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mariacallous · 3 months ago

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China and the United States are now in a full-blown trade war after U.S. President Donald Trump imposed 34 percent tariffs on Beijing and China countered with an identical figure. Whether or not Trump now raises the stakes, what’s clear is that the U.S.-China economic relationship will never be the same.

How does China’s strategy on funding science compare with America’s? What explains China’s apparent economic recovery? Is Trump’s trade policy driving East Asian countries closer to China?

Those are just a few of the questions that came up in my recent conversation with FP economics columnist Adam Tooze on the podcast we co-host, Ones and Tooze. What follows is an excerpt, edited for length and clarity. For the full conversation, look for Ones and Tooze wherever you get your podcasts. And check out Adam’s Substack newsletter.

Cameron Abadi: All the news reports indicate Trump was the one making the decision on the scale and sweep of tariffs. And that seems to me a very technical thing for the president and especially someone without an economics background to be involved in. How should we be evaluating this process in relation to the technical nature of tariff policies? It got me thinking about how one reads in history books about monarchs or political leaders determining specific military tactics on the battlefield.

Adam Tooze: Yeah, it is insane. Interviewed on the relevant news stations last week, very close advisors to the president were saying things like, “I can’t really give you any forward guidance on how this is going to go, I don’t know, all I know is the president is talking to smart people and so I’m sure he’ll make the right decision.” I mean sycophantic stuff like that.

So I do think, Cam, that the analogy to a kind of early modern mode of governance is the appropriate one. It’s haphazard. It’s crazy. It’s unlike any tariff policymaking that we’ve ever seen before.

Your focus on technicality is an important one because very early on in the history of American tariff-making in the modern period, so in the late 19th to the early 20th centuries, creating the so-called scientific tariff was actually something that American politics set about doing, which was a deliberate process of expert estimation. It was also, of course, a mode of log-rolling where interests would get behind their particular proposal. It’s never just clean science. But in this case, it just seems to be at the capricious whim of an increasingly aged and opinionated old dude. So that’s where we’re at. I think we’re misleading people if we present it as a more rational process. There are some reasonably smart people around him who could subsequently rationalize, sure. But I think we’ve lost any illusion that they’re in control at this point.

If you start with tariffs framed the way the Trump administration has, there’s no real way of reabsorbing it into a technocratic flow. Whereas in the Biden case, it was long advertised, it was rationalized, it referred to existing practice law. It was part of that whole familiar process of blob-style policy.

CA: How would one compare the overall economic strategy in the United States versus China when it comes to the relationship between science and the state? China’s focus is on state-supported technological development, while the United States is withdrawing support for science in various ways, even as the United States government is clearly backed by the biggest tech companies. How would one compare the philosophies at work here in terms of developing technology and the role of the government in supporting that?

AT: I think it’s tempting to say that the Chinese regime does conventional industrial policy, conventional national strategy, following in a trajectory that goes all the way back to the self-strengthening movement of the late 19th century. And the difference with China is simply the scale, and it is staggering. If you just take crude numbers of patent applications, which is a very crude indicator because of the quality of the patents and the degree to which they’re cited, but currently the Chinese annual rate of patent submission is 1.4 million-plus a year compared to about 300,000 for the U.S. And it’s something that’s exploded in the last 10 years. So it’s truly, truly staggering. And any field of research right now, pretty much you will see the same thing.

And any university in the United States or anywhere else in the world can sing you a song of this because, by my latest estimation, 20 percent-plus of the students on campus in Columbia are Chinese. If you add in the Asian American component, you’re at more like 25 percent. And of the Chinese nationals registered with the immigration authorities, half are in the engineering school, and that’s before you even get to the other bits of STEM. So the U.S. science complex is itself benefiting from the spillover effects of this incredible drive by China. And that’s what we then see in industrial policy, right? This isn’t just an effect of coercion or limitless resources, it’s also the brilliance of literally hundreds of thousands, millions of Chinese engineering minds being turned to lots and lots of really hard problems.

CA: In the past few years, there was much talk about China’s economy slowing down. But from what I can tell, the most recent indicators in the last few months are that the Chinese economy is actually picking up. So what exactly is fueling China’s economic recovery right now?

AT: I think there’s three ways of looking at this, and they’re all familiar kind of tropes from macroeconomics. One is that in a business cycle, a thing to look for is the moment when things stop getting worse and by itself that second-order effect, so they don’t need to get better, they just need to stop getting worse, generates—you find the bottom, if you like. And as soon as you find the bottom, this unleashes a series of decisions like, “Oh, well, well maybe I actually do need to renovate this apartment.” Whilst property prices are crashing, it makes no sense to sink good money in a bad investment. Once property prices are stabilizing at their new low levels, all of a sudden, a bunch of decisions become reasonable that over the preceding period from 2020 to 2021 onward were just dangerous to make. And China in certain areas hit bottom, and this was especially the case in the richer, more affluent real estate markets where there has been a substantial turnaround. China is gigantic, 1.4 billion people. It has dozens of huge cities, bigger than most cities in the United States. And some of those are returning hotspots of property development and property prices. Large parts of the country are still stuck, but it’s those new centers of growth which are driving things forward.

The second element is that we saw a shift in China’s development path. And you can see this in the investment figures. It’s not merely propaganda to talk about new quality productive forces, we’re seeing it in the trade figures as well, which is that the Chinese industrial and economic growth that shaped the last two decades was in some ways just the first stage. And quite contrary to Western imaginings that it was ultimately us and our demand that was driving this, the principal demand was actually China’s domestic urbanization that was riding this. Half a billion people moved to the cities. Cities were massively transformed. That’s what generated the growth. What we are now beginning to see is the shift of China toward the manufacturing sector. And in sector after sector, motor vehicles is simply the most dramatic one, China’s manufacturing sector is taking over. Now this is promising in terms of GDP growth. It poses a whole bunch of really interesting problems which you and I should return to at a future point, which is the China shock that China itself is experiencing. In other words, these aren’t necessarily high-employment sectors, and an awful lot of Chinese firms are shifting production to lower-cost areas which aren’t in China, but could be in Vietnam or could even be further afield in Southeast Asia if those places also enjoy access to American markets.

And meanwhile, I think the third thing to think about here is whether China is really out of the woods yet. And with regard to this, the most worrying symptom is certainly that there seems to be continuing an ongoing deflation in many Chinese markets. That means falling prices. And if that were to propagate and to amplify, it would invalidate the first point, namely that things have stopped getting worse, because a generalized deflation would be the next stage of a chronic contraction, which would really be a bad sign. And that is something to watch and to keep watching. But yes, it definitely does seem as though the first shock, the first winddown, the first contraction, has to a degree ended.

CA: China and South Korea and Japan have together announced an intention to jointly respond to U.S. tariffs. Is Trump’s economic policy subverting, then, his government’s broader goal of balancing against China in Asia? And has America had any coherent economic policy for Asia ever since the demise of the Trans-Pacific Partnership [TPP] free trade agreement that collapsed a few years ago?

AT: I think the short answer is that yes, this is counterproductive, and no, the United States does not have a coherent geopolitical, geoeconomic offering for Asia and hasn’t for many years, for more than a decade at this point. I mean, yes, the pressure from the United States unsurprisingly is driving China, South Korea, and Japan together. They held their first talks since 2019 recently. But one shouldn’t, I think, overemphasize the diplomatic element of this. Just look at the economic data and what you’ll discover is that the world economy doesn’t actually revolve around the United States in most dimensions, certainly not with regard to physical trade and industrial production. It doesn’t. America has a big trade deficit, which sucks in a lot of goods, and it’s crucial to the dollar system’s finances, but in terms of the flow of commodities and trade, Asia is the hub of this and has been for 15 years, at least, since China’s growth really took on huge scale. And so that goes on, it takes diplomatic form, it takes institutional form, and with the decision taken by Trump—but I think Hillary Clinton, if she’d been elected president, would also have made this decision—America’s decision that there simply wasn’t a domestic coalition available from the 2010s onward. In other words, there weren’t the votes in Congress to push through a comprehensive trade policy between the United States and Asia that widened market access. America lost leverage over this situation and has never been able to restore it.

So the people in the Biden administration were super smart, and the president, whatever his standing and status, didn’t bother them and let them get on with Asian economic policy. So they stitched together what looked to them like a coherent synthesis of new trade elements, which focused on various supply chain issues and had elements of greening, energy policy. They did these energy transition partnerships with Vietnam, with Indonesia. But the fact of the matter is they weren’t ever able to back it with money. They weren’t able to back it with market access and they weren’t able to back it with substantial, subsidized, de-risked investment. And so, the stages of incoherence are essentially that you start with the vision TPP, which there isn’t congressional backing for, it falls to Trump to abandon it. Then the Biden people come along and propose what is a coherent vision but can’t back it with resources.

And now we’re just back to full-on incoherence under Trump, with just a kind of bludgeoning trade policy which doesn’t seem to be coordinated with anything. You know, the denouement of this sorry story is that Asia got on with doing the son of TPP, which was this mouthful, it’s the CPTPP, which is the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. So they nested the TPP within a comprehensive and progressive offspring. And as that was originally conceived, it was conceived certainly by the time the Americans got their hands on it as a China containment policy. And now the latest question that Beijing is pushing is, “Hey, could we join?” It’s unlikely, I think, they’re going to make much progress on this because the South Koreans and the Japanese can see the Taiwanese problem coming, and the Taiwanese are preemptively also applied, so they’ve created this problem and so everyone will shrink back from that.

But the balance, if you like, of the historical direction of movement is not any longer toward a coherent American strategy of containment, but an AWOL, out-of-whack America that basically leaves a vacuum into which China then muscles in this new stage of its economic development, which is both threatening on the one hand because of its move into manufacturing and on the other hand opens a whole new array of opportunities because China will simply get richer and richer, and ultimately that’s what provides the markets for more and more sophisticated exports from the rest of the region. At least that would be the modified liberal fantasy of how this goes.

CA: When there’s talk of a trade war, it’s always the U.S. agricultural sector that’s said to be likely to suffer the most in the U.S. context. What exactly explains this deep link between American farms and China?

AT: So I mean, what fundamentally connects the two is a logic of free trade and what that entanglement expresses. And it’s large, China is the largest market for American agricultural exports. Soy, corn, both go to China. It’s worth maybe $35 billion, something like that, per annum. So it’s a big flow. It didn’t always used to be like that. You know, in the age of Nixon and Kissinger was when the Chinese market opened up to American exports. What drives it is simply the disparity in what economists call factors of production. And in this case, the one that matters is land. So the arable land per capita in China, that is the land that can be farmed, is about 0.08 hectares, which is about 800 square meters, which is a big back yard. Whereas in the United States, it’s sixfold that. It’s closer to 4,000, 5,000 square meters.

And that ultimately is what determines the balance of production between the two sides in terms of per-capita productivity. The United States will quite likely as a result come out ahead. Costs will be lower, production will be larger and certainly for extensive crops like soy and corn, that huge territory, plus the sophistication of course of American agribusiness, will tell. Why are the Chinese buying more food? Well, it’s because as they get more affluent, the share of meat in their diet increases. And once you’ve got really big animal herds, you have to feed them. And the cheapest thing to do is to import somebody else’s grain production. America is not China’s favored supplier. America supplies about 15 percent of China’s imports. So the trade with China is important for U.S. agriculture. The trade with U.S. agriculture is less important for China. Over the last 10 years, the share of Brazilian soy exports to China has doubled. So now the Brazilian share is about twice the size of the U.S. share.

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andersonjohnn · 5 months ago

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How long does IPL for Rosacea last?

If you are considering IPL treatment for rosacea and are not sure how long it will take, learn everything you can about it.

Are you dealing with rosacea? The redness on your face and neck area must be a daunting feeling to you. Also, sometimes the burning and pain sensation hurts you most. This is a common inflammatory skin condition that affects mostly women over 30.

In several conditions, it affects the nose, eyes, chest, and all over the neck area. The best thing is that you can improve your skin condition with IPL treatment for rosacea. Let’s learn how long IPL skin treatment for rosacea lasts and how effective it could be.

What is IPL Treatment for Rosacea?

The intense pulsed light treatment is known as IPL. In this process, the professionals use controlled light at a specific wavelength to target the inflammation and redness. The light energy helps to heal the skin's texture and color.

The expert employs a flashgun to deliver a broad spectrum of light pulses. The light got absorbed by the specific strain in the skin. In this way, the light heats and destroys the structures that are reabsorbed by the body. It helps fix unwanted skin pigment conditions or skin changes.

Benefits of IPL for Rosacea Treatment

The intense pulsed light (IPL) is very useful for people dealing with skin conditions and helps to achieve a smooth skin tone. Have a look at the unique benefits of IPL for rosacea.

Reduces Redness

The IPL treatment for rosacea helps reduce the redness and inflammation on your face and affected area. It is effective at targeting and destroying blood vessels.

Improve Skin Tone

It is helpful to improve skin texture by destroying the blood vessels and brown spots. It has become the best option for getting toned skin.

Rejuvenates Skin

The light pulses breakdown the pigmentation and vascular cells in the skin and are helpful to rejuvenate the skin again.

Improve Collagen Production

The IPL skin treatment is also effective for collagen production around the eyes and helps to improve the skin elasticity. The light pulses target skin tissue and bring you better skin condition.

How Long Does the IPL for Rosacea Last?

You know that rosacea is a lifelong condition that can be controlled with the right treatment. The medicines and self-care methods help to prevent this condition from spreading more. The dermatologist always suggests the IPL for rosacea that could last for a few months to a year, as per your level of the rosacea. People see a significant improvement after a few series of treatments with IPL treatment.

That’s the reason this is very popular among those dealing with rosacea and other skin-related issues. To bring effective treatment results, you need to go through multiple sessions of IPL. The visible improvement may be seen after a few treatments.

You also need to go through with maintenance and follow-up maintenance sessions to maintain the results for a longer time.

Self-Care Practice after IPL for Rosacea Treatment To achieve better and lasting results for your IPL skin treatment, you should follow some self-care practices.

Gentle Cleaning

You should wash your face twice a day with a mildly sensitive skin cleanser. Must avoid harsh scrubs.

Apply Cool Compression

You should also apply cool compression to the treated area multiple times to heal the inflammation and redness.

Hydrating Moisturizers

To keep your skin hydrated, you should use a lightweight and non-comedogenic moisturizer. It helps you to prevent dryness.

And last, you should be in contact with your dermatologist to avoid any complications after the IPL for rosacea treatment.

Final Thoughts

So after learning the above points, you have better clarity about how effective IPL treatment is for rosacea. It lasts for almost a few months to a year, according to the condition of the skin. However, you can get better results with IPL skin treatment by doing self-care. Follow the dermatologist's guidance and cure your rosacea with IPL treatment.

#australia #beba #beautyessentials #booknow #brisbane#healthyskin

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adayinflash · 10 months ago

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Choke Me So That You May Live

TWs: None

(We're back! I got busy and couldn't find the time to write things, so I set this aside, then even as things started to ease up I just had gotten out of the practice of it all, so it was hard to start back up. Hopefully I'll keep posting, but with classes no guarantees. Anyways, have a story about leaves)

I must apologize for falling short of the quotas. Even though I faithfully supplied as much as you needed for seven whole months, the time has come for me to fall short. The others will, too, but I’m the first. As the sun shows its face more and more infrequently, I find it more and more difficult to do what is asked of me. Therefore, you have no reason to hesitate. It’s the only logical decision.

You know this has to happen every year. While I may not remember the cullings of the past, surely you must, being the one to undertake the task annually. So what makes it so difficult for you now? My presence is nothing but a drain on resources, resources you will need in the coming months as you discard the rest of my brethren. You are all we have ever known, and we love you unconditionally. So you must know that we invite this gladly, for if our death may aid in your survival for even a year more, it will be well worth it.

So choke me. Choke me so that you may live. Let the lush, vibrant color drain from my veins, to be replaced by a violent, bleeding flame. Let me shrivel up, the remaining fluid reabsorbed into your body and freed to the sky. Let me fall from your loving grasp so you no longer need to bear my weight. Let me rot so that you may reconstitute my form once it has sufficiently decomposed. Let me die so that you may live.

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socialbrewcoffee · 1 year ago

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Everything About Decaf Coffee A.K.A. The Devil’s Blend

Nothing beats a hot cup of coffee for relieving the tension and exhaustion that our hectic lives bring. A few sips of coffee and boom! We're all magically alive. There are two kinds of people in the world. Coffee addicts; those who require caffeine and the pleasant fragrance of that bean juice in the morning to survive. Then there are individuals who do not want, enjoy, or desire coffee. However, this classification excludes a third group: decaf drinkers. Decaf coffee lovers appreciate the flavor of coffee but don't want the energy boost of the caffeine.

Among decaf drinkers, there are many individuals who’re perplexed as to why they should drink decaf coffee because they believe decaf tastes worse than regular coffee. Plus, there’s also the concern that decaf coffee is chemically processed and has a history of employing hazardous chemicals for the decaffeination process, giving the name a bad connotation.

As an alternative to ordinary coffee, decaffeinated coffee is available at almost every coffee shop. Contrary to common misconception, decaf coffee still contains caffeine, but in considerably lower quantities than normal coffee. If that surprises you, keep reading to learn about the benefits and drawbacks of drinking decaf coffee.

What is Decaf Coffee?

Decaf coffee is derived from coffee beans that have had the majority of their caffeine removed before roasting and grinding. The beans are often treated in organic solvents until all of the caffeine has been absorbed. A standard cup of coffee, for example, has around 95 milligrams of caffeine, but a cup of decaf coffee contains only 2 milligrams of caffeine.

The History Of Decaffeinating

Ludwig Roselius, a German coffee dealer, devised the first commercially viable decaffeination procedure in 1905. According to Atlas Obscura, one part of the decaf myth suggests that Roselius got a cargo of coffee beans that had been steeped in seawater. Roselius opted to process and test the beans rather than trash them. He discovered that the coffee had been decaffeinated but still tasted like coffee, but a little salty.

The Popular Methods Of Decaffeination

Decaf coffee, like regular coffee, begins as green, unroasted beans. Because it's difficult to extract only the caffeine and none of the other flavor chemicals, the decaffeinated version is typically associated with less palatable coffee and decaffeinated coffee beans are infamously difficult to roast effectively. There are three methods for producing decaf coffee: the Swiss water technique, the carbon dioxide method, and lastly, the methyl chloride process. Here's a quick rundown of each of them.

The Swiss Water Method

This is the process of soaking green coffee beans in water until the water becomes saturated with the soluble components of coffee. Green coffee extract is made by filtering the caffeine out of the water and when this extract is mixed with caffeine-containing green coffee beans, the caffeine "makes its way from the beans to the green coffee extract as the beans and liquid seek balance until the beans are practically caffeine-free."

The Magic Of Methylene Chloride

Chemical solvents, like ethyl acetate or methylene chloride, are used in the most prevalent techniques of decaffeination. The coffee beans are steamed and then repeatedly cleansed with a chemical solvent to remove the caffeine in this direct technique. The bean-flavored solution is restored to the beans after the caffeine is removed from the water with the solvent, enabling many of the oils and tastes to be reabsorbed.

Benzene was once the preferred chemical until it was shown to be carcinogenic. Companies have now shifted to using different compounds, the most prevalent of which being ethyl acetate and methylene chloride.

The CO2 Method

The supercritical carbon dioxide technique, as it is known technically, employs carbon dioxide (CO2) to operate as both a gas and a liquid at high temperatures and pressures. This supercritical CO2 enters the cracks of coffee beans as a gas, yet dissolves caffeine as a liquid. The beans are subjected to supercritical CO2 for many hours after they have been soaked in water (which expands cell structures and makes it simpler to extract the caffeine molecules). After the caffeinated CO2 liquefies and evaporates, the beans are processed. There is minimal change in flavor as a result of decaffeination since this approach preserves carbs and proteins.

The 2 sides Of A Decaffeinated Coffee Bean

The Pros

Caffeine has been linked to sleeplessness, heart palpitations, and a variety of other health issues. It is a stimulant, as well as a diuretic and an acidic substance. If you have heartburn, gastrointestinal difficulties, or trouble sleeping, decaf coffee can help you avoid the negative effects of caffeine while still letting you enjoy the goodness of coffee.

Anxiety is a typical adverse effect of coffee. Caffeine can cause jitters, restlessness, and anxiousness. It's crucial to remember, however, that while coffee does not cause anxiety, it might exacerbate symptoms in those who are already anxious. If you suffer from anxiety and consume regular coffee, you might have to consider shifting your choice to decaf before your situation worsens.

The Cons

Some decaf coffees contain methyl chloride, a chemical commonly found in paint strippers. In humans, excessive doses of this chemical can cause severe neurological consequences, and in animals, continuous exposure to this can cause central nervous system effects.

The effects of decaf coffee on cholesterol in humans have been studied in several research pieces. Some claim that it raises cholesterol levels, while others claim it has no impact. Though the results are inconclusive for the time being, it's better to be safe than sorry.

What Does The Global Market Say About Decaffeinated Coffee?

The global decaffeinated coffee industry was worth USD 1.65 billion as of 2019, and it is likely to increase significantly over the next few years. Buyers are likely to switch to decaffeinated beverages as they are becoming more aware of the potential psychological consequences of caffeine, which is a stimulant ingredient found in regular coffee. Excessive intake of caffeinated beverages has been linked to jitteriness, restlessness, sleeplessness, and raised blood pressure in recent years, according to several health studies. As a result, consumers are spending more on caffeine-free refreshments like decaf coffee.

Here’s a graphical representation of the estimated Decaf Market Size from 2016 to 2027.

A Collection Of The Best Tasting Decaf Coffee Beans And Blends

Decaf Brazil Coffee - Social Brew

Brazil's Santos, a coastal region is recognized for its smooth, delicate, and mellow coffee beans. It's often referred to as a soft coffee since it's delicate and gentle, with just a tinge of sweetness. This decaf is made using the Swiss technique. To assure you of the premium quality, it's gently roasted a little darker than our medium roasted coffees, which introduces overtones of rich chocolate. If you're a decaf convert, Decaf Brazil from Social Brew is an absolute must-try! Decaf with a Colombian Twist - Savorista

With this decaf blend, you can enjoy all of the complexities of caffeinated coffee as the chocolate and caramel mingle with citrus to make a perfect medium-bodied bean. Breakfast Blend Decaf- Green Mountain Coffee

Get the goodness of a light roast that has notes of sweetness with some playful nuttiness and a clean mouthfeel to finish. No Fun Jo Decaf Coffee

A whole bean decaf coffee blend that's complex and will have you tasting blueberry while offering you the sweetness of milk chocolate. Decaf La Cebia

This mix from Huehuetenango, Guatemala - Central America, features a fruity taste profile with overtones of plum and mandarin, as well as the nutty richness from brown sugar. Decaf Columbia - Trailhead Coffee Roasters

This decaf's balanced medium roast is just what you need when you're too caffeinated. It comes from Oregon and is made incorporating a Colombian sugar cane technique.

Decaf coffee is a softer version of regular coffee, with a mellower flavor and aroma and, of course, less caffeine. It's an excellent alternative for individuals who dislike the sharp hint of bitterness and the pungent odor of regular coffee. However, if you are addicted to coffee and consume more than a couple of cups of coffee a day, switching to decaf coffee could be one of the best solutions to limit caffeine intake while also satisfying the untimely cravings. In the end, it's all about personal choice.

If you’re exploring the parallel universe of coffee, try Social Brew. An e-commerce coffee company that enjoys bringing the flavor of the world's top gourmet and specialty coffees into the lives and routines of ardent coffee lovers like you. Also, almost half of our proceeds work on supporting the victims of Human Trafficking. Come join us and experience goodness that flows beyond the brim.

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demonslayedher · 2 years ago

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Well, briefly recalling the question where nezuko and mitsuri kick Muzan's crotch and how that would be useless...what if nezuko sets him on fire?

Ah yes, this Ask, in which we examined the crotch weakness question and I arrived at the conclusion that he wouldn't be particularly weak there. We do know he is weak enough against regular fire to have it slow his regeneration, however slightly--hence, the explosion in Chapter 138 and Sanemi's surprised oil and match technique in Chapter 185. We also know that Nezuko's fire works specifically against demons, and she hates Muzan so much that just being around more of his cells empowers her to develop newer and more powerful skills more rapidly, like when she faced Daki (and for that matter, Rui).

Yes, I think we're on to something here. Ufufu.

I was just pondering the other day how much shorter of a series this would be if Nezuko went running after Tanjiro in Asakusa that night, for she'd have gotten pissed off at Muzan right away and probably developed some anger-driven power, but seeing as she's still not that powerful of a demon when facing the Swamp Demon--quick to get thrown off by a single injury, slow to recovery, very quickly in need of sleep--she'd be killed immediately if she tried to attack Muzan as she was. Ultimately, Nezuko's power started off from the cells of Muzan inside of her, and although she developed it through her own will, it would take a lot for her to be strong enough to take him on and hold her own.

However! As you said, the secret here is fire, something rare among demons who already have an innate desire not to get burned--one of the few things Muzan fears! I think we can say that part of her abilities is being a Kamado, with generations and generations of fire workers before her. Even if she didn't inherit the red eyes which all her siblings did, or the extra red tints that Kakushaku-no-Ko Tanjiro did, she still has that background in her blood.

However... Kakushaku-no-Ko Tanjiro sure showed her up with how much faster he mastered the sun than she did. I suspect this is both due to his extra-looking inheritance of whatever fire-related blessings their family inherited through careful generations of work (life's not fair if you're not an eldest son, I guess), as well as the effect that practicing Hinokami Kagura may have had on his body, which primed it for quick mastery of the sun. Tanjiro was believably more powerful than Muzan, and had a whole lot more of Muzan's blood in the first place. Nezuko's got the family background too, but she had to rely so much more on her own willpower. (Nezuko, girl, you're amazing.)

So! Let's take Nezuko at her potential strongest. Nezuko's had a really good nap! Nezuko's mastered the sun! Nezuko's got humans to protect! Nezuko's got the love and support of her brother! Nezuko's got rage in the presence of her family's killer! Nezuko's got... a butt-chin!!

If we take Nezuko at her very strongest, spilling just about all the blood she's got, I think she could do very, very serious damage. Would it be enough, though, to demolish him quickly enough that he doesn't kill her first? Even if the curse doesn't affect her, that's not his only way of squashing demons. Tamayo showed us that she could battle Muzan will willpower and retain some form for a very long time before ultimately being reabsorbed into him, and Nezuko's will is strong enough that she might stand a chance, but...

I think the safer bet would be Tanjiro using Hinokami Kagura's 13th floor first--using it to the very best of his potential abilities, though that would probably still put him no where close to Yoriichi, and Tanjiro was still no where near this when he had no choice but to use his imperfect Hinokami Kagura against Muzan. But, if he could do even partially what Yoriichi accomplished, then Nezuko would probably have a safe bet of burning the last of that flesh away forever.

Here's an AU--maybe if the timeline were a little different...

#kny fandom theories and meta #my dumb art #kibutsuji muzan #kamado nezuko #tsugikuni yoriichi #kamado sumire

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darkpoisonouslove · 2 years ago

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What happened after near death experiences when Griffin was still in the circle? Like if it was Valtor who nearly dies I can see Griffin being mad at him for taking any risk but she needs the time to relized that she is actually angry about it because she is worried about him. I'm working on something where he and Marion having a big fight because both sides needed something and Valtor did not want to retire because his mothers wanted this something very badly and missions always come first...

But idk about Valtor. I like the idea of him being 24/7 worried about her when they are alone and secretly searching for ways that this never could happen again.

I mean... near death experiences for Valtor would be an exception. He's literally made of the Dragon Fire and darkness, which are two things that are eternal. The show implies that only the Water Stars could kill him unless he gets reabsorbed into the uncorrupted Flame. I hate the idea that he really is that special. Most immortals come with the strings that they are immortal as in won't die from natural causes but can be killed. So I like to think that there are other ways to kill him as well. Still, that would not happen often because it would require knowledge of what he is and what he's made of and how to go around that and actually kill him, and I don't believe that a lot of people are familiar with the specifics of Valtor's existence.

Fighting against Marion would definitely be one type of situation that comes with substantial risk. And yes, I do like the idea of Griffin trying to brush her worry off as pragmatism. She is his partner and she can carry her own weight but it's still comforting to know that he is practically untouchable and can shield her from any kind of harm (whether physical in battle or legal consequences from her actions). She'd try to play it off as something that makes her worry about her own safety and even if there's truth in that, it's also because she now also has to worry about him. She was just used to the thought that she doesn't have to fear for his safety because practically nothing can get to him and now she's faced with the reality that even he isn't invincible and there's a chance she might have to lose him. That would definitely take getting used to and she'd try to push the thought away, wouldn't want to deal with it. But still, she'd have to because her being in denial could cost him his life if a near-death situation happens again and she's not prepared to help him.

Valtor, in an attempt to not think about the disaster that the confrontation with Marion was, would focus on teasing Griffin about being so worried. It's both a distraction from his failure and a way to get under Griffin's skin and make her admit her true feelings on the matter, how much she loves him. That would rub her the wrong way but I think she'd be more willing to tolerate him because she knows that he was shaken by the situation as well. If she was distressed to have the illusion of his immortality shattered, it must be that much worse for him. She can see that he's deflecting because after a certain point, her worry starts to grate on him, starts to feel like she's nagging him for his failure as well. So she tries to curb her own reactions. That ought to shut him up as well.

If Griffin almost died, I think Valtor would try to act as unbothered as possible. Not so much that he'd make her think he doesn't care about her safety but enough to make her feel like he had the situation under control anyway and nothing would have happened to her. He was there, he got her out, he healed her, saved her life. It's all good. Even death isn't powerful enough to extract her from his arms. It's all a front to cover up how powerless the whole thing left him feeling because he was right there and despite all of his magic and talent, she still almost died. To something that he should be able to protect her from no less. It's driving him crazy and he would be insisting that she rest a lot during the following days while he's analyzing every angle of the situation and looking for ways to make sure something like that never happens again.

I think Griffin would know but she herself feels weakened and she knows that poking his emotions to the surface will not help. The most that could happen is that they'd get into a fight and she really doesn't want to hear from him (said in a fit of anger but still true) what she already knows - that she's no match for him and is far more vulnerable than he is. She is touched that he is so concerned for her but at the same time she doesn't want to be fully dependent on him saving her life so she would skip the rest and work on avoiding future repeats of the situation as well.

#winx club #griffin x valtor #winx griffin #winx valtor #winx headcanons #ask #anon

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inamindfarfaraway · 3 years ago

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I'm sorry but I just stumbled across your Collector Clawthorne AU and I am dying to know what happens after The Collector's powers get unleashed!

Short answer: *gesturing to a board covered in hypothetical (because I can’t draw) fanart and edited The Owl House images of King, the Collector and scattered scenes in the AU connected with multiple colours of string, the title ‘Collector Clawthorne AU’ scribbled on a scrap of paper pinned at the top* Bold of you to assume I’ve planned that far ahead.

Long answer: I have no hard-and-fast overall plot for the AU series, just rough ideas and character arc directions with a few specific moments that I outlined in the previous post. But I do have some speculative thoughts! And having got a few asks about the AU “King’s Tide” now, I think it’s time to try to make something coherent out of them.

So, Belos powers the draining spell with King’s sacrifice, even now that that sacrifice is entirely by force. This draining spell is functionally the same as its canon equivalent, but the mechanics are different. It uses Titan magic, not the Collector’s, the culmination of all Belos’s studies of King and his father. The focal point is not the eclipse, but King himself. Despite valiant attempts to escape and resist (which damage the room and castle enough to create the openings the Collector later uses to reach him), King ends up unconscious and strapped to an operating table anyway. Yes, he is in the crucifixion pose. Yes, Belos recovered the gold ‘crown of thorns’ after it was discarded in “Edge of the World” and put it back on him. And so the draining spell activates.

How He Almost Did It: Witch and Biped Demon Genocide! Featuring a lot of stuff I made up about how magic works in this world!

Coven sigil branding in this AU has used extracted Titan magic all along. Like, the particles of the sigils themselves contain if not King’s DNA, then the ‘signature’ that is to magic as DNA is to physical cells. You know that trope? A person’s signature magic? However, the ‘cutting off access to other types of magic’ thing proves that while that is true, they also bind to the branded person’s magic. Magic, especially the living kind, is naturally inclined to return to the being it belongs to, especially if that being could really use some extra magic right now; the same way animals have preprogrammed mechanisms that instinctively fight to stop or at least delay them dying. The sigils’ connection to King has always been dormant and too weak to pick up on anyway. Until now, because Belos uses a special spell to activate it all at once.

He continuously siphons away King’s blood with catheters at a rate calculated to match the rate he replenishes it to suspend him on the brink of death. He is practically one extra lost drop of blood away dying. But his body has just enough strength to desperately draw upon all its physiological and magical ability to stay alive. Meanwhile, the blood is powering the portal.

Oh, hey, what’s this King’s magic is sensing? Loads of his very own magic that can heal him and give him energy scattered around in tiny fragments? He better gather it up and reabsorb it now! And any other magic stuck to it for good measure! Thus the draining spell. But because the sigils bind King’s magic with that of the witch or demon they’re on, the witches and demons have their magic and therefore life energy ripped out of them too. In short, everyone with a coven sigil becomes a battery in King’s forced magical life support.

Once they’re totally dead, Belos will casually pull the plug to prevent King surviving after all that. The ‘King of witches’ suffers, slowly, painfully dies and takes the sin and evil of the people of this world with him - evil is a synonym of being a witch, of course. Belos needs to stay until the covens are definitely drained to kill King and ensure that nothing interferes, with the rebels at large and how delicate King’s position is; and, well, it is so enjoyable to watch the fruits of his labour.

Everything seems doomed and everyone’s about to die. Nobody else knows how the spell works and Belos in his rage-consumed insanity after Luz brands him refuses to stop it. He reasons that if he goes through the portal and shuts it, he’ll be safe from the spell’s effects… but since the portal is right there, he might as well destroy these infernal rebellious brats on his way out.

Enter Collector Clawthorne! The two tablets that can release his power (the Titan Trappers’ one is taped together) have been salvaged and are obviously top priority. Hypothetically, anyone with one of them, the Collector and Titan blood could unlock phenomenal cosmic power, and given Belos’s surplus… yeah, no. Protect at all costs. But Collie aches to be useful in this darkest hour. And it really, really looks like it’s up to them. So he takes the tablets and sneaks away into the castle while Belos is busy rampaging, following the trail of magic, to find some Titan blood.

The only thing other than his reality-warping power that could save the day is just killing King before he unconsciously kills everyone else and for the reasons of being a child, being unwilling to murder someone they like and care about and an intense revulsion toward killing the sole survivor of the genocide they led and are trying to atone for, that isn’t an option. With his full power, he could easily revive King on top of healing the rest of Belos’s victims. This time, he’s going to be a god right. They’re not going to hurt people, deliberately or not. They’re going to help.

A slight problem is Belos is actually careful and diligent about not leaving the greatest power source on the Boiling Isles just lying around, so all of it that’s accessible is in the web of tubes coming out of King and into the portal. Collie chooses to puncture a tube with an ice glyph that freezes it shut almost instantly. He can easily fix it later. This gives them a small splash that leaked out to work with. He performs the ritual. The tablets are propped up opposite each other, Collie standing tall between them and facing King. Igniting a fire glyph wetted with the droplets creates the blue fire spell the Titan Trappers use, or at least an approximation, which they light each tablet with.

Suddenly King’s eyes snap open with a brief red glow. Remember that ‘all samples of his DNA contains his magic and is thus supernaturally connected to the magic in his body and right now that’s active’ thing I invented? Now he’s connected to this hell of a powerful spell more directly than canon King was to the canon Collector and the shock has awoken him. And he is very unhappy to be conscious. He’s bewildered, terrified and in agony. The stress of his tensing is not good for his already weakened body. He and Collie’s eyes are locked.

The flaming tablets rise into the air on either side of the Collector, crack and shatter to open circles of bright light, or rather holes punched in the fabric of reality, that his celestial magic pours out of in a breathtaking sight as Collie reaches out to King - but now King and the Collector’s magic are connected, so it all pours into him instead. These are not normal types of magic inside him, guys. These are the most powerful ones EVER. A Titan is a godlike being in a world where magic is commonplace and the magic of a ‘child of the stars’ is a complete outside-context problem like Bill Cipher is to Earth. Titan blood mixed with an intense, concentrated blast of all the power of an omnipotent god? This is gonna get weird. The blood in the tubes glows up into King’s veins, there’s a blinding flash of light and a chilling scream.

The good news is, King is rejuvenated and them some! The bad news is, he basically got the magic equivalent of a radioactive spider bite a millionfold, so while he feels fine and even has new superpowers, he nonetheless still has… you know, radiation poisoning. The cool news is he gets a new outfit, a starry dark blue hooded cloak that looks like it’s cut from the night sky and ripples on its own. The uncool news is, the draining spell is still going because as he was healed by an utterly incomprehensible and alien mechanism King’s magic doesn’t register him as okay - like, all that blood remains outside him. Collie is relieved he’s not overtly dying, but concerned. They knows their magic is Different and though happy it’s in the hands of a good person, he isn’t sure even a Titan will be able to handle it without losing control or accidentally dissolving themselves or something. King however dismissively says they have no time to worry or figure out exactly how this works.

Meanwhile, Luz and co. are battling Belos! It’s not going well. Belos rears up and brandishes his scythe arm -

when it’s caught by an absolutely fucking livid King. “King! What are you doing?” He smiles bitterly. “Saving the Boiling Isles, just like you always said I would.” As if teleporting here wasn’t demonstration enough of his level-up, he deletes his crown from existence and smashes Belos to pulp against the wall with a flick of his finger. The teens are caught between celebratory, confused and alarmed. The alarm wins out when King feels a sudden flare of pain, his eyes glow red and shooting stars spark off him, warping the ground where they land. Collie catches up and grounds him. He realizes to their horror their hypothesis was right - King’s body is rejecting the foreign magic and the two types are having an internal war. Hunter is especially frightened of losing his big brother figure. King insists he’s fine and that they leave things to him. Surprise surprise, the kid raised specifically to be a dark Jesus Christ analogue has a messiah complex.

He stops the draining spell by overriding his Titan magic with his new power. The good news is, it works! The bad news is, King does indeed lack control and unleashes the Collector’s magic across the Isles; it begins to twist and mutate the landscape to be wilder, more chaotic, even operating on fluid laws of physics like a dream, akin to the original Wonderland. It’s like a virus making a video game glitch out. King burns up with uncontainable, raw eldritch energy, physical form glitching disturbingly too, and has a breakdown over how he might actually doom everything anyway despite his change of heart and also nearly getting murdered by and in turn murdering the man who raised him that day and generally all his truckloads of unprocessed trauma. The Isles grow more nightmarish in accordance with his mental state. More Weirdmageddon than Wonderland. The Titan’s skull cracks apart as the magic, attuned to its hosts surging emotions, completely overwhelms his son’s rationality.

Luz uses vines to hold the portal together, intending to let everyone else go through to safety when King cannot be calmed down. But Collie refuses. They believe this new mess to be their fault for not figuring out the draining spell in spite of his knowledge of and skill at magical theory and not foreseeing what he would do to King, and he will. Not. Let. His power. Be an instrument of destruction and suffering again. They know it better than anyone, maybe they can help King master it! Or get it out of him! They can’t abandon King and the Boiling Isles, but they can keep Luz safe. Apologetically, he uses a glyph combination he devised in an earlier episode to blast Luz through the crumbling portal with a gust of wind.

And that’s “King’s Tide!” Ta-da! *sobs because it’s so sad and I only have myself to blame for creating this AU*

#now i’m sad #collector clawthorne au #the owl house #the owl house au #toh au #the collector #toh collector #king clawthorne #toh king #king’s tide #king’s tide spoilers #long post #very long post

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accursedkaleeshi · 2 years ago

Text

Death of Taa’yn

Triplets for reference & cute depressing palette cleanser. TW childbirth, death, blood

Taa’yn grew up in the oldest Masyrta (Mother temple) in the great expanse of northern Kalee. Many around her were sure she was favored by the All-Mother, including her father. She did a lot of egg sitting, hatch monitoring, & midwifing, making her the best kaleesh to have around for her wives’ first eggs. That being said, she had dealt with hundreds of mothers & knew things did not always go according to plan.

Being largely reptilian, their bodies can safely reabsorb developing eggs at all but the latest stages if something is wrong. If something went wrong during pregnancy that their bodies could not handle there was not really anything they could do about it, especially in the North. At nearly 4 years after her first child, it didn’t take long for Taa’yn to feel like something was off in her second pregnancy.

The egg was too large. She could feel her organs & ribs being moved too far. The other wives could not tell for sure, since Taa’yn was the largest of them to begin with. That along with the cultural kaleeshi attitude of letting things take their course led Taa’yn to keep her concerns to herself. “The egg was still viable,” she thought to herself, “Or I would not still be pregnant.”

She was right. Her eggs were in pristine condition, in fact. They were developing so well that her body saw this pregnancy as going great & so greenlit it to full term. But when the day came to deliver Taa’yn was stoic & insistent. She requested only a few specific wives to assist. Everyone was immediately concerned. Taa’yn had never been anything but cheerful & delivery, like most kaleesh events, had usually been an open party plan.

Taa’yn delivered an egg 20% larger than usual. It had adhered to a wall of her womb & tried to take it with on the way out. There was a lot of blood. Taa’yn, through a grimace, informed her wives that there was another egg in there. Mertenzi & Twarxii had to reach up there to help it out. Nobody knew what to say or do besides put her eggs in her arms. They tried a few things to stop the bleeding but it was too much. Taa’yn, glowing with relief, had told everyone not to worry & that everything would be fine, that everyone would do so good, until she slipped away into a final sleep. She was barely cold when Grievous made it back.

Kaleesh very rarely had multiples. They were made to streamline one big egg at a time. Some of them didn't even know that could happen. On the very rare occasion that Kaleesh had twins they were two in one egg as was the case with Taa’yn’s large egg. This brought about its own set of concerns. The family was advised by the Mother Minders that came down for the funeral to remove the identical twins from their egg no later than week 10. Removing hatchlings before they were ready was nerve-wracking but, between their sharp little claws & instinct to eat, you can see where it might not be a great idea to let them hatch on their own.

Luckily their husband built an incubator & there was always a mother in the nesting room. Salaen had just become pregnant with her first & was very scared. She calmed down after sitting with the triplets, considering it mom practice. Despite being peeled early Hez’kiya & Twan’lei did very well. The family worried about the second egg, as it seemed to have been packed quite tightly. But Gal’Jyn was just making sure he got all the bang for his buck out of his egg, absorbing all the yolk before hatching & eating his entire egg. The triplets went onto be perfectly healthy pups.

#taa'yn #accursed!grievous #scribbles #about his family

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mallowstep · 4 years ago

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(nature; nurture)

You know the truth of yourself in pieces.

* * *

You are three, sitting on your mother's lap.

"And you understand this is a life-long commitment?"

"Yes," she says.

"And Mothkit, Frogkit, and Hawkkit, do you want Feathertail to be your mother?"

"She is our mama," Hawkkit says, and the woman laughs.

"That settles it, then."

* * *

Growing up is not a balloon inflating, the way you once pictured it. It is a crab moulting over and over again, exposing its softest parts, in hopes it survives.

* * *

You are the first to go to kindergarten. Only by a few minutes, but still. That feels like it counts for something.

You kiss your mother's cheek, and then drop your bag. A man crouches down beside you. "And what's your name?"

"Mothkit!" you say, and he shows you where to put your bag. You glance back at your mother as you venture deeper into the classroom. She wipes a few tears from her eyes.

* * *

Unlike a crab, you cannot reabsorb what you lose. Your teeth are collected in a box, exchanged for a few quarters, occasionally a dollar. Your hair is swept up and thrown away. You go shopping, and now there are two sections you have to examine. One for you, one for your brothers.

* * *

Stormheart picks you up for school, and no one is waiting in the passenger seat. You all climb in, and you end up stuck in the middle.

"Where's Mama?" you ask.

"She's at home," Stormheart says. He glances back at you for a second, smiling. "She's just having a bad day."

You kick off your shoes at the door when you get home, dropping your bag on the kitchen table. Your brothers are slower, but you peek through the crack in her door before Stormheart catches up with you.

She's asleep, not facing you. Mistyfoot is on the other side of the bed, reading a book.

Stormheart scoops you up. "Come on, bug," he whispers. "Let's go play outside."

* * *

But your soft parts stay the same, just growing between each exchange. You ask her about your father many times, and her answers drift, circling around a truth you want her to finish. You slip into her room after having a nightmare, and find her sobbing. You make a family tree, and stare frustrated at the missing names.

* * *

You follow her out to the garden. Frogpaw spends more time out here than you do, but you're bored, and your mother is here, digging tiny troughs into the earth.

You cross your legs on the grass beside her. She smiles at you. "Are you going to stay out here?"

"Yeah."

"Do you want a hat?"

"No." The sun is warm, and you lean down, your elbows pressing into the dirt. "What are you planting?"

"Poppies," she says. "Do you want to help?"

You shake your head. Feathertail takes a handful of sandy dirt, and pours the bag of seeds onto it.

"Mama?" you ask, and she lifts her brow. "What's assault?"

Feathertail pauses what she's doing, and looks questioningly at you. "Where'd you hear that?"

"It was on a TV show." You fidget with blades of grass. "I wasn't really watching."

Feathertail sighs. "It's -- when you hurt someone," she says. "When you attack them."

* * *

But you are not a crab. You are a girl, and you are changing. Your father sends you a letter and asks you if you're a help to your mother. You grapple with the undeniable proof he's in prison, like she explained a year or two ago. You shoot up past your brothers over the summer, and have to buy new clothes. A new garment comes with it. Feathertail cleans a few things out of a room you can't think of as hers, and it becomes yours. Your soft parts move, find new places in need of protection.

* * *

Sometimes, you want to explain everything to Leafpaw, all in one breath. You want to say, My mother didn't give birth to me, but I know who did, and I was not wanted, except that I was, and my father believes I am capable of nothing, and my period has started, and I don't know what that means, and I think you are beautiful.

You don't say any of that.

* * *

But you are not a crab, so you find traces of your past exoskeletons, the ones that didn't fit. A shirt you wore five years ago. A diary you can barely understand. A folded piece of paper you do not open. They don't make sense with who you are, and yet, they are who you were.

* * *

Shadepelt teaches you how to use make up. Feathertail and Mistyfoot don't wear any, but she does, and she makes it look easy and fun and flawless.

It's much harder when you have to do it.

Hawkpaw and Stonefur arrive home when you are scrubbing it off in the bathroom downstairs. You don't come down here very often, and it is strange to think that this space is a part of your home.

When your face is clean, you trudge upstairs. The air is tense, Hawkpaw and Frogpaw staring across the kitchen table at each other, Feathertail watching them.

"I'm -- allowed to know," Hawkpaw says.

"What do you want to know?" Frogpaw says. "We know everything we need to."

"Maybe you do," Hawkpaw says.

You glance at Feathertail. Her back is to you.

You slide unnoticed into your room, and pull out the stack of letters from your father. You read them all once, exactly, and then add them to the stack you keep in your bottom desk drawer. There's no point in rereading them.

But you run your thumb over them, listening to the way the old, dried paper crinkles.

Frogpaw is asking the wrong question. It's why Hawkpaw wants to know that matters.

* * *

Freshman year draws to a close, and you think you are in your final moult. Leafpaw falls asleep on your shoulder on the way home from a field trip, and you hold hands as you wait to be picked up. You haven't outgrown any clothes in months, and your brothers are now taller than you. You look in the mirror, and realize this will always be the face that looks back at you.

* * *

There is always talk. You try to ignore the worst of it,

("Well, Hawkpaw is a creep," and, "I heard their mother doesn't love them," and, "Bet you can't wait to see your daddy,")

but that's easier said then done.

Leafpaw squeezes your hand. "They don't know what they're talking about," she says.

But they do. That's the problem. They're wrong, but they know what they're talking about.

A junior Mothpaw doesn't know sits beside her at lunch, in Leafpaw's space.

"You should move," Squirrelpaw says.

"No one's sitting here."

"Someone will be."

True to form, as soon as Leafpaw bursts into the cafeteria, she forces herself between Mothpaw and the junior.

The junior rolls her eyes. "I was wondering," she begins, "how you feel about the death penalty."

* * *

There are still old memories you revisit. Feathertail is hospitalized for the third time you can remember, and you log your hours for drivers' ed as you practice making the trip back and forth.

* * *

On Halloween, you take the bucket of candy Feathertail gave the three of you to share and sit on the back porch. Frogpaw and Hawkpaw keep stuffing their faces long after you've finished, and you feel like you're witnessing something obscene.

"I did some math," Frogpaw says. "We were born a month early." He throws a candy bar up, and it lands on his stomach. "Means we were conceived around New Years."

He throws the bar up again, and this time it lands in his hands.

"You ever want to throw a party? Just one. Make a bunch of food for dinner and sit around the table and call all the different dishes courses?"

"What the hell are you saying?" Hawkpaw asks.

"I think i'm just saying something," Frogpaw says. "I think I'm just hoping if I say enough things, I'll find the right thing to say.

* * *

You get your license. It says your name on the card, Mothpaw, daughter of Feathertail, and ask for permission to drive the car.

You don't have a plan for where you're going, and you end up in front of a cathedral.

* * *

The stress of junior year threatens to break you. College applications loom, your classes grow teeth, and you start to bicker with Leafpaw over petty things.

You read over the essay requirement for colleges, and think about what kind of essay you could write. Because there's really only one story worth telling, and it feels wrong, to type out all of your family to a stranger.

It makes you glad you started early. "My mother was fourteen when we were born," you write, and then scratch out. "My father is alive. We know who the other is. I've never met him," you write, and then erase. "I don't know who I am," you write, and then you keep writing.

* * *

At some point, you decide you don't believe. But. You keep coming back. There is something reassuring in routine. Your family doesn't ask where you are going, and you don't volunteer it. Sunday morning. There's some kind of peace, in having the time to sit and think and be.

* * *

"I think I've messed everything up," Leafpaw says. "I've gone about this all the wrong way, and now, everything is terrible, and this is all my fault, Mothpaw, I'm sorry-"

You kiss her, and then lean your forehead against hers. "We're both at fault," you say. "Besides. Maybe the honeymoon is over. We've got lives to attend."

And Leafpaw, inextricably, is part of that life. You can think of the essays you would've written about her. How her hair looks brown until it catches the sun, and then it shines like red glass. How she stomps when she is excited. How she links arms with you and says you're going shopping until you find your family Christmas gifts.

* * *

They invite you to a class, but it feels strange, knowing you don't believe. How do you say, I am here, and I am not, and I don't think you'd really want me.

You don't. You kneel down and offer a prayer to a god you don't believe in. Maybe it will catch.

* * *

Feathertail listens to you practice your speech.

"I'm so proud of you," she says. "You know that, right?"

You nod. She tells you this often, but something about her tone makes your throat catch. You've outgrown the days when Feathertail's arms could surround you, but even so, you start to cry when she hugs you.

"I love you," you say.

"I love you too," she says. She settles back onto the couch, wrapping her hands around a mug of tea.

This is the truth of who you are. This is what you will always fail to capture. How can you describe how the light streams inside at an angle that you've always known, one that makes the dust swirl through it? How can you describe the books on the coffee table, how each book has been read and loved, not merely thrown there for decoration? How can you describe yourself in any way but being there?

* * *

You meet your father's eyes. You know them. You have seen them in the mirror.

* * *

You hold your diploma in one hand, stopping for a photo. You were the first to enter kindergarten, you were the last to leave high school.

The excited chatter in the air is a reminder of what this day is. You have all bought your final yearbooks, signed names and numbers you won't remember in a few months. You're in it a few times -- Feathertail and Leafpaw delighted in hunting for your every appearance -- and you think, maybe it is okay if you are pieces.

There is something whole and solid that is made of them.

#mine #human misty au #mothwing #feathertail #yes i will make you read my long second person fiction #leafpool #mothpool

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dreamsmp-au-ideas · 5 years ago

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OCTOPATH AU???? :EYES:

*spins my chair to my computer

So I’m done with my things so let’s talk about it! Mainly about the character plots because the idea just came to me at 2 AM.

There’s going to be 2 groups for this au, one group is basically in the kingdom itself while the other is venturing towards the kingdom, eventually they do get to meet up and become one singular group.

This is going to be the first group, venturing towards the kingdom.

So let’s start off with George and Sapnap. George is the king of the kingdom we’re going to call...SMP because of course. Dream, George, and Sapnap are all best friends and Dream and Sapnap are the knight’s in shining armor who protect George. Eret is George’s next in line for the throne.The kingdom was flourishing, everyone is happy, and nothing seems to be wrong.

That all changed when all of a sudden the castle was attacked by mercenaries. The knight’s tried to fight them off as best as they can but it was too much. George had to flee and Sapnap went with him. Dream was separated from the other two. Eret is also separated but prompted to hide in the capital itself.

So Sapnap and George are on the run and are looking to reclaim George’s throne after receiving news that someone has been crowned king. They don’t know who it is but rumors has it that they are cruel and seemed to be obsessed with power. (Wink wink, I am totally not referring to the Green Man.)

Quackity is basically someone who is a Bard/Merchant who just wanders around and he just tries to get by. Whether most of the things he does is not exactly legal is his own business and no one else’s. He still cracks jokes and stuff but he does build his walls higher when it comes to trust and friends due to bad memories with Schlatt.

So he is wandering around when he just, finds Sapnap and George fighting off some bandits and he helps because, oh hey maybe he’ll get some free stuff. Sapnap and George thank him and Sapnap impulsively asks if he can help him because George used to be a king and if Quackity helps then they’ll reward Quackity greatly.

Quackity does not trust this, the last person he trusted in authority just ruined everything he cared about (L’Manberg’s flag in flames. The revolution failing. Schlatt calling him Flatty Patty and laughing as he runs away) but he is running low on supplies so he helps them reluctantly.

Karl on the meanwhile joins the group after some failed quests to get recognized and such. He craves attention and he is sick of being ignored by everyone. He is striving to be a knight but he isn’t exactly the best at combat.

Then he hears about this group and a former king trying to regain his crown in there. He practically begs the three of them to let him join and prove his worth. He needs to show that everyone is wrong and that he is important enough to be in history.

Sapnap objects to this but Quackity and George are cool with it, with George pointing out that they need as much allies as they can. Sapnap then goes and just trains Karl and whoops, now he’s attached to him. How did that happen?

(It getting long so I’m going to put group 2 on the bottom)

Eret in the kingdom is just trying to figure out who went and sent those mercenaries against them. They know that there isn’t much enemies they know about and they just go and sneak around to try to find clues on how this happened. They have no idea who the current king is as they are a recluse but they did make the kingdom basically become a police state. They also do not know if George made it out alive.

They soon gathers enough info to find out about somebody named JSchlatt, the president of Manberg. The info doesn’t tell him much but it does say something about a deal being made by the current king. So off they go to find people who knew of Schlatt and the first person they find is Fundy.

Fundy is looking for Tommy, Tubbo, and Wilbur. He knows that Tommy and Tubbo has fled somewhere into the capital but Wilbur could be anywhere. Eret tries to recruit him due to them seeing how he handled the guards in the square but Fundy declines it. Fundy remembers Eret, he remembers how they betrayed L’Manberg

So Eret went and used his former royal status and struck a deal saying that if Fundy helps Eret find the guy who did this and helps reclaim the kingdom, that they will provide resources to help him find Wilbur. It’s something Fundy wants and it isn’t honestly not that bad. They have to reunite to fight a bigger bad and then they can go back to being enemies after this.

So Fundy agrees to this and Eret has now one person added to their group. Fundy however, does not go and say anything about the state of Manberg and the revolution because at the moment, these two kingdoms are enemies and they absolutely hate each other.

Last thing they need is for the king of the SMP to go and reabsorb L’Manberg back into the kingdom.

Niki then joins the group after Fundy recognizes her and they reunite and she is full on ready to get L’Manerg back. She told Fundy that the country really has went downhill ever since the revolution failed and that everyone is pretty much suffering there.

She hid in the capital of the SMP kingdom thinking it is a safe place to just regroup and figure out what to do next only to find out that it has become a police state after the dethroning of George.

Eret welcomes her and Fundy and Niki are both surprised because, “Aren’t the SMP and Manberg supposed to be enemies?” And Eret says yes, they are enemies, but George was actually considering on having the two of them become allies due to the respect he has after seeing them fight and because of the fact that they really wanted to make amends with L’Manberg.

Fundy and Niki actually believes them because they saw how Eret is really trying to change and such. So they believe in them and trust them.

Mr TommyInnit then joins and after a few months as DepressedInnit missing Tubbo and Wilbur and all of his friends, he is absolutely thrilled to see Fundy and Niki again. He is at first a bit peeved that Eret is there but after some time he does trust Eret again.

Tommy explains that Tubbo went and disappeared one day and Tommy couldn’t go look for him ever since the increased security of the capital. Everyone just sees this sad child crying about how he feels like Tubbo’s disappearance is his fault and just comforts him.

Tommy then after some thinking decides to join the group and god it is nice to be around people again.

Group 1 is just basically an arsonist, a shitposting duck-hybrid bard, a wannabe hero, and a former king who does not set his alarm clock right.

Group 2 is basically a badass baker, a furry, an angry child, and a bisexual king.

Both of these groups become found family and are disasters. And when they meet up, they become more of a family and bigger disasters. They have braincells but they don’t use it most of the time.

I’m going to flesh out the final bosses for each of the characters but some may be shared due to the fact that Karl and Niki has no rivals that I can think of. Anyways this post got long. Send me some late 7:00 asks about the au if you want.

#mcyt #dream smp #fuck what do i call this au #octopath au #i mean for now at least #georgenotfound #sapnap #dream #dreamwastaken #quackity #karl jacobs #eret #the eret #fundy #nihachu #tommyinnit #ask #fuck this got long

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soniccrazygal · 5 years ago

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Fury

It had been a week since the downfall of the Liar and things were finally being to feel normal again. Sure, the toons weren't completely stable as scars and eyes still tended to shift and change, but they felt confident that they weren't at risk of falling apart and Henry was trying to figure out how to get their forms settled. But everyone was getting really worried about Bendy.

The little Ink Demon was still trying to act like everything was fine, but they could tell hiss mask was cracking. The toon's turbulent emotions were even starting to affect Sammy and Henry, even with the two men suppressing their link with the devil, making them both irritable and short-tempered. It wouldn't be long before Bendy snapped, and his family could only wait to help him when it happened.

The morning it happened started out fairly normal, the toons discussing what they felt like doing that day while Linda finished up making breakfast. The first sign something was going on was happening was when Henry and Sammy both shouted in anger, the musician slamming his fist on the piano he had been playing and Henry snapping the pen he was holding. Before anyone could react, the room immediately got darker as inky black shadows covered the ceiling with shouts and crashes easily heard from Bendy's room.

"I've never seen him this angry before," Alice commented in fear and worry, staring up at the inky shadows. Bendy had been angry and violent before, they all had, but his fury had never reached the point where his shadows could be seen from several rooms away. She and the other toons couldn't help but hurdle together, their instinctive fear of the Ink Demon making want to hide. Logically, they knew Bendy wouldn't hurt him and they wanted to help him, but their fear was so deeply ingrained from the time from the Studio that they couldn't even budge.

"I'll go see if I can calm him down," Henry said, once he was able to gather himself. The other toons looked at him in fear, knowing he's the only one that could probably reach through to Bendy right now but terrified the demon might hurt their Creator. Linda gave Henry an encouraging nod before turning to the frightened toons, reaching out to comfort them.

Leaving the others in Linda's capable hands, Henry began making his way upstairs. With each step he took, everything got darker as the number of inky shadows grew. Henry could feel his heart begin to race and the hairs on the back of his neck begin to stand as fear began to claw its way through him, despite all efforts to push it aside. He hated how his hand shook as he reached out to open the door to Bendy's room. His toon was in pain and needed him. Henry couldn't let fear keep him from helping his son.

Taking a deep breath to steady himself, Henry opens the door. The room was nearly pitch black with the amount of ink coating the walls and it took a moment for Henry to see what was going on. Bendy was standing in the middle of the room, traces of golden ink illuminating his half transformed state. He was creating objects with his ink and hurling them with all his might against the wall, letting them shatter and reabsorbing the prices just to do it all over again.

"I HATE HIM!" Bendy shouted, his voice deeper and distorted because of his fury and partial transformation, making it hard for Henry to clearly understand what he was saying. "THIS IS ALL FAULT! I HATE HIM! I HATE HIM! I HATE HIM! HE'S THE ONE THAT DID THIS TO ME!"

"Bendy, what's going on?" Henry asked calmly, taking a few cautious steps into the room. "Who do you hate?"

"THE LIAR!" Bendy practically roared as he threw one last object at the wall, his breathing ragged, and his form trembling as Henry finished crossing the room and enveloping the toon in a hug. Bendy clutched onto Henry's shirt tightly as he continued in a dark whisper. "I hate him so much. He's the one that caused us so much pain. He made me a monster. He made me kill him!"

"Bendy, you're not a monster," Henry comforted, gently rubbing the toons back. "I know what you did wasn't easy, but you said it yourself. He was hurting us and you were just trying to protect us. You shouldn't feel guilty for wanting to protect your family from an evil man."

"BUT I DON'T" Bendy shouted, shoving away from Henry. "I DON'T FEEL GUILTY! HE NEEDED TO DIE AND I WOULD DO IT AGAIN IF I HAD TO! THAT'S WHY I'M A MONSTER!"

"Bendy, it's alright," Henry tried to soothe the poor toon. This situation had no easy answers, but he was going to find a way to comfort Bendy. "You just want to keep us safe. Doing what you have to defend yourself and others doesn't make you a monster. You've worked so hard to embrace your darker tendencies and turn them into something good. Don't let fear and this incident make you lose sight of how far you've come."

"Oh I've embraced them alright," Bendy said quietly and coldly, sending an instinctual shiver down Henry's spine. Bendy's form began to grow, the last traces of golden ink disappearing as he transformed. The form wasn't that of the Ink Devil Henry had become familiar with or even the old Ink Demon, this was something new.

This new form was a deep black that seemed to absorbed the warmth and light from around it, only the barest gleam to show it was still ink and not pure darkness. It was taller than Bendy's previous forms, towering over Henry easily. It was more skeletal looking with long sharp claw-like hands and feet. The wings seemed to have a solid ink structure that faded into whispy shadows. Its tail swayed behind it, it's spaded end far sharper and deadly looking. The only white within this form of darkness was the sharp-toothed smile, stretching far wider across its head than anything even remotely human or toon. While Henry had known for a while Bendy was capable of consuming souls and always felt on some level like a predictor, this new form left no doubt that the demon was not only capable but willing to kill for your soul. Henry couldn't help but take a few fearful steps back, feeling like he was staring into the face of the Grimm Reaper, seeing death itself come to claim him.

"Consuming a soul comes with a price," Bendy continued. "As you can see, I'm truly a demon now."

Something in Bendy's voice nagged at Henry and he forced himself to push back the fear. He took a deep breath and forced himself to really look at Bendy, pushing past the terrifying first impression. It only took Henry a moment to see that Bendy was trembling, not from anger but fear and despair. He could see in the way Bendy's wings were half curled and his tail twitched that the toon was barely holding himself back from curling up into a ball and sobbing. Henry's primal instincts might say that a dangerous monster was in front of him, but his parental instincts were far stronger and they were letting him know that his son was scared and needed comfort.

With that revelation, the last of his fear melted away and Henry confidently walked forward, and placed his hands on the sides of Bendy's head, gently stroking him with his thumbs. Bendy froze for a moment at the contact, before leaning into the comforting touch.

"We should have known eating a soul would have some effect on you," Henry murmured. "Not only on the emotional level but the physical as well. I know you're scared by what this could mean and if it's a sign that you're truly a monster, but you aren't. You're still the same toon I loved since the moment I first sketched you on a page. You've grown a lot since them, but it has changed who you are deep down. This is just a new form and well figure out what it and any new abilities can do. We'll help you figure it out, Bendy. Together just like we always promise each other."

Bendy began to sob at Henry's loving words, his form shrinking until he was once more a toon, curled up in Henry's arms.

"I hate him so much!" Bendy sobbed, clinging onto Henry. "He made me this way! Made me a monster rather than a toon! I killed him, but I don't feel guilty. Why can't I feel guilty?"

"It'll be alright," Henry whispered, rocking the distraught toon. They had a long way to go before Bendy would be able to accept what he did and all the consequences that came with it, but Henry was going to be there every step of the way and he knew the others felt the same. There were no easy answers for situations like this but life is rarely ever easy. They would just have to work through this like every obstinate they've faced so far. They'll figure out Bendy's new form and what it meant.

But for now, Henry was content to keep whispering comforts to his upset toon as Bendy cried in his arms, knowing someday they'll be okay.

#batim #bendy and the ink machine #ITT au #bendy #henry stein #post pulled apart

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darkpoisonouslove · 5 years ago

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@supersonichero1 asked:

Regarding season 6 and the trix power up do you believe it was out of no where? I have two theories one is that as the ancestral witches direct ancestors they are finally starting to tap into the further capabilities and strength that being related blood wise to the three most powerful witches. My second theory revolves around bloom and the dragon flame. Since the trix took it in the first season I believe that remnants of it still burn within the trix because the series constantly screams at us that the dragon flame can't be extinguished so while they don't have nearly as much as bloom does their portions are still equally or slightly less powerful than blooms and would only cease to exist within them if bloom herself reabsorbed it or extinguished it like she did with valtor.

I do believe that the power-up looked out of nowhere because that was how the show framed it. Or rather, the lack of any framing and lead up to it implies that it was something that the writers just pulled out of nowhere because they needed the Trix to become stronger in order to oppose the Winx who will now get yet another transformation that’s going to be more powerful. There was absolutely no transition between the Trix attacking Domino with the Beast of the Depths while still in their Sirenix in 6x01 and them showing up at Cloud Tower back in their normal outfits and taking over the school. I feel like there was supposed to be another episode between 6x01 and 6x02 that would set up better both Daphne’s decision to go teach at Alfea (which is somehow contradicted on level motivation and goals later when she is crowned as Crown Princess of Domino because I don’t think she can be both a teacher and rule a kingdom) and the Trix’ new powers and new plan. However, I suspect that some of the other ideas ran away from them and they had to cut those parts both for the purpose on maintaining the episodes as 26 and because that would push the introduction of the Legendarium back with one more episode and that is the main plot point of season 6. So in the end we got a choppy, practically non-existent transition between the true end of season 5 (aka the consequences of it) and the new plot for season 6 as well as the new plan that the Trix devised.

As for your theories, I like them on account of them explaining what the show didn’t bother to but I can’t fit them on the time line. If the Trix are using their ancestry and the fact that they have the blood of the Coven flowing in them, why only now? Of course, there is the matter of them sticking with Darkar because he freed them and then with Valtor because they escaped Omega together. And the same logic also applied to Tritannus. But I still feel like there is something missing here. They didn’t have the time to get so powerful all of a sudden. Of course, no one tells you how much time has passed between 6x01 and 6x02 but the Trix looked like they’d abandoned their own development and relied on the power-ups they got from the villains. Of course, they had their dark Sirenix still and that could have helped them elevate their powers to a higher level but it’s weird to me that they suddenly come with a whole new power that they allegedly got on their own (we have no idea what happened during the time that was skipped between 6x01 and 6x02) after they got used to receiving all their boosts from whoever they’re teaming up with. Literally the last time they did anything on their own was back in season 1. I think that they would need more time to get in touch with their previous determination for development and the process itself would take more. Also, there is the matter of what they lived through in Magical Adventure. They got possessed by the Ancestral Witches and I can see things going either way from there - them either being reluctant to tap into the fact that they are descendants of the Witches or that only motivating them more to do it so that they could get stronger.

The Dragon Fire thing seems even more unlikely to me. It has never come up after season 1. And even if they have something left it is definitely super, super little in quantity compared to what Bloom has and probably even dormant. If they had anything that was nearly as powerful as hers, she should have been able to sense them like she was doing with Valtor at the time (back in season 1 she couldn’t sense them because she was out of touch with her own Fire before 1x25). Besides, you are right that the Dragon Fire can’t be extinguished but there is the matter of willingness here. Magic is emotion and the Dragon Fire is a special kind of magic and appears to have some sort of sentience. In 1x10 (I think) when they thought they’d gotten it in the Magic Reality Chamber, it turned out that the Flame had somehow escaped them. So I think the Dragon Fire itself left them when they got defeated because they were knocked out. While they were all unconscious, it could have freed itself from their hold on it that was keeping them in them after they stole it from Bloom. I don’t think they have any of it left.

What I could offer as potential explanation for this power-up is that the Trix got sick of depending on someone else for powers (especially after the whole fiasco with Tritannus (and Politea if you count the third movie)). In fact, when you get back to look at their partnerships, they always get betrayed in the end and don’t receive the power they were promised. It happened every single time. So I think they got fed up with that and decided to go it on their own this time but took a page out of the villains’ book. I believe they might have stolen some magic the way Valtor was doing in season 3 and they could have found a way to imbue themselves with their respective element the way Tritannus was doing in season 5 as he absorbed pollution. They could have done that and, combined with any magic they could have stolen, it could explain their new boost. That has only one minor issue in that if they were stealing magic, how did Winx not catch wind of that? Seems kinda unlikely that they wouldn’t learn but then again, the whole show is full of inconsistencies and that could be explained with the fact that there was a lot of stuff left to fix after Tritannus was captured. Daphne was brought back to life so Bloom definitely had a lot going on with that and the rest also had stuff to take care of on their home planets so it could make sense that they weren’t on the battle front the whole time and some suspicious but ambiguous thefts of magic could have slipped through the cracks. I still think that there should have been an episode that showed all of those things, however. We were robbed of seeing the Trix learning to finally do things on their own and coming up with a new plan (which I am still unclear on even after 1/3 of season 6. Take over the magical colleges and then what? But anyway).

#winx club #trix #winx icy #winx darcy #winx stormy #winx bloom #winx daphne #ask #supersonichero1 #ancestral witches #winx tritannus #meta #winx club meta #winx meta

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anistarrose · 5 years ago

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Fear The Reaper A Lot, Actually - Chapter 3

AO3

Chapter Summary: The battle continues! Kravitz arrives to help. Taako chills out. Angus remains skeptical.

Characters: Kravitz, Taako, Barry Bluejeans, Angus McDonald, Magnus Burnsides, Merle Highchurch, Noelle | No-3113, The Raven Queen, The Director | Lucretia, misc. BoB cameos

Relationships: Taakitz, Angus McDonald & Taako, Barry Bluejeans & Kravitz

***

The cloaked necromancers Chad and Dave stood beside their fallen comrade, seething with rage. Green tendrils of electricity flew off their staff, materializing into twisting vines that pulverized almost every stone surface in a twenty-foot radius.

Behind them, Magnus coughed up water and struggled into a sitting position. He was still loosely bound by moss, but managed to swat the attacking vines away from Merle, who was looking even worse for wear on account of residing almost directly beneath the epicenter of Taako’s stalactite-shattering stunt.

“Don’t worry,” Merle mumbled, fumbling with a waterlogged Extreme Teen Bible. “I know how to deal with plants —”

His holy symbol began to glow, only for that radiant light to fade almost immediately as Merle’s head slumped. “Never mind, I think I’m concussed.”

From his position on the ledge between Angus and Kravitz, Taako watched with increasing concern.

“I really fucking didn’t think through the collateral damage of that move, did I?” he muttered. “Hey, Kravitz? If you’ve developed any grudging respect for me at all over the forty-eight hours we’ve been playing this game of cat and mouse, then can you do me a solid and get those two out of danger?”

Kravitz eyed the pile of rubble in the center of the cave, where the pool had once been. “Technically, I’ve been hunting you for more like twelve years. But I think I can figure something out.”

Before Taako could even react to the first statement, Kravitz turned into a ball of light and zipped down to the ground floor. Dave took a swing at him with the staff, but Kravitz was too fast, dodging green lighting bolts and disappearing into the shattered remnants of the stalactite.

There was an anticlimactic pause, then a low rumble, and a stone construct began to assemble itself as rubble from across the cave flew together to form four massive arms and fists. A few of the surviving slime constructs charged him, but Kravitz effortlessly flicked boulders through their heads with his lower pair of arms, then scooped up Magnus and Merle with his upper pair.

“What are you even doing with that staff? Either stop him, or hand it over to me!” Chad wrestled the staff out of Dave’s hands and pointed it at the base of the construct’s torso, summoning more vines and wiry tree roots that bored into the stone. But before they could bind or shatter any vital foundations, Taako took his cue to rejoin the fight, dropping a Fireball on the necromancers from directly above before casually floating down to their level, Umbra Staff still wreathed in flames.

Taking advantage of the distraction, Kravitz scanned the cave for ledges out of the way of danger, but Angus still occupied the only safe spot he could see. Instead, he drew upon his link to the Astral Plane and concentrated — and as the cracks in the construct’s form began to glow blue, several sapphire crystals burst out of the wall of the cave to form an elevated platform. He set Magnus and Merle down atop it, then brushed the last scraps of moss off their bodies with surprisingly dextrous stone fingers.

“Unhand me, you undead — oh, never mind, that’s actually really helpful,” Magnus told him. “But do you think you could get me my axe back?”

The construct’s head turned, as a movement on the ground floor caught Kravitz’s attention. Scattered pieces of moss were slowly creeping back together, reabsorbing diluted puddles of slime and writhing as they formed new undead constructs.

“Maybe later,” Kravitz answered, voice echoing across the cave. “Right now, I’ve got other priorities.”

From his bird’s-eye-view, Angus noticed the reforming slimes at the same time Kravitz did. “Taako, behind you!”

Taako had been handling the two surviving necromancers with ease, but he barely reacted in time to dodge a spray of acid from one of their newly formed minions. This one was taller and more deformed than any of the others, and its three arms wielded gelatinous copies of the Extreme Teen Bible, Railsplitter, and the Umbra Staff. Its face was perpetually bubbling and reforming, sprouting Magnus’s sideburns before replacing them with Merle’s beard, then Taako’s hat.

“Ugh!” Taako spat, recoiling. “I know you’re necromancers, but I didn’t sign up for this horror movie shit!”

“Try freezing it, sir!” Angus yelled, cupping both hands around his mouth. “Your Sleet Storm took out a lot of the vines last time!”

Taako fired off a simple Ray of Frost, catching the slime abomination in the shoulder and freezing its whole body solid in just a fraction of a second. Its face solidified somewhere between Merle’s and Taako’s, locked in a shouting expression — but thankfully, Taako didn’t have to stare at his fused likeliness for much longer, as Kravitz’s construct detached and launched one of its fists with a burst of blue astral fire, pulverizing the frozen construct into a thousand clouded ice crystals.

“Nice shot!” Taako called out. “But fuck, I wish we’d realized their weakness sooner!”

“Damn you, and damn your reaper friend a thousand times!” Dave bellowed. “But you haven’t won yet! Fuck ‘em up, Chad!”

Chad slammed the tip of the staff against the ground, and a dozen more vines arose to bind the stone behemoth. Kravitz let it crumble, turning back into a ball of light and zipping over to Taako’s side, where he rematerialized as a humanoid skeleton who gripped his scythe as three new, equally deformed slime clones rose and advanced towards them.

“If you freeze those three, I bet I can shatter them all in one attack,” Kravitz boasted, grinning at Taako.

“Create another sapphire at about torso height in the wall on our left, and I bet I can freeze ‘em all with just one ray!” Taako raised him.

“You’re on!” Kravitz plunged his scythe into the ground, and a sapphire crystal burst out from a wall of dull gray limestone. Nodding approvingly, Taako fired off another Ray of Frost, which ricocheted off the reflective blue surface at the perfect angle and flew in a straight line through all the clones, leaving each of them frozen.

Kravitz twirled his scythe and it morphed into a elegant black longbow, three sapphire-tipped arrows already nocked and blazing with ghostly flames. He turned his bow sideways as he fired, and each arrow pierced one frozen enemy, shattering them into three identical piles of icy shards.

“Ohoho! Nice one!” Taako laughed, applauding enthusiastically. “Look out for those clowns with the staff, though!”

Chad screamed and charged at Kravitz, wielding the intensely magical staff like a melee weapon — but Kravitz simply plucked the string of his bow, and upon hearing the tone, Chad dropped the staff and slammed his hands over his ears. In one lightning-fast motion that literally crackled with electricity, Kravitz reverted his bow to its scythe form and swung at Chad, who was vaporized the second the blade pierced his skin. A mottled brown cloak fell to the ground, sliced in half but no longer occupied by anything but dust.

“Could you do me a favor and freeze the rest of that moss, Taako?” Kravitz called out. “I’ll wrap up this battle on my own, if you don’t mind.”

“Go for it!” Taako told him, conjuring a floating bag of popcorn.

Kravitz vaulted into the air, tearing a rift through the fabric of the Material Plane with a twirl of his scythe. He vanished and reappeared behind Dave’s back, but Dave was ready for him, pulling out a longsword as he whirled around and parried Kravitz’s attack.

“Ah, you’re one of those people,” Kravitz commented, looking about as unperturbed as a skeleton could. “Got into necromancy later in life after the fighter class didn’t work out for you, eh?”

Dave managed to deflect Kravitz’s next flurry of strikes, but found himself losing ground as Kravitz backed him towards the wall below Magnus and Merle’s perch.

“Though it looks like you’re a little out of practice,” Kravitz went on. “Don’t worry — I’m sure you’ll find some new sparring partners in the Eternal Stockade.”

Gasping for breath and only a few more steps away from being cornered, Dave threw back his hood to reveal a rugged half-elven face, and managed a dazzling smile.

“You don’t have anywhere left to retreat,” Kravitz remarked amusedly. “Why the optimism?”

“Because I know something you don’t, reaper!”

“Which is?”

Dave tossed his cutlass from his left hand to his right. “I am not left handed!”

Kravitz laughed so hard that his appearance flickered between living and skeletal, even sprouting raven feathers in his hair for a brief moment. “Really? That’s all?”

Dave’s expression crumpled. “What do you mean?”

With each hand, Kravitz pulled his scythe in opposite directions, and it morphed into two new scythes, each blade as sharp and deadly as the original. “I thought you were going to say you had two swords!”

Shoveling popcorn into his face with one hand, Taako pointed his Umbra Staff behind him and blasted a reforming moss monster without even looking at it. “You tell ‘em, Krav!”

Dave tried to feint to the right then flee to the left, but Kravitz transformed into a dual-wielding whirlwind, twirling blades into a vortex that could’ve torn through solid stone. But every one of his movements was too precise, too carefully honed, to possibly strike an unintended target like a wall or misplaced boulder — one moment, Dave’s longsword was flying out of his hand, and the next, Dave himself was no more, vaporized into a cloud of dust that quickly dispersed and a bright soul-light that was banished directly to the Eternal Stockade.

A wand carved from gnarled wood fell to the ground, and as usual, the Umbra Staff inverted to slurp it up. For just a moment afterwards, Taako could’ve sworn that it tugged his hand ever so subtly upwards and pointed at Kravitz — but the second Kravitz turned around, the tugging stopped, and the residual magic aura surrounding the umbrella faded.

“Well, I suppose we should do something about that necromantic staff.” Kravitz transformed back into a human and walked over to the offending magical artifact, manifesting a black leather glove around his hand as he picked it up. “It’s not quite Grand Relic-tier dangerous, but that doesn’t mean it’s safe to leave lying around, either.”

He tore a new rift with his scythe and tossed the staff through. “And just when I was making headway on all that Miller paperwork…”

“Hey, if you need help, I bet you could outsource some of it to Angus!” Taako suggested. “You’re not kidnapping him to whatever weird afterlife cubicle you work from, though. He’s my student.”

“Angus is the child?” Kravitz glanced up to the ledge Angus still stood on, who was watching the events below with a mix of fascination and horror that could only come from a kid detective in over his head. “What were you thinking, bringing him here? He could’ve been hurt if I hadn’t arrived when I did!”

“Well, in my defense, I didn’t expect to have any potentially traumatizing battles with slime monsters,” Taako retorted. “It’s not my fault my life never has a dull moment!”

Kravitz sighed. “Neither does your undeath, apparently.”

“That’s just the way things go for celebrities. Nothing I can do about it!” Taako flipped his hair, then made a mental note to cut it now that it was getting long enough to flip. He didn’t want it turning into a mullet.

“I could name plenty of celebrities whose deaths have been relatively law-abiding, actually,” Kravitz told him, expression deadpan. “I’d say about eighty percent of them total, or maybe seventy-five.”

“I can only imagine the Astral Plane tabloids,” Taako chuckled, tossing his Umbra Staff into the air. “But anyway, let’s get you down from there, Agnes.”

The opened Umbra Staff flew into Angus’s hand, and with only slight hesitation, Angus leapt of the ledge. The handle was warm, but not hot, and something about that gentle heat just felt reassuring.

As Angus safely floated to the ground, enveloped in silver light, Kravitz made a sweeping downwards gesture with his scythe, and the sapphire crystals supporting Magnus and Merle began to rumble and slowly descend.

“Is it Angus or Agnes?” Kravitz asked the boy detective. “I think I must’ve misheard you at least once.”

“Well, it’s definitely not Agnes,” Angus replied. “Are you really the Grim Reaper?”

Kravitz chuckled. “I’ve had this job for almost eight centuries, and I don’t think anyone’s ever asked me that before. Usually the scythe’s convincing enough.”

Angus crossed his arms. “A little skepticism is always healthy, no matter how obvious the conclusion may seem. Caleb Cleveland taught me that, just like he taught me a lot of things.”

“Can’t say I’m familiar with Caleb Cleveland, but that sounds fair enough,” Kravitz cheerfully conceded. “Though maybe you should exercise a little more of that caution the next time Taako and his friends drag you along on a dangerous mission. Speaking of which, let me fix you all up.”

As Magnus and Merle reached the ground level of the cave, Kravitz’s scythe shimmered and morphed into a lute. Intricate carvings of various corvids covered almost every inch of the ebony wood, with tiny sapphires inlaid for their eyes. Magnus looked over the handiwork approvingly as Kravitz plucked out a simple melody, and an aura of rosy pink healing magic washed across the room.

Merle rubbed his forehead. “Huh, my headache just melted away…”

Taako laughed. “Yeah, that’s what healing magic usually tends to do for concussed people!”

“Has this been our problem the whole time?” Magnus added. “Has Merle just not been able to comprehend the concept of healing?”

“Did the concept of healing get erased by the Voidfish?” Taako wheezed.

“I can comprehend it just fine, assholes!” Merle retorted. “I’m just not used to seeing it as a performance!”

Kravitz returned his lute to scythe form. “Playing four chords and healing you wasn’t a performance. But Taako and I destroying those three undead? That was a performance.”

Taako beamed. “Hey, speaking of which — is there any chance killing three horrible slimy boys is equivalent to taking out one lich in the bounty system? Because I think I rocked it today, not to mention the two of us really vibing, and it would be cool if you could cut me just a little bit of slack.”

“I’m afraid none of today’s harvest had actually died and escaped the Astral Plane before, which means they still rank far below both the three of you, as well as your actual targets,” Kravitz replied. “But I could probably pull a few strings and make sure your cells in the Eternal Stockade are all next to each other, if it makes you feel compensated.”

“Does that include Lucas Miller?” Magnus asked. “I really don’t want to be stuck in a cell next to Lucas for eternity.”

Kravitz shrugged.

“Noelle and Maureen can hang, though,” Magnus clarified. “They’re cool.”

Taako ignored Magnus, walking over to Kravitz’s sapphire platform to examine it. Even after knocking on it and prodding it with his Umbra Staff, it remained solid. “I might end up regretting this question, but your sick crystal stunt reminded me and now I gotta know — if you’re this good with your scythe, then why didn’t you just take a physical form in Lucas’s lab and kill us that way instead of fucking around as a crystal construct?”

“No matter how powerful I am with it, there was always a chance of my scythe touching a crystal and being transmuted into pink tourmaline, which would’ve rendered most of its powers unusable,” Kravitz explained. “So I decided to go in incorporeally — which I may or may not regret, I haven’t decided yet.”

Taako nodded. “Yeah, I don’t think I would’ve cast that tentacle spell on, like, a dude. Not that I’m know whether you’re thinking of that as a positive or a negative —”

“You know, there’s something I really should’ve given you last time!” Kravitz deflected, transforming back into a skeleton and hoping his flustered expression would be harder to read on a skull than on a face with eyes and skin and flesh. “You need a way of summoning me!”

“You mean saying your name three times doesn’t work?” Merle asked.

“Unless I’m already scanning for undead in the general area, no.” Kravitz reached into his robe and pulled out a quiver of arrows, which he handed to Taako. “These are tipped with sapphires and fletched with raven feathers. Stabbing one into a surface of your choice while saying my name just once will release a powerful magical flare and get my attention, and I’ll warp over as soon as I can.”

Grinning, Taako slung the quiver over his shoulder. “Dude, that’s metal as fuck!”

“But please save them for genuine necromantic emergencies — either when you get a lead on one of the liches, or if another dangerous situation like the one today comes up.”

Taako’s grin faded. “So… they’re for business only.”

“I… uh… I’m sorry,” Kravitz stammered, immediately regretting the stipulation. But I can’t change my mind now, there’d be no way to explain it without just sounding awkward…

“It’s a company policy,” he fibbed. “Not my choice, unfortunately.”

Taako seemed to buy it, though he still looked disappointed. “Oh, well. Woulda been nice to hang with you, but I guess I’ll — we’ll see you later, then.”

“Good luck, Taako,” Kravitz said. “Good luck to all of you — and I mean that much more sincerely than I meant it last time.”

He tore open a portal to the Astral Plane and leapt through it with a dramatic swing of his cloak — but not before seeing Angus stick his tongue out at him, stubborn and defiant in that uniquely ten-year-old way.

Returning to his office overlooking the Astral Sea, Kravitz sighed, and addressed the raven perched on the back of his swivel chair.

“You know, I don’t think Taako’s student likes me very much.”

“Caw,” replied the raven, which almost certainly translated as either I smell popcorn or oh Kravitz, what in the world have you gotten yourself into?

#taz #taz balance #taakitz #taako taaco #kravitz taz #angus mcdonald #magnus burnsides #merle highchurch #and technically lup i guess lol #taz balance spoilers #fic: FTRALA #rosalia writes fic

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kinglazrus · 6 years ago

Text

You Can Smile

@coralyart I hope the wait was worth it, sorry again for the lateness! Here’s your Christmas Truce gift! I had a lot of fun writing it.

You Can Smile - Christmas Truce 2019

Danny's heart leapt into his throat as the floor gave way without warning. Tucker and Sam, on either side of him, shrieked in surprise. Danny didn't have the energy to cry out, at least until they hit the ground, and he landed hard on his right side, and a raging fire tore through his body so hot and fast he blacked out for a moment.

He came to on his back, Sam and Tucker hovering over him, concern filling their gazes. They were scraped and bruised, but otherwise fine. He, on the other hand, was so far from fine. His entire right side felt like it was on fire, hot embers scorching his insides.

"Walker... sucks." Danny wheezed, gently probing his side. He found the spot that hurt the most, just below his rib cage, and grimaced at the blood he felt.

"Pretty sure one of the goons got you, actually. Sorry, man," Tucker said.

"Nobody tells Skulker, I'll never live it down," Danny said.

Sam peeled up the torn edges of the jumpsuit, peering at Danny's wound. She frowned. "This is a bad one, Danny. How are you feeling?"

"A little damp, but that might just be the blood," Danny said. Sam and Tucker rolled their eyes. "Hey, wait. Actually, please tell Skulker. Maybe he'll think the ghost that wounded the great, rare halfa, would be more worth his time."

"I'll do that next time I see him," Sam said dryly. "Let me clean you up, you heal faster when I do."

Danny didn't protest. He had no idea what Walker's goon managed to hit him with, but dear god it hurt. He lay back, staring up at the ceiling as Tucker passed Sam a water bottle and a couple clean rags he kept in his pockets during their ghostly adventures.

They had fallen into a cavern. Black stone surrounded them, oddly smooth, barely a blemish in sight. The walls curved up and in, possibly into a dome, but the stone was so dark Danny couldn't tell if the ceiling rose high out of sight, shrouded in shadows, or if it was only a dozen yards above him.

Crystals jutted out from the floor. They all carried the same hexagonal shape, with a pointed top, but they varied in size. Some stood alone, others in clusters. Some were taller than Danny's dad, others wouldn't even pass Danny's ankle if he stood. They emitted soft light for him to see by, blue, pink, and purple. The light felt nice on his skin, warm where he was cold, cool where he was hot.

One of the largest crystals loomed behind Danny's head. Unlike the others, this crystal was dark, almost as black as the floor.

He reached up, flinching when his side burned anew, hissing in pain.

Inside the crystal, a light pulsed.

"Don't move," Sam told him, drawing his attention. Her hands pressed against his side, putting pressure on the wound.

At this point, it was standard procedure. Whenever Danny got an injury they couldn’t just slap a band-aid over, Sam or Tucker would help him clean it up, stop the bleeding, then let his natural healing take over. One of the perks of being a halfa, his body could take a lot more damage, and heal a lot faster. Good thing, too, or else he'd have to deal with questions he wasn't prepared to answer.

"Hey," Tucker said, drawing Danny and Sam's attention. He tilted his head back, peering up at the ceiling. "Where's the hole?"

"We only fell for a few seconds," Sam said, following Tucker's gaze. "The ceiling shouldn't be that high."

"Is it?" Tucker squinted.

"It doesn't matter," Danny said. "Give me half an hour, I'll be good to go, and I can find a way out of here."

"As long as Walker doesn't find us first," Sam muttered.

Danny closed his eyes, sighing. They got lucky, stumbling across this place. After taking the hit from Walker's goon, Danny thought they were done for. The Speeder, totalled. His strength fading by the second. Walker closing in. They took a gamble, diving into the nearest door, a mad scramble from portal to portal, gateway to gateway, their only goal to get as far from Walker as possible. And then, suddenly, they were falling.

The longer he stared up at the ceiling, the surer Danny was the hole had closed behind them. The fall had been rather short. His hip throbbed from the rough landing, amongst his other aches and pains. But they were safe. Trapped, but safe.

He scanned the walls, looking for a doorway, a tunnel, any marking at all that showed there was more to this place. He found nothing. Just smooth stone and colourful crystals.

He was about to turn away when something shifted in the corner of his eye. His focus snapped to a cluster of crystals halfway between him and the wall. Squinting hard, he sought out the source of the movement. He couldn't see anything. The longer he stared, the more everything started to blur together.

Danny blinked and rubbed his eyes, clearing his vision. It didn't help much. He felt odd. Dazed. Confused. His side still burned, but his fingers and toes were numb. He felt light-headed.

Something about this place seemed familiar, but not the normal way. Not in the way that he’d been here before. More like he had heard someone talk for hours about a place like this, going on and on for so long and in such detail that it felt like an intimate, known place he was returning to after many years of absence, his second-hand memories of it hazy and half-formed, but still strong enough to niggle at his brain.

It takes him much longer than it should have to remember.

"Ghost graveyard," Danny said.

Tucker and Sam stilled, their eyes snapping down to him.

"What?" Tucker asked.

"It's a ghost graveyard," Danny repeated.

Tucker raised an eyebrow and looked around, the soft lights glinting off his glasses. "But ghosts are already dead."

"Tucker! Don't be insensitive!" Sam berated him, her words accompanied by a sharp glare. Until confusion flickered across her face and she frowned. "But you've got a point. How can ghosts have a graveyard?"

"Clockwork told me," Danny started, laying his head back. "Sometimes, ghosts fade. For a lot of reasons. Their dead ectoplasm... or, um, double dead? Just. Yeah, dead. Their dead ectoplasm can't be reabsorbed by the Ghost Zone, except in stuff like this."

Danny pointed to the crystal behind him. A small green light shone inside it, one that wasn’t there before.

"That's... cool. I guess," Tucker said, looking wary. "There can't be ghosts of ghosts, right?"

"Very cool," Danny murmured, entranced by the light. It was beautiful, and daunting. Like Sam at her most macabre, wearing her darkest clothes, her sharpest makeup, her soft shadow eating up all the harsh light in the world. Danny loved it when she looked like that.

Or like Tucker, any time he went on a techno rampage, hacking away at firewalls and online defenses with a devilish grin, the blue computer light washing over his face in a sulfuric glow.

Danny smiled, thinking of those moments, when his girlfriend and boyfriend looked ready to take on the world. Call him sappy, but he just loved something about someone who would burn the world for you. He'd do the same for them.

The pressure on his side alleviated. Sam's breath hitched. Danny lifted his head, looking up at her. Her hands were soaked in blood.

"It's not stopping," she said.

Tucker paled, his shadow falling over Danny as he leaned over to inspect the wound. He reached out, maybe to touch Danny's side, or peel back the bloody jumpsuit, or maybe grab Sam's hand and comfort her. Danny would never find out which one, because Tucker's hand stilled the moment Danny was seized by a harsh coughing fit.

Brutal, hacking coughs ripped through his body, a jagged knife driven deep into his wounds, twisted sharply. They tore at his dry throat, Danny's head thumping back against the ground. He raised a hand to cup his mouth, but aborted the movement halfway, instead clutching his side.

Shit. Everything hurt.

When the coughing stopped, Danny groaned, a hoarse wheeze. His lips felt wet. Licking them, he tasted blood. A few speckles stained Tucker's glasses, who had shuffled up to Danny's shoulder, his hand under Danny's head to keep it off the hard ground.

Huh. When did that happen?

"Oh," Danny said. It came out as a croak rather than the breathy sigh he meant it to be. It hurt. Breathing hurt. Thinking hurt. "Sam, I think my lungs are bleeding. Ow."

"No, they aren't," she said, her voice wavering. She tore off her backpack, tossing it to Tucker. She didn't even look up to see if he caught it, pressing her hands against Danny's side once more. "You've had worse than this. We'll just... we'll patch you up, and you'll be fine. Tucker–"

"I know," Tucker said, upending Sam's backpack and shaking it until a red canvas bag fell out. He snatched up the bag and tore it open, gauze pads, medical tape, and disinfectant spray bursting out, scattering across the floor.

"Okay," Danny said tonelessly. It wasn't that Danny didn't believe her. Somehow, he knew she was right. He would be fine. But a little itch in the back of his head told him they had two very different versions of fine.

He didn't watch Sam and Tucker work, a practiced routine of Tucker handing Sam what she needed, when she needed it, while Danny tried not to move too much. He went back to observing the cave. There were only so many times he could look it over—admittedly, once was more than enough—but he had nothing else to do. He was hurt. He was tired. He was so damn bored.

His head flopped to the side. Two little pink eyes stared at him from amidst the crystals. Danny froze. The eyes—ghost—blinked. He blinked back. Neither moved.

The impromptu staring contest broke when Sam dabbed a wad of gauze soaked in disinfectant against Danny's side. He hissed, jerking away from her hand, squeezing his eyes shut. When he opened them, it was to the sight of Tucker's cargo pants, inches from his nose.

Shuffling over, he pressed his cheek against Tucker's leg, his laboured breaths filling the cavern. A moment later, he felt Tucker's fingers running through his hair and leaned into the touch, closing his eyes again. Tucker's hand slipped under Danny's head and raised it up. The sound of scraping and shuffling echoed for a second, and then Tucker lowered Danny's head onto his lap.

If Danny were a little less hurt, a little more lucid, he might have been embarrassed about what he did next, snuggling against Tucker's legs.

"S-sorry about your glasses," Danny said, thinking of the flecks of blood that still dotted the lenses.

"Shut up, don't be stupid," Tucker said.

"I'm not stupid, you're stu—art."

Tucker snorted, his hands stilling. Danny whined and he resumed petting. "I'm Stuart?"

Danny groaned. "No. You're not stupid. You're smart. Stupid smart."

"He's something," Sam said. She tried to smile, but her voice was strained.

Tucker rolled his eyes. "As if you don't love me."

Sam stuck out her tongue.

Danny chuckled, but quickly broke off into another round of coughs. This time, he managed to cover his mouth, preventing more of his blood from splattering against Tucker.

"Sorry," he mumbled between coughs. Tucker didn't respond, but Danny felt his fingers tense, the petting pausing for a moment, before it resumed. Danny ducked his head, nuzzling Tucker's knee, and wiping his hand on the front of his jumpsuit once the coughing stopped.

All he wanted to do was curl up and go to sleep. Tucker's hand running through his hair definitely didn't help. The steady rhythm was so relaxing. He didn't even notice Sam stopped working until she touched his shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze.

"Sorry, Danny. Can you roll onto your side?" she asked.

He groaned, prompting another soft apology from Sam, and complied, holding his weight on his elbow and knees, raising his hips off the floor so she could loop the bandages around his waist. Once, twice, three times, holding the gauze pads in place.

Danny's toes curled and he clenched his fists, gritting his teeth as Sam yanked on the bandages, make sure they were tight. Something warm and fuzzy—not soft, but like TV static—brushed against his fingers. Danny gasped, his eyes flying open, and zeroed in on the small, glowing form wriggling its way between his fingers, forcing his fist open.

Small, round, no bigger than a baseball, a pale blue ghost with bright pink eyes flopped onto his palm.

"Hola!" the ghost chirped.

"Son of a–!" Tucker jerked at the sudden noise, nearly dislodging Danny as he twisted around, searching for the source.

The ghost tittered.

"Holy shit that scared me," he said.

"Really? I didn't notice," Sam drawled. She tapped Danny's shoulder, signalling she was done.

Danny, panting from that little effort, slumped. He probed the bandage, picking at the edges with his nails. When he pressed down, he could feel the dampness of the blood. Moving carefully, he draped his arm over the bandage, hoping Sam and Tucker wouldn't notice.

"So, uh. Who's this little guy?" Tucker asked.

"Me llamo Luz!"

"What?"

"Oh my god. Tucker, I know you failed Spanish, but how can't you know what that means?" Sam rolled her eyes, reaching over Danny to dig her knuckles into Tucker's shoulder.

"We don't have Spanish class! You don't know Spanish!"

"But I know what that means."

"So, what if–"

"Her name is Luz," Danny interrupted. He didn't feel like listening to Sam and Tucker argue, not right now. He was sleepy, and exhausted, and he just wanted this to be over with, one way or another. He closed his eyes with a sigh.

"Wait, no, dude, don't." Panic filled Tucker's voice. "Don't fall asleep, that's bad."

But it felt nice.

"Stay awake."

He didn't want to.

"Tell us more about the graveyard," Sam said. She squeezed Danny's shoulder again, jostling him a little. She didn't stop until Danny slowly, reluctantly, opened his eyes. Everything was blurry, Sam and her dark attire melting into the black stone around them, Tucker's bright colours blending with the crystals.

"Apparently, ghosts sort of just find their way here when they start to fade? At least that's what Clockwork told me," Danny said. He couldn't remember most of that conversation. Whether that was because he didn't pay attention, or he just didn't have the energy to recall, he wasn't sure. Maybe both. He didn't pay attention to a lot of stuff.

He was kind of regretting that now.

"Sometimes they don't even realize it. But I think there's supposed to be a guardian or something?" Danny's thumb strokes Luz's back, making her purr. "They keep intruders out. This place is kind of sacred, so..."

Tucker chuckled. "I guess they aren't doing that good a job since we're here."

"Guess not." Danny held Luz close, staring into those button eyes. They looked a little vast for something so small. It was freaking him out a little. But at the same time, Luz's eyes held nothing but warmth.

"Clockwork didn't happen to mention how someone who gets stuck here can get out, did he?" Sam asked. She crawled forward, sitting beside Tucker at Danny's head, and took over ruffling Danny's hair. "I don't really want to wait for some dying ghost to come here so the door can open back up."

"I'm sorry," Danny said, ducking his head.

"It's okay if you can't remember," Sam assured him.

That wasn't what he apologized for, but he didn't bother correcting her.

Tucker watched the crystal behind slowly grow brighter. He didn’t notice at first, more concerned with Danny and their situation, but worrying so much got exhausting and tedious after so long.

Although, he had no idea how much time had passed. It was impossible to tell, but it felt like hours. Tucker's PDA was long dead. The Ghost Zone always drained the battery faster, and the clock never worked right in here anyway. All the ectoplasm and the weird twistiness of time and space inside the ghostly realm.

All he knew was that, at some point, the crystal behind them changed from black to pale green, the glow spreading from deep within.

Tucker ran his thumb back and forth across Danny's knuckles, who still lay curled on his uninjured side. Danny had taken to softly muttering in Spanish, having a quiet conversation with Luz. Tucker wished he knew what they were saying, but, ultimately, it didn't matter. As long as Danny was talking, he was awake. As long as he was awake, he was alive.

Tucker tried not to look at Danny's injury. Every time he did, he couldn't help but feel dread, like poison, seep through him. His stupid, idiot, well-meaning but very much the self-sacrificing jerk of a boyfriend was trying to hide it under the crook of his elbow, but Tucker could see.

The bandages were tinged pink. Soon enough, they'd be red. After that... Tucker didn't want to think about it.

Danny's muttering was the only thing putting Tucker at ease. Whenever Danny stopped, waiting for Luz to respond, Tucker's breath caught in his throat. Danny had a bad habit of holding himself perfectly still when he wasn't doing anything, looking almost like a statue. Sometimes, it was unnerving. Right now?

Right now, it made Tucker think that each time Danny stopped talking, he'd never talk again. He hated it. He hated this place. He hated Walker, and his goons, and that stupid, lucky shot, and Danny's frustrating inability to dodge at crucial moments.

Tucker shook his head. He wasn't mad at Danny. He just wanted Danny to be okay.

Sam was curled up against Tucker's side, holding Danny's free hand, her head on Tucker's shoulder. He glanced at her every once in a while, checking to see if she had fallen asleep. She hadn't. Although her eyes were closed, tension furrowed her brow and pinched her lips, her breathing uneven.

He tucked a strand of hair, slowly falling down her cheek, back behind her ear.

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Tucker thought this was nice. His girlfriend cuddled against him, his boyfriend's head in his lap. He laughed softly, careful not to disturb either of them. The day they started dating stood fresh in his mind.

Danny asked Tucker and Sam out separately, to the same date, without telling either one about the other. When Tucker got to the movie theatre and saw Sam there, his heart nearly broke. He thought, for a moment, that he had misunderstood Danny's intentions. That Danny didn't feel the same way Tucker did.

When he noticed them holding hands, he nearly shattered into pieces. But then Danny saw him, beamed as brightly as the stars he loved to rave about, and held out his other hand for Tucker to take.

"Jazz told me to be spontaneous. So, uh... I kind of love you both and would you like to go out with me? Us? The three of us I mean. Together. Dating," Danny had said, his face burning red, gaze nervously darting from Sam to Tucker and back again.

As it turned out, Danny wasn't quite the clueless dweeb everyone thought he was. He just couldn't decide which best friend he wanted to date. So, he decided to date both of them.

Tucker was nervous at first. Scared he might ruin things. He wasn't sure he could love Sam the same way he loved Danny. He had always liked her, but love?

Sam suddenly wrinkled her nose, snuggled further against Tucker's side, tucking her arms between them and sighing softly. Tucker smiled. Yeah, he loved her, and Danny. They were everything to him.

"What time is it?" Sam asked, cracking one eye open.

Tucker shook his head. "No idea. PDA's dead. But probably late enough our parents are wondering where we are."

"Are you kidding? My mom probably doesn't even know I'm gone. I bet Danny's parents think we're sleeping over at your place. And your parents..." Sam trailed off. "Yeah, okay. Your parents would notice."

She paused, taking a deep breath. "We'll be okay."

Tucker nodded. "We'll be okay."

"You'll be okay," Danny said.

Tucker paused, frowning. He opened his mouth, then closed it, then opened it again. "What?"

"It's going to be okay," Danny said, turning slightly to look up at them.

Tucker didn't miss the careful wording, but decided not to comment on it. If he did... It was like thinking some great, big horror was lurking behind a closed door. And as long as Tucker didn't open the door, he could pretend there was nothing behind it at all.

He didn't want to open the door.

"Let me check if the bleeding's stopped," Sam said, pulling away from Tucker's. He immediately missed her warmth.

On her knees, one hand out to catch herself should she fall, fingertips brushing the hard stone, Sam leaned over Danny, brushing his arm aside. Her hair fell over her shoulder as she inched forward, blocking Tucker's view.

Apparently, he didn't need to see it. He could hear the wetness of the bandages as Sam peeled them back. The noise, not quite a squelch, but almost like a tearing sound, echoed throughout the cavern.

Tucker worriedly gnawed his lip. He shifted to the side, so he could see Danny's face better. His eyes looked glazed, his breathing short and ragged, sweat dotting his forehead. Blood speckled his lips. He looked faint, and gray, like all the colour was slowly seeping out of him.

His lips barely moved as he spoke, Luz sitting in his cupped hand, raised to his face. Tucker squinted. He could have sworn Luz was a lighter blue before, like ice. Now she was the colour of a cloudless sky.

"Sam?" Tucker looked up, desperate for some good news.

Sam shook her head.

"Hey, guys," Danny said. His voice was so weak, barely more than a whisper. Tucker wondered if it hurt too much to talk any louder. "Luz gave me some good news."

He laughed, weakly, breaking off into a groan and a grimace, one hand drifting to his wound.

Luz squeaked, a string of rapid, concerned words spilling from her mouth. Danny tapped Luz on the head and whispered something back. Tucker only recognized one word, "bien," which meant “okay.”

He didn't think this was okay.

"She told me something cool about this place," Danny continued, switching back to English. He jerked his head, motioning to the ceiling. "Apparently, ghosts are super private about fading, so the guardian closes the cavern to give them privacy. They're apparently super into keeping the ghost happy as they fade, go figure."

Nobody laughed.

"But the door's gonna open pretty soon, and Luz can fly out and get some help."

Relief washed over Tucker. They were getting out. Luz could find Frostbite, or Clockwork, or any semi-friendly ghost that didn't always want to capture, kill, or maim Danny, and they could get him some real help.

He'd need a hospital, probably. There would be questions, and maybe a threat to Danny's secret, but that didn't matter at the moment. The only thing that mattered was Danny would be fine.

Tucker turned to Sam, beaming. His smile froze when he saw her frightened expression. "Sam?"

Her gaze, hard, but tear-filled, didn't waver. She asked, "Why. Why will the door open?"

Of course, Sam asked the important questions, she always did. Fierce, headstrong, and smart. Danny expected nothing less of her. And Tucker. Tucker was the hopeful one, the optimist. He saw the bright side in everything and never gave up. Those were the reasons Danny fell in love with them in the first place.

Danny could have told them what Luz told him, about how not all ghosts faded alone. How sometimes, the guardian made exceptions, let others be there for them, so they wouldn't pass surrounded only by soft light and solitude.

He could have told them. Maybe he should have. He didn't.

Instead, Danny reached out, taking Tucker and Sam's hands, and gave them a reassuring squeeze. He didn't say anything, just smiled. He couldn't give them the reassurances they needed. Nor could he bring himself to tell the truth. But he could smile. He could at least do that.

#SORRY AGAIN THAT IT'S SO LATE #It was sooooo much fun to write #I've been wanting to write some everlasting trio for a while so this was the perfect chance #shout out to ghostly for giving it a quick read through to make sure it was good to go #christmas truce #lazwrites #unlucky alis #phicc #angst

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