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92darkdragon · 1 year

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Something that was running through my head after reading some of @somerandomdudelmao latest pages, where might Donnie be after he “died”… and I felt like writing it.

Edit: what start as a small paragraph turned into a full fanfic….im sorry for the mind dump ;p

Warning: involves death, suicides, ghosts, fanfics

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The Realm Inbetween

When Donnie opened his eyes, he found himself standing in an unfamiliar place, alone. His body returned to before the Kraang infection. Although his body seem to cover in what he could only describe as glitter that he could not get off. After sighing in defeat he looks around more. The area was well lit yet there were no signs of a light source. Looking around more, he notices that he seems to be just on a platform surrounded by darkness that seem to go on forever. He thought this was the afterlife, but why was it so empty. He thought he see at least one ancestor, maybe even Mikey. However, he saw nothing. Just darkness from his platform.

Did the kraang do something more to him? Is he unable to see his ancestors? A tear fills up his eye.

“Will I never talk to father and the others again?”

As he was thinking he will be alone here, the platform began to move. After some time, he could only guess, he starting seeing things around him. Small flames, each varying in size, shape, and color heading the same direction he was. “Maybe I look that to them” he thought to himself.

His platform glowed brightly till it was blinding. When it faded and he was to open his eyes once more, he couldn’t believe what he saw. Replacing the dark void was a mechanical island of sorts. Stepping off his platform, he noticed some flames took a transparent form of what he assumed were their form when they were alive. Many flames remained as flames, but he noticed something that very few flames took solid forms like him. “Perhaps this is how they sort souls in the afterlife?” He thought to him. But why why so few solid souls?

As he ponder more about his situation, he continued to observe as he walk since well…there wasn’t really anywhere else to go. He tried asking the other souls, but they either ignored him, went through him (which creeped him out), or spoke in a language he didn’t know. He really wished his tech worked in the afterlife, but that’s wishful thinking. He even tried talking to a large cloak figure, but it was more interested in another soul. As did other cloak ones he saw. “Greeeeeat…Guess i’ll have to be a wandering soul then” he chuckled to himself, thinking of his brothers’ jokes. If only he could speak his family again. He wished that all of this was just a dream, that he’ll wake up surrounded by his brothers huddled together. Back to where to April was, and Casey-

“Casey…..” he mumbled “I guess I couldn’t grant that wish huh?” Looking up at where a sky would have been “sorry buddy”

Just then, he heard the sound of bells jingling which snaps him back. He noticed a ways off, a cloak figured carrying staff which he could guess was a bit heavy for them, running as fast as they could towards him. They keep dodging each soul best they could until they unfortunately tripped on their on feet, face-planted on the floor, staff flying towards Donnie.

“I got it!” He shouted as he leap up to catch it. Honestly, he hasn’t felt like that in awhile. “Oh yeah, score one for the don-man!” Feeling proud of himself. Looking at the staff closely, it looked more like a shepherd’s staff “I swear if this guy is a sheepdog….” He mumbled to himself as run over to the figure

“H hey, you alright?” He asked helping them up. “You really shouldn’t be running around crowded places with heavy objects like this! You could have gotten a lot of people hurt you know! But seriously, unlike those other guys, you act like a-“ he froze, eyes widen as the figure brushed off their hood. The figure was revealed to be human girl roughly 13 years old. Their hair brown, with heterchroma eyes. “Oh…my..god..” his voice let out

“Oooow…that smarts….but thanks for getting my staff” she spoke, taking her staff as she stood up.

“N no problem” ((At certain points I’m just doing color text for Donnie and the girl cause I’m lazy))

He took a moment to calm down. He needed to focus. He needed answers. She’s wearing the cloak of those tall things he saw earlier. They must know know something about this place right? He understands her and vice versa. If I’m right, then maybe she can help talk to my family

So…umm..I’m Donatello, but my friends call me Donnie. What’s yours?

Don’t have one. Haven’t had one since I came here and became a shepherd

A shepherd? Like the ones with sheep?

Laughing Yeah, but instead of sheep, it’s soul we guide

So….i really am in afterlife huh

Well…..sort of

Sort of? How am I a sort of?! I remember dying in my sleep!

Well you did die but….hmm…they made it hard to explain….

Sigh….can you at least try? At least start with: where are we?

That should be doable. She pauses for a moment, then takes a deep breath.

Ok, so for many souls there’s what you call heaven and hell. However, there’s a realm where souls go when they die from “unnatural circumstances” but what counts can be a bit vague sometimes, but that’s not my job to sort out I’m afraid. This realm, the one we are in, goes but many names, but we just call it “The Realm In between” cause duh it’s literally In between heaven and hell. And the after they leave here, they won’t remember they ever here.

A fitting name. So “shepherds” you said they guide souls?

Yep, every shepherd gets assigned a soul, this time I’m assigned to you

Lucky me, I bet you never seen a turtle as awesome as me right?

A a anyway, the souls that come here are guided to a path. Completely avoiding the question. Because death was unnatural, fate chooses where the soul goes, and it’s the shepherd job to make it peaceful.

How do you know where to take them?

Umm….it’s like…a voice in our head I guess?

What are the options?

Well, there’s reincarnation, but that gets ways too complicated if you know what I mean. There’s ceasing to exist, then there’s the-

How does a soul become a shepherd? You mentioned you came here and became one. How you pull that off?

She fell silent, gripping her staff tight. You know, the others see it as a punishment for they did when they were alive….but…she looks at Donnie, he notices a rope mark around her neck. It’s finally gave me a purpose in my life so to speak…now what was I saying?

O oh…you were…talking about options for souls to go…..

Oh..right. There’s a rare circumstance where a soul has to wait here to be revived. Because…what did they say again…”they are fated to live again by another means”

Meaning?

From what I understand, all the shepherd can do is make that soul comfort till they’re revived I think. I believe i thinks souls that are fated to come back to the realm of the living by not normal means

Meaning, they don’t know what to do with them so, they’re just stuck in this place?

Yep, could be days, months, even years, I mean it Raphy a few months before- she covered her mouth

Raphy? As in Rafael? He was here?! She refused to answer. Gotcha…won’t ask…so, I’m guessing I’m one of those “special circumstances” aren’t I? She nods. Super….well then I’ll be in your care then Miss Shepherd

End

Post

I gotta ask, why are you the only one with a staff with bells?

Because if I was going to a shepherd, I wanted have a shepherd staff. And they approved it. They thought it was cute.

How the hell hurt her in her past life

#rise of the tmnt #tmnt fandom #tmnt donnie #somerandomdudelmao #tmnt apocalypse #tmnt donatello #cass apocalyptic series #rottmnt #fanfic #fandom #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #mind dump #92darkdragon #Fanfiction

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sariels-world-ella · 2 years

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2 questions, what are Fallen!Frisk's and Fallen!Chara's pronouns? because I seen multiple pronouns used interchangably and I want to make sure I use the right ones.

and why did both Sw!Fallenswap Frisk and Chara immigrate to Austrialia, was it just by choice, finacial, was it escaping the country, or something else?

to answer the pronoun question:

Frisk's pronouns are she/they, because Frisk was born back in 1901 so they were not exposed to LGBTQIA (though it did very much exist back then) so they are currently in Sw!Fallenswap post-events lore newly transitioning to using they/them, and using she/they until they are more confident in their gender identity, Frisk would use she/they interchangeably in a sentence, and usually when they are the only subject they/them is used or she/they but one there is more than one subject (usually referring to a collective group) Frisk would usually use she/her or just their name.

Chara on the other hand uses most pronouns though He/him and it/its are more uncommonly used in canon, and for Chara, they rarely will interchange their pronouns when being referred to in the same context or by the same speaker, (so in the same post Chara would either use only She/Her or They/Them only, though this isn't always the case.) Monster characters seem to be more inclined to use they/them when referring to Chara(and referring to most human characters in general) and Human characters seem to be more inclined to use she/her when referring to Chara

To answer the other question:

Chara immigrated from Russia with their family in around 2015, since, it's, well, Russia, it doesn't take much imagination why Chara's Family emigrated from there but exact reasons are unknown, though strangely enough Chara's Family (unnamed Parents and younger unnamed 3 year old brother) died in a car crash shortly after , whether or not foul play was involved is ambiguous. (this is the reason why Chara is afraid of cars and is a 19 year old, in AU's current and post events, who still doesn't have a drivers license)

Though if it was foul play, since Fallen!Chara's exact reasoning for climbing Mt. Ebbot, like Undertale Frisk's reason, is unknown, the possibility of Fallen!Chara being the only surviving family member and running away because they were also a target victim could be the reason they had the motive to climb MT Ebbot, if the car crash happened nearby. this isn't canon, even though I thought of the idea and it's my au, anyway.

Frisk's biological family's past is A WHOLE LOT TRICKER to figure out. (and hopefully my research is correct, so don't quote me on any of this)

Frisk was presumably born in Australia, while her parents or grandparents, (or some sort of ancestor) were born in Vietnam, Frisk's lore about their birth family is EXTREMELY small, but judging by the time period, The commonwealth of Australia was formed January 1st 1901, and Frisk was born in October 10th 1901, so this date is the cut off of when Frisk's family immigrated, unless Frisk was born in vietnam then the cut off year would be 1910 (when Frisk fell underground) or 1909 to play it safe, but in this speculation, Frisk would be assumed to be born in Australia.

Since the vietnam war happened in 1955-1975 it makes them being possible refugees unlikely; there was an number of Vietnamese refugees who came to Australia, but this was in the mid 1970s and 1980s and outside of the time frame. also the Vietnamese Communist Party was on 3 February 1930 so escaping communism and/or being a result of Vietnam war is ruled out.

so there is a more unlikely option of Frisk's Family for an unknown reason just straight up immigrating there, or them being in Britain for some reason, or the more likely option that I will explain, now:

There was a Chinese (though not Vietnamese, the fact it's Chinese it can make it plausible, I'll say why later) gold rush to Australia in the 1850s (the date this ended seemed to differ between sources, one saying 1871 another saying 1856 and the latest date being 1893, so for the sake of the timeline, I'll use the latest date, being 1893, as the cut off point.), and by 1901 (same year Frisk was born), Chinese were the third largest migrant group in Australia after the British and Germans, I'll tell you why the Chinese are relevant later.. (unless you happen to know already)

Due to Vietnam gained independence on Sept. 2nd 1945 from France, any possible emigration out of Vietnam, (so it can fit in the timeline,) most likely have happened during or before the French colonization period in the 1860s to the 1880s, though it's unlikely Frisk's ancestors moved directly to Australia afterwards, (but apparently the economy was doing well then, besides the 4 year drought which crippled the economy in 1890s), any possible emigration would be to a neighboring place with close connections. China and Vietnam had close connections and China even ruled over Vietnam from 1407-1427, plus there was even recorded intermarriage, on top of that there was Chinese immigration to Vietnam during French colonization, so an ancestor of Frisk could possibly immigrating from Vietnam TO China could been possible (whether willingly or forcibly) and depending on when it happened, though it could be a stretch, it could have happened in the Chinese Gold Rush and that could be when an ancestor of Frisk could have got there. None of this is really canon but this could be a likely possibility. but, if this IS the case, there would be an about 41 - 21 year gap between the time of Frisk's family immigrating to the time of Frisk's birth, so it was most likely Frisk's parents (near the 1880s 21 year gap) or Frisk grandparents (near the 1860s 41 year gap).

#answered asks #Sw!Fallenswap #Undertale AU #Fallen!Frisk #Fallen!Chara #au lore #ask

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skiplo-wave · 2 years

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Every time I watch this House of Dragon show, it makes me think of my messed up ancestry. It's straight up Targaryen meets Tennessee rednecks in the hills of fucking Cocke County. That's where my ancestors settled after coming over here from Virginia which they sailed to from Germany. It's not uncommon that occasionally, especially coming from certain states, you'll find a cousin marrying a cousin. Well this one is messed up. My great-great grandma, we will call her Natalie, was 13 years old when her parents died. Sometimes instead of being placed with other family or a orphanage, they would be married off especially if there was already an arrangement. Originally she was arranged and betrothed to a guy in their county that was very mean and abusive. He had a 13 year old wife that mysteriously died and than he had a second wife who was also 13 that died giving birth. The baby was stillborn. The story goes the girl was just so young and small, her body couldn't handle the pregnancy and delivery :(

But the reason Natalie's dad had arranged it because he would get a lot of money in dowry. That's all it was about. So yeah, my great-great-great grandpa was a bitch too. Natalie's great-uncle, we'll call him Samuel, he was 21 at the time. This family had a lot of kids and was one of the youngest in his generation, so yeah it seems really weird that Natalie's great-uncle would be 21 instead of between the age of 60-90 lol. Samuel had a good farm and mill. He had a huge farm house that he stayed at and he owned a huge mansion (torn down now) in town that he inherited from his grandparents. I checked and see if he was by chance a slave owner and he was not. I have yet to run into any slave owners as of yet. Samuel asked for Natalie to come live with him until she was older instead of marrying her off to this jerk wad at 13 because in the original plans the marriage was take place after she turned 16. They wouldn't go for it. So he ended up buying Natalie with a dowry twice as much. So now Natalie became betrothed to her great-uncle, but it was just to get her out of her first fiance abusive hands. Because it was improper for a couple or betrothed/arranged couple to live together before marriage in their time even if they was in separate housing, Samuel had to marry her. Samuel and Natalie was married in a non-traditional ceremony. After that, the same day, Samuel moved her into the mansion in town because he thought it would be much better for her and she could continue to go to school. He never touched her or even thought of her in that way. Samuel hired two maidens to help take care of her, almost like foster mothers and he hired a staff that pretty much guarded the house. He made sure she was protected. But see he barely ever saw her until she was 16, 3 years later. Natalie finished school at 14/15 and began to study to become a teacher but she never ended up teaching. Ironically Natalie's first fiance died right before her 16th birthday. A little bit after Natalie's 16th birthday, Natalie started traveling around and she ended up going to Samuel's farm to help him almost as a repayment for saving her. At this time Samuel was now 24. And they, of course, ended up falling in love. The story goes it started happening one night when there had been trouble with chicken and cow thieves was roaming in the area, Samuel started sleeping in a chair with a rifle to watch over and protect Natalie while she slept. One stormy night they started getting it on and 9 months later, here comes my great-grandma lmfao.

#asks

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wrenhavenriver · 6 years

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9: If you were granted a wish that allowed you to instantly be able to speak any language, which would it be? Ohhhh man. Honestly I’d probably pick Japanese even though I’ve already been studying it for several years, just because the gap between where I am now proficiency wise and anything resembling actual fluency feels…utterly insurmountable at times. I’d also be tempted to pick Polish, since that’s the largest bit of my heritage I actually know about and it’d be nice to have that sort of connection!

#my family is very small and a lot of my ancestors seem to have died relatively young #i lost my last grandparent when i was in fifth grade #so i never really got to ask them #by the time my mom was born she only had one living grandparent left so it's the same for her #and my dad was estranged from his father so that whole branch is a mystery #who were we? where'd we all come from? don't know! but at some point i got this badly americanized polish surname out of it!#that was way off topic oop #thank u for the ask!!!#anonymous #asks #ask box games

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admirableadmiranda · 3 years

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Debts and balances: or how much does one man have to pay over the course of his life?

Good morning everyone! Today we’re going to be talking about debts, and why Jiang Cheng needs to shut the fuck up on debts because he is the one in the wrong pretty much the entire time.

Let’s start by acknowledging that I am not of this culture so I may perhaps state a thing or two wrong, but I also have several functioning brain cells to rub together and I pay attention so I will probably be more right than most of the “hot takes” I see on why Jiang Cheng is not actually in the wrong here. Because he is. He so is.

So, debts. First of all, there are multiple levels and layers of debts and to whom do you owe them too. So let’s start with the first one where the story is subtle about it and yet both Jiang Cheng and Madam Yu are in the wrong. We know that Cangse Sanren saved Jiang Fengmian’s life at one point when they were young. Life debts are big. To only be alive because of someone else’s actions is a debt that it is possible you will never be able to pay back. There are multiple stories of otherwise good people protecting the obvious villain because they owe that.

Jiang Fengmian’s only way of being able to pay back that debt after Cangse Sanren and Wei Changze die is to take care of their child and raise him how they would have. I.E, as a cultivator. This is not a debt that Wei Wuxian owes to the Jiangs. It is quite literally, the least of what Jiang Fengmian owes him and his parents to do.

Jiang Cheng cannot claim that Wei Wuxian owes them for his life. He is wrong.

Next debt that even Jiang Cheng does not try to claim, only his ever so pleasant stans, the fucking dogs. The fucking dogs that he does not actually give a fuck about.

Wei Wuxian does not ask anyone to do anything about the dogs. He is not in a mental state to. He is in a state of triggered phobia where his brain literally goes into run away screaming mode. This is also not funny and Jiang Cheng is a jackass for making fun of it whenever it happens. Jiang Fengmian is the one who decides that it’s better for the dogs to go. Even though Jiang Cheng is upset, he does not actually hold this as a lingering grudge against Wei Wuxian. He lets it the fuck go. And even if he didn’t, the resentment and anger should be aimed at the person who actually made a decision about it. Not Wei Wuxian. He does not give one singular fuck about his dogs later on. Let the fucking dogs go.

Third off: The Fall of Lotus Pier. There are different levels of blame that we can lay on this. Wei Wuxian is not close to responsible for this. Jiang Cheng knows this and elects to blame him anyway.

The first people we can lay the blame on the fall of Lotus Pier is the Wens, who came with ships, warriors, Wang Lingjiao to rile up the notoriously short tempered asshole Madam Yu, and Wen Zhuliu the Core-Melting Hand. They came prepared for battle and they got what they wanted. Madam Yu is the second one we can lay the blame on, for deciding to attack and demean Wang Lingjiao, not for making her do anything she didn’t want to do, because holy hell did she want to whip Wei Wuxian until he couldn’t move and leapt at the chance to do such a thing, but because Wang Lingjiao is a servant who was elevated by her lover and Madam Yu is a classist asshole. This is the only reason she flips out. Wei Wuxian did nothing wrong. Wei Wuxian does not have the blood of Lotus Pier on his hands, he is tied to Jiang Cheng and told to protect him at the cost of his life, a debt he does not owe.

The four debt he attempts to claim, the only one that might be considered to have some teeth if it weren’t for how much Wei Wuxian gives him back almost immediately. Jiang Cheng goes to distract the Wens from Wei Wuxian and ends up getting captured and losing his golden core. So first off, in this world a golden core is a lot to lose, I won’t deny that. But, first off, Wei Wuxian is only in danger because after being whipped a lot, then strangled, then having to run after Jiang Cheng multiple times because he would rather go die at Lotus Pier than listen to either of his parents and escape, he still goes into town to get them something to eat because otherwise Jiang Cheng would rather lie on the ground and die. Fucking great sect leadership there, huh Jiang Cheng? But yes, Jiang Cheng sees the Wens, sees them notice Wei Wuxian, goes off to distract them and then gets captured and loses his golden core.

Now we’re getting to some of the debts that Jiang Cheng owes and refuses to pay back, because that’s definitely going to get him far in this world. Wei Wuxian in his panic and attempt to find Jiang Cheng, finds Wen Ning, who after some struggles manages to convince him that he can sneak in and get Jiang Cheng back out. In addition, he also retrieves the bodies of Madam Yu and Jiang Fengmian. This is huge. Jiang Cheng now owes him both a life debt for again, saving his life at great cost to his own: Wen Ning is literally committing treason here, and also for restoring the lost honor of not being able to bury his parents properly. Wen Ning gives them a proper burial and later after the war he is able to lie them to rest in the Ancestors Hall so their spirits will be at peace and he will have fulfilled his fillial duties. By all means, the debt he owes Wen Ning in particular is so great that he should have taken in every Wen in those camps and sheltered them because it is as close as he will ever get to repaying that debt. And that’s just Wen Ning!

The next debt he owes and refuses to pay is to Wen Qing, a genius doctor and respected by Wen Ruohan, who uses the prestige and skills she has to protect both him and Wei Wuxian in at this point enemy territory when they are being actively searched for, being the new sect leader and head disciple of Yunmeng Jiang. She hides them and then later uses her skills to give him a new golden core so that he can go and fight back against his people, revitalizing his clan and eradicating hers. This is another debt that could only really be paid back by protecting her people if she came to him. He owes her literally his life, his power and his people.

The third debt he owes and refuses to pay is to Wei Wuxian, who more than overbalances the scales back in his favor by giving him his golden core. He pays his chance at immortality, his power, his strength, his cultivation, everything that he has to his name so that Jiang Cheng won’t starve himself to death over losing his core. In addition, he tells Jiang Cheng that this comes from a once in a lifetime favor from his mother’s master so even before when he didn’t know about the core, this is still a massive, massive debt, a limitless one time favor from an immortal that he uses Wei Wuxian’s chance to get and never actually thanks him. So at this point, his own golden core as a debt starts to seem a little hollow. Either way, it’s been repaid. An action you do in service of someone else is not a weapon you get to hold over their heads for multiple lives.

Moving on! The next debt he would like to claim is that Wei Wuxian apparently has no right to do things he does not approve of. Excuse me? Is he now a computer program that crashed? What the fuck Jiang Wanyin? Wei Wuxian has less rank than him, although Jiang Cheng is so high rank in this society that he only shares his rank with three other people and there’s no one above him so it would be very hard for him to not be, but he is still a person, with his own thoughts, wishes, dreams, hopes and beliefs. He is not an extension of your hand, to make your clan look good and stand behind you as a hammer to smash on people. Wen Qing goes to Wei Wuxian to ask for help for finding her brother, her people because they are literally being tortured to death. This is a debt that by all means, Jiang Cheng should be repaying. See that part where Wen Ning committed treason to help him and restore his family’s honor? See that part where Wen Qing literally gave him the ability to go back to war against her family? This is the point where anyone with honor would recognize this is the only thing I can do. I will throw myself on my sword if I must, but I must repay this debt to them. There is nothing less I can do. But Jiang Cheng has only the honor of a mangy cur and ignores this, and when Wei Wuxian goes to fulfill this debt, he tells him to stop. To him, his multiple life debts are an inconvience to shoving his nose so far up Jin Guangshan’s ass that he’s tasting what he had for dinner that day.

The next debt that he would like to claim is the death of his brother in law. This is a debt that Wei Wuxian would owe to specific people. This debt is to Jiang Yanli, Jin Guangshan and Jin Ling, one of whom is wanting to forgive it, one who is too small to decide at the time, and one who straight up does not give a fuck beyond advancing his power. Jiang Cheng is not one of these people. His sister is fine, she’s not his concern anymore, she’s a part of the Jin sect. The only reason why he died is that Jiang Cheng decided the best way to repay his debt to Wei Wuxian was to throw a temper tantrum and declare him an enemy to everyone, ripping out every support from under his feet. Regardless, Jiang Cheng is an asshole and does not get to claim this debt.

The final one of Wei Wuxian’s first life that he keeps hurling at him is the death of his sister...the death of his sister who chose to leap between Wei Wuxian and a sword. The death of his sister at a battle that broke out because Jiang Cheng has been with Jin Guangshan whipping the cultivation world into a frenzy against the Wens and Wei Wuxian because of power and jealousy. The battle that would have not happened if they’d left them alone. Jiang Cheng has been to the burial mounds. He has seen the farmers, he has seen the baby there. He has decided that rather than do anything to repay these various deaths, he will kill them on other people’s swords instead. Because he is also a coward and won’t pick fights he can’t win. In addition he likes to steal Yanli’s agency, she’s the one who chose to come, she’s the one who chose to get in the way and she doesn’t die with regrets. And she is not his debt to claim. Again, the one who actually gets to claim this death that Wei Wuxian is not responsible for is Jin Ling, who actually shapes up and decides that it doesn’t matter, he doesn’t blame Wei Wuxian for it. He forgives him his role in that space and moves the fuck on, unlike a certain sir stabby grape mcwhipinnoencts.

And then Wei Wuxian dies and any debts he may have still owed to Jiang Cheng, not that there were any, die with him. Jiang Cheng has no claim on him, he was not part of his sect, they were not brothers in any way, indeed Jiang Cheng called him his enemy. Even most people with far more real grudges at this point would let it go. Wei Wuxian is so dead that no one can find his soul, no matter how hard they look. He comes back to life and reaps the rewards of his actions, finding new allies, getting the chance to actually interact with Jin Ling and make his apologies, and in the end, settle down to a peaceful life with an adoring husband and nothing left to be repaid. If there is still a debt he owes, it is only to Mo Xuanyu, who gave up his entire cycle of life to let Wei Wuxian reincarnate early with his memories, a sacrifice he only asked for repayment in the death of his family. He may owe more still, but that is all Mo Xuanyu wanted from him in repayment for this great sacrifice. The cultivation world is in the wrong when they’re trying to persecute him again for the actions of his previous life, he owes them nothing anymore. The debts he carries towards Jin Ling are the ones he chooses to take on, feeling guilty that he grew up without his parents due to the world’s general actions and also no one else taking responsibility for how far things fell.

That is what Jiang Cheng finally realizes in the temple, crouched on the floor and sobbing like a spoiled child over the golden core sacrifice. Is that he is in the wrong and has been in the wrong the whole time. That there is nothing he can hold onto, no debt that Wei Wuxian ever owed him that he could demand to be paid. He built it all up in his head as he left his honor, his family and his dignity in the wake of his arrogance. And it’s a painful thing to realize, the consequences of your decisions, but all he can do is live with his own ruined reputation, his own loneliness and the fact that no one wants to be around him. He’s blacklisted by multiple matchmakers, his disciples are more like thugs, Wei Wuxian chooses every opportunity to get away from him and even Jin Ling likes him less and less over the course of the book, not forgetting that he seems to prefer Jin Guangyao to begin with as he actually talks to him sometimes and doesn’t hit him. Jiang Cheng refusing to pay his debts gives him exactly what a debt deserter deserves. No one has a reason to trust him. The one bit of positive character growth he does is giving up and not trying to reel him back in by telling him of the sacrifice. At this point, all it would be is just him trying to get another debt he cannot hold because it is long since repaid, never quite made up for what they gave him to make up for it, and worthless in the face of Wei Wuxian’s new life. Wei Wuxian owes him nothing and never has.

Also, just to tally up the relationship between Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng on things given between the two of them, Jiang Cheng gives him: a lot of whinging on how unfair it is that Wei Wuxian is a prodigy, and a one time immediately regretted and held over his head sacrifice of a golden core. Whereas Wei Wuxian gives him: many lessons on how to be a kinder person that he ignores, the patience and tolerance of his stinkbug attitude, his love, his affection, his fucking golden core, his reputation, his blood, his livelihood, taking over his debts, trying to keep any of his actions from reflecting on the Jiangs even though if Jiang Cheng had repaid any of the debts he owed, there would have been no problems because if the Jin’s did decide to attack, Wei Wuxian would fight back and he can level battle fields on his own, his honor, his relationships, and even his life in the end, because if Wei Wuxian had ever turned on him like he claimed, he would have been a bloody smeared spot on the ground. And Jiang Cheng gobbles this all up and demands more with Wei Wuxian’s blood and tears dribbling from his mouth.

Would you give that much for someone who doesn’t treat you well? Would you find that a reasonable price to pay for someone who demeans you at every opportunity, who tells you you deserve your misfortunes and that no one likes you? Why are you surprised that in the end Wei Wuxian would rather walk away with people who care about him, why he gives up, leaves any opportunity for anything in Jiang Cheng’s hands. Wei Wuxian has given more than any person should for almost nothing. It is a sign of triumph and victory, of recognizing his own worth and value in the world and who he wants to be with, that he leaves, that he walks away with his head held high. He owes Jiang Cheng nothing, and Jiang Cheng will just have to fucking live with that.

#mdzs #jiang cheng #canon jiang cheng #let's talk about debt #long post #let's use fuck as a exclamation mark #modaozushi is the story of walking away from an abusive relationship and we should recognize that #no yunmeng reconciliation #wei wuxian #wei wuxian did nothing wrong #addressing common misconceptions when it comes to debts to be paid #let's stop excusing Jiang Cheng avoiding paying any of his debts

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fandomfan2000 · 4 years

Text

Song analysis #3 God of Loss

here's a link to the Song

this is fanart of @brightgoat‘s ask blog @askcupsandcasinos, a few of the photos I drew were HEAVILY inspired by some of the stuff Bright's drawn so please check out the original blog.

I think this Lyric\song title relates to Mugman because of his whole ‘spade’ aesthetic, as we know, according to Brightgoat and king Dice, spades are often associated with death and loss. The whole ‘God” part of this title is more or less ironic, after Mugmans little break down when he and cups visited Quadratus, we now know that he’s still suffering from PTSD and is looking to achieve something more then a mere mortal should, which as Quadratus stated will only end in his demise. Making the title of “god of loss” a perfect fit for the mug.

more under cut

“My father was a carpenter My mother, she died young”

These lyrics essentially just talk about Elder Kettle. He was Mugman and Cupheads Parental figure. He may not have been a “carpenter” but I see that line as more saying that he was humble and a hard worker, instilling these qualities into Mugman & Cuphead (well more or less). “My Mother she died young” is rather self explanatory, even though Elder Kettle didn't die young, he did pass away when the boys were relatively young, which was equally crushing to Cups and Mugs as a guardian dyeing young, if not more because they had no one left.

“I’m the eldest of my brothers You’re the trouble in my blood Trouble in my blood”

this line also feels self explanatory but I’ll explain it any way.

Its basically just stating facts, Mugman is “technically older” then cuphead “by like, a minute or something”. Aaaand Cuphead is usually seen as the trouble maker f the 2 whos always getting them roped into trouble. Which I think Mugman, just judging by the way he treats Cuphead does believe that cuphead is trouble.

This also refers to how Mugs’ ancestors and his relation to him has and will cause nothing but trouble.

“I swore that I’d stay humble Like my father was before He built the home I live in Of sand and mud and smoke Sand and mud and smoke “

This line correlate’s to Elder Kettle having been a very simple and kind man and how the boys see him in a good light. It also serve as an ironic statement as we all know Mugmans main sin is pride.

I see this line as more about Elder Kettle and Mugs’ ancestors and their effect on them, how they helped shape and build Mugs into the person he is. It also seems like a reference to the Bible and how Adam, the first human, was created. In the Bible God made him by taking, I think it was dust I'm not sure though, from the ground and created man, which I think is close enough to “Sand & Mud & smoke” to have a correlation as all those things come from the earth. I figured a reference to the Bible was fitting considering the whole ‘heaven and Hell’ theme.

“Yes, we will leave here without a trace Take a new name and an old shape”

This line correlates to Mugmans fear of death...or more a fear of being forgotten and not accomplishing anything notable his life before passing. It also correlates to Elder Kettles death and how he just disappeared, everything and everyone related to him went missing after his death.

the picture I drew is a redraw of Elder Kettles grave from this post.

This line refers to the parallels between Cuphead & Mugman vs The legendary chalice and her mystery friend whos been hinted at a few times. How their personalities kind of line up, Cuphead & Chalice being the more outgoing risk takers and Mugman & mystery cup being the prideful scientist’s. Meaning Cups & Mugs are the “new names” but really thanks to their ancestors giving them their signature soul powers, are living in “old shapes’ so to speak. Did any of that make any sense??? anyway moving on

“I’ll be no outlaw, no renegade Just your faithful god of loss”

(Eheheh this is my favorite verse it fits so well >:D)

So this just refers to 3 of the main 4′s roles (Devil, King Dice, Mugman) and kinda, maybe, sorta Mug mans internal thoughts. King Dice is a well known and respected outlaw\criminal as we know, having been having been “outlawed across half the globe” if I'm remembering correctly. The Devils whole thing is that he’s a renegade, fighting against his fathers oppressive rule to create change... even if what he’s doing is ultimately pointless. Lastly Mugman. The line relating to him I've already touched on but again its and of more ironic if anything. Mug man is simply the “god of loss”.

“So meet me by the river On a boat-shaped piece of earth We press our bones together And the spider does its work With flakes of garlic And petals from a rose If it’s small enough to carry You and I can call it home You and I can call it home”

okokok theres a lot to cover here ahhhh...

“So meet me by the river” could hint at the river of souls running through purgatory, not particularly relevant but considering that's were the Chalice is, its an important setting in the story so that makes this line relevant.

“We press our bones together” could reference just the characters and how their dynamics help progress the story, haha that comparison is kind of a stretch though. “And the spider does its work” I think refers to the devil (you know how his head can shape shift into a spider and all-) and his family and how their busy in the background, doing things mugs doesn't really understand or know of yet, which have the possibility of negatively impacting the brothers.

“If it’s small enough to carry You and I can call it home”

this refers to how the mystical inkwell and indirectly the memories the brother carry of Elder Kettle, allow them to find ‘home’ anywhere as long as their with each other and have their basic necessities met. The inkwell is small & their memories require no space to take with them, along with the fact that if they could utilize the inkwell they could create a home, and whole worlds for themselves.

annnywayy that concludes song analysis #3 hope you enjoyed’

stay tuned for more~

#cuphead #mugman #casinocups #askcupsandcasinosfanart #askcupsandcasinos #fanart #kingdice #brightgoat #brightgoat fanart #cups #mugs #illistration #illistrator #Digital Illustration #art #artist #song analysis #god of loss #god of loss darlingside

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bokettochild · 3 years

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I Am My Master's Sword

So... I ended up having feelings about Fi. Mostly because of a a post that was shared before my Tumblr break about her. Like, we talk about how Fi might have felt when Wind pulled her, and I know- I know! I talk about him a lot but-

Legend.

Legend was a kid, maybe even younger than Time was, when he pulled the sword. And unlike in the other timelines where Fi's decision hurt the hero, in this one, he died!

Fi is dedicated to, and assigned, one task; to help her master protect the world. So how would it effect her to fail in that task and let her master die? Only to be given another one, just as young and small and weak, to try and guide?

Anyways, I caught Fi feels and wrote her a little thing. It is TTTB compliant, but you don't have to read that 30+ Chapter mess to read this.

Hope y'all enjoy!

Perhaps it was not the goddess’s will, but Fi had favorites.

Logically, a sword should not have any attachment to her many masters, she should have been cold and loyal to all of them, granting them her power and aid until they returned her to her rest, and then waited for the next one to come and draw her blade.

But even so, there were a few of her masters that she had an especial fondness, for, even despite her attempts to remove her own feelings from the equation.

Master. Matdas. Link. The Hero of the Surface and the Sky. Chosen Hero of Hylia herself, her dearest and closest friend, easily stood at the top of her list of favorite heroes. He was the one to forge her to her fullest power and stand by her side. Certainly, he was an eternally exhausted and somewhat easily distracted young man, but in her lengthy experience, it seemed that was simply Her Grace’s preference for heroes. The point was that her first Master was her favorite, and dearest of friends, and despite his flaws; his tardiness and inability to focus for long periods, his utter cluelessness when conversing with other individuals, and his (honestly endearing) love of danger; she adored him.

They could not remain together forever though. She may be her Master’s sword, but a knight only requires the use of his blade as long as he is in battle, and with Demise defeated, there was no need for her power to be continuously used. It was with great sadness that Master had laid her to rest, and had Fi ad a heart, she had little doubt that she would have shed many a tear at their parting.

She lay at rest for many years.

The hero after her Master had no need of her power, forging his own blade like his ancestor before him and defeating evil without her aid.

It was the hero that followed after that that weighed heavy on her mind.

The young Hero of Time was both her greatest regret and her greatest sorrow. A mere child, one too young for her voice to be of any aid to him, her calculations and estimates nothing in comparison to the orb of blue light -a fairy she had determined- that filled the air with chatter and guided the boy along. Had she had her way here, he too would have gone on without having to wield her power. Such a choice was not in her metaphorical hands however, and when small fingers had clasped her hilt the possibilities of the future had overwhelmed her.

In another world, the sleep she sent him into saved him. In another world, her strength was enough. In another time, the hero survived and moved on with his life. In another world he grew up and was married and was happy. The echoes of that world resounded within her, but they were not the life that she saw in this time. No. In this time, her blade clattered to the ground amid the churned-up dirt and seeping blood as a boy too young had released his last breaths in an agonizing scream.

The princess defeated the monster that was Ganon, sealing him away. The princess took her blade in her hands and carried it far away from the castle, hiding it in a grove with a bitter curse on her lips for the blade's failure to protect its master.

Still stained in blood and dirt, Fi took the admonition of Her Grace’s incarnate, fully aware of her own failure in the gristly matter.

She sat alone in that grove for centuries.

Trees rose and fell and hand after hand tugged at her blade, curious but unworthy to remove her. Children had played at her base, uninjured by her dull blade as stories were shared about where the youngsters thought the broken and neglected blade had come from.

“A princess put it there.” A pink haired child had told his playmates. “I saw her in a dream once.”

“A princess?”

“Sure, Link, an’ my Gran’s a duchess!”

The other children had laughed and teased, eventually tiring of their play and wending back to where their parent’s and families gathered on the edge of the grove, half-way through a journey, no doubt to a festival or event in castle town.

Fi had watched with a stiff little smile. They were precious beings, Her Grace’s children, she could understand why Master and the Spirit Maiden had been so dedicated to protecting these people if such small beings were possible. She enjoyed watching them, as much as a sword spirit could, perched, invisible to the mortal gaze, on the hilt of her blade, watching games of tag and hide and go seek with dull eyes.

None of them should have been able to see her.

Purple eyes met hers regardless, shining and curious, and so painfully innocent.

Had the spirit had a heart, it would have sunk in her chest at the smile and shy wave cast her way.

“By Miss Blue Lady.” The boy had whispered, darting off with his playmates back to their caravan.

And just like that, she’d known that evil would again rise soon.

None but a Hero of Hylia ought to have been able to see her.

She dreaded the day that the hands of the pink haired boy would wrap around her blade. Would he be a child still, like the last one? Would he have aged at least as much as her beloved Master? Still young, but old enough to at least bare the weight of her blade without stumbling? Would Her Grace be able to hold strong long enough that her Chosen Ones would be allowed to age enough to bare their heavy burden?

Her soul wavered when the blade was pulled at last, and had she been capable, she would have cried tears of sorrow when she saw her new Master.

He was still so small...

She was far too big for him, just as the hero before him, but the very thought of sending him off, putting him to sleep like she had the last one..... The Hero of Time’s soul would have stirred and roamed free to find and shatter her should she do so, she had little doubt. And she would wish it. Never again, never again would she trap a mind in a body too old, nor would she so illy prepare her master as she had her last.

In another time, another world, a place covered with waves as far as the eyes could see, her choice was the same, and when a small boy, only twelve or so years of age had come, she had breathed her blessing on him even as a soul foreign to the Hero’s Destiny had pulled her free. In that world, her Master had not fallen, but the world had been corrupted in the wake of their victory, and it was left without a guardian to save it from the evils of the world.

But in this world, she had held herself aloof from the young one in her care, careful to not impress on him the destiny he neither chose not embraced. Duty pushed this child, orders of one above him and the glimmer of hope that whatever sorrow burdened his young heart might be relieved. There was little she could say or do to him regardless, after all, she was not meant to be locked into stone, away from Her Grace’s power and touch, where her blade could not regain its power and where she grew weak and damaged.

There was little she could do to aid the little hero, her Young Master, but Hylia’s wisdom touched the young one’s mind and he, rather than forsaking her for a better blade, took especial care to clean and care for her blade, gathering supplies and taking her to a smithy who strengthened and brightened her blade, and who’s hands guided her Young Master to mend her ailments and restore her to power.

Again, under caring fingers and a soulful gaze, she was restored to her true strength, and when little fingers had set to work, etching away a name in her steel, she’d never done a thing to stop them. He had never seen, but she had smiled at the little one as he looked down at his work with a firm nod.

His smile was so much like Master’s own, it made her spirit sing.

Her new master, her little master, the youngest she had known yet (in this time and in this world) was a good one. He tended her blade with all the care due by a young smithy, and even after he had replaced her to her resting place, his enemy defeated and his world saved, he’d taken care to visit and tend to her blade.

While he worked, he’d sing.

Sometimes the Ballad of the Goddess that he hummed, sometimes an old song she didn’t know. Sometimes he’d chatter, telling her about his day and how the world was. About the apple orchard beside his house and how it prospered, about the princess that was his sister, and about the things they’d seen on their journey.

Unlike before, violet eyes did not rest on her when she perched on the sword’s hilt, attentive and silent, but that did not stop her from watching him as he attended to her blade and the stone it was set in, as he cared for the ground and the area around it with all the worry and knowledge of a budding gardener.

But then he had stopped coming, and only the princess had come to her once and again, until Farore’s Oracle herself came, taking her blade in hand and whisking them away to a faraway country where her little hero, a bit older and a bit more experienced, waiting to take her on another adventure.

He had had help this time, there were friends and a mentor at his back as he fought the corrupted Golden Goddess that had been Nayru, but now acted only as a puppet to the evil Veran. There was no small amount of pride in the spirit’s soul as she watched him lead an army to destroy Ganon once more, to defeat Koume and Kotake and destroy the Tower of Evil that Veran had caused to be built.

Adventure after adventure, she had watched her little hero grow in skill and body. But with each task, each fateful quest, she had seen light leave violet eyes until they were hard and cold as stone. Eyes that lacked the purity and innocence to see her when at last her strength had fully returned. He no longer spoke to her, even as his hands worked dutifully over her blade. Only a set jaw and harsh stare met her gaze when she tried to catch his eye again, and again the spirit’s lack of a heart to break was felt as she watched bitterness and anger take over the boy as he cast aside any faith he may have once held for the Oracles and Her Grace Hylia.

Like a mother whose child has gone astray, she mourned, watching as task after task had consumed the innocent child and fueled the anger of the troubled teenager.

Sword spirits were not meant to have feelings, or to love and grow fond, and perhaps this was why. Because any Hero who must wield his blade for too long will change and grow callus and bitter towards those he loves, and she would have to watch the life fade from them as anger took hold. Hylia had attempted to grant her peace, to save her from the curse that was feeling, but she had pushed just enough to taste it, and now it was hers and a curse that weighed heavily on her as she was carried to and fro on quest after quest after quest.

Fi should not have known all of this, should not have known the heroes that she would meet in the future. Her memories should not have swum to her as nine heroes gathered, each baring his own blade as once more her Master had drawn her from her place to join with his fellow heroes to fight an evil that danced through time with no regard for its sacred pattern and the delicate lines cast between worlds. By all calculations, she ought not be able to know each in all of their individual splendor and lack thereof. She should not have known that the last of their number was once the youngest to wield her blade, or that in his time her strength was nothing to the world it was needed to save.

She shouldn’t have known that the boy’s father was a knight who’s power had been corrupted with her strength, a man brought near to ruin in her desperate attempt to right the wrongs she had done to those before him. Her strength was returned in his time, and it had nearly saddled her with the weight of another hero’s death.

She shouldn’t have known the beast that tamed himself with her power, the wolf that stirred inside the heart of a Hylian who had drawn her strength to himself in a time of shadows and twisted evils that spread far beyond the corrupted worlds and into Her Grace’s blessed land itself.

And there was her Master, and the child hero who she had killed and saved and ruined and lost all at once, alive from the time he had moved on from when he had left her yet returned her, his life tangled in the web of time and leaving holes and breaks across its surface. There too was her young master, angry and bitter and harsh, and two heroes whose fingers had never borne her strength; a hero whose power had forged his own blade and another who’d yet to find her in his desolate world.

Could a sword spirit sing in more than battle, she would have cried her thanks to the goddesses for a chance to see all of her masters, both claimed and not, gathered. Something stirred in her, although what it was was anyone’s guess, and no calculations and algorithms could determine its source, but Fi would smile as she danced in battle on her Master’s fingertips, protecting those that she had failed and who had been called too young, with the aid of one who she had grown and learned with.

It was her honor to aid them, to travel at their backs and to protect them from the darkness that followed and attacked them. To cleanse evil from their forms and return them too how they ought to have been. But her joy came when at last she could see her heroes connect.

A battle gone wrong, a misstep from one of the heroes and Master had been gravely injured, left unable to carry her and leaving her to be held and wielded by another until he was healed. There was arguing for who had a right, for who had a cause and who would wield her best, but at last she was landing in familiar hands, ones that fingered the etching on her hilt with a knowing and bitter look, but who treated her kindly as he pulled her baldric and sheath over his thin shoulders and followed along behind.

She should have kept silent, she ought to have. She had not spoken to any but the first and the last of her many masters, but she was unable to prevent it when she heard the thoughts of her Young Master.

It’s not like Sky’s actually just my Great-grandfather or something like that, he’s just... I just... I don’t want him to scold me is all. The royal family doesn’t last that long, Hyrule is wrong.

Since watching Master re-unite with the Spirit Maiden, she had not known such curiosity and -maybe it was joy- at hearing the thoughts of one of the heroes that had wielded her.

“So, you are Master’s offspring?”

Despite how the young hero -one of her favorites and the dearest to her soul, beside his ancestor in what might pass as her heart- might complain, she knew he found comfort in hearing her voice. It brought something to stir within her as well.

After centuries of silence, yet from master’s time no time at all, she was freed from silence and able, again, to converse with one of those to which she had been bound for eternity, and through him, Master.

Sword Spirit’s weren’t supposed to have favorites. But the pink-haired child that bore the Gift of Hearing and Understanding, be it animal, plant or spirit voices that he spoke to, was the connection to herself and her Master, a Link, if she might dare jest, to both her past and future, and to the heroes who she had been promised to protect. He stood beside the Chosen Hero in her memory, a favorite. And she too must have been dear to him, why else would he take such care to keep his mark on her hilt, a poorly scrawled name, only four letters, but ones that meant everything.

L-I-N-K.

The mark of ownership. A claim. A promise, and one that she would also keep and honor in kind.

She was her Master’s Sword, but she was also the blade of his descendent, and if pride could be felt by the Goddess’s blade, then Fi would have been bursting with it.

#lu fi #lu legend #lu sky #lu warriors #lu time #lu twilight #lu wild #lu wind #linkeduniverse #linked universe #the ties that bind #the blood between us compliant #fi #the master sword #i have feelings okay?#fi deserved better #fi angst

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dragynkeep · 3 years

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Small backstory: Pretty recently I saw a post discussing whether or not Ironwood is a veteran and how it affected the narrative based on your culture. I pointed out that he wasn't alive for the war 80 years ago and another random internet user mentioned the faunus wars, which were mentioned in the first valume... never again. When I asked whether they knew the exact dates those were happening and they responded with "Sometime after the war", so I to prove my point of James not being engaged with any human on human/human on faunus conflict I decided to use Ghira of all people for comparison in age... I think they're about the same age if we look at the material given us by the show itself... So none. I just think they're about the same age.

Anyway I said that if Ironwood fought in those wars so did Ghira, which would put a lot of his actions and character traits under question. Such as his pacifism and naive attitude towards the human-faunus conflict. And if he didn't... Well... Let's not forget that his family has a giant mansion in manajerie and that's already very sus. Him not fighting in the war while Ironwood did would make him and his family seem even more privileged compared to other faunus.

And then they responded with and I quote "Orrrr, ghira’s valor in the war is what earned him the title of king of furry island. Guy fights pretty good for a pacifist, and he could avoid conflict because he knows that as bad as things are now for the Faunus, it’s nothing compared to before the war. But that’s just a theory, *A Game Theory*" I know this isn't that serious but when I read this I snapped for unbeknownst reasons.

And I'm just gonna paste the stuff I responded with because I'm not typing that again-

That only raises more concerns to his weird optimism and naivety towards humans and their intentions. As well as puts his intelligence and how he precieves violence under question. Let's not forget that he, and everyone else in his group would have probably died and thrown in a ditch somewhere by the road if it weren't for Adam killing their attackers (ONE of their attackers). And after the encounter he only chastised Adam for his actions without much explanation, after being shot at by the humans (and possibly wounded by them, his aura seemed to crack and he flinched but that was it), the ones who treated their kin as slaves and just now threatened their lives. And they have definitely killed faunus before, from how the guy that shot Ghira had spoken. And Adam didn't even act on his own, he looked at Sienna who gave him permission... Sienna was Ghiras second in command at that moment if I recall correctly, and still Adam was the only one chastised.

I like their take but Ghira is just way too sus for me to believe that to be honest.

...I wish we were given more actual worldbuilding and lore in the series.

And the more I think about it the more I hated both Ghira and that response with a passion.

Anyway Ghira is an awful leader and person in many ways and the take that "He earned his place as the furry king on the island by his valor in the war" only makes him worse.

I realise that I stumbled into this conversation myself and dealt psychic damage to me myself (let this be a lesson for me) but what's done is done.

And all this over bad writing....

In any case I probably repeated myself several time through this rant and my english might not be as good as I think so sorry in advance if this turns out as a waste of time

this absolutely encapsulates why i hate the bellaparents; because they don’t enrich the world in anyway & actively make blake’s storyline worse, as well as those connected to them like sienna, adam & ilia.

i don’t think ghira was “made king of furry island due to his valour in the war” because we see pictures of some belladonna ancestors in the mansion; they’re obviously not ghira or kali but look enough like them to be related. meaning this is an inherited position of power & actually represents a monarchy much more accurately than what the person you were debating with actually said, kings aren’t elected. they’re chosen by birthright, nothing they actually did & ghira ... does nothing. menagerie is so dangerous but the only defence force we see is situated in his home. his people are suffering in tiny huts on a squished island but we see him in a massive mansion that is never seemed to be used for any just cause like a government building; nor do we ever see that he seems to try & improve anything for the faunus.

he allows blake to blame faunus on their isolated island for the actions of a radicalized diaspora he’s responsible for; his inaction led to the radicalization of the white fang & he did nothing about them until they put their problems on his front door by harming his child. until his own family was brought into it, ghira canonically was more than content enough to do nothing about the organization he spearheaded & then let fall to ruin. all because of his own limp wristed pacifisim that is just as harmful as the radicalized ideals of the current white fang.

now they’re back in his hands & i don’t see how this time it’s going to be different when he’s still the same privileged faunus with outdated ideals on how to deal with humans who are still violent & dangerous.

#rwby #rwde #ghira belladonna #ghira belladonna critical #owl.txt #answered #q

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ezrisdax-archive · 3 years

Text

krantt

for #trilogyappreciationweek, with thanks to @wlwkiranerys and @rannochs for being my sound board.

The one where Wrex doesn’t adopt Tali (except he kinda does) also here on ao3

Everyone on the Normandy was young to Wrex. The thing about being a Krogan was that it gave you a different perspective on age. Excluding the Asari, all species burnt out bright and quick to him. But even Liara was just a kid to him, not even 200 yet.

From what he knew about Quarians however Tali was young to them too. He'd met a few Quarians on pilgrimages before; their version of the Rite of Passage from what he gathered. Except with less Thrasher maws.

Well there was one on the planet they'd gotten a distress beacon from. That probably counted.

But unlike the Rite of Passage you did it alone; not a krantt to rely on like Krogans had. Seemed lonely.

So Wrex may have decided somewhere after that mission to keep an eye on the young Quarian. She wasn't so bad. Understood all his grumbling about the Council and the bullshit they put his species through.

Though at least his species hadn't released an intelligent robot race onto the galaxy that now worshipped some old machine.

Still Tali was okay.

She just had to remain alive to be okay.

Wrex sighed as he watched her clean her shotgun. He rubbed a hand over his jaw, scratching lightly with his gloves.

"Where'd you learn how to fire that anyway?" He asked.

Tali jumped at his voice, the light in her helmet that indicated she was talking lit up when she yelped.

"Wrex! Don't sneak up on me!" Tali scolded but then her shoulders fell like she expected a scolding of her own.

Wrex merely stared.

"I..." Tali began, her nervousness coming through her tone even without facial expressions to go off on. "My father taught me. He's an Admiral." There was a touch of reverence and regret in her voice. "As his daughter I was expected to learn. Our ship could have been boarded by Geth at any moment."

Wrex hummed, loudly enough it echoed in the quiet cargo bay. Thankfully it was late enough most of the crew was asleep.

"Makes sense." He inclined his head a little in acknowledgement. "Guess the Quarians would have reason to know all that."

"We may not be the Krogan but we've seen our fair share of battles. You've seen me fight, I can handle myself." Tali practically bristled from where she sat, angry and petulant. Wrex wondered idly how many times she'd been forced to prove herself to others that it was this touchy a subject.

"Didn't say you couldn't. Could use a few tricks though."

Tali paused, caught off guard. "Oh? Like what?" If she was trying to aim for casual she failed. The curiosity shone through and her leg bounced like she could hardly contain herself.

Wrex huffed in amusement and then pulled out his own shotgun.

"Lemme show you." He said and aimed at Garrus' locker. The shot fired and he reloaded with ease, firing off another shot a second later.

Tali was up in an instant, "How did you reload so fast?" She asked in one breath, the words blending together.

Wrex chuckled, "Old trick I learned. Here, watch the wrist, keep an eye on my right finger."

"I'm not sure Garrus would like us using his locker for practice." Tali said even as she inched closer to do what he'd asked.

"Oh no an upset Turian. I'm real broken up about that." Wrex's voice was as dry as ever and Tali snorted in amusement. "Now come on, I don't got all night."

Tali stepped closer still and watched carefully as Wrex did the trick over again.

"Does anyone know what happened to my locker?" Garrus asked the next morning and Tali choked on her drink.

She'd procured straws from somewhere though Wrex wasn't sure where.

"No idea." Tali said a moment after, clearing her throat.

"Maybe someone got tired of elevator conversations." Wrex suggested, leaning back in his chair with a toothy grin.

"Point taken." Garrus grumbled, "You could have just said so. Now I'll have to spend the morning replacing my locker door."

"I'll help." Tali offered and she sounded guilty. She was fidgeting again in her seat, a telling trait.

Garrus stared at Wrex who just stared back, the grin still on his face.

“Fine. Thanks Tali. I suppose that’s about all I can ask for.” Garrus was still looking at Wrex.

He rolled his eyes. “Look Garrus, you want a favour come right out and ask it.”

Garrus made an indignant noise. “I don’t think it’s a favour if I’m asking for help to fix something you wrecked.”

“Allegedly.” Wrex said and shifted in his seat just a little so his shotgun was in view.

Garrus took the warning and fled, muttering about Krogan as he did.

“Is that how Krogan always end a conversation? Showing off a shotgun?” Tali asked.

“Nah, usually there’s more bloodshed.”

“And it’s not even noon.”

“Give it time.”

Tali was back in the cargo bay that night and while she’d set up one of the targets that was officially there for practicing she wasn’t firing at it but struggling with the reloading trick Wrex had been showing her.

“Any luck?”

Tali jumped at the sound of his voice again and turned to face him. “You know for someone so large you’re very light on your feet.”

“Large?” Wrex shot back, “Something you want to say to me, Quarian?”

“No.” Tali said quickly. “Um, just, you know. You are a Krogan and I haven’t met many but they are all large and-”

“Relax, kid.” Wrex cut off her rambling before it went on too long. “I knew what you meant.”

“Oh.” Tali sighed with relief and then her shoulders shot back up. “I’m not a kid you know.”

“Everyone’s a kid to me on here.” Wrex waved off her concern. “When you live as long as I have it happens.”

“Ah.” Tali said. “I suppose that would happen. I can’t imagine living for hundreds of years, you must be old to the Krogan though.”

“First I’m large, now I’m old?” Wrex snorted. “You sure know how to flatter someone.”

He couldn’t see it but he was willing to bet under his mask Tali was cringing.

“Shouldn’t you be asleep anyway?” Wrex asked.

Tali shifted on her feet, “I can’t. It’s too quiet. Quarian ships are rather full, here it’s…” She trailed off but the fact that nothing could be heard around them, not even the hum of the engines, told Wrex everything.

Suddenly the ship felt empty and, he was sure from Tali’s perspective, lonely.

Wrex sighed, the weight of responsibility falling on him.

“You know I’m not the oldest Krogan by a long shot.” Wrex finally said, sitting down on one of the crates next to them. “There’s this ancient guy, Drack. Comes from Clan Nakmor, they’re not as big as Clan Urdnot of course but there’s a lot of them. Somehow this guy survived the Krogan Rebellions.”

“Really?” Tali asked, taking the seat next to him and crossing her legs and setting her shotgun down next to her. “I didn’t think any Krogan had survived since then.”

“There’s a few still around, some of us are just hard to kill.”

“Like you?”

“Anything that can kill me deserves it. If it can get to me first.”

“But there’s so much of you to shoot.” Tali said and her voice was teasing.

“Is this how Quarian’s live as long as they do? By being so small nothing can hit them?” Wrex asked drily.

“Hey!”

“Course one lucky shot and you’re gone. Lacking redundant systems must suck. That guy, Drack, had most of his replaced. Pretty sure he’s only still alive because Kesh would kill him otherwise.” Wrex had met Kesh a few times, once thought of her as the runt of a litter like most had. Then she’d punched him in the face and stolen his equipment from his camp. That was the thing about underestimating people, they could always surprise you.

Wrex glanced over at Tali who was swaying a little where she sat, clearly tired.

“That and he had his krantt back in the Krogan rebellions.”

“What’s a krantt?” Tali asked and then yawned loud enough Wrex could hear her jaw crack even through the helmet.

“Hard to explain it to outsiders.” Wrex admitted, grumbling a little that he felt the need to even explain it. “They’re your allies, ones you can rely on even more than family. They’ll be there to watch your back, like in the Rite of Passage.”

His krantt had died when his father betrayed him and had them all murdered before him. Wrex got his revenge but the wound was still there.

“So like Shepard.” Tali said sleepily, her helmet knocked against Wrex’s shoulders. “And you and the squad.”

“Not the same.” Wrex replied, shifting a little and if that was more comfortable to Tali to rest against him that was no one’s business but his own. “Though maybe Shepard might count.”

Wrex was coming around to her.

“Guess the rest of you aren’t so bad for aliens.” He admitted begrudgingly after the silence dwelled on them for too long.

Tali was out however, a soft hiss from her filter filled the air every time she breathed out.

“Some of you could get better aim though.” Wrex continued on in the dark of the cargo bay, letting his voice take up the empty space. “Don’t know how you lived this long. Not that us Krogan can talk with the genophage running around. Nothing left on Tuchanka even worth saving…”

“Your ancestors wore that?” Tali asked in disbelief, staring at the armor Shepard had recovered for Wrex. He couldn’t see it but was willing to bet her face was scrunched up in disgust.

“I don’t think a Quarian is allowed to give me advice on a suit.” Wrex deadpanned, moving the armor to sit at his feet.

They’d had another session of training, Tali was really coming along with the reloading trick.

Then she’d asked him about the mission he went on that day with Shepard and Liara and he’d reluctantly pulled the armor out of the box he’d set it in.

“I think a Quarian is probably the best option for that.” Tali shot back. “We do spend our lives in them after all. It doesn’t hurt to make them look good.”

“Then what happened to yours?” Wrex asked and tried not to laugh as Tali turned her head at him in what was certainly a glare.

“I have a shotgun.” Tali warned him.

“Try that excuse on the Turian, not on me.” Wrex said and let out another booming laugh.

“You’re right,” Tali said, her voice too chipper to be real, “I’d never make it past all your layers with one shot.”

Wrex broke out in a loud laugh. “You’ve got quads, Quarian.”

“I have a name.” Tali said, all hints of laughter chased from her tone.

“Yeah yeah, not bad.” He paused and inclined his head. “Tali.”

The pleased smug smile she was wearing was obvious even if it couldn’t be seen.

“Too bad you still need to practice your shots.” He couldn’t help but add.

Tali huffed and grabbed her gun and without hesitation fired it at the training dummy. She flicked her wrist and reloaded with the shell she had in her hand already and fired again in only seconds.

Wrex watched with something that might have even been pride.

“What was that?” Tali asked, her voice a little high pitched as the noises continued around them like nothing they’d ever heard before.

Noveria was not a place Wrex had ever cared to visit and he doubted he’d have any better memories of it now.

“Probably debris.” He said, his eyes darting everywhere trying to find the cause of it. “Don’t have a panic attack, I’ll protect you.”

The swarmers came out from nowhere under their feet and Shepard cursed.

Wrex fired his shotgun though it might have been easier to just squish the bugs under his feet rather than fire at them.

“Keelah,” Tali swore as they encroached further towards her. She scrambled back and nearly fell but Wrex shot out an arm to grab and steady her.

“It’s not over yet.” Wrex yelled and fired off another shot as the swarmers came closer.

“I’m going to have nightmares from this.” Tali muttered, Wrex only just close enough to hear it.

“At least you’ll live through it to have them.” Wrex said and kicked a swarmer that came close. It went flying and splattered against the walls.

Next to him he heard Tali reload and fire her shotgun over and over again.

Tali was fiddling with something on her omnitool when Wrex arrived that week, this time when he called her name she didn’t jump but looked up and nodded her head at him.

“Wrex.” She said, “Sorry but I’m a little busy tonight.”

Wrex shrugged. “No skin off my back, this have something to do with the data Shepard got?” He nodded at the omnitool in Tali’s hand.

Ever since she and Kaidan had come back from a mission on geth intel she’d been invested in it. Hadn’t even come up to eat with the group.

“I’m planning on taking this back to the fleet to complete my pilgrimage – when this is all over of course.” Tali said, so fast Wrex could barely make it out. Her leg was bouncing in her excitement again. “This data could help us plan against the geth! I’m trying to get a headstart into deciphering it.”

“Not bad for an Admiral’s daughter, bet he’d be proud.” Unlike his father.

Wrex never was the conventional enough Krogan for him.

Because they’d spent so many months fighting side by side Wrex had gotten good at telling Tali’s body language even if he couldn’t see her face. So he could tell it’d fallen a little at that remark.

“I hope he is.” Tali said wistfully. “I was worried about going back to the fleet with nothing much to show.”

“And now you’ll show you helped stopped an invasion and picked up some random data along the way.” Wrex sat down next to her and groaned like it was an annoyance to him. He stretched out, his foot nudging Tali’s. “Bet other Quarians can’t say the same.”

“No.” Tali brightened, her back straightening. “They can’t.”

Wrex grunted and fell back. “Wake me up when you decide it’s time to do something practical like shoot at something though.”

“This is practical!” Tali said hotly, “You saw how far the Geth have advanced, with this data we could see if there’s a pattern to where they’re coming out of the Veil and-”

Wrex let Tali’s words wash over him and shut his eyes.

They lost Kaidan on Virmire and everyone was a little more withdrawn, a little angrier, and more than a little ready to end it.

“I’ve lost friends before,” Tali admitted that night. “But not like this.”

Wrex didn’t say anything. Keeping quiet even as Tali curled up at his side with the hiss of her filter staticky in her held back sobs filling the air.

Krantt weren’t supposed to die like that.

Good thing his fellow squad members weren’t krantt.

It helped him sleep that night for what little he did get.

He was never one for emotional goodbyes or just goodbyes period.

Which is why when Wrex left the Normandy he did it by only telling Shepard and leaving one thing behind.

Shotguns were nice and all but if he was about to try to sit in a room and make peace with a bunch of clan idiots then it wouldn’t do him any good.

Tali would put it to better use.

It took two years before he saw someone from the Normandy’s crew again but Shepard was standing right there on Tuchanka.

He clasped her arm and squeezed, trying to convey his relief at seeing Shepard again.

To Shepard’s right he heard a cough and looked over to see Tali.

“Good to see you too, Wrex.” Tali said and Wrex squinted at her. She looked roughly the same, maybe a little taller and bigger. Her suit had changed a little, looked fancier from what he could tell.

The shotgun at her hip was more than little familiar to him.

“Shepard got you caught up in her mess again, hunh?”

“Had to pick Tali up from a planet, she needed a little help.” Shepard said and grinned at the both of them.

“Always getting into trouble.” Wrex intoned.

“At least I’m getting out.” Tali said, crossing her arms. “You seemed to have gotten even bigger just sitting on your throne.”

The throne in question stung a little for Wrex. He hadn’t really wanted it, symbolically or literally. His brother put together the stones to shape that way more as a mockery and bitter anger he hadn’t gotten the title or respect Wrex had.

He grunted and Tali must have noticed she struck a nerve because she uncrossed her arms and fidgeted in the same way she used to back on the Normandy when she was feeling guilty.

Before she could say anything he slapped her on the back, making her yelp and almost stumble over her own feet. He placed a hand on her shoulder to steady her and Tali whipped her head to glare at him from under her helmet.

He laughed, unable to help himself. “Don’t be jealous just because I have somewhere to sit on my homeworld.”

Apparently two years weren’t long enough to stop him from remembering the old Normandy crew’s quirks because Wrex could tell she was rolling her eyes at him.

It seemed Tali had gotten tougher skin in the intervening years.

At least she was still standing.

“So,” Wrex said and dropped his arm away from Tali’s shoulder to take a seat back on his throne. “What brings you here?”

Shepard stepped forward and gestured at Grunt and Wrex leaned in to see what was wrong.

Word traveled fast and before Shepard had even made it off the battlegrounds Wrex had heard about the fallen Thresher maw.

Granting Grunt a title in Clan Urdnot was easier after that. Though Wrex would have been lying if he’d said he wouldn’t have given Shepard and Tali a title too if they asked.

Shepard wandered off, chasing after Grunt who had decided to challenge some Krogans standing near a pit, leaving Tali alone with him.

“So that was your Pilgrimage?” Tali asked, “I’m amazed any of you make it into adulthood.”

“Right,” Wrex said drily, “Nothing like sending our young out into the galaxy without a credit to their name and just hoping they make it back.”

Tali tilted her head, a silent acknowledgment.

“You taking care of that thing?” He nodded at the shotgun at her hip.

“Yes.” She paused. “Thank you, by the way. It would have been nicer to thank you in person however.”

Wrex shrugged. “I was getting rid of it anyway.”

“Uh hunh.” Tali said, her tone one of disbelief.

“Surprised you joined the whelp there in his Rite of Passage.” Wrex glanced over at Grunt and then back at Tali. “Doesn’t seem like your kind of deal.”

“Well.” Tali shifted on her feet, looking away. “I remembered something an old Krogan told me about krantts and the importance of them in the Rite.”

Wrex blinked in surprise.

“Hm.” He leaned back in the throne. “Not bad for a Quarian.”

“Tali, come on!” Shepard called out to her and Tali straightened up at her name.

“See you later, Wrex. Take care of yourself. Though I suppose that’s easier to do if you’re doing nothing but sitting.” Her tone was cheerful as she said it.

“Don’t forget who taught you those tricks of yours.” Wrex said, there was no real hint of warning in his voice- if anything it was jovial.

Tali nodded at him and walked off.

Wrex sunk into his chair, taking the next datapad he needed to look at about Clan Weyloc with him. It seemed like Tali wasn’t so young anymore.

Two years could make a lot of differences to species who didn’t live that long.

Wrex wasn’t sure how he felt about it.

“You heard from Tali?” Wrex asked Liara one day when they were sitting in the lounge. He’d pulled her away from those screens of hers, the tightness in her eyes worried him a little.

Everyone else was back on board except for Tali and Ashley but Ashley he at least had heard about. She’d recovered from her injuries and even had a Spectre status to her name. Tali though no one seemed to know anything about.

“Our last interaction was months ago.” Liara said. She dragged a hand over her face and Wrex pretended not to see the wetness on her fingers as she pulled it away. “I’ve heard very little from Quarian space. It seems they’ve just gone silent.”

His grasp around his cup tightened, the glass crinkling underneath his grip.

“I’m certain she’s fine however. I saw her when Shepard came to help me with the Shadow Broker. She was…broken up about her father still but didn’t let that interfere with the mission.”

“Her father?” Wrex asked, frowning.

“He died. Shepard says he woke up some of the Geth units that Tali had sent him. The Admiralty put her on trial for it.”

“Those idiots did what?” Wrex growled, slamming the glass on to the table. “Have they even met Tali? She’s the last person who would take chances with the geth.”

“That’s what Shepard said.” Liara replied, and when she looked up at him she was smiling. “I wouldn’t worry Wrex, Tali can take care of herself.”

“Who said anything about worry?” Wrex blustered but he knew Liara wasn’t buying it. “I just think there’s a whole lot of stupid in this world that needs to be taken care of.”

Liara hummed and let it slide, “From last I heard she’s working along with the Admiralty board.”

Wrex scoffed.

He understood it certainly, those were Tali’s people. She cared about them the same way he cared about the Krogan, probably more since she didn’t seem to hate half of them. Maybe the genophage hadn’t ravaged her people but the war with the Geth had. He was willing to bet she’d taken on more responsibility than was reasonable.

And no one was even with her to watch her back.

“So,” Liara tactfully changed the subject, “What will you do when the genophage is cured.”

Wrex grinned widely. “Finish kicking the Reaper’s ass for the rest of the galaxy.”

“How magnanimous of you.” Liara said, shaking her head but the smile she wore was genuine at least and the shadows in her eyes had receded however little it was.

“The Asari can thank us later.” Wrex took his drink back up and chugged it the rest of the way. There might have been some broken glass in there but it made little difference to him.

He put Tali out of mind for the time, he was sure they both had bigger issues to worry about.

Only Shepard could get a clone that would try to take over her life.

In all honesty, Wrex had missed the chaos.

And being with the crew.

Kaidan was still a notable absence, especially whenever Ashley was standing next to Shepard and would just lean over like she was about to say something to someone and then realized they were no longer there. Old habits died hard even years later it seemed.

No one mentioned it.

Shepard opted to take Ashley and Brooks to the casino with her, leaving the rest of them to the apartment. EDI and Liara took to monitoring the channel in case Shepard needed anything, Vega had taken over the tv, Garrus and Joker were shooting jokes back and forth at each other about Turians and humans, and Javik was just standing creepily in the corner.

Wrex still didn’t know what to make of the Prothean. Shepard found the weirdest people to call squadmates.

“So I heard there’s a cure for your people.” Tali said as she took a seat next to him. Her glass was filled with something alcoholic with a straw stuck in it so she could drink it.

“And I heard you made nice with the Geth.” Wrex said, taking a gulp of his own drink.

“Who’d have thought we’d be here now.” Tali raised her glass in a toast and then took a sip.

“Probably Shepard.” Wrex grumbled though it wasn’t really critical. “She always did keep talking about making a difference.” And apparently Wrex had listened. He wasn’t sure what was worse.

At least taking a risk with her had panned out.

“You should visit Rannoch,” Tali said, “The Geth didn’t do upkeep much on the buildings they weren’t inhabiting, it might even feel like Tuchanka to you. Except greener.” Tali sounded proud and Wrex caught the twitch in her leg. This time like she was stopping herself from bouncing as she talked excitedly about her homeworld. “It’s all so new. Can I even call it new? It is technically old to us. Old like you are- wait you must have seen what it looked like before…” She shifted, looking up at him.

“I didn’t go much in Quarian space.” Wrex admitted. “Never had a reason to. Didn’t think I’d be around Quarians much.”

He could hear the smirk in her voice. “And yet here you are.”

“Mistakes may have been made.” Wrex drawled and snorted when Tali tried to glare at him from under her helmet. “I’ll see if I can make my way out there. When all this is done. Who knows maybe the council will award us Rannoch. Then you’d have to fight us for it.” He grinned at Tali. “Good luck getting it back then.”

She was rolling her eyes, he knew it.

“We’d manage.” Tali said, sniffing indignantly. “We’re tougher than you think.”

“Yeah.” Wrex agreed, glancing over at her. “So it seems.”

“I mean. We took down a Reaper. Without using a Thresher maw even.”

Wrex threw his head back and laughed. “Only because I bet Quarian’s guard dogs would catch a cold if they went outside.”

“Speaking of dogs I heard Jack got herself a pet varren, I wonder how one of those would do on Rannoch…”

“Bad idea, kid.” Wrex said but leaned back to listen to Tali go on about it anyway.

It’d been years since he’d seen Tali in a firefight. The ride down the elevator to the cargo bay had him glance over at her.

“You been practicing with that shotgun? Still remember the fast-reloading trick I showed you?” He asked.

Tali’s back straightened. “You know, I've taken care of myself for the past few years.”

Of that he had no doubt. She would have had to with everything going on the galaxy right then and even before it from what Wrex had heard of what happened to her father.

“I know. I'm old and I worry, even though my favourite Quarian's all grown up and killing Reapers.” He sighed. It wouldn’t hurt to admit that.

“You're like the crazy head butting uncle I never had.” Tali told him, a mixture of disbelief and amusement in her voice.

Whatever response he was going to have was lost when the doors opened and Shepard raced after her clone.

In the end he pulled both Tali and Shepard back up into the cargo bay before they fell to the Citadel streets below.

“Thanks, Wrex.” Shepard said, slightly out of breath. She stood up and pinged Joker on the comms.

Tali sat on the ground next to him, shaking a little.

He nudged her.

“You okay?”

To his surprise Tali started laughing, falling onto the floor on her back and giggling.

“You ever think about how weird our lives are?” Tali asked between her laughter.

“All the time.” Wrex sighed. “I had it much easier before all of you.”

“Aw but Wrex.” Tali sat up and he was certain she was grinning. “Then you wouldn’t have met your favourite Quarian.”

Wrex rolled his eyes.

“Does that make Garrus your favourite Turian? And Liara your favourite Asari? I bet Shepard’s the favourite human, right? Can I tell them?” Tali asked, snickering.

He almost wished he could have said that she reminded him of the Tali he’d known years ago who was lighter and freer of responsibilities but even back then she bore a weight on her back.

“No one would believe it.” He turned his head a little so Tali would miss his grin.

“I bet they would.” Tali said, leaning back on her hands. “You’re a little soft around us Wrex, I don’t think you’ve noticed it.”

“You take that back.” Wrex grumbled, looking back to frown at her.

“If it makes you feel better you’re my favourite Krogan.” Tali told him, matter of fact.

It did make him feel a little better, not that he was going to say it.

“Yeah yeah, head-butting uncle, I heard.”

“At least your hearing isn’t going in your old age then.”

Wrex certainly proved the head-butting part later that week when Grunt challenged him at the party.

Laughter rang out all around them, the apartment alive as everyone who had once been a part of the Normandy crew shared stories.

Though some of them he’d never met they all shared the common bond of getting dragged into the craziest shit with Shepard.

Glancing around he noticed a certain Quarian was missing and heaved himself away from the balcony with a sigh. It didn’t take long to find Tali nearly passed out in the bathroom.

“I knew you were a lightweight.” Wrex said, looking down at Tali and huffing with a laugh.

“Wrex!” Tali yelled, too loud even over the blasting music.

“Think you can stand or you too out of it?” He asked, amused as Tali hiccuped.

“I am not too out of it.” Tali denied but still lay on the floor. “I am still looking for answers is all.”

“Answers?”

Tali nodded but then held a hand to her helmet like she regretted the movement a second later. “Shepard said the answers to my father are the bottom of the glass. I am still looking.”

Wrex rolled his eyes, “Shepard also thinks she could survive a head butting contest with a krogan. Come on,” He said and leaned down to drag Tali up right.

“Do you think I made him proud? I am not certain he made me proud.” Tali rambled as Wrex started to drag her towards one of the many bedrooms. It wasn’t hard to guess she was still talking about her father. “I thought he had all the answers once; but they were just lies he told me.” Her voice was bitter and Wrex paused.

“Kid no one has all the answers and as for your dad, well. Parents are complicated. At least he didn’t try to kill you.”

“Oh.” Tali said, trailing out the word too long. “I suppose you have me there, Wrex.”

“Always nice to beat a Quarian at something.” Wrex kept moving then.

“Pfft, you don’t want to beat me, I am your favourite.”

“Really going to milk that one, hunh?”

Tali was beaming under her helmet, this close up he could just make out a grin. “It means a lot to me.”

Wrex made a few mock grumbling noises. “Don’t you people have the ability to flush out toxins or something.”

“I will!” Tali said brightly and then hung her head. “In a minute.”

Wrex got to the bed and dumped her on it. “There. Now you can also sleep it off.” Tali flopped around on the bed, making Wrex drag a hand over his face. “This is humiliating for the both of us, kid.”

“I’m not a kid!” Tali complained, her tone the near exact it had been three years ago in the cargo bay. “You even said I was all grown up! And and-” She swayed when she tried to sit up. “Killing Reapers!” She finished victoriously.

Wrex chuckled and pushed her back down, “Yeah you are. I’m proud of you for it. You’re no Kalros but you can pack a punch with that bot of yours.”

“Chitika goes for the optics!” Tali said but it was slightly muffled by her turning her face into the bedsheets.

Wrex snorted when she began to do the wheezy breath with her filter that meant she was out again.

“Your dad’s an idiot.” He told the sleeping Tali and then trudged back to the party.

Tali wasn’t wrong. Rannoch was greener than Tuchanka but a lot of the land had been turned into Geth hubs that were now being dismantled to turn into homes.

Having them so near still creeped Wrex out with their flashlight heads, he wished for a moment Ashley was there to share in his commisery of it but she was still on Earth. After the last battle most of them had headed for their homeworlds while mourning the loss of Shepard.

He’d spent a few months on Tuchanka overseeing building plans for expansion and watching the first of his children grow a little and then gotten the invitation from Tali to “see what a real planet looks like”.

“If this is what qualifies as a real planet I’m not impressed.” Wrex intoned as Tali greeted him at the shuttle pad.

She stepped up to fling her arms around him and pulled him into a hug that he returned with a sigh.

“I’m surprised you made it off that scrap of rock you call one so quickly. I didn’t think you’d accept my invite for another year at least.” Tali stepped back and was fidgeting.

Her mask was off and Wrex squinted a little to view her face. He grunted lightly, “Thought you might be in trouble. Or in need of some good old fashioned Krogan strength to move things.”

Tali rolled her eyes, “This is just a friendly visit.” She said but was still shifting on her feet and wringing her hands. “I wanted to show you how far we’d come.”

Wrex tilted his head, trying to figure out what it was Tali was hiding. Without her mask it was easier to see her avert her eyes. “Well, I also thought I should see my krantt.” He finally said just to see her reaction.

Tali’s face shot up, her gaze meeting his and her mouth dropped in surprise. “I thought you didn’t have a krantt anymore.”

That’s what he’d thought too until three years ago. But he wasn’t about to lie to himself anymore. The Normandy crew would always be important to him.

Wrex just shrugged in response to her though.

Tali bounced on her feet and grinned up at him. “I see the end of the war really has made you soft.” She said, her voice sly. “How are raising babies?”

Wrex grunted. “Almost as annoying as watching over a baby Quarian.”

“Hey!” Tali reached out to whack his shoulder but just hurt her hand instead. She pulled it back with a pout.

“But I’d be glad if they grew up as well as she did.” Wrex admitted a second after even as he laughed.

Her shoulders straightened at that and Tali stood a little taller. “Thanks. I’d hope my father would be able to say the same thing.” Her eyes darted away again at the comment and it clicked to Wrex.

He truly was getting old and soft because instead of dropping it he stepped closer to nudge Tali. “Guess I can be proud in his place then.”

Tali hesitated only a second before she smiled at him again. It was a little sad this time but the sincerity was there. “Come on old man, I’ll show you why we Quarians were once considered the best builders.”

“So long as it looks better than your suits.”

Tali whacked his arm again, a lesson not learnt the first time.

“You’re lucky I don’t have a shotgun right now.” She warned him.

“You couldn’t match me even with one.” Wrex said back but it had no bite. He dropped a hand to her shoulder and squeezed lightly.

She probably actually could though he’d never admit it.

After all, he’d taught her the best tricks in the books.

#tali'zorah vas normandy #urdnot wrex #trilogyappreciationweek #beej writes #rannochs #wlwkiranerys

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robininthelabyrinth · 4 years

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Imagine what would have happened if NHS realized the JGY was poisoning his brother long before NMJ died? What do you think he would do?

It was meant to be a surprise.

Nie Huaisang would be the last person to deny that he was a lazy, useless good-for-nothing, but he prided himself on having a good heart, and a generous one; even his brother couldn’t deny that Nie Huaisang’s ability to give gifts tailored to the recipient’s wishes were second to none. There was a reason he’d managed the Nie sect’s social affairs ever since the age of eight.

And, of course, the person he put the most effort into finding just the right gift for was his da-ge – and that was also the person he found the hardest to please.

Sure, Nie Mingjue would probably be overjoyed by the promise (and fulfilment) of a solid month of effort in saber practice, but that would only raise Nie Mingjue’s expectations while ruining Nie Huaisang’s life for a month, and anyway Nie Huaisang had already given his brother that the year he was thirteen and he hated repeating gifts. Since that option was off the table, if Nie Huaisang wanted to give his brother something that would make him happy, he had to think hard as to what that might be.

Especially since that present a few years ago, which had gone so terribly wrong.

(He’d thought his brother would be happy that he’d killed a Wen lieutenant for him, using his saber the way he so rarely did – and it hadn’t been easy, that’s for sure – but Nie Mingjue’s hands had actually shaken when he’d found out that Nie Huaisang had left the security of the Unclean Realm and Nie Huaisang didn’t want to see that gutted expression on his brother’s face ever again. Luckily, the war ended soon after, and it wasn’t an issue any more – except for the worried look on Nie Mingjue’s face every time his birthday came around.)

He’d played it low-key for a few years – finding exotic animals for a hunt, a new whetstone for Baxia, practical things like that – but this year was the end of a decade, and he was determined to do better.

The Song of Clarity seemed like the perfect solution.

After all, if Nie Huaisang learned to play it, his da-ge could hear the calming music every day, and he wouldn’t feel guilty about interrupting their lives for his needs; Lan Xichen was of course busy with his duties as Sect Leader, and Jin Guangyao, though always willing to visit, had a weak golden core that made the distant travel unpleasant.

Naturally, he couldn’t just ask to learn it. He liked his da-ge’s sworn brothers very much, had adopted them immediately as his own, but Nie Huaisang knew perfectly well that anything he told to them would swiftly reach his brother’s ears – he didn’t mind; after all, they were Nie Mingjue’s sworn brothers, not his. But it did make it tricky when he wanted to plan a surprise.

Luckily, the Unclean Realm was full of secrets, and the chamber near his brother’s receiving room – used by one of their more unscrupulous ancestors to spy on suspicious guests – was the perfect one to solve his problem. Nie Huaisang flattered himself to think he was pretty good at music; if he sat in the stone chamber that Nie Mingjue had forcefully erased from his mind years before, and which even Jin Guangyao with all his tricks had never known of, to listen to the tune being played over and over again, he should be able to figure out how the sounds came together.

He’d even get to benefit from the calming and mind-sharpening effects of the music itself, which would surely help him learn the tune even faster.

It was a great plan.

So great, in fact, that he found himself coughing up blood after only a few weeks.

Nie Huaisang didn’t suspect the music at the beginning. Since he didn’t share his brother’s dislike of submitting himself to medical experts, he went to their family doctor at once.

The man had the strangest expression on his face.

“Have you been practicing your saber too hard?” he asked, and if that wasn’t a suspicious question, Nie Huaisang didn’t know what was. It wasn’t as though he didn’t know anything about the saber spirits – his brother’s best attempts to keep him blissfully ignorant aside, it was pretty hard to learn their family’s history without knowing a little about how their sect became so powerful, and how their sect leaders tended to die – but it wasn’t usually very relevant to his life. He didn’t refuse to practice saber because he was afraid of the qi deviation that would probably kill him no matter how much or how little saber he practiced; he refused because he was lazy, and the family philosophy of ‘suppress evil wherever it appears’ seemed like an awful lot of work to put on his shoulders in exchange for, ugh, what, more exercise? No thanks.

“I have not,” he said.

“Nie-gongzi, if this is for your brother’s birthday –”

“It isn’t!” he protested at once, but that got him thinking: wasn’t he listening to the Song of Clarity every week, same as his brother? Even if Nie Huaisang did get it into his head to overdo things with his saber – not that that was likely to be possible at his age and cultivation level, his family’s lives were short only in comparison to other cultivators and even his brother, the prodigy, hadn’t had any signs of qi deviation so young – it shouldn’t have been able to affect him, not when his mind was being cleansed.

Not unless the Song of Clarity didn’t do what it was supposed to.

Nie Huaisang was alarmed by the thought. Not wanting to spoil a birthday surprise for his brother was one thing, but something that could harm his brother, however inadvertently? That was an emergency.

Obviously, the only thing to be done was to ask someone wiser for help.

After all, Nie Huaisang’s only a good-for-nothing; how could he deal with something of this magnitude? He made an excuse about needing to purchase something and went to Gusu at once.

After all, it had been Lan Xichen who suggested applying the song – if there was some fundamental clash between Lan and Gusu techniques, such that a technique meant to help in fact hurt, he would be the one to ask. Jin Guangyao might play it more often, but when in doubt, it was always better to go to the master.

“A clash?” Lan Xichen asked, frowning. “What do you mean?”

“I’ve been listening to san-ge play it, every time he comes over,” Nie Huaisang explained. “I want to learn the chords.”

Lan Xichen smiled. “You could have asked –”

“It was supposed to be a surprise, and you would have told him. No, don’t shake your head, you would have; you’d have put down the flag and drums the second he looked the slightest bit worried about it. You’re hopeless, er-ge, just admit it. Anyway, that isn’t the point – I’ve been teaching myself the chords by listening to it –”

“You always had a talent for music,” Lan Xichen said, and Nie Huaisang beamed. “It must have come from your mother.”

Nie Huaisang giggled into his sleeve. “It’s not da-ge’s fault he’s halfway tone-deaf. Do you remember back when your uncle tried to teach him an instrument? Da-ge’s playing nearly made him start crying, and all the while da-ge kept insisting that what he was doing and what you were doing sounded exactly the same to him.”

Lan Xichen smiled outright at the memory.

“Anyway, I started coughing up blood the other day –”

“What?!” Lan Xichen exclaimed, smile disappearing from his face at once. “Huaisang! You should have started there!”

“I was getting to it. Don’t worry, I visited the family doctor and he said some extra time meditating would be enough to put me to rights –”

“You haven’t done it yet, have you.”

Ouch, Lan Xichen hadn’t even bothered to make it a question; was Nie Huaisang so predictable?

Probably yes.

“But I shouldn’t have been able to have that problem,” Nie Huaisang continued stubbornly. “Not if I’m listening to the Song of Clarity all the time the way da-ge is – not unless the song isn’t working the way it’s supposed to. You know me, er-ge; I’m not as prone towards qi deviations as my brother is! If the song was working, I shouldn’t have had one in a hundred years.”

Lan Xichen’s usual smile had been replaced by a frown. “You’re right. That is strange. You think there’s some clash between Nie cultivation and our traditions, such that the song is ineffective? It seemed as though it was working at the beginning…”

“What else could it be?” Nie Huaisang asked practically. “Plenty of things are effective in small doses and poisonous in large, er-ge; and you said yourself just the other month that it seemed as though da-ge’s temperament was getting worse rather than better.”

Lan Xichen was pale. “You’re right. If it’s hurting him, we have to put a stop to it at once and start over from the beginning.”

“It’s still just a theory,” Nie Huaisang said. “But getting proof shouldn’t be hard – after all, I may not be much of a cultivator, but I’m still a Nie. Here, why don’t you sit down? I’ll play what I’ve learned for you while you examine what it’s doing to my qi; that way we’ll be able to see what sort of effect it’s having.”

#mdzs #nie huaisang #lan xichen #my fic #my fics #Anonymous #listen #nie huaisang is a professional useless person #he only leveled up because he had to #he is going to solve this mystery WHILE being useless #mostly by accident #and because sometimes being a fussy person is really helpful #when it comes to solving mysteries

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out-there-so-it-isnt-just-me · 3 years

Text

Hey guys...I have an idea if you aren't sad enough yet. I was struck by a painful comparison sort of crossover idea. It would never be canon, but I'm mourning the end of Campaign Two, and I want to be sad and over-dramatic. Essek, but as Eliza from Hamilton in “Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story.” But, it’s for the entire Mighty Nien. Some of the lyrics are so on point for a poor Essek who will probably outlive all of his friends (Elves still generally live longer than Firbolgs by a good 200 years). Anyway, enjoy.

Every other founding father's story gets told

It occurs to Essek, during one of the many periods without one of the Mighty Nein (the time that he dwells on them the most), how unfair their whole situation is. They saved all of Exandria, and no one knows. They are amazing, and odd, and frustrating, and no one knows. They will die loved deeply, but not widely. He knows they prefer it that way, all things considered. But, everyone else who saves all of Exandria becomes legends, while the people he loves best will be forgotten, remembered only by him.

And that. That sounds unbearable.

So, in-between the times he sees the Mighty Nein, he begins to gather accounts. He writes down stories from those they helped, or simply left an impression on. The people who have met the Mighty Nein have an air about them that he gets good at detecting. They attracted the oddballs and the outcasts. And if they're entirely normal (whatever that means), then they usually get a certain twitch if you ask for stories about interesting strangers. About half the time, a certain blue tiefling pops up in them. He almost has a heart attack when he hears “go fuck yourself,” in Jester’s cheerful voice, when he knows Jester isn’t anywhere near there. He ends up getting the kenku’s story, and the voices of his friends are weaved into it. Essek thinks the Mighty Nein are the best people in the world, in their own rambunctious way. Part of him wants the world to love them as he does, or at least have the option to. Everyone should have a chance to get to know them, even if it's just through tales. The world would be a better place for it.

...And when you're gone, who remembers your name?

Who keeps your flame?

Who tells your story?

Once there is only him and Caduceus left, this becomes a more prominent part of how he spends his time. After...after a long, long period of mourning. He has so much life left to live without most of the people who made it worth living.

I put myself back in the narrative

I stop wasting time on tears

I live another 50(0) years

He stops hiding his past and bears his sins and his story to the world. Essek tells his story so their story can be appreciated to the fullest; his part in their story emphasizes the depth of their compassion and chaos. He tells his story, but not as himself. Essek continues to drift from town to town under a vast number of aliases. Everywhere he goes, he spreads his stories of his friends, some serious, most silly. He disguises himself so he can stay alive to do a little more good, tell a few more stories, to truly live the life his friends wanted for him.

...I try to make sense of your thousands of pages of writings

You really do write like you're running out of time.

Eventually, he gets his hands on some of Beau’s journals, Jester’s diaries, and Caleb’s research. Well, he always had the research, but he gets to the point where he can share it with the world. He slowly begins to share and explain their thoughts and personalities with excerpts from those. Maybe he also has letters that he shares parts of (though most of those, those words specifically for him, he keeps to himself, for himself). He wonders if they'd be angry at him for spilling their private thoughts. But neither Beau nor Jester filtered their thoughts very much in the first place, and he keeps anything truly painful out of the public eye. Caleb, well, Caleb was always about sharing his knowledge and research, provided it wasn't dangerous. And they were all dead anyway. One of the last things they told him was to be happy. And talking about his friends, learning more about his friends even after they were long dead, that made him the happiest he'd been in a while. So he hoped they wouldn’t begrudge him this small joy he’d managed to grasp and forgive him, should it be necessary.

I rely on Angelica

While she's alive, we tell your story

She is buried in Trinity Church near you

When I needed her most, she was right on time

Caduceus isn’t particularly interested in being well known or famous, but he never shies away from telling a story about any of his friends. Plus, he thinks it’s a good project for Essek. It's a way to continue to show his love for them and keep them alive in the only way they can be now. When Caduceus eventually passes away, he joins the eight other graves (Veth refused to be buried apart from Yeza) that lay in a tucked-away corner of the Blooming Grove. There is one space left, nestled between where Caleb and Jester lay, but it will be empty for a long time yet.

And I'm still not through

I ask myself, what would you do if you had more time...

...You could have done so much more if you only had time

And when my time is up, have I done enough?

Will they tell your story?

He keeps adding to his tale; he stretches it longer and longer with every shred he can remember. But, even his memory, as long as it is, runs out eventually. And their story finally ends, but he doesn't. He throws himself into activities that remind him of them. He does a lot of gardening ( mostly tea, poisonous plants, and flowers). He teaches children some rudimentary dunamancy in his spare time, for Caleb. He messes around with alchemy a little. Eventually, he publishes the last of the research that he and Caleb worked on together; ones that took him decades to solve by himself. He even finds himself drawing a surprising amount of dicks on random surfaces near the very end.

Oh, can I show you what I'm proudest of?

...I help to raise hundreds of children

I get to see them growing up

The time that doesn’t go towards his now worrying amount of hobbies, he spends doing what he has done since the beginning: caring for the Mighty Nien’s true legacy. He looks after and visits their children. He takes care of descendants of Luc, of Jester and Fjord, of the random teenager that Beau and Yasha seemed to adopt completely on accident, of TJ, of the Clays, and of a lovechild of Kingsley’s that found out who his father was and then somehow found Essek himself to learn about him. In an embarrassing show of sentimentality, Essek always keeps at least one offspring of Caleb's very first cat. There is a very funny story about Caleb thinking the animal was spayed when it was, in fact, not. He visits the different generations every couple of years or so (he has a schedule). The drow makes sure they know the stories of their ancestors, the adventures of the Mighty Nien; he tells them it's all real. He gives them ways to contact him if they’re in danger, or need any kind of help really ( he has funds to spare at this point). Every once in a while, a few of them will get it in their heads to write him yearly updates. It’s nice.

In their eyes, I see you, Alexander

I see you every time

And when my time is up

Have I done enough?

Will they tell your story?

It is strange and painful to see the attitude and mannerisms of the Nein in the descendants who have never met them. It is wonderful too. His stories of the Mighty Nein have become well-known tales that no one can decide how much is truth and how much is fiction (it’s true, it’s all somehow, hilariously true). He preserved them in his own way, in the right way (time travel is something he thinks of with a growing hunger the more years pass between when he last laid eyes on his friends). But in these men, these women, these children, they are truly alive.

One little half-orc girl has Jester’s mischievous eyes and infectious joy. Another halfling man squints just like Veth when she's trying to figure out if someone is bullshitting her. There’s a boy who charmingly bumbles his way through most social encounters, as Fjord did. A firbolg woman who has Caduceus gentle smile. A tiefling girl with all the audacious bravado of Kingsley. A man with eyes just as piercing as Beau’s, and a tongue just as sharp. Even Yasha’s kind and gentle demeanor somehow shines through in one small boy, despite her having no direct descendants. He gets to see these flashes of his friends in those who survive them, and it thrills him as much as it cuts him. (Sometimes, when the current cat has ruined some item of his, the pleased look it wears resembles the quiet glee Caleb exuded after he pulled a successful prank, but he’s pretty sure that’s just fanciful thinking.)

One of the last things Essek does before he dies is fully publish, in print, the entire tale of the Mighty Nein. How they came together, every person they helped along the way. The love, the loss, the kindness, the chaos, every moment he could recall or record was put into this one account (necessarily stretched out into several separate books). There is only one set, and he hands it over to the Library of the Cobalt Soul in Rexxentrum. Then he goes on his lonely way.

Oh, I can't wait to see you again

It's only a matter of time

There are now ten graves, each one as unique as its owner, nestled in a small corner of the Blooming Grove. One grave has the dirt still fresh around it. And somewhere, beyond the Divine Gate, there are cheers and laughs and cries of joy as the Mighty Nien become the Mighty Nine once more.

fin.

It’s my head-canon that by the time Essek dies he’s practically a mythical figure among the select families he looks after. It's to the point that in certain locations ( that have a lot of Nein remnants) he becomes a local legend, the guardian angel of nien (no spelling specified and with no real distinction of what that means), with skin like the night sky who drifts (literally) through towns and helps those who meet a certain requirement, unknown to the general populus. There are rumors that certain people have bestowed upon them a token they could use to call upon the angel’s aid. Of course, the people who have the tokens (sending stones or something similar. IDK how he would get that many wondrous items, but I focus on satisfying narrative not, like, plausibility) know Essek and know that he has died and that the tokens no longer work, but for a while they keep them as heirlooms, to show the love of one drow wizard for the friends he had long, long ago. Eventually, one of Veth’s descendants sells off their set because sending stones are worth A LOT, and the money seemed more practical. They have their stories; those are enough.

And before anyone complains about the Kingsley bit, I felt compelled to add a smidgen of Kingsley content because Essek loves Jester and Jester’s with Fjord and Kingsley is with both of them for years. I’m sure they get to know each other well enough that seeing traits of Kingsley is vaguely nostalgic and warming, even if it lacks the depth and love he feels for everyone else. Also, there’s no convincing me that Molly/Kingsley doesn’t have at least one illegitimate child running around from various trysts, he was basically the Scanlan of this campaign. It goes with the hedonistic vibe he gives off.

Also, is it normal that I completely designed the Nein’s burial site in my head because I did? Like I imagine they’re all spaced out in a circle. It’s almost like a stone gazebo but there’s not really a roof; it’s just a group of nine pillars that support a stone circle. The entrance is the Traveler’s door with dicks around the edge, and each of the nine pillars/supports is designed to look the knowing mistresses staff. The stone circle is covered in carvings of storm clouds and lightning. Wires are strung across the center of the stone circle to form the symbol of the Cobalt Soul. Not that you can see the wires, because vines have been grown all around them. Once you step through the Traveler’s gate, you’ll find yourself on some kind of rough mosaic floor, with depictions of a peacock, a pyramid, a snake, a sun, a moon, and (oddly) a pirate ship. The mosaic is made up of buttons of various materials and shapes. In the center is a saltwater pool/spring (depending on how magical we can get idk) and floating above it is an eternal flame encased in some sort of dunamancy magic that doesn’t actually exist that keeps it floating and eternal. Look I'm running out of ideas.

I can’t imagine what everyone’s grave marker would be, but I’m pretty sure Yasha’s is a simple stone that says "YASHA NYDOORIN: wife of Zuella and Beauregard Lionette," and the place where’s she’s buried is just covered in wildflowers that spread outside of the gazebo to encircle the structure entirely up to the gate. Also, everyone has a stone tarot card by their grave with the picture and designation that Molly gave them. Beyond that grows a weirdly dense thicket of trees and bushes that make finding the Nein's resting place rather hard. It’s said only the descendants of the Nein’s family or those favored by the Wildmother (or Traveler, Or Ioun, or Storm Lord) can find their way to them. And one tree, directly behind Yasha, is dead, struck by lightning who knows how long ago.

And they’re buried in this order: Yeza/Veth, Caleb, Essek, Jester, Ford, Kingsley, Yasha, Beau, Cad. I know there’s a good chance that a) Kingsley would just eff off and die somewhere unknown and b) Cad would probably want to be buried with the rest of his family, but shhh let me dream.

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ashintheairlikesnow · 3 years

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Guns Ain’t a Plague

I wrote some version of this story over and over. This is the version I apparently emailed to a friend in 2013 and just rediscovered in my inbox. I am staring at this and realizing how long ago 2013 was now. Oh my gosh.

Background: I was already very much all about post-apocalyptic stuff, but this takes place in a world entirely unlike - and yet strikingly like - our own. In a world where war and disease once tore the land apart, an isolated, caged city of children struggles to survive.

Until one decides to leave.

Oh man somewhere in my stuff I have all my old maps and descriptions of the different countries and the war and... I wrote so much stuff for this universe/storyline...

The young woman crouched where the last of the road crumbled into broken stone. It had been crushed when they exited the city, taking their horses and carriages, doctors and soldiers and history, with them. Her feet were bare and she dug her toes into the warm red earth between the cracked rock. The muscles in her legs tensed, she placed one hand for balance on the ground.

She would have to run like wind if she was going to survive this.

“Don’t,” came Tor’s familiar voice behind her. She jumped up, wondering why she was even surprised he had followed her. She had, after all, been the one to teach him how to do it. She turned around, to look him in the eye, heart aching at the idea that if she didn’t time this just right, she would never see him again.

“Ed,” The boy said in the same pleading tone, hands held out to grab her, “don’t. You can’t even think it. You’ll die, same as they all do!”

Ed rolled her eyes and shot him a baleful glare, but she was bluffing and they both knew it. The toughness fell off of her face almost immediately, and she grabbed the much younger boy, pulling him into a fierce hug.

The two of them looked so alike that they seemed mirrored, almost, the teenager and the adult just barely ten years older than him. Ed’s skin was the same dusky red-brown as Tor’s, their hair the same rich black. It even hung in the same small twists, cut short and close to their heads, although Tor’s was cut a little longer. The only difference was in their ages and in their eyes. Ed’s eyes were a deep, rich pure brown, but Tor’s were green.

Ed thought she was somewhere near twenty-five; no one was completely sure on ages here. She knew Tor had been something like two when she’d found him; herself a ragged orphan, hearing him crying from two buildings over and simply taking him home. It was better than letting him die.

“I should’ve known you’d follow me,” She said, shaking her head. “And if you’re here… Jedder came too, didn’t he?”

“I run faster’n Jedder,” Tor said, clinging to her even harder. His arms around her waist felt like they were crushing her organs and she attempted to try and loosen his grip, with no luck. “Don’t die, Ed!”

“Won’t die, Tor,” she replied. “Don’t think I will anyway. How long they been standin’ there, those towers? Ten years now? Every gun’s got to run out of bullets sometime, right?”

“Not those guns.” Torrin gestured at the small turret towers stationed every twenty feet or so as far as they both could see around the place designated as the ‘edge’ of the city. Wherever roads had gone any farther, they had been smashed to bits until the towers were up. It felt like a river of grass, weeds, broken rock and bone surrounded them, surrounded this whole ruined city, a city that no living person had ever seen before it was a pile of ghosts and disease.

Ed, for a moment, allowed her grip on Tor to be as tight as his grip on her.

“Besides,” he continued with his face still pushed against her shoulder, head still tucked just under her chin. “who’s gonna feed us if you’re dead? Who’s gonna take care of us? You always take care of us, Eddi! Always. Since everybody died you take care of us. You can’t just stop ‘cause your feet got itchy.”

“Tor, you know damn well that ain’t why I want to try this time. We can’t stay here forever. This place is full of us, we can’t keep enough food to go on livin’ like this. It’s been over a hundred years since this city fell, by my parents’ reckoning, since they just left everyone to die. Left a city full of kids with a bunch of dead bodies and bullets, fat lot of good it’s doin’ us now. The Oracle and her folk may like this place, an’ the Keepers may think we’re stuck here carin’ for the dead, but I think… I think somebody needs to get out and prove we still exist.”

There were footsteps behind them and they turned, almost as one, with Tor’s hand still twisted in Ed’s shirt.

The sweaty, fast-breathing young man who came running up to them was not like them in the slightest. His skin and hair were the same flat and dull gray-white. Compared to Tor and Ed, his arms seemed too long, he was too skinny, his hands and feet just a mite too big to be human. His eyes were unsettling to everyone but his little chosen family; wide and far apart, set on a diagonal line in his face, they were black. He broke into a relieved smile at seeing them both standing there. “Eddi! Tor caught up with you then. He runs faster’n me!”

“That’s what I said!” Tor was entirely too proud of himself. Ed bit her lip to stop from chiding him for it.

Jedder stopped, leaning over to lean his hands flat on his thighs to try and stop gasping quite so much.

“’Course he does. Plesalka never could run to save your lives,” Ed said with a responding smile and managed to extricate her shirt from Tor’s grasp. She turned back to survey the turrets again. Old and rusting over time, evidence of Plesalka scientific genius, the kind of machines and creations that neither Letenje like Ed and Tor or the Teci had ever been able to match. Their last apology for their part in this before the Exile began.

She knew about the reason those turrets existed only her parents had hoarded the scribble writings of their own ancestors; her great-great grandmother had been alive to witness the Plague and the death, had survived long enough to make sure her children were as protected as possible.

In the end, there was only so much protection to give; scarcity of food and resources meant that no one had a very long life span here.

It was one of the reasons she was so aware of her need to leave.

“I’m going to try whether you two like it or not. I’m going to try on my own, got it? And if I make it over that rise to the other side, I will shut those turrets down somehow. I’ll bash ‘em in with one of those twisted hunks of metal lyin’ all over the damn place. Once they’re broken, you two can get over and we can leave together. We’re not gonna die here where they left all of us, thinkin’ we’d be gone eventually.” Old grief twisted in her heart; she’d lost both her parents when she was 12, when they had gone out scavenging and been caught in the middle of a battle between the old Oracle’s gang and other Scavs like them. It had been a long, lonely, horrible year before she’d found Jedder.

She crouched down again, curling her fingers around one of the broken pieces of the road here at the edge. It was heavier than it looked, warm from the constant rays of the sun. Even with the lean muscle she’d picked up in ten years of scavenging everything she ate she left out a small grunt of effort as she threw it straight at the closest turret. She missed by a long arc. The gun did not respond or move to follow the stone’s movement. “They’re gettin’ worse. They used to shoot the rocks, too.”

Jedder and Tor shared a look behind her back, unsure of what to do. Jedder, at fifteen, was still nine years Ed’s junior and Tor at twelve was a full twelve years younger. She had been as much a mother to them as a teenage girl could be when she’d found them. Jedder had been found first, a little Scav just barely staying alive by stealing from the gangs, unwelcome like all Plesalka were… Tor just two years old, crying inside a makeshift nursery, his parents dead on the floor and all their food stores stolen. She had taken them in, even knowing Jedder being Plesalka would make it harder on them.

No one ever stopped being angry, especially since in a century the stories to explain what had happened had gotten weirder and more elaborate as told by the remaining survivors. Even the truth made it hard to forgive either the Plesalka or the Teci for what they had created, what they had done in their war on each other… even if kids like Jedder were so far removed from those events as to be a whole separate people by now.

“Eddi,” Tor said, and now his voice was starting to take on a edge of nagging worry, “Eddi, what if this doesn’t work and you die?”

“Then you and Jedder go on livin’,” Ed replied without looking back at them.

She was surveying all possible obstacles between her and the turrets. Rocks. Weeds.

Bodies.

The last made her shudder, made the already roiling pit of nervousness that was her stomach threaten to riot up her meager lunch. Some of the bodies out here weren’t even bodies anymore. It was mostly bones left for her to look at, though now and then she could see evidence of newer deaths. Some kids still went crazy and made a run for it. She herself probably counted as crazy, just to be thinking about it. Still. There was a lot of bone out here. A lot of dead people dumped here at the edge to warn away anyone who might see them, to keep visitors out, to keep the descendents of Pohroma citizens in.

Barefoot, you want to run through a burial ground, she thought, wondering if it would be the last thing she did. “I’ve taught you both how to live if you lost me. If you think you can’t stick it out just the two of you, well, the other Plesalka that’re still alive would take Jedder in, if he went to them. Tor, you know the Oracle or the Keepers would have you. They could keep you safe. Don’t you dare join up with any of the Scav gangs, though.”

“We want you,” Jedder said stubbornly. “Besides, even if you died we’d just stick together. We don’t know any other way to be but the three of us.”

“Then you better be prayin’ to somebody’s god I don’t die now, because I’m going to do this.” She didn’t wait for their response but just launched herself forward with all the speed her legs could give her. Not being able to crouch down and prepare first had only cost her half a second, but nonetheless she felt a rush of fear that it would be a half-second too many.

She felt Tor’s fingers clutch the back of her shirt, but he couldn’t get a grip and she twisted away from him easily, running like the devil was at her heels.

There was a rusty shrieking coming from turrets that had been left abandoned, not repaired or even touched in almost twenty years. The sound filled the air, coming from nearly ten turrets who were all slowly, inexorably pointing in her direction as she ran. Birds, having made nests in the openings, took to the air in a sudden frenzy of wings and shrieking birdcalls. For a moment, the sky was dark with them.

Ed ran.

She dodged larger rocks and the corpses of both people and animals shot dead by the turrets. Dogs, rats, foxes, cats, people… all just empty bones, she told herself, trying not to let her feet even brush them as she went past.

She ran.

She caught a glint and looked up, realizing that she could see the sun shining off all the metal casing on the ground for every bullet these huge guns had ever fired. She was caught by the shine of them just long enough to distract her.

And she tripped.

She had to have tripped on a rock, she could feel the rough of it scrape all the way down from mid-calf to her ankle as she fell and went rolling, coming to a halt only when she hit another big chunk of rock a few feet away. The breath was knocked out of her and she could only gasp, frozen, realizing that the horrible groaning of the moving metal had finally come to an end.

She looked up, and was looking directly up the barrel of one of the turrets, and it was aiming at her. She could not move. She thought of her parents, long dead from the violence in this city. She thought of finding Tor at two years old, Jedder at the time the only one who keep the little toddler from crying all the time. She thought of how they had lived the last ten years as a family, kept each other safe. She thought of every time she had ever seen a wild animal gunned down by these turrets, ripped to absolute shreds by the bullets.

She flinched at the sudden click of the gun.

Click?

It echoed, bouncing off against the walls and back again and at least twenty of the turrets were clicking in a chorus and Ed began, despite the aftermath of adrenaline still pumping, to laugh.

The sound of her laughter was something just below a scream, hysterical and echoing, bouncing off against the old stone walls behind Tor and Jedder, making them jump.

It took some effort and her ankle ached in a way that told her this victory wasn’t coming to her without some price to pay, but she began to hobble back to Jedder and Tor, arms out to them, spread as wide as her smile.

“They’re empty!” She called out above the noise. “Every single one!”

Only a moment of hesitation, a look of pure relief shared between the two boys, and then they came pounding across the earth until they could throw their arms around her, the both of them at once.

“They’re empty,” she whispered, pressing a kiss to the top of Tor’s head, to the fuzzy twists of his hair, before turning to lean her forehead against Jedder’s cheek. “I knew it. They never did come back to replace ‘em, not since before I was born, at least my da said. They had to run out sooner or later.” She squeezed the two of them even tighter, then finally let them go. Reluctantly, they let go of her as well.

“Empty,” she said one more time, savoring the taste of the word.

“So we can go,” Jedder breathed out. “We can leave. I don’t. I’ve never been outside the city. No one has. We don’t even know if there’s other people out there or if everyone died in the Plague, if it hit other places, too.”

“I don’t think it did,” Tor said, thoughtfully. “Cause otherwise why would they have had to send people to keep us locked in by replacin’ bullets, ever?” Curling his fingers in Ed’s patched and worn shirt, he shook his head. “Bet there’s a whole world full of people out there. Maybe they don’t even know about us.”

Ed smiled, but it was a smile entirely without humor.

“Let’s go show the bastards we’re still alive.”

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the-fiction-witch · 3 years

Text

The Witch

MOVIE THE LAST LEGION AGE UP COUPLE: ROMULUS X READER RATING: SMUT

I stood leant on the balcony looking out across the city, watching the villages on the other side of the mountain… they were burning, the smoke rising high into the sky, the flames illuminating the stars, we had sent a legion but they had been slaughtered along with the hundreds of men, women and children defenceless and slaughtered. My advisors were idiots, my staff useless. I feared for those in the city and the palace, the hundreds and thousands here that would die if our walls were to be breached.

I knew what had to be done, but I was fearful to do it.

"Romulus My king, please, you must reconsider" my father said as we walked down the hallowed palace halls

"Reconsider? What other hope have I got?"

"Our walls with prevail the legions will destroy them before they step foot into the city"

"Yeah we send one to protect the villages… how well did that go"

"Those were rural mountain villages, now where near the strength or security of the city”

“And what happens if they do get through the wall?”

“The army will-”

“What happens. If they get though?”

“If they get though” He says “The moment one of the barbarian men steps foot in on the city stone, We will have you halfway to britannia”

“So, you want me to run off to Britannia with my tail between my legs? While my people die for me? While they suffer under a barbarian ruler? While children are tortured? While women are raped in the streets? Men forced into amries? While I hide myself away in Britannia hiding away in some dirty, muddy, tiny little hole while he destroys everything my ancestors have built?”

“Why not come sit in with the senet we will discuss the attack and matters” “The senet is a bunch of men sitting around with titles from a hundred years ago. What is that going to help?”

“They know the city better than anyone” “The beggars in the street know the city better the senet never leaves the palace” I sighed

“Then why not go to the vestals? They always have good advice for the kings”

“Ohh so you want me to go sit around with a bunch of honry old virgins? And philosophers who cut their dicks off?”

“Then go to the library and discuss with the Philosophers?”

“Ohh please, Unless I’m a new constellation, some old books or a cannabis bath they couldn’t give less of a shit” I sighed

“Then go to the temple my king, discuss with the gods. Think things over in their presence” He says “Speak with Minerva, Take council with Mars,”

“I’m going to the temple… just not theres”

“I still do not advise it my king”

“Well that's all it is. Advice” I said “I’m going to see her”

“You know the sort of things people…. Will say they see you going there?”

“I know. But I need power… and wisdom. Older, Stronger than the twelve”

I could feel my fear, thick inside my heart, getting heavier, harder, Like… I wanted to run away with every step I took closer, my escort followed me as did two slaves heading though the city past people all adoring but even the people had fear knowing the trouble coming and some knowing… where I was going. I walked the walk of gods where the temples all sat, I past Vesta and Vulcan, Past ceres and Minerva, Past Apollo and Diana, Past Venus, Past Neptune, Past mercury and mars, Past Pulto, Past juno and Jupiter… but I stopped a moment and nodded to the female slave who carried the offerings she nodded and took some of the flowers to juno and jupiter's statues as I felt there eyes watched me. Once she came back I continued until reaching the end of the road where the temple of Luna sat.

I went inside the empty temple, the black stone mosaic floor clean and the roof open to allow in the sun but at the right times the moon. I went to the statue and left all the flowers there and I saw the door at the side

“Stay here, I need to see her alone” I said. They nodded so I headed to the door and down the stone steps deeper below the temple. Each stone step was dusty, and felt Ill trodden.

I got to the chamber firelight cascading across the room and a woman in black knelt on the stone.

“Greetings My king” she said

“Greetings Lady of the Moon” I said

“What is it you seak?”

“You know what I seak”

She stopped and turned to me pulling the hood of her dress down revealing her shock white hair

“You seak her?”

“I do.”

“You know what darkness lurks there?”

“I do. Please…. I need her.”

“I can send you there… but I cannot be held accountable for if you return”

“I know that. But I must see her”

"....very well. You know where she is"

"Thank you" I nodded hurrying out the temple.

I stood changing my clothes to look plain so I could walk freely wrapping a brown cloak around me,

"Please let someone accompany you"

"No. I don't wanna scare her. I take an army boy she'll think I'm arresting her, besides I need to be quiet, quick and unnoticed. She already knows I'm coming if she's going to hurt me there is little we can do about it"

"My king… as one of your oldest and most trusted advisors make I speak plainly"

"Yes."

"I think you are betraying the gods. Your people. And your ansestors. Romulus… I have severed your family my whole life, served your father and mother while you rested in her womb and I have seved you every day you have been king… I beg of you. Do not go to her"

"I must. And honestly…" I said "I want to see her"

"Very well my king" he nods

I took my things and scurried out the palace like a theif, sneaking thought the city as best I could trying not to draw attention to myself keeping my hood up so people didn't see who I was, I got to the city gate out to the woods seeing travelers coming in to find rooms for the night, women coming in from walks in the woods with there baskets, traders headed in and out but I walked straight out.

I felt so strange but I kept walking deeper and deeper into the woods, walking the pathway between the trees and animal burrows flowing the trail of lavender flowers that grow along the walk, there purple glow in the setting sun leading me to her.

I stopped, as I arrived.

The smell of grass, lavender and smoke filled my sinuses.

The sound of music from within, the wind in the tree's like voices, the movements of the branches and grass all seemed muted here.

I could feel grass and small sticks under my feet.

As I looked apon the house.

It was a small thached cottage with firelight beyond the windows, smoke coming from the chimneys, a wooden fence around the garden where herbs and flowers grew a gate in the fence sat close to me open already, beside the gate was a little apothecary shelf with a few bottles of things.

I stepped inside the gate shutting it behind me pulling down my hood stepping in the stone wedged into the dirt to avoid touching any plants I went to the blue door tapping three times.

The door creaked open, I exhaled to calm me down before stepping inside, I shut the door behind me looking at the cottage, it was dark the fire going yet it did illuminate much, herbs sat on windowsills and tools in tables, a bed by the side with gosomer red and purple curtains and sheets with lots of pillows, symbols carved into anything wood or stone, the smell of something sweet over the fire and I saw her across the room sat surrounded by candles in her black dress she faced away from me her hair tightly wound around her head, working one something at her desk, lightly humming as she did.

I stood a moment just listening to her hum, to the fire crack all of it muffled by the sound of my own heart beating in my ears.

"I-" I began

"Romulus Augustus, king of rome, second if his name right, blood of Cesar, the boy king" she says "good evening"

"Good evening miss."

"You don't have to you know"

"Don't have to what?" I asked

"Go see her. If you would like to come see me romulus you have only to come see me" she says mixing potions

"I like to, so you know I'm coming"

"I always know when your coming" she giggled

"I know you do. But still"

"I know why your here"

"I don't doubt you do." I said "you know everything else"

"Not everything"

"Almost everything"

"You know I can't romulus. It's not fair"

"How is it not? He believes himself a god carries dark magic with him it's only leveling the battle field"

"And I'm sure he'd say the same if he found out you had first"

"Y/n. Please"

"My magic isn't strong enough for that romulus"

"Isn't strong enough? I've seen the power you have…" I said going over to her wrapping my arms around her neck and kissing her hair "I know you can. Please… thousands in the city will die if you don't"

"And thousands of them will die if I do" she says turning to face me going to get up and walk somewhere else but I held her hand

"If your alligence to me? Or to him?"

"Neither of you" she says "I don't fight. For either side" she says moving away to go to the fire

"You've seen what will happen if you don't? Haven't you?"

"I have"

"Tell me"

"No. Knowone should know there-"

"Tell me!" I snapped "by order of the king you will tell me"

"I…. Romulus I can't" she said holding back tears I went over and pulled her to my chest kissing her hair

"I'll die. Won't I?"

She nods

"And if you do?"

"Then he dies"

"Y/n… I know that can't be easy. But would you listen anyway?"

"Okay" she nods

"If you help me, I can give you anything, you'll save thousands of men, women and children in the city, save generations of art, books, sculptures that you'll know he'll destroy if he can and… and I'll owe you my life. And anything I have the power to give you I will. Land, a title, servents, a castle, whatever you want in this world I will do it for you, if you just do this...for me"

"Romulus, he's my father" she says

"He abused you, abandoned you, murdered your mother, I know he's your father but he has never once treated you like his daughter," I explain "atleast I wouldn't hurt you, I care about you… my little witch" I smiled caressing her cheek

"Romulus, you know I can't" she says pushing me away and going back to her work

"So you'll let me die?" I asked she didn't answer "... I thought you loved me?"

"I do"

"You love me? Your the only one who can help and your going to let me die?"

"Romulus! I can't"

"Why not?" I asked her "give me one good reason why you can't?" She didn't answer just sitting there staring at the fire "well?"

"Relax. I already did" she smiled

"What?"

"Seriously romulus I did it hours ago. Before you even left home"

"... You evil little thing! You really had be going there didn't you!"

"It's fun" she giggled

"What do you need for doing it?" I asked

"The usual"

"Alright" I smiled getting the coins out my bag and the little bag of treats from the palace kitchens

"Thank you" she giggled taking the to put them elsewhere in her house

"Your welcome my little witch. Thank you for doing so"

"I have to take care of you" she smiled "speaking of which?"

"Is it that time again already?"

"Humm"

"Alright," I smirked slipping off my cloak and my bag leaving them by the door I went over to the bed perching myself on the edge leaning in my elbows as she came over and began untieing my pants hooking her finger into each loop of the string pulling hard and so each loop and knot undid until they where completely untied she pulled them down enough that my cock jumped free excited to see her, I bit my lip hard watching her undo the small leather corset around her waist letting it drop to the floor which allowed her dress that noticably wasn't tied together in the centre as it should have been, she took each side and pulled it off letting it pool in the floor around her leaving her completely naked. I tried not to moan just looking at that beautiful body. She let her hair down completely and pushed me back in the bed I smirked back and moved to be laid in her bed as she crawled ontop of me sitting so my cock nuzzled between the lips of her pussy. I went to touch her breasts but she slapped my hands away

"You know the rules" she says

"I know" I blushed "I pledge my heart, my soul and my body, willingly and ...excited"

"I pledge my heart, my body, and my soul willingly" she giggled before she lent down and kissed me, those lips as soft and sweet as last I was here. I kissed back eagerly as I felt her undoing my shirt so I took over and pulled it off throwing it off the bed she smirked sitting up and next I knew I was inside her

"Uughhh y/n!" I groaned grabbing her hips feeling how warm and soft she was around me

She gasped as she reached the hilt and moved over grabbing something from her table as she did the way she leant her breasts where in my face so I smirked nuzzling with them and giving them kisses

"Romulus!" She giggled pushing me away

"Aww come on! You can't wave them in my face and not expect me to give them a kiss" I smirked

“Dirty boy” she smirked holding her knife she cut her hand she offered the knife so I let her cut my hand and I took her hand tightly feeling my heart beating out of my chest as she began to move …

#the last legion #Romulus Augustus #Romulus #Thomas #thomasbrodiesangster #thomassangster #thomas brodie sangster #thomas sangster #thomas brodie sangster smut #thomas brodie sangster imagine #thomas brodie sangster i #thomas brodie sangster s #thomas smut #thomas sangster x reader #thomas sangster smut #thomas sangster imagine

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liukangmybeloved · 3 years

Text

everyone else is fighting for second {Mortal Kombat (2021)}

SPOILERS FOR MORTAL KOMBAT (2021)

Summary: Canon Divergent AU. Crack & Fluff. The team develops into something of a found family, which happens to include Cole's actual family. They take a day off from fighting to go to the fair, where the biggest question is 'who is Cole's daughter's favourite in the team?' Besides her dad, of course. Kano is very competitive about this question.

A/N: 1968 words. I will take a meat-tenderizer and FIX the canon and make it SOFT. i love cole young and mk 2021, if you don't like that, you've been warned. everybody lives/nobody dies AU & kano isn't a traitor. also imagine there's just like.... more time before the tournament. enough to become a found family. like i said, fluff & crack. warnings for swearing.

If Cole had it his way, Emily and Kano would have never met. He would be perfectly happy letting everyone else on the team meet her, but he's yet to hear a single sentence leave Kano's mouth that didn't include some colourful variation of 'fuck', 'shit', 'wanker', or 'cunt'. So unsurprisingly, he wasn't exactly eager to let his teenager daughter near the man who Sonya had literally called 'scum of the Earth', but alas.

"I'll be on my best behaviour, pinky-swear!" Kano's grin was all teeth as he'd held his pinky finger up to Cole's glowering face, wiggling it a little when Cole made no move to finish the pinky-swear.

"If you say - cunt -" and the word sounds so uncomfortable coming from Cole, he damn well looks uncomfortable just saying it, "within a hundred feet of her, I'll get Kung Lao to cut you in half." And he gesutres over to where Kung Lao and the rest of their ragtag bunch of misfits; the man in question had forgone his usual weapon for a more modern, soft-brimmed sunhat, but his jaunty wave to Kano at the sound of his name still managed to be menacing. The Australian shuddered in horror at the mere thought; at least he took the threat seriously.

"You don't have to be jealous, man," the threat seemed to only have dampened Kano's jovial attitude momentarily, as he's got a spring in his step as he follows Cole to the rest of the gathered champions, "Uncle Kano's gonna set a fuckin' - flippin' -" he corrects himself as Cole shoots him a warning look, "great example." Sonya barks a loud, derisive laugh as Cole sees fit to remind him that he's not Uncle Kano.

"Emily's a good kid," Liu Kang assures, kind and sincere.

"Yeah, she never even believes me when I tell her Kano's a dirty, little rat," Kung Lao smirks in the face of Kano's sudden outrage, and Cole is pretty sure that, despite it being Emily and Alison's idea, to give the team a day of levity and to bond, this might be the worst plan he's ever agreed to.

"This is a day of bonding, not of infighting," Raiden's voice joins them, followed by the God himself only moments later, which is enough to unite all the champions in confusion at his choice of wardrobe for the day. While still sporting a majority of his usual attire, somehow he'd managed to procure a t-shirt with a meme of all things on it, a personalised meme!

"I designed it myself, I think it turned out pretty okay; whaddya think?" Kano sounded far too proud of himself, looking at the cartoon drawing of what could only be Raiden himself pointing awkwardly at Thor as depicted in Marvel Comics, who was pointing back.

"We are both Gods of Thunder," Raiden explained, pointing to his own shirt; Sonya had gone wide-eyed, unsure of how to react, while Jaxx was doing his utmost not to burst out laughing.

"I... didn't know you knew what a meme was," Cole admits, though honestly, once the shock had worn off of, it was rather charming.

"I didn't know you knew what a meme was," Kano fired back, equally confused.

"I have a thirteen-year-old, of course I know what a meme is -" but then it seems to hit him just as it hits Sonya and Jax, and the three of them turn to the pair of confused, cave-dwelling, internet-free champions. None of them knew where to begin trying to explain the whole situation, but thankfully, Raiden chose that moment to open a lightning portal, and they all headed through quickly.

----

The night that Cole and his family had gone home after everything had gone down, the fighting, Sub-Zero, and the man he's pretty sure is the ghost of his ancestor, Emily had looked him dead in the eye and called him a super hero.

And then told him that his friends were really cool.

This was a sentiment that his new friends seemed to share about his family.

Cole quickly comes to realise that family isn't something a lot of the rest of the team have nowadays; they have each other, but for a lot of them, that's mostly it. He sits on an invite to dinner that he'd already ran past Alison several days ago, before inviting Liu Kang and Kung Lao over, if nothing else, to repay the hospitality they'd shown him so early on.

Alison's rule was that there was to be peace on their property; no training, no fighting, but the team was welcome as long as they didn't bring trouble to the door.

So then it was Sonya and Jaxx, who brought dessert when they came over.

Emily once asked what Thunder Gods ate. Did they eat? Cole wasn't sure. He extends an invite to Raiden anyways, but it's politely declined. The next time, however, he took up Cole's invite, mostly for the company, and to thank Alison and Emily for their patience; having Cole away so often wasn't easy, he'd be the first to acknowledge that. Alison appreciated the sentiment, as did Emily, though she was also just bursting with questions for the God, and he did his best to answer what he could.

Then finally - finally - after so long spent with the team, of most of them coming to find comfort and serenity in his home on the occasions that they need it, Kano is invited to Sunday lunch too.

----

"I know us champions and our super powers are pretty cool," Kano says to Emily, the moment they step through the lightning portal and emerge into the sunshine and the noise of the fair, "but I'm your favourite, right? Besides your old man, of course," and he rolls his eyes a little at that, as does Cole, for very different reasons, while Alison shoots Cole a questioning look. Thankfully she still does not trust Kano as far as she could throw him.

For her part, Emily answers incredibly diplomatically, sounding much older than her thirteen years, and quite a bit like her mother;

"Kano, you're a grown man, my approval shouldn't matter to you," she sounds sincere, which is completely undercut by Kung Lao sliding into step beside Kano.

"Which means you're not her favourite," he teases, and Kano practically growls back, embarrassed, while Emily calls out to Raiden that she likes his shirt. He practically beams.

"Not a lot of people will really get it, though," she points out, and Raiden muses on that for a moment.

"But I get it, and it's mine."

"Fair point," Emily nods at that, as their strange group steps up to buy tickets.

---

Emily spends more of the fair of people's shoulders than she does actually walking, which delights her endlessly. Mostly she's up on Jax's shoulders, and charges her cotton candy for the ride, ripping a small chunk from the one Cole had bought for her.

"It's weird seeing you all look so normal," she says to Sonya, the two of them in line for the Dodge 'Em Cars alongside Liu Kang and Kung Lao. Sonya grins, knows exactly what she means, gaze turning to the two members of the Shaolin Order of Light, not that anyone would know simply from looking at them now. Where Liu Kang had found a pair of trendy, ripped jeans was beyond Sonya's imagination.

"You look cool, though," Emily amended quickly, "I didn't realise you all would come to the fair, but I'm glad you did," she's smiling brightly as they get closer to the front of the line.

"Who did you expect to come along today?" Liu asks, eyes wide and curious. It wasn't that he was as competitive as Kung Lao or Kano, but he still found the child's interpretation of their group to be interesting. She knows, in some capacity, what they're capable off; she'd watched her father slice, dice, and kill Goro after all. The fact that she could think so highly of them speaks a lot to her capacity for kindness, or perhaps her childish naivety, but Liu preferred to think it was the former.

Emily, however, goes quiet, seems to be a little embarrassed. She mutters something, avoiding eye contact with any of them, and Liu goes to ask her to repeat herself, but she interrupts him while doing so;

"I wanted Dad to have a day off," she admitted, before adding, "and... and Lord Raiden; I don't think he's had a day off this millennium."

"It's good of you to look out for them," Sonya tells her fondly, "our team can be pretty single-minded, but we needed this day off, I think." And she gives Emily a pet on the shoulder, and lets her steer the tandem Car when they finally get a turn.

----

"It's me, right? I'm your favourite," Jax asks Emily over lunch, not because he genuinely believes it, but because it riles up Kano, and to a lesser extent, the competitive Liu Kang.

"Jax is one bad day away from pledging his allegiance to Skynet, he can't be your favourite -" Kano grumbles.

"Dad's my favourite," Emily reminds them sternly, and Cole has to hide his proud little smile, before she adds, "and mom's my favourite too, the rest of you, well of course you're all badass as hell -"

"Is it Liu? 'Cos he's pretty and you're, yanno, a teenage girl," Kano scowls at the warrior who'd been attempting to just quietly enjoy his basket of fries. Both Cole and Alison are wearing similarly murderous expressions, and Kano raised his hands in mock surrender, dropping his gaze.

"Actually," Emily said pointedly, despite the embarrassed flush on her cheeks, though she was mirroring her parents intensity, "my favourite is Raiden because he's literally a God that shoots lightning out of his hands, and you're now my least favourite because you're a rat bastard."

"I taught her that," Kung Lao was grinning from ear to ear, and when he and Emily look to each other, they share a definitive nod.

"How come he's allowed to teach her words like bastard?!" Kano demanded to know.

"Because you're a bastard," Sonya interjects.

Kano is thankfully quiet for the remainder of lunch, sulking at his end of the table as chatter returns to normal, returns to talk of how everyone else had been enjoying the day.

----

At the end of the day, Kano shoves a large, stuffed kangaroo at Emily that he'd won at the booth where you had to knock over bottles.

"Didn't even use me eye or anything; lost an hour of my life and fifty fuckin' dollars," he was grumbling, while Emily was examining the prize.

"You won this?" She seemed endeared by it, endeared by the thought that he'd put the time into winning it for her.

"'course I won it, can I stop being your least favourite now?" He asked, and Emily tucked the kangaroo beneath her arm, giving him an appraising look.

"You can't buy my loyalty -"

"Wouldn't want it if it could be bought, I know that shit from experience," Kano interjected, crossing his arms defensively, ignoring where Cole was glowering at him every time he swore.

"But you put time in, and effort, so you're back to third with everyone else."

"As long as none of those bastards is beating me, I'm okay with that."

As they headed to the exit, to where Raiden had created a lightning portal for them all to go home through, Emily reached out and punched Kano lightly in the shoulder.

"Thanks, Kano, it's pretty sweet that you care so much."

"Don't tell the others," he grumbled back.

"We've been with you all day," Jax calls out, "we already know."

#mortal kombat #liu kang #mortal kombat 2021 #kano #kung lao #cole young #raiden #jax briggs #emily young #alison young #sonya blade #mortal kombat fluff #mortal kombat fanfiction #lkmb

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