil Viper R (Fairytale Attire)

Jack Howl R (Fairytale Attire)

OCs:

Victor Sanderson SSR (Fairytale Attire)

Yuuel “El” Mirume SSR (Fairytale Attire)

Yurena Lovelace SSR (Fairytale Attire)

Yuubeni Choga SSR (Fairytale Attire)

Joseph Akaba SSR (Fairytale Attire)

Yuki SSR (Fairytale Attire)

Dranav Taryn (Fairytale Attire)

Rory Queens SR (Fairytale Attire)

Shuu SR (Fairytale Attire)

Rayven Ludwig SR (Fairytale Attire)

Arlo Wake SR (Fairytale Attire)

Erice Ainsbourg SR (Fairytale Attire)

Delilah Koshkin SR (Fairytale Attire)

Kaiia Haunt SR (Fairytale Attire)

Yumi Yozakura SR (Fairytale Attire)

Reyu Carrera SR (Fairytale Attire)

Philosophy Freay R (Fairytale Attire)

Yuhua Wei (Fairytale Attire)

Asher (Fairytale Attire)

AJ (Fairytale Attire)

RULES!!!:

- Despite this being a follower milestone event, everyone is welcome to participate! ♡

- You can use any kind of character to enter into the - event! OCs, Yuusonas, and canon characters that haven’t been listed in the participants! All characters are very much welcomed !!!

- Any kind of entry is also welcomed! Art, edits, fics, ect.

- Please tag me in your post and use the tag #Fairytale Soiree! In your posts!

Strictly no NSFW or proshipping.

There is no clear deadline nor winner, this is honestly just for fun so go crazy!!

Theres no real limit on the amount of SSR cards either, so feel free to do whatever you’d like, whether you choose to make an SSR, SR or R card !

Feel free to dm me if you have any questions :3

Once again, Thank you all so very much for supporting me thus far!! (Reblogs are appreciated :3)

[alientimes]

🀥 ᴀʟʟ ᴄᴜʀꜱᴇꜱ ɢᴏ ᴛᴏ… ᴇᴀʀᴛʜ?

➩ No good curse likes a nice view! (1)

Last thing Sukuna knew, he was being pummeled into the ground by some stupid brat and his friends. It was all an unlucky turn of fate, of course, but it still happened. He was dead. He should’ve been dead. Hell, he felt his body turn to dust. So why was he staring at a stupidly cheery blue sky in the middle of nowhere? 

Slowly, Sukuna sat up. A (rather nice, he had to admit) field of grass could always have enemies (perhaps some named Gojo) lurking in them, of course. To his disappointment, there were none. He patted himself down, noting the lack of two, rather useful, extra arms. Instead of being in his beautiful, shirtless, loose-white panted glory, he was in some stupid white t-shirt and very tight jeans. That somehow, after noticing an odd feeling under him, could fit stuff in miniscule pockets. The stuff mentioned so happened to be a wallet, and it was one he thought was way too plain to fit the king of curses. Still, he flipped it open, revealing a thick wad of green papers stuffed into yet another miniscule pocket (compared to the money). Though it wasn’t quite useful to him, as it appeared to be USD, and he was in the middle of nowhere. A flimsy card slipped out of another pocket (how many of these were there?) and after trying and failing to pick it up a couple of times, he found it was an ID card. He had seen a few of those in the brat’s body.

Since when was his name Sebastian?

How shameful. The once great, strong(est), powerful king of curses Sukuna Ryomen reduced to some random guy with pink hair, one face, and only two arms named Sebastian Ryouke. Well, at least he was still tall. And it seemed he could read English now, because he managed to puzzle his way through the entire ID card. It might need a little work, though. 

With all these downsides, Sukuna could hardly believe that this was another chance at life. Another form of punishment, maybe. But as he sat cross-legged in that field (for a little longer than he would admit, looking back on it), Sukuna came to another realization. This was a chance. Although he had never been interested in human politics, laws, and whatnot, not like Kenjaku was, he could certainly get into it now. How hard could it be to rise to the top within a couple of weeks (or months, but that was being generous)? He had thousands of years of experience. And these flimsy humans? Maybe twenty. Taking over would be easy. He could start another empire of being the best, the strongest! And this time, in an entirely different country and a new name, there would be no Gojo Satoru, Maki Zen’in, Yuta Okkotsu to stop him. There wouldn’t even be an Itadori Yuji or Fushiguro Megumi (he thought with a shudder). And would you look at that? Just past the disgustingly bright rows of flowers, a city. Not just a town, or a village. A whole city of people to manipulate. Of people to beat up. Of people to bow down to him. It was the best starting place he could think of. All he needed was to get there. Well, that and getting a place to live. It couldn’t be that hard, with all the money he had stacked up in his wallet, right?. He even had a credit card (also gained knowledge from Itadori). It was like whatever placed him here wanted him to go right back to the way he was, and it was great. This was going to be so easy. City domination would be easy. And his first step, house hunting, would be even easier.

i'm sorry it's so short 😭😭 i have school tomorrow and it's really late and this entire thing was acted on impulse 😭 next chapter will be a lot longer i promise! i'll try to get it out by next week at the latest but sadly no promises :(

all curses go to earth masterlist

[cherry-flavoured-thot]

i've got an obey me ask

imagine an mc that's just been plucked for the program being from the complete opposite end of the financial spectrum of our beloved cast of pixelated men.

an mc that grew up/was living paycheck to paycheck, barely able to make ends need and feed themselves. it'd be literally night to day with them. they'd gasp over price tags and shopping totals reading thousands of grimm, still stuck in the mindset of "that'll break the bank." a spreadsheet on their computer of their money spending and gaining (i can't remember the proper terms for that stuff, it's been a hot minute since i learned it all in middle school), a long list of things they think they could never stored somewhere.

sure, it'd be on their student file that that's what their life was back in the human world, but whether anyone knows or not besides them is up to you (id imagine lucifer would probably gloss over it completely in the rush of getting paperwork done so he can get to bed before 5am lol grumpy old man needs sleep). poor thing might break down if anyone knew..

sorry if this seems odd, i just feel that as someone who's right there in the pay-to-pay situation, i'd be in complete shock of being able to actually (and easily) afford things without having to debate whether i really needed it or earned it.

if anything in the text is broke, i blame tumblr desktop version. my phone isn't working the best so i had to move here from mobile ;-;

"You spent how much on....?" Is a question the mc repeats to every brother but with different things. Demonus, designer clothes, figurines, skincare products, food, books, ancient objects, new blankets and pillows etc. But no one really thinks too much of it, despite mc's shock every time.

It's not until Mammon complains one time about how broke he is, and mc turns to him, looking him dead in the face saying. "You could easily survive the week with that much." Then they proceed to write him up a budget with the minimal amount of Grimm in his account.

"...mc how did you do that?"

"Oh I'm a pro, I once lived off of five dollars and spite for a full week." Mammon, is casually bringing this up with Lucifer next time he sees him.

"You didn't mention mc was flat broke before comin' here."

"...that's because I wasn't aware." Lucifer is pulling up mc's student file, and there it is in big bold writing. Lucifer and Mammon both have a lightbulb moment, thinking about different occasions where the topic of money came up and mc was acting strange. "If I were you, I'd minimize mentions of your spending habits around mc."

"...yeah." Mammon feels so guilty. That not only does he stick to mc's budget, he always mentions to them when he's managed to save money rather than spend it. But he'll still be a devil on their shoulder encouraging them to splurge a little on themselves because they deserve it.

Lucifer, Satan and Asmodeus would be using this knowledge to let mc know they are providers. (Mammon would too. He would but his budget skills are bad so he's a sometimes provider!) They will always make sure mc is financially good, so feel free to spend (within reason - Lucifer would argue). (You deserve to be spoilt - Asmodeus, Satan)

Beelzebub and Leviathan, would just buy things for mc instead when the opportunity arises. Beel will always pay when inviting mc out for food, it's his treat. mc was talking about wanting to get a game? well they don't need to get because Levi had it express delivered to the front door. (Mammon would also do this when he has money lmao)

"If you want it just buy it." Belphegor is firmly in the middle ground, because he'll tiredly tell mc those words, when they've been debating aloud to get the thing in question. If they mention it's too expensive and talk themselves out of buying it. He just gets it for them.

[emage-search]

i have soooo many questions about this panel. primarily, do we think fujimoto just looked up the nyc skyline from the lookout point on liberty island without specifically searching a pre-9/11 photo or did he intentionally include the one world trade center rather than the twin towers?

[ID: a panel from chainsaw man tightly cropped to avoid more spoilers that shows the base of the statue of liberty in front of an NYC skyline that includes the one world trade center. the hand holding the torch is visible falling from the top left corner. /end ID]

here’s the way southern manhattan looked in the mid ‘90s, just before chainsaw man is set:

[ID: a photo of the NYC skyline from 1994 with the twin towers prominently visible at the left third of the image. /end ID]

and here’s a photo from the liberty island lookout point from a year ago according to google maps:

[ID: a more current photo of the NYC skyline with the one world trade center just off-center to the left. many of the same buildings from the previous image are recognizable, plus a few more skyscrapers that have been built in the last 30 years. /end ID]

the owtc wasn’t completed until like 15 years after the story is set. as a USian i don’t always correctly gauge which of our common reference points enter the international consciousness, so i try to think twice before i expect someone outside the US to think of that when looking up a drawing reference. however, the way 9/11 affected not just the national consciousness but also how the US operates internationally, seems like something fujimoto would have in mind, especially considering US cultural and military hegemony is highly relevant to this part of the storyline.

so, assuming it was intentional, what does that imply about csm’s version of history? were the twin towers destroyed in a devil attack, or did a similar group of human extremists just carry it out earlier because of other differences in the timeline? or was a devil working with/contracted to human extremists? or is it that the 1993 attack (that failed in real life) succeeded in this timeline? and whatever it was, did it have the same kind of effect on US militarism and nationalism? do people even remember it accurately, or was the memory erased like with AIDS and the world wars and such? are there similar clues about events in japanese or russian history i haven’t picked up on because my knowledge is so US-centric?

a couple other details:

i imagine this one is more of a stylistic choice, but there is a much denser concentration of skyscrapers that come closer to the height of the owtc. in the photo from the 90s, you can see the tallest of other tall buildings only come to half the height of the towers. even in the 2023 pic, none of the buildings come close to reaching the antenna of the owtc, and they’re spread much further. if it’s more than a stylistic choice, which, idrk, it could imply that constant devil attacks causing citywide destruction means a more constant need for reconstruction, replacing 5-story walk-ups with taller buildings sooner, and more of them.

the statue of liberty is facing the wrong direction. she should be facing out towards the bay, as she symbolically welcomed the late 19th/early 20th century waves of immigrants arriving by boat. instead, she faces the mainland. now this could be another insignificant detail that would only occur to someone more familiar with the landscape, or maybe the she had to turn around in order to aim her weapon toward japan, but i do think looking at it like an intentional choice makes for a deeper symbolism

[supercantaloupe]

What is the antisemitism in TUC season 1? Does it have to do with Wally the golem?/gen

[ID: an ask from an anonymous tumblr user that reads "would love to hear more about the antisemitism in unsleeping city! was a while ago that i watched it and can't remember what you might be referencing but definitely want to be aware of it.]

no, it's not about willy the golem -- i actually think willy is a great addition to the season (even if i wish we got to see more of him), and an indication to me that brennan/the showrunners were definitely trying to be sincere and inclusive. i want to make it clear that i don't think anything antisemitic in tuc is there intentionally; i think it's there out of simple ignorance, which is also why i think fans don't frequently see/comment on it either. but i don't think that's an excuse, either.

my grief with tuc1 is largely centered around its portrayal of robert moses as the villain. especially by making him a greedy, power-hungry lich working en league with bloodsucking vampires. (also his mini is literally a green skinned skull man in a suit. yikes.) here's the thing; i know robert moses was a real life horrible person, who actually was racist and powerhungry etc etc. and i know that robert moses, the real actual person, was jewish. my grief with tuc1 is not that they chose to use robert moses over literally any other person (real or fictional) to be their season villain (though i'd be really curious to know what tuc1 would have looked like with a different villain), but that they chose to take a real jewish person, turn them into an antisemitic caricature, and then only barely add other portrayals of judaism to balance that out.

like, tuc isn't completely devoid of other jewish representation. as you mention, there's willy the golem -- and again, i really like willy, and i love that it's a portrayal of a golem that's faithful to jewish folklore (ie as a benevolent, guardian construct rather than a mindless destructive monster. i am not a fan of how 'golem' is so frequently misused as a generic enemy creature in other fantasy and ttrpg spaces, including other seasons of d20). but as i said earlier, i wish we see more of him in the season, because he's not around very much, and feels a little more like worldbuilding than a full character to me. also, he's not human. jews are people.

the only other human jewish character in tuc1 is...stephen sondheim. which, again, yeah, that's a real person who really was jewish. but i really wouldn't blame you if you had no idea of that when watching tuc1. maybe from the name you could guess he might be jewish, but i don't think people ought to make a habit of trying to 'clock' someone being jewish by having a 'jewish-sounding' surname. as he's portrayed in tuc1, you'd never know he's jewish, unless you happen to already be pretty knowledgeable about the man in real life. it's far more likely you'll know him as a theater legend than anything else (may his memory be a blessing).

now i'm not saying that brennan or the showrunners should have played up the jewishness of Real Person Stephen Sondheim to counterbalance the depiction of robert moses; that just feels weird to me, especially considering that sondheim was literally alive when tuc1 was filmed and released. it's a tricky thing to portray real people in fiction alongside made up characters, especially when they are contemporaries, and i don't think 'outright caricature' is the way to go about that. nor do i think that moses' jewishness should have been played up at all, because again i don't think that would have been particularly true to the person/character, and also Fucking Yikes. but, c'mon, if you hear the names 'moses' and 'sondheim' next to each other, which one do you associate more with judaism?

and as it stands, these are the only representations of judaism in tuc1. one admittedly nice but very minor nonhuman character; one human character you'd never be able to tell was jewish; and a third human character who, while never explicitly referenced as jewish, plays into some really hurtful antisemitic stereotyping. and it was a choice to not include anything else. maybe not a deliberate one, probably more likely one made out of simple ignorance than anything else, but a choice nonetheless. in a city with one of the largest and most visibly jewish populations in the country, and a culture that is inextricably influenced by that jewish population. a jewish population which has been and continues the target of rising hate crimes for years. i know that nyc means different things to different people, and everyone's nyc is their own -- but my nyc is jewish, and it sucks that that its jewishness is referenced directly in only one very minor way, which is greatly overshadowed by its, in my view, really insidious indirect references.

i don't know exactly how to go about addressing this. obviously, the show can't be changed by now. even if it could, i think the final product would be very significantly different from what it is now if the villain was something/someone else. i think including more references to jews in new york, more (human) jewish characters, hell, even mentioning hanukkah celebrations and menorahs in windows (it takes place in late december, after all; depending on the year it's not at all out of place for hanukkah to coincide with xmas!) would help. having literally any more positive jewish representation in tuc1 would, i think, help balance the bad stuff that's there. because, yeah, robert moses was real and he was terrible and he was jewish. but he's one jewish guy in a city with over a million jews, the vast majority of whom are just normal people. i don't want him to be the only vision of us that people get, in tuc1 alone or in any media. i'm not saying that jews can't or shouldn't be villains in fiction; but especially if you are a goyische creator, you should be really careful in how you're portraying us, and if there are other contrasting depictions in your work, too, in order to not (even accidentally) demonize jewish people as a whole.

[ropuszysko]

ok so i promised to elaborate on klaus and kabbalah thing. my judaism hyperfixation is currently at its peak on the sinusoid (currently researching conversion), so buckle up.

HYPOTHESIS:

KLAUS KNOWS JEWISH MYSTICAL TRADITION WELL ENOUGH TO CAPITALISE ON IT

PROOF:

okay, мałgi, but how is that a proof of anything? well, let's look at brahe

but мałgi, these are some unintelligible scribbles! yes. HOWEVER! we see very similar script used in the third episode, dealing with metagolem (i elaborated on that back in september), openly inspired by jewish folklore.

as i said back then, clearly no one at rainbow knew hebrew script, nor cared to check it, so we ended up with a bunch of lamed-ish ל shapes and vavs ו maybe probably???

now, when we look back at brahe, he has clear he (ה) on him, a reversed dalet (ד), and the ○ is how some people write samekh (ס) by hand.

now, maharal (reb jehuda loew ben bezalel) was able to create the golem bc of his extensive knowledge of jewish mysticism. but to understand kabbalah, let alone capitalise on it (for the sake of this post lets put skepticism aside), you first need to know tanach AND talmud very well. and its the bare minimum. like there is a reason people like maharal are considered wise. which implicates, that to manipulate a golem, you also need this knowledge.

IMPLICATIONS:

first and foremost klaus is fucking crazy. not that it is anything new. which is why brahe does not necessarily implicate that klaus is jewish, this crszy motherfucker could just see a seemingly powerful mystical tradition and decide "yeah, im stealing that one". for any other character i would argue that unless they are jewish they have no reason to know all this scripture, but klaus? yeah i can see him learning it just because. perhaps brahe is an exact proof that klaus is NOT jewish, bc id rather call it a misuse of kabbalah. then again it may be just a giant fucking sin of hubris. idk.

if he is jewish, he clearly isnt observant orthodox (no head covering, not to mention fuckimg experimentation on humans 💀💀💀). but there are other branches (which only explain the head covering part, human experimentation isnt permissible in any of them, obviously) and we have to remember, that judaism is an ethnoreligion, so one may be both jewish and atheist. especially that in pre-war vienna there was a significant reformed community, which assimilated to a great extent. klaus is a very generic name in austria, doesn't scream any particular ethnicity.

and here we approach the secret third option, that he may not even know. season one takes place in ~2009 and klaus is an elderly austrian man. do the math. yeah. if he is ~60, he would be born right after the war. if he is ~70, he would be born a the very beginning of it, right after the anschluss. i think he is no older than 80, which makes him ~10 at the time of anschluss. neither of this options is a safe one, if you are a jewish child (the first one is not exactly unsafe, but a looot of people who survived and stayed in europe, never stopped hiding their identity out of fear, even from their children).

this lengthy part is to state, that brahe proves nothing past klaus being "fluent" in kabbalah. which in itself is crazy but like in "how the fuck did you even achieve that". it however opens options and also makes jewish mysticism a legitimate source of power in huntik universe, which for some reason is hilarious to me. yeah, yeah, titans, casterwills, other dimensions oh and also ancient israelites had a point. bitch??? xD

do i really think straffi thought this out to this extent? hell nah. was it fun to think of? yeah. e n j o y

[skymagpie]

I was in the mood to discuss the most common criticisms for Below Zero today on Reddit because I feel like people do not give some of the writing of this game enough credit, it’s actually good, you just need to read a bit between the lines. Yes it could’ve been better, it was slightly underwritten, but the core line was great and with more polishing it would’ve been excellent. I can probably talk more about it (and I will make my full rant one day), but I just felt this at the moment.

[ ID: Reddit reply from user ‘SkyMagpie’ reading: I think it also comes down to taste and to each individual person, so I respect that some people will not like the plot. I have to just disagree on some of the points and comment on others because these discussions come up often (SPOILER WARNING for people reading this):

I think the current version of the story is less cliche and stereotypical than the original version (from the early access which was written by the same writer from the 1st Subnautica game). There Al-An was cold, uncaring and an asshole. Some aspects of that story were better (Robin working for Alterra and having a change of heart), but some were worse (Al-An being the stereotypical asshole alien and the villain guy being a clearly bad guy with malicious intent)

.Al-An is not an emotionless computer to whom Robin has to teach emotions, he knows emotions - he clearly realizes right away that Robin is angry that he invaded her mind and decides to give her space to process it, he talks how his people upon realizing their mortality found a shrine to think on what it means to die, he asks her about memories (so he is trying to process grief) and he correctly notes that she is upset about her sister's death and copes with food. He clearly understands Robin's emotions and his emotional changes come from within himself and not from Robin, he chooses to hide information from her and he is also scared she will be mad at him for it. The only thing Robin show's Al-An are human customs and cultural elements as well as human concepts such as music for the purpose of entertainment, having pets just out of pleasure of doing so and the meaning of poetry when referring to abstract concepts such as "hope".

To go off my last point, Al-An has knowledge, but he has a hard time grasping human concepts because he has not lived with humans. It's the same about not being able to understand jokes and comedy between IRL cultures because the difference in language and way of living means that a part of the joke is lost (for example not all people who don't speak English well or are familiar with British culture will find British humor funny). This is what Robin teaches him. Al-An knows what hope means in the semantic sense, but he doesn't know what hope means to humans. To Emily Dickinson, hope is the thing with feathers - even we as humans who know the poem can disagree on the meaning of hope and interpret the poem differently. I feel that Al-An's writing broke out of the common stereotypes for aliens in subtle ways which are not obvious straight away. A lot of his ignorance came off as charming curiosity rather than instant dismissal of emotion. The note he leaves Robin after she tells him the Emily Dickinson poem is really sweet and shows his willingness to learn and to understand.

Robin and Al-An mutually helped each other go through grief and came out changed. I'd argue that Robin's character is probably the weakest point of the story because it is not clear when she changes and she comes off as preachy, but she is still driving the story forward with enough space for us as players to insert our own emotions. The story with Sam was good, but I think it was pretty brave to take the less obvious route and not just have Alterra be evil and kill Sam, covering her murder as Robin believed, rather have Sam die because she wanted to do something good and she screwed up - she still did well, but not everyone walks out a hero, and in this she parallels Al-An who had a good idea and drove his race to extinction because he also screwed up. Not everyone walks out unscathed. But Al-An learned from Robin and Sam as much as Robin learned from his story and found peace with her sister's death. Robin finally met Sam after she died and learned that her sister was brave and willing to fight what she believed in, even if it ended in tragedy.

Thank you if you read this far, I just think that this story is very cute and it falls together nicely. Maybe the original premise is cliche, but the elements make it very interesting if people are willing to dive into them. That goes for most stories, strip any story down to it's summary and you will get the same stories over and over, but its the way the are told and the execution that people enjoy, that's where the charm is and for me personally this was a really nice story. However it's okay if some people don't like it. And we have to note that Subnautica games are PG10+ so these were written with a younger audience in mind and the plot lines are simpler for children to grasp. Older players and fans have enough things to dig through to still be entertained by the story. The original Subnautica had a pretty cliche story line too, but the way it was executed in combination with the world is what makes it so lovable. When it comes to story, both games are equally good in my opinion.” end ID ]

[pengychan]

[Baldur’s Gate III] Hell to Pay, Ch. 7

Illustration (and art in the chapter) by @raphaels-little-beast

Title: Hell to Pay Summary: Assassinating an archdevil is a daunting task, even for the heroes of Baldur’s Gate. Some inside help from ‘the devil they know’ would be good, if not for the detail their last meeting ended with said devil dead in his own home. Or did it? Characters: Raphael, the Dark Urge, Astarion, Haarlep, Halsin, Karlach, Wyll. Rating: M Status: In progress

All chapters will be tagged as ‘hell to pay’ on my blog. Also on Ao3.

*** The second half of this chapter was supposed to be about the kind of Bullshit only a party with a rogue and a bard can get into, but then the first half took over. So yeah, Astarion and Raphael will have to wait until the next chapter to get into Bullshit. Until then, have more existential crisis. Crisises. Chrysler. Crises. No I did not have to look up what the plural of crisis is. ***

“You know, I am not entirely sure Raphael was ever informed of the difference between sparring and attempted murder.”

Sitting just inside one of the tents they had set up on the lakeshore to keep away from the sun, Astarion shrugged. “I’m pretty sure that he knows the difference and chooses to ignore it. I do it all the time.”

“You’re remarkably unconcerned.”

“And you’re surprised?” Astarion clicked his tongue. “Wyll, you know as well as I do that my lovely idiot could tear him apart if they wanted. Raphael has literally no chance in all Hells to beat them. Durge is going so easy on him, it’s almost embarrassing.”

“Well,” Halsin intervened, briefly looking up from the duck he was whittling and giving the boiling pot of stew a stir, “they did say that the goal is to make sure he can hold his own before we head to Avernus. I suspect maiming him again would rather slow the progress.”

“Fair enough.”

A pause, and three pairs of eyes - well, two pairs, one single eye, and a sending stone - kept following the sparring match unfolding on a flat, rocky patch of land. It was painfully unbalanced, even with Durge going easy on Raphael. He seemed to know a variety of spells to cast, and his aim was improving, but he tried too hard to land a hit and quickly ran out of steam. 

He makes mistakes when he’s angry, Hope had said, and that had not changed. The limitations of a human body, and a middle-aged one at that, were not helping. Raphael was clearly struggling with that, and he barely dodged an acid splash from Durge’s part that Astarion had seen coming from a mile away, with his eyes shut.

“I wouldn’t have thought he’d be able to fight at all, without his hellish powers,” Wyll commented, looking on through narrowed eyes. “Then again, Mephistopheles is considered the greatest wizard of all the Hells. Perhaps he learned from him.”

“Doubtful,” Halsin replied, scratching his chin. “I am certain you learned a great deal sparring with your father, but the Lord of the Eighth is not known for willingly sharing his knowledge. I doubt he’d make an exception even for his own offspring.”

“He’s a bard,” Astarion said, and shrugged when they turned to look at him. “Oh, I forget you two didn’t get the dubious pleasure to visit the House of Hope with us and Karlach. Trust me, he’s a bard if I’ve ever seen o--”

“Agh!”

Astarion trailed off, and they all looked back to see Raphael had slipped on an icy patch and fallen heavily on his back, groaning. It would have been the perfect moment to strike, but Durge was really holding back, so they allowed him a moment to recover… and then several more moments. But Raphael just lifted himself one knee and paused without getting up, panting. The spectacle was over, it seemed. 

A bit of a shame, that: watching Raphael getting his ass handed to him time and time again was endlessly entertaining.

“That wasn’t too bad,” Durge said, much too generous in Astarion’s opinion, and stepped towards Raphael, lowering their staff. “You keep attacking in anger. That’s never a good ide--”

Raphael looked up sharply, lips curling in a sneer, and Durge didn’t get to finish the sentence. Raphael brought his hands together and, before anyone could react, pushed them out with a snarl. “Detono.”

The thunderwave caught Durge by surprise, and they had no chance to brace or try to avoid it. They were thrown back into the air, Mourning Frost falling from their grasp to clatter on the ground. They landed with a grunt, but there didn’t seem to have been much damage… until a moment later the ground Durge had landed on shimmered. Realization hit Astarion only a moment before fire erupted from the ground, engulfing Durge, and the roar of flames almost covered their startled cry.

Well, look at that. When had he cast a glyph of warding? How had none of them noticed?

“Durge!”

“You bastard--!”

Halsin and Wyll stood, ready to rush forward, not impeded at all by the risk of being turned to cinders by sunlight. They didn’t go far, though: Durge hadn’t been turned to cinders either - of course not, it would take much more than that - and stood, coughing, before lifting a hand. 

“All fine,” they managed, and while it clearly wasn’t all fine, they weren’t too badly injured either. They groaned a little, went to pick up their staff, and turned to grin at Raphael, all fangs. “All right,” they conceded, just as Halsin went to heal them. “That was really good.”

Raphael snorted and stood slowly, carefully moving away from the icy patch on the ground. He cast a healing spell on himself before he replied, still scowling. “Not good enough,” he muttered. He reached to smooth down the blazer Durge had given him, after finding it wedged somewhere in their bag of holding. “Seeing how you got back up.”

“If it makes you feel any better, a god also failed to kill me.”

“The god killed you well enough. Another god made the unfortunate decision to bring you back.”

“You devils and your fixation for details,” Daurge sighed. “Thanks, Halsin - I’m fine, honest. I think that brings an end to this sparring match, though. Is the stew ready? I’m starving.”

Having already feasted on the blood of the boar who had so generously provided the meat for the stew, Astarion did not need to eat. Still, Durge settled right inside the tent with him to eat, while the other two saps sat right outside the entrance. Raphael, as he’d been doing since they’d departed Last Light Inn two nights earlier, took a bowl to his own tent some distance away. At least now it looked like a tent, rather than a sheet thrown haphazardly over some stick by someone who clearly had never set up a tent before.

“I think we should be there in another five days’ walk - I mean, nights’ walk,” Wyll was saying. “I’d hoped to be back quicker than this, but as long as Karlach is safe in the House of Hope, I’m sure she’ll understand. We do need supplies.”

Durge nodded. “Bit of a shame the portals are not working,” they said through a mouthful. “It seems none of those in Baldur’s Gate or even Rivington were left intact. It would have saved us a week. Still, that’s not too long a walk as long as we keep leaving at sundown. As soon as we’ve reached the Gate, we’ll head to the Devil’s Fee. We buy whatever we may need, get Helsik to open a portal to the House of Hope--”

“Do we even have enough money for her to do that again?” Halsin asked.

A pause, and four pairs of hands went to open as many pouches. Several pairs of eyes - three pairs, one eye, one sending stone - had a quick look at the gold inside. Another pause. Four throats were cleared. 

“... In retrospect, I should have asked that earlier.”

“Well, perhaps she’ll accept to let us through in exchange for another artifact…”

“Maybe my father can be convinced to give us a loan…”

“We’ll figure something out when we get there. We usually do.” Astarion put down his pouch before he glanced outside the tent, and the others followed his gaze. Raphael had finished eating, clearly, and was closing the tend flap to sleep without a further word to anybody. 

“... I think it would be best to keep him out of the House of Hope,” Wyll said. “Hope may not be-- I think she’s seen enough of him to last her several lifetimes. Even if he can no longer harm her, I don’t want her to endure his presence again for even a moment.”

Durge nodded, setting down the bowl. “Yes, I agree. She’s been through enough as is.”

“Counterpoint,” Astarion said. “He might have a stroke if he sees the changes she made to the place, which I bet are delightful. And that would be absolutely hilarious.”

Durge laughed. “My counterpoint to your counterpoint is that we need him alive to take us to the Sword of Zariel,” they said, and reached into the bag of holding. They rummaged a bit before pulling out something - the Spider Lyre they had taken from Nere’s body. They’d had no use for it in a long while, but then again they hadn’t had a bard in their party. Until now. “I’ll be right back,” they said, and left the tent to head towards Raphael, lyre in hand. 

“... Projecting more than a little, aren’t they?” Halsin commented, and Astarion sighed. 

“Yes, they seem to have made Raphael their pet project. I can’t say I’m all that surprised. They trusted me when it was an objectively stupid course of action. Mind you, they were severely brain damaged - and I’m not sure all that damage has healed just yet...”

Wyll frowned. “He’s a devil. A split soul doesn’t make him any less of a hellspawn.”

“They’re aware. And I’m sure you can guess what they’d answer to that.”

“Durge is a bhaalspawn no longer,” Wyll replied, and Astarion shook his head.

“... That’s what you two will never get, I’m afraid, but I do. Once a spawn, always a spawn,”  he said, looking on as Durge stopped outside Raphael’s tent and left the lyre by the entrance.

“You’re free, Astarion,” Halsin spoke, his voice gentle. “You’re both free now, and it was a hard-won freedom. What someone else made you into doesn’t define you anymore.”

Ah, Halsin. Spoken like the sweet, sensible tree hugger he was. Astarion smiled faintly. “You’re not wrong, but that’s not what I’m talking about either. You can kill some parts of you, but you don’t get to erase them. You can only grow around it, or die trying.”

A brief silence as they watched Durge turn away from the tent and head back towards them. Behind them, the flap opened just enough for a hand to grab the lyre and take it in.

“Raphael might just choose to die rather than try,” Wyll finally muttered, and Astarion laughed.

“Entirely possible,” he conceded. “And who are we to tell him what to do?”

***

When the Chamberlain of Mephistar came to claim him on Mephistopheles’ behalf, Israfel was thirteen years of age and entirely unprepared. 

Truth be told, over the past couple of years he’d found himself daydreaming of that day less and less. He’d even come to think, at a point, that he may be fine if no one came to take him to the Hells at all, if his father didn’t want him there. Among servants there was talk - in secret, theoretically, but they spoke much too loud - that Lord Rahirek may be considering making Israfel his heir. Until just a few years earlier, that would have been unthinkable. 

“Of course Lord Starspire must have thought of it,” the kennel master had said with a shrug, during a conversation with the master-at-arms. “He’s got no kids of his own. The lad is all that’s left of his lady wife, and he’s a clever one. His lordship would have seen it a lot earlier, if he could stop sniveling over her grave for a minute and look past the horns.”

“He was grieving, you animal.”

“It’s been thirteen years. If the Hells don’t come to take him, and he’s good at whatever it is that lords do, why not make him next in line? He even looks like a human now. His Lordship should claim him as his own and be done with it.”

“It’s not that simple. Would other lords accept it, a half-fiend among their peers?”

“They wouldn't want to piss him off, that’s for sure. A good thing in my books.”

Israfel had snuck away unseen, and hadn’t mentioned the conversation he’d heard to anyone, but it was true that he was in his human form more often than not, and that Rahirek had started teaching him things about the land he lorded over. Not long after that conversation, he even took Israfel with him for a negotiation with the dwarven clans along the eastern peaks of the Starspire mountains, from which his family got its name.

“To show you how it’s done,” was all he had said, and Israfel had needed no convincing. He had never wandered far from the fort, and finding himself so high up had been exhilarating. He could turn his head and see so much, across Firedrake Bay and all the way down the Trade Way far beyond Starspire Fort, and south to Zazesspur where, to hear one of their dwarf guides, people wiped their asses with sheets of gold when they weren’t busy trying to kill each other. Israfel had stopped his mule and reached out; the city looked so small, he could blot it out when he closed his first. For a moment, he’d felt like a giant.

Then there had been the screech, so loud it hurt his ears, and something much bigger than him had swooped down on the caravan. Right afterwards, a man screamed. “Perytons!”

“Form a line! Protect Lord Starspire!”

What happened next would remain confused in Israfel’s memories, only brief flashes of clarity in the midst of chaos. He’d remember the giant eagle with the head of a fanged stag standing on top of a fallen, screaming man, trying to claw his heart out through the armor, threatening to gore anyone who came too close with its antlers. He’d remember a swipe of its wing knocking him off his mule onto the ground, a few feet away from the abyss, and he’d remember hitting his shoulder hard. He’d remember a scream - his name, someone screamed his name - and the beasts’ eyes on him, the fang bared. He’d remember lifting his arms to protect himself, and then…

Then he’d only remember heat, and screeches of pain echoing through the mountains. The peryton tried to take flight only to crash down again, screaming, its plumage on fire. Flames wreathed its antlers like they were dry wood, eyes melted out of its sockets from the heat. There was a rush to get out of the way, lest the beast’s dying throes knocked any of them off the side of the mountain; someone grabbed Israfel, too, pulled him to safety behind a boulder.

After that, he’d remember a furious heartbeat against his cheek, a hand pressing against his head and neck and then down his back, checking for injuries. Dimly, he realized he felt the weight of his horns again. When had he changed form? Had the others seen? 

“Are you all right, boy? Were you hurt?”

Israfel had closed his eyes, listening to the last of the beast’s dying screeches over the man’s thumping heart. He’d willed himself to change back to his human form before he spoke. “No, sir,” he’d managed, and felt Lord Rahirek Starspire let out a long breath. 

“Thank the Gods,” he whispered, and didn't let him go for what felt like a very, very long time. When they’d emerged, the danger gone, their dwarven guides had looked at him warily. 

“‘Twas not normal fire that did the beast in,” one had muttered, looking back and forth between the smoldering corpse to Israfel. “Hellfire, ain’t it? And my old eyes work well enough to tell you got horns on your head a minute ago, lad. Could do with an explanation.”

Israfel had felt Rahirek’s hand on his shoulder. “Be grateful my ward felled the monster. He owes no explanation to you or anyone else,” he’d said, and that had been the end of it. With only two mules dead and one man injured, the journey had continued without further incident.

The travel back had been undisturbed as well. Rahirek had kept Israfel close, pointing at landmarks and cities. “It’s high time you visit the capital,” he had said halfway through their descent, with home within sight. “I’ll take you next spring, if you’re inclined to come with me.”

Israfel had been plenty inclined, but that didn’t matter: it was never to be. They had returned to the fort to a tense silence, pale faces and quiet servants. In the kennels, the dogs were subdued; it had been the master-at-arms to come tell them what was going on, but it was not needed. From the hall, faint but unmistakable, came the smell of sulfur.

“One Duke Barbas is here,” he had managed, unable to meet either of their eyes. Somewhere out of their line of sight, Nan was crying. “To take Israfel home.”

And that, love, was that.

***

“Love, please, give me that knife.”

The woman is crying, but it’s not her tears the boy’s eyes pause on. His gaze is fixed on the blood, red and rich, dripping onto the floorboards from her outstretched hands, cut to the bone from the attempts at stopping the knife. It mixes with the blood of her husband, who’s already dead on the floor and growing colder by the second. 

He called him dad, until now. Until just hours ago, maybe minutes. Or it may have been days, he’s not sure. Time means nothing. Everything went red and then dark and he grabbed the knife, and then all was blood and meat. That’s all the man is now. He’s just meat and it all feels so right. It’s better this way. Better to die than to live in a world with him in it.

“Sweetheart, please. This isn’t you. We can fix this,” the woman calls out again, choking out words. “My little boy, listen to me.” A bloody hand rests on his cheek. She touched his face many, many times before. Sang him to sleep. Soothed him after bad dreams. Mom, he’s called her, ever since he learned to speak. He knows she is not, nor her husband was his father - they’re halflings, he is not - but it never mattered. It still doesn’t matter. 

Nothing matters but the crimson filling the cracks between the floorboards and the smell of death and the fact that she’s wrong. This is him. This was always him.

She wants the knife.

He’ll give her the knife. 

The blade sings through the air, slices through skin and muscle and cartilage like it’s nothing. She chokes on blood and her hands go through her throat, but cannot stem the flow. One last, wide-eyed look, then she falls on her face and doesn’t get up. The boy looks on, quiet, with the crimson hand still smeared on his face. Once the last of her life’s blood has flown, he turns to the door.

He’s not the only child they have taken in. There are others, too, his siblings, who will be home soon. They have names, but it’s not important now. The dead need no names.

He holds onto the knife, and waits.

***

“Hey, hey, hey. Don’t do that, don’t-- yes, that’s better. Breathe, possibly no frost breath if you can help it-- there. Good. You’re fine. Whatever you dreamed up, it’s not now. Do you understand me? Nod if you do. Or bite me, you have permission to bite this once.”

Face pressed against Astarion’s shoulder, Durge let out a long breath and nodded. “Yes,” they rasped. “I’m fine. It was just--”

“Nightmare, or memory?”

“Memory.”

“I see.”

They leaned back against the bedroll, and for a time they only listened to their own breathing, to the drumming of rain against the tent they were sharing. “Want to talk about it?” Astarion finally asked, a hand rubbing the back of their neck. Durge breathed out. 

“It was the family that took me in. In Baldur’s Gate, when I was very young. They loved me. I had forgotten their faces.”

“And now you remembered them? Well, that is nice--”

“I butchered them all.”

“Ah. I do see why that may be an unpleasant recollection, then.”

“I killed my foster parents. I waited for the other children they had taken in to come home and slaughtered them all, put the bodies in a pile and stood there for hours, just - looking at them. I don’t remember what I was thinking. Only that I was… happy. Something had been sated.”

“The Urge.”

“Yes. I think that was the first time it came over me.”

“And now it’s gone. You really shouldn’t forget that bit, love. The Urge is gone, for good.”

Durge nodded, and shut their eyes. In the back of their mind, a voice rang out. 

Young Master, precious fledgling, follow ever your heart. In time, your true family will find you.

“I can’t remember their names,” they murmured in the end.

“It wouldn’t do you any good--”

“I ended the entire family. I owe it to them, don’t I? To at least remember their names.”

“... Remember what Withers said? You can go through all the names once you’re dead. Until then, you can just live.” Astarion pulled back, and spoke again in a very questionable impression of Withers’ voice. “Greet the bloodless dawn, child of none.”

That, at least, made Durge chuckle. “That was terrible,” they said, then, “thank you.”

“Anytime, dear.” His hand rested on Durge’s face, where the woman’s had in the memory. “But do try to sound more impressed by my actorial skills. You hurt all three of my feelings.”

“There’s a third one?”

“Oh look, now you think you’re funny. It worked too well.”

Another chuckle, and Durge nuzzled against his hand briefly before they sat up. “... I’ll go for a walk. Clear my head some. I’ll be back soon.”

“Are you sure? Sounds like it’s pouring.”

“I’ve been covered in worse things than water.”

“You’ve been covered in better things, too.”

“Such as…?”

“Blood.” A pause. “That was probably not the right thing to say given the circumstances. But you know what I mean.”

Durge laughed, and kissed his head. “Yes,” they replied, stepping outside and breathing in the cool air, letting the rain run over their scales. It felt good, as though it was washing something foul away. “I know what you mean.”

***

Raphael woke to the sound of rain, and somebody’s grip on his face.

His eyes snapped open, but at first he saw very little. Until not too long ago, he could see in the dark just as well as he could on a bright day; now, the half-light inside a tent on a rainy day was dim enough to disorient him - but only for a moment. The hand holding his face had scales, and the red eyes looking down at him were awfully familiar. 

“You-- what--” he began, only to trail off when the bhaalspawn tightened their grip on his face, the palm covering his mouth. 

“Ah-ha, let’s not make too much noise.” They leaned in, baring their fangs in a grin, and Raphael froze. There were several responses that crossed his mind - all of them demanding they unhand him immediately, a few with a side serving of a firebolt to the face - but, just awake and disoriented, half trapped under the blankets, he voiced none of them. All that left him was a weak noise at the sudden jolt that went up his spine. The bhaalspawn’s grin turned to confusion for a moment, then amusement. They laughed, pulling away. 

��Well well well, now that reaction was a surprise, my pet.”

Wait. 

“What-- you--!” Raphael scrambled to sit up. Mortification turned to anger as he faced the creature, face burning, teeth clenched. “What manner of joke is this supposed to be!”

A chuckle, and then the being before him shifted, morphed, until Raphael was glaring at his own face as it was… before. Haarlep tilted their head and reached to flick his nose, snatching their hand back before he could slap it away. “And here I thought you couldn't surprise me anymore, little brat. Now, is it me or you’re not especially happy to see me?”

“What are you doing here?”

“Keeping an eye on you, of course. Fun as it was assisting in your escape from Mephistar, surely you didn’t think for a moment I organized the whole thing all by myself, did you? Truth be told, I believed you dead for months until the announcement you’d be devoured in spectacular fashion. Good thing your father seems to enjoy playing with his food almost as much as you do, huh? What a surprise it was. I’d done my mourning and it turns out it wasn’t necessary.”

Raphael scoffed. “Yes, I could feel just how much you mourned,” he snapped, “whoring my body out to anyone who asked.”

“Aaaah, yes. You did feel that, didn’t you?” Haarlep grinned again. “It was my most requested form, and many at court were willing to pay handsomely for it. I’d been released from my oath to you, after all. I’m sure you’ll understand. Did it provide some distraction from your misery?”

Very much unwilling to think back of anything he’d thought or felt while in the bowels of his father’s dungeons, Raphael smacked away the hand that had reached out to brush back his hair. “Don’t you touch me, incubus,” he snapped, “or you’ll find I still have teeth.”

“Ah, I certainly hope you do. You were not rescued out of kindness, you understand.”

Of course not; the notion was too ridiculous for any self-respecting devil to entertain. Something stirred in the back of Raphael’s mind, the memory of someone putting his own frail, aging mortal body between him and a danger, but he was quick to chase it away. That was the kind of sentimentality befitting a mortal, and regardless of his current situation he was no mortal. He had never been. If he still breathed, it was because someone wanted something from him. “Obviously,” he ground out.

“Your savior will expect you to do something in return. Don’t ask what,” Haarlep added the second Raphael opened his mouth. “I couldn’t tell you even if I knew all the details. My lips are sealed - from talking, that is - unless I’m given the direct order to tell you.”

“And who, pray tell, would have to give that order?”

“Your savior, of course.”

“Haarlep.”

A laugh. “Don’t get too cross with me, little brat,” they said. “I quite literally cannot speak the name or even give hints unless allowed. It’s a very stringent oath. You should have thought of doing something like that, come to think of it. Might have kept me from accidentally oversharing your little secrets, although I’m fairly sure it wouldn’t have done much to keep the little mouse and their companions away from the Orphic Hammer.”

“Accidentally,” Raphael snorted, tasting bile in his throat. “You’ve never once passed up a chance to push against my authority.”

“True, I thought it would be hilarious to see your face once you returned to find the hammer gone. I never imagined it would result in your demise. I suppose it’s a good thing for both of us that you’re not one to hold grudges,” they added, like they didn’t know that Raphael could hold grudges as tightly as Asmodeus held onto his throne. 

Raphael glared, teeth clenched so tight his jaw hurt. “I ought to flay you alive.”

“You may try, pet. It wouldn’t be a long fight,” the incubus almost sing-sang. And they were right, of course. A mere human with a few cantrips has no hope to best a devil, let alone unarmed and unarmored. Raphael balled his hands in fists, resisted the temptation to still try wrapping them around Haarlep’s neck - his own neck - and scowled. 

“Am I to believe that whoever it is you obey has no instructions whatsoever for me?” 

“Not quite yet, but soon. For now, the lack of instructions means you’re on the right path, I suppose. Although you’ll need to be extremely cautious, back in the Hells. Mephistopheles will be furious the second he finds out you still live. He hates being fooled about as much as… well, you, or anyone for that matter. He’d stop at nothing to destroy you.”

Of course. Raphael would have expected nothing less. “Duly noted,” he said, coldly, pushing away the dread to focus on what little he knew. Whoever had saved him wanted him to return to the Hells; to what end, he couldn’t imagine. Was it all about killing Zariel? By extension, was this Mizora’s doing? It seemed unlikely. What influence would Mizora have in Cania?

Focused as he was trying to make a somewhat coherent picture out of the scraps of information he’d been handed, he didn’t notice Haarlep reaching out for him until their hand grabbed his chin and lifted his face. Their face-- his face, would it ever be his again?-- peered at him closely, a smile playing on their lips.

“Tell me the truth, sweetling,” they said, running a thumb across Raphael’s own lips. “Have you missed me? Thought of me?”

Raphael scowled, anger roiling in his chest and aching need in the pit of his stomach. It had been half a year without that indulgence, leaning back to feel pleasure and think of nothing anymore. He hated it. He hated Haarlep. He hated how much he needed it. “I thought of many ways I could kill you, if you’re inclined to hear them,” he spat, and Haarlep’s smile widened. 

“Oh, you have missed me,” they crooned, and leaned in to claim his mouth. Raphael gripped the straps of their harness, not quite knowing whether he’d push them back or pull them closer - and then leaned back, taking Haarlep down on him. He felt the incubus smile against his lips, pressing him down on the bedroll. “I missed you, you know,” they whispered. 

Until half a year ago, it was a sentence Raphael may have brushed off with a scoff and hardly a thought. Now it made something ache around the empty nothing where half of his soul had been, and he closed his eyes. “No,” he managed, his voice almost breaking. “You did not.”

Maybe they’re here to take what remains of my soul, he thought. Maybe I should let them. No soul must be better than a maimed one. At least those soulless dolls don’t have any notion of what befell them. What chances do I have to be whole again? I am at the whim of mortals who stabbed me in the back before.

A sigh. “Ah, you think so little of me,” Haarlep lamented, and bit his lower lip, barely a nip. “I have many new bodies for you to sample, if you’re so inclined. You seemed interested in the little mouse’s. Or would you rather have this form again? Your own body, for old times’ sake?”

Trying very hard not to think of the suggestion, Raphael shook his head and tightened his grip on Haarlep’s harness. “This,” he rasped, and Haarlep chuckled. 

“You’re so wonderfully predictable,” they said, parting Raphael’s legs with a knee and kissing his neck, his jaw, so warm against his skin. “Open up for me, pet, and I’ll make it all better.”

Raphael closed his eyes, parted his lips, and for a time he thought of nothing.

***

While Durge hadn’t expected anything to happen at camp while they were away, returning to find no trace of unwelcome visitors - no Mizora showing up in a ring of hellfire waving a contract, no vampire spawn trying to drag Astarion away, no githyanki asking them to help overthrowing a space tyrant or trying really hard to kick their collective asses - was still kind of a relief. 

Rain had stopped falling around the time they had decided to cut the walk short and head back. Evening was fast approaching, and soon enough it would be time to leave. As it turned out, they weren’t the only one awake: the flap of Raphael’s tent was open, and Raphael was crouching at the lakeshore, throwing water over his face and running his hands through his hair as though trying to scrub something away. 

Durge paused, watching, as Raphael sat back on a rock and remained still, wet fingers in his hair, the heels of his hands pressed over his eyes. His shirt was open and rumpled, and he was drawing in long breaths. It looked like he was having-- well, a moment. 

Maybe it would be best to get to their tent unnoticed, but Durge had never been really good at just doing what was best. Instead they stopped by the camp chest, grabbed a bottle of Arabellan Dry, and headed for the lakeshore. Raphael recoiled when they sat next to him, and turned to glare only to be presented with the bottle, cork already off.

“I don’t have a decanter or cups at hand,” Durge said. “You’ll have to drink from the bottle.”

Raphael looked at the label, and sniffed contemptuously. “This should be served at cellar temp--”

“I’ll guzzle it all down myself here and now if you finish that sentence.”

“Hmph.”  The bottle was snatched from their hand, and Raphael took a long swig. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand - not at all, Durge thought, something he ever pictured him doing - and said nothing, looking pointedly away from them at a mountain range in the distance. There was a brief silence.

“Was the lyre to your liking?” Durge finally asked. 

“It should prove adequate,” was the only reply they got. They followed Raphael’s gaze to see if there was actually something worth looking at, but they saw nothing. Only the mountains.

“... So,” Raphael finally spoke without turning. “The vampling let slip that it was you who took the Crown from Mephistopheles’ vault. You and Gortash. I should have known.”

Gortash. Thinking of the man didn’t come easy to Durge. They knew there had been something there, the closest they’d ever had to friendship before Orin unwittingly set them free, but it was only the faded shade of a sensation. A memory of a memory of something they may have dreamed up, once.

Durge didn’t want to remember more; they were afraid of what may turn up, of the being they were when they’d so admired the slaver who sold Karlach to the Hells and doomed so many others to worse fates yet. But they would not pretend it had never been so, either. Pretending felt like a luxury they had not earned. 

“My favorite assassin,” Gortash had called them, and he had meant it. But they were no longer the person he’d known, not by a long shot. They had changed beyond recognition, and Enver Gortash had not.

“... I know Gortash lived in the House of Hope.”

A shrug. Dismissive. “For a time. He wasn’t my ward for very long. He found his way out annoyingly quickly, I have to say, although not before making some useful connections.”

“Why was he there?”

“He was sold to me. An overpriced brat if there ever was one.”

Durge scowled. “Why buy him in the first place?”

Another swig from the bottle. “I figured he had potential. And I was right, was I not? I have an eye for potential, you know I do, even if mortals are so prone to squandering it. I never bothered to try and take him back after he fled, but I’m pleased to know you put him down.”

“... Enver Gortash had to be stopped. Enver Flymm was a boy. The Hells are no place for a--”

“I paid for him, fair and square,” Raphael scoffed, and the indifference slipped. Suddenly, he looked angry. “For the full asking price his loving parents set, if you must know. If they didn’t want their boy to go to the Hells, they should not have handed him to a devil.”

“So why didn’t you bother?”

Raphael paused and blinked, taken aback, bottle in mid-air. “What?”

“You’d paid for him. Why didn’t you bother to take him back? You don’t strike me as someone willing to let an investment go. Unless he somehow became Bane’s Chosen the second he was out, what challenge would it have posed to you? Reclaiming a mortal boy?”

A sneer. “Maybe I was just curious to see how he’d burn himself out left on his own devices,” Raphael snapped, and took another swig from the bottle. He turned away. “I think we should consider this conversation over. Do not waste your breath or my time, unless it’s to beg forgiveness for your treachery. Or to tell me how you plan to recover the rest of my soul from Mephistopheles’ vaults.”

Durge sighed, and decided to let the matter drop. For now. “I do not recall the details of the heist in Mephistar,” they admitted. “But if I could steal the Crown then, I am sure I can get to your soul too.”

A hum, making it plain that Raphael very much failed to share that certainty, but he didn’t remark on it. He looked up at the setting sun instead, and so did Durge; it was turning the sky to-- blood -- fire, and it reflected on the lake’s still surface. In the distance, birds called.

“... What has become of the Crown?” Raphael finally asked, almost conversationally. Only the tenseness in his back betrayed how sore a subject that was.

“It came apart when we took down the Netherbrain. Gale was able to reforge it, and gave it to Mystra for safekeeping. She took the netherese orb out of his chest in exchange.” And, Durge knew, it had been the last interaction between them. As far as they were concerned, Gale was better off for it.

A snort. “Safekeeping, of course. As if gods are not wont to misuse power the same as everyone else,” was the response. One last swig, and Raphael passed the bottle over to Durge. They took it with a shrug.

“Who better to hold onto it than the goddess of all magic? It seemed the safest course of action.”

Raphael laughed, or at least he came remarkably close to it. “If you truly believe that,” he said with a wide gesture, tongue loosened by the wine, “then I have the most delightful bridge to sell you in Stygia.”

A snort, also not too far away from a laugh. “If after all this I’m still in the mood to invest in Baator’s infrastructure, I will let you know,” they said, and emptied the bottle in one gulp.

***

[Back to Chapter 6]

[On to Chapter 8]

[Back to Start]

[ziteyra]

A good soldier

Chapter 4

Chapter 1 and Chapter 3

🐟 Synopsis: Lyle gets you to leave the facility with him and you find out a bit more about him and the others.

🐟 characters: Quaritch Recom, Waynfleet Recom (🥳)

🐟themes: same as the last chapter. A bit of cursing, roughing around but nothing serious.

🐠Note: i dont even know what happened hsgaddajh sorry i was gone so long! I swear ive got multiple chapters finished im just gonna post them one by one. Ahhh my Avatar addicition finally got the best of me. Love y'all 💙

Tagging: @babyduk213 💙and @skellie88-blog 💙

Still in a kind of shocked state, you finally manage to free yourself from Lyle's grip while he carries you on his sacred mission to the outside gates. 

“I haven't even put on my mask.” you mumble while fiddling with the equipment, and your fully charged oxygen mask “What has gotten into you, Lyle?!” 

“Nothing little scientist, I just realized what a treat of a human we happen to have here with you. So much so that even the captain takes a liking to you. And even if I suddenly was possessed by evil spirits of bad intentions, admit it you like the idea of getting taken out of this hell hole by a strong soldier like me y/n?”

You need a second to answer, not only because you hate to admit that he is kind of right about your happiness regarding your escape from the facility but also because you clearly heard him say that even the captain would like you. And that was definitely something to stomach especially so early in the day. “ You dont mean our captain” you scoff at Lyles remarks as you finally manage to pull your Oxygen Mask in the right position and properly adjust it “ Id honestly expected him to rather go back to the jungle alone than admit something like that.” 

“Aww little scientist, don't think so bad of yourself. You didn't realize he liked you? Well, i admit it's kind of difficult to tell but in practice, it's nothing you should waste your energy on. And even so, you know he´d love going through the jungle all by himself and murdering every single living alien he finds. Especially in his new body.” 

You admit that Lyle’s knowledge of Quaritch's character might by far exceed yours but still seems not convincing in the slightest. Nonetheless, you don't even get time to focus on that thought anymore as you start to pass the final gates and checks of the facility and you realize that quite a few more people than usual have laid eyes upon you. Particularly at the final airgates, you can see quite a few of your colleagues eyeing you and your big blue escort as you prepare to enter the Pandorian wilderness. 

“Well, your little buddies definitely seem jealous of us y/n. As they should be huh ?” Lyles not so quietly exclaimed while you more and more wished a banshee would just kidnap you and take you as far away as possible. He gives you a little nudge and you can see how happy all the attention seems to make him. It was almost surreal seeing him like this since you couldn't really think of a moment outside of a battle where he seemed to be enjoying himself that much. But then again you knew so much and so little about this crew of recom soldiers who had thousands of research papers and articles written about them but still surprised you every new day you managed to work with them. That was probably the truest not for Lyle but for his captain Quaritchs. 

His stone-cold gaze still could not leave your mind even as you entered through the last metal door into the scorching sun of Pandora with Lyle by your side.

[nahalism]

i was wondering, how did you get to develop your art? im currently in a process where i am trying to experiment and go beyond the need to create art that is realistic (as in "objectively like reality as it is", like I was being told by both school and family). i feel like I struggle a lot to follow my inspiration because of this, and I am also trying to learn how to draw scenes from my own ordinary life, but unfortunately I am quite impatient and frustrated with my inability to create what I wish to create + perfectionism in general makes me scared of using colour as well 😭 I really admire your art so much, both your sketches and finished pieces, and I have always wondered your own learning process throughout the years. please feel free to not reply if you feel uncomfortable cause I know it is a very personal process as well, and above all I hope you are doing well and I am sending you endless love <333

🥺🥺 this is so lovely to receive because if im completely honest there are multiple moments where i feel exactly as you've just described and despite pushing through it, a message like this is very validating that ive progressed in some way

i dont mind sharing at all. i started drawing/painting when i was 21/22 which is relatively late and i was so fearful because despite having a vision for what i wanted to create i lacked any skill that could help me bring what was in my minds eye to fruition. i was also insanely depressed and in the middle of getting my degree at uni (so felt like i had no time to pursue art, at least not to the extent i wanted to). — my plan to get better consisted of multiple things. id draw everyday. i had/have two styles i'd practice, one realism, and the other 'freestyle'? basically draw only from my head and from the rhythms that came naturally to my hand, no references. by doing that, or drawing the human figure/portraits/cars/buildings from my imagination, not only was i reinforcing what id actually learned from my study of the fundamentals, but i was learning to incorporate my own creativity into the rigid structure that sometimes comes from only drawing from reference. by doing that and drawing studies every day i began to build a library in my head of images/poses/character archetypes i could pull from which made drawing from my imagination easier, but also had the structural knowledge of forms/perspective/anatomy to make them look credible. id do this whenever i had free time, and once i left uni began practicing anywhere from 6-9 hours daily. a bit extreme but i felt like i had time to make up for since i started drawing relatively late in life. only tip there is to balance practice with making finished pieces. finished pieces will show you which fundamentals you still need to work on & how much progress you've made. they also show the completion of a thought whereas practice only gives you the tools to bring that thought to reality

just so u know, ur practice of the fundaments is not in vain. you just need to revive your own capacity to draw from your imagination/subconscious. the main thing is knowing your going to find your work horrible for a long time before it gets better. the joy has to come from the process of creating rather than the end product. by the time it gets better, your eye will also have improved, so you still wont be satisfied. thats where growth comes in. being your biggest critic is what will make you great, as long as you remember where you came from (date and keep your work so you can look back on it) and the role criticism plays. separate your skill from your self worth.

something helpful i was once told is along the lines of 'perfectionism is a lie we tell ourselves to justify our procrastination. no one is ever perfect, so the only way to gain skill is to practice. you cant grow if you dont begin. so if your really a perfectionist, your only solution is to start'

i would love to see your work someday and hope i will. wishing you luck and sending you all the courage to begin and be great. you got this <3

[mihai-florescu]

Do you agree with me that we should get rid of "death of the author" and that we should introduce "death of the audience" instead?

"Oooh but how will other people interpret this-" I don't know! I don't care! I wanna know what goes on inside the brain of the person who actually put their time and effort and soul into this. Not five million other people who Did Not Create the Thing.

(Sorry if this is weird but you feel like the most qualified person i know to have an opinion on this)

Disclaimer, im big on believing 2 things coexist at the same time about everything. My mood swings put me in black and white thinking often, but when i can think clearly from both perspectives im still a contrarian and have counter points for my counter points. Im gonna word vomit an answer, im not good at ordering my thoughts but i hope its fine still.

Oh brother i used to go on rants about this (authorial intent, media consumption, fandom culture etc) all of last semester and it's what ultimately led to me giving up on my degree and serious art altogether... i'll attach a few i found in my archive i think are relevant if youre curious beep meep meow. I was writing these posts at the same time as my thesis paper which was more hopeful and aiming to reframe what we consider escapism, but in the end by the finale (last assessment) the hatred won in my heart and i couldnt make a visual project with an audience in mind. I made something, but it was more like a rant with visuals and absolutely failed the "whats the future of this project?" question. Must it have a future for an audience? Its job was to be a confession and a respite, for my own expression. I dont want an audience, im too much of a misanthropic hater and possessive mother to let others see or interpret my ideas. I know it's selfish and counterproductive but i cant help it. You sending this ask made me laugh since it was so relevant to my struggles this year. Id love to break out of this cycle and mindset but i always go back here to these beliefs.

Anyway... i do think the sensible truth is somewhere in the middle. Reader's interpretation is essential for works to gain life in the world and to outlive their authors, and i revere stories for the ability to touch people's hearts and make them learn things about themselves as well as other's way of thinking (reading is a process of interpretation and contemplation afterall isnt it? Well, active reading at least. Citation to my written thesis). But im not a fan of fandom lens interpretations that so often flatten stories.

I think for our shared stories of interest authorial intent is particularly fun to think about. Commercial works made to sell gacha games but which do have heart and profound messages theyre trying to convey. But also made with an audience in mind. I havent been able to formulate any particularly riveting conclusions, but i would love to know if anyone has focused on such topics. Everything deserves analysis and attempts at understanding... and i find authorial intent an invaluable insight that can never be cast aside. Works gain lives of their own after theyre set free into the world, but they dont spawn fully formed from thin air ready for "consumption"...

Uuu im trying to decide if i should link to you a story about storytelling i wrote and illustrated in a day, and a video about humanity and the power of imagination as salvation and damnation... if i say "i'll share them, but only if you erase from your mind that i wrote them" it'd be hypocritical after everything i just spilled out. But too much knowledge about the author is scary too... not for the audience as much as the author himself. It's the audience who has the final laugh of judgement and interpretation... but it's scary to let others into your mind, to see things you spent time and energy on? I wish i could channel my death of the audience defiance into proudly sharing works without caring who sees them rather than deciding nothing is worth making anymore since im so mistrustful. Alas! Maybe one day i'll stop being a self absorbed, self sabotaging prey animal

[askfallenroyalty]

more lore thoughts before sleep

Like genuinely I think what canon aims for earth to be:

Just like ours for immersion and simplicity sake

Secretly got complicated world building that we don't see cause like how we don't know much about the UT humans until late game /revealed they're not the player, we too will realize their world is not truly our own. It being called earth doesn't mean they share the same history at all. I can ONLY see this working if it was part of a larger narrative but I doubt that with DR being an AU and I doubt the alarm clock would be that ambitious

anyway logically, I'd imagine SOULs are only fully visible and collectable if surrounded by a magic environment. (Monsters and monsterfood cultivate a magic infused atmosphere, without one or the other they'd disappear with time) which would mean you could justify a more 1-1 history

BUT personally, the premise and into narration of Undertale give me the vibe monsters were always a part of humanity. So like. The premise itself isn't that "Oh this is earth, just that monsters are sealed a long time ago" but rather its "No see they had their own history and shared the world together until the barrier. This IS earth but not one that shares our exact history. It is not intended, by premise, to be 1-1"

anyway Angel's does that but monsters migrate to an island after a while for ~plot reasons~ that even monsters aren't fully aware. (In reality it just makes it more simple to write) So you'd have monsters across the world but there more hidden or seen as... unextrodinary. I'm thinking like you'd have hawks then there's a Phoenix on my backyard patio casual.

Magic would have to be common at least enough that Big Foot can fend for himself in the woods. Magic is sparse but not necearily in the wild in certain areas? Like hotspots of localized Magic generating areas.

Monsters naturally cultivate magic food and vice versa, they allow Monsters to feed off to exist. Who in turn cultivate and grow the food etc. Magic Cycle.

These spots become more rare as monsters are hunted or their habitats taken by humanity

My thinking is how to USE magic is rarely understood and why the Hoppes Kingdom having so much magic and knowledge matters so much. That's since died out more in the hundreds of years and shift to only preists using magic. But I also imagine they id wild magic as different from their divine magic so that's honestly an explanation to why the preists narrative isn't instantly shattered when monsters break the barrier. Monsters use wild magic or have their own separate system. (In reality all magic is the same magic)

But yeah working alongside Asriel and lying about how magic works (and thus siphon monsterkind for magic and then use it to ensure divine right and power etc) would be why humanity is more quick to adopt monsters (outside of capitalism )

Which means if Asriel or More Likely Raine tbh were to expose this and show how Hoppes Kingdom deliberately skewed the narrative than they could use that as leverage. But also that's a big risk to use that against them, as it's not enough to "prove" it to believers nor does it stop those in power from deflecting and then betraying. Humanity still controls the narrative and power here

[fated-normal-767]

I love all your characters sosososoososoooo much and is like to know more about Athanasios. In my head he’s like the straight man so Id like to know what batshit insane hijinx he gets caught up in

Ohh boy ‼️‼️‼️ for the duration of the post I will be calling him Niki (shortening of his last name, nikitas) because I cannot type his full name properly 90% of the time 👍

Right! He believes he’s straight for the majority of his life, and realises he’s actually aroace very shortly before he becomes a ghost (he also thought he was homophobic for a bit because he was repulsed by the idea of any romance). This is not important to the plot at all but I like it being known because it’s important to him 👍

In his childhood, his family was not necessarily abusive, but very rarely payed attention to him, bordering on neglect, meaning that Niki spent most of his time with Ares, Shimmer, Letalis, and slightly later, Python. Python is the only one who’s family never had a high role in the government and later mentions feeling slightly isolated due to this, though it isn’t a large plot point, just an influence. All of the main 4 kids are about 12 when they all meet, ares is linked due to being shimmer’s older brother. They also all have nicknames (letalis umbra; Lucius or luci, athanasios nikitas; Niki, Alexis Harlowe; python. It’s suggested that shimmer had one but never brought up.) Of course, Ares ran the organisation (though everyone thought Kronos did other than people ares had told), Letalis’ family ran a branch of it, having the second highest role, and where Niki’s family still had high roles, they still worked for the other two’s families. Letalis’ family and Ares both made it very clear to Niki’s father that he’d lose his job if Niki got hurt, and it’s slightly implied that this is why his family was neglecting at worst, but never violent.

Niki was (for most of his childhood) the least likely one to start conflicts or actively choose to do stupid things, but he’d always stand up for the others without much hesitation at all after things would go wrong. He was also the oldest by a year or two. He had the most knowledge of how the entire government system worked, and was the first one to ask ares why python’s family never interacted with other’s families, as well as the first to ask ares to help. Him and Shimmer interacted with Ares the most and knew how he actually acted, unlike Letalis, who only knew Ares as the persona he used in meetings or presentations, or python, who didn’t seem to care for a while.

He also held grudges the most, and was extremely stubborn, he’d stand by a point if it killed him, and did for his entire life.

When python ‘disappeared’ presumed dead at 17, Niki entirely held the blame against ares, who was too upset to say otherwise. He slowly isolated himself further from ares and shimmer, associating with Kronos and working on some highly morally questionable projects. The cut one of these was a science experiment on a young child with a powerful skill in which she was put through the worst situations possible to test responses. I believe she eventually either died from shock or ran away and died or disappeared somewhere else, but I didn’t write that bit so I can’t remember.

The first time he’s ever shown in the game he is introduced as Ares’ assistant (assigned by Kronos), and immediately tries to convince him to kill shimmer instead of finding them and bringing them back alive. He mentions as a ghost that he had wanted to test if there was any semblance of humanity left in ares enough for him to defend shimmer, or even attack Niki for saying that, but due to being almost entirely caught up in an act, ares just goes “well I’d rather not kill them myself but we could consider it if they keep causing problems. Not yet though”.

From this point to directly before his death, Niki is exclusively painted as evil, he has entirely given up on shimmer and ares, and seen reports of what the fuck letalis has been up to since python ‘died’*, meaning he ruled everyone he used to care about as ‘fucked up and evil and murderous’, so he decides to get on that train fully too; no one would be able to tell the difference anymore anyway.

*met Eris, was a serial killer for a bit, 100% killed and ate people (the reports are confidential and not public but Niki saw)

Just before Ares fakes his death for the first time, Niki tries to confront him, calling him an idiot and a coward for not killing shimmer. Unfortunately, ares is having a nervous breakdown, and stabs athanasios in the stomach, leaving him in a burning building to die. Ares does not actually manage to get out on his own, he has asthma and collapses from the smoke inhalation until shimmer drags him out of the building.

It’s never described how Niki is brought back any of the times, but it’s mentioned that it is always linked to Kronos/Kronos chooses for it to happen. The first time, he looks slightly rotten and burnt, but you wouldn’t immediately go “he’s been dead.” He just looks horribly injured. You meet him again before Ares returns thinking dolos is dead, and he helps letalis with their plan of find and killing ares, during which they almost torture shimmer to death (thinking that they know). After this happens, Dolos shows up for the first time, with a man called Mars who is completely unrelated to anything at all and gets almost beaten to death by Lyssa for saying that ares deserved to die. ‘Mars’ finds letalis and tears her eyes out, then both him and dolos disappear again, never seeing Niki, nor knowing that he was alive and involved, which Niki was very thankful for.

When ares comes back, Niki makes it his role to antagonise him as much as possible; made very easy by how fucked up ares is, having repetitive flashbacks to watching dolos die. Niki’s final straw per se was when he stole a necklace from dolos which ares had kept and threatened to destroy it, and after a violent fight, Niki has ares at gun point and makes some comments about everything around ares dying. With little to no warning he puts the gun in his own mouth and pulls the trigger, which ares takes as ‘proving his point’, but was actually caused by dolos.

When Niki is finally brought back, he is visibly a corpse, and completely drenched in blood. He is brought back to supervise ares, who grew significantly harder to blackmail and more unstable after finding out dolos was alive. It’s never explained whether he started trying to destroy things hoping he could get back to dolos even after telling him to leave, or if he entirely gave up and started breaking things to lash out at something. But Niki is told to watch and make sure that ares doesn’t destroy the building again or leave. Niki has almost given up on his stubborn point of hating ares, making slight jokes about how ares should kill Kronos this time, how he hates that he’s back.

Ares pours them both a drink. He never even touches his cup. Niki knows what is going to happen. He tells ares that he was sorry for how everything turned out, and it is barely even acknowledged.

Niki talks about how the system had always worked, anyone who works for them has one engineered weakness to get rid of them if they try to leave. Letalis’ legal record, shimmer’s addictions, and ares was never taught to swim- he’d drown from even falling into a river. Ares asks what Niki thought his weakness was, the way they’d get rid of him if they had to. Niki says that he thinks it was Ares. He sends a message to Kronos, setting up his murder for ares, and tells ares to burn the place to the ground. His body is never found.

As a ghost, Niki spends his time attempting to get people to see him so he can finally leave, but every time he is actually visible he exclusively spends the time saving other people. He tells ares that he needs to protect Corvus because they are Kronos’ child and that knowledge might be dangerous. He saves someone’s life by showing them the way out of a building they were trapped in. He leads Pluto to someone who is dying so that he saves them. He makes no progress in saving himself. He has not yet been written to ever make any progress on it, actually.

I know I missed something im so eepy but um The 👍 I can answer questions if something doesn’t make sense

[undertow-story]

PROLOGUE

SACHIEL

I’ve lived in this place for as long as I can remember now. Which is not very long in the scheme of things. I’ve been in the Undertow for at least a year and a half if I had to guess, but time doesn’t feel like it flows quite right down here.

My name is Sachiel… At least, this is the name I’ve given myself based off the ID I found in my pocket upon waking. I seem to have lost all memory of my former self, and given the information I have, I’m not from around here. If that wasn’t obvious enough, then I would have figured it out given the fact I am the only one of my kind.

I wish I knew what my kind was, admittedly. Claws. Fangs… Ears, cropped like that of the common mongrel leashed around by the thugs and bandits in this city. Tail and horns- piercing thin slitted eyes just like the creatures I hunt.

I must be a monster.

Not that it bothers me. It’s the only fathomable explanation I can assume anyway. I however, seem to be the only one capable of speech out of the creatures I’ve encountered so far. In this place, it’s kill or be killed obviously, as we’re overrun with horrific entities I cannot explain.

This world is best emphasized by the word ‘survive’.

Rather, uh… This sector is described that way. Look, I only know so much, but also it makes sense to me to write down the things I do know so far- in case my brain gets smacked around enough again to lose all the knowledge I’ve got.

The area I reside is called The Undertow, or just Undertow depending on who you talk to. We are the filth. Cast out from the glistening lights of the city above- we’re forced to live in the waste and squalor of the wealthy fucks put themselves above us. Our home is lit by neon, and is dark around every corner. Disease, Crime, Violence… it’s all rampant here. I have not yet seen the sun for more than 2 hours at a time. Which is unfortunate because the creatures residing here love the darkness. I feel pity for the people of this place. So many just trying to live their lives, get by…

Banished to this horrible place just because they’re not good enough by the standards of those above.

I don’t know the name of the place above us.

I’m not meant to. None of us are.

I saw it once from the outskirts when I left on a hit. The upper lands glow so blindingly bright, and it’s much smaller in comparison to the dredges below it. I personally don’t understand how they can live, I’d go blind. Y'know, how the pompous types are. They don’t care about us. The only time they need us is when they want someone dead…

Speaking of, that seems to be the case.

On a board bolted to a wall in the middle of a bustling market, Sachiel looks up from his book, closing it and putting it away as he takes a paper off the board, holding it in his rough hand. The paper reads: “Wanted: Hunter for removal of Important Persons, please send applications to xxxxx_xxx-x we await your chance to take on this ‘Golden Opportunity’.”

What specific wording.

“Reward: 10,000,000c”

Whoo, this guy must have really fucked up for them to ask a price like that.

Here, if you’ve got the skill then people will let you take on jobs for them… they generally involve killing. Usually it’s for monsters that rampage and cause destruction in specific sectors that threaten the foundations that hold the upper city aloft. Sometimes you get hits for persons- and other times you get hits for assholes like this. The ones up above.

I registered to be a Hunter some time back… maybe after a month of eating rats on the street. I decided I would rather at least be able to afford a beer here and there- maybe actual food instead of just whatever I could scrounge up. I don’t care to take on hits against persons- they don’t interest me… Humans aren’t fun to hunt. However, this is an awfully good deal. I could actually get an apartment instead of sleeping in whatever nearby dumpster I can find…

Never hurts to try I suppose.

His ears bent back, he headed off deeper into the city, clearly somewhere in mind.

Another day in paradise.

Tch-I gotta stop saying that it’s becoming a habit.

Next

[wolfsbaneandthistle]

Image ID: Hán Huì Qún- Preventative and Repetitive Care Notes. Translated into English T-132. This class is certainly much easier with Ankiusk here with me. Well, not easier, but certainly better. It's nice to have someone else to be absolutely astounded with when the instructors something insane like it's nothing. I ended up stopping dead in the middle of class today because the instructor mentioned chitinous hoof care for zoronxie. I've had to ask Ankuisk for her notes from after that, because that just turned off my brain. It's a lesson we'll get later in the class, apparently. But chitin is exoskeleton. Shell, not hoof. I can't image what the care would be like. I'm a little scared about it. I'm more scared of everything else, of course. It's a bit sad that the instructors of this class are trying so hard to include information about humans and umblans, despite most of the repetitive care only being checkups. It makes me rather mad when the emergency care classes include practically nothing about either of us. I see other humans on THIS station. There's no excuse not to include infomation on us if we're this common. End ID.

Hán Huì Qún and Ankiusk will be the two medics aboard the Little Bird. In order to prepare for this, they both take classes in order to finalize their medical knowledge on all of the species on that will be living in the ship- as well as experimental first aid certifications for the species that are, medically, rather unknown.

Paramedic Hán creates sketches of both her associates and the anatomical models shown in class. This is very helpful for Ankiusk and Diaf, who have a hard time with depth perception, but is a bit confusing for her Corldaxian instructors, who have a hard time conceptualizing 2d images.