#raw radar war

[gotankgo]

2011

[theinfinitedivides]

have been listening to the Pathaan OST on and off for almost three weeks(?) now since its release and Vishal-Shekhar really said they'd give some of the best songs in their career to the gays in War (2019) and then took the leftovers to give to the king of Bollywood,,,,,, i'm crying

[j-psilas]

Will we ever get anything quite like Code Geass again?

I don't think it's possible.

Code Geass is Japanese nationalist propaganda disguised as a global political drama, disguised as a military mecha show, disguised as yaoibait, disguised as a teen melodrama, disguised as a high school romcom, disguised as a Pizza Hut commercial...

...except those layers aren't layers at all, but are instead comingled in a giant snake ball of insanity.

The lead writer, Ichirō Ōkouchi, only ever worked as an episode writer for other shows prior to Code Geass, and never took the helm of an anime series ever again. And it shows. [EDIT: Several people have pointed out his other lead writing credits to me. So I misread Wikipedia—sue me. I maintain that this guy is a better episode writer than he is a lead writer.]

The minute-to-minute pacing is impeccable from a mechanical standpoint, with tension and stakes rising to ever-higher peaks, balanced out by the slow simmers of the b-plot and c-plot. It keeps the viewer on the edge of their seat at all times. Meanwhile, the large-scale plot is the most off-the-wall middle school nonsense I've ever seen, continually surprising the viewer by pulling twists too dumb to have ever have been on their radar—and therefore more effective in terms of raw shock value.

"Greenlight it!" was the mantra of this anime's production. It must have been. It has, in no particular order, all of the following:

Character designs from CLAMP, the foremost yaoi/BL group in Japan at the time—for characters who are only queer insofar as they can bait the audience, and only straight insofar as they can be more misogynist to the female cast.

Speaking of the female cast, hoo boy the fanservice. We've all seen anime girls breast boobily, with many cases more egregious than Code Geass, but there's something special about it happening immediately after—or sometimes in the middle of!—scenes of military conflict and ethnic cleansing.

Pizza Hut product placement everywhere, in every conceivable situation. High-speed chases, light slice-of-life scenes, intimate character moments, all of it. Gotta have Pizza Hut.

The anime-only Pizza Hut mascot, Cheese-kun. He wears a fedora.

The most hilarious approximations of European names—which I would love to see more often, frankly. Names like, I dunno, "Count Schnitzelgrübe zi Blanquezzio."

A depiction of China that is wholly removed from any modern reality, with red-and-gold pagodas, ornamental robes, scheming eunuchs, and a brainwashed child empress. There's a character named General Tsao, like the chicken.

Inappropriate free-form jazz in the soundtrack, intruding at the most unexpected times.

A secret cabal not unlike the Illuminati, run by an immortal shota with magic powers, holding influence all across the world, at the highest levels of government. They matter for approximately three episodes.

An unexpected insert scene of a schoolgirl using the corner of a table to masturbate. She's doing it to thoughts of her crush, the princess Euphemia—because she believes Euphemia to be as racist as she herself is, and that gets her off. This interrupts an unrelated scene of our protagonist faction planning their next move, which then resumes as if uninterrupted.

Said schoolgirl, in a fit of hysteria, threatens to detonate a worse-than-nuclear bomb in the middle of her school. She then goes on to develop an even more destructive version of that bomb, and become a war criminal, in a chain of cause-and-effect stemming from the moment she finds out that Euphemia wasn't actually that racist.

A character called "the Earl of Pudding."

A premise that asks us to believe that the name Lelouch is normal enough that he didn't need to change it when he went into hiding as an ordinary civilian. "No, that's not Prince Strimbleford von Vanquish! That's our classmate, Strimbleford Smith."

The collective unconscious, a la Carl Jung, within which the protagonist fights his villainous father for control over the fate of humankind. After this is over, the anime just keeps going for about ten more episodes.

An episode in which a mech tosses a giant pizza.

A gay yandere sleeper agent who can manipulate the perception of time.

Chess being played very badly, even to the untrained eye. Lelouch frequently checkmates his opponent by moving his king. This goes hand-in-hand with the anime's crock of bad chess symbolism.

A fictional drug that can most succinctly be described as "nostalgia heroin."

Roller-skating mecha in knightly armor, and some of the most sickass mecha fight choreography that I've seen.

I could go on and on, but I think you get the picture. This anime is what the average Westerner in 2006 thought anime was, and it was made in a confluence of factors that cannot be replicated. I've never had so much fun watching something that I found so... insulting. Repugnant. Ridiculous. Baffling. I love it sincerely.

Catch me cosplaying Lloyd Asplund at a con sometime, or maybe even the big gay loser himself, Lelouch vi Britannia.

[jpitha]

Between the Black and Grey 70

First / Previous / Next

Fen awoke to Ma standing over her, smiling with her eyes. "Fenchurch, you really know how to get into a mess, you know that right?"

Fen sat up. Here, she didn't hurt. "What can I say Ma? I'm tired of being told what to do, and am doing things that I want to do."

She nodded once and put her hand out to help her up. "Good. You're learning." Fen stood up and looked around. It was the same old place it always was, but they were alone in the forest. "It'll be hard though."

"hmm?" Fen wasn't listening.

"Doing things that you want to do. It's hard. It's easier to just listen to everyone else and do what they say."

Fen chuckled. "That's hard too Ma. No matter what I pick, it's hard."

"Yes," Ma agreed. "That's life."

Fen came back, pain still there, disorientation still there, but now she was also floating in space. Her suit was helpfully flashing all kinds of warnings about being adrift in space but she was able to dismiss them. The beacons on her head and shoulders flashed to alert any potential rescuers that she was out here, but scans from the - admittedly - low power radar on the suit indicated she was alone.

Except she wasn't.

Where once there was just her expeditionary force and the white hole was now a... nebula.

It was beautiful.

No, more than that, it was stunning. Rainbow colors, swirling, dancing around her, visible in every direction. She was awash in a sea of color. But why? Was it the nanites?

As she floating in space, Fen stared at once location while time passed. She was sure that the nebula was very slowly moving. With a gasp that turned into a coughing fit, she realized what she was seeing.

It was a war.

The Nanites and Han'iel's nanites had consumed the entirety of the expeditionary force as raw material, and were now around her in the tens of trillions, fighting. The concentration of machines was so dense that she could see them.

Fen thought to herself, well okay Fenchurch. You came back here and you're making your own decisions now. So now what? Fen thought about the implant. It would make a dent in the volume of nanites here, and might be the tipping point to end the battle, but was she ready to do that? No. Not yet at least. Besides, if she did that now the virus in her body would never spread. She had to get closer.

Ugh, but how? The suit had maneuvering jets, but they weren't meant to be used for millions of kilometers. She could link again and get closer, but then that would be it. She'd be stuck. She queried the suit. 'Power options?'

INTERNAL BATTERIES 80%. USEFUL LIFE AT CURRENT POWER OUTPUT - 100 SOL STANDARD DAYS.

Well. At least she's starve to death before she froze to death. She tried again. 'Are the batteries sufficient to operate the wormhole link backpack?'

QUERYING... NEGATIVE. SUIT BATTERIES WOULD BE DEPLETED.

'Recharging options?'

CONNECT TO POWER ON SHIP OR STATION.

Ugh, it didn't have like, solar panels or anything? Fen had no idea about suit design, but she felt like something like that as a last resort would have been useful. 'Radio?'

LOCAL AREA ONLY. NO SIGNALS IN RANGE CURRENTLY.

Dammit. It turned out that an emergency rescue spacesuit wasn't just a teeny spaceship after all.

While Fen was working through her options and arguing with her suit, the nebula slowly came closer to her. She noticed as the color outside her face shield changed, and she looked up and gasped. What she had thought was a slow wheeling progression of the nebula was actually the nanites moving at tremendous speed. They had traversed the distance to her in less than two hours. Before she realized what was happening, the swirl of color surrounded her suit. Red warnings flashed in her vision SUIT INTEGRITY COMPROMISED. SUIT INTEGRITY COMPROMISED. Her suit was being eaten for material.

"Oh fuck." She said aloud, "now you've done it."

Ah, Empress. You are alive after all. The voice was practically liquid in its smugness.

"I could say the same thing about you. How goes the war with Han'iel's creation?"

We persevere, Fen. We were built well.

"Oh goody. You can talk to me as well." Fen sighed. "Well, as it appears that I am being consumed for raw materials in your battle, you had better say your pieces before I'm gone entirely."

Gone? You're not going anywhere. You forget we can manipulate matter on any scale.

Don't worry Fen. Once these nanites are destroyed, we will take good care of you. Han'iel's nanites spoke to her with a K'laxi accent. Almost but not quite sounding like Han'iel himself.

Take care of you? They can't even tak-- Her original nanites started to argue again but stopped sudddenly. What did you do?

"Whatever do you mean?" Fen said innocently, while grinning wickedly. It was going to work.

You have introduced a... pathogen. How?

"Don't worry about how, worry about your own damn survival now. I don't even care that I'm out in space alone because I got you. Neither of you will be able to come up with a counter in time."

We shall see about that.

Both of the nanites pulled out of her mind quickly, without taking care to be gentle. Through the blinding headache they left, Fen was laughing. It worked! It really worked! Her idea worked! "See Ma? I did it! I beat them. Not Gord, not the Empire, ME!" She shouted.

Before her eyes, the nebula changed. Rather than a dancing, swirling rainbow colored cloud, it was slowly - but surely - turning gray. The virus was taking over the nanites, using them to make more, and then disassembling what was left.

Fen floated, between the black and the gray, and watched them die.

****

"They think we have Fen!" Chloe shouted, as Gord took control of the ship's operation to dodge the attacks.

"Well, we kinda did." Gord said, trying to keep his voice reasonable as he concentrated.

"We - you - saved her life!"

"Yes. but they don't know that, Chloe. We never told them. I was going to, but then there was the nanite thing, and we had to put her in hibernation, and then the virus... I dropped the ball." Gord did the virtual equivalent of a shrug. "They don't usually shoot first and ask questions later though."

"They don't? Gord, are we talking about the same humans?"

"Okay okay, sometimes they do. Open a channel, I'll explain it."

"They closed communication." Chloe scanned the logs. "Looks like they opened all frequencies and asked for an explanation... and someone told them to kick rocks."

"Who?"

Chloe shook her head. "Don't know. They were far away, probably out near Jupiter or further. They were on at least a couple minute delay."

"Dammit!" Gord swore and went over to the comm set. He set the power output to full and opened all the channels. As he did so, he moved some relays and rerouted power from the reactor. As environmental powered down, his array powered up. Across Sol, everyone's comm array was overcome with static. Media players, comm arrays, and even some larger metallic structures all obeyed his command. For now, Gord was the Loudest thing in Sol. "Attention Humanity. We do not have Empress Fenchurch. We did, but she left on her own. If you stop shooting and take an Ancestors damned BREATHER, we can discuss this." Gord cut the connection and put the power back where it was. Times like this he was annoyed that he couldn't snap a physical toggle closed. It was much more satisfying.

****

"Empress?!" The weapons officer looked over at Penny.

Penny was trying very hard to hide her expression, but she didn't have Fen's experience. Her eyes were giving it away, Zhe noticed. She was frightened out of her mind. "S-Stand down. Weapons to idle."

As the weapons powered down, and the ship got off of its battle footing, one of the younger officers eye's went wide. "Empress... you should see this," and gestured. She and Zhe looked down at their pads.

And stared at the stardrive of Home.

Before Home was the... well, home of the AIs, it was a colony ship. Nearly a third the size of High Mars Hyacinth, it was designed to streak through interstellar space, bringing thirty thousand humans in hibernation and enough supplies to start up at least three cities. Six were launched, three made it, one blew up just outside of Sol, and two were lost. This was one of them. In order to thrust up to 50% of C, the colony ships had positively titanic star drives. Large enough to swallow a Starjumper, their exhaust would streak behind for hundreds of kilometers when under full thrust.

And one was pointed directly at them.

They hadn't planned on running, they had planned on lighting their stardrive, Zhe realized with a shudder. Her fur puffed out in fear. She knew the value of the human's old drives as a weapon. She looked over at Penny; she hadn't figured it out. Zhe flicked her ears in irritation. Leave it to humans to forget about their own weapons.

"Penn-Empress." Zhe said gently. "They pointed their stardrive at us. They were going to fire it."

"And run away? They have a wormhole generator, why run away with their old stardrive?"

"We-el, yes, they would start moving." Zhe said carefully, "but more importantly the drive exhaust would have reduced us to our constituent atoms."

"Oh" Penny said, and then her eyes widened when she parsed what Zhe said. "Oh."

"Yes," Zhe nodded. "On the Heap we're taught to never go behind a human ship. We were never going to win this engagement."

Penny's shoulders slumped. "They don't have Fen and we were nearly destroyed." She looked at Zhe and mouthed "What do I do?"

"Empress?" Zhe said, in a normal tone of voice. "I recommend we open a channel to Gord's ship and take him up on his offer to talk. We can learn what they know, and maybe work together to find out what happened to Fen. After all-" She flicked her ears as she spoke "-if the AI faction supports you, then your claim to the throne is that much more valid."

Penny's eyes shone. She was holding back tears. "Yes, that is an excellent suggestion. Comms, reach out to Gord's ship and let the know we wish to talk." She looked again at Zhe, blinked her tears away and whispered, "Thank you."

Zhe's face was impassive, but her tail swished behind her.

[callsignmarz]

MDNI |18+| König x Reader

TW- slightly suggestive, explicit language & sexual content.

“Prisoner Of War”

“Du bist gut, Schatz. But, I’m better.”

(You are good, Dear.)

For years, you’ve been on König’s radar.

You were quite the problem.

Always two steps ahead and leaving pandemonium behind.

What was supposed to be a simple contract ended up being a diverting game of cat and mouse. Admittedly, the hunt was exhilarating. It wasn’t everyday he encountered someone with your set of skills.

Unpredictable. Cunning. Dangerous.

But, needless to say, all games must come to an end.

His boots scuffed the asphalt, slowly pacing with his hands clasped behind his back, savoring the celebratory taste of victory like it were an old fashioned cocktail. The steel blue gaze that peered underneath his sniper hood, did nothing compared to the metal cuffs chafing your wrists raw.

“Es tut mir Leid, wunderschön. (I’m sorry, beautiful.)”

His tone full of mockery. “I had to ensure you weren’t going anywhere.”

A disdainful scoff pushes past your lips in response, your legs cross with confident ease. “Why, afraid you’ll never see me again and miss me too much?”

Despite the many encounters, König had forgotten that smart ass mouth of yours. It always did something to him. Never once in the years he’s worked as a mercenary, has anyone ever talked to him in such a manner.

Only you.

“Such insolence…” He snarled, forging his tone with disgust as he circled back to stand behind you with his eyes boring into the back of your head. “Did you forget who graced you by sparing your pitiful life or do I need to remind you?”

Your lips pursed at the very question with the memory of your humiliating defeat thrown back in your face.

Vexation spindles within as you dwell on how you were so blinded by arrogance that it left yourself wide open, practically handed him the win.

Just to prove a point, the thick metal chains rattle when König’s large hands suddenly slammed down on either side of you with his body pressing against your back, caging you in nothing but pure muscle and authority.

“I believe I asked you a question, Schatz. (Dear.)”

König’s voice sunk to a low octave as he slouched down, the fabric of his hood lightly brushes the outer part of your ear and you feel the warmth of his breath through the material, completely electrifying your nerve endings.

In turn, he couldn’t help but notice how tame you’ve become. A flicker of unwarranted desire reflects in König’s eyes as they trail the column of your throat, a conquering smile crept onto his face when he saw you swallow, a negligible detail that only a keen eye would catch.

“Sag mir nicht, dass du nervös bist. (Don't tell me you're nervous.)” König purrs.

“Don’t make me fucking laugh…” You hissed out with potent venom.

The moment your head snaps to the side, König’s hand instantaneously latched onto your jowl with a firm grip, wedging a breath in your throat as he forcibly tilted your head back to meet with his imperious gaze.

“I warned you about this filthy little mouth of yours.”

The air sprouts with pending venereal tension when his pointer finger glides over to tantalize your plumped bottom lip. Your panties pool when he inserts his finger into your mouth, your mind shuts off and your body takes over as you begin to steadily suck. König’s chest vibrates in amazement yet he fascinated by your brazen behavior.

Your tongue swirls expertly around while bobbing your head to take in each digit in a rhythmic trend, his muscles flexed at the sensation of you gagging from the length of his finger, driving it deeper into the back of your throat.

“Fucking whore.”

[buckrogers]

been thinking a lot about steve and bucky in wakanda during that period between civil war and infinity war and all those morsels we got about skype calls and super secret fly ins under the radar while shuri was working on breaking the conditioning hydra put in his head and my brain can't stop conjuring the missing moments particularly around bucky's incredibly complex feelings toward having versus not having his arm, on the one side he's no longer in possession of the piece of himself that enacted all hydra's bloody dealings but on the other he can't even put both arms around steve to hold him the way he wants to and there's an entire fanfic to be written I think, about that journey to the moment we did see a glimpse of, his reaction to seeing that vibranium arm laid out for him and I gotta wonder about steve's feelings too, watching his best friend go through this new gauntlet, knowing it's necessary for buck to ever see the other side of what hydra did but all but needing to sit on his hands at the same time to stop himself trying to coddle or counteract what the wakandans are trying to do for bucky

it's all those fireside conversations I wonder about we never got to see, all those private moments between the boys when they were able to pry apart some of the guarding they've both worn most of their lives and be a little raw and honest with one another, bucky acknowledging he's never going to be completely whole again and steve reiterating the way he probably will for the rest of their lives that he'll take whatever version of bucky barnes he can have, whatever bucky has to offer him because he's lived too long without even the hope of him and he's never doing that again

[lunarriviera]

on election day

so yesterday i taught pan's labyrinth, dir. guillermo del toro (2006). it's not a film i particularly care for but undergrads love del toro, and it turned out to be a good day to talk about the spanish civil war, and the violent military junta that overthrew the leftist republicans in 1935, and led to 40 years of franco's right-wing dictatorship, with the usual resultant oppression, censorship, and economic collapse. the thing is, the left and the right have been in conflict since the beginning of democracy, because humans are somehow both idealistic and loving as well as venal, fearful, and racist.

i have absolutely no idea what will happen today, or over the next couple of weeks. unfortunately i grew up in a fundamentalist-zionist christian doomsday cult, though, so i'm intimately familiar, far more than i wish i were, with the way the far right in north america thinks, and how they creatively misinterpret reality. it's a feature of right-wing belief systems, not a bug; it's always been that way, it just usually flies a bit more under the radar, in the contemporary US, than it did before king tiny hands started his reign of terror. we had our own civil war about it, and none of that has ever really gone away.

all i know, in the end, is what a film i sort of dislike tries to show us. it always seemed trite to me that del toro offers his dark fantasy world as some kind of alternative to bleak historical realism, but i no longer find it so simple. his depiction of reality is in itself deliberately cartoonish and heavy-handed; and the fairy underworld is just as mindlessly cruel as humanity aboveground. i read this film much more bluntly now as speaking instead about simple integrity. that even when fascism is going to shoot you in the back of the head, you still say what you have to say, do what you have to do, and then walk away with shoulders squared.

the film doesn't offer any authentic or lasting deliverance from our predicament. only raw courage in extremis, when there really is no way out. it's not the worst set of images to bear in mind for the next few days or weeks, maybe. humanity has dragged itself through worse on the strength of individuals who smile into the face of madness and say quietly, no, i don't think so. not today. not me, anyway.

[iwanderthroughthesenights]

I am particularly intrigued by each of the bonus tracks because as we saw with Midnights, the fact that these songs usually remain mostly within the fandom because they're more shielded from the radar of the "general public/locals" gives her a lot of freedom to be even more honest and raw, and also to address topics that are more uncomfortable and/or controversial (see: all the tracks in the 3am edition).

We know The Black Dog is most likely referencing impending depression. I'm so curious to see if it'll talk about that period of all-consuming sadness that happened after the breakup and the rebound, or if it will actually be about a period where she was deeply depressed during the last years of their rs OR, which is what I feel is more likely for some reason, if there was a period where both Taylor and Joe were very depressed but together, bc of something that happened that they had to face together and were both deeply sad about. The death of a loved one, the loss of something, the end of a period of time where they were both happy in their rs and had the right balance, a disappointing outcome to something one or both of them worked really hard on, the crumbling of something they were expecting or looking forward to that ultimately couldn't happen. So many possibilities, these are just very general descriptions.

We know a big aspect of their dynamic was being sad together and reflecting about life, often through that sadness. In LPSS, when explaining hoax, Taylor talks about how she thinks a part of love is "who would you be sad with?". It's quite interesting how this is such a strong recurrent theme in the art she made with Joe as a muse. "I'm with you even if it makes me blue", "Don't want no other shade of blue but you, no other sadness in the world would do", "The rain is always gonna come if you stand in with me", "I'm a fire and I'll keep your brittle heart warm, if your cascade ocean wave blues come", "Those Windemere peaks look like a perfect place to cry", "I want auroras and sad prose", "I wish to know the fatal flaw that makes you long to be magnificently cursed", "You don't really read into my melancholia", "Tears on the letter, I vowed not to cry anymore if we survived the Great War", "why don't you rain on my parade? Shred my evening gown, read my sentence out loud, cause I love this curse on our house", "how long could we be a sad song till we were too far gone to bring back to life?".

[et-in-arkadia]

We saw in Good Omens 2 that Crowley may be extremely powerful. How does this affect your mind and your future fic Situations? Please and thank you

this is a neat question, thanks for asking. to be honest the main thing that caught my attention was the revelation of how powerful crowley and aziraphale are together, when they aren’t even trying. when they are in fact explicitly trying to fly under the radar. that felt like too big of a tease of something vital not to come up again; i can imagine some scene in s3 where the odds are against them and all hope seems lost, and then aziraphale takes crowley’s hand and says “do you remember? like with gabriel. we can do this together.” and then they blow shit up or bring everyone back from the dead or what have you. i’ll give that move to aziraphale because he’s the one who was interrogated by the angels about their miracle and was told just how powerful they (accidentally) were, united. also he really needs to be the one to take crowley’s hand and say it’s up to the pair of them.

i know some folks think their super-miracle was because of gabriel, that he somehow amplified it, but i’m not so sure. technically at that point gabriel had been cast out of heaven and was no longer supreme archangel. maybe he acted like a superconductor, but i’d like to think we were being shown the power of love and the amplification that results when such disparate halves come together. i think this enormous potential that they have is also why it was important for heaven to separate them. they’re a threat to the order of things.

we do see that crowley likely occupied a higher rank in the angelic staff directory than aziraphale—he was creating stars, had access to sensitive information, etc. if he were a throne or dominion, he’d have been a bureaucratic rank or two above aziraphale. we also see him create a rainstorm and possibly bring mr. brown back from the dead (was he dead? or taken down to hell where he didn’t belong? injured?) but i’m not sure that indicates that he has more power, raw power-wise, than aziraphale. aziraphale casually manipulates an entire room of humans to act like they’re at a regency-era dance and later uses a war halo to get rid of a whole bunch of demons. personally, i love the idea that they are equally matched in the strength of their abilities, that they’re perfect counterparts and counterbalances.

so re: fic, i’d likely be thinking about all of the above. it’s also fun to consider how combustive they potentially are together and the sexy ways that could manifest. and of course, if you’re into the superpowered crowley line of thought, i could also imagine some stimulating ways he might use that on aziraphale. i don’t think aziraphale would have any complaints.

[dxrksong]

Another Dp x DC au!

That's right! I'm back at it again, strangely hyperfixated on Johnny 13, but oh well ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Johnny 13 is a clone au!!

This neat little au appeared sometime after seeing an au where another one of Danny's clones had survived and named himself 31.

So of course I saw Johnny 13 and went :)

So Johnny is a clone. The 13th clone to be exact and the one that lived the longest out of all the rest of the clones. Of course he still died (he is a ghost) but he had lived long enough for his soul to imprint on enough ectoplasm to form.

What about the other clones?

Shadow

That's right! The clone's fear and pain was enough to turn them into shades but there wasn't enough individuality or something to grab onto, so they weren't able to form into their own ghosts!

So what were baby shades, who wouldn't be able to survive once again alone, to do? Take a page out of a school of fish's book and latch onto each other in order to survive!

Shades feed off emotions in order to survive, since I hc that they aren't strong enough to be able to properly intake raw ectoplasm. So they take it in it's base stage instead!

So what are a school of shades to do when they see a small ghost that feels the same way they do?

Adopt him into the school of course! :) they're all siblings here and family sticks together! So what if this one is stronger than them? That just means more chances for survival!

They take everything happily with a grain of salt. Of course Johnny gets ghost adopted. Because he's still a child.

Tbh I believe it's Walker that adopts him. Mostly because I just like tough guys being soft to their own kids. Either that or Spectra 🤔 then again I don't remember either of the characters interacting with each other so it's possible!

Walker would probably try to separate Johnny and the Shades at first. But after asking why Johnny would just say:

"They're my siblings!"

And that would be the end of that! The shades would feed off Johnny's emotions sometimes, and Johnny would help his shades by scaring people and causing chaos sometimes!

I headcannon that if a shade tries hard enough or becomes the apprentice of an ancient (I.E Nocturn and his dream walkers) Shades could become strong enough to feed on ectoplasm with the occasional emotion and live fairly normal ghostly lives.

Of course Johnny's siblings aren't about to do that anytime soon since that'd involve leaving one of their own behind :)

So instead they stick together, happy to just be a family, as weird as they are.

Of course this wouldn't be a crossover au if Johnny and his siblings DIDN'T somehow find their way onto the JL radar.

Could be entirely on accident

Johnny looks like the splitting imagine of whoever he was cloned from.

Johnny and his shadow could've gone causing chaos!

But I like the possibility of BatMan or the YJL stumbling across the area in which Johnny and the others were made.

I remember seeing a post with a theory that ghosts could feel when you mess with their grave/corpse. So when the YJL stumble upon him and his siblings grave site.

Johnny would be PISSED! That's his siblings GRAVE! Who dares to step foot near them?! And proceeds to speed through a portal that just so happens to open right in front of the f*ckers that dared mess with something so important to him.

(Imagine finding a room with the corpses and still being used test tubes of failed clones and all of a sudden you hear a Roar that shakes the earth before an entire LAZARUS PIT opens in the middle of the room and a pissed off looking cyclist with the souls of the damned, charges out at you with a war cry. And you can't hit him)

That would lead to the valid question though of WHO exactly they're cloned after! It was cannon that Roy and of course Superman were cloned. (And maybe one of the batfam if I remember correctly) so could it be one of them? Or someone else?

Either way, Jason is pissed and the team now has an angry ghost and Shadow to deal with.

(I still find it weird that Johnny is the ONLY ONE sans those that have white or black hair, to have A NORMAL HAIR COLOR! Those locks are 110% dyed and bleached! Change my mind! And no, Spectra's human disguise doesn't count, it's fake.)

[beardedmrbean]

Air Force F-16 pilot explains how he dodged 6 missiles during insane Gulf War mission

It was just a few days after the start of the U.S.-led campaign to push Saddam Hussein’s forces out of Kuwait when Tullia took part in a mission to attack an oil refinery in southern Baghdad.

“They knew we were coming, and as we were getting closer to the target area, the triple-A [anti-aircraft artillery] started coming up, the 35 mm stuff,” Tullia told Task & Purpose. “You could see an undercast of clouds from the triple-A going off.”

Tullia had spent years studying Soviet air defenses, which included reading classified studies about how long it took surface-to-air missiles to lock onto targets after being launched.

“I remember thinking at the time: Who the heck has time to analyze the reaction times?” Tullia recalled. “This time here it came true to life. When the thing moved, I could see that then the missile made a correction – and then on top of that, you could see that the missile is pointing at me, the missile is pointing in front of me. It was like: Wow, all this textbook knowledge comes right back into focus; and it was just pretty awesome to watch.”

While it made for an awe-inspiring sight, the Iraqis had fired so many missiles that Tullia had trouble figuring out which ones were coming at him and which were targeting other American warplanes.

For seven nauseating minutes, Tullia pulled a never-ending series of hard turns to evade the enemy missiles. He doesn’t remember how many G forces he was pulling at the time, but his blood pressure was so high that he was not in danger of passing out.

Tullia jettisoned his external fuel tanks to help him outfly the surface-to-air missiles. He said he remembers watching the first missiles miss him and thinking, “That is pretty damn cool.”

But his Radar Warning Receiver kept going off, indicating he was being shot at by even more missiles. Now Tullia had to worry about burning up his remaining fuel while he continued to dodge, dip, duck, duck, dive, and dodge.  

As he took his plane to lower altitudes, he realized he was increasingly at risk of being hit by Iraqi anti-aircraft artillery. “Then I’d really be happy,” Tullia joked. “I go: I made it this far; I really don’t want to walk home.”

But after successfully dodging several surface-to-air missiles, Tullia got into a duel with a Soviet-made SA-6 missile that he could not shake.

“I turned and this thing is right on me,” Tullia recalled. “Every time I turn, the response is really quick. I was getting a fairly strong RAW [Radar Warning Receiver] indication on this thing. I was just turning as best I could. I go: Well, I’m just going to do what I can do on this thing. That thing came so close, I could hear the rocket motor as it went by – that was a little unnerving. And it went by, and I go: Wow, I’m still here. OK, let’s get back to business.”

Video is insane, I can't read F-16 HUD but the narration takes care of most of that.

[gotankgo]

Raw Radar War “Defend Finland”

• On a Field of White (2011)

[why-raven]

Hi!! I told you I’ve been mulling over an ask for you! c’: It’s for Yiuno! I know, Yiuno’s very knowledgeable about the history of the star (-‿◦) could you tell us which era from Hydaelyn’s history he considers his favourite? Without revealing more about his OC lore than you’re comfortable revealing publicly, of course!

Thank you very much for the ask and a million apologies for the super late reply, @archaiclumina! ’Tis a tough question to answer—let’s see:

Though Yiuno has lived well and beyond the age of ordinary mortals, this doesn’t desaturate the memories of his troubled past, nor dampen his feelings for those fleeting moments. He remembers them all—this inability to forget the time he cannot rewind pains him, twisting him into the man he has now become.

To withstand the agony of living on while others around him would perish, he started to distance himself from the people and the world around him—a defensive mechanism to minimize the consequences of growing attachment on things that wouldn’t last forever. Living on becomes a mere routine, a daily motion to go through each day while staying under the radar, hiding in the shadows of history and be forgotten.

Calling these his favorite times in history is a stretch, but Yiuno did break out of the mundane cycle twice in his eternal life so far:

The War of the Magi.

Yiuno, along with his twin sister Yiuna, joined Magi Lucis—the Mages of Light. Similar to the Circle of Knowing (1.0) and the Scions of the Seventh Dawn (2.0), Magi Lucis was founded by three mages, from each of the warring factions:

Seika Yan, a white mage from Amdapor,

Loki Zoki, a scholar from Nym, and

Kokoa Koa, a Mhachi magus.

The formation of Magi Lucis was to bring an end to the century-old war through peaceful means. However, that was quickly proven to be impossible, as none of the three nations were willing to negotiate and compromise—all of them were hellbent to destroy one another through military might. The organization was then forced to employ a different approach: by infiltrating each factions from within, they might be able to find ways to steer these nations away from their hunger for power and blood, and convince them to call for a ceasefire, to work towards a more amicable resolution.

Given Yiuna’s aptitude for healing magic, she was assigned to make contact with Amdapor. Through her efforts, she managed to gain the trust of the Elementals—the spirits that co-exist with the people of Amdapor in the woods, which also taught the basics of white magick to the locals.

Yiuno, meanwhile, was sent to Mhach, where he met Shatotto Shato. Shatotto had grown disgusted at the over-reliance on voidsents in the war. She began to develop a new kind of spell, which was later known as black magick. Recognizing Yiuno’s great affinity in her area of study, she wasted no time to force the Veena under her wing, and used him to refine her research with alarming efficiency. Yiuno also later found out that Kokoa was acquainted with Shatotto—both graduated from the same arcane academy in the same year, and Shatotto, with her overwhelming talent, was the top student at that time.

Convinced that her new magic would be enough to finally end this ridiculous bloodshed once and for all, Shatotto brought Yiuno alongside her onto the battlefield, and summoned a meteor rain to annihilate the opposing armies with sheer power. However, she severely underestimated Yiuno’s raw potential. The destruction that they caused was beyond control, wiping out just as many of their own people as their enemies. Shatotto chose to shoulder the full responsibility herself and removed Yiuno from the equation—she believed that it was her own miscalculation that had resulted in the huge loss. She knew that Yiuno had long surpassed her; she wanted him to continue living on and become the epitome of her legacy. He didn’t have to die with her, and bear the shame of her mistakes. (This is the reason why Shatotto was feared in history, and her black magick was often attributed to forbidden arts, or even considered evil.) Yiuno became the last direct successor, though he often hides his knowledge on black magick, and pretends to be a Red Mage instead.

The relationship between Yiuno and Shatotto appeared to be built on mutual benefits (Yiuno used Shatotto’s high rank position in the military for political gains, while Shatotto used Yiuno for her own research); their constant bickering and attempts to dominate over one another gave the impression of being on bad terms. In reality, they were very fond of each other, with mutual respect on equal footing. (On the same note, this is probably why Yiuno clicks so well with Y’shtola later in the game canon timeline, because intellects at that level aren’t easy to come by.)

The Seventh Umbral Calamity.

Yiuno and Yiuna often wandered around Eorzea and other lands as mercenaries for hire. This is mainly to keep themselves under the radar and avoid drawing attention to their immortality. They were hired by an exiled Sharlayan scholar—a Moon Keeper by the name of I’suca Amariyo—on a excursion to the Nhalmasque Ruins. I’suca’s main area of study, which ironically was about the relationship between aether and ageing, brought her to the ruins in search of an artifact rumored to defy the logic of time.

However, what they found was a young Xaela girl cryogenized in a life pod, which appeared to be powered by something similar to Allagan technology. I’suca freed the Au Ra, hoping to learn about her origin and the mystery behind her extraordinary state, but was disappointed when the girl turned out to be amnesiac.

I’suca named her “I’sora Amariyo,” and she began to subject the Xaela to a series of experimentation. The Viera twins, though they didn't agree with I’suca’s questionable treatment towards what she called an “empty vessel,” were bound to the contract as hired bodyguards, and they were unable to openly defy their client. However, they did their best to take care of I’sora, playing with the curious girl and teaching her various things about the world around them. I’sora was particularly close to Yiuno: she’d often curl up next to him whenever she fell asleep. On occasions when the young girl had sudden panic attacks, Yiuno’s presence was the only thing that could calm her down. Both Yiuno and Yiuna had come to regard I’sora as their little sister.

I’suca’s redemption happened during the Seventh Umbral Calamity. She had been tinkering around the life pod while trying to figure out I’sora’s origin (she hypothesized that the child was probably a remnant of the Age of Endless Frost, hence the use of deep freezing to preserve her). To save I’sora and the Viera twins from Bahamut’s rage, she forced the trio into the life pod, and protected them with her own magic until her last breath.

By the time Yiuno and I’sora woke up from their five-year slumber into a new era, they couldn’t any trace of I’suca remaining in the world. Yiuna was also missing, though Yiuno was sure that his twin sister must be still alive somewhere. With the Xaela, renamed as Sora Amariyo, they journeyed across the Star in search of Yiuna, and Sora later became a Warrior of Darkness.

The lore-bending parts are mostly my personal take on existing canon and expanding it further to weave into my blorbos’ lore and backstories. There are actually a lot more to what you’ve just read above, which I’m more than happy to go into details in DMs if anyone is interested. For now, this is the barebone that should (hopefully) answer the question.

Once again, thank you very much for the ask!

[thefloatingstone]

Was the Record of Lodoss War ever on your radar?

I am aware of Record of Lodoss War as well as what it is (essentially one of the earliest cases of someone taking their DnD sessions and turning it into entertainment media in the form of light novels and later anime) but I've never actually watched any of it. I always thought the animation quality is INSANE and the character design is ahead of its time. Looking like a mid to late 90s anime rather than an 80s anime. And I've always been a big fan of how big they draw the elf ears.

My only contact with Lodoss War was when a local satellite channel was run by someone who had 0 idea what anime was or what sort of shows people would want to see and decided it would be a good idea to air Record of Lodoss War in raw Japanese without subtitles.

The channel didn't last very long.

[audioaperture]

The Dangerous Summer - Chicago 7.12.24

There are bands that consistently deliver remarkable albums yet somehow slip under the radar. For me, The Dangerous Summer epitomizes this phenomenon. With a flawless discography, they've never released a bad album.

Music hits harder when it comes from a deeply personal place, using real names and locations. This authenticity is why artists like Taylor Swift resonate so widely. AJ Perdomo of The Dangerous Summer channels this approach masterfully, singing with raw, unfiltered emotion. His intensity is palpable—every note, every lyric, you feel it as if it's your own story.

My journey with The Dangerous Summer began with "No One's Gonna Need You More," a quintessential emo anthem from their 2011 album "War Paint." Delving deeper into "War Paint" and their earlier album "Reach for the Sun," I discovered two masterpieces where every track stands out. By this time I thought for sure I was the last to hear about them, who could ignore such perfection?

Following "War Paint" were the equally stellar "Golden Record" and their self-titled album, which emerged after a hiatus. This album features my favorite track, "This Is Life," a song that captures my feelings better than I ever could (which I expand upon later)

And then came "Mother Nature"—an emo album designed for stadiums. This record not only stands out in their catalog but in the entire genre. It’s innovative and fresh while staying true to their essence. In 2019, it was on constant repeat for me. The transition between "Starting Over / Slow Down" is pure auditory delight, a seamless blend that’s absolutely addictive.

"Way Down," another gem from "Mother Nature," pushes Perdomo’s emotional delivery to new heights, taking that emotional ten to eleven. The album is packed with standout tracks like "Blind Ambition," "Bring Me Back to Life," "Virginia," and "Where Were You When the Sky Opened Up," each one a high point.

After "Mother Nature" came the EP "All That Is Left of the Blue Sky," featuring "Fuck Them All," ironically one of their most (sonically) uplifting and inspirational songs. Their next album, "Coming Home," continued their streak of excellence, and their latest release, "Gravity," is nothing short of fantastic.

"Gravity" opens with "I Feel More Like Myself When I'm Losing It," a track that speaks to the universal artist experience. It's incredibly relatable content.

The Dangerous Summer is more than a fantastic band—they're a band that pours their soul into every song, every piece of artwork, every conversation, and every social media post. Their passion and dedication shine through, making every live show an unforgettable experience. If only they could play a 30-song set, the world would be a better place.

Do yourself a favor and spend time listening to the Dangerous Summer.

Finally, I thought I’d share the video & lyrics to “This is Life,” it’s a short song with no traditional song structure. 3 verses and the chorus is at the end.  It’s concise and shares the sentiment I often feel as an artist and human. For me, the song is about overcoming obstacles, finding your true self, feeling free, letting go of the past, and loving life. I feel inspired after every listen.

There's a change In the wild Shot in waves Pushing time And I see the days Turn to night And taking in all my peripheral thoughts into feeling It's a pulse inside my lungs I see sky where once was ceiling Leaving the fact I can change the world Cause I think I could You used to come my way I used to feel like I could not open up But now I am free

It's a shame This is life With everything at our disposal While we stayed inside Most our lives Hoping to God for a better one until we die I used to hold that chain I used to carry the weight of all my problems here with me But now I come through But now, now I come through

It's awake For the rush The promise of what we all want if we pull from inside Close your eyes The moment is taking me closer, it keeps me alive I used to run away I used to hide from these walls that gave me life But now I can breathe

Do you remember me like I remember you?

[myths-of-fantasy]

“Alright, one more time – when in the Earth Kingdom, we are…”

“The Song family.”

“And we are…”

“Merchants.”

“That sell-”

“-Bread, maps and trinkets.”

“Good, good.”

Ezani looked over her collection of children, all of them speaking in firm but quiet voices as they watched her with serious eyes. They had been preparing for this day for a while now. It had been about four months since Iroh had sailed off with Zuko on the doomed-to-failure search for the Avatar. The hidden waterbender had been training her kids – hers because honestly fuck Ozai – to handle the world outside of the Fire Nation. Her heart still clenched at the infrequently letters coming from Zuko, the boy’s pain and palpable confusion coming through clearly as he reported failure after failure in his search even as he tried to hide it.

The Azula, Mei and Ty-Lee would curl up among themselves while Ezani read the latest letter for them, doing her best to keep the raw sadness she felt for the boy out of her voice. Inevitably, they would ask for the letter to read it themselves and she would hand it over for them to inspect, Azula sadly tracing her fingers across the characters shaped by her brother’s hands.

On the other side, Ezani would unravel the secret letters delivered to her by Iroh; reporting on what the current climate was like. While Zuko hadn’t the luxury of being preemptively desensitized, unwound from the prejudices of the Fire Nation, Ezani had been carefully planting seeds of doubt in all of the most important places in the minds of the girls. She kept encouraging them to ask questions, to look deeper into every order, not to take things said at face value and she could see that it was starting to sink in. Even the act of asking for the letter, choosing to read it themselves rather than count on her to tell them the exact contents of the letter was a sign of their changing demeanor.

Though what happened to Zuko was vile and sickening, the final act to seal Ozai’s image in the eyes of his children not as their father but as their master, the shock of his actions had ruptured their entire worlds. No matter what Ezani had tried to teach Azula before, Ozai had been her father and much of the Fire Nation saw him as the fair if strict father.

The needless cruelty towards his own son for the mere crime of caring about their soldiers had been a blow to their world-views leaving them more vulnerable to Ezani’s teachings.

She hated to think about it like that but she’d been raised with the war in mind, raised to understand the vulnerabilities that could open themselves in a person’s armor and how to both exploit them and protect her own.

Ezani had been prepared to pack up her girls and ditch the island only a couple days after Iroh had left but looking at the girls now, she reluctantly admitted that staying for a bit longer had been for the best. They were stronger through their training, the adults in their lives entrusting them with more and more complex foot-work which would serve them well on the outside.

“We’re in the Earth Kingdom.” she said sharply, making them all straighten up. “What are your names?”

“Lily,” Azula said immediately, putting on her best ‘innocent child’ expression. Ezani smiled warmly – she had been wary about using the girl’s pet-name as an alias but she’d been careful to never express the name in public. ‘Fire-Lily’ was usually reserved for private moments within her little shop, so hopefully it would fly easily enough under the radar.

“Aster,” Ty Lee declared, straightening up.

“Song Sage,” Mei reported.

“Well-done – let’s work on your breads again.”

The girls rushed the stand, pulling out their premade dough while Ezani watched with a critical eye. Their cover would be simple – a small family of merchants that traveled semi-regularly selling the various trinkets they found on their journeys alongside their very good breads. For those who looked upon their band with confusion, she would profess to having taken over her own father’s business. Others who would look at her dark skin and brown eyes with suspicion next to her triad of paler skinned girls, would be told that she’d once had a partner (but carefully not a husband, she possessed none of the dressings for a widow to pass that story) whom perished defending them when the girls were young.

She tried to keep the other details close to reality to prevent the girls from slipping up – Mei was her eldest daughter and Azula her youngest. Given that Azula and Ty Lee looked nothing alike, she’d declared that she was just a little girl when they escaped the attack and so, Ezani took her with them. The waterbender had initially wanted to pass them off as twins but they didn’t look similar enough to be convincing. She’d say she had a son once but he’d been killed alongside his father, defending their family while the girls escaped.

Not a very detailed story no but it had enough information to keep the average citizen from looking into them too deeply. Bandits were a known problem throughout the world.

“How much longer do we have to wait?” Azula’s words snapped her out of her thoughts. Her little girl looked so grown up now, 13 years old but with the serious eyes and flecked with faint scars. It certainly lent to their story but her heart still crumbled looking at the singed marked on her daughter’s skin, where she’d dodge a knife a little too slowly; hadn’t blocked a fire covered fist quite quickly enough. Mei was the eldest and yet, Azula’s body was a hidden mosaic of suffering. “I can’t take it much longer. Being in the castle with him.”

She spat the last word venomously – Azula hadn’t referred to the Firelord as her father since the day he exiled Zuko. Not that the self-centered man had even noticed, she wouldn’t be surprised if the bastard assumed she was just showing him the proper respect befitting his station.

I wish I could kill him, Ezani thought to herself bitterly. A life-time of grooming and yet, when faced with her task all she could see overwhelming failure waiting for her. She knew intellectually the Firelord was surrounded by high-ranking military officials, that attempting a rush on the palace would be paramount to suicide and yet…. It still felt like she was failing her parents, failing Zuko by letting that bastard continue drawing breath. Some day.

“Soon,” she answers Azula, careful to hide any signs of her inner torment. “I have an idea of where to go, food and maps. I’ve already packed all of the most important aspects of the stall and destroyed anything else that could tip-off the guards.”

She sighed a little, “The hardest part is managing to parse out a ship willing to smuggle the Firelord’s precious daughter out of the Nation without sending word back to the palace.”

Azula growled at being called the Firelord’s daughter but said nothing about it – though she no longer viewed the cruel man as a father, Firelord Ozai was still certain of her loyalty to him, still seemed to think her his loyal puppet.

“Maybe I can help,” Ty Lee offered, rocking back and forth on her feet. The young girl was constantly in motion – it seemed the restless energy she usually expended in the circus had become just another part of her.

“I don’t want you to risk getting hurt,” Ezani told her gently, suppressing the fear of what could happen if they were discovered. She herself was already just barely avoiding execution for what was – at the very least – treason, kidnapping and given her communications with Iroh, espionage.

“Oh little poppy, I don’t mean it that way,” she cooed when Ty Lee wilted a bit. “I know you want to help but I want you girls to be as innocent in this as possible. If I am caught, I want you to three to stay together and look out for each other.”

“You won’t get caught though,” Azula declared.

“It’s always a risk,” said the ever realistic Mei in a softer voice. “Those nobles are always poking around her shop. And they’re mean when they don’t get what they want.”

Ezani wordlessly placed her hand on Mei’s shoulder, squeezing lightly in an attempt at comfort. The eldest’s emotions were always a bit muted, more contained and tightly sewn together compared to Azula and Ty Lee’s. Ezani had wondered for a while if that was by nature or if it was taught to her – regardless, she recognized the comment as the quiet girl’s way of expressing her concerns.

“I won’t lie to you all – you’re old enough to understand the truth. And the truth is that what I’m planning is dangerous – that just living here had been a major gamble. This world isn’t as kind as I would like it to be and as long as Ozai is Firelord, there is always the risk that I will be taken from you.”

Azula clenched her fists as Ty Lee shuffled closer to her, eyes tearing up with frightened sadness.

“I will do my best to stay with you,” Ezani told them seriously. “But if it comes down to a choice of me or you, I will always choose you. And I hope I can count on you three to choose yourselves too.”

She doesn’t think they would, not by the steel in their eyes and the stiffness to their bodies but she’d at least told them the truth. There was no point in attempting to shelter them from this fact – not when she would be labeled the Fire Nation’s number one enemy if her plan were to succeed.

For now, she let them knead their dough while she formulated a reply to Iroh – only a few more months at the most.

Then they would be free.

| | |

“Thank you,” Ezani said quietly.

The merchant nodded, accepting the small pouch of money that she’d carefully collected. A healthy amount of coin of both Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom currency to further entice the man to keep quiet. Thank the spirits, it seemed that the Fire Lord had disgruntled quite a few merchants with his stricter trading policies and the higher taxes he imposed upon them. The merchant was a frequenter of the less popular docks, electing to travel by foot through the lands to increase the chances of encountering a potential customer – it works perfectly in her favor. The unpopulated docks meant that there would be fewer people who would recognize Azula, the guards would be in the looser part of the Firelord’s palm rather than tightly grasped in his grips and it would allow them to vanish on the roads between the major cities.

She turned and motioned for the girls to follow, creeping from the shadows slowly.

She blinked a little, readjusting once more to the slightly jarring sight of her girls dressed as ordinary citizens, each clutching a small bag in their hands. It would’ve been smarter if she’d told them no, denied them the opportunity to take the small items that would surely reveal their flight but she didn’t have the heart to. She was already taking them away from all that they knew, into a hostile world where they would live on the run presumably for the rest of their lives, dogged by the Firelord and his loyal soldiers.

So she helped Ty Lee onto the boat first, saying nothing about the small beaded necklace that shimmered in the bag, about the decorative knife that Mei held as she crossed onto the boat or the teddy bear – the only gift from Ursa to her daughter – clutched in Azula’s arms.

Ezani was holding her breath the entire time.

She’d sent word to Iroh that they were finally leaving, that she’d send him a second message when they reached shore again – her tern-falcon alongside Ducky were packed safely onto the ship near the merchant’s goods, carefully out of sight of an immediate glance near the merchant’s own iguana-parrot. She watched the shore of the Fire Nation fade into the distance as her girls were ushered beneath the deck to change from their Fire Nation commoner robes to something more suitable for the average traveling merchant.

She waited with her heart in her throat as they sailed further and further out to sea, her pulse thumping loudly in her ears.

In the end, she needn’t have worried – they passed the check-point easily, the guards tired and uncaring of what they saw as an ordinary merchant passing by with subpar material. It was late at night and the Firelord was convinced his Azula was still his darling puppet – he’d stopped looking in on her room when she didn’t leave with Zuko. Her little girl had masked her hurt and upset masterfully within the palace, disguising her grief as a newfound blood-lust in training that made the Firelord cackle with pleasure.

It would only be the next morning, when her Fire Lily didn’t answer his summons and the servants found her room empty, her sheets untouched that he would realize what had happened. He would storm the little stand she’d called her own only to find an empty shell with no evidence of where they’d gone. She’d reluctantly given away her lips to one of the noble-women who continued to press her, push her and ensured her silence, kept her from alerting the guards that she was leaving so they couldn’t stop her swift-night’s packing.

She releases a gentle sigh, her muscles relaxing as she looked upon the open sea stretching before her; the water silver from the bright moon’s light and she’d never felt more at home than she did now. Ezani always felt the safest on the sea – ironic considering it was where she’d been most in danger with the Fire Nation’s fleet patrolling the waters.

“Nothing to do but wait now,” she said aloud, as she settled onto her spot on the ship. She unwrapped a bit of blueberry bread she’d produced with Azula’s help.

She ate, watching the moonlight and imagined the Firelord’s enraged roar with a smirk upon her lips.

---

@ultimatebottom69

Being sporadic as hell but this time, I'm remembering to include you in this lmao