#so my attempt to fix some lore might have also messed up some of the lore in the au

[crossroadsnumber1doctor]

{ this post is entirely ooc }

Hello there! Welcome to this Roleplay Blog out of a million however you might have gotten here. First, something important to get out of the way before getting into the actual intro info:

i am not part nor affiliated with the official BOGGIO team, personally being just a fan of the game / characters, and therefore nothing of which I say or do here should be taken as canon, this is simply a roleplay / parody account of one of their / PHIGHTING!'s characters. I can't possibly know every single detail about, well, anything and will very likely mess things up especially since I don't have a twitter and therefore can't exactly access any twitter posts made about phighting lore and such unless it's directly shared with me. Most of what's here is either taken by Soda's tumblr QnA, the Official Phighting Wiki ( the fandom.com one is outdated ) or my own personal Headcanons.

If you're still here and would like to continue reading this intro then without further ado lets get onto it ( click readmore )

( this is going to be a very long post )

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This is primarily just another silly little RP / Ask / Parody Blog for Medkit from the game PHIGHTING! on Roblox. I'm not exactly the best roleplayer however and might possibly get a tad out of character from time to time if I'm not careful, which I do apologize if that ends up happening.

It might also take me a while to answer and respond to stuff due to the fact that I tend to like to think for a good while before deciding to do so ( or i might just straight up forget / get distracted in which case you are welcome to direct my attention back to it ).

I'll likely also send in some Roblox screenshots and such both IC and OOC. ( with something to differentiate which is which of course )

Although my art's not exactly the best I will likely try to respond with a simple doodle or drawing from time to time because well it's fun to do and I feel that it could make some things seem more interesting and such. :)

Most of the drawings and SS's here are simply my own but I will make sure to provide credits and such if I use someone else's stuff for my own purposes of course!!

Aslong as you aren't NSFW ( gore / graphic stuff is fine by me but will be tagged just incase anyone else isn't fine with it or is made uncomfortable by it ), Racist, Transphobic, Homophobic, A proshipper / comshipper, abelist, aphobic, zionist or otherwise just not really that good then I'm completely open to interactions most of the time! If I don't answer right away then I'm probably busy / distracted but I will try to get to it as fast as I can when I do notice it. I don't mind AU or OC interactions but try to let me know the context behind relationships and such beforehand!

I am relatively fine with shipping aslong as it, yknow, isn't bad, forced or a proship / comship or anything but due to personal preference and the fact that I do headcanon Medkit as Demiromantic I would prefer to take it slow at first atleast. I might also ask for reasoning though that's just out of curiosity if it's something I'm not familiar with.

The Mod / Blog Runner doesn't exactly take things too seriously most of the time and swears a lot so that'll probably reflect in OOC posts. I have pretty bad bad grammar / English aswell so if there's any particularly bad mistakes do make sure to point them out so I can fix them.

Not sharing the main blog for the time being but if you do recognize me then.. Hiiiii!

All in all, I am looking forward to interacting with this community and seeing what happens! :D

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Pronouns for Medkit - He / Him

Pronouns for Mod / Blog Runner - He / It / They / Xe

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Caution;

Do take in account that due to the nature and backstory of the character that this blog revolves around it will likely touch on some topics of extreme violence or atleast the aftermath of said violence, PTSD, Paranoia and Cults / Cult Life.

All of the above will atleast have an attempt to be properly tagged whenever directly mentioned / brought up. Please do let me know if I miss anything or need to use different / more tags.

More will be added to this if seen fit

Although for most of these I either have personal experience and / or tried to do excessive research about please do also let me know if I can do / portray something better!

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Key;

Normal Text in any way -> OOC

Chat + Italics -> Narration / Actions

" Green Chat in Quotations " -> Speech [ Italic Green Chat in square brackets ] -> Thoughts

Bold text in any of these likely just means that it's important or atleast that it should be a focus point. Small text will likely be less important or whispering / mumbling / in a quieter tone of voice depending on the context.

Will add more if needed

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Headcanons;

Suit / Main Reference made by myself.

If text too hard to or unable to read due to coloring here's the text left -> right, top -> bottom

Farsighted

Long Fur + Fands due 2 being blackrock born demon

Long, long-furred tail

Other than longer fangs nothing too remarkable about mouth

he / him under a transmasculine flag

Small Holes in gloves allowing unsheathed claws to stick out

Other;

Due to his current circumstances Medkit probably isn't really looking for love or a romantic relationship in the first place, nor would he probably be able to completely trust anyone viable for that position to get close enough or those feelings at the moment. That doesn't exactly mean he CAN'T but it's very unlikely.

Probably tired most of the time and all the caffeine from the coffee probably isn't helping. And back pain. Can't forget the back pain. This dude literally sleeps on a desk i cant imagine how that back feels.

Medkit usually doesn't let anyone other than the people he trusts on his blindspot / left side while idle and able just so that he can keep an eye on what's going on, frequently preferring to have that side closer to walls and other obstructions otherwise. Also likely so that he knows that someone would be watching on that side while he can't.

[lets-try-some-writing]

Not Really Present

Aka: My angsty and slightly Au-ish explanation as to why Optimus Prime is such a mess in RID. Let's all admit it, Optimus was completely out of it in RID. Almost like he lost everything that made him, well, him! So here is my attempt at warping the lore a little to make it work.

Façade

Optimus may have been crafted with a spark designed to handle being reincarnated regularly while still maintaining his identity, but the process is delicate. His spark is given time to rest and then starts to get scrubbed of surface level memories and is bonded to a new frame in order to get him ready to reincarnate once again. After he gave himself to the well and had about twenty odd years of rest, Primus sent him back into the reincarnation pool, ready to start again and live normally until a Prime was needed to guide all Cybertronians in their darkest hour.

The scrubbing and frame bonding process was nearly complete and Optimus was getting ready to inhabit his new frame when he was yanked back into the realm of the Primes by his siblings. The Primes, being too lazy to go fight Megatronous themselves or call upon a new champion, opted to instead send Optimus, the brother they already knew to be capable. They cared very little for the fact that Optimus was supposed to be granted a peaceful existence, at least for a time, in exchange for his service. And so they gave him a rundown of everything that they needed him to do, thinking that all his memory loss would be fixed by giving him the Matrix which held a copy of all his experiences from his time as a Prime.

Optimus only had the faintest idea of what was going on due to how far the scrubbing had progressed, and all he knew was that his siblings needed him. And so he did not fight back as his siblings shoved his spark into an incredibly wrong frame and crammed the Matrix in his chassis. His memories returned to him but they felt distant, out of place, like they belonged to someone else. Which. considering his circumstances, they might as well have. Not only that, but they were scattered, mashed up, and out of place. Some things were clear as day whereas other things were foggy and unclear.

He was then drop kicked into the training with Micronus in an effort to help him regain his former strength. But Optimus, having been nearly completely reduced to a newspark by the time he was recalled, struggled immensely. Focus, skill, wisdom, and experiences that made him the mighty Prime who led the war against the Decepticons were no longer an integral part of his being. He knew based on the memories within the Matrix that he should be able to achieve great feats in all fields of combat and command. And yet as he was thrown against test after mind numbing test, he still had issues with basic concepts, having to practically relearn everything he gained wisdom in during millennia of war and his time as the Thirteenth.

It was frustrating beyond all belief to Optimus, with his former patience having been greatly reduced with the cleansing of his spark. Especially with Micronus never giving him a moment's rest and constantly belittling him for his mistakes and anything else he could find fault in. More than once Optimus considered attempting to strangle Micronus as he hovered watching him struggle against foes while giving him "advice" in the most mocking way imaginable.

Of course his distant and scattered memories were not the only problem, his very spark also played a part. Optimus was already half bonded to his new frame when he ripped away from it, leaving him not completely present in the frame his siblings made for him. The frame his siblings made him felt too tight and foreign, leading him to be unable to move with precision. Not only that, but he couldn't shake the ever present feeling of unease that followed him with every movement, like he was walking in another bot's body.

When the time came for him to fight Megatronous, he wasn't ready, physically or emotionally. Despite practically being a sparkling again, his kin did not hesitate to put him through to absolute agony that was merging pieces of their sparks with his. And then without so much of an ounce of gratitude for the service he was doing them, they forcefully returned him to the living realm, leading to a brand new host of problems.

The fight with Megatronous began, and Optimus couldn't help but feel absolutely useless throughout the whole thing. His memory told him that Megatron, a mech not even forged a Prime, was more difficult to fight. And yet he struggled bitterly in his fight against his fallen brother. His body didn't respond to his commands as he wanted, his reactions were slowed, and his memories were too muddled to give him the skill he knew he once possessed in battle. Nothing he attempted to do from his memories worked and he was quickly driven back. All Optimus could feel was crippling shame as Bumblebee and his team came in and saved him from death at the hands of an arguably weaker foe.

When the battle was done and Optimus returned with Bumblebee to his base at the scrapyard, he thought that perhaps time with familiar individuals would help him heal. He was wrong. If anything it made it worse. He felt even more out of place than before.

He still had a connection to Bumblebee, but it was also somewhat distant, his role in their relationship having started to shift in light of his altered state of being. Not only that, but Bumblebee had changed, becoming a new mech and still recovering from intensive trauma. This in turn meant that Optimus could not figure out how he was supposed to act around his former scout and the mech he once saw as a son. Not knowing what to do or how to act, he relied on his scattered memories to create a personality that matched the mech he once was. Everything he said and did was reused dialogue and performances from the war, and the few times he acted without the aid of his memories, his altered state became startlingly clear.

Before he knew it Optimus found himself falling back into less mature habits, acting like a rowdy and rebellious youngling more often than not. He argued with Bumblebee over simple matters, his emotions getting the better of him without millennia of experience to temper his mind. He was dismissive of others, completely focused on maintaining his crumbling persona and meeting mission requirements. He wanted desperately to match up to the memories within the Matrix, to really be Optimus Prime, but with his spark returned to youthfulness, it was an impossible task.

With the spark of a youngling, the memories of an ancient Prime, and the deep set desire to match up to his former glory, Optimus suffered trying to desperately find himself yet again.

Thankfully for him, while the team may refuse to see his faults out of respect and excitement, Knockout has no such reservations and has already prepared his office for a long awaited therapy session.

[gamergirlshelby]

"Can we talk about the BNHA OC Comeback timeline? I've been dying to talk about my theories for the BNHA OC Comeback timeline all day!"

-Me to anyone willing to listen.

Here are the ramblings of me, someone who has no restraint when it comes to coming up with crazy theories about their interests, rambling about their theories on how the BNHA OC Comeback timeline could work.

Note: this is all speculation, and if the people in charge of the AU deem it to not be canon it is not. This was just something I did for fun because I wanted to do some writing. That is why I said could happen and not should happen, because this is all just fun speculation, and none of the other fandoms I am a part of have been able to scratch that itch for me lately.

Also, I will be talking about spoilers for a majority of the anime, but mostly stuff revealed in seasons 3-5, with a little bit of stuff from seasons 1 and 2, since those are the seasons with a lot of the important details that I will be attempting to write work arounds for. I will also be using the Wiki's names for story arcs (a list of which can be found here) when referring to specific plot events.

My ramblings about my theories are under the read more:

Also, to start this off, this speculation was pretty much brought upon by this post from the official BNHA OC Comeback blog, but what is important here is the tags.

I think the idea of Class 1-A and Class 1-B being third years would be a good starting point for what I want to be diving into.

First point should be a little obvious but in this timeline, Deku still inherits One for All from All Might. This is mainly because if he didn't, if someone where to write or draw an interaction between this version of class 1-A with, lets say class 1-X for this example, Deku would likely not be there, due to not having a quirk, causing the question of "who is the 20th student in class 1-A?" One for All would likely be passed down to someone else (most likely Mirio because Nighteye was going to recommend him to All Might in the first place, and if Deku is not going to inherit it, I doubt there would be anything in the way of Mirio getting One for All)

Second point I want to point out is the battle between All Might and All for One that had happened before the events of the show. I think All Might will still suffer from his injuries from the fight, and continue being the symbol of peace, even if it is killing him. BUT I think it would be best if All for One gets defeated and gets put into hiding, not initiating any of his plans or finding Tomura Shigaraki. Tomura never getting taken in by One for All would also cause the League of Villains to never form (at least not in the way we are familiar with) so we.

Third Point is, although this is speculation, and I do not know where Nomus come from, I do think, even without the league of villains, there would be some sort of lab somewhere where Nomus are being created, likely as one of the last things All for One was able to set into motion before going into hiding in the AU. (I mostly went with this because I think Nomus as a concept are really cool, and I think it would be great to have some sort of generic enemy for the 1-X and 1-Y students to have to face without the need of creating a new organization)

Fourth Point is because All for One is in hiding, so All for One can not force All Might to reveal his "injured form" (I dunno what else to call it), but I do think when All Might and Sato get engaged, he will maybe (and this is a big maybe) reveal it to the public on his own, as more of a "I'm retiring and settling down now" then a "You must keep fighting because I can not" thing, causing crime to not sky rocket, but still rise because there is no more symbol of peace, since there is still the possibility (at least in the publics mind) that All Might could come out of retirement and go back to saving people.

Alright now I begin with some of the actual stuff that actively happened in the show that Class 1-A and Class 1-B had experienced.

Alright so everything at the beginning of the anime is the same, going up until the USJ arc. This is because, as stated previously, there is no League of Villains to attack the USJ. The only thing I can think of that could possibly stay the same is the All Might vs Nomu fight, because I think Nomus as a concept are cool and that was an awesome fight. The only way for the fight to happen though is that the Nomu is let loose somewhere else, like a highly populated area, because it makes no sense for it to be at USJ without the League.

Next is the sports festival, and this would also go the same. But after that is probably the most interesting arc I leave mostly unchanged, being the Hero Killer Arc. This is because, even without a League of Villain's, there would still be people following Stain's ideologies after he is detained, so I think maybe there could be some sort of small unorganized group of people following Stain's beliefs that there are no more "true" heroes. The group of stain followers would likely be the characters that had joined the League of Villains after the Hero Killer Arc (like Dabi, Himiko Toga, and Twice). It is also unchanged in the sense that the students are interning with Pro Heroes, and that Nomus are running around, being a cool concept (can you tell I like Nomus? I just think they are neat.).

Next is the Final exams Arc, which would go unchanged, but the next arc, the Forrest Camp Training arc, would also not have a League attack (because there is no league), and Class 1-A and Class 1-B have a normal experience at the training camp, causing there to be no Hideout Raid arc, because there is no hideout to raid.

Next, the Provisional License Exams are the same results, so no change here, except Camie Utsushimi would be there instead of Toga's impersonation of her, and still ending up to need to take the Remedial Course.

After that is the Shie Hassaikai Arc and then Remedial Course Arc. The Shie Hassaikai Arc would actually largely go unchanged because it is mainly just another internship for the Hero Course students, with the only change to the arc being the League involvement being removed, even though this would leave some plot holes, which I will fill by saying the small unorganized Stain followers would take the place of the league (since Toga and Twice are apart of the Stain followers group, so they would still end up working for them, filling the same rolls they had in the original Arc). Also Overhaul doesn't lose his arms because there would be no reason for him to get them ripped off (because there is no League of Villains). ALSO this means Eri would be canon to the BNHA OC Comeback, which I wanted to mention since from my knowledge she is a fan favorite. After that, the Remedial Course would go unchanged.

I'm also going to say that Mirio will have already gotten his quirk back during the main events of the AU, since Nighteye had predicted that he would get it back before Nighteye had died. How he gets it back will likely go unanswered, since I have not read ahead to the most recent chapter of the manga, only watching the anime, so we should leave the answer to how he got it back to be unclear just in case he gets it back in a spoiler-y way.

Then, lastly as of right now, the rest of the arcs would go unchanged up untill the latest arc where Todoroki, Midoriya, and Bakugo are interning with Endeavor, excluding the parts of the arc going into the Meta Liberation War, which can not properly go through thanks to their being no League of Villains, but especially because there is no Tomura.

Alright now we get to the stuff some of you are here for, being the new info and timeline stuff that occurs during the year Class 1-X and 1-Y are first years. First off, Class 1-A and Class 1-B would now be third years, which was a concept brought up in the original post that cause my brain to go into theory mode.

I would also like to pose the idea of a new "Big Three", replacing Mirio Togata, Tamaki Amajiki, and Nejire Hado (and also the nameless "Big Three" from when 1-A/1-B had been second years in this AU) since 1-A and 1-B are now all third years. This new "Big Three" would be made up of Katsuki Bakugo, Shoto Todoroki, and Izuku Midoriya, seeing as out of Class 1-A and Class 1-B, those three have shown to be the most consistent heavy hitters (and also being the most relevant to the original plot).

Aside from that, Class 1-A and 1-B would not be doing that much in the AU aside from the new "Big Three" occasionally helping out the first year Hero Course students with their studies.

Anyway if you read this far I really appreciate it. I have some more ramblings about stuff in the tags, but its more side stuff that doesn't really effect this AU within another AU.

[dumbbitchenergy17]

I’m Sorry (Part 4)

Summary- You are Michael’s vessel as you are Dean’s kid and letting him use you instead of your dad.

Dean x Daughter!Reader

Word count- 3862

Masterlist

It was an abandoned church people were hanging from chains, some crying others passed out from their wounds one man slowly bleeds in a goblet bound to a chair. Footsteps approach Michael healing a cut on the man bleeding Michael takes the goblet that is now full of blood and nods approvingly.

“A little of this… a little of that.” He pours some angel grace in and swirls it as it dissolves, “and," Michael forces the man’s mouth open and pours the blood down his throat. 

“Yes, good boy.” The man begins to choke and gasp before the vessel burns out. 

Michael frowns, “Hmm. Too much ‘that’. How disappointing.” He grabs the corpse and drags him over to a pile. All failed attempts bodies piled up with burned-out eyes and blood pouring from it. Looking over the line of people in chains he spins his knife

“Alright. Who’s next?”

In the bunker, Mary and Bobby look over weapons “Who goes to Duluth in October. Sure Michael didn’t touch down in Orlando?” Bobby says check over a handgun

Mary looks over at him “Jo was pretty specific. Duluth.”

Bobby sighs ”Yeah, well, angels ain’t exactly known for their veracity.” Mary clears her throat and looks behind Bobby, as Cas enters “No offense.” 

Cas nods ”None taken. I tend to agree with you.” Mary clicks the barrel back in handing it over to Sam who sits with his laptop. “Here you go.”

Sam nods scrolling through the police reports “Thanks” Footsteps cause every to look over at who entered and it was Dean holding a beer

“Hey Dean how are you.” Mary greets him everyone walking on eggshells.

“I’m fine do we have anything.” Dean sits across from Sam taking a sip.

“Uh yeah, so I’ve been searching through police reports in Duluth. Cops just turned up a pile of corpses that was dumped near some train tracks just north of town and their eyes were burnt out.” Sam explains tilting the screen toward everyone else.

“So Michael. We should go now.” Sam glanced over at Cas 

“No. This isn’t just Michael we’re talking about.” 

“It’s Y/n,” Dean stated

Sam nodded “Yeah. Cas, you know why you can’t come with us, right?”

Cas looked down upset he couldn’t help “My angelic presence would be sensed by Michael, thereby nullifying your hopes of a sneak attack.”

Sam gave him a pity smile “Yeah, sorry.”

“And, you need me to stay here and babysit Nick and Jack.” Cas frowns putting his hands in his coat.

“It’s not babysitting, Cas,” Dean responded sipping his beer.

Cas look over at Dean and frowned “Only in the sense that they’re not infants, but they both have to be supervised. Jack is lost without his grace, Nick is...he’s just a mess.”

“Well, it-it’s not his fault. Cas, Nick was housing, you know. He-he deserves a shot at rebuilding his life.” Sam defended Nick even though he did house Lucifer. 

“And yet every time I look at him, all I can see is the supreme agent of evil.” Cas retorted but frowns seeing Jack walk in feeling bad talking about a touchy-subject

“You’re talking about my dad again? Look, I understand. Being around Nick...it’s hard for me, too.” Jack says

Mary comes over placing a hand on his shoulder “Uh, Jack, we’re going to need you to sit this mission out. Not a permanent thing.” Jack nods

“I know last time, I sucked when it mattered, and I need to improve. So...that’s what I’m gonna do.” Sam stands up grabbing his gun

“Alright. Okay.” Sam looks over his family and rests on his brother who nods in return

“Let’s move.” When they arrived at the station they were taking into the morgue where multiple people laid on tables.

“These are just some of the victims. More are in the hall, a couple in a storeroom,” The coroner grimaced “we don’t usually see this kind of action in Duluth.”

Mary glanced over the other bodies “The injuries all pretty uniform?” The Coroner nodded handing Mary over a clipboard 

”Yep. The boys upstairs think maybe we’re looking at a spree killer.”

“If they were DOA, you have an ETA on TOD? Any sample DFA?” Bobby questioned, Sam quickly clears his throat, “DNA.”

The woman glanced at him and shook her head. “Uh, frankly we don’t even know the precise cause of death. I mean, there were the neck wounds of course, but there was also considerable internal trauma, so-” her phone goes off “Excuse me.” She gives a smile walking out.

“Yeah. Sure,” Dean nods and looking over at Bobby “DFA.” he smirked

“I’ve been fighting a friggin’ apocalypse for 15 years, my, FBI might be a little rusty.” Bobby countered.

Mary grabbed gloves “Let’s give them a quick once-over, see what they missed.” The brothers and Bobby pulled on gloves as well each going over to a body studying it.

“Angel kills for sure, and not grunts,” Bobby look at the distinctive burned eyes, “We’re talking 5-star smitings.”

“Knife slits in the throat, but it doesn’t appear they bled out.” Dean pointed out leaning the head back pointing to the scar.

“He kept these people alive for a while.” Mary said looking at the others Sam opens the mouth of one of the corpses 

“Maybe these people aren’t people. Looking at a vamp.” He presses against the gums fangs popping out.

“Same here.” Bobby said, “Me too.” Mary added.

“Why milk ‘em if he’s just gonna smite ‘em?” Bobby questioned. Dean glance at Sam “And why is an archangel hunting vampires in the first place?”

Sam went over to the Coroner’s office and knocked on the doorframe “Sorry. Excuse me. Um, did anyone come to claim or identify these bodies?”

The women nodded “Oh, yeah. A young lady. Said she heard about the killings on the morning news, thought she might know one of the victims.”

Dean leaned forward “And?”

She shook her head “She didn’t. Then she disappeared, never even gave us her last name.” Sam glances outside to the parking lot 

“Huh. Do you happen to have surveillance cameras outside?”

Back at the bunker, Jack is seated at the table in the main hall reading when Cas enters. “Looks like about...two centuries of biblical lore. Light reading.”

Jack looked up at the angel ”I’m researching how long it takes archangel grace to replenish.”

Cas sits next to Jack “Well, archangels being exceedingly rare, the data on that is woefully scant.” Jack points at a section “The books say it can take from a month to-”

“A century,” Cas cuts him off, “Yeah. Complicating factor being your human component, which slows the process,” He pauses, “Jack, um...mourning what you’ve lost...it’s wasteful. Might be smarter to focus on what you still have.”

“You don’t understand what I’m going through.” Jack frowned feeling dejected. 

Cas placed his hand on Jack’s shoulder “Yes, I do - a little. At the time of the Great Fall, when angels were banished from heaven, I lost what I thought was everything. I had no grace, I had no wings. I felt hopeless and useless.”

Jack looked up at the man he sees as a father-figure “What did you have left?” 

“Well, uh...well, I had Sam, Dean, and Y/n. But I had something else that was extremely helpful. I had myself. Just the basic me, as, uh...as Dean would say, without all the bells and whistles. You know, Sam and Dean, they weren’t born with their expertise. They’ve been at it since they were children. Failing, winning, developing over the years. And Dean had no idea how to raise a kid and Y/n is one of the smartest, bravest, human I have ever met. Patience, persistence - those are skills too. The past, where you come from, that’s important, but it is not as important as the future and where you’re going.” Cas explained thinking of all the times the brothers and he has gone through hell and back and helping Dean raising a child was one of the greatest accomplishments in his time on earth.

In a hotel, Michael looks at himself in the mirror smoothing out the wrinkles in the suit fixing the buttons. His reflection in the mirror changes from Michael to the Winchester daughter

“Get...Out.” She breathed out angrily.

“I don’t think so.” Michael smiles staring back at the girl in the mirror

“You can’t.” She cried

The archangel grins “Oh, but I can. Because see,” Michael punches the mirror, and Y/n is gone he smirks smoothing out his vessel’s hair,

“I own you. So hang on, and enjoy the ride.”

In a cheap apartment in Duluth, a young woman lies in her bed but is interrupted by pounding on the door.

“Yes?” She calls out.

“Lydia Crawford, this is the FBI. Open up.” Sam call out Lydia looks terrified and tries running for the window while Sam keeps pounding on the door

“Open up!” Sam yells again. Dean breaks down the door and rushes in gun drawn with Sam right behind him, with Mary and Bobby following.

“Hey! Stop!” Dean yelled.

“Get away from me!” She cries trying to put as much distance between her and the Winchesters.

“Don’t move. We know who you are. We know you went to the morgue.” Sam threatened his gun pointed at her.

“We saw your license plate on the security cams and pulled your address. You should’ve ditched the car when you first got turned. Made this way too easy.” Bobby commented Lydia look at the four of them

”You’re not FBI. You’re hunters.”

“That’s right.” Dean nodded and begins to pull out a knife

”I haven’t done anything wrong!” Lydia exclaimed.

“No, vampires never do.” Bobby replied sarcastically

“My nest, we - we fed on animal blood,” Sam paused and lowering his gun and Dean lowered the knife, “We lived quiet lives, until...until she came.” Lydia explained still shaken from the incident.

“She? She who?” Sam asked

Lydia shook her head “I don’t know her name, but...she was strong. She tied all of us up and one by one she’d take blood from us. I couldn’t see what she was doing, exactly, but every time there would be this explosion, and my friends would be dead. When she was coming for me, a couple of the others tried to att- tried to attack her. I was able to get away, but...they didn’t make it.” She started tearing up at the memory.

“Why was she killing you? Did she say?” Sam questioned

“I don’t think she meant to. It-it’s just that...things seemed to go wrong. She wasn’t killing, it was like...it was like she was experimenting.” Lydia said 

“Experimenting? What for?” Dean asked Lydia frowned

“That’s - that’s all I know.”

“Okay,” Bobby nods grabbing his own blade, and advances to Lydia, “Nice chattin’ with ya.”

Lydia presses herself further into the wall holding her hands up ”Wait! Wait! I-I don’t know what she wanted, I-I don’t know who she was, but I do know where she is. If - if you let me go.” Dean and Sam look at each other having a silent conversation.

The door opens in and in walks Michael and a woman.

“Thank you. Oooh, Very elegant. But then, so are you. I didn’t expect you to be interested in this side of the spectrum.” She giggles

Michael chuckled leading her into the room “Yeah… Thanks for showing me around,” He uncorks some wine and pours them both a glass, “I didn’t realize there was so much going on in...where are we again?”

“Duluth.” She answered taking a sip of her wine.

Michael nodded “Of course. Nothing like where I’m from.”

The woman hummed “What’s it like in your hometown?”

“Hmm. Empty. Windswept. Dead bodies lying around.” Michael shrugged taking a sip of his drink. 

She chuckled “You’re so funny. What a nice surprise, meeting you. I bet you were wondering what I was doing, all by myself in that bar tonight.”

Michael smirked “I’m pretty sure I know exactly what you were doing in that bar tonight.”

The woman smiled setting her glass down “Oh, Michael. I am so not that girl.” she walked closer to Michael

“But you really are, aren’t you?” The woman wrapped her arms arounds around her neck

“You’re terrible.” She sighed. His vessel smiled showing off a dazzling smile

“You have no idea.” The woman giggled moving her face closer to the young Winchester and her eyes flash green and her teeth come out ready to bite what should have been an unsuspected victim. Michael grabs her by the throat as his vessel’s eyes glow blue.

“Did you honestly think I didn’t know what you are?” Michael lifts her off the floor choking her as she trashes in his arms, “You think you picked me? I picked you.” Michael throws her across the room and turns over to take a sip of wine and turns back to her still on the floor.

“Now, summon your master.”

Still in Michael’s room he hands a glass to a man seated next to the woman from earlier.

“You first.” The man points to his glass.

“One hundred-year-old cognac. Strong notes of vanilla and apricot,” He takes a sip, “and zero notes of silver.” The man also drinks “I appreciate you accepting my invitation.” Michael crosses one of his knees over the other.

“Yes, well, the ever-tactful Melanie,” he nods over to the woman, “thought a refusal might be unwise. She thinks you’re a god.” 

Both of them chuckle “An archangel with a decent vessel. But close.”

The man nods “And I’m the leader of a werewolf pack. Why on earth would an archangel care about us? About me?”

Michael smiles swirling his drink “I admire you. Eating on the run, surviving, despite being stalked by those venal humans, who think of you as nothing but vermin.”

The man leaned forward “My pack has survived and prospered for centuries, despite the humans.”

“Yes, well, I’m new to town, and from my perspective, the real monsters of this world, the ones that cheat, cover, lay waste to this planet, are the humans. Who made them top dog? Pardon the pun.” Michael explained taking a drink of the cognac.

“God, I suppose.” He questioned

“God who? Between us, Phillipe, God’s on permanent vacation. Gone fishing. Demons and angels don’t seem to be much of a factor here, so, I’m in charge.” Michael smiled leaning back in the couch

“And what do you want from me?” The man we know as Phillipe asks.

“You and your kind, you are who you are. You kill, but not for sport, for trophies - to live. There’s a purity in that. Isn’t it time you had your due?” Michael explained waving his hand towards Phillipe.

Phillipe frowned confused “Our due?”

“There are ways to enhance your - let’s call them ‘talents’.” Michael points out. 

“And these ways are..” Phillipe waves his hand hoping he would explain.

“Fully tested. There were some misfires early, I will admit to that. But I have cracked the code.” Michael explains clapping his hands together.

“And now what? Do you propose we wage a way on the humans, keeping only as many of them alive as we need for slave labor and a steady food supply?” Phillipe laughs “Because I love that world, but believe me, it’s an absurd dream.” 

Michael smirks “Is it? Why be the hunt-'ed’, when you can be the hunt-'er’, hmm?” He smiles watching his plan slowly come together.

After Sam and the others had left with the information on Michael, Lydia rushed around her apartment frantically packing her stuff to leave. The sound of someone appearing and as she turns to grab another handful Michael is sitting at her table.

“Lydia..” Michael singsong. She freezes the items in her hands falling.

“I didn’t!”  Lydia defended

“Of course you did.” He laughed at her attempt to lie. “The hunters,” Michael stands up, “Why do you think I dumped your brothers and sisters in plain sight? Why do you think I let you escape?” He points at her watching her face fall.

“You let me escape?” She whimpered

“Rule number one: you can’t have a trap without bait,” He smirks walking past her, “That brings us to rule number two, which says once the trap has been sprung, you don’t need the bait anymore.” Michael’s eyes glow blue and Lydia scream as she is burned out. Her body hits the ground and Michael turns looking at it before leaving.

Back in the bunker Jack turns the corners of one of the halls with Cas following him

“Jack, what were you thinking. Taking that kind of risk?” Cas scolded him

“It wasn’t a risk.” Jack disagreed

“To-to go out there alone?” Cas sputtered “Jack, you have been on the radar of every angel and demon and power broker in creation since the day you were born and I’m sorry, but you’re not exactly yourself.” Cas followed Jack as they entered the war room and Jack turned around

“Weak and defenseless, you mean.” He stated

“I mean that the possibility of capture is real, yes.” Cas explained

“I heard what you were saying, Cas, about me finding out where I came from. I never knew my mother. I thought the next best thing might be for me to meet the only real family that I have left.” Jack confessed

“That is not-” Cas visibly reins in his frustration, “Well, did it help?” Cas sighed and Jack nodded “And you didn’t tell them who you were, did you?” Cas questioned

“Of course not.” Jack deadpanned “I...wanted to. I wanted to tell them I was their grandson. They thought I actually kinda looked like her?” Cas nods in agreement Jack smiles but it fades as he sits against the steps to the library, “I...couldn’t tell them that she died. They just love her so much. I know I should have.”

”What you did you did from a place of kindness. I suppose there are worse ways to be human than to be kind.” Cas reassured the Nephilim sitting across from him

“Have you heard from Sam and Dean? Did they find Michael?” Jack asked 

“Yeah, they think so.” He nodded

“So they’re going to try to kill him?” Jack stated Cas shook his head

“Uh, no. No, the plan is to subdue him using angel cuffs and spellwork. They have to get Michael out of Y/n.”

“And if he doesn’t leave?” Jack noted

“Then they’ll try to drive him out.” Cas responded.

“And if that doesn’t work?” Jack said getting upset

“Jack-” Cas started

“Cas, Michael has to be stopped.” Jack cuts him off

“I know, and he will be - after Y/n is-” Cas tries to reason with him

“No, Y/n doesn’t matter” shot Jack, “You’re all so focused on trying to save Y/n and I get it, I understand, but - if she can’t be saved, if it comes down to her or Michael - Michael has to be stopped. Caged, or killed-”

“And if that means that Y/n dies too?” Cas shouts

“Then Y/n dies.” Jack snaps, “I know this Michael. I’ve seen what he’s done to an entire world, and so have you. If stopping that from happening here means that Y/n has to die, then…” Jack and Cas both start at each other, “Do you think she’d want it any other way?” Jack stands up and walks away leaving Cas there with a choice.

Back in Duluth Sam, Dean, Mary, and Bobby enter the abandoned church Lydia told them.

“You think vamp-girl was lyin’ about Michael hanging out here?” Bobby asked looking around the place.

“Not sure why she would. I mean she has every reason to want him dead.” Dean states aiming his flashlight over in some dark corners

“She wasn’t lying about the slaughter happening here,” Mary called out her flashlight pointing to a stain on the floor, “whole lot of dried blood on the floor.” 

Sam walked further into the church “Why was he killing them? And what does she mean by ‘experimenting’?” He questioned.

Bobby shrugged “Don’t look like he’s here.” The stained glass windows shatter sending glass flying as werewolves break through them. “Werewolves!” Bobby yells and is then tackled by one.

Sam fires his gun at one coming towards Dean and it has no effect. “Silver bullets aren’t working! Nothing’s working!” He yells. 

Dean punches one of the werewolves “Son of a bitch!” Dean yells and is tackled by another and smashed into a bean. Mary is struggling against another as they both fall to the ground. A werewolves tries to go for Sam but he grabs his machete and decapitates one

“Well, that works.” Bobby yells and is punched by a werewolf. Dean pushes the one of him grabbing his machete and chops one of the heads off, Mary stabs the werewolf with one of her knifes but it has no effect and is shoved to the ground. Mary grab the small hatchet and began to chop at the werewolf before is falls to the ground. Bobby is pushed to the ground and before he is attacked Mary throws the hatchet into the werewolf’s back and Bobby decapitates it. Mary hears growling and turns and sees another werewolf but Dean decapitates it just as Sam kills the last one.

“Is everybody okay? Anyone get bit?” Sam pants out

“No.” Mary replies.

“I’m okay.” Bobby answers all of them grouping up again

“What the hell kind of werewolves were those?” Dean asked wiping the blood of his blade.

“Silver didn’t touch them.” Mary added Sam sighed all of them out of breath from these new monsters. A loud bang causes everyone to look towards the door as it opens revealing Michael, backlit in red light.

“Oh god.” Mary breathes out He slowly walks towards them raising his hand. Which she uses to grab a post and staggers into the light breathing heavily removing her cap as she does.

“Dad. It’s me.” You breathe out your voice shaking. Dean stares back at you tearing up. Dean rushes towards you as you knees give out and helps you sit down. Sam is sitting next to you with Dean in front of you.

“Y/n is it really you?” Dean asked looking over you

“Yeah, it’s really me.” You answer your hands are shaking trying to understand what was going on.

“Are-are you okay?” Sam questioned

“No, I’m not okay!” You yelled putting your face in your hands. Dean placed his hand on your knee making you look up at him.

“But you got Michael to leave.” Dean tried to reassure you that everything was ok.

But you shook your head. “No, I-I don’t...I didn’t.” You stated.

“What?” Bobby questioned looking at the younger Winchester. 

You look at your dad in fear, “He just - he just left.”

Dean squeezed your hands “Why?”

“I don’t know…” You shuddered, “I don’t know.”

[youngdumbamericanteen]

Mabel bad?

Oof sorry for never answering you nonnie! I’ve been pretty busy lately haha. But the post you’re responding to is a bit...old. I now understand Mabel a bit more now as a person, however I do still dislike her as a character because her flaws I was talking about in that post are never meaningfully addressed. 

This might get a wee bit long, oops. Click for a big Gravity Falls writing analysis/essay/thingy.

It’s good for characters to have flaws. Flaws that actually affect them and have consequences. Otherwise you have something of a Mary Sue that isn’t relatable and has a story that’s too easy and boring for the audience. The narrative punishes or addresses those flaws and they present a challenge for the character.

But at the opposite end, you have characters who have flaws that the narrative never addresses, which means the characters never have to grow. There’s two reasons this is bad. One, that you can have the same issue where they don’t face any struggle or grow as characters and it’s a boring story, or two, people don’t generally like to root for characters who they’d want to punch if they ever met them irl. You can have a story with main characters who are bad people, but you have to either make the character likable in other ways, present the situation so that the audience can gather that they’re in the wrong and either be rooting for their downfall or their growth, or have their actual story be compelling enough that the need to know what happens next outweighs dislike for the character. (And all of these things often require the story to be told from said bad character’s point of view.) Gravity Falls doesn't really do any of these things. Or rather, it tries but is ineffective for around 50% of the viewers.

Mabel is often presented as a pure soul, good of heart and just overall a good person. But she’s got flaws. She’s selfish and a bit inconsiderate, which is normal and not an unforgivably terrible thing, especially for a 13 year old girl figuring out her place in the world. All the Pines are a bit selfish, I think it runs in their genes. But the thing is, the show will treat her selfishness as perfectly fair and normal, with anyone her selfishness affects being shown as in the wrong. She often guilts people, mainly Dipper, into sacrificing things for her while rarely making any sacrifices of her own. She does it to other characters as well, but here’s a brief list of times Dipper has sacrificed something for Mabel (which I compiled with the help of this post on Quora):

 Tourist Trapped: Dipper spends almost the entire time worried about Mabel’s safety and trying to protect her, while she just brushes him off and laughs at him.

The Hand that Rocks the Mabel: Dipper agrees to break up with Gideon for her.

Time Traveler’s Pig: Mabel insists that Dipper give up the reality that doesn't break his heart so that she can adopt Waddles, and when he initially refuses she purposely endangers the space-time continuum as retaliation. 

Little Dipper: Mabel is very angry about Dipper making himself taller, even though Dipper would not have resorted to it if now for her teasing. She immediately demands and fights for the magic flashlight, causing it to fall into Gideon’s hands.

Summerween: Mabel drags Dipper out to go trick-or-treating in a costume he dislikes because she’d planned on them having a duo costume.

Boss Mabel: I shouldn’t even really have to explain this one, the whole episode is about her going on a power trip.

The Deep End: Mabel embarks on a rescue mission for Mermando, doing and using things that would lead to Dipper being fired from the pool job he loves, without consulting him at all. She hears his concerns and instead of just explaining she’s saving Mermando the first time, she completely ignores him and speeds off, destroying more pool property and ensuring he’ll be fired.

Carpet Diem: Dipper informs her of the the issues he has with her roommate habits, and she completely denies any fault, even though she and her friends had legitimately destroyed the room and the mini-golf course the twins had built. The two of them both overreact, and act selfishly throughout the entire episode, but she absolutely refuses to listen to him.

Boyz Crazy: This one isn’t Dipper but I still wanted to mention it because she is so ridiculously selfish throughout the whole episode, to the point where it’s to her and the people she loves’ detriment.

Dreamscapers: Again not Dipper or a sacrifice, but her worst nightmare is apparently losing her cuteness and becoming ugly. I dunno if that’s exactly selfish or anything but God did it make me wrinkle my nose in distaste.

Sock Opera: After promising to help Dipper with the laptop, she almost immediately abandons him for her crush of the week, then proceeds to ignore him for, and inconvenience him with, her puppet show, taking his things without asking and expecting him to be completely cool with all her actions. Bill literally mentions her selfishness to manipulate Dipper and it completely works.

The Love God: Dipper leaves Wendy and her friends in chaos to help fix Mabel’s mess.

Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons: Mabel, her friends, and Stan all make fun of Dipper and Ford and insist they should have full use of the living room.

Dipper and Mable vs the Future: This is one of the big ones that people talk about. Mable finds out that Dipper might want to stay as Ford’s apprentice and becomes incredibly upset because she dreamed of the two of them having fun in high school together. She sees Dipper and immediately makes it about her and her feelings, treating something he’d been dreaming of all summer (being The Author’s apprentice) as some direct attack on her happiness. She proceeds to literally give Bill the ability to start the apocalypse to avoid being separated from Dipper, all without having any sort of meaningful conversation with Dipper or considering his feelings.

Weirdmageddon Part 2: Escape From Reality: Out of all of these, this might be the one that gets to me the most. Mabel, seemingly knowing full well that she’s trapped by Bill, creates an imaginary fantasy land and refuses to leave just to spite Dipper for considering taking the apprenticeship. And despite doing all this, and attempting to convince him to stay with her, she creates an alternate “better” version of Dipper who’s “cool” and supportive and very, very, different from the real Dipper.

And this isn’t even mentioning all the times she just assumed she was completely in the right about something or had the moral high ground. Mabel frequently makes rush decisions because she thinks everything should be her way or how she thinks is right. 

And I want to say again, none of these things are unforgivable. Honestly, a lot of the things on the list are pretty standard sibling things, and like she isn’t even always in the wrong. The issue is that I’m naming at least 15 times where Mabel has been selfish or forced someone to give something up for her, and she almost never learns her lesson or is punished by the narrative. There are also only 2 or 3 times I can think of where Mabel sacrificed anything for Dipper, and they were all times he was in actual danger or someone had to talk to her and say she messed up and needed to fix her mistake. 

Dipper, on the other hand, sacrifices things for Mabel, faces consequences for his mistakes and his flaws, learns substantial lessons, apologizes, and rarely, if ever, repeats said mistakes. Now, this doesn’t mean that Mabel is awful and Dipper isn’t. I mean, Dipper does some pretty crumby things and has to be told he’s in the wrong or to apologize. And Mabel isn’t a bad person. Like legitimately, that is not what I want anyone to take away from this. She does genuinely love her brother and care about his wellbeing. She’s just a little selfish and unthinking sometimes, like anyone else.

Like I said, my issue is that it goes unpunished, and she repeats the same type of offense wayyy more than any other character. She’ll disappoint Dipper enough that he’d make a deal with Bill and then everyone will still say she’s the best and most caring person ever. That’s just annoying, honestly, or it is to me at least.

This isn’t dunking on her, this is dunking on the writers. And they aren’t unforgivable either, I mean Gravity Falls was a masterful web of foreshadowing, character building, lore, plot work, and incredibly intelligent humor mixed with jokes kids would love too. I don’t blame them for dropping the ball on Mabel, and I don’t hate her or the show or anything because of it. I just want us to acknowledge this flaw of the show, and also have people get it when Mabel gets on my nerves a little bit.

[sillyfudgemonkeys]

i havent been here in a hot second is there a reason for the makoto hate specifically? like the rants go back to p5's writing issues but the spite for makoto seems very specific did she kill someones dog in one of the spinoffs or what?

You're all good. So here's the thing, she did kill my dog-I'm joking.

When I say “I’m the residential #1 Makoto Hater” it’s a joke, partially cause it probs looks that way (and probs cause it might be true, who knows if you could quantify hate then maybe I’m at the top of the leaderboards 8U but you can’t so we’ll never know). But I’m saying it at as a joke, to own myself and everyone here that knows what I think of her, rather than wear it as a badge of honor or some silliness. It’s just a “oh haha yeah there goes Silly, dunking on Makoto again! She’s basically Makoto’s #1 hater haha oh she’s so silly.” (so please don’t look too deep into it, I just want to have fun).

Anyway, me hating Makoto isn’t new, but I do hold a similar ire towards Futaba, Goro (tho I have camaraderie with his fans, I relate to their struggle in terms of my own brown hair and red eye fav and Atlus screwing them over u_u I may hate your fave but I respect you and will be in your corner), and Yukari (as well as Chloe from LiS if you want a non-Persona example). Makoto might be talked about more because 1) She hits my buttons that much faster (Futaba/Goro are more like a festering wound, and when I talk about them it’s hard to pick a starting point), 2) Her fans tendency (early on in the fandom) bringing her up frequently.....was a bad combo with #1 (overexposure+pushing all my buttons really fast=disaster). Obvie not blaming her fans, but it was hard to curate how I was able to curate my content online (esp with gaming news websites calling her “best girl” when showing off a figure announcement or some BS when I just want to know what new games have been announced >.> I can do without you trying to start a waifu war in the comments Siliconera -_-)

Anyway, I think I’ve made my reasons for hating her very clear (you just have to search her name on my blog and you’ll get a ton of essays I’m sure, too many to count). And a lot of it is the failure of P5′s writing. “So it’s just the writing you hate, not the character.” No. Because that doesn’t make sense. Except under certain circumstances (which I’ll provide examples of below with Luke Skywalker), you can’t separate the writing from the character. The character IS the writing, the writing IS the character. If you can’t hate/dislike the char because “of the writing” then you also can’t love/like them either. The character and the writing/writing choices for that character are connected. The writing embodies that character. They are the same.

Now I said there was an exception, and that’s....”different writer/director,” tho it’s not ALWAYS the case (sometimes the new writer really gets the original writing, like Saito for MM.....they are very good at emulating the clusterfuck of P5′s writing). P5′s writing is the original basis for Makoto’s character, that’s her. You can’t separate it from her. Same thing with say....Luke Skywalker from the OG trilogy, that’s him. But then we get to the sequel/Disney trilogy, new writer/director....and yeah that’s a mess (from what I understand OG trilogy=Hopeful and tries to see the best in people, 2nd Disney=Cynic and tried to kill a child, 3rd Disney=Hopeful again for some reason). There’s character development, then there’s just straight up changing the character just cause you need them to be this now. 

*writes how this can apply to Persona spinoffs but deletes because I was getting too off track* Look at me exercising control. It’s probs best I save that for a meta after I’ve replayed all the spinoffs again.

But....if you want me to boil down my issues with Makoto, I hate the message we get from her. I hate the lesson we learn from her. What is supposed to happen vs what happens.  It’s supposed to be about a girl who is blindly following authority and becomes disillusioned with it after being burned by it, on top of “immense pressure” she has as well, and then comes to our side (we know this because Atlus told us). We don’t get that (we know this because we saw the execution). We get two adults, yes TWO ADULTS, one of which is her sister and wants her to do well in school (but isn’t like.....a tiger mom about it, because Sae can’t be TOO horrible because we need to like her later), who in retrospect seems very busy with her job (which gives Makoto freedom), but also feels burdened by her younger sister (in which she has one shitty slip with her and then NEVER again). And the other is a dumbass principal who asks a really strange and stupid task for Makoto that snowballs into bullshit. That’s IT! THAT’S IT! That’s all we get from Makoto and “authority.” Strawmen. We don’t really get much of her personality either (I’m not saying that cause “she’s cardboard” I legit just.....don’t get her? Like I don’t get enough of her to get a solid foundation, you get me?) Like as the player, what we see of her is she’s just studying in the library (Kamo arc), then the principal calls her in, she mentions the rumors about Kamo, he asks her to look into the PT in exchange for a recommendation (to which she’s surprised and says thanks, not no, she looks like she’ll accept JUST BASED ON THAT) but before she can even say Yes (OR NO) he threatens Makoto with her sister, to which Makoto hardens and then agrees. Then she acts like an asshole and yadda yadda stuff happens.

But if she’s supposed to blindly follow authority, she’d say yes, but then they don’t let the character breathe so she can make the “wrong” choice because the Principal goes STRAIGHT to threatening her.......so now the message is muddled, or really it’s non existent. The whole Sae thing is a nothing bag too, it’s just family drama. Her sister is, no HAS to be absent a lot for her work, just so Makoto can have the freedom to be a PT....which means....it hurts her lack of freedom and other stuff associated with Sae being a big pressure on Makoto’s life. You know, I’ve said before they’ve squandered Sae, and that Makoto’s presence really harmed Sae (iirc it was this post). But at the same time, how they handled Sae really screws up Makoto’s character. Neither are allowed to breathe. Neither are allowed to make a true, horrible choice...and then learn from it. They aren’t allowed to have an actual arc. Altus played it safe, took choice away from them, didn’t want to take risks with either character and have meaning. Instead we just have this nothing contradiction thing dicking around until they join our team. 

What really sucks about that....is we got that with the Kamo arc. With Anne, Ryuji, even Yuki and Shiho. Kamo was manipulative, and his manipulation caused people to make....not the best choices, all out of a means to survive. Ryuji physically acted against Kamo, and he got his leg broken, team disbanded, and outcasted. Anne was trying to protect Shiho’s position on the team, which lead to her almost getting harmed by Kamo, Shiho getting harmed, her not seeing the truth about what was going on around her, and she didn’t tell Shiho (because she didn’t want Shiho to think she didn’t get on the team for her own merits), and so on. Shiho didn’t tell Anne what was going on because she wanted to protect Anne from Kamo (and was afraid Anne would, very much blame herself), and her and Yuki and the rest of the teams helped keep quiet about Kamo so they wouldn’t be next on the physical chopping block. This isn’t me blaming them, this is me showing their choices, their attempts to fix their (hopeless) situation, to help themselves or others, and the dramatic irony being it just made everything worse. BUT, even tho Kamo was the real one to blame, each character is aware of the actions that were made, and the consequences of each action (esp Anne/Ryuji/Shiho). And in their CoOps, they identify this, and take strides to learn from it so it doesn’t happen again. That’s an arc. That’s character development. They were allowed to make errors, mistakes, decisions that negatively impacted themselves/other’s. We see a solid foundation of their character from the get go, and how it changes over that small time. We don’t get that with Makoto. The group is like solid concrete to Makoto who is like shifting sand. 

Sorry got a bit off topic, anyway, I hate her message of boasting about her fighting ability but she only harms her friends (outside of shadows, but that’s not special) WHILE ALSO being a damsel that needs someone else to rescue her! I hate how when she gets called out, she wants to drop it, and gives gaslighty apologies, even tho she really ROYALLY screwed lot of people very badly. I hate how she demands us to help, only to literally be a detriment to our investigation. I hate how she gets to fly off the handle without repercussions (despite needing to be cool calm and collected for her job, especially since she miraculously can do that when needed so what the hell????). I hate how the text has her be shitty, say shitty things, be bad at her job, but will turn around and reward her time and time again. 

Sure she doesn’t break the lore like Futaba, or unravel P5′s plot like Goro. But as a character with a message attached to her, even ones that the creators surely overlooked (I’m sure they didn’t intend for her to only hit her friends), it’s simple but very annoying. Fast and easy to see, doesn’t require me to think of P5′s lore as well as the grander Persona lore. Doesn’t require me to dig through text for Goro bread crumbs and then unravel the entire basis of the P5 plot thanks to him. Makoto is easier to get into, it’s smaller scale and more personal I guess. 

[nevermore-ocs]

Unbreakable

Author’s note: Remember how I just posted something sweet??? This is the exact opposite of it XDDD About 2.7K words of lore/angst for Cooper and Darius when they were kids in the orphanage they both were in!

"Okay, umm...oh! What's that one?"

"That one's Orion's Belt, see how it's a row like a belt?"

"Ohhhh...hey how do you know all of this stuff?"

Darius snickered with the approaching joke, nudging his best friend in the whole wide world, Cooper, with his elbow, "Because I read books, unlike you," as he was laughing, Cooper launched himself at Darius in a tackle, the two of them laughing messes while their makeshift fort caved down on top of them. "But I'm stronger than you, huh?" Cooper sat up on the hardwood floor, a wide grin spread across his face only to get a pillow tossed at his face by Darius, "You're like a bull, you just broke our fort down! Again!" With an embarrassed sound and a sheepish ruffle of his hair, Cooper jumped up onto his feet, "I'll fix it, don't worry!" Darius sat back, his back gingerly resting against the wall as he watched Cooper do his best to attempt to remake their fort back to its usual perfection. It was hard in this orphanage, they had to make the most of the simple things, and to two 13-year-olds, a blanket fort was one of the best things out there. He drifted deeper and deeper into his thoughts, about how he was judged so harshly by how he looked, his skin, his eyes, he had no control over those things. They weren't his power. He wasn't even sure if he had any. So, why was he treated so badly? He wasn't a meta-human, was he?

"Fixed it!" Cooper's elated chime reeled Darius out of his thoughts again, he leaned over to the side to look around Cooper, to judge his work, and with the blanket laid askew over the bed and how it managed to even stay tied to the wooden bedpost was a miracle to itself. Blinking, he looked over towards Cooper who planted himself right down next to Darius with that massive smile on his face that seemed to be painted on his lips 24/7, he returned it with his own much smaller one, and nodded, "You always do great with it! Here, let's-" As a result of moving too quickly from his seated position, Darius felt that sharp stabbing pain plunge deep in his back, it almost made him fall to his knees if it weren't for Cooper to catch him again, "D-Darius are you okay?!" Worry was ever evident in his voice, he placed Darius, gently of course, down next to him, under their fort, and when he relaxed, he let himself lean against Cooper lightly. "I'm, ufh, fine. It's my back again." It was probably because of his shirt, but he couldn't feel any wetness of blood back there, they always swatted with the belts so hard, he could hear the sharp leather whipping against the skin on his back resonate in his ears and dig in them, those noises would probably permanently stay there for the rest of his life, the damage on his back would most certainly leave scars. He always got the worst of it, they said it was because he would use his powers all of the time, you weren't supposed to use your powers, it was the number one rule, but he never used them. It was just how he looked. "You go through a lot of those, I don't know how you deal with them," Cooper went through the same thing, his beatings weren't as severe as Darius's but he was certainly a lot more sensitive than the other, he would always come back to Darius and throw his arms around him for a big hug while he sobbed and sniffled to his heart's content and while his back stung ferociously, however, Darius was always there for him to hug him and have him cry his lungs out as much as he wanted to and Cooper was there for him, just the same, but Darius never cried. He got those lashings so frequently that he just stopped crying and accepted them. Letting out a soft, dry chuckle, he glanced back over at Cooper in the corner of his eye before turning his head to face him properly, "I get them so much now, they still hurt, but I can't stop them." He didn't want tonight to go like this, they were smiling, stargazing, even naming the constellations off of the top of their heads. "Cooper, can I ask you something?" Darius had to be so careful with the question about to come from his lips, that before he even muttered it, he used some of his wavering strength to put himself up onto his knees and peek through a gap of the blanket on the bed over to the bed on the opposite side of the room that harbored another young boy, about the same age as them. When he saw the lump under the throw on that bed breathing steadily and slowly, Darius lowered himself back down next to Cooper and looked back at him with excitement gleaming in his orbs.

"Can you show me your crystals again?"

Cooper, like a big puppy witnessing a new tennis ball being presented to it, excitedly nodded more times than Darius could count. Shifting himself up onto his knees much like how Darius was placed, he turned his hands over and opened his palms, it took him closing his eyes and a quiet grunt, but the small, seafoam green crystals formed and gradually grew on his palm, along the length of his arm, on his knuckles and after he opened his eyes again, the two of them got into a fit of giggles and laughs. "These are always so cool!" Darius poked the tip of one of the pointed crystals and took a glance at his fingertip after, surprisingly, the crystal's pointed tip didn't break through his skin, "Hehehe, thanks! Imagine when I'm really big and strong and I do this! I'll be uh...um...oh! Oh!" Cooper patted Darius's shoulder numerous times to get his attention, standing up in front of their fort, he confidently put his fists on his hips and exclaimed, "Unbreakable!" Darius beamed widely with stifled giggles but took a hold of his friend's shirt to pull him down to the ground again, "Shush, you're gonna get us in trouble!" Cooper was having a significant amount of difficulty in holding back his laughter but with the help of Darius clamping a hand over his mouth, he stayed quiet. For now of course. "We should go to bed though, if we're not awake when they want us to be, we'll get in trouble, you know." Darius pointed out, much to Cooper's chagrin who also let the crystals that spawned and grew on his arms to dissipate and seemingly melt into nothingness. "Don't worry, we'll play more tomorrow night!" He reassured Cooper, it perked his friend right back up to his usual high energy spirits. He hopped onto his end of the bed, the two shared one, and Cooper, being the big, big-hearted one out of the two of them, he gave Darius the end where all of the pillows were. Cooper laid at the foot of the bed, much like how a puppy would do. "Night, Darius!" Darius sat at where the pillows and the blankets met at the head of the bed, "Good night, Cooper," it felt like he just had gotten the words out of his mouth when he overheard his friend beginning to snore quite comically loud; he's grown used to it now. With a soft chuckle, Darius slid underneath the covers and stared up at the speckled ceiling for a few moments, silently taking in the stillness in the air. It wasn't long until his eyes started to get too heavy, and he drifted away to sleep as well, his head nestled in the pillows with the blankets pulled right up to his chin.

The day had seemed so monotonous and humdrum to Darius that it wasn't until Cooper rushed up to him in the main foyer where other kids and workers were at different positions in the room, watching the kids. "Darius, hey! I got one of the action figures! Are you ready to play?" Darius, as much as he didn't want to admit it, felt himself zone out when he took in his surroundings. He noticed more eyes on the two of them, kids were whispering amongst themselves and pointing at them when they were bold enough. It took him to look over at one of the entrances to the foyer that even two workers were staring at them with a certain disapproval in them. Disgust honestly. "Helloooo?" Cooper waved his hand in front of Darius's face to catch his attention, only for his friend to snatch his hand, "Ah-hey is everything okay?" Cooper started to do the same, he surveyed the area, taking in the numerous kids gawking at them and the workers staring them down as if they were their worst enemies. "What's going on?" Walking in with a familiar faced kid who pointed right directly at Cooper and added a nod onto it too, this much larger, bearded man with an infuriated expression on his face stormed up to the two of them with a belt in tow. It was taking Cooper a much longer time than Darius to realize what was going on. Darius's multicolored eyes widened with fear.

That boy. He snitched on them because of Cooper's power.

The man, being rough as all Hell, took a firm grip of Cooper's arm and yanked him towards him, "Cooper did you use your powers last night?! You know our rule about that-or maybe you don't, you little stupid bastard!" The man gripped Cooper's wrist so tight, his skin was turning red in the area, and with a few whimpers, he started to struggle, "I-I wasn't doing anything wrong! I wasn't hurting anybody!" He, with all of his might, pushed on the man's iron grip on his wrist, it wasn't doing anything. It only resulted in him getting smacked across the side of his head harshly and almost collapse to the ground. "Using your powers is wrong!" The man showed the belt he had in his other hand, as an intimidation tactic to make Cooper almost piss himself for the upcoming punishment. "At this point, you should know what happens when you use those disgusting mutations of yours!" Darius couldn't listen to this. He knew Cooper was innocent, he didn't think using your powers was a bad thing, and it ran through his head that he had asked for him to use his power. It was his fault more than Coopers. He closed his eyes, and inhaled deeply through his nose and let it out through his mouth, to soothe his trembling body. He had this happen so many times.

He doesn't cry from them anymore.

"It was me," Darius broke the fighting in between Cooper and the man who had his arm lifted to strike down powerfully on Cooper's now exposed back. "W-What?" Cooper sniffled, trying to stop the waterfall amount of tears spilling from his eyes. "It was me, I asked Cooper to use his powers, he wouldn't have used them." He stared the man down, watching him release his firm and rough grip on Cooper to stomp up to him, his hand clenching the belt. "Is that true?" The man knelt to Darius's level, right next to his face but Darius stared forward and away from him. "You asked him?" He gave the man a nod. "I did, it's not Cooper's fault. You don't need to punish him."  Darius was already in the process of stripping his shirt off since he only knew where this was going to go. Cooper stared with disbelieve, shaking his head, "No, no, don't hurt him, please!" He had launched himself to Darius, to protect him, to save him in return but two workers, faster than him, grabbed Cooper by his arms and restrained him, holding him back. "Let me go! Darius! No!!" He looked over at Cooper and gave him a true, small smile, "It's okay." He mouthed to him. When he heard the metal clinking of the belt buckle and the belt being lifted, he closed his eyes again and felt the sharp, stinging pain of the belt swat downwards on his back with not a single ounce of restraint or mercy. The first strike made Darius fall onto his knees and hands, the repeated whips of the belt made him sink to the floor completely, he was already losing count, the world was fading out, and his ears were ringing; the one thing that stayed in was Cooper's muffled protests. He couldn't see him, but he knew that Cooper was fighting as much as he could, even if a lot of it was fruitless.

"Stop!" He stared at the droplets of his best friend's blood flinging off of the belt and splattering around.

"Stop!!" He listened to the man berate his best friend on the ground, he had a disgusting, big grinned smile on his face as he 'disciplined' someone innocent.

Cooper was getting angry, angrier than he has ever been. His blood was boiling, he was hyperventilating, enough for the workers holding him to notice it firsthand and how infuriated  Cooper looked with tears of rage prickling at his eyes and a scowl on his face. He clenched his fists tightly, the crystals started to form quicker than ever before on his arms and body in general, enough for the two workers to cry out in pain at the stabbing of so many and they dropped Cooper down to the ground as a result.

"I SAID STOP IT!!!" Bringing down both of his fists in a powerful downward slam to the hardwood floor, the foundation of it rumbled, towering large curved spiked crystals erupted from the ground in wave after wave, like a barrier around Darius who was splayed down on the ground since one of the crystals had spawned upwards right in between the man and Darius. "Darius!!" Cooper ran over to him, sliding down onto his knees next to Darius's weak, almost limp, body. Shallow breaths were escaping his lips, with how Cooper was holding him, he could feel the blood from the several gashes and open wounds seep through his fingers and onto his palms. "Darius, Darius please..." Cooper was crying, his teardrops were plinking down onto his friend's weak face. "You didn't, hck, you didn't have to do that for m-me, I'm sorry...I'm so sorry..." Cooper took several looks around, how far the crystals spread and how huge and jagged they were, he saw crimson liquid cascading the clashing seafoam green. Two crystals had pierced completely through the chests of the two workers from before that restrained him. They were laid out on top of them with the jagged tips clean through the bodies. He glanced over to the man from prior too, and he endured something similar. Several crystals had grown around him specifically and the pointed, hard, jagged tips had stabbed through his body in multiple places, pinning him almost to the wall by the chest, stomach, and legs. Cooper was stunned, he almost didn't believe that he did this, he got so angry that he wasn't thinking clearly, he only thought about helping and saving Darius above anything else. No matter what happened to him.

"C...Cooper?" Darius's breathless voice instantly caught Cooper's attention. "D-Darius hey!" Cooper lowered his head somewhat when he saw Darius's eyes drift around the best they could to survey the now crystallized area and after, he slowly blinked and gazed up at his best friend the best he could. "What...what did you do?" Cooper sniffled and smiled down at him despite starting to cry all over again, "I saved you! Remember, I'm," he paused to sniffle, "Unbreakable!" He gave Darius that large grin of his again and, carefully as he could, hugged him tightly. "Darius I..." He glanced over to his right at the five or more running workers running in with restraints of all sizes from handcuffs to something that resembled a straitjacket, steadily approach them with Cooper dead set in their sights like a lion hunting down prey. He sighed and hugged him close again.

"I think I'm in trouble this time."

[enchantedbride]

Get to Know A Little About Joey’s Self-Ships!: Lucifer/Obey Me!Joey

So I’ve talked a little about my main ship (which I made do a little follow-up post for since have a Human!Joanna AU for Three Houses). 

But! The next ship I’m going to talk about is my newest ship and the one I’m currently hyperfixating on at the time of writing this. 

Tagging: @goldenworldsabound, @foreveryours-mouse

Lucifer/Joey Andrews (also known as Obey Me!Joey)

Note: Lucifer from Obey Me! does share his name and part of his backstory with the biblical/Christian figure Lucifer. I myself was raised in a Christian household, so my upbringing initially made me feel very weird and uncomfortable about my attraction to the Obey Me! character Lucifer.  However, I eventually realized (thanks to support from my best friend and what I remembered learning growing up) that Obey Me!Lucifer and biblical Lucifer share little in common aside from those two major points. And eventually I became comfortable with it because to me, Obey Me!Lucifer (and the characters/world of Obey Me! in general) are kind of their own thing. 

And honestly? This ship has turned out to be crazy therapeutic for me. But also, I just really loved some of the stuff I’ve come up with for it concept wise.

(Warning for a Death Mention and talk of demons and angels below the cut, but otherwise there are no major warnings I can think to put atm.)

So to start off with, while Obey Me! has a pre-built self-insert for the player in the form of the MC, I didn’t really like the backstory/lore and story arc associated with the MC as far as making my own self-insert was concerned. So, Obey Me!Joey is a separate character from the MC with her own backstory and character arc and interactions. The MC is still a character though, just an OC instead of self-insert (whom I named Katherine or ‘Kat’ for short). And I did wind up messing around somewhat with the plot too to make everything work.

ANYWAY

So, Joey is one of three human students sent to the Devildom (where demons live) as part of the Royal Academy of Diavolo’s exchange program with the human world and Celestial Realm (the academy to my understanding is supposed to resemble a college/university). The exchange program was pioneered by Diavolo, Prince of the Devildom and head of the academy’s student council, in hopes to build positive relationships and understanding between demons, humans and angels.  

However, because she and Kat seem to be ordinary humans with no magic powers to protect themselves, rather than having them live with the third human exchange student and the three angelic exchange students from the Celestial Realm, Joey and Kat are instead assigned to live in the House of Lamentation. The house to the seven members of RAD’s student council (aside from Diavolo), including Prince Diavolo’s right hand man, Lucifer. 

Lucifer and Joey are both people who tend to push themselves quite hard, often neglecting to take care of themselves in pursuit of their goals. But they can and will go out of their way for others. They both deal with a lot of shame and concerns about how they appear to others, but the way it manifests in each of them in completely different. It causes them to grate against each other in the beginning, especially when compounded with the ways in which they’re different. But, over time the both of them come to deeply affect one another, and not just because of developing romantic feelings, but because they force each other to reevaluate themselves and their own perspectives. 

During the course of the year Joey is to spend at the academy, a terrible conflict breaks out between demons who support and oppose Diavolo’s exchange program. Joey attempts to protect Lucifer, Diavolo, and one of her fellow exchange students and loses her life in the process. 

However, she returns to life as an angel, and not only does she cope with the trauma of death and coming back to life, but she has to cope with her new life changing in a lot of dramatic ways. And, instead of returning to the human world, she instead is to go with the angels to the Celestial Realm at the end of her stay in the Devildom.

And as for Lucifer, he worries about not only her well-being, but what what might become of their relationship once she leaves for the Celestial Realm. 

How to best summarize their dynamic:

Lucifer doesn’t like to admit it, but Joey has him wrapped around her little finger. But even if he won’t admit it, it’s obvious from his behavior. He’d do just about anything for her. She not only challenges his perspective and changes him, but she gives him the sort of affection, validation, and space to be honest and vulnerable he has gotten from few others. He loves spoiling her when they have a chance to spend time alone together and when they’re not alone he enjoys keeping her close at hand if he can, as often as he can.

Joey’s perspective is also challenged in kind, and she receives from Lucifer a lot of care and affection that were sorely missing from her life. She is confronted with tempering her kindness and compassion with being able to think of herself and her own needs, and to develop a strength of heart to confront things she didn’t think she had the courage to face. She likes helping Lucifer step away from his work so he can rest once in a while, and to coax him to be honest, vulnerable and to treat other’s with more respect than he initially does. 

They both care for each other, and are strongly affectionate and devoted to each other. They butt heads quite a bit, though. But, usually they are able to resolve their conflicts, even the longer-lived ones.

Some Lucifer/Joey Facts: 

Part way through her stay in the Devildom, while she was still human, Lucifer and Joey made a pact as a guard against the possibility of those who opposed Diavolo and the exchange program gaining a hold magic that could allow them to control Lucifer and his brothers and turn them unwillingly against Diavolo. This pact dissolved when Joey died as a human and became an angel.

Joey doesn’t like Lucifer calling her ‘Master’ (a human who makes a pact with a demon is technically their ‘master’ for the duration of the pact). Lucifer sometimes refers to her as such in order to tease her, but only when the two of them are in private. 

Lucifer initially doesn’t like video games, but he becomes somewhat interested in strategy games after Joey slowly introduces him to them, starting with virtual chess and working her way up to a Devildom game that’s similar to Fire Emblem but has a PVP component somewhat similar to Fates. 

Lucifer winds up teaching Joey a bit about the plants that grow in the Devildom because of his interest in gardening. She can’t take care of all of his plants for him, but she can help out with a couple of them if he’s got a lot of work to do.

Cerberus (Lucifer’s dog) likes, trusts, and is very friendly towards Joey. 

Lucifer also teaches her some of the basics of being an angel after she dies and comes back as one, revealing some pieces of his time in the Celestial Realm that he normally would be reluctant to share with others.

Joey considers herself a pretty good cook. Lucifer disagrees. In his opinion, she is an excellent cook. 

I headcanon that Lucifer is actually fairly decent at mending clothing in a pinch and has fixed a couple articles of Joey’s clothing in the past. 

Joey also encourages Lucifer to be more respectful of people’s boundaries and to ask for things more often rather than demand them. He’s gotten better about this with several folks (Joey being the person he’s best about it with), but it’s trickier when it comes to his brothers since they tend not to listen to him unless he’s being a dick. It’s a work in progress. 

Simeon was Lucifer’s wingman and Diavolo was Joey’s wingman for Lucifer and Joey getting together. 

Simeon’s The Seven Lords novels are based on Lucifer and his brothers, and he eventually added a character based on Joey (named Lady Fortitude) whose in a relationship with Lucifer’s stand in character in the series, the Lord of Corruption. 

Joey becomes one of the few people besides Diavolo who can get through to Lucifer when he’s in a rage. Initially, she can only keep him talking long enough for Diavolo to come and calm him down, but as she and Lucifer get closer, she gains the ability to calm him down herself. 

[ramblingcj]

Ok, so I decided to do a replay of AC Odyssey and while I was at it, I played through the Legacy of the lost blade DLC. Honestly I was going to just buy the Atlantis DLC and not bother with this one because of the mess that it is, but there was a sale and it ended up being cheaper to just get the season pass than to buy the DLC as a standalone. So here we are.

Anyway....I'm what.....a couple months late to this party? Oh well......this DLC....... I have some thoughts about it. Especially since I was able to play through the entirety of it directly after the game without waiting, so my memory of events in the main game and this is fairly fresh. Now I'm playing this after Ubisoft supposedly “fixed it” by doing.....something......and I knew what to expect which might've softened the blow somewhat. But damn what a shitshow this is.

Sidenote: I played as Kassandra so I will be referring to her as the protagonist when talking about this.

Sidenote 2: This is long. And I tend to ramble. Hence my url. 

I'm gonna break it up into points just to try to keep my thoughts organized.

The whole baby bit. OK, first off: this game is choice driven. You spend the entire main game making choices that might shape who your character is. The end result may vary, but I will say that I think the game did a fairly decent job in making you feel like the game was the choice driven story it was promised to be. Some smug players might scoff and go “well, the game is a linear story” except....it wasn't. It was choice driven. Yes, there was a story there and some events had to unfold. But it was still affected by choices. Your choices as the player. Who did you kill? Who did you spare? How will you resolve a conflict? Will you ask for a reward? Will you fight? Will you threaten this person or use diplomacy? Will you pursue the chance at a little bit of romance with that NPC or simply reject them? And, frankly, the DLC did the same for the most part. The ONLY time I truly felt railroaded was the damn “romance”....if you can even call it that. It completely takes away the player's agency.

I get the whole attempting to bring Odyssey into the AC universe bit. The main game focused more on the Isu and Kassandra's connection to them than the assassins themselves. But here's the thing though – just telling us that the Order of the Ancients existed in this time aswell and existed for a long time would be enough. We already know from Origins that the Order of the Ancients would later become the Templars. So we know their importance to the lore of this world and how it was shaped. And, like it or not, the Isu have always been apart of the Assassin's Creed universe. Its literally been a thing since the first game. Yes, we have the Templars and Assassins on opposite sides. But the Isu or the “Ones that came before” have always played a part. So its not like Odyssey wasn't already part of the universe. It just expanded on one aspect of it a bit more. The game isn't just the Assasins vs Templars thing. Just because people might like that aspect the most doesn't mean that's all there is to it. But I get attempting to bring the assassin part into Odyssey. However we also know that the actual Assassin's Creed order wasn't founded until Aya (and Bayek to a degree) did so in Origins. Which means that all this DLC had to do was tell us that the Order of the Ancients, the precursor to the Templars, existed, had existed for a long time and they always sought to control. By claiming the Isu artifacts for themselves or, as in this DLC, attempting to wipe out anyone with Isu blood. There. There's your connection to the other games.

I will say this though: the fact that the "tradition" of cutting your ring finger off in order to use the hidden blade only came about because Bayek put the damn thing on backwards is hilarious.

Not to mention – you can't play the baby choice as Kassandra wanting to secure the bloodline at all. You get one, maybe two lines about it. After the fact. But that's it. The rest is taken completely out of your hands. Take the whole quest of finding keepsakes for Natakas grave as an example. Its a tedious fetch quest that forces you to listen to Kassandra bemoaning what she's lost. Grieving a man Ubisoft decided that she loved without decent writing or the players input. In a game they touted as being choice driven. It was cringy at best and infuriating at worst.  You get his bow after the quest, I dismantled it right away. I just didn’t care. And why should I? The game just forced me into this situation without even attempting to make it seem like a natural progression of the story. 

Ubisoft's reasoning/excuse for this was “Alexios/Kassandra realizing their own mortality and the sacrifice Leonidas and Myrrine made before them to keep their legacy alive, felt the desire and duty to preserve their important lineage.” 

Here's the problem with that: It's bullshit! That's a motivation/desire that was never once expressed in the game. Not in the main game and not even in the damn DLC where this railroading happens!

Kassandra never expresses that she feels the need to preserve her bloodline, to keep her legacy going. Not when talking to Myrrine. Not when talking to Pythagoras. And not once in the DLC itself. The reason Ubisoft gave for Kassandra having a baby means nothing as it was never something she stated that she wanted. This motivation of wanting to continue the bloodline came out of nowhere. Literally. Kassandra doesn't even say anything relating to that until after you've been forced into the “romance” and had the baby. And I'd be willing to bet that that dialogue option was added AFTER the backlash from fans, in a pathetic attempt to justify this moronic decision. Because it sure feels like an afterthought in the game. Now, in the main game, Kassandra did state that she wanted her family back. But she meant the family that was ripped from her by the Cult of Kosmos. Myrrine, Alexios, Nikolaos – that was the family she wanted back. She wanted what was taken from her back! In fact Kassandra's whole life was ripped apart because of her bloodline. Her bloodline made her a target as a child and keeps making her a target as an adult. The Cult and their obsession with the bloodline was just one example. An example that cost her everything. She grew up without her mother. She lost her brother to the Cult. Phoibe, an innocent child, was killed by the Cult.  All because of a choice made by her mother and father long ago to “secure the bloodline”. Not to mention that she knows that the Order is hunting “Tainted Ones”. People who are descendants from the Isu. And she fcking knows that the Order is operating in Greece and have been operating in Greece for a while. Not to mention that she now has the staff of Hermes Trismegistus and the knowledge/responsibility that it brings with it. The staff practically makes her immortal and she knows that. She knows all of this, but decided to have a kid anyway? For a motivation she never even once expressed? What complete bullshit!

For all we know, that could've just as easily been the reason for Kassandra to deliberately refuse to continue the bloodline. Its caused her nothing but misery. It ripped her family apart. It makes anyone related to her or even close to her a target. So her coming to the conclusion that she doesn’t want to continue the bloodline would be just as natural and understandable as her deciding to continue it. 

I can't speak for the woman Alexios gets forcibly bound to (Neema?), but Natakas? He is bland as fck. He was boring and felt like such a waste of space and time. He had absolutely no chemistry with Kassandra and there was nothing about him that even remotely indicated that Kassandra would be interested in him. Maybe a quick roll in the hay at best. But choosing to stay with him and having his child? No fcking way. Natakas comes across as a one-off NPC that you're not really meant to care much about because he's gonna be gone once the DLC is over anyway. Which makes sense because that’s what he is. Even less so if I'm honest. There's other NPCs far more interesting that him that you meet in the game. Like the old lady wanting random stuff so that she can keep humping her husband. Yup, you read that right – a horny old woman who sends you on a fetch quest to collect deer tongue and who Kassandra/Alexios can roll around in the sack with for a bit was a far more memorable character than this bland mess of pixels called Natakas. The only real impression Natakas left behind was one of infuriated gamers who got railroaded by Ubisoft. 

Briefly on to the bloodline/legacy bit: We learn that Aya is a descendant of Kassandra's. Ok........so?  All this this “reveal” did was further illustrate that Origins should've been Aya's story and not Bayek's. From what I've seen most people who played Origins literally walked away from it feeling like we should've played as Aya with Bayek playing the secondary role. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely adored Bayek while playing the game, but its hard not to play that story and feel like he shouldn't have been the protagonist. That, while you're running around as Bayek, the actual building blocks for the order, the actual assassin work was done by Aya. While we're on the sidelines watching as Bayek. Instead of, you know, playing through the actual origins. This “Aya is a descendant of Kassandra” reveal just adds another layer to that. Not to mention that, unless I'm forgetting something, the bloodline ends with Aya as she had no more children after Khemu's death. So, congrats Ubisoft, you just further illustrated that you fcked up by not having Aya as the protagonist. Because women are hard to animate and all that.

The game does try, oh my yes does it try, to convince you that there is something between Natakas and Kassandra. Like that loooonnngg scene you have to suffer through where Kassandra is looking at Natakas. Which prompts old lady Kleta to go “real connections with people are rare, Kassandra”. So. Fcking. Cringy! Firstly, you can't skip the damn scene (because I tried) and, second, the line is laughably out of place. Real connections are rare? While that might be true, between Natakas and Kassandra its completely nonexistent. Kassandra had more chemistry with the woman saying that damn line than the guy the game is forcing me to be heteronormative with. There's plenty of characters that you meet throughout the game that Kassandra does have a connection with. And there not necessarily romances either, like Brasidas. Aspasia’s brief introduction scene (you know the one) had more to it than Natakas entire existence. Of the actual romances in the game, I think Kyra is probably the one who feels the most like an fleshed out romance. Daphnae or Roxana also had the potential to feel like fleshed out romances if they were written just a little bit more. Speaking of the dudes, there’s Thaletas or even a gentle soul like Lykanos. Main point, the romances in ACO m,ay not have been fleshed out Bioware-esque romances, but the potential was there. But we get stuck with this boring mess.

If Natakas had been written as Brasidas, then the romance (and I use that term lightly) would be slightly more believable. And I mean written as a character with a vital role to the story as Brasidas was. He felt like a secondary character with a role to play. Natakas is just kinda there. He’s no more than background. Playing second fiddle to his dad, who is far more interesting than he is. In fact, when the uproar happened about this DLC, I didn't realize that Natakas was a part of it at first, so I briefly thought that the dude Kassandra had a baby with was Darius. And, as weird as it might sound, I honestly would've preferred that to Mister Yawn over there. At least Darius was somewhat interesting. Basically Natakas and Kassandra fit together like two pieces of a puzzle that you used scissors and tape to force together because you couldn't be bothered to find the actual right pieces.

And this is a small point, but an important one I feel: Where. The. Fck. Was. Myrrine? You mean to tell me that Kassandra spent the entire base game looking for her mother, fighting to get her family back and stopping the Cult, only to not even bother to tell her mother that she has a child? That Myrrine is now a grandmother? That’s how fcking stupid this DLC was. It placed all the importance on Darius and Mister Yawn while forcing Kassandra to play a secondary role. When she is the actual main character. The way the DLC plays out, Kassandra literally lives in a village for (I’m guessing) two years, has a child who’s a couple of months old. Goes through the whole drama of getting her child back before deciding to give him up to keep him safe. All without bothering to tell her own mother. Myrrine herself was a woman whose children were ripped from her and here she had a grandchild that she wasn’t even allowed to meet or even know about. 

Everything about this DLC was infuriating. Going into it I knew what to expect and I still sat here becoming increasingly irritated by it as I played through it. Keep in mind, that I played this after Ubisoft supposedly “fixed” it after the backlash. From what I've read, they barely did anything which just makes me wonder why they even bothered. 

It would be such an easy thing to fix too if they’re dead set on forcing a baby on us: Add a few lines from Kassandra in the main game and throughout this DLC about her wanting to secure the bloodline, since that apparently is the excuse Ubisoft is gonna hide behind. Then introduce us to Natakas and tell us that he too is a Tainted One. Because Kassandra being a descendant of the Isu was kinda the whole point of her bloodline being special, you know. So she’s not gonna go and have a baby with some random dude. So Natakas is now a Tainted One. Then add Myrrine to the DLC and have her play a vital role. Have her and Kassandra talk about the bloodline. Why it was important. Why Myrrine made the choice of having a child with Pythagoras. Make that something Kassandra struggles with. And when the time comes make it a choice. Have Kassandra tell Natakas that she is only with him to have this child. That’s the only reason. She’s not gonna stay with him and she will go back to Sparta to raise it with her mother (and possibly Nikolaos if he is still alive). Basically have Kassandra do what Myrrine did several years earlier. Most of the DLC will still play out the same way, but with some tweaks here and there. 

Of course if you wanna play Natakas as a romance option, then that should be there aswell. But for those of us that don’t, the above should’ve been an option. 

Aside from, you know, not having the baby at all. 

OK, now I’m gonna play the Atlantis DLC. Fortunately this one doesn’t seem to have problematic stuff in it, so I haven’t been spoiled. Off we go now. 

Or how about going all the way out and tell us that Isu technology makes reproduction a moot point. Two women/men wanna have a baby? No problem. After all, there seems to be no damn limit to what the Isu stuff can do. It can turn people into monsters. Control minds. Make people essentially immortal. 

For fck sake, Ubisoft, you’ve created a world with a species capable of the craziest and you still decided to tie everyone down by the chains of heteronormativity. 

[plushievash]

how did leo/alexei happen? give us lore!

so for a long while they both had crushes on each other but alexei is stupid and leo suffered from internalized homophobia believing hes not meant for relationships no matter how much he wanted one with someone he would never pursue it bc he thought he would be a burden/nobody sees him that way/he is repulsive;; alexei just admired leo too much and thought leo was out of his league and that hed never love someone like him and also bc hes alexei and is just like * has severe paranoia and also no social skills *

dasha saw the Signs™ tho bc hes like love is in the air….and i will find out where its coming from and then. he suffered watching these 2 dumbasses for 2 almost 3 years dance around each other and their feelings while nobody else believed him that hey…..looks like somethins goin on between alexei and leo…u ever notice how leo takes any chance to touch him? u ever notice the way alexei immediately becomes more interactive when leo comes along? yes i know leo is clingy yes i know alexei is improving socially just like. Look its Right in Front of You.

but anyways went like that for the longest time where both of them kind of planned to make their feelings known but could never work up the courage to follow through with it. and alexei got with lucien to try to forget abt leo bc he “knew” he ‘had no chance’ and leo just [roblox OOF] and as usual * focuses on work at a dangerous level and does stupid stuff *

which ends up with a mix up and confusion where leo is missing and puts everyone in a panic and miko catches a guy named nikostratos and ooh ooough oh hes so mad hes so ohguh hes so angry that hes mad. and without thinking and following standard procedure does some things and is 8D to find out uh oh! just gave my brother the familys awful itchy scratchy disease! fuck! time to go kms i guess!

and masha is big mad at everyone so shes just like leo and miko are banned from work and if they even attempt it they wont bc theyd cross me and nobody crosses me. and then alexei is put on watch to make sure leo doesnt try to sneak away and work on his own anyways and to nobodys surprise, he does try. instead of sending one of his people alexei personally confronts him and persuades him to go back home. to which leo asks alexei to stay with him and he does…slowly leo starts to ease up again as alexei stays with him and basically lives with him/stella/the twins for a short while as hes stationed to by masha

eventually after a while of watching both miko and leo masha is satisfied enough with their recoveries and allows them back to their jobs calling alexei off since they no longer need to be supervised. but alexei again * is extremely paranoid and well meaning but also awful * so he keeps his people watching leo from a distance just to be sure hes safe; as he does with maxim and miko (the only difference is that maxim and miko Know he does that and asked him to do that; leo didnt.) oh yeah somewhere sprinkled in around that time alexei split with lucien cause he just. wasnt happy it wasnt working. i dont remember where exactly in all this mess it happened LMAO u might wanna ask my boyed friend abt that since alexei is his

so anyways after a while of being back to work leo notices hes still being followed and slowly gets paranoid and irritable. he ends up doing rash things that could end up getting him killed just to get the attention of the people following him to see if hes “just being paranoid” or if hes really being followed still despite masha allowing him to return to work. eventually after the 3rd time instead of sending someone to intervene alexei himself shows up and leo is Angry and hurt tells alexei to call off his people cause if he ever sees them again he wont hesitate to kill them and so alexei does cause he does care abt his people he doesnt try to defend himself or anything it finally hits him that he just “oh hmm. ok yeah that was kinda fucked up. uh oh i fucked up. this is bad”

and leos whole attitude began to shift instead of his usual generally polite and very easy attitude ready to make friends with anyone he became guarded irritable and quiet and he lost the soft tone in his voice. eventually even with his favourite most important people around him (stella/felix/miko) hes just too paranoid sick to his stomach and angry to stay where he is. so he says hes going to take a vacation and instead moves down to work at the other facilities as a lower agent domenico carlevaro; he doesnt alter his appearance too much aside from dyeing his hair and changing his general fashion style. the only person he allows to come down and see him is mikolaj but he says if felix or stella ever asked him he is allowed to tell them they can see him but no one else. not maxim or dasha or alcides not the twins. he cant stand to see anyone else. miko regularly visits him but has to ask each time since leo doesnt stay in 1 place for too long. eventually leos anger just makes him even more reckless causing him to break his prosthetic; so he has to return to apologize to dasha and ask for a new one.

there he finds out alexei has disappeared and immediately he just feels a twist in his stomach bc he wanted to be angry and pretend that hes over it and he doesnt care about him anymore but he still does so after he gets his new arm despite maxims protests he insists that he will assist maxim in the search. miko reports that alexei was last seen injured being carried away by a woman from some abandoned facility and so everyone is like ok fuck! who is that! is he already dead! or what the fuck! goddamn it! eventually maxim and leo manage to find where alexei is hiding running into one of his people; daria who is a tracker and not really experienced in protection. she… doesnt know how to properly use a gun. shenanigans happen bc daria is sweet and maxim and leo are not mean then leo sees alexei and boy ! he is  FUCKED UP. alexei looks like hes str8 up dying (cause he is!) hes extremely weak and has to use a cane to walk hes got bloody bandages all over and his arm in a sling and later leo and maxim see that arm has a huge ass bite taken out of it and maxim is just 8D…im a good doctor but im not That good a doctor what the fuck is this. and calls marina down to see if they know what this is

marina does and identifies it as a kaprinka bite (ask my boyed friend what a kaprinka is) and that all cases theyve been in charge of nobody has survived but theyll do what they can to try to fix it. maxim and leo decide to take shifts to always be in the room with alexei in case anything goes wrong like his condition suddenly gets even worse and they need to call marina or an attempt on his life happens. so the first night while leo is in charge of watching alexei they start to talk and leo isnt angry anymore and instead is just…Really really sad and admits how hes felt and how he knows that he doesnt have to; he shouldnt; and he Doesnt forgive him for what he did but hes willing to push that aside to at least go back to the way they were. and alexei admits how hes felt and apologizes for everything and how he “probably got himself killed” and theyre both just mmmm feels bad toddbut after that it gives alexei the push to keep on living and alexei does Stupid Stuff which is really stupid but! it helps and he manages to bring back the kaprinka for marina to see what they can do to help him since they said that theyve only ever seen kaprinka that were already dead and not usable for testing it takes months and some big rollercoaster ups and downs w/ alexeis progress but he makes it and recovers but continues to stay in hiding til he gains his full strength back and during that time someone is sent to kill him and leo and maxim stop the guy and then stuff happens and alexei is big mad and blah blah and stuff and then after thats taken care of and his recovery is full they all return and leo helps alexei/artyom/daria in their search for what originally caused the whole situation alexei got in

and so basically from the day they found him theyve been dating Finally but never like fully established it but its very clear now so everyone knows and dasha is rubbing it in everyones faces and miko and felix are dying and they just Cant understand.

also a quick note: theres 2 darias…i have a daria who is just a cute crafts girl with rainbow hair but thats not the daria in this situation…the daria in that situation is my boyfriends oc who is a motorcycle racer and tracker for alexei but they are both equally cute and good

[fehspinning]

The Sylvain Method - A Dimitri/Alfonse fic

   Dimitri looks down at the small box wrapped with ribbon that he carries; the doubt demanding to make its presence felt once more. Is it too forward? Is it out of line to give Alfonse a gift like this?

   The anxiety he feels tenses his body; thankfully he realizes it just as he begins to squeeze the box in his hand. Dimitri knows almost all there is to know about martial combat; he knows about politics, war and battle but when it comes to matters of the heart though he is at a loss.

   The one time he attempted to gift someone he liked with a token of affection things...did not go so well. Does he really want to risk soliciting the same reaction from Alfonse?

   Oh if he had only listened to Sylvain more! A thought Dimitri never expected himself to have. Yet if he is to be honest with himself while Sylvain always went to excess in the end the noble did possession a selection of skills and charms when it came to endeavors of the heart.

   Thinking on his friend gives the Prince of Faerghus an idea, an absolutely wondrous idea that may have his endeavor go well yet. Sylvain may not be here but he has had many conversations with him, and watched the lady's man ply his craft countless times. If he just draws on what he remembers; do the type of things, say the type of things Sylvain would then there is no way things can go wrong.

   Alfonse turns the corner ahead, the Askr prince has a meeting today with some scholars about new lore discovered regarding the latest threat to the Kingdom. Upon seeing Dimitri Alfonse smiles brightly and Dimitri can feel the strength leave his knees. No one has ever had such an effect on Dimitri before and hopefully he will never have to risk finding out if someone else can make him feel that way again.

   “Alfonse...I know you have a meeting but do you have a minute?”

   Alfonse nods and can't help but feel a bit of concern. His normally stoic prince looks worried, or concerned about something. “What is it? What's wrong?”

   Dimitri shakes his head; “Nothing, I just got you a gift and couldn't wait to give it to you.”

   “Oh OK.” The smile returns, Alfonse doesn't understand why Dimitri seems so out of sorts compared to how he usually is in public but as long as nothing is wrong there is no need to push.

   Dimitri offers Alfonse a box, a simple box about the size of Dimitri's palm wrapped in some rather fancy ribbon.

   Taking it gingerly Alfonse unwraps the gift revealing what appears to be a piece of jewelry; a golden lion's head. He pulls it out, a blue ribbon unfurls under the lion's head with a crest marked upon it that he's never seen in Askr. Nor has he seen it among the wide variety of crests he's encountered among the ranks of the Order of Heroes.

   “It's the crest of my kingdom, the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus.” Dimitri smiles; while he isn't homesick anymore there is a certain comfort in seeing the symbol.

   “The craftsmanship, it's incredible.” Alfonse can't take his eyes off the piece. Whoever did the gold-smithing put in a level of detail Askr crafters seldom succeed at.

   “May I?”

   Confused Alfonse nods and doesn't move or react to Dimitri taking the brooch and fastening to Alfonse's shirt on the opposite side of the Askr brooch. “I asked around, it took some doing especially to keep it secret from anyone who might spoil the surprise but I wanted you to have a way to know, during those rare times that I am not at your side, that I am with you still even if in spirit.”

   Alfonse just stares at the lion head brooch not saying anything; his face not seeming to be able to settle on any one emotion. Dimitri wilts, it's the dagger all over again. He's just so bad at this how can he save this situation? Without thinking he says the first thing that comes to mind that he believes Sylvain would say; “And it'll be a reminder for me too!”

   What was that? It takes all over Dimitri's military discipline to not groan turn and run away from this every growing mess.

   The comment does seem to have confused Alfonse; while he may not have been able to choose a single emotion for Dimitri's gift Dimitri can easily read the feeling that Alfonse is wearing now; confusion. “Remind you? Is there a chance you will forget?”

   Will Dimitri know that Alfonse is making a joke? Between Alfonse not being very experienced at making jokes or romance, and Dimitri taking things very literally Alfonse can't help but be nervous that he may have unintentionally insulted his love. Given the panicked look in Dimitri's eyes Alfonse can't do anything but assume the worst.

   Dimitri doesn't know what Sylvain would say, he can't remember anything at the moment regarding his friend or anything. He's screwed up and now he doesn't know how to fix it. He knows he needs to respond, Alfonse will expect him to respond and if he takes too long then maybe Alfonse will find him too awkward. Words start coming out before he thinks on what they will be. “No, but that doesn't mean I still won't appreciate the reminder!”

   Alfonse blushes and looks away, the same way that the girls would when Sylvain gave them one of his lines. Dimitri's heart skips beats, he did it! He saved the situation and has triumphed; in his head he can even hear Sylvain congratulating him for coming up with such a clever line.

    His cheeks burn with embarrassment, and he is having trouble looking directly at Dimitri. What Dimitri nor Sylvain know is that more often than not, this is the same reaction Sylvain’s lines encourage.

   Alfonse doesn't know what type of response he was expecting to his comment but it wasn't that. That was so corny, yet it also made Alfonse feel even more special; the whole thing was so confusing but Dimitri seems so happy with himself. The line may have been rather awkward but to see a genuine, boisterous smile on the lips of his blonde prince can't help but cause Alfonse's embarrassment to numb.

   He raises his head so he can look Dimitri eye to eye, goes to speak but is caught off guard once more by Dimitri who has leaned in, pulling Alfonse close giving him in a rather extended kiss.

   Alfonse melts in Dimitri's arms as he always does.

   Meanwhile somewhere at the back of his mind Dimitri can hear Sylvain voicing his approval not only for Dimitri's pursuit of love but the methods he's using to win the other prince over.

[redspiderling]

What really upsets me is that Natasha is only going to get her film AFTER her onscreen death? I am worried too--that the only thing worse than NO Black Widow movie is a BAD Black Widow movie, and what if they ruin it completely? :(

Heya!

Well, I have some form of reassurance for you, but before I get into that I do have to stress that, unfortunately in film-making, more than in any other art form, you can never guarantee a good result. 

The producer has a script that has been worked on extensively. They then hire a director (on whose vision of what the script can become) they place their trust on (sometimes it’s the other way around as well, a director can approach a producer with a good pitch but since this is Marvel, that’s not the case we’re here to extensively analyse). The cast and crew and the entire production team works on that vision for a specific amount of time and, hopefully, it turns out well. 

The more experienced the people, the more likely to get a good result. But everyone in the film-making business knows, it’s always a gamble, with varying odds, to be fair.

It’s in those varying odds where we can place our trust. I’m placing the rest under the cut, because it’s a long rant.

Factor 1: The Script. 

While one would assume all film productions begin with a good script, one would be incorrect. Many times they have a draft, or a final script that they don’t have faith in but, since the production has taken way and the company presses them to do it, they do it and hope for the best. 

Bad example: Speed 2 didn’t have a finalised script even after shooting began. Fox had pressed the creator of Speed 1 to come up with an idea for a sequel, the man had no idea what to do because it was completely unexpected, they had him under a tight deadline and he half-assed it all the way through. And look what happened.

Good example: I’ll go for the obvious, Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh, the director and screenwriter of LOTR respectively, had been working on the script for LOTR for over a decade. When they pitched it, they pitched it directly for a trilogy, or no film at all. Fox said yes, and they released a masterpiece for the world to enjoy until the end of time.

What about the Black Widow movie?

Well, to be fair this is the most worrisome part of my entire rant here, so if you can stomach this know that hope lies ahead.

The issue with Black Widow, as with all Marvel films, is that, it belongs to a franchise. A Disney franchise. The amount of restrains, necessities, and dictations that have nothing to do with the characters and everything to do with the studio (marketing, brand, future projects etc) is uncanny. Which is probably the reason why Marvel hasn’t had an easy time finding a director (they interviewed over 60 female film-makers!).

The bad side: Disney’s control is probably the reason why the script has been in various stages of stasis and re-writes for years. We know they’ve gone through a lot of ideas and edits, which is not necessarily bad, but it is what has kept this film from happening, and given the rest of the factors, the only thing that might keep it from flying.

The good side: The actual credited writers for this film, are legit. They have both written feature films and Ned Benson specifically, has made a very original and sweet film in the past.

Also, given the fact that Scarlett Johansson herself, has stated many times that “this film will happen under the correct circumstances”, makes me think that given the explosion of female presence on the media, the success of previous projects (Wonder Woman AND Thor:Ragnarok, another creative “gamble”), the loosening of narrative restrictions (hello multiverse!), and the reality of Natasha’s character in 2019, the Black Widow movie, while not outside Disney’s firm hold, might be allowed the freedom it needs to be good. As in, while falling into Marvel’s story structure, it will have its own uniqueness and work in expressing Natasha’s character and story accurately for once.

Factor 2: The TeamHaving a team of experienced professionals goes a long way to tell us that, while we can never be sure of the results, at least it’s a group of people with a good knowledge of what they’re doing. 

And I’m not talking about the technical aspect, because that’s the least worrisome in terms of control (if you know what you’re doing in FX you can’t mess it up). I’m talking about the heads of the production, the people who can screw up everything or make everything better, i.e. Producers and Directors. 

We all know of the make it or break it influence a studio can have over a project, look what Fox did for LOTR, and then look what Fox did to the Hobbit. I’m not here to talk about the production companies because they give me nightmares, but I’ll talk about the people because those are the elements that offer the variety in this instance where we talk exclusively about Marvel Productions.

The Producer: Even though it’s one of Scarlett Johansson’s first attempts at producing, I’m feeling quite confident in the fact that she will have a definite positive influence over the project. 

She has been in more than half a dozen Marvel productions and knows the drill well, not to mention knows how to negotiate the ugly parts.

She knows her way around the industry, having been a part of it for practically all her life, which means she will have no problems overseeing the production or creating a good team/positive environment.

Her previous attempts at producing are good in terms of content: One was the now infamous Rub & Tug, and the other is a sweet documentary about killer whales.

Most importantly, she is in the unique position to have both a great level of personal investment in this project, having dedicated a decade of her life’s work in this character’s story, as well as a well-rounded knowledge of the character’s evolution and history, which means that not only does she know what’s good for Natasha, she wants this film to succeed and not just because it’s her job.

The Director: Cate Shortland. The reason I cried real tears when Marvel announced the director for Black Widow.

Cate Shortland is a really good director. I love her work. Her films are unique looks into people’s lives. Her characters are strong, awesome women. Her films make you think. I saw Lore at a film festival when it came out in 2012 and to this day, I think about it.

Given the fact that Shortland is an indie film-maker, and that SJ has a long standing love for indie films, and that she chose to work with her on the BW film, I think they share the same ideas over how they want to tell Natasha’s story and what they want to talk about, which brings them miles ahead of most film productions, to be honest. Also, given the fact that Marvel interviewed over 60 women for this film, I think it’s safe to say that Shortland knows what she’s gotten herself into, even though she didn’t necessarily need it, she has a film career already, so I guess, she’s either on board with whatever they’ve cooked with the script, or she’s allowed enough freedom to fix it. Either way counts as a win for me.To conclude, while this film being bad is, of course, a possibility, I think there are enough positive elements that should reassure us for the time being, including David Harbour’s latest comment in regards to it. 

P.S. I agree that killing Natasha in Endgame, before she could get her film, is a disgusting move, but, again, we don’t know what they will do with the Black Widow film. it can fix it, it can make it better, and of course, it could make it worse. I’m using all the information mentioned above to keep my head wrapped around the first two instances, hopefully, after this rant, so will you.

Have a good day!

[kleeboy]

okay im deleting and reposting this because i put a swear word in the tags and it wasnt even showing up in searches for my personal, and i don’t trust the mobile editor to fix my problems but its time 4 me to make a post

Here's what I’ve got for a Thunderbirds D&D AU! I'm not gonna get into numbers and stats and levels because I do that enough when I play normal d&d and I'm gay and tired. Also, there’s probably gonna be a touch of rule bending not only to reconcile d&d with the Thunderbirds canon but just to boost the fun factor a bit. It’s not like we’re setting up a playable campaign so it doesn’t really matter as long as we’re not making it unrecognisable as part of the d&dverse. At that point, you might as well just call it a fantasy AU (still lit tho lmao). This is mostly TOS based but I’ll add some notes on TAG stuff now and then in italics because I’m here to provide. It’s hefty, so everything's under the cut. Hopefully comprehensible.

IR (presumably going by some other name but we’ll just stick with that for sake of ease) is still a rescue organisation - it operates on a somewhat smaller scale but access to magic means it’s got a pretty big reach for typical d&d technology. It’s centred around an ancient deity that few people have heard of and even fewer worship. There’s only one known temple dedicated to said deity and it had been abandoned for a long time before they found it, so it’s currently being restored - if rather agonizingly slowly. Anyway, IR is deity-based because nothing screams “fight for a cause” like paladins! They’re paladins, mostly, is what I’m saying.

Jeff is likely an ex-adventurer, probably a paladin but I’m seriously considering cleric just for interest’s sake so sue me, I love clerics. His party did some pretty cool stuff back in the day, and adventuring pays well as long as you don’t die, so he’s pretty well off. He left the party and settled down in one place when Scott was born, and the rest of them presumably disbanded and went about their own lives eventually. Or maybe they’re still out there causing a ruckus. Who knows. Pretty easy to just say “and he’s not there anymore” for TAG, rationalise his disappearance as you please. Either way, at some point he decided to start an organisation that would make saving lives a bit more structured than the usual “Let's hope a squad of adventurers stumbles on our predicament” that people have been relying on.

Scott is a Battle Master archetype fighter who multiclassed into paladin. Battle Master provides the most appropriate mechanics for a field leader, and also seems like the sort of thing Scott would have been doing previous to IR. He’s the least proficient spellcaster of the group if only by virtue of his class, but access to paladin magic gives his fighting an extra kick which, along with the Battle Master maneuvers, makes him pretty damn dangerous with a sword. It also means he can cast Find Steed, and because said steed’s form can go beyond normal when permitted by the DM and we’re making the rules here I’m giving him a pegasus, which is about the fastest flying mount you could get as far as the monster manual goes. A roc would just be too much. Very VERY cool. But too much.

Virgil is a College of Lore bard into paladin. When it comes to support classes, nothing beats a College of Lore bard for versatility. He’s got the range, darling. Slap an arsenal of magic items on that and you’re well on your way to the d&d equivalent of Thunderbird 2. He has some good offensive spells and weapon training but mostly works to keep others from getting hurt. With a high constitution, the Tough feat, good armour and a shield he pretty much becomes a mobile wall to be put between danger and anyone who can’t take too many hits. Find Steed again lets me give him something interesting to ride, and what better than an owlbear. A big one. Not quite as appropriate stat-wise as the pegasus for Scott but when it comes to aesthetics I’m yet to find something as good as a bear-shaped and -sized owl.

John is predominantly a Divination wizard, with a low paladin level - two maximum - giving him access to a lot of powerful magic but leaving him, how do you say, squishy. Divination is gameplay-wise pretty underwhelming, with not many spells to its name, but for someone whose job is centred around keeping an eye on things, the ability to see very far away and receive premonitions is gonna be useful. The system by which distress calls are sent is giving me some concept trouble but when it comes to receiving it’s as easy as a focus with some capability to project images and sound, gear already necessary to cast Scrying. So, as in canon, rather than going out on missions (at least for the most part), it’s John’s job to keep tabs on incoming signals and active operations. This is all based in the previously mentioned temple - out of the way enough to let me call it a T5 equivalent. He also has the secondary job of making sure nothing else tries to take up residence in the decrepit building. They had to clear it of goblins the first time. As far as Eos goes I don’t have room for all my thoughts (so many) but let’s call her a sentient magic item. Additionally, TAG John probs gets a level or two in cleric.

Gordon is a paladin into druid, Circle of the Land (Coast). He and Alan didn't have any previous class levels before becoming paladins. Neither of his classes give any bonuses for it beyond proficiency for paladins but nobody can stop me from making his primary weapon a longbow, plus the Sharpshooter feat is helpful. Coast druid is the only subclass of any d&d class that has a specific focus on water and what could go wrong if we let him turn into animals? It also has some good circle spells, when he gets to that point. He’d probably have a lot of fun with Mirror Image. There was probably an incident that catalysed his becoming a druid, I'd like to think it's the equivalent of the boat crash just placed on a different point in the timeline. Might get into it at a later date.

Alan is just pure paladin, it's all he's really had time to do with his life so far beyond being a kid and growing up, y'know? I’ll get a little into the subclass here, all of IR’s 3rd level or higher paladins take Oath of Devotion. From the PHB: “These paladins meet the ideal of the knight in shining armor, acting with honor in pursuit of justice and the greater good.” Devotion’s core tenets are honesty, courage, compassion, honor, and duty. Also their Channel Divinity: Sacred Weapon is just really cool. Who doesn’t like glowing stuff, man. Alan's got some more powerful paladin abilities than any of his brothers but probably has the lowest total level regardless. Giving him the Athlete feat, which lets him jump and climb a lot easier, feels appropriate. He snuck a griffon home when it was a baby, and is trying to train it. It's not very well behaved and causes a ruckus when it gets bored but he adores it. One day it’ll make a phenomenal companion. For now, it will continue to attempt to eat his fingers.

Brains is an artificer! Love that class. Artificers, rather than casting spells (though they can do that), make magic items. The artificer class is from Unearthed Arcana and a lot of the mechanics can be hit or miss, it’s been revised many times by lots of different people. But when it comes to the basic idea, it’s the obvious choice for Brains. The less common a magic item, the longer it takes and harder it is to make. The higher level an artificer the more, and more powerful, their creations are. Pretty simple. Also pretty much every version of artificer you come across has some sort of option for a mechanical companion so there’s MAX for you.

Tin-Tin is also an artificer, with a few levels in paladin for good measure. Her time is split between making and repairing gear and going out on missions, and when on call is incredibly useful for lightning fixes and is incredibly creative when it comes to the ways magic items (and nonmagic items) can be used to get out of predicaments. This is the character who constantly has Inspiration. Kayo is an Assassin archetype rogue into paladin. Assassins do… a lot of damage. If you know much about d&d rules (I don’t expect you to), the only thing scarier than a bard, stat wise, is a rogue. +10 to stealth is pretty easy to get by 5th level, combine that with Sneak Attack and Assassinate and you can deal up to 26 damage in one hit with a dagger alone. I said I wouldn’t do any maths but I lied.

Penny doesn’t necessarily have any class levels, though rogue would be appropriate. She falls more under the NPC umbrella, somewhere between Noble and Spy, perhaps? NPCs have a lot less restrictions when it comes to what they can and can’t do laterally, but it’s harder to make them powerful without assigning a class. I also think it’d be really neat to use the fantasy setting to make her nonhuman. High elf would be fitting and cool, but she’d also make a fantastic tiefling. Though, like, call me biased, everyone would make a fantastic tiefling.

I think that’s all I’ve got to say on the matter right now. I have a lot more specific details that I’ll get to eventually but this post is more of a jumping off point listing some options for anyone else who might want to mess around with a d&d AU but doesn’t know where to start. Pick out things you like, ditch things you don’t, add whatever sounds cool, and honestly? Congratulations on getting through this whole thing. This post is kind of in shambles. And thanks! I love taking any excuse to pore over these books.

Shoot me an ask or something if anything’s too incomprehensible or there’s something up with the formatting. Later, skaters.

[sam-lives-story]

#SamLives - Chapter 11

“Presenting Tonight’s Cast of Characters”

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Also find the latest chapters of this story on [Archive Of Our Own]

Jack hadn’t been lying when he’d said that he and Mark were planning on doing some collabs. In the few days that followed the initial video, they recorded a good nine or ten videos worth of content each, most of it consisting of two-player games. (Being able to record one session for two channels had its perks.) Jack still hadn’t gotten over his wariness of technology in that time. He had to steel his nerves before starting every session, had to take a breath before hitting ‘record’. He found himself frequently checking his facecam on the monitor to make sure nobody was in the background, and every flicker, every stutter, every lag in whatever game he was playing made his hands tense and his breath hitch.

Today was no different. After spending a good five minutes mentally convincing himself that his computer mouse wasn’t about to come to life and strangle him, he and Mark dove head-first into a new game of “Sea of Thieves”. It was just the two of them this time, with no time to schedule a play time with Bob or Wade or Ethan. At the moment, Jack was trying to fend off skeletal attackers while his friend dug up the buried treasure.

“Shit! Fuck! Fuckin’ bastards!” He took another swipe at the nearest skeleton, cutting it down. Another attacker was quick to take its place. “Hah! That’ll teach ye not to mess wit’ ol’ Jackaboy.”

He pulled out a blunderbuss and took two shots straight through the newcomer’s chest.

“DIE BITCHES! How’s that chest comin’, Markerino?”

Mark, who Jack now realized had been oddly quiet the past few minutes, let out only a distracted hum in response. Jack turned his avatar to look at Mark’s rather voluptuous character, only to find him standing still over the half-buried treasure chest. Jack chuckled, a little bewildered.

“Mark? Th’ fuck are you doin’?” he took a shot at another skeleton. “Are ye just waiting for it to unbury itself or–”

Thwack!

The familiar-yet-unexpected sound made Jack jump, his heart pounding in his chest as he whipped his head around to stare at Mark. The other YouTuber had turned his seat away from the desk, Nerf gun in hand, aiming at the closed door with narrowed, focussed eyes.

What the fucking–

Jack swallowed thickly and took a slow breath, his panic ebbing away to make room for amused irritation. He swiped a small crocheted Sam from his desk and chucked it at the side of Mark’s head.

“Hey! What–?!”

“Don’t fuckin’ scare me like that, shithead!” Jack shoved Mark’s shoulder playfully. “What th’ hell was that for?”

“Target practice.”

Mark’s grin was cheeky and a little mocking.

Jack blinked at him, slowly, fixing him with a look that clearly said ‘Are you fucking kidding me right now?’ He snatched the Nerf gun from Mark’s hand with a barely-restrained chuckle and brandished it in the other’s face. Mark took a swipe at it, pouting and trying to take back his toy.

“Hey!”

It turned into a game of Keep Away, with Jack holding the Nerf gun high above his head and Mark practically falling out of his chair and climbing over Jack in his attempt to reach it.

“I’ll use you fer target practice if you don’t–”

“Jack! Give that back, you asshole!"

“–get your head back in the game!” Jack suddenly whipped the Nerf gun back at Mark, who fumbled to catch it. “I’m dyin’ here!”

Mark clutched the gun tightly to his chest and retreated to the safety of his seat, pouting and hugging the toy as though Jack might attempt to steal it from him again. He stuck his tongue out childishly before turning back to his screen - and he stifled a laugh.

“Uh…” He carefully set his precious plastic weapon on the desk, out of Jack’s reach. “Not to alarm you, but I think we’re already dead.”

Jack’s focus snapped to his own screen, and sure enough, both he and Mark were now standing on the deck of a ghost ship, waiting their turn to return to the land of the living. He threw his hands in the air and flopped backwards in his chair.

“Fuckin’ DAMMIT all!” He sank in his seat with a groan, Mark’s deep giggles permeating the air around them both. “I blame you entirely for that.”

“Yeah...heh...yeah, that’s...that’s on me. Sorry, man…” Mark still hadn’t stopped giggling, his mood far too bright to be dimmed by a death in the game.

“I’m makin’ sure everyone knows it’s your fault,” Jack bemoaned from his slouched position. “I’m gonna make you buy me a fancy-ass tombstone, an’ put one o’ those shitty rhyming couplets on it…”

He held his hands out in front of him, pretending to frame the words.

“Here lies Jack Just blame his friend Whose Nerf gun brought Their bitter end.”

Mark’s only response was a slow golf clap while he pretended to be tearing up.

“Beautiful,” he told Jack, voice laced with false emotion. “Absolutely beautiful. You should’ve become a poet instead of a YouTuber. Clearly you were meant for greater things than video game commentary.”

Jack almost fell out of his chair in his attempt to chuck another Sam plush at Mark’s head.

“D’you think that cop really believed that nothing was wrong?” Jack asked Mark with a mutter later that evening.

Mark had already sent out the day’s raw videos from both him and Jack to Robin and Kathryn for editing, though only after doing a little bit of content cutting before passing them along. There were certain things that had to be cut out from their recordings that really, really didn’t need to be shared with anyone beyond their immediate group. Not yet.

“The guy from the other day?” Mark asked, looking up from his phone. “I dunno. I mean I don’t think he believed all the anonymous tips, anyway. He was trying not to crack a smile the whole time he was explaining stuff to us.”

Apparently, some of Jack’s fans had taken Anti’s appearance on the stream at face value. They had believed (rightfully so) that it was real, and when Jack went silent on all forms of social media for more than twenty-four hours after it had happened, people had started to panic. While nobody knew for sure where Jack lived, the local police station in Brighton had gotten call after call after call from concerned teens and young adults who all claimed that a YouTuber named Sean McLoughlin had almost been killed on a livestream. If it hadn’t been for the sheer number of phone calls and the video proof that looked almost too real to have been edited, Jack was sure the police would have ignored it.

But two days ago - three days after the stream itself - a police officer had come knocking on the apartment door asking if a Sean McLoughlin or a Jacksepticeye lived there.

After explaining - through stifled grinning and amused chuckles - that a lot of fans thought he had been hurt, Mark and Jack had tried to awkwardly laugh it off and explain that, no, it was just a video, and nobody had actually gotten hurt.

(Jack was wearing makeup on his neck again for recording, thank god, otherwise the bruises might have brought on some unwanted questions. As it was...)

“I dunno man.” Jack sighed deeply and scrubbed his hands over his face, sinking back on the couch. “I swear he kept lookin’ at my neck. I’m sure he watched the video for th’ sake of the calls. Probably checkin’ to see if I really got strangled.”

“Ah, quit worrying. I’m sure it’ll be fine.” Mark scrolled through Twitter again, reading a few more tweets before, “...and we’re sure we don’t want to get the police involved?”

Jack leveled him with a blank stare.

“Do you honestly think the police are gonna know how to deal wit’ a computer virus of a demon that came to life from my YouTube channel? I mean WE barely know what we’re doing and we’re fully invested in the lore of it all!”

Mark stifled a laugh.

“Okay, yeah good point,” he admitted. He shook his head, eyes falling back to his phone gain. “Fully invested in the lore...god, we sound like we’re trying to solve Five Nights At Freddy’s conspiracies. That’s how complicated this whole mess has become. Frankly, if anyone overheard what we were talking about in the cafe that first day I showed up, they’d probably think–”

Jack jolted upright in his seat, eyes wide and expression one of stunned realization.

“Holy shit.” He grabbed Mark’s arm and shook him a little, his movements suddenly intense and a brilliant grin splitting his face in two. “Holy shit!”

“Holy shit what?” Mark gripped his phone a little tighter so it wouldn’t go flying out of his hands from Jack’s enthusiasm.

“Mark, you’re a fuckin’ genius!”

“Well - I mean, yeah, I thought we established that, but what the hell did I say?!”

Mark was rightfully very bewildered by his friend’s sudden change of mood. He gave Jack a quick once-over with his eyebrows raised, wondering if he should be concerned.

“Five Nights at Freddy’s!” Jack exclaimed. He looked far too excited and far too proud of himself for his own good.

“...Five Nights at–”

“Dude! Don’t you get it?” Jack leapt up off the couch, pacing, and Sam - who had been dozing in Jack’s hoodie pocket - poked his ‘face’ out with a sleepy blink, wondering what all the commotion was about. “This whole thing is too fuckin’ complicated right now, right? We don’t know what exactly Anti is, or how to stop him from comin’ back. He’s solid but he’s not. He’s made of glitches but - who the hell even knows what that means.”

“Okay…?” Mark just watched the Irishman pace the room, his phone long forgotten in his lap. “Where are you going with this?”

“Anti doesn’t make sense!” Jack was grinning like an idiot. He stopped in his tracks to turn and face Mark. “We know why he’s here but that only gets us so far! We need somebody who’s used to picking apart ridiculous bullshit to find the real answers, somebody who already kinda knows what’s going on.”

“Jack, you’ve lost me,” Mark said flatly. “Who are you talking about, Robin? Amy?”

“No!” Jack was talking with his hands, talking with his entire body, like he couldn’t contain all the energy that had built up inside him. “Five Nights at Freddy’s. Crazy timeline. Bullshit lore. There’s only one person I know who was able to tear that shit to pieces and make sense out of it.”

And then it hit Mark like a load of bricks, and he was on his feet too, his exclamation coming out as a loud and incredulous question in the same moment that Jack was busting out the same words.

“MatPat?!”

“MatPat!”

“Waitwaitwait, hold on–” Mark was trying to sort out his thoughts, pinching the bridge of his nose while he watched Jack rush around in a frantic search for his cell phone. Mark didn’t have it right now and Jack couldn’t quite remember where it had ended up. “What the hell do you mean Matt already knows what’s going on?”

“Well, okay, he doesn’t know about Anti,” Jack admitted, his ass in the air while he leaned over the armchair in the corner to see if his phone was plugged in back there. “He knows about Sam though.”

“He knows about Sam?!” Mark’s jaw dropped.

At this point, Sam had abandoned Jack’s pocket to hover a few steps behind the Irishman, watching him with quiet curiosity. At Mark’s question, Sam let out a happy little squeak and nodded, twirling through the air a little.

“Did you tell him before you told me?” Before Jack could even answer, Mark had continued: “But he posted a video like two weeks ago about how Sam couldn’t possibly exist!”

“Well, duh, he posted that because he knows about Sam,” Jack rolled his eyes and shoved away from the armchair, detouring to the kitchen. He spoke up to be heard across the apartment. “He was tryin’ to throw people off. And I didn’t tell him about Sam.” Jack returned to the living room, cell phone in hand and a sheepish smile on his face. “He...er...kinda found out on his own.”

“How?”

“Tacos and Rachel Ray.”

Mark didn’t know how to respond to that.

“I have no idea how to respond to that.”

“Look…” Jack huffed and came back over to Mark, sitting on the edge of the coffee table while his friend sank slowly back onto the couch. Sam settled onto his shoulder and nuzzled up against Jack’s cheek with a quiet purr. “Sam was sick, so I brought him with me for the taco-making contest. Matt was on my team. He bumped into me, I tripped, Sam almost fell out of my hood, and Matt saw him.”

“And he didn’t freak out?”

Jack’s lips twitched into a wry smile and he looked up from his phone.

“Oh, he freaked out, but not until later.”

“Let me get this straight.” Mark watched Jack carefully as he spoke. Jack nodded and went back to shakily tapping out a message to Matt. “Just so we’re both on the same page. Sam exists, clearly. Anti exists. You, me, Robin, and Matt know about Sam. You, me, and maybe Robin know about Anti.”

“And Matt too now, sort of.”

“And Matt,” Mark agreed. “And Amy too, come to think of it. Is there anybody else who knows anything else, just in case we need to recruit people for a battle of the digital age?”

“Nope, nobody else. Don’t think so anyway,” Jack shook his head. He paused and looked thoughtful, setting his phone aside (looking relieved to get the thing out of his hands) and tapping his chin. “...though I probably should bring up that Anti mentioned being late for a date or something last time? What was the name...something...something Warfstache…?”Mark looked like he might explode

“WHAT?!”

“Oh my god!” Jack cackled, doubling over with laughter and trying not to slip off the edge of the coffee table he was sitting on. “Oh my fucking god your face! That was PRICELESS! You fuckin’ - Haha! - f-fuckin’ believed–” He could barely breathe he was laughing so hard, his laughter sounding a little wheezy.

Mark groaned and flopped backward across the couch, a low, pained chuckled escaping him.

”Oh, you absolutely piece of shit. Fuck you.”

“Y-Yeah, I - heh - I probably...haha...deserve that one…” Jack was grinning, wiping tears from his eyes.

Sam had bounced over to Mark to make sure he was okay and was now nestled on the American’s chest, Tim’s curious little eyes watching from the arm of the couch not even a foot away. The little box tumbled forward and landed right next to Mark’s head, patting his cheek softly in what Jack assumed was a comforting motion. Another low, rumbling laugh bubbled up from Mark’s chest.

“But no, to answer your question,” Jack continued once he could breathe again. “I think that’s everyone.”

“Good. Great. Excellent.”

Mark was absolutely done. Just...done.

“Ah, lighten up, Markimoo,” Jack snickered. “Consider it payback fer that Nerf scare.”

“Considering that you were implying that Warfstache is alive too, and that he and your evil twin are getting it on–”

“Hey! I only said they went on a date!”

“–I’d say we’re far from even right now.”

“Oh, fuck off! That’s totally even!”

“And what if I tricked you into thinking your Dr. Schneep guy was alive and I caught him flirting with Dr. Iplier?”

“Oh, dude, no,” Jack groaned, laughing through it. “Nooo...I mean, yeah, Henrik totally would. He’d flirt with anything that moved. But hell no.”

“See my point?”

The living room was pleasantly quiet for a long moment, save for the little questioning squeaks Sam was making from his position on Mark’s chest. Then Mark heard the buzzing clatter of plastic against the coffee table. Jack’s phone was ringing, but on silent. Mark cracked open one eye to glance at Jack, who suddenly looked a lot more tense than he had a moment before.

“...you good, Jack?” he murmured, watching the other YouTuber. Jack nodded stiffly, looking a little pale. “Is it MatPat? He calling back already?”

Jack swallowed thickly.

“Nah. It’s...just Robin.”

“Answer it,” Mark encouraged him evenly. “Go ahead. We’re all in the room with you, it’ll be fine.”

Jack nodded, the motion a little jerky, and he reached over to press the ‘Answer’ button. He quickly put it on speaker and withdrew his hand as though he’d been burned. The phone stayed sitting on the table.

“Jack?”

“Hey Robin,” Jack murmured.

Mark could see the way Jack started fidgeting the moment he heard Robin’s voice, saw his fingers tugging at the edges of his hoodie and saw the way his knee started bouncing rapidly. Like he had too much nervous energy, like it was trying to get out however it could.

“Hey! I just wanted to...you know. Check in,” Robin continued, a half-smile in his voice. “I got the videos from Mark. Why didn’t you tell me he was planning on visiting the UK?”

“That’s his fault,” Jack muttered, and a small smile made its way onto his face. “He didn’t fuckin’ tell me he was stoppin’ by until he was on my doorstep. So blame him.”

“Somehow that doesn’t surprise me.” Robin’s words were a touch humorous for a moment. “Anyway...how’s everything going? How’s Sam?”

“Sam’s great!” Jack’s grin became more genuine, and he giggled when Sam bounced over to sit beside the phone. He was wiggling on the spot in excitement. “He and Tim are gettin’ along famously. He’s been so damn happy, Robin, I wish you could see ‘em together.”

“You can thank me later,” Mark chimed in with a smirk.

“Is that Mark?” Robin asked. “Am I on speaker?”

“Oh! Yeah, you are. Sorry. Shoulda said.” Jack chuckled softly.

“No, it’s fine!” Robin laughed a little too. “Hey Mark!”

“Hey Robin!”

“How are you doing though, Jack?” Robin’s tone had turned concerned, more strained than before. “And what the hell is going on with the whole Antisepticeye thing? I mean - I saw the stream. That–” A sigh crackled through the speaker. “I know for a fact I didn’t edit that, and it looked…Jack, it looked way too real. What the hell was that? Are you okay?”

Jack stiffened. He could feel Mark’s eyes on him, his look a knowing one. It had been five whole days since they had talked at the cafe, and while Jack had texted Robin back and forth a few times since then (in very brief interludes, as there were still moments Jack couldn’t even look at his own TV for fear of Anti jumping out of the dimmed pixels, let alone carry his phone in his pocket all day), not once had Jack brought up the livestream. Any time Robin asked about it Jack evaded his questions and changed the subject, or didn’t respond at all. He had been half-ghosting his friend and he knew it.

“Eh…” Jack cleared his throat and shrugged, though Robin couldn’t see it. “I’m fine.” He answered only half of the question. “A little worn out, but Mark an’ I have been really goin’ hard, knockin’ out tons of videos now so we can get some free time to hang out later…”

“Seán.”

And there it was, the gentle scolding that reminded Jack too much of his older brothers. Robin usually pulled that one out when Jack was working himself too hard or he hadn’t sent Robin his finished recordings yet. How Robin managed to make Jack feel like a misbehaving child every time he used it was a mystery to him...but it worked. Every damn time. Jack sighed and let out a quiet groan.

“I’ll tell you soon, I promise,” he whimpered. “I promise I will, it’s - it’s just - I can’t–” He dragged a hand through his hair, and his gaze landed on Mark. The other YouTuber had sat up in the past few minutes and was leaning forward with his elbows resting on his knees, his expression a searching one. He quirked an eyebrow at the Irishman.

“One second, Robin,” he said softly, reaching over to tap the ‘mute’ button on Jack’s phone. He watched his friend for a long moment before speaking. “Jack...I’m not gonna push you to talk to him, but - oh my god, man. It’s almost been a whole week . The longer you wait, the more likely it’ll be for him to figure it out on his own. Or, worse, he’ll be hurt that you’re still keeping things from him. He already told you yesterday, people have been sending him tons of tweets and tumblr messages asking about you. Didn’t he tell you that some people wanted to know if you’re dead or not?”

Jack nodded stiffly, wincing.

“I told you I’d help you tell him the truth.” Mark smiled reassuringly. “I meant that, okay? And - hell, I can get Amy on the line, and we can have a big ol’ Sleepover Party Egos Theory Skype Call.”

Jack snorted out a nervous laugh, shaking his head in amusement. Sleepover…

“Only you would see it as a “sleepover” opportunity, Mark.”

“What can I say?” Mark grinned cheekily and winked. “I’m a fully-fledged man-child.” His grin faded back to a soft, understanding smile and he tried to catch Jack’s eye. “Waddaya say? You up for it?”

“...I eh…” Jack stared at his hands, his fingers fiddling with the hem of his sweatshirt while he thought.

Was he ready to talk about what had happened yet? Would Robin even believe him? Would he freak out, or take it all in stride like he had with Sam? Jack didn’t want to cause a panic and he didn’t want to make this a bigger deal than it already was. He didn’t want to push into painful and uncomfortable territory but...it seemed a little unavoidable at this point. He had known that, eventually, he would have no choice but to tell Robin - but he’d been trying to delay the inevitable. He’d been hoping beyond hope that this whole thing would blow over as though it had never happened and he wouldn’t have to even think about the livestream or its implications or Anti’s “haunting” his videos ever again.

But Mark was right. The longer he waited, the worse it could get.

Jack sighed heavily. His hand was shaking when he reached for his phone, but he still pressed the ‘mute’ button to let Robin hear them again.

“Hey Robin,” he mumbled, to let her know he was back. “You there?”

“Still here, Jack.” The usual friendly patience was in his voice, colored with a touch of concern for his friend

It helped Jack with what he knew he had to do next.

“I...eh. D’you mind waitin’ a few minutes?” he asked, wringing his hands in his lap. “Mark’s gonna get Amy on a Skype call wit’ us, an’ we can all talk face-to-face, and I’ll...I’ll fill you in on what’s been, er, happenin’ in my part of the world.”

“Really?” Robin asked, sounding brighter. “You’re actually going to tell me this time?”

“I - yeah. Yeah, I am.” Jack took a breath. His nervousness was clear with every word that left his mouth. “I’ll tell you everything.”

“Wait!”

Mark’s outburst made Jack jump and his head shot up.

“What–”

“My smoothie! I totally forgot my smoothie!”

Jack stared, and he heard Robin snickering on the other end of the call.

“Your smoothie,” he repeated, his lips twitching into some semblance of a smile. “You mean the one from after dinner? From, like, two hours ago?”

“Yes, from after dinner!” Mark rocketed off the couch, skirting the coffee table and grabbing his rental car keys as he went to the door. “It’s still in the car. This is super serious.”

“Super serious?” Jack repeated. He watched Tim bounce off the couch and hop curiously around the room in pursuit of Mark, doing his best to keep up. “More serious than Serious Shit?”

“YES! MORE SERIOUS THAN THAT!” Mark, who almost stepped on Tim in his haste to get to the door, let out a rather undignified squeak and immediately crouched to the ground beside the tiny box. “Oh, I'm so sorry! Are you okay? Did I hurt you? C’mere, my little biscuit, let’s get you off the floor. I would neeeever want you to get hurt, I would neeeever step on you…”

“Oh my god, Mark, you’re such a mom.”

“What? It’s not like you’re not the same way with Sam!”

At this, Jack chucked a pillow from the couch across the room, hitting Mark in the legs to avoid hitting Tim.

“Go get your fuckin’ smoothie!”

“Fine! I will!”

Mark flipped him off and pretended to storm out of the apartment, putting Tim on his shoulder and “slamming” the door shut (only to stop it at the last second to close it with a quiet click.) Jack shook his head with a smile. Only Mark.

“Hey...Jack?”

“Hm?” Jack returned his attention to his phone, still sitting beside him on the coffee table. “What’s up?”

“I wanted to ask...you tried to tell me before. Anti is real, right?”

“Yeah…” His answer was a tense one, his hands coming up to fiddle with the strings of his hoodie.

“Did…” Robin’s voice trailed off, and there was static in the speaker, like he had taken a breath. “So...did he really hurt you? On the stream.”

Jack swallowed thickly. He was suddenly very aware of the sore bruises on his throat, and he felt rather than saw Sam land lightly on his shoulder.

“What...eh…” He cleared his throat, and Sam nuzzled up against his jaw, little waves of reassurance and worry filtering into the back of his mind. “...w-what makes ye ask that?”

“I told you I was getting messages and asks,” Robin told him. He could hear footsteps in the background, movement. Like he was pacing. “And I turned them off for now, because Mark said I should wait until you told me what was going on. Which I can respect. But...some of the messages – people are really worried about you, Jack. And I am too. I couldn’t help it. I kept going back to watch the end of the stream, and – damn. That entire thing - it was so intense. It...it looked like Anti was trying to…I mean, when he was...” Robin trailed off.

Jack closed his eyes, his jaw clenching tightly. Oh. Hands shaking, Jack picked his phone up off the coffee table and took the call off speaker, holding the mobile to his ear and getting to his feet.

“When he was holdin’ me up against the...eh...th’ wall?” he asked hoarsely. His movements were stiff, his footing a little unsteady as he crossed the room to pick up the pillow he’d thrown at Mark. He squeezed the edge of it tightly in his hand, lingering there by the door.

“...yeah.” Robin took another deep breath on the other end of the line, and when he spoke again his voice was low and hoarse. Concerned. “He – Jack, he was hurting you. Actually hurting you, not just - play-fighting, or acting for the camera. Wasn’t he?”

Jack’s chest felt tight, his throat constricting from both the memory and his own emotions. He took a shaking breath and dropped the pillow into the armchair closest to him, his free hand coming up to rest against his opposite shoulder. By Sam. Sam’s tail trailed down and brushed against his fingers, helping to soothe some of the uneasiness that had begun to build inside him.

“N-No, that...that was. Um.” Real. It was real. He blinked rapidly and his grip tightened on his phone. “Yeah. It...he left bruises.”

Robin swore quietly on the other end of the line.

“Jack–”

But whatever Robin had been about to say, Jack never found out, because the call was suddenly filled with static and audio distortion, Robin’s words lost in a mass of broken sound that had Jack freezing where he stood.

“...Robin?” he whispered, eyes widening. “Robin...listen...I need to go. Okay? I can’t...I can’t hear you, but I th-think–”

The call dropped before Jack even hit the end button, the cell phone slipping from his hand and tumbling to the floor with a quiet thump against the carpet.

There was a static in the air, a crackle, an energy to it that made the hair on the back of Jack's neck stand on end. His breath hitched. The hand that still lingered near his shoulder tensed, and he could feel Sam curl closer to his neck.

"I'm not the only one feelin' that, yeah?" Jack breathed, his eyes darting around his apartment and landing on nothing. He took an involuntary step back toward the door.

"Nuh-uh. I feel it too..." Sam's worried voice floated across the back of his mind. Jack nodded. Alright. So he wasn't crazy.

A lamp across the room sparked and popped, the bulb blowing out suddenly, and even as small of an occurrence as that was it made Jack jump. The room was plunged into darkness. Wide blue eyes latched onto the deadened lamp. "W-What the hell is going on...?" His voice sounded strained, even to his own ears.

But the question he asked was one he was almost certain he knew the answer to. This static, this...tension. Electricity. He knew this feeling. It was one he was far too familiar with, one that he had experienced before.

Anti.

The room had felt much the same as this when Anti had appeared during his stream last time, when he had pinned Jack to the wall by his throat and toyed with him in front of an audience, had left him scared and shaking in a way he never expected he'd have to feel in his life. Until then he hadn't been sure if Anti was real. But now? Now there was no denying it. So the feeling in the air, the tension, the spark? It flooded him with a very real and tangible fear that wasn't without reason.

"Ďid̎ ÿo̊u m̰i͋šs̶ m̰ē?"

A voice, so close, a cold breath against his ear. Jack cried out and flung himself away from the sound, knees hitting carpet as he hurried away from his own front door now, scrambled across the living room with desperate movements, one hand clamped over Sam so he wouldn’t lose him. There, by the door, his smile just as sharp and as wicked as Jack remembered, was the glitch himself. His image crackled and distorted for a moment - Jack could see the pixels separating as he stood there - and a moment later he had flickered forward, appearing a few steps closer.

Shit...shit, shit, shit...he had half a mind to scream, to call for Mark, but at this point Mark had probably already made it down to his car and wouldn't hear anything. All he could hope for now was that he could stall long enough for his friend to make it back inside. Two on one were better odds in this situation.

"I̥ d̠on̪'t e͊v͐enͥ g̴ét a h̒e͊llo̖, J̠åc̮k̾a͈b͗ö́y?"

“Go away!”

Jack’s eyes widened and he went stiff, panic doubling. Sam had wriggled free from his spot on Jack’s shoulder and he was hovering in mid-air between the two men in the room, planting himself boldly before Anti as though he was planning on defending Jack himself.

“Sam, don’t–”

“Leave him alone, you meanie!” Sam sounded so brave, so determined, so…so angry for such a small little being. “You hurt Jack, and you made him sad, and - and–” Sam wriggled in the air and tried to make himself look intimidating. “–and I’m not gonna let you hurt him again!”

Contrary to what Jack was sure Sam had wanted, Anti didn’t look scared at all. In fact, he smiled...a gleeful smile that had Jack dreading whatever was about to happen.

“W̠e͆ll, a̒re̮n't y͞oṳ a̸ b̸ra̢v̜e lĭt͉tle t̹oa̤s̈t̤èr̔?” Anti crooned, his head tilting far to the side in a way that was eerily non-human. He held out a hand, palm-up, and the air above it distorted and warped impossibly. A worn, dark jewelry box appeared there in a flurry of pixels, its lid popped open to reveal the empty space within. “Sȯr̬r̗y t̸o b̓ur̢s̈ţ ŷou̬r͊ b᷆u̫b᷇b̍l͑ě, S̕a̺m̮my̳, b̝u᷈t...yo̔u'rē no̸t̹ ne͑e̓d̐ed f̔o͍r̈ toñḯgh̠t̡'s ća̧s̱t̎ o̱f͗ c̟har̐a͐ct̊e͓r̊s͊.”

Quicker than Jack could react, Anti glitched, vanished, and reappeared inches from Sam with the jewelry box held out before him. With one swooping motion, Anti had flicked Sam into the box, snapped the lid shut, locked it with a key and tossed the box over his shoulder to land neatly on the armchair in the corner.

“NO!” Jack sprang forward without thinking, arm outstretched as though to reach the box–

“D̹ǐd̵ I̽ s͌a̝y y̪o͚u͘ c̡o̾u͎l̦d͗ m̐o͋v̫e͕?”

Before Jack could register the giggling words, he found himself tripping head-over-heels, colliding soundly with the front of the cabinet his television rested on. A jolt of pain pulsed through his shoulder and he cried out, biting his lip, biting his tongue. Desperate fingers clutched at his aching shoulder and he gritted his teeth.

“What the fuck do you want?!” he bit out, panting and tense as he watched Anti slowly stalk toward him across the room. “You here to...to k-kill me? Hurt me? S...Strangle me again?”

“Wh͔a̠ţ d᷁ō ÿ́o̊u̖ t͔ak̓e m̉e̥ f̓or̓, a᷇ s᷀a͂di͉s͟t͊?” Anti scoffed incredulously.

Jack blinked at him, a sassy retort on his lips before he could stop himself.

“What, you - ngh - aren’t one? Could’ve f-fooled me...”

“I'̗m̺ m̛or̬e̍ ǫf a m̭a͒s᷅ochi͙s̜t̕,̘ r͖ea̪l͟l̓y,͏” Anti shrugged. Jack was surprised that Anti had even bothered to answer the question at all. “Bu͂t̢ bo͑t͐h̬ a᷊r̛e͞ p̭r̂ett͒y̎ a͘c̬c᷅u͑ra̻t̎e̍.”

Great. Good to know. Wonderful.

“N̚o̫, i͓t̋'s no͙t̘h̺i̝n᷆g s͕o̻ s͑i̔m͕pl̖e̍ as a̖l̥l̆ t᷁h̄a̓t,” Anti smirked, waving the thought away with one hand.

The air around his palm distorted and glitched, and a shining blade appeared in his hand on the way down.

Oh, fuck.

Anti was a few steps away now, and Jack scrambled backward across the floor, trying to get as much distance between himself and the glitch as possible...but he was cornered, pinned between the side of the TV cabinet and the wall, blocked in with no way out. It was starting to become a struggle to keep his breathing steady, his heart hammering away a tarantella against his ribs, his throat coarse and tight from tension.

The burst bulb from earlier had thrown the room into near-darkness, but what moonlight was coming through the living room window reflected off the sharpened blade in Anti’s hand, the light bouncing off into Jack’s eyes as the glitch knelt in front of him - close, too close - his eyes beginning to swirl with an inky blackness that Jack never wanted to see this close again.

Jack kept his eyes fixed on the blade, wide as saucers, and his breath hitched when he saw it inching closer and closer to his face. The touch of cool metal against his cheek made him tense and he clenched his jaw with a gulp. It wasn’t sharp. It wasn’t painful. Anti was dragging the flat side of the knife along his jawline, and Jack could hear the sound of its edge scraping against the coarse facial hair there.

“No̫…” Anti shook his head, and the sharp grin widened wickedly, appearing to split his face in two. “No, I ẖa͗v̶e m̪ůch...͛mùch᷆ b᷆i͈g͗g᷄er p̓lan̶s᷉ foͥr᷆ yõu͕, Jaͅc̻k.” 

Mark was humming to himself as he made his way down to the rental car, the keys jingling in his hand. Tim sat perched on his shoulder, one tiny hand clutching the collar of Mark’s shirt, and he was trying to hum along to whatever song Mark had stuck in his head right now

It wasn’t his fault Katy Perry’s music was so catchy.

By the time he unlocked and opened the driver’s side door, he was well into the chorus, mumbling the words in an undertone to himself and for Tim’s entertainment.

“California girls, we're undeniable! Fine, fresh, fierce, we got it on lock~” Tim was giggling, and the sound brought a warm smile to Mark’s face. He shifted into the driver’s seat so he could reach his smoothie easier, but not before belting out the next few lyrics at the top of his lungs.

“West coast represent, now put your hands up!”

He did so, dancing in his seat, grinning and playing it up for his little biscuit’s benefit.

“Ooh, oh, ooh! Ooh…”

Something flickered in the corner of his eye, something red...or was it blue?...and he trailed off, a crease forming in his brow. Tim was still giggling softly. Had he been seeing things? With a soft chuckle, he reached over and plucked his half-finished smoothie from the cupholder, still somewhat chilled from the cool weather of the evening.

Yeah, it was probably nothing. The whole Antisepticeye thing had been keeping him on edge since he’d arrived here in England. He pushed himself out of his seat and shut the door behind him. But when he turned to head back inside, something in the reflection in the car’s window caught his attention.

Mark dropped his smoothie.

A quiet thumping rose up across the living room, a rattling that caught Jack’s attention as well as Anti’s.

Sam. Sam was trying to get out.

Anti looked away from his victim for a moment, only for a moment, some space coming between Jack’s cheek and the metal of Anti’s blade.

A moment was all he needed.

Jack lashed out with a fist and a knee, landing a punch square across the glitch’s face and driving a knee up into his gut. Anti tumbled away from him, distorting and flickering, a static-fused snarl of pain and annoyance bubbling up from his prone form. Jack shoved himself to his feet, leaping over Anti and heading for the front door. He had to get out, had to leave, had to get Sam and go–

“I d͓O̬n͈’Ṭ t̉H͠iN̼ḱ sͅO͊!”

Static, feedback, a crackle in the air, and Anti was in front of him again, seething with fury, blocking his exit. Jack was running on pure adrenaline now, veering left and heading down the hall toward the bedrooms. The bathroom. Recording room. Anything.

“y̜O̰u̯’̒R̡e̿ N̈o̽T͔ g̓O̩i᷈N̸g̽ Ản̉Y͋w̳H̤e̦R̸ë́!̉”

There he was again, cutting him off, keeping him trapped in the same room. Shit...fuck…

Mark. Mark was downstairs. He just - he needed to stall, to wait it out until Mark came back with his stupid smoothie. He could make it that long.

Jack did a one-eighty and darted back down the hallway, the rug slipping beneath his feet and making him stumble. He caught himself on the wall and kept going, kept dodging. He could do this. Distract him. Hold him off. Something. Anything.

Green.

...green?

Something green, in the corner of his eye. Green and orange.

Jack risked turning his head, risked a glance, and he caught sight of the Nerf gun - Chase’s Nerf gun - sitting on the kitchen table. Mark had been playing with the damned thing for days, and for the first time since it had resurfaced Jack was unendingly grateful that Mark had found it again. He made a detour through the kitchen, snatching it up and shoving the ziplock of foam discs into his hoodie pocket.

Disc. Pull back. Load. Click. Wait for it. Be ready.

Jack circled his way back into the living room, Anti’s laughter echoing through the apartment, and he dove behind the coffee table with his plastic weaponed primed. He was ready.

He was terrified.

Jack would be an idiot if he pretended that this entire situation wasn’t scaring him within an inch of his life. He knew - he was trying not to think - that he could die at any second tonight, and that the pixelated parasite hunting him down in his own apartment was far too strong of an opponent for him to handle, with or without Sam. With Mark, maybe he had a chance, but even those odds were slim. If he didn’t die tonight, or if he didn’t at least get stabbed, he was going to drink until morning then invite every single one of his friends over to England to have the party of a fucking lifetime.

“O͗h͢,᷄ Jȁa͚a̕a̓a̻c̈́k̘~” Anti’s distorted, chilling voice echoed through the room and sent a shiver down Jack’s spine. “W͘h̅e͔re a᷇r̰e̶ y̑ou͏ hid͛ǐnͅg̤?”

Jack caught sight of a flickering black sneaker from his hiding spot and he popped up from behind the coffee table, firing the Nerf gun at the center of Anti’s chest.

Anti barely flinched as the foam disc bounced off of him with a spark of electricity. He blinked - dark, void-like eyes - and stared down at the harmless green projectile on the floor.

“A̛ n᷄er̼f͈ d̑i͞sč? Ȓe͏a̧ll̐y̕, Ja͙c͂k̇?᷀”

Jack shrugged. He pretended that he wasn’t sweating buckets and shaking like a leaf behind the Nerf gun in his hands.

“N-Not like I’ve got anythin’ else.”

“H̆o̲w͘ v᷁e̛ry “C̰h̦a͘s̟e B̜r̵o̦d͔y” o͈f̹ y̬öu͍.”

Somehow the mention of another Ego’s name on Anti’s lips made Jack tense up. It was surreal. It was strange. They were all fake - all of them fictional - yet Anti had somehow become so much more. The concept of the living incarnation of his once-fictional character mentioning another of his still-fictional characters so casually like that...it was unsettling, to say the least. Jack squeezed his eyes shut and swallowed. He just needed to hold out a little longer, just a little while longer, until Mark came back from the car. Keep talking. Keep going...

“W-Well...well…it’s t-technically his gun...s-so…”

Jack opened his eyes.

Anti wasn’t there.

“I̚ kn̴ơw̼ w̖h̖a̽ẗ y᷆o̠u᷄’͍r͖e do̕i͖n̖g̉.”

The chilling voice seemed to come from all sides at once, and Jack could make out flickers of pixels and static in the dark shadows of the room. He fumbled with the ziplock in his pocket, pulling out a foam disc to load his Nerf gun again.

“Oh?” Jack asked, his voice coming out higher than he’d intended. “Do…” He cleared his throat. “...do you now?”

“M᷅a̪r̿k̀i̟pl̻i̘e͛r᷀ i̵sn̄’t͡ c̊o͇m̕i͝n̩g͚ to͆ s̲a͙v᷀e͎ yo̫u̥.”

Jack’s blood ran cold.

“What–”

“H᷁e’̘s̎...ă li͢t̺t͖l̷e᷄ ţie͓d᷄ u̯p̉ a̳t̀ th̪e͡ m̘oͥmȩn͇ẗ́.” Anti’s distorted giggle echoed and circled in the empty air, causing goosebumps to sprout up along Jack’s arms. His breath hitched, eyes flying wildly around the room, trying to spot any sign of his doppleganger. “Y᷇o᷅u̥ wer͖e̸ṇ’t̃ p̼l̯a̿yi̟n͘g̉ fa̯ir̤, Ja̒c̉k̩a̫b᷉o͎y…” The next words came front right over his shoulder, whispered into his ear like a dirty secret. “...s̥o̾ Į le͍veͅlèd͎ t̏h̬e͕ p̭l̎ay᷊i̹n͑g̵ fi̥el͔d͙.͝ Ġot̥ ą c̋er̒t̛a͙i͇n da̢r͍k a̭cq̑ŭa̖in͊t̮a̠n̸ce̬ of̿ m̪i̎ne t͖õ ẖęl̍p̖ m̓e̺ o̢u̟t a̲ li̫t͕t᷈l̪e.”

Mark was scared to blink, staring at his own reflection in the car’s window with his jaw clenched, a vein pulsing in his neck. A figure stood just behind his shoulder, his body outlined in a familiar red and blue, looking so familiar yet so foreign at the same time. By the time his smoothie hit the concrete and burst open, splattering the ground, only fractions of a second had passed...but it felt like an eternity. He blinked.

Dark was gone.

“Mark?” Tim’s voice cropped up beside his ear, confused and a little worried.

“...hold on to me, okay?” Mark murmured, and he brought a hand up to try and shield his familiar from whatever might happen. Whoever might happen.

“I’m not here for him, you know.”

The voice, deep and echoing and so like his own but different, startled him into turning around. He hadn’t been in the reflection, but he hadn’t actually left. His name left Mark’s lips in a strained whisper.

“Darkiplier.”

“Face-to-face, at long last,” Dark nodded. He smirked, folding his hands behind his back. “And like I said...I’m only here for you. This is all coming from your mind, Mark.”

“Mark? What’re you lookin’ at?”

Tim. He sounded so innocent and confused, so worried about Mark, and what Dark was saying suddenly registered in Mark’s mind.

“Tim can’t see you, can he?”

“Tim doesn’t have to see me,” Dark corrected, raising an eyebrow in clear impatience. “I don’t want him to see me, therefore he can’t. But you…” His head tilted to the side and he made his neck pop, his shell cracking and separating for a moment. Then he leaned forward, intrigued. “...you, I can never quite hide from. Not completely. Why is that?”

“I...don’t know,” Mark shook his head, confused. Lost. Dark was here, and he was very real, and he was talking to Mark as though none of this was odd. “Maybe...uh....maybe because I made you?”

“Y̙̭o͏̖͔͙͓̼u d͇͈̭i͎̤͉ḍ̼̠̭̟̯͡n̡͕͎̙̜’̠̹̫̦͙͡t ̝ma̟k̼͎͝e̗̗̱͈̬ͅ m̰̥ḛ.”

There was an echoing fury boiling under the words, and the air around Dark seemed to darken considerably in the moment. Mark took an involuntary step back towards his car.

“I - what?”

“You didn’t make me.” Dark’s anaglyphic image was separating, tearing itself apart, and one of his echoing reflections seemed to scream silently into the cold night air. All the while, his core image remained stern and unyielding, showing barely any emotion at all. “You destroyed me - destroyed us. You stole his body. You condemned her to hell. You drove him to insanity. You ruined their lives.”

It clicked, then, what Dark was talking about. This was exactly what Mark had been scared of, worried about, when he was talking to Jack in that cafe. This was why he was regretting the creation of “Who Killed Markiplier”...or more accurately, he was regretting the addition of the character of Mark. The Mark who was an actor. The Mark who was an asshole. The fictional Mark who ruined everything and destroyed so many people…

...Dark was under the impression that Actor Mark and YouTube Mark were one and the same.

Mark blinked, and suddenly Dark was so much closer than he had been before. The darkness that had been enveloping the demon was surrounding Mark too now, and it was absolutely suffocating.

“...but, I suppose I should be thanking you,” Dark continued, a smirk finding its way onto his face. He tilted his head to the side, regarding Mark thoughtfully. “In a way, you...are the reason I exist. Your damnation of your friends led to my creation. A part of me is furious...but a part of me is more than grateful. You set the darkness free, Mark.”

Mark’s heart was pounding, rapid, in his chest and he could feel a minute panic slowly flooding his very soul. He gulped and shook his head, one hand still holding Tim close - Tim, who had fallen strangely silent, though Mark didn’t stop to question it.

Dark wasn’t here to hurt him. Dark didn’t resort to physical violence unless he had to, Mark had written him that way. While Anti went straight for the knife, Dark resorted to other means of making his point and making his mark.

This was all in his mind. Dark wasn’t physically here.

“What are you doing here?” he asked. “You...I’ve been seeing you, for months, but this is the first time you’ve actually spoken to me. What changed?”

Dark’s gaze trailed off to the side, toward the apartment, before settling back on Mark.

“A friend asked for a favor.” He quirked an eyebrow. “I merely agreed.”

A cry of pain broke the odd non-silence of the evening, a cry of pain that sounded all too familiar and was coming from the apartment Mark had been trying to return to. His eyes widened.

A friend asked for a favor.

A friend of Dark’s. Anti.

“Jack!”

Mark shoved away from the car and ran through Dark’s mirage of a body, the blue and red dispersing into wisps of dark smoke. Mark only made it halfway to the stairs.

“Clever boy. But you can’t leave. Not yet.”

Dark’s voice echoed in his mind, sending a blinding pain through his skull that brought him to his knees with a shout. He clutched at his head, fingers tangling in his hair and digging into his scalp. He felt rather than saw Tim tumble off of his shoulder, falling the few feet to the ground, making Mark wince in sympathy. There wasn’t enough strength in him to free himself from the mental onslaught, let alone help his tiny friend.

But he needed to. He needed to get Dark out of his head, needed to help Jack. If Dark was out here, then Anti must be in there, and he’d already seen what Anti had done to Jack the last time he had shown up. It wasn’t pretty. Mark didn’t fancy seeing a reenactment.

Get out...get out!

“Why would I? I have a job to do, Mark. You better than anyone should know that I never put in a half effort.”

Images began to surface in his mind, horrible images, memories that had never happened...memories of his friends, his real friends, getting hurt…

Please don’t. They don’t deserve this.

“Neither did Damien. Neither did Celine. Neither did William.”

“That...w-wasn’t me!” he protested, finally finding his voice, the words hoarse and weak. “You’ve got it - ngh - wrong! I’m - y-yeah, I’m Mark, but I’m n-not that Mark! I–”

“Oh, quit with your pitiful lies,” Dark sneered. “Celine is already angry enough with you as it is.”

“No, listen! I made up that version of Mark the same way I created you and Wilford and Abe – I’m just a writer, okay?!”

“Give up, Mark. Nobody can hear you. Let’s see how long you last before you begin pleading for forgiveness. I have all night…”

Hold on, Jack. I’m coming. Hold on–

Jack shuddered and shot to his feet, almost tripping over the coffee table in his haste to get away from Anti, who cackled in amusement from where he’d appeared directly over Jack’s shoulder. Jack rounded on the glitch and aimed the Nerf gun at his chest, not even caring that it was basically harmless.

“What did you do?!” he demanded, his concern for his friend overtaking his fear for his own life. “Is Dark gonna kill him?”

“D̙o͕n͑’̚t b͐e͟ s͋i̧lly!” Anti smirked and rolled his eyes, playing with his knife out of sheer boredom, tossing it between his hands and flipping it in the air. It was clear he was skilled with his weapon on choice, throwing it around with ease like one would a half-filled water bottle. “O᷄l’ D̜a̩rki͈e̚ do̶ẹs̨n̈́’ť ju͊st̽ ķill̔ p̠eo᷈p̰l͌e̞. O᷀r͋ hē w͈on̎’̞t k̇i͏ll̫ Ma̻r᷊kipl̮i̧er͕, an̋y̑w̩a͕y̒.”

The knife soared a good foot or two in the air before tumbling downward, making Jack tense even as he watched Anti catch it cleanly by the handle.

“Fa͐r a͓š I̩ c̠a᷊n̅ t͂ell͚ he̟’̤s̄ p͞r̃et᷇ty̚ p̝i᷅s̱s͚e͔d͐ a̤t᷆ ṱh͔e̓ g̹uy̗. Be̘en̒ t͑oy̕īn͗’͈ w̶it’ hi̛m᷆ f̦o͐r̬ m̽o᷆nt̾h̟s̞,̈ o̊ř so̊ h͍i᷉s̝ r̓oboͅt́ s̽a᷁ẏs͍.”

Robot? Jack’s brow furrowed in confusion. Dark had robots now?

“N̛a̡h᷾, Da͖r̓k̺’s͗ n̠o͊t̻ g̦onnå k̬i͗l͙ḽ Mar̃k̝. P͑ŕe̽t̩ṯyͅ s̒u̕r̾e ḣe᷇’d̈ r̯a̱the̗r dr̹i͖v̓ę h͂i͔m̃ t̰o̐ i͢n᷀s̷a͛nityͅ ḅefo᷾r̞e͓ tͅh͙a̓t ĥap̆p̝e̾ns.”

Jack swallowed thickly. Drive him to insanity? Could Dark do that? He was brought back to the conversation he and Mark had had almost a week ago, in the cafe. The first morning Mark had shown up.

“Dark’s more subtle,” Mark had said. “He works behind the scenes. He doesn’t deal with face-to-face conflict as much. He mostly sticks to the shadows. I mean, I gave him his backstory, I should know this…honestly, it makes me wonder if ‘Who Killed Markiplier’ wasn’t a horrible, horrible idea.”

Mark had been worried, beyond worried, about the concept of Dark actually making his move. Jack had noticed it that day but hadn’t bothered to ask about it. He was beginning to think that, perhaps, he should have pushed a little more.

“Bu̼t y̾o̲u̱ h᷁aͅve̕n̰’t̰ goṯ th᷁a͗t͓ to w᷁o͢r͊ry̽ ab̻o̱u̺t̍, Ja͖cͅka᷁b͐o̱y!” Anti was grinning again, and Jack would swear that his doppleganger’s teeth were sharp, pointed. Deadly. “A͟ft̸ëṙ t᷁o᷁n̎ig̙h̸t, you̅ w᷄o̓nͅ’̥t͂ b͐e̡ w̢OR̵r̈Yi͇N̞g a᷊BoUt a᷅N̡ÿ́T͒h̛i͙N᷇g͋.”

Anti’s distorted shadow grew around him, engulfing his side of the room in a glitching, pulsating, corrupted darkness, and from its depths shot out a dozen or so venom-green cords of light. At Anti’s command, they darted forward and curled tightly around Jack’s wrists, his ankles, his knees and elbows, his chest - his throat. Not tight enough to strangle, but with his bruises still healing, it was more than tight enough to hurt.

Jack gasped sharply and gritted his teeth, snarling and tugging against the green strings, fighting for his freedom. He had to get out. He had to save Sam, had to help Mark. But there was something...odd about the strings. With each tug against his restraints, Jack felt a little more of the fight leaving him, his will to rebel slowly draining away. His head was pounding, his throat was sore, and his shoulder was throbbing with pain...so...so wouldn’t it…

...wouldn’t it be easier to just give in?

The Nerf gun fell from his hands, tumbling to the floor with a clatter of plastic and a muffled thump against the carpet.

“No͊w be̺ a̦ go͟õd̏ li᷅t̏t᷁l͋e᷊ pup̝p͟ét, an̂d̯ ğo᷊ t̥õ s͕le̗e̥ṗ.”

Yeah...yeah, sleep sounded so wonderful right now. Jack slowly let his eyes drifted shut.

Click.

“You let ‘im go right this fucking second, or I blow your fuckin’ brains out, bro.”

[A/N] - Woot! It's done! ^^ And ending on a cliffhanger too? Shocking! :0c

This chapter actually took a lot longer to finish than I originally intended. For some reason I was really struggling to get going on it, but once I started into the ambush, it really started rolling. Believe it or not, this chapter is about twice the length of all the others. While most other chapters finish off at around ten pages in Google Docs, this one? This one hit a solid twenty. Absolute insanity.

Anyway! Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it, and comments and critiques are always appreciated! Ta!

Also find the latest chapters of this story on [Archive Of Our Own]

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[pixie-mage]

#SamLives - Pt.11

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Also find the latest chapters of this story on [Archive Of Our Own]

[This story has been edited and reposted on the official #SamLives Tumblr. The new post of Chapter 11 can be found here.]

(There is a big difference between the phone calls in this version and the updated version of Chapter 11. This version features Signe; the updated version features Robin.)

Jack hadn’t been lying when he’d said that he and Mark were planning on doing some collabs. In the few days that followed the initial video, they recorded a good nine or ten videos worth of content each, most of it consisting of two-player games. (Being able to record one session for two channels had its perks.) Jack still hadn’t gotten over his wariness of technology in that time. He had to steel his nerves before starting every session, had to take a breath before hitting ‘record’. He found himself frequently checking his facecam on the monitor to make sure nobody was in the background, and every flicker, every stutter, every lag in whatever game he was playing made his hands tense and his breath hitch.

Today was no different. After spending a good five minutes mentally convincing himself that his computer mouse wasn’t about to come to life and strangle him, he and Mark dove head-first into a new game of “Sea of Thieves”. It was just the two of them this time, with no time to schedule a play time with Bob or Wade or Ethan. At the moment, Jack was trying to fend off skeletal attackers while his friend dug up the buried treasure.

“Shit! Fuck! Fuckin’ bastards!” He took another swipe at the nearest skeleton, cutting it down. Another attacker was quick to take its place. “Hah! That’ll teach ye not to mess wit’ ol’ Jackaboy.”

He pulled out a blunderbuss and took two shots straight through the newcomer’s chest.

“DIE BITCHES! How’s that chest comin’, Markerino?”

Mark, who Jack now realized had been oddly quiet the past few minutes, let out only a distracted hum in response. Jack turned his avatar to look at Mark’s rather voluptuous character, only to find him standing still over the half-buried treasure chest. Jack chuckled, a little bewildered.

“Mark? Th’ fuck are you doin’?” he took a shot at another skeleton. “Are ye just waiting for it to unbury itself or–”

Thwack!

The familiar-yet-unexpected sound made Jack jump, his heart pounding in his chest as he whipped his head around to stare at Mark. The other YouTuber had turned his seat away from the desk, NERF gun in hand, aiming at the closed door with narrowed, focussed eyes.

What the fucking–

Jack swallowed thickly and took a slow breath, his panic ebbing away to make room for amused irritation. He swiped a small crocheted Sam from his desk and chucked it at the side of Mark’s head.

“Hey! What–?!”

“Don’t fuckin’ scare me like that, shithead!” Jack shoved Mark’s shoulder playfully. “What th’ hell was that for?”

“Target practice.”

Mark’s grin was cheeky and a little mocking.

Jack blinked at him, slowly, fixing him with a look that clearly said ‘Are you fucking kidding me right now?’ He snatched the NERF gun from Mark’s hand with a barely-restrained chuckle and brandished it in the other’s face. Mark took a swipe at it, pouting and trying to take back his toy.

“Hey!”

It turned into a game of Keep Away, with Jack holding the NERF gun high above his head and Mark practically falling out of his chair and climbing over Jack in his attempt to reach it.

“I’ll use you fer target practice if you don’t–”

“Jack! Give that back, you asshole!"

“–get your head back in the game!” Jack suddenly whipped the NERF gun back at Mark, who fumbled to catch it. “I’m dyin’ here!”

Mark clutched the gun tightly to his chest and retreated to the safety of his seat, pouting and hugging the toy as though Jack might attempt to steal it from him again. He stuck his tongue out childishly before turning back to his screen - and he stifled a laugh.

“Uh…” He carefully set his precious plastic weapon on the desk, out of Jack’s reach. “Not to alarm you, but I think we’re already dead.”

Jack’s focus snapped to his own screen, and sure enough, both he and Mark were now standing on the deck of a ghost ship, waiting their turn to return to the land of the living. He threw his hands in the air and flopped backwards in his chair.

“Fuckin’ DAMMIT all!” He sank in his seat with a groan, Mark’s deep giggles permeating the air around them both. “I blame you entirely for that.”

“Yeah...heh...yeah, that’s...that’s on me. Sorry, man…” Mark still hadn’t stopped giggling, his mood far too bright to be dimmed by a death in the game.

“I’m makin’ sure everyone knows it’s your fault,” Jack bemoaned from his slouched position. “I’m gonna make you buy me a fancy-ass tombstone, an’ put one o’ those shitty rhyming couplets on it…”

He held his hands out in front of him, pretending to frame the words.

“Here lies Jack Just blame his friend Whose NERF dart brought Their bitter end.”

Mark’s only response was a slow golf clap while he pretended to be tearing up.

“Beautiful,” he told Jack, voice laced with false emotion. “Absolutely beautiful. You should’ve become a poet instead of a YouTuber. Clearly you were meant for greater things than video game commentary.”

Jack almost fell out of his chair in his attempt to chuck another Sam plush at Mark’s head.

“D’you think that cop really believed that nothing was wrong?” Jack asked Mark with a mutter later that evening.

Mark had already sent the day’s raw videos from both him and Jack to Robin, and Robin was planning on doing a little bit of content cutting before passing them along to Kathryn. There were certain things that had to be cut out from their recordings that really, really didn’t need to be shared with anyone beyond their immediate group. Not yet.

“The guy from the other day?” Mark asked, looking up from his phone. “I dunno. I mean I don’t think he believed all the anonymous tips, anyway. He was trying not to crack a smile the whole time he was explaining stuff to us.”

Apparently, some of Jack’s fans had taken Anti’s appearance on the stream at face value. They had believed (rightfully so) that it was real, and when Jack went silent on all forms of social media for more than twenty-four hours after it had happened, people had started to panic. While nobody knew for sure where Jack and Signe lived, the local police station in Brighton had gotten call after call after call from concerned teens and young adults who all claimed that a YouTuber named Sean McLoughlin had almost been killed on a livestream. If it hadn’t been for the sheer number of phone calls and the video proof that looked almost too real to have been edited, Jack was sure the police would have ignored it.

But two days ago - three days after the stream itself - a police officer had come knocking on the apartment door asking if a Sean McLoughlin or a Jacksepticeye lived there.

After explaining - through stifled grinning and amused chuckles - that a lot of fans thought he had been hurt, Mark and Jack had tried to awkwardly laugh it off and explain that, no, it was just a video, and nobody had actually gotten hurt.

(Jack was wearing makeup on his neck again for recording, thank god, otherwise the bruises might have brought on some unwanted questions. As it was...)

“I dunno man.” Jack sighed deeply and scrubbed his hands over his face, sinking back on the couch. “I swear he kept lookin’ at my neck. I’m sure he watched the video for th’ sake of the calls. Probably checkin’ to see if I really got strangled.”

“Ah, quit worrying. I’m sure it’ll be fine.” Mark scrolled through Twitter again, reading a few more tweets before, “...and we’re sure we don’t want to get the police involved?”

Jack leveled him with a blank stare.

“Do you honestly think the police are gonna know how to deal wit’ a computer virus of a demon that came to life from my YouTube channel? I mean WE barely know what we’re doing and we’re fully invested in the lore of it all!”

Mark stifled a laugh.

“Okay, yeah good point,” he admitted. He shook his head, eyes falling back to his phone gain. “Fully invested in the lore...god, we sound like we’re trying to solve Five Nights At Freddy’s conspiracies. That’s how complicated this whole mess has become. Frankly, if anyone overheard what we were talking about in the cafe that first day I showed up, they’d probably think–”

Jack jolted upright in his seat, eyes wide and expression one of stunned realization.

“Holy shit.” He grabbed Mark’s arm and shook him a little, his movements suddenly intense and a brilliant grin splitting his face in two. “Holy shit!”

“Holy shit what?” Mark gripped his phone a little tighter so it wouldn’t go flying out of his hands from Jack’s enthusiasm.

“Mark, you’re a fuckin’ genius!”

“Well - I mean, yeah, I thought we established that, but what the hell did I say?!”

Mark was rightfully very bewildered by his friend’s sudden change of mood. He gave Jack a quick once-over with his eyebrows raised, wondering if he should be concerned.

“Five Nights at Freddy’s!” Jack exclaimed. He looked far too excited and far too proud of himself for his own good.

“...Five Nights at–”

“Dude! Don’t you get it?” Jack leapt up off the couch, pacing, and Sam - who had been dozing in Jack’s hoodie pocket - poked his ‘face’ out with a sleepy blink, wondering what all the commotion was about. “This whole thing is too fuckin’ complicated right now, right? We don’t know what exactly Anti is, or how to stop him from comin’ back. He’s solid but he’s not. He’s made of glitches but - who the hell even knows what that means.”

“Okay…?” Mark just watched the Irishman pace the room, his phone long forgotten in his lap. “Where are you going with this?”

“Anti doesn’t make sense!” Jack was grinning like an idiot. He stopped in his tracks to turn and face Mark. “We know why he’s here but that only gets us so far! We need somebody who’s used to picking apart ridiculous bullshit to find the real answers, somebody who already kinda knows what’s going on.”

“Jack, you’ve lost me,” Mark said flatly. “Who are you talking about, Signe? Amy?”

“No!” Jack was talking with his hands, talking with his entire body, like he couldn’t contain all the energy that had built up inside him. “Five Nights at Freddy’s. Crazy timeline. Bullshit lore. There’s only one person I know who was able to tear that shit to pieces and make sense out of it.”

And then it hit Mark like a load of bricks, and he was on his feet too, his exclamation coming out as a loud and incredulous question in the same moment that Jack was busting out the same words.

“MatPat?!”

“MatPat!”

“Waitwaitwait, hold on–” Mark was trying to sort out his thoughts, pinching the bridge of his nose while he watched Jack rush around in a frantic search for his cell phone. Mark didn’t have it right now and Jack couldn’t quite remember where it had ended up. “What the hell do you mean Matt already knows what’s going on?”

“Well, okay, he doesn’t know about Anti,” Jack admitted, his ass in the air while he leaned over the armchair in the corner to see if his phone was plugged in back there. “He knows about Sam though.”

“He knows about Sam?!” Mark’s jaw dropped.

At this point, Sam had abandoned Jack’s pocket to hover a few steps behind the Irishman, watching him with quiet curiosity. At Mark’s question, Sam let out a happy little squeak and nodded, twirling through the air a little.

“Did you tell him before you told me?” Before Jack could even answer, Mark had continued: “But he posted a video like two weeks ago about how Sam couldn’t possibly exist!”

“Well, duh, he posted that because he knows about Sam,” Jack rolled his eyes and shoved away from the armchair, detouring to the kitchen. He spoke up to be heard across the apartment. “He was tryin’ to throw people off. And I didn’t tell him about Sam.” Jack returned to the living room, cell phone in hand and a sheepish smile on his face. “He...er...kinda found out on his own.”

“How?”

“Tacos and Rachel Ray.”

Mark didn’t know how to respond to that.

“I have no idea how to respond to that.”

“Look…” Jack huffed and came back over to Mark, sitting on the edge of the coffee table while his friend sank slowly back onto the couch. Sam settled onto his shoulder and nuzzled up against Jack’s cheek with a quiet purr. “Sam was sick, so I brought him with me for the taco-making contest. Matt was on my team. He bumped into me, I tripped, Sam almost fell out of my hood, and Matt saw him.”

“And he didn’t freak out?”

Jack’s lips twitched into a wry smile and he looked up from his phone.

“Oh, he freaked out, but not until later.”

“Let me get this straight.” Mark watched Jack carefully as he spoke. Jack nodded and went back to shakily tapping out a message to Matt. “Just so we’re both on the same page. Sam exists, clearly. Anti exists. You, me, Signe, Robin, and Matt know about Sam. You, me, and Robin know about Anti.”

“And Signe, sort of.”

“And Signe,” Mark agreed. “And Amy too, come to think of it. Is there anybody else who knows anything else, just in case we need to recruit people for a battle of the digital age?”

“Nope, nobody else,” Jack shook his head. He paused and looked thoughtful, setting his phone aside (looking relieved to get the thing out of his hands) and tapping his chin. “...though I probably should bring up that Anti mentioned being late for a date or something last time? What was the name...something...something Warfstache…?”

Mark looked like he might explode

“WHAT?!”

“Oh my god!” Jack cackled, doubling over with laughter and trying not to slip off the edge of the coffee table he was sitting on. “Oh my fucking god your face! That was PRICELESS! You fuckin’ - Haha! - f-fuckin’ believed–” He could barely breathe he was laughing so hard, his laughter sounding a little wheezy.

Mark groaned and flopped backward across the couch, a low, pained chuckled escaping him.

”Oh, you absolutely piece of shit. Fuck you.”

“Y-Yeah, I - heh - I probably...haha...deserve that one…” Jack was grinning, wiping tears from his eyes.

Sam had bounced over to Mark to make sure he was okay and was now nestled on the American’s chest, Tim’s curious little eyes watching from the arm of the couch not even a foot away. The little box tumbled forward and landed right next to Mark’s head, patting his cheek softly in what Jack assumed was a comforting motion. Another low, rumbling laugh bubbled up from Mark’s chest.

“But no, to answer your question,” Jack continued once he could breathe again. “I think that’s everyone.”

“Good. Great. Excellent.”

Mark was absolutely done. Just...done.

“Ah, lighten up, Markimoo,” Jack snickered. “Consider it payback fer that NERF scare.”

“Considering that you were implying that Warfstache is alive too, and that he and your evil twin are getting it on–”

“Hey! I only said they went on a date!”

“–I’d say we’re far from even right now.”

“Oh, fuck off! That’s totally even!”

“And what if I tricked you into thinking your Dr. Schneep guy was alive and I caught him flirting with Dr. Iplier?”

“Oh, dude, no,” Jack groaned, laughing through it. “Nooo...I mean, yeah, Henrik totally would. He’d flirt with anything that moved. But hell no.”

“See my point?”

The living room was silent for a long moment, save for the little questioning squeaks Sam was making from his position on Mark’s chest. Then Mark heard the buzzing clatter of plastic against the coffee table. Jack’s phone was ringing, but on silent. Mark cracked open one eye to glance at Jack, who suddenly looked a lot more tense than he had a moment before.

“...you good, Jack?” he murmured, watching the other YouTuber. Jack nodded stiffly, looking a little pale. “Is it MatPat? He calling back already?”

Jack swallowed thickly.

“It’s...Signe.”

“Answer it,” Mark encouraged him evenly. “Go ahead. We’re all in the room with you, it’ll be fine.”

Jack nodded, the motion a little jerky, and he reached over to press the ‘Answer’ button. He quickly put it on speaker and withdrew his hand as though he’d been burned. The phone stayed sitting on the table.

“Sean?”

“Hey Signe,” Jack murmured.

Mark could see some of the tension melt out of the Irishman’s shoulders when he heard her voice, saw the way his lips quirked into a smile at the corners and the way his eyes softened in the moment.

“Hi! I just wanted to check in,” Signe continued, a smile in her voice. “How’s everything going? How’s Sam?”

“Sam’s great!” Jack’s grin became more genuine, and he giggled when Sam bounced over to sit beside the phone. He was wiggling on the spot in excitement. “He and Tim are gettin’ along famously. He’s been so damn happy, Wiish, I can’t wait for you to see ‘em together.”

“You can thank me later,” Mark chimed in with a smirk.

“Is that Mark?” Signe asked. “Am I on speaker?”

“Oh! Yeah, you are. Sorry. Shoulda said.” Jack chuckled softly.

“No, it’s fine!” Signe giggled, the sound melodic even through a phone speaker. “Hi Mark!”

“Hi Signe!”

“How are you doing though, Sean?” Signe’s tone had turned concerned, softer than before. “You still haven’t told me what’s going on with the whole Antisepticeye thing.”

Jack stiffened. He could feel Mark’s eyes on him, his look a knowing one. It had been five whole days since he’d talked to Signe at the cafe, and while they had texted back and forth every day since (in very brief interludes, as there were still moments Jack couldn’t even look at his own TV for fear of Anti jumping out of the dimmed pixels, let alone carry his phone in his pocket all day), not once had Jack brought up the livestream. Any time she asked about it he evaded her questions and promised to explain soon and made her promise to please don’t watch the livestream, I’ll tell you when you get home, please wait until then. So far, Signe had done as he’d asked, but he could tell she was growing concerned.

“Eh…” Jack cleared his throat and shrugged, though she couldn’t see it. “I’m fine. A little worn out, but Mark an’ I have been really goin’ hard, knockin’ out tons of videos now so we can get some free time to hang out later…”

“Sean.”

And there it was, the gentle scolding of her Mama Signe voice. How she managed to make Jack feel like a misbehaving child every time she used it was a mystery to him...but it worked. Every damn time. He sighed and let out a quiet groan.

“I’ll tell you soon, I promise,” he whimpered. “I promise I will, it’s - it’s just - I can’t–” He dragged a hand through his hair, and his gaze landed on Mark. The other YouTuber had sat up in the past few minutes and was leaning forward with his elbows resting on his knees, his expression a searching one. He quirked an eyebrow at the Irishman.

“One second, Wiishu,” he said softly, reaching over to tap the ‘mute’ button on Jack’s phone. He watched his friend for a long moment before speaking. “Jack...I’m not gonna push you to tell her, but - oh my god, man. It’s almost been a whole week. The longer you wait, the more likely it’ll be for her to figure it out on her own. She already told you yesterday, people have been sending her tons of tweets and tumblr messages asking about you. Didn’t she ask you why they wanted know if you’re dead or not?”

Jack nodded stiffly, wincing.

“I told you I’d help you tell her the truth.” Mark smiled reassuringly. “I meant that, okay? And - hell, I can get Amy on the line, and we can have a big ol’ Double Date Egos Theory Skype Call.”

Jack snorted out a nervous laugh, shaking his head in amusement. Double date…

“Only you would see it as a date opportunity, Mark.”

“What can I say?” Mark grinned cheekily and winked. “I’m a hopeless romantic.” His grin faded back to a soft, understanding smile and he tried to catch Jack’s eye. “Waddaya say? You up for it?”

“...I eh…” Jack stared at his hands, his fingers fiddling with the hem of his sweatshirt while he thought.

Was he ready to tell Signe yet? Would she even believe him? Would she freak out, or take it all in stride? He didn’t want to worry her and didn’t want to put her in danger. He had known that, once she was home, he would have no choice but to tell her - so that had been his plan. To tell her when she got home, and let her enjoy her time with her family free of any of Jack’s current stresses. Once she was back in Brighton they could clear the air and talk about how to move forward.

But Mark was right too. The longer he waited, the worse it could get.

Jack sighed heavily. His hand was shaking when he reached for his phone, but he still pressed the ‘mute’ button to let Signe hear them again.

“Hey Wiish,” he mumbled, to let her know he was back. “You there?”

“Still here, Sean.” The usual sweet lilt was in her voice, her tone smiling and her words kind.

It helped Jack with what he knew he had to do next.

“I...eh. D’you mind waitin’ a few minutes?” he asked, wringing his hands in his lap. “Mark’s gonna get Amy on a Skype call wit’ us, an’ we can all talk face-to-face, and I’ll...I’ll fill you in on what’s been, er, happenin’ in my part of the world.”

“Really?” Signe asked, sounding surprised. “You’re actually going to tell me this time?”

“I - yeah. Yeah, I am.” Jack took a breath. His nervousness was clear with every word that left his mouth. “I’ll tell you everything.”

“Wait!”

Mark’s outburst made Jack jump and his head shot up.

“What–”

“My smoothie! I totally forgot my smoothie!”

Jack stared, and he heard Signe giggling on the other end of the call.

“Your smoothie,” he repeated, his lips twitching into some semblance of a smile. “You mean the one from after dinner? From, like, two hours ago?”

“Yes, from after dinner!” Mark rocketed off the couch, skirting the coffee table and grabbing his rental car keys as he went to the door. “It’s still in the car. This is super serious.”

“Super serious?” Jack repeated. He watched Tim bounce off the couch and hop curiously around the room in pursuit of Mark, doing his best to keep up. “More serious than Serious Shit?”

“YES! MORE SERIOUS THAN THAT!” Mark, who almost stepped on Tim in his haste to get to the door, let out a rather undignified squeak and immediately crouched to the ground beside the tiny box. “Oh, I'm so sorry! Are you okay? Did I hurt you? C’mere, my little biscuit, let’s get you off the floor. I would neeeever want you to get hurt, I would neeeever step on you…”

“Oh my god, Mark, you’re such a mom.”

“What? It’s not like you’re not the same way with Sam!”

At this, Jack chucked a pillow from the couch across the room, hitting Mark in the legs to avoid hitting Tim.

“Go get your fuckin’ smoothie!”

“Fine! I will!”

Mark flipped him off and pretended to storm out of the apartment, putting Tim on his shoulder and “slamming” the door shut (only to stop it at the last second to close it with a quiet click.) Jack shook his head with a smile. Only Mark.

“Hey...Sean?”

“Hm?” Jack returned his attention to his phone, still sitting beside him on the coffee table. “What’s up?”

“I wanted to ask...you said Anti is real, right?”

“Yeah…” His answer was a tense one, his hands coming up to fiddle with the strings of his hoodie.

“Did…” Signe’s voice trailed off, and there was static in the speaker, like she had taken a breath. “Did he hurt you, on the stream?”

Jack swallowed thickly. He was suddenly very aware of the sore bruises on his throat, and he felt rather than saw Sam land lightly on his shoulder.

“What...eh…” He cleared his throat, and Sam nuzzled up against his jaw, little waves of reassurance and worry filtering into the back of his mind. “...w-what makes ye ask that?”

“I told you I was getting messages and asks,” she told him. He could hear footsteps in the background, movement. Like she was pacing. “And I turned them off for now, because I was going to wait until you told me what was going on. And I know you’re going to! But...I’ve been tagged in a few things too. I saw some gifs of you and Anti–”

Jack closed his eyes, his jaw clenching tightly. Oh. Hands shaking, Jack picked his phone up off the coffee table and took the call off speaker, holding the mobile to his ear and getting to his feet.

“Holdin’ me up against the...eh...th’ wall?” he asked hoarsely. His movements were stiff, his footing a little unsteady as he crossed the room to pick up the pillow he’d thrown at Mark. He squeezed the edge of it tightly in his hand, lingering there by the door.

“...yeah.” Signe took another deep breath on the other end of the line, and when she spoke again her voice was shaking. “He – Sean, he was hurting you. That...th-that was real, wasn’t it? It wasn’t Robin’s editing?”

Jack’s chest felt tight, his throat constricting from both the memory and his own emotions. He took a shaking breath and dropped the pillow into the armchair closest to him, his free hand coming up to rest against his opposite shoulder. By Sam. Sam’s tail trailed down and brushed against his fingers, helping to soothe some of the uneasiness that had begun to build inside him.

“N-No, that...that was. Um.” Real. It was real. He blinked rapidly and his grip tightened on his phone. “It really happened.”

Signe gasped sharply from the other end of the line.

“Oh, god, Sean–”

But whatever Signe had been about to say, Jack never found out, because the call was suddenly filled with static and audio distortion, Signe’s words lost in a mass of broken sound that had Jack freezing where he stood.

“...Signe?” he whispered, eyes widening. “Signe...Wiish...I need to go. Okay? I can’t...I can’t hear you, but I th-think–”

The call dropped before Jack even hit the end button, the cell phone slipping from his hand and tumbling to the floor with a quiet thump against the carpet.

There was a static in the air, a crackle, an energy to it that made the hair on the back of Jack's neck stand on end. His breath hitched. The hand that still lingered near his shoulder tensed, and he could feel Sam curl closer to his neck.

"I'm not the only one feelin' that, yeah?" Jack breathed, his eyes darting around his apartment and landing on nothing. He took an involuntary step back toward the door.

"Nuh-uh. I feel it too..." Sam's worried voice floated across the back of his mind. Jack nodded. Alright. So he wasn't crazy.

A lamp across the room sparked and popped, the bulb blowing out suddenly, and even as small of an occurrence as that was it made Jack jump. The room was plunged into darkness. Wide blue eyes latched onto the deadened lamp. "W-What the hell is going on...?" His voice sounded strained, even to his own ears.

But the question he asked was one he was almost certain he knew the answer to. This static, this...tension. Electricity. He knew this feeling. It was one he was far too familiar with, one that he had experienced before.

Anti.

The room had felt much the same as this when Anti had appeared during his stream last time, when he had pinned Jack to the wall by his throat and toyed with him in front of an audience, had left him scared and shaking in a way he never expected he'd have to feel in his life. Until then he hadn't been sure if Anti was real. But now? Now there was no denying it. So the feeling in the air, the tension, the spark? It flooded him with a very real and tangible fear that wasn't without reason.

"Ďid̎ ÿo̊u m̰i͋šs̶ m̰ē?"

A voice, so close, a cold breath against his ear. Jack cried out and flung himself away from the sound, knees hitting carpet as he hurried away from his own front door now, scrambled across the living room with desperate movements, one hand clamped over Sam so he wouldn’t lose him. There, by the door, his smile just as sharp and as wicked as Jack remembered, was the glitch himself. His image crackled and distorted for a moment - Jack could see the pixels separating as he stood there - and a moment later he had flickered forward, appearing a few steps closer.

Shit...shit, shit, shit...he had half a mind to scream, to call for Mark, but at this point Mark had probably already made it down to his car and wouldn't hear anything. All he could hope for now was that he could stall long enough for his friend to make it back inside. Two on one were better odds in this situation.

"I̥ d̠on̪'t e͊v͐enͥ g̴ét a h̒e͊llo̖, J̠åc̮k̾a͈b͗ö́y?"

“Go away!”

Jack’s eyes widened and he went stiff, panic doubling. Sam had wriggled free from his spot on Jack’s shoulder and he was hovering in mid-air between the two men in the room, planting himself boldly before Anti as though he was planning on defending Jack himself.

“Sam, don’t–”

“Leave him alone, you meanie!” Sam sounded so brave, so determined, so…so angry for such a small little being. “You hurt Jack, and you made him sad, and - and–” Sam wriggled in the air and tried to make himself look intimidating. “–and I’m not gonna let you hurt him again!”

Contrary to what Jack was sure Sam had wanted, Anti didn’t look scared at all. In fact, he smiled...a gleeful smile that had Jack dreading whatever was about to happen.

“W̠e͆ll, a̒re̮n't y͞oṳ a̸ b̸ra̢v̜e lĭt͉tle t̹oa̤s̈t̤èr̔?” Anti crooned, his head tilting far to the side in a way that was eerily non-human. He held out a hand, palm-up, and the air above it distorted and warped impossibly. A worn, dark jewelry box appeared there in a flurry of pixels, its lid popped open to reveal the empty space within. “Sȯr̬r̗y t̸o b̓ur̢s̈ţ ŷou̬r͊ b᷆u̫b᷇b̍l͑ě, S̕a̺m̮my̳, b̝u᷈t...yo̔u'rē no̸t̹ ne͑e̓d̐ed f̔o͍r̈ toñḯgh̠t̡'s ća̧s̱t̎ o̱f͗ c̟har̐a͐ct̊e͓r̊s͊.”

Quicker than Jack could react, Anti glitched, vanished, and reappeared inches from Sam with the jewelry box held out before him. With one swooping motion, Anti had flicked Sam into the box, snapped the lid shut, locked it with a key and tossed the box over his shoulder to land neatly on the armchair in the corner.

“NO!” Jack sprang forward without thinking, arm outstretched as though to reach the box–

“D̹ǐd̵ I̽ s͌a̝y y̪o͚u͘ c̡o̾u͎l̦d͗ m̐o͋v̫e͕?”

Before Jack could register the giggling words, he found himself tripping head-over-heels, colliding soundly with the front of the cabinet his television rested on. A jolt of pain pulsed through his shoulder and he cried out, biting his lip, biting his tongue. Desperate fingers clutched at his aching shoulder and he gritted his teeth.

“What the fuck do you want?!” he bit out, panting and tense as he watched Anti slowly stalk toward him across the room. “You here to...to k-kill me? Hurt me? S...Strangle me again?”

“Wh͔a̠ţ d᷁ō ÿ́o̊u̖ t͔ak̓e m̉e̥ f̓or̓, a᷇ s᷀a͂di͉s͟t͊?” Anti scoffed incredulously.

Jack blinked at him, a sassy retort on his lips before he could stop himself.

“What, you - ngh - aren’t one? Could’ve f-fooled me...”

“I'̗m̺ m̛or̬e̍ ǫf a m̭a͒s᷅ochi͙s̜t̕,̘ r͖ea̪l͟l̓y,͏” Anti shrugged. Jack was surprised that Anti had even bothered to answer the question at all. “Bu͂t̢ bo͑t͐h̬ a᷊r̛e͞ p̭r̂ett͒y̎ a͘c̬c᷅u͑ra̻t̎e̍.”

Great. Good to know. Wonderful.

“N̚o̫, i͓t̋'s no͙t̘h̺i̝n᷆g s͕o̻ s͑i̔m͕pl̖e̍ as a̖l̥l̆ t᷁h̄a̓t,” Anti smirked, waving the thought away with one hand.

The air around his palm distorted and glitched, and a shining blade appeared in his hand on the way down.

Oh, fuck.

Anti was a few steps away now, and Jack scrambled backward across the floor, trying to get as much distance between himself and the glitch as possible...but he was cornered, pinned between the side of the TV cabinet and the wall, blocked in with no way out. It was starting to become a struggle to keep his breathing steady, his heart hammering away a tarantella against his ribs, his throat coarse and tight from tension.

The burst bulb from earlier had thrown the room into near-darkness, but what moonlight was coming through the living room window reflected off the sharpened blade in Anti’s hand, the light bouncing off into Jack’s eyes as the glitch knelt in front of him - close, too close - his eyes beginning to swirl with an inky blackness that Jack never wanted to see this close again.

Jack kept his eyes fixed on the blade, wide as saucers, and his breath hitched when he saw it inching closer and closer to his face. The touch of cool metal against his cheek made him tense and he clenched his jaw with a gulp. It wasn’t sharp. It wasn’t painful. Anti was dragging the flat side of the knife along his jawline, and Jack could hear the sound of its edge scraping against the coarse facial hair there.

“No̫…” Anti shook his head, and the sharp grin widened wickedly, appearing to split his face in two. “No, I ẖa͗v̶e m̪ůch...͛mùch᷆ b᷆i͈g͗g᷄er p̓lan̶s᷉ foͥr᷆ yõu͕, Jaͅc̻k.”

Mark was humming to himself as he made his way down to the rental car, the keys jingling in his hand. Tim sat perched on his shoulder, one tiny hand clutching the collar of Mark’s shirt, and he was trying to hum along to whatever song Mark had stuck in his head right now.

It wasn’t his fault Katy Perry’s music was so catchy.

By the time he unlocked and opened the driver’s side door, he was well into the chorus, mumbling the words in an undertone to himself and for Tim’s entertainment.

“California girls, we're undeniable! Fine, fresh, fierce, we got it on lock~” Tim was giggling, and the sound brought a warm smile to Mark’s face. He shifted into the driver’s seat so he could reach his smoothie easier, but not before belting out the next few lyrics at the top of his lungs.

“West coast represent, now put your hands up!”

He did so, dancing in his seat, grinning and playing it up for his little biscuit’s benefit.

“Ooh, oh, ooh! Ooh…”

Something flickered in the corner of his eye, something red...or was it blue?...and he trailed off, a crease forming in his brow. Tim was still giggling softly. Had he been seeing things? With a soft chuckle, he reached over and plucked his half-finished smoothie from the cupholder, still somewhat chilled from the cool weather of the evening.

Yeah, it was probably nothing. The whole Antisepticeye thing had been keeping him on edge since he’d arrived here in England. He pushed himself out of his seat and shut the door behind him. But when he turned to head back inside, something in the reflection in the car’s window caught his attention.

Mark dropped his smoothie.

A quiet thumping rose up across the living room, a rattling that caught Jack’s attention as well as Anti’s.

Sam. Sam was trying to get out.

Anti looked away from his victim for a moment, only for a moment, some space coming between Jack’s cheek and the metal of Anti’s blade.

A moment was all he needed.

Jack lashed out with a fist and a knee, landing a punch square across the glitch’s face and driving a knee up into his gut. Anti tumbled away from him, distorting and flickering, a static-fused snarl of pain and annoyance bubbling up from his prone form. Jack shoved himself to his feet, leaping over Anti and heading for the front door. He had to get out, had to leave, had to get Sam and go–

“I d͓O̬n͈’Ṭ t̉H͠iN̼ḱ sͅO͊!”

Static, feedback, a crackle in the air, and Anti was in front of him again, seething with fury, blocking his exit. Jack was running on pure adrenaline now, veering left and heading down the hall toward the bedrooms. The bathroom. Recording room. Anything.

“y̜O̰u̯’̒R̡e̿ N̈o̽T͔ g̓O̩i᷈N̸g̽ Ản̉Y͋w̳H̤e̦R̸ë́!̉”

There he was again, cutting him off, keeping him trapped in the same room. Shit...fuck…

Mark. Mark was downstairs. He just - he needed to stall, to wait it out until Mark came back with his stupid smoothie. He could make it that long.

Jack did a one-eighty and darted back down the hallway, the rug slipping beneath his feet and making him stumble. He caught himself on the wall and kept going, kept dodging. He could do this. Distract him. Hold him off. Something. Anything.

Green.

...green?

Something green, in the corner of his eye. Green and orange.

Jack risked turning his head, risked a glance, and he caught sight of the NERF gun - Chase’s NERF gun - sitting on the kitchen table. Mark had been playing with the damned thing for days, and for the first time since it had resurfaced Jack was unendingly grateful that Mark had found it again. He made a detour through the kitchen, snatching it up and shoving the ziplock of foam discs into his hoodie pocket.

Disc. Pull back. Load. Click. Wait for it. Be ready.

Jack circled his way back into the living room, Anti’s laughter echoing through the apartment, and he dove behind the coffee table with his plastic weaponed primed. He was ready.

He was terrified.

Jack would be an idiot if he pretended that this entire situation wasn’t scaring him within an inch of his life. He knew - he was trying not to think - that he could die at any second tonight, and that the pixelated parasite hunting him down in his own apartment was far too strong of an opponent for him to handle, with or without Sam. With Mark, maybe he had a chance, but even those odds were slim. If he didn’t die tonight, or if he didn’t at least get stabbed, he was going to drink until morning then invite every single one of his friends over to England to have the party of a fucking lifetime.

“O͗h͢,᷄ Jȁa͚a̕a̓a̻c̈́k̘~” Anti’s distorted, chilling voice echoed through the room and sent a shiver down Jack’s spine. “W͘h̅e͔re a᷇r̰e̶ y̑ou͏ hid͛ǐnͅg̤?”

Jack caught sight of a flickering black sneaker from his hiding spot and he popped up from behind the coffee table, firing the NERF gun at the center of Anti’s chest.

Anti barely flinched as the foam disc bounced off of him with a spark of electricity. He blinked - dark, void-like eyes - and stared down at the harmless green projectile on the floor.

“A̛ n᷄er̼f͈ d̑i͞sč? Ȓe͏a̧ll̐y̕, Ja͙c͂k̇?᷀”

Jack shrugged. He pretended that he wasn’t sweating buckets and shaking like a leaf behind the nerf gun in his hands.

“N-Not like I’ve got anythin’ else.”

“H̆o̲w͘ v᷁e̛ry “C̰h̦a͘s̟e B̜r̵o̦d͔y” o͈f̹ y̬öu͍.”

Somehow the mention of another Ego’s name on Anti’s lips made Jack tense up. It was surreal. It was strange. They were all fake - all of them fictional - yet Anti had somehow become so much more. The concept of the living incarnation of his once-fictional character mentioning another of his still-fictional characters so casually like that...it was unsettling, to say the least. Jack squeezed his eyes shut and swallowed. He just needed to hold out a little longer, just a little while longer, until Mark came back from the car. Keep talking. Keep going...

“W-Well...well…it’s t-technically his gun...s-so…”

Jack opened his eyes.

Anti wasn’t there.

“I̚ kn̴ơw̼ w̖h̖a̽ẗ y᷆o̠u᷄’͍r͖e do̕i͖n̖g̉.”

The chilling voice seemed to come from all sides at once, and Jack could make out flickers of pixels and static in the dark shadows of the room. He fumbled with the ziplock in his pocket, pulling out a foam disc to load his NERF gun again.

“Oh?” Jack asked, his voice coming out higher than he’d intended. “Do…” He cleared his throat. “...do you now?”

“M᷅a̪r̿k̀i̟pl̻i̘e͛r᷀ i̵sn̄’t͡ c̊o͇m̕i͝n̩g͚ to͆ s̲a͙v᷀e͎ yo̫u̥.”

Jack’s blood ran cold.

“What–”

“H᷁e’̘s̎...ă li͢t̺t͖l̷e᷄ ţie͓d᷄ u̯p̉ a̳t̀ th̪e͡ m̘oͥmȩn͇ẗ́.” Anti’s distorted giggle echoed and circled in the empty air, causing goosebumps to sprout up along Jack’s arms. His breath hitched, eyes flying wildly around the room, trying to spot any sign of his doppleganger. “Y᷇o᷅u̥ wer͖e̸ṇ’t̃ p̼l̯a̿yi̟n͘g̉ fa̯ir̤, Ja̒c̉k̩a̫b᷉o͎y…” The next words came front right over his shoulder, whispered into his ear like a dirty secret. “...s̥o̾ Į le͍veͅlèd͎ t̏h̬e͕ p̭l̎ay᷊i̹n͑g̵ fi̥el͔d͙.͝ Ġot̥ ą c̋er̒t̛a͙i͇n da̢r͍k a̭cq̑ŭa̖in͊t̮a̠n̸ce̬ of̿ m̪i̎ne t͖õ ẖęl̍p̖ m̓e̺ o̢u̟t a̲ li̫t͕t᷈l̪e.”

Mark was scared to blink, staring at his own reflection in the car’s window with his jaw clenched, a vein pulsing in his neck. A figure stood just behind his shoulder, his body outlined in a familiar red and blue, looking so familiar yet so foreign at the same time. By the time his smoothie hit the concrete and burst open, splattering the ground, only fractions of a second had passed...but it felt like an eternity. He blinked.

Dark was gone.

“Mark?” Tim’s voice cropped up beside his ear, confused and a little worried.

“...hold on to me, okay?” Mark murmured, and he brought a hand up to try and shield his familiar from whatever might happen. Whoever might happen.

“I’m not here for him, you know.”

The voice, deep and echoing and so like his own but different, startled him into turning around. He hadn’t been in the reflection, but he hadn’t actually left. His name left Mark’s lips in a strained whisper.

“Darkiplier.”

“Face-to-face, at long last,” Dark nodded. He smirked, folding his hands behind his back. “And like I said...I’m only here for you. This is all coming from your mind, Mark.”

“Mark? What’re you lookin’ at?”

Tim. He sounded so innocent and confused, so worried about Mark, and what Dark was saying suddenly registered in Mark’s mind.

“Tim can’t see you, can he?”

“Tim doesn’t have to see me,” Dark corrected, raising an eyebrow in clear impatience. “I don’t want him to see me, therefore he can’t. But you…” His head tilted to the side and he made his neck pop, his shell cracking and separating for a moment. Then he leaned forward, intrigued. “...you, I can never quite hide from. Not completely. Why is that?”

“I...don’t know,” Mark shook his head, confused. Lost. Dark was here, and he was very real, and he was talking to Mark as though none of this was odd. “Maybe...uh....maybe because I made you?”

“Y̙̭o͏̖͔͙͓̼u d͇͈̭i͎̤͉ḍ̼̠̭̟̯͡n̡͕͎̙̜’̠̹̫̦͙͡t ̝ma̟k̼͎͝e̗̗̱͈̬ͅ m̰̥ḛ.”

There was an echoing fury boiling under the words, and the air around Dark seemed to darken considerably in the moment. Mark took an involuntary step back towards his car.

“I - what?”

“You didn’t make me.” Dark’s anaglyphic image was separating, tearing itself apart, and one of his echoing reflections seemed to scream silently into the cold night air. All the while, his core image remained stern and unyielding, showing barely any emotion at all. “You destroyed me - destroyed us. You stole his body. You condemned her to hell. You drove him to insanity. You ruined their lives.”

It clicked, then, what Dark was talking about. This was exactly what Mark had been scared of, worried about, when he was talking to Jack in that cafe. This was why he was regretting the creation of “Who Killed Markiplier”...or more accurately, he was regretting the addition of the character of Mark. The Mark who was an actor. The Mark who was an asshole. The fictional Mark who ruined everything and destroyed so many people…

...Dark was under the impression that Actor Mark and YouTube Mark were one and the same.

Mark blinked, and suddenly Dark was so much closer than he had been before. The darkness that had been enveloping the demon was surrounding Mark too now, and it was absolutely suffocating.

“...but, I suppose I should be thanking you,” Dark continued, a smirk finding its way onto his face. He tilted his head to the side, regarding Mark thoughtfully. “In a way, you...are the reason I exist. Your damnation of your friends led to my creation. A part of me is furious...but a part of me is more than grateful. You set the darkness free, Mark.”

Mark’s heart was pounding, rapid, in his chest and he could feel a minute panic slowly flooding his very soul. He gulped and shook his head, one hand still holding Tim close - Tim, who had fallen strangely silent, though Mark didn’t stop to question it.

Dark wasn’t here to hurt him. Dark didn’t resort to physical violence unless he had to, Mark had written him that way. While Anti went straight for the knife, Dark resorted to other means of making his point and making his mark.

This was all in his mind. Dark wasn’t physically here.

“What are you doing here?” he asked. “You...I’ve been seeing you, for months, but this is the first time you’ve actually spoken to me. What changed?”

Dark’s gaze trailed off to the side, toward the apartment, before settling back on Mark.

“A friend asked for a favor.” He quirked an eyebrow. “I merely agreed.”

A cry of pain broke the odd non-silence of the evening, a cry of pain that sounded all too familiar and was coming from the apartment Mark had been trying to return to. His eyes widened.

A friend asked for a favor.

A friend of Dark’s. Anti.

“Jack!”

Mark shoved away from the car and ran through Dark’s mirage of a body, the blue and red dispersing into wisps of dark smoke. Mark only made it halfway to the stairs.

“Clever boy. But you can’t leave. Not yet.”

Dark’s voice echoed in his mind, sending a blinding pain through his skull that brought him to his knees with a shout. He clutched at his head, fingers tangling in his hair and digging into his scalp. He felt rather than saw Tim tumble off of his shoulder, falling the few feet to the ground, making Mark wince in sympathy. There wasn’t enough strength in him to free himself from the mental onslaught, let alone help his tiny friend.

But he needed to. He needed to get Dark out of his head, needed to help Jack. If Dark was out here, then Anti must be in there, and he’d already seen what Anti had done to Jack the last time he had shown up. It wasn’t pretty. Mark didn’t fancy seeing a reenactment.

Get out...get out!

“Why would I? I have a job to do, Mark. You better than anyone should know that I never put in a half effort.”

Images began to surface in his mind, horrible images, memories that had never happened...memories of his friends, his real friends, getting hurt…

Please don’t. They don’t deserve this.

“Neither did Damien. Neither did Celine. Neither did William.”

“That...w-wasn’t me!” he protested, finally finding his voice, the words hoarse and weak. “You’ve got it - ngh - wrong! I’m - y-yeah, I’m Mark, but I’m n-not that Mark! I–”

“Oh, quit with your pitiful lies,” Dark sneered. “Celine is already angry enough with you as it is.”

“No, listen! I made up that version of Mark the same way I created you and Wilford and Abe – I’m just a writer, okay?!”

“Give up, Mark. Nobody can hear you. Let’s see how long you last before you begin pleading for forgiveness. I have all night…”

Hold on, Jack. I’m coming. Hold on–

~  ~  ~  ~  ~

Jack shuddered and shot to his feet, almost tripping over the coffee table in his haste to get away from Anti, who cackled in amusement from where he’d appeared directly over Jack’s shoulder. Jack rounded on the glitch and aimed his NERF gun at the glitch’s chest, not even caring that it was basically harmless.

“What did you do?!” he demanded, his concern for his friend overtaking his fear for his own life. “Is Dark gonna kill him?”

“D̙o͕n͑’̚t b͐e͟ s͋i̧lly!” Anti smirked and rolled his eyes, playing with his knife out of sheer boredom, tossing it between his hands and flipping it in the air. It was clear he was skilled with his weapon on choice, throwing it around with ease like one would a half-filled water bottle. “O᷄l’ D̜a̩rki͈e̚ do̶ẹs̨n̈́’ť ju͊st̽ ķill̔ p̠eo᷈p̰l͌e̞. O᷀r͋ hē w͈on̎’̞t k̇i͏ll̫ Ma̻r᷊kipl̮i̧er͕, an̋y̑w̩a͕y̒.”

The knife soared a good foot or two in the air before tumbling downward, making Jack tense even as he watched Anti catch it cleanly by the handle.

“Fa͐r a͓š I̩ c̠a᷊n̅ t͂ell͚ he̟’̤s̄ p͞r̃et᷇ty̚ p̝i᷅s̱s͚e͔d͐ a̤t᷆ ṱh͔e̓ g̹uy̗. Be̘en̒ t͑oy̕īn͗’͈ w̶it’ hi̛m᷆ f̦o͐r̬ m̽o᷆nt̾h̟s̞,̈ o̊ř so̊ h͍i᷉s̝ r̓oboͅt́ s̽a᷁ẏs͍.”

Robot? Jack’s brow furrowed in confusion. Dark had robots now?

“N̛a̡h᷾, Da͖r̓k̺’s͗ n̠o͊t̻ g̦onnå k̬i͗l͙ḽ Mar̃k̝. P͑ŕe̽t̩ṯyͅ s̒u̕r̾e ḣe᷇’d̈ r̯a̱the̗r dr̹i͖v̓ę h͂i͔m̃ t̰o̐ i͢n᷀s̷a͛nityͅ ḅefo᷾r̞e͓ tͅh͙a̓t ĥap̆p̝e̾ns.”

Jack swallowed thickly. Drive him to insanity? Could Dark so that? He was brought back to the conversation he and Mark had had almost a week ago, in the cafe. The first morning Mark had shown up.

“Dark’s more subtle,” Mark had said. “He works behind the scenes. He doesn’t deal with face-to-face conflict as much. He mostly sticks to the shadows. I mean, I gave him his backstory, I should know this…honestly, it makes me wonder if ‘Who Killed Markiplier’ wasn’t a horrible, horrible idea.”

Mark had been worried, beyond worried, about the concept of Dark actually making his move. Jack had noticed it that day but hadn’t bothered to ask about it. He was beginning to think that, perhaps, he should have pushed a little more.

“Bu̼t y̾o̲u̱ h᷁aͅve̕n̰’t̰ goṯ th᷁a͗t͓ to w᷁o͢r͊ry̽ ab̻o̱u̺t̍, Ja͖cͅka᷁b͐o̱y!” Anti was grinning again, and Jack would swear that his doppleganger’s teeth were sharp, pointed. Deadly. “A͟ft̸ëṙ t᷁o᷁n̎ig̙h̸t, you̅ w᷄o̓nͅ’̥t͂ b͐e̡ w̢OR̵r̈Yi͇N̞g a᷊BoUt a᷅N̡ÿ́T͒h̛i͙N᷇g͋.”

Anti’s distorted shadow grew around him, engulfing his side of the room in a glitching, pulsating, corrupted darkness, and from its depths shot out a dozen or so venom-green cords of light. At Anti’s command, they darted forward and curled tightly around Jack’s wrists, his ankles, his knees and elbows, his chest - his throat. Not tight enough to strangle, but with his bruises still healing, it was more than tight enough to hurt.

Jack gasped sharply and gritted his teeth, snarling and tugging against the green strings, fighting for his freedom. He had to get out. He had to save Sam, had to help Mark. But there was something...odd about the strings. With each tug against his restraints, Jack felt a little more of the fight leaving him, his will to rebel slowly draining away. His head was pounding, his throat was sore, and his shoulder was throbbing with pain...so...so wouldn’t it…

...wouldn’t it be easier to just give in?

The NERF gun fell from his hands, tumbling to the floor with a clatter of plastic and a muffled thump against the carpet.

“No͊w be̺ a̦ go͟õd̏ li᷅t̏t᷁l͋e᷊ pup̝p͟ét, an̂d̯ ğo᷊ t̥õ s͕le̗e̥ṗ.”

Yeah...yeah, sleep sounded so wonderful right now. Jack slowly let his eyes drifted shut.

Click.

“You let ‘im go right this fucking second, or I blow your fuckin’ brains out, bro.”

[A/N] - Woot! It's done! ^^ And ending on a cliffhanger too? Shocking! :0c

This chapter actually took a lot longer to finish than I originally intended. For some reason I was really struggling to get going on it, but once I started into the ambush, it really started rolling. Believe it or not, this chapter is about twice the length of all the others. While most other chapters finish off at around ten pages in Google Docs, this one? This one hit a solid twenty. Absolute insanity.

Anyway! Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it, and comments and critiques are always appreciated! Ta!

Also find the latest chapters of this story on [Archive Of Our Own]

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[mclaughlane]

martin septim for the character meme!

ahhh thank you!!! omg Martin, baby boy. babey. 😭bear with me though, since i haven’t finished Oblivion yet. I keep meaning to go back and finish it, but after Skyrim and ESO, I struggle a bit with the older mechanics. I know what happens in the end, but I haven’t seen it for myself yet! (Actually I probably need to start over again, because on my first attempt, I didn’t know what skills I would use and just went with the class Baurus suggested to me, so I left off just before the defense of Bruma at only level 9 lmao. Now that I’ve played it some, I have a better idea of what skills to pick for my play style.)

meme from here!

favorite thing about them: His bravery! He survives the trauma of Kvatch, learns the truth about his heritage, and has the fate of the world come crashing down on his shoulders all within about 24 hours, and after reeling for a little bit, he steps up to do what he has to do. least favorite thing about them: THAT HE DIES ugh. TES killing all of my favorites TT^TTfavorite line: I can’t remember any specific lines, since it’s been a while since i last played, but during the scene where you arrive in Cloud Ruler Temple and he addresses the Blades, I remember being like “my little baby is all grown up and saving Tamriel 😭”brOTP: Martin/Hero of Kvatch (or at least mine)! Oblivion was my first experience with TES and I went into it completely blind, with no knowledge of the lore or anything, so I didn’t know what a reasonable backstory for my HoK might be. So I made a khajiit orphan who had aged out of the system so to speak, and begins the story as a carefree drifter who wants nothing to do with daedric plots or royal intrigue. He gets involved initially by feeling too guilty to say no, though he wants to bail on the entire mess every step of the way in the beginning. But realizing that Martin is also reluctant and confused at first would give them something to bond over, and a foundation to support each other from as they both grow into their roles. (And then the ending, gdi. My HoK would be crushed, and the trauma of the Oblivion Crisis + losing his best friend would be a factor in why he chooses to follow through on the Shivering Isles questline, though I haven’t played that yet either! ONE DAY, once I fix my build.)OTP: I’m actually not sure! I can see Martin/HoK, definitely, mine just panned out to a brOTP rather than a romantic ship. I’m not sure what other ships there are for him, though. Maybe Martin/Baurus? I could get behind that one (albeit carefully, because of the potential misuse of the emperor/guard situation)nOTP: Martin/Jauffre or Martin/Uriel. idk if anyone actually ships those, but i tried to think of the biggest nopes possible. Basically anything with familial figures (since Jauffre kind of seems like an uncle figure for him) random headcanon: I forget where I saw it, but I think I read a post once that speculated that his prior experience with daedra worship was with a Sanguine cult? I could see that, like…his wild college years.unpopular opinion: I’m not sure I have any? I’m relatively new to TESblr so idk what is popular/unpopular for him!song i associate with them: hmmmm tough one, but maybe In Search Of Tomorrow (Instrumental) by Zack Hemseyfavorite picture of them: I haven’t seen all that much fanart of him because most of what I see is Skyrim or ESO, but i saw this amazing art yesterday, and I went creeping on your blog and really love this post especially!