#it's THERE but it's fairly brief and not at all like. a main plot point.

[crivalsduo]

Fandom: Dream SMP Rating: Explicit Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings (read additional tags) Category: M/M Relationship: C!Dreamnoblade Status: complete

hello, i have written royalty au c!dnb for @dteamomegaverse week.

[shantechni]

"2012 Mikey is Abused" and other constant complaints that, quite frankly, don't make sense

Since one Reddit user (who shall remain anonymous) inadvertently made me type out an essay I intended to write and post in a more coherent manner at a later date, I will be using their comment and my response.

Anyways, the comment itself starts off fairly normal and agreeable:

But then I see the next three points and my sleep-deprived mind just goes off the rails, so let's start with the second point:

Let me preface this by saying I absolutely do not condone the writing here because everyone under the sun will agree that we could've easily had the "Karai is our sister!?" plot twist without Leo and Karai briefly developing feelings for each other.

The problem is that this brief development of feelings is wildly blown out of proportion by the fandom, so much so that it makes it seem as though Leo and Karai actually had anything legitimate going on between them.

The "incest-eqsue garbage" between Leo and Karai is almost nonexistent outside of the writing room. They openly crush on each other for a whopping six episodes by way of verbally teasing each other and being at odds before Karai tells Leo that she's the Shredder's daughter. That's it. He is not pursuing her after that (hardly ever did, not even to the extent that Donnie pursues April) and Karai isn't remotely fond of him anymore after he broke their deal. Then, after we find out alongside Splinter that she's actually his daughter, he tells Leo towards the end of Follow the Leader. We don't get a reaction, actually nothing on Leo's side since the Foot Clan is mostly absent with April being the main point of conflict, even in Target: April O'Neil because April's forgiveness of the turtles is the main focus.

Leo eventually attempts to tell Karai the truth in Wormquake! and The Manhattan Project and she obviously doesn't believe the poor guy, she just wants to kill the turtles and Splinter at this point. Leo doesn't tell her because "he still likes her", but because, in his own words, it would change everything. She deserves to know the truth and Splinter shouldn't have his own daughter cursing him at every waking moment. When she tricks the gang into bringing her to the lair under the guise of her finally accepting the truth, Leo is ecstatic and his first thought is for her and Splinter to make amends. He's upset that Raph still can't fully trust her in the end when she fought alongside them (who can blame Raph though, he's cradling an unconscious brother after a plan gone awry), and that's the end of that.

They dedicate two episodes to the guys attempting to rescue her because Leo has enough brain cells to worry about what the Shredder could be doing with her, and Raph makes a jab at Leo on one instance when they find her (there is absolutely no romantic undertone, Raph just picks at his old crush on her and their tendency to tease each other at the worst times). Then, when she wants to get back at the Shredder for ripping her away from a life she never knew was her's, Leo attempts to aid her because he knows it isn't wise to face someone like that alone, especially with his henchmen there.

There's one last self-aware jab at their past feelings in S5, of which Karai awkwardly remembers and forgoes mentioning, and that's the last you see or hear of that.

As much as I dislike it, I'd take this narrative over the Donnie-April-Casey hurricane any day.

It seems that 2012 Mikey's mere existence is a sore spot for fans because Jesus Christ this gets brought up way too much.

Mikey is not written as a complete idiot, he's written as someone who doesn't see a reason to take everything so seriously, has odd habits, and doesn't always think things through, yet is shown to be highly capable and intelligent when the situation calls for it. Yes the writers left much to be desired at times, but to say they wrote him to be a "complete idiot" and left it at that is just offensive. I'll ignore all the miraculous things Mikey can do with Kraang stuff and Dimension X and focus on what other things he's shown to be capable of.

Mikey was a temporary learning model for Donnie in how to fight without thinking, or in better terms, how to fight instinctually without becoming bogged down by your own mind. Splinter's lesson is shown in a comedic manner, but that's ultimately what helped Donnie defeat Falco.

Another interesting thing is his ability to keep his composure when no one else around him can do so. I mentioned this briefly in another post, but it really stands out to me how he put Leo at the top of his priority list in Invasion Part 2. He's as worried for Splinter as Raph and Donnie are, but they have with them a crippled and unconcious Leo who needs medical attention asap, compared to martial arts master Splinter who's older and wiser than the three of them combined at times. Even when they eventually find Splinter and lose him, he keeps the gang in line by reminding them, as well as himself, that Splinter can take care of himself.

Along with that is when Splinter was kidnapped in The Manhattan Project. Mikey was quick to intervene when Raph was angry with Leo for allowing Tiger Claw to coax him into calling Splinter, and he reminded the two of the problem at hand: they have Splinter, let's go find him and take him back. There are so many other moments when he becomes the levelheaded one in response to the chaos or disorder surrounding him.

Mikey is a highly skilled fighter, he's emotionally intelligent, he remembers the weirdest things that eventually aid the team, he's street smart, he's a fast learner (ex: Bradford's secret kata, as well as the temporary use of the plasma katana in Target: April O'Neil), he's great at distracting enemies without needing to become bait, he gets insecure about things, he has photographic memory, he's the most outgoing of his brothers and therefore ends up with the most friends, he's quick to adapt to a situation and think of a plan, he can throw together seemingly random ingredients to create exactly what Donnie would struggle to create, he knew exactly what to do to find Casey after his run-in with Tiger Claw, the list goes on.

Heck, just to add to this, Mikey is the one who saves the day in three separate stories in S5. 1) His temporary electric powers save the world from Dregg and the Newtralizer, 2) he convinced Frankenstein's monster to join their side, retrieved the scepter from Savanti and Dracula (he accidentally broke the scepter while he was at it, but that helped) and cured Raph and Donnie of their vampirism, and 3) he was the one who repaired Kavaxas' seal and made him reopen the portal to the Netherworld so the dead could return.

The brothers don't always take him as seriously as they should or listen to him, and that's understandable at times, but when they do, they're reminded of the fact that Mikey, in his own way, is intelligent.

If I had a dime for every comment I've seen about this, I'd be rich enough to buy the TMNT series from Viacom and right every wrong they made with the 2012 series.

These abuse allegations are as bad as people putting Markiplier in the same tweet as problematic Youtubers and saying something wild like, "these content creators should've been cancelled a long time ago." I feel like people who say the brothers abuse Mikey are either an only child or genuinely have a warped sense for what actually counts as abuse, and I'm not even trying to be mean, those are just my thoughts. I shouldn't even have to comment on this, but the fact that people are still seriously believing that to this day is shocking.

Would you also like to say that Raph was abused in Turtle Temper when Splinter had the boys ceaselessly taunt him in that little exercise? Or that the boys abused Raph everytime they downplayed his anger? Or that Raph abused Donnie by threatening to hit him if he didn't find Snakeweed's hideout? Or that Leo abused Donnie everytime he stressed him out by rushing him for answers? Or that Donnie abused Mikey because Mikey flinched 2cm to the right when Donnie raised his hand to playfully knock at his noggin? Or that Leo was abused by the team because they took forever to view him as their leader? Or that Splinter abused the boys because he was "too rough" on them during training?? Or that April abused Donnie because she "constantly led him on"? Or that Xever and Bradford abused Baxter???

I'm losing my mind over here

Mikey is never physically or emotionally abused by his brothers, the show speaks for itself. But if you somehow aren't listening, go look up a textbook example of abuse, or better yet, look at Karai.

Abuse is the Shredder locking Karai in a dungeon when she tries to escape to her real family and going so far to become a peak manipulator by saying Karai was hurting him by making him lock her away. Worse than that, he starts brainwashing her with mind controlling worms so she has no choice but to obey him. Even before then, he's lowkey uncaring of her wellbeing: he treats her like any other soldier of his and doesn't listen to her when she tries to tell him something. He doesn't address her concerns about the Foot bots nearly finishing her off, instead telling her, "disobedience comes with a stiff penalty, especially for my daughter," when she objects to him telling her not to take action against the turtles while he's gone.

He only ever pays her any attention or gives her praise when it benefits him and his vendetta against Splinter.

Splinter and the turtles are the farthest thing from the image of a family filled with abusers. Raph openly apologizes to Mikey when Splinter tells him to stop picking at him in Shellacne, Raph comforts Donnie when the brainiac is somber after forcing Timothy into the equivalent of a cold sleep, Raph apologizes when his anger gets the better of him and he hits Leo harder than intended, Donnie apologizes when he realizes he shouldn't insult Raph when the guy is visibly upset, Leo regrets doubting Donnie about Metalhead, etc., etc.

Even beyond apologies, Raph is the quickest to entertain Mikey and vice versa during a mundane moment, Donnie never kicks Mikey out of the lab, Leo plays around with Mikey when the situation doesn't call for him to be their fearless leader, and Splinter is quick to advise Mikey during Karai's Vendetta and Shellacne. There are even times when the guys just go along with Mikey's antics because there's no harm in doing so, and often times Mikey needs a moment to be silly.

If you think play fighting, teasing, or getting a little physical with a sibling is the equivalent of abuse, particularly in the context of TMNT of all things, you need to do some re-evaluation.

[akingdomscrypt]

Make a Mercy Out of Me

Part Five

Pairing : König x male reader (slow burn)

Word Count : ~6.75k

Summary : time to put those skills of yours to the test. and König definitely has a thing for size differences

Warnings : none? don't think. Maybe a slight dissociative state briefly. Very brief.

A/n : working on a few other chapters for this series at the moment too, dk when those will be posted tho. Also didn't know what to title this ch, so that'll probably change.

---"a test: p1"---

Without that looming feeling of betrayal lingering at the forefront of your mind, your thoughts have been a lot more clear lately. You're able to return to your normal self; to analyze your situation and puzzle out the best way to handle it.

This wasn't any average operation, not often did they send soldiers like you so far from the Nest. Perhaps this meant your past transgressions had finally been forgiven; that they no longer held them over your head, suffocating you with the palms of guilt clamped tightly over your mouth.

And with that fog finally lifted, you began to plot.

A switch seemed to have flipped in the other soldiers ever since you had chosen to come back to them, instead of choosing the obvious way out and abandoning them back at that train wreck of an operation.

You were still under intense supervision, always a shadow hovering over your shoulder, and you were only granted access to a few areas of the compound, but it was better. It showed some level of trust, or maybe not trust, but a common ground laid between you and the other five.

A mutual understanding of, though no one was overjoyed by it, this was the only viable option.

You'd been allowed a shower, even, now dressed in an everyday, military-esque outfit. Sure, it was.. a little big on you, but they hadn't had your size, and it was nothing a belt fastened snug around your waist couldn't fix. Though it was certainly nothing like what you used to wear; somewhere in your mind, a feeling of.. longing.. for your old home festers.

Comforted only by the idea that you would someday make it back there. Alive.

Your injuries had been healing well, too. No longer limping so much when you walk; gaining a bit more mobility in your shoulder. Your bandages were cleaned and inspected everyday—courtesy of König. And, all around, you were treated fairly well.

None of them had even hinted at torture, especially none of the kind you had been trained to endure, though you were certain it was likely to have been a topic at some point. As you were pretty sure people who took prisoners didn't also let them wander around their base.

You had never seen any of the captured prey leave in the same state they had come; not that any of that was your concern. You were just a soldier, a pawn, and that part of the operation wasn't any of your business.

It wasn't only König who was in charge of your person, though the man was your main babysitter, sometimes it was one of the other three. But that only really happened when the big man himself had other duties to attend to.

The only one who never watched over you was the captain, their leader. You hardly even saw the man walking around, and you assumed the guy was likely just busy taking care of bigger shit than you.

It wasn't easy to gain the- well, perhaps not friendship, but you were on better terms with the rest of the team.

What was easy happened to be picking up on each of their mannerisms and speech patterns, figuring out who favored who the most, and becoming that person around them. For example, the way you acted with Soap was different to how you behaved around Gaz, and so on.

König was more difficult, or rather, König saw more of you—the real you—than of what was probably in your best interest. You weren't sure what it was, but there was something that made it more.. difficult to put on that one-man show for him.

While the giant fit in with the team, there was a little something there, between them. You'd say a rift, but that was too strong. They watched over him the same way they looked over each other, but there was still something there. You were probably right to assume König was a recent member, while the others had most likely known each other for several years longer.

That curious little part of you, that often is what had gotten you in trouble so much in your younger years, rose its head at the string left dangling in front of you once more. You wanted needed to understand what made up each member of the team, who they were, what made them tick. Weaknesses and strengths, the do's and don'ts.

That was the assignment.

But when it came to König? There was something more. An itch you couldn't quite scratch, something constantly nagging at the back of your skull. Urging you to dig deeper, to take a better look. To find out everything.

The big and small. The information you needed to gather for Viktória, yes, but more. The little things they didn't need to know. The ones you could hoard and keep all to yourself. Could wrap up in a neat little box with a bow, then put that box in a safe that only you held the key to.

You just needed to come up with a way to pick the meat off his skeleton and suck the marrow from his bones without having the favor of his own claws and teeth turned on you.

“You are much more.. pleasant, when you are quiet.” König voices from where he sits on the bench beside you, the sound pulling you from your own, far more peaceful, thoughts.

You snap your head up to face him, but the man doesn't even glance up from where he's sharpening one of his blades. This one a more ornate piece, marginally different from any you've seen him holster on his person. You doubt the pretty little thing even needs to be sharpened, likely never even used; you file that curiosity away for a later date.

You had been staring up at the sky, admiring the cloudless sky, a soft, muted blue, almost grey, stretching for as far as the eye could see—which meant a lot, coming from you. It has been a while since you have last been able to simply sit and enjoy the comforts of the natural world- all abruptly ripped away by the giant, irritating babysitter to your right.

Your eyes narrow, staring at him a few prolonged seconds later before giving an annoyed huff and returning to the sky above. Winter was settling in now, the trees barren, the earth below dry and cracked. All other vegetation was gradually becoming yellow-toned and dormant as the days passed.

You were not planning on indulging in.. whatever the man was trying to goad you into, but you just couldn't seem to keep your mouth shut around him. Unable to help yourself as you grumble a low, “there is nothing to talk about.”

“That so?” König must've finally looked away from his knife, and you can almost feel that familiar, intense gaze burning into the side of your masked face. “You barely scraped past death twice recently, one would think you had much more to say.”

“Just.. lucky, I suppose.” You grit out, one word in particular leaving a bitter taste in your mouth as it was dragged past your teeth. Surely there was nothing lucky about having one's hands bathed in the blood of a dear friend. Frowning, you look back at König once more, “thought you didn't want me to talk?”

“Is just strange, is all,” the man shrugs, “you were in the blast zone of not one, but two bombs, and survived.”

You scoff, “where are you going with this, König?”

“Only curious.” He assures. “Once is a little weird, but passable. But twice..? It just makes a man wonder. Not to mention the instances of before we found you..”

The only reason you were allowed outside happened to be thanks to the man seated next to you, it is for that reason alone you don't rip his throat out for disrupting this scarce opportunity of peace—or at least your fucked up definition of it.

“If you have something to say. Say it.”

What was with all this lead up? Couldn't he just spit it out already? This was getting boring. Fast.

“Don't waste our time with this whole,” you wave your hand at him vaguely. “‘Say everything but what you mean’ thing you are doing.”

The others must have decided that you could not possibly escape with the big guy saddled up beside you—even though, up until now, he had not been paying an ounce of attention to you. You, too, had few doubts that König could easily wrangle you.. considering the events leading up to now.

Not that you planned on leaving anyway, not when you had only recently regained your purpose.

“Why you?”

That causes your thoughts to come to an abrupt halt, opening and closing your mouth a few times, brows furrowing as you ask a suspicious, “sorry?”

“Why you?” König wonders aloud once more, as if saying it twice is going to magically make it make more sense. He must notice your confusion, because he grunts and expands on the inquiry.

“We thought we were tracking a new entity when the first trail we caught of you went cold, but then we noticed a pattern.” He says. “Every single hit they made, both fatal and not, was in a city or country you had previously been in.”

You frown, favoring to keep your mouth shut this time around and listen.

“Then we noticed something far more intriguing. Slowly but surely, with every hit they made,” Keeping the knife in hand, König holds up both forefingers. Slowly bringing them together as he spoke. “They got closer and closer to where you had last left a body.”

Finally, his fingertips touch, and the man looks down at you. “Until the most recent hit, which was right beneath you. Truth be told, our original goal wasn't to get you, we had not even been tracking you at that point. That was until we got tipped off that you may be there, and with the bombings lining up so perfectly, it was worth a shot.”

He puts his hands down, resuming his previous position. Looking at you, those intense, oh-so-curious blues once again aimed and focused on you. Something in your body twinges, but it's not injury related, so you opt to ignore it.

“So all of you are under the assumption that I am somehow involved?”

König appears to think on it for a moment before deciding on his reply. “Well.. yes and no.”

“At first we had the idea that maybe you and them were working together, maybe they were a sort of “clean up” crew. Someone to provide distraction while you slipped through our fingers. But after this more recent attack.. with how close it had been to you, we are now leaning more into the idea that you are the.. target.”

“The target?” It makes sense, when you think about it. When it had happened, you had thought it had been König's team, trying to flush you out or something; which worked, but also made their job harder to a degree. Besides, aren't these ones supposed to limit civilian casualties?

“Ja, the target,” König says. “No one in their right mind would willingly put one of their own in such danger like that. The point of this hit, after looking at the finer details, was to kill you, and no one else. It does make us wonder how they knew you'd be there, at that time, in that specific spot.”

It made you curious too, and a bit confused. If someone had been after you, the others would have known. Someone would have pulled you off duty and back to the Nest, they wouldn't have left you to wander blindly, to walk into traps that they were aware of.

Though, you suppose, it did make for a great distraction while you fled the crime scene. Not that you needed the help.

Viktória had mentioned that they had intended for you to get caught, that that had been the goal of sending you there in the first place. But she had also let slip that, whatever damage you had taken, had simply been collateral, and she had also seemed surprised that you had survived.

At the time you assumed that the point was for you to die, for your thread to be severed, another loose end tidied up with a big red bow on top. But your handler had seemed so damn relieved when you answered the call, which led you to believe the bombing was not on their part.

If not your own organization pulling the strings, not König's team, then who, or what, was behind all of this?

You get cut out of your thoughts by a relatively new, but familiar, voice shouting at the top of their lungs. Or maybe that was just your enhanced hearing.

“König! König’s sidekick!” Soap calls as he makes his way over, the noise sharp enough to make you wince. The newcomer greets König with a nod and pulls your attention with a heavy, but probably not malicious, kick to your boot.

“Captain wants us to test yer skills, runt,” you glare up at him at the nickname, scowling behind your mask. There's no real heat behind it, and you didn't exactly hate it, but you felt the need to put on a show as if you did. You and Soap got along decently, despite you still, technically, being an enemy.

…and you weren't that small..

The other men around you were just unnecessarily large.

König doesn't appear surprised when you glance over at him, though that veil covering his face doesn't assist you in deciphering his feelings much. So you assume he already knew about this.

“C'mon you two, up,” König is already packing up his knife and sharpening tools, so you figure this is unavoidable. “Ghost and Gaz are already there, we're just waitin’ on you two rascals. So enough ‘a this weird bondin’ yer doin’ and lets goooo!”

With that Soap turns and is on his way, leaving König to presumably know where to go because you sure as fuck don't. There are only a few places you are allowed to go, and their version of a training sector definitely isn't one of them. Until now.

It's been a few weeks since you've last been able to freely move and keep up with your self-assigned, intensive training routine. One you usually do in the comfort of a rundown hotel room or in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by the calm, steadying atmosphere of trees and soil.

Given your healing injuries and lack of recent practice, you doubt that you'll be at your top performance during.. whatever this is. The others likely don't even expect you to fare much above average, given the current state of your body, but there's still a part of you that feels the need to prove yourself.

Even if they currently had no idea what your given status was. They didn't know you as P-107, they knew you only as Mouse.

It was time they knew what they were really dealing with; all those years of training and experimentation finally out on display.

To show them what it truly means to be a Predator such as yourself.

König and you arrive shortly after Soap presumably does, the latter already chatting away with Skull Guy™ and Gaz. They all turn to you when König and you enter.

“Sergeant,” Ghost nods to König, then narrows his eyes at you, “Mouse.”

You tip your head slightly in greeting, feeling oddly exposed with them all staring at you like this.

“Stop intimidating the poor bloke and get on with it, Lt,” Soap huffs, nudging Ghost's arm with his elbow.

Ghost doesn't seem to pay Soap any mind, still locked in you with a certain look in his eyes that you could only describe as distaste, despite not knowing much about the lieutenant.

That little staring contest goes on between you two for a few prolonged moments longer before the man eventually just grunts a low, barely audible sound and moves on.

“A’right, runt,” seemed as though Soap wasn't the only one privy to calling you that. Great. “Seein’ how this has become long-term for now, we need to make sure you can keep up in the field. Now, König and Garrick said you performed decently on that last op, up until the very end, so this is just to get a feel for where you'll place on the team temporarily.”

You briefly wonder what they would do with you after this was over—if you didn't already have a plan to betray them first, at least.

“Go ahead and get warmed up. We regroup in ten.”

You may be on a bit of a time crunch, but you take your time enjoying the stretch and slight burn of your muscles after having not used them to their full capacity for what is nearing almost a month now.

As you prepare your body for whatever they are about to put you through, that familiar calm, silent headspace that always greets you in times like this, begins to settle over your mind like a blanket.

The other's, apart from Ghost himself, take the time to get their own little warm ups in, and all too soon the lieutenant is calling you back.

“First we will be testing how well you can hold your own against each of us, starting with Sergeants Garrick, MacTavish, and König, then finally myself, understood?”

You nod in place of a verbal response, feeling as though your mouth itself has been sewn shut. Another sensation that always seems to accompany this mindset, turning you more into a humanoid creature than an actual person. Something that appears and feels like a human, but acts nothing like one.

You will not disappoint Her, nor your handler, not again, not after what you did all those years ago. You have something to prove, and you will not be outmatched by a few nobodies such as themselves.

“Good. First up, Sergeant Garrick.” You had been standing a little apart from the group, and Gaz steps out from the pack with a nod to you before making his way to the large mats set out not too far from where the rest stood. “After you get through each of us, we'll move on to the agility course outside. Unless you're too tired, then we'll go ahead and move that to tomorrow.”

Your legs carry you over to join Gaz near the blue mats, Ghost's words background noise as all your focus pinpoints on the prey man before you. Gaze locked solely on him, categorizing every miniscule movement Gaz makes, analyzing his stature and running various predictions as to what moves he could possibly make.

Some part of your brain registers that Ghost is still speaking somewhere to your right, yet not a single word he says breaks through to your consciousness until that countdown, and subsequent, “Go.” rings clear. Then you're on the move.

This is the same man who had rammed the blunt end of a gun against the back of your skull; the only member of the team who had been fast enough to not only keep pace, but he was quick enough to get an advantage over you. You, a man who has been trained to deal with matters far worse than this your entire life.

Gaz had caught you in a bad state back then; delirious from blood loss and exhaustion, and even then you had almost escaped. You were better than that, stronger than they all thought you were.

You act first and hit hard. Past experience has taught you how quick your opponent is on his feet, and you will not be beat again.

It's over faster than it started; meeting in the middle, followed by seamlessly ducking under Gaz's arms when he reaches for you. A quick pivot of your right foot and an attack from the back.

Using your weight and the momentum carrying your body, it's easy to bring him down. Barreling into him from behind and latching on—hands on his shoulders and heels digging into his hips—, but jumping off right before the other lands.

A small huff of air is all the noise Gaz makes as he comes face first with the foam mat below, just barely getting his hands in front of himself before his face can make contact with the floor.

But it's not over. Your prey opponent isn't immobilized yet. He's still an active threat.

You don't give him a chance to recover; don't risk the possibility of him getting back up and giving you any trouble. In a split second you're on his back again, trapping his forearms together in both hands—curse these men for being buff as fuck—and pressing them uncomfortablly high to his upper back. Just shy of dislocating both shoulders if Gaz struggles too hard, and the man beneath you seems to know this. Relenting into a defeated limp with a slow exhale.

You're used to your prey giving you more of a fight, familiar with the grapple for control and venomous spats that comes with a situation like this, but that doesn't come. And the man beneath you isn't prey like all the others had been. Yet.

That realization shocks your system and with a sharp inhale you release your grip, rolling off Gaz and standing upright in one smooth motion. You don't look down at the other as you reach out a hand, offering to help him up, surprised when he takes it.

“Seems I underestimated you, eh?” Gaz’s voice breaks through your thoughts, the tone reads as friendly, if a little out of breath. And with the help of your hand, he's standing up straight beside you. “You were pretty out of it back then, so I guess I shouldn't be too surprised.”

With a friendly pat on the shoulder from a heavy hand, the man takes his leave to stand by the others. Soap is up next.

Gaz had broken you out of that mindset briefly, but now that the stakes were up once more, it quickly flooded back in. Jaw set, eyes locked on your new opponent.

He's just barely shorter than Gaz, and definitely the most visually muscled out of the group in comparison to his size.

You go through the motions again, take stock of how Soap holds himself—right foot slightly out further than the other, posture held firm but fluid enough to absorb any impact that may happen head on—, the little tells you can pick out here and there.

Now that Soap has seen you against Gaz, they all have, you can't use the same strategy on him. You have to recoup and adapt, take him by surprise.

Your strategy with Gaz had been shock and speed, with this one you just want to avoid being caught. Once trapped in that cage of muscle there would be no other out beside lowly moves that, likely, wouldn't pass in front of this team.

As you assume they held some sort of defensive attitude towards their lower halves, not much of a concern for you. You could handle pain, have had much worse, and were fully sterilized. So that wasn't a problem either.

By the time Ghost once again commands you to begin, you easily hop into defense.

You two circle each other, neither taking the first strike but wound tight and ready to spring into action at the first hint of movement.

Soap makes the first move, lashing out with a fist coming up on your left. A hit you just barely doge at the last moment with a quick hop away.

Then it's circling again, a length of time that goes on far too long for the impatient man in front of you. Always so eager to jump in head first, you've noticed.

You have the upper hand for the most part, dodging and weaving whenever Soap strikes, trying to wear him down. Looking for a weak point. But by now you both are beginning to grow impatient, all of your muscles tensed and coiled to attack.

Slowly but surely, you begin to rush, circling tighter and tighter, gradually closing in on your opponent.

But you should know better than anyone else; nothing else is more unpredictable than a cornered animal.

Which is why the sudden launch your way, thick arms wound tight around your torso, locking in your own arms, restricting you, shouldn't have been a surprise.

Given the shocked yelp you let out, it definitely was.

The tackle sends you both rolling into the group, Soap's arms stiff and an unbreakable force securing you in place.

And that is when the panic sets in. That's when you give fully into nothing but the pure instinct that had been drilled into you. Wiggling and struggling against him, making it as difficult as possible for your enemy to keep a sturdy hold on you.

Grappling and heavy breathing as you two roll around on the floor, neither holding the upper hand until you manage to knock an elbow into the side of his head. His hold slackens just the slightest, but it's enough for you to break free and squirm away.

Only to quickly return.

Springing into his back before he has the opportunity to roll over, but even with both hands, you know you wouldn't be able to hold his arms securely. Unable to hold him down the same way you had with Gaz, you come up with the next best option.

Strangulation.

Or, not really. If this was a proper fight, you'd have cut off his air and snapped his neck. But that's not what this is and you have to settle for squishing his head in one of your arms while the other hand steadies yourself on the mat below. His arms trapped beneath your knees.

You hold him there for a good few seconds, tightening your arm whenever he tries to move.

3..

4..

5..

And that's time. One call from Ghost and you release the sergeant. Rolling off him similarly to how you had after your fight with Gaz, albeit a little slower than last time. And very pointedly ignoring the dull ache in your mostly healed wounds.

Panting softly beneath your mask, you do the same as you had done to Gaz, holding your hand out to help the other man up. That hazy mindset takes a moment longer to dissipate this time.

Soap takes your hand and pulls himself up with a grunt, releasing your hand with an energized, “Woo! Looks like you've got some fight in ya after all, runt!”

You shake your head at his playful demeanor, but only you know about the secret smile beneath the cloth.

Still primed for your next fight, you stand there, waiting, as Soap takes his own leave back to stand between Ghost and Gaz.

“O’right.” Ghost calls, nodding in your direction. “Let's take a quick five, then it's back to the mats, yeah?”

Giving your own signal of acknowledgment, the tension in your shoulders lessens slightly, that background irritation of your injuries returning with a vengeance.

You stretched your arms high above your head, releasing with a heavy sigh before walking over to where the others are.

Two down, two more to go. But, for now, a break. Some time to prepare yourself before facing off with the next two.

Soap had been a struggle, the only reason you got away with Gaz was by surprise, how would you fare against the other, much bigger, members of the team?

__

Fuckfuckfuck.

König hadn't cared for the thought much yesterday, when Ghost had brought the topic up with him. Had asked if he thought you were ready for something this intense. And given how you had gone into the field with them not too long ago, König has assumed it would be fine.

And it was.

You didn't seem to have much of a struggle, at all, really. So why the hell was König's mind having- having not so.. great thoughts.

Thoughts that centered around you specifically. And how you looked when sparring against his teammates. Of course.

You were still his enemy, technically; simply one that shared a mutual goal with them at the moment. And when the time came, they would cut their losses.

This was supposed to be professional. Just you and his team, one ending in mind. A plan set in stone.

The feeling König got when he let the idea of you squirming beneath him fester was, decidedly, not of the professional variety.

Your speed with Gaz had been impressive, and König had tried to focus on that. On logic and fact, that your skills were on par with the team. That you were a valuable tool to be used.

How you acted with Soaps was even better—that glazed over, near feral look in your eyes..—, then it was over, and with it came the realization that he was up next.

It wasn't that König didn't think he could take you on.. because of course he could! You may be fast, but he was much bigger, and definitely stronger. Had proved as much when he had lifted you up by only the arm without any struggle all those weeks ago.

So it was definitely not about physical capabilities. No.

It was the places his mind drifted to when concerning you; when wondering just how much of him you could take—andtakeandtakeandtake—before you broke. Before you shattered beneath him—and let König put you back together again.

He wasn't sure he was thinking about sparring anymore.

A five minute break, five minutes to get his ducks straight and in order. To remind himself just what this was; a test, and you were simply a means to an end.

König's ducks were so, so far out of line, and now his five minutes are up. And now you're by the mat. And now he is too. And now Ghost is giving him a weird fucking look. Verdammt!

You don't look any more phased than you had when up against Gaz or Soap; so to say, you didn't look like you gave a single fuck. As if all of this was no problem at all for you.

You were just staring at him. From past experience, that was already enough in itself to unwound König in record speed.

König isn't thinking when Ghost calls out the command to begin once again, all of his attention focused in solely on you, and only you.

He saw you narrowly escape that man from back in that little town, was there when you somehow managed to hear a damn ticking time bomb that König himself couldn't hear even when standing right next to it, and now he had seen you defeat not one, but two of his teammates—which.. should probably- definitely concern them all just a bit. So, surely, he should have some sort of advantage here.

König has seen you in action, but you have yet to witness him. He wasn't going to let those intruding thoughts from before get to him; he was going to do his damn job and be done with it.

He just had to touch you first.

But, see, that was another problem, he didn't want to. Which was odd, considering just how much he's been touching you since you two met.

This was.. different, and König chooses to willfully ignore the teasing his team has put him through as an explanation for his odd behavior. As he could say, with definite, absolute certainty, that their suggestions—stupid ideas, inklings of something deeper than what should exist between reluctant allies—were completely and utterly false. It was just jokes, just friendly banter amongst teammates.

There was not an ounce of truth to it.

A sudden burst of pain on his left flank shocks König out of his thoughts and he hops back at the same time that you return to circle him once more. It wasn't a complex move, and had been a hit he could have easily dodged if he hadn't been distracted. You had only caught him off guard because he was stuck in his thoughts-

Ah. The team was going to give him hell for this later.

The next hit you swing his way König seamlessly avoids with a smooth step to the side, returning with a jab of his own. Aiming straight for a heavy strike to the abdomen. Not too hard, he's not really trying to hurt you, but he also wants to get this over as quickly as he can. The longer he's in this mock arena with you, the more time he spends so close to you, the greater the opportunity his mind has to spiral.

The hit lands and you stumble, the breath forced out of your lungs, and now is the perfect time to tackle you and end this right here and now- but you don't react as you should.

You recover quickly, getting back into position, gaze still locked in him.

What.

That's not how the human body works, König would know. He's done this hundreds of times before; the body has dozens of weak points that are easy to exploit. A mean punch to one of those areas should've been a quick take down for someone of your stature, one that left you gasping for air; leaving just enough time for König to restrain you.

While König is busy trying to figure out the logistics of whatever the fuck that was, his feet moving on their own, you're going in for another hit, but this time he catches on. At the last moment he steps aside, not giving you the opportunity to back out, flipping around and slinging an arm around your waist.

König wastes no time, throwing you to the ground, with probably more force than necessary, and jumping on you. He can't let you get up, can't let you recover again. No. He has to end this.

Of course, you don't make that easy for him, squirming and flailing beneath him whilst he struggles to get all of your limbs under control. Grunting now and again with every thud of your fist and kick of your boot.

And König swears on his own sanity, that you fucking growl at him, and in the moment his mind produces a picture of a tiny snarl on that face of yours. A small huff of laughter escapes him at the idea, a traitorous part of him finding the image cute.

It would be so much easier if you would just stop moving. You don't grant him that generosity.

It's becoming quite the.. problem. To focus on anything but your body beneath his, almost entirely forgetting that you two are supposed to be sparring at the moment. And that you aren't alone right now.

God help him, König hopes they don't read too much into this interaction as well.

He doesn't have to see it from an outsider's point of view to know this doesn't look entirely.. professional right about now. His larger body positioned above yours, your legs locked around his waist, the heels of your boots digging into his back- trying to flip him, König knows. Hands scrabbling at his chest, the way you're squirming and bucking beneath him like a feral bull.. it all would read very alternatively in an entirely different situation.

Fuck him—or you, he isn't picky—, König's breathing is growing a bit heavier as time wears on, his body a little warmer. Both could be written off as exertion from the struggle, but König knows damn well they aren't.

“Stop fucking moving,” he grunts, low enough for only you too hear. The last thing he needs is for the rest of his team to catch into what's going on—if they haven't already. “You've lost, it's over. Just accept it already.���

“Over my dead fucking body,” you snarl right back, wiggling one of the arms he'd finally caught out of his hold once more.

Everyone is smaller than him, it's nothing new- so why does it feel so much different with you?

You're his enemy, König should be having entirely contrasting feelings on this situation. He shouldn't be.. shouldn't be enjoying how much smaller than him you are, how perfectly you fit underneath his hulking form.

All the people König has ever met have been small compared to him, but none of them have made him want- want. That's it. Yearning. Wanting. For things he refuses to name even to himself, in the safety of his own mind.

Admitting it would mean defeat, in a whole different context. And König isn't ready for that just yet. Ever.

He needs an out, and König gives it no thought before simply releasing his firm holding and dropping down onto you like a dozen sacks of potatoes. Or maybe more, it's not like he'd know his own body weight in potatoes.

“Mmph-!” Crushing you beneath him, there's no way you could escape that. Why hadn't König thought of it before? Could've saved himself so, so much turmoil.

“Time.” Ghost says, and König could've sworn he detected a hint of amusement in that gruff tone. He's never going to live this down..

He pulls himself off of you, shaking himself out before simply reaching down and grabbing you by the arm. Yanking you up and placing you on your feet, only letting go once he's sure you're steady.

You don't say anything, merely glaring at him, but König ignores it. Stomping away back to his place beside Ghost.

“Distracted, König?” The Brit says as soon as he's close enough. And, yep, that's definitely humor in his lieutenant's voice. Damn him.

“Shut up.” He scoffs, sending daggers Ghost's way with mental power alone.

“Wasn't sure if I could call time or give you two some privacy.” König was going to end him. Dishonorable discharge and such be damned, he was going to murder his lieutenant.

“Shut it.” He continues on his way, choosing to stand beside his fellow sargeants instead. Which he should've known would, also, be a bad idea.

Today was definitely not König's day.

“So,” Soap hums, his time casual but König can see that damned spark of impish glee in his eyes. “That how you treat all your “subjects of interest” or just him?”

Gaz doesn't add on, but König can tell he's enjoying this almost as much as Soap is.

“Shut it, Soap.”

“Think I ‘eard ya whisper somethin’ to him too, mind fillin’ us in?” Who is he kidding, Soap has never heeded his warnings. “Or is it just the runt yer keen on filling?”

König groans, Gaz trying his best to stifle his laugh.

“I don't know what you think you saw-”

“Oh, König, pal, we don't think we saw something. It was clear as day. Too bad Ghost called it, I wanted t’see how it all played out!”

“C'mon, Soap, you must be outta your mind,” Gaz cuts in, and for a moment he thinks the man will get Soap to drop the subject. “With that size difference? Don't think the poor little guy would make it out alive.”

König mentally jots down both of their names on the list he just made up after Ghost's first quip.

“Ha!” Soap laughs, nudging his partner in crime. “Good one, Gaz. But I rest my case, who said the runt would be on the bottom anyhow?”

König is out into a shocked silence, staring at the Scot wide-eyed, the tension only broken by Gaz’s bubbling laugh.

Letting out a deep breath, König grumbles, “I harbor a deep dislike for the both of you.” and is endlessly thankful he had decided to keep his hood on. It did well to hide the furious blush warming his face at the moment.

Drawing his attention away from the two idiots beside him, his gaze falls on you. Ghost is speaking, and despite knowing he won't be able to make anything out, König strains his ears to try and listen in.

It yields nothing, of course, but worth the try anyway. Ignoring whatever weirdness that hard sparked between the both of you during your fight, König was eager to see how this next one would play out.

Now it's time they put you up against The Ghost.

__

Masterpost | One | Two | Three | Four | Next

__

@cptg00s3 @ruthgrimxiao @20nerd04-blog @gloma08 @mikahrh @in-down @hauntedapplefarm @mello-life69 @unkn0wnd3ad @tayaisback @starre-eyes @gabbvr-dog @suhmie @lazyrel @spiritzofthedead @yeonpm @its-ares @k1ssesofdeath @ravagerdogz @embry-garrick-ravengard @the-spartan-himself @justacreamcheesesandwich @dilf-lvvr @tukus13 @literallyrousseau @olibird

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball Super Manga ch.91-93

Last time, we covered the "prequel" story of Goten and Trunks adopting superhero identities and capturing Dr. Hedo. Now we get into the events of the DBS: Super Hero movie itself. I already liveblogged the movie extensively in September (here, here, here, here, and here), so for the manga adaptation I'll be focusing mainly on whatever changes Toyotaro made to the story.

First off, Chapter 91 opens with Piccolo picking up Pan from school, and when she talks about wanting to be a superhero like Goten and Trunks have been doing recently, Piccolo offers to train her just like he trained Gohan in Dragon Ball Z.

Unfortunately, this is the sort of thing we can expect from this adaptation. It's mostly a straight retelling of the movie, and the little extras that get added in don't really add much to the story. I mean, the movie established that Piccolo has picked up Pan from school in the past, but there was no need to show it. Also, the movie didn't really explain why Piccolo started training Pan, probably because it didn't need to. I think the manga pretty much proves my point, because it attempts to tackle the question, but only comes up with a fairly pat answer. She wanted to fly and shoot hand energy like Goten and Trunks, and so Piccolo offered to teach her and she said yes.

Then we get to this scene, where Krillin's boss in the West City P.D. holds a briefing on the Red Ribbon Army and their plans to recruit Dr. Hedo. This takes the place of the flashback montage that opened the movie, and it sucks.

That montage was awesome, and Toyotaro could have drawn his own version of it here, but instead he did this. We could be looking a Goku punching Tao Pai Pai, or 17 killing Dr. Gero, or Cell smirking like a boss, but instead we're in a boring conference room reading walls of text.

Look at this fucking page! It's awful! A lot of this one serves as a stand-in for Carmine's report to Magenta about Dr. Hedo. I get it, this is a lot of information to go through, and Toyotaro probably wanted to move on as quickly as possible, but part of what I loved about the movie was the way they showcased the characters and visuals during the infodumping. Carmine's report is pretty dry in the movie, but Magenta's office is interesting to look at, and Carmine and Magenta themselves are visually compelling characters. While they talk about Hedo, Carmine shows off his video editing skills and Magenta keeps screwing up his snacks

This police briefing, however, sucks all the fun out of it. This place looks like a hotel conference room with hardwood floors. All of the cops look exactly the same, and why the hell are they wearing helmets and sunglasses indoors, anyway? Krillin's boss, Sergeant Nutz, has some potential, but she has nothing to do with this story, so featuring her so prominently here is just a waste of time.

What really irks me is that the next scene shows Carmine and Magenta talking about Dr. Hedo, just like in the movie, except there's not much for them to say because Krillin and Nutz already covered it all! That's really dumb! We have two scenes designed to set up the plot of the movie, and one of them was in the movie, and actually features the main antagonists. But Toyotaro chose to emphasize the other scene instead.

So the idea here is that the police are already aware of Magenta's scheme to revive the Red Ribbon Army, and they know he plans to recruit Dr. Hedo once he gets out of prison. They also know that Hedo had that disc containing data on Dr. Gero's bioweapon, although I don't see how they could know that, since Trunks couldn't access the data on the disc and it was destroyed before anyone else could try. Hedo told Krillin in Chapter 90 that he memorized the contents of the disc, but he never said what it was that he memorized. This also goes against the storyline in the movie. In the film, Magenta had Gero's data on Cell, and the reason he wanted Hedo was because his own scientists couldn't do anything with it.

Anyway, the police seem to know everything about the Red Ribbon Army already. The only thing they don't know is where the Red Ribbon base is, so they send Krillin to follow Magenta's limo and spy on him. So we get the limo scene from the movie, except Krillin's clinging to the side of the car the whole trip, and then Hedo spots him and sends his cyborg bee, Hatchimaru, to attack him.

The gag here is that Magenta and Carmine don't even know Krillin is out there, and Hedo doesn't particularly care. The scene plays out almost exactly like it does in the movie, but with Krillin spliced in like Jabba the Hut in the Star Wars Special Edition.

Of course, Krillin gets shaken off so the base's location remains a secret, so this whole bit is completely pointless. It's just so dumb. I assume Toyotaro needed to pad out the story for one reason or another, or maybe he just wanted to add some new details so he wouldn't get bored retelling a movie like this. But if this is the best he can come up with, why bother? So far, this manga keeps "expanding" on the movie by answering questions nobody asked, like "Why did Piccolo start training Pan?" or "Why didn't the authorities stop the Red Ribbon Army?" or "Why is Gamma 1's cape red?"

From here, it's a pretty faithful retelling of the movie, which kind of makes the "filler" scenes even more conspicuous. It's refreshing to see the actual story move along without all these pointless diversions. On the other hand, it's kind of dull, because I already covered the movie and there's nothing else to talk about here.

There is some extra stuff in the Gamma 2 vs. Piccolo fight. Piccolo loses an arm, but then he grows a new one and makes it all long to catch Gamma 2 off guard. It doesn't slow him down much, but it's something we didn't get in the movie. I do find it a bit strange how Gamma 2 notes Piccolo's regeneration ability like it's this new data to add to his files. Shouldn't the Red Ribbon Army have all of this intel programmed into Gamma 2 by now?

Moving on, when Piccolo infiltrates the Red Ribbon base, he gets stopped by his superiors, who remind "94" that he isn't assigned to this area, but another soldier offers to switch assignments so "94" can gain some valuable experience watching Hedo eat cookies.

Again, what is the point of this? We're just derailing the story so Toyotaro can waste a page explaining how Piccolo managed to get this far into the base. In the movie, nobody notices or cares that "94" is in the command center instead of the hangar. That's because they're all faceless, interchangeable henchmen. They wear masks and refer to each other by numbers, for crying out loud! This is why Piccolo disguised himself in the first place! If Toyotaro wrote Star Wars, he'd do a whole scene where Luke Skywalker has to rewrite the Death Star's duty roster just so "TK-421" can get reassigned to prison detail. Nobody cares!

Okay now this is more like it. We get to the part where no one can reach Goku and Vegeta because they're training on Beerus' planet, and so Toyotaro gives us a little more of the sparring match Goku and Broly had in the movie. It's not a lot, but this is the sort of thing filler is good for. Toyo also does a whole montage recap of the DBS: Broly film, which is perfectly serviceable, but it annoys me because it demonstrates that he could have done the same thing with the Red Ribbon Army flashback in Chapter 91, but instead he did the briefing scene with Sgt. Nutz. Ugh.

We see the same scene where Vegeta explains the importance of mental training, although when he talks about all of their recent opponents, he adds manga-only characters like Moro, Gas, and Black Frieza. And that's fine, although it's strange when he talks about Jiren and Black Frieza in the same breath like this. In the manga, Vegeta has gotten pretty good at "Ultra Ego", his answer to Goku's Ultra Instinct. And Goku's learned to tap into UI at will. So I'm pretty sure Jiren and Moro aren't really an issue for either of them anymore. I mean, the only reason Goku couldn't defeat Jiren by himself at the Tournament of Power was because he lacked experience using UI, and now he's much better at it.

The point I'm getting at is that in the manga, Vegeta doesn't need to do "mental training" to defeat Jiren because he's already surpassed him. And he might need it to surpass Broly and Black Frieza, but he speaks as though that's their secret, and he needs to learn how to do it himself. I'm pretty sure Broly isn't "relaxed" between attacks when he's using his full power. He was kind of freaking the fuck out back then. Black Frieza might have been doing something like that, but he only hit Vegeta once, so I'm not sure how he could be certain.

So then we move on to the part where Piccolo wishes for a power-up from Shenron, and we just skip the part where Dende upgrades Shenron to do that. The implication here is that DBS-manga Shenron always had the ability to make Orange Piccolo, and no one bothered to ask before. Kind of annoying.

Anyway, while Piccolo and Bulma are getting their...ahem... enhancements, Trunks sees them and calls Goten. They make plans to sneak out and play superheroes again, even though Goten's grounded and he really doesn't need to run up a bigger bill with his mom. I guess this is the throughline for Goten and Trunks in Dragon Ball Super. No matter what happens, Dragon Team tries to keep the boys out of it. It's not just Chi-Chi wanting Goten to study. Back in Resurrection F, Bulma tells the others that she doesn't want them fucking around during the battle with Frieza. And Vegeta ices them out of the tournaments with the other universes because he doesn't want them turning into Gotenks and being dorks the whole time. The Saiyaman X-1 and X-2 caper probably didn't do much to convince anyone that Goten and Trunks have matured.

But they still crave the excitement of being in the thick of things. They know the adults are trying to keep them out of it, and that just makes it more exciting. I suppose this is the legacy of the Buu Saga, where they had to get involved because there was no other choice, and they've had the bug for DBZ mayhem ever since, but their parents said no.

And maybe that's why Goku and Vegeta were so determined to train the boys in the End of Z episodes. Sometime after Super Hero, they came back home, heard about the Saiyamen costumes and the battle with Cell Max, and decided that they needed to be toughened up. Like, okay, you want to go fight bad guys like we do? Stop doing the poses and quit relying on fusion and learn how to do it right. And if the sparring sessions are too hard for you, you can always go back to doing your homework like your mom wanted."

That's why Goten's so frustrated in DBZ 289. He just wants to go on dates or screw around, but his only options are a) homework and b) fight for-ev-er *clap clap clap-clap-clap*.

And now that I think about it, this is where GT dropped the ball with Goten, because he doesn't really seem to have gained anything from that. Hitting the books and getting hit by Goku should have made him a bit more serious about his life, but instead he's just constantly talking to girls on the phone, because that was the only thing GT's writers seemed to think of for him to do.

I mean, they kind of got it right with Trunks, who went into GT with a lot of responsibility and skills. He didn't enjoy his position, but you could tell he'd grown a lot as a person since the end of DBZ.

So yeah, maybe I'm beginning to appreciate Big Goten more than I did before, but this newfound perspective still doesn't do much for this part of the manga. There's just a lot of nothing happening here, and throwing more Krillin, Goten, and Trunks at it doesn't help matters.

[little-mouse-adventures]

A Timeline of Events in the Artemis Fowl Series

If anyone's interested, I did do an actual analysis for where I pulled some of these dates from. But because I cannot type succinctly to save my life, it's 5,000 words long, so that's below the cut. I also put the timeline there again, but in three separate images, so hopefully they load well enough to be fully legible if the above isn't.

A thousand thanks to @sadbitchapologist and @zahnie for their help and advice with this, despite neither of them having any more than the barest interest in the series and therefore having no clue what I was on about. Thanks also to @orangerosebush for fielding completely out-of-the-blue questions about the French school system, so I didn't have to attempt to navigate web search results to figure out what mandatory gym classes were like for the sole purpose of plotting Luc's birthday on here.

An Analysis of the Timelines in the Artemis Fowl Series

A Brief Introduction

The Artemis Fowl series is made up of eight books covering a range of years and events. I wanted to see how accurate the timelines present in the books were, as well as try and plot out some other details implied in the novels but not explicitly stated, to have a better understanding of the overall world-building. To that end, I went through the series and made the above timeline. I colour-coded it based on the relevance of the specific items to certain categories, namely Humans, Fairies, Villains, and the Series itself. This does mean that some things could have fit into multiple categories. For instance, you will see some items involving Opal categorized as Fairy-Specific (such as her college years, as those are fairly neutral to the main plot or her villainy), Villain-Specific (such as her setting up her emergency fund, as that is mostly related to her schemes as opposed to relevant to her existence as a fairy, or part of the main plot of the series), and Plot-Specific (such as her opening the Berserker Gate, the primary plot point for the final book).

Before we really delve into things though, we should establish the baseline assumptions I was working with. Firstly, I am only using the original series. I have not used anything written in The Fowl Twins trilogy, given that those books seem to ret-con a considerable amount of the original information, and that is far too many headaches to give myself. Any supplemental series information, such as the short stories found in The Artemis Fowl Files, or anything from interviews is also not included. The premise here is: using just the original books, what is the event timeline of the world? The second thing we need to establish is that I am using the North American releases of the novels. I did make notes on where each bit of information comes from, but there isn’t really a citation style for this kind of thing, so I’m not sure how relevant that is. The third assumption is that the first book takes place the year it was originally published. According to my copy, the original publication was 2001, with the first American paperback edition coming out in 2002, and the first mass market paperback being released in 2003. This means our starting point is in 2001.

For sake of clarity, this analysis will start with setting the dates of the books and continue on from there.

The Basics of The Books

With that out of the way, let’s talk about the first book, Artemis Fowl (AF). It is actually not until the very end of the book that we get a solid answer for when it takes place. It’s only in the last few pages of the novel that Angeline Fowl leaves her attic room after all the plot points are tied up and announces that it is Christmas Day. This might be cause for concern – Angeline had not previously been established as a particularly reliable narrator – but given that we are asked to believe that Holly’s ‘feel better’ mood booster worked, and that neither Butler nor Artemis balk at or question the pronouncement that is Christmas Day, we’ll accept that it’s true and move on. This means that, with Butler’s earlier announcement that he was stuck doing four months of stakeout, we can say with a fair amount of certainty that Artemis obtained and translated the Fairy Book in September 2001, and managed to capture a fairy in December of the same year.

Moving on to Artemis Fowl: The Arctic Incident (TAI), we are given a decent chunk of information, albeit spread out a bit. The first is the announcement that the ransom drop for Artemis Fowl I is to be held on the fourteenth. The fourteenth of what, you might ask? Well, we are told that Artemis is currently thirteen years old. Clearly, things are past September 1, 2002 (we know Artemis’s birthday is September 1 based on information in both the fifth and seventh books). We are also told that Luc Carrere has been trading with the goblins for six months, starting in July. That puts us in either December or January, but we can narrow it down further since Artemis gives us another helpful clue. He mentions they are not expecting to see the dawn while attempting to rescue his father in the Arctic. There are only a few latitudes on Earth where polar night (of any type) occurs, and at Murmansk, polar twilight occurs between December 10 – January 2. Combining all of this, we learn that TAI takes place December 14, 2002, give or take a few days to either side.

This can be corroborated by information in Book 3, Artemis Fowl: The Eternity Code (TEC). After Holly heals Artemis Senior, we are told that it takes over two months for him to wake up. Since we are specifically told two months, as opposed to two and a half or three, we can conclude that the events of TEC take place in March 2003. Mulch gives us some information that confirms this. He was living in LA “less than four months ago,” and since he was conscripted to help with the events of TAI in December, a March plotline fits the bill. We are given further confirmation as well: Spiro mentions that Artemis will be fourteen in six months. A specific date for Artemis & Co.’s attack on Spiro’s Needle can be pulled from the throw-away line that Pex and Chips are “burying” Mulch on the full moon. A quick web search tells us that the full moon in March of 2003 takes place on March 14, and the rest of the events in the novel take place roughly two days to either side of that.

In Artemis Fowl: The Opal Deception (TOD), the fourth book in the series, we are given several very clear indications of when the events take place. Firstly, Artemis is contemplating that at fourteen years and three months old, he is the youngest person to successfully obtain The Fairy Thief. Based on previously noted details that his birthday is in September, the events of TOD must take place in December of 2003. Additionally, we are told that things are the middle of winter and Opal has been in a coma for eleven months and counting as of the end of TAI, another December plot.

Artemis Fowl: The Lost Colony (TLC) requires the most math and interpretation so far to figure out when it takes place. We know Artemis is still fourteen, so the main events clearly happen sometime between January 2004 and September 2004. Beyond that, we are using a fair amount of context clues. Artemis and Butler have evidently been traveling for four months looking for demons, so we are dealing with events in at least May. But that still leaves us several summertime months to work with, so to establish a timeline here, we will need to look forward a bit. In the sixth book, Artemis Fowl: The Time Paradox (TTP), it’s noted that Artemis is not yet fifteen, and has, on multiple occasions, spent the full moon in the study. Ergo, he’s spent at least a few months back from Hybras. If he has been back for two months and not yet turned fifteen, he would have had to have returned by July at the latest, and since he returns almost three years later than he leaves, we are looking at him returning in either May or June. This would have him disappearing to Hybras – and by extension, dealing with the earlier events in the book – in June, July, or August. After his conversation with Minerva, he notes to Butler that they “are planning a June wedding,” which wouldn’t make sense to say if they were currently in the month of June. From all of this, we can extrapolate that the first three-quarters of TLC take place in late July or early August 2004, with the triumphant return of our intrepid heroes occurring in June 2007.

As previously stated, TTP mentions that Artemis is still not fifteen, but is nearly there. He has also been home again for at least two months. This would put the events of the sixth book in August 2007. At least, the events set in the current time period. TTP does bring back time travel, and with it some problems. We are told that Artemis and Holly jump back nearly eight years to Artemis being ten and trying to fund searches for his missing father. This would put the events of the past in early 2000. However, other details presented regarding Artemis Senior’s disappearance, which we will discuss later, make that impossible. Artemis also admits, in TEC, that he was eleven when his father disappeared, not ten. If we take a bit of creative license with our interpretations and base the time-jump to the past on other presented information as opposed to the dates given in TTP, we can say that Holly and Artemis instead return to early 2001. This lines up with further details, such as the sinking of the Fowl Star (as calculated a few paragraphs down in this analysis) occurring in December of 2000, and the textual confirmation in TTP that it’s barely two months past that sinking when Artemis brokers the deal(s) regarding the silky sifaka lemur. Since, at the end of the day, the time jump impacts very little in the grand scheme of things, and the year 2001 actually fits in better with other textual evidence and events, that’s what I’m going with for this timeline.

The seventh book, Artemis Fowl: The Atlantis Complex (TAC) gives us a very helpful base point! It takes place on Artemis’s fifteenth birthday, September 1. From our previous results on setting dates for book events, that would be September 1, 2007. The sections in which Butler and Juliet are fighting mesmerized wrestling fans and meeting up with Mulch are noted in the novel as happening “the day before,” which would fall on August 31, 2007.

Artemis Fowl: The Last Guardian (TLG), the eighth and final book in the series, creates some problems. If we assume that Artemis starts receiving treatment for his Atlantis Complex immediately after diagnosis in TAC¸ that would put him receiving treatment in September 2007. We are told he is certified as cured after six months. Yet we are also told that the rest of the events of the book take place in the week or so leading up to the Christmas holidays. Everything so far has said that the Artemis Fowl series follows the current calendar, in which case there is no way that six months can fit between September 1, 2007 and December 25, 2007. However, the only reference to Christmas is in two lines noting that the Fowl parents were planning on holidaying with their children on a foreign beach. If we simply say that six months have passed, and they are instead planning on spending the Irish school system’s spring holidays in the French Riviera, everything else lines up much better. So that’s what I’ve done. This would also put the resurrection of Artemis, after the events of the book and a further six months have passed, at roughly September of 2008. There is a pleasing symmetry to Artemis being born and then re-born in September, though if you want to get really technical and say the events of TLG take place during the 2008 March full moon as Opal claims (as noted in another web search as March 28), a six-month wait time for the clone to grow would put the resurrection in October. Still, there is something to be said for having a boy’s ghost haunting a clone of himself close to All Hallows. Since it’s the last plot point of the series, you can choose which you’d like; it doesn’t have to lead to anything else after it.

Let’s Talk Timelines: The Beginning of the Line to The End of The 19th Century

Now that we have our baseline book time periods established, we can get into the math used to determine some of the events in the timeline above. Several events are easy; we are given specific dates for them. Turnball Root meets Leonor in 1938, Juliet wins the Miss Sugar Beet Fair beauty contest in 1999. Other things are based on some basic math, such as Artemis claiming his parents got married fourteen years prior to AF¸ putting that event in 1987.

The majority of the items on the above timeline, however, do take some mathematics, extrapolation, and interpretation to plot out. To try and keep everything organized, we’ll start at the far left of the timeline, and work our way forwards, looking at events oldest-to-newest to explain why they are where they are on the graph. I won’t be getting too in-depth on everything in the graph, since I’m not sure how relevant the notes on the very minor side characters such as Carla Frazetti are, but I’ll at least try to touch on some of the more relevant points.

To start with, the Battle of Taillte was noted in the 2000’s as being ten thousand years ago, putting that at 8000 BCE. Similarly, the last dome breach at Atlantis was apparently eight thousand years ago in the 2000’s, so that would be 6000 BCE. Troll sideshows were legal in the early middle ages, which implies they were not legal after that. A quick web search says the early middle ages ended around 1000. The first crusades were in 1096-1099, and as those crusades are the start point of the Butler-Fowl working relationship, a point for noting that comes next on the graph.

From there, we get into more modern – relatively speaking – events. Briar Cudgeon and Julius Root are noted as attending the LEP Academy together and being raised in the same tunnel, as well as having about 600 years of history together. If one assumes “being raised in the same tunnel” is similar to the human equivalent of “growing up in the same neighbourhood,” we can assume the two were born roughly 600 years ago, in the 1400’s. Vinyaya is portrayed as being of a similar age to Root, so her birth can also be put in the same general era. We are also told that Fowl Manor was originally a castle built in the fifteenth century, that in the early 2000’s the theories of timeline corruption were first introduced over five centuries ago, and that cloning has been banned for over five hundred years, so those three events are also tossed into the 1400’s.

Julius Root is noted as doing his LEP basic training 500 years ago in Ireland, so that would have to be in the 1500’s. He would have attended the Academy before then, putting that in the mid-to-late 1400’s. As previously stated, he was in the Academy with Cudgeon. Opal also met Cudgeon in college, and competed with Foaly for science prizes there, so they were all in school at the same time.

Mulch now enters the picture. We aren’t ever given a specific age range for him, but we are told about his career. He has, apparently, spent three centuries in and out of prison after a couple centuries of success as a thief. This would make him at least five hundred years old. There is a brief mention that he tried the athletic route at college before becoming a thief, so he would have to be an adult at that point, putting his age at roughly 550 years during the events of the series.

We then enter a period filled in from one-off lines throughout the series, presumably added to give some depth to the world. Things about the wine cellar at Fowl Manor being a seventeenth century addition, Captain Eusebius Fowl and his crew dying in the eighteenth century, and Mulch first faking his own death over two hundred years ago.

Time Marches On: The 20th Century

There is nothing of much relevance to linger on between the 1550’s and the 20th century, so we’ll jump ahead to the 1900’s, when we have Holly Short’s birthday. She is in her eighties during TLC, and her father died “over twenty years ago” when she was “barely sixty” as of TAI. Based on that, she would have been in her early eighties in 2002, putting her birthday sometime in the 1920’s. What a doll.

A few more birthdays now appear, and we’ll ignore, for the most part, some of the irrelevant ones. I don’t think we are at all concerned with Gaspard Paradizo’s birthday, or Mikhael Vassikin. We are, however, rather more interested in Jon Spiro, Domovoi Butler, and Artemis Fowl I.

Jon Spiro enters the series in TEC, as a middle-aged American. A quick search on the Internet says that middle age is generally noted as being between the ages of 40 to 60. We are told that Spiro has worked in three main industries over the past two and a half decades. Additionally, we are told that law enforcement has been “trying to put [him] away for thirty years.” If we assume he entered the working world at twenty, spent five years developing his professional self, and then started going down a path of questionable legality to get the police after him, that would put him at fifty-five in 2003, and born in the late 1940’s.

It was a bit easier to determine Domovoi Butler’s age, and we can get more specific with his actual birthday. We are told that he is forty at the start of TEC, and he is still forty during TOD. From that, we can assume his birthday is not between March – December, which means it has to be between January – March. Now, we can just leave things there, but contextually, Butler says in late March 2003 that “a lot of people know [him] as a forty-year old man.” Since I doubt he’s the kind of person who introduces himself by announcing that his birthday was last week, we can assume that his birthday is not in March. Since about half the books in the series take place in December, and there is never any mention of Butler’s birthday coming up soon, we can likely assume it isn’t in January. We can therefore conclude Butler was born in February, 40 years before 2003, which puts his birth year in 1963.

We then have Artemis Fowl I. This one took the most extrapolation to determine. We know he has run an ethical empire for a few years as of 2007, which coincides with his return to his family after being kidnapped by the Mafia. He apparently ran a successful criminal empire for two decades before that, though, so in 2007 he has been working for at least 25 years. Based on the interactions he had with his own son, I’ve assumed he was also taught to take over the family business from a young age. If he started working at his age of majority at 18 (as possible in the 1980’s in Ireland, based on a web search), we can assume he was born in roughly the mid 60’s.

Billy Kong, born Jonah Lee, is one to touch on. He plays a large role in TLC, during which we are given possibly the most backstory of any villain in the series. He was evidently born in the early 1970’s, and was eight years old in the early 1980’s. Mathematically, that can only lend itself to so many birth years, so it’s easy enough to put his birthdate somewhere in 1973, and his brother’s death date in 1981.

While we’re here, let’s talk about the 1980’s. A lot of things happen in the 80’s, so we’ll be here for a few paragraphs. Butler would have graduated Madam Ko’s Academy in the early ‘80s, Artemis I would have started working in his family’s business and stolen some warrior mummies (of note, the theft is only noted as being in Artemis Sr.’s “gangster days,” but if you are a young, rich criminal, you’d likely commit a wild theft in your early years as opposed to your thirties, which is why this is put in here). Additionally, in the mid 1980’s, Holly graduates the LEP Academy and her mother dies, as noted in TTP when she is contemplating missing three years of her friends lives.

Butler would have started his five-year stint in Russia with an espionage unit in the mid-to-late 80’s, and become a big brother in 1985. Juliet is noted at being four years older than Artemis in AF in 2001, and he is twelve then, making her sixteen at the time. We can extrapolate the month from TEC, wherein she is apparently eighteen when she is called regarding her brother’s apparent death. At the time, we are told what gifts she received for her birthday, implying it was fairly recent. Additionally, Artemis was only thirteen at that time, which would make Juliet five years older than Artemis. If, however, we trust that acolytes at Madam Ko’s start their training on their tenth birthday and get one chance to graduate per year, it would make sense for that one chance to be on their birthday, or within a day or two to allow for as much training time as possible. Since Juliet was in the midst of this one graduation evaluation when she gets the phone call and joins the crew for the March heist at Spiro’s Needle, she’d have to be born in March. (We can also corroborate this with some details from AF: if AF  takes place in mid-September, that would be just after Artemis’s birthday, which puts the 4-year age difference back into play.)

Spelltropy begins for the People in 1987, if it appeared 20 years ago from 2007. Artemis I and Angeline Fowl would get married in 1987. They would have their first child, Artemis Fowl II, in 1989, as calculated by Artemis being twelve during the initial siege of the Manor in December 2001. Artemis II’s grandfather was noted as having been dead for over ten years at that point, and it was mentioned in TEC that Angeline married her husband before he really took over the family business, so those events would likely happen when Artemis was but a baby in 1990.

The ‘90s are a period where a lot of things are happening, but few are particularly important. Spelltropy has a cure found, Minerva Paradizo is born, Juliet begins her bodyguard training and her brother refuses to let her shave her hair. These, and other events in the 90’s, are mostly calculated by math along the lines of “Event A happened X number of years ago,” but since the 90’s was mostly a time of worldbuilding events rather than plot events, we’ll just skim over the specific details.

‘You Are Here’: The 21st Century, and Where The Storytelling Begins

Welcome to the 2000’s! The kick-off point of not only the 2000’s, but also the entire series, is the sinking of the Fowl Star. We aren’t given a specific date for this, but we are given enough information to extrapolate the date. Specifically, in September 2001, in AF, we are told Fowl Sr. has been missing for almost a year. In TAI, in December, we are told he has been missing for almost two years. That does have the potential to have the ship go down in either December or January, so we need to use a bit more details from TAI to make a final determination. Mikhael Vassikin and Kamar were told to dump Fowl’s body in the Kola if he didn’t wake up in “another year,” so they’ve been looking after him for one at that point. Fowl Sr. wakes up two weeks before the deadline, and as noted earlier, the ransom drop for him takes place December 14, after he has been awake for perhaps a week. From that, we can tell that the deadline for “another year” was mid to late December, putting the initial sinking of the Fowl Star in late 2000.

The analysis gets a bit confusing at this point, because 2001 is when future Artemis and Holly join the party via time travel, as well as having their regular selves in the timestream. Essentially, we’ve established the timeline for the events of TTP above, so we know the whole lemur fiasco takes place in March 2001. Artemis wakes up at the end of that book thinking about fairies, which ties in rather neatly to him then dragging Butler across three continents for six false alarms (with an assumed approximate 3 weeks between each jaunt) before striking metaphorical gold in Ho Chi Minh City in September. During their time-traveling, Holly also gets a chance to talk to Root, who wonders why she isn’t in Hamburg, which was noted in AF as Holly’s first major failure as a Recon officer and was nearly preceding the events of AF. The time-traveling would also mean that Opal would have had to harvest her DNA for future diabolical plans before March 2001, when her younger self travels to the future. Since it takes up to two years to grow a clone to adulthood, and her clone has to be ready in September 2003, we are a few months off in the time requirements, but really, for a practice that’s been outlawed for 500 years, I can offer a bit of leeway.

We are now well and truly in the thick of the main events of the series. Most of this will be tied into the initial assessments we made way at the beginning of this essay, where we established when each book occurs. Because of this, we aren’t going to spend time on anything plot-related. However, a brief note on Turnball Root and Artemis’s Atlantis Complex is likely in order. Artemis was, as previously stated, dealing with his return from Hybras and the after-effects of stealing magic during July and August of 2007. His Atlantis Complex, and Turnball Root’s plan to escape the Deeps prison, are in full swing in September of that year. We have a brief note in TAC during the evacuation of Atlantis, that Turnball had, a month before, spied on Artemis and noted his Atlantis Complex developing. Therefore, Artemis’s Complex likely came into play in late July or early August 2007. This is close enough to Artemis’s magic theft to make sense for the deterioration of his mental health, and enough time for Butler to have started to notice something was wrong, as he did. We can therefore assume that Atlantis Complex, at least in the case of magic-stealing humans who have a propensity for time travel and getting involved in supremely complicated and improbable plots, develops relatively quickly.

This leaves just one major discussion point from the last few books: the age of Artemis’s twin brothers, Beckett and Myles. The twins are first introduced at the very end of TLC. They are written as being two during the events of TTP, three during the events of TAC, and four during the events of TLG. Regardless of the time-traveling shenanigans of their elder brother, it is impossible for the twins to age two years in the eight months between Artemis’s return from Hybras in June 2007 and the finale of the series in March of 2008, so we need to look at what makes sense.

Myles has already potty-trained himself, and done so at fourteen months, so they must be at least that old. Their other behaviours would make sense for them to be two in TTP. Diapers are still a part of their lives, and their language and vocabulary fit what a two-year-old would have, at least in Beckett’s case. Since Artemis was surprised by their existence, it doesn’t seem likely that  Angeline would have known she was pregnant, or at least not have told Artemis yet, when he went to Limbo. Ergo, they can’t be any older than two, since (one would hope) Artemis would have noticed his mother’s pregnancy if the twins were any older.

Additionally, in TLG, we know Artemis gave his brother a birthday present, so he had to have been around during the twin’s birthday at least once. With this fact, the twins cannot be born between March – June, which just leaves the question of when are the twins born?

 The most logical answer is February 2005. If Angeline was early on in her pregnancy, say six weeks (which is when most women start noticing symptoms), when Artemis disappeared in July 2004, she wouldn’t necessarily have told him yet. Then, if we assume that since most twin births occur around the 35-week mark, that would math out to having the twins be born in February of 2005. Fast forward, and they would turn one in February 2006, and two in February 2007, which puts them at the correct age for the events of TTP. [One could argue, of course, that a twin pregnancy in an older woman (unfortunately, there is nothing in the series to indicate Angeline’s age) and in a woman already dealing with significant stress could result in a very premature birth, thereby voiding any of this math and leaving the whole question of the twin’s birthday unanswered. However, since I’d rather not subject the Fowl parents to the strife and misery of having one son missing and presumed dead, and their younger children in the NICU with a low survival rate, I’m working with the assumption that the pregnancy was a healthy and normal one.]

The brief comment from Juliet in TAC about the twins being three can be passed off by them being a little over two-and-a-half and Juliet not being around as she is touring in Mexico. By the time TLG takes place, in March of 2008, the twins would have had their third birthday, allowing for Artemis to give Myles his chair as a birthday present, Beckett to be old enough to no longer need diapers, and the behaviours to act more like children than infants. While this doesn’t quite allow for the repeated textual confirmations in TLG that the twins are four, we’ll go with what mathematically makes sense.

That brings us to the end of the timeline! Not everything is touched on in the timeline, and not everything in the books is plotted (we are never given enough context to know Foaly’s or Opal’s birthdates, for instance). But the main events of the Artemis Fowl series are all analyzed, mathematically or logically or textually corroborated, and plotted out, for use or ignoring as personal preference dictates.

[be-my-ally]

All Revved Up

a/n: mention of elvis knowing he was going to buy the stutz; but from my research it appears the actual purchase was more spur of the moment than it is implied here. 

For a prompt that was fic based on a car. The car is… not the main event here; i can’t yet quite bring myself to defile the blackhawk - maybe another time. 

warnings: some level of objectification; oc laura briefly  compares herself to a car, brief fingering/masturbation, sex (p in v). I am, officially, sick with (absolutely totally not just a cold) flu so if this makes no sense I am sorry lol. pretty much p without plot. really stupid car jokes.

wc: 2.2k concise smut is back!!

1970 elvis x oc

thanks to the girlies as always!!

If you were to peer up at 1174 Hillcrest Drive from the road you’d probably be too far away to notice the curtains twitch just the teeniest bit, at least that’s what Laura hopes from her position trying to look out at Elvis in the driveway. She’d wanted to come out with him, he’d been so excited about the delivery of his new car, 

“It’s a prototype Lor, you can’t even buy it yet!” But he’d been adamant that she had to stay inside, preferably away from any prying eyes. He’d explained he’d agreed to photos - that they had been a key factor in the negotiations for the car. It had, in fact, been pretty much the only way to keep Sinatra away from it, and he didn’t need to have his joy at that tidbit of information be soured by Priscilla’s reaction to his truly broken promise with Laura being errantly caught in the background of one of the, sure to be heavily publicized, images. He’d sworn up and down to Cilla - he was going to the Hillcrest house just for the car; he’d be back at the new house in Palm Springs a day or two later; and no, no she didn’t need to bother even doing the fairly short drive with Lisa, “No, really Cilla it’s fine - it’s going off to be customized anyway.”

In a similar fashion to this elusive car, Laura had been delivered to Beverly Hills herself for the next couple of days. It was a nice change of pace from Vegas for her; she was, despite being essentially at Elvis’ beck and call whenever he wanted someone fun but familiar for a couple of days, still working at the International. While it was the fall Las Vegas didn’t really have an ‘off’ season and so it had been a struggle to find someone to cover her shifts at such late notice but her excitement at the possibility of getting to be alone with Elvis for three days had made it well-worth the effort. He’d promised her mostly uninterrupted bliss, and apart from these two hours on Friday he’d be all hers until Sunday afternoon. 

“I swear - I won’t be long. ‘S the only reason I was able to be here; just gotta spend the hour and take the pictures.” Despite her annoyance - he’d been pulled out of bed for it, he was practically reverberating with excitement and all she could do was concede, agreeing to stay away from the front of the house for however long it took. She couldn’t resist a peek though, even though she knew basically nothing about cars, still wanting a sneaky preview of what he’d been so excited for. 

She wasn’t disappointed, it was a gorgeous car and looking at the long, sleek black lines of it that she could just about see from her vantage point she could understand his desperation to have it. He circles it, looking like he’s dressed to match the car, slender black suit and thick gold belt accentuating the gold accents of the S badge at the top of the long silver grill. Laura continues to watch him as he gently brushes a hand over the shiny waxed exterior as he peers into the windows - appreciating the finish. The action makes her squeeze her thighs together, stomach muscles and vagina twitching and tightening in some sort of bastardized kegel as she remembers him that morning, circling the bed and assessing her in much the same way, claiming he just had to check he’d remembered her just right. 

He walks out of sight, and had anyone else been in the room with her she would have been mortified at the sad groan she let out in response to being unable to track him any further, and she lets the curtain drop out of her grip - stomping back over to the bed and flinging herself on it. 

She’s left hot and needy, and frustrated enough to start to deal with it herself, absentmindedly fiddling with her nipple, images of Elvis circling the car, circling her running through her head. She takes a shuddering breath in as she runs her hand down to slip into her panties, imagining it was him brushing his hand over her - complimenting the softness of her skin the same way he commented on the waxed finish of the hood. She’s just starting to get somewhere, her eyes closed, as she focuses on her clit when the door slams open as Elvis walks in. He’s taken his jacket off, left in his white shirt and black trousers, sunglasses still on his face. Laura jerks her hand out from her panties with a start. His frown transforms into a grin at the sight of her panic and sudden look of concentrated innocence, his eyebrows rising behind his glasses. 

“Huh, now then, what do we have here?” 

“What, what do you mean Elvis?” She tries to play it coy, rolling to face him fully and tugging her dress down as she does. 

“Well, I saw something in the window, sure looked like some little girl peeping out where I told her to stay away. You tryin’ to get me in trouble with my wife?” She cringes at the mention of Priscilla, playful mood changing as she quickly attempts to defend herself. 

“No, no, of course not!” He frowns at her sternly for a moment before he cracks, shaking his head laughing, 

“Knew it was you!” 

Laura gasps, “You didn’t even see me?!” He shakes his head, still laughing as he walks over to sit on the other side of the bed, curling his knee up so he can face her. 

“Oh you wicked boy! Elvis! I thought you were really annoyed!” He smiles, taking his glasses off, leaning over to rest on his hand over her legs. She shifts onto her back, leaning against the headboard. 

“So,” He flops his head to the side, keeping his eyes on hers as he trails a finger up her leg, circling her knee, “then, tell me, how much is that girlie in the window?” She giggles at his frankly stupid joke, and the way he’s just catching her where she’s most ticklish at the joint of her knee and thigh. 

“Hmmm, more than you can afford now you’ve bought that faaaaancy car.” 

“You like it, baby?” She nods, fervently, 

“It’s gorgeous… I bet it drives real nice.” Elvis looks pensive for a moment, 

“Yeah, well, uh, maybe - maybe later, when, when it gets properly delivered - after it’s gone to George, I’ll take you for a spin.” He nods, “Actually, yeah, that would work - I might even be in Vegas by then.” She hums noncommittally. He smiles, changing the subject, “Now though, let’s get that engine of yours purring huh?” His hand slips further up her thigh and he pretends to act shocked when his fingers graze across a damp spot, “Ah, you’re already all revved up aren’t you baby?” 

Laura nods, her legs parting open,  dress rising to her waist again. “Uh-huh, been waiting for you,” He tugs gently at a little patch of curls escaping from the legband of her underwear as he wriggles two fingers under the fabric,  and she squirms, 

“Ohh, you have been keeping that little motor running - just waiting for me to come and take it for a ride huh?” He rubs his knuckles over her burning, sticky, skin before reluctantly withdrawing his hand in order to shift himself up the bed, situating himself between her knees. He rapidly unbuckles and unzips himself, Little Elvis springing free, heavy belt buckle hanging down by his side, the weight pulling his trousers down further. Laura moans,

“God, El, wanna ride you - or you ride me, or god, I don’t know - whatever you were saying.” He laughs at her flustered expression and words, pushing her legs further apart and tugging her closer. 

“Shit, gotta, gotta get these off,” It never fails to make her smile to herself the way he’s portrayed as some sort of sex-god, and then does something like forgets to take her panties off. She shimmies them off herself, minding she doesn’t kick him in the ribs while she pulls her leg up. They’re still hooked around one of her ankles when he impatiently pushes her leg back down, gripping her knees. Elvis pumps his fist down himself, tugging her closer, nudging himself at her folds. Laura stops him, reaching down to grasp at his glasses, he doesn’t help her but he also doesn’t stop her and soon he’s blinking slightly as his eyes are forced to adjust to even the slight difference of light in the dimness of the room. She chucks them to the side, smiling back in response to his, lifting her hips a little and hooking her feet behind him - as if to remind him what he had been about to do. He looks to the side, grabbing a pillow from beside her head, shoving it under her hips. 

“You ready baby?” She nods, and he grins suddenly boyish, “Gotta pump that lil empty engine full of gas now.” She shakes her head even as she giggles, kicking him just the teeniest bit. “Ow! Watch it!” He laughs. 

“Elvis -I swear if you make a ‘you’ve got gas’ joke now I’m getting up and walking out of here.” He loses his balance at that, practically collapsing on top of her as he laughs hard enough that he’s shaking the mattress. 

“Don’t you mean drive -” He sets himself off again, “Don’t - don’t you mean you’re gonna pull out,” he chortles, “p-pull out and drive away?” 

“You silly, silly, man.” She can feel him twitching against her upper thigh, his laughter tickling her neck where he’s tucked his head down, his hot puffs of breath causing her skin to pebble. “Or is that race-car driver?” He heaves a last breath of laughter and presses a kiss against her collarbone before pulling himself back up. 

“Lady and Gentleman, start your engines.” He slides his fingers against her, and Laura quite literally can’t open her legs any wider, shifting her hips up as she tries to ignore his joke, 

“C’mon El, please, I need you.” He strokes her side, shoving the hem of her dress even further up. 

“I got you, don’t worry, I got you baby.” Elvis mutters, sinking into her, mouth instantly falling open, as he’s enveloped in her wet heat. She takes a deep breath in as she adjusts to him and he stills for a second, waiting until she nods before starting to move his hips. 

It’s quick and dirty, clutching at her waist and slamming her against him, moving a hand to paw at her clit and Laura is almost embarrassed at how quickly she finds herself on the edge. Elvis is whispering compliments, sucking his cheeks in in that way he does, unable to stop his lips and cheeks twitching between speech and it quickly gets to be almost too much, watching the sweat start to form on his forehead, the fact that he’s still fully clothed - like he just couldn’t wait. His thumb rubbing her just right as he mutters, 

“Oh baby, bet-better than a, than a - than a fucking corvette, god I love you.” and it sends her straight over the cliff. 

Her eyes fall closed as she shudders through her orgasm, finding herself still trembling and being held up entirely by his grip on her hips even when her blood stops fizzing in her ears and she’s able to relax her tense muscles. 

She opens her eyes just in time to watch him throw his head back, hair flopping with it, his lip curling as he grunts through his own orgasm, pulling out just in time to shoot across her thigh. If either of them had lasted longer than five minutes she’d be surprised. He collapses to the side of her, breathing hard, and it’s a couple minutes before either of them speak. 

“Jeez Lor, remind me why you’re not coming back to Tennessee with me?” She gives him a wry smile, 

“You know full well why.” Laura trails a finger down his cheek, jabbing it into him and squealing as Elvis playfully tries to bite it, “besides, you’re back in January aren’t you?” He nods, 

“Yeah- yeah I think, think that’s what’s bein’ ‘rranged.” He pauses, “You’ll still be there won’t you? Still looking pretty with your little apron and tray ?” Laura grins, 

“You never know - I might be promoted by then…I’ll be waiting on the rich and famous in the suites and just won’t have any time for you.” He nibbles down her finger, looking at her darkly, 

“Yeah you will be. Waiting just on me.” She giggles, shaking her head, “Uh-huh, only me - gonna put in a special request.” He taps her nose with her own finger, his hand enveloping hers, “Just. For. Me.” She nods along with him, whispering back, unable to stop herself giggling, 

“Yep! You and all the other rich and famous people.” He shakes his head, flopping back down to distract her with a kiss. 

@thatbanditqueen @vintageshanny @be-my-ally @arrolyn1114 @from-memphis-with-love @missmaywemeetagain @whositmcwhatsit @ellie-24 @shakerattlescroll @peskybedtime @powerofelvis @dkayfixates @lettersfromvenus

[nott-another-sideblog]

unethical experiments au

this is a post-war au which mostly follows canon and focuses on theodore nott. this au does not follow cursed child, but it maintains the plot point of him making a time turner and the ministry finding it.

some key points:

- dark families were mostly punished via imprisonment and a lot of fines, though the unmarked children of death eaters got off fairly lightly if they weren’t involved in following voldemort

- after the war, theodore decided to become an inventor. he still had a hell of a lot of money even after the fines, and he wasn’t marked nor involved so he got a brief community service stint and that was it. he’d always been a loner, so nobody cares that he spends most of his time inside his house, doing god knows what and with very little communication to the outside world. the few he does talk to do sometimes commission him for small magical trinkets, which he allows because they sometimes give him good ideas.

- nobody pushed the limits of magic far enough, and though some laws of magic were established, the core of magic was still unclear, so he decided to look into it. he took existing principles and tried to force them as far as they could go, tweak them to see how far their reach went. he wanted to learn how it all ticked, and then he could have all of magic at his disposal.

- theodore’s favourite branch of magic has always been time magic, so that’s the one he does the most work with. his pet conspiracy theory is that the capabilities of time magic have been hidden for decades to try and stop the common man from ruining the timeline, and he’s determined to go past the established limits.

- after years of tweaking and failed experiments, he manages to make three extraordinary time turners. one prototype that can send you back without keeping you in a loop, with a time limit of five minutes, one more refined time turner without the time limit, and the other can send you to the future.

- the last one is incredibly unstable, though, because of how unstable any set future is, so he also gave it a time limit of twenty minutes. due to the fickle nature of the future, he rarely got to the same one twice, and he wrote that one off as a bad experiment and kept it in the lab. he’s proud of the other two, and keeps the prototype in his bedside to fiddle with as he prepares for sleep, disassembling it and reassembling it repeatedly. it’s a misstep that leaves it in a vulnerable position, ripe for discovery because his ego and complacency over not being discovered for so long has led him to keep lesser safety measures outside of the lab.

- unfortunately, the ministry has been tipped off about his strange activities. odd artefacts have been cropping up, and they determined he source to be nott manor. they raid the house but can’t find his lab, though they do find a strange device in his bedside and they take it back to the ministry. he is promptly arrested under orders from the minister, hermione granger, to be brought to the aurors and questioned.

- their main fear is that he was planning to bring back voldemort, but the device is clearly old as the sides and separate pieces are slightly worn from his fidgeting. their main doubt is that if he was going to do so, then why hasn’t he already?

- their questions mostly involve things like asking why he made it, whether he made any more, if he was working with anyone, whether he intended to use it against the rest of wizarding society.

- he could not give less of a fuck about voldemort, so he didn’t make any moves towards this, which is probably what allowed for the deal; they’d let him stay out of azkaban if he worked for them and put it in writing that he wouldn’t launch an attack on innocents. he found that clause unnecessary and offensive, but he accepted regardless. off-books, to avoid accusations of corruption or criticism for working with a semi-known criminal. he refused an unbreakable vow, but accepted a contract.

- the official record is that they never found anything at his house, but anyone who knows anything is aware that it’s a) bullshit and b) not evidence that nott hasn’t got illegal shit in his basement

- the ministry still doesn’t like him, though, and the feeling is very much mutual. he thinks they’re restrictive and doesn’t care for them trying to threaten him or claim power over him, and the ministry officials see him as a wild card and it’s in fairly constant contention that he’s on their contacts list. the strenuous alliance is one bad day away from shattering into a million little pieces

- he’s mostly given dark objects to reverse-engineer to figure out how they work so the ministry and cursebreakers can figure it how to counteract them. though the ministry is less corrupt after the war, they’re still shadowy as hell, and the unspeakables barely report to the minister anyway, so he gets much more fun jobs from them.

- he does things like figuring out how to apparate living tissue that the wizard isn’t touching, how to make near-perfect clones from plant matter, and how to bottle magic. he figures out how to channel magic through things other than wands effectively, though he keeps this one from the ministry.

- hermione doesn’t know what to make of him. he doesn’t seem to be working against them, but he clearly doesn’t like being under control of the ministry either. if they push too hard, they risk him breaking away and becoming a threat. if they become too lax, he’ll take the opportunity to do what he wants and possibly have the chance to attack. she doesn’t feel right about the ministry’s collaboration with him, but he’s effective at neutralising other threats and quick with solutions, and she only has time to deal with nation-wide threats. she can’t spend weeks analysing dark artefacts to minimise the damage, but theodore can, and he’s willing so long as they overlook his other experiments. she keeps up the alliance, but has a contingency plan for if she suspects he’s straying further from the deal.

- harry hates him. he’s off-putting and cares little about the fundamental rules of society, like what is and is not allowed to be tested. it’s clear that if the ministry hadn’t stepped in when they did, he’d be doing far worse things with his science, and harry has to remind himself of how much damage has been mitigated by nott’s help so he doesn’t ignore the alliance and arrest him on the spot. it irks him that they have to allow such an obvious danger on the loose with only a flimsy contract and plans on what to do after he attacks. also, nott keeps spiders and centipedes and other crawling awful things in his house out of a detached sort of interest, which makes having to visit to give him a request or an item that much more unpleasant.

- ron has heard about nott from his friends, and he’s wary of how close they are to an obvious threat. he’s never met the man himself, but he’s heard harry’s complaints about his cold manner and strange tendencies that give the impression he cares not about other people, so he’s built an image of a snapelike academic with a disinterest in the welfare of anyone else, and that pissed him off. he’s also heard about the insects and so he immediately put nott in the danger zone because why the fuck

[kiraridertime03]

My Adventures With... Supermen?

Alright, so, I just got done watching the third episode of My Adventures with Superman's second season, Fullmetal Scientist. Great episode, fun episode, as per usual. However, certain inclusions have me scratching my head, leading me to only one big question...

Which would be a spoiler, so beware below, but...

Are they gonna kill Superman?

Now, I am not confident in this conclusion at all, it is purely because of two primary character inclusions in the past few episodes that seem to be pointing in this direction. It could mean nothing, but I am crazy.

To see what I mean, we need to jump back to the 90's. One of DC's major events within that period was titled Reign of the Supermen. It was a story that was spread across the 4 main Superman comics of the time, Superman, Action Comics, Superman: The Man of Steel, and Adventures of Superman (ha). This brief storyline, in short, followed 4 Superman Related characters as they vie for the role of his successor. This is because, right before this, Superman famously died.

Yeah, this event is the sequel to the Death of Superman, and builds up to his revival at its end. It wasn't very long, less than a year, but it is there. However, what is important for now is who our four Supermen are.

The first, who we'll skim over because he is least important right now, is The Eradicator, some freak alien who steals Clark's body and takes his identity. The details currently don't matter, though keep a lookout for their stupid glasses!

The second is Conner Kent's Superboy. This is the clone one made up of Clark and Lex's DNA. You may recognize him from the series Young Justice, however, at this point, he was in his Leather Jacket Era, not his black T-Shirt era.

However the final two are more interesting to see. The first we'll talk about is Cyborg Superman. He was once astronaut Hank Henshaw, but he got all fucked up in space, blaming Superman for it for plot reasons. When he eventually died because of space, he was able to upload his mind into a almost clone body of Superman with Robot bits. He then claims to just be Superman revived. Eradicator does this too, but it's funnier for him.

Finally, there is who is one of the more popular characters we see in this event, probably only rivaled by Conner, that being John Henry Irons, aka Steel. He is the only one without Super in the name, having designed to design a suit that helps him be like Superman, though he also gives himself a rad as hell hammer because John Henry. He was later played by Shaq.

So, now we jump back to present day, with MAWS's second season. The first episode draws the gang to S.T.A.R. Labs in Coast City (A place important to the Reign of the Supermen arc for reasons we don't have time to get into and probably won't get into because it probably won't happen exactly like the comic if it does happen in the show) and we meet Hank Henshaw. Neat, me and many others think. It makes sense, he is a space science guy, so might as well draw on a character from the lore. Plus, it gives the creators the opportunity to do a Cyborg Superman later down the line, as this show does love its robots. However, I didn't think much more of it. That was until Episode 3, an episode primarily dedicated to introducing John Irons and making him Steel, if briefly. Now, on its own, this is still innocuous, he is a fairly popular Superman character, and they do a great job with him, I love his larger bodied design.

However, things become suspicious when these two are introduced in such rapid succession. The writers want these Supermen in play for... something. It, of course, hasn't introduced all of them. There has really been no trace of Eradicator, and it seems weird to have Lex cloning Superman this early in the show. So, while we have half of the Supermen here, we aren't quite there yet. Although... We do have another Super nearing us very soon.

Much of this season's arc seems to be prepping for the introduction of Supergirl, Kara Zor-El. You know her, she got her own TV show, she's probably more popular than most of the characters we've seen in this post. However, we don't know too much about her role in the season past that. From what we've seen from annoyingly spoilery Toonami bumbers, she's probably being controlled by the remnants of the Kryptonian empire, whether it be ruled by Zod or Braniac, and whether it being of her own volition or not, and her current arc seems nebulous. However, Superman has built up quite the positive reputation even just in the single season we've seen him in. Imagine the kind of pressure, whether she has taken an antagonistic role in the past of the series or not, that it may place on her if Superman "dies" (or get sent across the galaxy or captured by the government and made to be presumed dead by the public or something). Especially if she has to take down an evil Cyborg claiming to be her cousin.

Do I think this will happen this season. It's probably too early to say, but I find it to be... doubtful. I have my doubts to them ever "killing" Superman, fakeout or not. If they did, it would probably be a season finale cliffhanger before having a 2 episode premier the next season with a Reign/Return of Superman arc the next season. However, they definitely want to do something Reign related at some point. Whether that means "killing off" Supes is yet to be seen. Though, given how close the two arcs are to each other and how much the government (Amanda Waller) wants to kill Superman, I wouldn't be surprised.

Long story short... Uh... Good episode, fun episode. I like this show a lot and I hope it keeps being good.

[danmeiarchive]

Devil Venerable Also Wants to Know by Cyan Wings -- a brief review (no spoilers)

80 chapters + 2 extras

My Rating: ★★★★★ / 5

I went into this story fairly blind / un-spoiled as to the plot and characters and I really enjoyed it. If you like The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System I think you'll like this one. It's a pretty quick read (I read it over the course of 2½ weeks) and it also feels a bit lighter of a read -- in the sense that there's not a bunch of twists and turns or faceslapping going around. There's still narrative weight to the characters' choices but it feels more focused on the emotions of the characters than on making a dogblood drama.

I also really enjoyed the cultivation meta in this book -- there were sections where we would get insight into why the main character did a certain thing and how he belived that would / could impact the universe / world / dao.

Check for content warnings under the cut.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What kind of story is Devil Venerable Also Wants to Know?

This is a story that really breaks the fourth wall and doesn't take itself too seriously. Like Cyan Wings' other stories that I've read it is really funny and the characters are fantastic. If you like transmigration novels but dislike the trope of an all-powerful manipulative "System" that keeps that transmigrator in check then try this one! The main character is NOT a transmigrator but he does gain knowledge that breaks the fourth wall and there are times when he considers the people around them as if they were characters in a novel. Several of the main characters can also be read as asexual and / or aromantic which is really nice too.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Throughout the story the main characters are growing and learning more about themselves and each other -- there's several times when a character reflects on how they had misunderstood another character or not known what was really in their hearts. This leads to the story feeling very emotional and tender as you slowly get to know the characters. This is mainly in regard to the main character and his love interest but its true for some of the supporting cast as well.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ultimately it feels like a story of two people (who whole-heartedly trust each other with their lives) slowly opening up and allowing themselves to be vulnerable with the other. There's also a good portion of the story that talks about heart demons and how that affects one of the characters -- it becomes a plot point even. It certainly takes the main pair a lot of work but once they are finally on the same page (ha) and treat each other as equals... it's very sweet and intimate.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Who are the main characters?

Without going into details here's a little bit about our main squad:

WenRen E - Our main character. WRE is the leader of the XuanYuan demonic sect and an absolute badass. He somehow reminds me of both Yan Wushi from Thousand Autumns and Wei Wuxian from Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation. He is arrogant and prideful but also cares SO MUCH about the commonfolk in the world. He is absolutely ruthless when he needs to be but he has a line that he does not cross and he forbids his minions from crossing it either. There's also a lot of times where he's sussing out why or how something works a certain way and his understanding of the dao and the universe felt profound.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yin HanJiang - Our love interest. There's a specific post I've seen that is coming to mind but I can't remember how it's phrased... YHJ is loyal to WRE and ONLY WRE. He is submissive in the way a guard dog is -- he would follow WRE's every order and do everything in his power to protect him but at the same time he would not hesitate for a moment to attack anyone he viewed as a threat to WRE. At the beginning of the story he keeps a certain distance between himself and WRE but as the plot develops that distance becomes smaller and smaller.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

BaiLi QingMiao - the protagonist of the book that appears in WRE's hand which serves as the impetus for the story. WRE finds himself frustrated and confused at her actions a fair amount of time but over the course of the story she too grows up and gains a new outlook on life.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Shu YanYan - a seductress demonic cultivator. She only dual cultivates with consenting partners and uses her cleverness to manipulate people. She also seems fairly uninterested in romance -- I think she alludes to not wanting to get her heart broken but she also seems very happy as things are with her various lovers.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Qiu CongXue - hands down my favorite character in the story. I liked everyone but QCX is always speaking her mind and stirring up trouble. She has strong himbo energy and I don't want to spoil anything about her, just know that anytime she comes up it's going to be great.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What is the plot of Devil Venerable Also Wants to Know?

One day a book suddenly appears in WenRen E's hand. This is notable because he is a very strong demonic cultivator and he didn't sense anything before the book appeared. So he looks at the book and decides to take it very seriously. He reads it. And he discovers that he is a character in a trashy romance novel, as is his most trusted subbordinate Yin HanJiang. He becomes very curious to find out if the other characters are real and if the events that happen in the book are destined to come true or if they can be changed. So he sets off and meets the protagonists of the novel and begins experimenting. Without spoiling things he is especially concerned about what happens to Yin HanJiang in the book. He also wants to know more about the novel's protagonists and their motivations.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Click 'keep reading' to see trigger warnings.

ptsd, depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, violence, manipulation and abuse, mention of torture, war, survivor's guilt, etc. The characters have some tragic backstories and there's some things in the novel that WRE reads that are disturbing -- but ultimately there's not "on screen" torture that the characters go through, the novel instead focuses on what's going on in the characters' psyche.

[majorasnightmare]

2, 3, and 5 for dirge!!!!

YAY YIPPEE YAYYY THAAANK :D<

2. Is your OC a loner or a social butterfly? Are they satisfied with how they come across to other people?

in his pre tadpole days dirge THOUGHT he was a loner (and successfully came off as such) but he rly craves connection. he needs a small group of people to regularly interact with or else he starts experiencing shrimp color mental illness symptoms. but he rly rly is NOT a social butterfly because if he has to talk to more than 7 people in a day hes just going to start killing mfs. unfortunately his charisma score is stacked and hes quite good at casual meaningless interaction with an endless slew of NPCs so most people tend to perceive post tadpole dirge as one even if it makes him want to invent new warcrimes.

3. What is your OC's financial status? Are they just scraping by, making enough to live comfortably, or wealthy? Has there ever been a drastic change in their status? If so, what happened?

Dirge starts off stably impoverished with his adopted parents, before having a brief homeless stint with Sceleritas post The Incident, and then gets roped into Nepo Baby status once Sarevok dumps all his bank accounts into Dirges name so he doesnt have to manage payroll anymore. A good chunk of his life involved him being TECHNICALLY wealthy, but youd just never know it based on how he lives. Hes fairly comfortable with the scavenging nomadic lifestyle the party has to adapt for the plot of BG3 (and quite good at it if my never ending camp supplies has anything to say for it), but those temple bank accounts ARE still open in his name so hes technically still loaded? By the epilogue, where disability related circumstances force Minthara into making arrangements to settle into Baldur's Gate properly, hes still Upper City rich but only now has the housing to reflect it, since you know ms baenre is NOT settling for anything less than a manor as befitting her status and properly honors her partners position as a godspawn. Dirge rarely makes use of this except to source exotic alchemical reagents and to help stock an evil necromancy basement to import biological material to create chimerical abominations since Jaheira very nicely asked for him to not pull that serial killer shit in her city while shes still around. also itd make karlach sad.

overall he basically just lives like hes still paycheck to paycheck despite both him and minthara having access to stupid amounts of cash due to inheritance and excellent financial skills (casual reminder he does taxes), and is fairly resistant to changes in financial status because he just isnt that materialistic

5. Does your OC have a signature weapon and/or attack? How long did they train to master it?

Dirge USED to be a dual daggers main, using Stillmaker and Bloodthirst, and that skillset was built up alongside his general assassin repetoire during his younger years being indoctrinated into the cult, so in addition to a general proficiency with small arms combat, dirge took around a decade or so to really hit his stride with the daggers thatd become his trademark (definitely longer than orin took to reach a similar point in skill).

Post tadpole, in game he uses mostly staves alongside magic but hes actually more of a hand to hand kind of person. His signature is a closerange eldritch blast, usually as part of a combo and typically against a surface like a wall or pillar so that the rebound bounces you back into range. Essentially a punch is accentuated by an eldritch blast as it connects, with the knockback being exploited to slam targets into a surface hard enough to bounce them back into range, since as any warlock main knows you can start nailing them with 3,4,5 hits in a turn.

When the Urge overwhelms him, he goes fully feral and foregoes weapons entirely, opting to instead use natures gifts and utilize his claws and teeth on opponents instead, and thats all instintive bhaalspawn behavior for him, no training necessary. He typically aims for easily punctured vitals, but if both hands are occupied hes not above using his teeth to tear or crunch as necessary. Anyone present for the siege at moonrise was treated to a lovely view of dirge sinking his claws into the mortared stone to haul ass up to the rafters to tear archers limb from limb before pouncing from on high to rend a cultist into a fine red paste before lunging into the adjacent room on all fours like some kind of hellhound. In game he got the highest killcount out of all four party members AND jaheira so he isnt really leaving any leftovers for others to pick off (astarion got second. lmao)

[carladuquette]

I was tagged by @dragonsoftheeast to write about my writing - thank you!!! If you know me, you know I love to go on about this, so be prepared, this is a long one.

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

15

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

312,657

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Elite Elite Elite, baby. I have one Money Heist fic (Nairobi, la puta madre para siempre 🔥) and one Class fic, but that's an Elite remake, sooo… I'm pretty much a one-trick pony haha.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Close your eyes, count to ten (duh); The ties were black, the lies were white (next chapter coming soon!); Midnights in October; Summer state of mind; It's the most wonderful time of the year

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Yes! I'm so grateful for comments and love chatting with people about their thoughts, the characters, my interpretation of them, etc.

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Hmm, I don't know that I really do angsty endings. Lots of angsty stories and chapter endings, for sure. But the ending-ending is usually at least hopeful, or perhaps melancholy. Maybe Heavy is the head that wears the crown. Fics like Midnights in October or Best Friends Forever are sad, but I wouldn't say the ending is angsty.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Close your eyes, count to ten! No way was I going to give Lu anything but the happiest ending after everything I put her through ❤️

8. Do you get hate on fics?

No! Honestly surprising considering I write so much VaLu and they're a little controversial, but I guess I got into Elite fic when the fandom was already pretty small, so not that many people were around to care anymore, haha.

9. Do you write smut? If so what kind?

Only very brief scenes.

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

Midnights in October is a ghost story (that's really a story about friendship) inspired by The Haunting of Bly Manor. And, uh, 12 points go to… is kind of a crossover with the Eurovision Song Contest? But my only real crossover is I put a spell on you, Hocus Pocus with the Elite characters.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope.

13. Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

Not yet.

14. What's your all-time favorite ship?

Lu and Valerio will always have my heart.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

I have a laaarge number of story ideas that only exist in my head, but I don't have any unfinished WIPs right now. I'd like to think I'll end whatever it is I started, even if it may take me forever 🙃

16. What are your writing strengths?

I'm good with plotting- I have good ideas that I can turn into fairly good stories, I'd like to think. I give different characters room to grow, or at least give them little moments to shine, too, not just my favorites/ main characters. With characters I know well, I can make them "make sense"- dig into their motivations, their character traits, how they've been treated and have it be clear (maybe not for the characters around them, but for the reader) why they act the way they do and why they make certain decisions, even when they're bad decisions.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

There are some physical reactions people have that I repeat too often. I love angsty drama and in longer stories, I put in so much sometimes that it loses its effect a little, I think. I'd like to be able to write more lyrically, but I can't, so most of my stuff is pretty straight-forward. And I can't write good smut to save my life.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I personally don't believe in it. The occasional pet name or whatever thrown in is fine, but apart from that it a) doesn't make much sense to me; whatever language you write it, to me it's implied that this is the characters' mother tongue- like, I write in English, but the Elite characters live in Madrid, so the assumption is that they all speak Spanish, which would make switching to actual Spanish weird. And b) it's more work for readers then having to use online translators to figure out what people are saying.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

I started to put down a Grey's Anatomy fic about Izzie and Denny yeeears ago that didn't go anywhere.

20. Favorite fic you've ever written?

Obviously Close your eyes, count to ten will always be my baby. I spent close to three years with the characters and I'm proud of the story. But depending on the day and my mood I have other favorite fics, too.

I tag @dhyanshiva and @cangse-sanren, two incredibly talented Class fic writers. I can't think of any other mutuals who write, but if you do and that has escaped me (apologies), PLEASE DO THIS TOO! I'm serious- all fic writers, feel tagged!

[carrotcouple]

Book Thoughts: Cart and Cwidder by Diana Wynne Jones

*knock knock* I got it into my head that I wanted to talk about the books I read and how I felt about them and try not to spoil them so that if anyone reads this post they can pick up the book without knowing everything that happens in it.

So 'Cart and Cwidder' is from "The Dalemark Quartet". Publication wise it is the first book to have been published. Chronologically however, it is the third book in the series. I decided to read the series in publication order. For those of you who recognize the name, yes! It is the same author who wrote Howl's Moving Castle! I actually read the fourth book (chronologically and publication wise) randomly when I was a child cause I found it in a library and none of it's friends were around.

From my understanding each book in the Dalemark Quartet is about a different character's story and all these characters end up significant characters in the fourth and last book. With heavy Welsh Mythology and Celtic Mythology roots, the Dalemark Quartet is a fun vibe for those who liked Arthurian Mythology too!

Cart and Cwidder is about a family of Singers (consider them traveling bards). Moril, the youngest son of the family, is the main character. He's dreamy but level headed and rather detached from the world. He tends to go where the wind takes him. His family travels between the North and South of Dalemark often, singing songs and talking to people. The North and South have a horrible relationship and tensions are rising. War seems to be looming on the horizon.

Now that my brief summary is over, lemme talk about how I enjoyed the book, my overall impression of the characters and the themes that I gleaned from the story.

Moril was an incredibly fun character to read. His dreaminess and detachedness led to a very broad view of the story. The story was, of course, written in third person but it was through his point of view. He was fairly content to remain stagnant in that dreamy state at the beginning of the story, but when the ball starts rolling and the plot catches him, he has to learn to grow into his own person, realize that the stagnant dreaminess was his calling to pave his own path as a Singer and eventually lead him to play the blessed Cwidder. He grows in leaps and bounds in this story, hearing the music in the wind and letting it carry him.

Brid was fun! As the only daughter in the family, she was naturally closer to her mom, but she didn't quite have the same steadiness. In fact, it's mentioned on more than one occasion that she needed to be in performance mode in order to do anything in public. Yet despite being in performance mode, she had no qualms with integrating her personal emotions and her real personality into the story. It was incredibly endearing how halfway through the story, her siblings and Kialan let her take the reigns in familial stuff. She was cute and young and wore her heart on her sleeve, but she too grew by the end of the story.

Kialan, who is a boy the family takes in to travel with them briefly is prickly and annoying (to Moril and Brid) at first. He's a smart and no nonsense kind of person who is always looking over his shoulder and trying to keep himself safe. He has one goal and has been trying to achieve that goal for a long time, sometimes no matter what cost it comes at. However, by the end of the story he grows incredibly attached to Moril and Brid. Ready to trade in those self survival instincts and smarts, just for them.

There are other characters, but these three were the central ones, so I really will not talk about the others.

'Cart and Cwidder' is a children's adventure story, not unlike "The Dark Is Rising Sequence" and "The Chronicles of Narnia". So you can expect going into the story that the characters will behave like children, but will often have that beautiful view of the world that adults do not have. 'Cart and Cwidder' is actually fairly dark though, so keep that in mind going into the story.

Music was a central theme, since Moril plays a Cwidder and sings and Brid sings too. Music reaching people, telling people stories, news, about their loved ones, is something explored heavily. But music having power is explored too. How music can move mountains, stop wars, make the most alert soldier sleep, make the hardest heart melt.

It is somewhat of a coming of age or a self discovery story on Moril's end. Throughout the story he struggles with what kind of music he wants to make and what music means to him. The fact that his Cwidder holds power that deeply unsettles him adds flavor to his struggle. He learns to find himself, what he wants, acknowledges the power he holds as a person, a musician and a storyteller and also realizes what he wants to do with that.

Truth is an incredibly large part of the story that was not as obvious. But Moril has to learn to be truthful. True to himself, true to his Cwidder. He has to face the consequences of twisting the truth, the consequences of lying. With a constant opposite being shown in how his father only performs and his sister also does too and how his brother tries to share his truths, Moril has to understand what is actually truth.

And lastly, my favorite bit was a minor but nonetheless, the role of women in the story. Given the time period in the story, it is better for a woman to get married in order to be protected and safe. And we see the decisions that Moril and Brid's mother makes and how they're somewhat resentful of her at first but then they understand and realize she was just a person. And then we end up seeing it reflected in Brid as she learns and grows.

Cart and Cwidder was a super fun read with secretive bards, ancient legends, magic, songs that can move mountains, wars, conspiracy, discovery and freedom.

[cosmicgrapevine]

A Not-So-Brief Summary of my Novel's Worldbuilding, Characters, Plot, and Themes

@tototavros was asking for a more comprehensive summary of this project at some point, so here goes. This is a rather 'organic' project and some of the details have changed over time and will continue to change, but I'm pretty solid on most of it at this point.

This sideblog is for my posting pieces from and other content related to my WIP manuscript Through the Grapevine, an urban fantasy novel set in the late 1990s that straddles the YA/New Adult border in tone and content. While the first novel is a fairly self-contained narrative, I am writing and marketing it as a 3-4 book series.

Metaphysics: While this mostly isn't relevant in the first book, if you pan out wide enough it turns out that our universe is only one of an uncountably high (but not infinite: something something maximum number of vertices in an n-dimensional something something) number connected by a structure known as the Viabract or Great Vine. The number of universes able to support life at all, let alone a civilization of intelligent beings, is much smaller--many universes are tiny, half-formed, or incomplete 'junk dimensions'. "Our" universe has a reputation for being unusually safe, stable, and predictable, in part because our stricter physical laws make magic more difficult to perform, and magic is ultimately a force that borrows against metaphysical stability, especially on the large scale.

The Viabract is the ultimate source of all magic, although that magic manifests locally in different ways, and skilled supernaturalists can use it to travel between dimensions. The interior is a series of interconnected tunnels to which normal notions of size and distance don't really apply. The only (arguably) living beings native to it are agglomerations of pure magic called Mires, which in their natural state look something like overgrown amoebae but can possess other beings to give themselves 'real bodies' and grant significant power to their hosts. (A non-sapient possessed animal is called a Halfmire, while a sapient possessed animal is a Fullmire)

Main Characters: My two POV characters are Melanie Kitz and Tabby Jelenski, high school juniors at a Catholic school in Chicago who have been friends since childhood. Melanie's parents, Fred and Janet, are a Chicago PD detective and a social worker for Child Services, and thus she's led a fairly privileged life. She is ambitious, hoping to get into a good college and start a career in politics or activism, and prefers to follow the rules and keep her head down.

Tabby's parents, Steve and Rita, are divorced and estranged: her paternal uncle went to jail for laundering mob money through his pawn shop, which ruined her parents' already tenuous relationship. She lives with her abusive mother, her father moved to the suburbs to live with said brother once he got out of jail, and while she deeply despises her mom she's not on great terms with her dad either. She is adventurous and reckless, planning on running away to anywhere-but-here as soon as she's done with school. She rebels against her mother through petty crimes and sleeping around with neighborhood boys.

While he's not a POV character, Lynd's arc is nearly as important as the other two. He shows up one night at Melanie's house, looking for her paternal grandfather Florentino, a man she thought had been dead for decades. He claims to be a representative of an ancient order of demon-hunters called Marksteppers who live in the wilderness and forsake human civilization, and his 'clan' seeks help from Florentino, who is the most powerful living Warden, a different school of magic (broadly speaking: Wardens are rules-magic engineers, Marksteppers are spirit-magic shamans, and they do not work well together). It is soon revealed that Lynd has ostensibly arrived in search of some information, but really wants to leave his old life behind and see what life in the 'normal world' is like.

Lynd is of the Ash Clan of Marksteppers, one of nine 'Great Clans' that rule the others and whose members are significantly more powerful. While 'normal' Marksteppers are basically human, Great Clan members are closer to demigods: they don't age, can't reproduce, and the (more or less) only way to join a clan is to kill a current member and inherit their powers, thus taking their place.

Setting: All three wind up in Kahoti, Florida, a private suburb north of Tampa built, funded, and operated by Florentino. Wardens' chief magical tool is Wards, a form of defensive magic which borrows energy from the Viabract and uses it to create barriers. Historically, Wards could only be applied to single structures, as they relied on a physical anchoring point and their power could not be transmitted through empty space. Florentino is a pioneer in Warding larger areas: his first big breakthrough was (ironically) magic-proofing Walt Disney World, using the rides, monorails and the like as vectors for Wards. By the '80s, he had mastered his craft enough to build an entire community with enough space for 30,000 people, all fully Warded and protected (real life inspirations include private and/or planned Florida communities Seaside, Celebration, and Golden Oak).

Plot: Once they settle down in Kahoti, the trio joins the Lost Kids, the in-training demon-hunting group at Kahoti High (this is, at its core, a Wake Up Go to School Save the World story). The central enemy in the story is Blackmires--Mires which seem to be created artificially, hijack hosts instead of symbiotically bonding with them, and can be transferred from one person to another with the old memories intact, none of which normal Mires are supposed to be able to do.

The mastermind behind their creation is Gerald Scutaro, aka The Centipede, a former mafioso who found a way into the world of magic and used it to benefit his organization, until he got too powerful for his own good and his fellow mobsters tricked him into a Vegas trip in the early 1990s where they gave him the Rasputin treatment and left him for dead. He survived, however, to meet Anna McCarthy, current Lord of the Sumac Clan of Marksteppers. Along with another Sumac, they invent Blackmires by combining normal Mires with the Sumac Clan's signature Black Water, a substance that in small doses makes people uninhibited and hedonistic, and in large ones mutates them into monsters that the Clan Lord can control.

McCarthy and Scutaro's ultimate plan is to gain possession of two bractoscopes, items that superficially look like mirrors but are actually portals into Warded areas that they couldn't access otherwise, use them to funnel their troops into Kahoti and take it over from the inside. And that is not just for its own sake, but to secure possession of a valuable territory for the coming actions of all nine Great Clans: an attempt to summon their creator goddess back to life and turn Earth into a fortress against their extradimensional enemies. (This is not an 'Evil Plan' necessarily: some Marksteppers and humans alike think that it will lead to a new golden age for Earth as a center of interdimensional travel, and Marksteppers in general are fond of humanity and see themselves as its protectors.)

On the more interpersonal level, Melanie was already an ambitious young woman, and learning that she's the heir to her grandfather's vast empire and a prodigal (grand)daughter to this new community only heightens that aspect of her. She learns how to use this power to the benefit of all while still keeping her morals intact. She struggles in understanding her grandfather and his work; he is at turns capricious, downright cruel, and deeply merciful. Tabby and Lynd, meanwhile, quickly find themselves falling in love with each other, their shared outsider status and being targets of suspicion deepening their bond. With Tabby's help, Lynd assimilates quickly to this new world, to the point where she fears he'll lose the spark that brought them together in the first place.

Other Characters: Florentino Cervantes himself is my flashy, sun-soaked spin on the mentor character, a wizard and business baron whose two trades mutually support each other, and who mostly farms out the mentoring to his subordinates. Travis Barrett, an aggressive and vicious hunter, is his second in command, and is secretly Melanie's older brother: Florentino forced Fred and Janet to give up their firstborn to him in return for leaving their lives entirely. Since the Lost Kids meet primarily at school, most of their adult support doubles as school staff, including Gary Hansen (dean of students), Amanda Vernon (physics), and Lou Bonifacio (driver's ed and assistant baseball coach).

Gary's daughter Fawn and Lou's nephew Jordy are both 'lifers', with Fawn specializing in infosec and cover-ups and Jordy being more of a front-liner with a magic-infused baseball bat that can turn into a massive magic-fueled sledge. Kenny Boyd and Anthony Nicks began their training in middle school. Anthony is the team nerd of sorts: tech whiz and loremaster with perception-altering powers, while Kenny is a cynical metalhead and skateboarder with the ability to control metals. Finally, the 'Pool Crew' consists of Drew, Jevon, Conrad, and Corey, who answer directly to Travis and whose preferred magic is the gun kind. Jordy's girlfriend Shanti Khatri had a spot on the team for a minute, but was kicked out and memory-wiped for targeting her classmates with mind-altering magic.

Of the bad guys: Ernest Brunswick is a 200-year-old English aristocrat who gained Markstepper-immortality at age 30 or so, and the chief chemist in the creation of Blackmires. He is estranged from Scutaro and McCarthy when the story begins and seeks to undermine them. Other agents include Dale Patterson, the first Blackmire who could successfully travel from body to body, but given he was a white supremacist before being transformed, insists on possessing only white men, and Rachel Bosart, a one-hit-wonder pop singer from the '70s who is looking to ride Scutaro's magic into a younger body. While none of the students start out demonic (in the non-mundane sense at least), the bad guys do get their claws into Shanti and star pitcher Ryan Hyde as well.

Themes: The most central theme to this story is freedom vs. safety, exemplified by Tabby and Melanie respectively. Wards provide safe havens from demons, but must be carefully controlled and are not open to everyone. Personal choice is also a major factor: destiny and chosen ones do not really feature here (although some characters think otherwise), and emphasis is repeatedly placed on how all three tritagonists choose to learn more or go deeper. While I'm trying to avoid going all Ernest Cline, 90's/y2k nostalgia is a factor as well, playing up the pre-9/11, pre-Columbine sense of freedom and optimism, as well as one of the last eras where having a social life didn't require being constantly plugged into the internet.

[highsocietyhq]

HSHQ'S TIMELINE !

which of these mains do you guys remember ? highsocietyhq or haisocietyhq or vikrp or chambordrp... hshq has had many forms over the years !

chambordrp was originally created by admin m sometime around 2014 ? 2015 ? admin j joined the admin team and for a while the group set at chateau chambord, france was just one group among many #royal rp or #rich kids rp groups. chambordrp had to be closed due to low activity but pretty soon admin m opened it again and some of the oldest members rejoined. chambordrp was revamped into vikrp in 2016 ( ? ).

vikrp set in iceland lasted for 6ish months maybe before closing... and then reopening again. i don't remember properly. around this time i ( admin e ) was part of the admin team and admin evy joined the team a bit before vikrp was revamped into haisocietyhq. admin m had gone awol at this time.

haisocietyhq set in shangHAI was when things started to shift from petty drama to something a bit bigger. i think in shanghai we added monarchs ? or maybe that was already in vik, but anyways, in shanghai people actually applied for monarchs. i think dukes and duchesses were a new addition.

then we wanted to move from shanghai to 'a greek island'. but we had a problem: the constant url change was a problem. we couldn't change the url every time we moved, that would cause confusion in the tags. 'highsocietyhq' was already taken by a closed group. what a shame ! but then i figured i'd lose nothing by sending an im to the url's owner and hallelujah ! the owner actually saw the im and was kind enough to give the url to us !!!!! that was amazing. and random. so that's the story behind our url. in shanghai we had our first plot drop/event hybrid when there was an earthquake and i think the hotel suffered some damages.

the greek island plotline was pretty chill until it wasn't. the invasion was pretty wild and i was in summer 2018. when i think back on it, i think it's one our most successful events in terms of character development and engagement. people wrote a lot and it was insanely interactive.

oslo follower the greek island. i have to admit i don't remember much from the oslo period. the plotdrops that i wrote back then were surprisingly frequent though and it was cool that people were really into developing the major plotlines !

dubai followed oslo shortly after nye if i remember correctly. i don't remember the excuse for the move. it wasn't anything major. dubai was fun and different. the big city vibe was fun.

dubai lasted for 8 months and then, in september of 2019, came phuket ! phuket was a lot chiller. i remember us planning all sorts of shocking plot twists. one was a flood and a complete power failure. that never happened. one idea was having them get stranded on a cruise ship.

mar del plata still feels like a fever dream. we moved to mar del plata in august 2020. i swear i always forget we were there. the only thing i remember from this era is the hike/earthquake event. we wanted drama and since we had failed to deliver the flood/power failure/dramatic pd this was really needed !

in april 2021 came tokyo ! i personally enjoyed big city backdrops a lot more so i liked tokyo a lot. i also remember being very pleased with the grapics if i may say so myself. tokyo lasted for a long time and rae won the points game that allowed her to pick like 5 possible locations for a future location change.

i don't remember them all but on the list were regina and casablanca. and we planned to make the regina era really brief and it was supposed to be a quirky comedic era. but you know us ! we don't know how to keep up with a schedule lmao. i think the regina sidequest lasted from spring of '22 and ended in august '22 when we moved to spain for that long event.

the spain was supposed to be a month long thing that would end in an invasion. but the dash was fairly quiet, the admin team was busy af and it just wouldn't happen. the invasion, as you all probably remember, came a year late lmaoooo

we really hoped that the invasion would have been something akin to the one in 2019 but you know, times had changed, people didn't have 8 hours to spend on the computer. the invasion was still a fun extreme event and i'm so glad it succeeded as well as it did because there was room for failure.

after the invasion we finally made it to casablanca where we had planned to end up almost 1,5 years prior lmaoo

and now it's been almost 10 years of a silly little royals group and 8 years of hshq. i genuinely think it's so damn remarkable how far we've come especially considering how the average lifespan of an rp group is like some months. admining this group has been such a privilege !!! thank you !!!

[gunkreads]

Making a post for my full-series thoughts about The Expanse and how it wrapped up, good and bad.

Caveat lector (I looked up the latin word for "reader" just for this joke): when I have negative thoughts about something in a book, I force myself to pick them apart down to the most minute details. This generates massive walls of text. These text walls don't mean I truly loathe the thing; they mean I'm doing my absolute best to not be a Hater, but rather to analyze my feelings so that you can read something more constructive and interesting than "X was dumb and didn't work".

I want to break this down into six parts: one for each of the main characters (Holden, Naomi, Amos, and Alex), one for the plot, and one for the world (it'll make sense when I get to it, hopefully). This may not be as long as it sounds like it'll be, but it's still long as fuck.

Bear in mind that I read this series very slowly, over about three months, so some of the early-series details are hazy and my opinions on them should be taken with the assumption that I've forgotten some stuff.

On Holden, I can be brief:

His arc was almost a full 180. Call it a 173, give or take 5 degrees. Holden starts the series with the stalwart belief that "if you give everyone all the information available, they'll make the right choice". Eventually, during the Free Navy arc, he moves to "If you give everyone all the information available, they'll eventually make the right choice". During his Laconian imprisonment, he moves to "If you give the right person the right information, they'll make the right choice" (this is the biggest jump we see). That part was fun because he'd just almost turned into Miller. Fucking excellent.

He ends on "I have all the information and I have no idea what the right choice is, but I have to act." This is the very last thing he does: make a snap decision with all the information in the world, fully accepting that he might be wrong. The meat of this final decision is to take the stars away. Holden says "It doesn't matter if we deserve this, it doesn't matter if we'll earn it or conquer it eventually; we're dying now," and makes the decision for all of humanity that he's going to destroy the ring gates.

This could have felt cheap because of the way it completely absolves him of the responsibility for his decision, but it feels fully earned because this type of decision is his ENTIRE CHARACTER. The point of James Holden is that he takes hard choices away from people and makes them himself! He's already taken responsibility for dozens of these types of decisions before. He says there's no choice here; I'm going off to die. He survives this a hundred times, then finally dies from it. This makes it a beautiful ending for him. I loved it. He's such a profoundly simple character throughout a series with fairly complex characters, and that makes him feel truly special rather than lazy writing.

On Naomi... I have mixed feelings.

I feel that her lack of "epilogue" (not the literal epilogue, just a conclusive send-off for her character) made her ending less weighty than it could have been. If I had to point to a specific line that felt like her full-series character arc's climax, it would be Alex's "It would have worked beautifully" in reference to Naomi's program to monitor Ring gate traffic. Naomi's character is marked by decades of desperate cries for people to fucking listen to her, for them to believe her, that she wants everyone to live! She has the plan, she's objectively a logistical genius, and if you just tell her what's happening, she can save all of you fucking idiots! Alex's line there broke my heart clean in half. She won the wrong fight. She scored the season-winning goal the moment after the league was dismantled.

Naomi is a character about the frustration of having an answer but no voice with which to share it. This really comes to a head in Act 3, when she's coordinating the resistance (as well as anyone possibly could!) with the most janky, fucked-up communication system anyone could possibly design. If I consider that line of Alex's to be Naomi's legacy in the series, which I do, I'm very happy with her arc overall, but...

I don't really like the way she seemed to just drop off the map at the end of the last book. She has her little moment where she's pre-mourning Holden after he's revealed that he's injected himself with more protomolecule, but after that? She seems to just be... kind of moving forward. She's just working, nothing more--strategically, what she does in the series' climax is no more difficult than anything she's done before; it just has higher stakes and she's clearly drowning her grief in work. The thing that feels weird to me is that, while she gets the last line in the book (pre-epilogue), and her series-long arc closes out very neatly, it feels like her little mini-arc of the moment of that final climax never settles out properly. She gets cut off at the 80% mark and just... disappears.

I like to assume that she fully retired after getting back through to Sol. She deleted all those incoming messages and dropped herself fully off the map, feeling like it was finally time to give up after saving the entire universe. The simple act of her deleting the messages would've given me that closure, but as it was, there's just this little nag at the back of my mind that her arc in the book ended like five seconds too early.

It's a minor nitpick! I loved the way the climax wrapped around and had her basically leading humanity for a few beautiful moments, with all her hard work almost paying off before the game changed.

Amos? I fucking love Amos.

I loved him before, I loved him during, and I love him after. Everyone loves Amos. I'm not special. He really was the last man standing, after all. Fucking beautiful. Perfection. A simple arc, a simple conclusion, and a simple message for a simple character. His only real change in the series was during Persepolis Rising, when he had to deal with Clarissa's slow death, and while that was excellent, it was really more of an arc for Bobbie.

Alex... is the character whose ending I cared about the least.

I don't dislike it; it's fully above that margin, and on a surface level, I think ending his whole character arc on his answer to the family problem he's struggled with his whole life is a good choice.

It was interesting that they had his presence end before we'd confirmed he was safe, and with a slight hint that he might not make it to Nieuwestad. I didn't like that at first glance, but after further thought, I enjoy it as a way for the authors to say "the journey and destination don't matter; the conclusion of Alex's story was when he truly chose to step in this direction."

But overall, I don't know if I have much to say about Alex. He's a very sparse character who has less overt reason to be simple than Holden or Amos do; the latter two both have something deeply, deeply wrong with them that makes them really fucking wacko in a specific way, but Alex is just... kind of a regular deadbeat dad? He's just really into flying ships? That's kind of it. I know they explore that in Cibola Burn, but I didn't feel like Alex had that much presence in the whole story as a character, so I found the simple, vague ending they gave him satisfying enough through my general apathy.

For the plot!

The big stuff, the shape of the story. I still have a huge complaint about it: the Free Navy arc felt way too long and way too much of a sidetrack. It functioned as setup for Laconia, yes; it also had literally nothing to do with the overarching story. It felt like a side mission blown out of proportion, which is weirdly appropriate for a story that started out as a TTRPG setting.

On the above? I am one HUNDRED percent willing to be proven wrong. Please, please, please talk me out of my position here. I am currently at one end of the spectrum, where I actively see disconnections from the Free Navy arc and the main plot; I'd love to be pulled to the other end, where I can see how it all ties in. The problem is that I can see the cause-and-effect tie-ins: I get that Earth needed to be destroyed to truly push people through the gates, I get that the huge catastrophe needed to happen to distract from Laconia's growth, I get that it was an end to the concept of a unified Belt/OPA, and I get that it was an immensely well-done arc for Naomi's character, but... I feel like it's a puzzle piece that just fits in a little loosely.

Moving on. I think the wrapup of the whole protomolecule makers/dark gods lore discovery (via Elvi at the BFE) was quite well done, especially given that it was done in such a dispersed way. I felt like I never got a "sit down, here's the deal" exposition dump of like... generally what the nature of all this stuff was. I was just expected to read the "The Dreamer" chapters very carefully, remember the "The Investigator" chapters pretty well, pay attention to how the ring entities worked, and put together the cleanly laid-out pieces myself. I feel I succeeded at this, given that reading through the wiki pages for the ring builders and the smoke things doesn't really reveal anything new to me.

That said, I was... kind of too in-the-moment to process how insane the implication of the final reveal was: that this whole thing was a hidden metaphor for colonialism all along, and that these dark smoke entities are justifiably fighting back against a wound in (sub)reality that the protomolecule builders created. The road to heaven is paved in metaphysical blood, I guess? The protomolecule builders weren't willing to be as decisive as Holden, weren't willing to sacrifice all they'd built, and consequently left their problems for another generation of beings when they died; Holden managed to have the magical willpower to say "Fuck this, I'm shutting it down, even though it'll kill millions and change humanity forever." It was kind of cool that he got that send-off, performing a profound act of healing in this sub-universe by deleting the ring space. Maybe I'm leaning too heavily on my interpretation of this theme, but it feels fairly clear-cut to me, honestly, so I'd love to hear other interpretations.

Regarding the world.

This section is kind of a subsection of the plot, but I feel like "where does the series leave humanity?" is a question that falls more under "worldbuilding" than "story" in this specific series.

These books had so much fucking philosophy in them and it felt like none of it really mattered much. Most of that philosophy stopped at a very broad-spectrum level of analysis, which is the series' greatest... not weakness, necessarily, but missed potential: no philosophical conundrum is ever interrogated beyond the immediate scenario or vague hypotheticals. The authors clearly have a very specific set of ideas about human nature that all felt very generic to me when put into practice; I felt that humanity through their lens was a fairly predictable beast, which only sort of worked.

I understand that The Expanse is, at its core, a character series. More than anything, it's about the people in it; its plot is a vehicle for characters, not the other way around. In that sense, it ended in an overall great way, as discussed above. Because of that, when I judge the story on what it tried to achieve, I think it succeeded.

But when I broaden my approach a little and look at what the authors suggested to me that they could do, I feel like there's more to say. The end of the story, I need not remind you, is effectively a soft reset for humanity. There's no more interstellar travel until they figure it out for real this time, with no cheats--and per the epilogue, they do just that. The core message behind this is that humanity's tenacity will always push them in the same direction: outward. The problem with this, in my opinion, was that the authors chose to express this throughout the series in a very obtuse way: by making "everyone else" a character.

The following is specifically regarding Act 3 (Persepolis Rising on):

So the series is about its characters, and "everyone else" is a character. By having the scope of the story affect all of humanity, all of humanity must necessarily be involved. As far as Act 3 is concerned, this means that the gears of industry never stop turning, people never stop hating and loving, and all apocalyptic danger is effectively ignored to those ends. This made our perspective characters part of a small, exclusive group of people who were actually worried about the universe ending. Everyone else seemed to... not really care. They were scared, sure, but they didn't stop shipping stuff through the ring gates! It was fundamentally stupid, and as far as the authors seem to believe, fundamentally human.

My problem is that the story puts "all of humanity" into the same framework it puts its individual characters. As Act 3 hits, basically everyone not involved in direct on-page conflict is treated as one single character. This is fucking monumentally ironic, given the way the story ends and the whole hive-mind thing. I get how you might not see what I'm seeing here, but consider this: the story feeds us information about what "everyone else" is doing almost exclusively via Naomi. She's the traffic controller; that's her main job for the last two books. In her mind, the character named Everybody Else (Mx. Else, for brevity) is just... doing stuff she can't control. Mx. Else is upping traffic through the ring gates; Mx. Else is a threat to the underground's security; Mx. Else is blowing up the communications relays; Mx. Else is yadda yadda yadda.

It's not about whether Mx. Else is actually supposed to be a homogeneous entity (again, lol @ the irony); it's about the fact that we, the readers, only see Mx. Else as a single huge force. The way the authors write it through Naomi's eyes, "The UNN", "The MCRN", "The OPA", "The Free Navy", "Laconia", "Avasarala", "Saba", "Duarte", and most incongruously but importantly "humanity" are all the same type of entity. Groups and people get lumped together as characters, sure, and that works--but not when you expand the group to be everyone.

What would I have done? Simple. Shut the fuck up and write my own book, if I'm so smart Retain some semblance of different human groups in Act 3 besides "Laconia" and "the underground". Why don't Auberon or Bara Gaon have communities with specific interests? Why does Naomi not have to juggle the desires of different planets, all of whom are still doing shit the whole time, and OBVIOUSLY have interests beyond "just truckin' along"?

Here's my thesis: when there were 3 factions (UN, MCR, OPA) this worked fine. When the authors made some big "nature of humanity" statement, it tracked, because they were making that statement as a blanket over multiple opposing groups, which made it feel more potent--all these people who want to kill each other have this in common. Later in the series, when they're making the same type of statement, it doesn't track as well because most of humanity is all in one group; it's not a statement that unites any opposing groups, really, since Laconia and the underground aren't really included in it.

You know what? I kind of wish I could put all this under another, smaller cut, because it's really rambly and it's not reflective of my overall thoughts on the series.

To sum up, I feel that the series' philosophy and commentary on human nature was simplified more than it needed to be from a practical standpoint, and instead turned to a big old "oh well, nothing we can do about Mx. Else" that the characters could point to when it was appropriate.

To conclude (nine pages later and you're still here, so this one's for you):

:)

[hexenmond]

my Witch Door fanfiction (long form, wip, looking for alpha/beta readers)

Time to shout from the rooftops again! I finally found a fitting name for the whole series, so now I know how to tag my wip stuff. If you like The Witch Door, and especially if you maybe feel like doing some alpha/beta reading (mostly I need a sounding board), please read on!

Let me bring you (and myself) up to speed: this opus magnum originally started out as a quick oneshot, a little scene that happened following the side comic "Afterparty". Just a tiny little continuation, another meeting in a dream. 2.5k, one-and-done. (This bit is up on AO3, see below.)

And then it grew some fluff. And then it grew some background story. And then all of a sudden there was plot. All the characters from the comic got roped in (except the bird people cause I avoided the main canon plotline). And finally it sprouted original characters as a supporting cast. And uh, I'm still not entirely done…

So, what have we got so far?

This has turned into a five part series which I have decided to name Vem Kan Segla. I'd say about 70% of it are written, and fun to read in my own humble opinion.

(Please note: whenever I say "relationship" that totally includes friend- and other ships!)

Part 1: Exactly as you are 10 chapters, all of them written and theoretically postable (chapter 1 being said "oneshot"). Mostly fluff and developing relationship stuff with a little bit of spicyness, tiny smidgen of – hurt? angst? I'm actually not sure. But mostly Jousia and Jesse figuring out what they are to each other, with only one chapter from another person's point of view (Tzofiya my beloved!).

Part 2: The choices we make Picks up just after the end of part 1. Starts out angsty and gets progressively worse. The first ten chapters all end with cliffhangers, and after a brief respite there's a chapter or three of hurt no comfort before we get a happy ending. (It does leave a lot of plot lines unresolved though.) Nilsa and Katariina play a major part in this as well. This is mostly written except for some bits that need filling out, maybe 2k of missing words all in all.

Part 3: Family found Picks up right after the end of part 2. More plot! Some drama! More relationship developments! Honest talking about difficult things! The spicyness gets weird! There are even more characters! And the ending is done, and it's the happiest ending I could possibly have written. There's one character literally rolling on the floor bed laughing.

This part is where things start to get so complex that I really would love to be able to bounce ideas around with somebody, help me get all these flighty ducks in a row.

(Katariina is meeeee staring at my disjointed wip snippets for parts 3 and 4!)

Part 4: (no title yet) This will be full of beautiful domestic happiness, more relationships developing, slice of life stuff. Even a little bit of romance, if you will. And then three people die and it gets very sad. The remaining loose threads get wrapped up, and there's a peaceful ending.

This is the wobbliest bit… it might even turn into two parts, I really can't say yet. I'd love a sounding board person or three.

Part 5: Epilogue This will be only one chapter, but a long one. Haven't written a single word down but it's perfectly finished in my head. Picks up six months after the end of part 4, has a happy fairly ending (considering that nobody gets resurrected).

Intrigued?

If you don't want to dive in yet because you can't deal with the cliffhangers while waiting for updates, I have a progress tracker online on AO3 where you can see each chapter's degree of completion. This is also where I will post in-depth content warnings that contain spoilers once part 2 starts going up.

If you're curious but new to The Witch Door or otherwise taking a backseat for now, I shall post snippets and bits of what I've written over the next weeks under the tag #vem kan segla, so feel free to follow that and see if you like it!

And finally for those who have already read the comic and side comic, the first five chapters are online on AO3 if you want to check that out.

Thank you, and enjoy Ulriikka's fluffiness!