#in my case the feeling is further supplemented

[minweber]

I am finding out that doing a "good" Dark Urge playthrough while running a fun and powerful build has a very peculiar kind of immersion to it. Because every time there is a combat encounter that you can talk your way out of - you try to do so, of course, but oh do you so hope to fail.

[bonny-kookoo]

Jungkook: 𝓖𝓻𝓮𝓮𝓭𝔂 (Intro)

Jewels, Money, Shiny things- stuff he's been collecting before he stumbled upon you. Now the only thing he's greedy for is you.

Tags/Warnings: Alien!Jungkook, Cat Hybrid!Reader, Major fluff!, suggestive themes & heavy flirting, Primal themes (biting, grooming aka he licks her neck lol, scenting, manhandling), size difference because come on this is my content and you know my kinks by now don't act surprised

Additional Content: none yet

Masterlist: to be added

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Jungkook is humming to himself in a good mood as he cuts open a cardboard box delivered, knife cutting through the tape holding everything safely together.

Almost instantly you're in the room with him as well, ducking under one of his arms to catch a glimpse of what he's gotten delivered. "Hey- I've got a knife here, careful." He chuckles, gently pushing you a bit so you sit a bit further away as he pulls out the plastic wrapped item. "Oh, nice! I was worried it might be a little too small.." He mumbles more so to himself as he opens the vacuum packed item, fluffing it up as you watch with wide open eyes.

"You bought it!" You tell him, amazed, and he grins, opening another sealed back that contains a fitting pillow for the human-sized pet bed he'd bought for you. It was a little on the more expensive side for him- but to see your eyes sparkle like that, and watch you grab and drag is towards a sunny spot near his windows is enough of a reward for it.

It's something that you never really experienced prior to living with Jungkook. He's offering you more than just a home, or basic care- he offers love, a feeling of belonging, comfort and a sense of security.

His kind is, on earth, often times compared to dragons for their heavy and alligator-like tails and uniquely diamond-shaped pupils, but mostly for their behavior of collecting things. Food, money, candy- some even collect blankets or pillows or plants, there's nothing one won't attempt to hoard more of if it brings them joy or happiness. Jungkook himself is pretty tame for a Xiro- he only really hoards food and snacks at home, but has started to become rather fond of spoiling you instead of himself. He's got a whole collection of hybrid stuff- medications, supplements, snacks, collars and toys- it's all there, even emergency medical stuff, just in case, because you never know.

He's not only your owner after all, but your mate- lifelong companion, your protector and lover, and he won't ever give you a reason to complain about that fact.

He folds the cardboard box together to throw away later, before he walks over to you, playfully manhandling you around to lay in the, for him way too small, bed with you on top of him. "I might have to put it away again if you lay in it more than you want to be with me.." He chuckles, though you know there's a hint of truth in his joke.

Jungkook is awfully possessive when it comes to you and your attention.

"No, I'll always like you most." You purr quietly, and he offers a happy sounding growl before he closes his eyes, basking in the sun shining onto his body with you. "Nap time?" You ask, and he chuckles, nodding.

"Nap time."

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Your favorite way of cuddling has become to sleep almost on top of Jungkook.

He's warm, like the sun, and strong enough not to be fazed at all by your added weight on top of his chest either. It also reassures you during sleep that he's still there, and that you're not alone.

Jungkook himself loves it too.

He knows it's sometimes tough to adapt your body to his nocturnal sleep schedule- but very amusingly to him, you're totally capable of sleeping anywhere he takes you as long as he's in reach. It's made it very easy for him to take you to work for example- his job being what brought him to you in the first place, though tonight he's simply offering company to his friends at the small restaurant one of them owns.

It's then that a couple of police officers walk in, clearly not there for simple food.

"Sir- can I check your papers for her please?" A more elderly guy in official uniform asks Jungkook, looking at you who's currently sleeping rolled up in a blanket-burrito on one of the nearby chairs close to Jungkook. It's common for law enforcement to check ID's of hybrids these days, since a lot of them are illegally trafficked on to his planet, cases rising rapidly for reasons no one's entirely sure of yet. It's a little sad to him how earth and humans seem to try and 'get rid' of your kind so shamelessly- but he's no politician, nor does he want to really involve himself into this mess at all.

He's got you, and that's all that matters.

"Sure." He says, used to the procedure as he moves to grab his bag to fetch his wallet. "I only got her identification card with me though, I hope that's alright." He mumbles, pulling out the card in question before he gets out his own, already aware that that's gonna be asked next.

"That should be fine. Just gotta match up the ID tattoo on her to make sure if you don't mind." The officer says, and Jungkook nods.

"Yeah sure." He offers, moving towards you to carefully run a hand over your shoulder first as to not startle you on accident. "It's right here." Jungkook shows the inside of your ear, the officer matching it up by sight with what's written on your ID card, before he nods and gives him back his items.

"Thanks. It's just a routine thing- cases have been popping up left and right these days.." The man sighs, writing something down in a booklet. "Her medical records all up to date?" He questions, and Jimin nods.

"She's scheduled for tomorrow for her yearly vaccinations. They're expiring in two months I think, but we wanna travel soon so I wanted to get it done sooner rather than later." Jungkook chats, and the officer nods.

"Very good. If only everyone was like this.." the man sighs, watching as his coworker seems to argue a bit with a young man and his own hybrid next to him. "I won't bother you any further. Have a nice night." He offers, before leaving to aid his colleague in the argument he's involved in.

You move around a little, wiggling closer to his chair as he sits down again, both Jin and Taehyung emerging from the kitchen, sitting down. "Man, humans are a struggle.." Seokjin sighs, leaning his head on his hand. "Why can't they be nocturnal? I've been working all day, no breaks!" He whines, and you wiggle out your arm to reach out and pat the older man's head. He looks at you with squinted eyes at that, an action that years prior would've scared you-

But Xiro people are gentle giants, you've come to learn.

"Hah, if Jungkook wasn't written on all the documents I'd steal you right away." He complains, and Taehyung laughs at Jungkooks playfully angry face, his tail swiping from left to right.

"You keep your grabbing claws to yourself old hag." He insults the oldest at the table, who's mouth gapes open at the audacity of the youngest.

"How could you!" He scolds. "Younglings these days, wear a sleeve full of ink and think they're free to do whatever!" He shakes his head, making you giggle.

You love the carefree banter Jungkook has with his friends.

You love hanging out with them, their friendship something not commonly seen on earth anymore since the collapse. People aren't really too warm anymore on earth, rather concerned with finding a new villain to blame for everything wrong every day it seems like. So in a way, you're glad Jungkook chose to take you with him back when he volunteered to help give Hybrids back on earth their identification tattooed. It was a form of social work, a publicity thing created to familiarize humans with the Xiro people and their planet. It worked.. mildly successful.

Though it was a win in the lottery for you.

"I should probably head home, she needs to sleep in a proper bed." Jungkook says after a moment, and Seokjin nods.

"Hah, I always forget they sleep during the night. You could just leave her here though-" He offers, though he receives a glare from the younger alien.

"Absolutely not. Get your own, old man." He scoffs playfully, getting up to put on your coat for you. It's pretty windy on his planet tonight, so he's learned to bundle you up to prevent you from getting cold.

"Pah, I just might! Stupid kid." He growls, shaking his head. "Here, take those though. Poor thing is probably living off of nothing but pre-made meals." He gives you the bag full of boxes filled with what he knows are your favorite foods.

"I cook for her, thank you." Jungkook rolls his eyes, before he properly says his goodbyes, your hand in his as you walk home in the lowering suns of his planet.

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You remember how you'd met him.

He was intimidating to say the least- ink underneath his skin swirling around slightly, eyes sharp and piercings glimmering in the lights around him. His tall statue and rather muscular physique definitely didn't help his case either- so it shouldn't have been surprising to him how you'd glare at him as if ready to strike if he'd attempt to harm you.

"You're cute, really, but you gotta show me that pretty ear of yours." He'd chuckled softly, head tilted innocently and his smile almost docile.

A careworker wants to scold you, reaches out- but the man who's name tag read 'JUNGKOOK', holds out his hand in a silent demand to let him handle it himself.

"What can I do to make you more comfortable?" He'd asked, and your ears had slowly relaxed, surprise having caught you off guard. No one's ever asked you a question like that prior to him- you didn't know what to answer to that. "Hm?" He'd pressed softly, and you'd shrugged, looking around nervously. "Thats a pretty tail you have there. My kind has them too." He'd smiled, a grin more akin to a rabbit than the dragons his kind gets compared to, heavy alligator-like tail swaying behind him as if to show it off.

"...is it heavy?" You'd asked bluntly, and He'd laughed, shaking his head.

"Not really no. I guess because I grew up with it, I never really thought about that." He'd told you, casually readying his tattooing equipment while talking to you. "But as a child, my mothers would tell me how I'd always cause trouble with it. I'd empty any table low enough for it to reach!" He'd giggled, and you'd smiled at the thought of the younger version of him knocking down items from tables and shelves, too clumsy yet to quite think about it all.

"I burned mine on a candle once." You'd meekly told him, petting your own tail in search for comfort as you remembered the memory. He must have bright and colorful memories of his childhood- while you barely have anything worth keeping in mind, you'd thought to yourself.

"Well, you better make sure you don't get it hurt again, little thing!" He'd simply offered, before his surprisingly gentle hands had rubbed some numbing cream on the inside of your ear. "Or... maybe I could?" He'd asked, and at that, your ears had fully turned towards him, and made him smile. "Ah, adorable, really!"

"You'd.. take me in?" You'd asked, and He'd shrugged.

"I wasn't planning on bringing an earth-hybrid home-" He'd smiled, before the tattoo gun had buzzed to life. "But looking at you, I feel like I've found what I didn't even search for."

And today, the tattoo on your ear isn't just a Number.

It's also a memory, forever cherished by the both of you.

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There's a low rumbling sound in his chest as he holds you close to himself, nosing along the crook of your neck.

It sounds awfully like those CGI-Dinosaurs in movies back on earth- and you know he's just as dangerous as the directors of these sci-fi movies intended their creatures to be. His heavy, snake-like tail has you wrapped securely to himself on his lap, hands free to roam over your body as if he needs to re-paint your image back into his mind using only his fingers and palms. His tongue traces over your skin, marking you, seemingly on a mission to find the perfect spot, before his teeth bite the skin, leaving his mark on yoir body amongst so many others, chuckling when you begin to squirm a little at his actions, your soft cat tail a stark contrast to his own.

You're like the prey in the python's grip- but this predator has chosen to feast on you in different ways.

"Hm.. are you happy, little thing?" He asks you, and you nod, leaning into him, your soft cat ears brushing against his cheek as you purr- a sound he's learned earth's cats make when they feel good, making him smile. "I'm glad." He offers, laying down with you as his tail curls around the both of your bodies, warm orange glow from outside his home bleeding in and bathing you both in shades of gold. It doesn't matter though how warm the suns on his planet shines-

Your favorite sunspot will always be him.

"I love you." He says, chuckles right after it. "Thays how you say it on earth, right?" He wonders, and you turn a bit, looking at him.

"Depends." You say, chin on his chest while his hand runs over your head, coming to rest on your lower back where your tail is just about to begin. "What do you wanna say?" You ask, and he hums as he thinks.

"I asked Seokjin if he knew an earth-expression for deep emotional care and longing. A word or sentence to make sure your mate knows how much you want to stay close to them, both physically and any other way." He says, and you blush, turning your head to the side on his chest.

"Hm, guess that's love, yeah." You nod. "How do you say it here?" You wonder, and he smiles, hand running up and down your back.

"I commit my life to you." He says softly, hand still before you look up at him. "Thats what we say here- and that's what I say to you." He mumbles, and you can't help but stare for a good moment.

Jungkook and you have been intimate before. You've told each other that you deeply care, that you're mates, that you're in a relationship. But it's the first time you ever talk about love, about something so meaningful as.. well, this. And hearing it from him in such honesty makes your heart race like never before.

"Dont just stare, little thing. Kiss me!" He playfully growls, pulling you up and closer to press his lips against yours, laughing along with you as you roll around in the sheets, getting lost in love and happiness together.

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Humans would look at you both in absolute confusion if they saw you like this, you think to yourself.

Freshly showered and dressed in comfortable clothes, you're halfway laying on the fluffy carpet on the floor, and also somewhat in Jungkook's lap. Well- your butt is in his lap, legs and upper body not- but he's positioned you like this himself, and you've got snacks and TV, so you don't complain.

He's humming the tune of the commercial playing to himself as he brushes out your tail with gentle strokes of the specially designed hybrid brush- your eyes growing heavy with tiredness after the things you've been up to not even an hour prior. Your neck and thighs still sting a little faintly from his lovebites he leaves every time you both make love. You don't mind them though, not one bit.

"Will you be okay later?" He asks, referring to when he'll put you to bed, while he'll go to work later. Jungkook would love to have you sleep close to him at all times- but sometimes, like today, he just forgets that you're not nocturnal like he is, and while you've adjusted somewhat to that, he should've saved up his physical acts of loving you for after he's done working, considering how much be tends to tire you out with that. He teases you a lot about that, but its also another endearing thing to him.

You never complain about anything. You adapt freely to his way of living- so he's doing the best he can to make it all as easy for you as he can.

You nod at his question, yawning as if reminded of your exhaustion, and he chuckles, hand smacking your butt playfully, causing you to whine in complaint- the skin still a little tender from earlier. "Sorry." He says- but you know he's not.

You stretch and turn on his lap, and he smiles watching you, hand running over your exposed stomach, before he leans in to kiss one of his bites at your neck. "Hm I don't wanna leave you here.." he complains a little, moving around to pull you properly on his thighs, though you just hug him, head leaning against his shoulder. "And you're freshly marked up too. Won't have to worry one bit about someone trying to steal you away from me " He purrs, and you just shrug, clinging onto him. "We could take the round bed I bought with us to my studio. Hm? You could always sleep there then, when I'm working." He offers, and you nod after a moment.

He laughs, before he gets up, puts you on the sofa for a moment to get everything ready for his plan. It's a great idea- that way, you'll be comfortable just like at home, and he'll have you close and won't have to worry about you.

When he later comes to work with both you and the round pet bed in a bag, his coworker just shakes his head with a slight smile, already used to the younger alien's actions from years of experience. You easily fall asleep under blankets he places over you after setting up the bed in the corner you choose for yourself, and he already knows he feels a lot better like this, knowing he'll be able to look after you more properly this way.

When his first client comes in, Jungkook explains that you're his- that you're his mate, not just a companion or pet as humans call it, and the young man is understanding.

"I've been visiting the carecenter in the capital." The man named Jimin says, as Jungkook puts down the tracing paper on his back. "I'm worried though- online research made it seem as if Algol isn't a good environment for them.." he mumbles, and Jungkook shrugs.

"She's perfectly healthy, and has been living here for more than two full cycles. Yeah, their circadian rhythm can sometimes make things a bit tricky, but I've gotten used to handling it whenever necessary." He explains, making sure to do his work properly. "You'll have to really study what they can and can't eat though. A lot of vegetables we eat here are poisonous to them, and some of them can't digest dairy well." He offers.

Jimin sighs. "That sounds intimidating." He huffs almost disappointed, watching you roll over in your sleep, tail limp as you're out like a light. "But they seem like such good company."

"They are." Jungkook agrees. "She's probably the best fitting mate I could've ever found." The artist shrugs, beginning to tattoo.

"I mean, they did mention in research that earth-hybrids and Xiro people are surprisingly very compatible, even in genetics." He informs the younger alien. "Have you heard of the couple that recently became parents? And the child is perfectly healthy too."

"Hmhm, I've heard." He nods. "Maybe it'll help our declining birth rates, at least a little."

"Have you thought about having one with her?" Jimin asks, and Jungkook nods.

"One day, probably. We both want that. But not right now. There's no rush." He says as he follows the lines he'd prepared on the skin of the older man.

"Understandable." Jimin nods.

And Jungkook doesn't stop softly smiling as he works, and thinks about your future together.

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[ql-of-all-time-bracket]

#1 QL of All Time

So I used to run the @ doyouknowthisql blog, but tumblr nerfed that blog a few months back, made it so that none of my posts would ever show up in the tags, which is rough when you're trying to run a blog with the goal of seeing how well a show is known amongst a community of people. long story short, tumblr never got back to me and I have made peace with that blog never returning. BUT!!!!!!! I was sitting here thinking "wow I have all these ql posters still downloaded, what can I do with them?" and the idea then occurred to me:

Tournament for the Best QL of all time!!!

This is going to be a massive 256 contestant tournament, in which qls of all shapes and sizes battle for dominance and only 1 will be the winner! But I need to define some stuff first!

What does QL mean?

QLs for the purposes of this competition are any live action tv shows, mini series, movies, or short films in which the main character is some flavor of queer and has an important plotline around the main character engaging in a queer relationship (romantic, sexual, queerplatonic, etc) with another important character. The relationship must be part of the overall story, not something that only shows up in like the last episode or is only implied/word of god to have happened (the exception being shows from countries where queer content is banned, like China. in those cases, censored shows that are adaptions of explicitly queer texts are allowed or shows in which the creators have stated explicitly that it is meant to be queer).

Country Masterlist

If you are looking for stuff from a specific country, you can click on one of these links for all the polls featuring qls from that country (and then further divided by bl and gl.)

Cambodia

BL

China

BL & GL

Japan

BL & GL

Philippines

BL & GL

South Korea

BL & GL

Taiwan

BL & GL

Thailand

BL & GL

Vietnam

BL & GL

What types of things can be submitted?

Any live action tv show, mini series, movie, or short film that fulfills the above requirement AND comes from an East Asian country is eligible. Examples of countries based on what was on the last blog: South Korea, Thailand, Taiwan, China, Japan, The Philippines, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Laos, Myanmar, and Cambodia. Any other countries or territories from this general region can be submitted. Only live action because I feel like things like animes and donghuas are communities of their own beyond the typical ql fandom.

How long will submissions be opened?

Submissions will be open until I fill the 256 spots. Trust me, there's way more than that many out there these days. When submissions start to slow down a lot, I'll supplement the list with others from all the stuff downloaded on my computer

Submit QLs here!!!

@bl-bracket @tournament-announcer @haveyouseenthisseries-poll (looking for my own bl-georg lol)

[elexuscal]

An Educational Experience

A ficlet prompt by Gamebird [for some reason tumblr will not let me @ you directly, sorry]: Three is very intimidated by ART, but it somehow gets to the point where it can ask it about educational modules. How did that conversation play out?

======

"Perihelion?"

Yes?

I had prepared what I was going say. Preparation was wise in unfamiliar situations. Yet despite my preparation, I did not speak. Somehow could not. Wished that my buffer could offer an appropriate response.

0.5 seconds passed. 1 seconds. 2 seconds. 3 seconds.

If my governor module were still active, it would have demanded a response.

The Perihelion is not a governor module. It is nearly as unforgiving as one. (Nearly.) I brace for the demand to continue speaking, but it does not come.

After 9.8 seconds, I say, "I am not prepared to operate as a free agent."

No, it agrees.

Muscles in my back move reflexively. I unclench them. Perhaps communicating via the feed will be easier. My modules lack protocols for existing outside the context of Barish-Estranza. It would be helpful if there were alternative protocols I could utilize instead.

I can provide you with my own crew's standard operating procedures.

That would be helpful, thank you. I had found that statements of gratitude were still advisable, even without governor module compulsion to be respectful to (most) clients. It seemed even more prudent considering what I was going to ask next. If there were any other documents similar to HelpMe.file, that would also be useful.

I am afraid that we are rather lacking in other personnel memoirs from rogue SecUnits.

Sarcasm is a common communication device, which I have seen hundreds if not thousands of humans use. In Perihelion's case, it seems to compose of approximately 70% of its communication strategy.

I am aware of that. (I attempt to keep any frustration or other negative emotions I may be feeling out of the feed; I almost certainly fail.) I seek other informational texts and documents to supplement my educational modules.

Perihelion's feed shifts with a new emotion; excitement, perhaps, or interest. Something like this?

Suddenly I am staring at The Perihelion's full media library. No, not full, I realise after a moment of reflection; this is a curated selection. Documentary films and serials, audio-explainers, academic texts, and other books, all labelled #Educational.

They hold potential answers to all my questions.

If I could find them. With over 17,000 items, I do not know where to begin. I do not know how to even begin constructing a query.

"Thank you, Perihelion," I say. "On further consideration, I will begin by reading your crew's operational procedures."

Wait, Perihelion says, and then 0.07 seconds later, please. Apparently it is capable of using courtesy terms, if it wants to. That was too much selection. Try this. The media library refreshes. Now there are only three options; all mid-length educational serials. Do any of these interest you?

The three titles listed, including their summaries, are:

Building Ourselves Up From dams to space-stations, farms to terraforming facilities, how do engineers build the machines that keep society ticking?

Seeking The Final Horizon For millennia before we ever left our birth planet, humanity marvelled up at space. Take a tour of the cosmos, exploring moons, stars, black holes, nebulae, and more.

Suds! The Dirt On Soap Water, fat, and ash. That sounds gross, but we rub it over our bodies every day. Learn about the many ways soap is made and used across the universe.

I consider. They are all so different. How could I choose?

But I must. There are only three of them. It is a reasonable request.

The first documentary, on infrastructure, is clearly the one most related to our current situation. We-- by which I meant, the crews of The Perihelion and the Preservation ship Safe Harbour-- are assisting the humans in rebuilding their infrastructure. But judging from the demo footage next to the documentary's description, this serial was composed to many shots of coordinators, tunnels, and walls.

I had seen a great deal of corridors, tunnels, and walls since initial deployment.

In comparison, the soap documentary intrigued me a great deal. I like soap. Or I like The Perihelion's soap. It did not sting on the skin, but felt gentle and soothing. It came in a variety of shapes and colors and textures. Every time I showered, there was a new option to try. But this was such an unimportant thing to learn about.

Finally, there was the space documentary. I had some basic knowledge regarding space science, but nothing more. I could see how this knowledge could be relevant. And The Perihelion was a deep-space research vessel. It would most likely be pleased if I selected that option. In fact, perhaps, as I thought of it, the choice may have been a test to see if I would make the correct selection.

"Seeking the Final Horizon, please."

Did you only pick that one because that was the one you thought I'd like?

I do not answer. I had not wanted to lie outright. I realise belatedly that my silence may as well be as good as a confession.

You can select something else if you prefer.

I do not know if I would like to. I already decided. Surely that is sufficient?

Never mind, the transport says, indulgently. You can watch the others afterwards, if you are still interested.

The documentary begins playing. I sit down on the soft bunk. Because there is nothing gained from standing up now, and because I can. I watch the first two episodes. They total to 85 minutes.

I had known before that space was vast. I had known that large objects exerted a gravitational pull. I had know that same gravitation pull created worm holes. I knew that wormholes were necessary for faster-than-light travel between systems. I had known all of that, yet this documentary weaves it all together, so that it is no longer disparate facts, but a single cohesive explanation.

I had not known that space could be so beautiful.

[pink-strawberry-kissess]

my separate ways analysis  (spoilers for gameplay, story/plot, characters, aeon)

for my re4r post, click here (it was written without the knowledge of SW so my opinions there may not be the same as here.

gameplay

as many of us anticipated, the separate ways campaign ended up having a lot of the "cut content" from the main campaign

similarly to the original SW, the campaign is a lot shorter than the main one however it does have a few added scenes and similar style of gameplay where Ada runs faster or is faster than Leon and you're also able to travel throughout the map faster with the help of her hookshot

because of the changes between the main campaign and SW, the laser scene, which was given to Ada- which always made more sense stylistically and for her story as well

overall her chapters did seem a bit short, but I think it's this is due to the capacity of the game in general because you're going through the same locations as Leon but you're able to go through it faster so it only makes sense that you go through the areas faster

I do think that there should've been additional time spent in each location but I'm not exactly sure how they could've implemented this (but also with the new locations as a lot of ada's missions were easier than leon's)

ADA'S SOUNDTRACK FUCKING SLAPS SO FUCKING HARD

also WHY WERE ADA'S DEATH SCENES SO MUCH MORE INTENSE THAN LEON'S

ada's campaign is objectively way more fun than leon's

story/plot

what one the main changes from the original campaign and the remake one is the addition of Ada's infection

it made sense to me when we were first presented it in the trailer, however I feel like there was a lot of missed opportunities with her infection

because she ends up just throwing up the plaga after she defeats the "mother" one, all tension essentially is gone afterwards. Because this is so early in the campaign it feels like her infection doesn't really matter, and I guess it doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things, as we know that she's going to get out of it at some point- but because it happened so early it just feels like there's no tension with this further along in the game

one of my main complaints is that in the main campaign, because we are viewing the mission through Leon's eyes, I think we were free to speculate that he is hallucinating at points during the game.

(this was a way to have potentially added the choking scene if he were hallucinating the entire thing and we wouldn't have seen it from his POV but we would have seen it from ada's.)

And because separate ways was always meant to be a mirror, an alternate side of the game- it would only make sense to have additional scenes that we wouldn't have seen in separate ways

I feel as though even though we did get additional scenes that are from Ada's perspective- they weren't really enough to supplement the amount of scenes that actually cut from in the original separate ways

especially because a lot of the main changes such as ada saving Leon from krauser which was changed to luis saving leon, instead

I still hold the opinion that a lot of scenes that were originally ada's in the original game and were given to luis- and I see a lot of arguments that "this isn't the case" but I find it funny that most of the arguments that I hear from people saying that luis didn't take Ada scenes- are funnily enough from luis stan's

(so i find this opinion to be fairly biased. there were absolutely scenes in original re4 and SW that are strictly ada's that were just given to luis instead. you can not argue away from this, this is just objectively true)

Circling back to Ada's infection, because it was gotten rid of so early on in the game. It removes any sort of tension for any sort of follow up with Ashley and Leon's infection.

many people, myself included along with several of the actors for re4r, have pointed out that in the main campaign when Ashley is miraculously able to lift Leon up onto the chair and cure his plagas- that it is not questioned and it is simply accepted as truth-

one of the potential pivotal changes could've actually have been because of ada's new infection in the remake, she would have to get her plagas removed as well at some point. but because her plagas was different and she was able to get rid of hers earlier it removes this potential scenario to happen

many fans were speculating that because of her infection, she would have to meet up with Ashley and Leon afterwards, and help Ashley to actually put Leon onto the chair so that they could both rid their infections at the same time, and this would've also actually potentially added a aeon scene as well (which would've fit into the narrative without feeling forced) which would really help with the story as well and keep in the infection for longer as well as providing more tension for her health as well

Because the SW remake was changed in some aspects but kept the same in other aspects in ways, (as in it didn't really seem like they were pivotal to the story) it felt as though we were missing more scenes that kept us on our toes. A lot of the things that were changed were rectified fairly quickly and because of this, a lot of the scenes that followed the original beat by beat, felt too predictable and felt like the same

I was left wanting more because all of the changes that were made were fixed too quickly or they weren't really that pivotal and everything that could've changed things weren't added

that being said, i do love the contact lense update as the glasses were a bit much for today's standards, and i could suspend my belief enough for a high tech contact lense in 2004 lol

characters

Ada

although I think a lot of the "criticism" for ada's changes in the remake are in bad faith, I feel like a lot of the changes makes sense with the potential route that they want to go with ada

i've always held the opinion that remake ada was meant to show a fatal flaw and then to have her have her redemption arc as soon as possible. ada was never meant to be evil, she was never meant to be a villain, however people were unable to disconnect her with this idea.

because of the remake highlighting so many aspects of her having a heart and "changing," it really goes to show how much effort they've put into characterizing her.

we have to remember that up until 2011 even, all we really had were these hyper sexualized flirty iterations of ada where she is really just as femme fatale with little regard for the people around her, but people who have seen and played re6 and have actually spent more time with her character has seen her grow.

arguably re6, has always been her redemption arc, but because this happens so late in the series, it's hard as an audience (particularly people who don't pay attention) to really see her be this multi-faceted character.

sure, we have original SW where she essentially spends the entire campaign saving leon's ass, but it lacked a lot of her characterization beyond her desire to keep leon safe and a few quips here and there about the villagers and her interactions with wesker and krauser.

and because i don't want to talk about her voice too too much, i do LOVE ada's voice in SW. it's clear that a few of her lines were fixed in a sense, the audio changes are small but there, but a lot of her lines are adorable and really add to her being more than just a femme fatale.

the colder aspect of her makes sense with her narrative opening, that she had made peace with what she was doing. but that she still questions everything

additionally i do think that her infection was a way to make the audience sympathize with her and make her seem weaker and more human as she's particularly overpowered in og SW imo

Leon

we had very few additional scenes with leon and i was hoping for more but wasn't expecting it, it just would've been nice

the two ish scenes we got with his face were nice lol

Wesker

the changes with wesker being near or on the island were fairly interesting, it makes us question why he was there or if he was just so concerned about it ada's "incompetence" on her mission. the banter between her and wesker about leon was interesting and furthers the ideas that they had much more history that we know of.

I saw a lot of criticisms between the scene where ada passes out and wesker saves her and brings her to the bedroom. And the discourse seems to be somehow shaming ada for "flirting" with wesker despite the fact that I never interpreted as genuine flirting.

It's clear at this point in her campaign wesker has commented several times on ada's incompetent and insubordinate nature and that because she is in a position of being "dismissed " or "taken off the case" or just plainly, "gotten rid of," she resorts to "flirting" as a way to keep herself in a position of power. she knows that wesker finds her unuseful at this time, and sees no real issue with doing this as a means to keep herself safe in sense.

she doesn't fear him, but she is wary of him. but she'll still go against his demands several times.

i thought it was interesting that we could've seen potential repercussions for her ada's. wesker being told about the explosions not all going off and the ability to take down her helicopter, but he decides to let her go anyways.

the "think that gun's gonna be enough?" "interesting..." MADE ME PURRRR HELP

Because we finally have more lines with wesker, I feel like I can appropriately gauge my opinion on his voice now. I thought that I was on the opposite side of things where I held an unpopular opinion of liking wesker's new voice... but it appears a lot of people actually enjoys his new voice far more than the original. i have already stated before that i've never been a fan of the comical voices from before, and obviously due to the controversy with wesker's original VA, it makes sense that he was recast. and it would've felt a bit gross for the new VA to emulate the same kind of voice IMO

Krauser

because of the changes in the remake, it made sense that ada and krauser barely interact, (mostly due to the removal of ada saving leon scene and was changed to luis) so it didn't make sense for ada and krauser to talk. i don't think that i hate this change (the removal of them talking) but it does make this relationship odd because it removes a lot of tension between the two and also makes it so that krauser's vendetta against leon a bit odd

it felt more interconnected in the OG, whereas in the remake it really did feel like multiple stories happening at the same time where they don't connect

Luis

since seeing more of SW and more of Luis (unfortunately) I've started to hold the opinion and I believe that I actually had this prior to SW, I feel the luis' redemption arc and backstory is severely lacking any actualization.

And I think this may actually be because of the additional scenes of luis, that it has been detrimental for his overall story

the more I was forced to see more luis the more I felt like his moral standing and his desire to help Leon and Ashley and Ada, it felt like it was lacking any motivation. His desire to "do the good thing," because it "makes him feel better," has never been enough, and WILL never be enough (for me and some audiences who like to gauge WHY characters do things)

we get the verbal confirmation on why luis is doing these things, but it doesn't align with his actual desire to do the good thing in the end. his redemption arc (to me) seems pointless, and i guess that adds to the pointlessness of his character arc and his unfulfilled desired to really right the wrongs he had already done.

his dying act could serve as his last chance to really do the right thing, but it feels undeserved.

(regarding his connection to nemesis and re3r) sure his bloodshed is "secondhand," but it doesn't excuse what he had already done. i just felt as thought even though we got this expansion of his character and it helped the story of re4r and SW-

his characterization was used a plot device RATHER THAN ACTUAL GOOD STORYTELLING. every time we need something- it's luis. every time there's a problem, it's luis. every time there has to be something ELSE happening, it's luis

he was a plot device MORE than an actual character (and i don't think to praise him for his characterization in this way is THAT GREAT OF A THING TO DO)

AND THAT'S FINE. we were never meant to see more of him in the long term. luis was always meant to die and in the remake, he was at least fleshed out more

but i still feel like it was at the detriment to ada's expansion. a lot of her story was "given to luis" and a lot of her scenes were ALSO given to luis, and you CAN NOT OBJECTIVELY deny this as fact. the fact that these scenes were ORIGINALLY ADA'S in the og and then were luis' in the remake, is an UNDENIABLE FACT THAT THEY GAVE THOSE SCENES TO HIM.

we got more luis, we should've NEVER HAD MORE. this is STILL ada's story. and so much additional luis for the sake of plot felt like a disservice to Ada AND Luis.

THAT ALL BEING SAID I STILL LIKE LUIS. I THINK HIS ADDITION WAS GOOD, I JUST WISH THAT ADA HAD MORE. I THINK THEM ARE COOL AS FRIENDS. still see luis as the gay friend sjkbfsjkf

Ashley

i thought it was weird that ashley had weird npc behaviour for the ashley ada interaction

also ashley had weird 90s yaoi hands and i couldn't unsee it

enemies

WHY WERE THE ENEMIES SO MUCH FUCKING SCARIER WITH ADA

aeon

a lot of people were complaining that the aeon moments weren't as pivotal in this campaign, and while I do agree to some extent, I don't think that they were necessarily required for this remake

this may seem contradictory because of what i had said prior (luis taking ada's scenes) but because of the route that they went, i feel as though the scene where (potentially) ada saves leon from krauser couldn't have been written any other way. because of how they wrote luis to be with leon nearly constantly, it would've been difficult to change this scene.

because ada is much more in the shadows in this remake, we still have some scenes, like the boat and reunion scene. but the eagerness of ada saving leon was seen more as an afterthought than a outright desire like in og

i don't think these are wrong decisions per say but they do allow us to see a progression of ada obviously still caring for leon afterwards as the plot gives us these scenes of convenience. (like ada ringing the bell because she was supposed to meet luis there as opposed to her directly going to the bell to ring it. she still does it, noticing that leon is struggling. which i think is enough tbh)

the changes of the original boat scene having additional dialogue helped to change things, particularly in conjunction with ada's monologue that she did change, just maybe not in the overt ways that leon had expected.

i still feel as though although we lacked a few aeon scenes, it made sense with what we had.

allegedly nick apostolides opted out of saying the "she's like a part of me i can't let go," because he felt as though this line belonged to the previous VA, but i can not confirm this as fact.

i never expected nick to say this line as it didn't appear to fit narratively, however the the "true ending" of SW really showed more wesker than more of aeon which was disappointing but not surprising.

the fact that re4r had an ending with ada, and sw had an ending with just wesker felt blegh.

one of the biggest complaints i kept getting was that re4r retconned aeon. which is just kind of a weird thing because why would capcom retcon a relationship in the second date? we have to remember that re4 has always been their second meeting. they still have damnation, re6 and potentially even more aeon that we haven't see like off screen re5.

one of the biggest things that they criticized was that leon and ada, "fell in love immediately," and they wanted to rectify that with a more realistic interpretation of the ship. this makes sense to me, and although it's a lot more angst filled, we still have to remember this is early as fuck in their relationship.

additionally, i still think that when ada gives leon the rocket launcher at the end, he has a sudden realization that ada had been helping him all along, that she was the one that gave him the one in raccoon city. that the keychain for the jetski was always her making sure that he could get out as well. because TO BE FAIR. he HAD LITTLE WAYS OF ESCAPE. he lost track of hunnigan and his potential route off the island. realistically, leon was FUCKED and he had no way off the island. even if ada didn't give him the key, he was STILL KINDA FUCKED because of the bombs because of wesker.

once the things fall into place, he realizes things along the boat ride, and i think that's also for us as an audience to speculate. older audiences knows that leon and ada see each other again. i want them to see each other again to bridge the gaps.

things to note

SW being made by the same team that did re3r is a bit funny since re3r was a pretty big disappointment to a lot of fans

similarly a lot of people were mad at the $10 price tag for SW despite the fact that this is a additional campaign and was longer than re3r and funner.

OG SW was always free, which is why a lot of people were mad, but like- get fucked dude. if you want to be mad at that, you also have to be mad at the microtransactions in the main campaign then.

SW was still well done, i just have a few things that i thought were lacking.

wesker absolutely had ada's DNA (from the bed scene, i think he also injected her with an inhibitor (of sorts like luis had) but also took something from her, and i think it would tie nicely into a re6r if he and simmons had contact prior to re5.

we still never got to see what was in bob bear kennedy (is that the name? lol)

gameplay 9/10

story/plot 7/10

characters 7/10

aeon 7/10

overall 30/40

i might have additional things to say but that's all i got for now lol

thanks for reading my garbage

and again

“take it however you like it.”

[anarchotolkienist]

What books or that would you recommend to get a good grasp on history of Gaelic speaking Scottish Vs Scots speaking Scottish people, the politics around Gaelic and the aims and goals for people to support?

There's quite a bit, I'm afraid, as these subjects tend to be more split up - first would be The Making of the Crofting Community, by James Hunter. You can quibble with the details, but this is by far still the best text on post-Clanship Highland history. It has as central conceit that it looks at history through the eyes of the Gaelic-speaking peasantry, assuming that they are the central subject of their own history, rather than a peripheral throwback. If you only read one thing from this list, this is the one you should read.

I would like to add "Tuath is Tighearna - the poetry of the land struggle", edited by Dòmhnall Meek. This gives a Gaelic view of events presented through some of the only preserved first-hand accounts made by the victims - Bardic poetry from the period as a supplement to the above book.

There is only one study of the plantations in the Highlands, unfortunately - it's worth reading (an excellent source covering a vital source material), but it's long and dense and can be a hard read at points - "Plantation and Civility in the North Atlantic World" by Aonghas MacCoinnich. It changed a lot in my outlook on the Clearances and placed it in a deeper and longer context of Scottish state and Lowland contention with the problem of "Highland barbarity" and as a part of a colonial, 'civilising' project. I'll see if I can find an English-language recorded talk by Aonghas covering the book and it's conclusions in case the book is too much.

I'd read the first chapters of "Mío-rùn Mór nan Gall - The Great Hate of the Lowlander" especially to cover the emergence of this division between Highlander and Lowlander, and how it came to be that the Scottish state saw such a problem in the Highlands, and drew the conclusion that the solution is to wipe out Gaelic culture, whether through ethnic cleansing or assimilation.

There are more details than those that matters, but those are the texts that have influenced my own view of things the most. If you want sources on more specific things, feel free to send me further asks

[ollieofthebeholder]

And If Thou Wilt, Forget: a TMA fanfic

[1] || Also on AO3 and my personal website

Chapter 2: What, neither choose nor wish to choose?

So far, the biggest difference between archiving and publishing seemed to be that the documents he had to read were shorter.

Tim’s particular job at the publishing company had been fact-checking, doing supplemental research on the manuscripts that came across his desk, and Lou had always given him the tricky ones because, she said, he was a master at tracking down unusual or hard to find subjects. He didn’t know if Ms. Robinson had actually called Lou for a reference, especially since she’d hired him without even looking at his CV, but she’d certainly given him plenty to do, and she’d stopped checking behind him after the first week. Mostly it consisted of making phone calls or looking things up on the Internet, but occasionally she sent him up to the library for a book or two, and on one or two occasions she’d taken the stack he’d brought her, delicately sorted through them, and handed him a couple which turned out to be about Robert Smirke or circuses or something similar. He’d come to take it as a sign that he wasn’t needed for a few hours and could work on his own research.

He wasn’t that much further along in it, but it had only been a couple of months, after all.

There was so little to go on, even less on some of the more…salubrious ones. It hadn’t taken Tim long to realize that the less information he was able to get, the more likely a statement was to be real. Of course, in some cases—like this one—it was equally as likely to be down to the age of the incident as to any grain of truth to it. Something about this one got under his skin, though. He’d found it accidentally while poking around and read it on a whim, and curiosity and a deep-down feeling of anxiety had mingled to cause him to keep looking into it with a dogged perseverance. Somehow, the fact that there was so little to go on had only made him more determined to find something, anything, that he could prove or disprove.

And he had something. Finally, he had something. With a few words of thanks and promises to meet up for drinks if they happened to cross paths on a weekend holiday again, Tim hung up the phone, scribbled a final note on his page, and gathered statement and research, then stood. He crossed over to the Archivist’s door and tapped a rapid-fire shave-and-a-haircut against the frame.

Ms. Robinson peered up at him over her glasses. She looked faintly annoyed, but Tim wasn’t deterred; he’d learned by now that she had a sort of perpetually grumpy expression, and was fairly certain it was put on. “What is it, Tim? It can’t be five o’clock already.”

“Technically correct, if you’re talking about five o’clock in the morning, but it’s actually closing in on eight. I, uh, I lost track of time a bit.” Tim stepped into the office and held up his papers. “Just wanted to bring you this. I think I’ve hit the limits of what I can research on it, unless you’ve got other places I can look for ancient history. But I don’t think this one’s a fake.”

Ms. Robinson’s eyes focused on the papers, and she held out a hand. “Let me see.”

Tim handed everything over. Ms. Robinson—at first—ignored the research and focused on the yellowing pages of the statement, torn or cut from an ancient journal. Her eyes seemed to glow as she read. She reached the end and opened her mouth to say something, then stopped as she noticed the subsequent pages. “What’s all this?”

“Corroborations, explanations, verifications…that kind of thing,” Tim answered. “You know. There’s a description of how the Mechanical Turk actually worked, or supposedly worked anyway, and a few other experiments Wolfgang von Kempelen was working on that allegedly never saw the light of day, a couple of which got mentioned in that statement. Some research on the Court Theatre in Buda, or at least what’s publicly known about it. Some research on Abraham Janssen himself—he didn’t last long after writing that entry, maybe a couple of months, but he seems to have gone out naturally enough. And I managed to track down a report of a description of the incident given to a nurse at one of the local hospitals by someone who didn’t survive their injuries. The full report is on its way, but from what my contact said, it tallies with most of the major points.”

Ms. Robinson looked at Tim sharply. “How did you find the report?”

“A guy I met backpacking the Carpathians on holiday a couple years back teaches anthropology in the biggest university in Budapest,” Tim answered instantly. “We’ve kept in touch. I reached out to him to see if he knew anything about this incident, and he tracked down what he could for me.”

“Hmm.” Ms. Robinson returned her gaze to the papers. “I must admit, that is a boon we don’t normally get with statements of this type.”

“Meaning ones this old, or this weird?”

“I think a more appropriate word might be…Strange.” Ms. Robinson stared at the statement for a moment, then seemed to come to some kind of decision. “I have a new assignment for you, Tim.”

“Sure, that’s what I’m here for,” Tim said easily. Inside, though, he felt a surge of pride he hadn’t expected to ever feel again. She trusted him, trusted he would be able to find things even if they were difficult. He’d earned that. He’d earned it at the publishing house, too, but somehow that trust weighed more, coming from Ms. Robinson.

Actually, that part wasn’t a surprise. In the eight weeks since he had been hired, Tim had had discussions with more than one employee, albeit not very long ones. The Archives were a world unto themselves, and very few people interacted with Ms. Robinson on a regular basis. Several seemed to be of the opinion that she’d likely gone a bit strange after losing her last crop of assistants. One or two had warned Tim to watch his back in tones that could not have said I’m being very serious but I will play this off as a joke if anyone tries to make me swear to it more clearly if it was spelled out in graven letters. And he’d seen more than one look at him with the sort of expression he equated with a giant looking at a small girl prattling excitedly about a party she had no idea she was meant to be the main course for.

Still…Ms. Robinson trusted him. She’d hired him on the spot and she’d let him start the work right away, and she was honest about his mistakes but also about what he was doing well. Maybe everyone expected her to turn on him at a moment’s notice, which would at least explain why her last crop of assistants had all, evidently, quit at once and without warning (probably why she’d insisted his was an appointment for life), but he hadn’t seen any evidence for that. He liked her—better than he liked most of the people he’d met upstairs, anyway, barring one or two—and he didn’t see any reason to regret being down here.

Yet.

Ms. Robinson pulled open a drawer in her desk, talking as she did so. “Are you familiar with the name Mikaele Salesa?”

“Not ringing any bells. Should it?”

“Not necessarily. How about Jurgen Leitner?”

That one did tug at Tim’s memory. “Wasn’t he a book collector or something? Weird or…esoteric topics or something like that? Lou used to occasionally say that some of the manuscripts I was looking at would have interested him.”

“Unlikely. Leitner collected rare books. Very rare ones.” Ms. Robinson retrieved an unsealed brown envelope and handed it to Tim. “Salesa is, or was, perhaps, his counterpart when it comes to artifacts. He had a gift for both locating them and acquiring them at a reasonable price. However, he is…unavailable at the moment.”

Tim took the surprisingly heavy envelope, but didn’t open it. Something told him to wait. “Do you need me to track him down?”

Ms. Robinson hesitated. “I suspect you would find it a challenge. No, what I need is the artifact described in that envelope. It may be essential to my—to our work. I was finally able to get a line on its location. Unfortunately, I am…known to many of the people who may have it in their possession.”

“Ah.” Tim nodded in understanding. “And they’ll charge you more than a fair price because they know you need it.”

“Quite. Which is why I am sending you to the Night Market to acquire it for me.”

Tim weighed his options. He didn’t want to walk in blind, but he also didn’t want to look like he needed her to hold his hand for him. Still…“I assume most of my questions will be answered by what’s in here, but to start with, how do I find the Night Market?”

“Carefully,” Ms. Robinson said, gravely and without a hint of humor. “I’m afraid I don’t have an exact location, but it’s somewhere in London, along the banks of the Thames. It generally runs between quarter moons, beginning when astronomical twilight gives way to true night and ending when it returns to twilight.”

“So I’ve got time to find it, in theory, but in practice this…whatever it is…is likely to shift sooner rather than later,” Tim guessed.

“It’s a possibility, certainly. And I would prefer this not hang around more than necessary.”

Tim nodded. “Right. See you in the morning then.” Before Ms. Robinson could say anything else, he saluted, turned on his heel, and left the office.

He wasn’t stupid. He knew this was a test, even if Ms. Robinson hadn’t said so outright. Asking too many questions would bring him down in her estimation, and while he knew this errand probably wasn’t all that serious or important really, he needed to treat it like he’d been sent to retrieve an idol for a university museum.

Lucky thing he’d worn his fedora.

The night was cool, the sky was clear, and the moon was a waning crescent two days away from new. Tim made his way to the nearest bridge, then stopped in a convenient shadow that still afforded him enough light to see by and pulled the packet out from under his jacket, then opened it up and peered inside.

The first thing he saw was a stack of bank notes, older and well-used from the looks of it—presumably his budget for obtaining the artifact, whatever it was. He pulled it out, tucked the packet under his arm, and thumbed through the stack. His eyes widened. Jesus, there was easily a couple thousand pounds in here. That was almost more money than Tim had ever seen at one time in his life. And this was the so-called “reasonable” amount Ms. Robinson thought he could get it for? Christ Almighty.

He tucked the money back into the envelope hurriedly and pulled out the other piece of paper. It was a slightly faded photograph of a small, ornate figure of a bird, made up of a few different metals—he couldn’t tell quite what kind—interspersed with either glass or a very fine enameling, with a delicately scrolled key in its back. For a moment, his stomach flipped uncomfortably, thinking of the description in the statement he’d just researched of the caged mechanical canaries, but he got hold of himself quickly. This was more than a simple toy, and not something that could have been produced in quantity, of that he was sure. The lines written at the bottom of the page confirmed it; it was an Art Nouveau piece, created a good quarter century after the death of the Mechanical Turk, one of a kind and therefore of value to the kind of people who thrilled from owning something that nobody else could but not, Tim thought, worth particularly much overall. It was pretty, certainly, but there was no maker’s mark, no known provenance, no storied history—or at least not one on the paper he held. He didn’t doubt for a minute that a particularly good salesman might be willing and able to spin a story to up the price, but it would all be vague and difficult to prove or disprove; possibly true, but most likely a trap for the gullible.

Tim slid the envelope back under his jacket and studied the Thames for a moment. Half-remembered mnemonics and bits of folk wisdom he’d learned from his nonno, his mother’s father, a vintner and wine-maker who still walked behind his plow in the spring and plucked each grape by hand, floated through his head. He took a step back, stared up at the sky, murmured a few calculations under his breath, tilted his hat to a jaunty angle, and set off purposefully.

About two hours later, he rounded a bend in the river, paused, slipped around a shadow, and grinned as the soft murmur of a bustling crowd rumbled in his ears. Bingo.

It couldn’t be anything but the Night Market. Hooded lanterns swung beneath canvas awnings, not so much illuminating the wares spread across the booths, or the people manning them, as giving texture to the darkness. Very few people carried torches or any other form of light, and most of them wore dark clothing just shy of actual holocaust cloaks and domino masks. Other than that, though, it was, well, an ordinary street market. The air was full of the murmur of voices and the scents of roasting meet and spices, vendors calling out to passersby and people attempting to haggle. It was oddly muted, but still, Tim was a bit surprised he hadn’t been able to hear it from up closer to the street.

He also wasn’t sure how this all fit in the space between the sidewalk and the river. Was this area usually here? Part of him scolded himself for being silly—of course it was normally here, space didn’t just appear and disappear.

The rest of him reminded that part of his brain that nobody else seemed aware of the entire fucking stone theater beneath the Royal Opera House. It wasn’t like he didn’t believe in this stuff; he did, explicitly, that was why he was here, why he worked for the Institute. But sometimes it just seemed…easier to reach for the simple, mundane explanation. Certainly safer.

But he knew what the world was like and he knew what his job was, and he wasn’t going to keep Ms. Robinson’s trust if he tried to be a skeptic. It was time to set aside the Sherlock Holmes axiom—that when you had discounted the impossible, whatever remained, however improbable, must be the truth—and start living up to the Dirk Gently point that the impossible often had a kind of integrity to it that the merely improbable lacked. Or, to put it in the words of a movie he’d only allowed himself to be dragged along to repeatedly because he’d had a crush on both Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley at the time, he’d best start believing in ghost stories—he was in one.

Slipping into an out of the way corner, Tim pulled out the paper again and studied it, committing the details to memory. Then he folded it up, stuck it into a pocket nowhere near the envelope, his wallet, his keys, or his phone, and ventured into the Night Market.

The light, or lack thereof, was doing funny things to his imagination. The items spread across one booth looked half-rotten, the ones on another dripped with blood, an appetizing smell came from a pot that seemed to contain a human head…but then he blinked, and the rotten objects became decent if old knickknacks, the bloodstained objects were pristine, and what had looked like a head proved to just be a lid that was replaced as a vendor handed over a bowl of some sort of savory stew. Tim’s stomach grumbled, reminding him that he’d worked through lunch and long since missed supper.

Still, he gave that particular booth a miss.

He kept ambling, trying to appear as though he had no particular purpose, but always with an eye out for a booth that was likely to contain that clockwork bird. None of them looked right. None of them felt right, either, but Tim was starting to get a headache; the more he walked, the more difficult it was to actually make out what was on the booths, and he didn’t think it had anything to do with the lighting.

He slowed thoughtfully as he approached a crossroads. Some of the statements he had read and investigated, the ones he’d been convinced were real just from how little they had to go on, had had a common theme in them: the people giving the statements had always seemed surprised, then worried, that no one else seemed to see what they did. A few had seemed convinced they were experiencing a psychotic break of some kind, schizophrenia or bad drug trips or just general hallucinations, but others had known they were the only ones seeing the truth. Tim had a pretty good sense of when they were right and when the statements were actually delusions. This didn’t feel like a delusion.

What if he was seeing things right?

Tim took a quick, silent breath, held it for a moment, and exhaled slowly. He tried to release his preconceived notions with the air, to allow himself to look at the shadows and not the light. To see what was really there instead of just what he was expected to see.

He closed his eyes.

He opened them.

The booth right on the corner, which had appeared to contain an assortment of lopsided Christmas ornaments, now held neat rows of crudely carved wooden dolls. At first glance they seemed nondescript, with dots for eyes and a crooked smile, but as Tim got closer, they seemed to shift into unique, easily distinguished figures. As he watched, the nearest one wavered, then resolved itself—still with the same blank, crudely carved face—into a clear effigy of Gertrude Robinson.

It took everything Tim had to keep his face blank and slide his gaze towards the next figure, which slowly became Elias Bouchard. Something told him that pretending he didn’t recognize them wouldn’t work. The only sensible thing to do was cut his gaze away and walk away. He could feel the vendor’s eyes on him, but didn’t dare turn to look.

Being able to see, really see, what he was looking at…well, probably should have made him run screaming from the market, honestly. (Were those eyeballs? Those were fucking eyeballs. The way they seemed to swivel to follow him could probably be explained by the liquid they were suspended in, but how the hell had that one blinked with no obvious eyelids?) People who could see this shit and didn’t were probably not exactly model citizens. Tim tried to keep his expression neutral like most of the people who clearly didn’t know where they were, but he passed one of the food vendors and couldn’t stop himself from flinching as the tongue on the end of the stick flicked in the direction of the unsuspecting tourist reaching for it.

Then he spied, out of the corner of his eye, one of the vendors watching him with a sharp, almost feral smile that melted into polite attempts to interest passers-by in his offerings the moment Tim obviously gave him even partial notice.

Okay. Actually, he could work with that.

He let himself be obvious. Let it show on his face that what he was seeing was both unexpected and horrific (which was true—he’d expected things like bones and dubious potion components and things of the I swear, Officer, it fell off the back of a lorry variety, not bloodstained knives and shrunken human heads and cuts of meat sliced off a still-warm human corpse). Let his eyes dart frantically around as if in total disbelief that no one else seemed to notice that this place was more than not right—it was wrong.

Most of the patrons were indifferent to him, even oblivious of him, but the figures on the other side of the booths were taking an interest in him. Ironically, he could tell because they never spoke to him. They hawked their wares, beckoned to likely marks, charmed and wheedled and coaxed, but none of them acknowledged Tim except to watch. Most of them did so even while ostensibly talking to a customer, who always seemed completely unaware they didn’t have the vendor’s full attention.

Boy, he was going to have a statement for Ms. Robinson when he got back, and no mistake.

He knew he was getting close when he rushed, or pretended to rush, through a particularly loud and narrow crush of people and around a corner followed by a cry of “Milk! Milk! Milk for the morning bread!” that stirred something in his memory to find himself in a dark, deserted area of the Night Market. It was colder than he had expected, and sound was curiously muffled. He could no longer hear the bustle of noise from the market, but neither could he hear the sounds of London still active even late at night or the Thames flowing between her banks. Still, if he hadn’t read all the statements—if he didn’t already have an idea of what to expect—he might have been fooled, just for a moment, into believing he was safe.

“Lost?” a voice said from—naturally—the deepest shadows.

“Yeah,” Tim said with a deliberately awkward half laugh as he turned towards the voice. “Maybe I should try Hare Krishna.”

His eyes fell on a tall, gaunt figure peering at him from a dusty, tattered booth. Both the booth and the figure appeared to have been buried for a couple of decades before being dug up and planted in the middle of the marketplace. The figure was barely indistinguishable from the shadows it stood in except for its face and hands, which were so pale they almost glowed, but in the center of that face were two dull, black, flat eyes, soulless holes that sucked all the light from around them and pinned Tim in place like a butterfly on a card. Acting frightened didn’t take much effort.

The figure smiled, in a way that was the opposite of reassuring, with too many teeth that were too white and too pointed, and crooked a long, nearly skeletal finger. Tim was pretty sure he couldn’t have disobeyed if he’d wanted to. He tried very hard not to look as though he was pretty sure this was what he was looking for.

He was right. The figure spread its hands wide, palms down, as if unrolling a scroll. Beneath them, on a surprisingly clean black velvet cloth, were four objects. One was a round ceramic mask with disturbingly realistic lips, the blank holes in place of its eyes seeming somehow to follow him. One was a handheld silver mirror, sculpted to look like a hand gripping the glass, which had been carefully placed face-down. One was a light colored box, open to reveal, nestled on a bed of cotton wool, an unremarkable matte black ring.

The final object was the clockwork bird. Even in the darkness, it glittered, the different precious metals making up its body interlocking like delicate feathers. Its tail was raised, its head tilted to one side, and despite being obviously a made thing it was so realistic that he half expected it to take flight.

“Which will you choose?” the figure asked.

Tim hesitated, which surprised him. Obviously, he’d meant to fake that hesitation, to get a better price for that bird, but his eyes kept going back to that black ring. It wasn’t acrylic or stone—some kind of metal, maybe? There was nothing special about it. He could find half a dozen like it at any shop in London. But it…spoke to him. They all held their own attraction or fascination, really, but he wanted that ring.

The trouble was, he needed the bird.

“Is this a one-per-customer kind of thing?” Tim asked, trying to keep his tone of voice light. “Or do you just not think I can afford more than one?”

“The price of all four together is high. Too high for even you, I suspect.” The figure studied Tim, then nodded. “Two.”

“Three,” Tim countered, more to see what would happen than anything.

The figure’s face split into a sharp, feral grin. “The price for that would be even higher than for all four. Would you be able to live with not knowing why you chose to leave one behind?”

Well, that was the thing. Tim had to admit that he wouldn’t. Something about that mirror scared him, but he’d never been one to walk away from things he was afraid of—he liked to face them. The mask was disturbing and fascinating by turn. He was pretty sure that if he left only one, he’d spend too many nights coming back to the Night Market looking for this booth. He was also sure he’d never find it again.

Besides, there didn’t seem to be a way to actually wear the mask, and it wouldn’t really go with his decor.

He hesitated a second longer, then closed one hand over the ring and scooped the bird up with the other. “How much for these two?”

The figure’s smile grew impossibly wider, until it seemed that it ought to split its face clear in two. “You have already begun to pay.”

Before Tim could ask what the fuck that meant, the world went…spongy. The market, the mask, the mirror, everything seemed to soften and dissolve. The last thing he saw was the white, pointed Cheshire cat grin.

And then he was standing on the banks of the Thames, the sounds of traffic rumbling from somewhere behind him, blinking into the light of a golden sunrise, with a clockwork bird perched on his fingers and a ring making a deep impression in his palm.

It hurt, but it was also a relief. If it weren’t for the pain, he might have been tempted to believe—or maybe hope—he’d dreamed all that. But here was the bird, and the ring, and Tim hadn’t had to spend any of the money Ms. Robinson had given him. Not that he remembered, anyway.

You have already begun to pay. What the fuck had that meant? Had he slipped the figure money without knowing it? He transferred the bird to his other hand, reached under his jacket, and pulled out the envelope. No, it was still stuffed full of cash, about as thick as he recalled. Tim tucked the bird into it as well—it fit comfortably without straining the envelope—and put it back. Then he stared at the ring.

The outside was lightly dimpled, like it had been hammered out a bit more aggressively than normal and not rounded off after, but the inside had been polished off to a smooth finish—a nearly smooth finish. There were faint impressions, like it had once been engraved, but he couldn’t read them. After a few minutes trying to puzzle it out, he gave up.

Well, he hadn’t used Ms. Robinson’s money and she hadn’t asked for this, so he figured it was his. It was a bit too loose for his ring finger, but it fit snugly around his middle finger, which felt fitting somehow. Then he slid his hands in his pockets, hunched his shoulders, and set off for Chelsea.

The walk back was quicker, seeing as he didn’t have to follow the path of the Thames so closely, but it was still going on nine in the morning when he finally strode into the Archives. He went straight into Ms. Robinson’s office without knocking and set the tray of coffees he’d brought in on her desk, then reached under his jacket and handed over the envelope.

“I hope that’s the right one,” he said. For the first time since coming to work at the Institute, he sat down without waiting for permission, but damn it, he was knackered; he’d been on his feet for hours. “I somehow doubt the Night Market will be in the same place tomorrow and I’m damned sure I won’t get away with being there a second time.”

Ms. Robinson actually looked taken aback for a moment. She picked up the envelope and tugged on the paper, sliding out both bird and cash. With a slight frown, she picked up the stack of cash and riffled through it, then looked at Tim sharply. “Did you steal this?”

“No, the vendor said I had ‘already begun to pay’ for it,” Tim answered. “Whatever that’s supposed to mean.”

Ms. Robinson reached for her tape recorder. Tim noticed it was already running. “I think you’d better tell me everything.”

Just like when he’d told her about Danny, Tim found that the story just poured out of him—every detail, everything he had seen and heard and felt. It was as if he was sitting back and taking a rest while something else told his story through him—like he was nestled in a bed of static. Ms. Robinson kept her eyes fixed on him the entire time, never once interrupting or seeming to blink.

“And just like that, I was standing down by Kew Bridge,” Tim concluded. “Sun was rising, traffic was bustling, and there was no sign of the Night Market. The only proof I had that it had really been there was the bird in one hand and the ring in the other.”

“May I see it?” Ms. Robinson asked.

The fact that she had asked rather than ordered made Tim more willing to hand it over. She held the ring up to the light, turning it over several times. “Just a plain black ring?”

“There’s something engraved on the inside, but I can’t make it out,” Tim told her. “I thought I might try to do a rubbing or something, but it might be too faded even for that.”

Ms. Robinson rubbed at the interior and held it up closer. For a moment, there was no sound other than the whir of the tape recorder and the crackle of static from somewhere. Then she blinked. “Vigilo, Opperior, Audio.”

“I watch, I wait, I listen,” Tim translated automatically. “The Institute motto?”

“Which was also the Magnus family motto, I believe. This ring could have once belonged to a member of the family.”

Tim plucked the ring from her fingers and studied it for a moment, then shook his head. “No, look at this interior. I recognize the markings on the parts that aren’t worn. This technique didn’t exist until sometime in the twentieth century, and Jonah Magnus was the last of his family, wasn’t he?”

Ms. Robinson took a moment to answer. “Quite. How do you know so much about jewelry-making?”

“Danny got really into it for a while when he was in his late teens,” Tim said, a bit ruefully. “I can’t tell you how many seminars and lectures and special demonstrations I sat through with him before he got bored with it.”

“That had to have been at least ten years ago.”

“Did a paper on it for one of my classes. ‘Nine for Mortal Men: Crafting Rings in Nineteenth Century Europe.’” Tim spread his hands out dramatically, as if plastering the title of the paper in the air in front of him. “I reckoned I might as well not completely waste my time.”

Ms. Robinson arched an eyebrow. “Well. As you still seemed to be visible upon walking into my office, as long as you don’t begin having visions of dark riders and fiery mountains, I suppose that ring is yours to keep.”

“I love that you know Tolkien.”

“Not personally, but I may have had a rather different career trajectory if he had still been the Merton Professor of English Language and Literature by the time I was admitted to Oxford.” Ms. Robinson actually smiled at him, a rather dry smile, but a genuine one. “Well done, Tim.”

Tim couldn’t stop a grin of his own from splitting his face. He’d not only passed her test with flying colors, she was actually praising him. It felt good. “Thanks, Ms. Robinson.”

“Call me Gertrude. I think you’ve earned that.” Ms. Robinson—Gertrude—set the bird to one side. “You’ve also earned a rest, a long one. I won’t suggest you go home, as exhausted as you are, but there’s a folding cot here that I use sometimes when I work too late. Go and get some sleep. I’ll wake you if there’s an emergency.”

“Thanks…Gertrude.” Tim was pretty tired. He slid the ring back onto his finger, stood, and retrieved the cot from where she indicated, then took it back into the climate-controlled side room and set it up.

His last thought before sleep claimed him was to wonder just how much he’d have to pay for what the figure had given him.

[elite-amarys]

[ @pkmn-trainer-vivian asked: ] Hi, Amarys! Uh, I don't know if this is out of nowhere in your schedule so you can answer when you get the chance.

I uh, I need help with taking care of a Scizor. (I know to keep it out of hot climates already, luckily I spend most of my time in the Polar Biome). I've never had one before, but it was hurt and I decided to take it in! Is there anything I should know about, like nutrition, physical activity, or their wellbeing in general?

Also, it's very untrusting, which is understandable, but it seems to get along with Apollo (My Decidueye) the best.

Greetings, Vivian. To start, congratulations on your new teammate. Scizor are wonderful companions, and with the right training and attention can be fearsome on the battlefield.

XP was also a rescue, so I am quite familiar with the process of healing and rehabilitating a Scizor. That said, every pokemon is different, so if your Scizor begins to exhibit a behavior which you do not understand do not hesitate to reach out to your local vet or professor. I will put the remainder of this post under a readmore, as it became quite long.

When in the early stages of bonding with a new Scizor the most important factor to keep in mind is to watch for their warning signs. As mentioned by the pokedex, they use the eye markings on their claws to confuse predators, and will wave these claws around when they feel threatened. How they wave these claws can tell you a lot about how threatened or stressed your Scizor is. One claw held low with the eye marking facing outward is mild stress or displeasure - XP often does this when Rollo is being a bother. If both claws are raised, eye markings facing outwards, snapping loudly and alternating to block your view of Scizor's face that is a sure sign that this Scizor is very stressed and highly likely to attack if the stressor is not removed. Respect the boundaries your Scizor sets and they will slowly begin to trust you.

Once your Scizor trusts you enough to allow you to touch them, grooming is going to be your best method of bonding. In the wild they rely on frequent baths in streams and rivers, as they cannot groom themselves particularly well otherwise. Being able to polish and pamper your Scizor is a delightful experience for them.

As for basic care, I can see you've clearly already done some research. You have likely already come across this rule, but just in case you have not: if your scizor beats their wings for 2 minutes straight, without pause or pulsing, it is a sure sign they are about to overheat. I am pleased to see you are being cautious about this, but I assure you it is not necessary to train only in the Polar Biome in order to avoid this. XP does quite well in the Canyon Biome, and as long as you are sure to give them plenty of breaks during training they will be fine.

Diet I assume you have already researched, so the only extra advice I have is to edit the amount of steel type supplement based on how much meat your Scizor prefers to eat. They have each of them specific preferences, and a Scizor that eats more berries than meat will require a larger dose of supplements to keep their shell healthy and strong.

Lastly, for polish, I would recommend something gentler than most. Compared to other steel types, Scizor's shell is quite thin and designed for speed and agility over defense. They tend to be a bit more sensitive because of this and will not enjoy a thicker grit. Again, each individual has their own preferences, but Scizor as a whole do not typically enjoy a harsh scrub the way a Metagross might.

If you have any other questions, please do not hesitate to reach out further. Gaining the trust of a traumatized pokemon can be a long and heartbreaking process, but the bond you can forge if you have patience, compassion, and the correct knowledge makes it worth the effort a thousand times over.

[slifarianhawk]

Chapter 43: what belongs where

When we arrived at Jake and Reina's home, Jake got out and opened my door. He was a quiet kid. He had barely said a word the entire ride to his place, only saying Hunk should run to the store for some food. Albert offered to drive him and pay for the food. Hunk agreed.

Jake held the door while I got out of the car. He held himself with a prideful stance. Walking me up to the door I could tell was difficult for him. He knew I was his biological mom... I bet that threw him for a loop.

"Please come in. We didn't have much, but it's where me, ma, and teach called home," Jake said, unlocking the door and letting us in from the rain.

"Thank you, Jake," I said, looking upon the house.

It was indeed small but very cozy. The entranceway opened up to a living room that was connected to the kitchen and dining room. It was more open than I remembered it being in ninety-two. Yet the nostalgic smell of roses, lavender, and sage stayed the same.

"Not what you were expecting? Thought your contributions would go further, hmm?" Jake asked, pulling down a couple of white ceramic mugs.

"No, it's just more open than I remembered, and the paint looks fresher too. Did you and Hunk remodel for Reina?"  I asked, noticing Jake put a kettle on the worn-down electric coil stove.

"Whoa! You can tell, huh? Yeah, teach, and I did it just after Mom got diagnosed with cancer. We thought more open space would be better for her in case she fell we could see her. Shortly after, Ma got with a, and we were a small family." Jake said, turning on the burner, "Unfortunately Ma wasn't big on there being coffee in the house, but we do have plenty of tea. What's your poison?"

I gently chuckle, "Jasmine, if you have it, and the whole no coffee thing was something her mom tried to drill into us. She was a bit of a health nut."

"Jasmine is mom's favorite. She had a special blend made for her at the local tea shop. Jasmine and Rose Hips, the tea is one reason the house smells the way it does." Jake said as the kettle began to whistle, "Sugar or cream?"

"Some sugar would be lovely." I smiled as he grabbed a tray with some chipped and worn china on it.

"Please go make yourself comfortable on the sofa. I'd feel like a total dick if I made a pregnant woman stand for tea that wouldn't be done for several minutes."  He said with a smirk on his face.

Gods did he look just like his father with that shit-eating grin on his face, "And you got my tongue that's for damn sure. I used to get heavy doses of bar soap to the mouth when I was your age."

We both laughed at that as I sat down. The living room was small with a china cabinet against the far wall and a nineteen-inch box TV in front of a blackout-curtained window. The carpets weren't the prettiest color, and they were pretty badly matted. I was curious about how the money I was giving Reina was being spent, but I figured I'd ask later.

That was when I noticed it out of the corner of my eye. There was a piano. Sure, it looked rough, but I knew Reina had a soft spot for it. I waddled my butt over to the piano and sat on the bench.

"Oh, that old thing caught your eye, huh? Mom gave piano lessons to supplement our income. Unfortunately, after a while of being a midwife in a near-constant war zone business dies. The money you sent us mainly covered bills and my school's tuition." Jake said, setting the tray down on the coffee table.

"I'm sorry kid. I would have sent more if I could. Sigh, with Umbrella breathing down my neck I'm surprised you both didn't get found sooner. Fucking Sergei, fucking Spencer, they both deserve to be where they are rotting now." I said as he brought me my mug of tea.

"So let me get something straight, you gave me up so a pharmaceutical company couldn't take custody of me? Sure I know what they did but why didn't you keep me?" Jake asked taking a sip of his tea.

"The same reason why I didn't keep your sister. I didn't trust Ozwell E. Spencer.  He offered to take you both into his care since me and your father were under his watch. I just knew deep in my heart something bad would have happened to you both. I already lost Alistar to Umbrella. She died getting intel for me... she didn't follow my orders. I was supposed to die that day. I had to do what every parent dreads. I had to bury one of my children." I said holding back tears.

"So I had a sister. I bet she was a badass. Tell me, you are pregnant now. What has changed other than it being sixteen years later?" Jake said a bit of a sad expression on his face.

"The people who were after me and your father are dead. Mainly by his hand. Sigh, we were Umbrella scientists and I was one of Umbrella's experiments. Sadly between October ninety-eight and February two thousand three, I was Umbrella's prisoner and test subject. I'm in all senses of the word kid, a monster." I stopped, pulled my contacts case out of my purse, and took out my contacts.

"Jesus Christ! Your eyes!" Jake said stumbling back a bit not dropping or spilling his tea.

"They did this to me and your father to some extent, he wasn't downright experimented on like a lab rat but an Umbrella experiment all the same." I sighed taking a sip of the now slightly cooled Jasmine tea, "I just couldn't let my little ones be raised in such a hell. I left your sister with a lovely Russian couple... I wasn't careful enough though... my bastard uncle... your great uncle... he was a top figure in Umbrella. I went to him not knowing he had become Spencer's right-hand dog.  When I escaped he had tracked down the couple I gave Alistar to. They died in a fire caused by an umbrella facility catching a blaze. It was ordered by Spencer."

"That's why you kept your distance from mom then. You were trying to keep us safe." Jake said with a melancholy tone.

"Yes, you belonged here with someone who was able to love you and not be on the run all the time. Even during my and your father's stable period, we couldn't avoid being tracked by Umbrella. Che, even on date nights we were surrounded by Spencer's goons. Always watching us. The only day I felt free from it slightly was my and your father's wedding day." I shook my head sipping the tea.

"That had to of sucked but you said the bastards that did this to you are dead. Why did you wait to come find me then?" Jake said setting his saucer down and folding his hands together.

"Because Spencer's ambition is still alive in your father..." I took a long sip finishing off the tea and shook my head, "I am going to stop him no matter the costs. I just am here to ask a favor... I know it's selfish but if something were to happen to me I'd like for you to watch over your siblings. I don't think your aunt and uncle on my side would be able to care for them given they both hate your father."

"You said I have an aunt on my father's side why not ask her?" Jake asked finishing his tea.

"Because she sent a merc to kill me and my top guy," I growled clenching my fist at the thought of Alex getting a hold of my children.

"Damn so bad blood there, just let me think about it. That's a tall ask. I don't have much money or space." Jake said.

"If push comes to shove money is no object to me anymore I have a hunting lodge open and running at max capacity not to mention federal grants from the U.N. to keep up my anti-bioterrorism organization. Anything should happen to me they will not only fund you but keep you and your siblings safe." I sigh finishing my tea off as well.

"That's a hell of an offer but I'll have to still think I am a soldier of fortune now. I have to keep myself alive for a bit." He said taking our cups and setting them on the stained coffee table.

"I understand, and this is only if the worst outcome happens and I'm not around. Which isn't the most likely outcome." I sigh hesitantly scratching the back of my neck.

"I will keep my mind open so long as you pay a visit when you can. Teach and I have been quite lonely since Ma passed. It would be nice to have some company once in a while." Jake said putting a hand on my shoulder.

"It's a promise then. It finally seems as if things are where they belong." I heard Albert pull up and I smiled, "We will depart after dinner but before your father and teacher come in take this."

I handed Jake a card with a black and cyan blue wolf emblem on the back.

"What's this?" Jake asked taking the card from my hand and tucking it into his sleeve.

"A crossbow with a golden bolt is what that is. Should you ever need assistance, if your team fails you and H.U.N.K. isn't around. Destroy this, the tracker activates when destroyed. My personal guard dog will come get you, his code name is Cryo Wolf. I don't discuss mine and his terms but I will say that this is for a wipe-the-slate-clean kind of saving. Not only will wolf rescue but also set up with new anything if necessary. I only have so many of these cards. I just want you to have one in case shit hits the fan." I said sternly, "nod if you understand."

Jake nodded as we heard footsteps up the path.

"I wish had these when I was watching over your sister. Maybe then she'd be here still." I sighed as Hunk opened the door.

"I got food for chicken porridge." He said Albert walking in as well.

"Then I'll get started on dinner." I smiled as the three gentlemen walked into the living and started having a chat about Jake's life.

No matter what happens I must save my family. Hell will freeze over before I fail.

Hey everyone slifarianhawk here and sorry for the wait. I needed to do some serious recovering from the illnesses I'm dealing with and just like Tabitha I broke my damn foot. I'll be posting more regularly again just not as often as before. That is because I'm starting up a second book. It's still in my drafts and I'm going to take some time releasing it so arch angel will still have priority. The new story will be for genshin impact and I do hope if you are a fan of my writing you'll give it a chance. My name is Silfarianhawk and I'm not so far away

[naoyaslut]

pairings: naoya x fem reader

warnings: a little fluff, soft naoya, some scheming from toji

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“Drink this please, my lady,” The doctor passed you a small vial from a nearby table that Naoya had watched him brew and mix not long before. Naoya made sure he was in the room when anything you were ingesting was being prepared, thanks to Emi. 

You frowned in response, turning your nose up in disgust. Every time you met with this doctor; he had a brew ready for you at the end of his physical. An herbal tea that was infused with extra nutrients and supplements that were supposed to assist with the development of the baby. 

He was forced to travel in the snow from a neighboring village to be here. To check your vitals and to reassure Naoya Zenin that his wife, carrying his child was healthy. 

It was always disgusting, and bitter. And every single time you had trouble keeping the concoction down. Holding the vial in the palm of your hand, you instinctively looked over to Naoya who was standing at the foot of the bed. 

His brows furrowed in response, and he only nodded his head urging you to drink it. Anything that the doctor said would help foster a healthy child, Naoya was for it. The fact that Emi had been poisoning you for weeks while you were pregnant made him doubtful that you would carry to term. 

You swallowed thickly in preparation and lifted the vial to your lips to drink it down all in one gulp, focusing all your attention on keeping it down. Once it was gone, the doctor took the vial from you and put it away with the rest of his instruments. 

He began packing up and glanced in Naoya’s direction while he spoke.   

“Everything seems to be coming along. Unfortunately, we won’t know much more until she is further along. If the mother is happy and healthy, then the child should be happy and healthy,” The doctor picked up a bag of his items and threw it over his shoulder. “Should she experience any pain or fatigue, summon me again at once but from what I can see there’s no need for her to be restricted as of now. It’s still very early in her pregnancy, the lady is fine to move around and continue her normal activities. No cursed energy use though, growing a child is enough strain on your body... exerting more would only hinder the growth of the child,” 

Naoya remained quiet as the doctor spoke, dismissing him when he finished. The doctor nodded and bowed before he retreated from the bedroom leaving the two of you alone in your quarters.  

Well, there it was from the doctor's mouth.  Although Naoya was adamant about your bed rest and keeping you locked up inside, he gave you the okay to resume some of your normal activities. What was normal anymore? 

The snowstorm had been going nonstop for weeks and you and Naoya were separated from the rest of the estate. A guard of five men, Lianne, and three or four other trusted staff women resided on this side of the estate. He preferred it that way. 

He had forbidden you from going anywhere on your own. He only allowed himself or Toji to escort you anywhere outside of your quarters. Even if you were with Lianne, a guard was standing by who would report to Naoya afterward. 

Yasu was “put to work” immediately. According to Toji, he was gathering intel, on what? He wouldn’t share that much. He did, however, tell you that Emi’s execution had been postponed.  

Even though she had tried to poison you, you were relieved to know that she was still alive. How long that would last? You hadn’t the slightest clue, you knew that Naoya wanted her dead and you didn’t think you could stop it from happening. 

You could feel your stomach turning as that concoction settled in your belly, subconsciously placing a palm over your mouth just in case it decided to come back up. 

“Are you going to be ill?” Naoya asked, walking from the foot of the bed so that he stood beside resting a hand on your back in comfort. 

“N-no, I’ll be fine,” You offered him a half smile, drawing in a deep breath of fresh air to calm your queasiness. “I don’t think I'll ever get used to the taste... it’s so bad...” 

You could see Naoya’s brows draw together in a tight knot and felt his hand drop from your back while he stood silently in thought. He seemed troubled at the fact that you felt ill, maybe he felt about his insistence for this medley from the doctor. 

“I’m alright, I can stomach it Naoya-sama...” you reclined on the mattress you sat on, your legs dangling over the edge barely touching the floor below. You sighed in contentment and placed a hand fondly over your small, rounded belly. “It’s for the health of the little one after all,” 

Your chest swelled with happiness momentarily as your mind wandered. You were thinking of how it would be to feel the warmth and to hold a healthy, newborn baby against your breast. But just as quickly the feeling of dread came over you at the thought of the child being a girl instead of the heir that Naoya so desperately wanted. 

Both of your eyes fell shut in response to the salty sting of tears that began to prick at the corner of your eyes. You couldn't care less if the child was a boy or a girl, you just wanted it to be healthy and loved.  

Your sole purpose here is to bear me a son.  

Your throat grew tight as the uncertainty washed over you, the taste of disappointment and fear more vulgar than the brew you had ingested moments before. Naoya said in his own words when you first arrived here that you were to give him a son... what were the consequences if that didn’t happen? 

Naoya seemed to fancy you. He treated you softly and equally indulged in your body just as eager. But people change, you bore witness to that, your brother certainly had. With Naobito in charge of the Zenin clan, your fate wasn’t certain, none of your pleas would change that.  

“Y/n,”  

Naoya’s voice brought you back to reality and away from the storminess of your thoughts. He sounded as if he were so far away from you but when he repeated your name a second time, he sounded much closer. His voice was a bit muffled, and you were sure you could feel the warmth of his breath against your belly. 

“Yes?” 

At some point, Naoya had repositioned himself so that he kneeled between your legs his hands pressed against your abdomen carefully as if he were handling precious cargo.  

He pressed another kiss against your belly and looked up in your direction although he couldn’t see you. He sensed something was off, your mood, something was bothering you. He had a knack for figuring that out though you didn’t hide it well. You wore your disdain on your face and hid it rather poorly. 

“Whatever is bothering you, forget about it. You’re safe here. Our child is safe... If there’s something I can do to make you feel more at ease, tell me,” 

Naoya lingered in your chambers the entire day, which was rather out of character. You knew he had things to do, things to take care of. Instead, he put his energy into making sure that you were comfortable and less on edge than before. 

Before long the day had long ended and you had fallen asleep in his arms, no word of trouble yet as the snowstorm that had been pounding the estate for weeks slowly began to subside. 

“Oi, little idiot,” Toji raised the lantern above his head so that the orange afterglow lit up the inside of the cell in front of him. 

Emi raised her head in discontent, her eyes narrowing in annoyance. Her eyes were red, bloodshot from crying perhaps and her hair was a tangled mussed up mess.  

Toji hummed an amused chuckle as he squatted down to get a better look at the distraught woman before him. 

“You’re the only one down here in the biting cold, can you believe it?” Toji tutted his green eyes glittering in the reflection of the flames. “Naoya has postponed your execution, what do you have to say about that?” 

Emi sat up abruptly, the thick blanket she had been wrapped in falling from her frail form. She looked terrified, unsure of how to respond. She hadn’t faced Naoya since he returned from the campaign. Did Naoya mean to have her killed? 

“Execution?” Emi’s voice wavered substantially, unsure of what to make of the admission. “Naoya-sama is going to have me killed...?” 

She paused again, her gaze falling to the dirty cobbled stone floor beneath her. She whimpered incoherently, tears falling down the stretch of her dirty face.  

“I didn’t mean for any of this to happen Toji-sama! Please you must let me explain that to Naoya-sama!” Emi begged, turning her gaze back to Toji. 

“Oh, there is something you can do to win back Naoya’s favor, perhaps then he won’t kill you,”  

Emi perked up at Toji’s suggestion grasping at the iron bars of her cell. She was desperate, so desperate that he could taste it. This woman would do anything to win Naoya’s favor, oh, and perhaps not to end up impaled through a pike. 

“I’ll do it, I’ll do whatever you need me to do, I promise,” Emi wailed, bowing her head in complete and utter submission. 

Toji stood up bringing the lantern with him. He smiled slowly, canines glistening against the red of his lantern. 

“Good... you only have this one chance to redeem yourself,” Toji watched as Emi got to her feet her small hands still clasped around the metal bars. “If you’re unsuccessful, I'll kill you myself,” 

Emi nodded profusely, bringing her gaze back to Toji’s verdant eyes. He snickered under her gaze, his eyes flashing a deep red before he fished out something from his trouser pocket.  

Emi held her hand out expectantly and watched as Toji placed something small wrapped in burlap in her palm. Whatever it was, it was obscured from her view and wouldn’t be revealed until it was unraveled.  

“This is your key to freedom... don’t fuck this up, got it?” 

[the-owl-tree]

I wonder how much you could do with the fact that Nightcloud was a former coup member and ended up having kits with Onestar's nephew and what kind of drama that could've caused if she were even half the character people made her out to be

canon Nightcloud is a fascinating and infuriating case study on how a she-cat in this series can canonically do nothing, be absolutely blameless, and then still be blamed by both the books and the readers. (Yes, even with CT, let's not forget that OOTS & the field guides peddled that Nightcloud was responsible for Breezepelt's actions for a good while).

So I can't even imagine the shit storm of discourse that would have happened if Nightcloud was anywhere near what people remember her as. A feisty, short-tempered she-cat who loves those close to her fiercely and will fight for them without a second thought? Mwah, where is she. I'd honestly love to know more about her and why she supported Mudclaw, books make her lean more into Clan tradition with further arcs (most notably in OOTS, where I must emphasize, that is where Crowfeather blames her and the reader is meant to agree with him. It feels very intentional they made her more aggressive and xenophobic to supplement his words). I also just like "my son can do no wrong" fanon version of Nightcloud, characters like that are funny to me.

[mekatrio]

giving dungeon meshi the second highest honor i can bestow to it: complaining about it (its ending specifically):

anyways the ending felt super rushed to me, almost like the author hadnt realized how long an ending with a cast this expansive would need to be, and ended up pacing it weirdly while also rushing some parts along the way. also these opinions of mine dont take into account any post-canon supplemental material, im judging the canon ending on an as-it-is basis, so maybe some of my gripes here get better explained in a bonus comic, but im not counting any of that rn. maybe later i will look back at this ending and feel better about it, but these are the impressions this ending had left on me as of now:

- laios becoming king makes sense when u consider the prophecy that this entire series prefaced itself with (the one who defeats the mad sorcerer will inherit the golden kingdom), but like.... it still feels somewhat out of place. its not a choice that i hate entirely, but i feel like the pacing towards this decision felt very off, when, in the ending to a series like this, shouldve felt more inevitable/final. it really did feel like there were numerous other options laios couldve taken on in the ending.

^these all felt like plausible outcomes to me

and while its somewhat logically explained that the only reasonable outcome for laios was for him to become king (cant leave the island to the long lived races and needs to take responsibility for.. saving the world?), this rationale for laios becoming king felt lacking in any emotional drama that i personally think this series' ending should have, especially considering that the events during the final climax just before this were extremely satisfyingly dramatic.

- izutsumi.... i can recognize that rui did her best to integrate her into the story and serve a narrative significance (barometz chapter succubi arc etc), and this did succeed to an extent, but it also felt like a case of too little too late.. the early arcs before izutsumi had very excellent pacing, with different chapters rotating its focus on a different party member effortlessly. it was during this time that the foundations of our main characters were really set up. izutsumi's late arrival meant that her character narrative had to squeeze itself between the other main characters' further developing narratives, alongside with the steadily developing climax, which had a whole other share of new character narratives it needed to develop (mithrun kabru thistle etc). this lack of breathing room for izutsumi made her feel kinda out of place in the overall narrative, when she, as a main party member, shouldve had more solid ground.

like for example, her yaad doll was barely mentioned until it was time to serve its narrative role (leading them out of the dungeon). looking back at the story, the doll was mentioned at least one other time besides its introduction and its narrative role:

^chp 85 in marcilles tower

but this happens during an extremely dramatic moment (marcille is losing her fucking shit) and this yaad doll mention ends up being overshadowed by it. i feel like the story shouldve called more attention to it; it's role as the plot key that lets the party safely escape the collapsing dungeon is a big role after all, and it shouldve been mentioned at a degree similar to shuro's bell or kensuke, two other objects that play a big role in the story's ending. but as ive said, izutsumi's character has to struggle to secure a spot with the various other rapidly developing narratives. this failure to cement izutsumi's bond with the yaad doll then had this important moment fall rather flat for me;

just like many other izutsumi moments that were meant to be emotional. izutsumi's character sadly didnt have enough time to stew and leave the bigger mark that she really should have, imo

- speaking of characters who didnt feel super impactful in the ending, i was disappointed that chilchuck and senshi didnt play bigger roles in the final climax. i think they played a significant role while marcille was the dungeon lord, but after that (while laios was the dungeon lord) they didnt really do much.. i wish we saw them do more when laios had turned into a monster, the way we see marcille lead the chase after demon-laios.

- also! why did the citizens of the golden land survive??? im so confused about that. like when i think about it i.. guess????? it makes sense?? bc they were cursed by thistle to remain in the dungeon otherwise they would turn to dust, but when thistle lost his desires, that curse was lifted, and they could return to the surface... i think??? but see, thats my problem w this, to make sense of this im doing a lot of guesswork, and something this significant shouldnt be left up to guesswork. i dont expect a story to explain every single detail about itself, especially with its ending; in fact some of my favorite endings are ones that leave certain details ambiguous, but this is an instance where there really should be some sort of explanation.. and the same can be said for why tf did thistle die! if he even died that is???? like man, so much is left up in the air, and the only really concrete things that happened are 1.) laios becomes king, and 2.) falin is resurrected. but my biggest gripe, the biggest thing imo that is not thoroughly explained when i really feel that it should be explained is....

- CAN PEOPLE JUST BE RESURRECTED NOW???????????? like marcille just spelt it out for us that they needed to learn to accept death, especially after spending such a long time in a dungeon where death is merely a suggestion, and yet.... falin was able to be resurrected outside of the dungeon?? does this mean Anyone can be resurrected outside of the dungeon, since the lines between a dungeon and the surface world have now been broken???? that cant be right, can it....??? didnt we just have 97 chapters of why People Should Not Live Forever And Need Food (taking the lives of other creatures) To Be Considered Alive? but how was falin able to be resurrected then??? 😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫 again, this is guesswork that I REALLY THINK should not have just been left to guesswork, man........ tho i do have an alternate explanation that kinda explains how she was able to survive, and ill hopefully post that at some point..

[actuallylorelaigilmore]

disordered eating things

today i survived my second therapy appointment--this was the first one focused on my food issues. my therapist (who’s still training, she’s technically not a therapist yet) has no experience working with eating disorders, so she did research on ARFID at my request before this second visit. 

so she asked me questions today, then more follow-up ones, and then told me that while she will be consulting other experts and she definitely wants to help me with my food habits that are concerning, i don’t fit the diagnostic criteria of ARFID as she understands them because...i’m fat. 

she didn’t phrase it that way, but that was the essence of it, because according to her understanding of what she’s reading, a diagnosis requires significant weight loss, severe nutritional issues, or otherwise suffering things like being unable to get out of bed or using a feeding tube. 

(she tried to explain it with a comparison using anorexia, but it still didn’t make sense to me because it seemed to be implying that someone whose behavior is anorexic who still ‘functions’ in their life despite their symptoms wouldn’t be considered anorexic. and when i asked for clarity about that, she said that no, they would be--which still leaves me wondering how i could then have symptoms but not be disordered technically due to my weight or my health problems being not bad enough.)

i pushed back against everything she said that i didn’t understand, or that didn’t match my knowledge of ARFID--it can be a struggle for me to stay focused and stand up for myself with medical professionals but i’m trying really hard in this case. and since i know lots of people with disordered eating have trouble getting help when they’re fat, i was aware this might happen, so it was important to me to clarify how negatively and severely my life is impacted by my food struggles. 

(also i’ve lost nearly 40 pounds in less than a year without any exercise because my eating has gotten so much worse, and i just learned i have a major zinc deficiency after i had to take supplements for years to fix a B deficiency that got so bad i couldn’t walk. so i even have the health effects she was talking about. i’m just not dangerously thin, and am therefore regarded as not-disordered.)

in a month, i’ll see her again in person and see what further insight she’s gained from her colleagues. i won’t be shocked if the anti-fat bias in my healthcare system means she concludes that i don’t have an eating disorder, even as my ‘safe foods’ keep growing more restricted and right now i’m surviving on mostly toast, mac & cheese, fries and popcorn. 

the good news is that she does mean well and we get along okay, so she’s listened thus far and understands me as well as any non-autistic, non-experienced-with-spectrum-folks therapist can. i just may not get a diagnosis unless someday i can access one of the very few places/professionals that’s experienced with ARFID and knows the nuances in how it can affect people.

most likely in the meantime she’ll be helping me with the psychological side of my food issues without the label, and she knows i want guidance on how to find help with the physical stuff that isn’t her area. i know i can’t fix this on my own, and at least i’m trying to navigate a really complicated system despite how frustrating it is. i always feel great relief when i’m done with an appointment, but i also feel hopeful about this. so that’s nice.

[this-curiouscat]

🌀,🌤️,and 🌈 please!

🌀 Post the pitch for a game you’re working on

I have to cheat a little for this one because my games are currently either done or such vague ideas that I can't even pitch them properly.

But let's talk about Bunny, We Bought a Dungeon, which Jasmin Neitzel and me actually wrote first before we hacked it into Dolly, We Bought a Dream House.

Here's the pitch: You're a group of anthropomorphic bunnies who have bought a dungeon to move in there together. As you narrate the exploration and renovation of the dungeon, you draw a map of it together.

Mechanically, we're calling it a GM-less OSR story game. We're using OSR elements like dice drops, random roll tables, and of course a classic fantasy dungeon setting and combine them with GM-less story mechanics, action rolls inspired by Lasers & Feelings (but not exactly like L&F), and the idea that dungeons can also be homes.

We've already published it in German earlier this year and I've recently translated it into English and will release it tomorrow at the latest.

🌤️ Share your favorite mechanic from a game you’re working on

Same disclaimer as above. So let's talk about something I've already published! I'm still proud of my supplement Alternative Crowns of the Queen for Brindlewood Bay.

As in the original game, it's a set of narrative prompts that allow more insight into the characters' backstory and current life outside of investigating murders and supernatural conspiracies (you use them to bump up a roll one level). And as in the original game, they're meant to show the Murder Mavens "as a woman."

However, my Crowns of the Queen cover a lot more ground than the ones in the original because a senior woman's life of course contains many other relevant aspects than being a daughter, mother, or wife/romantic partner (which is what the original game focuses on). Therefore, my Crowns offer you prompts about bodies, aging, and health, female solidarity and friendship, professional successes and failures, and of course an option to tell a coming-out story.

(In case anyone reading along is wondering: Yes, I absolutely think asking questions/giving narrative prompts is a proper game mechanic just as much as rolling dice or drawing cards or ticking boxes on a sheet is.)

🌈 Share your favourite class/playbook from one of your games (name the game, or let me choose)

So far, I only have one game that has something resembling playbooks, so we're talking about my Firebrands game Miss Bernburg's Finishing School for Young Ladies here. It's set in an all-girl upper-class boarding school in the 1950s (located in Western Europe or North America).

It has three cliques to choose from, which function as character archetypes more than social circles: Homemakers, Bookworms, and Rebels (the latter may be renamed in the translation of the second edition I'm planning for sometime in the future). You get a short flavor text, a list of attractive characteristics to choose three from, and some name suggestions. There are further character questions to answer, such as items they've put on display or keep hidden in their dorm rooms (those are partly different in the first and second edition of the game).

I always enjoy playing a Homemaker (or seeing them played) because there's so much variety you can bring to this type of Young Lady. You can play her as a naive, down-to-earth person who just enjoys traditionally female activities and responsibilities. Or you can play her as a charmingly manipulative person who sees this role as the best opportunity to at least have some social and political influence in her life. Or you can play her as someone who aims to use a facade of respectability to create space for a relatively unbothered queer life on the side. Or maybe she's just waiting for someone to nudge her out of her conformist comfort zone and discover a curious or rebellious streak?

As always, we play to find out, and the Homemakers nearly always have some of the most interesting story arcs I've played and witnessed in this game. (Ask me again and I will tell you the same thing about the other two cliques, though!)

(Cover illustration by Christiane Ebrecht)

Thanks for asking! 💖

[brookemedbil]

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[hayleymedbil]

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