#oh and hes prophesied to murder you and destroy the world

[im-totally-not-an-alien-2]

The Justice League had been a pain in Dannys side the last few weeks. They insisted that Danny needed a mentor, someone who could help him right in his ever growing list of abilities and whatnot. Danny snuck into one of the JL meetings in the watchtower to find out the real reason and discovered they saw him as a massive powerhouse that needed to be brought into thier side so his power "doesn't fall into the wrong hands". Ick.

Phantom was also pretty sure this had something to do with the bat be it contingency plans or adoption papers that guy is never too far from the top of Dannys list of "people I want to punt into the abyss for the weekend"

Its not that Danny doesn't want the help, he just knows how the League would eventually view him. He is of Lazarus. He is part monster. He has been ever since he died. Danny no longer thinks like a human does, he's "too violent" "obsessive" and "impulsive" by League standards.

Unfortunately, Danny is wired like that. His people are a part of the Infinite Realms immune system and play a key role in its overall ecosystem. There are legitimate biological reasons hes like this, ones that keep him from fading. The League doesn't seem to understand and he can't explain it in further detail without revealing his own weakness and the weaknesses of others like him.

So he just keeps refusing thier help...until he finds someone who the League also don't "agree" with which was strange since he was on thier team.

Plasticman was an ex criminal who has temptations towards money and has a hard time resisting. The stretchy guy also could turn his body into any shape and stretch any length he wanted and had no regard for the human form. Danny was in awe but the moment he heard the guy make a funny joke he made a decision.

If he had to choose a mentor from the JL roster than he picked this guy.

He announced his decision at the next JL meeting sending the place into an uproar.

Alternatively: Danny gives no warning and Plastic man just gets surprised when this glowy kid and his green puppy appear in front of him smiling happily and introduced himself as his new sidekick.

[vibratingskull]

Yandere!Thrawn x F!reader chapter 8

Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Tag: Yandere behaviors (duh), gaslighting, massage

Thrawn savors his whisky, taking slow sips at a time, keeping the group of officers in front of him in an uncomfortable silence. He’s slouching in his chair like a lazy king looking at the tensed expressions of his subordinates.

“I am really displeased.” He finally announces, “This explosion of violence is untolerable. Assaulting your innocent colleague victims of slander and harassment… How unbecoming of Empire officers.” He is calm, speaking with a posed voice, one would say he is almost amused if they lifted their head to witness his smug grin.

“I am very disappointed in all of you.”

He’s not. In fact he counted on them beating you up when he started spreading the rumors on you, and they delivered splendidly. If anything he is proud of them and himself. Everything went according to plan and now he has you, obediently waiting for him in his private suite, incapable of any movement without his help and nobody outside of him knows where you might be.

“We are sorry sir.” The Lieutenant Commander bows even deeper, “We had good reasons to believe she was a disruptive and deviant element.”, “But she was innocent, as I proved it. And now we have a new problem.” Thrawn manages his effect, he’s about to destroy their world and careers “The Lieutenant Commander (F/n)  succumbed to internal bleeding early this morning. I was made aware.”

They all remain silent, but it is impossible to not see the shudder spreading through the group at that bomb. They exchange worried gazes between themself, one pulls on the collar of their uniform, visibly uncomfortable. “What should I do with all of you?” He sighs “You murdered an innocent colleague, how do you think the Board of Command will react?” He asks rising from his chair to turn to the bay, observing the black universe. “Sir, please!” Beg the Lieutenant behind him, “We acted to protect your honor, we are ready to do anything for your pardon!”

He gives them a silent side glance, gauging them up and down. They should be punished. They played their part as he planned but they still hurted and wounded you, his darling. But he needs them for another task.

“If you prove yourself capable for a little “task” I am willing to brush this whole affair under the rug.” He placidly announces, taking another sip. “Please, sir! We will do anything!” they shouts behind his back, too happy to be offered an exit. 

He turns back to his desk and opens a drawer to take out a file while they look at him, begging with their eyes, desperate to please him and avoid punishment. He opens the file and takes out the photo of the Captain that assaulted him. “Get rid of that woman cleanly and discreetly for me and nothing will leave that office.”.

They look at the picture with round eyes. “The… The Captain? But..? For what reasons?”, “For reasons that are mine. Make her disappear and we are even.” he coldly responds “Or maybe you prefer we stop at Coruscant and I personally incriminate you all to the ISB?”, “It will be done, sir!” They all stand to attention, tensed and stiff under his inquisitive gaze. “Good. You are dismissed.”

They all leave his office in silence with their new objective in mind while he finishes his glass, eyes fixed on the cold perpetual night of the universe. Today will be a good day, he prophesies.

He joins you finally for the evening to eat with you, carry you to the table and helps you eat, feeding you again. You still frown but you accepted your fate, he revels in the situation. He loves being indispensable to you. He wants to spend his whole life like that… It would be true happiness.

“I asked the droids to cook your favorite.” He announces with a light smile. “Oh, thank you. This is really thoughtful of you.” you thank him as he pads your lips with the napkin. You stopped trying to stop him. “I will need to change your bandages.” He announces and your bite takes a wrong turn. You are covered in bandages, which means being naked in front of him again! “You are covered in nasty cuts and bruises, it is necessary for your health.” He forces his logic on you. 

You purse your lips, displeased but powerless. So you let him carry you on his bed and undress you, again, biting your lips, praying for it to end quickly. He slowly takes off the bandages like he would open the most marvelous present but under the pretenses to not reopen your wounds. He takes great care not to touch you “too much” but enough to feed his craving of you.

You are once again completely bare before him. It will not become a habit you internally pray. “Lay down, I have an ointment to apply on your skin.” He orders. Your stomach sinks immediately. He has to touch you? Oh no, nothing will be spared to you…

He gently pushes you on your back and starts massaging the ointment on your stomach and ribs cage while you press your eyes shut, as if not seeing him will alleviate your embarrassment. You breathe deeply through your nose, trying to calm down your beating heart, you feel his large warm hands roaming your body and you feel shame rising as it is a little exciting to you.

“You are really tense. Try to relax.” He casually comments, contouring your breast exposed to his ruby’s eyes. “It is quite hard.” You let out between your teeth, “Why?” He asks like it wasn’t obvious, “Being… naked like that before a man, it’s pretty hard to relax.”, “There is no need to be ashamed.” He responds with a side grin, pleased by your embarrassment, “Your body is gorgeous, you should be proud of it.” You cringe at that compliment, so he did judge your body to his taste… “Please don’t say things like that.” You plead. “Why? It is a plain truth, I am sure you made a lot of heads spin.” He keeps praising you like it is nothing, making you squirm even more.

He dealt with your present crushes, but none will escape his wrath. He will deal with your former lovers, no matter how many they were, no matter where they are presently. No one who ever knew you intimately will escape him.

“Can you talk to me about them?” he keeps asking nonchalantly, “Why would you want to know that?” you snort, “Why not? I came to understand that humans like to speak of their love affair with their friends, I am simply trying to make friendly conversation.”, “I am not comfortable discussing my body count while naked on your bed…” You admit, “Sorry, I did not want to upset you. What would you wish to talk about?”, “Anything but that.” You bite your lips, “Did you find my aggressors?”, “Roll on your stomach please.” he orders. You obey, wincing in pain and he resumes massaging you. 

It’s true the ointment feels fresh on your sensitive wounds and his hands are so soft and smooth on your bruised skin. You bite your inner cheek to not moan of pleasure out loud, that is weird enough like that. “Your aggressors…” He comments, “I am taking care of them. Do not worry about anything.” 

His hands do wonders on your back, it’s like a real massage now and you finally start to relax under his touch, sighing deeply. “You are good at that.” you confess, “Thank you.” You can hear the grin in his tone “Does it pleases you? What can I do to… Increase the pleasure?” He asks in a low tone, almost a purr.

You wouldn’t be drifting to sleep, you would have catched the innuendo. But you're ready to meet Morpheus under his delicate and tender caress. You just moan in response, eyes closed.

He shakes his head grinning. Oh you…

So easy to love and adore.

But this is exactly what he needs, getting you desensitized to his touch to increase them over time. For now you only let him touch you by necessity but soon you will be craving his hands all over your needy body. He’s counting on that.

“Do not sleep now, we need to put you in your pajamas.” He gently shakes you. He dresses your wounds again and helps you put on the only skimpy pajamas he choose found and helps you lay under the silky covers of his bed, caressing a strand of hair out of your face. 

He kisses your cheek as you start to sleep and he heads towards the control panel of the room to lower the temperature and go lay on the sofa of his bedroom to sleep.

As expected you start calling his name in the middle of the night.

“Thrawn? Thrawn? It’s freezing cold…”, “ Really? I find it quite pleasant.” He stretches his spine. “I’m completely frozen.” You complain, he hears you trembling in your voice shaked by tremors. He pretends to go check the control panel, “Everything is normal.” he announces. “Maker, it is so cold!” You shiver.

“Let me help.” He murmurs, crawling on the bed and pressing his hot body against yours, “My organism is naturally warmer than a human one.”. You snuggle against him, pressing you tighter, he circles your form with his long arms, caressing your back, soothing you to sleep. “It is okay. Relax.” He whispers in your ears.

You oh so slowly start to relax in his embrace. “You’re so warm…” you praise, at the end of your life. “Thank you, if I can be of use in any other way, tell me.”, “Just hold me tight, I beg of you.”

No need to ask him twice, especially if you beg! The cast and the splint are in the way but he holds you as close as possible, manipulating your bruised body with the utmost care and kisses your forehead good night.

“Sleep tight, Cha’cah. I will not leave until you wake up.” he murmurs. Ten minutes after you drift off to sleep he hears his comlink ringing. It’s the groups of officers signaling him the Captain have been taken care off.

Yes, he thinks. Today was a good day.

@bluechiss @blueninjablade3 @al-astakbar @thrawnspetgoose @readinglistfics @twilekchiss @pencil-urchin @ineedazeezee @mssbridgerton @dance-like-russia-isnt-watching @Cortisolcosplay

[transgressiveprocess]

The Prophesy...

Oh come all yeah faithful for I have seen the truth the glory and the light, the foul filth of a world in decay, the weeping underbelly bursting forth with the spawn of insects and deviants, cross-bred heathens taking God’s name in vain, injecting passages of The Good Book into Holy arms, getting high not on His Light but on the threat of Eternal Damnation yes those who revel in DARKNESS will devour the LIGHT, so take your children and hold them close for they are coming for you coming for your wives and daughters your children even your beloved household pets, there is nothing they will not DEFILE in their INSATIABLE thirst of instant gratification, they will spill your blood and drink your tears revelling in the spilt crimson bestowed upon you by God, as they rape your loved ones and each other, sodomising the very notion of family for YES! I have have been given REVELATION…

The Lord has come to me every night with visions of a future corrupted, soiled, where flagrant deviants run amok in a decaying city controlled by sexual predators who will defile your children’s genitals for SPORT, making a mockery of God’s PERFECT PLAN, and yes when I say every night I mean EVERY NIGHT, night after night after night of REVELATION, visions planted deep inside my consciousness so deep that I can never escape and YES at first I thought they were a CURSE, a punishment for my wicked sins but now I realise they are not lusts and desires and cravings but visions of the future and that I yes I have been sent as God’s messenger to warn you of these things, that I have seen of these things that I experience every night in all their terrible terrible splendour, as if I was there, as if I was doing these things, revelling in them, enjoying them, gaining sexual gratification from the foulest most despicable acts on earth, and when I woke up drenched in sweat and shame, semen slinging to the bedsheets I felt as if I was going mad as if these were things I ACTUALLY DESIRED! But now I know that they were given to me as a warning so that I may SPREAD THE HOLY WORD OF GOD TO ALL THOSE WHO WISH TO BE SAVED YES I ALONE HAVE BEEN GIVEN THE KEYS TO SALVATION…

And that is why my people, we must not atone for our sins, why we must not turn the other cheek, but why we must fight with every fibre of our being to destroy those who oppose His great plan yes we must FIGHT FIRE WITH FIRE and strike down those who do not embrace GOD’S LOVE for hate of evil is the purest form of love and as I look out today at all you good people fathers and wives, providers and mothers, children born free of sin into a world that does nothing but corrupt, sweet innocent cherubs that are the incarnation of God’s love, I see a family a family ready to fight for god and love and tradition and what is right HALLELUJAH!

I see an army ready to become the SOLDIERS OF GOD in this holiest of fights against the forces of evil against spirits unclean covered in sin, souls drenched in filth and worn with pride, the colours of those who oppose The Lord, and yet even here I see amongst us sinners and blasphemers, liars and thieves, murderers and rapists, those who would lie down with another and spread their seed in furrows which are barren, I see perverts and paedophiles, sodomites and sodomite sympathisers, I SEE IN ALL YOUR HEARTS AND KNOW YOU ARE IMPURE, that even now amongst the holiest of us, there are THOSE WHO NEED TO BE CLEANSED!

But worry not my faithful for you know who you are and THE LORD knows who you are, now look into your hearts, beyond the sin and the corruption, past the filth and the lies and find out how much HE LOVES YOU, think about that as the collection plate passes you by, give what you can and worry not for the future for THE LORD WILL PROVIDE to those who TRULY BELIEVE and GIVE THEMSELVES OVER TO HIM…

Give not with greed or guilt our out of judgement of how much the person next to you gave, but remember that HE SEES ALL and HE WILL KNOW how much you have shown your love for Him, how much you have given to The Cause for though He is all-knowing and all-seeing, He does not interfere in the World of Man for MAN IS FREE TO WALK THE PATH TO HEAVEN AS WELL AS TO HELL and though He loves us all, he have given us the choice to accept his Eternal Love or walk into the Fires of Hell and burn for eternity, for that is how much He loves us…

But even now, our world turns into Hell on Earth and devils walk amongst us, as Angels that did not fall but leapt willingly, their talons wrapped around the ankles of the innocent and the naive, those who think Love is Acceptance and that to Love Without Judgement is moral or righteous or sacrosanct, these useful idiots of the devil, of the communists and child mutilators, of the drug addicts and sexually depraved, of all those who OPPOSE HIS DIVINE GLORY…

But fear not my children for with your Love and Support and Tax-Free Religious Donations, we can fight The Devil, fight Satan and his Ignoble Hordes of The Tolerant, so dig deep and continue to give for without your Spiritual and Financial Contributions, the Unholy will prosper and they I tell you will never be done, for never is enough, for the freedom they crave is not freedom for themselves but the freedom to take you, your family, your children, TO TAKE THE PLACE OF THE ALMIGHTY, SHAPING EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU IN THEIR OWN IMAGE, and if you RESIST, they will CRUSH YOU, if you SPEAK OUT, they will SLICE OUT YOUR TONGUES AND USE THEM FOR THEIR OWN SEXUAL GRATIFICATION, for they care not for you or for Him, but only for their right to impose their Agenda, Their Holy Book of Communism and Deviancy and Mutilation upon You and Yours…

Yes sir, they want to strip every home of The Bible and Replace it The Theory of Devolution, to take every item of self-defence you own, every shotgun, every rifle, every pistol, every piece of steel you can use for the God-given right of self-defence, AND REPLACE IT WITH AN ARSENAL OF DILDOS AND VIBRATORS AND COCK RINGS, they want you embrace fornication NOT FOR REPRODUCTION BUT FOR CARNAL PLEASURE AS IT’S OWN END. They don’t want You having children, they want Believers to die out, they don’t want The Word spread across the land, they want to distract you with TV and music and movies, with blowjobs and cunnilingus, of anal sex and gang-bangs, FOR THOSE WHO EXIST FOR THE PLEASURES OF THIS WORLD WILL NOT WORRY OF TORMENT IN THE NEXT…

And you should worry, for the fires of hell burn long and they burn hot, hotter than the sinful desires in your hearts, deeper than the thoughts you try to keep buried, burn longer than those secrets you keep buried in your souls, the sins and the shames and the lustful cravings THAT I HAVE SEEN… I know about them, each and every one, for THE LORD HAS REVEALED THEM TO ME IN ALL THEIR CORPULENT BRUTALITY…

I have seen children on fire as parents weep, held back by riotous hordes, laughing and fucking as the Bonfires of The Innocent burn until flesh is black upon which the flames are extinguished with the foul urine of the mob, piss splashed over innocent faces as they prepare for the feast…

I have felt the sodomite’s fury at his own deviancy, taking me against my will as I, bound and chained to The Lord’s cross, am mocked and whipped, spat upon as cocks are slid into my gaping wound, my abdomen filling with the seed of countless deviants until it cannot be contained and is cut out by a waiting doctor, scalpel in one hand, severed penis in the other, but whether it is mine or not I cannot tell, for suddenly I am awash in a sea of naked bodies, men, women, cocks, tits, assholes, cunts, shared indiscriminately amongst the heaving throng, masturbating and ejaculating over me, as I lay prone, helpless, drowning in a sea of rotting cum…

I have smelt the rotting sex of young women turned to whores, sterilised and pimped out, infected wombs now barren, stripped of their One True Purpose, walking the streets to tempt the married, the devout, flaunting their impure flesh in order to seduce those who are too weak to resist, giving themselves in every way, encouraging deviancy, unprotected and wet, so they may not only infect their homes with shame and deviancy, but to infect their wives also, a wave of infertility turning purposeless mothers into an army of Satan’s Whores…

I have seen the skies fall, ash replacing rain as our pure white skin is permanently stained, the mark of the Damned as the heavens collapse under the sheer weight of man’s impure desires, an insatiable army spreading like plague infecting each and every one of us until the sinners outnumber the righteous and split the Earth apart to allow The Great Satan to rise from the depths of Hell and Reign on Earth for an eternity, an Army of Darkness fuelled by the fuels of the dead they are so desperate to keep buried, The Devil’s Stockpiles for the final fight…

I have seen JESUS RETURN TO EARTH, only to watch hm drown in despair at the sin that has taken over, watched as He too falls from grace, becoming another dope fiend, for even He cannot carry the sins of The New Inhumanity. And lo, as I watch from the cross, He replaces His modest robes for leathers, sandals for knee-high boots, loves and fishes for China-White and oblivion, as he turns the other ass cheek, nails in stigmata replaced with vibrating dildos, as He gives what was not his to take…

And I tell you these things my children for not my own gratification, and as I stand here, my knees are not weak from longing, my body sweats not from an unrelenting lust, but from being so close to the hellfires so that I may pass His message on to you today, for THE LORD HAS SHOWN ME OUR FUTURE, this is what will come to pass IF WE FAIL IN OUR HOLY CRUSADE…

So dig deep ladies and gentlemen, think not of yourselves but of your children, not what they will eat tonight, for the Lord shall provide, but of their futures, their souls, their innocence corrupted if we do not succeed, and do not forget as you donate that the forces of Satan need only their flesh to tempt us into falling, they have the advantage, for we are all born sinners…

But make no mistake, THERE IS A WAR AND WE ARE LOSING SO GIVE NOW OR GIVE THEN, BUT ONE WAY OR ANOTHER YOU WILL GIVE EVERYTHING, SO GIVE TO THE LORD BEFORE SATAN TAKES IT FROM YOU…

Amen…

[parasite-core]

Oh man, so let’s see. I’ll give you two since the first one doesn’t have much to dig into.

One that might get some answers still is the source of Calio’s powers. He’s been told that his powers come from ‘the darkness at the heart of Irrisen’, but not even Baba Yaga knows what that actually is. All that’s known is that after one of Queen Elvanna’s winter witches did an experiment on him as a child relating to a bit of that darkness which he’d been born with, Calio got a particularly strong affinity for death. He had multiple near-death experiences growing up, and actually died for real twice, but always came back in one way or another. And he became an extraordinarily talented and powerful necromancer. And is like one step away from lichdom entirely by accident, although he didn’t like the answer to what the final step would entail.

***

One of the big ones is Haruki, because his SMTIV inspired campaign is on likely-permanent hiatus.

When Haruki got turned into a drow by a curse, an angel of his people’s god, The Nameless Father, told Haruki that his bloodline was tainted and he only deserved death for how his family dabbled with ‘unclean ones’. There were also hints that some big things were happening that his family was tangled in. His father was the head of the Himura Company, which held a lot of sway on the surface already, but he also secretly had connections to the underground demon-infested Tokyo. His father was Haruki’s only family, as his mother had died in childbirth, so Haruki was kind of in denial that his father could actually be doing the evil things they kept learning about. Also Haruki kept coming into contact with actual drow in the underground, and they generally would try to kill him on sight with no explanation. One even stabbed him with a knife made of a substance called Magnetite, which was supposed to devour his body in a matter of moments. However something has been keeping the Magnetite poisoning under control, so occasionally in high stress situations his arm would turn into a magnetite covered claw that could infect and destroy other people in a matter of moments, but it always crumpled away after a moment instead of overtaking his body.

I know a little of where it was going to go, because Zane told me. It was going to turn out that his actual mother was a drow who escaped from execution by going to the surface. There she basically mind controlled Haruki’s dad, and murdered his wife and newborn child when she accidentally stumbled across what the drow was doing. So she took the mother’s place and had Haruki with his father to hide the fact that the real mother and child were dead. His mind controlled father claimed to everyone that his wife had died in childbirth and that the child was too sickly to leave the house at the moment, and was being cared for. This was also his excuse for Haruki appearing smaller/younger than the original child should have been. So all along his mother was pulling the strings, puppeting his father while keeping herself hidden from the underground drow who wanted her dead for crimes I don’t know about exactly. This is also why the drow kept trying to kill Haruki—except for the one that poisoned him. That one was trying to make himself into a prophesied messiah for his people—a drow said to have control over magnetite, who had it in his veins but would not be overtaken. The drow that stabbed Haruki was being overtaken by the magnetite because he wasn’t the one, and he was desperate enough in his dying moment that he stabbed Haruki in one final hope he might be the one. Whether he really is or not is questionable, because apparently his magnetite was being held in check by actual literal Lucifer, who saw the potential chaos and darkness in Haruki and was nudging him in the direction of his path to throw the world into chaos.

I’m not sure where Haruki’s mindset would have been by the time he learned all this. He was really spiraling down a dark path where we were, and him learning his entire life was a lie and that he was *never* really human would likely be devastating. Idk if he’d have the will to resist Lucifer or not by that point.

Oc questions : has there been any additional lore that you created for characters that you haven't got full closure on ? @parasite-core

[circesays]

IM AM SO MAD THAT TUMBLR ERASED MY FIRST VERSION OF THIS. WHY. Time to rewrite 30 minutes of editing.

Frustration aside, here’s some notes for a fun “villain” Tango and hero Jimmy friendship story! Features Rancher Duo, misunderstood dungeon master Tango, unwilling hero Jimmy, ravagers, wardens, and adventures, oh my!

(I put most of it below a cut because I wrote a lot lol have fun!!)

———— :) ————

Jimmy is the prophesied Hero and member of the legendary Minecraft Adventuring Guild (MCAG), whos party has abandoned him due to his clumsiness to “protect” him, leaving him at home with a sense of betrayal and some very reckless ideas.

Tango is the mighty villain and ruler of Deep Frost Citadel, menace to all who live… yeah except he’s not. Tango actually runs a Ravager and Warden sanctuary, where he rescues abused ravagers from pillagers and maintains a healthy skulk network for his Wardens.

Jimmy marches into DFC and finds Tango with no intent to harm him (he was prophesied to defeat Tango and was kinda forced into it by his village and adventuring guild) and is like “I’m here to negotiate. Stop terrorizing people. Also please don’t murder me” and Tango instead is like “actually we don’t do that here. You seem kinda lonely and bored, how would you like a job?” (And a boyfriend and/or beloved friend cough cough-)

Jimmy and Tango run Deep Frost Citadel and Decked Out (the sanctuary/dungeon run) for a couple months together when finally Tango senses the heroes’ party approaching and decides to absolutely Clown On Them.

So they enter and are like “We’ve come to end your evil deeds once and for all!” And Jimmy enters the room like “Babe, Janet just gave birth to two absolutely amazing, healthy baby ravagers and ohmigosh they’re so cute you gotta come see them- oh hey guys!”

Cue absolutely flabbergasted stammering and indigent arm/hand motions until Tango and Jimmy just break down laughing.

-More Pieces/Story elements/headcanons-

-Tango can sense when someone is approaching Deep Frost Citadel with the intent to harm

-he usually attempts to ward them off with snowstorms and negotiation, but very very rarely is forced to kill intruders to defend himself and his assistants. He mourns every death and always returns them to the nearest settlement

-Tango has run Decked Out for years, a dungeon run that’s healthy for the ravagers and the Wardens and allows people to gamble for treasures with only risk of minor harm (they can enderport out at any time)

-Most people nowadays believe Decked Out is actually a villainous scheme to provide raids with ravagers and create an army to destroy the world with Wardens and ravagers.

-Jimmy’s old party consists of Grian, Lizzie, Joel, Scott, Pearl, Gem, Sausage, Fwhip, and Scar (who is now the clumsiest but still skilled with the bow). He loves them dearly but hates how they underestimate him. He’s not very good at swordplay or archery but he’s charismatic and funny and people like him.

-Jimmy could never hate his old party but it took him a while to stop being bitter

-Jimmy is the son of the town fisherwoman, and he loves fishing and swimming. Unfortunately he wasn’t able to continue his hobby while out training to fight

-Jimmy and Tango both know MCSL (Minecraft sign language lol). Everyone in DFC has to know it because of the Wardens, but Jimmy learned from the children of his village because he wanted to be able to talk to lots of different people

-the MCAG is a large and extremely famous adventuring guild that consists of many inner-guilds and parties, including the popular Hermits, Empires, and DreamSMP (Dream’s Survival-Magic Parties)

-Captain Sparklez leads the MCAG because of course he does.

-Jimmy’s old party is unusual because it consists of Empires members and Hermits. But his party was also a “temporary” party that was only supposed to last until Tango was defeated

-the question that remains after all of this is… what now?

Please please feel free to use any of these ideas. This is just for fun. I might write it later.

[star-ocean-peahen]

Excuse me what’s ninjago?? :0

oh!! im so glad you asked!!

Ninjago is a Lego franchise, which sells Lego sets that correspond to the events in a show. The show has been running for eleven years and currently has sixteen seasons, undergoing a reboot at season eleven.

The show began centered around a group of four boys recruited by an old ninja master (Sensei Wu) to stop Wu's evil brother Garmadon. Garmadon was after the Golden Weapons of Spinjitzu, four elemental weapons that were used by Wu and Garmadon's father, the First Spinjitzu Master, to create the world the characters live in, Ninjago. The weapons correspond to four elements: fire, earth, ice, and lightning. The four ninja recruited by Sensei Wu each have an elemental power and a unique personality for the team:

Cole, the master of Earth and the steady, levelheaded de facto leader

Kai, the master of Fire and the hot-tempered reckless heart of of the team

Zane, the master of Ice and chill-but-awkward kickass (psst hes secretly a robot whoa)(he didnt know)

Jay, the master of Lightning and motormouthed inventor

Here's the intro for the first season, it's worth a watch

They are a. Found Family with the capital Fs. It barely takes six episodes for them to start calling each other "brother". They're clumsy and rude and hardheaded sometimes but theyre trying so hard and they love each other so much.

So, season one, we got the team right?? Bunch teenage boys, Kai's sister Nya who is the only reason they're not dead yet, their wise omniscient kickass ninja mentor.......and Garmadon's elementary-aged son. Who unleashed an ancient tribe of vengeful snake people because he wanted to be an evil overlord like his dad.

The kid's way too cute to be evil though, ngl.

His dad's title is Lord Garmadon. His name is Lloyd Garmadon. He painted little skeletal ribs onto his hoodie so he could look like his dad and does this little muahahahahaha. Yes dear you're very scary.

kjashfaskdjf ANYWAY (i may love him a bit too much) being Sensei Wu's nephew, Wu kinda wants him in a place where he can be supervised and not. Yanno. Nearly dying to ancient snakes because he's like nine. So they pick him up and he joins the gang, but then he gets kidnapped BY said snake people and apparently the only thing Wu can do about it is go yank his dad, the evil overlord, out of whatever evil hole he's been brooding in.

Garmadon was legit just going to murder his brother until he heard that his son was in danger and then he instantly dropped it and started hiking to get him back. Ya see, the only thing that can make Garmadon break free from the corruption flowing through his veins is his son.

But whoops! Lloyd is actually the prophesied Green Ninja who is destined to destroy the lord of darkness. He's like nine and he has to kill his dad.

It's rather complicated and I'm not sure if you want to hear all of it, but he does end up defeating and purifying his dad. It's great. Then he has his dad for two more seasons and then loses him again.....

Anyway, that's the basic setup for the show. The team continues to fight evil together, season after season. One of my favorite things about Ninjago is how it utilizes its vast history (sixteen seasons) to construct plotlines that hit just because of how much weight is already behind them. Like, with the aforementioned Lloyd and Garmadon, he saves his dad, gets his dad, has to kill his dad again, has to kill his dad again, gets his dad resurrected as an empty husk and sicced on him, tries to save his dad again but gets disowned, then is forced to watch his father learn empathy for everything but him. Over the course of the sixteen seasons.

Each season is a relatively self-contained narrative, and the show ends up being fun to watch all at once but with cohesive individual stories. It's really dang funny and it has made me cry.

So! Found family, funky animation, and entertaining and hilarious characters. It's been incredibly fun.

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

Hey! I love your meta’s, a little while ago you talked about The Order of the Phoenix as an organization could you talk about the Death Eaters?

The post anon is referencing.

TL;DR the Order is incompetently hilarious and Dumbledore is a man who trusts no one.

Oh, the Death Eaters, what to say about the Death Eaters...

In a World Without Voldemort, They'd Probably Be Arsonists

One of the things JKR implies in the series, and something fandom seems to take for granted, is that Tom Riddle is the ultimate corrupting influence.

Were it not for him, the Wizarding World would be a much better place, and people like Bellatrix LeStrange would be productive members of society.

As soon as he is killed, even, by Harry, the good guys win, their problems all presumably solved, and Harry tells his son Albus Severus that it's totally fine if he's put into Slytherin.

I don't believe that though.

To me, it's not so much that Tom Riddle corrupted these people, but that he gave them an organized cause. The people themselves, oh, they were itching for a fight.

In a world without Tom I think they'd be a loosely, poorly organized, group (probably with Bellatrix as the ring leader) where they commit acts of domestic terrorism probably involving burning offensive shops to the ground or attacking muggleborns, halfbloods, and blood traitors.

Voldemort, to me, is designed to pander to them (and not the other way around).

The Death Eaters' Beginnings

So, first off, I think Tom's goals are not what he says they are. What he represents to his followers is exactly what they want to hear, wrapped in a grandiose theatric bow that they just love.

But how did this all start?

First, I don't believe in the Knights of Walpurgis. Instead I think Tom came relatively out of nowhere in the 70's uses parseltongue to prove his heritage as the Heir of Slytherin and thus of purer blood than any of them.

He throws these exciting rallies/parties that the rebellious, angsty, teenage heirs all go to. There he says everything they wanted to hear in the most eloquent manner they've ever heard, promises them the action that their fathers have never delivered, promises them a role in the glorious revolution and a place in history, and probably offers them mounds of cocaine.

All the Death Eaters we see, or the core of them, appear to be in this age range where they'd be in Hogwarts or just out of it when Voldemort came knocking. I can imagine they're all whipped up with excitement, YEAH LET'S BLOW UP THE MUDBLOODS and for some that's great, for others... things don't go the way they expected.

October 31, 1981: It All Falls Apart

Regulus famously steals Tom's horcrux. I imagine it wasn't so much that he learned the error of his ways but that he saw what Tom Riddle was really after: the destruction of his very society.

Lucius is riding high until October 31, 1981 and he sees the complete destruction of the entire Black family. Lucius' priorities greatly shift and as he grows older he prays Voldemort never returns. Unfortunately, Tom does, and he charges interest.

Bellatrix absolutely loses her mind, refuses to accept reality, and tries to torture the Longbottoms for information they do not possess. She is imprisoned in Azkaban and never truly recovers from this.

Snape ends up the cause of death for Lily Evans and must forever live with the guilt and be tied to her prophesied son. He also becomes Dumbledore's lackey forever, which ultimately gets him killed.

Point being, no one's having a good time. Some because they figure out being a Death Eater wasn't all it was cracked up to be, and others because they had the Voldemort rug pulled out from under their feet when Tom Riddle disappears.

Pettigrew flees and lives as the Weasley rat for nearly fifteen years.

They're left making a mad scramble as they try to pick up the pieces of their lives.

Canon Catches Up

More than ten years go by and then suddenly, in a muggle graveyard, the surviving Death Eaters discover that they are bound to Voldemort for the rest of their lives.

Death cannot stop this man and he has branded them: there's no escape.

Some are still enthusiastic supporters of the cause: Bellatrix is vindicated that her lord has returned, he rescues her from hell on earth, and everything's finally coming up Bella. Barty is similar in actively working for Voldemort's resurrection.

Lucius, meanwhile, lives in constant terror. Karkaroff desperately flees the country and hopes Tom will not find him. Snape, is in fact, Dumbledore's agent. Pettigrew only returned in utter desperation and has now cut off his own hand.

They're not the young men they were, some of them have families, to some of the past ten years have been utterly miserable. They have to watch as their children make the same damn mistakes they did, be sucked into this same hell hole, and there's nothing they can do about it.

There is a notable reluctance for the cause, and yet, they have to try with the same vigor or this madman will kill them all.

And it's all worthless anyway: come 1998, Voldemort dies again (perhaps for real this time, who knows, Harry Potter seems to think so for whatever reason) and then they are imprisoned for their acts as Death Eaters.

And they just laugh, because how badly Lucius wishes he could go back in time and tell his eighteen-year-old self, "YOU DUMB FUCK, LEAVE NOW!"

But Do They Learn Anything?

No.

Just because we see some of them regret being Death Eaters doesn't mean they regret their beliefs. Their beliefs were fine, even blowing up people here and there, a bit gauche but fine.

But maybe following Voldemort blindly was a bad idea.

Are They More Competent Than the Order?

No.

Tom Riddle is terrifyingly competent in that he infiltrates the government with ease, has spies everywhere, and all but proclaims himself minister one day and nobody blinks.

He gains the full support of most of the wizarding world's wealthiest and prestigious families.

But he doesn't actually give these people anything to do. Because there's nothing for them to do, with them, Tom's won. He owns the Wizengamot, the Ministry, everything.

There's no need to fight. It's over, there never was a war. Society is primed to accept Tom Riddle as their ruler.

However, the likes of Bellatrix LeStrange thinks there's a glorious war on, so "uh, go out and blow up a few muggles, have fun." And the young Death Eaters (and the older ones), think they've committed this great, daring, brave, and very important act.

Tom only seems to hand out real assignments when in desperate straits or else when being particularly vindictive.

Lucius, after messing up with the diary, is told to retrieve a prophecy he is not allowed to touch in a department of the ministry he should have no access to. If he fails: Tom kills his entire family. When Lucius does fail, Tom assigns his son to assassinate an already dying Dumbledore. These aren't real tasks, though they do have the appearance of one, and consequences for failure.

Barty, Tom is forced to rely on, as he is trapped in this dying infant's body. And better Barty, someone who is truly loyal and seems fairly clever, than Peter Pettigrew who is a miserable scum bag who'd sell his grandmother for a bar of soap.

Barty, of course, fucks this up. Rather than just kidnap Harry Potter at any of the many easy points this could be done (Hogsmeade trip, lure Harry out to Hogsmeade with super secret serial information about Voldemort/Snape being a Death Eater, etc.), Barty is determined to make use of the Triwizard Tournament to destroy his father's legacy.

This means rather than a few weeks, it takes months to kidnap Harry, and even then they bring along an extra boy who then gets killed and provides some evidence that Tom Riddle has in fact returned. (Somebody murdered Cedric). It takes months and Barty actively ensuring Harry makes it through the tournament and does well, leaving open the possibility that he might get caught helping Harry cheat at any moment. And of course, Barty has to pretend to be Madeye Moody for months, keeping his man locked and drugged in his trunk.

Thankfully, Moody's such a paranoid wreck, no one even notices.

Quirrell, Tom is forced to rely on. Quirrell fucks up, though admittedly not as badly as Barty. Quirrell fails to steal the stone when it's in transit/in Gringotts. He fails to murder Harry Potter, an eleven year old boy in the world's most dangerous school. He rouses Snape's suspicion almost immediately. Then of course he doesn't get the stone. He at least gets to the room with the stone and nearly overpowers Harry and gets it had he not been mysteriously lit on fire by the power of love/Lily Evans.

The only one Tom ever really relies on by choice is Snape. Snape is charged with spying on Dumbledore and later running Hogwarts (which he fucks up).

There is only one competent man in Britain: Severus Snape. Which is, of course, why he's a double agent that Dumbledore and Tom both extensively rely on despite his being a double agent.

There's no one else.

Tom Riddle doesn't make use of the Death Eaters but given they prove themselves enthusiastically incompetent at every turn I don't blame him. Just pretend to give them something to do and hope it makes them feel important.

That's all I've got in general, you want anything else you'll have to ask for something more specific.

[saiilorstars]

The Beginning of Everything

Ch. 27:  The Vortex Butterfly

// Story Masterlist //

Fandom: Doctor Who

Pairing: 10th Doctor x Female OC

~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~

Chapter summary: The final battle against the Daleks is coming to an end and with it comes the Vortex Butterfly. People are lost and those remaining are still fractured. When it's all over, Renata and the Doctor must decide what to do with themselves.

As soon as the new Doctor had figured out what the Daleks planned to do, he set to work with the tools he had in the TARDIS. He'd been working fairly fast considering the enormous pressure there was to get things right and working.

"Doctor - or whatever you name is - what are you doing!?" Gabby was so tired of watching the man circle the console without uttering a word to her or Donna. For all they knew, he could be making a toaster.

"This is our only hope!" the Doctor promised her and made a nod at his device that was coming together. "A Z-Neutrino biological inversion catalyser."

"Yeah, Earth-girls remember?" Donna nearly tapped the side of his head to make a point.

"Davros said he built those Daleks out of himself. His genetic code runs through the entire race. If I can use this to lock the Crucible's transmission onto Davros himself…"

"It destroys the Daleks?"

"Biggest backfire in history," the Doctor grinned mischievously.

"That's great," Gabby was truly grinning from ear to ear, but she raised her glowing purple hands to bring up another matter they hadn't truly solved yet. "Now what do I do about this!?"

The Doctor wearily eyed her hands. "Keep 'em...away…"

Gabby wasn't remotely amused. "Am I going to die like Renata? Is that what this is? You said I'm the Cosmic Butterfly and that Renata is the Vortex Butterfly, but what does that mean really? What can I do with this? Will it kill me?"

"I don't - I don't know the implications it'll have on your biology," the Doctor admitted. "But right now it might be a really good weapon against the Daleks." Gabby wasn't really sure how to feel about being a 'weapon' against alien threats. "And as for Renata? The energy inside her is far too strong, it could be killing her as we speak."

Gabby gulped and glanced at Donna. What could either of them do from where they were? Gabby didn't know the answer but she knew that she had to do something to save her. Ever since they met, Renata had done nothing but try to keep Gabby safe. Even when things were terrible, Renata always strove to keep Gabby out of harm's way. Gabby couldn't - and wouldn't - let that happen. She had the power in her fingertips to stop it, to at least help. She didn't care if it would contaminate her too or if it would kill her. The Doctor may be right in that she was a weapon they could use against the Daleks.

"What do I need to do?"

The Doctor eyed her for a second, deciding whether or not she was being honest and if she could actually do it. She gave a nod as if she'd read his mind.

"You draw your power - so they say - from your emotions, from what you feel. Take all of that and focus it on what you want to do."

Gabby nodded fast, her eyes wandering around the room. Right now all she could think of was Renata and the Doctor. They were both in such terrible danger and even then Renata was getting the worst of it. Her energy was swallowing her whole and just the thought of Renata dying terrified Gabby - she felt her world would crumble.

Flames began to rise from her fingers and when she noticed it, she knew exactly what to do.

~ 0 ~

Renata had gained a better sense of balance again, but it didn't stop the deep fatigueness she felt. Her energy - the vortex, apparently - had stopped randomly bursting from her but every now and then it would still burst. Even if they weren't strong explosions, she could still feel it bubbling inside her.

She touched the prison wall around her and watched its ripples mix with her golden energy. "Maybe...this isn't all bad," she whispered so that the Doctor could hear. "What if I use this - whatever it is - to our advantage?"

"Don't do anything, I'm begging you," the Doctor was so tired of asking her the same thing. He was afraid that each time the energy burst from her, it would be the last one she would be able to endure. "Just...just sit." Renata shook her head but before she could verbally refuse, they heard a familiar voice coming through a comms in the room.

"This is Martha Jones representing the Unified Intelligence Taskforce on behalf of the Human Race. Can you hear me?"

Renata stumbled forwards, her face hitting the wall not so kindly. "Martha! Is that really Martha!?"

Martha Jones finally came to appear in a screen for them. "This message is for the Dalek Crucible. Repeat: can you hear me?"

"Martha?" the Doctor could smile enough to see she was alright and unharmed, so far.

"It begins as Dalek Caan foretold," Davros announced, but neither the Doctor nor Renata paid him attention.

"The Children of Time will gather... and one of them will die!"

"Would you stop saying that! Put me through!" ordered the Doctor.

The communication became a two-way and Martha seemed relieved to see them again, although she immediately got concerned over Renata's frail appearance. She paid very bit of her attention to Rose, considering her priorities. "Ren? What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing, just get to the point," Renata made a gesture as best as possible.

"State your intent," Davros commanded Martha and Martha was happy to do so.

Martha raised her hand to show she held a strange key. "I've got the Osterhagen Key. Leave this planet and its people alone, or I'll use it."

"Osterhagen what? What's an Osterhagen Key?" the Doctor inquired, a bit offended that he had no idea what the thing was when UNIT created it. They were supposed to inform him every now and then.

"There's a chain of twenty-five nuclear warheads placed in strategic points beneath the Earth's crust. If I use the key, they detonate and the Earth gets ripped apart."

The noise that came out of Renata was piercing. She was appalled at such a creation. "What do you mean!? Martha Jones! Are you insane?!"

Martha was in a visible struggle with her duty and her morals, but she didn't stop until she got everything out that she needed to say. "The Osterhagen Key is to be used if the suffering of the Human Race is so great, so without hope... that this becomes the final option."

"That's never an option!" yelled the Doctor.

"Don't argue with me, Doctor," Martha snapped, further surprising him. "Cos there's more than that. Now, I reckon the Daleks need these twenty-seven planets for something, but what if it becomes twenty-six? What happens then? Daleks? Would you risk it?"

Rose had to admit where she saw a good job, because not just anyone could threaten the Daleks with such good content. "She's good." Of course neither the Doctor nor Renata would agree with her.

"Who's that?" Martha finally gave Rose the decent attention to be interested in her.

"My name's Rose. Rose Tyler."

Martha froze but her eyes immediately found Renata's. The Time Lady gave a confirming nod, but she made it clear that she was just fine with it.

Suddenly, the screen divided itself into two squares. Jack's face flashes next to Martha's and he was holding a peculiar necklace in hand. Sarah Jane, Jackie Tyler, and Mickey Smith were right behind him.

"Captain Jack Harkness calling all Dalek boys and girls!" Jack exclaimed rather loudly with a grin that promised greatness. "Are you receiving me? Don't send in your goons or I'll set this thing off."

Now it was Rose's turn to nearly fall over. "He's still alive!?" she squinted her eyes though when she saw Jackie behind him. "Oh, my God, that's- that's my mum!"

"And Mickey," the Doctor added. "Captain, what are you doing?"

"I've got a Warp Star wired into the mainframe. I break the shell... the entire Crucible goes up."

The Doctor looked between Martha and Jack - and those behind Jack - as if they'd all gone mad, and perhaps they had. "You can't! Where did you get a Warp Star?!"

"Wrong question," Renata shook her. "I can't believe they have the courage to do that - wrong courage, but...courage nonetheless." Although it honestly startled her that these humans had the boldness to do what not everyone could.

"It's mine, Doctor," Sarah Jane spoke up. "We had no choice, we saw what happened to the prisoners."

"Impossible. That face... after all these years…" Davros seemed truly surprised to see Sarah Jane on the screen.

Sarah Jane couldn't say the same. Her eyes narrowed on the man - creature - and a cold glare took her over. "That's been quite a while. Sarah Jane Smith. Remember?"

"Oh, this is meant to be. The Circle of Time is closing!" Davros exclaimed. "You were there on Skaro at the very beginning of my creation."

"And I've learned how to fight since then. You let the Doctor go or this Warp Star - it gets opened!"

"I'll do it," Jack raised the Warp Star a bit more and tweaked it to prepare it. "Don't imagine I wouldn't."

"Now, that's what I call a ransom," Rose chuckled, feeling just a bit more on the optimistic side. The Daleks wouldn't let their precious plan fall to bits if they could help it.

"And the prophesy unfolds," Davros said, pulling Rose out of her thoughts to notice the Doctor's downcasted gaze.

"The Doctor's soul is revealed! See him! See the heart of him!" Dalek Caan cackled deliriously, taunting the silent Doctor.

"Oh shut it you tin can!" Renata unexpectedly snapped. She knew exactly what they were trying to do to the Doctor and even if she was trapped inside a prison cell, she wouldn't allow it.

"The man who abhors violence, never carrying a gun. But this is the truth, Doctor," Davros wheeled himself closer to the Doctor who refused to look up from the ground. "You take ordinary people and you fashion them into weapons. Behold your Children of Time transformed into murderers. I made the Daleks, Doctor. You made this."

"What the - no!" Renata shouted again, more furious than before. "No one makes people into anything! You change them, yes, but their core remains the same."

The Doctor could appreciate her attempt to make him look better but he knew what he was, he always knew. Wherever he went, destruction followed. Even Renata herself had been caught in his trail. He gave her the worst ultimatum back on that horrible night before his wedding, and made her miserable for the rest of her lives. And after her...he couldn't even count the lives he'd destroyed because he turned them into people who didn't care for their own lives. They would use themselves as bait, go farther than they ever would because they met him.

It was all true.

And even if Renata tried to sweeten the darkness, he couldn't believe it. She shouldn't have to waste her breath - which was already numbered - on him. "Renata-"

"No!" she snapped at him without a single second of hesitation. "You are many things, Doctor, but I'm not letting these murderers bring you down with them! As if!" The golden Vortex began to dance around her body again, growing stronger the angrier she rambled on. "These humans-" she made a quick gesture to the screen where she had a good captive audience, "-are trying to save their world by any means necessary, even if it means destroying it! And yes, they are completely wrong!" She specifically looked up at the screens, making sure that each and every one of them looked her in her hard eyes. It was as if their mother was giving them a lecture, and it was a strange feeling for those who hadn't even met her. "But they made their choices! Not the Doctor!"

"Ren, calm down," Martha could see the light around her friend's body starting again.

"NO!" Renata frantically said. "And stop telling me to calm down! I'm not calming down! I've had it!"

"You make nice speeches, Time Lady-" Davros began but she wasn't quite finished yet.

"-my name-" she pounded a fist against her prison wall, "-is Renata! Learn it because as soon as I get out of here, I'm going to end you!"

"Renée, enough!" the Doctor turned to her. His anger had finally broken through his seal of silence but even though a part was directed at her, it wasn't for the same reason. He wouldn't let her further destroy her morals for him. Not her.

"There is no point in denying the truth," Davros insisted. "Already, I have seen them sacrifice today for their beloved Doctor. The Earth woman who fell opening the subwave network."

"Who was that?" the Doctor asked, momentarily curious of who else he could've destroyed that he wasn't remembering. That's how many...he couldn't even remember all of them!

"Harriet Jones," Rose answered quietly, closing her eyes when she remembered the terrible way Harriet had died after opening the Subway network for them. "She gave her life to get you here."

"How many more? Just think," Davros called to the Doctor again, nearing his prison hold. "How many have died in your name?"

"Doctor, don't," Renata knew that he was going to start thinking about the people he'd lost along the way. He just would. He was too guilty to ever forget them like that.

And as he realized before, the Doctor lost count along the way. He remembered many faces, each dying to save him and whoever else happened to be around. He always tried making the tough calls but someone always wanted to be brave - to prove themselves to him that they were just as brave as he was - and it always resulted in death. It followed him because that's who he was, that's who he was at his core. He could never stay still and people around him paid the price for it.

He barely held himself together once the weight of it truly fell over his shoulders, but the Daleks had won: they'd broken him. They made him face his reality and made him look at himself.

And Davros knew it too. "The Doctor... the man who keeps running, never looking back, because he dare not, out of shame. This is my final victory, Doctor. I have shown you... yourself."

"STOP!" Renata screamed and released the brightest energy she had yet to reveal. Her fists pounded endlessly against the prison walls, one after the other and stronger than the previous.

"Renata!" the Doctor swore he could see cuts against her fists from the constant hits against the wall, but she just wouldn't stop. "Renata!"

She cried and banged the walls with everything she had. The Vortex wouldn't fade this time either - it was actually cutting through the walls. The Daleks had prepared for the Doctor alright, but not the Vortex Butterfly.

"It's the Crucible... or the Earth!" Martha called when she felt it was the right time to really tighten the Daleks.

But the Daleks had other plans. They teleported Martha and Jack, along with everyone else who had tagged along. They all dropped into the Vault without their threatening weapons.

"Don't move!" the Doctor was quick to shout at them. "All of you, stay still!"

"But Renata!" Martha had gotten up from the floor fairly fast and ran towards her friend who was still crying against her cell.

"No, Martha!" the Doctor helplessly banged against his own prison hold to stop the woman.

Renata's cell cracked with the Vortex seeping through until it finally shattered. The force of it blew Martha back, throwing her body onto the floor. Renata's own body fell forwards after the blast. Jack only went to Martha because she was closest, but it didn't keep the Doctor from yelling for Renata to wake up. He crashed his body against his prison, much like Renata had, until his head got woozy from so many hits.

"Doctor, you have to stop that!" Rose called to him when he looked ready to pass out.

"You will all surrender," a Dalek warned the group as it and a few other Daleks came towards them.

Jack looked back at Sarah Jane, Mickey and Jackie, nodding for them to stay down. There was no winning now. Renata, however, slowly blinked awake. She scanned the area in her spot, without moving, and decided to wait for the right moment.

"The final prophecy is in place. The Doctor and his children all gathered as witnesses. Supreme Dalek... the time has come!" Davros' voice practically shook with excitement. "Now...Detonate the Reality Bomb!"

The knobs of the Reality Bomb started working again, giving the twenty seven planets their strong glow.

"Davros, you can't!" the Doctor crashed his body one more time against his prison hold. "Just listen to me! Just STOP!"

"Nothing can stop the detonation! Nothing! And no-one!"

Renata had barely flexed her left hand when she and the others began to hear a familiar, but completely impossible, wheezing noise. She'd been feeling so tired but now there was a small spot, somewhere inside, that felt a bit different. It was small but it sparked something...

The TARDIS appeared, looking as if nothing ever happened to it. It was the only thing that stopped the Doctor from repeatedly hurting himself against his prison. "But that's…"

"Impossible," Davros barely contained his shout.

The TARDIS settled into a nice spot and opened its doors, letting out a blinding light that could rival Renata's. The new Doctor bolted from the TARDIS with his device ready to go.

"What - don't!" the original Doctor cried despite not knowing - at that moment - how there was another copy of him.

Davros got over his shock and acted fast. With one pointed finger, he put a stop to the new Doctor's plan with a jet of electricity. He collapsed on the floor, not seriously injured but there would still be bruises.

"Activate holding cell," Davros instructed and a brand new prison hold appeared around the new man.

"Doctor!" Donna rushed out next and immediately saw the lost device on the floor. She snatched it before anything else could. "I've got it! But I don't know what to do!"

Donna became the next victim. The same electric jet of energy hit her and blew her against the TARDIS.

"Destroy the weapon!"

The Doctor called for Donna but there was no response from the woman, wherever it was she landed.

"Wait, how come there's two of you now?" Rose couldn't stop blinking. It was as if she was trying to see if blinking fast would erase the second DOctor.

"Human biological metacrisis. Never mind that, now we've got no way of stopping the Reality Bomb."

"Wouldn't say that." Gabby appeared out of the TARDIS with a strong purple glow around her and a pair of two swirling, purple butterfly wings behind her. She didn't take a second to think about the consequences, she just acted. She thrust her left hand forwards and shot directly at Davros. A streak of purple butterflies swarmed their way towards the man.

"Attack!" he cried before the butterflies could read him.

"NO!" the Doctor went into another state of panic. The Reality Bomb was back on and now they also had to watch Gabby die all over again?

Gabby brought her wings over her body as a shield - how that happened, she wouldn't be able to explain - but the same wings, only in purple, flapped in front of her. In her mind, there was only one thing: save her friends.

Renata was finally back and she had an icy cold glare on her face, despite the warmth she felt from the Vortex emanating around her. "Not her!" her voice would make anyone wince, and it did. "You-" her wings flapped to create a force of wind laced with golden energy, "-stay-" flap!, "-away-" another flap, "-from her!" Golden swirls fired from her wings and hit the incoming Daleks.

"Detonation in twenty rels! Nineteen…" the Supreme Dalek's voice began to echo through all the rooms in the Crucible.

"Renata!" the Doctor vainlessly called for her. He was terribly scared for her and for the planets. He didn't know whether or not to be ashamed of the fact he couldn't decide which scared him more. "Renata, stop!"

But Renata, whether she heard him or not, thrust one hand after the other and split as many Daleks as she could. Gabby followed in her footsteps and cut through the Daleks that would near her. The Vortex Butterfly had come to life and was going to do whatever it took to keep her loved ones safe. Beautiful golden flames surrounded around her, contrasting the darkness she felt inside her knowing the battle that was upon them. She led the Cosmic Butterfly, her faithful companion, into the land of battle. One powered by the Vortex and the other by cosmic energy, the Daleks would never stand a chance.

"Exterminate!" Renata could hear dozens of them but she felt an incredible surge of power that she wanted to take full advantage of.

"Nine... eight... seven... six…"

Donna blinked awake and, like Gabby and Renata, she immediately knew there was something different about her. A heavy load of power dropped on her, but not in the same way as it had on Renata and Gabby.

"What is going on!?" Martha breathed in at the sight of her best friend taking down Daleks like there was no tomorrow while doing it with butterfly wings.

"The Vortex Butterfly and the Cosmic Butterfly are born," Dalek Caan laughed loudly enough to go over the streaks of energy. "But can they survive?"

"Shut up!" the Doctor practically bellowed at the deranged Dalek.

"Five... four... three... two... one.."

The entire group waited, even both Renata and Gabby had finally stopped once the Daleks in the Vault were dead, to see the end of all creation. They were mighty confused when nothing of the sort happened.

"Oh... closing all Z-Neutrino relay loops using an internalised synchronous back-feed reversal loop!" Donna triumphantly, and rather confidently, flicked a switch from a control panel. "That button there!"

"Donna, you can't even change a plug!" the Doctor didn't know what was going on but he couldn't stop smiling. She looked absolutely at home working the controls.

Donna winked at him. "Do you wanna bet, Time Boy?"

"You will suffer for this!" Davros warned her, but Donna scoffed.

"Sure!" she went for another switch on the control panel and electrocuted Davros. "Oh...! Bioelectric dampening field with a retrogressive arc inversion."

"Alright Donna!" Rose laughed.

The Vault opened its doors to let more Daleks in. Renata raised her hands, taking aim, and prompted Gabby to do the same.

"Bring it," Gabby flexed her fingers. The energy around her was amazing. She wasn't in pain and even though she couldn't control it all so well, she just knew that this could be used for good, not murdering as the new Doctor had said. Plus, she was thinking differently too and she didn't know what that meant! It was as if her brain had opened to new ideas, to new possibilities - different angles to look from!

"I got it, ladies!" Donna called from her spot and somehow powered down the Daleks' blaster-guns. "Weapons non-functional!" She smirked at everyone's confused stares. "What? Macrotransmission of a K-filter wavelength blocking Dalek weaponry in a self-replicating energy blindfold matrix?"

The Doctor's mouth had fallen open in honest, thorough, shock. "How did you work that out? You…"

"Time Lord. Part Time Lord," the new Doctor said a d for a brief moment they shared a silent, knowing look between them.

Donna didn't notice it. Why would she? She was having the time of her life saving the world - worlds! "Part Human! Oh, yes! That was a two-way biological metacrisis. Half Doctor... half Donna!"

"The Doctor-Donna…" Renata realized, thinking back to the Old planet they visited a while ago. "It was just like the Ood said." She turned her head at the Doctor, her Doctor. "It came true." He knew what she was trying to say: if they got that bit right then her prediction was going to come true as well.

He shook his head. Never.

"Holding cells deactivated!" Donna cheered for herself as the holding cells disappeared.

As soon as he was free, the Doctor dashed for Renata. He was about to hold her - or attempt to hug, whichever one felt better - when her wings flapped menacingly.

"Don't touch me," she warned him.

"Ren-"

"-the job is not done. More are coming," Renata turned away from him, head tilting towards the closed doors at the end.

"Ren?" Martha was back on her feet thanks to Jack. She cautiously approached Renata but the Doctor barred her from getting too close. There was something else in Renata's face that he couldn't figure out yet. "Renata? It's me, Martha. I-I can't say I understand very well what all that-" she made a gesture at Renata's wings, "-is but you're not okay. You must be exhausted. You should let me take you into the TARDIS."

"No," Renata said flatly. "I want to put an end to them, all of them."

Gabby wobbled on her feet, for the first time feeling a bit weak from the energy she'd suddenly garnered. "Maybe...it wouldn't be a bad idea…"

"Oi! Doctor!" Donna called to the original from the control panel. "Could use some help!" She already had the metacrisis Doctor with her, but a third set of hands would end things much quicker.

"Stop them!" Davros ordered the remaining Daleks inside.

Donna had other ideas. She clicked a button on the panel. "And spin!"

The Daleks advance.

Renata turned her head at the spinning Daleks, revealing a fury she'd been hiding. The energy was making her let it go. "No spin, just die!" she screamed and fired upon the closest, spinning Daleks.

"Renata!" Martha tried reaching for her but the Doctor was faster and yanked them both back.

"You can't touch her! That's the Time Vortex around her!" he nodded to the dancing, golden flames around Renata's body.

Renata desisted with the measly Daleks spinning around them. She set eyes on the biggest threat of them all: Davros. She stalked towards him, leaving her footprints in Vortex power on the floor. "YOU!"

Martha didn't waste time and shoved the Doctor after her. "Stop her before she gets killed!"

The Doctor quickly glanced at Donna and saw she was busily working with his metacrisis copy then glanced at the others to see them coming out with their own weapons against the Daleks. Gabby was the only one unattended, but Martha practically read his thoughts.

"I've got her!" she rushed for Gabby but remembered she couldn't touch her. Although the more Martha studied the girl, the quicker she realized Gabby's power wasn't as strong as Renata's. Her purple glow came and went, almost as if it were trying to face but Gabby was clinging to it. "Gabby? Gabby, you need to put that energy away!"

"I can't!" Gabby clutched her head. "I-I thought this new mind was great but now I feel like a computer that's overloading. The power... it's a lot."

Martha could only imagine. "Listen, you just have to stop-"

"-I can't! I need to help Renata! It's beyond me, it's an instinct!"

"You're connected," Martha blinked and quickly glanced at Renata. Renata was hell bent on getting Daleks, and now Davros, and it seemed she had a pull on Gabby too. The butterflies were connected in some way.

Near the TARDIS, Jack had gone in to collect his and Rose's guns in case they ended up needing them when they escaped. The others, including Rose, took to pushing away any spinning Daleks that managed to get too close to Donna and the TARDIS. Donna had the metacrisis Doctor working like mad to get all the planets home.

"Activate magnetron!" she ordered.

"Stop it at once!" Davros attempted to go for Donna when Renata struck just in front of him.

She moved to stand right in front with one hand extended forwards, bathed in Vortex energy that was waiting to be released. "You stay right where you are."

"The Vortex Butterfly will murder on her first day?" Davros seemed more bemused than afraid.

"I'd be doing the world a favor," Renata balled her fist, finally letting the rage out that she'd bottled up for years. "No one would miss you."

The Doctor was horrified to hear that logic and much more that it was coming from Renata. He was helpless as he looked between her, Gabby and Donna working madly to get the planets back in place. All three of his companions were changed because of him. He'd ruined them just like everyone before them. And it broke his hearts all over again. They were weapons, just like the Daleks told him. It was his curse and they had to live with it while he could only watch.

Not Renata. He couldn't bear watching her betray her own morals. She was always so sweet, so protective, even when she harbored deep secrets it never changed who she was at her core. "Renée! You can't do this!"

There was a sour smile on Renata's face. "Why not? Really, Doctor, who would give a damn? They're the ones who ruined our world. They murdered everyone. But now I have the power to end them, to pay them back with the same coin."

"Renata, I know where you're coming from. I've been there," the Doctor promised her. He thought of the first Dalek he met right after the Time War. The first Dalek that might have changed. In that time he could care less if it was a safe Dalek, if it had become best friends with Rose and gotten a new perspective on life. He wanted to see it dead, just like all the other Daleks. But Rose reminded him that even though everything was gone, he was still there and deserved a chance to live.

"Renata, you always said that you wanted to go home, that-that you would do anything to go home…" he started again but it was difficult to get out when he could see how each word of his punctured Renata's hearts. "But this isn't it. This won't get you home and it won't bring home back. Renata I'm sorry but... it's gone." Renata's face scrunched harder the more he drilled it into her head, drilled reality into her head. "Gallifrey is dead and going on a murder spree won't do anything to change that. But listen, you have people here too. You have Martha, you have Donna, you have me and you have a young girl who looks up to you. And right now, she's in pain because she's trying to help you."

Renata blinked, for a second coming out of her dark moment, and slightly glanced in the Doctor's way. He was desperately trying to show her a struggling Gabby who was barely able to stay on her feet. Martha and Mickey were trying to bring her towards the TARDIS but the girl refused, saying things about helping her.

"You see?" the Doctor caught onto her temporary moment of lucidness to finish making his point. "I think you're temporary connected and she feels like she has to help you."

Renata returned her attention to her threatening hand. Davros wasn't close to her anymore but all it took was one shot, one shot, and it would be enough to end him.

"It breaks my hearts that I can't bring your family back. Because I would, if there was any way that I could I really would." The Doctor tried stepping closing to her, hoping that he was getting through to her once and for all. "They're gone. Everyone's gone."

Renata started to shake and sniff until it turned into gentle a cry. The golden energy around her body died within seconds. She lowered her threatening hand and brought it against her mouth to cover her sobs. "Oh God, what am I doing?"

When the Doctor knew it was safe, he pulled her into a hug and let her shake and sob for a few minutes. She needed it.

By the control panel, Donna and the metacrisis Doctor were almost done working.

"We got it, Doctor! Ha!" Donna laughed as she watched each planet return to their rightful place.

Rose and Jack came by to see their progress, though Rose's gaze often fell on the original Doctor with Renata.

"Is anyone gonna tell us what's going on?" Jack asked them.

"The Doctor - the original - poured all his regeneration energy into his spare hand," Donna explained rather fast, sounding a lot like the Doctor, "I touched the hand and he-" she nodded to the metacrisis Doctor, "-grew out of that, but that fed back into me. But, it just stayed dormant in my head 'til the synapses got that little extra spark, kicking them into life. Thank you, Davros! Part Human...part Time Lord. And I got the best bit of the Doctor. I got his mind!"

"So there's three of you?" Sarah Jane wandered over at the explanation.

Even Rose was wearing the same face of surprise. "Three Doctors?"

"I can't tell you what I'm thinking right now!" Jack looked away for the same reason. It was then that he saw the original Doctor and Renata finally making their way to them. "Doc! Donna just explained how there's three of you now!"

"Great," the Doctor was walking slowly with Renata. He checked behind him to see Martha and Mickey were able to bring Gabby along.

"Donna, you were so unique that the timelines were converging on you," Renata managed to smile, though it was a tired one. "Human Being with a Time Lord brain."

"Very special," Gabby added. She was looking better too now that her link with Renata was lowering because the Time Lady's murderous endeavors stopped.

"But you promised me, Dalek Caan. Why did you not forsee this?" Davros turned his chair to Dalek Caan in new flourished anger.

Dalek Caan giggled knowingly.

"Oh, I think he did," the Doctor said when he figured it out. "Something's been manipulating the timelines for ages... getting Donna Noble to the right place at the right time."

"This would always have happened. I only helped, Doctor."

Davros didn't want to believe that his entire plan had failed and much more that it was always going to fail. "You...betrayed the Daleks?"

"I saw the Daleks. What we have done throughout time and space. I saw the truth of us, Creator, and I decreed 'no more'."

"Dalek...on our side?" Renata would act more surprised if her facial features would allow it.

"Heads up!" Jack called when he saw the Vault doors opening up.

The Supreme Dalek had descended to the room. "Davros, you have betrayed us."

"It was Dalek Caan!"

"The Vault will be purged! You will all be exterminated!" the Supreme Dalek sent a death ray towards a central column, causing sparks to fly.

Jack had another thing to say. "Like I was saying, feel this!" He blasted the Dalek to smithereens with his large gun.

"No!" the metacrisis Doctor exclaimed when he saw the central column had been destroyed with the Supreme Dalek's ray. "We've lost the magnatron! And there's only one planet left!"

"And let me guess," the original Doctor began, "It's Earth?" both the metacrisis Doctor and Donna nodded their heads. "We can use the TARDIS. I'll do it." He brought Renata into the TARDIS and Martha and Mickey came in shortly afterwards with Gabby. "Renée, don't move! Got it?"

Renata had been sat in the Captain's chair and this time she didn't argue with him. She nodded her head instead. "I think the Butterfly is done."

The Doctor cocked his head to the side, disliking her choice of words but time was short. He ran to Gabby next. "Gabby? How we doin'?"

"Better, thanks," she smiled much more easily than Renata. "I think...I think I got a little less than Ren. I-I touched Donna when she touched your, uh, your hand…"

The Doctor paused to think about it for a second. "You must have activated your power via the metacrisis, but you didn't intake the same amount of Donna. It kitck-started the dormant energy of the Block Matrix from Zhe's gallery."

"But why am I not affected like Renata?"

"Renata's mutation was kick-started by Dorothy Bell and her Osiran powers. Plus, every Time Lord carries a bit of the Time Vortex inside them, you don't. You're human. You just have the Block Transfer connection."

"Oh, is that it?" Gabby sarcastically quipped.

"But you'll be fine - you and Renata will both be fine," the Doctor promised then ran for the console. He would get them sorted once they finished sorting this first. Everything would be just fine, just fine, because-

There was a strange commotion coming from the outside, it sounded like screaming. He hurried back outside and saw the shrieking, exploding Daleks from the screen Davros originally had for them.

"What've you done?!" he shouted in horror at his counterpart.

The new Doctor didn't seem that perturbed with the fact he had just slaughtered millions of Daleks in one go. "Fulfilling the prophecy." There was a wildness in his eyes that genuinely scared the original Doctor. "Do you know what you've done? Now, get in the TARDIS!" he roared and pointed the man for the blue box.

The metacrisis Doctor did so but he knew there was nothing more to do. It was already done. The Crucible would explode in minutes.

"Everyone! All of you inside, run! In, in, in, in, in!" the Doctor hurried along the remaining companions into the TARDIS. The Vault went up in flames but despite that, the Doctor knew Davros was still around. If he didn't come, he'd explode as well. "Davros? Come with me! I promise I can save you!"

"Never forget, Doctor - you did this!" Davros voice echoed through the room. "I name you, forever, you are the Destroyer of Worlds!"

The Doctor stayed in his spot for a minute, frozen as he concluded that everything was right. He was a destroyer.

"Doctor!" someone called to him from inside the TARDIS. It snapped him out of his thoughts and brought him right in.

The console was actually crowded - a strange sight for someone who usually travelled alone or at least light - with all his companions trying to gather sense of what they'd just gone through.

"And! Off we go!" he went for the console, starting the TARDIS up. Soon as he did, the group rocked to a side.

"But what about the Earth? It's stuck in the wrong part of space!" Sarah Jane said as if anyone would forget that small detail.

"I'm on it!" the Doctor promised as he worked the console. He got in contact with Torchwood as fast as he could. "I want you to open up that Rift Manipulator - send all the power to me!"

Afterwards, he called up Sarah Jane so that they could get in contact with her son, Luke, and her advanced computer Mr. Smith. He gave them another instruction and once it was set in motion, he rushed around giving each of his companions a control to work on the console. It would be a many-people drive!

Renata could see everybody crowded over the console with the same gleeful smiles on their faces. Her hearts warmed at the sight of all those people who were able to gather together because of the Doctor. She only knew two of them but she only needed to know the Doctor to know that every single one of them were amazing. She closed her eyes and took in a quiet breath. It almost looked like she was taking in her last breath, which was immediately pulled the Doctor towards her.

"Renata!" he scurried up to her seat with such a pale face that Renata would've laughed if she could.

"I'm okay," she said in a frail voice. "I'm just...so tired."

"I know, I know, I'm going to bring you to the medbay and-and we'll do all the testing and-"

Renata brought a hand up to his mouth, quieting him down in a second. Her kind, tired eyes told him she'd already made a decision. "I think I know where I need to go."

The Doctor was puzzled with her. Where could she want to go that wasn't the TARDIS? It hurt just to imagine her not around.

She seemed to have read his mind, or at least part of it anyways. She drew her hand away from his mouth and smiled rather sadly. "You'll be fine. You'll have someone back." Her eyes flickered past him so he followed it to Rose.

He wasn't quite sure how to feel about that.

~ 0 ~

Landing back on Earth - that'd been brought back to its rightful spot - felt like a dream for the humans. Sarah Jane couldn't wait and ran out first. She laughed at such normality of the park they were in. It didn't even look like there'd been a massive Dalek invasion 10 minutes ago.

The Doctor came peeking out a few seconds later, but not without Gabby shoving him to the side afterwards.

"We're back on Earth! We're back!" she cheered excitedly. Sarah Jane and the Doctor shared a small laugh as the girl spun around.

"Looks like your doing a lot better," the Doctor noted with a relieved smile.

Gabby was about to nod when a spree of purple butterflies sprang from the top of her head. It made her freeze mid-spin with wide eyes.

Once more, there was a small laughter between the two on-lookers.

"We'll need to work on that," the Doctor said.

Gabby decided to start laying low for now and returned to them. "I...did not mean to do that."

"I still don't understand that," Sarah Jane chuckled behind a hand. "But I imagine this will not be the last time we see each other." She glanced at the Doctor with a biggened smile. "You know... you act like such a lonely man. But look at you! You've got the biggest family on Earth! And you even managed to find yourself another Time Lord - lady. I'm so happy for you." She hugged him and missed the sad smile on the Doctor's face. "Gotta go now!" she pulled away with new excitement. "He's only fourteen! It's a long story. And thank you!"

"I like her," Gabby announced when Sarah Jane ran off.

"Yeah…"

Gabby brought a hand to her chest suddenly, making a face like something was bothering her. When the Doctor noticed it, she explained, "It's really weird. I go back and forth with this. One moment I'm okay and then the next I feel so heavy, like-like I just have to release, you know?"

"Like Renata," the Doctor nodded quietly. He presumed it was the same situation as Renata, only Gabby's energy amount was less than what Renata had.

"I-I should go see how she's doing," Gabby said after she'd managed to get through her small moment. She walked into the TARDIS at the same time both Mickey and Jack emerged.

"Ren, you should sit," Martha was in the middle of saying when Gabby joined them.

"I'm not a baby, Martha Jones. I'm quite older than you," Renata spoke ever-so-calmly and - Gabby had no idea how in such a bad moment - gracefully too. Renata had finally gotten up from her chair and was attempting to walk a couple steps.

Martha rolled her eyes and followed after Renata, arms ready to catch her in case she fell. "You just expelled some weird butterfly powers."

"Time Vortex, thank you very much," Renata turned around slowly to face Martha.

"How did that even happen?"

"A series of events, I'm afraid. We visited an art gallery that used a Quantum Sphere for Block Transfer Computation and infected me and Gabby."

Martha blinked and quickly looked at Gabby, but the girl raised her hands. "I didn't get the worst," she said and Martha sighed. That much she could tell.

"I was further infected - contaminated - by a different alien race, the Osirans," Renata went on. "And my body just never healed."

"And she wouldn't let the Doctor keep running tests on her," Donna came over with a long gaze on Renata.

"Surprise, surprise," Martha folded her arms and gave her best friend a disapproving look.

"Oh don't start, none of you," Renata pointed a finger at each and every one of them. "I don't want to hear it."

"Ren, will you be okay?" Martha's question did make Renata stop just as she was continuing to walk. "Like...like will you…?"

Renata turned back again and softened at Martha's concern. "I don't know," Renata admitted. She didn't want to lie to Martha. "But I need to go somewhere to figure out what I want."

Martha's stomach churned because , knowing Renata, knowing what had just happened, there was no telling what Renata would 'want'. Without saying a word, she walked up to Renata and hugged her really tight. She didn't say it but Renata knew. Just in case...Martha wanted to say goodbye.

"I'm sorry for how we got to know each other," Martha pulled away with a teary face. "I'm sorry I read your diary-"

"-forget about it," Renata nodded. "I burned that thing a long time ago. You were right. I couldn't live in the past. Elek is gone…" she exhaled a shaky breath, "The Assessor is gone, my family...everyone's gone. Maybe living in the past is the reason why I've never been happy." It was why she would rather end things now then keep living like that. She just didn't know how to do either.

"I know you can be happy," Martha smiled her best one. "You have to want it." And that was the thing: Renata didn't know what she wanted.

"See you around, Martha," Renata smiled warmly.

"...yeah," Martha knew that was still up in the air. Still, there was nothing left to do but leave.

"Martha," Renata called just as the woman reached the door, "If you could do one thing for me...get rid of that Osterhagen key, please? I understand why the humans would create something like but it would just break the Doctor's hearts if it continued to exist. Do that for him, will you?"

Martha knew that by extension, she'd be doing Renata her last wish too. "Of course," she promised and walked out.

"Uh, Renata?" Rose gently called to the Time Lady after Martha left.

Renata saw the woman was a bit feeble, almost afraid. Still, Renata felt like whatever Rose was going to say, it would be better if the Doctor was there too. She had a hunch about what it was and Renata didn't want Rose to have to repeat herself.

"Let's just wait a moment, okay?"

Rose nodded but she was biting her lower lip nervously. She needed to get something off her chest now.

~0~

Bad Wolf Bay.

The next stop for the TARDIS was a breezy, cloudy beach.

Jackie was disgusted of the place as soon as she recognized it. "Ugh, fat lot of good this is! Back of beyond, bloody Norway! I'm gonna have to phone your father. He's on the nursery run."

"You have a baby?" Gabby had come out after her and the metacrisis Doctor.

Jackie nodded proudly. "Had a baby boy!"

"Ah, brilliant! What did you call him?" the metacrisis Doctor asked.

"Doctor."

That made the man stop in his Sandy tracks. "...really?"

"No, you plum. He's called Tony!"

Gabby laughed while the Doctor frowned. Jackie Tyler was too funny!

As soon as Rose stepped into the familiar beach, she was puzzled. She didn't understand what she was doing there again. "Hold on, this is the parallel universe, right?" she asked just as the rest followed out of the TARDIS.

"You're back home," the original Doctor said.

"And the walls of the world are closing again...now that the Reality Bomb never happened. It's dimension retroclosure." Donna smiled proudly of herself. "See, I really get that stuff now."

Rose didn't understand - well, she might. Her teary eyes flickered between the Doctor and Renata. "Is this my punishment? For letting the Daleks through the cracks?"

"Of course not," Renata said softly. She was honestly surprised just like Rose. She didn't think the Doctor would actually choose to bring Rose back to her own world, but once Renata figured out the extent of his plans...she couldn't say that she disagreed. "And I'm sorry I put that idea into your head. This was not your fault, Rose. You had a good heart and the Daleks took advantage of that. This is not a punishment."

"Never," the Doctor agreed. "I would never do that to you.

"But you still want me to stay here! After all that time I spent trying to find you! I'm not going back now!" Rose was in full blown tears that were a mix of frustration and confusion.

The Doctor stepped towards her, hoping to catch her down so she could truly listen to what he needed from her. She always listened, after all. She was very good at that. And it did him so well. That's why only she could do what he needed her to do. "But you've got to. Because we saved the universe, but at a cost. And the cost is him." Offence slipped out of the metacrisis Doctor as soon as the gazes turned on him. "He destroyed the Daleks. He committed genocide. He's too dangerous to be left on his own."

"You made me!"

"Exactly, you were born in battle - full of blood and anger and revenge." The original Doctor turned his attention back to Rose. "Remind you of someone?" Rose would not entertain that answer.

"Yeah, her!" the metacrisis Doctor spat and pointed at Renata. The Time Lady was shocked but, after a few seconds she realized he was absolutely right.

"No, leave her alone!" the original Doctor snapped so aggressively that, without his notice, Rose came to her own conclusions.

"He's right," Renata put a hand on the Doctor's arm, calming him. "I murdered Daleks and I would've nearly had Davros if you hadn't stopped me." She swallowed hard and withdrew her hand from his arm. "I always said I was a terrible person. This just solidifies it."

"Absolutely not," the original Doctor insisted that they were both wrong. "You were on your own for 56 years after the Time War. You never got the chance to heal...not like I had someone." He looked at Rose with a new sense of urgent plead. The blonde had cleaned up her tears but others were still pooling in her eyes. "She and him are me when we first met and you, Rose, made me better. Now you can do the same for him."

"And you for her," Rose whispered, eyes catching Renata's shameful lowering gaze. She could understand that, but it didn't mean she was happy about it, not when she realized the truth. It was the truth she'd been blinding herself to ever since she got to their world. The gentle touches, the ferocity to protect each other, the whispers between them…

"You love her," she whispered, crestfallen.

Both the Doctor and Renata froze. They wouldn't look at each other but neither could say that their hearts hadn't stopped for a second.

"Rose, I need you to do this for me," the Doctor said, going on as if nothing had been said. "You're the only one I trust."

Rose wasn't shaking her head, but she couldn't nod either. "He's not you."

"He needs you. That's very me."

"If I may?" Donna cleared her throat and raised a finger. "He's trying to give you something as well. Because you're right, these two-" she spared the Doctor and Renata a soft smile, "-have something complicated but something nonetheless, whether they want to admit or not." The pair's flushed faces confirmed each of Donna's words. "But him…" Donna nodded over to the metacrisis Doctor, "He's from before - the hand? - he's from your time."

Rose side-glanced the metacrisis Doctor, looking him over to see if Donna was telling the truth.

"I look like him and I think like him... same memories, same thoughts, same everything," the metacrisis Doctor stepped towards her. "All from our time together. The only difference is that I've only got one heart."

Rose seemed to stumble back a few steps. "Which means?"

"I'm part Human. Specifically the aging part. I'll grow old and never regenerate. I've only got one life...Rose Tyler. I could spend it with you. If you want."

"You'll grow- grow old at the same time as me?"

"Together."

Rose placed a hand to his chest to confirm what he was saying. One heart.

She glanced back at Renata and the Doctor.

"One of us should be happy," Renata smiled lightly, albeit a bit sad herself.

The TARDIS made an odd noise, pulling everyone's attention for a moment. Time was running out.

"We've gotta go. This reality's sealing itself off," the Doctor said. Renata nodded in agreement. "Forever."

"But it's still not right," Rose wanted to insist but there was something inside her telling her that this was already over. It just hurt to accept it.

"I think we should say one more thing," Renata stopped the Doctor beside her from turning away. "Thank you. Doctor, did you ever say that to her? Because she did a wonder on you."

The Doctor couldn't help playfully roll her eyes, even Rose was smiling just a tiny bit.

Renata drew in another shaky breath. "You have a healing ability, Rose, that no one else has. I would've liked that for me after I got out of the Time War. He's right," she crossed gazes with the metacrisis Doctor, "I'm just as bad. And having both of us in the same world will do no one any good. But if he stays here, you can help him. And Rose, you can be happy. Happy...something not everyone can be. Take this opportunity and be happy."

Rose stared at Renata for what felt like the longest minute for the latter. She had tilted her head, truly studying the Time Lady. "You're not bad. You're just hurting." And as she said those words she realized that the two were right. She was like the Doctor and if that was true then so was the metacrisis Doctor. "And you need help…" she drew in a breath, letting reality finally come to them. "I understand. But I just...I just have to know one thing, just one. When I last stood on this beach on the worst day of my life... what was the last thing you said to me?"

The Doctor gave a small nod, but it was too hard to go back to that time full of pain. He didn't want to add on more, more heartbreak. "I think...I can let him answer that. After all, it was my answer too."

Renata tried turning for the TARDIS, but in doing so she nearly fell. The Doctor grabbed her by the waist and decided it was best to keep a hold around her. And he concluded that he would much rather hold her right now, making sure that she was okay. Still, he wanted to look back one more time at Rose for goodbyes. She seemed to know his intentions and gave a nod.

"Goodbye," she managed to say through tears.

"Goodbye," he returned. He gently pulled Renata towards the TARDIS and do Donna brought Gabby along as well.

Rose despondently watched the TARDIS disappear, that is...until she felt the metacrisis Doctor slip his hand through hers. He watched her with such fondness that, whether or not she wanted to, a smile worked its way across her face. She couldn't say that all was lost this time.

~0~

"There you go," the Doctor brought Renata straight for the Captain's chair again while Donna piloted the TARDIS (her skills were mighty better as well, it appeared). "Let's try to sit for a while, okay?"

"No," she said, already attempting to get back up. "I want to...be there…"she purposely looked past him to Donna.

He became silent. He knew what she meant.

"You know," Donna was saying to Gabby, "I thought we could try the planet Felspoon. After Renata is better of course. Just 'cos. What a good name, 'Felspoon', you know? Apparently it's got mountains that sway in the breeze. Mountains that move. Can you imagine?"

Gabby shook her head. "Nope! But I'd love to see! Actually, I'd like to stop by and see my family first. See how they're doing after all this.

"Oh yeah! Sure! Course we can do that!" Donna chuckled and moved the controls to get them to New York. "You know, Doctor, you could fix that chameleon circuit if you just try and hotbind in the fragment links and superseding the binary, binary, binary, binary, binary, binary..."

Gabby blinked in shock at the sudden repetition. She looked quickly to the Doctor and Renata but neither of them seemed that surprised, or worried. In fact, it almost seemed like they knew. But knew what?

"Binary, binary, binary, binary, binary, binary, binary, binary, binary-" Donna sucked in a huge breath to stop herself. "I'm fine!" she laughed it off. "Nah, never-mind Felspoon. You know who I'd like to meet? Charlie Chaplin. I've heard he's great, Charlie Chaplin. Shall we do that? Shall we go and see Charlie Chaplin?" she grabbed the console phone, going fast for some reason. "Shall we? Charlie Chaplin? Charlie Chester, Charlie Brown. No, he's fiction, friction, fiction, fixen, mixen, rixten, brixton-" she doubled over in pain and so the Doctor hurried to help her.

"What's happening?" Gabby stared at Donna, full of concern. Donna was holding her head like something was throbbing.

"Donna, do you know what's happening?" Renata gently called. She was moving to stand up and since there was no point in arguing, Gabby decided to help her.

Donna looked at Renata then the Doctor, knowing exactly what they meant but she just didn't want to admit it.

"There's never been a Human-Time Lord metacrisis before now. And you know why," the Doctor hated to see Donna close to tears, especially when she'd been so ecstatic minutes ago.

"Because there can't be," Donna barely managed to say the words without crying. She gently moved away from the Doctor's hold, as if doing that made it not real. "I want to stay…"

Gabby's eyes widened. Why would Donna say something like that? Why wouldn't she able to stay?

"Donna, look at me," the Doctor said but she wouldn't. "Donna, look at me."

Donna finally looked at him but it was with a certain defiance in her eyes. "I was gonna be with you... forever."

"I know…"

"The rest of my life...travelling... in the TARDIS. The Doctor-Donna. With Renata, and Gabby…"

"Donna," Renata moved towards them with Gabby's help but the moment Donna realized what would come next she backtracked in horror.

"No. Oh, my God! I can't go back! Don't make me go back!"

Gabby blinked away tears at how terrified Donna was. She didn't understand a lot but she did know that Donna was nearing the end of her life in the TARDIS.

"Doctor... please. Please, don't make me go back!" Donna resorted to begging. She couldn't leave everything behind to be that simple, non-important Donna again.

The Doctor neared her whether she wanted him or not. "Donna. Oh, Donna Noble. I am so, so sorry. But we had the best of times. The best."

"No! No!"

"Donna, I'm sorry but thank you," Renata took her turn, feeling tears in her eyes as well. "Thank you so much."

"Donna I'm sorry, I'm…" Gabby couldn't put her words together, but she was sure that Donna knew what she wanted to say. She knew what they all wanted to say: goodbye.

No one was listening to her!

"I am entitled to my choice!" she cried.

"Donna if we don't you'll die!" the Doctor almost snapped. "And I have lost too many people to add you to the list. The world cannot live without Donna Noble. But I promise you, I swear, that things will not be the same. You will not forget that confidence. You will know your worth. Goodbye."

"No. No, please! Please! No, NO! No!" Donna's pleads were silenced the moment the Doctor put his fingers against her temples. Everything she lived went into rewind, all the way until the first moment she met the Doctor…

And it all disappeared.

~0~

With tears, the group brought Donna back home for the final time. They'd placed her in her room then went into the living room to explain to Wilf and Sylvia what happened to Donna.

"She took my mind into her own head. But that's a Time Lord consciousness," the Doctor was explaining. "All that knowledge - it was killing her."

"But she'll get better, now?" Wilf asked hopefully. He was relieved to see both the Doctor and Renata nod together.

"I had to wipe her mind, completely. Every trace of us or the TARDIS... everything we did together, anywhere we went... had to go," the Doctor said grimly.

"All those wonderful things she did…"

"I know. But that version of Donna is dead. Because if she remembers, just for a second, she'll burn up. You can never tell her. You can't mention us, or any of it... for the rest of her life."

Sylvia found it impossible. "But the whole world's talking about it. We traveled across space!"

"It'll just be a story. One of those Donna Noble stories, where she missed it all again," the Doctor managed to smile with nostalgia. Donna Noble, missing a story, would be the theme of her life.

"But she was better with you," Wild tried to argue when Sylvia cut in.

"Don't say that-"

"No, she was!"

"You should be proud of her, though," Renata spoke for the first time since arriving. Both Wilf and Sylvia had noticed the woman's pale complexion. "There are worlds out there, safe in the sky, because of her. There are people living in the light, singing songs of Donna Noble, a thousand million light-years away…and they will never forget her. While she can never remember." It wasn't the ending that Donna deserved at all. Just thinking about it brought fresh new tears to her eyes.

"And for one moment... one shining moment... she was the most important woman in the whole wide universe," the Doctor sighed lightly.

"She still is," Sylvia responded curtly. "She's my daughter."

"Well then maybe you should tell her that once in a while," Gabby quipped. She knew first-hand what it was like feeling worthless in the eyes of your family. She'd worked endlessly at her parent's restaurant and the laundromat, letting life slip away. But when her parents finally told her to do what she always wanted to do, just like she always dreamed of, it brought an indescribable feeling. Everyone needed that, to know they were worth something

Sylvia lowered her gaze and didn't say more. A few seconds later, they heard Donna coming down the stairs. The trio of travelers stiffened when she came in, completely oblivious to their presence.

"I was asleep, on my bed, in my clothes, like a flippin' kid!" she exclaimed with her phone in hand. "What did you let me do that for?!" It hurt more when she spared them the tiniest glances. They were no longer important to her. "Don't mind me. Donna."

"John Smith," the Doctor rose from the couch, prompting Renata and Gabby to do the same.

"Ren," Renata left it short just in case.

"Fernanda," Gabby said and earned herself a brief glance from Renata and the Doctor. Did she forget to mention to them that she had a middle name?

Donna shook each of their hands but almost out of sheer politeness.

"They were just leaving," Sylvia said, eyeing them with a 'you better do it' look.

"My phone's gone mad! Thirty-two texts, Veena's gone barmy, she's saying planets in the sky - what have I missed now?" Donna shouted and turned to leave, but not without a vague "Nice to meet you".

"Like I said, you should go," Sylvia sternly told the trio.

"We will," Renata stumbled to walk up to the woman and she swatted the Doctor's and Gabby's helping hands. "But you mark my words: you better not undo the confidence Donna has built up. The Doctor made sure to leave that part of her intact. Because Donna at least deserved that. She may not be able to see us but we will be keeping an eye on this house, on Donna and if I find out that you are belittling her again I will come straight for you!" Golden flames briefly sprouted from her body, finishing the job of terrifying Sylvia.

The Doctor gingerly brought her back beside him, but he silently applauded Renata. A good scare oughta put Sylvia in her place.

~0~

The trio found that it'd began to rain outside, coming along with thunder to finish the grim night.

"Ah... you'll have quite a bit of this. Atmospheric disturbance. Still, it'll pass," the Doctor explained to Wilf who'd accompanied them to the doorstep. "Everything does…" he turned to Wilf and shook a hand with him. "Bye then, Wilfred."

"Goodbye," Renata went next then Gabby.

"I'll watch out for you," Wilf promised but ended up worrying the Doctor.

"You can't ever tell her!"

"No, no, no. But every night, Doctor... when it gets dark... and the stars come out... I'll look up. On her behalf. I'll look up at the sky and think of you all."

The Doctor was touched of such a thing. "Thank you." He brought Renata down the front porch step and walked slowly with her, despite it being pouring.

Gabby took the lead with a sprint and opened the TARDIS doors for them. The pair came in eventually, now soaking wet. Gabby watched them slowly make it to the Captain's chair and she followed them but there was something she wanted to say that she didn't know how to word well.

She didn't know when it was appropriate to talk after... everything. Donna's forced departure was sure to be something that no one would be getting over soon. Donna had been a part of their small space family. Plus, Donna had been like a confidant for Gabby about all their space travels and what that did to them sometimes. Gabby realized that now there would be no other human - someone like her - to remember those memories. Donna had come first to the TARDIS but it seemed like Gabby would be the one to stay until the end.

"Um, Doctor? Renata?" she began with a soft call. The Doctor had pulled the TARDIS into the Vortex, making the box give a gentle shake. "I, uh, I... I'd really like to see my family. Just for a bit…"

"-of course, Gabby," Renata smiled at the girl. It was natural for her to want to see her family after what happened.

"If you want to stay for a while, that'd be fine too," the Doctor added.

"I don't want to stop!" Gabby exclaimed, wanting to leave that loud and clear. "I don't want to stop anytime soon! I just...I'd like to explain to them what it is I'm really doing. I want to be honest with them."

"Sounds good," Renata smiled but barely contained a groan. Her hand moved to her stomach.

Gabby watched sadly as the Doctor hurried to Renata's side. "Are you going to be okay, Renata?" she asked, sighing.

"Well, no regeneration energy right now so...not dying...for now," Renata scrunched her face. "I don't really know if I'll make it out of the woods, as you humans say. But I think I know where I have to go." She looked specifically at the Doctor for that bit, knowing that it was something he'd been trying to avoid ever since she brought it up earlier. "And I have to stay there for a while."

~0~

Zhe's gallery remained exactly the same as when the travelers first left it. No one was allowed up in her private moon but this time but this time, Zhe herself was down in the gallery when the travelers arrived. She came to greet them as soon as someone alerted her of the wheezing box. However, she knew instantly that something had happened for the Doctor was grim as he and Gabby helped Renata walk out of the blue box.

"What has happened?" she inquired as soon as they were face to face.

"Long story, could I please get a chair?" Renata smiled as politely as ever despite the pain that was rippling through her.

Once Zhe brought them into her office, where Renata could rest on a whole couch to herself, the Doctor began to explain everything. He started with the contamination that began the last time they visited the gallery, and how Renata was further infected with foreign nanonites from Dorothy Bell and the Osirans, then finished it with the Vortex Butterfly bit. He threw in Gabby's own manifested powers.

To say Zhe was in shock would be an understatement, but she wouldn't let that derail her from helping in any way that she could. "I'm sorry my Quantum Sphere did that to you - to both of you," she looked between Renata and Gabby. "I-I thought they would've just faded away."

"It's not your fault," Gabby said. "If anything, it's on me. If I hadn't let your apprentice touch me then neither me nor Renata would've been infected in the first place."

"Hey - no!" Renata was quick to interject. "No one is to blame, except myself. Let's be honest, this is just my punishment for the things I've done in the past. But Zhe, the reason I'm here is because I need to ask for a favor."

Zhe nodded, already agreeing no matter what. "Anything."

"I don't know why but...I feel like this place is the only place where I can be at peace for a while. I need to expel more of this energy, learn to control if I'm not going to die. Your art gallery - your private moon - there's no danger there if I unexpectedly combust. Can I stay, please?"

Zhe's eyes flickered to the Doctor and took note of the deep pain on the man's face. He wasn't at all for this idea but he was doing it for Renata because she wanted it. "Of course, Renata. You are as welcomed here as the Doctor is. You can stay for as long as you need to."

"Thank you," Renata nodded. She glanced at the Doctor as well and figured they might as well get it over with. "Can I just speak to the Doctor alone for a moment?"

"Yes, of course," Zhe nodded. She gestured for Gabby to follow her out. "We'll be outside if you need anything."

"Thank you," Renata watched them leave and when they were gone she finally let herself sigh as deep as an ocean was. She was so tired and if she didn't get to close her eyes in the next five minutes perhaps death would come for her then.

"Renata, you don't have to leave," the Doctor approached her on the couch. "If it's because of what happened before all the Daleks...I would never make you leave."

"It's not just that, Doctor," Renata shifted a bit to better face him. "I meant what I said about this energy thing. If I'm not going to die anytime soon, then I need to learn how to control this and can you imagine if I let it all out inside the TARDIS? All that extra vortex energy will not be good. And you know that, don't you?" the Doctor didn't say anything but his lowered gaze answered for him. "Besides, can you honestly look at me and not feel just a tad of anger for what I did?"

As if to test her theory, he gazed up and looked into her eyes. He wanted to say 'of course not' so badly, but then he remembered her lies...and her so many lies. He didn't want her to leave, nor did he want anything to happen to her, but he was a bit upset too. He was rightfully upset.

Renata smiled so warmly at him, just like Zuriah would. When she reached to touch his face, the Doctor instantly felt the same warmth he used to feel back in their early days. It finally made sense to him why she was so familiar to him, why he so easily fell for her as John Smith. It was why it was incredibly easy to make a choice between her and Rose.

"I love you, Gala," the words just slipped from his mouth before he could even think of it. There was a flutter of Renata's hearts when she heard her true name come from his lips. It'd been one of the most sacred rules they had broken by learning each other's names without being married. But she had loved the way her name sounded on his lips, even now the feelings stayed the same with the same level of love. "Meeting you all those centuries ago was the best thing that happened to me."

"Even though it led to so much heartbreak?" she tilted her head, fresh tears coming to her eyes.

"I would rather go through all that than to have never met you." He took her hand off his face and held it between his two hands. He gave her palm a soft kiss then looked at her again, needing her to understand that he was being 100% honest with her. Yes, he could trade that all in and spare himself the pain he felt losing her and learning that she had been travelling with him all this time. All this he would take just to see her again. That was what Martha had been trying to get him to understand before all the mess happened. "Getting the community service was the beginning of everything. I met the sweetest, kindest girl on that first day. It was the beginning of my greatest adventure - my riskiest - and it was the end of any hope of a life without her. She yelled a lot-" Renata chuckled with her blushing cheeks, "-but she had the best hearts on Gallifrey. Renata, you have a golden soul."

"I don't think I do," Renata's smile became a sad one. "I've done very bad stuff."

"So have I."

"But there's no darkness inside of you. You have always been a golden soul and I don't think that's ever going to change. So please listen to me when I say that despite everything that's happened, I don't want to lose you a third time." The Doctor took a seat next to her, never letting go of her hand. "I lost you once when you said no to running away, and then I lost you again after the Time War. I am not interested in losing you this time around."

"You would really want to...to be with me?" Renata blinked fairly fast out of genuine surprise but also because of the tears that wanted to stroll down from her eyes.

"My sweet Gala, of course. But I know that you're not ready, and perhaps neither am I just yet, so you take your time here. Rest, train, relax. And I will work hard to try to find a cure or something to help you. I'll come around every day to make sure you're okay." He'd much rather stay with her on the planet but he knew well that she wanted to be alone. "And when time passes, maybe you and I...we could, you know…" he trailed off with high hopes that she would nod her head at him.

She chuckled. "I'd...I'd like that." Martha's first words to her, after discovering who Renata truly was, came back to her mind. It was time to move on from her husband. "I mean, to be honest, I don't really know how to...be happy, in a sense. But maybe I can learn with you."

A great big grin came to the Doctor's face. He kissed her hand again then pulled her into a tight hug. Renata welcomed it fast and hugged him as tight as possible.

"Take care of Gabriella for me, okay?" she mumbled after a moment. "I don't want anything to happen to her, nothing like Donna."

The Doctor agreed when he drew away from her. "Nothing. I'll be over-protective to the point she'll want to vent to you about me. But I swear that no one will touch a hair on her head."

"I trust you," Renata smiled.

"Well, alright then…" he awkwardly looked around once he realized the time to go was now. "I'll, um...be on my way, then." Renata nodded. "Here." He pulled out Martha's cellphone from his inside pocket. "I'll answer anytime you need me, I promise." He stood up from the couch and backtracked to the door. "I'll be back, Renata."

"I know," she nodded. "And I'll...be here, working on myself." The Doctor smiled one more time before heading out and when he did, Renata once again had to exhale like she'd been holding in her breath.

A few seconds later, Zhe came in. "The Doctor and Gabby are on their way out."

"Yes, I know," Renata wearily blinked.

Zhe came around the couch and bent down in front of her. "Can I offer you something?"

"Some advice wouldn't be bad."

"Well, alright then. What do you need advice for?"

Renata pursed her lips together and let herself think about everything in her lives that she'd regretted, the unhappiness that came with it - the pain - and she turned her head to the side. "What do you do when you love someone so much but...you just don't know how to be happy?" Zhe blinked in confusion. "Why is that even though I have a wonderful man waiting for me, I still want to...die?"

Zhe went into shock and after a few minutes of processing, she became worried.

"I want to die," Renata's whisper was the last noise to be made in the room for a good while.

[archonssun]

Writing Prompts

UPDATED 05-24-20

This list WILL be getting longer eventually, and if you guys see any repeating ones, please tell me... Here is the list of prompts that you can request (or ya can use a prompt of your own if you’d like...):

“I’m fading. And all I want is to know that I’m going to be okay.”

 A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor.

 “I’m sorry that you were not truly loved and that it made you cruel.”

 Being strangled/choked, but not being able to call out for help.

 Instead of using cash, people pay for things with their dreams.

 “I got you. It’s gonna be okay, you’re going to be okay.”

 “Leave.”

 “I will milk your spleen.”

 “Don’t touch me.”

 “By the time anyone finds you, it’ll be too late.”

 “If I disappear will you look for me?”

 “People can do worse things than kill you.”

 “How many times do you think a heart can break?”

 “Do you trust her?” “No… but I trust her anger.”

 “When a child is punished for their honesty, they begin to lie.”

 “So tell me little wolf, do you want to punish those who have wronged you?”

 “You’re a monster,” he hissed; she laughed and said, “better a monster than an arrogant god.”

 Something went wrong. I really tried. I’d like to try again.

 “If I disappear, will you look for me?”

“We’ll never be those kids again.”

 “The trouble is, you think you have time.”

 “Whatever is wrong, I’ll fix it. I’ll fix it, for you.”

 “Someday you’ll just be a memory.”

“War does not determine who is right, it determines who is left.”

 “I forgot my name again.”

 “It can take a very long time to realize you’re immortal.”

 Hungry dogs are never loyal.

 “The chains are broken, but are you truly free?”

 “Demons run when a good man goes to war.”

 “Say that one more time and you’re grounded.” “I am the prophesied hero of all realms. You can’t ground me.” “Watch me.”

 “Aren’t you going to stop him?” “Nope. I’ve given up on trying.”

 “The hunter has become -- oh no, he’s free.”

 “I did something cool and you can’t handle it. I get it.”

 “Warning: You are about to enter someone else’s dream.”

 You are a murderer, no matter how beloved.

 But first, some rebellion.

 If Karma doesn’t hit you, I fucking will.

 We all eat lies when our hearts are hungry.

Death too must be earned.

 Oh, cruel fate.

 A wolf is a wolf, even in a cage, even dressed in silk.

 Choke them on the ashes of the dreams they burned.

 I survived, but it’s not a happy ending.

 To insanity.

 I remember.

 This is my confession.

 You’re playing my game now.

 Though I saw it coming, it still hurts.

 “I’m just here to cause a little trouble.”

 Everything, in time.

 Sometimes you have to remind people that you can be an asshole too.

 Deep beneath the ground a rumble moved the mountains and woke the heavens.

 “I will never belong to you.” “Don’t kid yourself, you always have.”

 “A death changes lives forever and nothing will ever take away the pain.”

 We won’t forget each other, right?

 “I don’t care if you are panicking - just do it quietly.”

 The worst thing you ever did to me was save my life.

 He wasn’t an ally, that was for sure, but he was the only fighter among us.

 “You really are a piece of trash.”

 The rain is full of ghosts tonight.

 “I think we overdid it.”

 You’re an attention starved narcissist.

 I wasn’t born to be soft and quiet. I was born to make the world shatter and shake at my fingertips.

 I hold his sword and wonder if he was a good man.

 I think I’ve seized the wrong fucking day…

 “I’d rather be honest than impressive.”

 “I’m going to snipe you.” “You’ll miss.”

How long has it been since the pain began?

 In that moment, he saw eternity, and was driven mad.

 I was fixing my life.

 This is a game and we are the pawns.

“One of these days the clocks will stop and time won’t mean a thing.”

Like any unloved thing, I don’t know I’m real if I’m not being touched.

What is the fucking point?

You were alone before they left you.

I’m just tired; I just want the world to be quiet for a bit.

I sometimes wonder if things only get better so that they can get worse again.

“I broke my rules for you.”

How do I stop the guilt?

Hit it until it breaks.

You already know how this will end.

I am ruination.

A memory like a knife.

It’s all a bit tragic, really, isn’t it?

P.S. I never told you, but I was falling in love.

I killed a part of me to keep you alive.

You are losing my interest, and that is very dangerous.

“You always smile like you’re about to cry.”

Ocean not lost.

“Facts don’t care about your feelings.”

“I don’t know where I am. Help me.”

“Is everything supposed to go dark?”

“You’re my friend, of course I fucking care.”

“By the time anyone finds you, it’ll be too late.”

“Death and destruction is hilarious.”

“Don’t touch me.”

“It’s okay. You don’t have to love me.”

“I wanted to be ruined a little more than I wanted to be loved.”

“And you’ll remember me, whether you want to or not.”

Looking up at the man about to kill me, I realized something. I wasn’t the hero in this story. I was the villain. And no one would mourn when I was gone. They would dance and sing on my grave.

I screwed up.

Welcome to the Garbage.

Fuck, I’m tired.

Disappointed but not surprised.

You’re a functional moron at best.

“I’m still here, breathing, aren’t I?”

He will do what it takes to survive.

“Well, that’s just perfect. I was running out of nightmare fuel for a moment there.”

“You’re safe now. I won’t let them hurt you. Not ever again. I got you … I got you.”

“I find peace in the rain.”

“How dangerous,” she thought, “to finally have something worth losing.”

Poison only tastes like poison after you’ve swallowed it.

“I’ve discovered I love you.” “When did you discover this?” “Since all my decisions started to revolve around you.”

Our little, stupid conversation means more to me than you think.

“Use me.”

And I watch as she slips into the darkness.

Every man must play a part.

Chip away the bloody marble.

Give form to the formless.

You run, but do you know the way?

A hungry animal does not think.

Brave the storm of teeth and claws.

You just … don’t look quite yourself.

It’s so much to ask, but for all of our lives, would you do it? Could you give yourself?

But if the future is always behind her, how will she find the strength to confront it?

“You can’t just set people on fire -- no, stop! You can’t poison them either!”

“If you’re going to get in trouble for hitting someone, might as well hit them hard.”

“I am not above slashing my own tires to avoid going to this family brunch.”

“I don’t know how to put this nicely. So I won’t.”

Dying, she gives her last little smile to the world that has been so unkind.

“I love it when someone insults me. It means I don’t have to be nice anymore.”

“I’m going into the woods to scream for a while, anybody wanna come with?”

“I heard that!” “You were supposed to!”

“Miss, what’s the sweet you like the most?”

Every King needs a Queen in his bed.

“Why aren’t you dating him?” “Because I’d destroy him.” “He’d be into that.”

People in glass houses don’t throw stones.

“Lying is wrong.” “Unless it helps you get out of a pinch.”

“You’re a foolish girl. But you’re my foolish girl.”

“What’s it like being trash?”

“If you don’t like the rules, turn ‘em off.”

“Silence, wench! I will not fall for your trickery and douchebaggery!”

“I always wanted to find you, but not like this. Not like this…”

A lion shouldn’t concern himself with the opinions of sheep.

“Red is the perfect color on your skin.”

“Are you safe?” “I-I don’t know.”

“It’s me! It’s me! Calm down, baby, please.“

“You deserve someone who values you.”

“Pay attention to me.”

“I’m not going to leave you.”

You kneel before my throne unaware that it was born of lies.

Piece by piece, the world will crumble around you.

“That shouldn’t have worked, but it did.”

“If you want to learn what someone fears losing, watch what they photograph.”

You are a murderer, no matter how beloved.

“We must accept the end of something in order to begin something new.”

“I’m everything you can’t control.”

Turn the pain into power.

“Would you die for me?” “Again?”

“I’d make a great lunatic.”

“Trust me, I’ve seen them argue. They’re amateurs.”

“Can I at least buy you a coffee? For old times sake.”

“It’s fun, seeing all that you worked for crash and burn.”

“It feels like everyone just forgot I exist…”

“Are you happy now? Huh?! DOES THIS MAKE YOU HAPPY?!”

“Sometimes it just gets too hard to keep pretending.”

“You. Cuddle. Me. Now.”

“Can’t you pretend to love me? Just once.”

“Why am I always the one carrying you?”

“You’re kind of turning me on.”

“That was … in-tents.”

“Beauty slew the beast.”

“I accept no responsibility and would do it all again.”

“I mean, stupider stuff has worked.”

It wasn’t supposed to happen; not like this.

“Oh, the pain.”

“Trust me, I was an extremely irritating child.”

“I remember kissing you. Why do I remember kissing you?”

“That’s not cooking, it’s sorcery.”

“You know you’re my favorite, right?” “I better be.”

“You here to finish me off, sweetheart?”

The world hasn’t stopped. Why should we?

“All of these people are alive right now - because of her.”

“Hear my heartbeat? Just focus on that.”

“It wasn’t meant to go this far. I swear.”

“I think I might be falling in love with you.”

“It’s a real shame nobody asked for your opinion.”

“Tell me a story.”

“How do you do it?” “How do I do what?” “Pretend you’re okay.” “I’m not pretending.” “Yes you are, every single day. And it breaks my heart.”

“We watched it in the attic.”

“I love physical violence!”

“Does it even matter? We’ve been through this...”

“There is a tremble in you hand...”

[mischiefapprentice]

1: Don’t Mess With Life and Death (Mischief’s Bride)

August 2003

Loki

"Please! Someone help me!"

That is all I can hear as I stroll along Hyde Park. The cold breeze of winter calms me down as it hits my pale skin, and I am more than thankful that it does not conjure my Jotünn form, as it can destroy a place whenever my rage comes. Even though my time in the original timeline is over, my strengths and powers never left me. They will be always a part of me until my last breath.

It has been more than 900 years since I have been 'ressurected' from death. The thought of seeing my companions die pained me as centuries passed, and I am tired living for eternity. If it weren't for that force that pulled my soul back to my dead body, I am with my mother Frigga already. I am sure that she may be dead by now. How I missed her so much.

"Please, anyone help me!"

Her loud wails can be heard from half a mile away from the park. I cannot help but go to her and see what happened to her. Is she the bride I am looking for? I hope so. She must be the one.

When I arrived to where the woman was, I see crimson blood staining the pure whiteness of snow. Did a murder scene happen? I must be too late already. I decide to follow the bloodstream to locate her, and found a beautiful woman surrounded with blood. She was terribly injured. It's like someone hit her violently that she bleed lots of blood. Who on earth could do this to this mortal?

"P-please help me... I'm carrying an unborn baby with me, and I cannot bear the thought of losing her." The woman mutters.

I sigh. She's carrying a child, and someone had the guts to physically abuse her. I sense her time of death getting closer and closer. It crawls like how a robber walks towards the house it chose to plunder. One's death may not be predicted by man, but us goblins could sense it.

It's against nature to meddle with life and death of a mortal. It is a change of cycle that you cannot just alter, for it requires a great price to pay. You cannot change what may happen to you, for it can also affect others. One is a part of a butterfly change; action affects action; one slight change affects your whole life.

"S-sir, p-please help m-me... I'm dying." She tells me. I could feel her baby's heartbeat, as if it tells me that I must save them both. I also could feel that her baby is my bride to be. I should help them both after all, shouldn't I?

I'm in this dilemma of choosing whether to heal her or let death kill them both. I cannot mess up with life and death. However, rules are also meant to be broken, right? I can defy whatever rule it is, if it means for them to live. I will go against nature.

"Miss, I may not be the divinity you seek, but I offer you extended time to live and see your daughter grow." I weakly smile at the woman. Shimmers of blue and green light appear on my hand as I performed a spell that will elongate both of their lives. As it comes to an end, I could really sense that she bears my bride. I could tell that she is as beautiful, kind and wise as this woman. How I wish I can make time go fast that I can meet her already.

I see her smile weakly as I cast the spell on her. I could hear her ask how I knew it is a girl. I really could feel that it is a she, not a he. At a blink of an eye, I disappeared to another place.

I know she'll live a long life, and she'll bring joy to my bride's world. In her care, I am confident that she will grow into a fine-looking and well-mannered lady, just like how I wished women are. Someday, I'll find her again.

       Stephen

Christine Wayland Time of death: 20:34 Cause: Car Accident Abigail Wayland Time of Death: 20:34 Cause: Miscarriage

When I arrived, I cannot find the soul of this woman. All I see is blood from the scene, and her footsteps. Someone messed with life and death. No one can meddle with the life cycle. I sighed, noting that I have a missing soul to find. Who could have the courage to alter nature's way? The baby should also be dead by now. I don't ill-wish the mother, but it has to be that way.

I leave the area, fearing that someone might see me and accuse me of murder. Oh, I remember: I cannot be seen by men. I am just a mere spirit, fetching souls and leading them either to afterlife or to despair. This is the work of a grim reaper; it can be tiring, knowing that many souls are around. Some just wander off the streets of London and try to seek others' attention.

"So, did you get your last soul for tonight?" Ishmael asks me as we log out for tonight. He has reached over half of his quota. I have exceeded twice of his, though. He is new to this job.

"No, and the last one is quite strange. I have her name on my list buti didn't see her soul nor her body." I tell him. He scrunches his brows in confusion. I hear him think who could've done it. "Have you heard of the Goblin?" He asks me. "I think he is the one responsible for that."

I ponder on that speculation he gave me. He is one of the missing soul our boss wants us to take care of. The goblin has been missing for almost 900 years and no one has managed to capture him and bring him to the afterlife. His name sounds familiar to me, but I don't know where have I heard of it. Our superiors have told us about it and reminded us to keep watch and report to them regarding the said missing soul.

As I came home, I now prepared to move out of the house I am renting for five years. I found a better place to stay in. I have a few things to pack, since I ain't fond of having unnecessary things to have, so that it won't be difficult for me to move out. My colleagues would complain of how heavy their things are whenever they move out of their spaces .

When I peek out of my window, I recognized the man who they call the Goblin... But wait. Is that...

Loki?

Didn't he die from Thanos's hands? How come he is... Darn. This is another alternate reality, and he of course would be alive. And he turned into a goblin? What happened?

I was about to call him, but I see fear in his eyes when he saw me. He didn't manage to wave at me nor smile. I didn't mean harm to him. Wait. I am a grim reaper, and we are on the watch for him. He sensed me!

Sighing, I tried to reach out to Thor, but still failed. I cannot conjure a portal to where he is. How I wanted to tell him that his brother is alive on another timeline. How I really wish.

       Loki

I feel like I did a grave mistake with meddling with the life and death of that woman. She must be dead by now. I saved her, and my future bride. I don't want to wait for another 900 years to meet my bride.

Living eternally has its own ups and downs. Yes, you get to live for a very long time, but you have to suffer the pain of losing your loved ones. Seeing them pass on to the afterlife relieves me, but I wish that I am with them there, living peacefully and without suffering.

Seeing Stephen made me relieved and uneasy at the same time. He is known as Doctor Strange in the timeline I came from, but he is known as a grim reaper in this one. I wished to say hello to them, but I cannot. I know that they have heard of me as one of the missing souls and I am on their watch.

I now ask myself: what if I just remained on that timeline? Would all of this happen? Would I stumble on a curse that makes me suffer from emotional pain that I wished myself death? Would I watch every single person I love die and wither with time?

When I arrive home, my loyal friend Lord William Hathford and his grandson Arnie James welcome me into their home. Their home will be my home from now on, until I decide to move to some other place where I can meet my bride. "It's good to see you again, sir." Lord William greets me. "You too, Mister." I greet them. "Still fine-looking as of the old days, aren't we?" He chuckled. "Oh, here is my grandson, Arnie Jason."

I smile at the boy. He reminds me of Peter Parker. I haven't met him yet, but I know that he exists in the timeline I have been in. "Hi, Jason. Nice to meet you!"

The boy hides a little bit behind Lord William. His brown hair makes me want to ruffle and mess it.

"James, don't be shy. He will be with us from now on." The old man says.

"No, it's fine. Maybe another time will do." I weakly smile at them. I really can't get my mind off that woman I saved from her death. William notices my bereft. "Sir, I know when you are deep in thought. Did something happen on your way home?" I sigh. "There's this woman I healed on my way home. She's in the verge of dying, and she is pregnant with a daughter."

William seats beside me as I narrated the whole event. His brows furrowed as I told him that I felt that she bears my bride. He told me of a prophesy where it tells that a Goblin, which I am, will save a woman who is about to die. The woman bears the Goblin's bride, the girl who shall draw the sword out of him. "How sure are you that it's the bride's mother?" He asks me. I shrug my shoulders. "I don't base on whether she bears my bride or not. What matters most is that I saved her from sudden death. That man shall pay for his insolence towards her."

William smiles, knowing that I have indeed changed for the better. He was with me when I was so down and no one believes me. He also knew of my true identity as an Asgardian who just got in another timeline. He is my most loyal friend. How do I repay him for his loyalty and support?

[neuxue]

Wheel of Time liveblogging: The Gathering Storm ch 42

In which Rand gives everyone else his abandonment issues.

Chapter 42: Before the Stone of Tear

Ah, excellent, a Rand chapter. This ought to be…well, not good exactly, but. Well.

I know this book is Rand’s darkest hour—at least, darkest so far; I suppose it could get even worse but we’re so close to the ending now that I feel like his arc has to hit a turning point soon—and I know this state of mind he’s in and these things he’s doing are Not How He Is Supposed To Be, and that he can’t continue like this and have any hope of a true victory.

But at the same time, this is what I’ve been waiting for ever since Rand set himself on this path, and I am loving every moment of it, because sometimes you just want to see your characters self-destructing against their own carefully honed edges as the world looks on in horror and all they feel is cold. It’s a thing.

Anyway, we open with Rand and Lews Therin arguing with each other (themselves? Himself?) over ownership (management?) of the List.

No! the madman sputtered. Who are you? It’s mine! I made it.

Except…Rand is the one who made it, who began it. It’s yet another thing that makes me think this barrier is no longer truly between Rand’s current life and his past one but between the things he lets himself think and know and be, consciously, and the things he pushes away and holds desperately apart. 

So where once it was just Lews Therin’s memories leaking across and Rand, frightened, trying to keep them back, it became a way for Rand to shove aside emotions he couldn’t afford to feel and pain he could not endure. He has claimed much in the way of the memories, now—at least, those that are useful to him. And in exchange he has filled that gap with pieces of himself, over time, keeping the sides of the barrier balanced but not as they once were. Now it seems as if it’s just as much—or perhaps more—Rand al’Thor on that side as it ever was Lews Therin.

Which, if this is correct, makes it even more imperative that he let the barrier go; he is divided against himself, and forcing parts of himself away, and still refusing to acknowledge any of what is on that other side as his, even though ‘what is on that other side’ is at this point largely determined by him, and was ‘his’ not so long ago, and much of what was on that other side is now in his conscious perception of himself.

Overanalysing fictional characters? On this blog? Never.

What have we become? Lews Therin whispered. We’re going to do it again, aren’t we? Kill them all. Everyone we’ve loved. Again, again, again…

“Again and again,” Rand whispered. “It doesn’t matter as long as the world survives.”

Oh.

It was his greatest fear; it was the thing that he held to the strongest as a difference between himself and Lews Therin, the thing he could not accept, the thing that made him most afraid of his fate, that it could end up the same as before. He threw it in Lews Therin’s face—You killed yourself, Kinslayer, after you murdered your wife and your children and the Light alone knows how many others. I won’t kill where I don’t have to!—but now… Now even that, he accepts. Now that he has crossed all his own lines, now that he has destroyed a fortress with balefire. Now it is Lews Therin who fears it. Or rather, what parts of Rand he has pushed over to that side of his mind, holding them desperately on the other side of a barrier full of holes.

To hear Rand just…accept that, accept the thing he so reviled, the thing that in large part caused him to divide his mind this way and fight against himself, is…wow. It shows just how far he has come. (Or how far he has gone? I suppose the verb makes rather an important difference in tone there).

To hear him say ‘It doesn’t matter’. 

Which means that now, if it came to that…he would do it. In his efforts to avoid this fear, he has brought it into the realm of possibility. In pushing away everything of himself that fears that fate, he makes it all the more probable. It’s a terrible and beautiful irony.

“We’re here, ready to fight. Again and again.”

The emphasis throughout this exchange on ‘again and again’, not just killing everyone he loves but the fight itself…it sounds very like what Moridin was saying back in chapter 15. An endless cycle of war and death and no way around it. To which Rand at the time responded ‘your logic destroyed you, didn’t it?’ but now he sees no problem with that exact logic. Oh, Rand. Is this truly your own thought? 

He couldn’t let [Min], or any of them, see him slipping. They mustn’t know how close he was to collapsing.

Rand. My friend. It is way too late for that. You are (still) nowhere near as subtle as you think. Though how you think making cold claims of mercy and then balefiring a massive fortress with the most powerful sa’angreal ever created is subtle, I have no idea. After telling one of the people you think doesn’t yet see you slipping to dream on your behalf. Seriously, as cries for help go, yours are…impressive, certainly, and really not at all hidden in any way whatsoever.

So many dead by our hand.

And it was just the beginning.

Your hero, ladies and gents.

“I am well, Min” he said. “I was thinking.” “About the people?”

In a manner of speaking…

Each time he’d conquered a kingdom before, he’d left it better than when he’d arrived. […] Each land he’d destroyed had, essentially, been saved at the same time.

If only you had seen it that way at the time, we might not have come to this. But no, at the time, it was just ‘always I destroy’. Of course he would only come to understand the salvation-destruction duality when he is no longer capable of the former.

Ah, so he’s heading out. With absolutely nothing resolved in Arad Doman, and the situation easily worse than he found it. No point lingering for a lost cause, is that it?

Somehow, the people realised that, and it was very hard for Rand to look at them.

Even now, it’s hard. Even now, it tries the cold he has locked himself in, though he cannot quite admit it. There’s such a strong impulse in him to care that suppressing it takes everything he has. And a good ten or so books of working on it.

Their hungry eyes accused him: Why bring hope, then let it dry up, like a newly dug well during a drought?

That’s more or less Rand’s own logic. It’s why he’s stopped letting himself feel, or to hope for anything that isn’t death and destruction and the bleakest sort of victory. Because to hope means opening himself up to more pain, and he’s too afraid that it would break him, and then where would the world be?

So Arad Doman is being left with even less of a government than the USA had for the first month of the year. That’ll end well.

It is not my problem, Rand thought, not looking at the people.

Wellllllllllll……  *equivocates with both hands* I mean, technically I suppose it’s not, because you’re not actually the ruler of Arad Doman, but only because you’ve refused to take on that responsibility after arguably causing most of the problems here, albeit indirectly. Though Graendal can’t entirely be blamed on Rand, and she absolutely had a hand in creating this mess. But also, being the prophesied saviour of the entire world unfortunately makes said entire world your responsibility, but also that means much of what happened was arguably inevitable, but…

Jury’s out on that one, is what I’m saying.

Oh, right, Ituralde’s been sent up to the Blight. No doubt he’ll be sending a Strongly Worded Letter to Rand when he finds out what’s happened here.

“he warns that something is gathering.”

A storm, perhaps?

I’ll stop making these puns when they stop walking right up to my door and knocking until I let them in.

Rand had wanted to leave directly from Lady Chadmar’s mansion grounds, but that would have been to vanish like a thief, there one day and gone the next. He would at least let the people see that he was leaving and know that they had been left to themselves.

An odd moral hangup for someone who has, by his own reckoning, crossed the last line into irredeemability and can kill hundreds of people with balefire without qualms. And also is very much leaving them to themselves, regardless of the manner in which he does so. 

Oh but wait, it gets worse!

“The food! It has spoiled.”

“What food?” Rand asked.

“All of it.”

It’s almost funny out of context, mostly because of the ‘ALL the things’ phrasing, and also just ‘what food?’ and then wait oops it’s not funny at all because literally all of the food in the city spoiled overnight.

Which, okay, food has been spoiling for a few books now, more or less since the Dark One decided climate change wasn’t working and went for decay instead, but for so much to happen so suddenly? At…probably about the same time as Rand erased Natrin’s Barrow from existence? It feels like maybe the Dark One’s touch was…magnified, or amplified, or triggered or otherwise linked with Rand’s own ta’veren effect, which itself is…far out of the balance it once had.

In which case, yikes.

A city full of refugees, a city already strained by an influx of people brought precisely because he had sent food, now condemned to starvation.

And Rand’s not really in a bread-and-fishes sort of mood, I don’t think.

“What will we do?”

Rand closed his eyes.

“My lord?” Iralin asked.

Rand opened his eyes and kicked Tai’daishar into motion. He left the dockmaster behind, mouth open, and passed through the gateway.

He won the crown of Illian because he kept them from starving, because he ordered food sent from Tear without even really thinking about it. And now, he has refused to claim the crown of Arad Doman and is leaving them to starve.

Without even a word. That, to me, seems like the cruellest part of this. Not that he’s leaving, but that when they bring him this news and ask what to do, he just walks away without a response. Not even an empty ‘I’ll do what I can’ or instructions for gold to be given to the acquisition of food from elsewhere or, hell, even an ‘I’m sorry’. Or instructions that the Sea Folk ships be made available to assist refugees in going elsewhere where there might be food. Or anything at all.

There may not be much he can do, but to simply ignore their questions and their pleas and their need—when it was at one point so important to him that the food be brought here—takes it from awful to cruel. And frightening.

He put the coming starvation out of his mind. It was shocking how easy that was.

It has a similar feel to it as the calm, cold way he destroyed Natrin’s Barrow. Something he knew should terrify him but didn’t. Just…inevitability, and then done. 

It’s a different situation, and he’s not deliberately erasing all of Bandar Eban, but at the same time it really isn’t all that different, especially in the way he’s approaching it. Accepting the huge death toll this will take, and then turning away and putting it out of his mind. 

And it almost hurts him, you can see that in the way he closes his eyes against their pleas and even in the way he rides through the gateway without a word, perhaps because he knows he can offer nothing and cannot bring himself to face them with that. It almost hurts him, and he pushes it away too easily and leaves it behind too cruelly and it almost hurts him; there are cracks in that ice, but what will it take to open them? If enough balefire to ruin a fortress and shake the Pattern, and the imminent starvation of a nation full of refugees isn’t enough?

Bandar Eban vanished, those too-silent people vanished.

Literally out of sight, out of mind.

And now for something completely different! Tear greets him with cheers and adulation, because his turning up must be a good thing. They obviously haven’t heard the news from Arad Doman.

The adulation hit Rand like a wave of reproach. He didn’t deserve such praise. Not after what he had done in Arad Doman.

For once I’m actually in full agreement with Rand’s self-loathing thoughts, because…yeah. But again, he can still almost feel. Enough to hate himself, at least. Enough to abhor what he’s done, even as he does it. But not enough to make him open himself to the pain it causes, because it would only be worse, now, and he cannot endure that.

But at some point he’ll have to, right? So we’re back to the question of…what could possibly make him feel again, decide to feel again, when now that would mean letting all of this hit him in full? And how will he survive that?

Must keep moving, he thought, kicking Ta’daishar into motion again.

If you run fast enough, your problems can’t catch you!

Nearby, two flapping pennants got caught in the wind, and inexplicably entangled. The men holding them aloft, near the front of the crowd, lowered them and tried to pull them apart, but they were knotted tight, somehow twisted that way by the wind.

The wind emphasising the importance of alliances and unity? You try so hard, wind. 

Rand had found that outlanders—no matter what the city—paid him less heed when he visited. This was true even when those outlanders were from another country he had conquered. […] Perhaps they didn’t like being reminded that their lord and their enemy’s lord were the same man.

That’s…a really interesting—and astute—observation, and one I very much like, but I’m having trouble coming up with much more to say about it than that. But I do really, really like this. Maybe it’s just my entire Thing about enemies-and-allies or enemity-and-loyalty or really just enmity caught up with any of its various opposites. But it also seems to highlight the absurdity and futility of war, and the idea that these people shouldn’t be enemies, for they have a much greater enemy they all share, and they’re so much more closely entangled than they think, and yet humanity is humanity and so to war it will go, clinging all the way to denial if need be.

Yet here they stand, united, cheering for him. It’s promising, almost, that so many different people can stand side-by-side and look to him not in fear or hatred but in expectation and admiration. Except it comes right after he has left another city full of outlanders bereft and doomed to starvation. It’s an interesting contrast, and something of a study in the duality of salvation and destruction as sides of the same coin.

And of how much has changed, because the people here are looking to Rand and seeing him as they remember him—as he was before The Last That Could Be Done, as something of a saviour even if he is a hard one to accept at times, and with the benefit of a long absence to smooth some of those edges—while the people of Bandar Eban were reacting to the person he is now. And the two are…different, to say the least. 

It’s a well-done contrast, on several different levels. And it serves so well to highlight those differences, by taking two baseline-similar situations—Rand appearing in front of a gathered crowd of citizens and foreigners in a city he has conquered—and using them to show what was against what is…and even what is against what could be.

From this point on, Rand would be easy to locate. No more hiding in wooded manors. No more travelling alone. Not with Lan and his Malkieri riding to the Gap. There wasn’t enough time left.

It feels appropriate that Lan is, in a way, the…spark, here. The one that sets this final play in motion, the one who makes the move that forces the rest to start their final plays, the inciting incident that begins the Last Battle.  

Perhaps it is just an illusion—perhaps the Dark One was already set to move at this point, and Lan is responding to that, and perhaps everything is being pulled to this point simultaneously and this is just the way it all has to play out… But still, it seems fitting. 

This is, after all, a strike he has been holding back—or held back from—since the Dragon was reborn. An arrow that’s been drawn and then held for twenty-some years, for this exact purpose. Malkier was destroyed and the surviving uncrowned king has been bound for vengeance and then held back from it by a promise to see the Dragon Reborn to the Last Battle, and so that counterstroke against the Shadow’s last sweeping attack against a nation has been held, and held, waiting, and Rand may be the Champion of the Light but it seems fitting for Lan’s own story if he is the Light’s opening salvo, he who has focused his whole life towards this one goal and who finally has been released to follow it.

Bashere wants to know if Rand is even going to bother to tell Ituralde what he’s done and Rand figures Ituralde will eventually find out. He didn’t want to leave Bandar Eban ‘like a thief’ but he doesn’t care if Ituralde only finds out by word-of-mouth or by…just finding Rand gone? Okay.

And he also doesn’t really care if Ituralde leaves the Borderlands and fights the Seanchan. Or if the Seanchan take more territory. It doesn’t matter anymore. It mattered so much, once.

“This whole thing is a mess”

Truer words have never been spoken, Bashere.

Next up is dealing with the Borderlanders, which honestly I’m kind of with Rand on—I still just have a ‘what the entire fuck’ reaction to that whole situation because sense, it does not make. Clearly I am missing something here.

“I have little patience for men who abandon their duties.”

Have we done that? Lews Therin asked.

Does it count as self-awareness if it comes from the voice in your head you staunchly refuse to acknowledge as a part of you?

In this series, I’m going to just go ahead and say ‘yes’, because really the standards are, in fact, that low.

His ta’veren effect seemed to be growing more powerful, causing increasingly greater distortions. And more dangerous ones.

That should be a giant red blinking warning light with very loud sirens, Rand. And maybe a flashing neon sign saying ‘YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG’.

Actually all of that was quite a ways back, across that chasm of a line you crossed, so uh…here be dragons, I suppose.

During his last visit, Tear had been besieged by rebels, but the city hadn’t suffered.

Again, you seemed to see it very differently at the time. What with the starving children and trying to send gold to avert one of Min’s visions and all that. And the self-hatred, of course, but that’s just a constant at this point.

The way he selectively remembers things in this chapter is kind of fascinating. It all looks so much more positive in hindsight—almost a parallel to how the Tairen response to him is so much more positive than the Domani, because in Tear they’re still seeing who he was—now that he’s stopped letting himself care. And now that he’s done so much worse. Now that it’s too late for that shift in perspective to help him.

None of [the Stone] would be much use against an army of Seanchan with damane and raken.

Good thing Egwene is keeping them occupied elsewhere, then.

It’s a killing field, Lews Therin said.

Here, another crowd cheered Rand.

Oh, wow, that contrast. *Shivers*

Hi, Darlin. Also why are we spending so many words on Weiramon?

I like him, Lews Therin thought.

Rand started. You don’t like anyone!

He’s honest, Lews Therin replied, then laughed. More than I am, for certain! A man doesn’t choose to be an idiot, but he does choose to be loyal. We could do so much worse than have this man as a follower.

Is this directed at Weiramon or at Darlin? It seems to be Weiramon, from context, in which case…I have so many questions.

Mostly beginning with ‘what’ and ending with ‘the fuck?’

Lady Caraline was a given; the slender Cairhienin was as beautiful as Rand remembered. A white opal hung on her forehead, the golden chain woven into her dark hair. Rand had to force himself to look away. She looked too much like her cousin, Moiraine.

Was that…a feeling? Careful there, Rand; that could turn into an emotion.

Sure enough, Lews Therin started naming off the names on the list, Moiraine at the forefront.

In the ongoing discussion regarding the data structure of Rand’s list, I propose for your consideration: a hash table. He has been shown a few times to be memorising the women’s faces as well as their names, and here it’s the visual cue that starts the recitation of the list, with Moiraine’s image calling up Moiraine’s name. 

Also since when did it become just ‘sure enough’ that Lews Therin is the one reciting the list. Rand’s list. (Since he crossed his own last line, and killed a woman, thus forcing the list and all its implications and constraints across that barrier in his mind, because he can no longer hold to it).

All that aside, Caraline has good taste. White opals are gorgeous.

Rand steeled himself, listening to the dead man in the back of his mind

(‘Steel yourself, Egwene’ she thought as she read a dead woman’s list of names).

A quick roll call of the surviving Tairen lords and ladies, which I will admit is appreciated because I’m pretty good at keeping track but it’s nice when I don’t have to, and now we can get down to business.

Darlin’s not happy with the ‘hurry up and wait’ nature of Rand’s orders to him to gather an army, but honestly, Darlin, would you rather have to use that army right away? Think about it for a few minutes.

Oh.

Um.

So that army is no longer intended for Arad Doman. Because Rand is very, very thorough in his abandonment.

And because…

“And…where will we be marching?”

“To Shayol Ghul.”

But you can’t go to Shayol Ghul yet, Rand! You still have two books left, and an entire conscience to regrow!

Next (TGS ch 43) Previous (TGS ch 41)

[vibratingskull]

Yandere!Thrawn x F!reader Chapter 8

Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Tags : Yandere behaviors (duh), manipulation, massage

Thrawn savors his whisky, taking slow sips at a time, keeping the group of officers in front of him in an uncomfortable silence. He’s slouching in his chair like a lazy king looking at the tensed expressions of his subordinates.

“I am really displeased.” He finally announces, “This explosion of violence is untolerable. Assaulting your innocent colleague victims of slander and harassment… How unbecoming of Empire officers.” He is calm, speaking with a posed voice, one would say he is almost amused if they lifted their head to witness his smug grin.

“I am very disappointed in all of you.”

He’s not. In fact he counted on them beating you up when he started spreading the rumors on you, and they delivered splendidly. If anything he is proud of them and himself. Everything went according to plan and now he has you, obediently waiting for him in his private suite, incapable of any movement without his help and nobody outside of him knows where you might be.

“We are sorry sir.” The Lieutenant Commander bows even deeper, “We had good reasons to believe she was a disruptive and deviant element.”, “But she was innocent, as I proved it. And now we have a new problem.” Thrawn manages his effect, he’s about to destroy their world and careers “The Lieutenant Commander (F/n)  succumbed to internal bleeding early this morning. I was made aware.”

They all remain silent, but it is impossible to not see the shudder spreading through the group at that bomb. They exchange worried gazes between themself, one pulls on the collar of their uniform, visibly uncomfortable. “What should I do with all of you?” He sighs “You murdered an innocent colleague, how do you think the Board of Command will react?” He asks rising from his chair to turn to the bay, observing the black universe. “Sir, please!” Beg the Lieutenant behind him, “We acted to protect your honor, we are ready to do anything for your pardon!”

He gives them a silent side glance, gauging them up and down. They should be punished. They played their part as he planned but they still hurted and wounded you, his darling. But he needs them for another task.

“If you prove yourself capable for a little “task” I am willing to brush this whole affair under the rug.” He placidly announces, taking another sip. “Please, sir! We will do anything!” they shouts behind his back, too happy to be offered an exit. 

He turns back to his desk and opens a drawer to take out a file while they look at him, begging with their eyes, desperate to please him and avoid punishment. He opens the file and takes out the photo of the Captain that assaulted him. “Get rid of that woman cleanly and discreetly for me and nothing will leave that office.”.

They look at the picture with round eyes. “The… The Captain? But..? For what reasons?”, “For reasons that are mine. Make her disappear and we are even.” he coldly responds “Or maybe you prefer we stop at Coruscant and I personally incriminate you all to the ISB?”, “It will be done, sir!” They all stand to attention, tensed and stiff under his inquisitive gaze. “Good. You are dismissed.”

They all leave his office in silence with their new objective in mind while he finishes his glass, eyes fixed on the cold perpetual night of the universe. Today will be a good day, he prophesies.

He joins you finally for the evening to eat with you, carry you to the table and helps you eat, feeding you again. You still frown but you accepted your fate, he revels in the situation. He loves being indispensable to you. He wants to spend his whole life like that… It would be true happiness.

“I asked the droids to cook your favorite.” He announces with a light smile. “Oh, thank you. This is really thoughtful of you.” you thank him as he pads your lips with the napkin. You stopped trying to stop him. “I will need to change your bandages.” He announces and your bite takes a wrong turn. You are covered in bandages, which means being naked in front of him again! “You are covered in nasty cuts and bruises, it is necessary for your health.” He forces his logic on you. 

You purse your lips, displeased but powerless. So you let him carry you on his bed and undress you, again, biting your lips, praying for it to end quickly. He slowly takes off the bandages like he would open the most marvelous present but under the pretenses to not reopen your wounds. He takes great care not to touch you “too much” but enough to feed his craving of you.

You are once again completely bare before him. It will not become a habit you internally pray. “Lay down, I have an ointment to apply on your skin.” He orders. Your stomach sinks immediately. He has to touch you? Oh no, nothing will be spared to you…

He gently pushes you on your back and starts massaging the ointment on your stomach and ribs cage while you press your eyes shut, as if not seeing him will alleviate your embarrassment. You breathe deeply through your nose, trying to calm down your beating heart, you feel his large warm hands roaming your body and you feel shame rising as it is a little exciting to you.

“You are really tense. Try to relax.” He casually comments, contouring your breast exposed to his ruby’s eyes. “It is quite hard.” You let out between your teeth, “Why?” He asks like it wasn’t obvious, “Being… naked like that before a man, it’s pretty hard to relax.”, “There is no need to be ashamed.” He responds with a side grin, pleased by your embarrassment, “Your body is gorgeous, you should be proud of it.” You cringe at that compliment, so he did judge your body to his taste… “Please don’t say things like that.” You plead. “Why? It is a plain truth, I am sure you made a lot of heads spin.” He keeps praising you like it is nothing, making you squirm even more.

He dealt with your present crushes, but none will escape his wrath. He will deal with your former lovers, no matter how many they were, no matter where they are presently. No one who ever knew you intimately will escape him.

“Can you talk to me about them?” he keeps asking nonchalantly, “Why would you want to know that?” you snort, “Why not? I came to understand that humans like to speak of their love affair with their friends, I am simply trying to make friendly conversation.”, “I am not comfortable discussing my body count while naked on your bed…” You admit, “Sorry, I did not want to upset you. What would you wish to talk about?”, “Anything but that.” You bite your lips, “Did you find my aggressors?”, “Roll on your stomach please.” he orders. You obey, wincing in pain and he resumes massaging you. 

It’s true the ointment feels fresh on your sensitive wounds and his hands are so soft and smooth on your bruised skin. You bite your inner cheek to not moan of pleasure out loud, that is weird enough like that. “Your aggressors…” He comments, “I am taking care of them. Do not worry about anything.” 

His hands do wonders on your back, it’s like a real massage now and you finally start to relax under his touch, sighing deeply. “You are good at that.” you confess, “Thank you.” You can hear the grin in his tone “Does it pleases you? What can I do to… Increase the pleasure?” He asks in a low tone, almost a purr.

You wouldn’t be drifting to sleep, you would have catched the innuendo. But you're ready to meet Morpheus under his delicate and tender caress. You just moan in response, eyes closed.

He shakes his head grinning. Oh you…

So easy to love and adore.

But this is exactly what he needs, getting you desensitized to his touch to increase them over time. For now you only let him touch you by necessity but soon you will be craving his hands all over your needy body. He’s counting on that.

“Do not sleep now, we need to put you in your pajamas.” He gently shakes you. He dresses your wounds again and helps you put on the only skimpy pajamas he choose found and helps you lay under the silky covers of his bed, caressing a strand of hair out of your face. 

He kisses your cheek as you start to sleep and he heads towards the control panel of the room to lower the temperature and go lay on the sofa of his bedroom to sleep.

As expected you start calling his name in the middle of the night.

“Thrawn? Thrawn? It’s freezing cold…”, “ Really? I find it quite pleasant.” He stretches his spine. “I’m completely frozen.” You complain, he hears you trembling in your voice shaked by tremors. He pretends to go check the control panel, “Everything is normal.” he announces. “Maker, it is so cold!” You shiver.

“Let me help.” He murmurs, crawling on the bed and pressing his hot body against yours, “My organism is naturally warmer than a human one.”. You snuggle against him, pressing you tighter, he circles your form with his long arms, caressing your back, soothing you to sleep. “It is okay. Relax.” He whispers in your ears.

You oh so slowly start to relax in his embrace. “You’re so warm…” you praise, at the end of your life. “Thank you, if I can be of use in any other way, tell me.”, “Just hold me tight, I beg of you.”

No need to ask him twice, especially if you beg! The cast and the splint are in the way but he holds you as close as possible, manipulating your bruised body with the utmost care and kisses your forehead good night.

“Sleep tight, Cha’cah. I will not leave until you wake up.” he murmurs. Ten minutes after you drift off to sleep he hears his comlink ringing. It’s the groups of officers signaling him the Captain have been taken care off.

Yes, he thinks. Today was a good day.

@bluechiss @blueninjablade3 @al-astakbar @thrawnspetgoose @readinglistfics @twilekchiss @pencil-urchin @ineedazeezee @mssbridgerton @dance-like-russia-isnt-watching @Cortisolcosplay

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[magic-and-myths]

Dragonfly Masterpost

Recently I’ve gained an immense amount of followers (thanks so much I love all of you, keep writing you’re all worth it) and I thought I’d get y’all up to speed on where Dragonfly is at.

Summary: Dragonfly is a high/Celtic fantasy story in which I break every single expectation and hope any fantasy reader has ever had. I also explore the depths of humanity, the repercussions of physically existing gods, and whatever the hell magic is. It centers mostly around young adults and immortal beings (it’s a good mix trust me), and is a little gory for YA but I’m not exactly sure what age group I’m aiming for.

Characters: I have four main characters, and one antagonist who I love more than anything.  We have Rin, the shy but knowledgeable bard who may not be very good at fighting, but that doesn’t mean he won’t try. He worships Tora, the goddess of the night sky, and his faith is absolute. He’s the hardest for me to write because my faith is very shakable  while his is not. Fern is a druid who travels with her lovable animal companions Sanji the stag, and Mira the screech owl. She’s always looking on the bright side and being a ray of sunshine (this is also hard for me to write), but if anyone threatens her adventuring family or her god (Kolesh, god of nature) she won’t hesitate to beat the crap out of them with her living wood staff or awesome botany skills. Zoe is genius inventor and engineer with rune crafting skills that are completely unmatched. She’s brash and confident and will never back down from any fight. She abandoned her origin god, Tunosi goddess of knowledge, in favor of Halor, the god of strength. If there’s the slightest bit of trouble she will instantly be in the fray, throwing flaming punches or pulling various explosives out of her signature enchanted dress that HAS POCKETS?! Kaya is the main focus of the first book. She’s a conjurer of immense power but limited social skills. As a child she was abused and then abandoned after her only parent figure, her sister, died (more on that later). She begged all the gods for help, and when none came she decided to fend for herself. This has led her to become an unfiltered pessimist, and an anarchist whose been trying to overthrow the gods for years. Despite this, she’s caring and always ready to help someone in need, just maybe not to trust them. “What’s the point of having power if you don’t use it to help a little kid?” And last but not least is Luma, the antagonist. At the start of the novel Luma has been dead for eight years. She was slain in a struggle known as the Wasting of the Wandering Woods, cut down by the Brightbringers, armored knights loyal to Orathia, goddess of the sun (it was in this battle that Kaya’s sister was killed).  Luma is a chosen one. She was born with a gift for magic. She can physically see it, flowing around the world. This has allowed her to master all eight types of magic when nobody other than the gods has even managed more than one. She believes (correctly) the gods have become corrupt, vain, and complacent, and is doing her absolute best to get them the frick outta town. Even if she has to kill every civilian that gets in her way.

World: Oh boy is this the best part. I have spent years with this world stuck inside my head, and now it’s coming out. So everyone, meet Arcana. Arcana is a forest covered world, geographically based on the North Eastern portion of North America. It’s an old world with old rules and threats that boil just beneath the leafy green exterior. It’s ruled by eight gods, eight forms of magic, and eight chaotic beasts called “terrors.” It is not a world of kings, or empires, or armies. It’s a world of individual people, doing their absolute best to survive in conditions that are so far out of their control. You see, magic and gods are dangerous to have around, and if you don’t have a god or magic on your side the people who do are going to murder the crap outta you. You won’t find any civilization larger than an alliance of city states, and even those aren’t safe.

Plot: Surprise, Luma’s back! I’ll bet you didn’t see that coming. Haha I got you. After discovering that the woman who murdered her sister is no longer dead, Kaya sets off on a quest to kill her. She somehow manages to find Rin, Zoe, and Fern who tag along on this world saving quest. However, when Kaya realizes that she’s doing exactly what the gods want her to do, and that Luma might be her best shot at overthrowing the deities that failed her, she has a choice to make. She can side with the her sister’s killer and cleanse the world of hypocrisy and corruption, and leave nothing but ash behind, or she can side with the gods that she so despises and save a world that will always be ruled by fear.

Title: At this point you’re probably thinking “wow Nathan Dragonfly is a super badass title, how did you come up with it?” Well first off, thank you dear reader, I’m flattered. And secondly: I made up a myth. In Arcana there’s an ancient myth that when the gods were creating animals, the created the dragonfly. But soon they became jealous of its beauty, and sought to destroy it. However they had made the dragonfly too fast, and could not catch it. So now the dragonfly lives on, both faster and more beautiful than the gods, but always having to look over its shoulder. The dragonfly is never safe. You can probably tell that Kaya is a dragonfly. While she’s not beautiful in the typical boring way, her soul is ablaze with beauty and strength far beyond what the gods could imagine. And she’s much faster than they are. (now you all can see why my name’s magic and myths we have plenty of both here).

What it’s not: If you’re looking for any of these things then I’m sorry, because they are not going to be in Dragonfly. I hope you find them though, sometimes I’m sad I’m not writing about them. 1. a chosen one story. Nobody in this book was chosen for anything. They’re all fighting and running and living and dying on their own strength and merit. There are no prophesies. Although I do include some predictions of the future from Tora in the night sky, they’re mostly to validate how much prophesies do not belong in this story. 2. a battle saga on an epic scale. I mentioned this earlier, but there are no massive armies in Arcana. I find them unrealistic in the setting and very impersonal. If someone is swinging a sword in this story you know their name, and why they’re swinging. 3. a romance. There is little to no romance in this book. Feel free to ship all you want, but chances are that nothing is making it into the final cut. This isn’t because I’m a heartless monster who wants all of my characters to die alone and afraid. I just think that romance is going to get in the way of the story that I’m trying to tell. And we need more I-will-die-for-you platonic relationships anyways. 4. anything edgy. While some of my themes and situations can get really dark really fast, writing edgy just isn’t my style. There will be very few dramatic or somber moments in this book. My characters are human, and they try to undercut fear or awkwardness with humor just like anybody. My writing style is made to not take itself seriously. Characters will poke fun at names like the Wasting of the Wandering Woods. Why so much alliteration? Was this made for a children’s story? 5. filled with fantasy races. I’m going to do my absolute best to represent humans from all different races, as far as fantasy races go we have jack squat in Dragonfly. I find that humans are dramatic, complicated, and interesting enough on their own; they don’t need help from outside species. While I do have various creatures like fae and spirits and dragons, they are not widespread or civilized. Humans are all we have, and oh boy is it still enough.

[dfroza]

as children of Light

we must believe is what cannot yet be seen. this is the essence of faith and hope in Love. the (Clarity) of its definition.

for the Spirit is the pure seed as the treasure of the heart (inside, Anew) who guarantees the promise of rebirth (of resurrection) after death.

the Ark of the Covenant at the Heart (the inner room) of the Temple represents the purest gold of the Son by which we are asked for it to be placed within the space of our hearts by welcoming the entrance of grace.

and we read of this in the Heart of the Scriptures as words written down and conserved through time to be shared as a Message that spreads Light throughout the beautiful mystery of earth as a universal garden of seeds, to be...

and sometimes by doing so, people have been wrongfully accused and hated for it by others. wrongfully arrested and imprisoned. tortured. killed. History is stained by the blood of the martyrs.

and we see this in Today’s chapter of the New Testament in the ancient book of Acts (chapter 21) that is paired with the concluding chapter 42 of the book of Job from the Old Testament in which Job responds to God in humility (of which we are are meant to do) and by Job’s prayer for his friends all is restored (and much more) of that which was stolen and destroyed in Job’s life.

Acts 21:

[Tyre and Caesarea]

And so, with the tearful good-byes behind us, we were on our way. We made a straight run to Cos, the next day reached Rhodes, and then Patara. There we found a ship going direct to Phoenicia, got on board, and set sail. Cyprus came into view on our left, but was soon out of sight as we kept on course for Syria, and eventually docked in the port of Tyre. While the cargo was being unloaded, we looked up the local disciples and stayed with them seven days. Their message to Paul, from insight given by the Spirit, was “Don’t go to Jerusalem.”

When our time was up, they escorted us out of the city to the docks. Everyone came along—men, women, children. They made a farewell party of the occasion! We all kneeled together on the beach and prayed. Then, after another round of saying good-bye, we climbed on board the ship while they drifted back to their homes.

A short run from Tyre to Ptolemais completed the voyage. We greeted our Christian friends there and stayed with them a day. In the morning we went on to Caesarea and stayed with Philip the Evangelist, one of “the Seven.” Philip had four virgin daughters who prophesied.

After several days of visiting, a prophet from Judea by the name of Agabus came down to see us. He went right up to Paul, took Paul’s belt, and, in a dramatic gesture, tied himself up, hands and feet. He said, “This is what the Holy Spirit says: The Jews in Jerusalem are going to tie up the man who owns this belt just like this and hand him over to godless unbelievers.”

When we heard that, we and everyone there that day begged Paul not to be stubborn and persist in going to Jerusalem. But Paul wouldn’t budge: “Why all this hysteria? Why do you insist on making a scene and making it even harder for me? You’re looking at this backward. The issue in Jerusalem is not what they do to me, whether arrest or murder, but what the Master Jesus does through my obedience. Can’t you see that?”

We saw that we weren’t making even a dent in his resolve, and gave up. “It’s in God’s hands now,” we said. “Master, you handle it.”

It wasn’t long before we had our luggage together and were on our way to Jerusalem. Some of the disciples from Caesarea went with us and took us to the home of Mnason, who received us warmly as his guests. A native of Cyprus, he had been among the earliest disciples.

[Jerusalem]

In Jerusalem, our friends, glad to see us, received us with open arms. The first thing next morning, we took Paul to see James. All the church leaders were there. After a time of greeting and small talk, Paul told the story, detail by detail, of what God had done among the non-Jewish people through his ministry. They listened with delight and gave God the glory.

They had a story to tell, too: “And just look at what’s been happening here—thousands upon thousands of God-fearing Jews have become believers in Jesus! But there’s also a problem because they are more zealous than ever in observing the laws of Moses. They’ve been told that you advise believing Jews who live surrounded by unbelieving outsiders to go light on Moses, telling them that they don’t need to circumcise their children or keep up the old traditions. This isn’t sitting at all well with them.

“We’re worried about what will happen when they discover you’re in town. There’s bound to be trouble. So here is what we want you to do: There are four men from our company who have taken a vow involving ritual purification, but have no money to pay the expenses. Join these men in their vows and pay their expenses. Then it will become obvious to everyone that there is nothing to the rumors going around about you and that you are in fact scrupulous in your reverence for the laws of Moses.

“In asking you to do this, we’re not going back on our agreement regarding non-Jews who have become believers. We continue to hold fast to what we wrote in that letter, namely, to be careful not to get involved in activities connected with idols; to avoid serving food offensive to Jewish Christians; to guard the morality of sex and marriage.”

So Paul did it—took the men, joined them in their vows, and paid their way. The next day he went to the Temple to make it official and stay there until the proper sacrifices had been offered and completed for each of them.

[Paul Under Arrest]

When the seven days of their purification were nearly up, some Jews from around Ephesus spotted him in the Temple. At once they turned the place upside-down. They grabbed Paul and started yelling at the top of their lungs, “Help! You Israelites, help! This is the man who is going all over the world telling lies against us and our religion and this place. He’s even brought Greeks in here and defiled this holy place.” (What had happened was that they had seen Paul and Trophimus, the Ephesian Greek, walking together in the city and had just assumed that he had also taken him to the Temple and shown him around.)

Soon the whole city was in an uproar, people running from everywhere to the Temple to get in on the action. They grabbed Paul, dragged him outside, and locked the Temple gates so he couldn’t get back in and gain sanctuary.

As they were trying to kill him, word came to the captain of the guard, “A riot! The whole city’s boiling over!” He acted swiftly. His soldiers and centurions ran to the scene at once. As soon as the mob saw the captain and his soldiers, they quit beating Paul.

The captain came up and put Paul under arrest. He first ordered him handcuffed, and then asked who he was and what he had done. All he got from the crowd were shouts, one yelling this, another that. It was impossible to tell one word from another in the mob hysteria, so the captain ordered Paul taken to the military barracks. But when they got to the Temple steps, the mob became so violent that the soldiers had to carry Paul. As they carried him away, the crowd followed, shouting, “Kill him! Kill him!”

When they got to the barracks and were about to go in, Paul said to the captain, “Can I say something to you?”

He answered, “Oh, I didn’t know you spoke Greek. I thought you were the Egyptian who not long ago started a riot here, and then hid out in the desert with his four thousand thugs.”

Paul said, “No, I’m a Jew, born in Tarsus. And I’m a citizen still of that influential city. I have a simple request: Let me speak to the crowd.”

[Paul Tells His Story]

Standing on the barracks steps, Paul turned and held his arms up. A hush fell over the crowd as Paul began to speak. He spoke in Hebrew.

The Book of Acts, Chapter 21 (The Message)

Job Worships God

[I Babbled On About Things Far Beyond Me]

Job answered God:

“I’m convinced: You can do anything and everything.

Nothing and no one can upset your plans.

You asked, ‘Who is this muddying the water,

ignorantly confusing the issue, second-guessing my purposes?’

I admit it. I was the one. I babbled on about things far beyond me,

made small talk about wonders way over my head.

You told me, ‘Listen, and let me do the talking.

Let me ask the questions. You give the answers.’

I admit I once lived by rumors of you;

now I have it all firsthand—from my own eyes and ears!

I’m sorry—forgive me. I’ll never do that again, I promise!

I’ll never again live on crusts of hearsay, crumbs of rumor.”

God Restores Job

[I Will Accept His Prayer]

After God had finished addressing Job, he turned to Eliphaz the Temanite and said, “I’ve had it with you and your two friends. I’m fed up! You haven’t been honest either with me or about me—not the way my friend Job has. So here’s what you must do. Take seven bulls and seven rams, and go to my friend Job. Sacrifice a burnt offering on your own behalf. My friend Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer. He will ask me not to treat you as you deserve for talking nonsense about me, and for not being honest with me, as he has.”

They did it. Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite did what God commanded. And God accepted Job’s prayer.

After Job had interceded for his friends, God restored his fortune—and then doubled it! All his brothers and sisters and friends came to his house and celebrated. They told him how sorry they were, and consoled him for all the trouble God had brought him. Each of them brought generous housewarming gifts.

God blessed Job’s later life even more than his earlier life. He ended up with fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, one thousand teams of oxen, and one thousand donkeys. He also had seven sons and three daughters. He named the first daughter Dove, the second, Cinnamon, and the third, Darkeyes. There was not a woman in that country as beautiful as Job’s daughters. Their father treated them as equals with their brothers, providing the same inheritance.

Job lived on another 140 years, living to see his children and grandchildren—four generations of them! Then he died—an old man, a full life.

The Book of Job, Chapter 42 (The Message)

my reading in the Bible for Thursday, may 2 (also national prayer day), the 44th day of Spring and day 122 of the year

and the numbers 2 and 44 combined reminds me of 244S that was printed in gold lettering on the black leather binding of Bible left in my shipwrecked Saturn Vue in Los Angeles back in ‘12

[heroofkvackers]

mkay lore time and some explanation (wall of text, pls be prepared lmao)

About time that I have time to fully establish the headcanon lore of my Champion of Cyrodiil-turned-Last Dragonborn, which might help in connecting the timeline of the fourth and fifth games of the franchise, Oblivion and Skyrim smoothly. Hopefully there are no plot holes, but if there are any, I’ll be glad to add something in that could tie the ends together :D

Wulfgar Silver-Tongue first came into Nirn on 3E 401 in the Imperial City, therefore making him 32 years old when the Oblivion Crisis hit the entire continent of Tamriel. He was raised to be a bard and a Nine Divine worshipper, but found passion in fencing and sword-fighting later in his teenage years. How he ended up in prison was...quite the scandalous thing. One day, he stumbled upon a beautiful woman while sitting in Tiber Septim Hotel (no, not Augusta Calidia), and he decided to seduce her with his lute and singing, and actually succeeded for a time during the events of Morrowind (while the Nerevarine did his prophesy things lmao)...only to be found out by the real husband of this woman, an Imperial Guard captain. In the beginning months of 3E 433, he was hastily thrown into prison, now devoid of many of his belongings, leaving him with essentially nothing to live with. His lute was even taken away from him. After a few months, however, news reached the Imperial City that the Emperor’s (legitimate) sons were all assassinated by the Mythic Dawn, and the Blades quickly reacted to the incident by taking the Emperor to the Imperial prison, where a secret passageway out of the Imperial City just so happened to go through his very cell. When the Emperor realized that Wulfgar, as deprived as he is, was the same figure that he’s seen in his visions, he told the Nord, with heartbreak and melancholic acceptance, that he was his only hope of finding his very last son. Realizing that his life was meaningful after all he had just gone through, he took up the responsibility and returned back to honing his skills in swordplay and a little bit of destruction and illusion magic, to help defend the Empire until his very last breath, becoming Archmage, and Master of the Fighter’s Guild before going to Weynon Priory to give the Amulet of Kings to Jauffre. His heart was changed to the extent that he even helped raise the marauder siege upon Battlehorn Castle, where he lived for some time before tiring of the luxury it brought with its restoration to go live in Cheydinhal for the rest of his life. When Martin Septim left the world by transforming into the avatar of Akatosh to fight Mehrunes Dagon, Wulfgar, now the Champion of Cyrodiil, went into a period of mourning for several months, disappearing into the common crowd, his fanaticism for the Empire subsiding, before hearing about the looming threat of yet another Daedric power wishing to destroy his homeland. That alone helped him gather up courage again to continue doing a service to the Empire, as well as working for the Nine Divines, allowing himself to be put back into public attention as a Champion of the Divines. Unwillingly, however, he mantled Pelinal Whitestrake through his effort, and soon developed a small amount of madness, but not enough to do something ridiculous....for a certain amount of time. As his firm sanity allowed it, he did not once step foot into the Shivering Isles, owing to his knowledge of the Daedric princes he read through the books he gathered during the Oblivion Crisis, fearing for his own sanity being sucked away if he were to go into the realm of Sheogorath. Yes, that means he allowed the Greymarch to happen once more. I’d like to think that some other person took up the mantle instead. Now you’re wondering “But Sheo is the Hero of Kvatch! There’s no changing that because of his dialogue!” Here’s my headcanon’s explanation of Sheo’s dialogue in Skyrim that suggests other possible explanations. 

“Butterflies” could also mean the butterflies you see flying all over Cyrodiil. They’re all over the place. You cant really catch them like in Skyrim though, obviously. A more commonly accepted explanation is the butterflies you see at the very beginning of the Shivering Isles main questline. Anyone other than the Hero could have seen the butterflies when they’re entering the portal, though. Also, they’re everywhere in the Shivering Isles.

“Blood” could very well point to the Blood of the Divines and Daedra quest in the main questline. However, judging by the bloodshed that happened during the mass invasion of the Imperial City in the last scene of the main questline, it could also mean that. Many people were witnesses to this. 

“A fox” obviously means the fabled Grey Fox thief figure. As the game explained explicitly, however, there are people who believe in the Gray Fox, and there are also those who don't believe. Its all over Cyrodiil.

“Severed head” is obviously a reference to the Dark Brotherhood. The nature of the Elder Scrolls, however, permit the explanation that if the Hero doesn't complete the questline, someone else does the questline for him. Besides, Wulfgar does not take kindly to those who worship something that is perceived to be evil and has no solid form. As a matter of fact, when Lucien visited him after he accidentally killed Glarthir in the midst of the Mages Guild questline, he brutally killed Lucien himself, as he is a very angry man when interrupted from his sleep. Besides, he found no reason to join the Dark Brotherhood over an accidental kill.

..not to mention that Glarthir did not have to seek him out while he's fighting a group of necromancers out in the open. Honestly though.

“Oh, and the cheese! To die for.” could mean the Sheogorath  shrine questline, where he (spoiler alert) asks the Hero to steal some Olroy cheese to start the “apocalypse” in Border Watch. Like I said, if the Hero doesn't do the quest, someone else takes his place.  

“You know, I was there for the whole sordid affair.” Now that dialogue is interesting. But hear me out. Sheogorath is the Daedric Prince of Madness. The wiki did put in the note that he could have been watching the whole affair and therefore could be throwing the player of Skyrim off. Mehrunes Dagon invading Tamriel was a huge event, and its quite hard for the other Daedric princes to not ignore it, as no other princes would have dared to have done that. 

Anyway because I have a mod for what happens after gathering the Relics, he also helped thwart a false Ayleid emperor off his throne to restore peace to the entirety of Cyrodiil, so it would not fall under Ayleid rule and slavery once more after 3 eras of absence. Those of you who have this particular mod would know what I mean ;) 

Soon after that, however, the Empire declared the Mage’s Guild guilty (when they're not) of starting the Oblivion Crisis, kicking him out of the Archmage position.

After all the chaos subsided, Wulfgar finally went back to a normal, quiet life, disguising himself as a daily pilgrim of the Divines, until one day, whoever took the throne of Sheogorath spoke to him within a dream in 4E 9. 

“Wulfgar...since you’re so dedicated to your boring little pilgrimage to the Aedra...how about I make things more interesting for you?”

“The Daedric Prince of Madness? What do you wish to do with me at this point?” Wulfgar spoke, timidly.

“If you are truly that dedicated as the famed Divine Crusader that everyone praises, I shall now test your sanity for three days by trying to thwart you on every turn you make. It is good entertainment for me after all.”

Now that is a reflection to a certain book you may see in Skyrim and the Shivering Isles, in particular. 

He lasted for two days. Until the very last day, when he finally lost it and went on a murderous spree in the Nibenay region for several more days, seeking out only elves, practically mirroring exactly what Pelinal did right before the fall of the Ayleid empire, until he blacked out on the Fredas of that week. By then, he lost much of his reputation as the famed Champion of Cyrodiil, and instead gained fear from those who remember the tales of Pelinal Whitestrake. After he woke up, groggy and exhausted, he opened his eyes to the destruction he caused in the region, only to realize that the damage was irreversibly done. He was now shunned and feared. His only choice at this point to avoid any more complications is to drop the mantle of the Divine Crusader, which he promptly did. Later in his life, he also abandoned his status as Champion of Cyrodiil, effectively wiping his own name from history. He then passed away in 4E 49, just one year after the Umbriel Crisis, at the age of 81. He was then reincarnated as the Last Dragonborn in 4E 168, given a dragon’s soul by Akatosh as a gift for his services to the Empire in the time of Oblivion, shortly before the Great War. That also makes him 33 years old at the time of the Alduin crisis, and his soul just over 300 years old. 

...damn. This is the longest post to date. But yeah, there it is. XP. Yes I know, I rushed through it towards the end. Like I said, if there are any details you wish for me to clarify, I’ll be glad to explain what happened.

[bluerosesburnblue]

Liz Liveblogs Bravely Second: Chapter 6, Part 2/2 *FINALE*

Well, nothing left for me to do now. I guess it’s time we finally hunker down and beat this game. I started this liveblog series on January 14, 2017 (July 23, 2016 if we include the Demo) and now, almost two years later, we finally see the end (layer) of Bravely Second

Before we get to the actual story I’d just like to say that I currently have five level 99 Apparati hanging out at Fort-Lune. FIVE. Jeez, somebody share something else for a change! This is why I share any Redshirts, Urchins, Goldies, or Turtle Doves I see! It’s also why I hate it when games make you rely on communication features for 100% completion. Stop that. It always goes poorly

Well, regardless. There’s a certain fairy waiting for... well, not us, but someone down at Norende Chasm and I intend to finish what I started. You got me into this series, Anne! You did this to yourself!

Feels weird to be back at the first ever dungeon in the series. I don’t know if it’s new for this game or if it’s always been there, but if you look off the edge of Norende Ravine you can see a river flowing at the bottom, beneath the fog. And “Dungeon of the Nature” is a great scene-setter, as always

This Party Chat is certainly something. Tiz is just reminiscing about being back and how as kids they were told to stay away due to monsters, but of course everyone played there anyway. And then when Norende was swallowed by the Chasm, he raced through here to see it with his own eyes, and there met Agnès, who would change his whole world. And they came back, again and again in each world. Finally, this was the path they took to the end last time. The place they went to reach the Dark Aurora to chase down Ouroboros. Norende Ravine is the most visited spot in the game in terms of plot, and you’d think it would get old but it doesn’t. “How many more times... will we walk down this road?” And Edea replies “As many times as we have to! Until we’ve wiped away those terrible memories once and for all! [...] The next time we walk down this road, it’ll be to visit the new Norende Village - the one you helped rebuild!” I never expected the game to bring up the Norende Village... minigame, I guess you could call it? I’m so glad they did, and I’m so glad that Magnolia and Yew declaring that all four of them would visit it together is what cheered Tiz up

...I didn’t realize I had 99 X-Potions? I guess my healers have just been really good so far

Oh Aaaaaaaaanneeeeeeee~ Guess who’s heeeeeeeere~ I’m gonna straight up kick your ass for what you did last timeline! And, presumably, whatever you were up to last game!

How predictable that we’ve come to stop you? Do you know what we’ve done since I found out you were here? You had every opportunity to disappear and didn’t! What, have you just been sitting here for a week? I think you’re the predictable one

Also, nice demonic cloud cover. I’m really feeling the glowing red mass underneath these near-black stormclouds

“Your master? But the kaiser is... Denys is gone...!” Bold of you to assume Denys was actually in charge of anything. I thought it was pretty obvious he was out of his depth when Anne mentioned her master and even Denys was confused by it

Hm. “Lord Providence, ruler of the Celestial Realm!” I’d heard that name thrown around before I even started playing the game, but “ruler of the Celestial Realm” is new. Given that his name means “God’s protection,” I guess you mean ruler as in “a deity” and not “a high ranking political figure”

Man, at the angle her head’s at, Anne’s hair protrusions really do look like antennae. It just hasn’t been obvious before I got this angle on her

How the hell is Providence supposed to enlighten anyone if they’re dead, Anne? That’s dumb. Your master’s dumb. Death isn’t enlightenment, it’s just death.

And Providence got all upset that the Moon people were killing his Ba’als, so he sent Anne to deal with it by destroying the moon. But screw that plan! There’s a Celestial shortcut right here! But you know, if something can get from the Celestial Realm to Luxendarc, then I don’t see why the opposite can’t be true, too

And, well, shoot. If Providence is the “ruler of the Celestial Realm” then we couldn’t have Ouroboros getting in! So Anne had to deal with Airy. Or rather, have us deal with Airy. And then she had to get someone to summon the Holy Pillar to take out the moon, and found Denys. Both games have all been thanks to her manipulations. Man, fuck Cryst-Fairies

“Hold it right there! That’s my brother you’re talking about!” You tell her, Yew! Rip her a new one! I’ve got your back!

Fuck, she did the same thing to Denys that she did to the player at the start of Bravely Default. Read us like a book and played to the key aspects of our personalities. Denys’s sense of duty and idealism, the player’s sense of duty and determination to see things through... hell, it’s almost like she read into my completionist tendencies and knew I’d do dumb shit like grinding to max level and job levels and getting the best equipment. Ouroboros didn’t stand a chance once that was thrown into the mix

“Why, he was even ready to kill his own precious little brother for his ‘duty.’” Can I take the use of “precious” as confirmation that it was actually a hard choice for him? Because Denys isn’t here to defend himself and never did get around to talking about it when he was here

I don’t think I’ve ever heard the word “dupe” used as an adjective. Most people go with “dope.” You’re weird, Anne! You’re weird and also a huge bitch!

“Denys died to save this world...” Is he actually dead though!? Like, no seriously, is he? Or is he just stuck in a situation that he will probably die in? Because one of those is potentially fixable in a sequel. ...actually, maybe both of them are fixable in a sequel. Situation’s unclear at the moment

“When Lord Providence descends, Luxendarc as you know it will be completely and utterly destroyed.” If he descends. If.

Yeesh, Anne, cool it with the shade! I know Denys’s kind of an idiot, but you don’t need to say it every other line!

Oh wow. Whoah. This... everything on screen is gorgeous right now? The glowing blue and gold bits on Anne’s final form, the translucent pink butterflies in the background against a starry night sky... yooooooooo. And I thought Airy’s final form was pretty

“Wicked Flight” is still a better boss song, though. Heck, the music right now isn’t even as good as Anne’s last battle theme, and it’s just a remix. I think removing the Spanish guitars and replacing them with a wailing rock guitar really does the song a disservice

That T-pose looks real dumb, Anne. Knock it off

It’s really fascinating what she says here. Humans are born without purpose, so they spend their lives lost and weak, constantly searching for something to live for. She, however, was made with a specific goal in mind, and always feels fulfilled because of it. And I don’t think she’s entirely wrong to observe that human beings spend so long looking for acceptance and purpose, and that the struggle to find some is central to most people’s lives. Heck, I don’t feel like I have a purpose most of the time. But I think, until I find one, if I just keep trying to do good then it’ll be enough. And the good thing about being born without a purpose? You get to find one you like, eventually

Cryst-Fairies are created by the gods to serve them. Anne is the older sister, but never really cared much for Airy, since Airy served someone who would destroy the Celestial Realm, where Anne’s master resided and controlled. Which... I suppose leads me to believe that they were created by different entities, and yet all Cryst-Fairies see themselves as siblings, regardless. Maybe it’s because they’re made of the same stuff? Like a half-sibling thing? Where one “parent” is the magical essence that they’re made of, and the other is the god that used it to create them?

Did Airy even know she had a sister? Like, was she even aware Anne existed? I don’t think she ever, once, mentioned her

Man, this game has a weird theme of “older siblings attempting to murder their younger siblings for a cause”

Oh, good. She can set someone’s max HP to 1. And she used it on Edea. Because even at level 99, Edea has to die at least three times per fight

I don’t think she expected Quadruple Meteor Rain Yew, though. That’s what you get for shit-talking a Geneolgia’s family

Oh. She didn’t even revive. Nice

Funny enough, Anne, Yew learned that secret technique after I knew you were here. So, you know, you had plenty of time to avoid that

If Lord Providence is gonna be here any moment now, then he is really taking his time meandering down the Celestial shortcut

Oh, geez! Altair, don’t sneak up on me like that! Holy shit, the sound of his voice startled me

There’s no need to apologize for Providence using Vega to create the Ba’als. You’re both just victims of an uppity god. Though, as a Celestial, I don’t suppose you have any info on your supposed “god,” Providence?

I love how on the same page Yew and I always are. Altair is family now, of course we’re gonna save Vega. Even if none of us know her, she’s special to Altair. And family of our family... is as good as family, too

Ahahahahah! “Yeah! We’re going to crush a god!” Never change, Edea. We’re upgrading from Ba’al Busters to God Crushers!

Altair just called them “my children”! Team Dad! Team Dad! Team Dad!

“Come, Yew! Let us deliver our pièce de radicchio!” ...let us deliver our piece of leaf chicory? Excuse me? Is that supposed to be like “Let’s serve Providence a bitter meal he’ll regret eating?”

Altair, normally I can at least follow your vegetable proverbs, even if they fall flat, but that one was really... uhhhhh?

So the evil fog in the Chasm is a sign that the Dimensions are in flux. “A holy battleground and an angel’s descent. A chasm of darkness and a glimmering ship.” Would that be the Ouroboros fight, or whatever Sylvie was prophesying about?

Clear the mists and reveal the path to the Celestial Realm. Hey, can’t all of us summon Hresvelgr right now? Can we get him to blow it away?

Ah, we’re using Agnès’s pendant, which can connect people between various worlds. It’s already a spacetime anomaly. Neat! I love it when they use lore, especially something like this, which has been established since the start of Default!

And now they pray, with the help of the pendant, to lift the fog. It’s not enough, so they call Agnès to pray, too! It’s still not enough. Yew cries out for help, for anyone to give them strength. In other games, I could see this leading to a pan-out where everyone in the world prays with them...

But here, they just need me. Time to mash “X” like the good old days and clear the clouds away for my favorite team

Aaaaahahahahahahahah. Ahahahaha! Oh. Oh god. So they use the 3DS camera to put your face in the Chasm once the clouds are cleared but oh man. Oh nooooo, that angle. That was not a good look. At all. I started laughing so hard I had to put my 3DS down. Ohhhhhh. Oh man, that’s a heck of a look for the first time the party gets to see my face. Imagine the first time you get to see your spirit guide and it starts cackling and the connection dies for a few minutes. I’m sorry, guys! I’m really - ahahahaha - really sorry!

I do adore how the Bravely series utilizes the fourth wall. The Celestial Realm is (or is at least based on) our world, and every time they depict it (so, this scene and the Ouroboros fight in Default), they use the 3DS camera. The player is every bit a real character in this game’s universe, and they do a hell of a job merging the two using existing elements of the 3DS hardware

God, nope. Still can’t look at it. It’s like a fun house mirror in there! I get that it’s supposed to be at the bottom of the Chasm, so that’s the angle it’s at, but it looks freaking funny!

I’m glad you’re all so focused on Vega and none of you are reacting to my mug plastered at the bottom of the Chasm. It’s still there, even after the cutscene

Oh. I know that place. That’s the background of the Snowcap Ba’al fights. Welcome to the Via Celestio, path to the Celestial Realm, altered based on Vega’s memories

And I guess Altair is going to explain what each Ba’al represents as we go though, which he’s only willing to tell us because we’re all pals now

Ba’al vi: Snowcap - Represents the day that Altair and Vega met, with ski lifts as its background. Altair was vacationing at a ski resort, and sat next to a young woman on the chair lift. They got stuck up there when the weather got particularly bad, and Altair noticed how scared she was, so he picked a flower from one of the trees their lift stopped near (good reach, buddy) to cheer her up. Despite that moment, though, Altair never got her name, and never saw her again before his vacation was over

Oh, don’t be so cheeky, Magnolia. “Though some might say giving a flower to a girl you just met might be a bit forward.” It worked on you, didn’t it?

So, I guess Altair and Tiz are going to be switching back and forth for this dungeon. And Tiz is conscious when Altair’s in control, since he heard that? That’s existentially terrifying

The glowing gold platforms, surrounded by the already very pretty Ba’al fight backgrounds makes for a gorgeous area... but I’m not feeling the music at all. It’s way too dramatic, with blaring sounds, militaristic drums, and weird wind ambience. I get what it’s going for, since this is the final dungeon and should be suitably intense, but it’s really incongruous with the location’s aesthetic, and also doesn’t fit the emotional tone of Altair nostalgically recounting his life together with Vega as we go to free her spirit. Something like this would fit better in a final dungeon like the Dark Aurora, where we were in an unearthly void on our way to the Infernal Realm. I know I mention “Dungeon of the Nature” a lot, but I really wish the Via Celestio music was more similar to that than, say, “Tower,” which is the music they used for locations like Eternian Central Command, like what we got. I’d actually have really loved if the music here was just Altair’s theme, but with the larger, orchestral sounds of “Dungeon of the Nature.” Something melancholy and soft, but no less grand. Altair’s theme played on piano, but with chimes and a string backing track

I actually don’t like “Tower.” At all. I think it’s probably the worst track in the game. It’s just so dissonant, and I turn my sound off every time I go into a dungeon where it’s playing

Alright, kids, it’s been fun, but you’re gonna have to turn off Obliterate for a sec so we can get those last three Catmancy skills

Okay, I don’t get Luxendarc sometimes. You kids have ketchup and baseball, but Altair had to explain what skiing was? You mean to tell me someone figured out how to make a specific type of tomato-based sauce and independently came up with the rules for baseball, but no one thought to tie planks to their feet and slide down a snowy hill with them on? Seriously, guys

Yew asks everyone what their plans for the future are. Edea says she’s gonna help with the Eternia-Orthodoxy peace talks, so she and Yew will probably still be working together. Tiz just wants to retire to Norende at age... 19? I mean, I don’t really blame him. He did die several times and kill multiple gods. I’d want a break, too. And Magnolia feels she has to return to the Moon and finish helping everyone there recover. Yew is disappointed. It’s a hard position to be in, you know? He loves Magnolia and will miss her dearly, but he also knows how much the people of her home mean to her and he would never come between her and them

Ba’al v: Urchin - Represents the day Altair and Vega met again in the spring, when Altair was transferred to work at the place Vega did, with its background being the rainy exterior of an urban office building with a couple that occasionally passes by, sharing an umbrella. There are little flower gardens, and a city skyline can be seen in the distance. As Altair tells the story, we see silhouettes of himself and Vega acting it out. Or at least, I assume it’s them, since “Altair” looks a lot like Yew in an ankle-length trench coat and “Vega” is just Magnolia’s researcher costume. Altair was an extremely successful scientist, but his superiors grew jealous of his skills and transferred him to a remote, less prestigious location. Altair was so distraught to be there that he ran right out into the storm. Right into acid rain, due to severe pollution in his homeland. Unbeknownst to him, however, he had been transferred to the very place Vega worked, and when she saw him run out, she followed him and offered to share her umbrella. Altair muses how this means that at the time, Vega must have remembered their first meeting on that ski lift, since it became a Ba’al, and he chuckles quietly to himself. Fate, indeed

So the last room had little snowy trees peppering the walkways, and here it’s rainy streetlamps and road signs. God, I love the visual design here. And now that I’m not fighting the Ba’al, I can get a better look at the gorgeous backgrounds

Ba’al iv: Goldie - Represents Altair’s first date with Vega that summer, where he confessed his growing love to her, with an absolutely gorgeous background of a Japanese festival. Lanterns and trees surround a single torii as fireworks go off in the sky above. The appearance of Goldie comes from their attempts to play the goldfish-scooping game they have at Japanese festivals

This is all coming across as so incredibly sad. Altair loved Vega with all his heart, but it sounds like he didn’t even really realize how much she cared for him until right now, where he’s seeing exactly what memories she treasured. And is seeing them twisted and used against the both of them

And Edea’s noticed something else. Meeting in the snow, sharing an umbrella, goldfish scooping... Yew and Magnolia have been unintentionally reliving Altair and Vega’s romance. No wonder he’s so adamant that Yew confesses sooner, rather than later. Altair knows how this story ends

Our little set dressings this time around are floating lanterns. I’m actually surprised there aren’t mini fireworks bursting around them

Most of the enemies in the Via Celestio don’t add a heck of a lot to the lore, but one does: the Spartan. It’s the final variation of a specific type of automaton we’ve been seeing throughout the game, that Altair comments on every time they show up. Turns out, Altair invented them to be caretakers for the Celestial Realm! They uh... I don’t think they did that great a job, but it’s the thought that counts!

And the Bestiary entry is basically “Okay but how do rocket punches and optical camouflage... help? With caretaking?” “I dunno! But isn’t the technology awesome?” Altaiiiiiiiiir

Ba’al iii: Apparati - Represents the struggle Altair and Vega faced together as they tried to continue their research despite the improper equipment and poor funds afforded to them, enhanced by the depiction of the interior of a laboratory with static-y, crackling monitors all over in the background. If we’re following the pattern, then the falling leaves and bare trees outside the window indicate autumn. Vega really kept Altair’s project going, by sneaking restricted data out of the archives for him and coming up with creative solutions whenever he hit a mental block. And when their hard work paid off and Altair’s hypothesis was accepted as scientific fact, then he knew he was absolutely in love with Vega, the woman who supported and aided him and who constantly encouraged him to be his best self. He was a different, better person around her, and he knew it

“If attraction is gazing into one another’s eyes, then true love is setting those eyes on the same shared goal... or so my theory goes.” I can’t say I have a lot, or really any, romantic experience, but this is something I believe strongly. A romantic partner is someone whose skills and personality differ from yours, but also complement yours, and yet who strongly value the same things you do. If you can’t agree on what’s most important to you, then you can’t connect on a deeper level. And I’m not saying, like, find someone who thinks exactly as you do! Because that’s not healthy. But find someone who you can agree on the important things with

Also, love that Altair distinguishes between ��attraction” and “love” because they’re very different things, and I so often see people conflate the two

Seriously, guys, leave Yew alone! He’s 16 and this is his first foray into romance. That’s scary and overwhelming!

And there’s bookshelves and stacks of books with desk lamps on top littering the pathways

Ba’al ii: Redcoat - Represents the night that Altair proposed to Vega over dinner. Honestly, this is my favorite Ba’al fight background. It’s just a very pretty, snowy, city skyline with a tall tower and a suspension bridge in the center, but there’s something so beautiful about how simple it is and the shade of light blue they used for it. Altair describes it as a holy night, and since Redcap is a demonic Santa hat tangled in lights, I can only assume he means Christmas. Poor Altair, however, couldn’t afford a wedding ring. Their program funding was awful, after all, and what they gave him for personal pay, he spent on more research to make up for what they didn’t give him. Vega told him she didn’t mind, but he still felt incredibly guilty about it. They married with a small ceremony, and Altair eventually bought her that ring... right before the trip to Luxendarc that tore them apart forever

Altair tells everyone not to despair, since he lived a good life and had goals that he truly believed in that he knows he gave his all working towards, and I can’t help but think back to Anne’s speech about purpose. Altair isn’t technically human in the Luxendarc sense, he’s a Celestial, but he managed to find his own greater purpose and it made him stronger

“You must all live your own lives as well. Have courage! Be brave enough to default on the expectations of others!” WE DID IT BOYS, PACK IT UP, WE GOT A TITLE DROP. In all honesty, though, I love what the games say the symbolism of each title is. To “Bravely Default” is “to have the courage to go against the expectations of others” and to “Bravely Second” is “to have the courage to try again,” and by doing each of those can you get the best ending in each game, further enforcing their message (even if I thought it was a little botched in Default. You're supposed to be going against what Sage Yulyana says... by following Airy, who you were going along with from the start, so there’s really no “courage” involved. Gameplay-wise you never actually disobey anyone, because you completely obey Airy, though I suppose you still have to disobey Sage to an extent, who you trust more at that point)

Tiz has a point, too. Maybe Altair is content with the life he had, but it’s still not fair for all of his efforts to be rewarded with his and Vega’s suffering

Our road-markers in this room are banquet tables with a nice Christmas dinner on them. I was hoping for Christmas trees, but that’ll work, too

Seems like this is our final Tent Event. Magnolia’s cooking is fantastic as always, but the stress is getting to Edea. She’s so worried she can barely even eat, and Altair’s story has really shaken her. Of course it would effect her the most. She knows better than anyone what it feels like to be separated from someone you love across time and space. They’ve packed the leftover food for sandwiches. They’ll eat when they’re ready. One more megalixir, as a gift from our fox friend who I notice found his way into a dimensional rift, and we’re on our way

The final room is a straight bridge, adorned with roses, candles, and floral archways. The background is a church on a hill, blossoming trees on either side and doves soaring across the sky in the background. Ba’al i: Turtle Dove. Altair and Vega’s wedding. This one doesn’t need an explanation from Altair. Just one last save point between us and the end. Don’t think I haven’t noticed you’ve somehow gotten in here, too, Adventurer.

“This is it... our final battle!”

“Let’s do it!”

We’re in a chapel, with nothing but soft wind. Unlike the silhouettes of the Ba’al backgrounds, this is undeniably physical. And gorgeous. Very Baroque in its architecture

Vega’s voice is so much softer than I imagined it would be

I thought she sounded familiar. It’s Eden Riegel, who also voices Anne, so her range is commendable. For those curious, she also voices Iris in Final Fantasy XV, Devola and Popola in NieR and NieR Automata (I think what tipped me off was how similar her Vega and Popola voices are), Marie in Persona 4: Golden and its spinoffs, and Estelle in Tales of Vesperia. And those are just the ones I recognize! Her older brother is Sam Riegel, also a voice actor of renown and player on the D&D show Critical Role, which exclusively stars voice actors. Sam’s great, and probably one of the funniest people on that show. Good to see Eden’s doing great work, too

I guess the thing of note, though, is that she is NOT the voice who narrated the ends of Chapters 1-4 as I had suspected. Her voice is decidedly softer and not British. But if that wasn’t Vega, then who?

She’s so lost in her despair. She’s begging Altair to explain why he left, and why he didn’t come back. She won’t even listen to him explain that he tried, that he died and just couldn’t make it back

Someone told her the wrong meeting place to meet Altair that day. The reason she wasn’t on the ship was because someone didn’t want her on the ship

Ohhhhhh I did not like the voice distortion on “Why didn’t you protect me? Why didn’t you keep me safe!?”

Fuck, Altair? Altair! He just collapsed screaming with black and purple mist coming off of him. Black and purple mist that just formed a robed raven-faced humanoid with the worst voice distortion I’ve ever heard

Hey, are you Providence!? Get off of my weird vegetable-proverb spouting friend, jackass!

I can’t tell if that’s Vega’s voice layered under Providence’s or just another feminine voice. Could be Anne’s, too, since they’re both Eden Riegel

Also, Providence’s theme is pretty great? It’s got hints of the Ba’al music boxes, with a one woman wail in the background

“I’ve never tasted anything so exquisite!” Were you eating her despair? Of course that’s all she was to you. A food factory. And the sadder and more hopeless she got, the better for you, right? God, you’re like depression made physical. I’ve always wanted to punch the concept of depression

She’s held on for so long because she desperately hoped to see Altair one more time. And you used it against her!

And you saw Luxendarc, the world that was intended to be her safe haven and the place Altair was, and decided you were going to use her to power its destruction to break her further by making her feel guilty. What did she ever do to you!?

Okay, two things. One, you’re a fucking dick and I’m gonna strangle you with your own ribbons. Two, the T-pose doesn’t look any better on you than it did on Anne

That’s my boy! “We deny you because we are mortal! [...] our emotions, the memories we create with others - good or bad, this is all we have! I deny your right to claim them for your own!”

“I’m done letting you use the hearts of our friends as your personal plaything! We’re gonna send you flying to the edge of time and space!” Crush a god, Edea! This jackass has no place ruling anyone

Oh, Tiz. “He might be goofy on the surface... uh, like a cantaloupe? But inside is a sweet and sensitive soul! He’s suffered long enough, Providence! It ends today!” This is as much for Altair and Vega as it is the safety of Luxendarc. But, like, I am especially going to kill you for what you did to Vega. No one deserves God Depression

“Nothing is ever hopeless! It’s never too late, you’re never too weak to fight for what you truly believe in! I believe in a world ruled by hope, not despair. And thanks to my friends, I have the courage to fight for it!” Bravely Second, Magnolia. Bravely Second

Oh, poor baby. The light hurts your eyes? Shut them and make it easier for me to end you

That fight background is awesome! We stand in a grassy field, surrounded by telephone lines. A city skyline in the distance. A freaking GALAXY in the sky, with red-violet clouds. And this music is perfect. So perfect! Grand orchestral scores, with sections of electric guitar and lo-fi beats, all held together by sweeping chants. Holy shit, Providence may look pretty dumb, but this fight’s oozing style

What... so Providence can force a party member to do do his bidding? Like having Magnolia try to strike Yew down. That’s not great, but your first instance of doing so is using my healer to attack. And I’m supposed to be scared of you!?

Get him down enough and he starts consuming Vega’s energy to heal up 10,000 HP every few seconds. Fucking rude. Altair’s so upset he took over Tiz and is screaming for Vega... who can hear him. And she’s fighting back! All Altair had to do was tell her the compass was completed and their dreams could come true and her hope reignited!

This ass can still cast Doom, though

OR HE CAN JUST SAY “YOUR LIFE ENDS HERE” AND WIPE THE PARTY. God... dammit. Like, actually damn this god. What a dick. This is what I get for trying to have Yew conserve his MP. Chainspell Meteor Rain is prepped for next round, bitch

I could easily skip replaying this scene, but I wanted to watch my kids trash-talk Providence’s ideals again

God, I forgot to take Obliterate off of Tiz AGAIN. I know it won’t ever work and it’s just wasting a slot right now. I’d still die laughing if it worked, though

That can’t be the end. This is a JRPG, there’s at least one, probably two more forms coming. And come on, you only drop 980pg? What, are you a broke god? What an ass

Vega’s pink soul seems to be freed, though. And Altair’s spirit finally leaves Tiz, his color being blue. They’re really cute together, even if they are just floating, colored orbs

Is... is Tiz gonna be okay, though? Altair’s soul was kinda fueling his... everything

We shouldn’t keep them, though. I think it’s time for both of them to move on. Gonna miss ya, Altair. I know I’ve made fun of you in the past, but I’m glad you were part of this journey

“Keep your hearts like chamomile!” Just had to get one more in there, huh?

I’m so glad Vega’s here to make sense of this. “Chamomile is said to grow best and strongest when trodden on, you see.” So learn from our hardships, and continue to grow ever stronger. Stay stalwart in the face of adversity. Can do, you crazy, crazy Celestial man. Can do

Oh, so I have Vega to thank for your absurd produce tirades? She started the proverbs to get him to eat vegetables. Jeez, Altair, you sound like my dad. The man’s in his mid-50s and still refuses to eat any vegetables but corn and peas. Which SUCKS because I LOVE vegetables, and we only get to eat a bunch of ‘em at family dinners if he’s not around. I had a vegetable burger last night and it was GREAT

“And eat your vegetables.” YEAH, THANKS. I will! Somebody get me a carrot right now! (I’d get one but I don’t feel like peeling one at 9:30 at night, which is when I’m typing this)

Awwww. Altair finally ate vegetables once he got to Luxendarc because they reminded him of Vega

Yew should confess to Magnolia, WE GET IT. Let him figure out his own emotions! Stop pressuring my boy!

Bye, you two! May your afterlife together hold only the best!

Ohhhhh that’s what happened. Okay. So when Providence used Mandate of Heaven to have Magnolia attack Yew, she wouldn’t actually do that on her own. I had to make her do it, and because I didn’t in the set timeframe he used Divine Punishment to wipe the party. I totally misunderstood what was happening there, since Magnolia had negative BP and couldn’t move, and the very next turn was when I triggered the mid-boss cutscene with Altair. The second time I simply killed him on the turn after he cast it on Tiz, so it didn’t matter. That’s a very bullshit tactic and I am eternally grateful to Meteor Rain Geneolgia over there for ending the fight in a timely fashion

WAIT. Remove Obliterate from Tiz, genius. And heal. Trust no one

Hahahahaha okay, yeah. Yeah. I was expecting a cutscene before round two, and I’ll admit the harsh cut to the screen-shattering battle intro when I tried to leave the room made me jump a bit

This is what I saw a screenshot of before I played the game. Before the game even came out in English, even. I was looking up Airy’s sister after beating Default, because I saw the art of the Kaiser and Anne, assumed she was Airy’s sister, and wanted to know if she had a name. Saw the line “Anne works for Providence” and a low-res picture of Providence and clicked out immediately, but was left with the knowledge that the final boss was a purple pyramid named Providence. Seeing it now, there’s so much more to it than I remembered

We cut to the sky, a brilliant blue galaxy that the party is floating in. Magenta clouds adorn the top and bottom of the screen, and from them semi-mechanical, semi-organic looking hands of magenta and black descend, fingers wiggling. An inverse pyramid comes out of the cloud, and the gigantic eye in the center opens and glances around manically. An inverse Eye of Providence, that grants only poor fortune

Tiz, you should know better than to think this was the end. Ouroboros had, like, two forms and five phases

Providence’s voice is distinctly feminine now. And now that he’s unchained from Vega... there’s no internal fight to hold him back

“Who is it that controls you?” *Providence’s eye looks directly at the camera* What? What? I’m his aunt/mother figure/big sis/etc.! And I’ve done a hell of a job keeping him alive, thanks. I don’t see you standing against that Meteor Rain for long!

Man, what is up with this naming scheme? The hands are labeled Providence B and Ab, and the pyramid is labeled Providence Aa

O-oh? Providence can use its own Bravely Second while I’m in the menu? It... did barely any damage, but that’s startling

He’s pulling a *redacted character* Undertale and I will not stand for this! (I actually super love Undertale and I’m excited that Bravely’s pulling the same meta nonsense in battles that the final Genocide run fight of Undertale did)

I... You’re talking to me? Me, Liz, the person sitting here. I... look, I know these kids don’t actually know who I am, that all of the affection I have for them is one-sided. I know my poor decisions have gotten them hurt on occasion. Would you rather I have never played the game? What would that have gotten them? Sometimes you have to struggle for a resolution that benefits everyone, for a good resolution. I will never regret getting Tiz out of that Chasm. Or saving Yew from Denys. Because all of those kids standing there deserve a happy ending and I want to see them get it!

“Persist in this battle, and Yew and his friends will only feel more pain.” Said in a tutorial description box. Look, I want Yew Geneolgia to be happy, okay!? I’m gonna get him a good end! If I stop he ends up stuck in the Via Celestio for eternity! I’m getting him and Tiz and Edea and Magnolia home and you. Can’t. Stop me.

“Isn’t it enough? How much more must they suffer to satisfy you?” Ideally, none! I don’t want to see them hurt, but I want to see them fail to save their world and lose everyone they love even less. Tiz is gonna retire, Edea’s gonna be Grand Marshal, Magnolia’s home is gonna be safe, and Yew is gonna make a new family legacy that he can be proud of! That’s all I want out of this!

You think you can make me feel bad by treating me like I’m just here for the gameplay? Because battles are fun? Joke’s on you, I don’t really care about gameplay! I’m here because I love these kids and I want to spend more time with them! I want to see them grow and find their happy endings, and they give me hope that someday I can find one of my own. SO FUCK OFF

You aren’t my god, bitch

It... means you can cause screen and audio static? Hey, idiot, I do that to myself, accidentally

You don’t control me! You control my input device at best!

Stop that. Stop making my kids hurt each other. I’m not the one who wants them to suffer, that’s clearly you. I would never have the game play at normal speed. 4x or bust

Despair? Oh, this isn’t despair. I’m just fucking pissed. Sorry. I don’t really get sad when there’s a target to take my anger out on actively taunting me

Yeah, fine, just boot me to the start screeeeee-NO. Hey. NO. Take that cursor off of delete. I’ve accidentally deleted save files before don’t do that! Mmmmmm every button just makes it go closer to “Delete All” come onnnnnnn. I will replay this game over if I have to, Providence! I’ll be back in another two years you can’t stop me

I don’t want to press the button. I know I have to. I know the game devs couldn’t possibly be so cruel as to actually erase the files. Not to constantly bring this fight back to Undertale, but it didn’t get me when your save file got “deleted” at the end of a neutral run. It’s so much worse in this game when you have to press the button multiple times and inch it ever closer to delete, knowing full well that the only way to avoid it is to give up and turn the game off

...I hope the game, like, records how long it takes me to finally press that button. I’m just making entries here to stall at this point

Changed into pajamas, went to the bathroom, and messed around with the current timed quest in Hogwarts Mystery for a bit and they still want me to press the button, huh?

...fine. Supposedly there’s a shield that you can only get if you play through the whole game on Hard (EDIT: Nope! The wiki was wrong again) so I’d have to go another round, anyway. Do it, Providence. I dare you

JUST LET ME PRESS “NO” YOU WIGGLY FINGERED BITCH

Yew! Yew, buddy, I’m trying!

THANK YOU MY PRECIOUS BOY. I DID NOT EQUIP YOU WITH A SWORD BUT THAT WAS STILL BADASS AND I’M SO PROUD OF YOU

Ahhhhh! Orchestral version of his theme! I’m actually crying I love this boy

“There’s someone who’s been here, supporting me, all this time.” Yes, hi! Hi, kiddo. You’re great! You’re so wonderful. You probably didn’t see me wave at you when my face appeared in the Norende Ravine, but you’re awesome and I’ve never been prouder of someone

“I’m fighting for you, too!” And I want you to be happy! (I’ll be honest, having Yew talk directly to me is really powerful. I just wanna, like, poke the screen where his hand is and high-five him. Best boy)

YEW GENEOLGIA LOVES ME MORE THAN ANYONE ELSE IN THE WORLD DOES

Nope, I’m actually crying. Hahah. My favorite character thinks I’m cool. That’s a hell of a self-esteem boost

“It’s your will, and mine! We’re in this fight together!” Always, buddy. Whenever you need me

He used the letters SP from the title screen to activate the hourglass. That’s so smart I love the nerd kid

Yeah, Agnès, I love you guys! I’ll always come back to defend your world, even if just to see you again!

Janne. Janne, I really do not like you. Please shut up. Your encouragement is just making fun of me for helping Yew? Wow. Okay. I see you’ve learned nothing

At least Nikolai is grateful for me giving even the empire’s people a second chance

You know what, Minette? I’m glad you’re happy. I hope you get therapy! But a new dad is okay for now

Bella is... smiling? AND HELL YEAH, MAN. I’ll keep fighting for you, Cú! Some conceited eyeball ain’t gonna stop me!

Norzen you-you had glasses this whole time? Wow, I could not tell from a distance! Sure, cloud grandpa. Stars. Yes

Aimee did you and Angelo... really do anything? A’ight, sure, I’ll save your romantic future

Yeah, I can make it as if Providence never existed, Geist. “‘Cause this is our world, right? And you were a part of it, too!” Yeah, I was, Rev. Thanks, kid

So the screen shattered and... DENYS! Hey! Hey someone grab his ass right now! Someone save Denys please he’s right THERE!

“Promise me... that you will watch over my brother. Farewell, my friend... and thank you!” You deserved so much better, Denys. Sorry it doesn’t seem like saving you is in the cards right now. The second I can, I will. Then we can look after Yew together!

My emotions hold power... OH I’M PRETTY SURE BOTH MY RIGHTEOUS ANGER AND LOVE OF YEW TRANSCEND TIME AND SPACE. That’s MY BOY!!!

...oh shit he’s out of MP uhhhhhhhhhhhh

Thank god I never use items and had Elixirs

Get. WRECKED. Singlehandedly. By Yew Geneolgia triple-casting Meteor Rain after Tiz and Edea took out the hands

Also, I didn’t mention, but the music for this fight does exactly what I adored in “Serpent Eating the Ground” last game: most of it is clearly the boss’s dramatic song (already really great, as mentioned in Providence Round 1), but then partway through it cuts to remixes of each party member’s Special Attack song, melded together into one flowing number that completely overrides the Boss’s sound, in a musical indicator of our triumph. There’s some of the main theme of the game, in a sense, I guess you could say representing the player. And I think I heard a bit of Denys’s boss theme in that section. Fitting. He did send me back to the party, after all. And this section only starts up once Yew cuts through Providence’s manipulation, furthering the sense of triumph as the party actively overrides Providence

Well, that’s that, huh? Everyone’s back on Luxendarc, the path to the Celestial Realm is closed, and Altair and Vega have finally moved on together. Seems... there’s not much more I can do for you guys, huh?

...where’s Tiz?

Nonononononnooooo I knew he wasn’t gonna be okay without Altair. No, come on. Tiz, you can’t do this to me again! He just wants to retire

I... should we hang up on Agnès? I don’t know if I want her to watch this. Can’t we just shove me into Tiz again? I can keep the game running until my 3DS’s inevitable complete destruction

Y-y- ...I see. Vaguely British female voice? It was you all along, my Adventurer friend. Or should I say, miss Narrator? By what strange trick of fate do our paths cross anew?

No, Magnolia! She clearly knows... something. And I can tell she’s more than what she seems. How else... could she have made it into the Via Celestio on her own?

I can’t watch Tiz go comatose again. If you’ve got a way to save him, do it already

“But what is a soul? But the embodiment of our wishes, dreams, and desires.” Ummm... the metaphysical culmination of a person’s being? I’ve never quantified a soul before

Fill Tiz’s body... with the dreams needed to bind his soul. And uh, Yew? Yew. Is dumping the hourglass sand on him the best idea?

Oh. That’s how you ended up in those dungeons. You can just open warp gates. I see.

And she handed the hourglass to Tiz in the past... on his way to the Norende Chasm, where we first got the ability to use it in Default. And she was wearing green. I can’t for the life of me remember if she ever wore green in Default, but it wouldn’t surprise me given the amount of sequel nods there were in the international release. What, do you just change into green when you go to the past so your past self knows what’s up?

So ideally, we now have an hourglass with two games, or two and a half years’ worth of dreams in it

Did you create a time loop where the hourglass didn’t exist until Tiz had it and won’t exist after, or did we have two hourglasses and never notice?

Where would that even be hidden on Tiz’s body!? He was in a medical jumpsuit! ...oh, ew. I really hope it was in his pants legs and not... elsewhere

Oh, good, Agnès has it. Whew. Crisis averted

And the Adventurer finally introduces herself. A long, silver-haired woman named Deneb. One of Altair and Vega’s old friends. And, most importantly, probably another Celestial. Possibly the last one alive on Luxendarc

*Great Distance starts up for one last go* Run Agnès! Run with all you’ve got!

Credits are rolling. Let’s see those happy endings we all worked so hard to get

Nikolai is back in the priesthood, preaching to the New Crystalguard, of which Janne seems to be a member. I’m happy for Nikolai, still mad Janne never got over himself, but we can’t win ‘em all. Best of luck, gents! Call me in a few years when Janne has finally grown up

Bella and Cú are just walking around in... Eisen? Ah, well. They’ve got each other. Hope they find a home that accepts horsemen. And I owe you a two a special thanks! The Spellcraft and Triple Wield abilities carried this team, and the Yew Meteor Rain strategy couldn’t have happened without it!

Norzen is back to teaching, and Rifa and Pudgius are glad to have him there

Minette’s happily sailing with her new dad and his cat in his little rowboat. Remember what I said! Therapy!

Aimee and Angelo... did not set up shop in Gathelatio. Or they just haven’t moved locations yet. Pancake business is booming either way (You guys should seriously move, though. If more adventurers find out that Obliterating Chompettes is some of the best experience in the game, they’ll just loiter outside your shop all day and scare away customers! Customers that I’m surprised you even have at the deepest spot in a high level dungeon. ...maybe that’s the actual problem with your current location)

Geist and Rev are... standing around posing in the old seaside shack that was sold to Profiteur? He’d better not have gone back on his deal after I defended him like that!

Aw, Lotus is teaching Sakura to fly the Rubadub. I’m glad those two were with us through this journey

And Great Distance fades out as Agnès arrives, no more distance between her and Tiz any longer

“Good morning... Agnès.” Don’t ever scare us like that again, buddy. Happy retirement

*Great Distance back for Round 2* And now we’ve got the party epilogues!

The new Grand Marshal of Eternia contemplates what to do next, her second-in-command Alternis at her side. When faced with a conflict between two factions, Edea decides she has to go herself, because if anyone can make them see eye-to-eye, it would be her. And I believe her. Alternis declares that he would go to the ends of the world for her, in a way that makes you question whether it was Ringabel or not. Given the way Edea looked forlornly down at her feet, I’ll say “not,” making this a bittersweet end for her

With the peace talks over, Agnès has resigned as Pope, leaving everything to the Matriarch and new Vestal, Sylvie. No longer a Vestal, she has no reason to cling to the surname of those wed to the Crystals, Oblige. No, she’d rather be Agnès Arrior. And now she and Tiz are engaged and planning to move to Norende as farmers. I’m happy for you kids! Enjoy retirement with your sheep. You’ve both earned it

Music fades out again as we cut to Magnolia in the Buster Ship, musing about how wonderful Luxendarc was. Yew races to where he first met her... but her ship is already blasting off back to the Moon. And a ballad starts up as Magnolia walks up to him after he laments that he never confessed. That confession is as awkward as I hoped it would be. And then Magnolia winks at the camera (hi!) and muses about how love really can transcend time and space. Turns out, people on the Moon only tell their true names to the person they wish to marry... and she just whispered something into a very red-faced Yew’s ear. Cute! Just remember he’s 16. Give him a few years to get his bearings, Magnolia. I have no idea how old you are, but maybe take it a little slower. Best of luck, you dorks

One final shot. The Geneolgia mansion foyer, but this time Foundar’s portrait is gone. Now it’s a portrait of Yew, Tiz, Edea, Magnolia, and Agnès eating dinner together... with Denys standing behind them. This is the real Geneolgia family. The one that deserves to be celebrated.

And there goes my name in the credits. Thank you, Bravely Second team. It was a hell of a time and a hell of an undertaking. Almost two years since I started this liveblog, and it evolved rapidly from just a few reactionary bullet points to a full on analysis/reaction. And I’m really glad I did it. I’ve gotten to talk to some cool people thanks to this, and I hope they enjoyed the ride as much as I did!

I really wish I could stick around, kids, but I guess that’s just not how games work. Just let me know if you ever need me again, and I’ll be there. And this time maybe it won’t take me two and a half years to get to it. I’ll do my best!

One final scene, post-credits. Ringabel narrates that they found “the third key,” The Sword of the Brave, to a Vice President over a hyperrealistic shot of the moon

And now we have the final, true New Game+. I love the sparkly little border on the cleared file. But, hey, this isn’t the end yet! The Bestiary isn’t complete! We’re still missing items! And it’s all thanks to the three postgame dungeons! ...but I won’t bore you with that unless there’s demand for it

That being said, there’s still going to be one more update! I plan to do one final retrospective on this game as a whole. What it did wrong, what it did right, and my overall thoughts on the experience. I understand if that’s not everyone’s cup of tea, though, so for those who won’t be joining me, I hope you had a good time reading and thank you for spending the time to look at my ramblings on games I like. For those joining me for the retrospective, thanks for reading! Until next time!