#if you want to be introduced to the weight of the war: start with transformers: prime (not a movie but always the optimal ;) starting point

[onewingedsparrow]

Oh the joys of watching TF: One with a group (being the only Transformers Nerd in the group) and being able to explain to them in passionate, exuberant detail why this film is so much better than the Bayverse (which was criminally their only exposure to Transformers)

[arsonists-oatmeal]

I had finished watching Transformers: Earthspark yesterday. Got a few notes, spoilers below:

-"Malto-bots" awwwww my heart -shit starts ramping up after the halfway mark of the season. which is classic and I did not realize how much I missed that type of pacing -oh, hello body horror in a kids show, didn't expect to see you here! -did not expect to get as invested as I did in the human parts of the plot, like how the rest of humanity is reacting to the Terrans. I think for a kids show they wrote that bit pretty well -speaking of: its clear from the get-go that the whole Terran plot is allegorical to a lot of things. Immigrant families, biracial families, being a first generation citizen, etc. I've seen a lot of media try to use aliens as a plot device for "bigotry is bad", but very rarely have I seen it actually like, show how it hurts people and effects how they see themselves, and show that you have to shut that shit down if you want to be an ally, and not just tolerate your racist uncle, friend, etc. I think this show did a pretty good job of that. It had made parts of me feel seen and heard for the first time ever. -The way they handled the Starscream thing was kind of weak though, imo -Man i wish we got to see Hashtag having more moments with the seekers, she'd fit right in -Nightshade!!! I like Nightshade, I think some parts were a little on the nose (like how they're the only person who introduces themselves with their pronouns), but its not as some people are making it out to be. Idk if its just me but I also feel like they got sidelined more than the rest of the characters, which is suspicious. But anyways, every group needs a mad scientist character who can be slightly unsettling and I'm glad Nightshade is there to fill the role. -Ok i get this is a kid's show, and there was already more nuance than i expected (which was none) about the decepticons, but I do feel like they didn't make the final leap in logic here. -"Ok not all decepticons are bad, but we still wont stop surveilling and locking some of them up because they chose to do bad with their second chance". Has anyone here heard of the word "REHAB"?? -Megatron is cool. Cool theme, no comments there -Really liked the fight scenes as well, especially the shots of the transformers fighting it out in the background where the camera focuses on the humans running away. It really shows the scale of things. Small detail but the fact that we've got several bots using their inbuilt guns' recoil in fights is really cool! Megatron essentially did a rocket jump. One critique however is that nothing really looked like it had weight. -Also I wished that they kept Karan Croft as the lead antagonist till the end. Like idk, show that this whole oppression thing is systematic in nature. Could have had Dr. Meridian change sides given the fact that he was being put in a similar position to the transformers by the humans in charge (he was also fighting for basic resources to live after his first defeat). -Also this one may be unpopular: It looks like at the end the Terrans get their own symbol/badge. Which I think sorta breaks the whole "the war is over, there's no more sides and factions" things that they keep repeating throughout the show. It just feels like they've created a third faction now, and the continuing dynamic is now autobots vs decepticons vs terrans. Which, no. You're going to replace your war with another.

Overall, good show, 8/10, I think it fumbled the ending. I know im not the target audience here but also its not like kids are stupid.

Also representation matters. The choices of having the lead human characters be a non-white biracial family, having the first nonbinary transformer, having the terrans be allegorical, it may not mean anything to some viewers, but for others it could be the first time someone has actually acknowledged them, has said "I see what you've gone through and I know it to be real and I will take it seriously". The diversity in the show only serves to make it better

[writeturnlove]

Good Evening fanfic friends,

I'm sorry this update took so long, but I wanted to post it as soon as I finished writing it. This chapter contains some intense sexual scenes, so I'm asking that readers be at least 18 years old to read it. I'm going to put a brief excerpt below, however the rest can be read by following the link above.

The Mate Chapter 5

By V.C. Turner (@writeturnlove)

WARNINGS: Do NOT read if you are under 18; SMUT, SEX, DP, MFM SEX, THREESOME, UNPROTECTED SEX, BLOOD PLAY/KINK, BITING, BRIEF MINOR BONDAGE.

To say that I’m nervous would be an understatement. I’m terrified. In less than 24 hours, I will be bonded to two men and ascend to a leadership role over a group of people I didn’t know existed a few months ago. We’re just minutes away from another pack meeting; this one called by the Elders, who plan to introduce us as The Alpha Triad. The Fates decided that I am the one true mate of the Alpha and Beta wolves of the North Pointe Pack. Once the Elders verify the mating, no one dares question their judgment.

I’m standing between my mates – Steve on my left and Bucky on my right. I’m shaking. Steve notices and places a reassuring hand on the center of my lower back. Bucky slips his hand into mine and squeezes. Today is the first time I’ve seen them since their mothers took me away from the Alpha house before we could break a fundamental rule: No sex before the Bonding Ceremony.

The ritual is set to take place tomorrow night beneath the full moon and in front of the entire pack.

But tonight, we must stand before them and assert our positions.

My breath is coming out in short bursts. Steve turns to me, lifts my chin, and places a chaste kiss to my lips. He whispers in my ear.

“It will be fine, Sweetheart,” he says.

My body instantly settles, and I can think clearly again. Steve calms me when I need it. I love that about him. I stop shaking and focus on Sasha Barnes as she calls the meeting to order.

“North Pointe brothers and sisters, it is a proud day for our pack. As predicted by Elder Evelyn and I, we have confirmed The Alpha Triad,” she announces.

A hush falls over the large room. Several tense moments pass before measured chaos begins. I can’t tell what they are saying because I’m too far away. What I can hear are the sounds of shock coming from the crowd, and I brace myself for what comes next.

From our place backstage, we see Evelyn Rogers step forward. She holds her hand up and the room immediately quiets, yielding to her authority.

“Family, as the prophecy had dictated, our Luna has been chosen. Tomorrow night she will be bonded to the Alpha and Beta of our pack. I now ask The Alpha Triad to step forward to stand before the pack, for tomorrow the three of you shall be joined for life.”

Steve leads the three of us onto the center of the stage and the sound of whispers starts up again. The moment hangs over my head like a heavy cloud, threatening to soak me with the weight of this new responsibility.

Bucky squeezes my hand again, then leans down to me.

“Stand tall and look each one of them in the eye. They need to see strength to respect you and your position,” he advises.

I straighten my posture and gaze into the crowd. There are expressions of shock, caution, and a few looks of disgust. Fuck them. I’m Luna. They will just have to deal with it.

“As you know,” Sasha begins, “While this is a happy occasion because our pack leaders have found true love, it is also a time of concern. The prophecy regarding the Alpha Triad states that there will be an upcoming war with a vampire clan. The conflict between our species has raged for millennia, however we’ve enjoyed several decades of peace due to a treaty signed by our ancestors. Unfortunately, this peace is about to end. Since we do not know when our enemies will attack, we must begin preparations immediately. My son James, as Beta, will help organize the tactical preparations, while Alpha Steve Rogers will divide the pack into specific groups who will ensure that each pack member and their families have the resources to deal with this threat. Now, I will turn the meeting over to our Alpha.”

The room falls silent as Steve steps forward, bringing Bucky and I with him.

“North Pointe Family, I know that much of what you heard comes as a shock. My primary concern is to ensure the safety of this pack, so we will begin organizing and training starting next week. I will delegate some of my usual duties to other pack leaders as I will be sequestered for the next two weeks as part of the bonding ritual. Speaking of my personal life: The fact that my new mate is also the mate of my Beta came as a shock to me, too. While a part of me knew, deep down, that she was the one for both of us, it was only just confirmed. This joining, this Alpha Triad is unfamiliar territory for all of us, however this is how things were meant to be. Y/N is a part of this family, and she will always be our Luna,” Steve declares.

My breathing picks up as all eyes focus on me. I don’t want to talk tonight. I have way too much on my mind to form a cohesive thought. Judging from the looks on their faces, I worry anything I say will make me an even bigger target than I already am.

PLEASE READ THE REST ON ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN....

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[imrowanartist]

“So what’s the mission, boss?” Ahsoka asked him cheerfully, an attempt to avoid the question she knew was really on his mind. Rex frowned at the word boss, like she knew he would. It only made her grin spread.

“You still outrank me, Commander.” Rex responded, but the small smile he gave her told Ahsoka she had broken the ice at least a little. She used both her hands to grab the handle above her and leaned her weight towards him.

“Noooo, this is your mission.” she said, her tone playful, “I want you to pretend I’m just here for fun. Which I am.”

or

Rex and Ahsoka join Halo Company, led by Rex's fellow captain and childhood friend Nova on a seemingly simple mission to the mining planet Corbos. But when things don't go as planned, they find themselves fighting for their lives and those of everyone they love.

Hello I am back with another story! Though Rex and Ahsoka play major roles in it, it's also a way for me to introduce my own beloved ocs properly.

This was born out of my desire to actually have an R-rated Clone wars story (it's a war after all) so the rating will definitely go up once the action starts, please keep that in mind. The plan is to post a chapter per month at the very least, and it should be around 18 chapters in total (I say very optimistically).

Huge thank you to @itsstrangelypermanent and @anstarwar for both brainstorming with me and beta reading <3

If you want to be tagged for new chapters, drop a comment on this post or shoot me a message!

Taglist:

@alamogirl80 @griseldafury21 @imhereforthefanartandfics @disgruntldd @attacking-those-pesky-kyojins @bi-witch-rose @friendly-disreputable-dog @goddess-of-congeniality @therealrobinceballos @k9cat @notoriginalenoughtohavmyprefname @weareoutofmaplesyrupdave @shadowlight17 @bookroselover @purgetrooperfox @littlefeatherr @fantastic-commander-fox @handsignals @eggsforeyes

[arctickat2400]

Interview <> Sebastian Stan

“Hey, (nickname), are you almost ready?” Y/N heard her boyfriend's voice call out to her. She almost didn’t have it in her to answer, too nervous to speak.

Y/N and Sebastian were going to her first Comic Con interview today, and to say Y/N was nervous was the understatement of the century. Starring in the Marvel franchise, acting on screen, was a whole different story in Y/N’s mind. You weren’t in front of a thousand people, you were in the comfort of your co-stars, you were having fun. You weren’t completely being put on the spot and having everyone stare at you for an answer.

Captain America: The First Avenger was Y/N’s very first movie and she’s gotten to know everyone very well, befriended probably the entire cast, and she found the love of her life.

Sebastian was everything she didn’t know she was looking for, though she’s found everything she’s wanted and more over the past few years or so since they’ve met. And, they couldn’t be more in love as they wrap up Captain America: Civil War.

Y/N wasn’t a major character, but she never missed a day on set, even if she wasn’t shooting for her role. She was always there for Sebastian and she loved to watch the formation of the movies and how the cast transformed their characters.

In this case, Y/N hasn’t been to many interviews, and she especially hasn’t been to one where she’s sitting up on a stage in front of a thousand fans asking questions and saying things to her that she didn’t think she’d be able to answer. Yes, it made her feel better that Sebastian would be sitting right next to her, holding her hand, but she was still more than terrified.

Y/N stood in her bathroom in the loft she shared with Sebastian. They were almost 5 minutes from leaving for the Comic Con interview with Chris Evans, Anthony Mackie, Elizabeth Olsen. Y/N felt like she could barely move, let alone speak, even though she was still in the comfort of her home. Sebastian came around the corner to find her staring blankly into the mirror.

“Y/N, are you doing okay? It’s almost time to go.” He told her, but making sure she could hear in his voice that she was in no rush. Sebastian knew all about Y/N’s insecurities, everything that made her nervous or anxious. He knew about everything she was feeling ever since they found out they were invited to the Comic Con interview.

Y/N barely noticed Sebastian coming up behind her, wearing black skinny jeans, combat boots, and a gray sweater with a white T-shirt underneath. He placed his hands gently on her dress clad hips and pulled her flush against his chest. He guided his arm around her waist, placing his hand against her stomach and pressing a soft kiss to the side of her head.

“I don’t think I can do this,” Y/N whispered under her breath. Sebastian looked up at her through the mirror and he could see the tears glistening over her eyes.

“Baby, yes, you can. You’re gonna do amazing. Plus, we already said we’d go, so it’s a bit too late.” Sebastian joked, but regretted saying it the moment he did, knowing how sensitive Y/N was about almost everything, though loving her despite it. Tears spilled onto Y/N’s cheeks, and Sebastian’s face fell as he turned Y/N towards him, pulling her into a hug.

“No, sweetheart, please don’t cry. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be joking around right now. Everything’s going to be okay. I’m going to be right next to you, holding your hand, never letting go.” Sebastian admitted as he brushed his hand over her hair, holding her tightly against him. “Afterwards, we’ll go to your favorite diner, order some takeout, and come home and binge watch Friends. We’ll cuddle like I know you love to do, and we can relax knowing it’s all over. It’ll be okay, my love.” Sebastian finished, pulling away slightly to look her in the eye.

Y/N sniffled, unable to look him in the eyes. “But, what if I say something weird, or what if I freeze or start crying? In front of all those people.” Y/N questioned. Sebastian placed his thumb under Y/N’s chin, lifting her head to look him in the eyes.

“If that does happen, then I will hold you and I’ll be there to make it all better. Plus, they all love you Katie. They’re your fans. They won’t judge you for being nervous.” Sebastian reassured his girlfriend.

“Well, they’re more your fans and Chris’ and Anthony’s and-”

But, Sebastian didn’t let her mumble on any further as he gently pressed his lips to Y/N’s in a loving, passionate kiss.

“I love you, Y/N. Everything’s going to be alright.” Sebastian confessed, looking her adoringly in the eyes as he smoothed his hand over her cheek, wiping away the tears. Y/N just nodded, giving him a weak smile as she leaned into his touch.

“Now, finish getting your gorgeous self ready and let's go have some fun.” Sebastian kissed your forehead before shouting out the last part as he left the bathroom, making Y/N laugh lightly.

Y/N finished getting ready, making sure her curls stayed in place and slipping on her black wedge heels to match her 60’s dress.

Taking her phone, she met Sebastian by the front door. He smiled at her with a look of absolute love and adoration in his eyes. He took her hand, pulling her into his embrace.

“Have I ever told you how beautiful you look?” Sebastian mentioned, and Y/N just giggled as he led them outside to the car waiting for them. Opening the door for Y/N, Sebastian helped her inside as he followed in close after.

< Time Skip >

Pulling up by the building Comic Con was being held at, Y/N became more and more nervous and on edge the closer they got. Sebastian felt the tension in Y/N and reached out to grab her hand. They locked eyes as Sebastian smiled at Y/N, letting her know everything was going to be okay.

A security guard led them into the building towards backstage where the interview was going to happen. The whole walk, Y/N clung to Sebastian’s side, her hand in his as she held onto his arm. They eventually met up with Chris, Anthony and Elizabeth. Y/N had become best friends with her over the years as both a co-star and friend of the cast. Elizabeth brought her into a hug, telling Y/N that she’s gonna do great.

Y/N’s heart was just about to leap out of her chest as she heard the interviewer introduce everyone and the crowd started cheering. Y/N once again clung back to Sebastian’s side as he leaned down, pressed a kiss to the top of her head, and whispered, “I’ll be right next to you every step of the way, no matter what.”

Y/N wasn’t aware of the next several moments as Sebastian guided her out on stage. All her friends smiled out into the crowd, waving to their fans. Y/N’s eyes were locked on the crowd, but her stare was blank. She never even realized that she instinctively shook the interviewers hand before Sebastian led her to one of the two couches and sat her down.

Y/N’s anxiety was skyrocketing, her heart beating a million miles a minute, her mind rushing every which way, except for the interview. The interviewer, Jason, began introducing everyone personally, asking a question, starting with Chris who sat with Elizabeth on the other couch.

Y/N was able to channel part of her mind to listen in on answers from her friends but not on the interview questions. “So, Chris, what’s it like to play the First Avenger? The one who represents all of America.” Jason asked him. Y/N could hear Chris’ voice, but couldn’t put his words together in her mind.

This went on for a few minutes, a different question for Elizabeth, Anthony, Sebastian and Y/N. But, it didn’t go so well once it became Y/N's turn to speak.

“What would you say has been the best part so far working in the Marvel franchise?” Jason asked Sebastian. He couldn’t help but smile when he didn’t even have to think about his answer all that much, as cheesy as it was.

“If I’m honest, it was when I met my beautiful girl right here,” Sebastian admitted simply, his smile growing as he rubbed his hand against the skin of Y/N’s arm. A chorus of ‘awes’ radiated around the stadium. Y/N was able to smile for once since they left the loft. Sebastian’s words never failed to make her go red as she locked eyes with him. Sebastian looked down at her with so much love, despite the prying eyes. But, Y/N’s smile left as soon as it came the moment her name left Jason’s lips.

“So, Y/N, now that you’ve been in all of the Captain America movies, what has your work out regime been like?” Jason questioned her, but her mind went blank immediately. What made it worse was that it was a question that had to do with exercise, which leads to her body, which leads to the way she looks. And Y/N has always been insecure about the way she looked. She’s always seen herself as bigger than everyone else, a few extra pounds added to her frame. Despite everything Sebastian tells her, how stunning she is, how she’ll always be the most beautiful girl in his eyes no matter what, her mind never fails to bring her down over and over again.

Everything is quiet as everyone waits for Y/N to answer, but it’s just not gonna happen. Just as she feared, Y/N froze at a simple question. Sebastian looked down at her, searching her eyes and found her begging for help. Intertwining their fingers again, Sebastian brought their hands onto his lap, rubbing her knuckles comfortingly with his thumb.

“Sorry, Y/N’s just a bit nervous. She’s never been in front of a crowd this big before.” Y/N didn’t like what she was feeling; she didn’t like that she was so weak at that moment that Sebastian had to apologize for her actions, or lack of.

“No worries. Totally understand.” Jason smiled understandingly.

“Y/N,” Sebastian started, answering for her. “She comes to the gym with me most of the time. We would run on the treadmill for about an hour, then I’d coach her on weights and sit ups and stuff. She’d work on her flexibility while I work a little more on the heavier strength exercises with Don (his trainer). Actually, I’m gonna be honest, it’s probably not the best topic to bring up with Y/N. I’m not gonna get into it, but there’s the gist of it.” Everyone who was close to Y/N, meaning the four friends at her side and some of her other co-stars, knew about her insecurities and knew to never bring these sorts of topics up unless she does it herself. Chris, Anthony and Elizabeth were nodding their heads in agreement at Sebastian’s statement. They always had Y/N’s back.

“Oh, my apologies.” Sebastian brushed it off with a smile, leaning down and pressing a kiss to Y/N’s head to comfort her, letting her know everything was alright. Jason asked questions for each of the cast members to answer at their leisure.

It was about a half an hour later when Anthony was finishing up telling a story in answer to one of Jason’s many questions. Y/N could hear the distant laughs of the audience in front of her. She could hear Chris’ loud laughter that calmed her down just a bit. He’d always been like a brother to her since they first met. Y/N felt the vibration of Sebastian’s laugh against his side, making her heart flutter.

When everyone calmed down and Jason asked a follow up question in which Chris answered, Sebastian leaned down to whisper in Y/N's ear, asking if she needed a drink of water that she didn’t know she had access to. She almost eagerly took the water bottle he offered her, relishing in the refreshing feeling of water against her dry throat. It’s as if her throat had become a desert, dry sand keeping her from speaking, no water in sight, and if she were to try to speak, cacti would scratch her throat rough.

“Well, I guess we could get some fan questions in. How about we start over here?” Jason gestured in the left direction and picked the first person in line by the microphone. Y/N started to panic. What if a fan had a question for her? Surprisingly to everyone, in all her years of working on the Captain America movies, Y/N’s never once talked to a fan. She’s only ever been to small room interviews with a co-star or two and an interviewer.

Luckily, the fan’s questions were mostly asked for Chris, Elizabeth, Anthony and Sebastian. Some of them were towards both Sebastian and Y/N, in which Sebastain would answer for them. Every now and then, he would look down at Y/N to make sure she was doing okay. It was at the end of the interview after tons of fan questions. Y/N listened to a lot of the questions, and some of them were really weird. She wondered how her co-stars were able to keep themselves composed enough to answer such questions.

“Alright, I think we have time for one more question,” Jason said into his microphone. “How about we get one from over here?” He gestures to the right side and a girl, about 13 years old probably, stepped up to the mic. “What’s your name?” Jason asked the girl.

“I’m Charlotte. And my question is for Y/N.” Y/N swore her heart stopped beating when she heard the squeaky voice say her name.

“Alright. What would you like to know?” Jason questions.

“I was wondering if you have ever thought about your future relationship with Sebastian. Do you think you’ll get married, have kids, or whatever?” Y/N froze completely as she met the gaze of the fan. She loved that she had fans and that they wanted to get to know her. But, something in her mind told her that she didn’t want to share something so personal like that.

Y/N stutters over the two or three words she can barely get out as tears start to stream down her cheeks. She can feel Sebastian running his thumb over her thigh, watching you with a worried look. She knew she wouldn’t be able to say anything, the thing she feared most coming to haunt her. She broke down.

“I’m sorry,” Y/N stammered inaudibly to the audience as she hides her face in Sebastian’s chest. His hand flies up over her head, brushing his hand over her hair, holding her to his chest, as he hands the mic he’s holding for him and Y/N to Anthony. Gasps are heard from the audience, concerned ones, thank God. Everything went quiet once again, making Y/N’s hidden cheeks go red. “I can’t do it,” Y/N whispers so only Sebastian can hear.

Sebastian gestures for Jason to move on as he wraps his arm around Y/N, holding her to him. She can barely hear as Jason makes up an excuse to the girl with the question and to everyone else as Y/N cries silent tears against Sebastian. He tries to calm her down, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. He presses a kiss to her head, his only focus is her, as he strokes his thumb against her cheek.

Sebastian talks quietly to Y/N so no one else can hear while Jason begins to wrap up the interview. “It’s okay, baby. I’m right here. Don’t worry about it. It’s almost over. You’re doing so well.” Sebastian comforts her, trying to look her in the eye. She knew she wasn’t doing well; she was having a breakdown on stage in front of tons of people. And don’t forget that the interview was streaming live. Sebastian was just trying to make her feel better.

Suddenly, Y/N could hear faint screams in the background. She was wrapped in Sebastian’s arms as he led her off the stage and back through the building as they came an hour prior. Sebastian stopped to say goodbye to his friends. Elizabeth walked up to Y/N with a sympathetic smile on her face as she rubbed Y/N’s arm comfortingly. She attempted to give her a hug, which, without much emotion, Y/N allowed her to do so. She wasn’t crying much anymore, just a few sniffles here and there.

Sebastian felt so sad for his girl. He wanted to understand what it was like so he could help her more, but all he could do was be there to comfort her, to hold her, to be her shoulder to cry on.

Both Chris and Anthony came up on either side of Y/N and pressed a kiss to either of her cheeks. She let out a quiet, squeaky giggle at the sweet gesture. Sebastian smiled at seeing Y/N smile again. It was probably his favorite sight, seeing his girl happy. Y/N retreated back into the arms of her boyfriend as he led her out and into the car.

* * *

Check out Interview Part 2!

[vex-bittys]

In Your Dreams: A Horrortale Story

Raffle prize for @purplesangel. When your life is a living nightmare, is it any surprise that your dreams are just as bad? Thankfully a dream-walking human has arrived to help, but will she still want to help Axe when she finds out what he’s done to stay alive?

WARNING: character death mention, language, blood mention, some disturbing imagery including cannibalism (no details)

READ ON AO3

----------

Life in the Underground was an endless nightmare for Axe. During his waking hours, he checked his traps and hunted in the forest, often returning home empty-handed only to see the disappointment and desperation in his brother’s sockets. Supply trains became frantic riots as too many monsters competed for their share of too little food, and the sharp pain of hunger lingered even after the skeleton brothers’ meager meals.

Madness seeped in through the hole in his skull, distorting reality. He clawed at his skull, trying to release the pressure of the frenetic energy that consumed him. He could feel the darkness lurking, waiting for him to make a misstep, some seemingly trivial mistake; that’s when it would strike, shredding his thoughts and shattering his focus. There was no escaping it, and Axe knew that one day it would swallow him up.

Sleep provided no reprieve. In his dreams, Axe continued to suffer. He watched his brother fade away to nothing from starvation. He felt the gnawing emptiness of his own unsatisfied hunger. Feasts appeared before his single working eyelight only to transform into grains of sand that slipped through his fingers when he reached for it. He ran through the shadowed forest outside of Snowdin, fleeing an unknown terror in the night while thorny tendrils of a deeper darkness caught him, slowing his progress, dragging him down, and allowing his madness to suffocate him.

Days dragged on into months, and months melted together into years. Waking life remained bleak with monsters still struggling (and at times failing) to survive. Food sources dwindled, and the gathering of other resources fell by the wayside as every creature in the Underground focused on filling their stomachs as best they could. Everything stagnated in its state of destitution and decay… everything except Axe’s dreams.

Axe’s nightmares repeated themselves night after night until slowly, they began to change. It started with the appearance of a new character- a human that Axe didn’t recognize, though he thought it might be a female. At first the human only observed the horrors that lurked in the sleeping world of Axe’s mind. Gradually, though, she began to interact.

It all started during one of Axe’s nightmares about his brother. Crooks would turn a pleading gaze to his brother, mouthing a soundless plea for food. Axe would fall to his knees, sobbing and pounding his fists into the ground. Crooks slowly collapsed, and the gradual dissolution of his body sent his dust drifting towards his brother, filling Axe’s mouth and nasal cavity until he choked himself awake… usually. This time things turned out differently.

“I’M SO HUNGRY, BROTHER,” Crooks’ voice came from the air around them and not his mouth, the teeth there long since broken or knocked askew from gnawing away at non-edible items simply to assuage the need to chew.

The human appeared, but instead of observing the unfolding scene, this time she glanced around until her eyes fell upon Axe.

-

Since the very first time you’d stumbled across this heart-breaking nightmare scenario, you’d worked hard to return to it. Dream-walking involved focus, practice, and a bit of luck, and in this venture, the fates were on your side. You’d walked this collection of now-familiar nightmare images many times, slowly working out which participant it belonged to and why the skeleton with the broken skull kept replaying these torturous situations in his sleep.

Now, you were ready to interact and hopefully restore some peace to the sleeping world of the monster in front of you. You extended a tentative hand towards him, unsure if he would welcome your touch as a form of physical comfort. He just stared at your outstretched hand as if it would bring some new and unfathomable horror to his disturbingly familiar nightmare. You let your hand drop. Words would have to suffice then.

“It’s not real,” you told the stocky skeleton firmly.

His sockets narrowed suspiciously. “what do ya mean, ‘not real’?”

“This-” you gestured to the vague, nondescript surroundings and very crisp, well-defined figure of the tall, starving skeleton behind you, never breaking eye contact “- is not real.”

The skeleton with the broken skull laughed, a harsh and humorless sound that grated against your ear drums. You sighed, frustrated but determined. It rarely improved a situation to reveal yourself while dream-walking; most dreamers forgot their nightly travels when they returned to the waking world anyway. Those who didn’t merely discarded your presence, along with any advice you might give, as part of a nonexistent scenario that could not influence their waking lives and should thus be ignored.

Normally, you resigned yourself to this and walked through dreams as a silent observer, but this skeleton’s torment tore at your heart and brought forth a tenacity within you to help him in the only way you could: by walking through his nightmares and defeating them, one by one, until nothing remained but peaceful slumber.

The skeleton with the broken skull scoffed. “you don’t know nothin’,” he growled obstinately.

“I know that your most frequent nightmares involve food, madness, and losing this other skeleton-”

“my bro,” the skeptical skeleton clarified.

“Losing your brother,” you amended with an edge to your voice, “to starvation.”

“it’s not like you’re some expert investigator piecin’ together the clues, pal. we’re all starvin’ and dustin’ down here,” he said, dismissing your observations. You frowned. Was there some truth to these nightmares? Often dreams represented thoughts and fears in a metaphoric manner, but maybe this skeleton didn’t have room in his troubled mind for subtlety.

Regardless, you would do what you could for him in the only place that you could reach him.

“I don’t know what your life is like in the waking world,” you conceded softly, “but this? Everything around us now? It isn’t real.” You continued in a rush before the skeleton could interrupt you again. “You’re asleep, and your mind is processing your fears… and your reality… into nightmares.”

The skeleton inhaled, obviously ready to argue again, but you stopped him by making a sweeping gesture towards his brother. Had this nightmare been reality, the taller skeleton would be dust by now. Instead, the image was frozen in place thanks to the stocky skeleton’s change of focus. “Look,” you ordered boldly.

-

Axe begrudgingly allowed his single eyelight to stray from you to his brother. While it was true that nothing had changed in the scene since he had turned his attention to his unexpected visitor, the moment he looked back, the scenario resumed. Flakes of dust drifted loose from his brother’s body, floating away on an unfelt breeze to disappear as they dispersed until nothing remained except the unbearable weight of guilt and his brother’s ghost of a voice whispering “Why?” over and over again in his head.

Why didn’t you save me?

“It’s not real,” you whispered solemnly behind him, but honestly, that didn’t matter. Watching his brother die of starvation that he should have prevented sent jagged pains through his SOUL whether it existed solely inside of his mind or not. Your next words, however, carried a much greater impact: “I can teach you how to change it.”

-

The most frustrating part of dream-walking was the inability to change the contents of people’s dreams or nightmares yourself. While you could view the unfolding events, you possessed no real power over them. Only the dreamer could affect their dreams. Thankfully, unlike dream-walking, lucid dreaming is a skill that can be taught.

As with every teaching experience, some students learn more quickly than others. Axe, as he eventually introduced himself to you, was not one of those students. The most difficult aspect of lucid dreaming for him happened to be the very first step to lucid dreaming at all: accepting that what he experienced while he slept was a dream instead of a warped reality that lived inside of his cracked skull and broken mind.

“These images all come from your thoughts,” you explained again. “You can control them, but first you have to accept that you can control them.” 

You knew that the dreams involving his brother were far too emotionally charged to make good fodder for lucid dreaming practice, and you preferred to steer clear of the choking darkness since you had no idea what effects such a powerful and overwhelming negative force could potentially have on you, even as an observer within someone else’s troubled subconscious. This only left the dreams of an untouchable feast to practice on… and practice was not going well.

As with your many previous attempts to gently guide the stocky skeleton towards seizing control of his nightmares, the lesson had quickly devolved into a squabble. You insisted that Axe could learn to control his subconscious surroundings; Axe stubbornly insisted that he could not. You would point out that this was his dream, and his mind; he would attempt to discredit your existence as just another piece of the complicated web of nightmares that plagued him: a human offering him false hope in a bleak and hopeless world.

It did bother you a little bit that Axe considered you- a (mostly) patient and helpful human- to be nightmare fuel. Only monsters lived in the Underground since the long-forgotten war, so why would Axe’s guilt-riddled dreamscapes include humans?

You decided to save the questions for another time.

“Try again,” you told Axe, who only answered with a weary, frustrated sigh.

-

Irritation swirled through Axe’s excessive magic, though it was aimed more at himself than at you. Every night you tried to help him take control of his dreaming mind, and every night, despite your calm instructions, he failed. You made it sound so easy, so why couldn’t he just grab a stupid spider donut off of the stupid table and shove the stupid thing into his big, stupid mouth?

“Try again,” you told him patiently as he brushed the gritty sand from his finger joints. He uttered a weary, frustrated sigh.

“i am trying,” he grumbled, biting back a deluge of unhelpful comments and curses. He touched another piece of food, a french fry, still steaming though it had been sitting on a pile of its doppelgangers since the nightmare began. The entire fry stack crumbled to sand before he’d even lifted one free; Axe’s patience dissolved along with it.

“if this was as easy as you claim,” he shouted, letting his anger overflow into sharp words, “then i’d be able to pick up these plates and smash them on the floor like i want to!” Without any conscious thought, Axe lifted one of the plates in question and hurled it at the ground. It shattered, leaving silence in its wake as Axe and the dream-walking human stared down at the shards on the ground in awe.

Axe gave an entire stack of plates an experimental shove, sending them cascading over the edge of the table and onto the ground where they created an inharmonious symphony of destruction. You applauded the spontaneous mess and squealed with glee, and Axe swept you up into a quick celebratory hug, spinning you around once before setting you back on your feet. As soon as he set you down, he grabbed a donut and crammed it into his mouth. Chewing, his sockets narrowed in utter bliss, he picked up a second donut and offered it to you. 

Nothing tasted as sweet as victory… except for maybe a spider donut.

-

You didn’t want to dampen the skeleton’s joy by telling him that you wouldn’t be able to taste a donut in his dreams, so you took a bite, your head still spinning from his sudden show of physical affection. With a promise to see him the following night, you stepped out of his nightmares. You felt content that you’d taken the first big step on a journey to giving Axe the power to sleep peacefully without constant, horrific nightmares plaguing him.

The next lesson would be more difficult; you intended to guide Axe through banishing nightmares of his brother’s death. Out of consideration for Axe’s privacy, you had never asked him why he had such specific nightmares about his brother, but nightmares involving a sibling death as vivid as Axe’s hinted at some very dark and complex situations existing in the skeletons’ waking world. Those hints aside, Axe had outright stated that things were terrible in the Underground where he lived. Maybe working through his dream would give him some insight into fixing his real-life situation, at least the one he faced with his brother.

You hoped so. During the nights you’d spent helping Axe learn how to lucid dream, you had come to consider him a friend. You hated the thought of him suffering. You especially hated that you could only reach him during his nightmares. You wished you could do more, but how? Those were thoughts for your own waking world.

Tonight you wanted to focus on Axe’s progress, and once he’d gotten some practice at lucid dreaming, you’d work on changing the heart-breaking nightmare of his brother.

-

Sweat beaded on Axe’s skull as he waited for you to appear. He could feel himself slipping towards darker dreamscapes, and he fought to stay in the safe in-between place like you’d shown him. He told himself that the tremors in his bones were caused by his unstable magic and not by fear. What if his previous successes were a fluke? What if he failed when it mattered the most? 

Thoughts of failure sent him spiraling into the guilty nightmare of his starving brother. After all, his failures in reality led to this, and the dire consequences that he saw unfolding in his subconscious lurked only a step behind him in the waking world. Soon his real life would become this very same nightmare, and he would be left as powerless to stop it there as he felt to stop it here.

Thankfully, you appeared within seconds to chase away the grim meanderings of his mind and help him focus on the task at hand- Crooks.

Axe’s brother loomed in front of him, eyes pleading, begging for something that Axe could not give him. He watched the image of his brother twist and reshape itself, growing alarmingly large, the bones stretching from an influx of magic that still somehow managed to provide almost no nutrition. He whispered his brother’s name, frozen in place and unable to remember what he was supposed to do to stop the scene unfolding in front of him.

A small hand slipped into his; he had forgotten about you as his familiar fears swamped him. You looked up at him with a calm expression and nodded, encouraging him.

“You can do this.” Your words bolstered his courage. He dragged his panic back under control and turned to face Papyrus… or what had become of Papyrus under his inadequate care: the monster now known as Crooks. 

“You know what you need to do,” you whispered.

Axe stepped towards his brother, focusing on Crooks as he had seen him last: tucked into his bed, the blanket no longer quite long enough to cover his lanky frame, wishing Axe a good night and sweet dreams and promising to see him in the morning. Keeping that image locked in his mind, Axe let his lone eyelight travel over his brother’s altered frame. Sure enough, not a single mote of dust rose from the other skeleton. Crooks simply stood there, watching him through sunken sockets.

Though he’d brought his brother’s recurring death to a halt, the words that swirled and echoed around him continued, too faint at first to make out individual words or phrases. His brother’s voice whispered accusations like poisoned arrows that pierced his SOUL. A chorus of questions, all beginning with “Why…?” slowed, sharpened, and gained clarity. Crooks spoke, though his mouth never moved and the words seemed to thrum within his very bones, tangible beyond mere sound.

Normally Crooks’ omnipresent voice asked him why he would allow his brother to starve, but this time the question differed, though it still sent chills to the very marrow of Axe’s bones.

“WHY DID YOU MAKE ME EAT-”

Axe quickly hushed his brother, stealing a glance at you to gauge your reaction. You simply made an encouraging gesture as if to say “Go on, you’re doing great.” He wondered if you’d feel the same way if you knew what Crooks’ next words would have been.

“i couldn’t let ya starve,” Axe spoke softly, tilting his head to maintain eye contact with his much taller brother. “i’d do anything to keep you alive.”

“EVEN-”

Axe nodded, nearly choking on guilt. “yeah. even that.”

“BUT I TOLD YOU I DIDN’T EVER WANT-”

Remorse softened Axe’s expression, and his gravelly voice hitched. “i couldn’t let ya dust. i had no choice. i’m so sorry.”

-

Without warning, Crooks slumped, but he wasn’t collapsing into dust. Instead, he crushed his brother against his ribcage in a tight hug. You sensed a loosening of the guilt and remorse that gripped this particular nightmare so tightly. Things weren’t resolved yet. Nightmares could rarely be banished in a single lucid dreaming session, but you’d given Axe the tools he needed to seize control of his sleeping world. 

Only one challenge awaited you now: fighting the suffocating darkness of the final nightmare. You made plans to tackle that monumental task once Axe felt satisfied that he could manage this current nightmare on his own. Working through the tangle of emotions that his brother’s death awakened would take quite a bit longer than satisfying himself that he could eat his fill of dream donuts, but you were willing to go the distance to help Axe.

You actually wanted to do this, no matter how much the slithering darkness terrified you. Axe just meant that much to you.

-

“I think we’re ready for the final nightmare,” you declared after a dream session in which Axe showed off by summoning various items for his brother to eat.

In the lucid dreams about Crooks, his dream-brother mostly stood or sat nearby providing companionship and support as Axe practiced controlling his consciousness. Axe enjoyed the time with his brother, despite the knowledge that this version of Crooks existed only inside of his mind. It gave him a tentative sensation of hope that perhaps someday he could experience this type of peace with his brother in the waking world, free of the constant mad scramble for survival.

Your words shattered fragile, fleeting calm. Sweat beaded on Axe’s skull. The final nightmare contained his deep, dark fears, his madness, his guilt. Tendrils that reeked of his unspeakable crimes dragged him down into the cesspool that used to be his SOUL. He didn’t want you to see that part of him. He didn’t want you to know what he was truly capable of.

You’d never come back, and he’d be left alone with the echoing, blossoming psychosis that suffocated him. It would be worse now though. You’d shined a light into his life, and now he risked that glimmer of goodness being torn away… torn away because of what he’d done.

The punishment would fit the crime of his continuing survival.

-

You stepped into Axe’s dream world, excited and nervous at the prospect of facing the unknown horrors of this last nightmare that plagued him. The endless grey limbo that surrounded you came as quite a surprise when you expected inky vines of darkness encased in the thorns of Axe’s painful emotions and memories. Axe refused to meet your eyes when you approached him. Something was off about the whole situation.

“Is everything ok?” Maybe Axe wasn’t ready to face the darkness of the upcoming nightmare. You didn’t mind; you weren’t going to push him towards something that he didn’t want to do. You weren’t exactly eager to face it either, and besides, you thought you might enjoy just spending some time with Axe.

When he raised his head to meet your eyes, you couldn’t suppress a gasp of fright. Goosebumps erupted along your arms, and you shivered.

Axe’s single red eyelight… it glowed with an eerie flickering light, seeming to swell until the socket could barely contain the vortex of its power. Axe tilted his head at an unnatural angle and laughed at your reaction. You forced yourself to stand your ground despite your fear. This was not the monster you knew. Axe now embodied the darkness of his own inner turmoil, and it froze the blood in your veins.

“nothing is ok!” Axe’s snarl dissolved into sinister chuckles that made his broad shoulders shake. He lifted a hand, phalanges curved like claws to scrape at the hole in his skull. You lunged forward to pull his hand away before he caused more damage to himself, and he shoved you roughly away.

-

The hurt and confusion in your eyes filled Axe with dark satisfaction. You needed to know just what kind of monster he was. You needed to fear him, to run away and never come back. Instead, you offered him your compassion yet again.

“Let me help you.” Tears filled your eyes. His madness must be breaking your sweet, loving heart, but he drove home his depravity because if he let himself care, you’d find out the truth eventually anyway. Losing you would hurt more if he actually had you first.

This time when you reached out for him, he dodged, letting your momentum carry you to your hands and knees on the floor. He loomed over you, oozing menace like a thick fog.

“help me?” Axe’s scornful laughter echoed around the empty landscape. “and why,” he asked cruelly, “would you help a murderer?”

“Murderer?” You repeated the word as a question, as if you weren’t completely sure you knew what it meant. Your eyes widened in shock as tendrils of darkness climbed Axe’s arm, sliding over his bones like living tattoos until they pooled in his hand, taking on the shape of a huge meat cleaver.

“how do you think i’ve survived so long, little human? i hunt, and i kill.” He grinned, his mouth stretching into a disturbing parody of joy. “humans mostly. honestly, did you think the blood on my hoodie was mine?”

-

You admittedly hadn’t thought much about the blood stains on the hoodie. Maybe they were his. Maybe they were ketchup. Maybe in his dreams he wore the stains of his brother’s imagined death. Dreams and nightmares created their own reality with its own details pulled more from a dreamer’s mindset than accurate memories. It shocked you to think that Axe truly wore a hoodie that had once been soaked with fresh blood.

Human blood.

You trembled. Axe began to circle you like a hungry wolf, casually swinging his gigantic cleaver.

“Do you regret it?” you finally asked in a tiny voice.

-

Those four words penetrated the armor of madness that Axe was using to push you away, and they struck him like a well-timed attack. He reeled, reaching for some lie to keep you from seeing the truth and pitying him.

He found nothing.

The meat cleaver fell from his shaking hand. Axe sank to his haunches, covering his face with his hands, trying to hide from you and your perceptiveness. He wanted to scare you away before you could judge him and abandon him, but you shot your question straight to his SOUL, refusing to believe the worst of him.

“every fucking minute of my life.”

This time, when you tentatively reached for him, undaunted by his previous rejection, he leaned into your touch. He hated himself for his weakness, but every second that you stayed, even if you left eventually, was a second he would cherish until time wore away even the memory of his dust.

With his first admission, however poorly he’d delivered it, out of the way, Axe couldn’t stop himself from confessing even more of his transgressions and regrets. “i lied and told my brother it was meat from an animal in the forest. he didn’t want to eat humans, but i tricked him. i couldn’t let him starve” The words poured out of him; he feared that as soon as things went quiet, you would realize what an irredeemable abomination he was and flee. “i shouldn’t have done it, but i didn’t know what else to do. we were so hungry… and it messed up our magic. there’s no way to hide what we did. no way to undo it.” 

-

Axe’s words stumbled to a halt, and you sat for a moment in the heavy silence of the grey dreamscape, contemplating them. You hated what he had done, but you also understood that his only other option would be watching his brother starve to death. The circumstances didn’t allow for any winners, and Axe suffered with the knowledge of the things he’d done. 

“You were trying to survive.” Your voice nearly cracked on the final word. You could not fathom the desperation that drove Axe to his decision.

You remembered all of the heart-breaking stories that Axe told you about the Underground: the human who’d stolen the SOULs that the monsters had gathered and fled, taking the monsters’ hope with them, the death of their monarchs at the human’s hands, the Royal Guard Captain’s ascension to a throne that she didn’t possess the skills to manage, and the unbearable suffering of monsters starving to death or falling down because of an unshakable despair.

You raised your eyes to meet Axe’s eyelight, expecting to see softness there once more, but instead his horrified expression stared back at you. You didn’t need to puzzle out the cause because a moment later, barbed shadow vines lashed you, wrapping around your legs and dragging you towards a puddle of oozing darkness near your feet. You struggled against the thorny tendrils, and they tightened, driving each wickedly sharp thorn-tip into your flesh.

Pain seared your legs, real physical pain… in someone else’s dream. Panic washed over you, and you fought harder to escape, causing the barbs to rip deeper into you.

You screamed.

-

Shaking off his shock at the sound of your scream, Axe lunged forward. He wrapped both of his arms tightly around you and wrenched you away from the grasping vines. A writhing mass of them rose up behind him, swarming over him like living things. Staggering a few steps forward, Axe set you on an empty bit of space, but the vines quickly pulled him off of his feet and into a kneeling position. More tendrils rose to wrap around him, and the inky darkness of the puddle rose up to meet them, slithering up his body and swallowing him up in the darkness.

“i can’t protect you here… i can’t keep you safe from me, from my mind.” Axe choked out the words through the darkness consuming him. He couldn’t let you come back. He wouldn’t allow you to be in danger because of him.

This had to be good-bye.

He focused his mind.

“don’t come back.”

-

You jolted awake, that one last glimpse of Axe’s red eyelight, brimming with pain and regret burning in your mind. He had kicked you out of his dreams and told you not to come back. You couldn’t dream-walk in a mind that wasn’t open to your presence. Your throat constricted, and you felt tears sting your eyes. What if you never saw Axe again?

When you tossed back your blankets, you half expected to see scratches on your legs where Axe’s negative thoughts and emotions had touched you, but your skin was unbroken. You’d never experienced a nightmare so vivid and intense, but you breathed a sigh of relief that it couldn’t reach you in the waking world. If only Axe would let you come back, you could tell him that despite your panicked reactions, his dreams had no power to harm you.

Instead, he would continue to face the torment of his past mistakes all alone… for now.

Because while you had been helping Axe deal with his nightmares, you hadn’t neglected the appalling circumstances of his reality. If you could make your waking project work, you would be able to truly save the skeleton that you cared for so deeply.

I won’t let you push me away, you vowed.

-

Axe settled himself on the bench of his sentry station, taking a break from prowling the forest for potential meals. The barren snowscape left him all alone with his thoughts, and he hated it. In one bout of unhinged boredom, he’d created a sign for the outpost: “Head dogs, 5G.” It made as much sense as anything else in the Underground. Besides, there was no such thing as a hot dog in this frigid wasteland.

The narrow lines of dead tree trunks shifted if he stared at them too long, and the wind that howled through them carried voices whose words he could not quite arrange into coherency. The windblown whispers rose in volume until the roaring of innumerable voices filled his skull. The blazing white of the snow surrounding him only added to the sensory overload. He couldn’t hear, couldn’t see. 

“shut up, shut up!” Axe chanted, clawing at the hole in his skull. Reality warped, the passage of time quickened and slowed, and nothing made sense anymore…

… and you were standing in front of him.

Axe recoiled in disbelief. How could this be happening? He hadn’t fallen asleep… or had he? Maybe you were a cruel hallucination conjured by his loneliness. He refused to accept the vision of you even when you reached out in that oh-so-familiar way to calm the scrabbling of his phalanges against the jagged edges of the hole in his skull.

Axe’s hand shot out as quickly as a striking snake and grabbed your wrist. He yanked you forward until you were partially bent over the sill of the sentry station. He raised his massive knife high above his head; his eyes held no recognition, no clarity, no sanity.

You held completely still, unflinching. The meat cleaver hovered threateningly above you, but it did not fall. You and Axe were frozen in the moment, but despite the madness that absolutely radiated from him, you trusted him not to hurt you.

“you’re not real,” Axe accused you in a gravelly whisper. You weren’t even sure if he meant to speak aloud at all.

“Are you going to kill me?” Your voice didn’t waver, and you kept your eyes locked with his single eyelight, calm yet firm.

Axe lowered the knife. Real or imagined, starving or not, he would never hurt you. You knew him too well. He released your wrist, hoping he hadn’t hurt you by grabbing you like that. He wanted to ask how you’d gotten here, but other matters demanded a higher priority.

“you aren’t safe here,” the skeleton scolded gruffly. “didn’t you listen? monsters here kill and eat humans!”

“Good thing I found you first then.” You tried to diffuse the tension with bravado, but you had to admit that your choice to come to the Underground was a risky one. Axe’s eyelight travelled over your body, searching for injuries while surreptitiously taking in the sight of you. His obvious concern for your safety filled you with warmth and determination.

“there’s nothing good about this,” Axe growled though he had to admit that seeing you again definitely felt like a good thing to him. That little bit of goodness could be snuffed out in a hurry though if another monster saw you and attacked. “i’ve got to get you out of here.”

Axe lumbered out of his sentry station, glancing furtively around the barren landscape, though it wasn’t entirely clear whether he expected to spot an enemy or an escape route. The skeleton stopped right next to you, attempting to block you from prying eyes. You found his protective stance rather charming, but you weren’t here to be charmed. You were on a mission.

You slipped your backpack from your shoulders, swinging it around into Axe’s line of sight and opening it. Seven clear canisters sat inside, each with a brightly-colored heart shape inside of it. Axe’s mouth dropped open in shock.

“are those…?” Axe sounded almost reverent, and with good reason.

“Human SOULs? Yes. I gathered these from willing donors who wanted to help set the monsters free.” It had taken dedication and time, but you’d meticulously interviewed potential donors until you tracked down all seven SOUL types that you needed. Now, only the path to the Barrier stood in your way.

Without warning, Axe swept you into a crushing hug, then proceeded to spin you around. Your feet actually left the ground, and you laughed softly at the thrill of it.

“you’ve got to meet my brother, then we’ll smuggle you into the Capitol.” For once you heard excitement and hope in Axe’s voice. His eyelight gleamed with resolution as he reached for your hand. You placed your hand in his without hesitation. Axe’s declaration that he knew a shortcut still rang in your ears as the world spun beneath you and everything went dark.

Disoriented, you tried to take in the scene around you. You’d been outside, standing in a forest choked with dead trees and carpeted in snow, but suddenly you found yourself in a house. The loud colors of the bowling alley style carpeting had long since faded, and the couch had obviously seen better days. Everything in the house was touched with the same look of elegant decay: faded colors, worn fabrics, the yellowing of book pages, and the subtle musk of disuse. 

A fine film of the dust of time spoke volumes about the life of two monsters who devoted so much of their lives to simply surviving that they were forced to neglect the basic upkeep of their home. The house looked so long abandoned that the presence of life within it seemed almost surreal. You couldn’t find words to break the silence that permeated the house, soundless echoes of what it had once been.

Movement caught your eye; a lanky figure detached itself from the shadows and stepped in the dust-mote-filled light. Your eyes travelled up and up, an impossible height despite the figure’s hunched posture, until you found facial features that you recognized from Axe’s dream. The vivid colors of Axe’s subconscious bore the same washed-out appearance here that characterized their home, but you knew this must be Papyrus, now known as Crooks due to the effects of his recent tragic diet.

Crooks wrung his hands shyly, awaiting your reaction to his somewhat terrifying appearance. His teeth were crooked and broken, caked with something red that you tried not to think about too much. His nervous actions tugged at your heart, and you offered him a gentle smile which he responded to with a smile of his own.

“I’D OFFER YOU SOME OF MY SIGNATURE SPAGHETTI AND EYEBALLS, BUT WE’RE ALL OUT OF PASTA.” His apologetic tone did little to distract you from the fact that the skeleton brothers were short of pasta but not eyeballs. 

“That’s alright. Really.” You didn’t hold out much hope that Crooks had misspoken considering Axe’s earlier admission. The sooner you got these monsters out of their Underground prison, the sooner they could return to normal healthy eating habits.

“my friend here wants to help us get to the Surface. they’ve got plenty of pasta up there. we just need to talk to ol’ Queen Undyne first,” Axe interjected, using a light tone to dispel the awkwardness of his brother’s offer. 

Crooks perked up at the mention of Undyne. “UNDYNE WILL BE SO RELIEVED. I DON’T THINK SHE LIKES BEING QUEEN VERY MUCH…” You clutched your backpack and its precious cargo of SOULs, unzipping it slightly to show the mingled glow of seven vibrant colors. Crooks peered at them with a mixture of curiosity and delight.

Axe shifted uncomfortably. “yeah, relieved,” he mumbled, refusing to meet your eyes. You didn’t have much time to wonder about the skeletons’ very different reactions to Undyne because Axe extended a hand to you and Crooks. As soon as your fingertips brushed his smooth, warm bones, everything went dark again.

In the few seconds it took your eyes to communicate the view of a once-opulent throne room to your poor confused brain, a glowing blue spear appeared and slammed into the ground so close to you that you felt the force of the impact thrumming up the shaft of the weapon. If Axe hadn’t yanked you backwards, you would’ve been impaled. Where had it even come from?

“UNDYNE WAIT! THIS HUMAN IS A FRIEND!” You followed the direction of Crooks’ voice to see an armor-clad monster with a wild mane of crimson hair. She held another glowing blue spear, and her single yellow eye focused on you with murderous malice. You staggered backwards from the force of her glare. 

“No human is a friend to monsters,” Queen Undyne roared, launching a volley of her spears at you. You resigned yourself to your doom, regretting that your rescue attempt had been such a short-lived failure.

A wall of bones erupted from the tiles of the floor, blocking the attack. Crooks and Axe both stood next to you, arms outstretched to summon the defensive maneuver. More spears struck the bones, causing them to shudder, but they remained standing. You turned wide, panicked eyes to Axe, searching for some explanation or reassurance.

“can you hold her off?” Axe asked Crooks, who nodded somberly. The stocky skeleton grabbed your arm and dragged you down a hallway of soaring pillars coated thickly in cobwebs and floor to ceiling windows of cloudy, cracked glass. Away from the immediate danger, you began to tremble. Tears welled up in your eyes.

Axe pulled you close, wrapping you in the safety of his arms and gently rubbing your back. He made soft shushing sounds, and you realized that your tears had turned into terrified sobs. Your body shook, and you hiccuped, trying to catch your breath. Axe held you until the overwhelming wave of emotion subsided.

“i’m so sorry. i thought maybe we could talk some sense into Undyne. she and my brother used to be really close, but the last human who came through here… well, that human killed a lot of monsters and stole the SOULs that we had collected towards breaking the barrier. they left us with nothing but despair and dust, and Undyne blamed herself for not stopping them. it… affected her.” Once again, Axe looked guilty.

“How can we convince her that I’m trying to help?” You gripped your backpack with determined hands. You didn’t gather these SOULs for nothing, and you didn’t plan to leave the starving monsters in the Underground without at least making an effort to save them.

“you aren’t going to convince her of anything.” You opened your mouth to protest, but Axe laid a phalange against your lips to silence you. “i want you to get out of here. it’s not safe, and i would never forgive myself if something happened to you.”

“What about breaking the Barrier?”

Loud crashes sounded from the Throne Room. Axe shot a quick glance over his shoulder before pushing you further down the hallway. “i need to go help my brother. if we can convince Undyne to trust you, i’ll meet you at the Barrier to break it and free the monsters.”

“What if you can’t?” More sounds of destruction threatened to drown out your whispered words, but Axe was close enough to hear you over the cacophony. Sorrow filled his single eyelight.

“i won’t put you in danger.”

“That doesn’t answer my question!” Actually, it did answer your question, and the implications left you frantic with worry for him. You wanted to explain how you felt about him, why his plan tore your heart to pieces, that you couldn’t just leave him behind, but the sounds of battle were approaching quickly. 

Crooks slid backwards into the pillar-lined hallway, kicking up dirt. He held bone attacks in his gloved hands, and he used them to deflect wave after wave of spear attacks. The barrage of attacks drove him backwards again, closer to you and his brother. Axe stepped between you and the sound of Undyne’s war cries.

Turning, he cupped your cheek in one large, bony hand. His eyelight drank you in as if to memorize every feature of your tear-streaked face. He leaned forward and kissed your forehead. “go,” he murmured, pressing his forehead to yours.

Then he was gone, teleporting to the entrance of the hallway to join Crooks with bone attacks flying. 

If you stayed, it would only distract him. He wanted you to go, to be safe. It took every bit of willpower in your body to walk away, to step through the Barrier without him, knowing that he never would’ve fought Undyne if it wasn’t for your meddling.

You waited.

And waited.

The seconds stretched out, each one lasting a thousand excruciating years.

You waited.

-

Axe curled up on the couch, full to bursting from a delicious dinner prepared by his brother. Yawning, he rested his skull in your lap, and you gently stroked his scapulae, smiling as he began to doze. He no longer feared nightmares. In fact, he rarely dreamed at all anymore. After all, what would be the point in dreaming?

Life on the Surface far surpassed anything that his subconscious could fabricate, and he already lived that dream every single day, with you.

INDEX

[amor-immortalem]

Everything Undesired chapter 6

Chapter 5

Mammon made it home in record time. He was like a man on a mission with how he marched through the house. He could hear Cyrus crying and he froze.

“No.” he told himself, “No, you are not stopping. Get. Over. It.” The demon forced himself to carry on towards Arella’s bedroom. He could hear her singing softly to the baby as he started to settle down.

“See? It’s okay.” she cooed as she leaned down to press a kiss to Cyrus’ forehead. “I know you miss your daddy, but he has to get his grades back up. We have to be patient and wait for him to get home.”

Cyrus only looked up at his adoptive mother, letting little coos and chirps out as he wiggled around in her arms.

“Arella.” Mammon called, surprising her a little.

“Mammon!” She smiled. “How was your day? I thought you’d be staying later... Is everything alright?”

“No,” the demon replies. “Nothing is alright. This isn’t fair to you. Cyrus is my kid. I’m the one who said I’d keep him and I’m making you do all the work? That’s horrible, don’t ya think?”

“What? No, I don’t mind this.” She smiled, trying to reassuring her partner. “You help enough, Love. It’s not like-”

“No, I don’t help nearly as much as I should. I’m only able to keep him when he’s quiet but the minute my own child starts cryin’, I push him off on someone else- usually you. I’ve been such a terrible mate and an even worse father and for what? Somethin' that’s not even his fault?! I’m bein’ ridiculous. I’ve put all this weight on your shoulders when I shouldn’t have.” His voice began to rise with each word, unknowingly transforming into his demon form which scared Cyrus.

The infant began crying loudly as he hid his face against Arella’s chest. She immediately tried to calm him as the Avatar of Greed rushed forward to them returning to a more human-like appearance.

“Let me have him.” He frowned. Scaring his son was the last thing he wanted.

Arella would only nod as she handed the boy off to his father, watching carefully for any signs of distress from her boyfriend or from Cyrus.

“I’m sorry, Buddy.” Mammon lowers his voice to a softer, quieter tone as he bounced the baby in his arms- a trick that often worked well with Satan during his infancy, “I didn’t mean to scare ya. Please don’t cry.”

His movements were tense at first but soon relaxed as Cyrus started to wind down. Once the boy was calmer, his face buried in his father’s neck which made him stiffen briefly, a grimace on his face as he fought the impulse to pull away.

“Mammon,” she started, “please, don’t force yourself to take care of the baby. It won’t end well.”

“Don’t worry, babe,” he looked to her, “If I don’t make myself do this, I’ll never be able to get past it. I’ll keep him for the rest of the night. I’m sure ya have things ya wanna do, right?”

“I mean I do have homework, but I really don’t want to do that right now,” She admits. “Maybe... we could do something together? Maybe go out with the baby or shopping?”

“It has been a while since you’ve really left the house,” he nodded. The idea of them going out and doing the things normal families do was tempting, he had been longing for that kind of thing. “I’ll get him fed and get him dressed in warmer clothes while you go get ready.”

Arella nodded as she gathered up some clothes and headed to the shower to wash up.

Mammon looked down at his child who still had his face buried in the crook of his father’s neck. The demon padded over to where Arella had been keeping the formula and started to make a bottle for him. It was a lot harder to make a bottle while also holding an infant than he remembered- maybe because Satan wasn’t as squirmy as Cyrus was. He knew the boy was just trying to get comfortable but it was making his stomach twist and tie in knots as he feared he might drop the child. How much did infants take at feedings again? Was it three ounces, two?

Just to be safe, he grabbed the container of formula and went into the kitchen to fill three ounces of water into the bottle before adding the powder and shaking the bottle to mix it together. He ran it under warm water for a bit and tested on his skin it to make sure it wasn’t too hot for Cyrus.

He readjusted the little one in his arms as he gave him the bottle, holding it at an angle where the baby couldn’t take too much too fast. When Cyrus wouldn’t eat anymore, Mammon pulled the bottle way to see how much he’d actually taken. His eyes widened in alarm when he saw how little his son had actually eaten.

“An ounce?” he asked as he looked down at Cyrus with a worried expression. “No wonder you’re always cryin’, kid. Ya gotta be starvin’. Do ya just not like the taste of formula? Is that why you’re not eatin’ enough?” He tried to offer the bottle back to his son, but Cyrus only turned his head away and let out a whine. “Ya really ain’t going to eat any more than that, huh?” He grabbed a kitchen towel and placed it over his shoulder as he laid his son up against his shoulder.

He started to pat Cyrus on the back until he heard a few burps from the child. The white-haired demon pulled the towel off his shoulder and placed it in the wash basket in the laundry room as he readjusted the infant in his arms so he was cradled in Mammon’s arms. He took a few moments to really look at Cyrus for the first time since he was brought home. The Avatar of Greed knew he was lucky sometimes, but he never really processed just how much Cyrus looked like him. As unfortunate as he was to experience what he had at the hands of the witches, the fact that his son had absolutely no traits from his biological mother- whichever one of them that may have been- was a miracle.

“Ya really are my little mini me, aint’cha?” He let a small smile grace his lips, “This might work then. I really could pretend you were always ‘Rella’s kid with me...” He brushed a thumb over the baby’s cheek and felt a warm feeling start to form in his chest as Cyrus’ tiny hand came up to grasp his thumb and he smiled at Mammon for the first time. He felt tears start to gather in the corners of his eyes at the thought. “Our baby...”

The sound of that made the demon hopeful and ultimately, he was glad he forced himself to do this. All he wanted was to be a good father despite everything. He wanted to give his son the loving home he deserved- one he knew the child wasn’t going to get with the witches.

“I’m lettin’ ya know right now kid, your old man can be a real idiot sometimes and I know I’m gonna make some mistakes with ya- I already made a couple- but I think you’re gonna turn out just fine...”

“I think you’re going to do just fine too, Mammon. You’re already on the right path.”

Mammon’s head shot up at the sound of his older brother’s voice as Lucifer came to join him, leaning back against the counter as he looked down at Cyrus.

“This really was the best-case scenario. He could have had any mix of features and yet he turned out looking exactly like you.”

“It really is a miracle, huh?” The second-born smiled. “I don’t think I could have done this otherwise, ya know?”

“I agree. I’m ashamed to say, but if he had looked anything like one of them, I would have killed him on the spot regardless of your wishes. As impossible a choice as it was, I would have put your well-being above all else- including the life of an innocent child.”

“I know you would have. That’s what makes you such a great older brother, ya know? No matter what kind of trouble the six of us seem to get ourselves into, when it really matters, you’re always there to save the day. You always have the answers.”

“For a moment that night, I didn’t.” The first-born admits. “After finding out what happened to you all I felt was wrath and guilt... I introduced you to those horrible women all those years ago when you were looking for a place for that human girl. Back then I could have never guessed it would lead to all of this... and then when we heard Cyrus for the first time, I couldn’t believe it at first.”

Mammon only nodded at that. “I’m glad you didn’t though. Things may be rough right now- I may not be able to completely separate him from the events of those nights, right now- but I think as long as I keep pushin’ myself to do this, it’ll happen eventually. That I’ll be able to love him at some point... All I want is to do right by him, Lucifer. All of us aside from Satan know what it’s like to have a father that never loved us apart from our usefulness as the seven virtues... And I always told myself that if I ever had a kid at some point that I would show them all the love that the old man never gave us.”

Lucifer let out a chuckle at that, “To be honest, I don’t think he even loved us in that aspect either. If he really did, he wouldn’t have sentence Lilith to death. We wouldn’t have had to wage war with him. The only ones who ever loved us were the angels who carried us until our births.”

“Yeah, but the war was inevitable, Lil was just the last straw- for all of us.”

The brothers were silent for a time, the only sounds that could be heard be heard coming from Cyrus as he purred in contentment.

“I’m gonna see if Arella’s ready and get him dressed in some warmer clothes. She wants us to go out with Cyrus and I don’t know ‘bout you, but I think it’s high time to show him off.”

“Have a good time then,” the eldest nodded with a soft smile as his brother headed back to Arella’s room.

———————————————————————-

If you wanna be tagged for future updates let me know!

Next

Masterlist 2

[hetalia-has-a-secretary]

Hi! Could you write about that the axis and the allies kiss their s / o and there is a scene of transformation like in the beauty and the beast and the countries become human? As only with a kiss of true love the spell will be broken.

I'm a terrible gremlin. I'm not sorry for this.

Intro: C/N and his S/O have been together for a while now. Words of affirmation, silent vows, and moments of love have come and go. Now more than ever do they feel connected. Hearts beat, and palms sweat as they both lean in for a kiss. Lips pressed flush against each other as a light beams over C/N body. The light penetrating through the eyelids of their lover. The bright glow flickers and glitters as their body seems to react and shift. Only once the light and spiraling strands of magic fade away does it reveal... Nothing. Their body is still the same, and only after asking what the heck just happened does a crumpled up note fall from the sky (Rome's balcony) with words scribbled in chicken scratch "You are human now! Congrats!".

Axis:

Germany:

He just kind of blinked.

His heart was still beating hard from the kiss, but seeing this note in his hand, part of him felt... Relieved.

No more wars, no more having to plan meetings.

He can just... Live a life?

Looking up to his Precious treasure, tears in his eyes, he brings them in for another kiss.

The best part of the news is he can spend the rest of his life with his S/O.

Japan:

He takes a few moments to process what happened.

Even looking up at the sky for a second or two. Having half a heart attack at seeing the giant Rome giving them a thumbs up.

Only after his S/O pokes his arm does he realize what just happened.

In one quick motion he's gone from a big grin, to locking lips with his Darling.

He's not a country anymore.

He doesn't have the urge to hold back, just to be the proper representation of his home land.

He can love his S/O, with no strings attached.

Italy:

He reads the note over, and then out loud.

He starts to laugh, his chest heaving from the excitement.

"I'm... Human..."

All he can do is hold and twirl his S/O around. Even if they're wheelchair bound, they're getting gently pushed around in a small dance.

He's the happiest he's ever been.

So of course they're going to the best restaurant to celebrate!

Allies:

America:

He seems sad at first.

After all he spent most of his life fighting for the freedom of his citizens.

Even if the path he walked wasn't always righteous, what choice did he have?

Choice.

He was free. He didn't have to carry the weight of a whole nation on his back, for pretty much no reason.

No more pain, and no more struggling.

He can experience the American dream for himself.

And with the most important person in his life.

England:

He felt, confused.

One hand he was excited.

No more fighting, and he can live a normal life.

But his S/O has to understand that this also means he has to say goodbye to his fairytale friends.

It was bittersweet, but seeing his S/O for the first time with a newly formed perspective, he is more than ready.

He feels so much, lighter?

His first order of business. More kisses. More one on one time. More everything.

France:

He was ecstatic, speechless even.

He was... Human!

He shook his head, and tossed the note to the street, and kissed his lover

Again and again.

His heart beats slightly different, and he... Likes it?

It's a new adventure, and most of all...

He might be able to introduce his S/O to Joann of Arc one day.

He will be ready for immortality in the afterlife. His most precious darling by his side.

Until then he's going to spend every waking moment with them, if possible.

After all, they only have a lifetime to spend. And maybe eternity after.

China:

He was in a good amount of shock.

He was with the love of his life, and they were the key to becoming mortal?

He loved them then, but his feelings are certainly stronger now.

He was still in shock though.

After all these years, all this time.

He's finally human?

He didn't even know it was a curse.

He's so excited though, he has no idea what he wants to do now.

His S/O is going to have to help get him moving.

Russia:

He breaks down immediately.

He's going to need a minute or so to calm down.

After all, this was the kind of thing he was waiting for.

The knowledge that his life is finally going to have a meaning.

And that meaning is his S/O.

He's going to be so- he's going to be a hot mess for a few days

He'll be bouncing back and forth between happiness, and fear

He's going to lose a lot of the things that he worked hard to gain. His power, his reputation, his friends... It what he calls friends.

But when he comes back around he's the most sweetest person on earth.

Will want to do a lot of fun things almost 24/7. Until he realizes a human body can only take so much without exhausting itself.

So his S/O needs to keep an eye on him.

Happy (belated) Kissing day!

[fleetingfigures]

Mitigation made Manifest - A Scholar Analysis

Hello everyone, and welcome to the first part of my analysis series! Today we're going to be taking a look at the titular Scholar job, as well as delve into how it works, what it excels at, what it comes short on, and how well it is designed!

In an effort to keep everything organized, I'll section off this post into 4 main portions. If you're on a computer, you can use ctrl+f (or command+f if you're on a mac) to search for the following headings:

[ Basics ] [ How Scholar Works ] [ Gameplay, Tips and Design ] [ Final Evaluation ]

With that out of the way, let us begin!

[ Basics ]

Before we dive into Scholar, I believe I must go over a few things, the first being the issue of Scholar’s origin. Scholar, and by extension, its sibling, Summoner, have a unique system wherein they originate from the same base class, Arcanist, and also share each others’ levels (i.e if you level Summoner to 71, your Scholar will also be 71). As per most jobs, many of the base class’ actions translate to its advanced jobs, but the issue comes in its respective role - Arcanist is a magical dps. For Summoner, this is a fine transition as they share this role, but for Scholar, it is a tad awkward. At no point in your time as an arcanist are you ever really taught how healing in FFXIV functions, nor is it ever your ‘job’. The only real healer you can even start the game with is Conjurer, and beyond that, if you want to pick up a healer on the side without a level skip, only Astrologian and Conjurer are healers right out of the gate. As such, It’s hard to recommend Scholar as someone’s first healer as its levelling experience does not translate to how healers are played effectively.

Though, on this topic of effective healer play, I also feel the need to describe XIV’s healing design. At its core, a healer’s job is to obviously keep the party, and most importantly their tank, from dying. But, this is where some issues arise. In higher-end content, a healer is expected to also carry their weight in terms of DPS, and should have comparable RDPS (Damage taking into account buffs/debuffs applied) to that of a party’s tanks. This brings me to the focus of XIV’s healer philosophy: One is to balance the healing they must do with the damage they output. Spending all of your MP on healing is forsaking your duty to at least deal some damage, and only doing damage will obviously cause your party to die. Healing is essentially a game of ‘how low can I go?’, and as you gain more experience and comfort in the role, you can push that threshold lower and lower.

As for more general terms to be aware of, I shall make a small list!

DPS/ADPS/RDPS: Damage per second/Actual damage per second/Raid-contributing damage per second. These are terms used mostly by raiders to quantify how much damage is contributed. For classes that have buffs and debuffs, their DPS/ADPS do not accurately show their true damage, but their RDPS takes into account the bonus damage their buffs and debuffs have granted. Slidecasting: A term describing the leniency that cast times are given in this game because of server connection. For all spells, you do not have to be sitting through their entire cast bar, as they can instead be cut short so that one can still move while in the last bit of their cast. When one can slidecast a spell is dependent upon the cast time of the spell and the spell speed of the individual. HoT/DoT: Heal over time, Damage over time. GCD/OGCD: Global Cooldown/Off-Global Cooldown. Spells and weaponskills operate off of something called a ‘GCD’. A GCD is essentially a lockout until you can cast your next spell/weaponskill. For spells, as they have a cast time equivalent to their GCD, you can cast another right after you finish the first. By default, this GCD is 2.5 seconds for every class, and is reduced by abilities and skill/spell speed. But for weaponskills/spells that are classified as instant, that GCD lockout can instead be used to move or to use OGCD’s, namely abilities, that aren’t constricted by the GCD. The use of OGCD’s during a GCD lockout is called... Weaving: Using OGCD’s during a GCD lockout. Using just one in this timeframe is referred to as a single weave, and using two is referred to as a double weave. For SCH, you want most weaves to be double weaves. Ghosting: The bane of all arcanist-based classes. Unfortunately due to the AI of pets in this game, there is a delay between when you input an action and when your pet performs it, and a general delay in all pet actions if you are moving and they have to catch up. Sometimes when inputting abilities too quickly or using a demi-summon as actions are queued (like Summon Bahamut, Phoenix Trance and Summon Seraph), the queued action will either be delayed or never go off, but will still go on cooldown. Hence the term ‘ghosting’.

[ How Scholar Works ]

Now with the basics made clear, we can get to the actual meat of this analysis! In FFXIV, there are two denominations of healers: Shielding and Pure. Scholar falls into the prior classification as most of its kit is themed around the prevention of damage. Adloquium and Succor, for example, heal less than White Mage’s Cure II and Medica II, but apply a shield equivalent to 125% of the health restored. As such, Scholar is less of a reactive healer, but more of a proactive one; they set up their resources in advance so that the fight flows with less chaos. Scholar’s base kit is as follows:

Ruin/Broil I, II, and III: Your standard damage spell for a healer. Cast this when you’re not healing. Bio/Bio II/Biolysis: Your standard DoT spell for a healer, ticks 10 times over 30 seconds. Make sure to always have this on the enemy, that is unless the enemy is about to go away, or will die in 15 seconds or less. if this spell sticks to a target for more than 15 seconds, then it technically has outdamaged 1 broil, thus making it a theoretical gain! Physick: The basic heal for a healer; heals for about 400 potency. Once you get to a higher level, you should realistically never touch this heal again. Adloquium (Lvl 30): Scholar’s ‘big single target heal’; heals for 300 potency while erecting a shield equivalent to 125% of the healing done (technically 675 potency in total). Shields generated by this are denoted by the ‘Galvanize’ buff. If this crits, bonus shields will be added as another buff called ‘Catalyze’. This shield does not stack with itself, Succor, Seraphic Veil, or Nocturnal AST’s shields. Succor (Lvl 35): Scholar’s AoE heal; heals for 180 potency and erects a shield equivalent to 125% of the healing done (technically 405 potency in total). Shields generated by this are denoted by the ‘Galvanize’ buff. Like Adlo, it does not stack with what was listed above. Ruin II (Lvl 38): An instant cast version of ruin. It’s potency upgrades as you level, capping at 200 at level 72. This spell is mostly used to weave OGCD’s, or to just generally move while not missing too many casts. Art of War (Lvl 46): Your standard AoE spell for a healer. Deals 160 potency to all enemies in 5 yalms and is instant. Unlike Holy, this spell is a DPS gain on 2 targets or more. Deployment Tactics (Lvl 56): As an OGCD, spreads the target’s Galvanize buff to all nearby allies within 10 yalms. Does not spread Catalyze. Emergency Tactics (Lvl 58): Transforms the shields from Adlo and Succor into a flat heal. Useful in a pinch, hence its name, and gives Scholar a chance at outputting fat heals. Chain Stratagem (Lvl 66): Where Scholar’s RDPS comes from. Applies a debuff to a target that increases the chance they receive critical hits from all allies hitting it by 10% for 15 seconds. Multiple of these cannot be applied to the same boss, and will overlap. Keep in mind its 120 second cooldown as it is crucial to getting better at Scholar! Recitation (Lvl 74): Your next Succor, Adloquium, Excogitation, or Indomitability will always crit. In the case of Succor and Adlo, they will also not cast mana. In the case of Excog and Indom, they will not require an aetherflow stack. Mostly used to cast excog/indom through a double weave, and is immensely useful to make healing easier. 90 second cooldown.

To build off of my last point of resources, it’s high time to introduce two of Scholar’s best friends: Eos and Selene! Eos and Selene, as per SCH’s Arcanist base, are the pets for this job. Unlike carbuncles and egis, they do not deal damage, but instead use their actions to heal, and are crucial to Scholar’s gameplay. Also like the other pets, their action potencies scale differently as opposed to the player’s. For example, Eos/Selene’s Whispering Dawn skill has a listed regen potency of 120, meanwhile WHM’s Medica II regen has a listed potency of 100. One would think that Whispering Dawn would tick for more than Medica II, but through my testing, it is only about 86.8% as effective (due to number variation in FFXIV, this percentage is subject to change). The factor in which pet scaling affects your fairy’s heal is about 64%. With that little disclaimer out of the way, the Faeries’ kits are as follows:

Embrace (Lvl 1): A 150 (96 with pet scaling) potency single-target heal. This is what your fairy will do with its free time. Whispering Dawn (Lvl 20): A 120 potency regen over 21 seconds (537 potency heal in total with pet-scaling). Due to FFXIV’s server ticks, HoT’s and DoT’s hit every 3 seconds, and as such, WD translates to about 840 potency (in terms of your pet’s scaling that is). This ability is activated by the player as an OGCD. Fey Illumination (Lvl 40): A buff that reduces magic damage taken by all allies in range by 5% and increases their healing received by 10%. Lasts 20 seconds. Dissipation (Lvl 60): Munch on your Fairy to gain 3 aetherflow charges and +20% healing magic. This does NOT AFFECT THE POTENCY OF YOUR OGCD HEALING. Your fairy will automatically respawn after the 30 second duration. Aetherpact & Fey Union (Lvl 70): Designate an ally as an OGCD to form a tether between them and your fairy. Your Fairy gauge will then deplete by 10 every 3 seconds to apply a 400 potency (256 potency with pet scaling) heal. This tether will break after the target is 15 yalms away, if you cancel it by using aetherpact again, or if you use another fairy skill. Fey Blessing (Lvl 76): As an OGCD, spend 10 Fairy Gauge to have your Fairy perform an aoe heal of 350 potency (224 potency with pet scaling). Summon Seraph (Lvl 80): As an OGCD, replace your fairy with Seraph. Embrace now becomes Seraphic Veil, a 200 potency (128 potency heal with pet scaling) heal + shield. Consolation (Lvl 80): Essentially Fey Blessing, but only available during Seraph. Heals for 300 potency (192 potency with pet scaling), and shields for the same amount. Has 2 charges per every Seraph summon, and the shield stacks with your own shields as well as a nocturnal Astro’s shields.

Now that those are out of the way, you must be thinking, “The fuck is fairy gauge and aetherflow?” Well, I’m glad you asked, as they’re both intrinsically tied to each other! Starting at level 70, every time you spend an aetherflow stack, you gain 10 fairy gauge, pretty simple, yea? As for aetherflow itself, every 60 seconds you can cast the skill named, well, Aetherflow, to gain 3 stacks of it and recover 1000 MP. These Aetherflow stacks can be used on the following OGCD abilities:

Lustrate (Lvl 45): A 600 potency heal. Very straightforward, and often not used because of the value of the other options. Energy Drain (Lvl 45): A 100 potency damaging OGCD. If you don’t need to heal, and you don’t think you need to heal for a bit, this is your go-to aetherflow dump. Also, if you’re attempting parses on Scholar, have fun using all your aetherflow on this. Sacred Soil (Lvl 50): Create a bubble that reduces damage taken by all allies inside by 10% for 15 seconds. At level 78 this upgrades to offer a 100 potency heal (500 potency heal in total). Only costing 1 aetherflow gauge, having a 30 second cooldown, and lasting 15 seconds, this skill is INCREDIBLY GOOD, especially after the level 78 upgrade. Indomitability (Lvl 52): A 400 potency AoE heal. Straightforward, but very effective because of its numbers. Excogitation (Lvl 62): An 800 potency heal that triggers when the target falls under 50% HP, or if its 45 second duration ends. While it feels awkward to use for beginners, its usefulness is immeasurable. It is technically a higher potency version of Lustrate, with a slight cooldown and delay, but fills a more ‘fire-forget’ niche. Very useful inside of all settings but remember, it will not proc if the target will outright die to the damage before it triggers (i.e if a tank takes a tankbuster at 51% health, and the hit does 60%, excog will not proc.)

[ Gameplay, Tips and Design ]

Scholar, as I have stated, fills the role of a preemptive healer, especially with all of the mitigation present in its kit, as well as the existence of Excog. As such, this job sees a greater increase in effectiveness as you yourself learn a fight compared to a pure healer such as WHM/Diurnal AST. If you know when the party/raid-wide damage is coming, and you prepare accordingly with... Say, A sacred soil and a succor, that is a good chunk of damage you or your co-healer won’t have to heal, thus affording both of you more time to deal damage. Inside of higher end content, like savage raids, having said mitigation is both invaluable for progressing through fights, as well as streamlining and perfecting them. For a while, because of that fact, SCH was the unofficial ‘king’ of healers for a very long time, especially considering there used to be a lot more damage inside of SCH’s kit (rest in peace almost everything that made it unique lol). The start of Shadowbringers was when SCH was finally taken off of its throne, not by AST like many would think (also because it took quite the hit), but by WHM of all things. Thankfully through a series of buffs since 5.0, SCH would begin to see themselves slowly climb back and situate in a comfortable position, but while Scholar is in a good spot now, that does not mean it’s perfect.

Scholar’s ability to heal pure HP is a bit lacking, especially so when dealing with attacks that place the party or specific players at 1 hp. SCH’s find themselves having to use multiple resources in trying to recover that lost HP, often losing much more damage uptime in comparison to WHM or AST (Which is why the ideal healing composition involves 1 pure healer and 1 shield healer). This usage of multiple resources also makes SCH a fair bit more punishing to inexperienced healers than AST or WHM. With the HP recovery of fairies being nerfed in Shadowbringers, much more of the agency is placed back upon the player, who in turn must pay attention to everything that the class has to offer. Obviously not all content is going to necessitate OPTIMAL PLAY, but with all the moving parts present within its kit, Scholar demands a bit more attention to be paid towards it and its skills.

Outside of a learning curve and lack of pure healing, Scholars are punished heavily for dying. Not only must they spend a GCD in resummoning their fairy, all fairy gauge and aetherflow stacks are also lost on death, and if aetherflow was on cooldown at the time, A SCH is going to not have a majority of their kit for awhile on top of having reduced healing due to weakness/brink of death. This once again lends itself to Scholar being less beginner-friendly as opposed to the other healers, even with the existence of freebie heals from your fairy.

Hell, speaking about fairies, therein lies an issue itself - Scholar being a pet class. Conceptually it’s awesome, but with how FFXIV handles pets/demi-summons and their AI, it’s also quite the hassle. Like I mentioned above, ghosting is a problem when it comes to pet classes, and if you don’t properly adjust around it, some of your cooldowns can simply just go poof. Weaving both Whispering Dawn and Fey Illumination in the same double weave will cause the one that’s cast later to cast quite a bit later. On top of that, if you’re moving while you’re weaving them, there’s a chance you’ll have to wait for the fairy to catch up to you to finally cast them (which is why placing your fairy pre-battle is very useful). And as a general rule of thumb, never use summon seraph right after you use Whispering Dawn or Fey Illumination. Wait until after you see the buff apply on everyone as using Seraph will cancel the queued action.

With all that being said, however Scholar is still highly effective in what it does, it just requires a bit of experience. While I can’t offer tutorials on every fight, there are a few general tips I can give for aspiring scholars out there!

[ Tips ]

(General Advice + Combos)

Double weaving on Scholar is rather straightforward, but if you're using Ruin II to do so after your Broil, it will be a technical DPS loss if you do not use an energy drain within the weave window! Broil III has a potency of 290, Ruin II has a potency of 200, and Energy Drain has a potency of 100. In weaving without the use of energy drain, you will lose 90 potency in comparison to if you were to cast another Broil III. Using Energy Drain will add another 100 potency, thus gaining you 10 potency overall. Of course you shouldn't always dump an aetherflow on energy drain when you're weaving, but it is something to keep in mind when you are aiming to do more damage!

- Healing Combos -

[Single Target] If you are AoE'ing, replace ruin II/Biolysis with Art of War!

[AoE Mitigation] (Shield + 5% magic damage mitigation + 10% all damage mitigation)

[Panic AoE Healing] (1029 potency AoE Healing) As a bonus little tip in regards to this, remember Scholar's AoE healing spell/ability priority! The above combo is when you cannot afford time for a regen, but if you can, follow this list. 1. Whispering Dawn (if you can afford time for the regen) 2. Fey Blessing 3. Sacred Soil (if you can afford time for the regen) 4. Indomitability 5. Succor + Emergency Tactics 6. Succor

Scholars luckily have a wonderful mobility tool in Ruin II which allows them to position easily, though at the cost of DPS. However, this loss is minimal compared to its cohorts, wherein WHM either has to clip their Dia or use a lily, and AST either has to use Lightspeed, or slowly shuffle over with Malefics. This makes Scholar a bit easier to navigate when learning fights! Don't be afraid to use Ruin II if you're looking to push for a clear or learn a mechanic better, as a dead scholar is worse than one that is losing dps.

A crucial part of Scholar's kit is actually Chain Stratagem. While it loses much of its usefulness in public groups, or those who do not exactly care for proper rotations, when you can coordinate buffs and opening combos, it provides a large boost in DPS for the whole party. Typically, the ideal time to use Chain Stratagem is upon your 4th GCD, and everytime it comes off cooldown after, but this can change depending on your group. Here is an example 4th GCD Chain opener.

(Dungeons)

While AoE’ing mob packs, you can keep your focus target on the tank. It will make it much easier to heal them in a pinch.

Sacred Soil is essentially a free 15 second long cooldown for the tank, that ALSO heals at level 78 and above. It’s very, very useful.

Using Excog and adlo between pulls will allow you to spend more time AoE’ing mobs

Don’t forget about your fairy skills, especially fey union. Lazy mode is using fey union after whispering dawn, fey illumination and sacred soil and then proceeding to press art of war until the cows come home.

(Trials/Raid)

Recitation + Excog on your main tank pre-pull. Many use recitation+Adlo and then spread the shield with deployment tactics, but you don’t need to use recitation for that! Catalyze is the bonus shielding a crit adlo creates, and cannot be spread. Therefore save your recitation for a free excog and use a normal adlo+deployment tactics afterwards.

Please, please, PLEASE, if you are in a static or raid environment, make sure you allies stand in Sacred Soil when they can. It makes all of your lives easier.

Pre-placing your fairy in the center of the arena is a good habit to get in, but if you need your fairy AoE’s while you’re away from the center, make sure to press heel on your fairy hotbar to make it follow you again.

[Design]

Outside of all that, there is a collection of miscellaneous things that I do want to prattle off in relation to this category, mostly being some design choices and ideas I had for the class going forward. So, let’s begin!

Why does Fey Blessing not become Consolation when you have Seraph out? They are essentially the same thing, and you CAN’T EVEN USE FEY BLESSING WHEN YOU HAVE SERAPH OUT. WHY IS FEY BLESSING AND CONSOLATION SEPARATE BUTTONS. ANSWER ME SQUARE ENIX, TELL ME WHY.

There should be another way to dump Fairy gauge. It would make the system a bit more interactive (A lot like how lilies got an AoE version as well as Afflatus misery with SHB).

We should be able to cancel fey union in the middle of a cast. Breaking the tether does not have an animation nor any animation lockout, and in my eyes is technically not an OGCD. With this change, cancelling fey union can be done on the fly and not require a weave so as to not lose uptime.

The delay upon shield application is a tad annoying, especially so in the use of deployment tactics. Sometimes, if you cast too late, the boss’ Aoe will eat the heal, but not the shield. And in the case of the latter, if you use deployment tactics too quickly, you’ll spread nothing.

Bring back fairy uniqueness ;-;

[ Final Evaluation ]

Now comes time for my final grading.

Going forward with these Class Analyses, I will grade the class upon a set of categories unique to their role (DPS, Tank, Healer). As such, in my grading of Scholar, I will judge it based on the following categories, on a scale of F-S:

Damage (Personal) - The damage they bring to the table by themselves. Damage (Raid setting) - The damage they bring based upon their RDPS potential Accessibility - How easy is it to pick up and play? Mitigation - How well can they prevent damage? Healing - How well can they heal damage? Fun - Well, is it fun? Fantasy fulfillment - Does it fit the class aesthetics/lore?

Damage (Personal) [7] - While not as powerful alone as White Mage, Scholar is not entirely dependent upon team mates for damage like Astrologian.

Damage (Raid Setting) [8] - The addition of chain stratagem to Scholar’s already decent damage takes that one extra step beyond.

Accessibility [4] - Starts as a DPS in Arcanist, has many unique functions and is punished heavily if they die in the middle of a battle.

Mitigation [10] - They’re the originator of shield healers, and definitely keep the crown. Sacred soil is always going to be ridiculous.

Healing [6.5] - Scholar’s pure healing is a bit lacking, but with Square’s fight design, any healer should be able to make it through a fight. Therefore, I cannot rate Scholar all too low in this category.

Fun [7.5, almost 8] - Keeps you engaged, but lacks the pizzazz of Astro and the oomph of White Mage. Still a fun class at the end of the day, though!

Fantasy Fulfillment [9] - As tactical geniuses in the lore, the feel of Scholar gameplay fits that ideal! Through your mitigation, pre-planned abilities, and setting up of fairy abilities, you definitely feel like a tactician controlling the flow of battle, though it does falter a bit with a lot of their old options being removed in SHB.

[ End ]

And with that, we are done with this analysis! As for my personal conjecture with Scholar, it’s one of my mains, and used to be my go to raid healer, that is until my static needed a bit more upfront healing for e12s prog awhile back. If you were to look at my FFlogs, you’d probably see an absolute deluge of WHM parses since it’s uhh... Kinda technically my new healer main, but I still love SCH I swear! Another thing that made me switch from SCH to WHM was the inclusion of a DRK in our static. The ability to instantly remove Walking Dead with one button is so much easier than blowing cooldowns on both healers. Though, technically, from a savage perspective, the highest damage team setup is SCH + AST (Mostly because boosting teammate damage will always do more than just being good yourself, especially this late in the tier).

Anywho... This is the REAL end of the analysis. Hope you enjoyed and if you have any suggestions, questions or things to address, just comment and let me know!

Yabi, out~

[leportraitducadavre]

What are Naruto’s character flaws in Part 2 ? Did even growth at all during the timeskip or did he get worser ?

Naruto did not develop much after the first part, most of his characterization was based on his impulsive, reckless attitude that was shown to us before the time-jump, but little did they try to establish a more mature Naruto in Shippuden. After the time-skip, the first thing Naruto -actively- does is spar with Kakashi alongside Sakura, there’s nothing there that show us some growth in his behavior (or what humor is) when talking to Konohamaru, and his feelings for Sakura hadn’t changed (still in love with her and asking her on dates despite not seeing her for two years). His tactic to defeat Kakashi is effective, but little have to do with maturity, I know it was planned more for comedy purposes, but it still establishes a Naruto that differs from his former version only by his design, and little bit at that.

During the Gaara’s Retrieval Arc, we again see a reckless Naruto that jeopardizes the mission on occasion in order to get to Gaara, his heart is in the right place, and we already saw how Naruto feels about jinchurikis during the first part. This arc seemed to be more about establishing three things: Gaara’s position of power -despite his tailed beast, which introduces the idea of Naruto having a possibility of getting the position-, Naruto and Gaara’s friendship (and hence, Suna and Konoha), and Suna’s relationship with their Kazekage. Chiyo’s character was presented to serve as the “old vision” of the jinchurikis, being antagonistic to Naruto’s views but ultimately changing thanks to “our hero” and sacrificing herself for Gaara, and to be the second mentor to Sakura to show her development in other circumstances that aren’t sparing with her former teacher.

With that, Naruto’s characterization in the second part has been established, his reaction to Sai's enlistment in team 7 as Sasuke's replacement differs nothing to how he would have reacted during the first part. It could be said that two years are short to change a person’s personality, but Naruto’s development hasn’t moved nor forward or backward, it’s stanked in what seemed to be the most highlighted traits of his personality and the ones the fans recognized him for the most. 

There was an attempt to establish a more mature, more in-depth Naruto during the Pain Arc and later on with the Dark Naruto, but little did succeed, quite the contrary. They tried to show the mature way in which Naruto handled a situation that at another time would have caused another reaction on his part, but the resolution was pure nonsense and their attempt relied on the destruction of a deeper, smarter character like Pain. Naruto “changed” Pain’s view of the world because he quoted a phrase from the book Jiraiya wrote that was inspired by something Nagato said as a child, and that was pretty much it. The reply to the question Pain asked (how would you face this hatred [the world’s hatred, their desire to revenge those who were killed] in order to build peace?), was:

“I believe in what Jiraiya did”. 

There was no depth in that response, there was no argument against what Pain believed in, there was nothing that put Naruto above Pain or showed him to have grown enough to reason with him on the same moral or intellectual level. In that sense there was no growth, Naruto responded that he believed in what his former sensei did, which was already established before, the fact that Konoha was the responsible for the despair of small countries like Nagato’s is completely overlooked in that moment not to be addressed again during their meeting.

Here’s the thing that differentiates Pain or even Sasuke from Naruto: Their traumas. I’m not trying to diminish Naruto’s feelings about the things that happened to him, but everything that was thrown his way was quickly overcome and had little effect on his actions later on. We start the series by knowing that Naruto was an outcast and was despised by the village for things he couldn’t control, like the Kyuubi being sealed on him when he was born, and that he didn’t know who his parents were -hence, his identity, which is something a dictatorial system does, did, and will do and there are no red flags there for the fandom?-. His personality, a loud boy that tried to get everyone’s attention, was explained by those reasons. He was desperately trying to get some control over what was happening around him, he was trying to get whatever acknowledgment he could (whether it was good or bad). His goal and dream, becoming the Hokage, was explained by that same desolation and loneliness, since becoming the ultimate leader of his village would guarantee everyone’s respect, or at least, acknowledgment. During the first part, that worked.

Throughout the series, they wanted us to believe that the dream that began with the simple desire to be loved by his own people morphed into something even deeper when Naruto gains knowledge of the shortcomings of the system and wants to modify them, but that reason falls flat when Naruto doesn’t acknowledge Konoha’s responsibilities, nor on other countries’ miseries, nor in the slaughter of their own people (UCM) during the second part. Losing Jiraiya presented another trauma for Naruto, since it was the first time a person he “truly” bonded with and represented the grandparent figure -being the official connection with his parents- died during combat, but that trauma is “resolved” and never brought back after Pain’s Arc.

Naruto never overcomes his main trauma. He never overcomes the need to be loved and acknowledged, the “trauma” is resolved when he’s considered a hero for the same people that despised him and suddenly, since he can control Kurama and is the weapon he was intended to be from the very beginning, he’s not that bad. The “Dark Naruto” that was introduced to show us how Naruto grew from being the boy that was impulsed by the hatred he felt for the rest of the villagers to the man that forgave them for what they did, translates more accurately as the transformation of the “boy who wanted to be acknowledged and did everything to show he was worth it” to the “man who will do anything to show them they weren’t wrong about trusting him”. 

There’s no morph in his dream or ideals. He’s still dependable on the views others have of him, on his “usefulness”, during Shippuden, rather than overcome it, the need deepens, which is the major modifier of his character. Sasuke went from wanting to kill Itachi to revenge his clan, to understanding that there was a system that cemented the basis of the coup and allowed, encouraged, and covered the Uchiha massacre; so he went from wanting to kill a man, to want to take down the system that put him in that position to begin with (Itachi is a more complex character so I’m not going to enter in that area now). Nagato witnessed the killing of his parents at the hands of Konoha shinobi -the country that started the war in the first place-, and Yahiko later on by Hanzo -helped by Danzo-, and went from wanting to bring peace without the use of brute force (Jiraiya and Yahiko’s view), to achieve peace through justice (stripping the countries of their most powerful weapons to control the system and bring it down). Naruto went from wanting to be Hokage to be loved, to wanting to be Hokage to bring peace, but without acknowledging or trying to understand and offer solutions to the problems presented by the two most important characters to the plot (Pain and Sasuke) there was no solid base to build that peace, it would be, at best, temporary. 

His idea of peace is exactly the same that Nagato saw was fruitless, and there’s nothing a single Hokage can do to change the shinobi political bureaucracy around the globe, convincing the present leader of a village does exactly nothing when the system they have to move around is the exact same that it was since the clan wars, and that’s the sole problem if we are kind enough to believe everyone will listen and act as Naruto wants. The idea of the Chain of Hatred that was the basis of Pain’s beliefs was offered no response by Naruto or his ideals, while Sasuke acknowledged the problem and suggested that the solution was for everyone to focus their hatred on just one person (himself), and start all over again, without ties to that oppressive past. Naruto replied exactly nothing to that issue, and once Pain died, he cared no more about it. Not only that, but the only time it was brought up again was when Karui physically assaulted him because of Sasuke's actions against her sensei. Naruto single-handedly decided that he deserved to be the one to receive the hatred of everyone in order to stop the “Chain of Hatred”, a solution almost identical to the one presented by Pain and Sasuke, but when fighting Sasuke during the final arc he condemned the idea of a single person carrying that weight. The contradiction of his statement a few Arcs before being beaten up for Sasuke is completely irrational writing-wise.

Sasuke grew from his hatred and wanted a revolution, Naruto did not. His characterization wasn’t allowed to become “somber” because that will shatter the reason fans were so enamored with him, will ultimately destroy the fandom’s idea of their “golden, relatable boy”. Naruto is the exact opposite of his rival, not only on his ideals but also in personality and design, if Sasuke is the one who represents the most “radical” responses and embodies a stoic personality, Naruto has to be the opposite, particularly in Shippuden when we see how Sasuke’s beliefs morphed into something entirely new. 

There’s not a significant change in Naruto because he doesn’t need to, his traumas are brushed aside because people started to like him, so the reason why they hated him in the first place stopped being important and it became what gave him enough strength to become remarkable and to be relied on during the war. The system that tortured him and used him as a weapon now pats him on the back, calls him a hero, and puts Sasuke down (the one who used to be loved when he was functional to them), so now Naruto feels accepted and beliefs himself to be the one morally capable of “accepting” others into that system. Destroying it will mean questioning that “meritocracy” that put him there in the first place, because he played by its rules and it paid off, so the others should too, no matter how unfair it is. 

[hag-rambling-on]

More about the schools in rewinxing Magix...

Let's see. First to said these three schools are at the end run by the Magic Realm Council, and it is best to think of them as a military academy or affiliated with a UNO-type para/military group.

They send their students on missions (the only thing that explains to me that the winx and the specialists go out so much and the adults leave them).

The first with supervision, the following with follow-up and then with reports it’s enough.

Average time of studies and graduation mark

Witches/wizards study at least 7 years or 9 because 7 is a magic number and 9 is three times 3. It does not have a final transformation but a series of spells and creation of minimal artifacts (such as Gloomix -now called Sheen Trinket-, the Vacuum -we will call it by their dub name Whisperian Bottles-, Convergence and the Grief Edge/Blade -actually takes form of random weapon- for graduation)

fairies/faes at leat 5 years. Both begin with coming of age when the creature's magic core has stabilized. There are many reconized fairy transformations. But in Alfea they ask for the Enchantix as a graduation mark transformation because a Guardian Fairy has to be willing to give everything for others. Many fairies of Alfea achieve their basic form in the first year and in the following a few others according to their affinities up to Enchantix. It is not normal to get the Enchantix in the 3rd year, although it is introduced in that year so that the fairies/faes can get mentalized.

Paladins and Specialists start at 14 years old and train for a minimum of 10 years. The first years can be skipped but you have to show that you have physical fitness, which is what they focus on. Because magic is tricky and the body is not. But sure, most royals train at home and go straight into the last courses. Their final exam is a circuit or mission that requires they to use a great deal of their knowledge learned over the years. It is very comprehensive and has individual and group parts.

Uniforms

Faes have uniforms with protection against falls and blows, also to facilitate the invocation of the wings. They are not gender specific, yes, there are skirts and pants, but you wear what you want.

Witches do not have a uniform, but on special occasions - when they confront other schools - they wear long black robes to identify themselves.

Specialists and Paladins uniforms they are very resistant, thermal insulating and have a dark-light type concealment function. Which is not black or white, but a range of dark and light colors to blend in in dark places or in deserts and tundras. Obtaining the energy for it depends on whether they are Specialists (technomagic) or Paladins (magical artifacts) it is for this energy that each person gets a different color. They also start with a full standard armor coating that tends to decrease according to the combat style of each fighter But it also helps training -because of the extra weight-. Paladins uniforms adds featherlike wings, specialists usually use animals or vehicles.

Schools buildings and location

All schools are located in Magix. An asteroid in a belt, in the remains of Planet Hike, from which it formed. It is a neutral location and home to the Magic Realm Council. Another place considered neutral is Lymphea.

Lake Rocaluce is where a great meteor was invoked and caused the fracture of the planet (and the end of a war, an interRealm war that Hika hosted, but that was long before even the Ancient Witches. The schools are placed around him in eternal memory it... Although... they no longer remember... Magix (the city) was founded by the weary survivors of this war and they too formed the Magic Realms Council, with their sede in the Fortress of Light that hangs above Lake Roccaluce.

---

Both Alfea and CT has been saturated with a lot of magic for a long time, this is why they are relatively alive. Although this is much more obvious in Cloud Tower (Alias Cloudy). The latter is alive to the point that some people become obsessed with school and not drop it, and suspend, suspend, and continue to fail.

Room customization is encouraged as a form of self-expression, specially in Alfea.

Cloud Tower is in dark colors so I already mentioned to welcome its residents without strident stimuli. On the contrary, Alfea has light and harmonic colors, vibrant without being garish, which call joy, warm, hope, cleanliness.

---

It doesn't seem practical to me for Fonterrosa to float in the air with a super powerful storm witch around. Rebuilt in the ground with a -I'm paranoid, I dare you to come in this time- f*ck you face but the staff.

Here the first months are "open rooms", that is, if you are not satisfied, you can change rooms and teams if you defend yourself well with the teachers. Being reasonable and knowing how to explain yourself is supposed to be part of the job and sometimes things don't work out, they get it (and all of the specialist sleep with their weapon near!!!)

---

LC or Lyceum is how they short call the Lymphea College for faes/ies, witches/wizards, specialists and Paladins. But within them, the Faction of Paladins is considered a n.p. So, if they talk about fairies/witches/specialists they would say they come from the Lyceum, but if they are Paladins, they come from The Faction [of the Lymphea College, affiliate to the Council, of Rocaluce, of Magix, of... etc. Jedi everywhere)]

Scholarships

Alfea, Cloud Tower and Fonterrosa are known as the elite of their kind, so they have few scholarships and are very rigorous. Or of course money money.

Forgoing a scholarship is frowned upon, although they are willing to give you a recommendation for the school of your choice. How was the case with Flora (she got a scholarship in CT but she didn’t accept it, either way they recommended her to Alfea and therefore she was able to enter, Miele did not have that opportunity for so she stays in Lymphea).

Musa got a full scholarship. Bloom's special case led to a partial scholarship, although no one told her, so she stayed until she got her family back, both studying and working as a waitress. Under normal circumstances she couldn't have allowed herself a course at Alfea on a single waitress's salary.

Riven has a partial scholarship only because his behavior fails to win him full scholarship, this actually improves when the series begins.

Paladins and Specialists

At first they were the same order but favoritism vs obstracism to people who could use magic devices or musr rely on technomagic ones separated them. Over time they have come together again and make times of exchange to favor collaboration and such.

Today the Paladins have taken a more peaceful approach and they usually work directly for the Magic Realms Council and the Specialists more combat oriented. that are not so "exquisite". I am not saying Specialists are mercenaries, but they not serve exclusively a single Jedi-wanna-be organization.

Timmy and Brandom could have been paladins. Timmy chose not to be so as not to fall into the nerdy stereotype that is only good for purely external help. Brandon for Sky obviously. We already mentioned that Nabu and Helia have witch origin.

Other schools and possible jobs

I think I mentioned it in another post, but the main output of these schools is Guardian, the formation of Kaleidoscopes, Covens and Squads, everything is oriented to that.

So, once finished here, you can work on many things with security and embassy being the most obvious and demanded from these schools.

But you can be a teacher, researcher, creator / repairer / tester of potions or magic items, animal caretaker, nurse, any version of work from the magic application ranger by example, firefighter, cleaner. Or you can jump to the normal university in a vip way. From here.

What do you can to learn

Some subjects/courses common to all schools (even though theoretically have studied it before). BTW They can go to other schools to receive extra courses: Good Manners/Etiquette, Flight, Cognitive analysis, History of Magix, Basic Survival, Firsts Aids, Basic Witchcraft, Basic Fairycraft, Basic Magical Zoology, Basic Zoology, Basic Herbology, Basic Magic Herbology, Magiphysics, Dance, Music, Art. Diplomacy.

Other examples but only to magic schools: Potionology, Magiphilosophy, History of Magic, Healing, Transfiguration (metamorphosis, metamorphosymbiosis, biotrasformation), Applied convergence, Summoning, Psychic arts (speciality *x* ie illusion, emotion, mind-reading), Divination, Basic Wild Magic, Elemental Magic (speciality *x*), Nature Magic, Art-applied magics (speciality *x*), Magical Zoology, Basic Craftsmanship Magic, Advanced Craftsmanship Magic, Astral Magic, Basic Forbidden Magic Knowledge. FORBIDDEN: Demonology, Necromancy, Sacrificial Magic among others.

Other examples but only to Specialists and Paladins (for paladins some are mandatory): Dragon wrangling, flying fighter crafts, Riding, Driving/navigation, Astronavigation, Beast/Animal Taming, Close quarter combat (sub speciality in weapon *x*), Long range combat, Cooperation, Mechanics, Technology, Hand-to-hand combat (sub speciality in *x*), Strategy, (numbers yes or no 101 and more), Advanced survival techniques, Close protection operative, Concealment operations, Unconventional weapons, Fighting Magic Basic-Advanced-Expert, Fighting Magic Users Basic-Advanced-Expert.

Paladins have more courses related to magic and the application and repair of magic items. And deep in others as diplomacy I guess.

[mk-wizard]

Let me explain how Transformers are not robots

Hi, fans. Today, I am not discussing a theory, but something that is a fact and perhaps the most denied, resisted and challenged fact in all of Transformers lore: they are not robots.

I have gone as far as having long debates with even my own husband about this subject, but the truth is the truth whether you like it or not. Maybe they were introduced as robots and maybe their definition of what a robot is can be different from Earth’s, but they are not robots and when you stop and think about it, they never were. And here is the list of reasons to back it up and I am only counting facts that Hasbro has confirmed as officially part of the Transformers lore;

They have parts (organs) that cannot be replaced by building a new one from scratch. They either get crude replacements or they require an organ donor to replace the part that is lost. Also, these same parts can sometimes be deformed which affects performance. The most obvious they cannot simply replace is their T-cog which is the unique organ that Transformers have that gives them their ability to transform. If this gets damaged or lost, it cripples that ability leaving them as an unchanger. It is also possible for a T-cog to be deformed in which case the Transformer is an unhcanger at birth or has trouble transforming. This organ can only be replaced by a donor or corrected with surgery. It cannot be built. In fact, even body parts like hands, optics and even a foot cannot simply be replaced. They can be put back on, but trying to make a new one is not that simply and at times, the fact that it is a prop shows as seen with Prime Ultra Magnus’ hand, Prime Breakdown’s optic being lost for good and Animated Red Alert’s hand being replaced with a tool. If they were robots, their parts would work like an assembly line of which they are easily replaced and made from scratch. The fact that not even a hand can work this way for Transformers is proof that they are not robots. Like us, if they lose a body part, they won’t be the same. They are even made up of something called CNA which is what DNA is to us. In fact, they share many organs with us like bones and veins.

They have genders and this has been confirmed since the IDW comics and Beast Wars. I admit that initially, they didn’t have genders in the time of G1 which caused confusion for the G1 fans later, but this fact was officially changed by the Beast Wars era. They have biological genders and work the same way as ours. With that said, as radical as it sounds, they come to be through reproduction like us not through being built. Yes, they can be put back together if broken apart, but they don’t come into the world like that. Every Transformer has a mother and father biologically just like you and me.

They can age and die which is something robots cannot do. A robot may wear and tear with time and its batteries will eventually run out, but it never actually was alive to begin with, it never ages and it doesn’t die. You can simply replace the robot’s batteries and they will be fine. As we have seen especially Alpha Trion since G1, Transformers can age and even grow old. And in Rescue Bots, we see that they even start off in the world as children. And most notably, once a Transformer dies, it’s for good. Optimus was the exception through a miracle of Primus. The norm is that death is forever with them. And if you want to look at this from a spiritual perspective if you’re devout like me and believe in that stuff, they have an afterlife where their souls go which is the Allspark. If the ability to age and die while having a soul is not the definitive trait of being a living being, I don’t what is.

They have biological familial relationships which is impossible for a robot. Since the days of G1, we saw many examples of this; - The Lamborghini twins are twin brothers. - In some continuities, Optimus and Ultra Magnus are either cousins or brothers. - Hound and Mirage are cousins. I don’t know if they are close or distant ones, but it is why they share similar powers. - In some continuities including G1, it is subtly hinted that Elita-One is Alpha Trion and Beta Maxx’s biological daughter. - G1 Arcee is Beast Wars Rattrap’s great aunt. - In some continuities, the Prime system is hierarchical meaning from parent to child so all Primes are family. The Megatron system works the same way. - In some continuities, Ratchet is a father and grandfather. - In Rescue Bots, Ratchet is Medix’s uncle. - The Constructicons are brothers. - In Animated, Jetstorm and Jetfire are twin brothers. - While it was initially a joke that he had a mother, it is now a fact that Optimus Prime had loving parents who sadly, were two of the many casualities in the war. I don’t know which one was the Prime though. - In current times, each Dinobot is a parent. - In Animated, Bulkhead came from a big family. - In Animated, Kup has a nephew. - In the comics, it is hinted that Wheeljack has a son out of wedlock.

They can get sick or hurt which is also impossible for a robot. As we have seen since the days of G1, Transformers have health needs and cannot only emotionally feel, but also physically feel for better or for worse. When they get injured, they don’t just simply break. It hurts and in some cases, the severity of an injury can have repercussions such as permanent damage. In the case of Fixit, he is handicapped for life because of the injuries he sustained from his crash. In some fights, Transformers have wound up dead. Which leads us to the diseases they can endure which can be fatal. And unlike a robot that simply acts wonky or nutty when bugged, Transformers act like we do when they are sick. They are weak, they are in pain, they moan and even physically look awful hence needing to stay in bed. And like us, these diseases require treatment.

They can have handicaps and imperfections which cannot simply be corrected by repairing or rebuilding. If a Transformer has a handicap of any kind especially a mental one or suffers from some kind of insanity, you can’t just simply reboot them or fix their processor (brain). And they can have imperfections such as not all having the same level of fitness or even being fat or possibly even being physically deformed. And like an organic person, sometimes, you cannot simply operate on them to fix it because it can be dangerous. For example, it has been confirmed that Lugnut is hideously deformed (though that didn’t stop Strika from loving him), it is hinted that Megatron is a mutant and years of forced surgery to be a great miner mutated him further, and it has been confirmed that out of all the cop Autobots, Prowl is chubby and a lot of evidence points to most versions of Optimus being fat. A robot cannot suffer from insanity, it cannot gain or lose weight and they cannot mutate because they don’t have a biology.

So there you all have it. Proof that the Transformers are not robots and these are facts Hasbro backs up. I hope it has cleared the air and ceased the confusion. Take it or leave it. Personally, I like the fact that they aren’t robots because I find it makes them more interesting and dynamic. That and I find the fact that they can have families endearing. And as side note, the fact that Optimus Prime had kind loving parents.

If you have a Transformers theory or fact you want explored, let me know in my ask box and I will delve into it.

Thanks for reading and talk to you later. EDIT: Forgot to add a fact. Added sickness and injury now. EDIT 2: More significant things have been added to the family list. Plus, another significant fact came to mind.

[thanksjro]

Dark Cybertron Chapter 1: Welcome to Comic Event Hell

You know what readers love? When the stories they’ve gotten invested in over the course of a couple years get interrupted for some pseudo-crossover bullshit.

And you know what writers love? When the story they’ve been crafting over the course of a couple years get interrupted for some pseudo-crossover bullshit.

Did I say love?

Because I didn’t mean it.

“Dark Cybertron” was penned by John Barber and James Roberts, with collaboration with comic writer and artist Phil Jimenez, and was published from early November, 2013 to late March, 2014. Atilio Rojo, James Raiz, and Livio Ramondelli did the art, each responsible for scenes in specific locations, with Robert Gill filling in as needed. Alex Milne, Andrew Griffith, and Brendan Cahill would also contribute pencils to the first issue and the back half of the series. It was a celebration of the 30th anniversary of the franchise, and the second birthday of Phase Two... which went on for over four months, but never mind that!

Both "Dark Cybertron” and its preliminary materials were made to go alongside the Transformers: Generations toy-line, each issue being included as a toy pack-in with whatever character was being featured… or, at least, that was the plan. Sometimes it didn’t work out. Regardless, this storyline was created to sell toys directly, as opposed to the MTMTE/RID series being made to sell toys more through the power of suggestion. It’s a small distinction, but important, because it will help explain any lack of soul one may perceive while they read “Dark Cybertron”.

“But Hannz!” you cry out, reaching to grab me by the throat and shake me like a rag doll, because to you I’m merely a faceless voice on the internet. “Surely by calling this specific storyline soulless, you’re completely ignoring the very nature of this franchise that you’re almost uncomfortably invested in!”

To which I’ll say this: look, I’m pretty realistic about where my giant space robots came from; Transformers as a franchise would not exist the way it does without Ronald Reagan introducing the Free Market to literal children and fucking up how we interact with media for the rest of time. There is no ethical consumption under capitalism, and that rings especially true when I’ve got a Spinister on my bookshelf staring me down as I write this, that was likely made out of plastics which either involved blood oil or unethical labor practices, if not both.

However!

The choices of a company to have their comic license holders to cook up an entire plot that derails what they’ve already got planned out for toy tie-in comics is a completely different animal than what IDW had had going on up to this point. Phase Two had been about exploring different ideas that hadn’t been able to be explored during the war, and seeing what happens when you take away a third of the logline for Transformers G1 as a whole. Being a part of a brand of toys was almost inconsequential to how the stories were being told; even the Spotlights, which were also toy tie-in comics, had plenty of charm to them, if only because there weren’t quite as many constraints placed on the writers, and they were stand-alone issues.

Of course, being tie-in comics isn’t the only reason that “Dark Cybertron” is a bit of a slog, considering everything IDW itself was trying to get done within this storyline, but we’ll cover the publishing company’s/Simon Furman’s/Transformers’ tumultuous relationship with the concept of gender identity and expression later on, when it becomes relevant to the story proper. This point also ties into the interesting origin of Windblade, who we’ll meet in a few issues, and what happens when you let your fanbase have a taste of power and forget that people might like to see themselves represented in the media they consume.

“Dark Cybertron” is what ended up making me stop reading MTMTE the first time I tried it in 2015. A big part of it was because it forced the reader to need so much information from RID and even events prior to Phase Two, it wasn’t very fun to try to parse what was going on, on top of the writing beginning to flag because of obvious constraints to what Barber and Roberts could actually do, both within their deadlines and the rules put in place by their higher ups for the event.

 “Dark Cybertron” is the result of the sort of executive meddling that kills reader enjoyment by requiring writers to cram their two worlds together as quickly as possible, without the option to go for nuance because there simply isn’t time. The reason we have four separate artists for the front half of this story is because Milne and Griffith didn’t have time to draw both their current workload and “Dark Cybertron” at the same time... but sales probably went up due to the nature of how the story was published, so I’m sure they didn’t really see a problem with it.

That’s a general “they”, not a Milne and Griffith “they”.

In short, we’ve got license contract obligations, fan-poll obligations, and gender stuff fighting for space within the next 12 issues, which will be published in the span of roughly four months. Things are probably going to be a little bloated and sloppy.

Regardless of any of these points, this is what we’ve got. It’s not like it’s all bad- “Dark Cybertron” has the benefit of being written by two people who had been working closely before it had even been conceptualized. Barber was the senior editor for MTMTE, and IDW as a whole until he left in 2016. It also isn’t a proper crossover- y’know, where two completely separate titles get mashed together for a bit. MTMTE and RID exist in the same universe, just have their own things going on, so a decent amount of things still carry over without you needing to have read every single thing in both. The writing, while not quite up to par with pieces that had more creative freedom and breathing room between scenes, is still recognizable as being Barber and Roberts’. Their voices are still here, they’re just strained under the weight of everything that has to be said inside of 12 issues.

With all THAT out of the way, let’s dive in to Dark Dawn: Dark Cybertron Chapter 1.

We get a quick rundown of the most basic information you’ll need for this entire story to make sense, as we reintroduce the fact that Shockwave is an ecoterrorist with more agendas than a daily planner factory on meth, and also that he grows magic crystals. I don’t care what he says, the Ores are fucking space-magic. If you don’t want to read through all of RID for everything else, please see Robots in Disguise (2012), #1-22- A Recap, For Reference Purposes.  We also get a quick rundown of the Lost Lighters’ deal, as Swerve potentially has a meta-episode.

Be careful what you fucking wish for, bucko.

Our story proper starts with a flashback to the shittiest road trip Cyclonus ever went on, as the Ark 1 finds itself at the edge of a mysterious portal. This is likely why he wasn’t super thrilled when the portal to Luna 1 showed up- portals are probably a touchy subject for him.

Jhiaxus doesn’t know what this portal is- surely this means that science has failed us, and it’s time to call in the religious crowd to try and suss out what’s going on here.

It’s moments like this that make me wonder what exactly happened in the Dead Universe that made Cyclonus’ cheek meat just pack up and leave.

Now, we know that Cyclonus is correct here, because we as readers have more knowledge than the characters at this point, but Jhiaxus tries to write off this theory as hogwash, because he is a man of rationality and science. This is a slight removal from his character in the present, whose most notable traits seem to be a lack of ethics and screaming.

Everyone here seems to be slightly different from their current iterations, actually; Galvatron doesn’t say a word as he steps between Jhiaxus and Cyclonus, only using his body to communicate that the scientist might want to back off. Cyclonus himself is certainly the wordiest we’ve ever seen him to be, droning on through his actual thought process before he comes to a conclusion on what exactly they’ve found. Compare this to the Cyclonus of today, who only deigns to grace everyone with his voice if they outright threaten him, have something he wants, or are Tailgate. If he were to ever pull this verbal meandering on board the Lost Light, people would probably assume he’s having a stroke.

Nova Prime- you remember him, don’t you?- gives not a fuck about the Dead Universe, only what it means for him personally. And what it means for him is more locations to subjugate, because he is cartoonishly evil. His character is the least removed from his present-day iteration out of everyone. He tells the crew they’ll be getting a little closer, only for the portal to do the work for them, by way of dark energy tentacles.

Wow, the pilot for the Ark 1 really is just straight-up named Butt, isn’t he? And what the fuck is that face you’re making, Cyclonus? Are you- oh my god, are you emoting? Oh my god, he’s emoting.

As the Ark 1 is pulled to its doom, Jhiaxus makes a quick phone call to Shockwave to tell him he’s his favorite, and to keep up the good work.

In the present, Shockwave reflects on just how friggin’ long this whole ordeal has taken. Fortunately, Waspinator and the Titan are almost here, and he can hardly wait.

Not, uh, that he’s got emotions or anything. It’s been established that he doesn’t have those anymore. Is impatience an emotion? Does that count?

Shockwave seems like he’d be really frustrating to write for.

Anyway, the Titan shows up, the Ore inside him and the Ore in the underground Crystal City combine, and the Titan starts screaming because everything hurts. Shockwave’s about as thrilled as he can be about the situation, given his lack of emotions.

Above Crystal City, we finally get back to that nonsense about the early sunrise, as someone- maybe Starscream, given the color of the narration box- waxes poetic on the planet of Cybertron, wartorn and wild in its rebirth, ruled by paranoia that has nothing to bounce off of, and so creates its own walls.

Then we get a detailed shot of Rattrap’s mug, and the moment is broken.

Rattrap’s character is a lot of fun in everything he gets tossed into, but you’re a goddamn liar if you think he’s pretty to look at. You are lying to yourself, and I won’t apologize for saying it.

Starscream walks out of his room in his hot new body, feeling fine and ready to take on the world. We’ll check in on him later in the day to see how that positive mentality is working out for him.

So, the sun hasn’t moved, and it’s way too early for the sun to even be up right now. That’s weird. Because I guess he didn’t know how the sun works, Starscream’s only just realized that this is perhaps a problem. He does some computer work and realizes that this is indeed a very bad thing, and asks that Rattrap call the Autobots. Not the ones who fucked off into the wilderness, the other ones. The gay, space ones.

Up in space, Orion Pax and his pals have found themselves in dire straits, the collapsing Gorlam Prime sucking their ship back down as the Death Ore consumes everything.

That’s not how engines work! And I think it really says something about the “Prelude” issues that I completely forgot why Wheelie was down an arm for a solid five seconds.

It turns out that Orion was the narrator the entire time, which I should have known- since when is the once and future Optimus Prime not the primary voice in any media he appears in?

It’s looking rough for the fellas, but luckily we’ve got to get the plot rolling, so the Lost Light VZZZZTs into existence and picks up the Skyroller to place it gently into its belly.

Orion isn’t exactly jazzed about the fact that Rodimus didn’t listen to what he told him, not even bothering to thank the guy for saving his life. I say y’all keep going on your Thunderclash Quest and leave this ungrateful loser behind. No space yachting for you, Orion.

The rest of the Pax Posse enter the Lost Light proper, and Hardhead reveals that he nearly joined the Quest, before he saw who all would be coming with, while Garnak has a tearful reunion with Rodimus. The fact that he’s calling him Sir- which I don’t recall him doing in Transformers (2009), at least not in a way that seems reminiscent of an unfortunate Antebellum Period Romance- feels rather weird, but I’m glad someone’s fucking happy to see Rodimus at least. Ultra Magnus asks Orion if he’ll be assuming command of the vessel, as Rodimus tries not to look horrified by the thought alone, but fortunately Orion’s not going to pull his “I’m Optimus Prime and I Can Do What I Want” Card just yet.

Smash cut to the bridge, as Rodimus tries to make himself sound competent, when Starscream calls. Orion doesn’t like that Starscream has their number, Perceptor almost reveals the fact that this ship technically doesn’t belong to a faction, likely due to being purchased after the war, and Cyclonus gets brought in for his professional opinion.

As it turns out, that early sunrise isn’t a sunrise at all, but a portal to the Dead Universe. This is a problem, because the Dead Universe really sucks, and you don’t want to go there, especially if you enjoy being alive. Orion seems more concerned about the fact that Starscream is ruling the planet, and Bumblebee is nowhere to be found.

Speaking of Bumblebee, he and all his camp buddies are psyching themselves up for a confrontation.

Swoop, please, this is hardly the time for crudeness.

The Dinobots, sick of Bumblebee’s dithering about, decide they’re going to fight the fucking sun and gear up. Prowl, though generally disliking their brand of problem-solving, does share his begrudging respect of their can-do attitude.

Their can-do attitude over fighting the fucking sun.

Then an earthquake happens and the ground rips open to reveal that Titan that Waspinator showed up with.

Shockwave takes over the narration at this point, and we get artsy, as we see events that haven’t transpired yet over musings on the nature of... time? Maybe? It would be in line with Roberts’ go-to topics, but honestly the whole thing’s kind of vague so I couldn’t give you a solid answer. Shockwave gets awfully introspective for a guy who shouldn’t care, I know that much. The point is, he is inevitable and is super good at logic and science.

Also, Nova Prime and Galvatron are back, which is cool, I guess. Not sure where Galvatron had gotten to exactly after the events of “Chaos”, but he’s back now, so it doesn’t matter too terribly much. Shockwave serves them, which we’ll probably get an explanation for at some point.

God, you can practically taste the desperation to pin all these plot points together before the entire thing implodes on itself.

[rametarin]

Watched a playthrough of FF6 recently.

I guess between all the bouts of grinding and level exploring I never realized just how melancholy that game is in tone when you focus on the main story from A to Z.

It’s not depressing, but goodness gracious. Most of the character development is tragic.

Like, Terra. What is she? She’s introduced as the captive mind-slave and personality robbed war machine for an actual evil empire. She’s the bi-racial spawn of fairies and humans (Fight me on that term. I dare you. I dare you, fucker. Fight me on my classification of her father’s race as fey.) that was an unwitting attack dog. Upon heading to a neutral arctic country, she meets a frozen fey-dragon entombed in ice. Trying to interface with her causes her machine to explode and brings her into the care of a man in town that opposes the empire. He frees her mind. Now this poor little half-fairy faun has to cope with the existential terror of suddenly being a person instead of a CPU for war machine.

So she makes friends with a world traveling treasure hunter, meets a dashing young engineer and prince of a techno-kingdom, his brother the weightlifting kung-fu dude, and joins an anti-empire resistance movement, knowing just the weight of what’d happen if that empire gained control of all the fairy-magic.

Well not too long after she defends Narshe from another Imperial attack and attempt to seize the entombed fairy-dragon. Again, she interfaces with the fairy-dragon. This time, the fairy-dragon awakens the other half of her heritage.

Terra sees her own transformed body and flies into a complete dysphoric tantrum where she flies off trying to escape from her own body, burning through the sky and screaming like a pink furred, yellow eyed demon. She burns parts of entire towns just buzzing them gibbering for human contact and help and all anybody sees with her whizzing by is a screaming monster before their houses and shops catch fire or are blown apart.

The party locate her in the top room of the tallest building in a city full of liars, thieves and degenerates, but she’s bedridden. Any time she wakes up she freaks out and knocks herself out or passes out at the reality of her own transformed state. They don’t know exactly how to help her. Then another fey person appears and lays it down; she’s not human. She’s not just some garden variety experiment from the Empire to endow human beings with magic. She’s full on, real deal, offspring of a Fair Folk and a human woman that strayed too close to the Other Side. The man reveals he escaped from the Empire’s torturous mechanical fortress where they suck the magic right out of the fairy-people and reduce them to immobile, pathetic lumps of the creatures they used to be. And also that they turn into magic crystals when they pass away. Where he proceeds to just.. let himself die for the party’s benefit. They receive their first Summons and ways to learn magic from the crystals.

His only request is they find their way to the Empire’s magitek facility, free the fairy-folk, and shut the abominable site down.

Well, after a detour to get an airship, they do so. They find a whole bunch of fey-folk in glass tubes being drained of life. Among them, Terra’s father. Maduin.  But it’s too late. The Fey-Folk explain that their lives have been drained too much- there’s nothing left to save. They gift their remains to the party to help stop the Empire and become magicite/materia.

Only when you bring back  the still psychoactive remains of Terra’s father, let him interface with Terra, let him show her her origins from HIS perspective, how he met her mother, how they formed a relationship in the fey-world, show him how the Emperor and the Empire invaded the magic realm, does Terra stop seeing her existence as monstrous and relax back into her human state. Now able to transform.

After you confront the Empire and fail, causing the world to go through a reshaping apocalypse as the bad guy co-opts the god statues, your party is scattered throughout the remade world.

Terra has taken up residence in a town that was devestated by Kefka’s godlike Light of Judgement- basically a laser beam that sundered the world. Where most of the adults perished protecting the children from horrible monsters and fiends unleashed from the broken world. They call he mama, now. She’s taking care of dozens of orphans in a town ravaged by destruction.

But by the time you find her again, she’s lost her will to fight. In trying to defend the town from an ancient monster, Phunbaba. She gets beaten near to death. So, the party rescues her. It looks like Terra is never going to rejoin your party and help save the world. She has to mother hen these lost orphans.

You come back later and fight Phunbaba again. Terra emerges and goes Super Fairy Saiyan and joins your party to fight him. After defeating him, she stands there in the town, monster-up. The children approach her and recognize her as Terra- whom they just call, ‘mama.’

She explains that she loves them, but has to leave them to join the party and help save the world from monsters like that. But she’d be back for them. Rather than be afraid of the Burning Pink Monster, they praise her and wish her well on her adventure and hope she returns home before the 17-18 year old couple have their first baby.

Moving on, they finally meet Kefka in his tower. Which he has dubbed, his monument to non-existence. Kefka doesn’t want to do anything but end life itself or make it suffer. That’s his whole bag. He finds amusement and joy in the suffering and oblivion of other people.  Final fight ensues. They win.

But the tower starts falling apart. They have to escape. While fleeing, the fey-crystals start disappearing- without the goddess statues and Kefka grounding the two different worlds, the feywild and the material world, the two are separating again. Maduin contacts his daughter again and tells her she is of two worlds; there’s a risk that she may be drawn into the fey-world with them, or simply ripped apart from the genes out. Unless she has a strong attachment to this world and the people in it, then she might... MIGHT..... have a chance to survive and live in that world. If she believes hard enough.

Terra transforms again into her flying pink furry monster mode and guides the airship out of the collapsing heap of a tower/castle as it comes down, as magic starts to fade from the world. Like a big monstrous Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.

She starts to fade out. Losing her magic. She reverts, and the airship catches up, where she lands on the deck in a heap. Checking to make sure she’s still alive, she’s just barely. But she’s alive. Her Fey-side forever shut off, however.

She went from personality robbed, shell of a person, to confused purposeless soul screaming into the ether not knowing where she came from or what her purpose was, to understanding who she was and where she came from, to making contact with humanity around her, to eventually saving it and attaching herself to the planet and its people strong enough to escape death and save her friends.

There’s no saving the people that died when the world went to shit, there’s only rebuilding and moving on. But, she did it.

Terra’s story is probably the longest in the game, but they’re all basically similar.

The biggest problem is if someone tried to make this game into a movie, probably the whiplash of the major plot points would just be a cryfest.

[strawberry-salsa]

im (relatively) new to your blog and i dont think i’ve heard much about your ocs!!! ik i’ve seen some art here and there but nothing super substantial :o would you introduce them? or if you wanted to go a but more in depth hmmm what are your most/least favorite thing(s) about each of them? c:

that is true, I havent posted abt them themselfs a lot! im still writing(something im not good at thats why its taking too long hsajhskaj) their personalities and adjusting their backstories here and there, i hope to post their full references soon :’) but yeah i can give some snipets!

UNDER THE CUT BECAUSE I RAMBLED TOO MUCH

Salsa(Whiskers): call me self indulgent but yeah i made myself into a transformer and yeah i am writing stories and comics abt them, and is probably my most fleshed out oc. Salsa was always lost throught his life, having a small altmode with not many functionalities he always landed in jobs he wasnt happy with, when the decepticons started spreading their word around cybertron, salsa was interested and considered joining them! but as the conflict started to become more and more violent, he left the planet in the event called the Exodus lead by Dai Atlas and Tyrest. He couldnt handle the weight of the situation and had a breakdown, stole a small ship with all of he had left and launched himself into the vast expanses of space, adrift.

Cathexis: He was made as a MTO Decepticon soldier but his expertise in chemistry got him the attention of his superiors and he rose as a scientist specialized in explosives! Decepticon ideals were programmed in his brain module, but it started conflicting with his own ideals, something that led him to kill his supervisor and steal an important battle ship from the fleet. Cathexis was declared MIA, as the General didnt want to report such big losses to Megatron and covered any evidence left.

Flow: When he emerged in a Hotspot Near Ibex, he decided he wanted to be a famous racer when he watched Blurr for the first time. He believed Fame and Glory awaited for him and he wanted to get to the top as fast as he could. Alas he wasnt as skilled as he thought he was, that led him to cheating his way thought races, making the use of illegal upgrades and substances. But soon his world would fall around him, the races were canceled and he joined the Autobots. After he had a near death experience and the loss of a close friend in the hands of Turmoil he asked to leave the autobots. He was granted a ship and left with all of his posessions inside.

Salutem: She Emerged from a hotspot near Iacon with a wish to take care of others. She joined the Iaconian academy of science and technology and was dedicated to her studies, but among her classmates was a bot who had a rotten sense of empathy, who didnt care if their patients lived or died, as long as they got what interested them. After a bit of investigating salutem discovered that the bot was retrieving organs to sell to alien species and make a fortune. The deal wasnt theirs of course, they were but just a pawn. the one behind was a senator. Salutem tried to bring them to justice, but as the senator was a powerful figure she was blamed instead of the other bot, and suffered empurata. Shortly after she was expelled from the academy as now she was considered a criminal, after wondering for a few weeks she ended up in the Dead End where she met a kind doctor who had a clinic there. The doctor took her in and believed in her desire to take care and heal others. after the clininc was closed down and the doctor vanished, she joined the autobots in hopes of finding him again. A few years later she had her own unit, a team to call her family and a quiet place, as the outpost she was in was far from the current big conflict... or she thought. The Planet was targeted by the decepticons and salutem and her entire team were declared dead.

Geode: He used to work as a contruction bot back in old cybertron and lived peacefully with his conjux. he enjoyed his work and as a hobby he liked to map out the areas he was sent to. Geode heard about these decepticon guys here and there but didnt mind much, until things started heating up. he didnt like it at all. the decepticons were ruining his beloved planet, the things he built, the natural landscapes, his life, it was all starting to become more and more like a hell. He joined the autobots believing he would end with the menace that were the decepticons, and his size and sheer strenght helped him a lot. After suffering an injure that almost took his life, he was asked to step down. Geode agreed reluctantly, working as a cartographer and geologist to find and help strategize the best places for new bases. Now he was away from the war, it was peaceful, but it never left his mind that also meant the bot he cared for the most would now be far away from him at all times.

Snowtread: “The single most passionate and fiery bot I ever knew” are the words Geode uses to descibe him. Snowtread has a love for good cy-gars and making his conjux smile. He worked alongside Geode as a contruction worker, but unlike his lover, he was unhappy with how monotonous his life was. It wasnt really his given function that bothered him, but the lack of excitement it had. When he heard of the rising decepticons he was curious of what they were planning and kept a close eye on the news. When the senate was taken down and decepticon attacks were rising, he enlisted in the autobots with Geode. Finally he found his calling him in life, the excitmentof shooting enemies down, the thrill of battle! it was just what he desired his whole life! But during one of the cartoons against a decepticon base Geode was shot down and almost lost his life. Snowtread has never felt so desperate in his whole life ... Geode recovered, but he had a lasting injury. Geode wanted to keep going but snowtread begged him to step down, he would never forgive himself if anything like that happened to him again, because if it did ... Geode wouldnt make it. He knows how worried his conjux is of how careless he is, but now he isnt just fighting for the sake of fighting, he is fighting so that Geode can live peacefully.

this might not be their final backstories tho! things may change because im not entirely sure abt some things dsghjhaj

OH WOW I THINK I GOT CARRIED AWAY SORRYY

[kpopchangedme]

Nocturna: Part IV

The fragile peace between undead and lycanth is imperilled your arrival to the Inferorum Castrum. Between the changing power dynamics of the wolf pack and the insatiable urges of the vampire king, you aren’t exactly sure where your loyalty lies.

Protagonists: Bang Chan & You (Im Jaebeom)

Word Count: 5.4k

Genre: NSFW | Supernatural!au | Vampires | Werewolves | Angst | Romance | Love Triangle

Nocturna Masterlist | HALLOWEEN

“G-Gran?” You are so weak you can’t distinguish anything when the old woman runs a cold cloth on your brows.

“Shhh…” She whispers softly. She used to do the same every night you’d have a nightmare after your parents died. “You need to sleep, love.” Feverish, you shiver, and a droplet of water runs down your cheek, burning. It comes again and again. Through the haze, you realize you’re crying and she’s wiping all of your tears one by one, patiently. 

“I had…” Your throat tightens and you let out a whine. “... A-Another nightmare.” Your shoulders jolt overcame with sobs. She pulls you into her arms, hiding you. You cry until you can’t anymore, cry until you fall dead asleep. 

___

You wake up in a bedroom that’s unfamiliar but far more reassuring than the last one. The sun is shining brightly through the three large windows. There’s a fresh breeze coming through, making sheer cream curtains dance beautifully. You have no idea where you are but you are at peace. You’ve cried and slept a lot, then cried some more. Now you are empty, done, dry. 

At least, you are not in pain anymore, it’s a lot better. You sit up to stretch, making the sheets fall from you. Oops, apparently you’re totally naked.

“Good morning,” Chan greets and you jump, startled. Covering yourself a second too late, you locate your friend on the floor. He’s simply sitting there unphased, back pressed to the mattress. “How are you feeling, better?”

“W-What are you doing here?” Clutching to the sheets, you bring both of your knees under your chin to protect the little dignity you have left. 

“This is my bed, y\n.” He smiles faintly, looking away just to stop making you uncomfortable. Were his canines always this sharp, or are you only just noticing now? "The Inferorum Castrum is my home."

“What are you doing on the floor?”

“Guarding you. You’ve been sick for days, but the fever finally broke a few hours ago. You drank too much blood...” His face briefly twists in disgust.  “You must have a lot of questions.” That’s the understatement of the year, you wait for him to go on, but the young hunter doesn’t explain what you’re doing in his bed, naked.

Instead, he stands, crossing the room to casually open a drawer of his dresser. After he finds what he’s looking for, he hands you a black shirt. It’s one of his own, the ones you’ve always seen him in. When he notices you don’t react, Chan hesitates before turning his back so you can dress properly. You wonder if he’s the one who undressed you too. That’s embarrassing, especially if he is to trust and had to spend days nursing you back to health.

“Your First Full Moon is in two weeks. Thankfully, you still have time to familiarise yourself with… Things.” Chan pauses, and you keep your eyes glued to the back of his silver curls to make sure he isn’t peeking as you put his shirt on. As expected, it’s so large on you you’re basically buried under. “That’s… Why I did it that day, so you could have a short period of adaptation.” 

“For what?” He sneaks a glance over his shoulder making sure you are decent. You have absolutely no idea what he's talking about. “When can I go home, Chan?”

Sadness crosses his face for a second, it’s brief, but it's enough to tell you something is deeply wrong.  “I think you should eat first.” He sizes you up and down, walking towards the door. “You’ve lost too much weight fighting vampire venom.” 

“I’m not eating anything!” When you snap, his hand pauses above the knob, in suspense. “Not until you explain everything that happened to me... ” Stopping, you inhale sharply, remembering the details of the giant wolf attack, the pain and the fear. The young man observes from the other side of the room, expression carefully wiped out. “Chan, were you in the Forbidden Forest?” 

Sighing, he steps closer, only changing his mind when he sees you straighten anxiously. “What do you remember from that day?” He looks particularly disheartened, adding; “... And that night.” 

“I went on a hunt alone, as I normally do. On the outskirts and I was attacked by a wolf. I was dying but Jaebeom saved m-”

“Saved you?” Chan immediately interrupts defensive, he crosses his arms over his chest. “Trust me. That wolf wasn’t going to kill you.”

“Trust you?” He bears your accusatory glare like a pro. “What do you know about that beast?”

Please, say it was all a bad dream.

“I do know,” he almost looks mad now, “and I think you do too...”

“You attacked me.” So it was true, Chan is the silver wolf. If your glare could kill, he would be bleeding out on the floor by now. “You’re a monster.”

“A lycanth,” his jaw clenches, “we are shapeshifters.”

Hybrid freaks. That’s how Jaebeom referred to them. “Half-human, half-wolf,” you guess aloud. 

“No, not me... Y-” Chan's mouth remains ajar, but no other sound comes out. Then, he shuts both of his eyes like he swallowed something bad. “Some of us, like me, are born from werewolves mates within the pack. We legacies are rarer now. Lycanth were almost extinct after the war.”

“What war?”

“The Amaranthine Slaughter.” His mouth opens again, then closes. “That’s not important now. You are either born a lycanth, or you… become one... With the bite of an Alpha. You met Jackson, he is our pack's current one. Our highest authority, even parasites have to listen to-”

“But you are the one who bit me...” You don’t like where this is going, not at all. You know Chan like the back of your hand, know when to panic. He's clearly stalling, holding back something important.

“Yes... But I'm from an ancient lineage of Alphas...” He concedes, and you’re pretty sure he’s full-on blushing. “You are my first marking.”

“You… You weren’t killing me…” The room spins, you feel like throwing up.

“I turned you, into one of us.”

The fatality of his words hasn’t hit you yet. “Why me?”

“Hum, I don’t know where to start. I wasn’t expecting...” Chan chuckles clearly flustered, he runs a hand over his face. “The first time I saw you, I-”

“Am I a monster? Just like that!” Ok, now you’re panicking. “A hybrid freak?”

Chan blinks, taken aback and disenchanted, as you stand up. In a second he’s between you and the door, hands raised to try and appease you. He looks more hurt by your lack of interest in his story than your choice of words. “No no, y/n! It’s fine, everything’s going to be alright...”

“I need to see Gran!” He doesn’t budge when you duck under his arm to pull at the knob without success. It’s locked. He has locked you in his bedroom! 

“You’ll be able to visit her soon, after your first transformation.” Chan sounds strained. “I’ll tell you everything you need to know if you just calm down...”

Calm down?

When you stare at him, terrified, he tries to reach for you but you shrink away. This is not a discussion you want to have. Chan isn’t the human orphan you befriended. He’s nothing like the funny hunter you grew to care for and thought you knew. He’s a wolf, and he’s a liar. A cheat that totally freaks out when he reads the fear he now inspires you.

Chan doesn’t wait for you to calm down and clear your thoughts. That's what his experienced brothers and sisters recommended, the ones that already chose a mate. Instead, he makes the mistake of telling you everything. Even if you clearly are not ready.

Everything about what happened in the forest, him, the pack’s history, and this place; Inferorum Castrum.

___

It's only been a week, but you’re allowed outside the walls of the castle during the day, on your own. Well, almost. Even if you can’t see him, he is never quite far. Apparently, he's unable to leave you alone... At first, you were furious at everyone, and you cried a lot. When you were introduced, you refused to talk to the rest of the pack. Now, you are still lost, but you decided only the main culprit deserved your hatred; Chan. He’s the one who ruined your life, your human one.

You still wonder why Jackson agreed of you to join his pack, of all women from nearby villagers. What makes you special that they picked you, that Chan wanted you? Sure, you two had been close for years, but you never got that vibe from him. He never gave anything away, never hinted he might like to spend… You know... The rest of his few centuries of life with you! 

At least there’s freedom in your near future. As soon as you'll master shapeshifting, you’ll be free to go anywhere during the day. Provided that you abide by the Castrum court’s many rules, of course. There’s still a lot you don’t know about, but you’re getting around.

Aimlessly walking into the gardens, you try to work on your new sharper senses, you’re supposed to use your next days to train. You try to focus on the buzzing of a bee’ wings or the smell of one particular flower like Youngjae recommended. He’s one of your new brothers. He explained everything would be easier but even more intense after your first Full Moon; your first night out with the rest of the wolves.

The bright Delta has been the most useful and nice to you, especially since you avoid your ‘mate’ at all costs. You don’t even know where Chan is sleeping these days, you kicked him out of the bedroom and he hasn't come back since. If that psychopath thinks you are going to become his actual partner after what he did... He’s even crazier than you first thought.

Craving the cover of the shadows, you enter the large cedar maze you’ve grown familiar with. If you walk to its center, there’s a bench hidden behind rose bushes. You discovered it the first time you were allowed outside. It’s been your favourite place to nap and think ever since no one disturbs you there. There’s not much to do around at the Castrum except eat, sleep, or get to know everyone by playing games. You don’t feel like doing any of those things today. Tugging a branch to slip behind one of the red rose bushes, you accidentally sting yourself with a torn. Yelping from the pain and surprise, you bring the cut finger to the level of your eyes. Instantly, blood pearls and you stare at the crimson tear, lost in your thoughts.

Blood.

You haven’t had much time to wonder about the vampire that brought you to Inferorum Castrum in the first place. Jaebeom. No one except Chan, not even Youngjae or Jackson, has mentioned your first night here. Still, you’re well aware the whole pack knows what went down... They all heard. Knowing what you do know about this place now, it’s a small miracle the confrontation in the hall didn’t escalate to a full-on fight.

There is a lot of tension within the Castrum. Lycanth and vampires are apparently natural enemies who used to be at war, it lasted over a millennial. An infernal bloodbath known as the Amaranthine Slaughter. Both sides were so busy killing off each other, that they didn’t care about the casualties and destruction they were leaving in their midst. Not until humanity had enough and sought revenge. After two centuries of war, all three species were almost completely wiped out. It became clear they needed to stop killing each other to remain.

The Amaranthine Peace was signed between supernatural beings in the hopes of ending the massacre. Werewolves were the most vulnerable since they used to openly live together in human villages. That’s why the treaty included a special term; Vampires were to coexist with them, waiting for humans’ fugacious nature to forget about their legend. Every Vampire Court welcomed a pack within its castle, usually remote and well hidden from mortals. Thus the Inferorum Castrum became one of those sanctuaries. Jaebeom offered hospitality to his lifelong enemies, the Bang pack, to set an example. 

Vampires may be eternal, but lycanth aren’t, they only live three or four times longer than humans do. So, Chan wasn’t born during the war, but his grandfather was the Alpha who signed the peace treaty. In fact, out of all the rare legacies of your new pack, only Jackson was a pup during the war. It doesn’t keep younger wolves from openly hating the cold-ones though... And the aversion is quite mutual, If there's one thing Jaebeom was clear about with you, it’s that he hates werewolves, treaty or not. 

Since the Amaranthine Peace, life at the Castrum has been fragile and precious. Alphas and noble vampires have been working together to maintain it at all costs. That is the story you’ve been told… 

What the pack hasn’t told you, you’re starting to piece together on your own, slowly. 

Like why Jaebeom did… What he did with you.

He evidently didn’t get you weren’t human anymore. You imagine he knew Chan as one of Jackson’s Betas. He probably wasn’t aware he was from Alpha lineage. That his rank was slowly shifting within the pack, and that his bite could turn. Ah, ranks… Well, that’s complicated and hard to grasp for an outsider, even vampires. Youngjae had to explain them to you at least thrice… As of now. 

There’s the Alpha; the wisest and your leader. His mate is the Lead Huntress, and she is expected to be the fiercest, strongest warrior. You doubt Jackson has a mate at all, you’d have heard about her by now. Wolves are biologically programmed to obey one Alpha, they don’t have a choice. You still don’t fully get that, but they say your bond to Jackson will be stronger after your First Transformation.

The Betas; second in command to the Alpha couple, are skilled warriors and hunters. They keep the pack under control and well organized, Jackson relies on them a lot. The Betas are harder to get close too, you haven’t met many yet. They are mostly legacies, born-wolves.

The Deltas; considered even smarter than most Betas, are in charge of the training of the whelps. Some are also skilled healers, useful in combat. Youngjae is a Delta, and he is taking your training very seriously.

The Epsilons; non-ranking wolves, like you. Apparently, they used to be the largest group within packs before the war, but now there aren’t as many left. Epsilons are rarer, mostly pups that haven’t acquired any valuable set of skills yet.

Lastly, Omegas; always fighting authority... No one ever mentions these troublemakers to you. The fewer, the better.

Lost in your thoughts, you’re still staring at the tiny tear of blood on your finger when Chan appears as if materializing from thin air. He whines, grabbing your hand to assess the damage. 

“Are you hurt?” There’s a deep wrinkle of worry between his brows. Like every time he touches you, warmth envelops you both instantly.

Mates, he explained the first day. Before you can push him away, Chan brings your index to his mouth, gently sucking on your scratch. You’re so stunned by his gesture that you forget you’re supposed to be angry at him. Your lips part in awe, flushing as he licks your finger clean. After a heartbeat he looks up, seemingly realizing what he is doing. Your finger is still in his mouth, but Chan's almond gaze widens. Wolves mate for life, his previous words echo through your mind. What’s with lycanth and vampires with blood?

“I told you to be careful.” Releasing your digit like it’s ardent, he looks somewhat embarrassed. It is hard to actively hate him when every fibre of your being seems to vibrate at his proximity.

“Following me,” regaining poise, you cross your arms over your chest, "again?" 

“Yes,” Chan admits shamelessly, “Jackson asked me too.” 

“And you always do as he says!” You can't help your annoyance. Your former friend looking all cute and innocent after all that happened is too upsetting. 

"Well…” The left corner of his pout jiggles at your outburst. You’ve been going at it every time you see him these days. “He’s our Alpha.” Chan blinks blankly, obviously unsure where you are in your education. “Uh- Jackson is like um… a… How could you… It’ll be like that, you and me… You’ll get it soon, after your First-”

“I know what an Alpha is!” You roar, ducking under a branch to exit his intimate proximity. You need to put as much space as you can between your bodies. This mate bond is making you lose your mind, freaking you out. You can’t even think clear if Chan's near. First Full Moon this, First Full Moon that, there’s never actual explaining with him. “What about what I ask you? I told you… Leave me alone, Chan!” He follows like a lost puppy despite that, only staying a step behind. When you turn to glare at him, his face twists guiltily.

“I’ll do whatever to make us right.” He promises, “I just can’t... Disobey.”

You stop, and he does too, simultaneously. “When can I visit her?” 

“I went and brought Gran some game yesterday, she’s doing fine. She thinks you’re on a hunting tr-”

“When?” You repeat, inquisitive, though you already know the answer.

“Jackson said aft-”

“Don’t bother.” When you turn back to the castle, something catches the corner of your eye; a dark curtain falling back on the window of a room. You catch a breath despite yourself, staring until it stops swinging. It’s the vampires’ wing. That’s one thing that is rather easy to understand about the messy mapping of your new house. Though vampires and werewolves coexist at the Castrum, both equally avoid each other’s company. You haven’t even seen one undead since you’ve been living here, but you are aware there’s plenty of them. 

They live in the West wing, where the sun sets the earliest, and Lycanth – you – live in the East wing, where it rises.  

“It’s not him,” Chan deadpans after a long silence, voice-controlled. He isn't whiny anymore but rather cold. You both know who he means. “He’s been sent away on Council duty.”

“I don’t care.” You lie, although you have a lot on your plate, there’s no denying you do. Not that you have anything special going on with the king just… Ever since that first night, Jaebeom’s not come to see you, not even once. He probably has forgotten all about your existence, you were just a blood bank. Now that you are not fully human anymore, why would he care?

“Do you have any idea how I felt?” Chan asks dryly, all of a sudden. It's the first time he is actually bringing his feelings up. “Or do you not care about that either?”

“I don’t!” You bark back, but even you can tell that it is another lie. Perhaps it’d be easier to truly hate and blame Chan if he hadn’t been your closest friend for years… And if he wasn’t currently taking good care of your grandma, the closest thing you have to a family. You aren’t sure that, knowing what you do now about Chan, you’d made the same deal that night with Jaebeom.

“I was worried sick,” he replies without batting an eye, “I thought he was going to kill you... After... The king took you just to spite me. I finally made a move on you and then you were go-.”

“A move?!” You see it on his face when he understands he messed up bad. You’ve never been one prone to throw fits, but it’s all you can do ever since the bite. You have this anger constantly boiling within, and it's easy to push it all on Chan. “A move would’ve been actually asking me out! Getting me flowers or-”

“You hate flowers.” He reminds, missing the point.

“-or a gift! A move is what Jaebeom made in that room, Chan. Not dooming me into a forced lifelong relatio-”

You regret your words as soon as they slip from your mouth and stop yourself. Not that you don’t believe them, just that he doesn't need to hear that all over again. Even though you’re mad, there’s no denying Chan cares a lot for you. He picked you after getting to know you. Sure, you had no idea what he wanted, but it doesn’t change how he feels. It’s not like your usual self to dismiss people’s feelings like that. He doesn’t need to be told all about what happened between you and the vampire that night because he already knows. He had to listen to it all, has it happened.

“That room.” When he finally speaks again, he looks drained, resigned. He gestures the window with the hovering curtain. “That's Queen Ryujin’s.”

“P-Pardon?”

“I thought you didn’t care about anything or anyone except yourself.” He stares, expressionless, aware his next words have the effect of a stab. “That's his Queen's bedroom.” 

Suddenly, everything is spinning and you reach for your head with both hands for it to stop. Jaebeom is a vampire, he fed on you thinking you were just a lowly human. He hates werewolves, has said so over and over… He is a king somehow, and you’ve… You’ve… How is he married? Does one get that bored when they are eternal?

“Hey... Are you alright?” Chan’s arm wraps around your shoulders to pull you into him.

“Do not touch me!” You growl. Elbowing his chest, you fight back to free yourself. 

“I-I’m sorry,” his arm falls back idly, ‘I just thought…”

He has the decency to shut up then, and that’s how you know his words were absolutely true. In the end, it doesn’t matter. The only thing you’re sure of right now, is that Chan said this out of spite; hoping to hurt you.

“Y/n!” He calls when you leave but you don’t look back. 

You barely hear him, walking fast to the main hall and trying to calm yourself. Lines between your frustration with your mate and the king blur in your mind. When you reach the castle, you are totally hysterical. It isn’t rational at all, but you could murder anyone right now, you can't control it, it has taken over. Of course, the vampire king has a vampire queen! It all makes sense! Still, there’s a small voice in your mind who craves to yell, louder and louder. Why did Jaebeom bed you then? Sure, he called it ‘feeding’, but he did much more than that. 

“Hi, pup!” One of the Betas you don’t know by name, smirks when you storm through the East Living Room. He’s playing cards with two Deltas; Felix and Sana, Youngjae’s mate. His face falls when he sees you don’t slow down. “Jesus, what did you do this time?” The last comment isn't intended for you. The only reason you catch it is because of your new, inhuman, hearing. You’re already running up the stairs.

“Shut it, Minho!” Chan snarls, obviously still trailing you.

You press on through the long stone corridors, the East wing is way more comfortable than the West one. There’s a large window at the end of the living quarters’ corridor, letting in sun and a fresh breeze all day long. No mildew smell, no torches needed at night, all of you can see perfectly through darkness anyway. You barely have time to reach your bedroom before Chan catches up with you. It better this way since you can slam the door to his face, merciless. 

“Y/n!” He barks, also losing his temper for the gazillionth time since you’ve been living here. The built wolf kicks the door you’re leaning against, causing the hinges to shake violently. He probably could burst through, but he doesn’t. “That’s my room too,” he protests, hitting it once more, “you can’t lock me out forever!” On the first floor, Felix and Minho audibly laugh, highly entertained.

“I used to have my own space, you know? At home!” Spiteful, you kick the door with your heel. You too can hit things. You too can be enraged. “That was before you ruined my life, asshole! You can sleep outside, fuck off!”

“I like her,” Felix whispers downstairs, dead serious as he shuffles the cards, “she’s eloquent.” Unbeknown to you, there’s a small audience slowly gathering in the living room, eager to hear you guys go at it again.

“Right!” Chan’s palm hits the wood, and the door vibrates against your back. “Be mad about the bite! Be mad about your former life! Be mad about losing your humanity! You can hate me for that, at least for a while. I understand you need tim-”

“No, you don’t!” Eyes narrowing meanly, you consider opening the door to tell that to his face but decide against it. It’s safer, you might just rip his throat. “You’ll never get it. You were born with this bane. You have no idea what I’m going through because of you.” 

“Fine! I don’t understand anything! Keep cursing me, keep pushing me away...” Chan grunts hollowly, making the hair rise on your body, but not from fear. It's from that something under your skin that’s alive and pulsating every time he’s near. It’s even worse when you’re angry at each other and fighting. “But...” The Beta is a little less explosive when he goes on, though his words still strike you; “Don’t take it out on me when it's about him...  I can’t stand it! It’s killing me!”

Absolute silence falls on the East Wing of the Inferorum Castrum at the comment. You know because you listen intently, breathing rendered heavy by your outburst. You can’t tell if Chan is still there waiting for you to reply with something. You rack your brain, trying to remember why you even started to yell at him today. With you two, it’s becoming second nature, your only way to communicate. He is wrong, this is not about Jaebeom. You should tell Chan that, it's because of why he brought him up. Before you can make up your mind, he is leaving, dragging his feet along the corridor. When the young wolf reaches the stairs, there’s obvious disarray in the living room. He knows the others where eavesdropping with bated breath but doesn’t mind. There’s rarely ever the need for secrecy or intimacy when you belong to a pack. You start to take for granted everyone knows everything about you. As far as Chan remembers, the others also fought with their mates a lot after the marking, it’s just that there was no vampire involved whatsoever. No third party, luckily for them. 

As soon as he enters the room, every head turns to him and he sees that the number of wolves has tripled. They showed up for the dramatic shit show that is his current love affair. He raises a brow, spotting that even Yugyeom and Bambam made it, two incendiary Omegas. God knows where they were before this all started. 

“I hated Sana for a whole year after she turned me,” Youngjae claims, apparently back from his hunt just in time. He’s probably trying to be reassuring, but months of being at each other’s throat don’t sound too appealing to Chan right now. “Cursed her out every single day...”

“He tried to kill me, twice.” Sana deadpans and his arm stretches around her shoulder, patting for forgiveness. Chan doesn’t even bother answering, wiggling from one foot to the other. He wants to go stretch his legs, he craves a turn. He hasn’t been able to escape his responsibilities ever since you joined the pack. Between you yelling at him and your grandmother worrying...

Leaning against a wall, Yeji looks up, hopeful. “Wanna go for a run?” She proposes and Chan smirks at the young Epsilon. He’s yours now, no matter how you feel about it. Yeji will get over her budding crush on him soon.

“Go! I’ll look after your abusive mate for you!” Yugyeom cackles on the sofa. 

“Yeah, we’ll check her out!” Elbowing his friend, Bambam adds; “You still have a few days before the king comes back...” Chan growls at the rebel wolf as a warning. He fully uncovers his canines, but the Omega smiles widely going on; “At least he’s not here to fuck her agai-” 

“Do not talk about my huntress.” In a second, Chan is on Bambam, fisting his shirt and pulling up until their foreheads are pressed against one another. He warns, nostrils flaring and irides glowing yellow; “I’ll kill you.”

“Chan,” Felix murmurs, most sensible, “don’t mind Bam. He’s just-”

“If one of you disrespects her...” Chan’s tone is so low it’s unrecognizable, mouth almost closed. “You’re disrespecting me, understood?” Everyone around the room nods in acknowledgement. It’s not like any would ever stand a chance of winning a fight against the strongest Beta anyways.

“What do we call a wolf that’s whoring around with a leech?” Bambam snickers nonetheless. The Omega must have a death wish. Seconds before Chan guts him – something that is obviously long overdue – a scary howl resounds through the whole Castrum. The entire pack stills at the timed entrance of the Alpha into the living room. They’re all well aware of where he’s coming back from. 

“What do you call a wolf like that, pup? I’m curious...” Though Jackson’s voice is devoid of any irritation, the Omega whimpers and shrinks on himself, frightened.

“A bitch.” Chan barks in his stance, knuckles white on Bambam’s shirt. Jackson hisses through his teeth, apparently appreciative of the slang.

“Clever... How strange, no one ever told me that one before...” The Alpha looks around the room intently. He bursts out laughing when he doesn’t manage to meet anyone’s gaze. Only Chan dares, standing back and releasing the senseless Omega. “Any of you take issue of my personal life?” The large wolf, smiles, bringing his hand to rub the skin of his neck. “Now’s the time, I’m in a lenient mood...” He says it bright and cheerful but none is foolish enough to actually comment.

“Can I go out?” The Beta blurts out, strained. “Or I might just end that cur...” Jackson assesses his second in command for a moment before nodding. Wow. Chan must truly look like shit.

“I’m sure your pup can manage alone for a few hours.”

“Thank you.” The wolf grunts’ immediately shrugging off his clothes as he begins to exit the room. He doesn’t mind the young Epsilon trailing him like a shadow. He craves fresh air, he hasn’t slept in weeks, running until complete exhaustion is exactly what he needs. 

Upstairs, alone in your room, you are mortified. 

The tears you have been crying since your fight with Chan have dried, and you’re shocked by what happened downstairs. You don’t even get why he took your defence at this point, it’s not like you have been anything but horrible to him. You have no idea how you’re supposed to feel or act around the rest of the pack now that you heard all of that.

A bitch.

Lying on your back, you rub your swollen eyelids. Youngjae claimed the mate bond is inevitable. He also said that it’d be even stronger for you because Chan is the one who directly marked you. He’s expected to be the next Alpha and you’re supposed to revere him. You hadn’t realized what this implied before overhearing that fight. Chan has authority, credibility to ensure with the rest of the pack. Youngjae was marked by Jackson, like every other member that wasn’t born from werewolves. You aren’t simply Chan’s mate, you’re also his first. In the future, if you don't act as such they’ll step on him too, you should be careful.

Nocturna Masterlist | HALLOWEEN