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chandiewashere · 2 years ago

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𝐚 𝐝𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐠𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐬𝐭 - chapter one

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eris vanserra x reader; very light tamlin x reader warnings: lots of angst in this one, i think this is canon typical violence?, body mutilation, character death, blood, unbeta'd i go down on this ship alone series - wip ; taglist open

series m.list -> please follow the "a dangerous game of love and trust" tag for all updates on the series including extras!

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Rhysand hasn't stopped bothering me since the party.

Well, neither has Tamlin, but that's a different story. My darling brother, however, everywhere I go, he's already there with a teasing glint in his eye and a question on his tongue.

'You seemed to be having fun at the Spring Court.'

'Make sure to invite me to the wedding!'

'Don't forget protection!'

I think my head might explode from the embarrassment.

After Tamlin had pulled me away to the garden, the party ended pretty quickly. We spent most of the night chatting and strolling, and I managed to push that enchanting stranger's eyes from my head for the time being.

Thankfully, Rhys had waited to start tormenting me until after we were back in Night Court, but now I cannot escape it. Even now, as I sit reading on the couch, I hear his loud footfalls approaching the room I'm in.

"I hope that's a romance because you'll need all the help you can get."

Scowling, I don't take my eyes off the page as I retort, " At least I have someone interested in me for longer than one night."

"Ouch," Rhys hisses as he flops down next to me, "you wound me so, little sister."

Settling back, he leans his head back on the seat, stretching his arms out to either side, almost resembling a large house cat getting comfortable, and peeks an eye over me.

"We're going to a meeting today, so we won't be able to get to Spring until late."

"Whose we?"

"Dad and I," he breathes, closing his eyes with a huff, "Mom and you will have to go greet Tamlin and them by yourselves."

I take my turn to sigh as I set my book to the side and swing my legs up onto Rhys' lap.

Tamlin had invited us to a picnic with his family a few weeks ago. Something about that the cherry trees are beautiful this time of year. Faintly, I wonder if it's late enough in the season for them to bloom yet; after all, here in Velaris, there was still snow on the ground.

"Well, it's all the better then," I snort, "the fewer people to embarrass me, the better."

That snarky grin makes its way onto Rhysand's face again as he gets up, throwing my legs off in the process. He ruffles my hair and pinches my cheeks as he chuckles, "I'll just have to make it up to you next time we have a ball."

I purse my lips and swat his hands away, getting in one good smack before he disappears around the corner laughing.

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I gasp as I enter the clearing Tamlin has led us to.

You wouldn't think that trees would be blooming this early in the year, but with the temperate climate of Spring Court, the ordinarily green canopy is covered in pink blossoms. A sweet fragrance wafts through the air, and a small stream gurgles in the distance. A small blanket is set out with an array of bread, fruits, jams, and cheeses. I almost can't believe that a place like this exists, and with a wide grin, I turn toward Tamlin.

He is standing towards the front of the herd of brothers while his father smiles gently at us. Everything seems perfect, and my mother comes to my side as we gape at the meadow around us.

"I'm so glad you could join us," the High Lord comments, "though I'll admit I am a little disappointed that Night's High Lord and Prince aren't with us today."

"They send their apologies," I reply with a smile, "sadly, they had some meetings to attend in Day Court."

The High Lord nods thoughtfully, and Tamlin walks towards me while his brothers head towards the food. Tamlin gently grabs my arm and smiles down at me.

"That's fine," he says softly, squeezing my arm tighter. I squirm a little, trying to relieve some of the pressure on it.

His father steps up to my mother and me, and two brothers grab her arms, a fair bit rougher than they ought to. I scowl and try to move to her, but Tamlin's hold is steel and holds me firmly in place.

I look up in confusion at him before the High Lord smirks, the mirth in his eyes turning dark.

"Yes," he laughs, "it's fine."

"Two sets of wings will be just fine."

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Everything is on fire.

My arms are covered in cuts and bruises, and my forehead must be bleeding because my sight is tinged red while one eye stings horribly. A foot is pressed down on my back between my wings, now bent at odd angles and bleeding.

My mother lies on the other side of the clearing on her stomach, staring back at me with tears running down her face as she grits her teeth. Muffled cries ring out as one brother holds her while another slashes randomly with one of the cheese knives. Her back is bare and bloody, and two obsidian wings lay in a neat pile a few feet away.

Loud hearty laughs echo through the now dark clearing; the High Lord has pulled up a chair between us. He takes turns glancing between my mother and me with a sinister grin, like a lion toying with his food.

"I must say I do wish the other two were here," he chortles, "but all's well that ends well. I'll just have to make do."

"Filthy pig!"

He laughs even harder, even holding his stomach in mock pain. The boot pressing me down suddenly rams into my ribs, and I swear I can hear the bones crack.

"You're quite the mouthy one, aren't you? Thank goodness you didn't marry in; I'd have to make Tamlin beat it out of you."

Another crack sounds through the air, followed by my mother's cry as the High Lord makes his way over to me.

He jerks me up by my hair, so I'm almost kneeling in front of him, and puts his face close to mine, "You should learn from your mother and shut up if you want this to go quickly."

I can smell the fruit and cheese on his breath, mixed with the smell of wine and something rancid, and I try to hold back my bile.

"I'll kill you," I seethe as I spit at him.

A crack sounds, and fire blooms against my cheek as I'm thrown to the ground, a groan escaping. As I look back up, black dots swim in my vision, and I am met with another kick to the side.

"We'll see about that," he huffs and sits back down, turning to his two sons.

"One of you, go help Tamlin hold that one down. It's time we finished this."

As I'm still reeling, someone moves my body, so I lay on my stomach again, and another holds my arms to the ground. I'm too weak to move, and someone settles themselves on top of me, knees on either side of my waist, caging me to the ground.

A burning pain flares out from my back as if someone has poured hot metal on my skin, and immediately my body goes stiff before trying anything to get away from it. My limbs thrash around, and one arm comes free, meeting something hard as a low groan sounds out. My sight goes in and out, and I can see my mother thrashing to come to me, lips moving frantically.

She's trying to say something.

Someone is screaming.

My throat begins to ache and burn, my mouth goes dry and I realize it's me. I am the one screaming.

Something pops, the burning subsides, and a large black mass flops down to my side. In horror, I realize it's my wing. They're cutting off my wings.

I hear shouts and curses, and suddenly the weight on my back is gone, and soft feminine hands cradle my face.

Through my blurry vision, I see my mother, sobbing over me and brushing my hair away from my face. Her arms wrap around my shoulders as a throbbing pain sets in, and she whispers something.

"Winnow away."

She is ripped from me, and I am yanked backward by the shoulder as they drag her back across the clearing. We both thrash and pull, trying to get back to each other, and I hear a loud sigh.

The High Lord stands, wiping his hands on his pants as he does, and looks between my mother and me again.

"And here I was hoping we could kill you two simultaneously."

He looks at me, almost disappointed, and sighs again.

"Well, we still need that one, but I think I'm done with the other," He says as he waves a hand at the son holding my mother.

"Kill her."

My body stills, and I look over at my mother. She has a resigned look on her face and mouths back to me.

'Go.'

"Father," Tamlin glares, "you never said anything about killing them."

"Well, we can't exactly let them run free now, can we?"

The High Lord looks back at the one holding my mother, "Do it. We have to finish before the other two get here."

He nods and pulls my mother to her knees, unsheathing his sword. My body begins to move on its own, and I try to go towards her, to save her, when I see a determined look on her face as she shakes her head.

I still, and the brother raises his sword into the air. Her eyes soften, and I start to understand what she asks me to do.

My jaw quivers as tears stream from my eyes. With my remaining strength, I jerk my arm from Tamlin's grasp, freeing myself for a moment. That's all I need, is just a moment.

My mind steels itself, and I raise myself to my feet, my mother's eyes never leaving mine as she nods.

The sword swings through the air.

I take a step.

Shouts ring out as darkness swirls around me, and the last thing I see is my mother smiling, a tear running down her cheek.

"I love you."

And then everything is gone.

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I cough as I step out into a forest, gracelessly falling to the floor as my knees crumple under me.

The bloody meadow, covered with cherry blossoms, is replaced with aspens and oaks. The overwhelming scent of maple fills the air, and small scatterings of snow coat the forest floor. It's getting dark now, the sun filling the trees with the last reds and oranges before night sets in.

I manage to pull myself a little away from where I had stepped out before my arms and legs finally give out, and I barely have enough energy to keep my eyes open. Resting my head on the soft earth, I let out a shaking breath and fight to hold the tears in.

I am not safe yet. I have to keep moving.

I try and try to shuffle further along, with no luck. I couldn't lift a feather right now if I tried. Throbbing pains radiate through my body, and leaves stick to the drying blood.

My eyes get heavier, and I can faintly hear the soft grasses and fallen leaves crunching. My vision goes blurry and begins to dim, and something reddish-orange comes into view.

A warbled sound makes it to my ears, and warmth covers my body like a thick blanket. Exhaustion wins, and I close my eyes.

Faintly, I think that this isn't the worst place to die.

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note: and there you have it! it has been a long time coming but here is the first chapter!! as you can see i did end up keeping in the death scene, because there are a few things i needed in it for certain progressions later, but i hope it wasn't too intense. if i missed any tags please do let me know! i hope you all enjoyed it, i certainly enjoyed writing it. i've actually reread it a few times myself, and i am just loving the momentum it has. thank you all for reading and i'll see you soon!

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taglist: @owllover123 @sol2694 @theviewfromtheotherside

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Please do not repost, translate or plagiarize my works.

#eris vanserra x reader #eris x reader #acotar x reader #chandies.fics #a court of thorns and roses #acotar fic #tamlin x reader #unbeta'd #a dangerous game of love and trust #chandie.writes

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trinketprince · 4 years ago

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Meet the Bachelors of Coral Island!

Check out the Bachelorettes! Check out the Townies!

Noah

An obvious fan of consistency, Noah was born, raised, and settled in Coral Island— with a brief departure to Pokyo for university years; Now back in Coral Island, he spends his days running the Tavern in bland colored khakis. Though he would rather spend his days taking care of his mom, Betty, he does have other hobbies. On rare occasions that he is free, he enjoys long walks, discussing theories of unexplainable phenomenons with Alice, and watching a gourmet gelato-making show, Games of Cones. Big family, 3 siblings.

Loves: Durian, sunny side-up, gnocchi Hates: Metal bars

Scott

He is a city boy at heart. Always up for fun and is never a bore. He found his passion for artifacts and has dedicated his life to it. After many heartbreaks and not wanting to be known as the town’s infamous playboy, Scott moved to Coral Island to start a new life. He is currently renting a room from Charles at 1 Main Ave in Starlet Town. Aside from getting into relationships, Scott enjoys strong coffee, rainy days, and vintage jazz. He frequents the Local Tavern on the weekend.

Loves: Node, egg custard Hates: Tulip

Pablo

He and his brother, Rafael, are both blacksmith and bachelors. Never been caught without a smile on his face, Pablo is a natural attraction for the locals—singles or not. According to his brother, despite Pablo's casanova persona, he is a romantic at heart and is ready to settle down when the right person comes along... When he isn’t smelting ores, he can be found around town, lending a hand to the townfolks, cleaning up the graveyard, or tossing anecdotes at the Tavern. Hates beaches—dislikes the sand in his shoes.

Loves: Sweet potato poutine Hates: Durian

Kenny

A part-time rancher, and full-time bachelor. He grew up in Coral Island and has fostered close relationships with other islanders—be it people, animals, trees, spirits from the beyond—all of them. Besides making friends, he loves having lunch outdoors, vegan tacos, and cold kombucha. Kenny lives with his parents at a cabin in the forest and goes to the Ranch every day to take care of the animals. After he is done working for the day, he would head to the Local Tavern, or blacksmith shop to catch up with his friends. He usually spends his lunch breaks in the forest, or by the lake, sitting on the ground; snacking on edamame, and playing the flute. Look at that smile!

Loves: Vegan taco Hates: Cheese

Surya

He is a fresh marine biologist graduate who is currently doing a fellowship in Coral Island. Like you, he is also new to the island! Shortly after he submitted his dissertation, he realized that a fancy degree didn't guarantee a job. So when he was given the opportunity to join Ling’s research project, he was ecstatic. He packed his bags and moved in with his uncle and aunt, Joko and Dinda in the Hillside. He works at the Lab on the weekdays and spends his free time hanging out with Luke in the vineyard and relaxing at the beach. Loves herbed tempeh & lodeh dish.

Loves: Lodeh Hates: Milk

Theo

He is an eligible marriage character. On the weekends, he makes a quick buck performing live at the tavern. He doesn't have what people call a “decent voice,” but he does have “soul” when he performs. Apparently, according to him, that's what's important. He lives in 2 Main Street with his dad, who was once a fisherman, and his sister, Lily. Theo doesn't drink. He loves outdoor cookouts, festivals, camping and hates traveling. Day job: a fisherman.

Loves: Yellow Moray Eel, Fish tacos Hates: Beer, Wine

Luke

Coming from old-money, this bachelor lives with his parents and dog, Taco, in the manor behind the vineyard, a family business that he feels pressured to take over. Not a fan of the silver spoon, Luke runs Socket Electronics in his spare time in an attempt to create a name for himself, separate from his family legacy. In his free time, he frequents the Beach Shack for some fresh seafood. He is good friends with Ben and Pablo.

Loves: Ratatouille, Wine Hates: Beach scavengeables

Rafael

He along with his older brother, Pablo, who is also an eligible bachelor, runs a local blacksmith shop by trade. As a reserved fellow, Rafael is rarely seen out at the town, but on rare days that he does, he can be found at Socket Electronics or Coral Inn, visiting his cousins and niece, Valentina. Rafael can be helpful for upgrading your tools, smelting ores, etc. He is reserved and prefers silence, something considered a luxury in his line of work. The human embodiment of “not mad, just disappointed.” He likes horror movies, weaponry, and silence. Dislikes loud music.

Loves: Onyx Hates: Fresh salad

Ben

He is a nomad who lives in a caravan stationed in the forest. If you knock on his window on the weekend, he might have some random things to sell—be it items he finds scavenging around the island or things that he doesn’t want anymore. Ben spends his money attending the Fall music festivals and green tea. On some days that he isn't in the forest, he is presumed to be driving off to another side of islands and camps out. Ben has an extensive collection of healing crystals, loves road trips and daydreaming.

Loves: All mushrooms Hates: Clam chowder

Charles

A town doctor, uses his free time catching up with the islanders at the tavern and going around spitting out medical advice. Bad luck seems to have its way with Charles. In his youth, he was disowned by his parents, worked his way through medical school, and when he finally thought he caught a break by *almost* marrying the love of his life. Sorrow came running through the door—he caught them cheating, called the wedding off, and has been heartbroken since... He now lives with an overgrown frat-boy, Scott for a housemate. Has pollen allergy, dislikes flowers.

Loves: Burrito Hates: Flowers

Taken from the Update Tabs on Coral Island’s Kickstarter

These are all of the Bachelors so far, I’m not sure if there will be more bachelors added in the future!

Check out Coral Island’s Twitter, Kickstarter and Website for more info on the game!

Check out Coral Island’s steam page!

#Coral Island #Farming Simulator #Stardew Valley #Harvest Moon #Story of Seasons #Bachelors #adding those tags so this game can get more traction <3

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keenmarvellover · 4 years ago

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POSTS FOR YOU - 1

Some links to posts with valuable content you want in one place.(BASICALLY EVERYTHING IS THERE)

Suggestions and Recommendations are appreciated and accepted.

Last Updated : 16/10/2020

NOTE: Some of these post are written in a crude and unruly fashion. But they contain valuable tips, guidance and information. If you can't/don't want to read such posts, then don't read.

Mental Health

Do you need a Hug?

Maybe you’re having a stressful day. Maybe you just need a deep breath. Maybe you just didn’t realize how stressed you are. You can get your comfort here.

Some stuff to help you sleep

This is definitely not a google drive full of the sleep stuff from the Headspace app, including sleepcasts, music, and wind down meditation, that normally costs 17.99 a month, no siree and you definitely shouldnt share this with people

Anti-Anxiety Tools

Some tools to help you before, during or after an anxiety attack

100 Reasons NOT To Kill Yourself

READ IT. SHARE IT. REBLOG IT. Save a Life.

HOBBIES MASTERPOST!!!!!!!!

A really excellent way to reduce anxiety is to pick up a new hobby. Find something you’re interested in, learn it, then use it as a healthy and productive way to cope.

Health

Some very Important Lists for Rating PAIN, FATIQUE AND MENTAL HEALTH

It is MUST share

PSA Rregarding Hospital bills

Also how to pay hospital bills when you are broke.

How to differentiate between COVID-19, FLU AND COMMON COLD

Anyway, as we enter cold & flu season in the YEAR of corona, this will come in very handy.

Treatment for HIV

VERY IMPORTANT. Please Read and Share.

What does the Color of your Period mean?

A must read for individuals who get periods.

How to differentiate between Period Cramps and Appendicitis

A MUST READ

From a Person who is Hard of Hearing

Types and levels of deafness

General Tips for Vagina Health

Some stuff they don't teach in sex-ed.

Undo the damage of Sitting

Are you always sitting down? Then these are some exercise you should probably try out for better health.

Guide to Proper Bra Fitting

Guide to Proper Bra Fit and Measuring. Please Read and Share.

Washable, Reusable Menstrual Pads

(Part II)

Reusable menstrual hygiene product, and are an alternative to disposable sanitary napkins or to menstrual cups.

Artists

Art Masterpost

How to draw *insert whatever you want, its there in the list*?

Book Binding

Some video links to different types of DIY Bookbinding

For Artists who Need Photoshop

If youre an artist who cant afford photoshop, definitely DO NOT go to this google drive to pirate the program, that would be so bad!!!

Do’s and Don'ts of Designing for Accessibility

Please consider this when designing for ANYTHING. For BUSINESSES and ARTISTS.

Writers

Color Synonyms

For both ARTISTS and WRITERS

How to make a Masterlist

Simple but efficient instructions to make a masterlist

ULTIMATE NOVEL WRITING RESOURCE MASTERLIST

This is an ultimate masterlist of many resources that could be helpful for writers.

List of AUs and Ship Tropes

For when you run out of ideas.

AUs

Ship Tropes

Legal sites to get some much needed Info

If there was only a way to find out all of this rather edgy information without getting yourself in trouble…

Resources for Describing Characters

For writing about physical appearances, character traits, talents,and skills and other related stuff of your characters, here is a comprehensive list.

Resources for Describing Emotions

Having trouble writing jealousy, happiness, motivation. Here you go!!

Some Resources for your Writing

Body Language

Reverse Dictionary

Character Traits

Things to Keep in mind when naming Characters

Valuable advice. Trust me

Words to Use when Writing Smut/Romance

This is for smut/romance writers. Kinda like a thesaurus.

Tips to write Pain

How are you supposed to write about pain you’ve never experienced before?

References for Greek Mythology Characters

Link to an extensive site every single detail of Greek Mythology from Gods to Family Trees.

Tips to write Blind Characters

Some tips that might be invaluable when writing character that are near-blind or blind

Things to Remember when writing a Highly Emotional Scene

Just small things that could make a great difference

How to write with Multiple POVs

Tips on how to write multiple POVs with diverse characters

Synonyms and Antonyms

The person who made this list is a blessing to writers. Just saying.

Good Qualities for Female Characters

Females don't always need to be protected and be weak. Make them more realistic.

Words to Use instead of ‘Said’

Every single situation is listed. Check it out.

Limits of the Human Body

All extremities listed

Readers

Legal Sites to Download Literature

From children’s books to rare books, from philosophy and religion to nonfiction. I guess you can find anything here.

The Rights of the Reader

And some (lots of) bashing of Helicopter Parents.(You want to read only the rights. Here it is)

Wet Book Rescue : Steps to save a Wet Book

Valuable information if some of your prized books were affected by recent flooding. The video even shows you what to do if you can’t dry the book out right away.

Cheatsheet to Navigate AO3

Makes your time on AO3 a little more easier and interesting

How to trick Writers into giving you More Fanfic to read

Works for Comics and Art as well.

Get a Book Suggestion

This book website gives you the first page of a random book without the title or author so that you can read it with no preconceptions

Books written by POC Writers

Only POC authors included in the list.

Students

Basic ASL (American Sign Language) Movements

ASL Hand Movements for beginners.

Tips for studying with ADHD/a>

Made by a person with ADHD themself.

Resources to Learn New Languages

Ten fairly useful general language resources

How to properly take notes

It helps. It really helps.

FREE ONLINE LANGUAGE COURSES

Here is a masterpost of MOOCs (massive open online courses) that are available, archived, or starting soon. I think they will help those that like to learn with a teacher or with videos.

A Thread of Tips

A thread of tips to help High School and College students academically

LEARN THINGS FOR FREE

FREE ONLINE COURSES (here are listed websites that provide huge variety of courses)

Google like a BOSS

Some life hacks which make student's lives easier.

625 words to know in your Target Language

If your learning a new language, these words will help you build a strong foundation.(Some tips and sites are include too)

Miscellaneous/Life Hacks

How to add music to your Blog

How to add your very own, custom homemade playlist to your blog?

How to Walk with Purpose?

Some tips on how to hold yourself in public and why.

Cheatsheet for Laundry Rooms

Saves a lot of money in the Laundry Room

How to Gird up your Loins?

A lesson in how to gird your loins.

How to Disappear Online

Please read and spread for the sake of abuse victims or stalker victims.

What to do during a Nuclear Attack

I hope you never have to use it but here are some guidelines to follow in the event of a nuclear attack

How to pull an All-Nighter.

A to-do list

Write a Thank You letter after your Interview

It leaves a good impression on your interviewer and increase your chances of passing the interview.

Laundry Tags: Meanings

A life hack that you’ll definitely need at some point.

Where to find free Movies and Series Online

Lots of sites. Lots and Lots of sites. I am not Kidding. Now go and chill without netflix. (Part II)

How to get a Refund?

Get your stuff or a refund.

HOW TO DO EVERYTHING FROM SCRATCH

This starts at the most absolute basics of gardening and planting, provides definitions, and hopefully is easily understandable. This is a MUST-READ. (Farming)

Discuss your wages

It’s your right to share your salary, not doing so could be holding you back.

Youtube Tutorials for Basically EVERYTHING

This is a big, giant list of Youtube tutorials that will teach you all the basic life skills you need to know in order to be a functional adult.

Safety

Emergency Evacuation - Items to Gather

A text list of suggested items to acquire in the event of an emergency.

If someone you know is in an abusive relationship

AN ABBREVIATED GUIDE TO ‘Holy shit!!! My friend is in an abusive relationship what do I do’ and what not to do.

Defense Tips for Women

Defense and Safety tips a woman MUST know. (Part II)

An app that informs your Emergency contacts if you are inactive in a set period of time.(Could prevent rape attempts if used correctly)

If a Man gets Physical

How to check if a mirror is one way or two-way

If you are trapped in a smoke-filled apartment: What to Do

How to get out of Hand-binds

How to get out of the bunker of a Car

How to track Anonymous asks.

How to pick a Lock

Traits and Warning signs of an Abuser

What to do if a bigot pulls your Hijab (from behind)

What to do if someone pulls of a Muslim Woman's Hijab? (To do List for both Men and Women)

#safety #health #mental health #writers #readers #micellaneous

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ka-writes · 3 years ago

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——————

Notes: I had already started on the second chapter before I posted the first one, so don’t expect updates every day... I also had to do a lot of googling for this chapter.

——————

Chapter 1 in case you missed it:

——————

Inspired by:

Humans are Space Velociraptors

By:FreshRoses_InMyGarden_NeedTheRain

Some kids come from storks, others come from crashed spaceships

By: mmmajora

Home Again, Home Again

By: teeth_eater

All works can be found on Ao3

——————

Warnings: Cussing, needles, character conflicts, intentional poisoning, poisoning, Jaws reference

——————

“Humans are [and text here]”

Chapter 2: What is this, an interview?

Tommy was now restrained to a chair six feet away from the weird scientist alien. He had a dark brown lab coat with a fuzzy yellow sweater underneath, matched with black pants and black leather boots. His gold rimmed Harry Potter glasses slipped down his nose bridge a bit before he pushed it up and shuffled through papers. He wore a red beanie with a big whiff of his curly chocolate hair. His skin was a weird translucent grayish color with blue speckles decorating it. He had deep brown eyes with an odd electric blue circle outlining the pupil.

His tongue licked his finger as he turned the page. This was a habit that most of the weird teachers and counselors did. It always annoyed Tommy. This time fear was also mixed into that annoyance. His saliva was tinted blue and he had sharp teeth which immediately reminded him of a shark.

“You have shark teeth.” Tommy stated absentmindedly. Clearly, this caught the scientist alien off guard.

“I have what?” The alien asked, confused.

“Shark teeth.. ya know like the weird fish creatures that eat people.” Tommy started rambling causing the shark-alien to become even more confused and slightly alarmed. “I mean I think they eat people. That’s what the shark movie showed… what was its name, Jaws I think? I dunno, my foster mom freaked out in the middle of it and we went home. That lady was weird.. She made us wear itchy clothes and take weird photos before she sent me back to the group home.”

“What?..” The shark-alien asked. Tommy jumped a bit. He forgot he was rambling to a stranger. Alien stranger at that.

“Doesn’t matter.. What's the first question bitch-boy?” Tommy liked the way the alien jumped at the randomly timed insults.

“Er- right.. First off, what’s your name?” The shark-alien asked after collecting himself.

“Tommy Innit. Yours bitch-boy?” Tommy replied.

“Wilbur Soot. Stop calling me bitch-boy!” Wilbur huffed.

“Next question, bitch-boy!” Tommy emphasized the name, getting an even angrier expression in return. Wilbur’s weird blue circle flashed red for a second which caught Tommy off guard.

Wilbur took a shaky breath before asking the next question. “How old are you?”

“Old enough! I am a big man!” Tommy stated. Yet another thing that pissed him off.

“Age?” Wilbur asked, clearly irritated.

“18.” Wilbur raised a brow, “14.” Tommy huffed. His age should only be his business not some alien-bitch who didn’t even have his file.

“If you keep lying, I may have to get the truth serum from the back.” Wilbur half-heartedly threatened. Tommy, the big man that he is, did not get scared at that statement, only slightly unsettled which clearly showed on his face.

“Now, do you have a family?” Tommy tensed at the question. It was a touchy question and was not one that was asked often especially with his reputation.

“I am a big man. I don’t need a family to be great.” Tommy stated, happy with the answer. The alien-bitch shifted awkwardly.

“Right… What is your diet?”

“Umm.. I dunno, whatever I can find. I am allergic to nuts though..” Wilbur nodded in understanding and wrote things down in his notepad.

“What plants are poisonous to you?” Wilbur asked without looking up from his notes.

“Ermm, poison Ivy, poison oak… uh I think parts of rhubarb, and most wild berries. I am not sure other than that.” Wilbur nodded while adding bits to his notes.

“What was the place you lived like?” This time Wilbur glanced up to look at Tommy. This was again another touchy subject… How many times would this alien bitch get into the sad background?

“Shitty.” Tommy snapped. That was the only response the bitch was gonna get.

“Right.. Do you have music on Earth?”

Tommy scoffed, “Of course we have music, dumbass!”

“Can you tell me about the animals there?” Wilbur asked, almost hopeful.. which was weird. What was he hoping for?

“Erm I guess..” Tommy mumbled, trying to figure out where to start, “There’s a bunch of animals. Mainly on land. My favorite would be the cow.”

“What’s that?” Curiosity stained Wilbur’s face. This got Tommy excited; he was practically beaming as he started talking.

“Well they are these big ruminants that make milk and have horns. There are a bunch of types too like the highland cow, which obviously is the most poggers one. They are a Scottish breed with really long hair. I met one once, on a field trip his name was Henry.” Tommy rambled on for the next two and a half hours, jumping from topic to topic and explaining anything that wasn’t personal. He usually ended those paths with short insults.

——————

Wilbur hated to stop the kids' detailed story, but two and a half celestial hours had already passed, and Dream would be coming to check soon. Luckily, he had a couple new poisons that could pass off as a research development. He had even managed to send the distressed signal and no doubt Phil would already be there with the SBI craft ready to fly at any given moment.

“Alright Tommy.” His voice dropped to a serious tone causing the kid to stop his story of how he got poisoned by mushrooms on a camping trip. “You’re gonna have to trust me just for a bit. I am going to get you off the ship at the next stop but in the meantime I need you to tell me how allergic you’re to nuts.” The kid immediately tensed at the question.

“I am mainly allergic to tree nuts.. almonds being the worst. After a few minutes I can’t breathe properly and I usually pass out. The doctor said if I don’t get it treated within 15 minutes, death is most likely.” He took a moment to go through the information. The kid most likely has an anaphylaxis reaction to tree nuts. Meaning either he would have to know the exact time of landing and exactly where Phil was or he needed another poison that was less severe.

“Alright, here is what we’re gonna do. I have a chemical mixture that is similar to that of rattlesnake venom. I also have a chemical substance that numbs any pain you may feel. Side effects would include being very very tired and delirious over the next few days. Along with being knocked out for a good ten hours. To put it simply I am gonna fake poison you, in order to get you off the ship. It’s your choice if you’re willing to do it.” Wilbur paused to study the kid still restrained in front of him. It was odd how relaxed the kid seemed to be in a situation like this. He had no urge as far as Wilbur was aware, to fight against anything that happened. His complaints only being those that touched on personal matters. It was unsettling to say the least, and intrigued Wilbur. He really wanted to unravel the life the kid had lived before this and how he was actually dealing with the situation.

There was a long pause before the kid spoke, “I wouldn’t mind getting away from the weird smiley bitch.. plus you seem nice and to know what you’re doing so sure. Poison me bitch.” He said the last sentence with an enthusiasm Wilbur wasn’t expecting. He took a moment to rethink his plan, which was interrupted by a knock at the door.

“Dream says you better have advanced in your stupid testing. Otherwise he’s gonna kick you off the ship at the next stop.” Stated the rather rude blazeling, Sapnap. The blazeling never liked Wilbur and made a point to argue against any advancements at meals. That led to Dream installing a new system of emails and Wilbur eating meals alone.

“Yea yea, it’s going!” He yelled through the metal door.

“Better be.” The blazeling snapped before making a non quiet track back to his quarters.

“Stupid blazeling.” Wilbur grumbled as he sorted through vials and picked up new needles and measured out the substances. “We are going to start with the anesthetic then move onto the poison.” He softly addressed Tommy.

Wilbur swiftly disinfected Tommy’s shoulder and gave the needle. He then gave the second needle. Immediately Tommy slumped over. Wilbur swiftly took off Tommy’s restraints and moved him on to the patient bed in the back corner of the room. After the transfer was done he clipped the body restraints around Tommy and waited for the alert signaling landing.

After about five minutes the light next to the door turned blue. He moved over to his seat and clipped on the safety belts. The light turned green and the ship shook momentarily before a thud could be felt. Quickly as Wilbur could, he emptied the needles into the waste bin and waited for his soon-to-be-ex-boss to arrive.

Dream stepped through the door and glanced around the room before heading to Wilbur for his report.

“Report.” The dreamon commanded.

“The subject's body would have gone through a painfully slow death and have multiple organ failures if I did not intervene. The chemical mixes used created a conflict in the patient’s body which resulted in the patient falling into exhaustion as they recovered.” He responded in a monotone tone. Dream looked over Tommy. He flinched back in disgust as Tommy grunted in his sleep.

“Is that all?” The dreamon questioned.

“No.” Wilbur swallowed down his panic, “This is the last testing I will be doing with this crew.” The dreamon scoffed.

“I am assuming you’re getting off at this planet?” Dream spit. Wilbur knew he absolutely hated when people left his crew as he saw it as a direct violation of his loyalty.

“Yes.” The phantom stated, keeping his even tone apparent. With that Dream stormed out cursing in Siestian. Somewhere in the mess of words he told Wilbur to get his things.

Without hesitation he grabbed his bag from his quarters, which was held in a small room that branches off the lab. He half sprinted down the short hallway and straight to the bed Tommy was on. He swiftly unrestrained the human and sat him up. He slipped on boots and gloves then tied a cloak around the kid. He pulled the hood up and carried him off of the closest exit. There were faint yells from Dream down the hallway and reassurances from the only two beings that put up with him. And with that Wilbur was off to find the only craft he had ever called home. The SBI ship.

——————

Chapter 2- End

Words~ 1774

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End Notes: ‘‘twas to lazy to reread... sorry for minor mistakes. Also suggestions are always appreciated!! Please reblog...

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Chapter 3:

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Wilbur:

#my writing #my fanfic tag #wilbur soot #sapnap #dream mcyt #tommy mcyt #dream smp fanfiction #space au

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rusticottage · 4 years ago

Text

Hi you all!

I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately and I finally got in an agreement with myself. Well, first of all my main goal with this blog was to share some chill gameplay photos, but then I made this really comfortable space here, and you all are so nice, that I want to open my horizons, so I’ll be sharing a list with the books I’m reading on 2021 right here in this post!

My plan is to pin this post on my blog and keep it updated with my 2021 readings, rating the books and stuff, don't worry if this is not your thing, this will be probably the one time you see this post (unless you keep checking my blog), I won’t be rebloging this post or anything since I guess some of you only follow me cuz ts4.

Anyways! I really want to make this a healthy, cozy space, where we can talk about books (and pride and prejudice movie) so plz, feel free to put your opinion here, or add a book rec on this post or send me an ask, idk, this is a bookworm space <3

Hope you all have a great year with healing, and find new hobbies to keep your mind busy and learning! Love you all <3

📚 6/50 📚

Currently: The Hidden Life of Trees, The Kiss Quotient

𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧

Book: Little Fires Everywhere

Author: Celeste Ng

Rate: three and a half stars

really intresting subjects

great family construction

complete characters with a nice background

kind of boring, but not enough to make you stop reading i think

𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧

Book: The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe

Author: Douglas Adams <3

Rate: 827163 stars

sorry I just really love this series

0 flaws

laughed my ass off (ford <333)

ultimate chef kiss

𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧

Book: The Hating Game

Author: Sally Thorne

Rate: five HUGE stars

I was going to give 3,5 stars in the first half of the book cuz the main character is like 5 feet tall, and the book really wanted to make sure you knew she was small, tiny, little, small and the man was kind of boring for me like he had super virgo vibes

then on 75% I was going to give it 4,5 starts cuz I can’t describe how much every single thing that have happened just made sense, like everything and I was SHOCKED

on the last chapter I cried like a bitch and I needed to give this 5 star ok

I really love romance ok :)

𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧

Book: The Mothers

Author: Brit Bennett

Rate: three and a half stars

Intresting subjects

I felt the same ‘problem’ as when I read Little Fires Everywhere, it isn’t a book about magic or romance or whatever, it’s a book about casual ‘daily’ drama, which I am kind of disinterested, like, for real my dude

So what I got from this book is that this genre is def not for me

Like I couldnt care less for any of them or their problems, I was kind of maaaad on the 75% of the book cuz people are shit, but in general couldnt care less

This is The Mothers genre:

Ant this is Little Fires Everywhere genre:

I hate them (the genres) bye

𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧

Book: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Author: Oscar Wilde

Rate: five stars

It has a really complex full of thoughts reflections about beauty and really got me thinking

I wanted to mark every page for gods sake

“To define is to limit” fave quote of many many good ones you will find there

Oscar Wilde is some kind of chaotic dark academia bitch and I am here for it, really want to study some beauty philosophy from socrates now, thanks Oscar my dude

𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧

Book: The Song of Achilles

Author: Madeline Miller

Rate: four and a half starts (but could easily be five)

Man, how do I start this. I thought this book was really dense, really poetic, I love it fr

patroclo describing man: he was strong, big, everyone could see him, etcetcetc

patroclo describing woman: she had hair and nails

I didnt cried but like its possible

what made me give four and a half was cuz at some points I felt patroclo kind of obsessed, not obsessed but like GO EASY u know, I know that the guy was almost a god but omg, easy boy

#<3 #I think this will be fun #and I will have some kind of engagement #with my tbr #so yep a win win #nonsims #bookrec #little fires everywhere #the restaurant at the end of the universe #the hating game #the mothers

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sprolden · 4 years ago

Note

please, do tell us why matthew will/won't die

thank u, anon, for endorsing me

enjoy an extremely long meta analysis on what i think will happen to matthew fairchild in chain of iron (+ chain of thorns)

ETA: the new tungle jungle update killed list formatting so all my bullet points are now below each other instead of having sub points but its Fine, i’m FINE, u just have to read over it i guess, let’s get to it

let’s start out with some reasons why matthew is extremely unlikely to die (spoiler warning for chog and tid!!!)

plot protection! matthew is more plot protected than.. literally anyone imo. the storyline of his secret and his romance with cordelia are two reasons he’s very unlikely to die because there’s too much to be resolved. killing him off would mean leaving those plotlines entirely unresolved.

similarly, matthews deep mental health issues funnily enough protect him from dying. cc never kills off characters who are struggling with themselves. (jessamine is the exception to this, more on that later)

same goes for the fact that matthew is bi- lgbt characters generally don’t die* in cc’s writing. she avoids the kill your gays trope like hell which, tbh, good for us???

not as stong of an argument, but it would make tlh too similar to tid- killing off the herondale’s parabatai who’s also interested in the main girl? yeah. i know cassie recently spoke about how she doesn’t really care for comparisons between tlh and tid, but i feel like this would be pushing it.

but then again, there’s a Lot of reasons why matthew might be dead as hell by the end of coi i’m sorry

most of all, book two madness! shit always goes down in the second book. cassie has also hinted at Shit Going Down in coi, and considering a lightwood already died in chog, i wouldnt be surprised if a main dies

“But Victoria Why On Earth Would That Be Matthew” well! because literally everybody else Cannot die:

it won’t be anna, alastair or thomas bc of said avoidance of kill your gays (And they still need to kiss kiss fall in love); grace, lucie, james and cordelia are simply too important to the plot for cc to kill them; and jesse’s... already dead idk what to tell u

i’m aware this leaves out christopher too, but tbh? i wouldn’t be too surprised if he dies. the only thing saving him rn are that he still has to marry grace if we’re following the family tree and that he has to invent fire messages but....... those are attainable goals for a single book imo (unlike matthew sorting out his Stuff) so... Perhaps it’s gonna be kit but thats a whole nother post

yeah i know i also just listed a bunch of reasons why matthew wont die but bear w me

so why matthew? because, plot-wise, there’s advantages to him dying, that other characters’ deaths wouldn’t have:

it would solve the love triangle. as a fairstairs it pains me to say this but it’s fairly straightforward: matthew dies, the gracelet is destroyed, jordelia lives happily ever after. we know jordelia will probably be endgame, so.. yeah.

on that same note: matthew doesn’t have a love interest besides cordelia. we know we won’t be seeing the tlh characters in another series, so everybody that lives has to get their happily ever after, which in cc’s case means being happily married. if i recall correctly, the only main characters that have ever ended up single at the end of their books were tda characters that we know we will see again in twp.

he isn’t on the family tree. we know for a fact that we can’t trust the family tree, but i think it’s unlikely for cc to just... ignore something as big as that.

but vic, wouldn’t a dead person be on the family tree? good question! that leaves us with our third option: matthew dies, but doesn’t die, aka downworlder/disowned matthew

basically, the whole idea is that matthew either becomes a downworlder and loses contact w the gang, or he gets stripped of his runes/disowned for what he did to charlotte

it would be a way for him to distance himself from the shadowhunters without actually dying- so it would create none of the ethical issues that come w dying (such as kill your gays) but it would distance him from the shadowhunters enough to let jordelia do their funky business.

matthew being stripped of his runes would explain why he isn’t on the family tree too, bc we know shadowhunters that were stripped of their runes aren’t allowed to have contact w their family.

i’ve talked about vampire matthew before but basically: there’s some hints at matthew staying young forever in chog, and him dying but becoming immortal instead would basically be pulling a jessamine. he dies, but doesn’t die.

becoming a vampire would also give us the Drama™ of his death scene, mayhaps some dramatic confessions, plus it would give him literal eternity to sort out his alcoholism/underlying issues (though i think that will be sorted out by the end of cot)

this also fixes the lack of love interest: if he’s immortal, that means we will probably see him again (maybe in twp/tec?) (with a hot vampire bf/gf, of course)

the only argument against this is again, that it would be too similar to tid, which we know cassie might be avoiding.

also perhaps that ppl might see it as as a way to execute the kill your gays trope without actually doing it, but then again, she sent haline to wranger island Just Like That so,,.,. she doesn’t seem to have any problems w that :^)

basically, i have no idea what’s gonna happen to matthew. i think downworlder matthew makes a Lot of sense, but at the same time it’s a bit of reach imo. if anything, i think it might make too much sense. (i had theories for tda that made a lot more sense than giant naked angels but We Got That Too, didn’t we!)

knowing cc’s writing, i think Matthew Suffers, But Somehow Lives is probably the route she will take. i just have no idea how it will be executed.

thank you for coming to my ted talk!

tl;dr: matthew’s death would be very convenient for some parts of the plot, but it would create a lot of issues with other parts of it. because of this, i think cc might take some sort of dying-but-not-really middle route.

* generally, because there’s a few exceptions: michael is bi but started out dead, which doesn’t count as killing people off imo. the faerie characters that died could be considered lgbt because technically all faeries are bi/pan, but none of the faeries that died ever had a same-sex romance. the aro/ace character that died in tmi is the only one i can think of, but he wasn’t explicitly aro-ace on page until the novellas that followed after tmi. matthew is very explicitly bisexual and has always been very explicitly bisexual.

#this got long dfkgdhj sorry i got carried away #the last hours #matthew fairchild #chain of iron theories #cassandra clare #the shadowhunter chronicles #tlh theories #tsc meta #op #tlh #tsc #lit #long post \#anonymous #answered asks

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cricketnationrise · 4 years ago

Text

Books I read in quarantine: Part 1

So on Friday, March 13, 2020 something not that chill happened. We all know what that was. Anyway for me the silver lining was that I got a lot of my TBR knocked out by not being at work. I read over 150 books from mid-march to mid-october.

1. We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: yes, it had been on my list for a while, yes it was awesome, yes, its still worth the read

2. Dragonquest by Anne McCaffrey: eh. listen. she’s one of the most prominent women in fantasy/sci-fi writing and that’s great. and maybe some the later books aren’t quite such a product of their time. but there are some aspects to the dragon “bonding” that feel especially uncomfortable and there’s a lot of violence toward women. so.

3. Briar’s Book by Tamora Pierce: I was in the midst of a Circle of Magic reread. Unfortunately for me, this one is about a plague. It’s still one of the best CoM books and I enjoy it immensely. Its definitely going to be harder to read from now on

4. The Tiger’s Daughter by K. Arsenault Rivera: loved this. empress and ruler of the steppes as lesbians that also battle demons? i needed a family tree, but that’s normal for me. still need to get to the next one in this series.

5. Fablehaven by Brandon Mull: middle grade fantasy novel. i hesitate to say lighthearted because there are definitely some heavy themes, but all the fantasy creatures you encounter are cool AF and this one at least doesn’t end on a cliffhanger.

6. Magic Steps by Tamora Pierce: less strong than some of the others in the Emelan series, but has some cool worldbuilding that got better fleshed out in the Beka Cooper Tortall books. featuring UNMAGIC. v dark. also dance magic. and romance between two older characters

7. The Bookshop on the Corner by Jenny Colgan: delightful romance, not super explicit, very wish fulfillment if your wish is to run away from your life in london and live off the proceeds of a mobile bookstore in a tiny town. which. is not unappealing.

8. Street Magic by Tamora Pierce: features 9 cats, street urchins, and a VERY TERRIFYING wealthy widow straight up murdering kids for fun and games, stone magic

9. Scythe by Neal Shusterman: okay so take our world and then solve all physical ailments and have everything run by the cloud. except that death is still a thing but only if you are picked by a Scythe. first book in a trilogy. fast paced, amazing, violent (someone gets their head cut off), standard dystopia stuff. you’ll want to have the next two books ON YOUR SHELF

10. Wink Poppy Midnight by April Genevieve Tucholke: there is definitely someone out there who will like this more than me. one of them is my roommate. it was just too dark of a friendship/enemyship for me. lots of unreliable narrators. and like, they were just kind of horrible to each other? the actual plot was kinda cool and i definitely would have liked it more if it ended lighter

11. The Word for World is Forest by Ursula K. LeGuin: a giant of fantasy and science fiction. this was my first of her sci-fi stuff and the first of the hainish cycle that i’ve read. quick read. definitely makes you think.

12. The Haunting of Tram Car 015 by P. Djèlí Clark: number two in a series, but i didn’t know that going in. absolutely going to read the others. a cairo where all sorts of spirits and demons exist and actively interact with the “normal” world.

13. The Girl Who Reads on the Métro by Christine Féret-Fleury: i’ve never been to france but this feels VERY french. magical realism about bringing the right book to the perfect reader. super cute.

14. Fire Starter by P. Anastasia: first of a series. i wanted to like this better based on the magic system. romance felt forced. also it turned out to be aliens. which like, not a problem, but don’t spend 100 pages telling me its magic and then boom alien virus. maybe the others are better, but i’m not going to find out.

15. The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros: i had to read this in middle school and definitely didn’t appreciate it enough. highly recommended.

16. A Witch’s Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies by Alix E. Harrow: a fantastic short story about reading, libraries, magic and supporting teenagers who need it. you can read it online or as part of Apex Magazine Issue 105 from Feb 2018.

17. On a Sunbeam by Tillie Walden: really long graphic novel about a found family in space trying to do a good job repairing various buildings and stuff. enough queer content for anybody really. gorgeous art.

18. Doughnut by Tom Holt: book 1 in the YouSpace series. very discworld-esq except that its our own world plus a pocket dimension that’s only accessible with a lot of math and a prayer. hilarious at times, but a decidedly darker tone than discworld so just be aware if that’s not what youre looking for

19. The Girl Who Could Move Sh*t with Her Mind by Jackson Ford: teenage girl in california has powers that let her move things with her mind. works as part of a government program with a whole band of misfits. she thought she was the only one and then someone else starts doing crime (TM) and murder with telekinesis and she has to stop them. found family toward the end. graphic violence toward the end. wildfires.

20. Ballad of the Whiskey Robber: A True Story of Bank Heists, Ice Hockey, Transylvanian Pelt Smuggling, Moonlighting Detectives, and Broken Hearts by Julian Rubinstein: what it says on the tin, basically. NONFICTION. this dude in europe had way too many day jobs that were actually crime and his story is WILD. last update i saw was that he was still alive, paroled from jail, and making pottery??

21. The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon: 800+ pages of epic eastern fantasy. some dragons. a witchy big bad. betrayal. queer romance as a main plotline. magic. seriously good.

22. Transcription by Kate Atkinson: flashback within a flashback within a flashback and reversing that path as you move through the book. woman just wants a secretary job during the war. somehow ends up as a spy??? i liked it, i keep meaning to get more of her books

23. Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire: first in the wayward children series. under 200 pages if you’re looking for a quick read. what happens to kids that have gone through a door, had an adventure, and then forced back into our world? they don’t quite fit. and when that happens they go to Eleanor West’s School. fantastic series that is still being added to (number 7 comes out next year). can be very dark/sinister at times. but theres a lot of queer representation and found family stuff to balance out.

24. Down Among the Sticks and Bones by Seanan McGuire: book 2 in the wayward children series. focuses on Jack and Jill’s backstory of their time before book 1. they are from The Moors where a Vampire Lord and a Mad Scientist are battling against each other to keep the balance of the world with a village of innocents between them

25. Go Fish by Ian Rogers: short story published on Tor.com about a group of paranormal investigators. there’s a fish factory that no one will go in because it’s haunted and/or cursed and people have been dying from going in there

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wayfarerreads · 3 years ago

Text

August Reading Goals + June/July Wrap Up:

Haven't felt like updating this little blog in recent months :/ Mainly because, between work and family, July was extremely busy and I didn't have as much time or motivation to read.

But now it's August and things are starting to calm down, so hopefully I can find my motivation again ^_^

In June I managed to read, or at least start, a few of the books I wanted to get to. I finished This is How You Lose the Time War, Fangirl, and Golden Stage. I started Gideon the Ninth, Fire Logic, the Husky and His White Cat Shizun (Erha), Tian Guan Ci Fu, and Inland.

In July I got caught up on Erha, and got further in Tian Guan Ci Fu. I also read Spring Trees and Sunset Clouds and started My Darling Sick Beauty.

For August, I'm flip-flopping between giving myself a tbr or just seeing where things go :/ Tbr's haven't really been working for me, but I'm reluctant to let go of the format...

I guess if I do try to stick with a tbr these are the books that will be on it:

-Tian Guan Ci Fu by MXTX: I’m about 86% of the way through TGCF. Things have really taken a turn regarding the identity of White No Face :’( I’m really looking forward to completing TGCF, but I also don’t want to say goodbye to these characters... I really adore Xie Lian <3 Finished 8/30/2021

-Erha by Meatbun: I’m caught up with the current human translation (ch.160). *deep sigh* There aren’t enough words in the English language to express how much I love Erha lol It’s one of those rare books that I start and it immediately hooks its claws into my soul and just burrows there. Mo Ran and Chu Wanning just constantly break my heart, with all of their misunderstandings. Mo Ran 2.0 is best boi; seeing him trying so hard to be a good person and come to terms with Taxian Jun/Mo Ran 0.5 and the things he did in that lifetime is so well done. And Chu Wanning! I love him so, so much <3 He is very much my favorite Erha character. He's so awkward and full of self loathing and I cannot wait to see him finally get past all of that 😭 I’m dying waiting for the next chapter lol Can’t wait to see where this whole drama with Ye Wangxi/Nangong Si/Song Qiutong is going, especially with the ch.160 reveal :O I also really want to know who the antagonist is!!! He reminds me so much of Taxian Jun...

-My Darling Sick Beauty by Dao Xuan: This one is just kind of fun and funny and fluffy. I really love Jiang Zheliu and Wen Renye and seeing their relationship develop. I wasn’t sure about it at first, wasn’t completely getting into it, but I stuck with it and now I’m hooked :D

-Remarried Empress by Alpha Tart: This is my first Korean webnovel. I’m not really far enough in to have much of an opinion yet. I like Navier and I’m curious to see where this goes. It came highly recommended by a friend, so I’ll probably love it ^_^

-Nan Chan by Tang Jiuqing: Not super far into Nan Chan either, just got to chapter 12.

-Inland by Téa Obreht: Intriguing, but I’m only 5% in.

-Fire Logic by Laurie J. Marks: I adore this book & very much want to read the whole quartet (which my library happily has :D). Right now, I’m only 90 pages away from the end. Will probably finish it either tonight or in the next few days. Finished 8/4/2021

-Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir: Love, love, love this book!!! I’m a little less than halfway through and am excited to get back to it. Finished 8/25/2021

-Bloodchild: and Other Stories by Octavia E. Butler: I haven’t touched this one since April -_- It’s my first Butler and I really want to get into her works, especially since I have a ton of her other books! After finishing Fire Logic, I’ll probably prioritize this one. Finished 8/10/2021

-Red, White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston: Read like two pages of this in May and haven’t touched it since :/ I think it’ll be a quick read, though, once I get back to it. Finished 8/18/2021

-the Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon: Haven’t read this since May either. I do want to get back to it. I definitely don’t expect to finish tPotOT this month, but I would like to continue it rather than leave it hanging.

-Victory's Price by Alexander Freed: Haven’t touched this since March :( I love Star Wars and I really love the characters in Alphabet Squadron. Very much want to find out how the trilogy ends.

-a Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara: Haven’t read since February :( Like with Victory’s Price, school got really busy and I didn’t have time to read. I’m only 90 pages in, so not very far, but I really love what I’ve read so far. I’m going to go pick up my own copy this weekend, ‘cause too many other people have holds on the library copies and I know I’m not going to be able to finish it before I need to return it :/

#Wayfarer reads 2021 #Wayfarer's August TBR

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atamascolily · 4 years ago

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Unicorn Chronicles, Book 3: “Dark Whispers,” by Bruce Coville

Whenever people grumble about how long it's been since their favorite fanfic updated, I can't help but smile a little in sympathy. As someone who's read a lot of CLAMP manga, I've grown used to the stutter-stop of hiatuses and discontinued stories that will never be finished. To quote the Princess Bride, "Get used to disappointment". It's just an occupational hazard.

I know people who only read completed stories, but I would have missed out on a lot of great material and works that really matter to me if I followed their example. It also meant that I got really good at imagining what happens next.

So it was a delight to discover that Bruce Coville had actually finished the Unicorn Chronicles when I was busy with other stuff (i.e., life) and there were two more volumes. Coville specifically thanks readers for nagging him about finishing, which is simultaneously #hilarious and #relatable.

Song of the Wanderer came out in 1999, right on the cusp of the Harry Potter boom that shook up the juvenile fantasy genre. (Both series are published by Scholastic.) Dark Whispers came out in 2008, and you can see how much the genre has shifted in the cover art alone:

This is gorgeous art by Petar Mesedlzija, but it only tangentially fits the descriptions in the books: Cara doesn't really wear anything like this outfit, and the story emphasizes she keeps braiding her hair to keep it from tangling. She has a sword, but she doesn’t really ever use it?

Furthermore, the layout, design, and chapter headings of Dark Whispers are clearly meant to capitalize on Harry Potter: Grimmwold has a looping signature reminiscent of Dumbeldore's in the opening prologue, for instance. It's a very different feel from the way the first two volumes were presented, and tbh, I miss the old way that has gone the way of the dinosaurs now.

Inevitably, with such a long gap between volumes, Dark Whispers ended up with a very different style and tone than its predecessors. The most obvious difference is that it's REALLY LONG--464 pages in hardcover. Some of this increase in length is attributable to Harry Potter proving that giant fantasy tomes can sell like hotcakes, and some of it is the fact that the storyline is now really big, with a lot of different players moving in different directions.

Inevitably, this means that instead of following Cara's POV for the entire book, as we did in the first two volumes, we are constantly shifting narrators. It's completely understandable, but as a reader, I find it really annoying--like I am suddenly reading an entirely different series with overlapping plot and characters. It's not that this new series is bad, per se, it's just... not what I imagined when I was making up the ending in my head in the early 2000s. I do not know if this disjunct would be so obvious or unsettling to someone who was reading all four volumes together for the first time.

Anyway, so since it's been literally a decade, Coville makes the sensible decision to open with a recap from Grimmwold, in his role as the keeper of the Unicorn Chronicles: unicorns and human hunters are at war; the latter are lead by an immortal woman named Beloved with a personal grudge against the unicorns, and she just got an amulet so she can invade Luster.

In Cara's plotline, she is still coming to terms with the fact that her grandmother, Ivy Morris, was a unicorn in disguise, and is now Queen Amalia Flickerfoot. Her grandfather Jaques is super depressed (because literary references, yo) and also because this is super-weird for him, too. As they prepare for Beloved's assault on Luster, Grimmwold reveals that pages from the Unicorn Chronicles are missing, and that others reveal an unsettling prophecy about unicorns confronting their own darkness and a mysterious figure called the Whisperer.

Another human, Alma Leonetti, comes forth and suggests that the centaurs might know more details. The Queen sends Cara and her friends to investigate, while Jaques and Thomas the Tinker go on separate missions. Thomas does give her a watch that marks the days and also explodes, so you know right away she's gonna need both on her trip. M'Gama the geomancer is trying to determine where and when the Hunters will invade: the date is the forthcoming Blood Moon, but she's still working out the details on the place.

Grimmwold tells the group a story about Alma Leonetti, and how she tracked down the wizard Bellenmore, who opened the gate to Luster for the unicorns. Bellenmore has a snarky talking lizard and great tastes in decorating:

On the mantel above the fireplace stood a row of earthenware mugs with hideous faces. One of them winked at me; another leered and rolled its eyes; a third stuck out its tongue and made a rude noise. Then they began to sing a bawdy song until Bellenmore waved a hand to silence them.

Alma bluffs her way to Luster and eventually persuades the unicorns to keep one of their kind on Earth so humans don't forget true beauty and goodness and the spark is kept alive. The hunters keep trying to kill the Guardian, but they always replace the fallen with a new one and the cycle repeats.

We also learn that Ivy summoned Moonheart to heal Cara as a child, which is what alerted Beloved to her presence, forcing her to kidnap Cara and flee because Beloved wanted the child, too. Ian Hunter was a first grade teacher who had no idea about any of this until Cara disappeared and he was radicalized by Beloved and went through an intensive training camp she's built up for her army.

Meanwhile, Ian is in India, tracking down the Rainbow Prison where Beloved has imprisoned his wife. He makes a deal with a mysterious entity, the Blind Man, trading occasional use of his sight for the knowledge he needs. Beloved's men attack Ian, but he is saved by a street urchin named Rajiv who is eager for adventure, and the mysterious Fallon, who is trying to find a doorway to Luster. The three of them team up and head for the Himalayas to find the doorway to the Rainbow Prison while Beloved's forces pursue them. We learn that Fallon is super-hot and also seeking his best bro Elihu, in a relationship that I'm pretty sure was sexual although it's never stated directly.

There's also a plotline involving the delvers - the evil dwarves we mostly forgot about in Book 2. The King keeps talking to the Whisperer, and sending his subjects to do Evil Things as the alliance with Beloved continues. (The delvers do not love humans, but they hate unicorns and so the "enemy of my enemy is my friend" at least temporarily).

The plotlines converge when the delvers attack M'Gama the earthmancer's house and steal a macguffin and kill Flensa, M'Gama's servant. Cara's party splits up, with Finder and Belle hunting the macguffin while Cara and Lightfoot continue on. Finder is killed (sob) and Belle regrets being a jerk to him. Cara's group is attacked by delvers and she is captured and taken underground. (The delvers either don't know Beloved has an amulet already/don't care/want one for their own purposes.) Cara tosses the amulet into an abyss when it fails to transport her to earth, and she is imprisoned in the dungeons with a delver dissident who has had his name ritually stripped from him for defiance.

Cara renames the delver "Rocky" and the Squijum shows up with the amulet and steals the key. They meet up with Grimmwold, and escape. They also encounter the gryphon Medafil, who is lost below ground, only to wake a monster known as the schwartz, a Terminator-like blind dragon that never gives up pursuit. Cara defeats it using the expanding light sphere from Medafil's nest, and they emerge in the centaur's valley, where Belle is waiting for them with the news of Finder's death.

The centaurs are standoffish, but eventually Cara persuades their leader Chiron to spill the beans: after the war with Beloved began, the unicorns decided to expunge all the darkness from their souls with the aid of a magician named Elihu (hi!), which gained sentience and has been egging Beloved on ever since. It's also corrupted the delvers,which is why they hate unicorns so much. In exchange for the info, Cara agrees to mercy-kill Chiron, which none of the centaurs can do for personal reasons. Cara reports this story to the unicorns, who are all :shrug emoji: about it.

Meanwhile Ian and company are stuck in the Rainbow Prison, the Dimblethum is being tormented by the Whisperer, and ends up taking the macguffin the delvers stole and placing it at the Axis Mundi, the world-tree of Luster, so that Beloved and her forces can enter there. Lightfoot tries to stop the Dimblethum but isn't in time. And the book ends on the seriously metal note of Beloved opening the portal beneath the blood moon and invading Luster with her army. *cue 'Bad Moon Rising'*

[Which, I may note, is pretty much where the LAST BOOK also ended.]

SO. That was a lot.

Once again, the core group of characters from Book One gets broken up. Thomas the Tinker gets sidetracked pretty quickly and isn't seen again; the Dimblethum gets a few brief sequences, but doesn't do much until the end. Lightfoot and Cara are separated fairly early on and don't have much time together, though their musings about their sudden familial connections at the beginning are nice, even though Cara also keeps shipping Belle with Lightfoot. Lightfoot himself doesn't get to do much, Finder dies, and Belle is likewise sidelined by the narrative for a decent chunk of the story. Coville also keeps emphasizing that Lightfoot is a Prince, which just grates on me, too.

I would also like to see more of Cara? She has plenty of scenes, but after two books of focusing solely on her, it's so strange to suddenly be jerked in different directions and it makes me grumpy.

It's great to see Medafil again, but I found the whole delvers/underground plot to drag on too long for my tastes. I'm glad Coville brings back that one delver from the first book who let Cara go because he thinks (rightly) his king is batshit crazy.

I like Alma Leonetti's story, but it feels unrelated to the plot, so I'm not entirely sure why it's there. I think it was originally a stand-alone short story, and I think it's better suited as one, because I can't figure out what its narrative purpose is. Or is it just that Grimmwold is contractually obligated to tell at least one story per book?? Or maybe this is something that will pay off in Book 4.

Ian Hunter's story basically bores me, and I found that whole subplot extremely tedious. He's been more or less retconned to be sympathetic and a victim, and I just don't know how I feel about that.

I HAVE SUCH MIXED FEELINGS ABOUT THE BIG REVEAL. On the one hand, it's a great twist to see the psychological shadow as the literal villain; on the other hand, it takes away some of the delvers' and Beloved's agency as villains in their own right because they're now Pawns of a Bigger Bad. It also just seems like such a weird thing for the unicorns to do--and maybe that's a way of making them more alien, but I don't know.

Coville explicitly uses the word 'hubris,' so it also feels weirdly victim-blaming to me because the unicorns are doing it to themselves (and this isn't just a war, but genocide we're talking about here!). For better or worse, this twist muddies the black and white/good vs. evil paradigm into shades of gray: the unicorns are beautiful and good but also arrogant assholes; Beloved is homicidal but also in terrible pain; the delvers are misunderstood and need to be embraced rather than ignored.

Alma Leonetti consistently delivers the best lines - I guess she's taken over the role Ivy Morris used to play, since Ivy is now a unicorn:

"Perhaps the unicorns need to try to recover some of what they have lost?... You face a dedicated enemy who has shown no mercy, one who will stop at nothing to destroy you. And what have you done? Gathered together, which is good. Prepared to defend yourselves, which is good, too. But is it enough? How fiercely are you willing to fight to save your lives? How strong can unicorns be? ... Maybe you need to take in some of that darkness you once released."

I remember feeling oddly disappointed on my first reading, which unfortunately persists on re-read. This story has now moved in a very different direction from the one I expected, and while that's not necessarily bad, it is unsettling and strange. As I mentioned earlier, some of that might just be that the final result doesn't match the story I made up in my head; or it could just be the inevitable result of such a long gap between books and the changes in the fantasy market post-Harry Potter. I don't know.

(I wish I had written down my thoughts about an ending--aka fanfic--because while I could write one now, it’d be reacting to canon, rather than creating it.)

Either way, major kudos to Coville for writing this book, because I had assumed the series was dead and would never be completed, and he fucking did it. That’s such an inspiration, honestly.

#book reviews #unicorn chronicles #dark whispers #childhood influences

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awellboiledicicle · 5 years ago

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Mok’s Mod List 2.0

Note that some of these mods require Content Patcher from the Nexus, and some mods listed need a bit of tweaking.

But thats not the point, the point is wanting to play Stardew Valley with Additions.

[cp] Babies Take After Spouse by Lakoria

What it says on the tin-- this mod lets your kids look like your kids! Its nice.

[cp] Dammit Clint Stop Hitting on My Wife by Rubecula

Tweaks Clint’s whole... thing to be closer to the whole “Guy with super bad social skills and anxiety about trying to talk to people”/”not really outgoing dude” and not so much “dude that literally watches Emily at her place of work and from bushes outside her house”/”Incel that you’d call the cops on if possible”. It correctly stops him hitting on emily when married to you. It makes him way more personable in terms of not setting off creep vibes. There’s a version available also of toning things down while being just friends.

[cp] Elle's Cat Replacements by Junimods

[cp] Elle's Dog Replacements by Junimods

[cp] Elle's New Barn Animals by Junimods

[cp] Elle's New Coop Animals by Junimods

[cp] Elle's New Horses by Junimods

Lumping these together because they let you customize almost every sprite of a thing on your farm. Different cats, different breeds of dog, and new cuter barn animals, and horses.

[Cp] Seasonal Villager outfits by Tanpopnoko and ParadigmNomad

Changes the villagers outfits as seasons change. No more Haley walking around in a tanktop and short skirts while theres like 3 feet of snow. Cute sweaters! Evelyn with nice sun hats! George not covered in food mess!

[cp ]Stardew Lottery Letters by Jokerine

You wanna play the lottery without putting anything in, and get like, cake when you don’t win? Want surprise money at random? Of course you do. Thats what this does.

[cp] Canon Friendly dialogue expansion for all friend-able characters by Gizzymo

You ever play a file so long you’ve heard literally everything the npc’s can say? Like several times? Get this and get v in character lines that are spread out over the years.

Abigail Dialogue Expansion by farmerjack

More Abigail! More words!

Adjust Baby Chance by JertsukkaTheMan

Some of us want to start a game with the goal of having a family with an LI. Its nice, its cute etc. But sometimes the game just won’t make your spouse ask you about having kids. For years. So this mod lets you adjust the chance of your spouse asking.

All Professions by cantorsdust

Tired of only having one set of proficiency? Long to be a titan of farming? think its bullshit that you can’t master raising cattle AND growing potatoes? This mod unlocks both professions as you level things up.

Animal Sitter by jwdred

Let your pet feed, water, and care for your farm animals. Or have your spouse do it. Pay for it or don’t, set if animal things go in to your inventory or a chest. Is very good if you wanna have animals but also are bad at telling which you’ve pet and which ones you haven’t.

Better Fruit Trees by CatCattyCat

Do you want an orchard without having to space things like a dnd movement grid?

CJB Cheats Menu by CJBok and Pathoschild

Make fishing easier! Change walking speed! Change relationship levels! Complete that quest that you can’t find the thing for! Get chips for the casino! Get money i guess!

CJB Item Spawner by CJBok

Decorate without being tied to the whims of everything else. Get things for quests. get ore without going mining bc mining is Danger sometimes.

DokiDoki Dialogue Alex by alistairweekend

DokiDoki Dialogue Elliott by alistairweekend

DokiDoki Dialogue Harvey by alistairweekend

DokiDoki Dialogue Sam by alistairweekend

DokiDoki Dialogue Sebastian by alistairweekend

Collecting this together because it basically just adds more dialogue that makes the relationships much more convincing.

Family Planning by loe2run

Lets you set the max number of children you and your spouse can have at a time.

Free Dusty by skuld

Freedom for the doggo! Allows Alex’s dog Dusty to wander the town with Alex or wait for him in places. Not great irl, very good in game with the alternative being a way too small yard.

Gift Taste helper by tstaples

If you hover over the calendar on a birthday or on the portrait on your social menu, it’ll let you know what people like getting. A life saver.

Happy Birthday by Omegasis

Lets you set a birthday for your Farmer, because really, you should have one.

Immersive Festival Dialogue by tangeriney

People now actually talk about the festivals happening around town! Like you know, normal people.

Instant grow Trees by cantorsdust

are you, too, impatient as shit? Want to have a syrup farm in a specific pattern but dont wanna wait? Get this and instant trees in the morning.

Kisekae by Kabigon [use Pathoschild unofficial update]

Like Get Dressed, this mod lets you alter the image of your farmer without having to pay the wizard. Why do you have to do dark magic for a haircut. It’s bullshit. So use this mod and get dressed up for festivals. The unofficial patch is on the compatibility page of the wiki.

Longjevity by RTGOAT

Adds more things to the game. Optional taxes, also adds more crops and clothing changes, and soda crafting. Can conflict with Seasonal Outfits, but can be worked in together.

Map image exporter by spacechase0

Screenshots are now less of a pain

NPC Map Locations by Bouhm

“Where the fuck are they?” a sentence of the past! Adds markers to the location of villagers and shows if they move.

Paririe King Made Easy by Mucchan and PathosChild

Spelling Prairie is hard, but the games shouldn’t be. Makes you functionally immortal bc that minigame hurts me.

Range Display by CatCattyCat

Displays a colored grid showing how far things cover. Scarecrows, beehives, and sprinklers. No more guessing where things reach!

Remote Fridge Storage by arjan3004

Fridge is tiny, is too small for mighty farming and foraging skills. Chest, though, chest is many and large together. Use chest as ice chest to store fridge, and cook with those things! No inventory management required.

Replanter by jwdred

Like Animal Sitter, but for the farm bit. Option for instant selling upon harvest. Also has option to put it into a chest for later.

Part of the Community by bmarquismarkail

Ever feel weird about the fact you never get to know people through, like, social osmosis? Like if you’re super good friends with Sam, he’s probably talked to his family and friends about you. If you’re selling all these things to people, and helping people out, shouldn’t most people at least know ur a chill person? This mod gives a couple points toward your relationship to the citizens for every festival, for every thing sent in the box, and if you talk to people in a room with others, they all get a point or five. It’s very useful for keeping relationships going.

SBM Black Roof by ??

Mod i used to make my house pretty, but i can’t find it anywhere.

Skull Cavern Elevator by Bifibi

Adds an elevator to Skull cavern, with option to change when the thing appears. No need to keep trying to not die every 10 floors only to need to do it again later.

Stardew Hack by bcmpinc

Basic thing that allows for below mod.

Wear More Rings by bcmpinc

You have ten fingers, why not so many rings? It would only make sense. So get your shinies on yall

Note 2: I have not included links in the post as links would make it not show up in the tags and thus would make sharing harder. Searching the Nexus modding website or the compatibility page will get you there.

#mod list #stardew valley #stardew valley mods #sdv #sdv mods

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kyber-kisses · 5 years ago

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Too Soon (Part 1)

Dean Winchester x Reader

A/n: This is my rewritten/edited part one to Too Soon! Since Season 15 is coming back soon I thought I would go through and edit the chapters. I hope y'all enjoy! ( Also I will only be tagging the spn taglist for the first part, as not to annoy some people. If you want to be updated on this series just send me an ask!)

Warnings: Worried!Dean, character death, season 14 spoilers.

Summary: When the reader is suddenly killed by Jack, a series of events unfolds that leaves both the alive and the deceased stunned.

“Hello Y/N, my name is Jessica.”

The voice was sudden, making you whirl around on the spot, hands reaching for your gun purely out of instinct. Your eyes instantly locked on a lone female before you, eyebrows knotting together in confusion. Just a moment ago you had been talking to Jack.

Now. . .well now he was nowhere to be seen.

“Forgive me for asking but where the hell did you come from?” You questioned, taking a step closer to the unknown woman.

“I’m a reaper. I’m here to lead you to your next life.”As she said it, you could see a gentle smile slip onto her face, for an instant you swore you caught a hint of sadness or pity hidden within her eyes as well. You took a step back, mind reeling with the answer she had just given you.

“That- that can’t be right. Because if that were true. That would mean- that would mean I’m dead. And I-I can’t be dead.” You stumbled over the words, trying desperately to make sense of what was happening.

No. No you couldn’t be dead. That didn’t make sense.

“I’m sorry. I understand that you're shock.” Jessica stepped forward, reaching out her hand, waiting patiently for you to take it, clearly prepared to take you through the veil-- But you didn’t notice. Your mind was trying to piece together what had happened.

Jack. You had been talking to Jack. He was upset and angry and you had been trying to calm him down. He was yelling, god he was yelling so much- and then there was a blast.

Blast.

“Oh god.” Your hand flew to your mouth as your mind caught up to you. You knew deep down Jack never meant to hurt you, but you also knew he could still be unpredictable at times. You felt the burn of oncoming tears in your eyes as your body sunk the the ground, heels pressing hard into the eye sockets.

Fuck, fuck, fuck-

Your head was spinning at a million miles an hour until it hit a brick wall of one solid thought that towered above all the rest.

Dean. Oh no, Dean didn’t know. Neither did Sam or Cas. A choked sob left your lips as the tears finally spilled over your lashes. That one person repeatedly flashing in your mind. Dean. You had known him practically all your life, and loved him for at least half of it. You always told yourself that one day you would tell him. Except now with your current situation, that was clearly never going to happen.

Dean. Dean with his big green eyes, and freckled splashed face,Dean with his dumb jokes and secretly dorky personality. There were so many things you loved about that man, from the way he laughed to the terrible jokes he cracked and everything in between. His rare but big smile and his even bigger heart. You were never supposed to fall in love with your best friend, but its a difficult thing not to do when that person was Dean.

You flinched slightly when Jessica knelt down in front of you, forgetting the reapers presence.

“Don’t worry. He loved you too, and for a very long time I might add.”

You looked up into Jessica’s eyes, your own slightly glazed with confusion.

“How do you know?” the question leaving your lips in barely a whisper as you fought to ignore the hot tears trekking down your face. Jessica stood up, waiting for you to rise to her level.

“I’ve been watching over you and the Winchester’s for a long time. I pay attention.” She smiled. You nodded, immediately seeing that she was telling the truth. She reached out her hand again.

“Are you ready to go?”

Ready to go? That was such a heavy question. You had never exactly feared death. In truth it was just another beginning, right? You paused, thinking it through. There was nothing else for you to do here. You couldn't just stride back into the land of the living and back to your life and family. The only option was to take her outstretch hand.

“As long as you promise to do something for me.” You stated firmly, sliding your hand into hers before rising to your feet with a shaky breath.

“Of course. Anything.” She smiled. You nodded again, finally accepting your fate you reached out and took her hand.

*. *. *. *.

Dean knew something was wrong the moment you didn’t pick up your phone. You were the type of person to always answer no matter what. It was a rarity if you didn't answer. So when the phone went through its cycle of rings eventually getting to your voicemail, he took a deep inhale to calm himself.

“Hello, you have reached the voicemail of Y/N Y/L/N. I’m sorry I didn’t answer your call. I’m just waiting for more important people to call. If I hear your message and deem you worthy or the title “important,” I will think about calling you back, but for now. Bye!”-Beep-

Lowering his phone from his ear, Dean looked down at the screen, your profile picture staring brightly up at him. Your face scrunched as you stuck your tongue out. In any other occasion he probably would have smiled, but instead he just let out a light “Damn it-” before slipping it back into his pocket.

He hated that you had ventured out alone to go find Jack. He should have gone with you. He should have dropped everything and just gone with you. Now you could be in trouble and in need of assistance. What if you were injured . . .or worse?

The Winchester brothers then proceeded to launch into action the moment they agreed something was not right. They had Rowena going through every page of the Book of the Damned looking for a tracking spell, and Cas was trying to find Jacks last known whereabouts.

“Anything?” Dean huffed, momentarily stopping his continuous pacing to look over at his brother, who was currently hunched over his laptop trying desperately to track Jacks phone. They had tried tracking yours earlier, only to find your phone sitting on one of the vacant tables in the library untouched and almost out of battery . He expected Sam to respond with yet another Nope but was surprised when he heard something else.

“Dean, check this out.” Sam swiveled his laptop around to face him, pointing at Jacks icon.

“Wait- is he flying?” The two brothers watched as the icon pinged to another location, and then another before landing firmly on an empty area in Nebraska. After a minute of no change, Dean was rushing towards the door, wrapping his jacket around him and grabbing the keys to the impala.

Sam knew there was no holding his brother back, especially when it came to your safety. The younger Winchester exhaled before slamming the laptop shut and following the fading heels of his brothers boots.

*. *. *.

Dean had practically been white knuckling the steering wheel since he slipped into the drivers seat. He was silently trying to calm himself down, but it just wasn’t working.

You were fine. You were fine. You were safe and alive and completely out of harms way. You were fine.

“Oh crap.” Sam's sigh of frustration yanked Deans eyes away from the road.

“What?” His voice thick with worry as he watched his brother flick through his phone.

“I lost Jacks signal. His phone must have died.”

The older Winchester let out a string of curses before slamming his foot harder on the gas. And with that a two hour drive was cut down to a smooth 45 minutes.

Dean immediately made out your car when the slowly pulled to a stop at the end of the old dirt road the gps had sent them down, the vehcile parked alone in front of an old run down cabin. The impala had barely been put into park before the older Winchester was launching himself out of his seat and running foreword, flashlight in hand.

“You go inside, I’ll check around back.”

“Got it.”

It didn’t take long for Dean to find something out of the ordinary, as he stepped through the trees his eyes widened, jade irises filled with confusion and worry. He didn’t have to call for Sam before he heard the loud footsteps running towards him. No words were exchanged as Dean knelt down, running his fingers along the earth, pulling up ash. The light of their flashlights panning over the charred and blackened earth that stretched out for several yards.

Dean needed to find you, and quickly . . .

(A/N: if you would like to be added to my slowly growing Too Soon Taglist, feel free to send me a message or ask!)

SPN Taglist: (Still Open)

@familybusinesswritingbro@a–1–1–3 @awesome-badass-cafeteria-sauce @music-is-all-i-need @agusdoti @callmekda @jordangdelacruz @orphiceseum @andthatsmyworld @marvelfangirllll @fandomnerdespressourself @gladiosamicitias @castielsangelsx @lxstgxrl-ck @tis-i-the-wayward-idgit @amendoise @phoenixuprisingsstuff @ericalynne007 @kaitlaitlaitl @totallyluciferr @supernaturalenchanted @dolanfivsosxox@supernatural-ocs @emptycanvasposts @akshi8278 @defenderrosetyler @heyyy-hey-babyyy @supernaturalenchanted@emptycanvasposts @vicmc624 @all-will-be-well-love@busy-bee-angel-misska @starsandmidnightblue @lilulo-12fanfiction @beanie-beebo @xoxoaudreymarie @greenarrowhead @mrsjenniferwinchester @mysticalfuncollectorus @brebolin @biahblue @noahandthegiraffe @hhiggs @mila-dans @mrsmaybankhere @malindacath @littleagxs @deanwanddamons @idksupernatural @i-make-questionable-choices

#supernatural #dean winchester #sam winchester #dean winchester x reader #dean winchester imagine #supernatural x reader #supernatural imagine #dean winchester angst #dean winchester series #spn season 15

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tev-the-random · 5 years ago

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A casual Sonic Forces rewrite + some headcanons, because why not

Part 1 – Infinite and Episode Shadow

Just a warning: none of the images used here belong to me! They all belong to SEGA – the game screenshots, the official art and the comic pages.

Next Part ->

I have yet to see the Sonic Movie, because the universe seems devoted on not letting me do so, for some reason. Being as desperate for Sonic content but as determined to not receive spoilers from the movie as I am, I decided to go for the next coolest thing: writing really long and random posts about a game that came out three years ago and no one cares about anymore.

This shall be fun!

(Update: as of posting this, I have finally watched the movie! But I don’t want to throw this away, so I’ll post it anyway. We can have a nice talk about the movie later.)

*“Fist Bump instrumental” intro plays*

*“This is Our World: a New Hero” plays in the background*

I’m the type of person to always try and see the best in every game, and Sonic Forces is no different. Despite its obvious flaws, I love this beautiful game! Mostly the concept of it is one of the coolest things I’ve seen this last decade, but the execution… lacks on a few things. I mostly just fill in the gaps with my imagination and enjoy it nevertheless, but, upon going through the tag and seeing that some of my concerns were shared by other people, I decided to try my hand at rewriting Sonic Forces juuust a tiny bit. Just for fun!

For this first part (and I have no idea how many parts we should have), I’d like to share some of my ideas about…

*Infinite’s Theme plays in the background as I try hard not to sing along*

Oh, my poor jackal boy, what do we do with you? Despite being so heavily promoted and having an undeniably awesome theme song, Infinite’s backstory and general development throughout the game came out as lacking, having the self-proclaimed edgelord become a laughingstock amongst most fans. Nevertheless, I still love Infinite, and it saddens me how much wasted potential he had; it’s like they were trying to write a really interesting character, but gave up halfway through.

So yeah, let’s talk about it. And let us begin with his origin story.

I believe you are all familiar with this scene:

I… I want to defend my boy here, I really do. But honestly, the way this was portrayed, it just sounded like he was throwing a childish tantrum. It seems as if his entire motive for becoming a villain was “Shadow beat him and called him weak”; dude, you’re not the only one: Shadow does this to basically everybody who’s ever crossed his way! We’re not given a reason as to why Infinite gets so bloody offended, nor are we given a reason why we should care.

So, how can we fix this? I think we should firstly focus less on “I’M NOT WEEEEAAAAK!!! URRAAAAGHH!!!” and more on:

It doesn’t need to be – and I don’t even think it can be – as sad of a situation as the Rivaille Squad in Shingeki No Kyojin or anything, but I believe that showing us that Infinite lost something important would already do wonders to his backstory.

The simplest way – that is, the way that doesn’t majorly change how things go, but does give the jackal a clearer motive – to do this would involve the ever so humble inclusion of two new cutscenes and one new in-game battle, plus a few tweaks to some already existing scenes.

Episode Shadow begins not with the usual reading introduction, but rather, with Shadow’s voice. “I was a couple of months before the Doctor took over the world. The first time I encountered him… I didn’t know what he would become.” Then we open with what used to be a couple of months prior (aka where they presented Infinite’s memory, aka where they screwed up), so we’ll go through things in a chronological order instead of having a flashback inside of a prequel, because that’s confusing AF.

Now, instead of starting the Mystic Jungle level immediately, we should get a small cutscene: Shadow gliding through the jungle, cool camera angles/lighting and all – maybe something similar to the opening scene of Episode Shadow in Sonic 06? –, on his way to invade Eggman’s base as a voice coming from the hedgehog’s communicator reminds him about his mission (yep, that’s some subtle exposition to the audience so we don’t think Shadow is there just because). My idea for said mission would be the simple task of retrieving a Chaos Emerald (yeah, remember those?) from Eggman. Nothing too serious; just another day, another emerald stolen like usual; we’ve seen this before, there’s no need for a long dialogue.

As the black-and-red blur crosses the screen, the camera pans to a group of people hiding above in the trees: Squad Jackal. Infinite is not among them. One of the jackals asks “where’ the boss?” to which another one replies that he’s on the other side of the base/talking to the Doctor/whatever and they have no time to waste; their mission is to take down the intruder and protect the base. We get something in the lines of “the boss is counting on us. Expect no mercy, show no weakness. Let’s go!” and the camera fades out as the squad drops from the trees and runs after Shadow.

I believe that having the phrase “show no weakness” – or any possible reference to “I’m not weak”, really – appear earlier as seemingly common and then have it become something the character gives a lot of importance to due to consequences and parallels sounds a bit more interesting than having Infinite’s inferiority complex come out of nowhere.

The Mystic Jungle level plays as usual, except the dialogue in the background doesn’t say that “the Defence Squad has already been completely annihilated”, but rather that “the Defence Squad is on the case. They’re the best mercenaries there are, Shadow won’t stand a chance!” because Doctor Eggman is naive like that.

Once we reach the end of the level there’s another change: a boss battle against Squad Jackal. You see, we don’t want to hear the squad was taken down like some sort of lazy exposition, because it feels incomplete; we want to participate, we want to be the protagonist and see with our own eyes just what is Infinite’s squad. This gives faces and voices to something that will become an important plot point instead of just telling us “yeah, this happened or whatever”. This could also play as some sort of sympathy point for Infinite, because we, while in control of Shadow, took down his squad; it makes the villain’s animosity towards Shadow and his general anger at least a bit more understandable.

The idea is that this battle should play as some sort of field fight – that is, differently than most boss battles in Sonic Forces, this is not a racing track where you attack your enemy while running, but rather a large secluded area, much like the one we get in the fight between the Custom Hero and the DeathEgg Robot –, where squad members would attack individually in different patterns before going for a group attack. The individual jackals would have both projectile (perhaps something like a wispon, knives or some Eggman invention to keep it family friendly enough?) and close-ranged attacks, while the group attack would consist of this mass of wild jackals changing at you, trying to run you over. The opportunity windows could be either the moment when the opponents switch or band together for the group attack.

(I don’t know, maybe some of you can think of better ways to fight the Jackal Squad? This is just a random idea! I’d like to hear different ones!)

Once the fight is over, we get another cutscene: Shadow stands among the fallen jackals – don’t worry, they’re… sleeping… yeah, there’s no visible blood, they’re not dead… except they’re totally dead – and looks around for a second or two. His expression is indecipherable, and he soon leaves without saying a word – one might say he feels bad for them, or maybe he doesn’t give a damn; we leave that open to interpretation. Not a moment passes and we get to see the leader of the squad arriving at the scene. The camera moves in a circle around him as he looks at his fallen comrades in shock. How did this happen? They were the strongest, how could his whole squad be dead? This is a rather touching moment, where Infinite sticks his sword (because in his origins comic he used to have a super cool red sword and I want to pretend we have a reason for it not existing in the game) to the ground; there’s a feeling of anger and vengeance going on as we get a closer look at the last standing jackal. He clenches his fists and faces the direction of Shadow. “Expect no mercy, show no weakness,” he says in an infuriated, strangled voice. He starts to run and the camera fades out.

(Look at his sword and his squad, man. I do wish we could have seen them in the game…)

When the camera fades in again, we get that exact same cutscene from the game. Blah blah, “destroyed my squad”, blah blah, “ultimate mercenary”, a legendary ass whooping and Infinite falls to the ground, weak, pathetic and defeated.

Now, I’d like to add just a few lines to their dialogue, because this:

Doesn’t really sound like Shadow to me. I mean, man: you beat this random guy to the ground, called him worthless and pathetic out of nowhere and then you just leave? I know Shadow is rather apathetic and he’s supposed to be savage and all, but this just felt kind of out of place…

So instead of going full rude mode, what Shadow actually says is:

‘You’re part of the Defence Squad, aren’t you? Why would a bunch of mercenaries work for the Doctor? What is he hiding?’

‘The doctor paid well enough to not have his secrets spilled,’ Infinite retorts while trying to get up. He’s too hurt to do much, but he’s still willing to fight. He looks at Shadow with fiery eyes as he continues, ‘My squad… you took them down like they were nothing… why wouldn’t someone as strong as you be a mercenary?’

‘Mercenary work is for the weak,’ the hedgehog states matter-of-factly. ‘I’ve sworn to protect, not to follow the dirty line of work you did.’

This blows Infinite’s mind and he simply stares at Shadow, dumbfounded. He murmurs, ‘weak? How dare you, I’m not… We’re not weak! We’re the squad o-’

‘Where’s the Chaos Emerald?’ The jackal’s statement is completely ignored. However, Infinite is having none of this, so tries to attack Shadow once again in a fit of rage, only for the hedgehog to give him a signature roundhouse kick free of charge.

(Image merely illustrative)

‘What a waste of my time,’ Edgelord Number 1 says, aware that he’s not getting any useful information from this. He steps closer and Edgelord Number 2 flinches, ‘here’s some advice: don’t show your face around me ever again, or else I will finish you.’

And with that, Shadow teleports away, leaving Infinite to his existential crisis. He wasn’t able to avenge his friends; he wasn’t able to protect the base; heck, he wasn’t even able to hold his title of ultimate mercenary! How useless of a leader was he? Were mercenaries truly weak? Everything they’ve done… was it all worthless? Show no weakness… what did it even mean? They were all defeated, and Infinite can’t shake the feeling that he’s to blame for it. Wasn’t he supposed to be the best?

‘What is this? I’m…’ He looks at his hands, which are trembling ‘I’m shaking? I flinched? I... We failed… How pathetic… All because…’

Infinite stops as if he’s just gotten a moment of clarity. He then gets up and starts walking inside Eggman’s base. ‘I’m not weak,’ he says in a decided, chilling whisper; it’s almost scary. The view is set at the entrance, right in front of the jackal so that he starts blocking the light from the outside as he slowly walks towards the camera - while saying in that scary voice, “No mercy, no weakness”.

(I can totally see Liam O’Brien delivering this line perfectly…)

Then the last expository narrating happens about the same, except that Shadow narrates it – giving continuity to the fact that he was the one who started narrating this episode for a reason I will talk about later –, so we change a few words to match his speech more; it’s all in the third person and very husky and brooding, but with a subtle note of dread (oh, if only Jason Griffith would voice it… No disrespect to Kirk Thornton, but he just doesn’t hit Shadow’s perfect voice like Jason did; for me, at least. His Orbot voice is fantastic, though).

Now, instead of having Infinite looking forward for a few seconds before he gets the Phantom Ruby out of nowhere and places it in his chest very anti-climatically, we’ll do something different: as soon as he puts on the mask, he starts walking away, and we change settings to a dimly lit room, where we see Infinite from behind, fitting the frame perfectly. Following the beat of the background music, the camera changes to a close shot of his masked face as he’s holding the Phantom Ruby, which is glowing, reflecting on his mask and giving us a beautifully red-lit scene; it’s possible to hear very low, indiscernible whispers coming from the jewel. We then hear a small, evil chuckle from the masked jackal – he already sounds rather different from the guy who stuck his sword to the ground in honour of his friends earlier. The screen goes black, the whole “I was… Reborn!” thing dramatically happens in Infinite’s echoing voice and the not-flashback is over.

(I know this last part was quite specific and oddly detailed, but I had the scenes very clear in my head I wanted to try conveying how intimidating it looked to me o3o)

Ok, now that that’s done, prepare yourselves for an intermission. And by that, I mean prepare yourselves for a long analytical commentary on what I just wrote.

*”This is Our World: Phase 2″ plays in the background*

(Who is Shadow working for again? I don’t even know, man…)

Shadow isn’t just the guy who called Infinite pathetic. He’s the guy who killed Infinite’s squad (his friends) without any apparent remorse – and to be hypocrite as to say he’d sworn to protect when he just did something like this (yeah, Infinite doesn’t know any context of Shadow’s life, so of course he doesn’t understand what he meant); the guy who ruined everything he had going with his new job as leader of the Defence Squad; the guy who put him several levels under what he thought he was; the guy who questioned his entire way of living and the guy who put him under a lingering threat; “don’t show your face around me ever again” feels more intimidating now. Not only that, but, despite how Infinite might hate Shadow, he recognizes him as strong, admirable even – “why wouldn’t someone as strong as you be a mercenary?” Remember that Infinite himself is a mercenary; to actually acknowledge someone would be good at something you’re good at, specially someone you don’t like, has to be a sign of admiration, albeit a frustrating one. All of this puts a lot more of weight on how Infinite thinks of Shadow and why being stronger than the hedgehog is so important to him.

I made it so that “expect no mercy, show no weakness” is something like the Jackal Squad’s motto, their philosophy. I like to think it means that they should never count on someone’s mercy, for their enemies won’t spare them; they should always go into battle aware that they might actually be fighting for their lives. At the same time, they should always stand their ground and never let anyone think they can take advantage of a squad member. This is what the jackals live for. But seeing as Infinite’s world has just been shattered and he failed hard on everything, he revises his mentality. “No mercy, no weakness” is what he’s going for now, as he wants to be above everyone, he wants to effectively be the strongest and for people to know that; he will be the one who doesn’t spare others, and he won’t be weak at all. Never again would a failure cost him that much, for never again would he fail.

To have Infinite place the Phantom Ruby on his own chest in Episode Shadow contradicts the opening scene of the main campaign. Remember the episode is a prequel to Sonic Forces’ main game, so it shouldn’t be completely detached from it; things must make sense when put together. As the main game begins by showing us Infinite inside of a tube in Eggman’s lab, we can assume one of two things: he’s either a robot/biological experiment created entirely by the scientist, or he’s a guy who’s been experimented on, thus Eggman was the one who placed the Phantom Ruby on him. With this in mind, it wouldn’t make sense to show us Infinite doing something if you’re going to tell us that he couldn’t have possibly done it on his own. But to have him hold the ruby as someone who deeply desires its powers and who listens to its ominous whispering? Not only does it line better with the aforementioned scene, but it also makes Infinite seem more prone to the ruby’s power (instead of just… you know, “random angry dude”).

As this intermission has gone on long enough, I’ll only make a brief commentary on the Phantom Ruby: I like the idea of the ruby being somewhat alive and exerting influence over Infinite. Now, I won’t say it’s the kind of influence where it justifies his horrible behaviour or the awful things he did. It’s less “mind-control” and more “that best friend who always encourages you and never calls you out on your bullshit”. Its grooming Infinite’s ego and just nudging him to keep making bad decisions, to keep shutting himself in this new reality where he’s all powerful and above everyone else. So it’s the jackal’s pride, spite and grief, along with Eggman’s overall encouragement and the Phantom Ruby’s influence all put together that, in a general sense, make Infinite what he is. (I can go into more detail about this idea once I make a Part 2.)

Mission Accomplished: “angry bitchy boy turned edgy, OP and unimpressed” changed his status to “tragic boy turned edgy, bitter and extremely power-hungry”.

Intermission’s over, let’s get back to the story!

With Infinite’s backstory slightly redone (or rather, shown under a different light), I could stop right here. But I don’t want to, oh no! I say we take this a few steps further and just finish Episode Shadow! Yeah, I told you this was going to be a long post.

*”Battle with Infinite: Second Bout” plays in the background*

Ok, now we cut to a few months later, where Episode Shadow would originally begin. Rouge comments that Omega was on recon mission in that “unknown base of operations that seems to be totally outside the chain of command for Eggman’s army” (whatever that is supposed to mean) when he spotted an unidentified masked person with strange energy readings and an unknown battle ID. Omega reported a “large scale troop” and… that’s it, he just stopped talking. Rouge then talks about that “new weapon” Eggman was supposedly developing and sends Shadow to the base to investigate along with Omega. She makes a remark about how they should get the entire Team Dark together for this (“It should be fun”), but Shadow dismisses the idea, saying that he’s enough on his own. “Omega said the same thing. You two go together like chilli and hot dogs.”

We can keep this at the whole “dialogue on screen” thing. I don’t really mind and it sure spares the budget.

The City stage plays as usual, except the dialogue in the background changes a bit, because Team Dark bickering (or just talking in general, I love this team so much) is my jam.

‘E-123 Omega here. Extermination proceeding without incident. No problems to report.’

‘Omega!’ Rouge exclaims, ‘Why have you stopped responding earlier? We- wait, extermination? This is supposed to be a recon mission, what are you doing?!’

‘I was spotted. Priorities conflicted; therefore I decided to eliminate the enemy altogether. New Mission Objective: Defeat Eggman.’

‘But you can’t go making a scene like that!’

‘See, this is what happens when you send the giant killer robot for this kind of op,’ Shadow sasses. And I’ll imagine Jason’s voice for this too, thank you.

‘I have several reports of recon missions where you retaliated, Shadow.’

‘I might have to join you boys soon enough. I turn my back for five seconds and this happens…’ Rouge comments in a tired voice.

Omega is ready to start robotically recounting the reports of failed recon missions where Shadow retaliated, but he is suddenly cut by static and the vague sound of the Phantom Ruby. Rouge tries to contact him again and we get small bits of his original lines here – “All sensors offline”, “Casualty report”, “Unidentified system intrusion. Emergency withdrawal!” and “I am E-123 Omega, the most powerf-sjfpstswq”, that stuff – before his communication is completely cut. Shadow asks something like “what’s going on?”, but his communication with Rouge is cut as well. We play whatever’s left of the level in silence (except for the sweet background music).

(Oh yeah, this happened or whatever…)

Now, I know the next scene is a screen dialogue again, and I know I just said I don’t mind it, but watching this:

… Is so bloody uncomfortable. This feels dumb. This is so dumb. I feel like they robbed us an epic scene in exchange of some awkward reading with absolutely no context. What the hell is “!” supposed to mean?! What did Infinite do?! If I wanted to imagine the action scenes all on my own, I’d spend my time daydreaming! What, did they not know what to do here so they just threw in some random lines to fill the gap between this and the next level?!

… Sorry, I got a little carried away. This simple scene frustrates me a lot by not existing. So yeah, we’re throwing in a cutscene.

(I just noticed how salty this post is getting. This was not my intention at all, I still love this game, oh dear…)

Shadow reaches the edge of the city and encounters a dark silhouette hovering just above the flames that cover the ground; there’s debris scattered everywhere. The figure has its back turned, and the world seems to glitch ever so slightly around them.

‘The world’s most powerful robot is no more a challenge than crabmeat. Even the Doctor’s most daring designs can’t compete with my power… It is without peer,’ the figure chuckles to themselves.

Shadow starts approaching silently, analysing the situation. Despite this being Omega’s location, he can’t see the robot.

‘Wonder how easy it would be to end this entire planet. Don’t you…’

Suddenly, the voice speaks close to the hedgehog’s ear:

‘…Shadow?’

He turns around to see that the unknown person has appeared behind him, which throws him off. The hedgehog takes several steps back and puts himself in a fighting stance.

It’s hard to see past the jackal’s mask, but he seems amused as he looks down on Shadow. Twistedly so.

‘How wonderful to see that our not-so-tall, dark and brooding guest has arrived. I’ve been waiting for you, Shadow~’

‘Tell me what you did to Omega. Now,’ the agent demands.

‘Oh, come now, Shadow. Our long-awaited reunion and still you spout such nonsense.’ Infinite floats down to stand a few meters away from his enemy.

‘I don’t know you,’ Shadow states. The masked jackal tilts his head, but doesn’t say anything, so he asks again, ‘what have you done to Omega?’

‘Only what is ought to be done when someone stands in your way. Weaklings like E-123 Omega are of no consequence, don’t you agree?’

‘The only thing of no consequence is that big mouth of yours.’

Shadow launches himself at Infinite, who easily avoids his attack. The jackal starts laughing manically.

‘Ah, I suppose you would think so,’ he states. ‘After all, it’s not so funny to be the one losing the battle, is it? I am Infinite. You say you do not know me, and yet I remember you so very well… I’ve lost all I was, I’ve become what I am because of you. Savour that thought as I return the favour.’

Guess what happens? That’s right, we get another boss battle! I think it’s only fair that Infinite gets to have his rematch with Shadow. Besides, it establishes a comparison with the “old” Infinite and how much stronger he’s now – from Shadow’s perspective, that is.

I have no idea how this battle would play out. Maybe something similar to his second battle in the main story (no, don’t worry: we’ll talk about the exceeding amount of Infinite battles in the next part), with the 2D layout. Let’s say Infinite is surrounded with his Red Cubes of Doom while he’s not attacking, so you can’t touch him. Maybe he makes the fire glitch and get closer to you at some point. Maybe he makes clones and you have to defeat each of them to get to the real guy, I don’t know! Tag your ideas, I’d love to see them! ^^

Anyway, once the battle’s over and Shadow “wins” (because Infinite is not defeated, he’s just done with this fight), the jackal might say something in the lines of “I suppose I’ve let this duel go on for long enough. I have other matters to attend to, Shadow the Hedgehog.”

We get back to the cutscene and Infinite is glitching a bit, quickly recomposing himself, laughing. Shadow is panting.

‘What’s the matter, Shadow? Can’t take down a measly jackal anymore?’ The masked one says sarcastically. ‘It seems like I’ve overestimated your strength. You’re no fit to be a mercenary at all.’

There’s a beat and Shadow realises what this is about. He looks at Infinite, frowning. ‘It’s you… Defence Squad Jackal…’

Infinite stares at the hedgehog. He doesn’t seem to be as amused anymore. His golden eye’s glowing under his mask, and so is the Phantom Ruby on his chest. A tense background music plays as Infinite answers dryly:

‘Yes.’

‘I’ve spared you, but now you’re going too far. It’s time to finish this! Chaos Spear!’

The spears of light simply go through Infinite as if they didn’t exist. Shadow goes for a spin dash/homing attack/kick to the face or whatever you can think of, but the masked villain glitches out of the way with ease and lands an almost perfect copy of Shadow’s roundhouse kick.

The hedgehog glides across the floor, almost falling over. Infinite scoffs.

‘This new “me” has limitless power. I have no mercy; no weakness! I am the true ultimate force that will tear this world apart, and what may have worked to bring me down before…’ the jackal starts floating again; thousands of red cubes start dancing around him and, as he raises a hand, they all group in the sky not far above them. ‘… No longer does.’

(Why yes, this is a reference to Mephiles the Dark and that time he destroyed the Sceptre of Darkness!)

Infinite throws his “Take THIS!” and Shadow does the “!” – which is him frantically trying to get out of the way as the thousands cubes of doom come crashing down on him.

The screen goes black.

Scene ends.

The Virtual Reality level should play as usual from there. I don’t even want to change the background dialogue, because I really like it: it’s confusing, it’s weird, it’s unsettling and it slaps Shadow in the face in a way that we rarely see. I love it! (Although, I do think the gameplay should have a tiny little bit more of 3D parts. We love Green Hill, but we also love the freedom to move on more than two directions when playing as the Ultimate Life Form. But it’s cool)

After that, we could get another cutscene (we’re full of cutscenes, huh? Well, this is a hypothetical rewriting with a hypothetical budget. Also, Episode Shadow is more of an exposition episode anyway). In this cutscene, we would start with some shots of different known locations: Green Hill, Chemical Plant, Crisis City, Mystic Jungle, Kingdom Valley, Babylon Garden, you name it! And all of these places are somewhat “corrupted”; they’re glitching out, full of those red cubes, and there’s just this ominous atmosphere in them, as if they’re abandoned, desolated despite looking roughly the same as ever. We then see a black-and-red blur cross the screen, and a short narration takes place:

“I’ve been here for longer than I can remember. This… alternate reality, this fake world. There seems to be no escape. Rouge and Omega talk to me occasionally…”

We see Shadow leaning against a wall. His communicator plays only white noise, then Rouge’s voice comes in; it’s strangely echoed as it calls out to him. Shadow throws the device far away and sighs.

“… They’re fake too. No matter where I go, no matter how much I run…”

Shadow is skating through Pumpkin Hill or something, when the world suddenly starts to glitch out massively; we hear the Phantom Ruby’s noise and suddenly, we’re on the ARK.

“It’s like this place was made to torture me. Although, I wouldn’t be surprised if that were the case.”

‘I’ve moved on from this a long time ago,’ Shadow says to the void of the Universe as we hear gunshots in the distance. He’s not being completely truthful. ‘Putting me through this scenario dozens of times changes nothing. Don’t you have anything more creative at this point?’

There’s silence, except for the shouts in the Space Colony. A voice calls out to Shadow, and he promptly ignores it, albeit with a pained look in his eyes. He’s visibly tired, almost hopeless, if one could ever describe Shadow the Hedgehog that way.

He sighs.

‘Alright, how do I get out of this one?”

We then get a start of a short level in the ARK. Don’t worry, it’s not one of those hellish mazes that usually haunt every ARK level there ever was; this is more straight forward, with doors closing all around you so that you know where you shouldn’t go, and some G.U.N. robots trying to kill you, simple thing.

The catch happens when you’re halfway through the level: as you’re crossing a long corridor, the game begins to “crash” – in the sense of you losing control of the character, the visuals beginning to glitch and the soundtrack going weird, all in a way that makes the soul leave the body of the player for a terrifying four seconds of “HOLY SHIT, I BROKE THE GAME”. But nope, you didn’t break the game: the Phantom Ruby is trolling you. We soon find that out as the signature noise plays and the glitching effect on screen disperses to show a new scenario: Mystic Jungle. The real Mystic Jungle. Congratulations: you get to play in a totally different zone for the rest of the level.

‘My head…’ Shadow murmurs to himself. ‘That was too quick; this can’t be right, it- ugh, why is it so bright here? Where are all the red things? This place seems too normal… is it… am I back in the real world?!’

We then finish the level, get our nice score and head to the last scene of the episode.

Shadow is going through the jungle, taking in everything that isn’t an illusion. He passes by a red sword stuck to the ground and leans against a tree, still a little out of it, still struggling to believe that anything is real anymore. The hedgehog then takes his communicator – surprisingly intact; hadn’t he thrown that away? – and tries to make contact. There is static for a moment, when suddenly…

‘Shadow? Oh my- Shadow, is that you?!’

He’s startled for a moment, but so relieved to hear Rouge’s normal voice again.

‘It’s me, Rouge. What’s the situation? Where’s Omega?’

‘Omega? We lost contact with him months ago; the Resistance says he must have been shut down after the Doctor took over!’

Shadow raises both his non-existing eyebrows in surprise, barely holding a gasp. He then frowns.

‘Shut down? Resistance? What do you mean “the Doctor took over”? What the heck happened?’

‘What happened? What happened?! I should be the one asking you that! You’ve been offline for six months! Everyone keeps saying you’re working with Eggman and Infinite, and I couldn’t contact you or Omega, I thought… I thought we’d lost you for good…’

‘Nonsense,’ Shadow states. We start hearing voices in the distance, and the hedgehog starts looking around while still talking ‘I’ll tell you the details later, it’s long story. What’s the current situation?’

‘Shadow…’

The (Tired) Ultimate Life Form spots something from behind the trees. Still in hiding, he looks closer only to see the Custom Hero holding the prototype Phantom Ruby they just found and talking to Tails and… Classic Sonic, much to Shadow’s confusion.

‘… We’re at war.’

Shadow takes a moment to process what’s just been said. He doesn’t even pay attention to what Rouge says next (neither do we, as the background music starts getting louder than the bat’s voice). He still watches the avatar, Tails and Classic Sonic as they leave; he focuses on the Phantom Ruby.

‘Meet me in the City. I’ve got a lot to tell you,’ Shadow says.

And with that, he leaves, the scene fades out and Episode Shadow is over!

*”The Light of Hope: Menu Version” plays in the background*

Now, a few more analytical notes before we close this ridiculously gigantic thing:

The immediate reason why we have Shadow being stuck in the Virtual Reality for six months is to indicate to us why he doesn’t show up earlier in the main game. It’s not like he was being useless this whole time and just decided to show up whenever it was most Ex-Machina of him; much like Sonic, he was trapped by the enemy. A mental trap that put Shadow on survivor mode for months without any way of communicating with anybody; with twisted versions of his friends trying to get to him and remind him that, hey, they’re still out there, probably in high danger; with these illusions mocking him, reminding him of painful memories, isolating him in familiar places… I say: if you want to emotionally hit a character, hit them hard. And this experience is bound to leave Shadow with some emotional scar, alright.

(Ever heard of conveniently coming out of nowhere?)

Shadow is bound to lose his sense of reality and sometimes it should be hard for him to acknowledge that this is the real world. I hope I can showcase some of his reactions in the later parts of this o3o

The Virtual Reality isn’t all glitchy by mistake. No, no: Infinite is perfectly capable of making a “perfect copy” of the real world, but he doesn’t want to. He wants Shadow to know this is a fake world and to know that he’s completely trapped in it while his real friends and allies are out there doing who-knows-what in a world run by the enemy. He wants to throw Shadow off-balance as much as he can, because he’s spiteful and doesn’t just leave the hedgehog to the side without a second glance.

In the game, Infinite says that they didn’t really have time to tune his power yet, so we can tell putting Shadow in the Virtual Reality was more of a practice of sorts. But man, I think this is too much of a cool concept, so I’ll say Infinite did put his power to the test before all of this; because Eggman, sir: you don’t simply throw your super-secret, amazing, unparalleled weapon in the battlefield without testing it first. This is something that can be inferred, it doesn’t need to be directly told, it just- I’m telling you this right now, ok?

I know Shadow is supposedly “over” this conflict with what happened in the ARK and it probably feels over-used to add it in again, but… it’s a thing the games haven’t tackled in such a long time, I feel like this would be a nice call-back. Besides, Infinite would want to know what would bring distress to Shadow; what happened in the ARK isn’t exactly a secret, especially if he’s working with Eggman. And Shadow can be as “over it” as he wants: it’s still a scar that will never truly leave him. Even if he watches it happen dozens of times, it’s still at least a little bit of an emotional rollercoaster.

ALTHOUGH! I also think this ARK level could be easily replaced with some other random level if you want to argue that Forces happens in Mobius or something, where Gerald and Maria and G.U.N. maybe never existed and whatnot.

What brought Shadow back, you ask? Well, it probably has to do with a certain someone spontaneously activating a Phantom Ruby. Maybe the avatar was thinking of Shadow and how it’d be nice to have him on their side again? Maybe they were thinking of undoing Infinite’s evil deeds? Maybe the raw power of the Phantom Ruby prototype being suddenly activated by the Custom Hero just crashed something another Phantom Ruby user did, like magnetic waves interfering with each other? Who knows?

I also find it important to show the Custom Hero here not only to show that there’s a connection between Shadow’s sudden freedom and their actions, but also to establish the tiniest amount of early familiarity between Shadow and the original character. Then maybe (maybe) I’ll give them a bit more of interaction in the main game, because it’d be nice to have a cool interaction with Shadow; and as endearing as his smile after the avatar does their thing with the sun of destruction is, it feels like it comes out of nowhere, if you think about it…

(I mean... Does he even know who we are?)

Infinite’s sword stuck to the ground goes completely over Shadow’s head, as he has no idea what that is or who it belonged to or what it means. It’s really just there for the viewer to reminisce the beginning of the episode and have a slight existential crisis.

When playing the main campaign, we get some pretty convenient information from Shadow once he finally shows up. Episode Shadow should give us a sense of how he knows those things. Want it or not, he did spend a long time studying the Phantom Ruby’s power far more closely than anybody else – well, maybe Sonic spent almost as much time as Shadow in a similar state, but that’s something to cover in another part.

The fact that Shadow is the one narrating this entire episode is supposed to allude to him telling Rouge exactly what happened during those six months he was gone. But if you want to read it as him talking to himself in the Virtual Reality as he slowly descends into madness, then be my guest!

I don’t know if it’s noticeable, but I’ve tried to tune Infinite’s cheesiness down a bit. I don’t think I can rid him of it entirely – after all, he is somewhat of a pompous, edgy, over-the-top character in general; he’s a full-on drama queen 24/7 and the only character cheesier than him is Sonic. Now, what we do with Infinite is to at least give a base to what he says. Also, I wanted him to sound a bit more like he lets the power get to his head. Oh well, I surely hope we’ll be tackling more of Infinite in the future!

Episode Shadow is extremely short, even for a DLC. I mean, it’s about only 20 minutes long – even less, if you’re good at it! With the addition of the cutscenes, the small changes, the boss fights against Squad Jackal and Infinite, and the added levels, the episode shouldn’t get overwhelmingly longer, but longer enough for it to feel more satisfying!

And with that, we’re done! I hope you enjoyed this massive thing. Despite me really liking Sonic Forces, I do think a few things could be improved. It’s not like it will happen, but rewriting is a lot of fun!

And why, no: I don’t take myself seriously.

#Sonic Forces #Episode Shadow #Sonic the Hedgehog #Infinite #Shadow #Rewrite #Headcanon #Character Analysis #Word count: why do I even bother?#phew that was a lot #I'm so tired

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