#it was from long enough ago that I don't even remember if I'd intended the filename to be a joke

[tirkdi]

next time I'm asked to tell someone a little bit about myself, I'm going to explain how when I was organizing my computer I found a file labeled “etl pipeline" on my desktop, which confused me – what might I have written about a data pipeline and titled so unhelpfully?? turns out I had used etl as an abbreviation for “enemies to lovers,” not “extract, transform, and load”

[azrielbrainrot]

Darling, I'd Wait for You, Even If You Didn't Ask Me To

Pairing: Band!member!Azriel x College!Student!Reader

Description: You have a really bad day and Azriel is there to help you through it.

Warnings: A little angst

Word Count: 4328

Notes: I don't know how I feel about this one but this is an important moment in their relationship. Hope you enjoy!

Band AU masterlist

It feels like you are running on autopilot as you climb the steps to Azriel's apartment floor, not even waiting for the elevator. The only thing your body seems to be concerned with is delivering you to your destination before it gives out, whatever it takes. You and Azriel got really close ever since you met him almost two months ago, still, this might be too much to drop on him. You're not even sure why you decided to come to him instead of Viviane but it had been your first thought, your only thought in fact.

Your mind only starts catching up to you after you knock on his door too hard with your cold hands, the pain giving you a moment of clarity long enough to realize the voice you hear behind the door isn't Azriel's but his roommate's. This makes you take notice of yourself. You must look like a trainwreck with your tear streaked face and damp clothes from the rain, holding onto your duffel bag like it's your last lifeline.

However, you don't have time to try to make yourself more presentable before Cassian opens the door. The smile that seems to always be glued to his face drops as soon as he takes you in, saying your name in question. You're not sure if it's because of the emotional overload you're going through or if it's just surprise and embarrassment at being caught like this, but you just stare at him, unable to move your body or form any words in response.

He's quick to pull you into the apartment, closing the door behind you. Cassian is a lovely guy but the truth is you don't know him that well, only met him a couple of times, you feel guilty that he had to see you like this. When you decided to come here you didn't remember he and Azriel lived together, didn't even think of the possibility of running into anyone besides him. It might have not even been a conscious decision, your heart felt like it was shattering into a million pieces and by the time your mind thought of going to Azriel, your body seemed to already be taking you his way.

“Are you okay?” He grabs your shoulders and looks you up and down, making sure you're not physically injured. You can't be sure but you're positive you didn't do anything besides look at him wide eyed.

He takes the heavy duffel bag off your shoulder and it's only then your arm feels the effort it took to carry it for the entire way, it was surely going to be sore the next day. You vaguely hear him call Azriel's name but it only registers when you see him come out of his bedroom, looking scared and confused.

As if your previous impression hadn't been bad enough, you run to him and wrap your arms around his waist as soon as you see him, burying your face in his chest and letting your tears finally fall freely. He's frozen for a second, not sure of what is happening, but he wraps his arms around you promptly. Unfortunately, this only makes you sob and shake harder into him.

Azriel was having a hard time trying to figure out what to do, it isn't every day that his friends run to him in tears, holding onto him like their life depends on it. He hasn't known you for that long either, doesn't really know how to best console you so he decides it's best to let you cry it out before trying to talk to you and it seems like you intend to do it into his shirt.

Your sobs were getting louder and you were shaking so much with each one that he's convinced your body wouldn't be able to keep you upright if it wasn't for him. Nodding at a wide eyed Cassian, he pretty much picks you up off the floor and takes you to the privacy of his room. Sitting down on the bed with you on his lap and just stroking your head, hoping it helps you at least a little.

After what must have been close to an hour, you start coming to little by little, vaguely aware that Azriel had moved you and was murmuring softly that it's going to be okay, finally letting yourself think back on what happened. You've been dreading break all semester for this exact reason. You knew the moment you stepped foot back in your hometown, you wouldn't be able to push the situation to the back of your mind anymore.

As soon as you left the train station, you got in an uber directly to Eleanor's house, not even stopping by your parent's house to greet them or drop off your bag. Even before arriving you knew the conversation was only going to hurt you but you couldn't have predicted how much. You only faintly remember her cries for forgiveness as you left her house in a rush, you remember the anger you felt as you heard her begging as if she wasn't the one who hurt you.

Eventually the sobs shaking your body subside and you're left holding onto Azriel. Your body was starting to scream at you for being in the same position for so long so you move your hands from where they were clinging to his shirt, pull your face back from the now damp fabric, cringing softly at the feeling and darker patch you leave behind, and move to wrap your arms around his neck instead, straightening your back and leaning your head on his shoulder. Letting out a soft sigh when his hand moves with you, stroking your back comfortingly.

“Do you feel better now?” You can feel him talking with how close you're pressing to him. You're a bit embarrassed by the position, sitting on his lap and clinging to him so much, but the comfort it's giving you far outweighs it and, in this moment, you just can't bring yourself to care. You just nod in response to his question.

“Do you want to talk about it?” He squeezes a little harder when he feels you tense up slightly. It's not that you don't want to tell him but talking about everything just makes it even more real. “You don't have to. I can just keep holding you for as long as you need me to.”

Your heart flutters in your chest. Azriel has a beautiful voice, one you're currently hearing whispering softly in your ear, and a way with words, you'd expect nothing less from a songwriter really. Still, sometimes it made your body all tingly and you were left wondering if you were reading too much into things or if there was more at play between you two. You can't deny that your relationship is different from any other you've ever had, you've never felt this comfortable with someone so quickly.

Letting out another sigh, you pull away from him enough to see his face. Regardless of what he says, you can't actually stay wrapped in his arms and ignore the truth forever. You catch his eyes for the first time tonight and the concern you see in them has you trying to pull yourself together. You don't want to worry him too much, you'd hate to think he was sad because of you. It's bad enough you ruined his night. And Cassian's. You'll have to apologize to his roommate the next time you see him.

It takes you a lot more effort than it should, but you move away from him, unwrapping your arms from around him and sliding off his lap. He lets you, not moving from his position against the headboard, only flexing his hands as if he wanted to reach out when he takes a look at you. You run your hand over your face trying to catch any lingering tears and over your hair, it's still damp from the rain. Gods, you don't know what you were thinking.

“Did I ever tell you about Eleanor?” You know the answer already. Before this whole situation you probably would have found a way to mention her with any new friend you made, she was such an integral part of your life, but now you avoided even saying her name out loud. He shakes his head, straightening himself and staring into your eyes, listening intently.

“Me and Eleanor met when we were kids, we've been friends ever since,” you have to clench your eyes to avoid any more tears at the thought, “She was my best friend. I never thought it would get to this.” You would have believed almost anything over this actually.

“I had this boyfriend through the last years of high school - Parker. I broke up with him right after graduation. I was moving here for university and, honestly, I think I was dating him out of habit at that point. The breakup didn't really affect me much, I was excited to start over in Velaris so I wasn't thinking about it.” You look down at your hands, this is the first time you're telling anyone all of this. “But a few months ago, I got a call from my mom telling me Eleanor and Parker were dating. I was confused because me and El were still talking almost every day and a little hurt that out of everyone she chose him, without at least warning me. I thought it had to be a lie or misunderstanding.”

“I called her asking about it and she confirmed it. That was the last time we talked until today.” You look back up at him, almost forgetting he was there. Actually saying these things out loud was strangely cathartic. “I've been ignoring it the whole semester, I knew knowing more was going to be more painful but I had no more excuses when I went home for break,” you let out a weak sigh, “I went to her house and she told me they only started dating after we broke up,” you can't help the pathetic tremble in your voice, “she said they've been in love since we were dating but they didn't want to hurt me so they didn't say anything. She almost made it sound like they were doing me a favor.”

You get up from the bed, your sadness turning into anger. “I'm not even sure how long they've been fucking behind my back. She told me they only kissed at a couple parties when they were drunk but she was hiding this whole thing from me for months at least so who knows what else she lied about. And if they were in love with each other the whole time me and Parker were together then they must have at least talked about it. I can't even trust her. She was my best friend and I can't even trust her.” You're probably pacing like a crazy person around his room but with everything he's seen in the last hour, you can't even be bothered by it. “Gods, I'm such an idiot.”

“You're not an idiot.” You look back at him. His voice had an edge you've never heard on him before, his words coming out clipped behind a tense jaw. He was angry. “You didn't do anything wrong. She's a bad friend.” Something tells you he had to choose his words and ended up at the least offensive one, not the one he would have prefered to use.

You have to swallow down the instinct to defend her. Azriel was right. What she did to you was awful. She shouldn't have treated you like this, shouldn't have helped your boyfriend cheat on you, even if nothing had happened physically, and definitely shouldn't have pushed you aside so easily, ignoring your almost two decades of friendship over a boy.

You feel your shoulders sag a little, your angry outburst had burned the rest of your energy. It seems Azriel noticed it too because he gets up from the bed and walks over to where you're standing in the middle of his room, reaching out to grab your hand.

“You need to forget about it. They're not worth your tears.” The feeling of his rough skin playing your fingers distracts you momentarily.

“That's easier said than done.” Forgetting Eleanor would be impossible, she's part of your history, and, as much you hate to admit it, so would be forgetting Parker, he was your first boyfriend after all.

“Trust me, I know,” he looks down at your intertwined hands, seemingly lost in his own thoughts, “But lingering in the past doesn't help with anything. You need to let yourself feel it and then move on.” He looks back up at you and touches your cheek softly, wiping at the tears still staining your face. “And it feels like you've felt it enough for today.”

“You're right. It's late I should-”

“I'm not kicking you out,” his face breaks out in a tentative smile, “I'll go get your bag so you can change, your clothes are still damp. Don't want you to get sick. Then we'll get you some food, alright?” You can only nod. Coming here was the right decision, he was being incredibly gentle and caring with you.

He brings you your bag and takes you to the bathroom, telling you to change and clean yourself off a little, disappearing back into his room right after. As soon as you see your face in the mirror you realize he was being nice in his assessment, your entire face was puffy. Even after giving it a good wash you still looked like a mess. It truly looked like you cried your heart out, you suppose you did.

You also use this time to call your mom quickly and let her know you'll be coming home the next day instead. She had probably heard that you had come and gone already because she doesn't even question your decision or the way your voice cracks, small towns are both a blessing and a curse. You wonder what everyone in town was saying now that your ex boyfriend was dating your best friend. You gather your things to move back to Azriel's bedroom before your thoughts catch up to you. He's right, you've cried enough for today, cried a lot more than those two deserve as well.

Looking at yourself in the mirror one more time, you take a deep breath before joining him in his room again. Now that you've settled down more you're not really sure what to do or say. He drops his phone and stands up as soon as he sees you, walking over to take your bag from you and placing it on top of a chair. He changed out of the shirt you covered in tears and snot, you barely noticed since it was the same color as before but this one is tighter, it strains against his back and biceps enough that you have to look away.

With everything going on, you hadn't even looked around his room before. It was fairly simple and organized, the dark furniture and paintings fit his aesthetic in general and the navy comforter and curtains combo contrasted beautifully with the white walls. The low lights cast shadows around, making the room feel cozier too, you could see yourself spending days in here. You notice a couple notebooks sitting on his desk that you suspect he might use to write songs but his bass is missing.

“What?” Your confusion must have shown on your face because he looked more than amused at your obvious snooping.

“Your bass isn't here.”

“We practice upstairs in Rhys' penthouse so I just leave it there most times.” He says walking to the door. “Let's find you something to eat.” You nod before following him.

“You all live close to each other then.” You haven't seen them interact too much but it's obvious how close and comfortable they are with each other, brotherly even.

“Rhys' father owns the whole building,” he chuckles a little at your wide eyed expression, “he rented us this apartment for probably half what everyone else pays.” You look around on your way to what you can see now is the kitchen. It's a big space with high ceilings and lots of windows. You don't even want to think how rich Rhysand's father must be to own such a building.

“It's a really nice apartment.” You take a seat at one of the tall chairs around the kitchen table. The kitchen alone was probably bigger than your own bedroom, even the furniture felt expensive not to mention the marble countertops.

Thinking about it now, it makes sense that Azriel and Cassian couldn't really afford this big of an apartment in such a nice place in the city with their jobs at the record store and the gym, especially with how much you know they invest in their band.

“Yeah.” He opens his fridge and looks inside, trying to find anything to eat. Your stomach finally makes itself known at the thought, you haven't eaten since before the train ride to your hometown. “You should see the view from the top of the building though. It's the best part, I'll take you there sometime.” You watch him give up on his search and open the freezer instead.

“Is this okay?” He holds up a frozen pizza and you nod immediately. You have the same one sitting in your own freezer right now. You do find it cute how it seems like he's a little disappointed that this is the only thing he has to feed you right now. He looks like he was ready to cook you a five course meal.

“More than okay,” you give him a smile and keep talking as he moves to get it prepared, feeling the tension leave your body bit by bit the more you talk to him, “Did Cassian leave?”

“He's probably with Rhys up in his apartment.”

“I feel like I should apologize to him.” You can't imagine the emotions going through him at seeing a girl he barely knows show up crying at his doorstep. “I think I almost gave him a heart attack.”

“You don't have to worry about it,” he comes and sits across from you. “I told him you were feeling better before he left.” That had to have happened while you were in the bathroom. You don't know how good the soundproofing is around the house since you didn't even hear him leave but you hope he at least didn't hear you sobbing for an hour and the short outburst that followed. It's enough that Azriel witnessed it first hand.

“Maybe I should apologize to you too,” you find yourself twirling your thumbs to avoid his gaze, “that was… a lot,” you finish sheepishly.

“You don't have to thank me for anything.” Your eyes find his again, you've found it's hard to look away from him for long, especially if he's talking to you. Azriel is incredibly captivating, even under these fluorescent lights.

“I showed up at your doorstep out of nowhere and just cried my eyes out for over an hour,” you look over to the pizza getting ready in the oven, “and now you're even making me dinner.”

“You can show up at my door every day if you want. I'd rather you weren't crying but if that's what you need then I’ll be here,” the smile he gives you should be illegal, it's almost tempting you to do exactly as he says. “And I'll make you dinner as many times as you want me to,” he looks over to the oven just like you had done before, “I'm not sure this counts as cooking anyway.”

You want to tell him you don't remember the last time someone took care of you so attentively and effortlessly, that not everyone is this compassionate, but decide against it. After dinner comes out of the oven, you busy yourself with eating while Azriel tells you more about the band and their next concert, he's letting you take a breather and leads the conversation, something you're not sure he's used to doing and appreciate immensely.

When you're done and he's cleaning up things, you watch him awkwardly. You didn't have a plan when you came here at all but you definitely didn't expect to stay so long, don't really know what to do or say now after everything is done. It's getting late too so you should really leave and make your way back to your apartment. You cringe softly at the thought of having to go back there after telling your roommate that you wouldn't be back for another couple weeks, she probably took the chance to bring her boyfriend over.

“Come on,” Azriel says as he pats your shoulder softly, telling you to follow him to his bedroom. He probably has work tomorrow as well, you're being a nuisance. You speak up when you get to his bedroom, looking at his comfortable looking bed wistfully.

“I should go home now,” you look over at your bag, not looking forward to carrying it again, “It's getting late.”

“You can stay here,” he looks a little confused, like he had expected you to stay already.

“No, it's fine.” You'd love to stay with him, at least so you knew you wouldn't end up crying in your bed alone while trying not to listen to your roommate and her boyfriend. “My apartment isn't far.”

“I'm not letting you go anywhere.” He reaches up to stroke your cheek, examining your face with a slight pained expression. You hadn't stopped to think about it yet but it seems it's going to take some time before he forgets you sobbing in his arms, these soft touches and worried looks might linger a little. You wonder how your heart is going to handle them, you already have to tell yourself not to let these things get to you too much, that he's only doing them out of friendship, on a regular basis.

“If you think it's not a bother.”

“You could never be a bother.” When his band makes it big there are probably going to be thousands of people that will put up posters of this same smile in their room, you feel blessed to be able to witness it in real time and so intimately.

“We have a guest room but it's full of stuff,” he says as he rubs the back of his neck and looks over in what you assume is the direction of the room he's talking about. He looks a little embarrassed and it makes you wonder just how much and what kind of stuff he's talking about. “I'll stay there so you can sleep here. It's more comfortable anyway.”

“No,” you can't make him sleep in the guest room in his own house after everything he has done for you today, “You stay here, it's your room. I can even stay on the couch, I can sleep anywhere.” After this whole day, you think you could even sleep on the floor.

“I want you to stay here. You need to rest properly.”

“Then…” You let your words trail off. You've already asked so much of him but the way he's looking at you patiently has you working up the courage to make one more request, possibly the biggest one. “Can we both stay here? I'd rather not be alone honestly,” something you can't identify shifts in his eyes and it makes you rush to assure him, “only if you're comfortable that is.”

“I should be the one asking you that.” Did his voice get deeper? It feels like it.

“I don't mind.” You feel more than comfortable with him, you would trust him with your life really.

The problem is trying not to get flustered at just the thought of sleeping next to him. You had spent a good while cuddling up to him, sitting on his lap, but it had been the last thing on your mind. Now, as soon as you feel him lay down next to you and pull the covers over the both of you, laying facing you, he's the only thing in your mind.

He watches you for a second, studying your reactions to him, before reaching out to you and holding your waist softly. You nod instantly, but it's only after he pulls you closer to him that you realize this is what he meant. He lays down on his back and you lay your head down on his chest, letting your hand rest on his torso tentatively.

The moon and the few lights filtering through the window cast a bluish glow around his room and the soft beat of his heart starts lulling you to sleep almost immediately. It makes you relax further in his hold, shifting slightly to find the perfect spot against him.

“You're warm,” you mumble sleepily. He only hums in response, tucking you better in his sheets. It makes you smile against his chest.

You want to tell him it would be impossible to get cold when he's as warm as a furnace, that you usually don't wear sweatpants to bed either but, by the way he had awkwardly looked for clothes to sleep in earlier, you think he probably would be wearing a lot less if it weren't for you too. You really wouldn't mind feeling his skin on yours but you appreciate the thought.

“Sleep now, princess,” he murmurs as he leans down to kiss your forehead softly. Princess? Your heart stutters in your chest but you're so tired that your body obeys him almost immediately, not giving you time to linger on the kiss or the nickname. And as you're laying in his arms, you don't feel so lost anymore.

taglist: @bookishbroadwaybish

[pastafossa]

TW for those with religious trauma. A little long and just about something personal so putting it behind the cut, but basically:

I got to set a boundary and say No today, and that's huge.

I'm still mildly on FB to keep up with older friends and fam and events, and a few groups where I learn things generally from older folks (trust me, the old woodcarving guys aren't usually on tiktok). And let's just say I'm... very obviously not a Christian over there - not rude, not attacking, just happily on my own path. And there was this lady, who apparently had known me when I was 5 or so and had somehow stuck around. She had recently taken it upon herself to evangelize and 'bring me back' by repeatedly bringing up me loving Jesus at 5, and talking about God at me, and I am loved by him and etc etc don't you still talk to him, Pasta? Maybe that's why I remember you talking to him when you were little, so he can reach you through me, aren't you afraid Pasta that he's reaching for you and you'll miss it, etc etc.

Now I was raised strongly christian. The whole shebang. Christian elementary school, church every Sunday, youth groups on Wednesday, radio set to a christian station, etc. I'd heard these lines, believed those lines, said those lines for a long time. And even though my family was chill (one reason I wound up feeling supported enough to leave the church as an adult), I'm still unpacking a lot of that trauma. And one bit is my inability to set boundaries. Girls and women must always be polite, kind, and nice no matter what. Respect your elders when they speak. You are to be the sacred little vessel of the light and always be ready and willing to explain and advocate your beliefs even if someone's being mean, don't walk away. If someone asks you to help with something you don't want to do, you do it anyway, because your happiness and comfort doesn't matter, you are meant to serve.

I mentioned this while chatting with a group of friends the other night - I told them about this woman who'd been targeting me, and the bad memories it brought up and the ensuing anxiety attack when a bunch of things stacked a few weeks ago. And one of my friends turned and looked at me and gently said, 'why haven't you unfriended her?'

And I... paused at that. Why? Why hadn't I? Because this woman didn't 'intend' to be mean? Because I wanted to try to 'represent' something? Because I used to know her? Because I was afraid to be judged as rude? Because... my comfort and happiness didn't matter? Why on earth hadn't I?

Because... my comfort and happiness does matter. And I was being disrespected. It doesn't matter if I'm seen as rude. I'm allowed to say, 'no, you don't get to treat me like that.'

I... am allowed to cut someone off, even if they find that mean.

Even if they knew me when I was little.

Even if they have positive intent.

I don't have to give those people access to me if they're hurting me and trying to scare me.

And so I got home, and I rolled through that old list, and I culled it. Out went the people who I got a sick feeling thinking about. Out went the people who'd never really respected me. Out went the people who saw me as a trophy they could win by 'bringing me back'.

I said no to all of that.

I can say no.

And I know that seems small. But it feels like a giant leap for me.

[b0tster]

seen all these trans asks and I'm a gremblin who wants to be a part of it too!

i want to say how amazing it is that so many trans people are out and proud about who they are, i wouldn't be where i am today if it wasn't for all of you wonderful trans people!

for as long as i can remember i always wanted to be a girl, my earliest memories is being like 5? 6? and making up a daydream that i was a faraway princess from another universe except some evil thing drove me and my parents out and i ended up here, in the "wrong body" (not that i think that anymore, i will forever be grateful for HRT, it is amazing for allowing me to make my body my own)

all it took was an offhanded comment by a sex-ed teacher about people transitioning and just knowing it was possible was enough to send me into a spiral and completely change everything i knew whati was now, i was trans! i was also terrified, the cis people around me rarely ever spoke in a positive light about them and a cursory look at the process online and I'dneed to go to a child court, which means I'dhave to tell my parents, i sunk into a pretty major depression about how long it would take, if it would even possible, how much hassle I'd have to go through and stayed in this funk for 4-5 years, and it led to me [cw suicide]: very nearly taking my own life

/cw

after this i made the effort to seriously start transitioning, getting friends who were supportive (and didn't need contraceptives for their intended purpose) to sneak me contraceptive pills whilst i waited for the intentionally (bc the government is fucking awful to trans people) tortuous process of getting HRT prescribed and transitioning.

i transitioned almost 6? 7? years ago now (i wasn't much a part of the larger trans community back then so i never saved my HRT anniversary and now i forgot 😭 )

i don't regret any of it, and if you think you might be trans at all, there's no better time to start the process than now, leaving it and letting it fester bc you're worried about the hassle of it or the reactions of people or w/e won't do any good! especially if like lillith said you'd do it if there was less hassle! The hassle is intentional to try and stop you from transitioning by bigots, don't let them win!

obviously, just wanna make clear this comes from a place of being able to afrord, and a desire to be on, HRT and you're not any lesser if you can't afford or don't want to take HRT!

holy shit. thanks for sharing this incredible story

[paradoxcase]

John 1:20

THE TOWER HAS BEEN REACTIVAT

No surprises there.

I mean, isn't this basically the same conclusion they already came to like several John chapters ago, when Augustine was questioning whether the FTL even existed? (Although, apparently actual FTL really happens at the end of this chapter, I guess it actually was real? Why does it make no appearance in the rest of these books? If this other FTL technology exists, why did BOE work so hard to get a ship with a stele and a necromancer to operate it?) Anyway, this doesn't feel like a new or exciting conclusion to come to

I don't feel like this story has done a good job of explaining why this has to be done, or even why John and co. think it has to be done. Is it because they're leaving in the ships that were intended for the cryo project? I'm sure they can build more of those, it's just money and engineering, and even if all the trillionaires leave, there's still a lot of governments with a lot of money out there who would probably be willing to fund the cryo project when John turns out to be right about trillionaires after they've left and there's no one left to defend them and talk about the secret lives of cows. I mean, as long as he doesn't start doing stupid and crazy shit and causing a nuclear holocaust. Who cares if the trillionaires leave? I feel like the point of these chapters is to explain why John did what he did, but I don't think this explanation makes a lot of sense. This is not moving me as a supervillain origin story

So, according to the UN, world population will not reach ten billion until 2058. I calculated earlier that John can't be born later than 1998 and still be old enough to realistically attend the Parachute music festival, so are we meant to believe that John is 60 years old here?

If I had a nickel for every time someone had their arm cut off and then regrown in this story, I'd have two nickels, which isn't a lot but it's weird that it happened twice

Also, thanks for not making this one a sex scene, I think I've already heard more than I wanted to about John's sex life

Presumably this is needed for something resurrection-related, I guess it's so that when the suitcase nuke explodes he can grow a whole new G1deon again from the arm, like a starfish. So presumably John would have had no trouble growing Ianthe a new arm that worked as her arm, if she had asked him. I went back to see where Ianthe's first problematic arm had come from, but all I can find is that she denies that either John or Mercy was responsible for it. Did she make it herself? I can't remember

Ok, but six paragraphs earlier Pyrrha is being mad that G1deon won't arm the nuke if she comes with him. Did Pyrrha know, or not?

I mean, I hate to say it, but you were right there with all of the others when John was like, we have to stop the trillionaires from escaping, that's the absolute more important thing to be doing right now, and exactly zero of you said, no John, that's not actually the most important thing to be doing right now

Why did Cristabel decide that right now was the best time for John to figure out how souls work? There's this whole side narrative about John working out how souls work, but it doesn't really feel tied to the rest of the story about the trillionaires and the cryo project

I think I see. As established at the beginning of Harrow the Ninth, a living planet's soul is like the collective thalergy of everything that lives on the planet, so I guess it's kind of a gestalt oversoul, where every individual living soul on the planet is part of it? So when a planet is dead, then by definition everything else on it is also dead, since otherwise there would still be a living planet soul of some sort. The fact that John wasn't able to control individual human souls here while Alecto was still alive sort of implies that resurrection, and maybe most kinds of soul magic, are actually impossible on a living planet, if even John can't distinguish between human souls and the planet soul in that context. I guess that means that that kind of stuff would only be possible on an undead planet in the Nine Houses

No, I think that's totally fair, actually

I feel like this is important. Everyone else was killed by someone else. Like, John was 100% responsible for all of this mess, but he didn't actually pull the trigger to kill anyone else, and until this point he still has some plausible deniability, like he was just trying to stop the trillionaires, and he never intended to set off any nukes or kill anyone, he was just stressed and being a bit dumb. But he specifically kills G1deon, who is clearly his most loyal supporter. Like, I think he probably could have talked to G1deon over the phone at this point and been like, hey new plan, we're actually going to let the nuke go off and kill a million people so I can gain godlike power, don't worry I'm gonna figure out how to bring you back to life again using your arm, and I honestly think there's a solid chance that G1deon would have been like, sure thing boss, see you when it's all over. Then it would have been like, consensual, I guess? But he doesn't even do that. He just kills him. Obviously John has just killed people before at this point, and he would also be just killing another million people, but I think it's sort of different for John to just kill a bunch of cops or the population of Melbourne that he doesn't know at all, versus to just kill someone like G1deon, who he's known all his life and is somehow impossibly loyal to him

I'm not feeling this metaphor

Well, that's extremely biblical

So this means that the only reason Alecto survived this in a way that the other cavaliers didn't was because John couldn't entirely consume her soul, or thought he couldn't. And I guess he just decided it was too complicated to figure out how to do this with a human soul, and a necromancer who doesn't have all that power at hand at that moment?

So this is what Hollywood Hair Barbie looks like, apparently:

Maybe it's just the angle of the photo, but she doesn't seem to have quite as freakish proportions as the barbies I grew up with, which is good. For a moment I was imagining 8-foot-tall Alecto who is 75% legs and it was terrifying

What is the "shaman" a reference to, here?

So ultimately, John's powers came from Alecto originally, when she was still alive as the soul of Earth - it's implied throughout the story that necromancy comes from exposure to thanergy, but this obviously wasn't the case for John's specific flavor of necromancy, but he is definitely making use of thanergy to do what he does. So why did Alecto have the ability to give someone necromancy powers, that make use of death energy, rather than say, something the primarily makes use of life energy/thalergy which would probably be more useful and not incentivize killing ten billion people to gain more power?

[morganalatina21]

Manipulating Death: Chapter Ten

Series Summary: When Harry discovers he has a twin sister that was hiding for years, he wants to know all about her, specially about her ability to bring people back to life.

a/n: I'm sorry it took me so long to post this one, I was trying to make it longer bc I intend to add a big time break next chapter and I needed everything to be in place, hope u enjoy it :)))

(Also, english isn’t my first language so I’m sorry in advance lol)

Last Chapter | Masterlist

*******************************************

Pain.

That's all she felt.

Everywhere. Every single inch of her body was hovering and turning in pain.

Excruciating and extended.

Her eyes were blurry and took a long time to focus, and even a longer to realize where she was. The basement of her house.

And that sad figure on the stairs certainly was Sirius Black.

Felt like her brain got flipped, like someone stole and juggled around with it just to return it shaky and scared. The last thing she remembered was Regulus, standing right where his brother is, pulling her closer and closer to the living world.

Fuck, she was back.

"Holy smokes." The man said, crawling closer and closer to her, wand in hand just in case. "Are you really...?"

She blinked her eyes at him, trying to move the lips but feeling the throat ache like she just swallowed a cup of sand and glass.

"That's insane!" He shouted, a small smile on his lips. "But that's like... the eighth most insane thing that I've seen this last weeks."

The jokes were made to stop the tears from falling even though she could notice how his eyes sparkled.

Y/n was alive once more, he hadn't disappointed James and Lily again.

"Hold still, I'll grab you a cup of water." He mumbled just above a breath, and stood up, running to the kitchen. "Here ya go, mini Evans."

Pushing the liquid down her throat, she felt it burning like firewhiskey. Merlin, that hurt.

"Where's.... Reggie?" She whispered, voice breaking and exploding into coughing just as she finished her sentence. "He was here."

"He went back to the house, couldn't bare to look at you any longer." He told, caressing her hair as it slowly gained a little more color. "I said I'd stay behind to take care of your body until he was ready to give you a funeral. I offered to clean the house but he declined."

Of course he would, she thought, Regulus hated when things weren't adjusted his way. When they started living together, he finally had some control of what his house could look like and he wasn't ready to give it up.

His speech.

How he felt for her, even almost made her not regret kissing him the last time they saw each other.

"Take me to him." She pleaded, feeling her bones ache and flesh twist inside her body. "I need Reggie."

"I know you two have this really complicated relationship and shit, but right now you need to rest." He mocked, shaking his head no, like an old father who knew his kid was in love.

"Padfoot." Y/n called sternly, dropping his act. "Do you know anything about resurrecting someone? No. And I don't have strength on my own. If he finds out I came back but re-died because you didn't apparate with me, he'll murder you."

Hell, she was right.

"We'll grab the potions needed and you'll take me to him." She instructed. "Right now, we're both serious."

He choked in a laugh, looking at her in shock that she'd make that joke right now.

But he had to admit, on his early years in Hogwarts he'd tell that joke and its variants all the time, so much the marauders and the girls would already anticipate them.

And for just a moment, Sirius saw James' eyes instead of hers.

Shrugging it off, he pulled her arm above his head and helped feet after feet going upstairs, wanting to get out of there but also not forcing her in case she wasn't strong enough.

But oh boy, she was.

"Take that drawer." Y/n instructed, nodding towards the same furniture she asked Remus a couple nights ago. "And those papers and books, you can put it here." She said, opening a small backpack that was hidden under the coffee table. "It's for emergencies." She whispered upon seeing his gaze.

"Alright, what else do we need?"

The girl didn't answer, holding herself on the back rest of the biggest chair in the living room, shaky fingers gripping into the wood like her life depended on it.

Instead, she opted to whistle a light melody, looking at the main door, open wide due to the Death Eaters' forced entrance.

Sirius was starting at her like she just punched him in the face, asking what was wrong with her.

But he was surprised when two possessors came barging in, following the sound that came out of her lips.

She opened up the backpack and held it with both hands, her back pressed firmly against the wall for security.

The possessor didn't even hesitate to enter it, making their figures smaller and smaller to fit the tiny hole.

"What the..."

The biggest was Regulus' possessor, the one she ran after for the entire city they lived in two and a half years ago.

It's eyes found her pupils, just like the day she won his confidence, after two weeks of fighting each other through the streets.

Suffice to say, Regulus was less than pleased to see that thing once she came home with it, it was much bigger than the ones lying in the basement and stared holes in his face, desesperately wanting to possess his body once again.

The smaller was Luna's possessor, it was way shorter and it's eyes weren't in the slightest scary. That girl wouldn't take long to surpass the layers of the death world, so there wasn't that much work to do.

Once both were nice and organized in the backpack with the other supplies, she handed it over to Sirius.

"Ouch!" He yelled, feeling his head hit the ground and hands twist as soon as she let go of the bag.

"Careful, it's heavy." Her hoarse voice announced, almost giggling.

"Oh is it? I didn't notice!" He responded, forcing himself up and throwing the heavy backpack over his shoulder. "Anything else m'lady?"

Her eyes darted around, staring at every corner of that house, knowing she'd miss it so badly.

"Regulus already took a lot of your things, before you ask." Sirius groaned. "Like the hairbrush, the necklace and the tiara. He said you'd probably want to be buried with them."

The tiara, part of the costume Remus and Sirius got her for Halloween, the one that James died next to.

The younger Black was right. She wanted to be buried with those her whole life, but now maybe she'd give Harry the hairbrush, he had so little from their parents.

"Then that's all." She nodded, the feeling of missing it already shaking her body.

She'd miss waking up to find Regulus in the kitchen, hair pulled back in a small bun with teapot and two teacups on his hands.

Would certainly miss how they'd always want to move the furniture around the room without magic, and always ended up on the floor exhausted.

How sometimes they would feed the possessors like they were dogs.

How Regulus would always say he wanted a cat, and she'd tell him it would leave fur all around the house and he'd go mental with the animal.

That's when she realized.

Sure the house was a big part of her.

But what she missed really was him.

That obnoxiously intelligent man, she loved to mess with. She loved to see him.

She loved him.

And after literally dying, she was ready to admit that. But not to him, never.

To herself.

She could now accept the fact that the long stares when she looked at him, how she fell asleep in his arms every night, led to her feeling that way.

And it was fine.

What was not fine however was the turning and circling in her stomach when they landed right in front of the Order's house.

Her vision was so blurry she could barely see the doorknob Sirius was turning and pushing their way inside.

The Black had to hold her weight by the elbows at the mere sensation she'd fall.

He tried his best not to announce to the painting of his mother that they were back, it would be a catastrophic disaster.

"Regulus is on his bedroom, last door to the left." He instructed, helping to stand on the stairs while turning around to meet his cousin Tonks.

Y/n walked like an animal, with hand and knees, groaning in pain as it felt burning every inch of her skin.

She struggled all the path to the door Sirius mentioned, hearing him downstairs answer the girl's questions to make sure he wasn't a Death Eater.

Without any forces to get up or reach for the doorknob, she just banned slightly on his door.

No response.

Once again, she knocks three times, leaving her hand to rest on the wood, hoping for him to open soon before she passed out, backpack aching on her shoulders.

With a smooth crack, a house elf stood in front of her, his eyes held even more than just disgust.

"Master Regulus don't want to be bothered." He announced, sounding more like a threat. "And he ordered me to petrificate anyone who's behind the door if they try again."

Scoffing, she held tight to the fabric of her pants to stop her fingers from shaking. "That's very you, Reggie."

Before Y/n even blinked, the door was swung open and her numb body fell to his feet.

"For the love of Merlin." The man muttered, kneeling in front of her and grabbing those shaky cheeks, staring intensely at her eyes. "Y/n?"

"I found you once, and then did it again." She concluded, a breaking smile appearing.

Exactly what she promised she'd do, and tears welled up on his eyes before pulling her in for a tight hug.

His hands wandered around, her hair, her cheeks, her arms, all the way down to her trembling knees.

"How?!? I- I saw..."

"I was in the first layer." The Potter answered, being pulled inside by the man.

"All this time?"

"Well, you waited for me all this time."

Regulus positioned her on the bed, placing two pillows behind her head to make it more comfortable and started opening the backpack, holding her hand the entire time.

The possessors jumped out of it, looking around the house and feeling excited with the air of trauma and pain all around, running in circles around his room.

"Kreacher, can you fetch something for them to eat?" He asked quickly, unscrewing the top of a bottle and lining it up on her lips.

"Fuck this tastes awful."

"I know. I've been there."

The girl lightly mocked his comment but smiled big after it.

Regulus was so focused on taking care of Y/n, turning potions down her throat as he saw her doing so many times before, he didn't even noticed Sirius figure peeking from the door, Remus right next to him.

Both men stared at their interactions, how the Black had a faint smile on his lips after so many nights of dark stares and sad tears.

Sirius tapped Lupin's shoulder, indicating their hands enlaced together with a smile so wide. The werewolf smiled too, seeing how Y/n looked at him adorably.

And they dared to deny they're in love! They thought, shaking heads together.

Stepping out, they closed the door to give them some privacy and some alone time, knowing damn well Harry would wake up in the morning and want to spend time with his sister.

Not to mention the insane amount of questions the others would have.

A few minutes later, he fed her the last potion needed for now, eyes and face with a lot more color and it didn't seem to hurt her to breath for so long.

"Kreacher, I want you to meet her properly." Regulus called, welcoming the elf closer to them. "This is Y/n Potter, she's Harry's twin. And the one that brought me back to life."

His eyes went big, taking over his entire scrunched up face and he bowed to her. "I am eternally grateful for bringing Master Regulus back."

"Well, he brought me back too, so I guess we're even now."

We are far from it, the Black thought but decided to stay shut about.

"You need to rest now." He informed, pulling her knees so she'd be fully laying down. "Hell no." Regulus ordered, standing up and letting go of her hands for just a bit, grabbing something on his drawers.

He came back in less than two seconds, grabbing her by the calf and shoving a sock on her foot, doing the exact same with the other one, mumbling curse words in french the entire time.

"Are your trying to convert me, Black?" She asked, a smug smile on her face when she looked at her feet now covered with wool socks in the Slytherin colors. "I see your second intentions."

"You just look pretty in green." He shrugged, trying not to make it obvious he wanted to see her with the colors of his house.

"Sure, of course I'll believe that, Slytherin Prince."

"Fine, if you don't want them..."

"No!" She fought, taking her feet away from his lap. "They're comfy." Regulus rolled his eyes. "Come on, we have to sleep. Wanna be the small spoon?" She suggested, smiling at him and already turning to be on her side.

"I have a better idea."

With a tight grip, he rolled her around to be chest up once again, spreading her legs a little in a motion that made her heart run circles inside her chest.

The Black made his way to be on top of her, between her legs, to which she squirmed a little bit, a chill spreading down her spine.

He lied all his weight on her, adjusting himself in a way his head would be placed on her chest, hearing the heartbeats.

"Relax, everything is fine now." Regulus said, noticing how quick paced they were. "I'll be here if you have any nightmares."

He nuzzle against her body, not moving his head once, wanting to make sure she was there.

Alive.

With the man she was in love with holding her tight, between her legs and head so close to her breasts, it was hard to relax. But she forced herself to, falling asleep like that, close to her loved one and the possessors guarding their sleep.

*************************************************

"Y/n?"

She woke up, startled, breath hitching on her throat. Regulus was hovering over her.

"Which one was it?"

The Potter felt confused for just a moment, but noticed what he was talking about. She was squirming on her sleep and heartbeat so fast like a rat's heart.

He thought she was having a nightmare.

"Uh the- the one with Abby." She lied, breathing in and out. "But it's fine now, don't worry."

"Are you really?"

Opting for nodding instead of saying it, a bad sensation of thirst in her throat.

"I'm glad. Stay here, I'll bring you breakfast."

He quickly leaned in, leaving a gentle peck on her lips and getting up.

"Oh... oh, uh- oookay." She answered as he left the bedroom, leaving behind a very confused Y/n, with possessor who groaned something to her. "Oh shut it, you two." She grunted, trying to not make her smile so wide.

With two fingers, she pinched herself, making sure it wasn't a dream. But it happened the she was wide awake.

When he came back, a few minutes later, with her favorite breakfast in hands, she decided not to address it. He made it look so casual, as if they were doing this for years so she decided to leave it like that.

Sitting on the bed, back pushed to the headboard, she took in the breakfast, with Regulus lying his head on her thighs and staring at her the whole time.

"Are you sure you're fine?" She asked after swallowing the drink. "You haven't asked me anything yet."

"Because you won't know peace once those kids wake up." He replied, drawing shapes in the fabric of her pants. "Specially those two your brother calls best friends, I was one second away of cursing them."

"You be nice!" She averted, finger pointing at him. "You weren't any better, bombing me with questions every two minutes."

"That's totally different."

She laughed, taking the reforce potion with the rest of the meal.

They just kept in silence for a few minutes, enjoying each other's presence in the warmest way possible. Once again, just the two of them. How it has always been. How Regulus wanted it to be forever.

When the conversation outside started to get more and more crowded, the Black decided to call Harry.

Everyone noticed the sudden change of mood in the heir's movement, looking a lot more light and like a gentleman in the 1800s instead of a bloody vigilante assassin.

So for that, Harry was more than suspicious and refused to go upstairs.

"You're acting weird." The boy pointed. "And nothing changed, so I'm sorry if I don't trust you like she did."

"I'm sorry to break it to ya." The voice on the stairs said, attracting everyone attention. "But we've been kind of a package deal for the last years, so he's like this personalized keychange that comes with me, no refunds."

She was holding herself tightly to the handrail and using the biggest possessor as a support.

Regulus immediately held his hand out, being her new crutch despite rolling eyes at how she described him.

"A blood traitor! Regulus how could you?" The portrait of Walburga shouted, muffled because it was facing the wall but still making itself present. "Do you have any idea what we have done for you, just so you could come back and stab us with-"

They couldn't hear anything in a second, and all eyes turned to Sirius, but he was just as astonished.

"I didn't came back to hear mother scream at me again." The younger Black answered, making his brother's eyes sparkle looking at him.

"I'm so proud... Group hug?"

"Lay one finger on me and I'll snap all of your bones in half."

Y/n mouthed something like "He won't" without any sound, knowing Regulus enjoyed this powerful dark face he had.

"I'll take a family hug." She said, removing the hand from the possessor and reaching out for her brother, who immediately ran across the living room to get to her.

They embraced each other so hard the girl felt her bones aching, and held in a huff, just glad she was one again with her twin.

"I thought I lost you." Harry whispered, body shaking from falling tears.

"I never leave my family behind."

Taglist: @intoanothermind @moonysupremacy01 @maraudersarelifee @elleraelockwood @darkenwolfie @hopesf @lukewearingbeanies @azuredgalaxies @klazina-couch-potato @goldensunshineshit @kaverichauhan @venomsvl @mrs-billyrussooo @mikadorbs @iavenderh6ze @wizardsgrace @reblog-princess @dittos-blog-dylanobrien @roroswitherose @s-we-e-t-t-ea @ok-boke @warcelia @danyxthirstae01 @b-tchymoon @lovely-maryj @adriannamirse @seesaw-it @awritingtree @regulusblackloverr @coffeeaddictednymph @quackitysdrugdealer @pansexualwitchwhoneedstherapy @teamspideyman @the-sander-fander

**************************************************

Next Chapter

[libertineangel]

Hey Clashblr, check these out

Since there's a few of you around now that are still getting into some of the deeper cuts, I thought I'd put together a post highlighting some of the oft-forgotten obscure material for you to check out. Gonna stick it under a cut, 'cause there's a fair bit and Youtube links take up a lot of space on the dash.

Fasten your seatbelts, hold onto your hats, let's go yeah?

First up we have The Escapades of Futura 2000, lyrics by the man himself with music written & played by the Clash. Futura was the rapper on Overpowered By Funk, and also a graffiti artist who accompanied the band on the Combat Rock tour across the US painting stage backdrops live through the gigs. This particular upload is the 12" mix, which has a good extra minute over the version released last year on The People's Hall.

Here we've got the complete double-sided 12" 19-minute experience of This Is Radio Clash - the track we all know and love to open, then the more commonly remembered B-side Radio Clash (almost identical, not quite the same), then things get real funky with Outside Broadcast, and Radio Five ties it all together. Those last two have never seen a reissue on any compilation whatsoever, probably the most obscure tracks in their entire official discography.

This one's Robber Dub, a remix of Bankrobber from Mikey Dread (not to be confused with Rockers Galore, his other remix that actually features him on vocals). Featured on Super Black Market Clash but interestingly not in the "complete" Sound System box set, an omission that's always perplexed me.

Speaking of, I'd thoroughly recommend checking out both of the mentioned collections if you're not familiar, between Super Black Market & Sound System you've got every officially-released song other than those two Radio Clash extras - so, with that in mind, let's dive into the real offcuts that never even made it onto a record.

How's about seven and a half minutes of Topper playing around with a drumkit & piano to start us off? Some people still don't believe this is even The Clash, that someone scrounged up some random sounds and stuck it on a bootleg, but that's bollocks because I'm pretty sure bits of it ended up in Hell W10, their endearingly crap short film from '81 (watch it here, it's a 50-minute London crime drama). What people are wrong about is that it was ever going to be on Rat Patrol From Fort Bragg, because this is the real tracklist; relatedly, there's alternate mixes of most of those tracks around if you care to look for them, they're not hard to find, except for the high-quality acetate rip that surfaced two years ago that has been scrubbed off the face of the fucking internet, from the 20 minutes I just spent searching it seems even Internet Archive wasn't able to withstand the might of CBS. Anyway...

OK, so technically this one has made it to a record, but that record was the Vanilla Tapes bonus disc of the 2004 reissue of London Calling, it never actually got beyond demo stage. Honestly I doubt they ever really expected or intended it to, sounds to me like the band having fun in the studio, but fun it is. There's actually a few demo-only Vanilla Tapes tracks I could stick here, but this is long as fuck already so instead I will simply give you the lot to peruse at your leisure.

Sticking with demos that eventually got an obscure release, this one is from the Give 'Em Enough Rope sessions but wasn't heard until the On Broadway compilation in '91. It's a solid number of course, they hardly put a foot wrong, but it's nothing groundbreaking.

This is from that same compilation, from the same sessions, it's a cover of the classic soul tune and I like it. Understated, gentle but with that pained passion in the vocals Mick carries so well, and that nice subtle bass is a sweet touch.

Our last couple of tracks are live numbers, and this one's a special one-off performance with the great Beat poet Allen Ginsberg, from the 10th June date of their infamous Bond's residency. He wrote it specifically to perform with the band, six minutes of cantankerous complaining about just about any ideology you care to name while the band (and their sound man, gotta credit those perfectly-timed dub echoes) give a strident backing. Topper was on fucking fire for those gigs, just listen to that kick drum.

And finally let's close out where they began, way back in '76 with Keith Levene. This one's probably my favourite of their earliest offcuts, but personally I prefer an even earlier version of it that Youtube doesn't seem to have, from their third ever gig (and first known recording) at the classic Screen on the Green punk showcase. Five of the thirteen tracks on that setlist never made it to the studio, plus it includes the original lyrics to I'm So Bored With You, and it's all here.

[kingwithpaintedfingers]

An Update on the Status of My A03 Fics!

Hihi! I have no idea if anyone who follows this blog reads any of my fics on AO3, but if you do, then you might like to know what the heck is going on with my fics, and why I haven't posted any updates in over six months.

First of all, I am alive! I wrote a lot of fics in the summer of 2022 when I had just gotten active in a fan server on Discord where there was a lot of encouragement to write fanfiction. In the spring of 2023, I started a medical assistantship course, and in order to keep myself focused in class, I turned off notifications for the server. And then I just kind of...didn't turn them back on???? In my defense, I was intimidated by the amount of time it would take for me to backread everything I missed, and that eventually snowballed into me just no longer looking at that server. I should honestly become active in it again, because it did a lot for my writing productivity. I also have a lot of hobbies both in real life and on my computer, and those take up a lot of my time as well. So that's why I didn't post much last year and haven't posted anything yet this year.

But I want to let you all know, that I do fully intend to complete the fanfics I have already started on AO3, and I do intend to write the sequels I promised a year and a half ago.

So without further ado, here is a status report on the incomplete fics and series I have on my AO3:

How to Live With Fire: One of my most popular fics! I have two sequels planned, and a rough idea of what I want to happen in each of them. Both of them are probably going to be only a few chapters long. The delay on this one is mostly on Part 2, since Part 2 has only the vaguest ideas of what I want to do with it (how Mortarion and Vulkan become a longterm couple, and how their legions react to this change). The trouble with this one is, I haven't read any Salamanders novels, let alone ones that take place during the Horus Heresy. I think I will at least have to read Deathfire for this one. I am praying that I don't have to read Vulkan Lives, since I understand that one has less tasty Salamanders content than I would like, and way more John Grammaticus than I find tasteful. But I will still try Deathfire at the very least, if I can find a physical copy at the library or a used bookstore or something.

A Matter of Trust: Another one that's going to end up being a trilogy. I have figured out what happens, now I just need to read the Plague Wars trilogy, because those events are going to be kind of important to the rest of the plot. Again, I'd like to read physical copies of the books so that I can flip through them easily. I'm going to see if I can find copies of the first two novels through the local libraries. Fingers crossed!

Until the Bitter End: Ohhhh, this one's gonna make me cry...this one is mostly hinging on me rereading The Buried Dagger and taking notes. Much lower barrier for entry for this one, since I've read it so often that I mostly remember where to find the events I'm looking for.

Lantern and the Child: This one is going to have like, a billion chapters. It's going to become episodic for a while, but I'm looking forward to it. In this case, it's a case of figuring out which characters I want to introduce. The idea of it being episodic is kind of exciting for me, because it feels like it will be a fun thing to do, and because it goes along with a writing conceit that my co-creator and I have for this AU, that it's the events of a theoretical (very dark) Pokemon anime.

This Once Nearly Was Mine: This one should literally be the easiest one to complete, I am ashamed that I haven't finished it. There's only one chapter left, and I don't even have to come up with all of the events. Again, this one is going to dip into Horus Heresy events that I haven't actually read, but I think I've heard enough from osmosis that I can skip most of it. I just need to, y'know, actually sit down and fucking write it.

Deep's Embrace: I've got an outline! And I've even got some scenes written out! As I type this post, I am preparing to submit chapter 2. I'm having a lot of fun with this fic, as you could probably all tell.

Anyway, that's basically it for now. If you have any questions, please let me know! And if you have any friends who you know enjoy my fics but aren't following me or aren't on Tumblr, please link them to this post so that they know just what the hell is going on with me.

[it-happened-one-fic]

Because I'd Loved Him All Along - Ace

Author's Notes: Happy Valentines Day! I intended to post something more Valentines themed but I found this in my drafts and, well, it's sort of a long story. Just know that you have no idea how close this (and it's partner fic) came to never being posted. I really don't know why I decided to write a fic from Reader's point of view and then a partner one from Ace's point of view. But here we are. Anyway, This was written while I listened to "Far Away" by Nickelback. It's angst with comfort and Reader is gender-neutral. I hope you enjoy!

Here's the link to the partner fic: Because He'd Loved You All Along (Ace's POV)

Type: Fluff/Angst with Comfort/Romantic/Probably not canon compliant/gender-neutral reader

Word Count: 1549

“Y/N!!!!” I flinched at the sound of my name being shouted from behind me by that familiar voice. Evidently enough, Grim had told him, and no doubt Deuce, what Crowley had just informed me of mere moments ago already.

I turned, expecting to see a bright grin and mischievously sparkling red eyes that would be so at odds with the muddled feelings in my heart. I was instead greeted by a deep frown and red eyes that were filled with ire. 

I all but stumbled backwards in surprise at the uncharacteristic expression on his face, “Ace?”

My voice was so tiny when it came out, but it did nothing to stop his speedy approach.

 A speedy approach that gradually slowed to a purposeful march as he stormed my direction. “Is it true?”

“Is what true?” I offered a meek grin, unsure of why I echoed his question back at him. I knew exactly what he was talking about. What I didn’t know was why he was so upset about it. I’d honestly expected congratulations…..

“You know exactly what I’m talking about and don’t pretend you don’t. Are you leaving tomorrow?” My eyes managed to widen a bit further at his increasingly irritated tone. 

To be honest, I was thrown for a loop. 

Why was he mad? Why was I unsure about what I wanted to do? Was it true? I truly didn’t know the answer to any of these questions and Ace and his questions were only serving to confuse me more. Especially when his was the face that kept coming to mind when I even considered leaving Twisted Wonderland and returning home.

“I…I don’t understand, Why are you so mad?” I shook my head, confusion overwhelming me as I tried to find the answer to both his questions and mine. 

My question was met with an eye twitch and him crossing his arms, staunchly refusing to answer my question while also pressuring me to answer his without saying a single word. 

At this point I knew Ace well enough to realize he wasn’t budging till I’d puzzled out my answer. The very same answer I’d just been looking for before he’d come running up.

Go home tomorrow and probably never see any of the people I'd come to care for, or stay here and possibly miss out on my one chance to return to the life I knew and see my family and friends from before I came here? 

 It was a difficult conundrum that didn’t seem to have a right answer.

Which one would I regret more?  Impossible to say since I’d have regrets either way.

 I glanced up at Ace to find him still frowning at me, but his stance was a little different. Almost like he was softening in the face of my obvious confusion.

“I… I don’t know Ace,” His eyebrows lifted at my honest answer. It was perfectly obvious that it wasn’t the answer he wanted but… It was the only answer I had right now. So I continued, defending myself and my answer.

“It is true that I can go home tomorrow. Crowley just told me this morning. It’s also true that if I don’t take this chance I might never get another one…. He was very clear about that.” I stopped, remembering the Headmaster’s dooming words.

“This is a very rare opportunity! Most people are never even alive to see the proper alignment of the hundreds of factors that allow traversing between worlds… Much less twice! You’re incredibly lucky Y/n!” His beaming face had been the complete opposite of the intense sinking feeling I’d had when he’d told me.

I shook my head, dragging myself back to the present so that I could continue to explain. Half of me was surprised Ace hadn’t interrupted my thoughts yet, “So… I don’t know if I’m leaving. Leaving probably means I’d never see you or anyone else here again. But staying….”

I hesitated as my mind swirled with mounting horror as the gravity of the situation slowly began to crush me more and more and my voice began to crack, “Heavens…Can I even stay?”

I swallowed the pressure building in my throat. 

And here I thought I could handle anything after dealing with the overblots. Now I couldn’t even bring myself to look Ace in the eye as I wallowed in feelings of regret for things that hadn’t even happened yet.

Even I could tell I was spiraling as my previously coherent words slowly began to deteriorate along with my thoughts and feelings.

“I don’t even have a birth certificate and I don’t belong in this world…. What do my parents think has happened to me? Do they think I’m dead?” I at last met Ace’s gaze, fighting to hold back the tears that now began to sting my eyes.

His red eyes, usually so bright and cheerful, were now wide and unsure. He didn’t know what to do and I couldn’t blame.

 I’d always been the strong one that didn’t panic even in the worst situation. And yet here I was breaking down in front of him. I was ashamed.

This shouldn’t be difficult for him. It wasn’t even his problem. It certainly shouldn’t be difficult for me. The answer should be easy. I should go home and return to how things were.

 I should forget the mischievous boy who’d been by my side since the very start of things and had supported me through some of my most dangerous experiences. Simply put, I should move one.

Yet here I stood, tears welling up in my eyes even as I fought them, staring at the boy that held my heart in his hands and silently begging him for an answer. I didn’t know what to do this time and I couldn’t be the strong one this time.

This time I was going to shatter into a million pieces before blowing away on the winds of regret and sorrow. Because I knew exactly what I would do.

I was a coward who couldn’t face uncertainty without support. And if I didn’t receive that support I would disappear from this world altogether and fade into a vague memory.

I inhaled, a long trembling breath, “What should I do Ace? I don’t know anymore… What should I do?” My voice came out small and broken. I wanted to curl up and hide where no one would see my pitiful state. My head lowered as I looked downwards, refusing to let tears come out where anyone could see.

And then I felt it. One hand grabbing my arm and tugging me forwards while his other arm wrapped around my waist in a tight hug. 

I was frozen, waiting and expecting his typical scoff that would be followed by a sassy comment meant to make me laugh, but it never came. Instead, I felt myself relax and melt into his embrace just in time to hear him start talking in an impossibly soft voice.

“I don’t know Y/n… But I do know you should do whatever will make you happy.” He leaned back, pressing his forehead to mine and giving me a pointed stare, “The rest of it doesn’t matter. Do what you want to do.”

“But what if-”

“No what if’s. You don’t have magic and you can’t see the future. You have to make a choice and it doesn’t matter if it's wrong or right. You just have to make a choice.” His voice held a firmness that it only ever carried when he was scolding someone, but it really didn’t feel like I was being scolded.

He maintained his stern expression, demanding an answer just like before. But this time it was different. It didn’t feel like he was angry. It felt like he was trying to help me in his own strange way.

“If I stay…” Something flickered deep within his eyes that made me pause, hesitation flooding in before I could myself continue. 

But then my fingers curled tighter into his jacket as I forced myself to continue even as iI relied on him for support,“If I stay here, will you stay with me?”

I suppose that was the heart of the matter. I was afraid that even if I did stay, I might not be able to remain with him or anyone I was close to. They might move one, find new friends and forget me even if I chose to abandon my home and stay with them.

I watched him nervously, fearful of his answer and wary of his teasing. A slow smile appeared on his face and the corners of his eyes crinkled ever so slightly, “Haven’t I stayed with you this whole time? If I leave you’ll get yourself into trouble.”

The tears that pricked at my eyes, but they were different now. Instead of tears of distress and heartbreak these were tears of relieved joy that only seemed to amuse him further. 

“I’ll stay with you because….” He trailed off, an uncharacteristically gentle smile on his face as he closed his eyes, keeping his forehead pressed to mine.

But he didn’t have to finish. Because even if I didn’t know how he would have finished his statement I knew how I would.

Because I’d loved him all along.

[fayeandknight]

Personal post in which I am processing old trauma.

It's weird how you can clearly recall an experience but have no emotional response/true comprehension of it until many years later.

My relationship with my ex fiance happened during my first three years of college, if you don't count the stalking and harassment that went on for several years after. I'm in my 30s now, that was a long time ago.

It took me a few years after breaking up for the last time to realize that the relationship wasn't just "really shitty" but had in fact been extremely abusive. To this day when I think of him I think of screaming and crying, breaking glass, blood, absolute terror, and the inability to breathe.

Over the years I've been processing the truth of things he'd normalized/minimized/gaslit me on and trying to give myself grace for the long term effects it's had on me. And for a while I thought I'd acknowledged all of it. But recently (last year or two) it's hit me like a sack of bricks that he tried to murder me. I don't mean going too far in a fit of anger, I mean he planned out and followed through on a deliberate plan to kill me that I survived by sheer luck.

That day has always been a cold, stop motion memory since it happened. I can recall it in a series of snapshots, each clean and neat and utterly detached from each other.

He tells me we'll have the house to ourselves.

He's drawn me a bath in the big Jacuzzi tub with rose petals in the water.

I undress and get in.

He is sitting on the side of the bathtub.

He is cupping my face for a kiss and whispers something about Ophelia.

My head is underwater.

I am flailing and grabbing at his hands, the side of the bathtub. Water is going everywhere but I can't get out from underneath his hands.

I can't breathe. My lungs are burning. I am beyond terrified. This is the inevitable end. This is how I die.

His hands are off me and I am able to get my head above water.

He is taking keys off the counter and handing them through the cracked open door.

I am soaking wet and holding my clothes against me in a bundle that mostly covers me.

I shove past the person on the other side of the door and run barefoot back to my dorm.

He gaslit me hard about this that it never happened. I didn't even get a chance to bring it up. He just showed up the next day to take me on a date (which he very rarely did) and complained about how outside of sex we never had one on one time because there were always people in the house. I was still in shock I think and don't really remember what happened in between my running out of his house and him showing up at my dorm apartment. I do remember being in the living room of his house after the date and having a very public fight that he pulled out of nowhere.

For a long time that memory has been something I shied away from even thinking about. It was a cold spot in my brain that gave me mental frost bite.

And then when I did acknowledge it, it was framed as 'I almost died' in my mind. But the more I think about it, the more clear that this was a planned murder becomes.

We were in college and he lived in a busy frat house/known party house with four other guys. He either dedicated significant time to tracking people's coming and going to find a long enough window of time to drown me and dispose of my body. Not a small feat considering the near constant foot traffic in the house. Or he engineered having that house be empty.

The tub, which wasn't normally used due to being disgustingly dirty, had been spotlessly cleaned.

He never got undressed or into the tub with me. He was wearing a short sleeved shirt with shorts and angled his legs away from the tub.

He referenced Ophelia, who dies via drowning. I was a theatre major at the time.

He very much intended to murder me by downing me in that bathtub.

The only reason I survived is because someone forgot their keys on the bathroom counter and had to come back for them. That's it.

It's so wild to me how long it's taken my brain to feel, I don't know safe??? enough, to really put the severity and full implications together. I didn't repress the memory, just avoided it. And I'm not even shocked that he tried to kill me, more that he tried to murder me - though I'm not sure how much sense that distinction would make to anyone else.

Seeing romantic gestures between couples makes me feel cold and frightened and grief stricken. And for a long time I attributed that to my most significant/serious relationship being an epic shit show and a half. But I'm starting to realize that it's also because one of the few romantic gestures I've received was actually part of the plan to murder me. So I'm trying to be gentle with myself when I experience those feelings.

I'm not some bitter shrew who hates seeing happy couples. I am experiencing the fallout feelings of an extremely traumatic and very nearly fatal event.

Anyway I'm not really expecting for anyone to have read this whole mess. But if you did, here's a picture of Forte snuggling me from this morning as thanks for sitting with me for a bit.

[loganwritesprobably]

CW: Discussions of dementia/Alzheimer's

This is just a quick little vent post, mostly

If you see this, and you read it, and you can relate - you are not alone. This is hard, and I see you - I hope you're doing okay, or as okay as you can be

So my grandad has both. I often joke that he was simply too powerful, he was going to be immortal, they had to nerf him. So, my grandad has both dementia and Alzheimer's. I still don't entirely understand it, because one is a type of the other, but it creates some unique issues.

My grandad appears to be losing his memories randomly, while also going backward in terms of what he remembers, and he's potentially making up false memories in the process. I spent the last five or so years learning to listen when he spoke, because I knew one day I'd mourn the chance I'd lost to learn. Now, when he speaks, I don't know what's Certified Grandad Lore and what's the illness.

He doesn't remember the names of his daughters. He often becomes distressed because his mind works like Dory the fish, and he thinks his eldest daughter Sophie is called Samantha (fake names) and can't find her in his contacts. However, he knows who she is when she's there. He remembers me, I think, and my sibling and my cousins.

He doesn't remember his nephew, barely even seems to remember his brother-in-law who months ago he was telling me I needed to deliver a message of violence to (mostly playful, I think) because he doesn't treasure his wife enough.

I don't know if he remembers me. I wanted him to walk me down the aisle. The last time I saw him, he asked my dad who he was, and then he laughed. I don't know if he was playing off that he needed to be reminded, or he was joking about his own illness.

His wife died of Alzheimer's. My grandmother. Both my dad's parents. His sister-in-law died of Alzheimer's.

For a disease I knew very little of for a long time, and seemed so rare just a few years ago, is so frighteningly involved in my life.

My dad is very serious when he tells me that if he starts developing Alzheimer's or dementia, he intends to kill himself.

There is an increased risk that I will develop one of them. That my sibling will. That my aunts will. That my cousins will.

I fear a day in which my body isn't my own, and I forget that it used to be.

My grandad doesn't think his house is his, but we can't figure out where he thinks he does live. He doesn't remember where the toilet is, and forgets to eat. He's so skinny now, so slow. My grandad used to be untouchable.

My grandad once comforted me after I broke up with an ex by telling me that I should marry a rich man instead. He laughed, and I laughed with him, and it made everything much easier.

The last time I saw him, I wasn't sure that he remembered me, but he assured me that he thought I was doing something good with my life by being at university, because he missed that chance when he was younger and he wished he hadn't. He was narrow minded in his ambitions, and I'm doing well to do differently.

I will graduate, and I will do it for him. I will marry and be happy because that's what he wanted for me. One day, once I'm happier, I'll grow out my hair again because he liked it long. Once I have a job, I'll donate regularly to attempt to get this horrific disease cured.

There is nothing worse than slowly watching your loved one die, and they don't even know they're your loved one.

When you die, you leave behind everyone who loved you, but when you have demenia or alzheimer's, or somethig similar, you don't even know you're leaving them. There's no comfort to be given or gained.

I'm three hours away from home at university and my grandad is dying at home. I live every day dreading my phone ringing with bad news. One day he will die, and he will not walk me down the aisle, and I likely will not have seen him for months.

He will not walk my down the aisle, but I will save him a seat in the front row.

[starrysmiling]

my theory on jax's parents

i've been sitting on this one for a long while and finally got the push to write this up. i want to write about this in the future, but there's bits here that have got to wait until cube corp releases, so... i'm just going to talk about it while i'm here.

anyway. as we all know, jax seems to be raised by arthur, and neither of them ever mention his parents.

so where. the fuck. are they.

spoiler alert: just between you and me, i think they're dead. not that it's confirmed or anything...

so... let's begin with a preword. the jax in my canon is 22, since unlike ace and the player, he doesn't have a canon-implied age. (this did not stop me from making fern 21.)

this makes him just slightly older than the meteorite strike on crater town, which happened 20 years ago. it's important to note this, because he needs to be alive for his parents to die in the aftermath of the meteorite strike.

whoops. did i just say that?

let's just change tracks for a bit.

arthur is training jax to be the next champion. that's quite obvious from the story, he says it outright, there isn't any question about that. but i think that originally, arthur wanted his own child to succeed him. it's also something to think about if you consider that he stepped down from the champion's seat before the events of the game, which prompts me to think that he wanted a successor before he stepped down, but he couldn't train jax in time bc jax was still too young.

so let's go with that: arthur intended for his child to succeed him as the next champion after he steps down. thus: arthur's child, and one of jax's parents, would likely be a ferociously strong trainer.

i'd like to think that they met someone while they were training or journeying, fell in love, eventually decided to marry them, and have a child. why didn't they decide to become champion? this is just a hc, but considering elias is Still there and the league hasn't found a replacement and arabella is working there because her dad doesn't make money... yeah, i think the league is kinda understaffed. hell, i make fern struggle with his champion duties, but even if arthur is a better fit for the role, being the champion's child means they would be able to see how harsh the role is on arthur. and maybe they don't really want to be the champion just yet, when arthur still can do his job well.

and they're still young, after all. they want to have a bit of fun in their life, journey around as a trainer, raise their kid with lots of care, then maybe go get that champion role once arthur's done his term.

so now, little jax is two years old. the meteorite has just been shattered over valley city, and the residents have been transported back to help clean up the town. volunteers and volunteer pokemon from nearby cities, like dresco town, are called to help with the restoration efforts.

and jax's parents are part of those volunteers, naturally. they're both pokemon trainers, after all.

and here's where it starts going to shit.

remember that two pokemon came down to earth with the meteor? jirachi was sealed away after the residents realised its power, but another pokemon landed a little to the northeast.

and deoxys is powerful. pksp red, one of the strongest trainers, if not the strongest in the series, is almost powerless against deoxys when he first battles it. it takes him a bit of a bond with a rogue mewtwo and several tough battles, some difficult enough to shatter his mentality, to defeat it, and even then, it's an uphill struggle for him.

that's the pokemon that jax's parents find: a ridiculously strong pokemon from outer space that nobody's seen or recorded before. remember, it immediately fights you if you talk to it, so i suppose... they fight. and if they can see the utter destruction that could come out of deoxys's power, there's no way they're letting that pokemon get to the town, where unarmed people are working on clearing the rubble. so they fight, and they fight, but deoxys is strong, and clearly not even two people are a good enough fight against it, and soon their pokemon are worn out and deoxys's attacks are injuring the pair themselves.

they put together a plan. one holds off the strange pokemon from outer space — for the sake of my canon, this is the stronger one, arthur's daughter — and the other runs back to the town to alert the guardian of borrius, who is overseeing the restoration efforts. if anyone can beat this pokemon, it's the legendary aros.

and so jax's father flies back to crater town. he'd been persuaded to go, being more heavily injured by the fight, and desperately searches for aros, explains the situation, and immediately brings him to the crater where they found deoxys.

but it's too late by then.

they find jax's mother, barely conscious and mortally wounded, being fiercely protected by her pokemon who are only barely standing. aros thanks her, and with their combined efforts, barely manage to defeat deoxys and seal it in sleep. jax's father returns to his wife's side, only for her to sigh her last breaths before they can treat her wounds.

aros notices that jax's father's wounds can still be treated, but though aros hurries him back to town... perhaps the loss of his wife weighs too deeply on him, and he doesn't make it.

and jax, still only two years old, is left in the care of his grandfather.

his parents are called heroes — they fought so that crater town would not suffer a second disaster in quick succession, and that's why jax in my canon is so set on being a hero. his admiration for aros is also partly from seeing how he handled the incident, making sure that he didn't take the credit for holding off deoxys and ensuring that people wouldn't forget that jax's parents died in order to keep the town safe.

and, also, aros is basically the local superhero. he's cool as hell. no wonder he's kinda jax's idol.

anyway. i really want to write more about this concept, and there's a scene where i want jax to meet aros and for aros to tell him, properly, about his parents. that'll be the first time that i've ever written jax crying in canonverse, because hearing aros, his idol, apologise to him for not being able to save his parents and recount that they genuinely were heroes in his eyes is a lot to process. (it's also really funny considering that jax hasn't cried in front of fern, but he has cried in front of fern's dad.)

as a way of finishing this arc of jax's life, i really also want to suggest that after fern captures jirachi, jax tags along with him to fight deoxys.

and this fight — this is jax's fight. fern can tell that this jax is different from seeing him stare down deoxys across the crater. there's something twisted about the fact that jax is now facing it with his own partner, twenty years later.

jax, heightened by raw emotion, seems to fall back into his more reckless, daring tactics. he plays fern's hyper-offensive role, actually, and fern plays jax's support, making sure that jax doesn't run himself ragged, following up after his strikes, covering when they're in trouble. it's not like they made a name for themselves as an unstoppable duo for nothing.

the conclusion of this arc is jax's capture of deoxys, after a grueling battle that whittles at his strength and mental state. in a way, earning deoxys's respect, being able to capture it in a ball, and being able to say that he finally, finally defeated the pokemon that killed his parents, is a sort of closure that he probably didn't know he needed.

did you see that, mom, dad?

i beat it. you can rest easy now.

[odin-suggestion]

I still think about that moment in the comics where Odin hired Black Panther to kill Loki. But then how Odin gets very upset if anything happens to Loki. If BP had done it, what do you think Odin would have done?

I think about this so much.

Like, here's the context: The War of the Realms is imminent and Odin is finally realizing that he picked the wrongest possible way to deal with it. Freyja called it, and Loki sided with her when she rebelled against Odin over it, and then he (apparently) defected to the enemy, then he (apparently) tried to kill Freyja and nearly succeeded. Odin is going through some shit and once again, much of it is Loki's fault. So it's not that shocking that he'd want something done about Loki, and let's be real: for Asgardians, killing them is just making them go somewhere. To a god, death is a prison sentence, and Loki is the gods' best escape artist.

And while Odin absolutely (even by his own admission), has his moments... he's not stupid.

In that comic, Odin goes to Black Panther and starts off by saying, "Let me tell you a story."

In this story, Odin says, "A long time ago, I, a young god, and your ancestor, the first Black Panther, fought a terrible creature together with some other heroes. When we had defeated it, the Black Panther called for mercy -- something was clearly wrong with this creature, and he wanted to help it. I disagreed: I thought we should kill it and nail its corpse to the moon as a warning to the rest of its kind."

And then Odin says, "I was wrong. The Black Panther was wiser than I was."

He uses this story to illustrate why he respects the Black Panther -- a fellow king, a powerful warrior, and a man of great wisdom. And then Odin says, "That creature we fought: its friends are coming to Earth to get revenge for what we did, and Loki is helping them.* I want you to kill him for the greater good."

*(Loki, for his part, is doing all of this because Malekith intends to use Earth as the battleground for the War of the Realms and the Avengers aren't Avengering hard enough. They need a bad guy to fight so they'll have an excuse to get the band back together.)

Odin says he can't do it because he's weak, he loves his son too much to kill him himself, even knowing the destruction he's about to cause. And it seems like it doesn't quite fit together, does it? Odin didn't go to one of the other heroes he fought alongside in that fight. He didn't ask the Ghost Rider, arbiter of cosmic justice. He didn't ask Earth's Sorcerer Supreme, who's recently had to deal with Loki's bullshit and is eager to kick his ass. He didn't ask the Phoenix, favorite of his old companions. He asked the Black Panther -- the only one to disagree with him. The one who wisely called for mercy and understanding.

And then I remember Young Avengers.

And I remember when the whole thing first starts, and Billy's in trouble and America swoops in to rescue him -- not from the terrible mage-eating monster he's just accidentally summoned, but from Loki. And when they finally get a moment to sit down to talk about it, she tells Billy:

"Don't trust Loki. He knew something was going to happen and he told me that to prevent it, I should kill you."

And Loki says, "Sometimes the only way to be the good guy is to play the bad guy everyone expects you to be. What would you have done if I'd told you Billy was in trouble?"

"Nothing," she admits.

A year after this conversation with Odin, T'Challa walks into Avengers tower with a file on everything Loki's been up to recently and says to the Avengers, "What have all of you heard about the War of the Realms?"

[mamthew]

Final Fantasy XVI's similarities to Tales of Arise have me on a Tales kick, which means I ended up playing Tales of the Tempest, widely considered the worst game intended to be a mainline Tales title. It took me about 15 hours and I did every sidequest I found, all of which involved walking across a field map at a frustratingly slow pace to pick up an item and then walking all the way back for a line of dialogue and a negligible amount of money. I easily could have shaved at least two hours off my playtime and I wouldn't have lost anything.

Tempest is a 2005 japan-only release for the DS developed by Dimps, the freelancers behind most handheld Sonic games and a good chunk of handheld licensed games, especially for DBZ and Digimon. When it dropped, it received so much hate from fans that Namco pretty quickly pulled it from the list of mainline Tales games, though they've recently quietly added it back to the list. They developed two more DS Tales games afterwards, in-house, and to fan approval, which makes Tempest even more interesting to me, as a first, failed attempt at a handheld Tales game.

It's definitely a bad game. Everything that involves a menu takes about three more button presses than necessary, the world takes a long time to travel for no good reason, the models are low poly and the textures are worse. The battle system is so unnecessarily limited that it's honestly barely worth engaging with. You only get four arte slots, and the protagonist's main gimmick is that he can turn into a werewolf when under half health, but transformation takes up an arte slot, so he functionally only has three. CPU-controlled characters also will only use moves assigned to their four arte slots. And there's no access to the artes menu in battle. Two of the five characters are werewolves, so only have three slots. Two more are mage/healer combos, so you have to divide their four slots between both offensive and healing spells. They balance this by making healing items unbelievably cheap and easy to obtain. Lemon and Pineapple Gels are 90 gald each. Miracle Gels are available in all stores for about 200 gald each. I ended the game with 80k gald.

The game has five party members, but only the protagonist, Caius, gets enough focus and story relevance that I'd consider him a character. Of the four main villains, two end up being his father and his brother. Another villain wears a mask and has the same hair color as the female lead, so I figured they'd be related in some way, but no, the female lead is so coincidental to the story that despite being on the box, she's the only character whose name I don't remember. Two of the party members, Tilkis and Forest, are the prince of a country you never see and his bodyguard. The last party member, Arria, is a priestess with the evil church who's sent to spy on the party, immediately gains their trust with no effort, and then immediately turns coat on the church when pushed. There's not much there.

That said, the lore has weirdly a lot of potential. About a century ago, humans committed genocides against the werewolf and ogre races, which carved out space for the human country to take over as the main superpower on the continent. Now, the human church is carrying out an inquisition against werewolves once again for unknown reasons, stoking fear against werewolves among the populace by spreading false rumors and executing any werewolves delivered to them without trial. This is pretty standard rpg stuff, but it's made interesting about halfway in, when it's revealed that the church is capturing werewolves to try to learn about a magic spell the werewolf country once had that was able to resurrect the dead. The goal of the inquisition is to gain and use this spell to resurrect all the victims of that genocide, thus making humans no longer culpable for the sins of their ancestors.

It's a fucking good hook, honestly. It reminds me of current debates around history education and white guilt. The church figures they can commit any violence they want in the present, as once they get that spell, the dead will come back anyway, so they won't have done anything wrong. The best parts of the game are when Caius tries to make his adversaries understand that making the dead no longer dead doesn't fix torture or generations of oppression. It doesn't rebuild the ruined werewolf city, return their lost poetry, or make their two countries relative equals on the global stage once more.

Unfortunately, they don't do a ton with this one really good idea. It's revealed near the end that the spell was a lie (it actually opens a portal to an evil dimension), the war between werewolves and humans was a lie (the werewolves opened a portal to an evil dimension and humans took credit for their fall for some reason), and the genocide against the ogres was inconsequential (ogres are not sentient and didn't have a country to begin with, they just stay north of the wall). It's like they understood that Tales games are known for their twists but didn't understand what a twist needs to do in order to change a story for the better. Just a strange game all around.

[rakumel]

Raku's Been Playing Some New Faves: Balatro and Dangeresque: The Roomisode Triungulate

It had been a minute since I'd even last opened my Steam account, but a couple of weeks ago I dusted it off in order to purchase Dangeresque: The Roomisode Triungulate, a title which drives my autocorrect utterly insane. You can see the trailer for it below:

I...don't know if I can adequately convey how endearing the Homestar Runner website was back in the day, if you're not already familiar with it. Many of their cartoons can be watched via YouTube, but a majority of the games that you used to be able to play for free on the website were lost once Flash was discontinued.

The first "roomisode" in this game was one of them, I remember most of it. (The other two are completely new to me.) All three of them are similar in style and gameplay to old Sierra point-and-click games, which if you know what those are without having to look it up, congrats, you're old too. Basically you earn points by clicking on and collecting items, then using them to solve puzzles and find hidden easter eggs.

I was okay with paying the regular price because it's both a nostalgia hit for me and I like Homestar Runner's style of humor, especially the Dangeresque segments that inspired this game. (He's a private eye, a crooked cop, AND a celebrity pharmacist!) But others might want to wait until it goes on sale; the game itself is pretty short, even if you count the long periods of time I spent randomly clicking on things because I wasn't sure how to progress. (I refused to look up a walkthrough, lol. Eventually I figured it out.)

Speaking of long periods of time, though....

The handful of you that follow me here and also see me on Discord might have noticed that I've spent a frankly embarrassing amount of time playing a game called Balatro.

I found out about it from watching another person stream it. At first I thought, "Oh hey, a card game, cool. I'll watch this for a bit and then go to sleep."

That was the beginning of the end: I got so intrigued I watched almost the entire three hours. A couple weeks later, soon after I'd bought the Dangeresque game, Balatro kept showing up in my Steam recommendations, and it got a ton of overwhelmingly positive reviews, AND my interest in it hadn't waned at all since I'd first watched it. So I broke down and bought Balatro too. And, well, admittedly I'm hooked on it now.

What is Balatro, exactly? Well...err...hm. It's essentially poker, we'll start with that. You earn chips based on how good your hand is, earn a certain amount of chips to go on to the next level, so far, straightforward.

But the further you go on, the higher the amount of chips you'll need to keep going; so much so that your basic 52-card deck won't cut it. (No pun intended.) So in between levels, you spend your earnings to enhance your deck of cards with - other cards. Tarot cards can be used to alter your deck or earn more money; you could wind up with a deck that's mostly one suit, or has ten kings, or whatever. Planet cards increase the multipliers for each type of poker hand. There's also a whole lot of different Joker cards that can give you bonus chips, score multipliers, or money if you meet the right conditions. Some are definitely better than others, some seem kind of gimmicky and are clearly there for challenges, still others start off weak but get much better the longer you keep them.

At its core it's very much a watch-numbers-go-up kind of game, or in later levels, go-WAAAAY-the-hell-up, which sounds boring on paper. But I think what got me interested was the number of ways you can go about it. A lot of how well you do depends on what the game gives you, and when - but there's still plenty of room for individual strategy, a bit of daring on your part (I mean, it's poker, of course it's a gamble), and of course some luck.

Balatro is easy enough to play, but difficult to win. At least it is for a dope like myself who can't do math in her head anymore. Other people who can may not find it much of a challenge. But still, I'm enjoying it, and will probably be sticking with it for a while. It's another one I'd recommend you wait for a sale on, though. Not because it's bad, far from it. Just that I think it's just a tiny bit pricey for what it is.

[cutepresea]

Isn't it odd Symphogear didn't get any normal length OAV or movie made, or even on the merch side more nendo or nendo petit made considering how popular it was in Japan? I know the fear was real with prods and manus during the first two seasons because they thought it was a fail project and didn't want to invest but after five seasons and five concerts? I don't know I feel like I'm missing data on why we were given the short stick compared to other popular animes...

Ah, I never really felt like that when it comes to the series (except for figures, but I get to that later in the post. I went on a bit of a tangent and it ended up longer than intended. Oops)

Five whole seasons

Four series of shorts

Enough character songs to have a box of 9 CDs released (doesn't include XDU songs)

Concerts that get released on blu-ray since G's (this one just feels like a bigger deal to me because season 1's in 2012 never got recorded or released)

A mobile game that's been running for 6 years and gets its own albums separate from the aforementioned box (there was another mobile game a decade ago that died pretty fast but nobody remembers that one, shhh...)

And a monthly spinoff manga that has enough content for four volumes so far

...All feels like a miracle to me, especially for an anime not based on an existing manga, game, or light novel

Seriously, I love this series but I have no idea how G was greenlit

I'm still waiting to see what the new project is because there's still a possibility that it could be a movie or something. I just don't expect it anytime soon, whether it be a movie or an OVA, because Kaneko (co-creator and scenario writer for the series) is busy both designing and writing a RPG which he stated was something he wanted to do while not working on Symphogear since he was too busy to work on games while he was doing that (link is Japanese, but it's the interview where he said that)

Which, again, is probably why the new project is dated 20XX

Now if I were to talk about stuff I personally would want?

If it's a movie I'd like it to be completely new content but if they make some lengthier OVAs, I've been asking for an adaptation of 3.5 from XDU for a while since the Alexandria Incident gets mentioned in AXZ.

XDU's service isn't going to last forever and I'd hate to lose a canon side story like that when it does eventually end.

They could also do 4.5 but it isn't as high a priority for me because it serves more as an introduction to Noble Red than anything and outside of the short part between Fine and Enki, it felt weird coming out after XV ended

On a bit of a side note, I've said it before, but I wouldn't be too surprised if any new anime content is by Studio KAI instead of Satelight. A LOT of Symphogear's staff moved over there after XV ended which is why XDU's second OP was done by them.

Now merchandise, oh boy, yeah that subject has stung a bit over the years. The fact the only Nendos are from S1 really is sad

They want their friends to join them

Heck, Chris didn't even get a Figma back then like Hibiki and Tsubasa did

I can't believe it took as long as it did for Kirika, Shirabe, and Maria to get figures. Especially Maria, who didn't have one released until 2022.

And it is an actual crime that Miku still doesn't have one despite being around since season 1. That is Hibiki's Wife Sunshine y'all are ignoring. (Season 1 Miku with green hair when? 🤣)

Hobby Stock's set of scale figures they've been releasing and Good Smile's ACT MODEs are a step in the right direction though. There's also been more plushes in recent years which I personally really love.

One of my wishes is someone going back to G and making figures for that so we can get Black Gungnir Maria or Shenshoujing Gear Miku

The parallel world versions of everyone from XDU would be fun too but I'm not pushing my luck there. The other Hibiki technically already has one but it used an existing Hibiki figure as a base

And yes, I am begging for a game that isn't gacha. I'm a lover of action games and RPGs so I would love something along those lines. I'm not horribly picky about the specific type