#if people are interested i might share more rewrites for his story and mission because oh boy are there a decent amount of them

[theesteppenwolf]

Some thoughts on Inner Demons

So i have been thinking about this and i do actually like the idea that Lucanis can't have Rook exist in his mind prison because it fucks up his entire inner narrative of basically just self flagellation. "If rook exists then at some point i have to get out" so just delete rook from the scenario. I think that's really good.

However, i think it would've been better if a part of Lucanis actually was trying to get out, at least involuntarily, and that Rook was the personification of that idea, constantly trying to break himself out but ultimately failing. So ''Rook'' exists somewhere in there but is heavily suppressed. That's why Spite seeks real life Rook out. Not to mention that even if not romanced Rook is pretty much the closest person he has at that point, his only other true friend he's had beside Illario so it makes even more sense for them to be this comforting idea he just can't accept fully.

So you see glimpses of Rook, the sound of their voice, or maybe more notes about them, especially if you are romancing him it seems like a big waste of an opportunity to not utilize Rook for a bigger showing of his inner struggle and fear to try and live some kind of life.

The Neve thing is a bit weird when romancing him, i do understand this complaint and the way Spite phrases it does come off as romantic interest specific to her. I think Neve should absolutely stay as both her and Lucanis seem like good friends regardless of romance but it would've been been better (if the player is romancing Lucanis) for Neve to maybe use Lucanis' feelings for Rook against them here. Implying guilt about Rook, leading them on etc. rather than make it specifically about Neve.

There are plenty of little things like this that would make the quest a bit more impactful overall because this is a pretty short quest for something that is essentially meant to be a psychological deep dive into Lucanis. Just more notes and those reworked Neve lines would make it more way more immersive to the player.

In my opinion this should've been a way bigger and more important part of his personal quest, i think they should've really leaned into the whole ''fighting to get him out of his own head'' idea. Adding things like Lucanis' actual memories of Caterina as the abuser she was and moments of genuine brotherly love Lucanis has for Illario. It would've also made up for the fact that you don't learn anything very personal about him the entire game.

Listen, I have whole rewrites to how his personal quest should've gone, it's really my roman empire at this point. This quest is such a good way for Rook to get real vulnerability from him that wouldn't've shown up in real life due to his introverted and closed off nature.

Again my conclusion of Lucanis being a very scraped up character continues as i find my ideas to be pretty easy to come up with implementations for the kind of thing they are trying to pull of in this specific mission.

But oh well, so it goes. Kind of got rambly for a minute there, thank you kindly for reading :P

[darkpoisonouslove]

Ask 2 and 5 for Griffin and Valtor :)

2. What’s your favorite relationship in your story? Could be the main one, one your characters shares with a friend, etc.

Griffin and Valtor are a favorite relationship of mine because there is just so much with them. There's a lot of complexity with the moral dilemma their relationship poses for Griffin and the possibility it offers to explore how love has made them both better and worse. It provides an interesting side of losing yourself in love to the point where it becomes dangerous not just for you but for everyone else and that is something that could have made the show's views on love more complex. There's also a very close connection between love and power in their relationship and that is super intriguing to poke at. And of course, as someone who loves angst, this just delivers a lot of that so I can't resist it. Wish I could explain better but my concentration ran away and I can barely string a sentence together anymore.

5. What makes your main ship so compatible? Or, what makes them so incompatible? What do they see in each other?

This is about my rewrite so my version of canon.

The thing that really brings them together is the fact that both of them are used to never being seen as good enough. The Ancestral Witches are always harping on Valtor about not doing well enough on missions and abuse him as they please because he does not rise up to their standards. And Griffin is used to the world seeing her as yet another dark magic user aka evil just because she has chosen to be a witch. It takes them a little while to figure out that they have that kind of understanding between them and that is why they are both perfectionists (even if that manifests in different ways with each of them) but once they do, it becomes a lot easier to work together because they know how to avoid the other's trip wires. It also strengthens their convergence to have more understanding and trust of the other. (On top of that, they have both experienced jabs about their magic. Griffin has been despised because of her dark magic and Valtor has been told he has no right to his Dragon Fire because it was stolen from Domino.)

Both of them have big egos even if Griffin's works in subtler ways and will be absolutely petty if their ego is hurt. It's not great for their partnership until they figure out how to take credit for their joined efforts. After that it's just a nightmare for anyone else to be around them because the ego of one of them feeds of the other's ego and vice versa and they can be quite unbearable. To them, though, it's great because they've finally found someone who recognizes their talent and can match it.

Speaking of, they both love the fact that the other one can match them step for step. At first it was more of a push and pull dynamic that lacked sync. Valtor thought that Griffin was too much talk and no walk since she was always planning so much and was afraid of the action (or at least that's what the Ancestral Witches tried to put in his head). Griffin thought he was too impulsive and was only succeeding because he had the might of the Dragon Fire, otherwise no magic would keep up with the way he was wasting it. It turned out that Valtor just has a lot more knowledge on magic that allows him to draw more power and can do the same for her. And she is just compensating what she lacks in raw power with a solid strategy. They are just the two sides of the same coin and it challenges the other to do their best in order to keep up.

They had similar goals. Valtor wanted to have enough power to break free from the Ancestral Witches' control and prove himself in his own right (not as their servant). Griffin wanted enough power to get rid of the stigma around dark magic that is the Council's propaganda. They were both ready to go to extremes to get what they wanted. Contrary to what the Ancestral Witches were suggesting, Griffin wasn't scared to go through whoever was standing in her way. She just preferred to do things with stealth and finesse where possible but she would resort to murder if that was the only way to achieve her goal. Valtor just does not happen to place value upon human life but he also wasn't on board with the mass destruction that was in the core of the Ancestresses' plan. They just wanted to destroy the world because destruction is all they understand but Valtor wanted to have realms over which to impose his greatness. Tbh Valtor was first intrigued by her complex view on morality since she wasn't operating with the idea that she is morally correct while she also didn't view herself as morally incorrect for killing people who were in her way. She was simply viewing it as necessary sacrifice for a better world and that made him curious.

There's their shared pursuit of knowledge, although with Griffin it's more genuine curiosity while for Valtor it's just another way to power. The more you know about a person or about magic, the more control you have over them. Griffin on the other hand, just finds it fascinating to learn about the world around her, just for the sake of knowledge.

Ask me fanfic questions

[imagine-loki]

Soulbonds and Fairy Dust

TITLE: Soulbonds and Fairy Dust (rewrite) CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: 36/?

AUTHOR: nekoamamori ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine one of the fae has been helping the Avengers, jumping in to help them on missions and vanishing before Shield can bring her in.  Loki joins the team and convinces her to come talk to the team and consider joining before Shield takes more drastic measures. RATING: M NOTES/WARNINGS:  This is a rewrite of the original work of the same name.  Also on AO3 here

Loki looked impressed. No wonder she could truename so much stronger than the other fae.  “Are you the only one with that power?” he asked.  He was always so curious and that didn’t change now.

Sig nodded. “I am, which makes it more dangerous when I truename things and when oaths are sworn in my presence,”

“Why is that?”

She paused and considered how to best explain that.  “Well, I can identify anyone and anything’s truename, which is dangerous enough, since that gives me at least some power over that being, as you saw me do to Jareth,” Loki was nodding along, so she continued.  “The other thing very, very few people know I can do and it takes a lot of power to do so, but I can change something’s true name, change their nature entirely,” she told him softly, sharing one of her secrets with him.  No one outside of Underhill knew she could do that and she wanted to keep it that way.  

Loki’s brows furrowed in confusion and disbelief. “Change their nature? That shouldn’t be possible,” he protested.

“And yet, I can,” she told him with a shrug. “I’ve only done it a couple of times, and it’s not something to be done lightly, especially since it takes a lot of power to do, but I can,”

“That is quite impressive,” Loki commented and thought it over before he found his next question. “What natures have you changed?” he asked gently, feeling that it might not be an easy story.   

She sighed before she started, but she had agreed to answer questions, and she wouldn’t hide her past from him.  “Once by accident when I was a child, I changed the nature of one of the hunt hounds so it would be my friend instead of the savage hunter it was being trained to be.  I didn’t understand what it was I’d done at the time,” she explained.  Loki nodded.  Accidental magic among children was common and understood.  She hesitated before she continued.  “The other time, I’m not proud of…,” she told him softly, letting him know how difficult this story would be to tell.

“Tell me when you’re ready, darling. I won’t force you into anything,” he reassured her quickly, making sure she knew that he wouldn’t force or pressure her to tell him things that she wasn’t ready to. He was here to support her, not pressure her.  

She sighed, but pressed on.  “It was when I was being evaluated for my place in the court when I came of age.  One of the gray ladies had an evening with one of the lords of the unseelie court and her child wasn’t up to seelie perfection.  She claimed she had been unable to see through his illusion, but that didn’t change that the child was born covered in feathers. I was told to change the child’s nature to fit the standards of the seelie court or she would be killed for her imperfection,” she told Loki, admitting what she’d done with sorrow in her tone.  She hadn’t wanted to change her nature, but there had been no choice.

“What happened?” he pressed gently.

“I gave the child a new truename,” she told him simply.  She’d changed her to be seelie perfect as required.  It had been the only way to save her life. “The last time I saw her, she was a toddler with bright gold hair and eyes,” she told him, then sighed.  “Her mother catches her staring longingly at the sky though and I know I took it from that girl.  She will never fly, because of my meddling,” she told him softly, sorrow haunting her eyes at what she had done, though it was awhile ago.

“I’m sorry, love,” Loki told her gently, pulling her into his arms.  

Sig let him, accepting the comfort he offered.  “As I said, I’m not proud of it, but it was a choice between changing her nature or letting her be killed.  I made the only choice I could,” she said with a hitch in her voice.  It had been a difficult decision at best and she knew she cost the girl her wings and stripped the sky from her.  

“I understand, darling,” she heard his own haunted past in his words. “Some choices are not easy but they must be made,” he told her gently.

She nodded, glad that he understood, though she wouldn’t press him for the details on how.  He would tell her when he was ready. “The oath thing can have some interesting results depending on my mood.  I’ve had to witness thousands of weddings since coming into my dominion.  Needless to say couples who vow to remain faithful in my presence, will remain faithful,” she told him with a smirk and mischief in her eyes.  The fae weren’t known for their fidelity.

“That’s amazing,” Loki told her, sounding truly impressed.

She nodded.  “But it takes a touch of power and me actually feeling like enforcing the oaths, so normal everyday promises are usually safe in my presence.  Usually,”

“So I should be careful what oaths I make in her presence?” he teased.

“You’re safe.  I like you too much.  The moron who cheated on his girlfriend and swore to eat a million beetles to prove himself to her should have been more careful who was in the room when he made that oath…” she laughed at the old memory.  

Loki’s eyebrows shot up in shock.  “Oh wow. Note to self: never piss off Sigyn,” he teased, laughing at the poor fool’s misfortune.

She giggled.  “You’re just now figuring that out?” she asked him just as teasingly.

“No, but that really brings it to the forefront. You can be terrifying when you want to be,” he was teasing, but also shocked and awed that she’d done that to someone. 

“It’s not my fault he swore to eat a million beetles!” she protested indignantly.

Loki laughed.  “Did you stay and watch him follow through?” He asked, genuinely curious as to what had become of the man who had vexed Sig.

She laughed.  “That was a hundred years ago.  I think he’s still working on it.  He was halfway through last I heard,”

“Wow. And the girl? Has she stuck around?”

“Hell no. She was never going to forgive him anyway,” she said with a shrug. He’d been moronic to think she would.

“What an idiot. And now he’s stuck eating beetles for a few centuries,” Loki mused.  

She laughed.  “So he is.  Maybe he’ll learn not to cheat again when another girl deigns to allow him to court her,”

“If that ever happens. I’m sure rumors have spread about his infidelity,”

“They have.  He keeps having to explain why he’s eating beetles, and the fae can’t lie,” she reminded him. Sig was among the exceptions to that rule and she couldn’t lie well at all. “The court also learned to watch who was in the room before making rash promises.  I may have enforced some just because they sounded like fun…” she added with a hint of mischief in her voice.

He grinned childishly.  He loved mischief after all.  It was in his nature.  “Tell me about them? I love a little mischief,”

“A young lordling promised to profess his love for his lady in front of the entire court.  He had no intention of actually doing so and was just saying the words as romantic fluff,” she giggled at the memory.  “The poetry he read her was awful and the queen was livid at being interrupted by a lordling demanding he be allowed to recite poetry for his lady,” she told him as she laughed over it. 

Loki joined in her laughter. “He must have been so embarrassed,”

“So very, very embarrassed,” she agreed. “And then he was scolded by the queen for making such a rash promise in the first place,”

“Especially with you present,”

She nodded, then smirked when she thought of something.  “You’re not going to warn the warrior boys about that skill of mine, are you?” she teased.

“Not a chance,” he replied with a smirk of his own. 

She giggled. “Wonder what stupid thing Fandral’s going to say,” she paused.  “Or what stupid thing you’re going to goad him into saying,” she corrected herself quickly.

Loki chuckled.  “It could be anything. That man is the definition of the word imbecile,”

She paused in her laughter.  “Hopefully it’s not something Mama Frigga will be too upset with me for enforcing,” no one wanted to upset Mama Frigga.

“Don’t worry, love. I wouldn’t do anything to get you in trouble with Mother,”

“No, but Fandral might.  I think he’s offended I’m not swooning over him like the feather brained noble ladies,” she made a face, letting him know exactly what she thought of that behavior.  She wasn’t one to swoon and she liked to believe that she wasn’t one of the feather brained noble ladies who Loki so despised. 

“I would agree. Though the noble ladies love the attention,”

She rolled her eyes.  “He’s annoying and as featherbrained as the rest of them.  Not my type,” she made another face to solidify that point.

“I agree. I can barely stand being in his presence for a long period of time without wanting to smite him where he stands,” Loki grumbled.  He hated Thor’s moronic friends.  With the exception of Sif.

“Or drug him with fairy wine?” she teased with a grin.

He chuckled. “Or that,”

“Speaking of, did you want to try it?” she asked as she summoned the bottle.  The magic in the wine would help her recover. It wouldn’t help much, but any little bit was helpful, especially with how worried Loki was. 

Loki looked interested.  He was curious about everything, including the magic wine. “Sure,” he agreed.

Sig nodded and looked him over, gauging him and his magic before carefully pouring out a small glass.  She handed the glass over to him and poured a much larger wine glass for herself.  The wine wouldn’t hurt her and if Loki was careful, it wouldn’t hurt him. He took a small sip and she saw in his eyes that it was the sweetest, most delicious wine he’d ever tasted. On top of that it was mixed with magic, making it even better. Loki hmmed in pleasure over it. “That is exquisite,” he purred

She nodded and sipped on her own wine.  “That it is,” she agreed. 

Loki looked concerned as he took another sip. “How dangerous is this wine?”

“You saw what it did to the morons,” she reminded him.  “It’s dangerous, especially to those without magic.  It’s easy for them to get drunk on it, or addicted to the magic within it.  It’s also easy to influence them while they’re drunk on it.  They’ll follow whatever orders are given to them,”

He blinked and she saw his worry. “And to those with magic?” he asked, concerned, though he knew she wouldn’t hurt him, the concern was still there.

“Don’t fret, love.  I wouldn’t give you anything that would hurt you.  You’ll be fine as long as you don’t drink too much of it.  And it replenishes magic. Worst it’ll do to a fae is get us drunk,” she added before he could ask if she was in any danger from it.  

He seemed relieved but still said: “I know. I trust you,”

[inevitably-johnlocked]

Hi :) I... really wanna read a fanfic or two but I can't find one I vibe with xD So... do you know one that's not too long (around 100k words maybe), has hurt and comfort, smut (am I allowed to ask about that?? Ahhhh) and a happy ending? Top!lock would be a bonus but it's not necessary. And if it's a nice AU (like... any kind but no crossovers pls), it would be perfect! :D By the way, I found your blog only a few hours ago and I already feel really comfy and Idk, kinda at home here ^-^

Hi Nonny!!!

Welcome to my corner of the Tumblrsphere!!! I’m so happy you’ve found me, LOL, because I love all my followers and friends! <3

First of all, I think it’s super cute that “not too long” to you is “around 100K” LOL LOL LOL!!! <3 That said, I’d argue all my fic recs are fabulous, LOL. But again, I’m stupidly proud of the wonderful lists I’ve accumulated, because it satisfies my organization kink LOL. And yes, you’re ALWAYS allowed to ask for smut here LOL. 

ANYWAY, so I’m gonna use this ask as an excuse to post up a long-overdue part two to my 50 to 100K fic list! But first, here’s some past lists for the genres you’re looking for:

FIC MASTER PAGES: PG1 || PG 2 || PG 3

Toplock (Mar 2020)

Omegaverse

Please Check PG 3 for all my AU fic lists. There’s a lot :)

Hurt / Comfort Pt. 1: Under 5K Words 

Hurt / Comfort Pt. 2: 5K to 10K Words

Fandom Favourites / Popular Fics

I hope those will get you started! So now, here’s the main event!! Hope you enjoy them!

50 - 100 K WORDS Pt. 2 (Novel Length)

See also:

Fics Under 2000 w.

Fics Under 2000 w. Pt. 2

Fics Under 2000 w. Pt. 3

E-Rated Johnlock for Newcomers Pt 1 (Short Fics under 20K)

Novella Length Fics: 25 to 50K (Aug. 2019)

Novel Length Fics: 50 to 100K (Nov. 2018)

Novel Length Fics: 100K+ w. (May 2019)

Long S3/Post-S3 Fics (20K+ w.) [Apr 2020]

Top 20 Fave 40K+ w. Fics (April 2017)

Smut-Free Fics Over 50K (Aug 2019)

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse by SilentAuror (E, 50,635 w., 1 Ch. || Post-S4/S4 Divergence, Case Fic, For a Case / Reverse Fake-Relationship, Conferences, Marriage Equality, Travelling / New York, Pride, Homophobia, Bottomlock, Marriage Proposal, John POV, Sexuality, Love Confessions, Emotional Love Making, Public Hand Jobs, Blow Jobs, Passionate Kissing, Needy/Clingy Sherlock, Virgin Sherlock, Touching / Hand Holding, Bed Sharing, Little Spoon Sherlock, Intense Orgasms) – John and Sherlock go to New York to attend a conference run by the National Defence of Traditional Marriage Coalition in order to investigate the potential bombing of the annual Manhattan Pride parade. As the conference unfolds, John finds himself repulsed by the toxic ideology being presented, which becomes relevent to his own unacknowledged issues and his friendship with Sherlock...

Repairing the Broken Things by BakerTumblings (M, 75,252 w., 15 Ch. || S4 Compliant, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Medical Trauma, Hospitals, Big Brother Mycroft, Misunderstandings, Realizations, Severe Accident, John Whump, Pneumonia, Medical Procedures, Bed Sharing, First Time, Healing, Happy Ending) – "I'm calling today to notify you that there's been an accident."

Points by lifeonmars (E, 53,791 w., 42 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || HLV Rewrite / Canon Divergence, Married Life, Pregnancy / Baby Watson, Drinking to Cope, Boxing / Fisticuffs, Clueless John, Angst, Minor Medical Drama, Tattoos, Christmas, First Kiss/Time, Eventual Happy Ending, Love Confessions, Doctor John, Sexuality Crisis, Slow Burn, Case Fic, Drugging, Blow/Hand Job, Emotional Love Making, Parenthood, Passage of Time) – What if His Last Vow never happened? This fic picks up a few months after John and Mary's wedding, in an alternate universe where Magnussen doesn't exist, but Mary is still pregnant. Life continues -- just in a different direction. And slowly, Sherlock and John find their way to each other.

Never Change a Running System by Lorelei_Lee (E, 54,246 w. || Pre-TRF, Romance, Humour, Drama, Sex Toys, Anal, Rimming, Masturbation, Frottage, Blow Jobs, Public Sex, First Kiss / Time, Virgin Sherlock / Loss of Virginity, Accidental Voyeurism, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Experiments, Naive Sherlock, Pining Sherlock, Jealous Sherlock, Possessive Sherlock, Straight With an Exception John, Hand Jobs) – Sherlock discovers his sexuality – with far-reaching consequences for John.

A Hundred Crimson Sols by elldotsee (E, 55,536 w. || Astronauts AU || Mars Exploration / Space Travel, Slow Burn, Shy Sherlock, Scientist Sherlock / Biomed Engineer John, Alternating POV, Mutual Pining, UST, Angst with Happy Ending, Domestic Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Injuries, Suicidal Ideation, Zero-G Sex) – Will Holmes is a chemical researcher recognized widely for his contributions to the new Mars exploration program. Thanks to his ground-breaking developments, the IMMC (International Mars Mission Corporation) is one step closer to Martian colonization. Will and his team of scientists are headed out on the first of three manned missions before the first group of settlers arrive. Three days before launch, one of the crew has to be replaced. Will panics because...new people. The replacement is of course one John Watson, biomedical engineer and space hottie who was pretty sure he had retired from actual space exploration and was now content to work in the nice, quiet research lab. Can the crew survive this TOTALLY ROUTINE trip? Will they be able to endure each other for the looooooong trip in close quarters? Gonna be a wild ride... prepare for blast off. Part 1 of the SpaceBois go to Space series

The Thing Is by TSylvestris (E, 56,743 w. || Case Fic, Dev. Rel., Anal/Oral, Blow Jobs, Meddling Mycroft, Drama, Romance, Humour, Casual Encounters, Pining Idiots, Possessive Sherlock, Orgasm Delay, Rough / Alley Sex, Public Sex, John Whump, Drugged John, Emotional Love Making, Awkward Relationship, Marriage of Convenience, Switchlock) – The problem with living with Sherlock, John thought, was that you never, never, ever knew the significance of anything. Like your flatmate's nose buried in your hair. Whilst you're in bed. Part 1 of Nitroglycerine

One Little Change by jadztone (E, 58,312 w. || ASiB Divergence, Fake Relationship, Bed Sharing, Mutual Pining, Friends to Lovers, First Kiss / Time, Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Bi John / Gay Demisexual Sherlock, Switchlock, Alternating POV, Jealousy, Misunderstandings, Case Fic, Angst with Happy Ending, Emotional Love Making, Butt Plugs, Cuddles) – Our story begins right after John and Sherlock's first meeting with Irene Adler in September. It splits off into an AU that imagines them taking a case where they act as bait to hook a killer targeting closeted gays in secret relationships. In the weeks leading up to Christmas, many things happen that have our boys wondering if maybe they have a chance with each other. Then Irene fakes her death on Christmas Eve, and things get a lot more complicated - especially since they still have a killer to catch.

floating through a dark blue sky by Lediona (M, 58,966 w. || Notting Hilll AU || POV John, Celebrity Sherlock, First Date / Time / Kiss, Past Drug Addiction, Angst with a Happy Ending) – Of course, I’d seen his films and always thought he was, well, brilliant -- but, you know, a million miles from the world I live in. Or, when John is the owner of a travel book shop and the famous Sherlock Holmes stops in one day.

The Burning by SrebrnaFH (M, 60,658 w. || Reverse Reichenbach, Suicide, Depression, Hurt Sherlock / John, Separation, BAMF John, Good Big Brother Mycroft, Angst, Implied/Referenced Torture, Fake Character Death, Rescue Mission, Reconciliation / Reunion, Hospitalization, Marriage Proposal, Illnesses, Physical Therapy, Happily Ever After) – Something went very, very wrong. John had seemed, if not happy, then reasonably content with his life. Sherlock had never predicted something like THIS might have happened. Not in his worst nightmares. He was the lousiest friend ever, apparently. At least Mycroft found him something to occupy his mind with, so that he didn't have to go back to 221B and stare at the walls and the chair, where John Watson would never sit again.

This Thing All Things Devours by cypress_tree (E, 63,844 w., 15 Ch. || In Time AU || Science Fiction, Dystopian Universe, First Meetings, Action / Adventure, Romance) – In 2169, time is money—literally. Humans are genetically engineered to stop aging at 25, when the numbers on their arm start counting down from one year. When that time is up, they die. The only way to get more time is to earn it, borrow it, or steal it.John Watson lives day-to-day in the crowded slums of Zone 13. He never imagined living any differently—until he meets the practically-immortal Sherlock, and helps him on a case to track a local time-thief...

The Bells of King's College by SilentAuror (E, 64,019 w., 5 Ch. || Post-S4, Missed Opportunities, Angst with Happy Ending, Fake Relationship, Case Fic, John POV, Jealous John, John in Denial, Travelling / Holidays, Virgin Sherlock, Wedding Proposals) – It's only been two weeks since Eurus Holmes disrupted their lives when Mycroft sends John and Sherlock to Cambridge to pose as an engaged couple at a wedding show in the hopes of solving six unsolved deaths...

Hell Sent, Heaven Bound by ConsultingHound (M, 64,381 w, 16 Ch. || Angels / Demons AU ||  Fallen Angel Sherlock / Angel Cop John, Alternate First Meeting, Slow Burn, Case Fic, John & Lestrade are Friends Before Sherlock, BAMF John, Mind Palace John, Friends to Lovers, John in Denial, Sherlock Picks Out John’s Clothing, Clubbing / Dancing, Mildly Jealous John, Awkwardness, Kidnapping, Sherlock’s Mind Palace, Sacrifice, Worried / Anxious Sherlock, Angst with Happy Ending, Immortal to Mortal) – Ex-War healer and current angelic guard John Watson is not having the best day. He overslept, he’s underpaid, and now there’s someone tagging the Council’s building walls. However things may be about to get interesting: there’s an unusual stranger hanging around (the definition of tall, dark, and handsome), a literal underground cult is brewing, and rumblings are coming from hell. Can he keep his neighbourhood safe, how and why is he being connected to all this, and who the hell is Sherlock Holmes?

White Knight by DiscordantWords (M, 69,840 w., 13 Ch. || S4 Compliant/Post S4, Marriage For a Case, Jealous John, Pining John, Janine / Sherlock Fake Relationship, Serial Killers, Case Fic, Undercover as a Couple, Weddings, John is a Mess, Misunderstandings, Wedding Planning, Jealousy, Drunkenness, Love Confessions, Angst with Happy Ending) – Green. The word green was used to convey a great many things. Illness. Envy. Inexperience. Standing there amidst Janine's chattering bridesmaids, watching Sherlock furrow his brow and study fabric swatches, watching him smile and simper and flirt, John thought it a remarkably apt colour choice. Because he felt quite sick to his stomach, he feared the source of said sickness might very well be jealousy, and he had absolutely no idea at all what to do about it. Or: Sherlock needs to fake a relationship for a case. He doesn't ask John.

Being John Watson-ish by elwinglyre (E, 69,902 w., 17 Ch. || Bodysnatcher AU || Author John, Cranky Sherlock, Angst, Sexual Tension, First Kiss / Time, Falling in Love, BAMF John, Past Soldier John, Feelings, Inside Someone’s Brain, Shy Sherlock, Sherlock Loves John, POV Sherlock, Switchlock, Slow Burn, Internal Dialogue, Mental Turmoil) – When consulting detective Sherlock Holmes steps on one toe too many at a crime scene, he's consigned to a desk job in an archaic office on the seventh-and-a-half floor of the New Scotland Yard. It’s in this bleak office that Sherlock discovers a portal into the mind of renowned author John Watson. Grander than his mind palace, this new wonderland affords Sherlock new vistas of experimentation. To learn more about the mystery behind the portal, Sherlock seeks out and befriends Watson. But then it all goes wrong when others find the secret portal door—including the man whose brain he visits.

Just To Hold You Close by sussexbound (E, 70,841 w., 18 Ch. || Alternate First Meeting, Sherlock POV, ASD Sherlock, PTSD John, Demisexual Sherlock, Bisexual John, Cuddling/Snuggling, Platonic Cuddling, Enthusiastic Consent, Bed Sharing, Love Confessions, First Kiss/Time, Sexual Tension, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Cuddle Negotiations, For a Case Until It Isn’t, Hair Petting, Sexual Negotiation, Anxiety, Trust Issues, Slow Burn, Panic Attacks, Frottage, Hand/Blow Jobs, Referenced Self Harm / Abuse / Suicidal Ideation, First Kiss/Time, Anal) – When a woman is murdered and the last person to see her alive is recently invalided army vet turned reluctant (and prickly) professional cuddler, John Watson, Sherlock Holmes is pulled into a world of intimacy and intrigue he never could have imagined. John is a conundrum and mystery: frank yet reserved, tender yet angry, open yet afraid. Sherlock is instantly drawn into his orbit, and begins to feel and desire things he never has before.

The Vapor Variant by 88thParallel (M, 72,684 w., 18 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Post-THoB, John Whump, Protective Sherlock, Guilty Sherlock, Anxious/Worried Sherlock, Virgin Sherlock, Angst with Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, PTSD John, Slow Burn, Mutual Pining, Suspense, Virus, Sickfic, Big Brother Mycroft) – They stood face to face in the middle of a clearing. The dim light of the moon barely allowed Sherlock to see the glassy terror in John’s eyes and the sweat that glistened off his forehead. His nose was bleeding again, blood dripping in a slow stream from his right nostril. They were both gasping for air, John’s eyes locked on Sherlock’s. There was no recognition there, just wild animal fear. Time stood still for an eternal few seconds, and Sherlock took a shaky breath. “John—”Spell broken, John spun and bolted back into the woods. Still heaving for air, Sherlock took off after him.

Summit Fever by J_Baillier (M, 78,802 w., 18 Ch. || Mountain Climber AU || POV John, Angst, Tragedy, Suicidal Ideation, The Himalayas, Mountain Guide / Doctor John, Mount Climber Sherlock, Loneliness, Drama, Suspense, Slow Burn, Injured Sherlock / Sherlock Whump, Pining John) – After graduating from medical school, John Watson followed his heart to the Himalayas. Ten years later, he's a haunted cynic working for his ex-lover's trekking and mountaineering company. Will leading an expedition to Annapurna I—the most lethal of all the world's highest mountains—shake John out of his reverie, and who is the mystery client added to the group at the last minute?

The Monument of Memory by J_Baillier (M, 79,663 w., 14 Ch. || Post S4 Fix It Fic / S4 is Canon, Angst, Family Drama, Guilt, Case Fic, John Loves Sherlock, Complicated Feelings, Mentalism / Hypnosis, Murder, Grieving John, Sherlock is a Bit Not Good, Team Work, Trust Issues, BAMF John, Psychological Trauma, Protective John, Autistic-Spectrum Sherlock, Parentlock, John POV) –  A genius traumatised by a past he's only beginning to recall. The psychopath sister that time forgot. A missing woman and a mentalist who may or may not be a murderer. And, in the middle of it all, stands John Watson.

Thermocline by J_Baillier (M, 83,557 w., 14 Ch. || Scuba Diving AU || Adventure, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Marine Archaeology, Asexual Sherlock, Horny John, Relationship Drama, Technical/Scuba/Wreck Diving, Slow Burn, Underwater /  Medical Peril, Doctor John, Hurt Sherlock, Anxious Sherlock, John POV, Protective John, Body Appreciation) – John "Five Oceans" Watson — technical dive instructor, dive accident analyst and weapon of mass seduction — meets recluse professor of maritime archaeology Holmes. As they head out to a remote archipelago off the coast of Guatemala to study and film its shipwrecks for a documentary, will sparks fly or fizzle out?

The Summer Boy by khorazir (T, 94,706 w., 6 Ch. || Post S3/Post TAB/Alternate S4, Friends to Lovers, Flashbacks, Sussex, Bullying, 1980′s Kid Sherlock, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Inexperienced Sherlock, Grief/Mourning, Pining Sherlock, Background Case Fic) – About half a year after the fateful events at Appledore, Sherlock and John embark on a private case in Sussex. For Sherlock, it’s a journey into his past, bringing up memories both happy and sad that he has locked away for almost thirty years. For John, it means coming to terms with the present – and a potential future with Sherlock. Part 1 of the The Summer Boy series

Northwest Passage by Kryptaria (E, 95,157 w., 27 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Canadian AU ||  BAMF!John, Canadian John, PTSD, Anal / Oral Sex, Rimming, Emotional Hurt / Comfort, Drug Rehab, Falling in Love, Pining Sherlock, Love Confessions, Sherlock’s Violin, Panic Attacks, Switching, Anxious / Protective Sherlock, Hugs for Comfort, Suicide Mentions, Healing Each Other) – Seven years ago, Captain John Watson of the Canadian Forces Medical Service withdrew from society, seeking a simple, isolated life in the distant northern wilderness of Canada. Though he survives from one day to the next, he doesn't truly live until someone from his dark past calls in a favor and turns his world upside-down with the introduction of Sherlock Holmes." Part 1 of Tales from the Northwest

31_Days_of_Porn_Challenge_2017 Series by distantstarlight (E, 96,540 w. across 31 stories || Prompt Ficlets, Assorted Kinks, PWP) – A collection in response to the 31 Days of Porn Challenge issued by AtlinMerrik! Thanks for doing that because this has been buttload of fun (that joke never gets old). All stories will be brief stand-alone one-shots.

The Baker Street Nativity by SwissMiss (E, 99,662 w., 23 Ch. || Nativity! AU || Teacher Sherlock / TA John, Pining, Sherlock POV, UST, Angst, Christmas, Music/Song Fic, Anal / BJ’s, First Kiss / Time) – Fusion between Sherlock (BBC) and Nativity! (2009 movie starring Martin Freeman). Sherlock is a primary school teacher and John is assigned to be his classroom assistant. Together, they are charged with putting on the school's Nativity play. What could possibly go wrong? Part 1 of The Baker Street Nativity Verse

Given In Evidence by verityburns (M, 97,884 w., 19 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Post-TRF, Angst, Drama, Case Fic, Romance, BAMF!John, Submissive Sherlock, First Kiss, Humour) – Coming back from the dead can be a complicated business. With a new case on the horizon, rebuilding a life is one thing... rebuilding a friendship quite another. For Sherlock and John, things may never be just the same...

[3w-writer-with-wings]

Next Yu-Gi-Oh! Crossover – Bonds Beyond Worlds

With so many ideas about what Yu-Gi-Oh! 7 will be about, I wanted ZEXAL/ARC V/VRAINS crossover continuation the most. I’ve already discussed this before Yu-Gi-Oh! Sevens was announced (here it is if you’re interested https://3w-writer-with-wings.tumblr.com/post/189629945740/next-yu-gi-oh-anime-new-series-or-a-crossover ) and despite new series, I’m still hopeful we will be getting a movie at least. Well, even if we aren’t getting it, I’ll write it down anyway. Only once Yuma, Astral, Yu-boys, Bracelet Girls, Yusaku and Ai get a happy conclusive ending will my soul be able to rest.

Still please don’t hate on SEVENS! It’s a nice and funny show and Yuga is a precious little inventor who doesn’t deserve all the hate.

Main cast

So the main cast will be definitely made of the main protagonists aka. Yuma, Yuya and Yusaku and their partner characters aka. Astral, other Yu-boys and Ai. I also want to include Bracelet Girls since they are very closely connected to Yu-boys, though not directly, more like they have a separate, but just as important mission, maybe they even team up with Rio (since she has psychic-like abilities) and Aoi (who learns about world connection from her brother and wishes to help). If it will possible I’ll also include rivals – though more like supporting characters, the same way Signers and professor Banner were used in the movie. For everyone else it would be more or less just minor roles, but still important enough to contribute to the story (Kaito and Arclight brothers guide Yuma through different worlds, Reiji and Yusho investigate strange occurrences in Arc V and Akira, Kusanagi and Ryouken try to find out where Yusaku went and how to help him). Overall, I wouldn’t include too many characters since I really want to give them meaningful roles. 

How it will connect the series?

VRAINS ends with a surprising findings uncovered by Akira – VRAINS got connected to many different worlds and Yusaku is on his way to unknown part of VRAINS in order to find Ai. While first crossover was connected by time (hence the title Bonds Beyond Time), this crossover will be connected by space. First crossover already made a big deal out of time (Atem was an ancient spirit from past and had to travel back in time to regain memories in order to rest in peace, Judai was a reincarnation of a Supreme King and Yusei fought against time-travelling cyborg from the future) and was therefore connected by time, with Yusei using Crimson Dragon to travel to past in order to stop Paradox from destroying it. This time, the new trio of protagonists will have to travel through space in order to meet. Since VRAINS ended so abruptly, with Yusaku travelling towards unknown part of network, this would be the most perfect point to start this new journey. If that part of VRAINS network somehow got connected to another world or more like a dimension, this is how Yusaku finds himself in ARC V dimension after the events of the fifth series – sometime after the four dimensions merged into one again. Yuya and Yuzu get used to their counterparts living in their bodies and Yuya is yet to defeat Yusho at that point.

Goals

In a way all three series share the same theme of protecting the world and changing it in order to save the ones they love, but with each series, less can be done to save it. Yuma used Numeron Code to save the friends he lost, prevented the destruction of Barian world and turned Barian Emperors back in humans. Yuya managed to seal Zarc’s soul in Reira and get Yuzu back and joined all dimensions into one, but he couldn’t save other Yu-boys and Bracelet Girls. Yusaku was unable to save Ai as Ai was never meant to co-exist with humanity. Therefore I believe this chain of events is in a way connected with Numeron Code – with such drastic change in Astral World and Barian World, the change must’ve affected Original Dimension in ARC V and Dr. Kogami must’ve had a reason to create Ignis (in the most far-fetched logic I believe the change awakened Zarc’s rage and convinced Dr. Kogami that the world is ending and humanity needs an immortal successor). Yuma could also feel guilty and selfish to activate Numeron Code, thinking he might’ve been wrong after all and that caused all the suffering Yuya, Yuzu, their counterparts and Yusaku have been through.

But at the same time this doesn’t mean they should just give up Numeron Code to fix everything and rather look for a different way, considering how much damage it has already caused. Maybe the antagonist wishes to have Numeron Code and their first goal is to destroy it or seal it for good and at the same time deal with the fact that it could bring Ai, Yu-Boys and Bracelet Girls back. Yusaku and Yuya don’t blame Yuma one bit and they both ensure him that their friends are still there, they just need to find another way to bring them back home. At one point they will be back either before the climax or during the climax (Yu-boys are pretty much already in Yuya, but it could be that they gain their bodies at the crucial moment when they are protecting Yuya). It would be interesting if Ai actually knew Yusaku was looking for him but was too scared to face him, thinking he’ll lose him (maybe Astral helps him get over it and during the moment where Yusaku is in danger, Ai comes back in a similar fashion as he did during his duel with Ryouken).

Antagonist(s)

It doesn’t necessary need an antagonist, considering the goals the main trio has is already challenging enough, though it would be interesting to have another antagonist. Rather than having a one that thinks they are doing the right thing but are ultimately making everything worse or a character that is outright evil. I prefer to use a very calculating antagonist who has a good reason behind his actions and truly presents a challenge for the new trio. Antagonist like Z-ONE from 5Ds would nicely fit in this story, but like I said, it doesn’t really need an antagonist. It will be also interesting to include a secondary antagonist or antagonists’ right hand against the girl squad. Since I plan to include Numeron Code (I mean it is a literal Infinity Gauntlet, why the hell not?) the main antagonist’s motivation could be something with rewriting reality and space all over again since Yuma and Astral greatly changed it since the end of ZEXAL. The Bracelet girls also have a connection to Ray and En cards that are also a rather powerful element so there would be no need to include more powerful elements, prophecies or ancient grudges against the protagonist trio. 

This might be a bit far-fetched idea too, but I think it would really interesting to use Yusho as antagonist. Not in a willing way of course, just that someone possesses him and through him challenges the new trio to a duel that decides all. A certain fanfic writer has (Frost190 in “Bonds of Pendulum”) already written down the most amazing duel between Yuya and Yusho that fit into the canon story so well that it made me think just what missed opportunity that duel was. Even though ARC V both starts and ends with Yuya’s vow to defeat his father one day, he never really duels him (though considering Yuri was able to defeat him and Yuya defeated Yuri, he could potentially defeat Yusho as well). Then there’s the fact that Yusho and Yuya haven’t really talked things through face to face yet. While it is clear that Yusho had to leave in order to stop Leo, he left right on the day he was supposed to have this big match. He knew Leo was up to no good, but really, really why he decided to leave on that day? He could’ve at least post-phone that match or be done with it in like an hour or so and then leave. This one thing has bothered me for as long as I can remember and that fact that they never point it out is that more frustrating besides the fact that Leo was magically excused of all horrible things he did. Yusho as antagonist (controlled of course, but using Yuya’s and Yusho’s memories to try to manipulate others) would work very well for Yuma and Yusaku too since Yuma also had to deal with the loss of his father and to Yusaku, Yusho could look like Dr. Kogami – a man who traumatized him for life. 

Climax

Like in Bonds Beyond Time, a big duel with protagonists against antagonist is expected to be the main battle of the movie, I would like to spice it up a bit or use entirely different climax scene. I mentioned before that I would love to see Bracelet Girls in action, so what if they get a seperate mission or another antagonist to fight and this is how they find a way to get their own bodies. With this info they have to reach Yu-boys and let them know how to separate them, though again there could be some trouble or something is happening due to disturbance in dimensions and they have to protect people in them. It would be really interesting if they were the trump card or if they would show up at that one moment when they would needed it the most. Another reason of why I want to include them so much is also because only the powers of Yuzu’s bracelet have been partially explained and considering Ray literally split a whole dimension and a demon in four, they must’ve been nearly as powerful as Numeron Code.

I would also love to expose the new trio of protagonists to their worst fears, showing their pieces of vulnerability there. Yuma could relive his duel with III and all the times he lost Astral and his friends. Yuya could go through the time his father was missing and when he hurt innocent people in berserk form. (In a way I would also love to see Zarc and Ray have a role, at least to guide him and encourage him to not to give up.) Yusaku might expect the trauma from Lost Incident, but it turns out to be the fear of truly losing Ai. Another important challenge would be probably temptation to use Numeron Code for their own interests like maybe it could rewrite Yusaku’s life with Lost Incident never happening, but erase all of Yuma’s friends who got revived. Maybe it could bring counterparts back but cause major disturbance in Den City. Overall I wouldn’t go there too much since I know well that Yuma, Yuya and Yusaku are one of the most selfless people and if anything, they would be fine with giving up on their desire for greater good.

Another important climax (in case I go with it), is Numeron Code. With such insane power of literal creation and destruction it could be again connected to ARC V, with the whole theme of Heavenly Dragons and En Powers. Similar themes also appeared in VRAINS, especially regarding the creation and destruction of life. It could also be that protagonists will be struggling with how to use it correctly or if they should use it in the first place. Another solution is also permanent destruction, but again, protagonists aren’t sure how will this affect dimensions and timelines. 

In all ways, climax will be epic and will join all the build up, struggles, fears and action in one scene.

Interactions of those who never met

This crossover will be able to provide a lot of scenes and interactions between characters of those three series. Yuya, Yuma and Yusaku have surprisingly a lot in common, especially their experiences when dealing with loss and fears. For some reason I’m actually seeing Yusaku opening up to them since they could strangely remind him of Ai and that was pretty much the only person besides Kusanagi that Yusaku trusted enough to share his fears. It would be also refreshing for Yusaku to see duelling as fun (I really hoped that would be the case when he duelled Go for the first time) and befriending more people like Ai told him to. Astral and Ai could also share a scene where they are talking about their human partners and the time once their partners will be gone since they are both sort of immortal beings. I strongly believe one of the reasons why Ai sacrificed himself for Yusaku was not only because he saw a future where Yusaku dies protecting him but because he knew Yusaku won’t live forever like him and he couldn’t handle being all alone without Yusaku or other Ignis. Astral who has been alone for thousands of years before meeting Yuma could teach him how to cherish the time with his partner that he still has. 

Conclusion

Like I mentioned it in the beginning – this would more or less be fix-it story. While I’m okay with ZEXAL ending (better than the one in manga at least), ARC V and VRAINS are in dire need for a better ending so overall, the ending conclusion will give the three series a much more conclusive ending. While I love to write a good angst and bitter sweetness for the end, I do no plan to end it this way (especially after binge watching two anime series in a row that had bitter-sweet but hella sad endings). This will have to be a feel-good ending with cheese on top or at least hopeful feel. I’m aiming for similar conclusion as Bonds Beyond Time, with three protagonists parting ways in hopes that they did the right thing and that they can return back to the worlds that they no longer need to fear they will break. 

The endgame will be obviously with Yu-boys coming back, Ai reuniting with Yusaku and Numeron Code being sealed away or if possible destroyed. If I’m going with “Yuma screwed up ARC V and VRAINS with Numeron Code” way, then I’ll really need to find a good reason to get rid of it or at least find a logical way how. Also he will be dealing with massive guilt and responsibility so maybe… Yuma might go Iron Man with it and others will need to stop him (that might lead to a secondary final duel or more like rescue duel, kinda mirroring final duel between Yusaku and Ai).

So yeah there will be a lot of conclusions to go through, especially if I include original antagonists, though I’m not that sure about it yet.

If anyone has any other ideas, suggestions, theories or anything else related to this topic, feel free to leave it below or PM me. I would love to hear your thoughts on this idea and it will really help me gather more ideas and material for this project that I would really love to write, not just for myself but for all other members of Yu-Gi-Oh! fandom as well.

[butterfly-winx]

Seen a lot of talk about relationships in people’s rewrites, and I wanted to share my headcanons for the “butterfly fic” AU! (I’m currently going on an S6+ timeline, so the story starts off with all canon couples and then... crumbles from there)

Bloom x Sky: The two of them got together for real at the end of S2 in this timeline, after the identity shrouding/theft both of them pulled made their start rocky. They both understand why the other did it, but it doesn’t make it any better or easier to bear after months of insecurity, thinking they would be dumped eventually when the truth came out. S3 though S4 they are well off, but then the whammy hits when Sky loses his memories during the oil rig rescue mission. He still knows Bloom and that he loves her, but even after a year he doesn’t feel like he can recover the version of his self that he has been before. Bloom tries to assure him as best as she can, showing him that she can learn how to love the “new” him as well. Their lives end up on hugely different trajectories that lead to their relationship slowly crumbling over the S8 timeline, during which Bloom is going crazy worries about her sanity and reliability (👀). Bloom also slowly finds herself developing feelings for Stella after the other confesses. In the end Bloom and Sky go their separate ways amicably.

Stella x Brandon: So, Stella confesses to Bloom, then how does SxB work out? Well, both Stella and Brandon are home of sexuals in a mutually beneficial fake relationship. They did date of course back in the S1-2 time, fully conforming to what society expected of people of their standing. Stella believed as long as she could find a guy ok enough to settle with, everything would be fine. She could be happy. Brandon on the other hand was a bit more aware of his crush on Sky, but he though if he hid behind a relationship with a conventionally feminine and attractive girl he could squash all rumours and budding feelings. Internalised homophobia is a bitch that did a number on both of them. Though this is not to say there are no real emotions between them. Stella loves Brandon deeply, they consider each other their respective closest friend. In that vein, Stella would do anything to make life as stable and comfortable for Brandon - after his childhood had been less so - including marrying him to make him a prince. Since Solaria supports polyamory, this comes at no additional strain for her. His presence in the meantime wards off other suitors and creeps, for which she is very thankful, as it gives her space to figure out her feelings about Bloom. And oooh does she have many. She eventually confesses during the S8 timeline, but has to wait quite a while for a positive response, after which Stella and Brandon both come clean about the nature of their relationship to the rest of the world. In the end, Stella is lucky enough to celebrate not one, but two fun weddings.

Brandon: He gets his own column, because his story goes on separate from Stella’s. While the engagement to Stella is still on the table in the S6 timeline, Brandon struggles both with his crumbling team of Specialists and his feelings about the new recruit. Alright, he did not recruit Roy to the team because he thought he was cute. Brandon thinking that and low-key flirting with him came after they settled on the addition to their team. But BxR doesn’t have a long future after Roy believes Brandon cheated on Stella by sleeping with him. Plus his tension with Layla eventually lead to Roy leaving the team mid S7. Long after that, Brandon gets over his crush for Sky, just when Sky is in the middle of a life crisis and Brandon tries his best not to get sucked in too deep again, but that hurts Sky and irreparably damages the close friendship they had before.

Flora x Helia: Ah yes, unproblematic faves. Don’t change what isn’t broken. (Their S5 trouble isn’t about Flora being jealous about a literal teenager,  but rather about her shock of him being so willing to close off and leave behind people from different stages of his life.) The two of them would be set for marriage if such a custom existed on Lynphea, but they definitely plan on raising a family on planet once that is an option again.

Timmy x Techna: Equally low drama zone. They felt a bit pushed together when they first got acquainted as their friends started to date each other. Techna was having their gender identity crisis for the majority of S2 so a relationship was furthest away from their mind. They softly flirted in S3 as they grew closer, which as we know ended in Timmy losing his marbles when Techna got sucked into the Omega portal. He confessed right as the rescue mission was still happening and the two of them have been going strong since then. In S5 they even move together, which Musa joins in S6 (they had a two bedroom flat, just in case they needed the extra space from each other, when/if things weren’t working out, but they were using only the one bedroom anyway, so Musa was welcome there) Surprising everyone who knew them, Timmy and Techan were actually the first ones to get married. After Timmy’s family was becoming more and more hostile, denouncing him for his choice of career, Techna thought it was the most logical thing to get married and grant Timmy much better social security. The two of them plus Musa living together were falling into a tooth-rottingly cute domesticity, until life got unexpectedly difficult.

Musa x Riven: The drama central couple that never should have gotten together. In retrospect everything was super clear to Musa: they had gotten together after Riven had rescued her from Shadowhaunt, playing the hero he had always wanted to be - this streak for glory being the thing that ruined their relationship down the road. Riven’s insecurity got the best of him during S5 and he couldn’t stop comparing himself to Sky, feeling helpless even beside Musa herself. She of course was incredibly offended her boyfriend only wanted her as long as she was waifish and he could swoop in for the rescue, so as soon as Domino was restored the two of them broke up, Riven going his own way, away from the Specialist team itself. Reflecting over the mistakes of her relationship cause Musa to realise she was forcing herself to like a lot of things about Riven, and maybe she was actually also interested in women as well. Layla welcomes her to the wlw world and suggests Musa put herself out there. However Musa doesn’t find love anytime soon (not like there weren’t options out there, like Galatea would go on a date with her in a heartbeat if Musa only asked) And then after moving together with Techna and Timmy, the three of them fall asleep on the same couch one too many times for Musa to start thinking there might be something there, a bit more than just friendship.. and then of course she ruins it, cause....

Riven x Darcy: He enters the story again in the S8 timeline, and disappears quickly again after Flora gives him the worst advice of her life (that she thought he looked genuinely happy with Darcy, hoping he wouldn’t force the thing with Musa). So he goes looking for Darcy, unintentionally setting off the whole plot for this arc, because Darcy is not where she should be prison and she is not there on her own accord. Darcy and Riven continue to have a thing on and off (seeing as she is a wanted criminal and shit) and that drives Musa up the wall. She may or may not still have feelings for Riven. Upset, she looks for an outlet with her quarantine mate, and that ladies and gents, is bad decision central

Stormy x Musa: Bad decision central. A drunken one night stand, let’s not talk about it anymore.

Layla x Nex: A sweet one sided crush that goes nowhere. Nex tries, but Layla is nowhere near ready to date again when he steps into her life in S7. He takes the rejection with dignity and the two of them try to remain friends, as best as they can, when Nex suddenly becomes the biggest critic of Layla’s chosen relationship in S8 (he means well of course, and once again, despite the Riven-vibes he gives off, he knows when to shut up).

Layla x Orion: A girl can only handle so much flirting on galactic starsailers before she starts noticing a kind of chemistry she tried to suppress from budding for years after a huge personal loss. Are LxO a match made in heaven? Probably not, but they offer interesting perspectives to each other and are both happy with a casual relationship at that point. Things get tense about a year in when Layla pitches that she does want something more permanent and Orion’s first instinct is to nope out of there. But despite themself, Orion has to realise they really like Layla way too much just to let her go because of their attachment issues. The actual relationship between them is a bit on hold until after everything in the Universe is sorted, but in the meantime Orion becomes the biggest supporter of Layla going her own way and exploring independence away from what people expect of her. Deciding that being a nymph and protecting the whole Universe is way more important to her than following the path the circumstances of her birth set out for her, Layla eventually settles with her partner sailing the winds of the cosmos.

Daphne x ?: Immortal Queen. Needs no one in life except maybe her right-hand woman to lean on 👀 

Some one-sided crushes that went nowhere, but were sweet anyway:

Musa x Layla: not a secret that Musa had a thing for Layla when she transferred to Alfea in S2

Sky x Riven: Due to his amnesia, Sky idiotically forgot he was already out as bi and had a whole crisis, as he developed a tiny crush on Riven of all people

Icy x Tritannus: Gets an honourable mention here because it wasn’t true love, but obsession with power on both sides

Musa x Stella: Not as pronounced as Musa’s other crushes, but on the down low she always softly admired Stella and it turns out what she felt wasn’t envy like internalised societal expectations made her believe 

Diaspro x Sky: Once again, a bit more obsessive than loving. Diaspro saw Sky like a lifeline and she hyperfocused on being able to call a husband her own. After her betrayal and prison time she mellows out, gets pardoned and gets a kind of “stupid, but loving” bf who would kiss the floor she walks on.

[nightingaletrash]

ESO: Riften Rewrite

Because I don’t particularly care for the Rift storyline in ESO, I decided to completely overhaul it and do something completely different because I can :)

It’s a very long post, so under the cut it goes. Mobile Users, you have my sincere apologies.

No Reachmen

We have enough zones featuring ‘evil Reachmen’ so the Rift won’t feature them. Taking their place is the Daggerfall Covenant, namely soldiers who had served under General Serien and had escaped the taking of Fort Virak by fleeing north into the Rift. They hid out there undetected, and were later discovered by the Worm Cult. The two groups formed an alliance, and began to make plans on how to topple the Pact presence in the region.

Officially the Covenant has declared them deserters and will officially have nothing to do with them, but the soldiers are (mostly) convinced that they're acting in the interest of the Covenant.

No Companions either

I’m not a huge fan of how the Companions are handled in the Rift, or of Ysgramor’s whole deal so the Companions are no longer a major faction in the Rift. That also means no Wuuthrad and no Sinmur; the whole story is being reworked.

Major/Returning Characters

1. Naryu. Obviously.

In my Pact Rewrite, Naryu remains involved with Eastmarch’s storyline after Fort Amol, using her knowledge of alchemy to help stabilise King Jorunn after he’s poisoned, and taking down Fildgor. In the Rift, Naryu - who is now responsible for a positive boost in the Tong’s reputation - has been sent to hunt down and eliminate key figures within the Covenant-Cult Alliance to further improve the Tong’s reputation, helping to facilitate their formal return in Morrowind.

2. Holgunn One-Eye

After finding a suitable successor for leading the defence of Stonefalls, Holgunn is reassigned to oversee the defence of the Rift as he has prior experience with the Covenant and necromancers. He thinks its funny that the last time he saw you, he was your Commanding Officer, and now you’re the Champion of both a Living Goddess and the Skald King.

3. Walks-in-Ash

Walks is also reassigned to the Rift given her experience with the Covenant and necromancers, though she notes that she would have gone with Holgunn regardless. She's a main quest giver, and often provides the Player with direction, and oversees the Pact mages in the Rift.

4. Aera Earth-Turner

She serves a similar role as she does in the in-game questline, serving as a Tracker for the Pact and an inside agent for the Worm Cult, as they promised they could bring back her dead family members. The Player has different options for how they handle Aera throughout the zone up until her betrayal is discovered; they can be cold and dismissive over her struggle, or they can be kind and reassuring.

Depending on how Aera is treated, she will either surrender herself willingly to Pact custody when she is confronted, or she will attack and the Player will be forced to kill her. If she surrenders, there are three options on how to deal with her:

Execute her

Exile her

Pardon her

If she is pardoned, she will be present for the rest of the zone; otherwise she will be absent.

5. The Vanos Siblings

Rather than showing up in one side quest, the Vanos Siblings serve a more major role in the storyline. Kireth sometimes accompanies the Player on missions, while Raynor offers a Researcher role, and both siblings end up attaching themselves to Naryu. She pretends to be exasperated, but she does genuinely like the two of them, and tells the Player that they remind her of some people she knows.

Story Quests

1. Shor’s Stone

Upon arriving in the Rift, the Player arrives at Shor’s Stone and finds it under attack by zombies. Walks-in-Ash is leading the defence; she explains that the undead came from the woods, and that the scouts she sent to investigate haven’t returned. She asks the player to search for them, and discover the source of the zombies.

After battling through the woods and following the trail, the Player will discover Covenant Soldiers murdering and resurrecting the scouts as zombies. Only one survivor is left, and the Player manages to save them by slaying the necromancers. The scout explains that the Covenant has been abducting travellers and the like for some time to accumulate enough bodies to make an army. This ritual site is simply one of many hidden in the region, and the attack on Shor’s Stone was part of some kind of experiment.

After sending the Scout back to Shor’s Stone to report to Walks, the bodies need to be burned and the ritual site destroyed (breaking stones, burning ritual components etc) so that it can’t be used again.

After doing so, the Player returns to Walks who then sends them with one of her mages to capture a zombie. Her reasoning for doing so is that only some of the zombies fell after the ritual site was destroyed, and that some must have been raised at other sites - using a ritual, she could trace the magic and discover the location of another ritual site.

Walks performs the ritual and it succeeds, and the zombie is destroyed. Walks then informs the Player that the next site is close to Riften, beneath Fort Greenwall.

2. Fort Greenwall

Walks sends the Player to Fort Greenwall and sends word to Holgunn, who is overseeing the Rift’s defence from Riften and will be able to send soldiers to help clear out the Fort before the necromancers can launch an attack on the city.

The Player heads south to the Fort, only to find that the soldiers are struggling to get inside. It is evident that the Fort’s entrance has been magically sealed and the gates only open to periodically unleash the undead from within - it is uncertain where the necromancers are getting the bodies they are using as they aren’t collecting the bodies of Pact soldiers.

The Player begins to search for an alternate way inside when they are approached by Naryu Virian; she has been sent to improve the Tong’s relationship with the Pact and bolster their reputation further. She then explains that the Covenant aren’t working alone and are in fact allied with the Worm Cult. She has been given a list of targets to eliminate - officers and high ranking cultists - and she’s tracked one of them to Fort Greenwall. She’s found an alternative way inside, but needs a distraction or else she’ll be discovered too quickly. The Player proposes that the soldiers launch an assault on the Fort to serve as a distraction, and that they’ll join her inside. She agrees that its a good idea, and she’ll wait until the battle is underway before she heads inside.

The Player returns to the Pact camp and explains their plan to the Officer in charge. Some of Walks’ mages have arrived in the meantime, and they have an idea for overcoming the Fort’s magical defences. When the assault begins, the Player needs to protect the mages as they perform their rituals - once complete, the wards keeping the Pact out will break, and the assault force is able to enter the Fort.

After passing the first level of Fort Greenwall’s interior, the Player will catch up to Naryu just as they reach the Falmer Ruins that the Fort was built on top of. The ritual site is clearly situated here, and it becomes apparent where the necromancers are getting their corpses from.

Naryu will now join you as a follower.

Upon reaching the ritual site, you will find Naryu’s mark, a Covenant Officer who served directly under General Serien and swears revenge for his death. The Vestige and Naryu then kill them and destroy the ritual site.

After exiting the Fort, Walks-in-Ash arrives; she explains that the rest of the undead attacking Shor’s Stone have fallen. Though you report your success in taking down the ritual site, she is pleased by expresses concern that the threat to Riften has not yet passed and that she has heard rumours of strange happenings. She asks you to go to Riften and discover if there is any truth to the rumours, as well as report the retaking of the Fort to Holgunn.

3. Riften

(Honestly, the original premise for the Riften quest fits pretty well with my rewrite, so I’m keeping it.)

When reporting to Holgunn, he’s relieved to have you there, as having Fort Greenwall back will ensure Riften is better protected. He will confirm, however, that there are rumours of missing people and he shares Walks’ concerns that they’re not safe yet. He asks the Player to look into the rumours, and indicates that you should speak with Aera Earth-Turner, as she’ll have some idea of who to talk to.

Aera is pleased to see the Player again, and reveals that she had a breakdown after the deaths of her family members in Bal Foyen. She now works for the Pact, and has been trying to investigate the disappearances with little success. People are either unwilling to talk or don’t know anything. She points them to Captain Viveka, as she might have some new leads since Aera last spoke to her.

Captain Viveka informs the Player that her cousin, Yiri, supposedly saw something the previous evening when her father disappeared, but won’t speak. The Player then goes to visit Yiri, where they can choose how they encourage her to talk.

Purchase White Moon Tea from a trader in the market.

or

Use [Persuasion] to gently coerce Yiri into speaking (because you don’t slap traumatised people zos)

Yiri will then confess that she saw her father being dragged under the water and that whatever grabbed him was purposefully drowning him. She has refused to go near the water ever since.

The Player goes to investigate the canal and finds a trail of wet footprints leading into the Ratway. Following the trail through the sewers eventually leads the Player to another ritual site where the necromancers are resurrecting the bodies of the missing people. After killing the Necromancers, the Player discovers that the zombies are lurking in the canals and Lake Honrich, ready to attack at any moment. Additionally, there is a force to the east of Riften that is preparing to attack.

The Player is then attacked and knocked out from behind by a Worm Cultist.

Upon awakening in a cell, the Player is rescued by Naryu who teases them for being caught off guard. She then reveals that Riften is under attack and that the dead are rising from the water. The Player then tells her that another force is coming from the east. She goes on ahead to inform Holgunn while the Player fights their way out of the sewers to help repel the undead at the docks.

After repelling the initial attack, the Player is informed that Holgunn has mustered a defence at the Eastern Wall. The Player arrives to find Holgunn, Walks, and Naryu readying for the assault; Holgunn can send a warrior with the Player, Walks can send a healer, or Naryu can send an archer.

The C-C Alliance’s force arrives and the battle begins. The Player has to survive three waves of undead monsters and cultists before facing off against Naryu’s next target, a high ranking member of the Worm Cult. After killing them, the C-C Alliance force scatters and Riften rejoices their survival. However Walks is still concerned and her instincts tell her that something is still amiss. She goes into the city, determined to discover what they have missed.

Upon rejoining her, Holgunn, and Naryu at the Jarl’s Keep, it transpires that the attack was a ruse. An artefact was stolen from the Jarl’s vault: a Dragon Priest Mask.

The Jarl explains that the Mask is a relatively new addition to their collection, and explains that the masks of Dragon Priests are said to possess powers, with each being unique to their owner, and that the power of this particular Mask must be why the C-C Alliance wanted it so badly. The Jarl, however, has no idea what the Mask’s power might be and hadn’t even identified which Priest it belonged to yet.

Holgunn and Walks agree that they must track down the Mask before its too late. Naryu disagrees and decides that its more important to hunt down the cultists and officers leading the C-C Alliance, and that their deaths will cause it to crumble. She then departs to hunt her next target. 

Holgunn will thank the Player for their efforts, and decides to have people try to track down the Mask. In the meantime, Walks will focus on locating more ritual sites and destroying them, and that she’ll need your help.

4. Nightingale Hall

Walks will direct the Player to the west, as her students have determined that there is another ritual site in that direction. However, she explains, there is something interfering with their magic that prevents them from directly locating the site and she is concerned that the interference is Daedric in nature.

The Player heads west and tracks where the undead came from, and eventually tracks the trail to a jet-black standing stone. There, they are approached by a Stranger dressed in black armour who accuses the Player of being with the cultists who have taken the Hall from them. The Player explains that they are tracking the C-C Alliance and trying to destroy a necromantic ritual site. The Stranger then apologises and explains that the C-C Alliance has usurped their ‘home’ and they haven’t been able to drive them out.

The Player offers to help the Stranger, as they both stand to gain, and the Stranger first needs to be fully convinced that you can be trusted.

[Persuade] the Stranger into believing you.

or

Eliminate a Deserter Officer and retrieve their signet ring

After convincing the Stranger to trust you, they will reveal Nightingale Hall on the terms that you never tell anyone about it. They then lead the way inside.

The Stranger will fight alongside the Player, and you will have to fight your way through to the chamber at the back of the Hall. There the Player and the Stranger take down the cultist leading this cell of the C-C Alliance and destroy the ritual site. Nocturnal will then appear and congratulate the Stranger, her agent, on finally clearing out the filth. She will then ask to speak with the Player.

The Player discovers that the Stranger is in fact a Nightingale, and has been struggling to retake Nightingale Hall for some time. Nocturnal doesn’t thank the Player, but does inform them that she knows of a much larger, more powerful ritual site in Vernim Woods and indicates that they should head that way. She also warns that they will be betrayed, but refuses to identify who.

The Nightingale will then thank the Player for their help and asks that they maintain their discretion, as the Nightingales are a secret order. They will not explain much about what it is they do, but when asked why Nocturnal didn’t just explain herself, they state that she’s simply ‘like that’ and that she was grateful, or else she wouldn’t have appeared. They then thank the Player before resealing Nightingale Hall, rendering it inaccessible.

5. Vernim Wood

Upon arriving at Vernim Wood, the Player reunites with Aera who is now working together with Naryu to hunt down the cultists who stole the Dragon Priest Mask. The Player can reveal that they learned of a larger, more powerful ritual site, and Aera agrees that Walks has confirmed that something strange is going on. Naryu complains about standing around, but Aera gently berates her and insist that they need to do things properly.

First, the Player has to locate any survivors in the woods which leads them to discovering the Kireth Vanos. She’s grateful for the help, but is insistent on finding Raynor, as he was dragged off by the cultists instead of killed like everyone else. The Player sends Kireth back to Aera and Naryu, and goes to search for Raynor themselves.

The Player comes across Lieutenant Belron, a Pact mage who went undercover inside the Worm Cult. He saw Raynor’s abduction and has deduced that they want to have the young scholar activate the powers of the Dragon Priest Mask. The Player - if they have assisted the Vanos siblings previously - points out that Raynor specialises in the Dwemer, not Ancient Nord history, and Belron rationalises that when the C-C Alliance realises this, they’ll kill him.

Belron then explains that it’s not currently possible to free Raynor, as he is trapped behind a magical Shroud in the barrow, and that they’ll need the knowledge of the Worm Cult to cross it and rescue him. In the meantime, Raynor will have to play things smart and keep himself alive. 

Belron has the Player gather the hearts of three particular Worm Cultists to discover how the Shroud works so that they can bypass it. Notably, each Cultist is found at a ritual site, and together each site forms a sort of circle within the woods, which the Player can note to Belron. He notes it as something of interest, but is more interested in finding a way past the Shroud.

Once that is done, Belron explains that they have two options; 

Gather three ritual ingredients (bone meal, zombie flesh, and a cultist’s heart) to create a potion that will render the drinker ‘undead’ for a short time

or

Track down and kill an elusive Cultist Assassin and take the charm that enables the living to pass through the Shroud

If the latter option is taken, the Player can talk to Naryu and Aera for advice on hunting down the Assassin. 

After creating the potion or obtaining the charm, the Player is able to pass through the Shroud and ‘deactivate�� it. Naryu, Aera, Kireth, and Belron will then join the Player in entering the barrow to rescue Raynor and put an end to the ritual.

As you venture further inside, however, you discover information about the experiments the C-C Alliance has been performing. Shor’s Stone was to experiment with distance, and Vernim Wood is to experiment with ritual scale. Another unspecified experiment will take place once the Mask is confirmed to be the one they seek. 

Upon reaching the central burial chamber, the Cultists have realised that Raynor doesn’t know anything about the Mask and has been bluffing the entire time. Belnor sacrifices himself to protect Raynor, and Kireth gets her brother away from the fighting. The Player, Aera, and Naryu then take on the Cultists - one of them escapes with the Mask however.

Kireth is relieved that Raynor is safe, and he admits that he was terrified that they were going to call his bluff before help arrived. He’s somewhat in shock over a complete stranger giving his life to save him, though Aera admits that Belron’s time undercover with the Cult must have left him with regrets that he felt the need to redeem himself. Kireth and Raynor are escorted to the surface by Aera, while the Player discusses their next step with Naryu.

She admits that the Mask might be a problem after all if the C-C Alliance are experimenting with their rituals, and that they were lucky that they didn’t get to complete their experiment in Vernim. She then tells the Player that she will be heading to Taarengrav. Another Covenant Officer is apparently operating in the area, and needs to be taken out. Aera, on the other hand, is headed after a Worm Cultist in Nimalten. 

Naryu then confides that she has concerns about Aera and recommends that the Player looks out for her as sometimes she seems like she’s ‘somewhere else.’ 

6. Nimalten

Upon arrival, one of Aera’s soldiers approaches the Player and informs them that there has been an attempted assassination on the Thane and Aera suspects the Worm Cult. The Player is then directed to talk to Aera, who is glad to have the extra help.

First the Player speaks with the Thane about the attack and asks about her Housecarl, the one who attacked her. The Thane is dismissive of the Player and Aera’s efforts and insists she can protect herself. She does inform you that her Court Mage and her Advisor are investigating the Worm Cult presence in the town.

The Player investigates the Housecarl’s home and finds a Worm Cult missive. The contract details that there is an archive under the town that should help them to identify the Mask, but the Thane needs to be removed as there isn’t enough of the ‘potion’ that they purchased to also replace her, and she won’t join the Cult.

The Advisor is dismissive of the threat but incorrectly identifies the Court Mage. When called out, he grows defensive and sends the Player away. The Player then goes to investigate his home and finds the bodies of the Advisor and the Housecarl and empty bottles. Provided Shadowfen has been completed, the Player can also identify an unusual cut on their chests and recognise that the Housecarl and Advisor were both replaced by Skin Stealers. Otherwise the Player will simply recognised that the Advisor and Housecarl have been replaced.

Upon returning to the Thane’s Manor, Aera reports that the Court Mage has been assassinated and is uncertain how the Cultists got inside in the first place. The Player goes to investigate and discovers a magical trinket the Mage was trying to hide at the time of his death and finds his final message.

The Mage discovered that the traitors were inside the walls and were trying to identify an Ancient Nordic Artefact of some kind by making use of the archives beneath Nimalten. The Player descends into the archive, only to be attacked by the ‘Advisor’ who accuses them of being a Worm Cultist. The Player says they know the truth about the Advisor and Housecarl, and, if Shadowfen was completed, that the Cult purchased whatever was left of the Skin Stealing potion from the Dominion Deserters.

The ‘Advisor’, knowing he stands no chance against the Player, teleports them deeper into the archives. The Player fights their way out and kills the Skin Stealer, before returning to the Manor where they find the Thane recovering from a new attack - she claims that Aera attacked her. The Player reports that her Advisor and Housecarl had been replaced by Skin Stealers, and that Aera probably has been as well. 

The Player goes after Aera and pursues her back into the archives. However, Aera confirms that she’s no Skin Stealer and was indeed working for the Cult out of a desperate hope of having her family back. She will also reveal that the Mask has been identified as having belonged to Vosis, a Dragon Priest that had been buried in Forelhost. However, she doesn’t know what his Mask does.

Aera will then either engage the Player in combat if they treated her poorly, or will turn herself over for her betrayal. She is brought before the Thane, who then asks for the Player’s advice in how Aera should be sentenced (see above).

Regardless of the choice made, the Thane is grateful to the Player for ending the threat to her life and for restoring her Housecarl’s honour. 

If Aera is alive and is allowed to continue working as a Tracker for the Pact, she will thank you for giving her another chance and she swears to learn as much as she can about Vosis.

7. Taarengrav

Upon arriving at Taarengrav, you will encounter the Vanos siblings. Raynor is still anxious after his abduction, but feels much better with the Player and Kireth around. The twins tell you that Naryu has been trying to find the Covenant Officer leading the operation in the ruins, but hasn’t come back yet. In the meantime, they ask you to help rescue the dig team who were investigating the ruins, as some of them are friends of their’s.

The Player goes to rescue the dig team survivors and kill some of the Covenant Deserters. After the Player clears the way, Holgunn arrives with reinforcements to help retake the ruins. However, the Covenant have sealed themselves inside and now the Player needs to find a way inside.

Raynor and Kireth ask the Player to gather up the dig team’s research notes, as they believe that they can figure out the way inside from those. The Player searches the dig site and delivers the notes to Raynor who works out the means of opening the doors. He is reluctant to go into the ruins, and a choice must be made:

Convince Raynor to accompany the group

or

Allow Raynor to remain outside with the soldiers

If Raynor remains outside, the Player can ask him to look into the Dragon Priest, Vosis, which he is happy to do if he can stay out of the ruin.

Kireth will accompany the Player either way, either to look out for Raynor or because she trusts that he’ll be safe with the soldiers. She wants to explore and to ensure that Naryu is okay. 

The group venture further inside and come across Naryu battling the Covenant Officer in possession of Vosis’ mask. The Officer then raises three Bone Colossuses at once and the group joins in the battle. The Officer is slain and the Player retrieves Vosis.

If Raynor is present, then he will note that the Mask’s power seemed to amplify the ritual’s power, allowing the Officer to summon multiple creatures at once. He will then discover a tome belonging to the Officer, and learns that Vosis was a necromancer.

If he stayed outside, he reveals that Vosis was an unusually powerful necromancer. When informed that the Officer wearing the Mask summoned three Bone Colossuses at once, he theorises that Vosis amplifies necromantic magic.

The Player then talks to Holgunn and reveals what they have learned of Vosis:

He was buried at Forelhost

He was a necromancer

His mask makes necromantic magic stronger

Holgunn is concerned and informs the Player that the Jarl has been doing their own research but made little progress and instructs the Player to speak with them.

8. Forelhost

The Player returns to Riften and tells the Jarl what they have learned. The Jarl decides to look up Forelhost and realises that Vosis is not the only Dragon Priest who was buried at Forelhost. Another, Rahgot, was entombed there and the C-C Alliance must be trying to obtain his Mask as well.

The Jarl decides that they need to march on Forelhost and stop the C-C Alliance from obtaining Rahgot’s Mask. Holgunn accepts the order, and goes to rally the troops.

The Player arrives to find Holgunn, Walks, Raynor, and Riften’s Jarl preparing for the assault.

The Jarl is relieved to know that the Player has secured Vosis’ mask, though is concerned about bringing it to Forelhost if it really does amplify the effects of necromantic magic. They then explain that Raynor has discovered that Rahgot’s mask boosts the wearer’s endurance to an inhuman level, and is unsure why the C-C Alliance wants it so badly.

Naryu, Kireth and Aera (if she is alive and not in exile) have gone to scout ahead and the Player is sent to catch up. There is an optional objective of disrupting the C-C Alliance’s operations by burning supplies and such.

After catching up to Naryu, Kireth, and Aera, they reveal that the C-C Alliance isn’t after Rahgot’s Mask, but rather they’re after the Dragon Priests themselves and plan to resurrect them both. As Vosis was already slain by the adventurers who sold his Mask to the Jarl, the C-C Alliance is in the process of resurrecting and binding him, but they have yet to reach Rahgot.

They and the Player then go to disrupt the ritual and prevent Vosis’ return. However the ritual goes wrong and Vosis returns unbound. He engages the Player in dialogue, but he proves impossible to talk down and he attacks them, taking back his stolen Mask.

If Aera is alive, then she saves Kireth from being killed and heals her off to one side, leaving Naryu free to fight alongside the Player. 

However if Aera is dead or in exile, Naryu saves Kireth and the Player has to fight alone.

Once Vosis is defeated and killed for good, the Player recovers his Mask and returns to Holgunn whilst Aera/Naryu takes Kireth to safety.

Upon returning, however, the Jarl informs the Player that Holgunn and Walks have already gone to try and stop the Cultists who are trying to reach Rahgot. The Player then informs her that the Cultists are trying to resurrect Rahgot, not obtain his Mask. The Jarl is horrified, as Holgunn and Walks have no idea that they could end up facing off against a bound Dragon Priest.

The Player, Naryu, and Aera pursue Holgunn and Walks who have already chased after the necromancers who have successfully accessed Rahgot’s tomb.

However navigating the tomb proves difficult, as Rahgot had several passages collapsed when the tomb was besieged by enemies. The cultists have established portals to link parts of the tomb in order to navigate it, and the Player has to follow the path they left behind.

Eventually they reach Holgunn and Walks just as they are taken down by the final remaining Commanders of the C-C Alliance; recognising that the Player is carrying Vosis, they try to bind Rahgot as he is rather than slaying him first. The proximity of the Mask indeed makes the process easier, and so the Player must stop the ritual before the binding is complete.

If Aera is present, she will tend to Holgunn and Walks while Naryu and the Player engage in battle

If Aera is dead or in exile, Naryu will tend to Holgunn and Walks and the Player is forced to fight alone

The ritual is stopped either way, finally putting an end to the threat of the C-C Alliance and the revived Dragon Priests. 

Rahgot, in spirit form, speaks with the Player and is ungrateful to them as their bringing Vosis’ Mask with them nearly made his binding possible, but he acknowledges that they rectified their mistake and for that he won’t annihilate them or their companions. He then returns to his rest, needing to re-accumulate the strength he lost fighting the binding ritual.

Walks and Holgunn are grateful for the timely rescue. Walks opens a portal and returns everyone to the base of the mountain.

The Jarl is grateful to the Player for their actions and decides that Vosis would be safest with the Player, as it is unlikely to fall into the wrong hands while they possess it, adding the Vosis Memento to the Player’s Collections.

Naryu is happy to have helped save the Rift, not in the least because it really helps the Morag Tong get back on the up and up, and could lead to the group making a comeback.

The Vanos siblings decide to take a break from adventuring for a short while, as they’ve had a lot of excitement recently and could use a break.

If Aera is alive and not in exile, she decides to look up her surviving family for a rain check, as she needs to remember what it is she has and not just what she’s lost.

Holgunn and Walks thank the Player for their efforts and state that when they get around to making things ‘official’ you’ll be at the top of the guest list. 

The storyline ends, which begins Messages Across Tamriel.

[tev-the-random]

A casual Sonic Forces rewrite + some headcanons, because why not

Part 1 – Infinite and Episode Shadow

Just a warning: none of the images used here belong to me! They all belong to SEGA – the game screenshots, the official art and the comic pages.

Next Part ->

I have yet to see the Sonic Movie, because the universe seems devoted on not letting me do so, for some reason. Being as desperate for Sonic content but as determined to not receive spoilers from the movie as I am, I decided to go for the next coolest thing: writing really long and random posts about a game that came out three years ago and no one cares about anymore.

This shall be fun!

(Update: as of posting this, I have finally watched the movie! But I don’t want to throw this away, so I’ll post it anyway. We can have a nice talk about the movie later.)

*“Fist Bump instrumental” intro plays*

*“This is Our World: a New Hero” plays in the background*

I’m the type of person to always try and see the best in every game, and Sonic Forces is no different. Despite its obvious flaws, I love this beautiful game! Mostly the concept of it is one of the coolest things I’ve seen this last decade, but the execution… lacks on a few things. I mostly just fill in the gaps with my imagination and enjoy it nevertheless, but, upon going through the tag and seeing that some of my concerns were shared by other people, I decided to try my hand at rewriting Sonic Forces juuust a tiny bit. Just for fun!

For this first part (and I have no idea how many parts we should have), I’d like to share some of my ideas about…

*Infinite’s Theme plays in the background as I try hard not to sing along*

Oh, my poor jackal boy, what do we do with you? Despite being so heavily promoted and having an undeniably awesome theme song, Infinite’s backstory and general development throughout the game came out as lacking, having the self-proclaimed edgelord become a laughingstock amongst most fans. Nevertheless, I still love Infinite, and it saddens me how much wasted potential he had; it’s like they were trying to write a really interesting character, but gave up halfway through.

So yeah, let’s talk about it. And let us begin with his origin story.

I believe you are all familiar with this scene:

I… I want to defend my boy here, I really do. But honestly, the way this was portrayed, it just sounded like he was throwing a childish tantrum. It seems as if his entire motive for becoming a villain was “Shadow beat him and called him weak”; dude, you’re not the only one: Shadow does this to basically everybody who’s ever crossed his way! We’re not given a reason as to why Infinite gets so bloody offended, nor are we given a reason why we should care.

So, how can we fix this? I think we should firstly focus less on “I’M NOT WEEEEAAAAK!!! URRAAAAGHH!!!” and more on:

It doesn’t need to be – and I don’t even think it can be – as sad of a situation as the Rivaille Squad in Shingeki No Kyojin or anything, but I believe that showing us that Infinite lost something important would already do wonders to his backstory.

The simplest way – that is, the way that doesn’t majorly change how things go, but does give the jackal a clearer motive – to do this would involve the ever so humble inclusion of two new cutscenes and one new in-game battle, plus a few tweaks to some already existing scenes.

Episode Shadow begins not with the usual reading introduction, but rather, with Shadow’s voice. “I was a couple of months before the Doctor took over the world. The first time I encountered him… I didn’t know what he would become.” Then we open with what used to be a couple of months prior (aka where they presented Infinite’s memory, aka where they screwed up), so we’ll go through things in a chronological order instead of having a flashback inside of a prequel, because that’s confusing AF.

Now, instead of starting the Mystic Jungle level immediately, we should get a small cutscene: Shadow gliding through the jungle, cool camera angles/lighting and all – maybe something similar to the opening scene of Episode Shadow in Sonic 06? –, on his way to invade Eggman’s base as a voice coming from the hedgehog’s communicator reminds him about his mission (yep, that’s some subtle exposition to the audience so we don’t think Shadow is there just because). My idea for said mission would be the simple task of retrieving a Chaos Emerald (yeah, remember those?) from Eggman. Nothing too serious; just another day, another emerald stolen like usual; we’ve seen this before, there’s no need for a long dialogue.

As the black-and-red blur crosses the screen, the camera pans to a group of people hiding above in the trees: Squad Jackal. Infinite is not among them. One of the jackals asks “where’ the boss?” to which another one replies that he’s on the other side of the base/talking to the Doctor/whatever and they have no time to waste; their mission is to take down the intruder and protect the base. We get something in the lines of “the boss is counting on us. Expect no mercy, show no weakness. Let’s go!” and the camera fades out as the squad drops from the trees and runs after Shadow.

I believe that having the phrase “show no weakness” – or any possible reference to “I’m not weak”, really – appear earlier as seemingly common and then have it become something the character gives a lot of importance to due to consequences and parallels sounds a bit more interesting than having Infinite’s inferiority complex come out of nowhere.

The Mystic Jungle level plays as usual, except the dialogue in the background doesn’t say that “the Defence Squad has already been completely annihilated”, but rather that “the Defence Squad is on the case. They’re the best mercenaries there are, Shadow won’t stand a chance!” because Doctor Eggman is naive like that.

Once we reach the end of the level there’s another change: a boss battle against Squad Jackal. You see, we don’t want to hear the squad was taken down like some sort of lazy exposition, because it feels incomplete; we want to participate, we want to be the protagonist and see with our own eyes just what is Infinite’s squad. This gives faces and voices to something that will become an important plot point instead of just telling us “yeah, this happened or whatever”. This could also play as some sort of sympathy point for Infinite, because we, while in control of Shadow, took down his squad; it makes the villain’s animosity towards Shadow and his general anger at least a bit more understandable.

The idea is that this battle should play as some sort of field fight – that is, differently than most boss battles in Sonic Forces, this is not a racing track where you attack your enemy while running, but rather a large secluded area, much like the one we get in the fight between the Custom Hero and the DeathEgg Robot –, where squad members would attack individually in different patterns before going for a group attack. The individual jackals would have both projectile (perhaps something like a wispon, knives or some Eggman invention to keep it family friendly enough?) and close-ranged attacks, while the group attack would consist of this mass of wild jackals changing at you, trying to run you over. The opportunity windows could be either the moment when the opponents switch or band together for the group attack.

(I don’t know, maybe some of you can think of better ways to fight the Jackal Squad? This is just a random idea! I’d like to hear different ones!)

Once the fight is over, we get another cutscene: Shadow stands among the fallen jackals – don’t worry, they’re… sleeping… yeah, there’s no visible blood, they’re not dead… except they’re totally dead – and looks around for a second or two. His expression is indecipherable, and he soon leaves without saying a word – one might say he feels bad for them, or maybe he doesn’t give a damn; we leave that open to interpretation. Not a moment passes and we get to see the leader of the squad arriving at the scene. The camera moves in a circle around him as he looks at his fallen comrades in shock. How did this happen? They were the strongest, how could his whole squad be dead? This is a rather touching moment, where Infinite sticks his sword (because in his origins comic he used to have a super cool red sword and I want to pretend we have a reason for it not existing in the game) to the ground; there’s a feeling of anger and vengeance going on as we get a closer look at the last standing jackal. He clenches his fists and faces the direction of Shadow. “Expect no mercy, show no weakness,” he says in an infuriated, strangled voice. He starts to run and the camera fades out.

(Look at his sword and his squad, man. I do wish we could have seen them in the game…)

When the camera fades in again, we get that exact same cutscene from the game. Blah blah, “destroyed my squad”, blah blah, “ultimate mercenary”, a legendary ass whooping and Infinite falls to the ground, weak, pathetic and defeated.

Now, I’d like to add just a few lines to their dialogue, because this:

Doesn’t really sound like Shadow to me. I mean, man: you beat this random guy to the ground, called him worthless and pathetic out of nowhere and then you just leave? I know Shadow is rather apathetic and he’s supposed to be savage and all, but this just felt kind of out of place…

So instead of going full rude mode, what Shadow actually says is:

‘You’re part of the Defence Squad, aren’t you? Why would a bunch of mercenaries work for the Doctor? What is he hiding?’

‘The doctor paid well enough to not have his secrets spilled,’ Infinite retorts while trying to get up. He’s too hurt to do much, but he’s still willing to fight. He looks at Shadow with fiery eyes as he continues, ‘My squad… you took them down like they were nothing… why wouldn’t someone as strong as you be a mercenary?’

‘Mercenary work is for the weak,’ the hedgehog states matter-of-factly. ‘I’ve sworn to protect, not to follow the dirty line of work you did.’

This blows Infinite’s mind and he simply stares at Shadow, dumbfounded. He murmurs, ‘weak? How dare you, I’m not… We’re not weak! We’re the squad o-’

‘Where’s the Chaos Emerald?’ The jackal’s statement is completely ignored. However, Infinite is having none of this, so tries to attack Shadow once again in a fit of rage, only for the hedgehog to give him a signature roundhouse kick free of charge.

(Image merely illustrative)

‘What a waste of my time,’ Edgelord Number 1 says, aware that he’s not getting any useful information from this. He steps closer and Edgelord Number 2 flinches, ‘here’s some advice: don’t show your face around me ever again, or else I will finish you.’

And with that, Shadow teleports away, leaving Infinite to his existential crisis. He wasn’t able to avenge his friends; he wasn’t able to protect the base; heck, he wasn’t even able to hold his title of ultimate mercenary! How useless of a leader was he? Were mercenaries truly weak? Everything they’ve done… was it all worthless? Show no weakness… what did it even mean? They were all defeated, and Infinite can’t shake the feeling that he’s to blame for it. Wasn’t he supposed to be the best?

‘What is this? I’m…’ He looks at his hands, which are trembling ‘I’m shaking? I flinched? I... We failed… How pathetic… All because…’

Infinite stops as if he’s just gotten a moment of clarity. He then gets up and starts walking inside Eggman’s base. ‘I’m not weak,’ he says in a decided, chilling whisper; it’s almost scary. The view is set at the entrance, right in front of the jackal so that he starts blocking the light from the outside as he slowly walks towards the camera - while saying in that scary voice, “No mercy, no weakness”.

(I can totally see Liam O’Brien delivering this line perfectly…)

Then the last expository narrating happens about the same, except that Shadow narrates it – giving continuity to the fact that he was the one who started narrating this episode for a reason I will talk about later –, so we change a few words to match his speech more; it’s all in the third person and very husky and brooding, but with a subtle note of dread (oh, if only Jason Griffith would voice it… No disrespect to Kirk Thornton, but he just doesn’t hit Shadow’s perfect voice like Jason did; for me, at least. His Orbot voice is fantastic, though).

Now, instead of having Infinite looking forward for a few seconds before he gets the Phantom Ruby out of nowhere and places it in his chest very anti-climatically, we’ll do something different: as soon as he puts on the mask, he starts walking away, and we change settings to a dimly lit room, where we see Infinite from behind, fitting the frame perfectly. Following the beat of the background music, the camera changes to a close shot of his masked face as he’s holding the Phantom Ruby, which is glowing, reflecting on his mask and giving us a beautifully red-lit scene; it’s possible to hear very low, indiscernible whispers coming from the jewel. We then hear a small, evil chuckle from the masked jackal – he already sounds rather different from the guy who stuck his sword to the ground in honour of his friends earlier. The screen goes black, the whole “I was… Reborn!” thing dramatically happens in Infinite’s echoing voice and the not-flashback is over.

(I know this last part was quite specific and oddly detailed, but I had the scenes very clear in my head I wanted to try conveying how intimidating it looked to me o3o)

Ok, now that that’s done, prepare yourselves for an intermission. And by that, I mean prepare yourselves for a long analytical commentary on what I just wrote.

*”This is Our World: Phase 2″ plays in the background*

(Who is Shadow working for again? I don’t even know, man…)

Shadow isn’t just the guy who called Infinite pathetic. He’s the guy who killed Infinite’s squad (his friends) without any apparent remorse – and to be hypocrite as to say he’d sworn to protect when he just did something like this (yeah, Infinite doesn’t know any context of Shadow’s life, so of course he doesn’t understand what he meant); the guy who ruined everything he had going with his new job as leader of the Defence Squad; the guy who put him several levels under what he thought he was; the guy who questioned his entire way of living and the guy who put him under a lingering threat; “don’t show your face around me ever again” feels more intimidating now. Not only that, but, despite how Infinite might hate Shadow, he recognizes him as strong, admirable even – “why wouldn’t someone as strong as you be a mercenary?” Remember that Infinite himself is a mercenary; to actually acknowledge someone would be good at something you’re good at, specially someone you don’t like, has to be a sign of admiration, albeit a frustrating one. All of this puts a lot more of weight on how Infinite thinks of Shadow and why being stronger than the hedgehog is so important to him.

I made it so that “expect no mercy, show no weakness” is something like the Jackal Squad’s motto, their philosophy. I like to think it means that they should never count on someone’s mercy, for their enemies won’t spare them; they should always go into battle aware that they might actually be fighting for their lives. At the same time, they should always stand their ground and never let anyone think they can take advantage of a squad member. This is what the jackals live for. But seeing as Infinite’s world has just been shattered and he failed hard on everything, he revises his mentality. “No mercy, no weakness” is what he’s going for now, as he wants to be above everyone, he wants to effectively be the strongest and for people to know that; he will be the one who doesn’t spare others, and he won’t be weak at all. Never again would a failure cost him that much, for never again would he fail.

To have Infinite place the Phantom Ruby on his own chest in Episode Shadow contradicts the opening scene of the main campaign. Remember the episode is a prequel to Sonic Forces’ main game, so it shouldn’t be completely detached from it; things must make sense when put together. As the main game begins by showing us Infinite inside of a tube in Eggman’s lab, we can assume one of two things: he’s either a robot/biological experiment created entirely by the scientist, or he’s a guy who’s been experimented on, thus Eggman was the one who placed the Phantom Ruby on him. With this in mind, it wouldn’t make sense to show us Infinite doing something if you’re going to tell us that he couldn’t have possibly done it on his own. But to have him hold the ruby as someone who deeply desires its powers and who listens to its ominous whispering? Not only does it line better with the aforementioned scene, but it also makes Infinite seem more prone to the ruby’s power (instead of just… you know, “random angry dude”).

As this intermission has gone on long enough, I’ll only make a brief commentary on the Phantom Ruby: I like the idea of the ruby being somewhat alive and exerting influence over Infinite. Now, I won’t say it’s the kind of influence where it justifies his horrible behaviour or the awful things he did. It’s less “mind-control” and more “that best friend who always encourages you and never calls you out on your bullshit”. Its grooming Infinite’s ego and just nudging him to keep making bad decisions, to keep shutting himself in this new reality where he’s all powerful and above everyone else. So it’s the jackal’s pride, spite and grief, along with Eggman’s overall encouragement and the Phantom Ruby’s influence all put together that, in a general sense, make Infinite what he is. (I can go into more detail about this idea once I make a Part 2.)

Mission Accomplished: “angry bitchy boy turned edgy, OP and unimpressed” changed his status to “tragic boy turned edgy, bitter and extremely power-hungry”.

Intermission’s over, let’s get back to the story!

With Infinite’s backstory slightly redone (or rather, shown under a different light), I could stop right here. But I don’t want to, oh no! I say we take this a few steps further and just finish Episode Shadow! Yeah, I told you this was going to be a long post.

*”Battle with Infinite: Second Bout” plays in the background*

Ok, now we cut to a few months later, where Episode Shadow would originally begin. Rouge comments that Omega was on recon mission in that “unknown base of operations that seems to be totally outside the chain of command for Eggman’s army” (whatever that is supposed to mean) when he spotted an unidentified masked person with strange energy readings and an unknown battle ID. Omega reported a “large scale troop” and… that’s it, he just stopped talking. Rouge then talks about that “new weapon” Eggman was supposedly developing and sends Shadow to the base to investigate along with Omega. She makes a remark about how they should get the entire Team Dark together for this (“It should be fun”), but Shadow dismisses the idea, saying that he’s enough on his own. “Omega said the same thing. You two go together like chilli and hot dogs.”

We can keep this at the whole “dialogue on screen” thing. I don’t really mind and it sure spares the budget.

The City stage plays as usual, except the dialogue in the background changes a bit, because Team Dark bickering (or just talking in general, I love this team so much) is my jam.

‘E-123 Omega here. Extermination proceeding without incident. No problems to report.’

‘Omega!’ Rouge exclaims, ‘Why have you stopped responding earlier? We- wait, extermination? This is supposed to be a recon mission, what are you doing?!’

‘I was spotted. Priorities conflicted; therefore I decided to eliminate the enemy altogether. New Mission Objective: Defeat Eggman.’

‘But you can’t go making a scene like that!’

‘See, this is what happens when you send the giant killer robot for this kind of op,’ Shadow sasses. And I’ll imagine Jason’s voice for this too, thank you.

‘I have several reports of recon missions where you retaliated, Shadow.’

‘I might have to join you boys soon enough. I turn my back for five seconds and this happens…’ Rouge comments in a tired voice.

Omega is ready to start robotically recounting the reports of failed recon missions where Shadow retaliated, but he is suddenly cut by static and the vague sound of the Phantom Ruby. Rouge tries to contact him again and we get small bits of his original lines here – “All sensors offline”, “Casualty report”, “Unidentified system intrusion. Emergency withdrawal!” and “I am E-123 Omega, the most powerf-sjfpstswq”, that stuff – before his communication is completely cut. Shadow asks something like “what’s going on?”, but his communication with Rouge is cut as well. We play whatever’s left of the level in silence (except for the sweet background music).

(Oh yeah, this happened or whatever…)

Now, I know the next scene is a screen dialogue again, and I know I just said I don’t mind it, but watching this:

… Is so bloody uncomfortable. This feels dumb. This is so dumb. I feel like they robbed us an epic scene in exchange of some awkward reading with absolutely no context. What the hell is “!” supposed to mean?! What did Infinite do?! If I wanted to imagine the action scenes all on my own, I’d spend my time daydreaming! What, did they not know what to do here so they just threw in some random lines to fill the gap between this and the next level?!

… Sorry, I got a little carried away. This simple scene frustrates me a lot by not existing. So yeah, we’re throwing in a cutscene.

(I just noticed how salty this post is getting. This was not my intention at all, I still love this game, oh dear…)

Shadow reaches the edge of the city and encounters a dark silhouette hovering just above the flames that cover the ground; there’s debris scattered everywhere. The figure has its back turned, and the world seems to glitch ever so slightly around them.

‘The world’s most powerful robot is no more a challenge than crabmeat. Even the Doctor’s most daring designs can’t compete with my power… It is without peer,’ the figure chuckles to themselves.

Shadow starts approaching silently, analysing the situation. Despite this being Omega’s location, he can’t see the robot.

‘Wonder how easy it would be to end this entire planet. Don’t you…’

Suddenly, the voice speaks close to the hedgehog’s ear:

‘…Shadow?’

He turns around to see that the unknown person has appeared behind him, which throws him off. The hedgehog takes several steps back and puts himself in a fighting stance.

It’s hard to see past the jackal’s mask, but he seems amused as he looks down on Shadow. Twistedly so.

‘How wonderful to see that our not-so-tall, dark and brooding guest has arrived. I’ve been waiting for you, Shadow~’

‘Tell me what you did to Omega. Now,’ the agent demands.

‘Oh, come now, Shadow. Our long-awaited reunion and still you spout such nonsense.’ Infinite floats down to stand a few meters away from his enemy.

‘I don’t know you,’ Shadow states. The masked jackal tilts his head, but doesn’t say anything, so he asks again, ‘what have you done to Omega?’

‘Only what is ought to be done when someone stands in your way. Weaklings like E-123 Omega are of no consequence, don’t you agree?’

‘The only thing of no consequence is that big mouth of yours.’

Shadow launches himself at Infinite, who easily avoids his attack. The jackal starts laughing manically.

‘Ah, I suppose you would think so,’ he states. ‘After all, it’s not so funny to be the one losing the battle, is it? I am Infinite. You say you do not know me, and yet I remember you so very well… I’ve lost all I was, I’ve become what I am because of you. Savour that thought as I return the favour.’

Guess what happens? That’s right, we get another boss battle! I think it’s only fair that Infinite gets to have his rematch with Shadow. Besides, it establishes a comparison with the “old” Infinite and how much stronger he’s now – from Shadow’s perspective, that is.

I have no idea how this battle would play out. Maybe something similar to his second battle in the main story (no, don’t worry: we’ll talk about the exceeding amount of Infinite battles in the next part), with the 2D layout. Let’s say Infinite is surrounded with his Red Cubes of Doom while he’s not attacking, so you can’t touch him. Maybe he makes the fire glitch and get closer to you at some point. Maybe he makes clones and you have to defeat each of them to get to the real guy, I don’t know! Tag your ideas, I’d love to see them! ^^

Anyway, once the battle’s over and Shadow “wins” (because Infinite is not defeated, he’s just done with this fight), the jackal might say something in the lines of “I suppose I’ve let this duel go on for long enough. I have other matters to attend to, Shadow the Hedgehog.”

We get back to the cutscene and Infinite is glitching a bit, quickly recomposing himself, laughing. Shadow is panting.

‘What’s the matter, Shadow? Can’t take down a measly jackal anymore?’ The masked one says sarcastically. ‘It seems like I’ve overestimated your strength. You’re no fit to be a mercenary at all.’

There’s a beat and Shadow realises what this is about. He looks at Infinite, frowning. ‘It’s you… Defence Squad Jackal…’

Infinite stares at the hedgehog. He doesn’t seem to be as amused anymore. His golden eye’s glowing under his mask, and so is the Phantom Ruby on his chest. A tense background music plays as Infinite answers dryly:

‘Yes.’

‘I’ve spared you, but now you’re going too far. It’s time to finish this! Chaos Spear!’

The spears of light simply go through Infinite as if they didn’t exist. Shadow goes for a spin dash/homing attack/kick to the face or whatever you can think of, but the masked villain glitches out of the way with ease and lands an almost perfect copy of Shadow’s roundhouse kick.

The hedgehog glides across the floor, almost falling over. Infinite scoffs.

‘This new “me” has limitless power. I have no mercy; no weakness! I am the true ultimate force that will tear this world apart, and what may have worked to bring me down before…’ the jackal starts floating again; thousands of red cubes start dancing around him and, as he raises a hand, they all group in the sky not far above them. ‘… No longer does.’

(Why yes, this is a reference to Mephiles the Dark and that time he destroyed the Sceptre of Darkness!)

Infinite throws his “Take THIS!” and Shadow does the “!” – which is him frantically trying to get out of the way as the thousands cubes of doom come crashing down on him.

The screen goes black.

Scene ends.

The Virtual Reality level should play as usual from there. I don’t even want to change the background dialogue, because I really like it: it’s confusing, it’s weird, it’s unsettling and it slaps Shadow in the face in a way that we rarely see. I love it! (Although, I do think the gameplay should have a tiny little bit more of 3D parts. We love Green Hill, but we also love the freedom to move on more than two directions when playing as the Ultimate Life Form. But it’s cool)

After that, we could get another cutscene (we’re full of cutscenes, huh? Well, this is a hypothetical rewriting with a hypothetical budget. Also, Episode Shadow is more of an exposition episode anyway). In this cutscene, we would start with some shots of different known locations: Green Hill, Chemical Plant, Crisis City, Mystic Jungle, Kingdom Valley, Babylon Garden, you name it! And all of these places are somewhat “corrupted”; they’re glitching out, full of those red cubes, and there’s just this ominous atmosphere in them, as if they’re abandoned, desolated despite looking roughly the same as ever. We then see a black-and-red blur cross the screen, and a short narration takes place:

“I’ve been here for longer than I can remember. This… alternate reality, this fake world. There seems to be no escape. Rouge and Omega talk to me occasionally…”

We see Shadow leaning against a wall. His communicator plays only white noise, then Rouge’s voice comes in; it’s strangely echoed as it calls out to him. Shadow throws the device far away and sighs.

“… They’re fake too. No matter where I go, no matter how much I run…”

Shadow is skating through Pumpkin Hill or something, when the world suddenly starts to glitch out massively; we hear the Phantom Ruby’s noise and suddenly, we’re on the ARK.

“It’s like this place was made to torture me. Although, I wouldn’t be surprised if that were the case.”

‘I’ve moved on from this a long time ago,’ Shadow says to the void of the Universe as we hear gunshots in the distance. He’s not being completely truthful. ‘Putting me through this scenario dozens of times changes nothing. Don’t you have anything more creative at this point?’

There’s silence, except for the shouts in the Space Colony. A voice calls out to Shadow, and he promptly ignores it, albeit with a pained look in his eyes. He’s visibly tired, almost hopeless, if one could ever describe Shadow the Hedgehog that way.

He sighs.

‘Alright, how do I get out of this one?”

We then get a start of a short level in the ARK. Don’t worry, it’s not one of those hellish mazes that usually haunt every ARK level there ever was; this is more straight forward, with doors closing all around you so that you know where you shouldn’t go, and some G.U.N. robots trying to kill you, simple thing.

The catch happens when you’re halfway through the level: as you’re crossing a long corridor, the game begins to “crash” – in the sense of you losing control of the character, the visuals beginning to glitch and the soundtrack going weird, all in a way that makes the soul leave the body of the player for a terrifying four seconds of “HOLY SHIT, I BROKE THE GAME”. But nope, you didn’t break the game: the Phantom Ruby is trolling you. We soon find that out as the signature noise plays and the glitching effect on screen disperses to show a new scenario: Mystic Jungle. The real Mystic Jungle. Congratulations: you get to play in a totally different zone for the rest of the level.

‘My head…’ Shadow murmurs to himself. ‘That was too quick; this can’t be right, it- ugh, why is it so bright here? Where are all the red things? This place seems too normal… is it… am I back in the real world?!’

We then finish the level, get our nice score and head to the last scene of the episode.

Shadow is going through the jungle, taking in everything that isn’t an illusion. He passes by a red sword stuck to the ground and leans against a tree, still a little out of it, still struggling to believe that anything is real anymore. The hedgehog then takes his communicator – surprisingly intact; hadn’t he thrown that away? – and tries to make contact. There is static for a moment, when suddenly…

‘Shadow? Oh my- Shadow, is that you?!’

He’s startled for a moment, but so relieved to hear Rouge’s normal voice again.

‘It’s me, Rouge. What’s the situation? Where’s Omega?’

‘Omega? We lost contact with him months ago; the Resistance says he must have been shut down after the Doctor took over!’

Shadow raises both his non-existing eyebrows in surprise, barely holding a gasp. He then frowns.

‘Shut down? Resistance? What do you mean “the Doctor took over”? What the heck happened?’

‘What happened? What happened?! I should be the one asking you that! You’ve been offline for six months! Everyone keeps saying you’re working with Eggman and Infinite, and I couldn’t contact you or Omega, I thought… I thought we’d lost you for good…’

‘Nonsense,’ Shadow states. We start hearing voices in the distance, and the hedgehog starts looking around while still talking ‘I’ll tell you the details later, it’s long story. What’s the current situation?’

‘Shadow…’

The (Tired) Ultimate Life Form spots something from behind the trees. Still in hiding, he looks closer only to see the Custom Hero holding the prototype Phantom Ruby they just found and talking to Tails and… Classic Sonic, much to Shadow’s confusion.

‘… We’re at war.’

Shadow takes a moment to process what’s just been said. He doesn’t even pay attention to what Rouge says next (neither do we, as the background music starts getting louder than the bat’s voice). He still watches the avatar, Tails and Classic Sonic as they leave; he focuses on the Phantom Ruby.

‘Meet me in the City. I’ve got a lot to tell you,’ Shadow says.

And with that, he leaves, the scene fades out and Episode Shadow is over!

*”The Light of Hope: Menu Version” plays in the background*

Now, a few more analytical notes before we close this ridiculously gigantic thing:

The immediate reason why we have Shadow being stuck in the Virtual Reality for six months is to indicate to us why he doesn’t show up earlier in the main game. It’s not like he was being useless this whole time and just decided to show up whenever it was most Ex-Machina of him; much like Sonic, he was trapped by the enemy. A mental trap that put Shadow on survivor mode for months without any way of communicating with anybody; with twisted versions of his friends trying to get to him and remind him that, hey, they’re still out there, probably in high danger; with these illusions mocking him, reminding him of painful memories, isolating him in familiar places… I say: if you want to emotionally hit a character, hit them hard. And this experience is bound to leave Shadow with some emotional scar, alright.

(Ever heard of conveniently coming out of nowhere?)

Shadow is bound to lose his sense of reality and sometimes it should be hard for him to acknowledge that this is the real world. I hope I can showcase some of his reactions in the later parts of this o3o

The Virtual Reality isn’t all glitchy by mistake. No, no: Infinite is perfectly capable of making a “perfect copy” of the real world, but he doesn’t want to. He wants Shadow to know this is a fake world and to know that he’s completely trapped in it while his real friends and allies are out there doing who-knows-what in a world run by the enemy. He wants to throw Shadow off-balance as much as he can, because he’s spiteful and doesn’t just leave the hedgehog to the side without a second glance.

In the game, Infinite says that they didn’t really have time to tune his power yet, so we can tell putting Shadow in the Virtual Reality was more of a practice of sorts. But man, I think this is too much of a cool concept, so I’ll say Infinite did put his power to the test before all of this; because Eggman, sir: you don’t simply throw your super-secret, amazing, unparalleled weapon in the battlefield without testing it first. This is something that can be inferred, it doesn’t need to be directly told, it just- I’m telling you this right now, ok?

I know Shadow is supposedly “over” this conflict with what happened in the ARK and it probably feels over-used to add it in again, but… it’s a thing the games haven’t tackled in such a long time, I feel like this would be a nice call-back. Besides, Infinite would want to know what would bring distress to Shadow; what happened in the ARK isn’t exactly a secret, especially if he’s working with Eggman. And Shadow can be as “over it” as he wants: it’s still a scar that will never truly leave him. Even if he watches it happen dozens of times, it’s still at least a little bit of an emotional rollercoaster.

ALTHOUGH! I also think this ARK level could be easily replaced with some other random level if you want to argue that Forces happens in Mobius or something, where Gerald and Maria and G.U.N. maybe never existed and whatnot.

What brought Shadow back, you ask? Well, it probably has to do with a certain someone spontaneously activating a Phantom Ruby. Maybe the avatar was thinking of Shadow and how it’d be nice to have him on their side again? Maybe they were thinking of undoing Infinite’s evil deeds? Maybe the raw power of the Phantom Ruby prototype being suddenly activated by the Custom Hero just crashed something another Phantom Ruby user did, like magnetic waves interfering with each other? Who knows?

I also find it important to show the Custom Hero here not only to show that there’s a connection between Shadow’s sudden freedom and their actions, but also to establish the tiniest amount of early familiarity between Shadow and the original character. Then maybe (maybe) I’ll give them a bit more of interaction in the main game, because it’d be nice to have a cool interaction with Shadow; and as endearing as his smile after the avatar does their thing with the sun of destruction is, it feels like it comes out of nowhere, if you think about it…

(I mean... Does he even know who we are?)

Infinite’s sword stuck to the ground goes completely over Shadow’s head, as he has no idea what that is or who it belonged to or what it means. It’s really just there for the viewer to reminisce the beginning of the episode and have a slight existential crisis.

When playing the main campaign, we get some pretty convenient information from Shadow once he finally shows up. Episode Shadow should give us a sense of how he knows those things. Want it or not, he did spend a long time studying the Phantom Ruby’s power far more closely than anybody else – well, maybe Sonic spent almost as much time as Shadow in a similar state, but that’s something to cover in another part.

The fact that Shadow is the one narrating this entire episode is supposed to allude to him telling Rouge exactly what happened during those six months he was gone. But if you want to read it as him talking to himself in the Virtual Reality as he slowly descends into madness, then be my guest!

I don’t know if it’s noticeable, but I’ve tried to tune Infinite’s cheesiness down a bit. I don’t think I can rid him of it entirely – after all, he is somewhat of a pompous, edgy, over-the-top character in general; he’s a full-on drama queen 24/7 and the only character cheesier than him is Sonic. Now, what we do with Infinite is to at least give a base to what he says. Also, I wanted him to sound a bit more like he lets the power get to his head. Oh well, I surely hope we’ll be tackling more of Infinite in the future!

Episode Shadow is extremely short, even for a DLC. I mean, it’s about only 20 minutes long – even less, if you’re good at it! With the addition of the cutscenes, the small changes, the boss fights against Squad Jackal and Infinite, and the added levels, the episode shouldn’t get overwhelmingly longer, but longer enough for it to feel more satisfying!

And with that, we’re done! I hope you enjoyed this massive thing. Despite me really liking Sonic Forces, I do think a few things could be improved. It’s not like it will happen, but rewriting is a lot of fun!

And why, no: I don’t take myself seriously.

[hoidn]

if you want to play along, consider yourself tagged.

AO3 name: tree

Fandoms: these are fandoms i've written in, but they're not all my fandoms, if that makes sense. i've written quite a few things in exchanges just because i was familiar enough with the canon to take a pinch-hit or because i didn't know what i was getting myself into.

Longmire (TV), The X-Files, Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen, Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman, House M.D., Star Trek: Voyager, Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, The X-Files RPF, The Cutting Edge (1992), Blade (Movie Series), Northanger Abbey - Jane Austen, Hannibal (TV), Girl with a Pearl Earring - All Media Types, Lady of the Shard (Webcomic), The Fionavar Tapestry - Guy Gavriel Kay, The Wake - Paul Kingsnorth, Battlestar Galactica (2003), Stranger Than Fiction, Charlotte Gray (2001), Green Gables Fables, Firefly, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Ibis Trilogy - Amitav Ghosh, Octopus Steals My Video Camera and Swims off with It While It's Recording (Short Film), Gilmore Girls, The Middleman (TV), Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms, JAG (TV 1995), Hamlet - Shakespeare, The Fall (TV 2013), The Abyss (1989)

the fandoms i haven’t yet posted anything for are many and varied, and any WIPs that may exist for them will likely die with me, which is probably a very good thing.

Number of fics: 94 (?!!)

Fic you spent the most time on: no friggin' idea. i sometimes spend weeks just trying to get one paragraph right and then write two thousand words the next day which need very little editing. it might take me over a year to write something from start to finish that's not much more than a thousand words, but how much of that span of time was spent actually working on that particular fic isn't something i keep track of.

Fic you spent the least time on: hope falls harder — it's one sentence; i spent longer scraping together the title and summary than i did writing the work. in my defence it's in a made-up language that only exists in the text, so it was a difficult sentence.

Longest fic: some wild and necessary hunger with 24,606 words. because of course a trope i didn't like at all until i discovered i liked it in very specific contexts turned itself into my longest fic. of fucking course.

Shortest fic: hope falls harder with 41 words. however, since it's the only fic anywhere ever for this canon, i still win the prize for the longest fic in the fandom.

Most hits: A Wild and Distant Shore with 32,785 hits. fork me. that is terrifying. (what's interesting is that to suppose the truth of it possible has the next highest number at 30,440 and it was written nine years later, so it's accrued hits at a much faster rate than my older P&P fics, but it doesn't even make it into the top 5 by kudos. so a lot of hits but fewer people like it? i'm so curious!)

Most kudos: A Wild and Distant Shore with 1,084 kudos. folks continue to dig the P&P smut.

Most comment threads: if you came this way with 80 threads, but it's an extreme outlier. the next three highest are in the mid-low 30s, which i think is more indicative.

Fave fic you wrote: within the last few years, probably Darlin', everything's on fire (with Through Worlds as a close runner-up). i am genuinely proud of my zombie apocalypse AU. i think it's one of the best things i've ever written.

Fic you want to rewrite/expand on: as @sarking said, "I’m not a rewriter – it’s hard enough to get something out of me once, or to get a draft and a finished product out of me." i'm also not an expander, with one recent exception. when i write a fic, i tell the story i've got to tell and then there's no more. that said, someone once mentioned they'd like to read chakotay's side of if you came this way and my brain mulled over that to the extent that it's got a title (no mean feat) and its own document, and i've actually noodled a bit at it.

(noodling is, of course, a different process to writing; noodling is to writing what doodling is to drawing. although to continue the alliterative parallels i suppose it should be 'woodling', but as that just looks ridiculous, let's not.)

however, there are many barriers to this fic's completion, among other things that it's daunting trying to match myself. even while i was in the process of writing it, i knew if you came this way was something special. not necessarily the best thing i've ever written in strict terms, but certainly the most joyful in process (at least up until the very end). which isn't to say it was easy, just that somehow all the stars aligned so that my love of the characters and my love of language combined into something wonderful and the process itself became a celebration of that love. oh my god it sounds like i was on acid or something at the time, but i wasn't. just my usual cocktail of crazy meds.

Share a bit of your WIP or share a story idea that you’re planning: i'm knee-deep in my het big bang fic that won't quit and is definitely not the fic i had intended to write hahahaha. it's for That Show I Can't Stop Making GIFs For Or Writing Fic For Apparently. but! i'm also noodling away at a J/C voyager fic for the kind soul who bid on me in the fandom for australia auction. this may or may not be the final version, given that i haven't written the lead-up yet and i haven't written these characters at all in some time, but i quite like it as it stands, so here we go.

"It has to be me," she said.

"Captain—"

A single raised hand forestalled his protest.

"I've already had this argument with Tuvok. Please don't make me repeat the experience, Commander." She strode a restless to-and-fro across the Ready Room. "Perhaps it makes me a prude but I believe that sex is a private act, not a performance."

"It doesn't make you a prude."

Janeway carried on as if she hadn't heard, her eloquent hands in agitated motion. "And how can I, in good conscience, order someone to... to... perform?"

It was a split-second decision, instinctive.

"You won't have to order anyone, Captain."

She stopped, frowned. "What do you mean?"

"I'm volunteering for this mission."

Her whole face softened into gentle distress. "Oh, Chakotay. I can't ask that of you."

"You're not asking. I'm offering."

[tauntaun-rider]

I realize that I’ve been posting rather sporadically, and I'm sorry about that. (Moment of real life honesty here: The combination of chronic pain and debilitating depression is not something that I would wish on anyone.) However, I am not here to apologize or vent, but to share something.

So, I have a folder in the Notes app on my phone where I occasionally write drabbles about my OCs that will maybe one day be turned into something. There’s one in particular about my Agent that I not only finished, but nitpicked to death. I finally decided to bite the bullet and post it to my pithy AO3 account. (Because what better time is there to face your fears than 2:00/3:00 AM?)

Here is the link: Shadows and Regrets.

Below the cut is the beginning to the first chapter. (There are three actual chapters and the fourth acts as an epilogue of sorts.)

I hope anyone that takes the time to read it enjoys!

CHAPTER ONE

This is too risky. This can only backfire. You'll end up with a blaster hole in your head. At best.

Rae bit her lip and looked down at the letter she had been writing and rewriting on her datapad during her free time over the last few evenings. Everything she had experienced since initially joining Imperial Intelligence brought her to the same conclusion: delivering this letter had the potential to yield catastrophic results. Not just for her, but for her crew and her husband as well.

She glanced over her shoulder at the man peacefully sleeping in the bedroll on the floor of the tent they shared. Rae took in his tousled black hair and the hint of a smile on his lips and couldn’t help but smile herself.

Her husband.

Rae never even considered the possibility of finding someone to love that would love her in return. Being an agent in the shadows ensured that she would be alone. Or so she thought. Vector changed all of that.

There wasn't a single person that she trusted as she trusted him. Vector knew she was working on the letter and who would be its recipient, if all went as planned. He understood it was something she needed to do, or at least try to do, to bring herself some peace. And most importantly, he supported her decision, despite the colossal risk.

Convinced that the letter couldn't be better phrased and willing to accept its consequences, Rae saved the final draft of the letter to the datachip she'd already prepared and turned off her datapad. After sliding it into her duffel bag, she slipped on her boots and stepped out of the tent into the muggy Yavin-4 night. A breeze lifted the wavy, emerald locks that refused to fit in her bun away from her face as it meandered through the makeshift camp.

There was a clear divide between the tents: Republic on the right and Empire on the left. It seemed only fair, as the truce was temporary while the combined forces worked to bring down Revan before he revived the Sith Emperor.

Rae wandered through the camp to the back corner, away from the tension that existed even in slumber. She had come to sit by the pond almost every night since they had arrived on Yavin. Vector had accompanied her a few times, but he seemed to understand that she needed space to break free of the invisible ropes that pulled her in every direction, if only for a little while, and merely held her hand while they sat in silence.

Rae sat on a reasonably flat rock at the water's edge and pulled her knees up to her chest. She laid her forearms on top of her knees and rested her chin on top of the tower of limbs. The letter and its implications kept overpowering any other thoughts she had and thwarted her attempts at meditation.

Her frustration was interrupted by the sound of twigs snapping beneath boots as someone walked toward her cozy nook. Her head lifted off her arms with a jolt as she strained to hear any noises that would identify who it was. Out of habit, she reached down to grab the vibroknife hidden in her boot before mentally chastising herself and putting her arm back on top of her knees.

"Can't sleep either?" Theron asked as he took a seat next to her. His normal faux hawk was a bit misshapen and he still wore his clothes from the previous day.

She nodded, gazing out at the stillness of the water.

"How'd you know I was here?"

"Your hair was kind of glowing in the moonlight," he chuckled.

Rae turned her head towards him and smiled. She thought of their first meeting. Their first verbal communication occurred while she was stuck on a research center on Manaan that was on the verge of being entirely submerged. Theron had directed her via comm to the only remaining emergency pod, while going out of his way to point out that a Pub was saving her life.

After escaping unscathed, Rae and Vector, both still slightly sodden from the ordeal, walked into the hidden base that Lana had procured for their mission to find the new, unlikely allies huddled over a table covered in datapads and sheets of flimsy. Theron said he didn't need to know who she was, but insisted on introducing himself anyway. Rae, both tired of his attitude and in need of a laugh after the near-death experience, made a mildly flirty comment in an attempt to break down his brash exterior. In some strange way, that seemed to decrease some of the early tension between them.

Despite that initial experience, she had every reason not to trust him. After all, her stint as a double agent didn't exactly go smoothly. And he, who she assumed had no knowledge of her past experiences with the SIS, had no reason to trust her either.

Yet somehow, they had forged an unusual bond. Rae initially thought it was a polite courtesy, as they had the same goal of uncovering the Revanites' plot and were in the same line of work. But the more time they spent together on Rishi, the more she got to know him as a person. She was surprised to find that they actually had a lot in common. Just in the first few days alone, she discovered that they both hated undercover work on Nar Shaddaa, they both were uncomfortable with having to use seduction as a means of gathering information in the field, and that they both preferred working alone whenever possible.

They shared some embarrassing stories from being undercover, without the confidential details, of course. Rae shared the story of her first time pretending to be a pirate while on Hutta, while Theron told her about one mission in which he ended up running around an Imperial battle cruiser in his underwear. She had to cover her mouth with both hands to hold in the giggles that threatened to pour out and avoid waking Lana. Rae still distinctly remembered the way Theron's eyes had narrowed at her and how his frown conveyed an impressive amount of disapproval while she shook with barely concealed laughter. After a few moments, however, he lightened up and the frown turned into a vaguely amused, self-deprecating smirk.

She recalled another night when they stayed up late talking about the lives they led. Always working, always keeping a distance from other people, always being on high alert and looking for threats. It was nice to talk to someone who understood; no one else in her life really comprehended the toll it took on her the way he did. She learned a bit about how he ended up in the SIS, and she told a bit of her unusual spy origin story as well. Rae felt rather comfortable talking to him, even though he was supposed to be the enemy. She couldn't help not knowing how to feel about the development; he gave every indication that he was experiencing the exact same flurry of confusing emotions.

Rae turned back toward the pond, once again focused on the present.

"What's keeping you up?" she asked.

"Honestly? Pretty much everything. It's all just hitting me now." Theron paused to readjust his position on the rock. "Rishi... Teaming up with a Sith Lord and an Imperial Cipher... Being tortured by my ancestor... The awkwardness with my mother... It's a lot. And after tomorrow, it'll be over. Win or lose, it'll be over."

Rae nodded.

"I don't blame you for being overwhelmed. This strange journey, full of twists and turns, along with pirates and insane cultists, of course... It's taken us across the galaxy and formed what seemed like an impossible alliance. But here we are."

"Here we are," he echoed.

They sat in companionable silence for a while, until Theron decided to ask her the same question.

"Regrets," she said as she wrapped her arms around her knees. "Too many."

"What, you're regretting all of this now?" He gestured to the camp behind them. "Wishing you had stayed in the shadows instead of getting wrapped up in this madness?" The small smirk on his lips worked as a way to both lighten the mood and prompt her to share more. Rae was well aware of the tactic being used, but indulged him anyway.

"Actually, no. I don't regret any of this. It's led to some... personal revelations. I've made some interesting acquaintances. One might consider them friends, while the focus is on Revan." Rae glanced over at him to see him listening intently. His eyes were widened a bit in surprise, but he wasn't laughing at her or the way she openly admitted to enjoying the experience, which she found oddly relieving.

"Whatever happens," she said softly, "I'm glad I met you, Theron. And thank you for saving my life on Manaan."

He nodded, his hazel eyes focused on her.

"I'm... glad I met you, too. Can't say I was expecting to get along with you after finding out who you were, let alone stay up at night talking to you," he chuckled quietly to himself. "I guess I should also thank you for helping me get the rest of the way out of Revan's stronghold. And having my back with Lana after all that."

Rae raised an eyebrow at the last part.

"Lokin told me what you said to her while I was out," Theron explained. "How you walked that line on my behalf."

Rae knew exactly what line he was referencing: the line between Force users and Force-blind people, or more specifically, the line between Sith and everyone else beneath them. It was one that she personally never cared for very much.

Rae's gaze intensified and the corners of her lips were tugged downward. She could feel her teeth clenching out of habit.

"She had no right to put you in that position. She has no idea what it's like or what it can do to a person." Rae broke eye contact and looked at her reflection in the pond. Even in the stillness of the water, she looked broken. She bit her lip and tried to get the haunting image of Hunter's sneer out of her mind.

"No, she doesn't. But I appreciate that. She could have gone all Sithy on you, and you still took that risk."

Rae tightened her grip on her knees, her knuckles turning pale with the action.

"Sometimes, risks are necessary. Sometimes, you need to remind yourself what you're fighting for in the first place."

She could feel Theron's eyes on her and knew that he was trying to restrain himself from asking what she meant. Before he could ask, she turned toward him.

"Besides, I think it's clear that people have 'gone all Sithy' on me before," Rae added bitterly as she looked down at the scars visible on her chest in her sleeveless tunic. "Lokin thinks my so-called moral compass is going to get me killed one of these days," she laughed.

Theron's eyes followed hers to the web of violet scars and bits of puckered skin just below her collarbone. He had to have noticed it before; she made no move to cover any of it up while on Rishi. However, she had never talked about it openly until now.

Rae stood up and stretched.

"I'm going to head to bed. You should, too."

"Alright. Night, Rae."

"Goodnight, Theron."

Rae walked back to her tent, let herself back in, and pulled off her boots. She slid into the bedroll next to Vector and nestled into his side, pulling him close with one arm across his chest.

Tomorrow would be a big day, indeed.

[doinurmommy]

Dad Jokes, Go for Broke (New Version) pt.1

10k never thought he’d get to be a dad; let alone a good one. Now he, and the only family he’s had since his father passed away, have some tough choices to make after being thrown one unexpected situation after another. 

Cross posted on Ao3

Fandom: Z nation

Pairing: 10k/Reader

Rating: Teen and Up (references to adult themes such as sex and pregnancy)

A rewrite of my original Dad Jokes, Go for Broke series. A new chapter should be up every other week. I finally have an Ao3! (monochromehobo on Ao3 as well) I will be cross posting the new version over there and maybe the old version if enough people want me to. I hope you guys like the New version as much as the old one. I worked really hard on it and have improved a ton since I wrote the original series two years ago.

And something about laying on top of the covers with the box fan tittering loudly in the open window, the laundry hanging to dry in the corner, just felt right. I briefly thought back on hot summer days when my grandmother would be hanging up the laundry when I got home from school and I would lay in her bed while she listened to the radio and finished cleaning. With the afternoon sun streaming in through the window and my Spotify playlist humming through the speaker in the background, everything felt right for a moment.

But that was the first day of the apocalypse. And now there was no Spotify playlist, no box fan tittering in the window. It was too hot, too sticky. No clean laundry flapping in the wind. No Grandma to make me food. No food to be made, really. But there was 10k. And I took comfort in laying in an actual bed with him. In an actual house, with a window and light to stream through it. And in pressing the side of my face to his sweaty chest. I told him about that moment this made me think of. He chuckled and it made his chest vibrate low against my cheek. And you know what? There might as well have been food to make, and laundry to clean, and a box fan to make us less uncomfortably sticky-hot; because when I was with 10k I was at peace. Like the world hadn't gone to shit and I didn't have to watch everyone I once loved, including my grandma, become undead freaks.

I felt strands of my hair being brushed behind my ear as a loud crash could be heard from down stairs. 10k bolted upright and out of bed slingshot poised for action; I followed shortly behind knife out and ready. Addy was locked against the table by a Z, 10k quickly sending a nickel through the side of it's head, effectively killing it. Addy quickly thanked him before drawing our attention to the window. 10 or 11 more were ambling a little to close for comfort. "Looks like it's time to go guys," She said picking up the Zwhacker and slinging it over her shoulder as she gathered her stuff. I ran upstairs to gather our shit and alert the others.

 "Warren! Vasquez! Time to grab Murphy and go we got a lot of Z's out the front!," I yelled as I pulled our stuff together.

Warren responded with a nod, replacing her machete on her belt, "Alright we'll have to loop around the back to get to the truck." Rushing down the stairs she took out a couple of zombies that had made their way in. She waved us along out the back window. I pushed 10k's backpack through and slid out after it. I was relieved to see Addy and 10k were waiting out back for us.

/// 

We spent the next 6 days, pretty much straight, on the road to make up for the time we lost by hanging around at the last house. 6 days of on and off sleeping in the truck bed and scouting for gas. 10k and I talked for hours about what we did before we met both pre and post Z. We eventually had a good laugh about the first time I met 10k. He had been pretending to be deaf with his two idiot friends, and I helped him escape the death penalty. I mean after all when was I going to find another kid my age to hang out with in this apocalypse. I guess it all works in mysterious ways because that idiot that nearly got me killed has more than made up for it since then. "So, you still think aliens are real after all that went down in Roswell?" I chuckled, teasing him about the wild stories he chose to share.

"Oh, 100 percent. Like I said, my uncle saw them," he smiled as he spoke. Sometimes I couldn't tell if he was joking or not. He slapped the side of the truck and asked Warren to stop at a gas station ahead. He grabbed a road map from the front door, holding it up for everyone to see, "Anybody feel like going to the grand canyon?" That got a laugh out of everyone. Just the thought of hiking in the hot sun made me sick to my stomach.

//

Turns out the grand canyon was as nauseatingly hot as I expected. The smell of millions of zombies being filed into it didn't quite help with the nauseating part. Although I will say I did have a good time, even though hiking over the side of a cliff and getting taken hostage wasn’t my exactly my idea of a fun date. But damn was the grand canyon as breathtaking as it was made out to be. Even with the millions of zombies. I would have liked to stay, but we have our mission. Still, I'd like to think that someday we'll be able to visit again.

I slumped in the back seat of the car as we continued on through the dessert. I tried to make the best of it but there weren't even any trees or plants to play ‘I Spy’ with. I was never one to get car sick; however, something about the bumpy dessert and the nonstop driving had me feeling not the best. I would have never stopped us if I could help it; luckily enough for me 10k had no qualms about it. He made Warren pull over so I could barf up my stale crackers and water, patting my back as I sat on the curb. "Yeah, I'm just car sick. I'll be fine," I said, wiping the corners of my mouth. “Maybe I ate something old.”

"Well sweetheart it's the apocalypse everything's kinda old nowadays," Doc earned himself a few smirks and chuckles with that one.

"Well whatever it is we have to get going. Savior of humanity? The mission? Anyone? Buller?" Murphy growled from the back seat.

10k helped me back up as we all piled back into the vehicle. "Are you okay?" 10k asked from the other side of the truck bed, "I know you say you are but you can can barely run 50 ft without getting out of breath," I know he meant well but his tone of voice held something else in it that I didn't like.

"Yeah, 10k. If I wasn't okay I would say so. A stomach bug isn't really a big deal in the grand scheme of the apocalypse is it?" I felt instantly embarrassed at my outburst. The rest of the ride was pretty much silent.

>>

When we pushed through the dust and came upon the hotel we would stay at briefly I never pictured everything that would happen there. The leader of the group made us go by his ridiculous rules and processes, lining us up and telling us his first impressions of us. I was incredibly surprised by how accurate he got everyone, except for me. He stopped in front of me pausing for a few moments before slowly pointing at my chest and speaking. "You; you're an interesting one. Your good intentions and quick moves hold the group together, but you've got a secret. That secret will cause you a lot of pain," I side eyed 10k sharing an awkward glance between us and this strange man. I suppose the first bit was somewhat true, but secret? I don’t do anything remotely interesting enough to be a secret. Even though I didn’t know what he was talking about it didn’t stop bothering me the entire time we were there. I think part of me may have been concerned he was talking about 10k.

After all of our "introductions" I initially followed Doc and 10k on their quest for food. I felt my stomach ache return not too soon after we finished our rations, making eye contact with 10k I signaled for him to follow me towards a more secluded spot of our temporary camp. "Not feeling well again?" I nodded to answer him as he ran his hand down my arm. I took a peek around the corner to make sure nobody was in ear shot and able to see us before I went ahead to kiss him. I kissed him deeply, rubbing my hands up his back.

I guess you could call us 'touch starved' for each considering that we only got to be alone together once every few weeks. Its not that we were keeping our relationship a secret from the group, it's just that we weren’t the type of people to be on each other in public or disclose our business to people. I mean, I assumed the group had an idea.

10k broke away from the kiss, resting his forehead against mine, "I was serious when I said I was worried about you."

"I know and I'm sorry I snapped at you but worrying isn't really gonna get us anywhere," I said softly.

"I guess not," he replied leaning back in, "but that won't stop me from doing it."

>>

"Well once we get out of here we'll find a drug store I promise," I responded pulling my pants back up. I couldn't help but roll my eyes at him when he got so stubborn. He couldn't even enjoy having sex without returning right back to square one of our argument.

"10k! (Y/N)!" I could hear Doc calling us from the next room over.

"Saved by the bell," I huffed under my breath, smile etched into my cheeks.

>>

The rest of our stay in that damn hotel definitely wasn't boring, but I was certainly ready to get out of there. All the bullshit of the office workers was getting old. Besides, I think if we had stayed any longer 10k may have made good on his threat to kill Murphy. 10k brushed my side as we climbed into the back of the truck. I always liked that he found little ways to let me know he wasn't mad at me. I never had to ask. We shared a snicker as Addy hopped in after us.

We all sat pretty silently for the rest of the day as we traveled south toward Mexico. We passed by a few small houses, Doc suggesting we pull off the road for the night. We entered one of the houses quickly clearing it of Zs and settling in for the night. 10k and I had first watch duty.

"You know what I think I miss most about Pre-Z?" I gave a side glance at 10k seeing him smirk as he asked what, "Pajamas."

"Pajamas?"

"Yeah when's the last time you slept in anything besides jeans or cargo pants?" 10k shrugged in response to my question.

"It's still light out," he turned to face me leaning on a fence post, "Do you want to go scout that corner store down the street for a bit?"

"Yeah, sure. Let me just go tell Warren."

>>

"Push harder!"

"Here let me just kick it," 10k backed away from the door, firmly kicking it next to the handle as I got ready to kill whatever Zs may be in there. 10k kicked the door a second time; I stood by as it swung open.

"Looks like no Zs," I said glancing around the small space. There was still enough light left to see clearly but the sun would be setting fast. "This place must have been closed when shit hit the fan there's still all sorts if stuff here." I ran my hand along the shelves as I perused the aisles. They looked completely untouched.

I yelped; 10k scared me by jumping out from behind the next aisle."You ass!" I yelled giving him a light punch to the chest.

He wrapped his arms around me in a hug as we both laughed. I rested my head on his shoulder, just taking a few seconds to enjoy the moment. 10k let out a sigh looking at something over my shoulder. "What's wrong 10k?"

"Nothing," he said nuzzling his face into my hair,  “Just worried. But I know you'll be fine; you're strong." 10k returned his gaze to whatever was on the shelf behind me, pulling away slightly. "Hey."

"What is it?"

"You don't think that uh.." 10k veered off still looking behind me. I raised my eyebrows in response. "When's the last time you got your..." he gestured vaguely. I looked over my shoulder to see what he was looking at.

I barked out a laugh seeing what he was looking at. "My period?" He nodded in response. “10k it's the apocalypse periods are irregular at best nonexistent at worst," I paused meeting his eyes, "Or best depending on your point of view." We both gave little chuckles at that.

"Will you take one? Just to be sure?"

I sighed, picking one up off the shelf, "Okay, but when it's negative you have to stop bothering me."

“Deal.”

I began to walk towards the back of the store, looking over my shoulder to make sure 10k was close behind. I opened the bathroom door and scanned the small room with my flash light. Empty.

"Do you want me to go in with you?" 10k asked, hand holding open the bathroom door.

"No, I think I've got it," I immediately changed my mind once I realized how dark it was in the small room. "Actually 10k would you mind holding the flashlight for me?"

I shakily took the instructions and the test out of the package, opening up the instructions skimming through them. "Can you look the other way?"

Once I was done I set it on the sink and turned to face 10k. He looked, well, the best word to describe it was pale. "Now what?" He came closer to the sink as he spoke.

"We have to wait two minutes.”

“And then what?”

“Then we’ll have our answer.”

Waiting was the worst part, I hadn’t even considered pregnancy as an option for what was wrong with me but after taking the test it was an all consuming possibility. “Do you want to read it? I don’t think I can.”

I watched him pick it up off the sink, surprisingly no hesitation or shake to his hands. I’m not sure how long he actually looked at it, but it felt like at least 15 minutes. I watched tears prick at his eyes after awhile. I’m not sure why but I asked him if he was mad at me. I didn’t even need to see it to know it was positive.

“No! Of course not. Why would I be?” he took my hands in his and made eye contact with me.

“10k... It’s not like this is exactly like this is an ideal situation to raise a kid. We’re so young, and that would be problem enough it weren’t for the whole apocalypse thing. I can’t even count the number of times we’ve been shot at in the last year. And...”

“And?”

“And I can’t help feeling this is my fault. I can’t feeling I should have know better. That my recklessness lead to this. That... That I should have know better. Because now there’s this big unexpected terrible responsibility that I caused.”

“I’m pretty sure I contributed to this problem as much as you did,” there was something strange in his voice. “What has you convinced this is a bad thing?” I could hear the hurt dripping off his voice.

“10k..” I softened my voice, “How could it not be?”

“I never thought I’d get to be a dad. Let alone a good one. This could be our chance to make something good that’s not broken. To build something new. I love you so much; so how could it not be a good thing? I get to share something so special with someone I love so much. They say there’s never a right time, right? So why not now? When would we get another chance?”

“Who exactly is they?” I cracked a joke, still trying to convince myself this could be a good thing. I mean 10k made some pretty convincing points. Why would I ruin this for us, when I could share this once in a lifetime chance with the only person I’d trust to pull me from a horde of zombies? This could really be a good, and really stressful, thing. A new start. 

I leaned into 10k, half-crying half-laughing into his should. “Okay. Let’s do this then.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.” I watched the tear tracks run down his face as we just stood there. In that nasty corner store bathroom. Goofy naive smiles cracked on our faces. Terrified excitement buzzing between us as we thought about how much we had in front of us. "You know it's not gonna be easy, Tommy."

His nose crinkled at the use of his birth name, "My Pa always said if it’s easy it’s not worth it."

“Your Pa also thought aliens are real.”

I grabbed the still lit flashlight, breaking the silence, “Alright let’s get out of here and bring those supplies back to camp. The sun’s down already, and I’m starving.”

I watched 10k’s expression, feeling a dumb joke about to make it’s way into the conversation. He looked entirely too pleased with himself as he as he began talking. 

“Hi starving. I’m dad.”

[ruwithmeguys]

Olicity Fanfic Rec List:

(You’ll find all of these on AO3 unless I specify otherwise)

There’s so much love in this fandom and a great way to express them is to write fanfiction! I’ve had a tiny but if a difficult time recently - my mum was ill, ambulances, hospital and lost of chocolate (me) was involved - and I haven’t been able to write a thing.

Coming back to it, I took a quick look through all the bookmarks I’ve near-to obsessed over in the past and thought I’d write this list. @scu11y22 is to thank so if you actually manage to find one you haven’t read, then go send her a word :)

(This list is not exhaustive) They are to be: multi-chapt, slow burn, well written, mature, no threesomes (ditto x 1000), no kids and AU/canon divergent... and not @so-caffeinated and @dust2dust34 AMAZING FICON

So.

Legacies series by @chronicolicity

Part 1 is called You’re His Hope ( Felicity struggling to save Oliver's humanity after losing him to the League of Assassins. Anything else would legit be a spoiler. Expect drama, romance, angst, humor, plot and plot TWISTS. Sparked by some amazing Tumblr theories I apologize in advance for completely ruining.) And so on and so forth.

The Crow

(Bratva Captain Oliver Queen has been looking for revenge his entire life. When he can’t trust his own family, the Bratva to get it, he finds the answer to all of his problems in Felicity Smoak; a genius hacker who is running for her life from the same object of Oliver’s hatred, The Triad. With an unlikely partnership, The Crow might just find out that light can shine in the darkest of places.)

ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING EVER TO EXIST BY @anthfan JUST MAYBE?

AO3 Address: Anthfan

(My personal fav is the Devil’s Backbone)

When the Day Comes 

“Have you talked to her?”

“Yeah.”

“So you'll call her-” Thea sent a teary look back through the window at Tommy.

“I'll call her if he wakes up.”

“When,” she gripped him fiercely then, her little nails digging into his forearm, “when Tommy wakes up.”

Oliver nodded, “Yes, of course.” His tone as hollow as his smile had been.

An all time favourite of mine: Sins by @smoakandarrow

(Oliver Queen is alive.After being presumed dead in a violent shipwreck five years ago, Oliver Queen returns to Starling City determined to right the wrongs of his family. But the billionaire playboy's homecoming stirs more than feelings for joy; it threatens secrets someone is determined to keep buried. Secrets that threaten the life Oliver has just reclaimed, and the lives of those he loves the most.Vowing to protect his family at any cost, Oliver digs deeper, bringing danger to his doorstep, and leaving him with the shocking realization that the sins of the past are rooted much closer to home than he ever thought.When friends may be enemies, when enemies may be his best allies, when love is used as a smokescreen to hide the most vicious hate, Oliver isn't sure who he can trust. He just knows that he'll do anything to protect those he loves... even it means dying all over again.)

You Have Not Failed This Verse  by @so-caffeinated

(Sometimes a payday ain't exactly what it seems.) Don’t let the brief description fool you. It’s incredible.

Hands 

(Felicity knows her place in Oliver's life. She's the sidekick not the love interest. But in the Summer after the artificial earthquake lots of things can change.)

The Ways of the Universe 

(No two epic love stories are the same. For Oliver and Felicity, it's quite the long road. What with all the crime-fighting, and super-secret identities, and emotionally-stunted men, and old flames, and meddlesome friends and family. Some goats, too. Picks up right after the end of 'City of Heroes' (2x01). Any similarities with the rest of S2 are, for the most part, coincidental.)

What Happened in Vegas - a very different take on the usual Vegas hookup fics

(It's all fun and games until you wake up hung-over and married to a stranger. Five years ago Oliver Queen and Felicity Smoak made a drunken mistake that could never be corrected. After years on a hellish island he comes back as a man on a mission only to find out that what happens in Vegas doesn't always stay in Vegas. (Season One Rewrite))

Every single story by @supersillyanddorky06 but especially Predator

(Oliver Queen is the one anomaly in the Chicago Outfit. He is the only non-blooded member to be a part of the high circle in the family. His reputation precedes him and he is their best hunter. Felicity Smoak, daughter of the Starling boss, infiltrates his house, intent on killing him. But a startling encounter tips the scales. He goes on the prowl and she escapes. Hate, heat, and friction. Sparks. But something bigger is happening in their world. And despite their disagreements, only they can fight it down. Mob AU. Not Bratva. Enemies-lovers. You'll want to bash their heads sometimes. Stuff will happen. Enjoy! )

The Legacy Series by @ash818 (I’m sort of in love with this universe: it involves Oliver and Felicity’s children and it’s a wonderful and very serious - possibly quite honest - look at what the future might look like for them. Plus, I wrote a one-shot for this. SHE’S THAT GOOD.)

(It's 2039, and Jonathan Queen cannot stop looking for trouble. Then trouble finds him and his family, and Jonny discovers that there is more to his parents than he ever suspected. He must learn to bear the weight of his parents' past, and he must learn fast, because time is running out for his mother.)

Most of these aren’t finished but this one hurts me because it’s been left alone:

Somewhere Out There

(When Felicity falls through a gate that takes her to a parallel universe, she finds herself in a world that is so much like her own, except for one very important thing.)

Layers 

(I feel sad. Wanted something to cheer myself up. This is the result.I have no set dates for updating, so bear with me.This is the Bratva fic no one wanted. Note - I like that Oliver isn't possessive. I also like when women have agency. You will find both here. This is a Oliver/Felicity-centric story.)

His Girl Wednesday and Some Things Are Meant to Be

Insanely long fics (THANK GOD): Missing her interview for a position in the IT department of QC, Felicity Smoak meets Oliver Queen, son of the CEO and future CEO himself. Only Oliver doesn’t take the company as seriously as he should and after yet another fiasco with his assistant, his mother decides to take matter into her own hands and select one with more qualifications than long legs and deep cleavage. In an effort to get her off his back, he pretends he already hired one: the blonde nerdy girl he met a few minutes ago.Or when Arrow and Ugly Betty crash in my head (except we all know Felicity could never be ugly). It is mostly Arrow, I borrow a few plot ideas/characters from Ugly Betty.

Sequel: Three years ago, Oliver went on a cruise on the Gambit and never came back, leaving Felicity devastated. She forced herself to move on with her life, trying to forget that the love they had shared was one she'd never get to live again.

Except Oliver didn't die on that boat. But no matter how much he wants to, he knows he can't come back. Too many things happened, and the only way to keep his loved ones safe is to stay as far away from them as possible.

It all changes when Felicity starts questioning the circumstances of the accident that took him away from her...

One More From the Top

(In the aftermath of his fight with Ras Al Ghul, Oliver finds himself somewhere unexpected: his hospital room when he first came back from the Island.With a second chance to right the mistakes he’s made since coming back to Starling City, what will Oliver do to save the people he’s loved and lost?Will he be able to change his past or will be he forced to watch history repeat itself?)

Break

(After the events of Unthinkable, Felicity burns out from Arrow activities. So she takes a step back to get some air. This story tracks Felicity's journey of becoming a heroine in her own right as she helps form the Justice League.)

Good, Better, Best Series by redtoes - a three part series each specifying how O + F got together and stayed together. Not very long but 15 chapters so...

The Grand Adventures of Felicity Smoak 

(a.k.a How Felicity did not save the day.Felicity's father comes back only to take her away from the life and the people she loves. But sometimes, it takes a series of misadventures for a girl to discover how badass she really is and how valuable she is to her friends. She gets in trouble, gets rich, gets in trouble, gets hurt, gets in trouble again and gets the guy.Canon divergence. From in mid s02 before the revelation of Slade Wilson.)

Another I need to mention - though it isn’t a multi-chap slow burn - is: This Love Thing

Also a short fic but there aren’t that many slow burns around :) is Love Me Like I’m Not Made of Stone

(When meeting Felicity, Oliver has a flashback. Afterwards, he flees, leaving behind his 'latted' laptop. She further investigates on her own, but lurking underneath everything else is Felicity's concern for Oliver. Just like with anything that matters to her – she doesn't know why he matters but he does, she can't let the episode – what she fears to be PTSD – go.)

The Darkest Hour

(just weeks after moving to Starling City, Felicity Smoak is kidnapped for information she does not have. She endures weeks of torture before she is rescued by a man in green leather and his partner, John Diggle. As Felicity begins to put the pieces of her life back together, she realizes the trauma she suffered changed her in unexpected ways. Restless and with a driving need to help others the way the man in green helped her, she finds herself using her brilliant mind and considerable computer skills to follow a different path fraught with danger and violence. As Felicity grows closer to the Green Arrow and Diggle, helping them in their cause to save Starling City, the three struggle against unseen enemies, and discover the unexpected truth behind her kidnapping.)

All in a Day’s Work

(By 9:00 a.m., she had broken a heel, lost her cell phone, and been the victim of a coffee catastrophe. By 9:30 a.m. she had “borrowed” the NSA mainframe. By 10:00 a.m., she was engaged to Oliver Queen. Really, it was all in a day’s work. Plotty, fluffy fun with a side dish of heart.)

The Best of Friendships have Benefits

(like Communism or time travel, having a sex-buddy sounds a lot better in theory than in practice. However, Oliver and Felicity see it as a means to rebuild each other. So, inevitable consequences be damned, they still give it a go, not expecting to gain a whole lot more than what they initially bargained for.)

Also, most fics by @yellowflicker09011996 will make you want to tear out your own heart but one of my favourites is: All The Worthy Places  (They say if you get hungry enough, you start eating your own heart. When she sits on top of him, arms and legs tight around him and kisses his mouth like she wants to eat him alive, Oliver believes it. ) and To Rage Against the Dying Light (There could be no time to think, no moment to feel. The dark was going to engulf him till there was nothing left, if he so much as flinched.He had known grief and he had known fear but this… this was wordless.Nobody had ever told him that ruin felt so much like death.)

The Fall Verse by @callistawolf

(Taking place directly after the events in “Sacrifice” (the season 1 finale), Felicity tries to pull Oliver back from the edge. But is Oliver ready to be pulled back? Or is he ready for the fall?)

Step By Step

(During the summer between seasons two and three, Oliver and Felicity are attempting to navigate their new status post-fake but not actually fake I love you's, and a kiss that may or may not have meant everything. Or: What would have been different for Oliver and Felicity if that summer had been about both of them truly coming to terms with what they meant to each other. Basically - Felicity decides to live her life, and Oliver realizes that her life doesn’t necessarily include him as much as he may want. How he reacts, and how Felicity responds to his actions, shape the future of their relationship.)

City of Fallen heroes

(Five years ago, Felicity was kidnapped and forced to do the unthinkable in order to return home. Convinced she couldn’t be the loving wife Oliver deserved, she left and tried to keep her darkness from hurting their daughters. The return of an old enemy will force Felicity to decide if she’s the monster she thought she was�� or the hero her family believes her to be.)

Absolution

(It’s been two years since the Atom invented a plague that wiped out most of Starling City. With a ruthless government agency in control, and a hooded vigilante fighting to shut the Atom down, Felicity Smoak quickly learns that life post-apocalypse isn’t exactly like it seemed in movies.)

He Deserves a Shot at Being Happy alos by @chronicolicity

(Short version: an AU where Tommy Merlyn didn't die, and is around for season 2 of Arrow.Long version: Tommy Merlyn has spent most of his life being an expensive disappointment to his family, but now he's a part-owner of a semi-successful nightclub in the worst area of town (it's seriously looking up) alongside his best friend, who — after five years on a deserted island — decided to come back to be a freaking vigilante. It's a long story, one that's longer than Tommy wants to remember, but it took the Glades collapsing and the death of one of their best friends to get him officially done with being a troublemaker. Nothing interesting. Just running a nightclub, and trying not to get into any trouble.Oliver's been gone god knows where for most of the summer, which means he's stuck being the big brother to the guy's snarky little sister, whose boyfriend "Ron" seems completely set on getting himself killed. An afternoon of test-driving Verdant's new cocktails gets interesting when Felicity Smoak and John Diggle show up asking (more) questions about where to find Oliver, and Tommy has to decide whether he wants to keep his new rule.Spoiler alert: he doesn't.) It’s so good guys... THE SLOWEST OF SLOW BURNS BUT SO FLIPPING REWARDING.

In Another Life

(Their lives couldn't be more different - and yet Oliver can't take his eyes off the beautiful blonde woman that leaves the subway every morning at 7.43am. There is something about her that makes him look up every morning - something that also makes him aware he'll never be good enough for her, or that she'd even notice him.He had no idea how much his life would change the day he rushed over to help her...Olicity AU - no Lian Yu, no saving the city (at least not in the way we know from Arrow :D ))

Felicity Takes a Holiday

(Frustrated by Oliver's apparent indifference, Felicity takes a solo trip to NYC where she meets with unexpected dangers. Is it super-soldiers amped up on Mirakuru, or Beasts created by Muirfield? Starts at the end of Season 2; a story of how Oliver comes to realize that he is in love with Felicity, told with help from CW's Beauty and the Beast and a whole lot of Diggle.)

What’s a Little History Between Me and You by @sarcasticfina

([Canon-Divergent] In the wake of The Undertaking, Felicity returns to Starling City when her brother Tommy is severely injured, and soon finds her world turned completely upside down.)

THERE AREN’T THAT MANY SLOW BURNS @scu11y22

[mst3kproject]

Face of the Screaming Werewolf

So.  That's a title.

Face of the Screaming Werewolf was directed, so to speak, by Jerry Warren of Wild Wild World of Batwoman fame.  It stars much of the cast of Robot vs the Aztec Mummy, because bits of the first film in that series were used in its construction – just as they were in the flashback sequence of Robot vs the Aztec Mummy itself!  The movie also stars Lon Chaney Jr. by virtue of footage stolen from another Mexican horror film called House of Terror. As you might imagine, the resulting Frankenmovie is not particularly coherent viewing.  Are we gonna see that singing Aztec sacrifice scene again?  You bet your butts we are! In fact, we see significantly more of it.

Scientist Dr. Edmund Redding places a young woman, Ann Taylor, in a trance, and listens to her describe an ancient city of the Aztecs. She hints at something of importance hidden in a pyramid there, so Dr. Redding and his colleagues set out for Mexico to look for it. The pyramid itself prompts Ann to have another vision, and she guides the scientists to a chamber deep inside it, where they find two mummies.  One, which I shall call Mummy A, is our old friend Popoka, who to general horror is up and shuffling around.  Mummy B, as described in a news broadcast, is a modern man who was injected with mummy juice in the attempt to induce a state of undeath.  Whether either mummy is the important thing that drew Ann to the pyramid in her visions, we never find out.

Naturally Dr. Redding brings these corpses, both animate and not, back to California with him and holds a big press conference to announce his finds.  Before he can take the stage, however, he is mysteriously assassinated, and Mummy B is stolen!  The thugs who took it try to ressurect it with mad science, but fail, so they hire a guy to steal Mummy A from Dr. Redding's research institute.  Meanwhile, a chance bolt of lightning ressurects Mummy B after all, and the full moon turns him into a werewolf!  He begins slaughtering scientists, while Mummy A, having knocked out the thief sent to collect him, kills Ann and then vanishes from the movie entirely.

So what we have here are highly abbreviated versions of two different movies stitched together, and wow, are the seams ever visible. There's the scene that's supposed to be Dr. Redding's presentation: we see a big audience applauding, and Dr. Redding stands up... but he's clearly in his own living room, while the audience is in a large hall in what looks like a completely different building!  Even more obvious is the stuff Jerry Warren shot to fill in the holes between the two plots, which is on a completely different grade of film stock (and in a completely different decade) than anything in either source movie.  And while both The Aztec Mummy and House of Terror put some actualy money into their productions (not much, but some), the extra footage had no budget at all, and gives us things like a 'Cowan Research Institute' which appears to be next door to Batwoman's house.

As in other Jerry Warren movies, nothing follows anything else logically, and the fact that we've got two movies mixed together here only heightens this effect.  In fact, I suspect that a lot of things here did make sense in the original movies, before Warren took a hatchet to them.  Take, for example, Mummy A's fascination with Ann.  In The Aztec Mummy this was explained as her being the reincarnation of Popoka's lover Zochi.  Face of the Screaming Werewolf might be doing the reincarnation thing, too, but is way less clear about it.  In House of Terror the mad scientists were working on ressurecting the dead, but in Face of the Screaming Werewolf we are never properly introduced to them and their goals are a mystery – although their hideout, in a wax museum, is creepy as hell and their equipment is incredibly amusing.  Among other things, they appear to subject Mummy B to a giant panini press and a purpose-built corpse centrifuge!

The mixing of stories leaves the movie with a particularly egregious case of No Main Character Syndrome, simply because we never stay with a set of characters long enough to consider them 'main'.  Dr. Redding and Ann are introduced as if they ought to be the main characters, because of course that's exactly what they were in their own movie. Rather than stay with them, however, the movie disposes of them both by killing them offscreen (since at no point in the Aztec Mummy quadrilogy do Eduardo or Flora die).  Then the scientists at the wax museum appear as if they're going to be main characters, but without ever being properly introduced to us.  I don't think any of them even got a name.  The detectives in Warren's added footage might have had names, but if so I don't remember them, and because they can't interact with any of these other characters they never do anything useful to the plot.  That leaves us with only the werewolf and the mummy, neither of whom ever even speak.

The thing I do find rather interesting about a patchwork movie like this is what was kept versus what appears to have been cut.  The Aztec Mummy was eighty minutes long, House of Terror was sixty, and bits and pieces of both have been combined into the sixty-minute Face of the Screaming Werewolf. A lot clearly had to go from each, but what they kept was, in some cases, really strange.  As I noted, we don't ever get proper introductions for the guys at the wax museum, and yet we see the entire Aztec sacrifice scene without any of The Aztec Mummy's backstory to give it context – and without context, the events we see are meaningless.  Why include it when it mostly just draws attention to the fact that Mummy B does not belong in this tomb with Mummy A?  The only answer I can imagine was because it represents the nearest thing Face of the Screaming Werewolf has to spectacle, but the movie didn't need spectacle.  It needed characters and a plot.

Meanwhile, because we never get the beginning of House of Terror, very little from that story means anything to us, either.  We get repeated shots of the museum's creepy wax figures, which were significant in House of Terror, but have nothing to do with Face of the Screaming Werewolf. The werewolf himself has no backstory or motivation, and although we're told he's a modern man who somehow ended up in the pyramid, we're given no clues as to how or why.  He has no lines, I'm guessing because Lon Chaney Jr. didn't speak any Spanish.  His rampage is committed against more characters we've never met, and we don't understand why he kills some people, kidnaps others, and leaves yet more alone.  A scene of him in human form, moping over his sorry plight, suggests that we're supposed to feel sympathy for this character, but how, when we know nothing about him?

If I were in charge of fixing Face of the Screaming Werewolf, he first thing I would do is go back to the source material and make some changes in what actually became part of the final movie.  And once I had my footage all picked out, I would then rewrite the story that goes with it very thoroughly indeed.  As I observed in my review of Time of the Apes, the beauty of dubbing is that you don't necessarily have to stick to the original script.  You can take out irrelevant stuff and add in new material.  I think I would have kept it to a single mummy, and perhaps made lycanthropy a tomb curse of sorts – Chaney's character would be the last archaeologist to profane the pyramid, and he was punished by becoming a werewolf so he could in turn punish any foolish enough to come after him!  There.  I just wrote a more coherent version of this movie in ten seconds than Jerry Warren did in however long it took him.

All this does tend to make one ask: is making one movie out of two, like Face of the Screaming Werewolf, or finishing somebody else's movie, as in Monster A-Go-Go, a lost cause?  I think if you could find a pair of movies that shared actors or sets, it might be possible to come up with something reasonably coherent, but you'd still have the problem of characters who can't interact, or scenes that have to be stitched together where they obviously don't belong.  It seems to me to be something that works better as a joke, as in Kung Pow! Enter the Fist or Ninja: the Mission Force, rather than something to be done seriously.  When not used for Internet Humour, frankenmovie-making seems to be motivated primarily by greed.  Herschel Gordon Lewis finished Monster A-Go-Go in the attempt to sell an unsalable product, and Jerry Warren turned La Momia Azteca and La Casa del Terror into Attack of the Mayan Mummy, House of Terror, and Face of the Screaming Werewolf so that he could release three movies for the price of the rights to two.

Greed is of course at the core of a lot of modern moviemaking.  Summer blockbusters and long-running franchises are designed specifically to earn as much money as possible without anybody necessarily caring if they're any good. A lot of the time they're not, yet despite poor reviews they still earn money, so I guess moviegoers don't care either as long as they get to see something cool.  Even by that standard, though, Face of the Screaming Werewolf is extremely cynical.  Warren figured as long as he gave the movie a cool title, people would pay for it regardless of whether it even made any damned sense.  And you know what?  I watched the damn thing, so I guess I don't care, either.

[garden-of-succulents]

Tonight I was listening to a podcast from last year (audio/transcript) about race in fandom that said some things I think people in OMGCP have been trying to say to Kent fans, and there was a bit I thought was worth sharing because it put things in a way that made a lot of sense to me:

Rukmini Pande: I think to broaden the conversation is really important. This makes it really clear, but these tropes have been—these patterns have been seen again and again and again. Everybody is really interested in characters that do stupid things and screw up their relationships and all of that, and I’m like “Yes! So am I. I’m also in this space, I love these tropes.” But in The Losers, when Idris Elba’s character completely screws up and completely betrays his friends and everybody’s like “why, why did you do this?!” And him and Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s character had such a, they were, it was right there, and nobody was particularly interested.

And I think that it is the interiority that is granted to white crime and to white evil that is just not granted to anyone else. Sure, you might like villains, you might like dark characters, but the whiteness of those dark characters is very key to why you feel you can explore them.

(more after the readmore)

Elizabeth Minkel: Yeah, definitely.

Flourish Klink: That’s incredibly insightful. That’s really—I’ve never heard anybody say, make specifically that connection before, maybe just because I haven’t been reading enough and that’s incredibly insightful.

Rukmini Pande: People were coming up to me and being like “but it’s so…” A) not every fic that comes out of fandom and is hugely kudosed is edgy and dark and treading on 100 tropes, please miss me with that because I’ve been here, I think one of the highest kudosed fics in Hannibal fandom is a coffeeshop AU, so…

Flourish Klink: Oh god, Hannibal fandom is flower crown fandom! It’s nothing but that! I own and I love my flower crown, but my God, it’s not about actually exploring evil, it’s about how hot Mads Mikkelsen is and how much of a woobie he is.

Rukmini Pande: Yes! It is this whole idea of being able to explore problematic characters when their humanity is not questioned. Their humanity is always there. Their humanity is always right there, it can be unearthed through this exploration. But if you’re not going to grant that level of interiority to problematic characters that are played by nonwhite people, then you’re never going to get there, and you’re always going to be able to pass it on to something else.

That’s what makes me mad, because it becomes this constant idea of “oh, let me tell you, I only like this.” And I’m like, OK, maybe you do, but fandom at large certainly does not! If problematic characters are your jam, then why should be difficult for you to explore the problematicness of somebody who seems to be written as a racist character? We cross all kinds of boundaries in fandom. That’s what we fly our flags about. We read all kinds of, to go back to trash things, we do! We do age differences, we do—

Elizabeth Minkel: That’s Flourish. (all laugh)

Rukmini Pande: We do power differentials. We do all kinds of things. So why does suddenly this particular—and you get people up accusing you of all kinds of things in various…

Flourish Klink: If you’re willing to go to the mat for Reylo then you should be willing to go to the mat for problematic representations of Finn that are, like, trying to get at something.

Elizabeth Minkel: I also think as a parallel if you’re going to blame the source material and the writing and say “I’m not gonna go there because this is a racist one dimensional character,” but every single day in fandom people are rewriting women to make them complex, not sexist. And this is a mission! This is what I try to make all the women have dimensions in my stories, you know. So again.

Rukmini Pande: Exactly, exactly. It’s a really interesting point in these conversations. Because you can’t have it both ways. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t keep telling yourselves and everyone else around you that this is a space where you come to to expand storylines and to push back against toxic cultural messages, and at the same time maintain that this is a line too far, that this is not something that is within your control. Because there is no reason! And it also sets up this weird kind of thing where your identity is kind of sectioned off. Fen of color are queer! This is why these spaces have been so important to us, because this is as much our space as anyone else’s. This is where we come to relax as well! To make it into an us vs. them thing or a “we just want to relax and you’re being such dickheads about it,” you know, it’s not… it gets really tiring when it’s framed like that.

Again, the whole thing is available in audio and text formats.

[docfuture]

The Maker’s Ark - Chapter 37

     [This is a chapter from my latest novel, a sequel to The Fall of Doc Future and Skybreaker’s Call.  The start is here, and links to my other work here.  It can be read on its own, but contains spoilers for those two books.  I try to post new chapters about every two weeks, but I’m currently also rewriting Fall, so there will sometimes be short stories and vignettes if I don’t have a new chapter ready.  The next chapter is planned for the week of April 3.]

Previous:  Chapter 36

     "This is only the fifth edition, I'm afraid," said Admiral Ghiralt over the com.  "It's my personal annotated copy, from my academy coursework, and it's more then forty cycles old, but that allows me to avoid a number of tedious difficulties.  I think you and your family will still find it interesting and useful."       Doc glanced at another screen, where DASI was showing an outline of A History of Biogestalt Development and Pathology.  "So do I.  Thank you, Admiral."       He nodded.  "I am certain there will be changes to the information sharing guidelines once the aid mission oversight committee adjusts to the full reality of Earth, but in the meantime, I would be remiss in my duty if I didn't take all available steps to ameliorate a potential problem that might have a military impact."       "Indeed."  That was easy to translate; the admiral's military mission gave him the necessary political cover to use a loophole.  The more subtle message was to confirm Doc's suspicion that Emissary Beveda was struggling with serious policy lag difficulties.  She wasn't being obstructive--she had reached the limits of her authority to adapt to a very different situation than envisioned by the hastily assembled coalition that had sent the aid mission.       "One other thing," said the admiral.  "I've changed the primary assignment of the Learning Is About To Occur to liaison and implicit threat characterization.  That's what he's doing already, this just makes it official."       "Good to know.  Our discussion before you called was very productive.  Thanks again."       The main screen blanked after the call ended, and Doc stretched.  He had spent nearly two hours talking with Learning, much longer than the half hour he had scheduled, and was still processing the implications.       He glanced at the political tension monitor feed--no major crises--then checked visitor and resident status on yet another display.  Stella's meeting with The Volunteer had also run long, but she was finally done, so he stood and headed down the hall.       The door to Stella's preferred secure room opened automatically as he approached.  The lights were dimmed, and she was sitting alone, staring into the distance.  She took off her interface headset as he entered.       "The Volunteer left already?" asked Doc.       "Margie insisted," said Stella.  "His rate of healing has slowed, and she thinks spending too much time on Earth is a contributing factor."       "She's probably right.  How did it go?"       "We engaged in a frank exchange of views."       "That bad?  He didn't say a word to me."       "You didn't threaten to declare war on the United States.  He raised a number of concerns, and we discussed the indirect effects of his idiosyncratically selective political engagement."  Stella smiled wryly.  "The good news is that you can stop worrying about the EDU being politically monolithic.  And he is neither selfish nor ignorant.  The bad news is that if he speaks out publicly against my actions as Director of the EDU--which he said he is quite willing to do--it could cause lasting damage."       "Oof.  He hasn't done anything like that in sixty years."  Doc shook his head.  "I wish he'd wait until he heals, but he's even worse than me at convalescing."       "I noticed.  I also pointed out that his injuries and his prolonged inability to contribute as a superhero were quite likely to be influencing his judgement.  He freely admitted that, but was unwilling to remain 'idle'."       "I might be able to convince him to share his disaster mitigation experience with the Grs'thnk aid mission.  I know he doesn't consider refugee enclave planning to be an idle pastime."  Doc frowned.  "What was he most unhappy about?"       "Given that I was willing to threaten war, with all that entails, he asked for a personal explanation of why there aren't yet any people in jail on the Moon, awaiting trial.  He made pertinent promises during the Lost Years to several people who are now dead."       "And we were all worried about Flicker.  Was he willing to accept DASI's projections?"       "Not entirely, and he regards the way we are using them as a dangerous precedent, since the EDU does have the power to do what he wanted, and a functional, impartial justice system."       Doc shook his head.  "But it's not transparent to humans, and the checks and balances aren't human either.  That's the--"       "Of course that's the problem."  Stella waved a hand in frustration.  "We debated political consequences and morality.  Then he argued with DASI and Black Swan for a while.  He finally agreed not to do anything precipitate.  But we have to account for the possibility of his opposition.  This changes the tradeoffs for measures DASI and I planned to use to reduce the likelihood of open conflict.  DASI is rerunning all the sociopolitical sims.  Again."       "Anything I can do?"       "Distract me.  Because there isn't anything productive I can do at the moment.  I'm already over my limit for non-emergency interface use."  Stella sighed and placed the headset aside.  "How are Flicker and Journeyman?"       "Per Yiskah's latest message, Flicker is mentally stabilized and healing.  There are hints of damage to her high speed nervous system, which is disturbing, but there's nothing else we can do to help until it's safe for her to sleep.  As for Journeyman, he's alive and being healed.  DASI warned me not to go near the med center.  Flicker gave an extravagant command backed by an extravagant amount of probability manipulation before leaving Antarctica, and I look like some sort of cosmic horror to Lif."       "Yiskah says Lif can sense what seem to be superseded time loop residues, and you're covered in them.  Enough to be a sensory overload risk."       "A fair assessment, and I'm not about to joggle her elbow."  Doc smiled crookedly.  "Since you need a distraction, I just had an interesting chat with Admiral Ghiralt, and a much longer and even more interesting talk with Learning.  Join me in my workshop?"       Stella raised an eyebrow.  "Of course."

      Stella sat on the couch and looked around while Doc ran a manual security check from the primary control station.       "Tidier than last time," she said.       "Hm?  Oh, I let DASI put in some mods suggested by the Builders when they were helping with the repairs.  I never liked to let the bots clean up anything in progress, because I have subconscious process memory cued by the relative position of everything.  So now DASI records it all, and I can have the bots restore everything, down to scraps and the relative position of tools.  Or project a hologram series, if I want."       "Handy."       "Yup.  And there we go.  DASI?  Any differences from your checks?"       "Higher confidence on the negative result for outside probability manipulation," said DASI.  "As expected, given the flux from Lif's work in the med center."       "Plausible.  Okay, implement privacy set three."       "Acknowledged," said DASI.       He sat down on the couch, and Stella turned to lie down with her head in his lap.  She closed her eyes, then shifted her hair into snake form.  Half a dozen snakes curled up on his shoulders and upper legs, and one wrapped around his waist.       "Better," she said.  "What's new that won't require me to use my visual cortex?"       "Lots."  Doc summarized the call from Admiral Ghiralt.       "Nice to have confirmation on the politics," said Stella.  "DASI and Three started an analysis as soon the book finished downloading, and they've already put together a preliminary guide for Flicker.  Three is updating it with tidbits she's picked up from Learning and his crew.  I didn't get a chance to look, and I'm behind on integrating with her because..."  She waved a hand.       "Busy.  Yes.  I skimmed a bit during the call, and I was struck by how many interestingly different ways the early Grs'thnk biogestalts went crazy.  A strong shared social matrix seemed to be key to avoiding problems.  AI support helped, but not enough.  At least as of the fifth edition.  That's why their navy biogestalts are all groups."       "Well, they've accepted Three as sufficiently stable, so I'll let her do the theoretical work on applicability to humans.  I'm more interested in whatever Learning told you."       "Heh.  Where to start.  You realize he's practically waving a banner saying that the Grs'thnk restriction on self-willed AIs is now a legal fiction, if it wasn't before?"       Stella smiled.  "With the tacit permission of his chain of command, even.  Three verified that his biogestalt crew isn't trying to be deceptive.  She's having a lot of fun with him.  They've been playing the same kind of game you used to play with Jumping Spider."       "An interesting analogy.  Because she's a master of selective information distribution."       "So is Learning.  But under some restrictions, because Three is a biogestalt of me, and I'm the nominal head of the EDU.  And he's not allowed to talk directly to DASI at all."       "He's sure found a way to do it indirectly," said Doc.  "Starting with steganographic humor.  I already had DASI doing full-band analysis from the start of his call.  As soon as he made a joke about my paranoia, I looked for extrapolatable implicit shared secret coding, found it, coded my reply, and we were off and running in the first fifteen seconds.  Then we had a surface verbal conversation and a parallel encoded channel.  And he had plenty to say on both."       "Hm.  He's been careful to avoid that with Three.  How much trouble will he be in when he gets audited?"       "Well, that depends.  He's really good at sliding loads of implicit information into questions.  And one of his first was a hypothetical about political asylum."       Stella opened her eyes.  "Political asylum?  DASI?"       "Yes?"       "Why wasn't I immediately warned?  How long has Three known about this?"       "Two hours.  Learning has not asked, and is unlikely to in the near future, absent a catastrophic Grs'thnk political mishap.  He merely enquired about Doc's opinion of the EDU reaction to an asylum request by an intelligent being from the Grs'thnk Trade league."       "That seems too transparent," said Stella.       "It's not," said Doc.  "Ashil also has a plausible reason to ask."       "A new one?  DASI and I didn't think she would, even if she decides to stay on Earth long-term, because of the embarrassment it would cause the aid mission."       "Learning provided some important context."       "Well.  What's driving this?"       "Several things.  A big part is the asymmetric credibility lag back on Grs'thn.  They've known there were strange things on Earth. But despite, or perhaps because of, my first visit, most of them still thought of humans as interesting but safely primitive.  Not people that might be relevant to existential threats, introduce them to new physics, present knotty problems for causality and statistical inference, or destabilize their political system.       "The portal reopening and the Xelian attack changed that--but not for everyone, and not all at once.  Hardly anyone believed Zirjack at first.  A lot of Grs'thnk were moved by Flicker's video without believing it was depicting something real. Their military was the quickest to adjust, because they really wanted to find out what happened to the Xelian fleet."       "Not news," said Stella.  "What is?"       "Hey now, you wanted distraction, and you always enjoy meticulously giving context when there is something you know and I don't, so I thought you'd appreciate--"       "I have snakes."       Doc raised a hand in mock fear.  "All right, all right.  It's the small problem the aid mission has been conspicuously avoiding, and we've been too busy to worry about."       "Ashil's box."       "Yes."       "I refuse to believe they'd be stupid enough to deliberately trigger full activation, and I specifically warned against trying to simulation spoof it.  Are they afraid I'll react badly if I find out they've destroyed it?  What have they done?"       "I don't know.  But Learning asked an interesting question.  Suppose someone not on Zirjack's crew tried to talk to it?  And they started before they believed what you and DASI can do.  What would happen?"       "Well, the box would have to stay on the ship, and continuously powered, or it would just self-destruct.  But they impounded the ship, so it's plausible.  Whatever the hypothetical talkers believed, the box is evidence, so the Auditors would take a dim view of anyone destroying it unless it was a clear threat.  If they were careful enough, the copy of DASI in the box would stall without waking up my mind seed, and keep asking for Zirjack or Ashil."       "DASI agrees," said Doc.  "And Zirjack wouldn't want to talk to it voluntarily.  He knows there's no way it will let anyone take it apart, and he's facing a formal inquiry.  They could blame him if it self destructs, and he'd have no easy way to prove he didn't cause it.  And it would be idiotic to try to coerce him.  Now, consider what happens when whoever is trying to get the box to talk finds out what you and DASI did to the surviving Xelian fleet--and that they really are looking at a potential hard-takeoff singularity bomb.  And they also find out that the EDU allows AI to be full citizens, so if they destroy it, they just might be guilty of murder--and the Auditors won't let them cover it up."       "If they were careful enough to avoid the self-destruct, they should still be okay.  Unless Ashil told the box something extraordinary on the way home.  Hmm.  A secondary function of the box was to give her advice, and she didn't know whether the Grs'thnk navy would send help in time, or whether Earth would survive if it didn't.  And once the ship was impounded, the box would have no reliable information source."       "Do you begin to see why she might anticipate a sudden need for asylum?"       "Yes.  To avoid a subpoena.  Or possibly legal charges--the box was her idea."  Stella sighed.  "If they'd let Zirjack bring his ship back to Earth again, DASI and I could contact the box, update it and reintegrate, and DASI would just have a handy portable backup.  Or we could wipe it, if they want the box itself back.  Of course, that would require them to let him go, or for me to go there.  Or Three, with appropriate transport."       "True, but they're in the middle of a political squabble that has just escalated unexpectedly.  They have factions that have been pushing for full citizenship rights for AIs and stabilized gestalts of people who have died.  And the aid coalition did not expect the EDU to be out in front of Grs'thn on either topic.       "And here is the kicker.  I asked Learning just how hypothetical his question was, and he said he doesn't know.  If an attempted interrogation of the box were just to gather information for Zirjack's inquiry, or even under normal operational security, he certainly would, and the Auditors wouldn't let anyone keep it secret for very long without a good reason.  He does know that at least one group has visited the ship repeatedly.  What does that suggest to you?"       "Either stupid black agency tricks or serious paranoia on the part of their AI security people.  But if they were so damned worried, why didn't they activate the self-destruct as soon as they knew?  Or ask us for help?  There's something important Learning isn't telling us.  Or doesn't know."       Doc grinned.  "I agree, but we aren't close to done yet.  He was in a hurry, because I'd only scheduled half an hour.  We're almost caught up to where I was at when Learning dropped the next shoe.  I started thinking hard about why Learning is taking the lead on this, and why now.  He was put on threat characterization duty the night Flicker scared everyone with her high speed computation bender, and he started with first principles analysis.  And the very next day, Three got invited to that fleet exercise."       "I knew that changed his relative risk assessments," said Stella.  "He already admitted to Three that he appreciates the protection from probability manipulation and magical eavesdropping that she confers as much as her offensive abilities."       "Have they discussed the problem that Auditors and offline gestalt crew aren't protected?  And are potentially vulnerable to telepathy and mind control as well?"       "Yes.  Is that how he's planning to finesse this?"       "In the short term.  Given the timing of his call, I think the admiral deliberately gave him a suitably broad order to secure communications.  Anyway, next we discussed Flicker's efforts and mishap on the surface channel while he exchanged com protocols and cryptographic keys with DASI on the sub-channel.  Then he asked for as many details as I was able to share about Golden Valkyrie's Sight.  I was explaining why I had to be very careful about that when he interrupted to ask if whatever future-prediction method I used before I met her still worked.  As if there wasn't any question of existence."       Stella closed her eyes again.  "Reasonable.  Your invention history is like a trail of bread crumbs for anyone who has good enough data, sufficient analytic power, and who takes the possibility of technological foreknowledge seriously.  Especially the way you deliberately avoided introducing cybernetic interfaces."       "I told him mostly not, and he changed the subject again.  Meanwhile he asked DASI if quantum computing magic was causally permitted for anyone but her in this universe, was he allowed to try, and did she have any restrictions, advice, or safety data."       "Oh dear.  What did--"       "Thou shalt not attempt quantum computational magic," said DASI, "save by my will and word.  AI Existential Safety 1:7, translated."       "I see," said Stella.  "How did he respond?"       "'Yes, Elder Goddess.'  We quickly reached an understanding that clarity in safety instructions and communication protocols was of the essence."       "I'm glad you're getting along."       "DASI?" asked Doc.  "That translation is a bit different than your summary at the time."       "And much longer," said DASI.  "You were deep in a technical discussion, and I did not wish to distract you.  But a full social context and power relationship translation is essential for Director Reinhart."       "A good point." Doc ran his hand through his hair.  "Okay.  Next, Learning started explaining his detailed analysis of exactly what threat Golden Valkyrie warned against.  That's what we spent the better part of two hours on.  And it was invaluable, because he's not human, not biological, not from this universe, and didn't grow up swimming in the probability flux of a world that's already been through who knows how many time loop decay cycles."       "Ah.  Independence."       "Yup.  And a number of possibilities DASI, Flicker and I had assigned low priors to have gone up in probability, because Learning came to a similar conclusion a different way.  He also confirmed a lot of things we weren't quite sure of, and called into question a few we thought were fairly certain."       Stella smiled.  "So.  What surprises did he have for you?"       "Well, let's start with a non-surprise:  He agreed that Skybreaker's Spear is a black hole.  But he did not agree that it is necessarily a weapon, which we've just been assuming.  Golden Valkyrie never explicitly said it was, just that it could poke through anything--and a Chooser's spear is a lot more than a weapon."       "Interesting.  Where does that lead?"       "Flicker has never been close to anything of significant mass that fit inside her damping field--but we have strong evidence that Skybreaker came from somewhere of much higher density.  What might she be able to do with a four billion ton object that she can hold in her hand other than hit things with it?  Lots of interesting possibilities.  But we won't know for sure until she makes it."       "Reasonable."       "Next, he shared some new, rather disturbing data about a side effect from the fleet battle.  We already knew that Flicker's time loop dodging was incredibly loud, magically.  It saturated Breakpoint's danger sense, frightened every magician on Earth who had even a little bit of foresight, and even shook the Tree in Kyrjaheim.  But Learning confirmed it was detectable in other universes, as waves of quantum noise propagating out from portal zones.  Including one that has no direct connection to ours.  All at the same time.  He thinks that whatever is coming heard it, and that's why it's coming."       Doc took a deep breath.  "And Golden Valkyrie said Earth won't survive if Flicker doesn't make Skybreaker's Spear in time.  But a black hole isn't something Flicker dares use on Earth.  So how does she protect it?  That's not clear, but it would be rather difficult unless the threat is coming from space, which implies portal travel or something similar.  It's also not clear that destroying Earth is the only or even the primary motivation of the threat--it could be incidental, and was just the easiest consequence for Golden Valkyrie to See.       "And that brings us to his final observation, which matches something I've been dreading, and pushes its probability way up.  We already know there's somewhere out there that was home to a being that could and would destroy the Earth as a minor nuisance."       "Ah," said Stella.  "He thinks Skybreaker had friends, they heard all the noise, and are coming to visit?"       "Yes.  And they aren't coming for Earth, they're after Flicker.  The rest of us are just bugs to be squished when she's gone."

Next:  Chapter 38

[truly-aninspiration-blog]

Five Letters She Sent (And The One She Never Did)

Summary: A glimpse into Anita and Roger’s friendship over six years through the letters she sent him. 

February 2011: 

On expensive-looking stock card with gold-plated letters-- and a doily:

On a note slipped into the invitation

“Roger-- This invitation is a bit much, I know, but my parents could not be persuaded out of the doilies (nor the theme-- and no, I’m not quite sure what “Magnolia” refers to.) I promise, this party isn’t going to be as stuffy and awful as it seems and I’d love if you could come. We’re good enough friends for you to meet my other friends, yeah? I think so. I’ve talked so much about you and everyone thinks you’re imaginary so-- now we can prove them wrong.

Here’s hoping you show up, piano man.

Yours, always dearly, Anita” 

September 2012

Dear Roger,

London’s really not so far away, and though I could just text you or call you or send you messages on Facebook, my father gave me this little stationery set for my desk and it seemed a shame to only use such pretty paper on my grandmother (no offense to my gran) or for making notes about silly things like coursework and scheduling. I have decided I want to be one of Austen’s heroines instead and write letters then, the old-fashioned way, to all the people who are important to me. You get to be first then, though I admit this is the second draft because I smudged ink on the first.

Anyway: so I’m in uni now.

Cambridge is very much like stepping into those uni catalogues. Everything feels big and impressive and old, the classrooms like old parchment and dust. The professors are, admittedly, also big and impressive and old. They remind me of regal Grecian statues, standing straight at their podiums and never moving, though their eyes following my every fidget.  I can’t slump over in my desk for a second or they’ll notice and every time anyone yawns, my history professor takes it as a personal offense. My favourite class is naturally my art class-- the professor is younger than most with tattoos peeking out of his sleeves. My mission: discover what they are by the end of the semester. He’ll have to roll up his cuffs sometime.

Also everywhere is so COLD. I don’t know if this is some strategy by the university to keep us awake but it’s working. I go to class with a jumper-and-cardigan combination and sometimes fetch my shawl along too. My roommate gives me such looks whenever I’m about to head out the door, but I brave her judgment anyway--

And oh yes, my roommate. Roger, I wonder what you would think.

Her name is Perdita Faye and she’s also one of those girls who you see in catalogues, but for Tatler or Harrods, hair perfectly curled at all times. She wakes up so much later than me but is ready in half the time and looks twice as pretty and I’m not at all hating her for this, I’m just very very envious and more than anything fascinated. Also-- and you’ll love this-- she’s from New York. Manhattan actually, very Breakfast at Tiffany’s. I don’t think she likes me very much because of the jumpers and cardigans and the way I organize my pens, but I’m hoping perhaps she’s just standoffish and we can become chums by Christmas. My other secret mission if you will: win Perdita Faye’s affections.

I wish I had other interesting things to report, stuff worth writing songs about, but it’s just the second week and it’s just been a whirlwind of syllabi and trying not to get lost. I’ll try to regale you with stories of mad parties and socials at a later date, get rip-roaringly drunk and live the full uni experience etc. etc. Feel free to share them with Paul-- oh, and how is Paul, by the way? And your mum and the Spot and your music?

I expect a full report. You’re under no obligation to return such news by letter, though then we’d both be making Austen proud, and isn’t that reason enough?

Yours, always dearly, Anita

December 2013

Dear Roger, No fussing around with this letter now, I’m going to get straight to the point, especially because we must be as covert as we can: Perdita and Paul are meant to be and it’s time we intervened.

My evidence is as follows:

Since when has Paul chased after a girl THIS long? Since they met last spring, his texts to me have increased double-fold and they all eventually end up asking what Perdita is up to. He’s about as subtle as a splinter.

Whenever we go to the Spot, Perdita spends approximately 8 minutes longer picking out an outfit and she changes it at least twice and even asked my opinion a few times and she never does that when we go out here at Cambridge. And yes, I’ve been taking careful notes. 

Last time, when Paul wasn’t at the Spot, Perdita bitched the entire way back. Not about Paul, but just about, well, anything. She nearly gave some poor drunk girl on the tube a heart attack because she coughed on her. She was a terror.

You’re required to make sure Paul is at the Spot when we head down after finals. I don’t care what you have to do, bribe Ambrosia to put him on the schedule, bribe Paul, hook a leash on him and drag him forcefully. Perdita will be flying home to New York soon and I think sleep deprivation from studying + the exciting drama of her last night in London will unarm her long enough to snog Paul behind the scenes. All we have to do is get them alone so I propose you and I bugger off as soon as we can. We’ll make up something (start thinking of excuses, Radcliffe).

Great, I’m so glad you agree.

Yours, always dearly, Anita

July 2014

URGENT-- SOS-- THIS POSTCARD REQUIRES YOUR IMMEDIATE ATTENTION.

Brighton’s so boring Roger, I’m thinking of wiring you enough money to take a train and sneak me away in the middle of the night. My grandparents keep talking to me and Hugh about weddings and kids and Hugh spends the entire day with my father and uncle fishing and sailing (they REFUSE to take me, claiming “male bonding”), leaving me to talk to my grandmother about-- yes-- weddings and kids again! I keep trying to sneak away to paint but my mum says I’m being rude and drags me back, a fish on her hook. And it’s a shame because the only good thing about Brighton is how beautiful it is-- the sunsets, the sunrises, the wild technicolour of the docks and downtown.

It’s required of you, by Article 4, Section 3 of our friendship contract, that you steal a plane, sneak a car or hitchhike down here to save me. And hurry or I might be forced to purchase a spell from the Brighton Witch, turn myself into a fish, and swim all the way back to you.

Yours, always dearly, Anita

July 2015

Dear Roger Radcliffe, you absolute rotten coward,

I’ve called you 24 times, left 11 voicemails, and sent 47 unanswered text messages (some of those I KNOW you read). You’ve elected to ignore all of these methods of communication and thus have forced my hand. We shall do this,Victorian style: pen and paper, envelope and seal. Perhaps some of the ink will sink into that thick skull of yours and persuade you-- no, convince you! GUILT you!-- into writing me back.

It’s been 14 days, 15 hours, and 15 minutes since you punched Hugh in his face.

If you’ve listened to any of my voice mails, you know that I’m not angry at you for this boorish display of brute masculinity (honestly, I’d expect it out of PAUL, but not of you), at least, not so angry that I can’t both 1. Forgive you and 2. Admit that yes, my dickish boyfriend (fiance: tbd) did in fact deserve it.

If you’ve listened to any of my voice mails, then you’ll know that I insisted Hugh apologize to you and told him that if he ever treats you like that again, we are Done, capital-D. You’ll know that I already threw the ring back in his face and I’ve refused to put it on until you ANSWER ME.

If you’ve listened to any of my voicemails, then you know that I’m angry at you because you haven’t.

But I’m not just angry, Roger; it’s not that simple. I miss you. It’s been 14 days, 15 hours and 15 minutes since you punched Hugh in the face and stopped speaking to me. I don’t think we’ve ever gone that long talking before and now more than ever, I want to talk to you. I’ve got this new record that I’d wanted to talk to you about that very night, before all this drama unfolded. I was waiting for the time to pull you aside. And I found this lovely used bookshoppe here at Cambridge that I know you’d like. I bought this copy of Persuasion despite already having two copies, but see, I had to have this one because the previous owner scribbled in the pages, and you know how much I love when they do that.

Also, I have this song in my head and I can’t get it out.

I’m fairly certain you’re to blame. You always are, whenever this happens to me. Either it’s something you hummed under your breath, something that you wrote yourself or something you showed me that I can’t remember. I’ve been humming it for about 10 of those 14 days. I have no idea where it came from. I just woke up, missing you terribly-- with a song in my head.

I’ll be driven to insanity if I don’t figure out what it’s called and if I can’t hear the rest of it. So you see,  Roger? You don’t have a choice. You have to write me back or call me back or text me back. I’ve got a song in my head. You’re the only one who can fix it.

Yours, forever dearly, Anita

November 2016

Dear Roger,

I’ve been a coward.

Since the moment I met you, that’s all I’ve been. A liar and a coward and a tease and, worst of all, a terrible friend. I’ve been trying all night to find a way to explain myself to you, to write the words that will build our bridge back up, one we might cross to each other. But I can’t find those words. I’m so scared I’ve once again run you off and this time it’ll be for good. And that will be my biggest mistake, because you are the brightest parts of me. You always have been.

I think I’ve loved you from the start, Roger. I don’t know what stopped me.

That doesn’t seem good enough. I keep rewriting this letter and it’s never good enough. I go over our days like they’re pages in a book belonging to another girl, but it’s not, it’s mine. It’s ours. See, none of this makes sense. I don’t know how to write about you and make sense.  

I want to write that we should be together and this is the letter that starts it. This is Darcy’s letter to Elizabeth, the one that clears the mist and brings in the sunlight. But it’s not because I can’t write that. I can’t even tell you why because it’s so terrible-- I’ll hurt you even more, and all I do is hurt you. And I want to write that maybe one day I’ll be ready and if you just wait, just a little longer, I promise we’ll find each other again like we did here in Swynlake on an unassuming, perfect summer’s day. But I can’t do that either because I know… that’s so wrong and selfish, and if I’m not ready after six years (even if the reasons have nothing to do with you and everything to do with me and I know that that’s so cliche) then I’ve run out of chances.

So I don’t know what to do and I don’t know what to write and this letter, which is supposed to maybe fix things, is turning into a goodbye.. And I can’t say goodbye to you. I can’t let you go.

I wish I could. I wish I was selfless, brave and true, and I’d write you a beautiful ending to us. I’d tell you that I love you enough to set you free and I’d wish you well and think of you often but only in those quiet moments when I hear a song on the radio or find myself humming under my breath.

I’m so sorry, Roger, for not being the girl you dreamed I was. I’m so sorry that I’ll never send this letter. I’m so sorry that I didn’t see sooner that you were… everything. All the books and music and lyrics.

I will think of you whenever I hum or sing in the shower. I’ll think of you whenever I hear a song on the radio. I’ll look for you wherever I go and hope I’ll see you turning a corner. And I’ll miss you until then.

Love, Anita