#like high-fantasy has those all the time between men I could just insert one here

[sarasade]

Backstory headcanon- Harrow and Viren met at a small pastoral village where the royal family used to spend their summers and where Viren lived as Kpp’Ar’s apprentice

[princess-of-riviaa]

Not For Your Enjoyment

Part 2 to Euphoria

Pairing: Geralt of Rivia x Reader, mentions of Geralt x Jaskier, Jaskier x Reader

Summary: After disobeying Geralt, you’re in for a long morning of punishment.

Author’s Note: I apologize for the ending. It was very abrupt but I had no idea where to end it.

Warning(s): toys, overstimulation, threesome

Word Count: 1,827

“What are you going to do to me?” Your voice is already shaking with arousal and nervousness. A strange coolness moves up your legs and towards your stomach, a result of the spell Geralt’s currently putting on your body. He always restrains you during a punishment, but he prefers to use his hands rather than rope. He says he likes to feel you struggle. But whatever he has planned requires both of his hands to be freed, so he’s opted for a paralytic spell instead. You can still feel every part of your body, but you’re unable to move anything below your neck. He’s only used this spell once on you, so you know he’s really upset with you right now. The realization makes you wet. Your thighs would be clenched together too, but you can no longer move them. The spell continues to work its way up your body, leaving a foreign coolness in its wake.

He stands at the edge of the bed as he undresses himself. He takes his time unbuttoning his pants, knowing just how impatient you are. “I would consider putting you over my knee and spanking you...”

Heat spreads through you at the thought. Fuck, you really wish you could clench your legs together right now. You’re already in need of some friction.

“...but you like that too much,” he continues. He can probably smell the arousal on you. He no doubt heard your heartbeat increase at his words. “And a punishment isn’t for your enjoyment, little one.”

By the time the spell locks over your entire body, Geralt is naked in front of you. He lets you take in the sight of his beautiful, scarred body, knowing that you already ache to reach out and touch him. You want to run your hands over his stomach and chest and feel those dark curly hairs against your fingers; you want to tug on his golden locks and hear him moan into the crook of your neck; you want those thick, calloused fingers to touch every inch of your body and set you on fire with his hands alone; and, oh gods, do you want that cock buried deep inside of you. You let out a whimper at the sight of him and the knowledge that you can’t do anything. He chuckles darkly. The deep vibration of his voice makes goosebumps rise on your skin.

Your eyes are locked on him as he moves over to his bag and pulls something out. From where you are on the bed, you can’t see what it is. Geralt walks back to you and spreads your legs. You can feel his warm touch on your skin, as well as the way your pussy clenches the further your legs are spread, but you can’t react. He leans over you and runs a single finger through your folds. You’re already wet for him. He opens his hand to reveal what he’s holding: a black gem, no larger than a rock. You don’t need witcher blood to know that it’s encased with some sort of magic.

You frown. “What is that?”

He smiles darkly at you. The look in his eyes makes your chest rise and fall quicker as your anxiety increases. You have no idea what he’s got planned for you, something you hate and he basks in. And right now, with his spell keeping you trapped to the bed, you’re his prisoner.

“You’ll find out soon enough,” is all he says before running it between your folds, coating it in your slick.

You moan at the sensation of the cool stone against your heat. It doesn’t go unnoticed that his cock jumps at the sound you made. You lick your lips, wanting to taste the pre-cum beginning to leak from the tip of his cock. Your focus on him is interrupted when Geralt inserts the stone inside of you. It’s cold against your warm walls and you want to shiver. As soon as it’s inside of you, it begins to move. It shakes with slow vibrations, making your walls contract tighter around it. You let out a shaky moan at the sensation. Your eyes jump back to Geralt’s, opening your mouth to say something, but the only thing that comes out is another moan.

He’s smiling down at you, looking like a predator that just captured its prey. “The tighter you get, the faster it moves inside of you.” To explain his point, he stands up and closes your legs until they’re pressed tightly together. Your walls clench tighter and the stone instantly reacts to the new pressure. The speed increases threefold and you whimper. Your body would be writhing and shaking with pleasure right now--if you could fucking move. But Geralt’s spell turns your pleasure uncomfortable when you can’t react to it. It isn’t long before you’re whimpering.

“P-please,” you cry out, your eyes squeezing shut. “P-please Geralt.”

He brings a hand down on your left breast, smacking it roughly enough to make it bounce. Your skin stings under his touch. He does the same thing to your other breast, making you release a choked sob. “That’s not what you call me,” he growls.

“I’m sorry, sir.” Tears are already falling down your cheeks, your body too quickly overstimulated from that stupid stone inside of you. “You made your... your point. Just please... make it stop!”

He waits until you open your eyes and look back at him, requiring your full attention as he says, “You think this is bad? We’ve just started, little one.”

Geralt moves to stand at the end of the bed, closing his hands around your knees. He pushes them together. You can’t fight against him as your legs press together with a tight force, making the stone move even faster inside of you. Your whimpers soon turn to gasps as you feel your body burn with familiar high of a nearing orgasm. A whorish moan falls from your mouth as you throw your head back--the only part of your body you can still move. Your orgasm is so close you can taste it--

And then your legs are ripped apart, making the stone slow its vibrations to a dull movement that your body can barely register. You cry out when you realize that Geralt isn’t going to let you cum.

“Fuck you,” you spit out between cries.

He doesn’t bother getting offended. “That’s not how you talk to me.” He pushes your knees together again.

The stone jolts to life inside of you, returning to the same exhilarating speed it was at when you were about to cum. Again, he waits until you’re seconds away from coming before spreading your legs. He continues this torture on your body for two, three, four more rounds, and by the end your sobs have turned into cries so loud they’re practically screams. Your face is drenched with your tears.

The door to your room opens so abruptly that neither you nor Geralt can do anything but watch as Jaskier walks in on the two of you.

“What the hell are you doing to Y/N--” The bard begins, then freezes when he sees both of you naked. He takes in the sight of Geralt first and for a second you’re so confused as to why Jaskier is looking at the witcher like that, like he’s seen Geralt naked enough to be used to the sight of it. You have sex with Geralt as often as you can and still you gawk at his body every time you see it in its full glory.

But then you remember--How many times do you think Jaskier had to go through this exact situation before he learned his lesson? Geralt had replied last night when you’d asked him about his experience with handling the affects of an aphrodisiac elixir. They’d slept together. There’s no way Jaskier would be so comfortable around a naked Geralt if he didn’t know the witcher’s body in an... intimate way. Maybe if you were someone else, or quicker to judge, the thought would piss you off. You shouldn’t like the idea of sharing your witcher with anyone--and you don’t. But Jaskier... Jaskier isn’t just anyone. Geralt cares deeply for the bard, and you have to admit that you do too. It isn’t love, but it’s close. And now the thought of them together makes you as wet as the stupid stone.

Jaskier’s gaze finally turns to you. His mouth parts as his eyes roam over your body--first, at the perfectly erect nipples of your breasts, and then to your spread legs, revealing your soaked core. Your face burns. You want to cover yourself, or at the very least close your legs, but you’re still unable to move. Jaskier’s blue eyes finally jump to your face and take in your wet cheeks.

“Is this for last night?” Jaskier asks Geralt as he keeps his gaze on you. You watch, mesmerized, as his expression turns darker. The look he gives you makes goosebumps rise on your skin.

Geralt hmms in reply.

The bard smirks like the devil. You know that look; you’ve seen him wear it plenty of times before, moments before he wreaks havoc on the world around him. “Would you like help?”

You swallow, trying not to think of Jaskier hovering over you, kissing you... Your eyes jump to Geralt, waiting for him to say no.

“This is a punishment,” Geralt tells Jaskier. “She doesn’t get to enjoy it.”

The bard looks to the other man as he says, “I can promise I won’t go easy on here.”

Geralt looks to you. “Would you like that, little one? Would you like our bard to make you feel good?”

You hesitate before nodding. Honestly, the thought of being with both of these men is something you’ve wanted for a while now, but have never let yourself think about it long enough to let the fantasy get carried away. But now that you have the option, of course you’re going to say yes.

“That’s unfortunate,” Geralt says in a mocking tone, “because neither one of us are giving you any release today.”

Your eyes go wide, but you don’t have time to plead with them before Jaskier moves towards you. He crawls over your body but is mindful not to touch an inch of your skin. His face hovers over yours and he leans in. You reach up, straining as far as you can, but you can’t reach him. He stays an inch too far from you, keeping you from kissing him. You want to smack that stupid smirk off of his face.

“Sorry darling,” he whispers, “but bad girls don’t get to be kissed.”

You try to reach for him again, but the attempt is in vain. You huff as you lie back down.

Geralt moves towards the two of you. “Now, should we begin?”

***

Taglist:

@agniavateira​ @hnryycvll​ @littlefreya​ @wanderinglunarnights​ @wednesdaybraids @fcgrizi​ @celestial-vomit​ @lestersglitterglue​ @watermeloncavill​ @honeychicana​ @penwieldingdreamer​

[muertawrites]

The Lovers of Ba Sing Se - Part 1 (Zuko x Reader) [Modern Au]

Summary: Zuko isn’t used to being around people who aren’t afraid to share their every emotion. Meeting you during his time in Ba Sing Se changes that, and changes him for the better.

Word Count: 4,000

Author’s Note: Lmao the only person I’m writing this for is myself. Sorry not sorry. I usually try really hard to keep specifics to a minimum in my self-insert works, but this time I didn’t; I wrote about myself because, honestly, this fic is my love letter to me. I relate to Zuko so much and a huge part of the reason I love him is because he reminds me of myself - this fic is about me learning to love myself again after the people I loved and trusted most betrayed me, and saying a gigantic “fuck you” everyone who ever did anything to destroy my self worth. Part 2 is when I finally live out my fantasy of curb stomping Mai - tomorrow, same bat-time, same bat-channel. 

Also, shameless plug, but I’m about 100 followers away from 1k, and I have some really fun stuff planned for when we get there so if you like this fic or any of my others, please follow! I love doing this and my goal is to devote as much effort as possible to it as I can, and I truly wouldn’t be able to do it without your support. Thank you so much for all of it. I’m so excited for the future of this blog and everyone who makes it possible ♥

~ Muerta

Of all the things Zuko thought might kill him, falling dishware was the last thing he would have ever considered a possibility.

He was sitting in the alley behind the Jasmine Dragon, making the most of his smoke break, when a ceramic cooking pot rained onto the pavement in front of him, shattering into trillions of pieces. Startled, he jumped back, dropping his cigarette as he craned his neck upwards; he spotted a head of brightly dyed hair staring down at him from the third floor balcony above.

“Oh shit,” you cried.

Within a minute, you burst through the back door of the neighboring building, panting and looking just as terrified as the young man you'd almost killed. Zuko stared at you, mouth slightly agape.

“Oh my god I'm so sorry,” you gushed. “Are you okay?? I didn't see you standing there, oh my god, oh my fucking god please tell me you're okay.”

Zuko was taken aback, unable to do anything for a moment but gaze at you in confusion, almost wonder. People in the Fire Nation were never this publicly expressive, even when barely avoiding manslaughter - he didn't quite know what to do with you, other than mutter that he was alright.

“I'm so, so sorry,” you blurted again. “You're sure you're okay? You don't have any glass on you or anything? Or need to be treated for shock?”

“No, I'm fine,” Zuko flatly replied. He nodded towards the trash bins across the alley. “You do know your building has those, though. You don't need to throw your old stuff off your balcony.”

You blushed, smiling sheepishly.

“It wasn't old,” you confessed. “It was a birthday gift from my best friend. Well… ex-best friend.”

Zuko huffed, pulling another cigarette from the pocket of his jeans and lighting it, looking down at his hands.

“Never had a breakup, huh?” he guessed.

“Oh, I've had plenty,” you told him. “They just don't get any easier.”

Zuko looked up at you, taking a long drag from his smoke. Your eyes were cast into the middle of the alley, settled on the shards of what once had been a reasonably nice piece of cookware. The shock and terror had faded from your expression, falling into one that was pained, anger and despair shadowing your features; you may as well have roundhouse kicked him in the chest, the look on your face mirroring the ache between his ribs. You hadn't revealed anything to him, but he knew instantly that your pain was the same as his.

He slid another cigarette from the box, offering it to you. You shook your head, lowering yourself onto the back stoop of the Jasmine Dragon; he found himself doing the same without thinking.

“I'm sorry about your pot,” he said, clumsily attempting to lighten the atmosphere. “It looked nice.”

You smiled faintly, pulling your knees to your chest and letting your chin rest atop them.

“I don't cook much, so it wasn't a huge loss,” you replied. “It was kind of cathartic, actually. I feel better.”

Zuko chuckled, tapping a bit of ash onto the ground between his feet.

“Good. Maybe feeling better will keep you from accidentally killing someone.”

You laughed, covering your face in embarrassment.

“Have I mentioned I'm sorry about that?” you winced.

“Hey, no sweat,” Zuko assured you. “It's not the first time. I've had people try to kill me on purpose before.”

He stood, stubbing out his half-smoked cigarette and pocketing it. He offered a hand to help you up, which you took, finding comfort in the strength of his palm as it wrapped around your forearm.

“I've gotta get back to work,” he told you. “You don't have any other gifts from your ex-best friend laying around, do you?”

You giggled, shaking your head.

“No,” you promised, “just that one. Thank you. For not threatening to press charges.”

Zuko laughed, realizing he was doing so for the first time in what had probably been years. The light feeling in his chest got even lighter when he noticed he was still holding your arm.

“Will I see you around?” he asked, the words escaping before they were even fully formed in his head.

You nodded, finally letting go of his hand.

“Yeah,” you said. “I'll see you around …?”

“Lee,” he told you. “I'm Lee.”

You smiled.

“Cool. I'll see you around, Lee.”

You saw Lee again a few days later, but not in a way you really wanted to. You were at work, standing outside the bar on the district high street with a coworker, attempting to attract some business during the weeknight lull; Lee spotted you while on his way to the nearby market, seeing you from a block or two away but doing his best to approach you as if he was bumping into you completely by accident.

Of course, this would be perfectly normal and not at all a weird way to run into a new acquaintance, if only the bar you worked in wasn’t catered towards men with a lolita fetish. You were dressed head to toe in pink and white, corseted in a risque bustier and frocked with a poofy, frilly mini skirt that was purposely too short, revealing the bum of your equally as ruffled panties; when you turned around and came face to face with the cute guy from the tea shop next door, you hoped someone would throw a cooking pot on top of you, death seeming like a much better option than attempting to explain yourself to someone who’d already had the privilege of meeting you during an emotional breakdown.

Lee blushed as pink as your costume, smiling coyly.

“We did say we’d see each other around,” he greeted you.

You grinned, relaxing a little.

“You’re not here to have a drink, are you?” you teased him. He laughed, his face turning redder as he reached up to rub the back of his neck.

“No,” he assured you, “I’m actually on my way to get some groceries. Figured I’d say hey.”

“Oh!” you exclaimed, “My break is in about fifteen minutes! If you don’t mind waiting I could go with you? I’ll buy you dinner to make up for almost killing you the other day.”

Lee chuckled, nodding.

“Yeah, I wouldn’t mind that,” he agreed. “... I don’t have to wait inside though, do I?”

“I mean, my boss would like it,” you told him, “but it’s so dead in there I don’t think she’d let you leave if you did.”

“Noted,” Lee replied. “I’ll wait in the coffee shop across the street, then.”

Not long after, you tossed a hoodie and a pair of jeans over your bustier and undies, meeting him outside the cafe he was stationed at and making your way to the market. You bustled alongside each other in a fray of other people, rubbing shoulders or hips as you were jostled along with the current.

“So,” Lee blurted, attempting to break the silence between you (although it wasn’t nearly as awkward as it probably should have been), “how’d you end up working in a fetish bar?”

Your simpered, cheeks going ever so slightly rosy.

“How do you think?” you jabbed sarcastically. “I needed money and they pay really well. It’s nice knowing I’ll be able to afford rent every month. What about you? How’d you end up at the tea shop?”

“My uncle owns it,” Lee explained. “We’re the only family we have left, so… we stick together.”

You nodded, understanding and not pushing the question any further.

“It’s not so bad,” he went on. “At least I don’t have to wear pigtails to work.”

You huffed with laughter, leaning over so that your shoulder purposely, playfully shoved his.

“Honestly, my job isn’t awful,” you admitted. “My coworkers are cool, and my boss is really kind. It’s also pretty fun getting to dress up in costume every day; it's like Halloween, except I get to do it whenever I want to.”

Suddenly, you paused, gasping.

“Look!”

You grabbed hold of his arm, startling him a bit but too excited to care. You pointed towards a nearby stand, in which an elderly man was frying pieces of dough. He twisted each in an elaborate knot, every order getting a different design. They were like miniature sculptures, too ornate to even think about eating, but the smell of rich spices and molten sugar was too tempting to ignore.

“I love this stand!” you cried. “He isn't always here, but I get something every time he is. Come on, I'll get us some to split!”

With your hand still curled around his elbow, you dragged Lee through the market throng. As he watched you order, making friendly conversation with the old man, he found himself feeling perplexed; he'd never met someone so comfortable with their emotions, so willing to let every part of them be seen. He wondered how you got so fearless, or if you even had to put effort into being so candid.

He found himself thinking about Mai, how cold and empty she was. He was reminded of the chill he felt around her, the bitter sting she often left in his chest, even during tender moments. Being around you was different; even having just met you, you made him feel invigorated but at ease, the tension in his muscles loosening naturally just from the energy of your presence. It was strange, but refreshing - he found himself grinning along with you as you left the stand, finding a place to sit and enjoy your pastry.

“I got us one with curry, and one with cream filling,” you told him, ripping each serving in half to share. “This guy is an artist, I swear. You're not going to be the same person after this.”

You looked up as you took a bite of the savory half of your meal, halting when you noticed the strange look Lee was giving you.

“What?” you asked him.

He shrugged, fixing his eyes on the pastry in his hand.

“You're just different,” he answered. “Where I'm from, people aren't open like you are. You're really… yourself. It's nice.”

You smiled, unable to help but blush. Bubbles fizzed in your chest, making you feel lightheaded and giddy.

“I think it's because so many people told me not to be when I was a kid,” you mused. “They tried to make me hide the parts of myself I really liked, so I made them show even more, just to show them that they couldn't change me. That I was stronger than their cruelty.”

Zuko felt as if he'd been hit by lightning. He didn't know what it was, but something about you terrified him - it was the same thing that made him want to latch onto you and not let go. Despite having met you just days ago, he already felt as if he'd known you a lifetime - unbeknownst to him, you felt exactly the same way.

“Do you want to hang out tomorrow night?” he asked, stuttering the words.

“Yeah,” you replied, so excited you felt like shrieking so the whole market could hear. “I have the day off tomorrow. Think your uncle would let you swing that?”

“Yeah,” Lee assured you. “I think he would.”

You finished your meal together, sharing your favorite things about the neighborhood you lived in and simply enjoying each other’s company, as comfortable as if you were old friends. Instead of parting with you, Lee walked you back to the bar at the end of your break, stating that it was no trouble going back to the market to get the groceries he skipped to spend time with you.

When he left, you hugged him, and for the first time in a long time, you felt as if you'd truly made a friend.

On your date the next day, Lee took you to the local art museum - he remembered you expressing an interest in art history, and per his uncle’s suggestion, decided it would be the perfect place to take you. He loved seeing the awe on your face when met with a piece that captivated you, was drawn in by the impassioned way you spoke about cultures and myths from ages so long passed they felt as if they came from different worlds entirely. You spent the whole day together, ending the evening crashed on your couch with a pizza and a marathon of true crime documentaries.

From that day onward, you and Lee were connected at the hip. You spent every available moment you had either in the alley behind your building with him or having a cup of tea at the Jasmine Dragon, often staying long after closing with him and his uncle, Mushi, and feeling as if you'd finally found a family in your adopted city.

You learned that Lee was a skilled martial artist, asking him to teach you a little of what he knew and amazed at just how good he really was. He moved more like a dancer than a fighter, his comfort and ability with his body and a weapon captivating you. You learned that he also had an affinity for theater and had grown up completely cut off from modern music and pop culture, spending many of your nights together at local play houses and bars, introducing him to your favorite bands and shows. He learned that you were fascinated by literature and history - anything that had significant, profound meaning and beauty - and often found himself wandering museums and historic neighborhoods with you, loving nothing more than to listen to you talk about what inspired you. You also made him laugh, your sense of humor at times dark, but set into a personality that saw the world with childlike wonder, able to find immense beauty and value in things that seemed frivolous to the naked eye. You were kind, unwavering - everything his family and past lover weren't.

Zuko loved being around you because of how free you made him feel. The unbridled way you expressed your emotions encouraged him to face his own, following your lead in being unafraid of just how intensely the heart within his chest was prone to beat. You loved being with him because he made you feel safe, never judging you for anything and understanding the trauma of your past in a way nobody else had done before. You opened up to him about how the ones you loved did you the most harm, never giving themselves as fully to you as you did them, treating you as a means to take out their own pain and insecurities and convincing you that that was just the way love worked. Eventually, he confided in you the truth about his identity, confessing the horrors he fled in coming to Ba Sing Se. You never once blamed him for anything he'd done, knowing exactly what it felt like to have to read between the lines and give everything for those who gave you little in return. You fit together easily, never having to guess what the other was thinking; for once you both felt content, secure in the safety of your heart within the other’s hands.

One of your favorite places to go with Zuko was a cat cafe a few blocks over from where you worked, spending many a slow weekday off shift with fresh lattes, croissants, and cuddles from friendly, adoptable kitties. At first, Zuko was unsure, having never spent much time with cats, but after one visit he was enamored, gushing to you every single time you went how badly he wanted a cat and spouting multiple reasons why you should adopt one together. On a free Wednesday afternoon he showed up at your apartment unannounced (as he had made a habit of doing) and suggested you go together, an invitation you were more than happy to accept.

As you left the cafe, a couple walking on the other side of the street caught your eye - the man who stood nearest to you was horrifyingly familiar. You recognized him immediately, the shock of his sudden appearance shattering and hollowing out your insides.

It was your ex boyfriend, the man who broke your heart so far beyond repair, walking hand in hand with someone else.

“Zuko,” you mumbled, not even noticing that you used his real name in public, “I want to go home.”

Zuko furrowed his brow, taking you by the shoulders and gently turning you to face him, concerned with the sudden shift in your tone.

“What's wrong?” he asked softly.

All you could do was shake your head. He wrapped his arm around your shoulder, leading you to the nearby subway station and back to your apartment.

Once safe inside the confines of your home, you changed into a baggy sweater and the softest sweatpants you owned, curling up under the kotatsu in your living room with Zuko, arms wrapped tight around his waist as you drifted in the tide of blood that poured from your newly reopened wounds. He didn't have to ask what you'd seen - he could tell from the vacant, glassy look in your eyes exactly which ghost haunted you.

“I can't believe he'd be with someone else,” you whimpered. “After everything he did to me… always giving me mixed signals and never telling me exactly how he felt… how could he be able to do it with another person? What was so wrong about me that he hid all of it from me, when all I needed was to hear it?”

You sniffed as Zuko pressed a thumb to your cheek, wiping away a tear that had fallen. He hugged you tightly, pressing you close as if to remind you that he was there - he was your present, and there was nothing your past could do to harm you.

“There's nothing wrong with you,” he promised. “He's taken enough from you. Don't give him any more.”

For a long while, you sat together in silence, cradled in Zuko’s arms while he rocked you slowly back and forth, the tenderness of his touch sucking the poison from your veins. After what felt like ages, he finally spoke, giving you the piece of his past he'd been too heartbroken to offer until that moment.

“My girlfriend, Mai,” he told you, “she was like him. Everything she felt, she forced herself not to. We were together for a long time, but… I never really felt like she actually cared for me. If she did, she never let me see it. I gave her everything for nothing.”

“Why did you stay with her?” you wondered, voice meek and quivering with tears.

Zuko sighed, letting his chin fall so he could bury his face in your hair.

“Because she was the first person who ever accepted what I offered her,” he explained. “I was so used to everything I did being unwanted, it was just nice to not be pushed away for once. But she didn't love me like I needed it. I wish I was strong enough to see that and walk away, like you did.”

You propped yourself upright, leveling yourself so you could look him in the eye. You rested your hands at either side of his neck, your thumbs grazing delicately over his hot skin as you hooked your legs around his hips, your body nestled in the gap between his crossed legs.

“Zuko,” you breathed, “I love you. Those aren't even the right words to tell you how I feel about you, but it's the closest I have. You're so passionate and kind, and you love so fiercely… I truly don't know how to tell you how beautiful I think you are, or how much you mean to me. You deserve so much more than how the people you loved have treated you.”

Zuko curled his arms around your back, pressing his chest to yours and burying his face in the crook of your neck, embracing you as closely as he'd ever done. Tears soaked the collar of your sweater, and in return you cried into the exposed skin revealed by his t-shirt as you tugged on the fabric, gripping him as if letting go meant losing him forever.

“I love you, too,” Zuko murmured. “You make me feel strong enough to show it.”

When Zuko left Ba Sing Se, it crushed you. You were furious, at first unable to understand why he'd throw everything away to return to the place and the people that destroyed so much of him. Most of all, you missed him like mad - you missed how easy it was being with him, how you understood each other as if you were another part of yourselves. You missed his laughter and his warmth, the side of your mattress he often slept in feeling colder than ever without him there.

You were relieved when Mushi - who you now knew to be the infamously disgraced General Iroh - returned, showing up at your door out of the blue with tea and baked goods from the shop. You hugged him tightly, crying like a child as he settled you at your table and told you about his escape from prison, as well as his conversations with Zuko the few times he'd visited him. Your heart ached, but it finally felt clear just how lost and confused he was; you were still angry, but you knew you could forgive him.

“His heart is lost,” Iroh explained, “but because of you, he knows how to listen to it.”

For the next month and a half, you took Zuko’s place at the Jasmine Dragon, spending your days off helping Iroh wherever he needed you. He became as much a part of you as his nephew did, and started to consider you as much a daughter as he did Zuko a son. Iroh’s presence soothed the burns left on your soul not only by those you loved, but by your own ferocity towards them.

Everything changed again the morning you woke to and find that Zuko had left the Fire Nation a third time, his face plastered across the news as a missing person with a bounty on his head. You knew based on everything Iroh told you what he planned to do, and immediately set to packing your bags. Travel into and out of the Fire Nation was difficult, but a few of your coworkers had connections to smugglers in the seedier parts of the district - they’d be able to get you onto a ship or a plane that could get you where you needed to go.

Before you left, you went to the Jasmine Dragon and told Iroh of your plans, asking him to keep watch over your apartment so that you could return if need be. You expected him to try and stop you - instead he pulled you into a strong, affectionate hug, telling you to be careful and call him whenever you were able.

“Go to him,” he hummed into your ear. “He needs you.”

Later that night, you met a group of other refugees at the docks, piling into the hull of a cargo ship bound for the Fire Nation’s imperial city. For the entirety of the journey, you wore one of Zuko’s necklace’s around your neck - one of the few things he’d kept from his life before his banishment and subsequent disappearance - keeping it tucked under your shirt and pressed to your chest for good luck.

[ Part 2 ]

📚 table of contents 📚

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[call-2-arms]

Character Ethnicity, Religion and Inspiration

// Because I want to talk a little about the inspiration and culture of my muses (I won’t go into too much depth about the canon ones since we know already, but I WILL mention them). This isn’t going to be heavily in detail, just a basic outline as I’ve realised I have a real passion for biracial muses--possibly because I don’t feel we see them enough in media today, especially parents of mixed race children, and simply because I enjoy the different cultures between them and how that effect their children etc. I also feel like biracial folks are shoved under the bus a LOT because they “aren’t dark enough” or “you don’t look (insert race)” and that’s bullshit, so I think I like to focus a lot on that and bring light to the situation, or at least I realised that when I was thinking about making this meta. I’ll go alphabetical through my muses (including the ones that I don’t RP here but are still part of my muses lives, and my Inquisitor Kaaras).

This will be a little long, so I’ll post it under the cut.

- Mentions of fantasy racism.

- I use a non white washing filter on my icons for those who are poc. :) PLEASE note that even with filters, DA:I lighting isn’t the best at depicting colours.

- Closed character means I do not RP them here but they are still muses I share here

- Please note that Thedas is not the country they may seem to be inspired by, but MULTIPLE countries of inspiration. These are my headcanons alone. 

Abzi Pământ: Dalish elf from Nevarra ( Egyptian / African inspired ). His clan is a stationed clan in the wilderness of Nevarra, they perform rituals for their dead much like the humans of Nevarra (Egyptian). However, their clan also practices in body modifications, scarification and body plates. Abzi’s clan has an unusually high life span for Dalish elves, which may be due to their stationed life, or their rituals to the gods. Abzi is a warm, medium to dark in skin colour. Abzi’s clan follows the Dalish gods, however, they practice their worship in different ways to most, with sacrifices and preserving their dead (mummification). Abzi’s accent is Egyptian.

Aithell’ana ‘Aith’ Adaar ( closed character ): Ex Dalish elf, ( European inspired ), who has since abandoned and refused to follow her former Dalish way of life. Aith is from the Brecillian Forest, Ferelden . When she came into her magic, she was forced to leave her clan and attacked by templars. She holds hostility towards many Dalish because of her negative experience, and refuses their gods. She was only 7 and did not gain her vallaslin before she was set to be on her way. Aith was adopted by the Adaar family (and Kaaras’ adopted sister) when Kaaras stumbled upon her in the forest. Aith is Caucasian in colour. Aith is atheist and does not believe in any gods. Aith’s accent is Welsh.

Arach Sgott ( closed character ): A city elf from Starkhaven, ( Scottish / European inspired ), he has red hair and pale, blotched skin. His grandparents were former Dalish elves, but his parents lived in the alienage. He wished to embrace his Dalish heritage, so he had facial tattoos (not vallaslin). Unfortunately, Arach’s experience with most Dalish has been negative due to their contempt towards “flat ears”, so he has stopped paying attention to his heritage and makes sure to remind others his tattoos are not vallaslin. Arach is agnostic, he doesn’t know what to believe. Arach’s accent is Scottish. 

Bastien Beaufort: Bastian is a templar of Orlais, a noble born son and biracial ( French / French Louisiana inspired ). Both mother and father are from Orlais, but his mother’s side is darker in skin tone while his father is Caucasian. His mother has Marcher ( French Louisiana inspired ) ancestry, while his father is of a strong Orlesian ( French inspired ) line. Bastien is a medium to dark skin tone. Bastien is a devout Andrastian who holds his religion very close to him, taking vows to keep himself to the Maker and Andraste (he is abstinent). As someone who was punished for his interest in other men, he believes his sexuality is a sin and he must repent. Bastien’s accent is French.

Cassandra Allegra Calogera Filomena Pentaghast: As in canon, Cassandra is of Nevarran ( Egyptian inspired ) descent, her skin colour is a light to medium, olive tone. Cassandra is a devout Andrastian, however, she can learn to accept the gods of others if given time and for someone to teach her. I have always heard a more Romanian accent when it comes to her VA, so I do believe that their accents are Romanian inspired.

Fintan ‘Finn‘ Ghilain: Finn is a Dalish elf from the Dales ( Irish inspired ). He is descended from the Ghilain clan, although he was moved as a boy with his family to Clan Durgen, who resided closer to the Frostbacks. Finn left his clan to wander alone when he was younger, due to the idea that he believed elves and humans could somehow find peace together. He is ghost white in skin tone and has the hereditary condition of Poliosis (whitening of the hair). He is spiritual in beliefs, but exceptionally open minded to all spirits and gods. Finn’s accent is Irish.

Garrett Hawke: Of Lothering, Ferelden ( European inspired ). Hawke’s father was a Marcher, olive in skin colour while Leandra was Caucasian. Hawke is of olive skin himself, a little lighter than Malcolm. Hawke is atheist, and if anything, holds contempt for any god or those who claim to be gods. Hawke’s accent is English ( as heard in game ).

Ignis Scientia: As of FFXV, Ignis is Caucasian and pale in skin colour. I do headcanon that he is of a Tenebrea blood line, however, the Scientia family has been in servitude of the Crown for such a long time that they speak the King’s tongue. Ignis follows the Six. Ignis’ accent is English ( as heard in game ).

Jaime Tywin Lannister: Of Casterly Rock, Westeros. He is Caucasian. Jaime follows the Seven, although he is more agnostic in nature. Jaime’s accent is English ( as heard in the series )

Kaaras Taashath Adaar: Kaaras is a Vashoth qunari, whose parents fled the Qun ( East Asian / Greek inspired ) when knowing they were expecting a child. Kaaras knows little of his parents upbringing under the Qun and was ignorant as a child to why they were so much different from the other children. He grew up in Southron Hills, Ferelden, though was born in Starkhaven, aided by a Chantry sister. He is pale grey in skin tone, his father being medium to dark and his mother being pale like him. Kaaras is Andrastian, however, he is very open minded when it comes to other religions and gods, believing that all gods stemmed from some kind of truth. He loves learning of other religions and cultures. Due to growing up in Ferelden, Kaaras’ accent is English ( as heard in game ).

Latika Madan: A city born elf from Kirkwall ( Indian inspired ). She is medium to dark in colour. Her family history is one of slavery and in the alienages of the Marches. Most elves in the alienages are forced to believe in the Maker, however, Latika never took to the human beliefs. She believes in respecting ones self and inner peace, however, she will use Andrastian curses as it’s what she grew up around. Due to growing up in Kirkwall, Latika’s accent is English.

Lyna Mahariel ( closed character ): The Hero of Ferelden, born and raised in Ferelden’s wilderness in the Brecilian Forest ( Native American inspired ). Lyna is of strong Dalish heritage and faith. She is a light to medium tone in skin colour. Lyna’s accent is Welsh.

Rike Zimmerman: A Vashoth, abandoned by her parents and left on the doorstep of a small village in the Anderfels ( German / European inspired ). She was raised as humanly as possible, but has turned to a very spiritual belief. She befriends animals more than she is interested in people. She is dark in skin tone with a grey undertone. Rike’s biological parents are of the Qun ( East Asian / Greek inspired ). Due to growing up in the Anderfels, Rike’s accent is German.

Talan’ash: Tal’Vashoth from Kont-aar, Rivain ( Spanish influenced ). Talan was born under the Qun ( East Asian / Greek inspired ). He speaks a multitude of languages, and grew up mingling with the people of Rivain, although still subject to the strict teachings of the Qun. He still follows the beliefs of the Qunari people, that their bodies are hosts to who they are and that their spirit will move on to still fulfil its purpose, although he has struggled coming to terms with being Tal’Vashoth. He is medium to dark in skin tone, with a grey undertone. Due to growing up in Rivain, Talan’s accent is Spanish.

Tobias ‘Tobi’ Ettore Clarke: A human of Ferelden, his mother was Chasind ( Māori inspired ) and his father was Antivan ( Italian inspired ). He grew up with a mixed childhood when it came to culture and language, as well as religious beliefs. Tobi hated feeling different from everyone else, so he embraced his mother’s Chasind heritage, hoping that he would be welcome to their village one day. Tobi is atheist and frowns upon anyone who believes they require worship. Tobi is olive skinned. His face and body tattoos are linked to his Chasind heritage ( Māori inspired ). Due to growing up in Ferelden, his accent is English.

[fyrapartnersearch]

Sci-fi shenanigans!

Hello ladies, gents and fellow rpers. After having a writing blast and seeing how I’ve got room for some more partners I’ve decided to come back in search of some partners who are interested in what I’m looking for.I’ve got a good ten or so odd years of rping experience under my belt but any potential partners do not necessarily have to have the same experience, they simply need to fit under these three things: -third person only with correct spelling, grammar and punctuation. - at least one small (no less than seven lines) paragraph per post as well as being willing to write more if the situation calls for it. Please do not contact me intending to give me only small paragraphs with each response as the above is simply the bare minimum I’ll accept if there’s not much going on in the rp that warrants a full paragraph. -no one liners, one worders, script talk, poorly written sentences or just laziness in general. This isn’t terribly much to ask for as picky as it sounds. An important thing I shall mention is that NSFW (i don’t fade to black nor do I care when the smut happens. Just please don’t leave me once the smut has happened like lots of people seem to unfortunately do) and dark themes are a thing that occur in all my rp’s so I require you to at least be eighteen before you reach out to me. I will not accept anyone younger than 18 since I myself am in my early twenties. Underaged characters are also a no go as well. Please know that I’m in the eastern Australian time zone but almost any time zone Is compatible for me as I am awake at very odd hours. Another important thing I shall add is that you must be able to post at least once or more a day and if I don’t get any response after two weeks then I shall simply move on (only exception is if you notify me beforehand as to why you may not be able to post for a while. I’m not that vicious). I only rp as male characters, as it’s simply my preference, but I will do either MxM or MxF pairings. I will not double and I do not play multiple characters. I don’t do sub/dom dynamics when it comes to any aspect of the relationship. My characters are also non human (they’re aliens since this is a sci-fi rp after all) but what species your character is doesn’t matter to me at all as long as it’s not some god modded Mary Sue. Please remember that alien simply means a creature not from earth. Aliens can have fur, scales, feathers, etc, depending on where they come from. An alien with fur or scalies is not a furry or a scalie and please do not refer to them as such as it’s rude to label someone’s character as something they’re not. I will not write with someone who will insist that the theory of chimpanzees and humans unable to crossbreed should apply to hybrid characters regardless of whether they’re alien/alien or human/alien. This is fiction, not reality. Please also do not control my characters or dictate their actions. My characters are also premade and only have descriptions, I don’t do face claims or pics. I also do not care if you make a character up on the spot. Please remember that this is a sci-fi rp and that I will not accept requests to do fandoms or any genre that doesn’t fit within the category of sci-fi.i will not accept a character that has no place in a sci-fi rp either like a dragon,harpy,demon, elf or some other fantasy creature. I do have a few ideas and I’ve listed them down below: Space criminals and the law: *humans and aliens have been living amongst each other side by side ever since humanity dared to venture beyond the Milky Way and made first contact with aliens. With the solar system no longer being man’s only playground other planets were quickly colonised under the new alliance between extraterrestrials and Homo sapiens. Whether you were an alien, human or a hybrid did not matter in the known galaxies. All that mattered was who you were. Not everyone took to the integration very well (there were numerous protests on both sides) but most people were willing to share in the hopes of peace. Not everyone had good intentions though……* Trouble in the alien kingdom: *the planet of (insert generic planet name here) was one of prosperity, hardship and wealth. The kingdom of (insert generic kingdom name here) was ruled by a king and a queen whose heir was betrothed to a rival planet in the hopes that a political marriage would prevent another war from happening. Only problem was that no one could see the rival planets true plans….all but one. Unfortunately no ones going to listen to a deranged commoner who probably may not even be telling the truth. What’s one to do when no one will listen?* Exile: *The wind howled as thunder crashed and shrieked all around the abandoned cargo ship. Rain pelted the metal hull, turning the ground into a cold, treacherously slippery and muddy shallow river. The ship itself had crashed into the planet countless centuries ago and was slowly being reclaimed by the environment. Plants grew from cracks in the floor as moss and vines decorated the walls. A figure sat miserably hunched in what was once the cockpit of the ship, their only shelter from the raging elements outside but not from the storm that raged inside of them. The figure leapt to their feet as the sounds of footsteps in the mud drew closer and they held their breath. Who would dare to venture out here on such a miserable night?* War of the worlds: *humans and aliens were never meant to coexist peacefully with one another. There was too much fear, Too much misinformation and too much bias on both sides for such a thing to have ever been successful. It was the humans fault that the war had started. They were the ones who’d shot down the alien ship that had been packed with specially chosen diplomats that represented each alien race known to the galaxies they dwelled in that had been on their way to earth to negotiate a truce and a plan for peace. They hadn’t even hesitated to shoot the ship full of aliens yet they’d been surprised when war had been declared on the spot. Two races. Two worlds so different yet the same fighting one another for what was either a mistake or intentional murder.* Rehab: *The UGWP alliance (unite the galaxies for the protection of all worlds and for peace alliance) portrayed themselves as calm, charismatic and kind men and women who held only the thoughts of a life together with all species living happily together. They advertised campaigns for inter species jobs, provided information to the public about human/alien interactions and encouraged diversity amongst planets. Their rehabilitation program for troublesome fellows was considered to be a god send to try and cut down on the amount of space related crimes. No one ever questioned what went on beyond the closed doors to the facility, if they did, the UGWP would have their darkest secrets revealed. Something they strove to keep under wraps. When the arrival of a particularly wild prisoner occurs, the threat of their first failure and first escaped prisoner is lurking around the corner.* (Important point of notice: in this rp idea I’d be playing said prisoner, I don’t mind if you choose to be one as well.) Academy days: *the galaxy alliance and military defence force academy was one of the most respected training academies in the known galaxies. Men, women, aliens, humans and all of those who were in between went there to study, train and, one day if they passed the mentally, emotionally and physically gruelling years of tests, fly and be put in their own squadron. There were approximately six spots to fill on any team and the cadet who suited that spot the most would be given the title of pilot, squad leader, second in command, engineer, gunner and navigator. Each team was similar but unique in what they did. Not everyone gets along though and rivalries grow high during that delicate time between graduating and being put on a team. What happens when the top student and the lonesome outcast with a temper clashes?* Captured: *Space criminals have been around ever since advanced technology allowed others to travel and live in space as if they were living anywhere else. They’re often cunning, tricky to catch and more often than not are clever at disguising themselves whenever those wanted posters come up. It takes skill to be on the wrong side of space law and true talent to get away with it. The galaxy's current most wanted man has finally been captured by an alliance captain and his crew. Will he beg for mercy? Will he be given a trial before being thrown into a cell to rot or will he be given a chance to turn himself around with some hard labour?* (Important point of notice: I’ll be playing the criminal for this one. You will be the alliance captain) Enslaved: *imagine living the life of one of the most successful people on the run that could exist. Galaxies trembled at your name. You and your crew swam in wealth and the going was good. Mutiny, sadly and sometimes not sadly, exists on its own accord. One man reflected on this as he was forced to his feet. A collar attached to a chain and electromagnetic handcuffs prevented his escape as he stood for all those who cared to glance as they walked by in the market to see. No one wants to have their only life’s purpose to be to serve another......only sometimes people don’t get that choice.* (Important point of notice: I’ll be playing the slave/servant. You’ll be the master/mistress.) Sooooo..... about those pairings. What is in Bold is what I’m going to play if we choose the scenario: 1: enemies to lovers or rivals. 2: **captured criminal** x prison guard or other prisoner. 3: two soldiers from seperate sides falling in love. 4: **academies bad boy** x top student 5: **low ranking ship crew member/second in command/captured space criminal** x captain. 6: **commoner/rogue/street rat** x prince/princess. 7: **slave/servant** x master/mistress. 8: army superior x **lower ranking soldier**. PLEASE DO NOT APPROACH ME IF: 1: YOU GHOST AT THE DROP OF A HAT. 2: YOU ARE NOT WILLING TO PUT EFFORT IN TO MEET MY REQUIREMENTS. I’m open to discussing and potentially mixing these ideas up till we get something that we both like. If you want to learn more about a certain idea tell me the name and I shall expand on it. The only platforms I rp on are discord,telegram,email and google hangouts. I will not rp on any other platform other than the ones listed. If you do not have any of those then unfortunately we cannot rp. When you reach out to me requesting for an rp please In the opening message tell me what idea you liked, why you liked it, give me a little introduction about you and you must put 123 somewhere in your message so that I know you’ve read all of my post, don’t just put “hi wanna rp”. Make it interesting. I look forwards to meeting potential partners. My contacts Discord: tiberionsunsconqourer#6187 Telegram: Tiberionwars Email and hangouts: lleo52560@gmail.com

[rpsentences]

SENTENCE STARTERS | FINAL FANTASY XII

feel free to change pronouns if needed ! ____ signifies a place where you can insert a name.

❝ You’re barely old enough to be a man. You shouldn’t be forced to wield a sword. ❞ ❝ You’ve laughed in the face of death far too many times to stop now. ❞ ❝ Men like us don’t die in places like this. ❞ ❝ You’re no good to anyone if you’re locked away in a dungeon. ❞ ❝ If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were waiting for me all along. ❞ ❝ You have something that belongs to me. ❞ ❝ You’re playing with fire and I’d rather not get burned. ❞ ❝ If you ever want to see your home again, you’ll do exactly as I say. ❞ ❝ You should come with me. It’s better than being by yourself. ❞ ❝ You have a lot to learn before we even get started on your thievery. ❞ ❝ Relax, it’s just a corpse. Jump at every little thing down here and you’ll wear yourself out. ❞ ❝ Remember what curiosity killed...Just a friendly word of advice. ❞ ❝ You just don’t give up, do you? ❞   ❝ You’re such a faithful hound to cling so to a fallen kingdom. ❞ ❝ Our paths keep crossing, yours and mine. It’s more than just coincidence. ❞ ❝ Do me a favour and stay where I can keep my eye on you. ❞  ❝ Not exactly earning high marks for originality, are we? ❞ ❝ I will see that you are kept from harm. It is my duty. ❞ ❝ Your enemies are hard at work trying to find a dagger for your back. ❞ ❝ Stop being so stubborn. Carry on like this and you’re going to get us both killed. ❞ ❝ I will not place my trust in the sword of a traitor. ❞ ❝ You may be a princess, but without proof of your royal lineage, you are powerless. ❞   ❝ How much is the price on your head these days, I wonder? ❞ ❝ Are you asking me to be your sword, to strike where you might not? ❞ ❝ You don’t have to worry about me. I’m tougher than I look. ❞ ❝ There’s no guarantee we’re going to make it out of this alive. ❞ ❝ Call me old fashioned, but I was hoping for a treasure whose worth we could measure. ❞ ❝ Well, at least your sword is to the point. ❞ ❝ You shall not tread this path alone. Together we go. ❞ ❝ Your cage may have no bars, but it is a cage. ❞ ❝ I always knew you didn’t take well to being tied up...I just didn’t know how much. ❞  ❝ The differences between our two lands will fade before the shared dream of men. ❞   ❝ The past can bind a man as surely as irons. ❞ ❝ Too late and to their sorrow do those who misplace their trust in Gods learn their fate. ❞ ❝ You can never know another, even your father. ❞ ❝ I slew your King. I slew your county. Do these deeds not demand vengeance? ❞ ❝ I'm through with it - I'm through running. I'm ready to find my purpose. ❞ ❝ I am simply myself. No more and no less. ❞ ❝ Even with power, we cannot change what has passed. What is done is done.❞ ❝ I will avenge those who have died and you shall know remorse. ❞  ❝ I am the leading man. Might need to do something heroic... ❞ ❝ With each passing day, the world finds new and exciting ways to kill a man. ❞ ❝ It's not easy being this popular, you know. ❞  ❝ If I could protect but one person from war's horror, then I would bear any shame proudly. ❞ ❝ Wield your hatred and crush me. I welcome it! ❞ ❝ My hands are stained with blood. I see little reason to stay them now. ❞ ❝ What am I to do with those who would oppose me...but show them death? ❞ ❝ I’ve won my freedom, yet my past has been cut away forever. ❞ ❝ You've let your eyes betray your heart. ❞ ❝ Did you not swear revenge? Do the dead not demand it? ❞ ❝ When you abandoned home and kin, your name was forever stained with blood. ❞  ❝ As long as I can curse your name, I shall not be defeated! ❞ ❝ Blood alone does not an emperor make. ❞ ❝ This whole affair has the smell of money. I may have to wet my beak a little. ❞ ❝ You've been stealing again! What happens if they catch you? ❞ ❝ Everything that happened was because of you! Everyone that's died, every single one! ❞ ❝ This struggle is futile. You must know where it leads! ❞ ❝ How can you protect anything if you’re dead? ❞ ❝ Um...How old are you again? ❞ ❝ Spare me your lies! I see the serpent coiled here before me. ❞ ❝ When you bared your sword at me, you bared your sword at the law. ❞ ❝ Such strength...Inhuman...! ❞  ❝ I am no false saint for you to use! ❞ ❝ If you are so set on running, hadn't you best be off? ❞ ❝ I hope you haven't forgotten my role in this little story. I'm the leading man. ❞ ❝ You know what they say about the leading man? He never dies. ❞ ❝ I would say that you're more like a ...'supporting' role. ❞ ❝ I’m wrong? You had best find the strength you need to correct me then. ❞ ❝ Does your tongue ever stop? What if I plucked it from your head? ❞

[mediaeval-muse]

Book Review

Bride By Mistake. By Anne Gracie. New York: Berkley Sensation, 2012.

Rating: 2/5 stars

Genre: historical romance

Part of a Series? Yes, Devil Riders #5

Summary: Eight years ago, Lieutenant Luke Ripton made a hasty wartime marriage-in-name-only to protect a young girl from a forced union and left her protected in a remote mountain convent. Now, Luke is Lord Ripton, but he has been unable to obtain an annulment. Which leaves him no choice but to claim a wife he doesn't want. For nearly a decade, Isabella has waited like a princess locked in a tower, dreaming of her handsome, dark-haired prince. Her dreams are shattered when Luke reveals himself not as a prince, but an autocratic soldier, expecting her unquestioning obedience, which is something Isabella's fiercely independent nature will not tolerate. And while Luke and Isabella's fiery personalities clash at every turn, they remain bound to their vows, never expecting that the passionate fury they share could become passion of a different kind...

***Full review under the cut.***

Content/Trigger Warnings: attempted sexual assault, violence, sexual content, torture

Overview: When I started reading this book, I had the strangest feeling that I had read it before, but I didn’t remember how the plot went, nor could I find any record of a review, so here it is now. Bride By Mistake had the potential for a great story: a fiercely independent heroine, a journey to rescue an abandoned half-sister, love growing between two people who married to prevent one of them from suffering a worse fate, etc. I think I would have been on board if not for the hero, who I found hard to like. I didn’t feel like he respected our heroine at all, even after he opened up about his past, which made it hard for me to root for the relationship. As a result, this book only gets 2 stars from me.

Writing: Gracie’s writing seems to change between the first thirty or so pages and the rest of the book. The first couple chapters seem to rush through the narrative quickly, dumping a bunch of dialogue and a rushed flashback on the reader to set up the situation before getting to the main plot. Once we get to that point, the writing seems to flow a bit better, giving insight into what characters are thinking and feeling. Granted, it’s not a high literary style - Gracie’s prose is simple, and sometimes has a tendency to be repetitive (there’s a lot of observations of what the heroine’s legs and backside look like in her riding pants, for example, and we’re repeatedly told how Isabella isn’t pretty/not conventionally attractive), but I was able to immerse myself in the story, so I feel like it did the job.

Plot: Aside from the romance, the main plot of this novel takes place a number of years following a war. Our heroine, Isabella, and our hero, Luke, married as strangers during the conflict in order to protect Isabella (an heiress) from being forcibly married to her cousin, Ramon, who was after the family fortune. Because Luke was still a soldier, he left Isabella in a monastery for her own protection. Now, eight years later, Luke has been denied an annulment, and so he has come to Spain to collect his wife and return to England. However, before she leaves, Isabella insists on travelling to her family estate to retrieve her abandoned half-sister, who she fears might have been forced into becoming Ramon’s mistress. Meanwhile, Luke’s PTSD makes him anxious, and he constantly fights with her about returning to England so he can arrive in time for his youngest sister’s first come-out.

In terms of setting up a conflict, I feel like this book had potential. I liked the idea of Isabella doing the right thing by her sister, despite having mixed feelings about the favoritism that her father showed towards his illegitimate daughter. It nicely mirrored the family feelings Luke had towards his own sister, and the two protagonists had some good conversations based on those parallels. However, a lot of the middle of the book felt like an uneventful journey. Sure, the protagonists had personal conflicts, but nothing really built the anticipation for their arrival at the family estate. Instead, we get some silly things, like an inn having fleas and causing a whole debacle. I’m not against light, fluffy things like this, but I would have liked to see Isabella and Luke working together more to come up with a plan in anticipation of their showdown with Ramon.

When they finally do encounter Ramon and Isabella’s sister, Perlita, I found the character interactions to be both interesting and silly. I liked how Perlita and Isabella talked about their childhoods and came to respect one another, as well as how Perlita’s desires were quite different from what Isabella expected. It’s complicated and messy and utterly unsatisfying, but in a way that challenges the reader to think about accepting what other people want, even if it’s not “proper.” That being said, Ramon and Luke’s interactions completely transcended the bounds of reality for me. In one scene, Ramon and Luke threaten to kill one another over Isabella, yet once it’s made clear that Ramon would gain nothing by marrying her, everyone settles down and has lunch. Ramon and Perlita then invite the two to stay overnight, which seems preposterous given that the men almost came to blows and, as far as I could tell, still hated one another.

After they leave the estate, Isabella and Luke visit a family friend, and there, they encounter someone from Luke’s traumatic past. I found this part of the plot rather rushed and somewhat sloppy. Despite the trauma supposedly affecting Luke from the beginning, it felt like the details were dumped on the reader with barely 1/3 of the novel left, and so it felt hollow and inserted for a final bit of action. I wish this part of the plot has been more integral to the story, rather than having it all condensed into a few pages near the end.

I will caution readers that early in the book, we are shown a flashback that details how Luke and Isabella meet, and it involves attempted sexual assault. Luke, who is a soldier returning from an errand, happens to hear a girl screaming, so he goes to investigate. He finds a nameless Spanish soldier attempting to rape Isabella, who is 13 and has been stripped naked. While the soldier isn’t successful and his violence against Isabella isn’t overly graphic, we are subject to some descriptions of Isabella’s body, which, in my opinion, had a tendency to be uncomfortable. Descriptions of how she barely has breasts and no hips just shows me that Luke is taking note of these things, which feels icky. Thus, I wouldn’t recommend this book if you’re sensitive to plots involving attempted sexual assault.

I will also say that this book doesn’t do a very good job regarding representing Spanish and Roma culture. Every description of Spain and Spanish life seemed to be banal, from randomly eating churros to taking a siesta. The richness and complexity of Spanish culture isn’t really explored, which is a shame since Isabella’s Spanish heritage mainly seemed to enhance the idea that Isabella = Spanish = passion, contrasting with the frivolousness of English women and society. On top of that, there is a scene where Isabella and Luke are at a market, and they happen to witness some Roma people singing and dancing. Gracie uses the g-slur, though I don’t think it was used in malice. However, the dance is sensual and erotic, which causes Luke and Isabella to become aroused. It further lent credence to the implication that Spain is a land of passion for Luke, and though Spain is not overly exoticized, I do think implying that it is a world where passion can flourish is rather stereotypical.

Characters: Isabella, our heroine, is fairly likable in that she doesn’t let Luke push her around. She’s headstrong and confident, and on top of that, she has a strong sense of duty to her sister. I admired that about her, and loved seeing moments when she would defy expectations and show that she really is capable of handling things herself. The only things I found mildly irritating was her ridiculous innocence regarding sex and her tendency to be overly emotional. Regarding the former, Isabella has cringey moments such as thinking that sex with a man might be like sex between horses or other animals. I dislike it when virgin heroines are that naive because it’s not very realistic. Regarding her emotion, emotion itself isn’t a bad thing, but it didn’t endear me to her when these moods seemed to be connected to her childishness rather than anything substantive. For example, Isabella dramatically flees the scene and cries when she learns Luke requested an annulment, in part because she had been entertaining childish fantasies that he would sweep her away from the monastery like a knight in shining armor. She also gets extremely upset and yells at Luke for not being happy that she is a virgin, which would have been ok if it were mostly about honor, but the scene also involves a discussion about Isabella’s ignorance about sex and what it entails. It just felt like all her passionate moods were in some way framed as juvenile, and I wasn’t really into it.

Luke, our hero, is hard to like because at best, he’s a gruff ex-soldier who expects obedience from his wife, and at worst, a misogynist. I could have been on board with an ex-soldier who approaches marriage as a commanding officer would, but then learns that the two are very different and a partnership is more fulfilling. Luke, however, doesn’t seem to be open to the idea. At least early on, whenever Isabella would do something, he would think things like “He was going to show her tonight who wore the pants in this marriage.” While he never hit or raped her, the idea that he would “show her who is boss” left a bad taste in my mouth. On top of that, Luke would also think about how he despises certain traits in women. He thinks of Isabella’s friends at the convent as mindless and frivolous, he rejects London women because they are shallow, and says a few times that he can’t stand dishonesty in women because of the one time in his past that a woman hurt him. It was honestly tiring and because it takes so long for him to even begin to reexamine himself, I wasn’t convinced that he had any admirable qualities other than being physically attractive.

Like Luke, our main antagonist, Ramon, is also fairly misogynistic. Though he had more complex motivations than we are initially led to believe (which I appreciated), he did use words like “bitch” and “slut,” which killed much of the interest I had in seeing him as a multifaceted character.

Perlita is much more interesting in that she harbors little malice towards her sister and refuses to be rescued. She emphasizes that her living situation is enough for her and does not want others making decisions on her behalf, even if they would raise her to enjoy a more “proper” life. I liked the relationship that she had with Isabella - the two talk at length about how their father treated them differently and how they feel about each other, and I loved that they came to feel real affection for each others’ well-being.

Romance: I’m just going to say it - I wasn’t a fan of Luke and Isabella’s romance. Luke was way too dominating and didn’t seem to value Isabella at all, and it only seemed like he came to value her once he opened up about his past (and even then, he seemed to value her for what she was able to do to comfort him and keep him on his toes, not as a partner in her own right). Some may chalk it up to his anxiety about being in Spain again, where his worst memories took place, but just because a character has trauma, that doesn’t mean he can be a jerk without consequences. The point where this particularly became a big “nope” for me was when the two first had sex. Isabella and Luke are staying the night at an inn, and they start to get it on, as couples in a romance novel will do. However, when he penetrates her, she screams in pain. Instead of stopping to see what’s wrong, Luke keeps going until he is sated, and then they make a big deal about Isabella’s virginity. This lack of caring for her physical and emotional well-being put me off completely, and I gave up hope of Luke ever truly learning how to see his wife as a partner (rather than a subordinate).

Overall, this book suffers from a lack of suspense and an insufferable hero, and while I did like the heroine and enjoyed the interaction between the sisters, it wasn’t enough to overcome the lackluster narrative progression and rapey vibes from Luke’s POV.

[haloud]

it’s a postcard, i’m settled (rated e)

@lsobelevans put in a request for more mylex, so here’s a new entry in my ongoing series! ft. domestic bliss and multiple blow jobs ;). hope you enjoy!

The cabin becomes, without really any of them meaning to make it this way, more or less a home for all three of them. It’s an isolated little world all their own, even if it’s way too small for three grown men—something Michael keeps talking about starting to change. But for a half-forgotten hunting cabin in the middle of nowhere, it’s taken on a whole new life. It’s where Michael bops around to music only he can hear trying to figure out how to flip pancakes. It’s where Kyle can walk in the door and find Alex reading on the couch in front of the fire. It’s where Kyle can get space from the pressure of being a doctor in a town this size and find a little sliver of peace.

There is a drawback besides the size of the space, though, and Kyle’s job is a part of it. Michael’s as well, but as odd as his hours can sometimes be, he doesn’t have the demand of being on call that Kyle has. Out of sheer necessity, Kyle spends most nights at his home closer to the hospital and as their relationship develops, Alex and Michael find themselves welcome there more and more on the nights Kyle can’t make it out to the cabin, and somewhere along the line Alex takes over the tiny second bedroom office. Kyle gladly lets him and even happily endures the irritated muttering about Kyle’s lack of commitment to cybersecurity.

Whether they’re at home or at Kyle’s, though, there’s no getting past the fact that, well, they’ve gone domestic. Michael continues his culinary adventures to a pretty satisfying level of success, and Kyle pays him back by washing up, even though Michael hangs around the whole time flicking suds at him and cackling when he tries to bat them out of the air.

Once the dishes are done, Kyle takes the plate they left to warm in the oven, and the two of them head up to the office to bring dinner to Alex, who never came down to eat with them.

“Did you miss the dinner bell?” Kyle asks, knocking softly on the open door.

“Yeah, sorry, I’m just in the middle.” Alex only glances up briefly from his computer screen, sparing a smile for his boyfriends but returning his attention immediately back.

“I understand time-sensitive projects,” Kyle says, “But I think you can spare fifteen minutes to eat before we have to reheat your dinner a second time.”

Michael rounds the desk and settles his hands on Alex’s shoulders, squeezing tenderly. He says, “If the surgeon says you’re working too hard, you’re working too hard,” and he slides his arms over Alex’s shoulders and down, clasping his hands down at Alex’s navel and nuzzling a kiss to the back of his head. “Maybe…you could take the rest of the night off…and let us pamper you.”

Slowly, oh so slowly, he starts to untuck Alex’s shirt so he can creep his fingers under the hem and stroke his stomach. Alex grabs his wrist but doesn’t do anything else to deter him; he even leans his head back onto Michael’s shoulder, and his eyes drift shut when Michael nudges forward to kiss down his neck.

“You deserve a break…and you have this nice, sturdy desk…” Michael purrs against the slight day’s-end stubble high on Alex’s neck, inching his shirt a couple centimeters higher, revealing more of his flat stomach, lightly teasing every bit of skin he uncovers.

Kyle laughs. “Not exactly what I meant when I said ‘pamper.’”

“Mm, no, but it’s what I meant. Alex…”

“There probably is room for you under this desk,” Alex says, amusement in his voice, “But I don’t know why we’d ever need to know that information. Can you think of any reasons?” Instead of waiting for an answer, he sits back up and puts his hands back on the keyboard. Michael is pulled in with him by his arms still locked around Alex’s neck and he makes a complaining little noise as he’s left trying to get at the sensitive skin of Alex’s neck again.

Alex’s voice is capable of so may magical things, chief among them the uncanny ability he seems to have to code new fantasies directly into Kyle’s brain. He’s had this desk since he started med school and never once had a sexual thought involving it, but now that Alex says a single sentence in that smoky, promise-heavy voice, all he can think about is getting up on top of it and spreading his legs and getting that leverage to kiss Alex from above, feeling him push up against him…a little shiver dances down his spine.

“What do you think, Kyle?” he asks, “Is there any reason we should test if someone can fit underneath this desk?”

“Uh…” he swallows, “I do feel like there might be some…applications…”

“Mm. I agree. Too bad I’m just too busy to experiment right now. Have to get this project done, after all.”

He goes back to typing, even though he has a devilish grin on his face and Michael still hanging around his neck, tugging on his clothes, nibbling his ear. Ignoring him has always been a surefire way to rile Michael up, and it’s clearly working now, as he changes tactics from trying to pull Alex’s attention to giving Kyle a puppy-eyed, beseeching request for help.

Grinning to match Alex, Kyle pushes off from the door and makes his slow, sauntering way to Michael’s side. He sets the plate of food—gone cold again, probably, but that’s what ovens are for—down on the desk, well away from the computer, and comes right up to him. Bumping his hip, he says “Let go for a sec,” and even though it involves an awful lot of pouting, Michael complies, making sure to drag his hands all up Alex’s chest as he does it. As soon as Michael’s not in the way, Kyle grabs Alex’s chair and pulls him back, making enough space between his legs and the footwell of the desk for Michael to slip between them.

Alex locks his arms against the desk to make it a little tougher for Kyle to move him, but from his new vantage point Kyle can see that he’s just been typing into an empty document.

Ganging up on me? That’s cute, he types as Michael gets himself situated, and Kyle swallows the excess saliva in his mouth.

“Call it an intervention,” he says, letting go of the chair now that Michael is on his knees between Alex’s legs, looking up at them both with an eager spark in those honey-colored eyes.

Finally relenting, Alex gently strokes Michael’s hair off his forehead, the curls springing back into place as his fingers pass through. He looks down at him with hooded, heated eyes, and Kyle swallows again, drinking in the sight himself from over Alex’s shoulder. God, Michael always looks so good on his knees, with a dirty little smirk on his mouth and his hands curved around Alex thighs. He flutters his long eyelashes and pushes himself forward until his chest brushes the seat of the chair.

“Looks like I fit,” he says, drawing his nose in a line along Alex’s inseam until he reaches the juncture of his thighs.

“Somehow I just knew you’d be able to make room,” Alex replies with a little chuckle, running his fingers through Michael’s hair again.

“I’m talented like that.”

“I think it’s a different talent you’re looking to exercise at the moment.”

“Mm, guilty as charged.” Michael runs his hands in long sweeps up and down the outside of Alex’s legs, massaging as he goes, showing his teeth when Alex responds by tucking one leg over his shoulder, caging him in completely.

Itching to get his hands on Alex too, Kyle settles his hands on his shoulders, digging his thumbs into the muscle gone all tense from the hours he’s spent at the computer today, grinning and humming at the happy moan Alex makes, tipping his head forward to give Kyle more space to work.

“You two are the worst,” Alex says on another moan as Kyle digs deep into a particularly stubborn knot.

“You think national security can’t wait for you to get your dick sucked?” Michael laughs.

“I don’t think they have quite the same priorities as you do.”

“Well maybe they should work on changing that.”

Alex laughs and shakes his head. Ever since Michael inserted himself between his legs, Alex’s hand has been in constant motion, petting him, rubbing his thumb in little circles at his temple, scraping his fingers against the stubble on his jaw. He brings his other hand up, reverent, to cup both sides of his face.

“Well, if I’m taking some personal time,” Alex says, “Let’s not waste it. Shouldn’t you be getting to work?”

“Mm, I thought you’d never ask.”

Without hesitating any longer, Michael unbuttons Alex’s pants and shimmies them down his hips, Alex doing less than the bare minimum to help, barely lifting his ass off the chair let himself be undressed. Michael puts just the tip of his tongue between his teeth as he concentrates, and Kyle wants to get down there to kiss that fucking cute expression off his face. He settles for moving his massage down Alex’s back, searching for more spots to make him moan open-mouthed and full-throated.

“I dated a girl studying massage therapy for a little while,” Kyle comments, “And she taught me a little bit. Could get some oils or lotion and make a real spa day of it. I did say you deserve to be pampered.”

“Are you trying to distract me from the fact that Guerin is clearly cheating right now?”

Michael flutters his eyelashes innocently, but yeah, Alex is floating an inch or so in the air now, his pants around his knees.

“Not on purpose; you’re kind of just a mess back here.” He rolls his knuckles into the stubborn tension between Alex’s shoulder blades. “And it’d be hot as hell to get you to lay down on a real massage table and get to take my time better than I can right now. Help you relax.”

“I volunteer to be in charge of the happy ending,” Michael says.

“You’re getting your chance right now, no cutting in line for seconds.”

“I might be able to find some time in my schedule for a massage,” Alex says. The only indication he gives that he even heard Michael mouthing off is his hand sliding around to the back of his head and jerking him forward. At the show of force, Michael muffles a groan into Alex’s inner thigh, sucking that warm and fragile skin into his mouth.

“Wouldn’t want you to be in anything less than top shape. As a physician…”

“Oh, are we playing doctor now? I think Valenti should be the sexy nurse instead.”

“You were so eager to get down there; are you satisfied now? Because you’re being so chatty I start to think that you’re ready to come out.”

“Oh no, I’m good,” Michael says immediately, hugging on to Alex’s thighs like someone might try to pull him away.

“Then why don’t you do something about it?”

“Aye aye, Captain,” he purrs and, leaning farther forward, fixes his teeth on the waistband of Alex’s underwear and tugs and tugs it down, until Alex’s half-hard cock is free, and Michael moves in to lick and nuzzle at the base, hand moving slowly, humming happily.

Sighing with pleasure, Alex leans back into Kyle’s hands; Kyle got distracted somewhere along the line, his hands stalled to pet his sides. Michael really is so distracting, with the way his berry-red lips look open just enough to let the head of Alex’s cock pass through, the easy, eager way he bobs forward until his nose is buried in the trimmed hair at the base, the way his Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows and swallows as much as he can until he has to pull back up to breathe—

Alex and Kyle are equally mesmerized. Guerin watches up through his lashes, eyes damp and glittering with triumph every time the hand on the back of his head grips tighter, until that hand lets go, slides around to rest against his throat, not squeezing, just leaving it there to feel. And the sight of it, there’s something intoxicating there, enough to have Kyle throbbing inside his jeans. Almost absentmindedly, he flicks open the button to relieve a little pressure, rubbing the heel of his hand against the rigid line of his cock as he watches Alex grind the pad of his thumb against the slick corner of Michael’s mouth.

“You love this, don’t you,” Alex croons, “love that feeling, that taste. You’d get on your knees anytime I wanted you to and love every second, wouldn’t you.”

Michael’s eyes fall shut, and he hums around Alex’s cock, a happy, agreeable little sound that has Alex hissing and clutching him closer again, forcing his cock all the way down his throat.

Keeping his voice level, Alex continues, “Don’t you think so, Kyle? That this is what Michael is made for?”

“He loves it,” Kyle agrees, considerably more hoarsely, “Just look at him. Still begging for more.”

“You’re right. He can’t be satisfied with just this much. Michael,” he strokes his cheek, grips his jaw, without moving his head forcing him to meet their eyes, “hurry up and make me come. You’re not done until you’ve used your mouth to get Kyle off as well. Maybe you’ll be satisfied then, hm?”

The noise Michael makes next is no teasing hum but a loud, hungry moan, and he redoubles his efforts, bobbing his head so that his curls bounce back and forth with the movement, working his hand roughly everywhere his mouth doesn’t touch, working his tongue as eagerly as he can, until Alex comes with a shout, holding him in place while he fills his mouth up, and Michael swallows, not letting go of a single drop.

Alex pulls out of his mouth while he’s still swallowing and misty-eyed and rolls the chair back. He goes to push himself up, saying, “your turn, Kyle,” but before he can get up, Kyle pushes him back down.

He says, “I think I’d rather, uh…” and rather than finish the sentence, he hops up on the desk and spreads his legs like he’s been wanting to since Alex first got that glint of promise in his eye.

Alex laughs and leans the chair back. “I like the way you think. Get out here, Michael.”

Michael needs a little help to unfurl himself from the footwell, using Kyle’s hand to stand up, and he stretches out each leg individually, then stretches his whole body with languid grace and a satisfied groan as joints pop back into place. Alex tugs him in by his belt loops, and he goes willingly, arching into it as Alex digs his fingers into the dimples right above his ass, reaching up to ruffle his hair as Alex kisses his sternum.

“Hmm.” Alex grinds the heel of his hand against Michael’s still-clothed cock. “Think you’ll be able to make it through another? I have my doubts.”

“Sounds like a challenge.”

Kyle shudders at the rasp sucking Alex has put into Michael’s voice, and he absentmindedly starts palming himself as he watches his boyfriends together.

“You could say that,” Alex says, interrupting himself to trail his mouth to the side and nip at Michael’s nipple, pinching the other cruelly, making Michael squirm, “Or I could say that if you come, no hands, while sucking Kyle, I’ll find some way to make you very happy later.”

“Fuck,” Kyle and Michael groan simultaneously, their eyes flicking up to meet each other’s, lust snapping so tight between them that Michael pulls away from Alex to stumble over and fall on his knees in front of Kyle’s spread legs. Kyle grabs him by the hair just on instinct, holding him tight as he licks his lips, looks fiercely up at Kyle through his lashes, and waits for the word go.

“Guerin,” Kyle moans, and that must be enough, because Michael dives in, swallows Kyle down in one long gulp, gags for just a second before fixing his angle and starting up a quick, brutal rhythm that has Kyle’s hips twitching up to meet him. Kyle holds on to  the desk so hard he can feel his nails biting into the underside, and it’s all, it’s all got an extra edge of filthiness underneath it, feeling the wood, hard and smooth and cool beneath him, the feeling of exposure from being up there, all adding an edge to the hottightwet sensation of Michael’s throat around his cock.

And then Alex’s hand is there, pushing Kyle’s out of the way so he can guide the motion of Michael’s head more firmly, pushing and pulling him exactly where he wants him and at what pace and Michael just melts, leaning on his hands to keep from falling over and losing Kyle’s cock from his mouth as he curls up around himself in pleasure. The vibration of Michael’s moan around him has Kyle’s hips jerking forward as he tips his head back and cries out and comes, every muscle of his lower body clenching all at once, his thighs around Michael’s head, his heels digging into his back, and before Kyle is done shaking or Michael is done swallowing, Alex yanks him off to kiss him and taste Kyle in his mouth. He lets go and lets Michael sprawl out on all fours, panting for breath and grinning all smug and messy and beautiful. Kyle would ask who won their little wager, but from the way Michael laughs, he already knows.

“You better get to thinking about that reward,” Michael says, as good as purring as he presses up into the hand still gripping him by the hair.

Later, though, after Alex has finally eaten and the three of them pile into Kyle’s king-sized bed (bought as a luxury when he bought the house, and even though he couldn’t have known the future, nothing feels as luxurious as Alex and Michael sleeping beside him), he thinks that just being able to be together like this is reward enough.

[nomnomzombies]

8x04, Identity and Accountability

> Part 2 <

This started off as me writing a general analysis of last night’s episode but it got really long, really quickly and I haven’t even talked about what I really wanted to talk about. So.... Yeah, here’s my ted talk, and if you guys think I should type up and post the rest of it (themes being Narrative Symmetry/Full Circle and the Sansa/Dan dynamic) let me know! Otherwise, here’s two of four.... Identity and Accountability in relation to Jon, Dan, Cersei, and Missandei. 

Wolf and Dragon symbolism and the theme of Identity

GHOST IS ALIVE!! We kinda knew that from the previews. And his role is just as minuscule as the rest of the season. After everything, Ghost looks like he’s in rough shape.... cut and bruised, missing an ear. And Jon releases Ghost without so much as a fucking good boy goodbye (still not fucking over it. WORST DOG DAD EVER), saying that “he belongs in the North.” We know that the direwolves are direct symbol of their respective owners’ Stark identities, and the direwolves have had deep symbolism in respect to their fates and the fates of their owners. Ghost’s sorry state after the battle shows the state of Jon’s security in his identity. Ghost is alive, Jon is still a Stark, but he’s grappling with the RLJ reveal and his relationship to his Stark identity. Rhaegal is the embodiment of his Targaryen ancestry, and is in sorry shape after the battle as well. Considering both of these animals are directly tied to Jon, Rhaegal not being given time to heal after the battle (because of Dan) may also be an allusion to Dan being relentless about Jon’s heritage and unwilling to compromise. Jon releasing Ghost to go north with Tormund while following Dan south, along with Rhaegal, may seem like he’s choosing his Targaryen heritage over his Stark upbringing, but it’s important to note, however, that Jon is not riding Rhaegal. He mentions that Rhaegal is injured and isn’t riding him to give him a break. There’s distance between him and his Targaryen heritage, and there’s distance between him and Dan following RLJ and “begging for secrecy.” Instead, he’s firmly planted on the ground with the tired and wounded Northern troops who are following him south.  

Dan, on the other hand, is still riding Drogon even though he was assaulted by wights. 

Ever since it was established that she could ride a dragon rather than a horse, she’s opted to (with the exception of when she came to Winterfell with Jon). Her relationship to the dragons has always been a symbol of her power. Not only does she draw her power and confidence from them, but the simple fact of her riding a fucking dragon elevates her to a higher status in the eyes of her subjects. Eerily similar to James Cameron’s Avatar (right down to mighty whitey and the white saviour trope), Jake Sully becomes the leader of the Na’vi against the militarized industrial complex by harnessing toruk and becoming the legendary Toruk Makto (toruk rider). Dan becomes the leader of the Dothraki horselords by overthrowing the current seats of power and riding her mount into battle (dragon rider), leading the charge against her enemies. She garnered the Unsullied by leveraging her dragons value before sacking Astapor. Much like Cersei has connected the throne and her ego as symbols of self-worth, as has Dan connected the symbol of “the dragon” as representations of hers. This could be the reason that the s8 marketing has melded Drogon and the throne together as one image. Both are the battling queens’ symbols of power and identity. This could also be alluding to the fact that Dan has completely lost sight of her initial goals in life and has melded the two (dragon, throne) in her mind in terms of her identity. Many people believe that the season 8 poster is a breadcrumb to something as straightforward as “Dany will win the throne” or “Drogon will melt the throne,” but considering the last season’s poster was an image of the Night King, and the entire season was in preparation for the threat of the AotD, I think it’s far more likely that the poster symbolized that this season’s biggest threat is going to be Dany’s ambition for the throne. She is, after all, “the last dragon,” in that Jon and Gendry are two others with Targaryen ancestry but Dan is the last full-blooded Targaryen (Interestingly, Dan is the great-great-granddaughter of Aegon V Targaryen, which puts her at the same distance from Aegon V as Gendry. This would mean that she’s behind both Jon and Gendry for the throne, considering the Targaryens were usurped and legitimizing Gendry would make him Heir to Robert’s throne, and then Jon, and then Daenerys).  

Daenerys’ decision to not only march south on the metaphorical backs of a compromised host, but on the literal back of her wounded dragon is very telling of her current mental and emotional state following the RLJ parentage reveal. Which leads me to my next overarching theme of the episode:

Actions Finally have Consequences Again

People have said for a long time that the allure of Game of Thrones is that “it’s so realistic.” And, on a surface level, it’s easy to agree with it for a variety of reasons, but once you start to really pick it apart, the arguments don’t really hold up in court. While ASoIaF is incredibly rooted in real-world history, Game of Thrones has become untethered from this sense of reality. I think that a huge part of the story that the writers have lost sight of is accountability—and in this episode, we’re finally starting to see, once again, that even in this high fantasy actions still have consequences. Ned made the decision to confront Cersei about her childrens’ legitimacy out of honor and respect, while incredibly well-intended, he failed to follow through and ended up beheaded. Robb made the decision to break an oath and married for love, and he lead thousands of men into their graves for it. Theon chooses to betray the Starks and was tortured in mind, body, and soul. Jon brings the free folk south of the wall and is faced with a mutiny. Stannis burns his daughter at the stake and half of his host deserts. Cersei elevates the High Sparrow and suddenly reaps half of her life’s worth of sowing. 

While Dan managed to make it through her entire Mereen arc escaping accountability for her actions, those sown seeds are making for an awful harvest. She was able to leverage power and ruthlessness to bulldoze those cities into the ground, and maneuvered her way into her crown by inserting herself into the master/slave dynamic, but she’s stagnating because the game in Westeros is not one where she can just flip the table; in order to change the system you must first infiltrate it. Daenerys believes that she can come over, touting “birthright” from a monarch that was overthrown, and show people that she’s “The Liberator” the “Breaker of Chains.” But with neither chains to break nor people to liberate... how do you get these people to love you..?  

Doesn’t matter to Dan! Much like Cersei, she’s happy as long as they fear her;

 as seen with the burning of the Tarleys (Randyll definitely had it coming, but Dickon?) and the less than warm welcome in the North (and the return of the “saviour” complex).

Speaking of the Tarleys.... I bet Dan’s wishing she’d had a hostage to trade for Missandei. While it’s hard to say if the execution of Mis was unavoidable, it cannot be ignored that Dan declared no quarter after the Loot Train Attack and chose to burn Cersei’s new Warden of the South and his heir. So even if Missandei’s beheading was more psychological warfare than political, the importance of taking at least one Tarley hostage is paramount. This brings us back to The War of the Five Kings, and the consequences of Joffrey’s decision to behead Ned. There’s parallels on both sides, now, because executing Missandei was likely just as foolhardy as executing Ned since we know how important she is to Dan. Cersei, however, probably saw Missandei as little more than a scribe... just one of Dan’s puzzle pieces and as expendable as the Tarley’s were to her. 

As a result, the first person to be liberated by the Breaker of Chains has just died in chains. 

Missandei’s last words are a call back to Olenna Tyrell’s “You are a dragon, so be a dragon,” because Mis essentially prods Dan to “burn it all down” in one word. Which brings up an interesting point, in that Missandei gives awful advice. Let’s not forget that Mis was the one who suggested that Daenerys start ignoring her counsellors all the way back in season 4—and it parallels Olenna nicely because neither Mis nor Olenna were concerned with the outcomes of “burning it all down.” Both allied themselves with Dan because they saw that brutality as a very satisfying route to retribution for their pain. Dany indiscriminately burns and crucifies everyone but the slaves. It’s not hard to see why Mis and Olenna are attracted to her brand of power, especially when neither of them are going to have to face the consequences of Daenerys’ actions. Olenna’s already lost everything, and Missandei already knew she was getting her head cut off. So why not tell the dragon lady to burn it all down?  

[aftermathdb]

DEATH BATTLE Review: Weiss vs. Misturu

Y’know, I had a gag planned when that required Weiss to be introduced after two other RWBY Characters that I don’t think I can do anymore since Weiss got introduced before them. Maybe I can do a deleted scenes thing later…

Two Ice Queens battle for the true reign over the ice castle!

Weiss′s Preview.

The world of Remnant is full of many things that make it famous. From the vicious creatures of Grimm, to the Huntsman and Huntresses that are sworn to fight them, and many many more. But in this world, you’d be hard pressed to find a person who has never heard of the Schnee family.

And like any famous family, these guys are like royalty. And their princess, is Weiss Schnee.

Like many children born to great families, Weiss’ home life wasn’t that fun. Her father had high expectations for her, and she was set to just run the place… Whenever that happens. But, in defiance to her father’s wishes, she got out and joined Beacon Academy, an illustrious school where everyone can learn how to fight monsters. And once she joined a team, she put the ‘W’ in team RWBY.

But Weiss can’t just get by with money. So like most Hunters (Which is what I’m going to be calling them so that I can save some space), Weiss got herself a weapon, which Boomstick nicknamed Merc-Nasty.

This rapier is nearly three feet in length, and, much like nearly every other weapon in the show, it doubles as a gun (insert “it’s also a gun” joke here)!

Myrtenaster comes equipped with a six-slot Dust chamber. And unlike the dust in our world, the Dust in this world is special. Similar to the materia from Final Fantasy or Crystals from Storm Hawks, these all come with their own stats and effects.

Weiss is a fan of combining water and wind to create Ice Dust

But, if you’re going to fight giant shadow monsters, criminals, and godzilla dragons, you’re  going to need way more than just a stick to fight them with.

Think of Semblances as “X-Men” powers. They’re all unique in their own ways. However, Weiss’ Semblance is a bit different. In the sense that instead of it being unique, it’s actually inherited through her family line. Kinda like the mark of the Joestar (Before you ask, no. No Jojo character is up next. I’m upset about it too).

Weiss’ Semblance lets her do all sorts of crazy stuff. From manipulating gravity, to time dilation, to manipulating dust.

But most impressive of all, is the summons, which lets Weiss act like Yuna from FF X and bring out monsters she’s beaten to fight alongside her.  And the most powerful one of all, would be knight, the Arma Gigas… Which means “Giant Armor” in Latin.

But yeah. Weiss’ family is pretty dysfunctional, and kinda abusive at times. Her Colonel Sanders-looking dad up there cut her out of the family line, leaving her piece of shit brother as the sole heir to the company.

But if there are any physical weaknesses Weiss has, it would probably be her durability.

Aura is finite, and takes time to recharge. Sure, you’re basically invincible when you do have it, but when it’s out, you’re out.  And compared to Best Girl Yang (Fight me), Weiss’ durability isn’t that great. And since using her Semblance also burns aura, she’s more likely to run out sooner rather than later.

But Weiss is pretty tough. She once managed to survive a train crash. Judging by the size of the fragmentation, and applying the appropriate mathematics, the amount of force Weiss withstood comes out to be about…

Not good enough?- Then how about the time she knocked over a giant mech that was designed to fight giant leviathan grimm?

Judging by the size of her partner beside her, Weiss’ output of force should come around to about…

And it’s unlikely that Weiss is doing this using only dust. So, by using the water,  we can get an estimate as to how much energy is being used for this attack.

For those of you wondering, this translates to over 230 tons of TNT!

Forget Dust. Weiss could make a killing on giving people renewable power alone.

Weiss might not be the strongest of her team, but with her newfound family, she’s certainly proven that she is far more than just a name. And she’s out to prove that this life is hers.

Misturu′s Preview.

In the early 2000s, you’d be hard pressed to find anyone in Japan who hasn’t heard of the Kirjio group, a global conglomerate that was involved in nearly every aspect of daily life. .

And just like any other major company like this, they had a family. And this princess, was known as Mitsuru Kirijo

One day, Mitsuru’s Grandfather was experimenting with some sort of mental world called “The Mind Place.” Officially known as “The collective unconscious.” Because companies doing shady business deals is apparently something we should expect. When is news going to break out that Disney does have their founder’s head in a jar?

Anyways, the Mind Place connects every living being’s subconscious mind. Things known as “Shadows” lived there.

These things are basically demons. But if you want to see an inner demon, you find a person’s “Shadow Self.”

Surprise surprise, Grandpa Kirijo decided to try and get to the shadows for himself. But, as per usual, summoning demons never works out… Unless you play an Archfiend Deck in Yu-Gi-Oh, in which case, go nuts.

So, everything kinda went to shit because of it, and not only were the shadows released into the world to attack an unsuspecting populace, this tower thing here:

the Tartarus, arose. It’s basically the citadel between worlds. The earth was changed with a new “Dark Hour.” A period of time where everything freezes at Midnight.

Most people don’t really notice though. Time resumes as normal when it’s over, and almost nobody really notices.

Almost.

Some people can keep moving around in this time. Mitsuru is one of them. since she felt bad about her family’s company screwing everyone over, so she decided to fix it.

And while her rapier skills are certainly good, on account that she’s in the fencing club at her school, a small sword like that isn’t exactly enough to take down a bunch of evil shadows… Wait, hang on. Do both of these franchises have Heartless ripoffs?- Moving on, Mitsuru also has various abilities that she can use.

And on top of all of it, she even got a Stand Persona, named Penthesilea, which later grew into Artemisia.

With Artemisia by her side, Mitsuru has a lot of powerful ice spells that she can call upon in battle. So it’s basically a Stand except they don’t have that rule of “Only a Stand can defeat another Stand” thing going for them… Huh, note to self: Have Jotaro and Mitsuru get into an argument about terminology. Also unlike Stands, Personas can be defeated, but they’ll come back after a short time.

Similar to Stands, Personas also kinda reflect damage back to the user. But since it’s more linked to the personality rather than the soul or fighting spirit, it’s more mental stress if anything else.

Artemesia gives Mitsuru all sorts of awesome stuff. Like ice powers that could give Elsa a run for her money. It also grants Mitsuru enhanced strength, speed, and durability. In addition, it also makes her completely immune to the cold and ice-based attacks. I’d ask “Why the fur coat?” But, as we all know, Everyone needs a fur coat (And it’s a pretty nice coat). She can also sense her surroundings via analytical clairvoyance, which makes sneaking up on her pretty hard.

But, like all great heroes, nobody really does it on their own. Mitsuru created the S.E.E.S, or the “Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad.” A group of Persona users that were basically the Teen Titans, if they had Stands instead of superpowers. And, as an added bonus, it’s an after school club, so bonus extra credit!

And you might be thinking “How would one summon a Persona?” Well, since this franchise wasn’t done ripping off Jojo (I looked it up, Stands and the Stand Arrows were introduced about three years prior to Persona 1), they decided to uh… Use the Evoker… Which… Fair warning…

(I think I’ll take the Stand Arrow instead).

The idea behind the Evoker is that it evokes a strong traumatic experience to awaken a person’s Persona, similar to how Mitsuru’s first experience in summoning hers was also traumatic.

To add to the unsettling nature of this, you don’t just have it shot at you. You aim it at your face, and pull the trigger. DEFINITELY taking the Stand Arrow over that.

Anyways, with all that power, Mitsuru’s pulled off some ridiculous stuff.

Here’s an added bonus: One Persona user that could outrun a bullet fired from a Magnum. So it’s reasonable to say that Mitsuru could do this too.

If that last feat wasn’t impressive enough for you, Personas can move even faster. One of them reacted to and caught an arrow within milliseconds. And since Mitsuru defeated this user and Persona in a fight.

But if you’re looking for a durability feat, then look no further, because Mitsuru once survived an explosion.

This one to be exact.

This is easily the longest series of images I’ve had to upload in a row. And isn’t Boomstick a Poultry Scientist?- Why’d he say “I’m a scientist now.”?

Ahem, moving on. Artemisia also once helped out in icing these creepy puppet things:

Now, using the surrounding air and accounting for Nitrogen (As it makes up a good chunk of the air we breathe), we can get some calculations for this feat.

The energy output, after the calculations are done, comes to around…

Okay, forget Weiss supplying people with Power, Mitsuru’s where it’s at. Maybe she could slow down out polar ice caps from melting.

And after ending the Dark Hour and redeeming her family name, Mitsuru continued battling for people everywhere. One shadow at a time.

Not too shabby.

The Battle Itself.

Torrian and Kristina are here for animation, Weiss will be voiced by Kara Eberle and Mitsuru will be voiced by Corey Pettit, music (Winter Sonata) by Therewolf,  and audio by Chris Kokkinos.

So, we just jump right into the middle of the fight. No explanations, no story build-up, no nothing. It’s just like RWBY Volume 4! Ha ha! … Sorry, I, I just, I had to get that in there… God, that was a garbage volume.

So, with swordplay looking to be about even, both sides are basically going to be relying on their other skills for this bout. Y’know, a fencing tournament getting out of hand would have been an interesting story for this fight.

So, a bit of talking later, and the fight just picks up. And it occurs to me that they should have used this as the example fight for why the “FIGHT!” soundbite shouldn’t return. Like, c’mon guys.

Back on the fight, Weiss uses her ice powers to try to give Mitsuru the cold shoulder, but as we’re already aware, that’s not very effective.

And out comes Artemisia, which Weiss manages to parry some of the attacks, and opts to get the hell out of dodge after a quick burst of fire.

The Wasp up there is then sent to fight Mitsuru’s Persona while Weiss opts to fight Mitsuru directly.

But, let’s face it. The Rapier Wasp is a Bug Flying type. So Artemisia takes it down.

And with Weiss distracted, Mitsuru then gives her a kick to the face. That’s the face of someone who was wondering why she was just standing around when there was someone trying to kill you right in front of you.

But Weiss isn’t a fan of being kicked in the face, so she uses her gravity glyphs to make some distance.

And with that distance comes…

The Arma Gigas! Let’s be real, we wanted this fight so that we could see this knight fight Artemisia. After a couple of combos where neither side seems to make any headway, Artemisia then fires some frigid projectiles towards Weiss.

Her Knight, being a gentleman, takes the blow for her.

Weiss charges (with added assistance from her time dilation glyphs) and manages to actually stab Mitsuru.

Unfortunately for her, Mitsuru doesn’t go down that easily. And she uses Artemisia to knock them both down.

Finishing blow in 5…

4…

3…

2…

1…

Imperious Queen of Executions indeed.

Verdict + Explanation.

So, to Weiss’ credit, her versatility put up a decent fight. But she was pretty outclassed in other categories aside from speed thanks to time dilation.

But with Mitsuru’s analytical clairvoyance, that speed gap gets a lot smaller. To the point that Mitsuru’s the one that can outpace Weiss. Not that it matters, Artemisia outpaces Weiss a few times over.

Now sure, the time powers seem like an insta-win, right? Well, maybe that would give Weiss a win in some scenarios, but not all of them.

Since Weiss is extra reliant on Ice Dust, and her other Dusts are fairly lacking, Mitsuru didn’t really have to deal with fire at all. Especially since Weiss doesn’t have the best track record with fire (As we’ve seen from that fire geyser from before).

It also doesn’t help that the explosion from earlier is pretty up there in terms of destructive power. Power that isn’t really that low for anything Weiss had to really beat it out.

Using calculation provided by Boomstick (Yes, you read that right), the calculations can be made through the height of the bridge.

This puts the explosive yield to about.

And this is even accounting for the fact that the person setting it off wasn’t even planning on killing Mitsuru too.

Also, remember those big ice structures that each of them made?- Well, comparing them directly, Weiss’ energy output doesn’t come close. Even if one were to cut Mitsuru’s stat in half, on account that she had help for this feat, Weiss falls short. About a hundred times short to be exact.

At the end of the day, Mitsuru had the power, skill, and durability to take Weiss down. Sure Snow White there had versatility, but at the end of it all,

Overall impression.

I heard from a friend of mine (And I  read  it on the Persona Wiki) that Personas can’t really be seen by non-persona users. Whilst this doesn’t really make much of a difference since it was more exciting to see the Arma Gigas directly fighting Artemisia instead of having it flailing around while the Persona just chipped away at it, it would have been nice to have seen this acknowledged.

Also, I kinda had like… Ten jokes that I could have used for my own end quip, but I’ll just post that to my Deviantart account as a list.

Overall, the results are solid, the animation is good, and it feels well-made. Sure, Weiss’ death could have been a bit more brutal (I would have liked to have seen her shattering with the ice), but as far as underwhelming deaths go, this one wasn’t that bad.

6.9/10. It would have been higher, but we didn’t get a “Bites the Dust” reference for Boomstick’s end joke (The song, not the Stand).

Next Time…

MORTAL KOMBAT! DO do do do dodo doot do do doot do doot do do do!

By the Gods I have been wanting to use Johnny Cage for the story. And having another Nintendo rep is always a plus. This… Is gonna be fun!

Is there a fight that you want me to review? - Send an ask/request, and I’ll look into it!

Do you want to read my fanfic based around DEATH BATTLE itself? click here!

Thank you for reading, and I hope to see you next time for…

Falcon Punch vs. Nut Punch

[so-shiny-so-chrome]

Witness: Kalashnikorn

Creator name (AO3): Kalashnikorn

Creator name (Tumblr): Main-force-patrol

Link to creator works: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kalashnikorn

Creator name (other platform- please specify): @Riccarterfans (twitter)

Q: Why the Mad Max Fandom?

A: My interest in Mad Max started early. I was maybe 12-14 when my mom picked it up on VHS at a garage sale because she had fond memories of the film when it came out (she saw it in theaters, which is rare for her). We’re both fond of cars and dystopian/apocalyptic stuff, so I easily connected with the movie and fell in love with WAY too many of the characters. So there was my weirdo self, in the early 2000s, loving MM1 but not really having a fandom to join. I had fun on my own, drawing stuff, making toys of the characters, writing doofy adolescent fanfic. You know, the works. But I did it in isolation, because I was a LONELY kid. Not just in terms of fandom, there were just never other kids around, or adults (other than my parents) around. Therefore, I spent most of my time online, and lost countless hours lurking on the MadMaxMovies.com forum. But I didn’t feel safe talking to people there, because the only other fans were guys my dad’s age. For years, if I had any kind of fandom-related wish that I’d give an arm to fulfill, it was that other girls and queer folks would embrace the MM series so I could finally share my excitement with people that would “get” me. Fast forward to 2015. Fury Road fulfilled that wish. I knew tumblr was my best chance at getting those friends I’d wanted for so long. It’s better than I’d ever dreamed. Mad Max Fandom, I love you! Special shoutout to @d--t, @crunkmouse, @sillyb0yblue, @sleepymayo, @lethalpr0tector, @legendofstraydog, @partyinvalhalla and @vanessa-geraldine-carlysle! 

Q: What do you think are some defining aspects of your work? Do you have a style? Recurrent themes?

A: I love to write first-person fic that delves into the darker aspects of the human psyche. How do we justify killing others? What impact does a hypermasculine culture have upon a man with depression and anxiety? Is violence really the key to surviving the apocalypse? I also enjoy writing about people seeking control or freedom, and wrestling with that they believe they need to do to achieve that. 

Q: What (if any) music do you listen to for help getting those creative juices flowing?

A: Since I do first person, I like something to get me into the head of the character I’m writing, so I make playlists for certain characters. 99% of the time, anymore, I’m writing as Roop, so on his playlist I’ve got a bunch of stuff quasi-hipster stuff that touches upon themes of isolation, anger, violence, and feelings of helplessness. There’s a bunch of indie rock, some seventies stuff, and A LOT OF PINK FLOYD. Oh, and there’s some Aussie rock in there too, of course. 

Q: What is your biggest challenge as a creator?

A: Finding the time to write! 

Q: Which character do you relate to the most, and how does that affect your approach to that character? Is someone else your favourite to portray? How has your understanding of these characters grown through portraying them?

A: Roop… And Roop.  And my understanding of him has absolutely grown through portraying him. He’s a character that’s in MM1 for like.. Ten minutes? And after the opening chase scene, he hardly has any lines. But Steve Millichamp does an excellent job portraying him with his posture, body language, etc. So I gleaned ideas from his non-verbal performance. Honestly, if you look at the number of times he makes a mopey face, it’s astounding. Other times, he looks at Fifi for guidance, the way a kid looks at a parent or teacher. He doesn’t seem to have any friends at work, partially due to his own personality. I could go on for hours. From all that, I extrapolated that he’s basically caught between childhood and adulthood, and he’s trying to sort out what it means to be a good cop and a good person. Sometimes those things aren’t congruent, and it tears him up because he’s a very type A, hardworking perfectionist. Growing up, he was told that he was gifted, smart, etc., and he feels like an imposter because he fixates on his shortcomings and mistakes. And when trying to live up to this impossibly high standard, he puts a lot of pressure on himself and struggles when he has to surrender or when he fails. There’s a ton more, but those are the highlights. The vast majority my MM/Roop fic stays offline. Pretty much all of it is irrelevant to the rest of the Mad Max universe, so there’s no point in posting it. It’s taken on a life of its own. Of course, some people have let me know that they dislike or disagree with my characterization of Roop. That’s fine. Nobody’s forcing them to read my fic.

Q: Do you ever self-insert, even accidentally?

A: Oh hell yes. And I’m completely shameless about it, because I don’t think the practice should be taboo or frowned upon. We wouldn’t shame an actor who tapped their lived experience to bring authenticity to a role, would we?  I think we should extend the same understanding to writers. Aside from being a great way to understand more about our selves, enjoy an escapist fantasy, or work through trauma, I think self-insertion can be a great way to evoke emotional authenticity in a story.

Q: Do you have any favourite relationships to portray? What interests you about them?

A: I pretty much stick to what I consider my strength, which is genfic. So I mostly stick to portraying platonic interactions, both friendly and unfriendly. I particularly like exploring how Roop interacts with/judges his co-workers. I’m also fond of writing about good moms who love and encourage their kids. Sometimes the mom is the viewpoint character, sometimes it’s the kid. Regardless, I like looking at how parental relationships can shape a person’s worldview.

Q: How does your work for the fandom change how you look at the source material?

A: My work makes me hyper-analyze MM1 and its novelization. I mostly write MM1 fic because I feel like we could have gotten a lot more mileage out of exploring MM1’s world, before society fully broke down and became the more fantastical wasteland we know and love in MM2, MM3, and MMFR. As much as I like the later worldbuilding stuff, I can really appreciate watching a civilization crumble in a grounded, slow-burning manner. 

Q: To break or not to break canon? Why?

A: Depends on what you mean by “break.” I think a lot purists would say that I break canon, so I’ll put it this way: I like to write stories where I add to canon without directly contradicting it. We’re never shown Roop’s home life, for instance. It’s free real estate! I do this because I just want MORE MM1. More Roop, more MFP, more Armalites, all of it. I don’t feel the need to change anything, just add more volume to it. That said, I love it when others break canon! I have a ton of fun reading AUs and alternate scenes. 

Q: Share some headcanons

A: GRAB A SEAT AND PUT YOUR SITTIN’ PANTS ON. Here we go: In addition to recruiting local police officers and other traditional recruiting strategies, the MFP uses conscription to fill out its ranks. Roop is one such draftee. Roop doesn’t spend any time with Charlie outside of work. He really just tries to minimize contact with the guy. If we do all my Roop headcanons, we’ll be here until the Miller completes MM5. Charlie wanted to go seminary school and become a priest, but was drafted. Losing his voice pretty much killed his dream of preaching. Fifi takes an interest in his men, but only so he can better manipulate them into staying/reenlisting. Bubba was a former MFP officer who went rogue once budget cuts and bureaucratic decisions made law enforcement abandon his rural hometown.

Q: Who are some works by other creators inside and outside of the fandom that have influenced your work?Inside the fandom, the old RP crowd and I bounced a lot of ideas off each other, and interacting with their muses helped Roop’s story grow by leaps and bounds (finger guns at @d--t’s OC, Renholder, @vanessa-geraldine-carlysle’s portrayal of Charlie, and @legendofstraydog’s OC, Syrup!) Outside the fandom, my biggest influences are Kurt Vonnegut, J.D. Salinger, Quentin Tarantino, the Coen Brothers, and Sam Esmail.

Q: Have you visited or do you plan to visit Australia, Wasteland Weekend, or other Mad Max place?

A: Not yet, but I'd love to go someday!

Q: Tell us about a current WIP or planned project

A: “Autotomy” is my big current WIP. It’s 7 chapters into its 9 or 10 chapter run (I’ve literally got chapter 8 open in another window as I’m writing this). It follows Roop immediately after MM1 ends. He sees the aftermath of Max’s rampage, and begins to question his own ideals. Then his morals are put to the test when an unexpected guest arrives at his home. The word “autotomy” describes cutting off a part of oneself to escape a greater threat. Think of a lizard that sheds its trapped tail to avoid being eaten. I’m using it in the literal and metaphorical sense. At the end of MM1, we see someone have to make a literal life-or-limb decision. And in this story, Roop has to decide whether or not to cut off the toxic ideology that has guided his actions.

Thank you @main-force-patrol @richardcarterfans some of your tags got lost in reformatting.  You may want to retag your peeps

[ryanmeft]

No, Nintendo Does Not Hate Metroid

Nintendo, a company that makes video games, recently announced that after almost two years, they were scrapping all current work on Metroid Prime 4, taking it from whatever mystery studio was working on it, and giving it to the hallowed minds at Retro Studios to start over with, hoping to get it right.

This was greeted with rapturous applause by Metroid fans, who almost universally recognized how good Nintendo was being to them, and were highly appreciative of the fact they’d be willing to write off all the resources they’d spent so far, just because the game wasn’t up to snuff.

I am of course kidding. That up there was a joke. Metroid fandom contains the whiniest, most entitled, hardest-to-satisfy fans of any Nintendo property, and while the majority of fans were cool, the loudest ones were typically the whiners. Most notably, a not-insignificant section of the fandom has gripped, with an unshakable hold, the idea that Nintendo doesn’t respect or even dislikes the franchise. I’ve listened to this particular whine for years and years, ever since there was an unimaginable eight-year gap between Super Metroid and Metroid Fusion. Never mind that other beloved series of yore, from Mega Man to Final Fantasy, have also gone similar periods without a new game. Never mind that non-Japanese fans of Nintendo’s own Earthbound are still denied the chance to play the final game in the series, and probably always will be. Never mind that Sonic fans suffered under a notorious drought of good games lasting two decades before Sonic Mania finally happened. None of that means shit: Metroid fans are the most persecuted, victimized, and unfairly treated fandom in video games.

Now, I’m the last guy to feel I need to defend a massive company like Nintendo, but in this case I’ll make an exception. Because just like Ghostbusters fans who can’t figure out their particular obsession just isn’t as relevant as they want it to be, Metroid fans need to grow up and start appreciating what they have gotten, rather than what they haven’t. Below are the three reasons why Metroid fanboys aren’t even the least bit as ill-used as they think are.

Almost Every Metroid Game has Been Excellent

The nature of video games is such that many more entries in a successful series are usually produced than in other mediums like film. Even a series like Metroid, which has been iterated less often than Nintendo’s other properties, has had eight fully fledged games since 1986, and 10 if you count the heavily re-worked upgrades of the original game and Return of Samus. Of those, only a single one, Other M, has been poorly received, and there’s no indication that’s what Nintendo expected. After all, fans were excited when the series got handed to Team Ninja; the idea that this was callous on Nintendo’s part, for not developing the game themselves, is something that only took hold retroactively, and you know what they say about hindsight. The original Metroid, Super Metroid, Fusion, and two of the three Prime entries are among the more critically lauded games in history, and excepting only Other M, all of the others have received highly positive reviews. The Metacritic average for the mainline Metroid games is an 89 of 100. Boy, look how much Nintendo hates this franchise, going out of their way to make good games for it and crap like that.

The Bad Spin Offs are Nothing Compared to Other Series

One of the big pieces of evidence Metroid fans like to roll out to prove Nintendo loathes Samus like unto the heat of a sun is that they’ve spent some of their time on it making poorly received spin offs, like Blast Ball and Federation Force, that don’t capture the spirit of the series. “Look!” they shout, from atop the Tower of Cluelessness high on the Oblivious Cliffs, “They aren’t doing what a bunch of us fans who have never programmed a game or made a decision about a franchise think they should be doing, so they clearly don’t care!”

You might already see the flaw in this thinking. By this standard, nearly every company with a long-running series hates that series. Capcom has inserted Mega Man into soccer and allowed him to be licensed out for extremely shitty PC games, and have pooped out almost as many crappy Resident Evil-themed spin-offs as there are main Resident Evil games. Square has pimped Final Fantasy out to every possible genre, from racing to fighting to freaking tower defense, all while taking ages to finish the next main entry in the series. Nintendo themselves have slapped Mario on every possible thing they can, and despite strong sales to dumb people, Mario Party is notorious for being a bunch of slapped together mini games for people who like their games to be completely random.

If bad spin-offs proved anything about what Nintendo thinks of Metroid, the fact they’ve spared it from as many as other series get would actually support the idea they are more protective of it.

Metroid Doesn’t Deserve as Much Love as You Think it Does

Economics 101 is now in session. All right, children: why does a company make things?

“To make their fans happy, Mr. Eft!”

Wrong, little Dingleberry! They make things to---say it with me---MAKE MONEY!

See, companies like money. And this is especially important for an industry with relatively low margins and high costs like video games, because folks like the evil satanic Metroid-hating demons at Nintendo need games to sell well not only to justify further games in that series, but to fund further games in that series. Unlike, say, Disney, they don’t typically have the option of busting out an Avengers and making 1000% profit. Unless it is something really massive and popular and guaranteed to sell, like Call of Duty or Pokemon, most franchises live entry to entry, relying on the previous one being profitable to decide if the next one will ever be made.

And here’s some economic reality for you: almost from the outset, Metroid has failed that test more often than it has passed it. Yes, the series has sold decently---for a minor franchise. The fact that it is legendary among gamers and highly influential among designers has not traditionally translated into the kind of money it needs to guarantee the entries keep rolling out. One of the most frequent desperate cries of the Lesser American Hardcore Metroid Fanboy plays out something like this: “If only Nintendo put as much effort in as they do for Mario and Zelda, it could be a real blockbuster!”

Except it couldn’t. And it has proven that time and again. It has sold, it is often said, respectably. That’s a business term for “We didn’t lose money…but it didn’t exactly pay our salaries, either.” Metroid’s critical and fan status is simply not reflected in sales, where Samus is holding at the 14th overall spot in Nintendo’s history. She’s managed to scrap together around 17 and a half million units moved in three decades, compared to just over a hundred million for Zelda and hundreds for Mario (that’s including every Mario game of any kind, but if you only include platformers, the series is still on top).

Simply put, Metroid doesn’t get the same attention as Mario and Zelda for the same reason Luke Cage or Cloak and Dagger don’t get as much love from Marvel as Spider-Man and X-Men: financially speaking, it doesn’t deserve it. No one argues that means Marvel hates Luke Cage; the sales just aren’t there to justify an equal amount of time, energy and resources.

Given all that, fans ought to be grateful the series is still around at all. Nintendo has tossed all of the Prime 4 resources spent so far down the crapper and re-started it just to get it right, when they would have been fully justified with just abandoning it. As a big fan of many minor characters and series, take it from me: when your preferred fan obsession is far from being top dog in the overall culture, sometimes you gotta stop whining and take what you get.

[mrsspidermanmaryjanewatsonparker]

Let’s debunk this shit.

First off...why should we, on the topic of Spider-Man, actually place stock by the guy who has in the past argued Sins Past is as, if not more, bad than One More Day when anyone with an ounce of knowledge of how writing craft works would realize this is abjectly false. As a story the flaws in Sins Past amount to it inserting something into the past that doesn’t fit at all. One More Day by contrast not only does this but needs to violently ignore 45 yrs of established characterization to even function and even then it fails since it needs to contradict its own narrative.

  Oh and you know MovieBob is the guy who said ‘That Spec cartoon wasn’t as good as people make it out to be. People like it more for what it could be than what it was.’...WTF was he even watching.

 But let’s dive into some more specifics of Bob’s argument.

 “OMD ‘needed’ to happen.”

 This is objectively untrue.

 Let’s give the benefit of the doubt and say what Bob meant wasn’t so much that Spider-Man needed to make a deal with the Devil but rather it was necessary to get rid of Spider-Man’s marriage.

 I can’t bring myself to do a 3000 word essay on why the latter alone is idiotic, sexist, myopic and utterly false but here is a cliffnotes version.

 There are 2 fundamental problems with Bob’s line of thinking.

 The 1st is that to end the marriage you needed to outright alter Spider-Man’s history via a soft DC style continuity reboot thus creating in a literal sense an alternate universe version of Spider-Man who’d just never been married in the first place.

 Put simply Spider-Man’s marital status could’ve been ended in universe through numerous methods that avoided that. He could’ve gotten divorced. The US government as some kind of petty revenge upon Spider-Man turning on the Registration Act could’ve legally annulled his marriage along with certain other legal aspects of his life. There could’ve been a reveal that due to a legal loophole nobody realized at the time technically speaking Peter and MJ had never been married in the first place despite believing they were.

 None of this would’ve fixed the most egregious contrivance of OMD and OMIT, that by simply never having been married magically this = Peter and MJ would break up. You still need to justify THAT separately which OMD didn’t even attempt to do. OMD in isolation erases their marriage but it doesn’t explain or justify why doing this would mean they are now no longer in a relationship. OMIT tried and miserably failed to do that because once again it required the abject ignoring of decades of established (and logical) characterization.

  But what should we expect from the guy who in another video once said Superman would be a jerk if he married Lois Lane because of the stress and dangers it’d expose her to, specifically comparing it to real life people who’s jobs offer comparable examples. ‘Superman would never put Lois Lane through that’ said Bob (though I am paraphrasing I admit.

  Why?

  If REAL people do that then why WOULDN’T Superman OR Spider-Man do so?

 It’s a line of thought which amounts to Bob saying those people shouldn’t have marital relationships. And that is gross.

 The 2nd problem with Bob’s ‘it needed to happen’ assertion is the notion that CREATIVELY it was necessary for the health of Spider-Man.

 Let’s ignore how creatively (and financially) Superman has been on the up and up since 2016 when he got his marriage BACK.

 Instead let’s consider for a moment...why?

 Why CREATIVLY does Spider-Man need to not be married to work? Why does he need to be single for his long term creative/financial health?

 There is no answer because the truth is he isn’t. Spider-Man’s love life is relevant only in so far as the series follows his life and not being asexual romance is a part of that. At which point if you are arguing for his long term creative health he needs to be able to swap out the women he’s going to be romantically/sexually involved with why then does that not also apply to literally every other character connected to every other part of his life?

 It doesn’t.

 It’s a bullshit argument born of an ignorant lack of questioning. It’s born of “Well it’s got to be this way because it’s always been this way and it’s worked that way.” Ignoring how it doesn’t and how you know...Marvel comics itself exists off the back of saying “Maybe it doesn’t have to just be this way. I don’t like that way in fact, I like the idea of trying it this other way.”

 Spider-Man being single keeps Spider-Man stunted and in a state of doomed to failure. It literally renders his love life redundant because every reader (and this applied before 1987 when he got married, but applies a thousand times more now) knows his romances will never amount to anything and that they are glorified Bond girls. And I’ll be honest the substance (such as there is) in the Bond movies NEVER lies with the Bond girls with the sole exceptions of those few movies where they tease you with the idea that he has deeper feelings for them.

 Then you have the fact that marriage as a part of most people’s lives and a responsibility is outright tailor made for the character who’s core concept is entwined around the interconnected idea of responsibility and being a (relatively) normal person. It’s not different to him graduating from High school or moving out of Aunt May’s house or getting a job.

 But let’s look at the franchise in the wake of OMD creatively and financially has it been doing better than before?

 LOL NOPE!

 In 2016 we had the Power Play arc. This arc was THE Spider-Man event of the year. It tied into the previous Spider event of 2015, Renew Your Vows by introducing the incredibly powerful villain Regent who’s powers were that he had the powers of EVERY other hero virtually and in RYV took over all of NYC following killing the X-Men and Avengers on his own. It guest starred fan favourite Miles Morales, the first substantial appearance of the character in Amazing Spider-Man since his migration into the 616 universe. It also guest starred lead character of the MCU and (then) Marvel comics poster boy Iron Man fresh from his hyped up run under Bendis, the biggest name in comics of the previous 20 years. It also teased the appearance of the newest team of Avengers, a brand that has been huge since 2012 for obvious reasons. Oh and it featured the return of another fan favourite Mary Jane who was once more being used to tease the possibility of her and Spider-Man’s romantic reunion which had been a surefire way of raising hype for a story since 2008 onwards. Oh and it was clearly a tie-in to the international blockbuster and critically acclaimed movie, Captain America: Civil War.

 And of course you had much promotion from the Marvel hype machine, Dan Slott interviews and the usual variant cover artificial sales inflation gimmick that had become common to Marvel.

 Safe to say that this story was a big, big deal and sure to sell well right?

 Well....it actually sold less than a barely promoted, run-of-the-mill ASM arc from 2005 by J. Michael Straczynski that featured in the first issue Tony Stark sitting on a chair sans armour and beyond that no guest stars....oh and there were no variant covers....and btw Spider-Man was married in it

  . ...Oh....

  But hey what about some OTHER Spider-Man stories since OMD. Haven’t THEY been creatively enriching?

 I mean we had classics like:

 The Lizard ruins the interesting humanizing aspects of his character when he becomes a cannibalistic monster who eats his own son and maybe rapes someone

 Black Cat’s characterization gets flushed down the toilet so she can be an indulgent juvenile sexual fantasy for Joe Kelly who believes Spider-Man is fundamentally a man child Black Cat’s characterization gets shot to shit again by her ripping off Catwoman by becoming a gangster, something she has never held aspiration for before and seems to want to get involved in now for no reason at all beyond being angry that Spider-Man imprisoned her and exposed her identity that wasn’t even secret in the first place

 Dan Slott who likes Doc Ock more than he likes Peter Parker decides to say screw it and make Doc Ock Spider-Man thus invalidating the entire reason he was hired, which is to write about Peter Parker. He proceeds to make Doc Ock a villain sue and cause readers to wonder if he’s this smart and this dangerous he lost so many times in the past at all? Also he tries to rape Mary Jane in issue 2 and then succeeds in maybe raping Spider-Man himself in the same issue and definitely succeeds in raping the only dwarf character in Spider-Man’s canon.

 Spider-Man becomes like Iron Man thus invalidating the entire point of his character and reasons people like to read about him.

 A mystery surrounding the Green Goblin’s identity that turns out to be the twist that he was Norman Osborn all along meaning this was a pointless mystery the whole time.

 Ben Reilly finally comes back after 20 years but doesn’t act even a little bit like the character people knew and loved causing people to wish he’d stayed dead

  Betty Brant is physically assaulted and Spider-Man tracks down the assailant but when he finds him lets him go (thus enabling him to assault other innocent women) because Aunt May guilt tripped him by saying he was a jerk at age 15 for allowing her, a 50+ year old adult and his parental guardian, to cope with Uncle Ben’s death alone on the night of his death.

  Fan favourite Mayday Parker has her character now defined by the death of her father invalidating the entire point of her character which was the ongoing relationship between herself and her Dad

  Every spider person ever fights a bunch of one note cosmic vampires across alternate niverses who are variant action figures of another one note cosmic vampire villain. The story is utterly reparative and makes Spider-Man play second fiddle to all the other characters cramming for panel time.

 I could go on but I won’t.

 To count the creative successful and enriching Slott and the post-OMD Spider-Man stories is a far easier task than to count the ones which are for the most part mediocre-God forsakenly terrible and miss the whole point of the various characters involved (most of all you know SPIDER-MAN himself!) because the latter is the norm post-OMD.

 Tellingly both volume 1 and volume 2 of Renew Your Vows a book BUILT around the concept of a married Spider-Man have (when judged appropriately given their out of continuity status) garnered perfectly respectable sales (especially in volume 1) prior to their recent time skip (an ill advised move regardless of what the series was about) and critical acclaim. And critical acclaim from people besides Marvel/Spider-Man sycophants like CBR who have vested financial interests in positively reviewing the stories.

 In fact there is a very strong argument in favour of Slott being the single most creatively damaging Spider-Man writer in history. The list of things that need to be FIXED because of his idiocy and incompetence is vast.

 Moving on to Bob’s other points:

 “Peter and MJ being together was a dumb stunt when the did it in the first place”

 If Bob had you know READ the stories leading into the wedding he’d know

 a) That relationship and marriage was being built up since 1984 albeit with the initial intention being Peter stranded at the altar.

 b) A stunt isn’t rendered invalid merely because it is a stunt. A Stunt can make sense and with the build up the wedding had this was one such example

 “The marriage generated very few decent stories that wouldn’t have worked just as well without it”

 Here is a list of a FEW decent or above stories which in some significant way make use of the Spider marriage between 1987-2007

 Kraven’s Last Hunt

 Venom

 ASM #400

 Revenge of the Green Goblin

 A Death in the Family

 ASM volume 2 #49-50

 ASM volume 2 #51-54

 Sensational Spider-Man volume 2 #32

 Sensational Spider-Man Annual 2007, the only Eisner nominated Spider-Man story ever

 Spider-Man unlimited volume 3 #2 Story 2: Making Contributions

 Eleven Angry Men and One angry Woman

 Parallel lives

 Spider-Man: the Final Adventure

 Web of Death

 Revelations the end of the Clone Saga

  Spectacular Spider-Man #241

  Spectacular Spider-Man #242-245

 ASM vol 2 #39

  Ultimate Spider-Man Anthology book: Five Minutes

  I Heart Marvel Web of Romance #1

  Spectacular Spider-Man #199-200

  Spectacular Spider-Man #250

  The Tombstone arc

  Peter Parker Spider-Man volume 2 #14

 Marvel Knights Spider-Man #1-12

  Hmmm...it’s almost like Bob sucks at mathematics and story evaluation or something. Then again he did say there was no problem with Luke Skywalker in Last Jedi so you know...I should know better.

  Oh and btw the whole ‘those would’ve worked JUST as well without the marriage’ argument is a double edged sword since there are literally less than 20 Spider-Man stories post-OMD that WOULDN’T have worked with a married Spider-Man and only one of them is good...and only if you also take entirely in isolation of Spider-Man’s wider history. Every other story with tweaks could work AS if not MORE effectively with a married Spider-Man.

  If the argument is there should be no elements in a story that do not actively contribute to it then shit....why should Spider-Man’s SINGLE status be in a book? Why should Aunt May, Jameson or shitton else be multiple stories across the decades of Spider-Man? Hell by this logic Aunt May or Betty Brant are superfluous to ASM annual #1 which inspired part of Spider-Man 2.

   “The Spider Marriage left the franchise spinning it’s wheel for a very long time.”

 This is another lie. After Peter and MJ got married there was precious little wheel spinning. Almost immediately we jumped into ongoing stories involving Betty Brant, Joe Robertson, Peter going to school again, MJ and Peter’s finances taking a hit when MJ lost her job, Jameson being impersonated by Chameleon, Black Cat dating Flash, Peter’s parents returning and THEN you got the Clone Saga FFS.

  Following that we got Norman Osborn running the Daily Bugle followed by the true wheel spinning garbage of the Mackie/Byrne run which was bad BECAUSE they axed the marriage. Following that when JMS took over his wheel spun for maybe 5 months tops? The rest of the time he reconstructed Peter and MJ and Aunt May’s characters, thrust forward with his Spider totem storyline and then began the slow build up to OMD starting with Peter becoming and Avenger.

  There were few months were NOTHING was really happening and the number of issues where that was the case owed much more to the fact that the writers needed to pad out FOUR monthly titles each month!

 “By contrast BND and Slott’s run has been good”

 By objective writing standards this is a fallacy and Bob is offering no proof to this. He just says ‘it’s been good’. Except Bob’s word isn’t proof unto itself despite how much he must like to think so.

 “Peter and MJ are more interesting now”

  This is the proof Bob is not a...I don’t want to say he isn’t true fan. I rarely use that term. It’s more that he...isn’t an informed fan.

 Anyone who knows any legit shit about Spider-Man could tell you Spider-Man is far from more interesting now than he was prior to BND.

  Pre-OMD Spider-Man was the sum of 45 years of experiences. A 30ish average guy who’d been through Hell and a lot of battles and survived them and coped with that pain. He was a competent hero and a flawed human being who was just trying to look out for the little guy and take care of his family.

  MJ meanwhile was a woman who’d also lived through Hell but demonstrated sheer steel by surviving it in spite of having no powers to fall back on. She’d gone from a carefree party animal who was seemingly selfish, to a hero in her own right who had an endless well of inner strength.

  In contrast post-OMD Peter Parker is a man-child fuck up who illegally invades foreign nations with his giant G.I. Joe action figures whilst often playing second fiddle in his own fucking book to whatever guest stars want to steal the limelight. And he’s not believable anymore. He isn’t a grounded guy who copes with the shit thrown at him. He’s the guy who just shrugs off being killed, having his body stolen and his life upended by his enemy and then losing a year of his life.

  That isn’t more interesting unless you are arguing being a Saturday morning cartoon character is inherently more interesting than being....welll actually inherently more interesting than being a certain character Stan Lee and Steve Ditko invented in 1962.

  Which Bob plainly isn’t arguing because he’s also listing MJ as ‘more interesting’....how?

  MJ isn’t even IN the book regularly any more so HOW could she be more interesting. Worse when she WAS in the book she had 2 roles. Ship tease the fans by being Peter’s friend and confidant (i.e. something she used to do BEFORE BND) or being a blind idiot in Superior which is NOT more interesting.

 So what the fuck is he talking about?

 I don’t know WHAT he’s talking about. But when you make a statement like: ‘on balance this story that eviscerated and betrayed everything about who Spider-Man is and invalidates his motivation from now on because he sold out in the biggest way possible, was on balance worth it because we got t see Doc Ock as Spider-Man try to rape people’ I certainly from WHERE he is talking from.

  And the sun don’t shine there son.

[fyrapartnersearch]

Sci-fi shenanigans!

Hello ladies, gents, and fellow rpers. After having a writing blast and seeing how I’ve got room for some more partners I’ve decided to come back in search of some partners who are interested in what I’m looking for.I’ve got a good ten or so odd years of rping experience under my belt but any potential partners do not necessarily have to have the same experience, they simply need to fit under these three things: -third person only with correct spelling, grammar and punctuation. - at least one small (no less than seven lines) paragraph per post as well as being willing to write more if the situation calls for it. Please do not contact me intending to give me only small paragraphs with each response as the above is simply the bare minimum I’ll accept if there’s not much going on in the rp that warrants a full paragraph. -no one liners, one worders, script talk, poorly written sentences or just laziness in general. This isn’t terribly much to ask for as picky as it sounds. An important thing I shall mention is that NSFW (i don’t fade to black nor do I care when the smut happens. Just please don’t leave me once the smut has happened like lots of people seem to unfortunately do) and dark themes are a thing that occur in all my rp’s so I require you to at least be eighteen before you reach out to me. I will not accept anyone younger than 18 since I myself am in my early twenties. Underaged characters are also a no go as well. Please know that I’m in the eastern Australian time zone but almost any time zone Is compatible for me as I am awake at very odd hours. Another important thing I shall add is that you must be able to post at least once or more a day and if I don’t get any response after two weeks then I shall simply move on (only exception is if you notify me beforehand as to why you may not be able to post for a while. I’m not that vicious). I only rp as male characters, as it’s simply my preference, but I will do either MxM or MxF pairings. I will not double and I do not play multiple characters. I don’t do sub/dom dynamics when it comes to any aspect of the relationship. My characters are also non human (they’re aliens since this is a sci-fi rp after all) but what species your character is doesn’t matter to me at all as long as it’s not some god modded Mary Sue. Please remember that alien simply means a creature not from earth. Aliens can have fur, scales, feathers, etc, depending on where they come from. An alien with fur or scalies is not a furry or a scalie and please do not refer to them as such as it’s rude to label someone’s character as something they’re not. I will not write with someone who will insist that the theory of chimpanzees and humans unable to crossbreed should apply to hybrid characters regardless of whether they’re alien/alien or human/alien. This is fiction, not reality. Please also do not control my characters or dictate their actions. My characters are also premade and only have descriptions, I don’t do face claims or pics. I also do not care if you make a character up on the spot. Please remember that this is a sci-fi rp and that I will not accept requests to do fandoms or any genre that doesn’t fit within the category of sci-fi.i will not accept a character that has no place in a sci-fi rp either like a dragon,harpy,demon, elf or some other fantasy creature. I do have a few ideas and I’ve listed them down below: Space criminals and the law: *humans and aliens have been living amongst each other side by side ever since humanity dared to venture beyond the Milky Way and made first contact with aliens. With the solar system no longer being man’s only playground other planets were quickly colonised under the new alliance between extraterrestrials and Homo sapiens. Whether you were an alien, human or a hybrid did not matter in the known galaxies. All that mattered was who you were. Not everyone took to the integration very well (there were numerous protests on both sides) but most people were willing to share in the hopes of peace. Not everyone had good intentions though……* Trouble in the alien kingdom: *the planet of (insert generic planet name here) was one of prosperity, hardship and wealth. The kingdom of (insert generic kingdom name here) was ruled by a king and a queen whose heir was betrothed to a rival planet in the hopes that a political marriage would prevent another war from happening. Only problem was that no one could see the rival planets true plans….all but one. Unfortunately no ones going to listen to a deranged commoner who probably may not even be telling the truth. What’s one to do when no one will listen?* Exile: *The wind howled as thunder crashed and shrieked all around the abandoned cargo ship. Rain pelted the metal hull, turning the ground into a cold, treacherously slippery and muddy shallow river. The ship itself had crashed into the planet countless centuries ago and was slowly being reclaimed by the environment. Plants grew from cracks in the floor as moss and vines decorated the walls. A figure sat miserably hunched in what was once the cockpit of the ship, their only shelter from the raging elements outside but not from the storm that raged inside of them. The figure leapt to their feet as the sounds of footsteps in the mud drew closer and they held their breath. Who would dare to venture out here on such a miserable night?* War of the worlds: *humans and aliens were never meant to coexist peacefully with one another. There was too much fear, Too much misinformation and too much bias on both sides for such a thing to have ever been successful. It was the humans fault that the war had started. They were the ones who’d shot down the alien ship that had been packed with specially chosen diplomats that represented each alien race known to the galaxies they dwelled in that had been on their way to earth to negotiate a truce and a plan for peace. They hadn’t even hesitated to shoot the ship full of aliens yet they’d been surprised when war had been declared on the spot. Two races. Two worlds so different yet the same fighting one another for what was either a mistake or intentional murder.* Rehab: *The UGWP alliance (unite the galaxies for the protection of all worlds and for peace alliance) portrayed themselves as calm, charismatic and kind men and women who held only the thoughts of a life together with all species living happily together. They advertised campaigns for inter species jobs, provided information to the public about human/alien interactions and encouraged diversity amongst planets. Their rehabilitation program for troublesome fellows was considered to be a god send to try and cut down on the amount of space related crimes. No one ever questioned what went on beyond the closed doors to the facility, if they did, the UGWP would have their darkest secrets revealed. Something they strove to keep under wraps. When the arrival of a particularly wild prisoner occurs, the threat of their first failure and first escaped prisoner is lurking around the corner.* (Important point of notice: in this rp idea I’d be playing said prisoner, I don’t mind if you choose to be one as well.) Academy days: *the galaxy alliance and military defence force academy was one of the most respected training academies in the known galaxies. Men, women, aliens, humans and all of those who were in between went there to study, train and, one day if they passed the mentally, emotionally and physically gruelling years of tests, fly and be put in their own squadron. There were approximately six spots to fill on any team and the cadet who suited that spot the most would be given the title of pilot, squad leader, second in command, engineer, gunner and navigator. Each team was similar but unique in what they did. Not everyone gets along though and rivalries grow high during that delicate time between graduating and being put on a team. What happens when the top student and the lonesome outcast with a temper clashes?* Captured: *Space criminals have been around ever since advanced technology allowed others to travel and live in space as if they were living anywhere else. They’re often cunning, tricky to catch and more often than not are clever at disguising themselves whenever those wanted posters come up. It takes skill to be on the wrong side of space law and true talent to get away with it. The galaxy's current most wanted man has finally been captured by an alliance captain and his crew. Will he beg for mercy? Will he be given a trial before being thrown into a cell to rot or will he be given a chance to turn himself around with some hard labour?* (Important point of notice: I’ll be playing the criminal for this one. You will be the alliance captain) Enslaved: *imagine living the life of one of the most successful people on the run that could exist. Galaxies trembled at your name. You and your crew swam in wealth and the going was good. Mutiny, sadly and sometimes not sadly, exists on its own accord. One man reflected on this as he was forced to his feet. A collar attached to a chain and electromagnetic handcuffs prevented his escape as he stood for all those who cared to glance as they walked by in the market to see. No one wants to have their only life’s purpose to be to serve another......only sometimes people don’t get that choice.* (Important point of notice: I’ll be playing the slave/servant. You’ll be the master/mistress.) Sooooo..... about those pairings. What is in Bold is what I’m going to play if we choose the scenario: 1: enemies to lovers or rivals. 2: **captured criminal** x prison guard or other prisoner. 3: two soldiers from seperate sides falling in love. 4: **academies bad boy** x top student 5: **low ranking ship crew member/second in command/captured space criminal** x captain. 6: **commoner/rogue/street rat** x prince/princess. 7: **slave/servant** x master/mistress. 8: army superior x **lower ranking soldier**. PLEASE DO NOT APPROACH ME IF: 1: YOU GHOST AT THE DROP OF A HAT. 2: YOU ARE NOT WILLING TO PUT EFFORT IN TO MEET MY REQUIREMENTS. 3: IF YOU DONT ACTUALLY LIKE SCI-FI OR THE THINGS THAT MAKE SCI-FI SCI-Fi..... yes as ridiculous as it sounds I’ve had people approaching me that dislike sci-fi and want to rp an entirely different thing with me. Please do not be one of those people. 4: DO NOT EVEN MESSAGE ME IF YOU’RE NOT EVEN GOING TO ANSWER BACK ONCE CONTACTS HAVE BEEN EXCHANGED! I shouldn’t even have to say this. please, do not keep me waiting for days to just get a response back. This form of ghosting really ticks me off and if I suspect that you’ve decided you don’t wanna rp anymore yet don’t have the decency to tell me I will just leave. 5: IF YOUR ONLY REASON FOR APPROACHING ME IS TO PRESENT ME WITH YOUR PROBING FETISH IDEA PLEASE GO AWAY. My aliens are not probers nor will they probe others. Take your stick of truth and other ideas involving it elsewhere and do not constantly try to find ways to say my characters would somehow in some way be interested in shoving a camera up your characters backside and looking up there to “figure out battle tactics”. If I turn down An idea of any sort do not lie to me that you’re suddenly tired or just straight up block me, have the decency to say that you will look elsewhere if none of the ideas above actually interest you. I’m open to discussing and potentially mixing these ideas up till we get something that we both like. If you want to learn more about a certain idea tell me the name and I shall expand on it. The only platforms I rp on are discord,telegram,email and google hangouts. I will not rp on any other platform other than the ones listed. If you do not have any of those then unfortunately we cannot rp. When you reach out to me requesting for an rp please In the opening message tell me what idea you liked, why you liked it, give me a little introduction about you and you must put 123 somewhere in your message so that I know you’ve read all of my post, don’t just put “hi wanna rp”. Make it interesting. I look forwards to meeting potential partners. My discord: tiberionsunsconqourer#6187 My telegram: Tiberionwars My hangouts and email: lleo52560@gmail.com

[renlyisright]

Season 8 Episode 6 - Icy Ire

It’s the finale! I warmed up some glögg, raided the chocolate stash, turned off the lights and rolled myself as one with the sofa. 80 minutes later, I rose, with that sweet melancholic happy feeling you get after finishing a big series. And this one has been big.

Now, two weeks later, I begin to write this last chapter of my reactions. I have liked to wait at least this long with every episode of these last two seasons. On one hand because of my own schedules, and on another hand because so much happens in these episodes it’s good to let each development sink in before continuing.

And now, for the last time, let’s continue.

King’s Landing is in ruins. The liberators, Jon, Tyrion and Davos walk amidst the rubble and the dead. A badly hurt human walks past them, looking mostly like a wight. They worked hard so that wights wouldn’t walk on the streets of King’s Landing, and look at the place now.

Outside of the few citizens still alive in these opening scenes, very few common people are seen during the rest of the episode. After they had their grand death scenes, they moved back offstage so the high and mighty could discuss if more of them get killed or not. And who gets to sit on the pointy chair. That is important.

Grey Worm has found some living Lannister soldiers, and plans to rectify that immediately. Jon tries to stop him, but the orders have come from higher up. You know, that woman you bent your knee to? So Jon has to leave him to continue.

Grey Worm is taking this “We are evil now” memo very quickly to heart. But Grey Worm, you can’t be Daenerys’ Dragon (a TV Tropes term), she already has a literal one.

The falling ash is turning into snow. Tyrion gets to the lower levels of the keep. The dragon skull hall wasn’t completely caved in, as I thought it would have been. If Cersei and Jaime had stood a little to the side, they would have survived. Not that that would have helped them much. This way their deaths didn’t include dragonfire.

Daenerys has a victory parade, and has a cool grand entrance with the dragon wings visual trick (that sadly no one except Jon saw from her actual audience). This black dress is also super cool, maybe her best one. It could be because “evil is cool”, or because black is simple and just works. I wonder who makes them for her? And whether she gave special instructions that black is now the color.

Tyrion gets a closure. Instead of wondering for the rest of his life if his siblings escaped or not, he knows the truth now. And that’s the last straw. When Daenerys dares to note his treason, he notes back that she destroyed a city, and removes his Hand pin.

Daenerys must wonder how traitors just keep on turning up again and again. They see her dragon, right? She has Tyrion arrested.

Jon goes to meet him, after hearing from Arya that Daenerys is a killer. She knows a killer when she sees one, she says. You mean when you see her killing thousands? That’s the education you got in Braavos?

Tyrion points out that Daenerys must have killed more people than Cersei and Tywin together. I… don’t know about that. King’s Landing has a lot of people, yes, but Tywin was part of many wars during his life, using people like the Mountain to spread terror, and, well, there was that place called Castamere?

In one of his books Brandon Sanderson had a burning of an entire city and killing all of its people as a dark hidden secret of his warlord character, which was finally revealed in a flashback. He later commented that for story impact reasons it was just one city, but for a warlord, that would sadly actually be a rookie number of sacked cities.

Tyrion has been bad at reading people lately, but here he finally gets to do something big: He talks Jon into killing his queen. If Lannisters are good at something, it’s getting royalty killed.

He even uses the words of one Targaryen, Aemon, to tell another Targaryen that it is his duty to kill the third Targaryen. Nice work there.

He asks if Jon knows anything about the afterlife, as he has experience of being dead. But no, Jon has nothing. Generally in fantasy stories, if the afterlife is not the point of the story, the great beyond is kept as an unknown. And even in something like Coco, where the afterlife was the point, it was made clear that there’s actually something else after the afterlife where souls eventually go… or is there? Nobody knows. And I like it that way. If the Lord of Light manifested now and told explicitly that yes, there is an afterlife, and burning people is doing them a favour, just as I said, here, I have graphs… Nope. That wouldn’t be fun, and would at the same time widen the fantasy world too much and lose the wonder.

The similar wonder happens when reading historical novels. Characters of different, existing or currently extinct, faiths telling about what their faith teaches of the afterlife. And, well, they exist in a fictional story. Even if the story tells of a known historical event with named people from history, it’s still a story inside its covers. So who knows, maybe the characters are correct inside that story.

Tyrion tries to analyze Daenerys’ sudden attack on civilians. In his opinion, the reason was that Daenerys has had good results every time she embraced violence and vengeance. And every time she didn’t, her enemies eventually betrayed or ambushed her, starting with Mirri Maz Duur. Jorah was a big expectation, but he’s dead now, so there. So with that simple feedback, and people saying they loved her, she eventually crossed the line and just killed everybody (I see a very big leap here but I have never led an army). And now when people say that killing everybody was bad, those people are traitors. It’s miraculous how traitors just keep piling up.

The reason Tyrion gets through to Jon’s head is that he was honest. That same honesty which didn’t work with Varys (and when Varys tried to be honest with Tyrion and Jon he got burned) works very well with Jon. 

So Jon goes to meet Daenerys, who is in the Throne Room. And it’s the throne room of her vision from back in Qarth. Back when I saw it, my simple description of it was “The roof has been melted with dragonfire, but the winter has come and everything is in snow.” I didn’t have any other thoughts about it, as if it was a vision of the future, well, the future can change. Especially in long-running TV shows where real life can make changes necessary. Both the winter and dragonfire destroying castles were a long way away.

That’s the funny thing with time, it moves forward. Both the winter and harrenhalling the Red Keep have now happened. And Daenerys enters the throne room, her destiny.

The fireboxes Joffrey inserted into the room are trashed on the floor, covered in snow. Daenerys climbs the steps to the Iron Throne and touches it. Pop, main quest done. But she never gets to sit on it (it must feel cold to the butt now).

Jon arrives. The queen and her closest ally at this point are alone. There’s no Queen’s Guard, no Blood of Her Blood to protect her from… let’s say anyone from Westeros at this point. 

Daenerys talks about how this was a great win and how she’s going to create a new world. It won’t have any room for those who lived in the old one, of course. Those who have learnt to play game of thrones and cynically look just for new ways to get power and keep it wouldn’t learn the new utopian ways. (People like Sansa, I presume). Daenerys presses all the wrong buttons while talking. People can’t use the innocent to hinder her, if she doesn’t care about the innocents! That’ll teach them! She keeps talking only about the future. If she looks back she is lost.

Jon makes his decision, and they embrace each other. And the sound of smooching gets interrupted quickly by a sound of a knife sinking in. At first I wasn’t actually sure which one stabbed which one. I wouldn’t have put it past Daenerys at this point to stab Jon, for planning to betray her too. She would have been right.

And so passes Daenerys Targaryen, First of Her Name, Queen of the Andals and the First Men, the Protector of the Realm, Stormborn, the Breaker of Chains, Khaleesi of the Great Plains, the Queen of Dragons’ Bay, Unburnt and the Mother of Dragons. Long list of titles, and I’m sure I have forgotten some. She was maybe the most main character of all of them. The entire Essos plotline of the first six seasons was about her, with her own side cast. And when she came to Westeros, the entire last phase of the story was about a) her, and b) the Dead. And she outlasted the dead.

Her death also marks the last death of the entire story. On the foot of the titular throne of games. She got closer than most, but still no cigar.

And from the courtyard there comes the screech of a dragon. Oof. Drogon has entered the building. Jon can’t fight it and doesn’t even try, as he’s too crawled up in his heart to even react.

Drogon’s reaction here makes me more sad than Jon’s. It’s the difference between animals showing their affection and main characters doing their main character sad stuff. Drogon looks at the mother’s killer with a hurt expression, but after the initial pain changes into anger, he does not blast Jon with his fire, but instead directs the force straight into the Iron Throne.

After this episode I had to revalue my view of dragons of this world. Are they merely animals, with instincts which cannot be properly understood, or do they think? (In ways that cannot be properly understood). Drogon is the only known dragon alive left in the world. Jon has burnt himself in the past so he’s not even an honorary one as Daenerys was. So now Drogon is all alone, and the reason for that is really that damn chair. Daenerys couldn’t let it be, which killed Drogon’s siblings and finally herself, when she was consumed by vengeance. The game of thrones the humans played ended up almost destroying them all, and it did destroy everyone Drogon cared for. But that’s very abstract thinking, so if that’s what Drogon could gather from this scene, it shows a lot of intelligence.

Then Drogon picks the Mother of Dragons up and flies away, into the unknown. And so leaves the last supernatural creature of the show. The story of magic coming back to the world ends with the magic leaving.

Except for Bran. Who knows if he even has a human’s lifespan anymore, never mind if there will be more Three-Eyed Ravens in the future.

The next fortnights are skipped, and we continue when the leaders of the current Great Houses have arrived to King’s Landing to discuss what to do now. Everyone who has raised a claim to the throne is dead now, and so are those who have mixed the soup for mysterious motives.

This would be a delicious time frame for a short story, as I’m sure the world is holding its breath and for example the Iron Bank is having a lot of strategy meetings. The wars have stopped as no one knows what’s up. The Northern armies have stayed outside of the walls, waiting for orders. The city has been governed for several weeks by the Unsullied and the Dothraki, likely with an iron fist in the name of the dead queen.

These last years have taken a large toll. When Davos offers the Unsullied land in the Reach, he says that the people who used to live there are gone. No wonder Bronn gets it in the end, rebuilding it with the winter going on will take a long time.

Jon is kept as a prisoner, and Daenerys’ death by a knife to the heart is common knowledge. How? They were alone, and Drogon took the body and flew away before anyone saw it. There was a blood stain on the floor, yes, but blood stains were everywhere in the city that day, and they don’t have DNA scanners. What anyone knows is that Drogon flew away and no one saw Daenerys since. Maybe she flew away with him, to think, or there was another complication like in Meereen when she disappeared too. Jon accidentally made a perfect crime. So how was he caught?

...yeah, it’s Jon. So it happened like this:

Tyrion points out that Jon can’t be judged before there’s a king or queen in whose name he can be judged. So the leaders here have to make a decision. Of the Great Houses from the beginning of the show, we have:

- Robin Arryn, of the Vale, with apparently Royce still as his regent

- Sansa Stark of the North, with her siblings

- Gendry Baratheon (of Storm’s End, if he has even seen the place yet)

- Prince of Dorne, who the subtitles give no other name. Likely a Martell, cousin or something.

- Yara Greyjoy, of the Iron Islands

- Edmure Tully, of the Riverlands

And some assorted lords and ladies and heirs and courtiers, like Brienne, Sam and Davos. Some unnamed lords of one place or another (subtitles call them Lord 1, Lord 2 and Lord 3). The main point I have here that surprisingly few surnames disappeared completely during the show. Just the Tyrells, which is unsurprising as they were the best house. But many were close, with just one character remaining.

Tyrion talks them into elective succession, and makes Bran the first elected king of the sev… six kingdoms. Sansa speaks three sentences and acquires independence to the North. At this point no one is going to say no to that. So the Starks finally did well coming South.

Yara doesn’t try the same, the Iron Islands stay under the Red Keep’s crown. It’s a matter for the future if she keeps her word to Daenerys and the Ironborn start sowing.

Will Bran be a good king? Considering the previous rulers, he has a very low bar to get over. He has easy access to compare what decisions the previous rulers did well and what they did badly. And he can literally see everything people do. There can be no Littlefingers in his court or no bannermen harboring rebellion without soon receiving a letter from the king saying to knock it off. That’s a good thing, but it also smells a lot like the Big Brother. Let’s hope he will be a good king to the end of his days. Whenever that is. The last Three-Eyed Raven lived a long life, but he was rooted to a weirwood. Bran may want to pass that.

Tyrion becomes the Hand of the King again, and Bran appeases the Unsullied by sending Jon to the Night Watch. So the last Targaryen is out of any future claim disputes.

The rest of the episode is goodbyes. Tyrion tells Jon that he may well visit the Wall again in the future. And then he’s out of the dungeon, escorted by two wandering crows, to bring him back home.

On his way he meets his cousins, and says farewells. It’s possible they’ll see each other again, as long as no wars or things like that come between them. Except that Arya plans to sail west, like Brandon the Shipwright did. He never came back. No one has. So she will either have great adventures there in the west, or die because of… well, anything there. Maybe once you sail far enough west you end up at the farthest place in the east, the Shadowlands beyond Asshai, of which the stories say little and that little is ominous, but from where came the three dragon eggs.

Grey Worm gets ready to leave this stupid continent. What people he didn’t lose here he started to hate, so 0/5 trip. All the time it was supposed to be his last campaign before retirement, he was supposed to die in it. Instead he was the only one to walk out of it. The Unsullied sail for the Isle of Naath, to live free.

The Dothraki leave as well, for their own big grasslands. Hopefully they get some Faith of the Seven artifacts with them as souvenirs, like the statue of Baelor (their khaleesi’s ancestor), so they don’t have to go back to Vaes Dothrak empty handed.

Brienne has been named the Lord Commander of the King’s Guard. From the first woman to be a knight, mere months ago, right up to the biggest knightly profession there is in these kingdoms. Knowing the good people of this world, there will be hostility. There will be murmurs, mocking songs, some lord may even open his mouth in the court. And after he has been taught the error of his ways, it will eventually become just a thing that is, and time will tell how unique she will be in the history of the King’s Guard. What I mean to say, is that the hurtful words won’t stop even in her new position, but at least she is right next to the ruler of the realm if people say them in her presence.

Even though that king is not Renly. 

She completely whitewashes Jaime’s actions in the White Book. She tells of how he fought against the Targaryen forces, and then the Dead in Winterfell, and afterwards “escaped imprisonment” and died protecting his Queen, completely omitting that he actually changed sides twice there.

Which makes me wonder again how these events and people will be remembered in the future. This book may be copied down during the following centuries, and scholars will use it as a primary source, but will add an asterisk that the way events are told here can be misleading. 

As seen in the theatre production in Braavos, the events will also be immortalized by art, and someone with a quill and a sharp ear for iambic pentameter may well write a series of historical plays, which will influence the way people will see these characters. With titles Joffrey I, Part 1, Joffrey I, Part 2, Tommen I, and Cersei I. Maybe even Bran I or a prequel Robert I, if the series is popular.

Or there will be a scholarly work right after the wars end. Samwell brings for Tyrion to see A Song of Ice and Fire, detailing the wars after the death of King Robert. I see what you did there. But it’s actually a sequel, I point out, as the first part of the series is right in my bookshelf. The World of Ice and Fire, which in-universe was written by Maester Yandel of the Citadel, detailing the history of Westeros and Essos up to the series’ beginning. I have only read bits and pieces of it, as it describes hundreds of years of history in broad strokes and so is quite dry and full of names. Maybe now that the series is over I’ll use it to scratch my Westeros-itch.

The Small Council continues to be the Small Council (which was one of the best parts of the early seasons), even with all its members replaced. They talk softly, use each other’s titles and politely disagree with each other, while the camera slowly shows the still cracked map of Westeros. They better work quickly before those cracks get any wider.

A horn blasts once at Castle Black. Jon is back from his little excursion to the South. The gate is closed behind him and the screen goes black.

So the ending is… not happy, but… content? After years of fighting, that was the best to hope for, and of getting even that I remained doubtful. There were no big revolutions. The wheel still stands. The poor stay poor and mostly the same great Houses rule the same pieces of the kingdoms. The Small Council still has people looking for number one. The winter will be rough for the poor. Sure well-meaning people were raised to some high positions, and the king will continue to be elected by them if they stay alive longer than him, but they are still single people in a grim world.

But on the other hand, maybe some things are better than in the beginning. Dragon’s bay is free (if the loss of dragons doesn’t make the masters bold again, but that is a question for the future), most of the Stark kids lived, and glass ceilings were shattered (whether they will systematically stay shattered is another question for the future). The current leaders were just raised to their positions and so won’t themselves likely plan for rebellions for some time. As the winter is still upon them and everyone is tired, wars won’t happen right now. The rest of the winter will be hard, but if they work together…

Epilogue: The best leitmotif, the one promising excitement and new sights, rises and plays as the Stark kids continue their lives. Arya and Needle go to have new adventures in faraway lands. Sansa gets crowned as the Queen in the North, to the yells of enthusiastic Northerners (if there’s one thing I have learnt here, it’s that the people of the North really like royalty in the North). I can’t see if Glover is there, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s not, as his family is still wrong and always will be.

And Jon… he’s back among the people who respect him. I don’t know who could be the Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch currently as everyone named is dead, but come next vote Jon must be a big favourite if he still wants the job. Currently the Night’s Watch has a new sort of job to do: They are the shield that guards the realms of Men, and some of those realms are on the north side of the Wall. So the Watch helps to resettle the wildlings to the Lands Beyond the Wall.

Ghost is still in the Castle Black waiting for Jon, and reunites with him (<3). They leave to the north with the wildlings now that apparently the worst of the winter has passed. A green plant tries to grow from the snow, a dream of spring. The group continues into the shadows of the Haunted Forest.

They should go on. The wildlings are alive.

[ecotone99]

Fantasy [FN] The Octopus Tree

“She takes care of me. She always takes care of me.”

That was the only way Blair could explain how he survived falling down the hill near his house. He never reached the river at the bottom, and even with it snowing, his parents found him, alive. He should have never survived that accident. That was years ago, and he’s dedicated his life to taking care of her, farming, and producing crops and lumber for years. It doesn’t matter how the season goes; she provides. Blair knows if he takes care of her, she will take care of him. Midday Blair is about to quit for the day. As he moves the tractor into the barn, he sees several cars speed by him. One right after another, each of them filled with people holding signs and screaming out the window. He walks to the end of the driveway; he overhears the train of cars yell, “Save the trees!”

“Save the trees?!” Blair thought to himself.

There are millions of trees, how are they going to protect them all. And it dawns on Blair. The Octopus Tree. The only one that would make people grab pitchforks and torches to save it, okay maybe not torches. This tree is enormous. Just as the name speaks for itself, its branches sprawl out and up, reaching for the skies above. Blair has been frequently but never thought they would endanger it. He jumps onto his bicycle and heads to where a crowd has gathered.

Once he arrives, Blair sees the massive machinery, the kind you’d expect to wipe out a forest. He sees VW busses, electric cars, and several bicycles gathered around. Blair weaves his way closer than swerves around a giant rig, looking like a portable lab. One the side a logo which he could only translate as a tree struck by lightning. As Blair rounds the corner, a door slams into his face, knocking him back. Before he lands, he hears a man talking on his phone with a low deep raspy voice, and he sees the lower half of the guy, at least one leg and an artificial limb.

The man says, “Yes, we are close to the goal, the conversion is in our reach, just need to get rid of these...”

The door silenced the rest. As Blair picks himself up, he hears another voice.

“Are you okay? The jerk didn’t even bother to check.”

Blair turns to see a petite red-haired miss, wearing overalls and a colorful flannel top. Blair isn’t usually shy with words, but seeing her made him lose all of them.

“Um, I’m fine, I guess, just caught me off guard,” he says.

“Don’t be modest, that was Dr. Cruickshank, he’s responsible for this, and he is a grade A, top-level as... well you know what I mean,” she responds.

Blair chuckles and asks, “What IS happening here?”

“Wait, you haven’t heard?” she responds.

Blair shakes his head.

“Well, these giant tree demolishing rigs and this piece of...” she says as she slaps the side of the lab, “are Dr. Cruickshank’s company, and they supposedly discovered that you could convert lumber into energy.”

“Wait. What?” Blair responds.

“Yup, that’s why I put together this little party, to prevent them from doing just that, kill our trees for energy.”

“You put this together?” Blair asked, looking at all the people gathered.

“Don’t look so shocked?” Moira says as she walks towards the Octopus Tree, “My name is Moira.”

Before Blair could respond, Moira is greeted by those with picket signs and yelling at the people in white lab coats.

She jumps up onto a makeshift stage and belts out in a mega-phone.

“We cannot let them take away one of our many life sources!” she exclaims, “Is this not known for its beautiful forests?! Is it not known for its timber? We even have a soccer team named after just that. Why would we want to give another reason for people to take our trees?!”

“She has a brilliant point,” thought Blair.

Just as he thought about turning around the same door that hit him before flies open, inches away from his face, Blair sees that artificial limb step down and hears a low, raspy groan. He then hears the man speak to someone else inside the trailer, “Can you please get your goons to go out there and remove her, she’s taking up precious time, and causing me quite the headache. Do whatever you need to, we need to conduct this experiment now.”

With that, the mystery man steps back into the trailer and slams the door shut. As that door closes, another one opens, on the other end of the container. At least five to six men, dressed in a combination of excellent suites and riot gear, come barging out and start making their way to the crowd. Blair sees one of the men lift a gun and fire into the group. A tear gas cartridge flies through the air and landing amongst the masses. With a loud pop, gas pours up and out. Screams immediately follow as the crowds begin dispersing. Chaos begins to show its ugly head as another tear gas cartridge, causing me more panic and confusion. Blair is knocked to the ground by people fleeing. As he lands, his hands hit the side of a metal cover running towards the old tree. An image flashed before his eyes, of chemicals and electric current running to the tree and the trees melting away into a powder. But what scares Blair is the feeling that came with that image; pain, fear, sadness, and even grief flood him. Tears well up in his eyes, as he wipes them away, he sees Moira covering her face and eyes, and off to the side is one of the men, with a mask, coming at her with a baton. Before Blair could even realize it, he had his shirt off and wrapped around his mouth and nose. He was sprinting towards Moira. The gas was getting thick, and hurting Blair’s eyes, more tears formed. A breeze came flowing through, creating a path for Blair. He lunges just as the man’s baton comes down and clips his shoulder. Blair manages to tackle Moira to the side.

“What the...?!” yells Moira.

She wipes her eyes and sees the security guard over both of them. His baton raised again, and the of them trapped between the guard and the tree. Blair was recouping from the tackle. Moira closed her eyes, expecting to get knocked on the side of her head. She raises her hands. Then she peeks. The guards are not there like he vanished. She sees the branch of the Octopus tree going back towards the sky. She doesn’t believe it.

She helps Blair up, “Did you see that?”

“What?” asks Blair.

“The tree...it...it...” but before she can finish, Blair grabbed her by the arm and was running to the other side of the tree, away from the crowd and gas. Moira was in a state of shock, thinking she must have hit her head.

“What about the tree?” Blair asks.

“Nevermind,” Moira responds.

“Hey, we’ve got to save her,” Blair states as begins looking around the ground near the base of the tree.

Moira gives him a concerning glance, “Save who?” she asks as she follows him.

Before he can answer, he uncovers piping and cables attached to the different parts of the giant trunk. Some are screwed in, and some nailed, some clipped. Blair begins to frantically pull at the different attached points. As they get one unhooked, two guards come sprinting around running towards them. A giant root pops up out of the ground and whips one of the guards, sending him flying back into the nearby brush. Moira’s jaw drops. Blair gets pushed, sending him crashing to the ground. The guard looks to reconnect what he was removed. That raspy unsettling voice is sent booming over a loudspeaker from the other side.

“Conducting test number 1859, in 10..9...8...7...6...”

Blair gets another image flash and rush of feelings as he did before.

“5...4...3...2...”

Blair jumps up, tackles the guard. He grabs the baton and begins frantically wailing away at the pipes and cables, and anything else metal.

“1...go!”

With that, the sound of a surge and rush of electricity come flying around and with a powerful flash and bang. Both Moira and Blair sent flying back into the brush. Moments later, Blair opens his eyes; he can see the limbs of the Octopus Tree, reaching high. Blair smiles. He remembers Moira and gets up and finds her a foot away.

“Moira?! Are you okay?! Talk to me!” he yells, running to her side.

“Dude! Chill. I’m fine, just a little bruised,” she responds.

Blair lets out a massive sigh of relief. Just then, he hears the voice again over the loudspeaker.

“What happened?! Can anyone tell me, please tell me why the tree is still standing there?!”

Several men and women in lab coats come walking around the tree. Blair and Moira stay put, still hidden by brush and plants. They walk around, writing down notes, looking at and feeling the tree. They come up to the side, seeing the damage started by Blair. All of them gather around looking, chatting, and writing down note after note. One of them pulls up a walkie talkie.

“Sir, it looks like either an animal got to the inserts, or they exploded do to the tree being too big.”

A short pause, before you hear an annoyed grunt in that raspy voice, “I find that hard to believe, but never mind, we have a strict time frame we need to meet and do not have time to set up everything again, just leave it and try at our next experimental point.”

The group of them shuffle back towards the trailer.

Blair and Moira wait a few moments before finding their way back to Blair’s bicycle.

“Whoa, that was close,” Blair said, “she almost got hurt; we need to stop that next experiment.”

Moira gives him a concerning look again, “You are interesting...” she says, pausing for Blair to fill in the blank.

Blair giggles, “Blair, and yea, sorry for tackling you earlier, I hope I didn’t hurt you.”

“Nothing I can’t handle, I grew up with brothers, but I have to say I witnessed some unusual and unexpected things today Blair, and I’m getting the sense you know what I’m talking about.”

Blair just smiles and gets on his bike, “I need to find out where they are planning on going to next”

Moira looks over at her VW bus, “If we take my car, we could get there quicker; besides, my phone is in there, and I know a few people that could help us figure it out.”

Blair looks down at his bike and back up her car, “Can we take my bike?”

Moira laughs, “Yea, we can take your bike.”

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