#the real thieves will make themselves known

[amxrany]

!! CHAPTER 7 / DIASOMNIA ARC SPOILERS !!

I think I'm gonna have fun reading Jamil's segment so you all should read it too (Jamil's Dream):

Meet in a Dream is out here working overtime because we are now in Jamil's Dream. But something's wrong, Kalim, who is their newest addition seems to be fine (he even gushes to Silver how cool dream hopping is) but Vil is out here dying 💀. Like legit he was incredibly unstable that they had no choice but to split into 2 teams while he recovers. Silver and Ortho stay to help Vil while the rest go and find Jamil.

The other group is currently in Camel Bazaar (reference to the scalding sands event). They were planning to look for Jamil but it's really hot so they decided to rest for a bit and get some coconut juice. (Extra part: Sebek wanted to look for Jamil but Grim kept looking at the food so he just gave up and started eating as well) Kalim is the one who gets it for the gang, and when the shopkeeper tells Kalim to pay, he just says put it in the Asim bill. But the shopkeeper doesn't recognize the Asims and thought they were thieves and started calling for the police. But luckily Silver, Ortho and Vil come in just in time for Silver to pay the guy to avoid getting into trouble.

Kalim's confused as to why the shopkeeper doesn't recognize him because he's known since he was a kid, but we find out why by just seeing the images of Kalim's "estate"

This is where we get the Jamil reveal. It turns out in this dream, Jamil's the son of the sultan (this also makes Najma a sultana, which is absolutely slay) and the Vipers bought the Asim's properties due to financial problems

(ngl him in that outfit is making me feel fuzzy inside)

But anyways we see Jamil in a parade similar to that of Kalim in Book 4, thus we have another rhythmic portion

(so this actually says that Jamil does like Kalim's parades, if it was him in the place of Kalim. Kalim also acknowledges that Jamil's having a good time here)

We then see the statue of Jafar, in which everyone recognizes because it's in NRC, except Jafar looks like he's playing golf here lmao. Jamil sees Kalim and tells him to change because he isn't wearing the right uniform

Then Kalim talks to Jamil like always, but Jamil tells him to be more respectful in speaking. But he isn't really mad because Kalim's always like that. The rest instroduce themselves as the NRC Film Club, who are planning to film a video using the estate's facilities. Jamil's salty as always and it seems to be going normal as he tells Kalim to prepare things for the guests and while Kalim tries to, he still messes up.

Jamil thinks as to why his family kept Kalim despite being an idiot. Then Grim is thinking why is Jamil still bitter in his own dream. That's when see the magic carpet again (YAY), this causes Kalim to accidentally slip up and tell Jamil how they got it; it causes Jamil to leave for a moment.

But Kalim doesn't stop, he continues to tell Jamil of their memories together but Jamil keeps denying it. Kalim brings up about how 2 years before going to NRC, Jamil protected him from harm. Then, he spilled the events of Book 4 (as requested from the others). BUT THEN FAKE!KALIM APPEARS AND PROTECTS JAMIL. He's a lot more mature than real life Kalim, this causes the darkness to take Jamil and we're forced to fight Fake!Kalim.

Without thinking, Kalim just straight up jumps in with Jamil and the gang has no choice but to follow him. Similar to Vil's dream, we land back to the events of Book 4 but for some reason Azul is also controlled here like 😭😭😭????

(jamil being azul's no.1 hater fr)

Jamil makes Azul spill all the school's secrets (hey lemme in on it too /j) and is planning to use this information to defeat the other dorm head. He even drags Leona and says he doesn't deserve to be dorm head cuz he's lazy 😭

And after defeating the dorm heads, he's gonna go after the headmage and take over the school (we love a man who dreams big and jamil for headmage fr)

BUT KALIM SUDDENLY COMES IN AND DECKS JAMIL IN THE FACE 😭. HE CALLS HIM AN IDIOT BUT JAMIL IS NOT BUYING IT SO THEY START DUKING IT OUT

(THE GIRLS ARE FIGHTINGGGG)

But yeah Kalim yells at Jamil for being pathetic for just getting what he wants by manipulating everyone, then Jamil butts in by telling him that someone stupid doesn't have a say. They continue to duke it out and in the background Sebek wants to stop them but Silver said "nah let them fight it out" because the best way to say things is by punching ❤️

IT SURPRISINGLY WORKS AND IT WAKES JAMIL UP 😭and Kalim gets really happy and jumps around. But the darkness comes back and tries to swallow Jamil so he pushes Kalim away, but Kalim wouldn't let go so they start fighting again 💀. But in the end, Jamil gets swallowed and meets his overblot self and learns to accept it thus starting the fight between the two

Jamil says he's the genie of the lamp, tired of living in a cramped space and would now dedicate himself to fulfilling his wishes. He returns to the place with Jafar's statue with the Fake!Kalim, who asks what he can do for him. But Jamil tells the Fake to fuck himself 😭 because he finds it weird that Kalim's like that and wishes for the dream to just end

The gang find Jamil and Kalim tries to tackle him but Jamil dodges it, saying that he's easy to read. Kalim asks Jamil to join them, and he accepts. However, Vil has to stay behind because he doesn't feel well and Kalim stays behind as well because of the injuries he got from Jamil (he does summons ice from Kalim's wounds tho). The others will go on ahead and wake the others. Jamil asks where they're going but Ortho says it's a secret, probably because the moment Jamil finds out they're going to Octavinelle he is going to find his way out of there.

But that is all for this chapter, hoo boy that was a lot but I'm glad that I managed to cover it. I'm really excited to see the Octavinelle segment knowing that it's Jamil we have, the biggest Octa hater but I do know it's gonna be funny

So yeah ima knock myself out now bye bye

Previous: Kalim's Dream

[gonnalosemydougdimmadomedamnmind]

Literally I am so sick of whore dick grayson, himbo dick grayson, fandom bicycle dick grayson, like yall really saw that dick is the canonical pretty boy with the nice ass and then proceeded to give him 'bottom' as a personality and just ran away with that. Dick is not a pretty idiot that loves having sex and only cares about his appearance, for fucks sake. He doesnt need to be rescued by jason todd of all people, who literally willingly burned all his bridges and can't even save himself, or wally west, frankly, who is one of his best friends but not the one he gets emotionally vulnerable with.

He doesn't do casual sex, at all. He needs an emotional connection first, is it so hard to believe that an attractive person actually wants to connect to someone instead of fucking them? Or fucking their problems away? Is it really so hard to believe that an attractive person can also be intelligent? Can also be kind? Can also be selfless? Can also take care of themself? Can also be a functioning adult? Can also be mature? Can also be damn fucking good at their job? Have yall ever met a real person before?

Dick is Romani and one of the most well known stereotypes about the Romani people are that they are like magically alluring people that can't keep their hands to themselves or that they're like thieving, dumb, dirty animals and what did yall reduce Dick down to? An overly emotional, stupid, pretty slut that acts without thinking.

You know just because something is racist in canon doesn't mean you have to take that and amplify it by 100 in fanon, right? Like the shit I have seen on this website alone, the takes that just won't stop, are literally so much more racist than anything you would ever find in canon. And good God, it's not like you have to make his race the forefront of his character! It's not! No one's is, that would be bad characterization. But should his being Romani affect the way you portray him? Should there be certain things you can be considerate about? Should being Romani be part of his identity? Uh, yeah.

And also. Should you maybe consider what he's actually like in canon to characterize him within fandom spaces? Uh, YEAH.

Dick Grayson is a romantic at heart, is extremely private, and cherishes the emotional connections he has with people. He is a good person because he chooses to do good things. He wants to help people! He's literally a genius, I mean this in every possible sense, academically, physically, emotionally, strategically, picking up and mastering skills with ease, being a detective... that doesn't mean he doesn't have problems. He's an extreme workaholic. He will never talk about his own problems to his friends or family, just the occasional therapist. He's so good with people, he knows exactly how to manipulate situations into his favor, to his own detriment. He will never give up on you, to his own detriment. He bottles up his emotions deeply, and yes, occasionally he does explode. He has a guilt complex the size of the sun. Everything is his fault in his head, Everything. He will accept the blame for anything, for his own rape even, because he's Dick Grayson and hey, he should've known, he should've been able to tell. (This is specifically talking about Miriam).

Everyone puts him on a pedastal because he's the guy that can actually pull off the impossible and no one but him realizes just how high that pedastal is. Bruce wants to be him, thinks there is literally no one better than him, no one who could soar higher than him, the ideal hero. His hero.

Goddamn Superman thinks he's the one person in the universe that will almost always do the right thing at the right time across every universe. And I don't mean that he will BE the right person at the right time, I mean he will DO the right thing at the right time, because Dick believes in the power of choices! Of free will! He could do bad things just as easily as the people around him, he could choose to be cruel because that is literally so. much. easier.

But he doesn't.

Almost ever.

In nearly every universe.

Do you know how much pressure that is? He drowns under the weight of his own perfection, truly. He can't fail.

He can't fail.

Isn't that so unbearably sad? You spend your whole life reassuring other people that everyone gets second chances, and that you are not your worst moment, and that you deserve compassion even at your most despicable, and that everyone makes mistakes, and sometimes things are inevitable, and sometimes all you can give is your best.

You are the only person. Who does not receive that same mercy.

He can't fail.

His family treats him as an emotional punching bag, sometimes a physical punching bag. Occasionally, so will his friends. It's hard to see the person behind the legend. And Dick's legend is truly titanic in proportions... the first child hero. No one could've done it, if he hadnt done it first. If he hadnt done it so exceedingly well. And then he had his own hero team. And then he became his own hero, again. And then he had his own city. He did it all first. The literal trailblazer, lighting the way for everyone else, not letting anyone stop him. Not waiting for anything. A force of nature.

Everyone wants to be him, be liked by him, be acknowledged by him. They all rely on him, the linchpin of a universe. Dick really is like the sun. Warm, encouraging, revitalizing. He is the light in the dark, illuminating and intense. Focused. Powerful. And they are all caught in his gravitational field.

Dick is so much more interesting than anything fandom will spare him. God, what I would give for fandom to give even a 10th of actual attention and critical thought to him or any other poc character in this franchise, that fandom gives to the white characters. I mean, we've all seen it. The narrative fabricated through lies that 95% of fandom takes as gospel because they refuse to engage with canon or simply don't care because it favors their favorite characters. In case you don't know, I am in fact talking about fanon jason todd- aka meaner Dick Grayson with Helena Bertinelli's lifestyle and fanon tim drake- aka less athletic, more victimized Dick Grayson. The white fandom darlings, extremely woobified, you know how it is. Sigh.

[senblades]

Just realized that Crow and Violet enter the Phantom thieves group with the same condition, though not the same circumstances.

They both first Joined as a fake of themselves, fooling everyone. Then they were a 2-phase boss fight, where the true self gets revealed. Then they join the team, for good and for real.

Hmmmmmmmmm

ANON YOU'RE SO RIGHT I'M

I'll always be a little sad that Atlus never went all-in on the SumiGoro friendship/parallels potential... o7 another fallen dynamic for the pit

in all seriousness, though: many people have talked about the Akechi and Sumire parallels far better than I ever could, but I'll talk some more anyway!

I think the most obvious parallel is in who they admire/resent. Sumire, obviously, admires Kasumi in every way- undercut with resentment that she's scared to ackowledge. Akechi, meanwhile, resents Joker to hell and back, undercut with layers of admiration that he refuses to admit to (+ uh. shauke angst HAHA)

Both are lying to themselves about their other halves, but even more interestingly: Both Kasumi and Joker see Sumire and Akechi respectively as their equals/rivals, despite everything, and even though it may seem that one half is clearly better than the other at first glance.

Sumire's coach, during the Faith confidant, tells Sumire how Kasumi had worked so hard because she knew if she didn't, Sumire would catch up to her- that Kasumi was jealous of Sumire's grace (Ironic, as meanwhile Sumire was desperate to emulate Kasumi's boldness)

Joker's a bit different -silent protag, and all- but, even still: "I'll hold onto you're glove", "I won't lose"- so much of Joker's dialogue about Akechi makes it clear that he takes the other seriously. Plus, the consistent reminders that the promise for a rematch hasn't been fulfilled: clearly, Joker doesn't consider the interrogation room nor the engine room 'fair fights', or true indicators of either's skill (stop me before I go on a tangent)

It's not just Joker=Kasumi and Sumire=Akechi, though. The fact that both sides of each equation are equals means that some lines get crossed. I'm thinking Kasumi's "Because that's my right, as the elder sister!" vs. Akechi's "Going all out against a junior seems a bit gauche, don't you think?"- both Kasumi and Akechi seem to have this idea that they have to be better (a bit of speculation on my part, for Kasumi)- they have no excuse to lose; it's only natural if they win, and incredibly dissapointing otherwise.

back to crow/violet parallels, they also act as excellent foils for each other in the royal trio dynamic: Sumire, when faced with low self-esteem and terrible circumstances, latches onto people that she considers "better"- imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, after all! And Sumire has imitation in spades.

Akechi, meanwhile, distances himself from pretty much everyone. He seems to value shallow praise of people that don't really see, rather than experience the mortifying ordeal of being known, and whatnot.

but even then, Akechi does have some similar tendencies to Sumire- he just hides it under layers of deflection and lying to himself. He claims to absolutely hate Shido and Joker, and while I don't doubt that, necessarily, it's clearly far more complicated than that. Akechi, no matter how he feels about them, lives and dies by the will of his obsessions- and by the time of the third semster, he's had enough. (while, conversely, Sumire hasn't quite learned to stand on her own)

Actually, speaking of the third semester; Maruki's reality also highlights some similarities between the two, as the two people most egregiously edited by the false reality: Sumire, back to believing she's Kasumi, and Akechi as "I've never had a violent thought in my life!" pleasant boy. Those two are the only members of the PT where Maruki goes straight for the personality.

whoops. long post HAHA

[auriidae]

PART 2 ‼️ me & my friends when we are stuck at life (pt 1) (pt 3)

character notes under the cut!!!!!

both in true hs canon and in this au, rage represents chaos. and lifeseries grian is so undoubtedly linked to chaos above all else — he thrives off it, subsists on it even. if it’s not something he can seek out it’s something he’ll initiate. but — make no mistake, the anarchy he initiates is very much limited to within the game. he doesn’t break the game system, he works within it and disrupts whatever system the players are trying to put in place… for the benefit of the game itself. and again, with heirs being played by their aspect, it only makes sense for him to be one. rather than jimi, though, he’s okay with this — being an agent of chaos ties him to it intrinsically, and that makes him feel so, so alive. he’s okay with being controlled, for the most part, because it also means he’s in control. at least at the beginning.

i wanted to make eethos a mind player so bad you don’t understand 😔 but i think he is closer to void in reality. either way he’s a thief — dealing in redistribution of his aspect only to himself, whether consciously or unconsciously. i think void makes sense for eethos because he’s such an unknown to many of the other players (and also to some extent probably himself). a thief of void — taking the mystery from others, knowing them and their secrets and cloaking yourself in them, making yourself an unknown. if void is an aspect more focused inward, also (i like the idea that the central struggle of void players’ character arcs are more personal than some of the other aspects), we could have eethos vs the mortifying ordeal of being known + choosing to stay. which comes back to his class, with thieves having to let others have their aspect as well in order to fully complete their character arc. with that being said eethos “wghats the deal wiht abtrhoom pesnis” mind player will always be real in my heart ok

beedub oh beedub my beloved rogue beedub. rogues typically have the problem, right, where they are capable of redistributing their aspect for the benefit of others but never for themselves. so they try to find others who can help them with it but really just have to learn to stand on their own (and end up finding a source of their aspect that way). this specifically throws beedub n eethos’s friendship into the saddest light because beedub is okay with giving everything to his friends + allies (esp eethos) while quietly hoping they will help him in return, but the thing beedub wants eethos (as a thief) is incapable of giving to him. he can only take, and that’s where their sort of falling out where eethos starts avoiding him and spending more time with others comes from. eethos needs to learn to give to others (not beedub) and beedub needs to learn to stand on his own. ethubs makes me sad. BUT ANYWAYS hope as the aspect of imagination, of being caught up in seeing what could be, of love and trust unconditionally without paying mind to the possible repercussions. that is pretty bdubs-coded i think. he’s a hope player and he’s going to be ok guys he’s going to be fine :)

again feel free to ask me questions abt them !!! lifestuck is in my brain

[gallusrostromegalus]

So for AEIWAM, how does the whole Ukitake thing work? I’m still fuzzy on how it was in the manga (and that’s not even touching the ‘epilogue’/Echoing the Jaws of Hell why are these arc names like this) but wasn’t he essentially reverse faith healed-slash-possessed for death? I see you keep mentioning gods so like- what does that whole situation make him?

I need you to imagine a Self-Propogating Cryptocurrency Mining Computer. Whenever it's hardware starts to burn out, it creates a little man to build it a new machine and port it's memory over, keeping the machine alive and solving equations.

In An Elephant Is Warm And Mushy, that's God.

I may need to back up.

If you're not familiar with how Cryptocurrency Mining works, essentially, a computer thinks very, very hard about how to solve an extremely complicated equation, and when it solves it, it gets a little bit of money (or it gets a receipt saying that it has money that uh. nobody will accept, because the money aspect is a scam but the math, at least is real).

Anyway, thinking very, very hard like that runs through the computer's hardware- it's especially hard on the graphics cards. So eventually, if it want to keep solving equations, it needs new hardware. But a computer can't replace it's own parts, and this Ultra-complex, reality-generating God-computer is no different.

So when it starts to get old and degraded, the God-Computer does a neat little trick: it builds itself a programmer. That programmer learns all about the God Machine and how it works and the way it's powered- it moves souls through three planes of existence- each enormously complicated question is representative of the shape of a lifetime- each time a soul completes it's life and is reborn, the God Computer gets a little burst of extra energy. The larger and more complex the soul and longer and richer lifetime, the more energy the God Computer gets. So for the last millions of years, many, many generations of God-computer have made the universe richer and more complicated to generate larger and more complex souls to power themself (themselves?) further.

The programmer learns all about how the God-Computer works, and sets about building the next Generation of God-Computer to keep the universe running.

Due to a slight miscommunication, the programmer is colloquially known as the "Soul King" this time around.

Anyway, the Soul King was doin' his thing, when he happened to start chatting with a cool guy online and agreed to meet up with him. And it was fun! They hung out, Soul King showed him the true nature of reality, they stayed up late eating junk food and talking bullshit, good times. Later, The Soul King's cool friend from the internet said he had some other friends who wanted to meet him, and Soul king thought "BALLER. SLUMBER PARTY!!!" and told everyone to come on over!

-and then the new guys beat the shit out of Soul King's buddy and dismembered the Soul King for parts to sell as part of an organ-harvesting scheme!

Whoops.

Now, Soul King's buddy DID manage to get up and stop one of the organ thieves, the guy absconding with his hands, and tackled him off the Balcony. One of the psuedo-god hands (the one with the power of stagnation) fell into the Spirit World,took the name "Mimihagi" and became a minor kami because he's really bad at this Witness Protection thing.

Eventually, some parents with an extremely sick kid came to the hand's shrine and asked him to save the kid, and Mimihagi went "Well, I can't cure him, but I can hang out in his body for the next few centuries and prevent his disease from getting worse with constant effort?" and they said "...Please?" and Mimihagi said "Yeah OK.

-And ever since then Ukitake has had the left hand of The God Machine's dead repairman living in him and (mostly) stopping his super-tuberculosis from getting worse, like a benevolent tapeworm!

:)

The God-Machine is still dying this whole time, BTW. Might want to do something about that.

(the best part is, that of the three-to-five-and-a-half living pieces of the Soul King, Mimihagi is actually probably the least weird and definitely sanest of them)

[racheyace]

Running Into Fire

A Luke and Matt sizeshifter short story, this story takes place immediately after 'Be the Hero'.

TW: Life threatening scenarios involving being trapped in a burning building, some swearing, mentions of self-hate and shame

Approx 4.2k words

“Come on dude please! This will be so good for your image!” Matt was pacing the living room practically giddy with excitement; he was shaking like a squirrel on caffeine.

Luke on the other hand was largely less enthused, mostly embarrassed, and deadly scared of revealing his unique abilities to anyone else, he’d already let too many people see what he was capable of in the last few months.

“Matt I can’t, I can’t just go around shifting for the whole world to see, you don’t get it.”

Matt raised his eyebrows, he wasn’t going to let this drop, it had been two weeks since the incident at the bank and Matt was convinced, he was now somewhat of a vigilante. Luke had used his size shifting abilities during a bank robbery, the robber had turned suicidal when it was clear there was no sign of escape and had set a bomb.

Luke, thinking quickly had shifted into his larger size of approximately 60 feet to smother the bomb and apprehend the criminal. The police had then discovered what was going on and promised Luke they would keep his secret, for which he was grateful.

Matt on the other hand was only convinced further that Luke should continue to use his powers for fighting crime.

“Honestly Luke what the hell is the point in having kickass superpowers if you aren’t ever gonna use them!”

“I’m not a superhero Matt, I’m a freak of nature and this has to be kept a secret.” Luke stood then, feeling his blood pressure rise with the feeling of anger, he didn’t want to fight with Matt, but he was becoming increasingly more frustrated by the minute.

Another reason Luke couldn’t rely on his own abilities, though he had some semblance of control to shift at will, his shifting was also controlled by his heightened emotions.

Feelings such as anger or stress could cause him to grow and feelings of sadness and exhaustion would make him shrink, all out of his control, if he didn’t have a handle on his emotions.

“I’ve kept your secret Luke, and I don’t plan on going around revealing your powers to the world, but I at least think you should be using them to save people.” Matt was firm, his arms crossed over his chest, all excitement of a child gone in an attempt to help his friend see his own potential.

“Fuck man you don’t seem to understand that if this gets out, people will come after me, either the general public who think I’m dangerous or the government who will see me as a science project. I won’t be helping anyone if I’m locked up in some government facility.” Luke pushed his fingers through his short brown locks.

“This isn’t like in the movies Matt, superheroes aren’t real, in real life freaks like me need to stay hidden, for our own protection and for the protection of others.” Sighing deeply, Luke finished his rant, he wasn’t usually a man of very many words, but he needed to get Matt to understand this.

“Fine, whatever you need to tell yourself to sleep at night.” The tall blonde walked away from the conversation, it was clear they were not going to agree on this tonight, but he knew his friend and he knew that when push comes to shove, he would be the hero.

Luke fell back into the soft cushions of the couch, he didn’t feel like he’d won that, and he knew he hadn’t, but at least for now Matt would drop the issue and stop sketching potential superhero disguises for him.

Luke and Matt had known each other since they were in the first grade and had been thick as thieves since. When Lukes abilities made themselves known when he was six years old, he was sworn by his parents to keep it a secret even from his best friend, so it wasn’t until high school that Matt actually learned of Luke’s gift and even that had been by accident.

Luke had been stressed about a major test and feeling the tightness in his body and the push of shifting coursing through him all day, when the test was over, he had bolted into the forest that backed onto the school oval so he could shift.

He had not expected anyone to follow him, but he was grateful that it had been Matt and not someone else, though it had been a scary revelation for Matt he had quickly overcome his fears and was stoked to be in on the secret. Luke had felt like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders that he didn’t have to hide a huge part of who he was from his best friend.

Now some 10 years later, both of them in their mid-twenties and sharing an apartment in New York, still best friends and trying to lead a somewhat normal life, this had clearly grown boring for Matt though.

Matt was the more charismatic of the two where Luke was the quiet nerdy type, overly emotional and anxious as all hell, which didn’t bode well for him considering the nature of his abilities.

Luke’s biggest fear is still to lose control of his abilities and hurt someone he cares about, there had been way too many close calls throughout the course of his life so far and it was so easy to lose control. He couldn’t let that happen, and if he were to play the superhero then the probability of something going horribly wrong was much higher, he couldn’t risk it.

“Why can’t I just be fucking normal.” Luke sighed through gritted teeth; life would be so much simpler.

A loud explosion sounded nearby, shaking Luke from his self-depreciating thoughts, the crash could be felt like an earthquake through the floor and rattled the windows. Quickly jumping to the window, he could see flames coming from a nearby apartment building, only a block or two away, it looked as though a few cars had crashed into the building followed by an explosion.

Hearing the quick pads of feet down the hall he turned to see Matt had emerged with his shoes on and a hoodie over his pajama top.

“Oh, hell no.” Luke said, already knowing exactly what Matt was thinking.

“We will get there faster than the emergency services Luke, we have to go and help.” Matt was already heading for the door, his hand on the doorknob.

“I’m not doing it Matt; I won’t shift in front of all those people.”

Matt sighed turning away from him, clearly still either pissed or just disappointed in him, he opened the door as he spoke “I’m not asking you too, I’m going to go and help, whether you come with me or not, that’s what good people do.”

Matt closed the door behind him, and Luke turned his pale blue eyes skyward as if the ceiling might provide him with a reasonable excuse to stay in his apartment. Groaning loudly, he pushed off from the window to put his shoes on.

He wouldn’t let his friend go alone with the potential that he could and would recklessly put his own life in danger to help, he was the real hero after all, Luke was the coward.

Luke quickly raced down the two flights of stairs and chased after Matt who was already approaching the smoky scene. Now seeing things up close, it was clear that two cars had crashed into each other before rolling into the building and crashing into what must have been a gas pipe.

The six-story building was in flames, four of the six floors already engulfed with the fire rapidly escalating higher by the minute, many residents of the building were standing outside already disheveled and, in their nightwear, crying and hugging each other.

“Is everyone out? Has anyone called 911?” Matt was asking the crowd, a few people were on their phones already, presumably calling emergency services.

“No, there’s an elderly couple on the sixth floor, I can’t see them, there’s also a family with kids and I think a few others, I can’t see them anywhere they must be still inside, of god I wish they would hurry!” A stocky woman shouted, she had short, cropped hair and was clutching a small dog to her chest sobbing into his fur.

Matt nodded at the woman before running towards the entry way into the apartment, Luke followed after him grabbing his arm to pull him back.

“No fucking way Matt, there’s no way I let you go in there.” Matt tugged on his arm trying to shake Luke off of him, he had a sharp look in his hazel eyes.

“I’m not gonna just stand here and watch it burn, the firefighters are ten minutes away, they’ll be dead by then.”

“And you’ll be dead too, fuck!” Look shut his eyes tightly thinking of a way to get those people out, they couldn’t go up from the bottom, it was already unstable and engulfed by flame, they needed to go in from the top. He had a plan, but he didn’t like it.

“Damnit Matt, come with me, quickly!” He shouted at his friend pulling him around the corner and into the shadow of the neighboring building.

“We do this quickly okay, I’ll shift and let you in to the sixth floor, get the people to the window and I’ll carry them down and then we go before emergency services get here, got it?”

Without waiting for his friend to respond he quickly shot up to his 65-foot height, he pulled his hoodie over his face to hopefully hide his identity from onlookers, he then knelt down in front of his friend, laying his hand palm up for Matt to climb onto.

It never ceased to amaze Matt each time he saw his best friend grow into a literal giant, but there was no time to stare slack jawed, he quickly climbed on sitting with crossed legs in the center of the massive palm as it rose into the air.

With only a brief moment to hesitate, Luke carefully stepped out of the shadows of the building and rounded the corner, his footsteps quaked the ground below him and the multitude of gasps from the ground made him flinch. Ignoring the gawking stares, he went straight up to the building trying his best to keep his steps light lest he cause the unstable building to collapse.

At his impressive height of 65 feet, he stood eye level with the windows of the sixth floor, carefully and mindful of his small passenger he raised his hand up to the sixth floor, knocking one of the windows with the tip of his finger to break it and allow Matt to enter.

Once his hand was level with one of the windows, Matt stood and jumped through the open window, immediately shouting to anyone that might be there.

“If your still up here, shout out, make a noise, we need to get you out of here now!”

With nothing else to do but anxiously wait while the crowd of small people below him stared up at him in most likely fear, he fiddled with the edge of his hood and tried his best not to look at them.

He could feel their stares though, and the click of photographs being taken.

In the distance he could hear sirens and he cursed under his breathe.

“Come on Matt.” Luke muttered impatiently.

As if reading his mind, Matt made an appearance at the window, he had an elderly woman in a nightgown on his left with her arm over his shoulder for support and an elderly man on his right also leaning against him and coughing from the smoke in the air.

Luke raised his hand to the window, making it level and flush against the side of the building so it was easier for them to step onto, the woman looked up probably expecting to see a fireman and a ladder but instead was greeted with large blue eyes peering in.

She screamed bloody murder and clung to Matt, urging him to back away from the window.

“Ma’am it’s okay, he’s a friend, we are here to help I promise.” He assured her.

“M-monster!” She wailed, Luke’s heart skipped a beat at the word, he’d always referred to himself as a monster, a freak but never once had he heard someone cry that name at him before, not his family, not Matt, not even the frightened onlookers during the bank incident.

The word pierced through him, and he hesitated, he didn’t want to force them to do something they didn’t want to do, he knew what it felt like to literally put your life in someone else’s hands, and they didn’t know him and had no reason to trust him.

Matt rubbed the woman’s back soothingly, while the old man stood silently, his shirt pulled over his mouth so he could breathe easier, he stared at Luke as if calculating if it was worth the risk.

At that very moment Matt had just managed to calm down the old woman when there was more commotion behind him and soon a young woman with two young children, a little girl of around six years old and an older boy maybe ten, came into view of the window. The mother skidded in her tracks when she took in the scene before her, backing away towards the fiery hallway they had just come from.

“No wait!” Matt cried, quickly becoming frustrated with everyone’s hesitance towards his friend.

“Listen! This is Luke! He’s a friend, I swear, we only want to get you down from this building, you only have to trust him for one minute then I swear you can walk away!”

The mother and two children walked a little closer, but the old woman was firm in place.

“Do you want to wait for the fire fighters to get here and risk your lives while you wait or do you want to get down now!”

That was enough to convince the young mother and she skirted around the wailing woman, she then helped her children up onto the ledge and onto the awaiting palm, once seated in the center she held both her children close to her.

Luke raised his other hand as a sort of safety ledge before carefully pulling his hands away from the building and lowering the small family to the ground.

Another round of gasps erupted from the people around him and he kept his head tilted downwards in hopes that no one would get a good angle of his face. Once his hand was on the ground, he moved his other away from the family so they could step off easily, his eyes met the little girls, she reminded him so much of his own little sister when he was younger.

The young woman stood on shaky legs and pulled her children along with her, Luke had to suppress the automatic impulse to flinch from the feeling of small limbs tickling his sensitive palm. The little girl toddled after her mother and gave him a little wave, her other hand gripping a small brown bear to her chest.

“Thank you, Luke.” She said, her voice so quiet he almost didn’t hear it, he nodded once to her before he addressed the growing crowd.

“I’m gonna stand up again.” He muttered, he knew his voice no matter how soft would carry and echo through the streets, he felt he at least owed them a little warning.

Then standing again, he raised his hand once more to the window ledge, the fire had entered the room now and the woman still stood shaking her head, now however the old man was at her side also trying to convince her to get on.

“Come on Brenda love, we can’t stay here.”

Matt had had enough though, he approached the window trying to get a glimpse of the emergency services, he could hear them getting faintly louder, still a minute or two away, but the building could give way at any second.

“Luke your gonna have to grab her.”

Luke gulped audibly, not only did he really not want to do that, but he hated grabbing anyone against their will, even holding the robber in a firm fist had made him feel sick to his stomach. No one should have their free will taken from them like that, especially a frightened old woman.

“Matt, you can’t ask me to, I can’t.”

“Do it lad, she won’t listen to reason, please help us out of here.” The old man spoke up then, his wife was in a state of panic and not listening to anything happening around her, there was no way to convince her to get on his hand willingly and Matt couldn’t lift her onto it on his own.

The building groaned and that made up his decision, they had to do this now.

“Okay, alright, you two get on first.” The old man wasted no time, he climbed on and sat himself down holding on tight to Luke’s thumb that had curled into his palm, Matt hopped on shortly after.

Luke moved them towards his chest, so they had some kind of shield from the drop below before his other hand crowded the window, the old woman was backing up, but she wasn’t fast enough for the large appendage that invaded the small space of the room.

She screamed so loudly that it could surely be heard from a few blocks away, Luke held his breathe, hating himself as his fingers wrapped around her frail frame, he held her in a loose fist, not wanting to squeeze too tightly on her fragile body.

Then as carefully as he could he pulled her from the building, he knelt down once more, letting off his two passengers and carefully opening his other hand next to Matt so he could help her if she was unstable.

Luke hadn’t realized until now, but the old woman had become silent in his hand, as he let her go, Matt caught her and lowered her onto the ground.

A deafening groan came from the building behind them, and Luke turned to see the sixth floor begin to collapse, he stood and stretched his arms out hoping to shield the civilians from the crash, He pushed the building upright with a grunt and then let it concave in on itself. God, he hoped that they had gotten everyone out.

The dust and smoke filtered out through the streets, causing the people on the sidelines to cough and choke, it was then that the fire truck rounded the corner, screeching tires and sirens blazing casting the site in red and blue light. Luke decided to pay them no mind, they were late to the scene, and he had other things to worry about now.

Once he was sure the building wouldn’t fall further into the crowd, he turned back to Matt and the elderly woman on the ground, his eyes widened when he saw that Matt was pushing his hands into her chest, performing CPR.

All colour drained from Luke’s face and he crouched down so his face was hovering over them, Matt’s brow was slick with sweat from the exertion.

“W-what happened? D-did I-?”

“I think she had a heart attack.” Matt panted as he continued pressing rhythmically into her chest.

“No no no.” Luke muttered, he thought for sure his own heart had stopped, this is what he feared most, he’d actually done it, he’d hurt someone, unintentionally but nevertheless proved he was indeed what she had called him, a monster.

“Step back!” A burly looking man pushed through the crowed, he held a first aid kit and a portable defibrillator slinging across his chest and an ambulance emblem on his uniform, he must be a paramedic.

“Suspected heart attack, she’s been unresponsive for about a minute.” Matt told the paramedic as he took over, Matt was a paramedic also but obviously off duty, he helped the man cut the woman’s shirt down the middle before sticking two defibrillation tabs onto her chest.

“Clear!” The man shouted before proceeding to shock the woman, her body jolted, and a deafening single beep resounded. He rebooted the device and went for it once again, jolting her body, it felt like time stood still as everyone waited to listen to the beeping of her heart.

“Beep, beep, beep.” A rhythm, Luke exhaled a breath he didn’t know he had been holding, the breeze blew the hair of those directly under his looming face, and then the paramedic looked up at him.

“He’s cool.” Matt said, he spoke to the man with familiarity, like they knew each other, they probably did seeing as Matt was also a paramedic.

“I don’t wanna know man.” He shook his head and waved for them to get out of there, Luke wasted no time, he stood without waiting for Matt to follow, rounded the corner and when he saw no one was looking he shrunk back to an average height of 6 foot 5.

Matt jogged around the corner to catch up with him and immediately pulled his mate into a tight hug.

“Luke, I don’t care what you say or what you think, you’re a hero, those people would not still be alive without you.”

Luke couldn’t shake the image of the old woman, literally scared to death, he may have actually killed her had Matt not been there to start CPR she would still be dead.

“Heroes don’t kill people Matt.” He said quietly, he couldn’t meet Matt’s eyes, instead he only stared at his hands like they were alien to him. “let’s just go.” Luke turned away from his friend and walked slowly toward their apartment, the shaky feeling of adrenalin leaving his body and now all he wanted to do was sleep for a week.

“Come on man, don’t blame yourself.” But he could tell that he wasn’t hearing him, he knew Luke felt responsible for the old woman Brenda’s near-death experience.

“The stress from the fire, inhaling all that smoke, and probably partly you all contributed to her heart attack, you didn’t kill her Luke, she’s breathing, she will live to breathe another day because of you.”

Luke couldn’t hear him, the woman’s screams drowning out any other sounds to his ears, the look of sheer terror on her face and the way she writhed in his grasp before she ceased moving all together, and then the way she hung limp against his fingers. He couldn’t stop thinking about it, couldn’t shake those thoughts and feelings from his mind.

“Luke!” He turned sharply to tell Matt to quit with the lecture already when he realized he had to look up at his friend’s face, currently staring squarely at Matt’s chest and definitely not the height he should be.

He let a tear fall down his cheek then, he should have expected this, he could feel himself feeling more and more down about himself, beating himself up until he felt raw inside. This is what he felt he deserved after all, after being a dangerous giant, he deserved to be weak and small now, at the mercy of large hands other than his own.

“Oh, Luke buddy.” Matt sighed, watching his friend slowly dwindle in height until he stood no taller than his ankle, at which point Luke collapsed to his knees and buried his face in his hands, large sobs wracking his small body.

Matt looked around the street to ensure no one else was around, everyone nearby was too busy focused on the fire and supporting the victims and witnesses of the event. He then knelt down in front of Luke and laid out a palm for him much like Luke had done for him only ten minutes ago.

“Come on dude, let’s get you home.” Luke crawled on hands and knees into the safety of his best friends warm and slightly sweaty palm. Matt had bore witness to his shifting abilities in all its forms and was well versed in handling his friend when he was this small.

Matt carefully raised Luke up to his chest and held him securely there, blocking him from view with his other hand from anyone who might walk by or look out their windows. All they would see was a hooded young man holding something to his chest, they would probably assume he’d been to a drug deal or something, but he didn’t care what they thought as long as he kept his friend safe.

Once inside the apartment, Matt asked Luke if he wanted to stay up and talk about what happened, hoping to raise his friends spirits enough for him to grow back but Luke only shook his head requesting to be put on his bed for the night. Matt reluctantly let him go, not wanting to push the issue any further before heading to his own bed.

That night both friends slept like the dead and Luke wondered if being a hero would ever become easier.

[drifting-pieces-blog-blog]

SO WHAT'S THE REAL DEAL WITH ISRAEL? A history of a nation, a people, and a whole lot of conflict.

There is a LOT of misinformation going around in relations to the history of Israel and Palestine. I’m going to do my best to provide you with a comprehensive overview of this land and what’s going on. 

Is it going to be perfect? No. But it’s going to be a lot better than the crap I came across today of an infograph that was filled with wrong information set to fuel the desire that people seem to have to ‘be on the right side’ of a war. 

This is going to be LONG. But I’m going to try to make it interesting. I hope that at least one person that enjoys history gets something out of this. And please, feel free to ask questions! 

And I do mean questions and not just hate screaming out ‘facts’ that you read once from someone with no sources on a badly photoshopped image of two women talking about how Israel isn’t a real place. 

I’m not here to spread hate. I’m here to give you the facts so that hopefully things can be understood a little better and maybe we can start choosing to help and not simply fuel the fire of hate. 

I’m going to use a lot of Wiki links because I would like to encourage people to go read the articles and do a little wiki deep dive for themselves. It’s fascinating, and hey, you might learn a few random cool things on the way.  I'd also encourage further reading if you are really interested or have questions. Wiki can only get you so far.

I’m also going to avoid talking about religious history in depth and simply stick to the people. 

SO! Let’s get into it! Let's actually LEARN something for once!

We start with 14 tribes in the Bronze age 1175-900 BCE

We get into some sketchy history that dates back to King David. Early records are rough because of all the war and destruction from back then...also that it was 1175-900 BCE and record keeping was often difficult at best when it wasn't being burned down. 

Essentially, the 14 tribes did what everyone did back then (and arguably still do) and they fought. A lot. 

King David (1005 BCE - 968 BCE) is credited as the one who gathered up a group of people that had been fighting with another group of people and kicking the ever loving shit out of these people with slingshots (a standard weapon used by shepherds to fight off thieves and LIONS) and the use of a nice newly created metal called Iron (welcome to the Iron Age!) 

He got mythicised a bit and the whole David vs Goliath became the story. It's where record keeping got a bit off... But there is proof of this man existing. 

After the war, he united the split up tribes and became King of Judah and created the capital of Jerusalem ((hey look! They got their name because they were from Judah. They were the Judes. The Jews. The Jewish People. See how language evolves over time?). 

The next king, one you may have heard of, was King Solomon (968BCE-928BCE). He is credited as being in charge of the building of the first Temple. 

The first temple was an incredibly sacred place and where a lot of the things that defined and made the Jewish culture were kept. 

After he died, there was no clear succession line and the kingdom split into two. The Kingdom of Israel in the north and the Kingdom of Judah in the south.

Let's head on over to Wiki and see what they have to say about this piece of land. 

"The earliest known reference to "Israel" as a people or tribal confederation is in the Merneptah Stele, an inscription from ancient Egypt that dates to about 1208 BCE, but the people group may be older." 

So yeah, we got Israel mentions that date back to 1208 BCE. Before the splitting of the religions and people. 

But WAIT. What's that strip of land to the west called the Philistine states??? 

It isn't what you think it is. 

The Philistines were a group of people who lived in Canaan during the Iron Age, roughly 1175 BCE. 

They often had tiffs with their neighbors over land and identity, which often left their relations with Jerusalem not the best. 

Now, during this time, many of the settlements throughout what is now Israel was sparsely populated and the original inhabitants (the Canaan people) were dwindling and fading out. It wasn't uncommon during this time to come across completely abandoned settlements and ruins. 

Most of the population was centered around Jerusalem. 

You see, back in the late Bronze age, Egypt called all the shots. Take a look at the map down below. Look at all that Egypt territory! 

(keep an eye on that purple bit. It’s about to get important). 

Egypt had final authority on all land disputes in this area. They considered the whole area to be a part of their domain. Their records were a little....outdated. They still listed everything as being run by the Canaanites! In fact, it wasn't uncommon for the lingering Canaanites to run to Egypt any time they had issues with the other tribes and demand that it be settled in their courts.  When we start to see mention of Israel in Egyptian records, it is referring to a people (think ethnicity) and NOT a state! And the Egyptians were starting to see them as a problem. 

So what happened to the Canaanites? They got absorbed by the tribes that were taking over the land: Philistines, Phoenicians (Hey, I know that word from middle school history!), and the Israelites. 

In 539 BCE, a little nation called Neo-Assyrian Empire took the northern part of Israel. Then they slowly expanded into the Assyrian Empire. 

Wait a moment. Zoom in. Enhance. Look at Jerusalem hanging out all alone over there as an unconquered little square surrounded by orange. 

You see, Jerusalem was built as a fortress. A fully walled in city surrounded by unforgiving hill country, and land that worked in their favor. 

And then, Babylon happened. They were having a pretty good run and getting a pretty good reputation as being a HUGE thorn in the side of the rising empires. 

You see that bright purple bit on the other map up there? Yeah, it’s about to get a LOT bigger. 

(This is a VERY simplified map. Because this is early Neo-Babylon and it absolutely expanded further than this over time. )

They expanded around 911-505 BCE and wiped the Philistine people out. POOF. GONE. These people most likely were killed off and taken as slaves by Babylon and then assimilated into the Babylonian people. 

What's interesting is that the Hebrew Bible (which is a record of the Jewish People, their history, and their story of survival as well as laws) is the primary source of the mention of the Philistines due to the conflict with them. (It’s also mentioned in the Quran.) 

So what happened? 

In-fighting. Lots and lots of in-fighting. But that's over simplifying it. If you are Jewish, you know what I'm talking about (this is why there is a rule about how "A Jew is a Jew is a Jew". Division is what leads to weakening of a people and leads to what happens next). The fracturing of the kingdom and disputes over rulers and laws caused them to divide their loyalties and left them open to bad things. Very bad things. 

Remember Babylon? And how they wiped out the Philistines? 

They didn't exactly avoid Israel on their voyage to wipe out the Philistines. 

720 BCE, The Kingdom of Israel fell to the newly forming Babylonian Empire. 

King Nebuchadnezzar II grew tired of Jewish revolts against the new empire (see the unconquerable city of Jerusalem) and well... 

They attacked Jerusalem. This is called "The Fall of the 1st Temple" in Jewish history (589–586 BCE).

Jerusalem fell and the Jewish People were exiled (taken as slaves) to Babylon. This is recorded history! 

It was during this that the Israelite religion really started to form and come together. 

You see, when the temple was wiped out, it was a blatant attempt to destroy not just a people, but a record of a people and erase them and all mentions of them from the face of the earth (See the Philistine people who pretty much only exist because of a few Jewish records about their disputes). 

But the people retained their stories in exile and really got together and formed the corner stone for the way the world's first Monotheistic religion worked: Judaism. (People of Judah. Get it? It's based on a people from a place!) 

The exile lasted for a long....long time. Exile not just as slaves, but with strict laws that forbid the Jewish people from setting foot in their old land. 

What happened next? King Cyrus! (At this point, Persia existed 550 BCE). 

I'm not going to get into the history of Persia (though it is FASCINATING and I recommend you look at it if you want to know the history of the middle east.) 

Now good king Cyrus told the Jews that they were all free to go in 538 BCE. So naturally the Jewish people packed up and made a run for Judah. 

This was called "The Return to Zion". 

What does that mean? 

"Zion is a placename in the Hebrew Bible, often used as a synonym for Jerusalem as well as for the Land of Israel as a whole." 

So that’s where that word originated from! 

OH. You know what else is called Zion? Mount Zion. A mountain located to the south... It has SIGNIFICANT biblical meaning, as well as the location of strongholds and other things. Look it up. 

So, the Jews were allowed to return to Judah, but it still fell under Persian rule. They were just considered a 'Self-governing Jewish Province". 

Some returned. Some stayed. They'd lived in Babylon so long that they figured they had made a home there. I’m also willing to bet that there was reluctance to leave due to 1. The great distance they had to travel (like some sort of…exodus?) and 2. Fear of it being a trick and getting captured again. Hmmmm…. Sounds like a familiar story? 

You may be asking yourself about Egypt right about now. What's this exodus and ten commandment thing and the plagues and all that fun business I heard about in the bible/torah/Quran. (Hi Moses! in Hebrew his name is Moshe. In the Quran it's Musa! But in Muslim, it's a different story and not exactly the familiar one against Pharaoh!) 

Well, I'm not going to get too deeply into the religious stories for a lot of reasons, but a lot of the original Bible (old testament)/Torah was based off of stories told while the Jewish people were in exile in Babylon! They told these stories as a way to keep their faith, traditions, and cultural identities alive while being forced to assimilate. (The story of Noah and the flood mimics a Babylonian flood myth: Gilgamesh Flood! It's a fascinating read). 

But that isn't to say that Judea didn't have complicated and often nasty relations with Egypt. 

But, as the Jewish people slowly started to return to Judah, a more distinctive Jewish identity, culture, and religion started to form. 

And it was at this time that the Second temple was built. 

This is where things are going to start getting complicated. 

Second temple period! (520 BCE-70 CE) 

Because of what happened in Babylon, it became more important than ever to revise how they did things. 

The second temple became a bigger deal and the way the city was run changed. 

Hey look, Persia has a new king! And he's not liking what he's seeing in Judea. These guys are starting to get a little too big for their britches. 

BUT WAIT! Look over there! It's Alexander the Great! And he's conquered Phoenicia and Gaza! 

The Greek Syrian empire is starting to spread out. But there's a small truce with Judea. They’ll protect them from Persia and the Jews can keep doing their thing as long as they aren't a problem. 

However, the Seleucid Empire is starting to push into Judea and take control. The Seleucid empire was a Greek power during the Hellenistic period (312 BCE) founded by the Macedonian Empire...Ruled by Alexander the Great. And they are big into worshiping other gods and forcing people to worship their gods and rulers. This is a big no no for the Jewish people and kingdom of Judea. 

They start to send envoys to Greek trying to get the rulers there to listen to them. It’s not long before their envoys start coming back with bad news….and then stop coming back. 

The Jewish people have seen this before. 

And guess what? Jerusalem has become a problem. They aren't liking all the Hellenistic influence happening in Judea or the fact that the empire is starting to put a stranglehold on them. 

Alright, all my Jewish people? It's time to revolt with the Maccabees! (167-140 BCE) Jerusalem was under siege and the walls are breached! The city is taken and the temple has been captured by the enemy. 

Remember about the hostile countryside I mentioned earlier? 

Time for some Guerrilla warfare! The Maccabees retake the city and spend 8 days fixing up the temple after it was desecrated and all they got is just a little oil that stretches out way longer than it should have lasted (Hanukkah cliff note story version). 

But, there are other powers that are threatening them. Egypt has fallen and the Seleucid Empire is pretty pissed at them. 

We get revolt after revolt. Judea wants the Greeks gone and Rome is the power to do it.

140 BCE - 63 BCE. The Hasmonean dynasty takes control of Judea. They expand outward. 

The Hasmonean dynasty was a ruling dynasty of Judea that is WAY more complicated than I'm willing to get into because I barely understand it. But here it is if anyone wants to take a crack at it. 

Basically, with the Seleucid Empire falling apart, Judea gained autonomy and expanded into neighboring regions (Perea, Samaria, Idumea, Galilee, and Iturea). 

The Roman Republic stepped in at some point and it became a "client state" of Rome. 

Now, those of you that know your Greek/Roman history know that some big power changes are starting to happen. 

Enter King Herod (37 BCE) (And all the Christians in the room say BOOO.) 

Now SOME of you may be paying attention to the dates. We stopped going down and started going back up. 

All the Christian’s here know what that means. A certain Jewish man has been born, caused problems for the Romans, and then was killed by the Romans for causing problems. 

We now have the birth of Christianity. At this point it’s just seen as a division of Judaism and not a real separate entity. 

We got Julius Caesar and Pompey and Mark Antony and Augustus happening over there in Rome and Judea is doing its best to stay alive and independent. They need protection from the other places that are trying to take them out and they know Rome is the key. So they make deals with one ruler only for that ruler to be killed and replaced by other rulers. It's getting hard for them to keep up. 

6 CE Rome is their ally. 44 CE Rome sends someone to preside over them and Judea is considered a "Minor province." 

Powers are changing hands so fast that no one knows who is in charge anymore. 

The Hasmonean Kingdom eventually falls, but the Jewish desire for independence continues. Only now, they are at war with Rome. 

This whole time period is a cluster of problems and it’s honestly hard to keep up with who was allies and in charge and ruling and expanding and fighting. Just know that Caesar wasn’t the only one getting knifed in the back and by the time a face was stamped on a coin there was a new face in charge. It was rough. 

The important thing to know is that in the year 70 CE, Rome besieged Jerusalem. 

Emperor Titus was done with the Jewish issue. 

They held out as long as they could. And then the walls fell. 

The city was burned and the temple was looted and burned. The majority of the population that wasn't killed in the fighting was outright massacred and the rest were taken as slaves. 

The Jews that managed to make it out of the city ran for the countryside and hillside. Many were hunted down and killed by waiting soldiers. The Jewish population was sold and scattered across the roman empire. 

The loot taken from the temple was paraded through Rome with the slaves. They even made a monument for it! 

Arch of Titus, which still stands in Rome today. You can see them carrying the holy Menorah through the streets. 

There is plenty of Archeological evidence that supports what happened at the destruction of Jerusalem. 

Massive stone collapses from the Temple Mount's walls were discovered laying over the Herodian street that runs along the Western Wall. 

It's theorized that 1.1 Million people, the majority of the Jewish people, were killed during the siege. 

I can't convey enough just how big this event was. 

All Jewish people were forbidden from setting foot in Judea. 

We now come to 73 CE, Christianity is considered its own distinct religion. 

So what happened to the land? 

All the Jews were gone. Banished, enslaved, or dead. So who got the land? 

Well... Firstly, the city of Jerusalem was gone. When Rome wanted something gone, they made it gone. 

There was rubble and not much else. 

Know what else they did? The forest was burned down. The land was razed to a point where even today, it is still struggling to recover. 

Jewish areas around Jerusalem were systematically destroyed one by one. There were still uprisings here and there, but they were quickly put down. 

The Roman emperor Hadrian decided that he'd had enough of revolts and set out to destroy Judea once and for all. And while he did kick it in the teeth, he never succeeded in destroying the people. (They got real good at surviving and real stubborn about not getting eradicated). Small Jewish areas did survive in various outlier areas and small farming places that were otherwise overlooked. But life was certainly not made easy for them.

Judaea was changed to Syria Palaestina. 

Sound familiar? Two empires that were enemies to the Jewish people. Remember when I said the Greek records were really out of date and still listed the Canaanites as in charge of the area? Well… They also still called the area Palestina.   You see, Hadrian got the name "Palaestina" from Herodotus' Histories from nearly 500 years before. But Herodotus only called the strip of land along the coast "Palaistine" after the Philistines. He wasn't referring to all of Judaea. And the reason Herodotus called that strip of coastline "Palaistine" was because the Philistines were Mycenaean Greeks, so he was recognizing a (long since dead) former settlement of Greeks. (When Rome wants you gone, they want you GONE and to suffer).

Rome built a colony on the ruins of Jerusalem, Aelia Capitolina. Eventually, former Judea became a Christian pilgrimage and was settled by Christians. The land became known as Palestine. 

Not what you were expecting, huh? Bet you didn’t think the Christians would get involved in this Jewish vs Muslim issue. 

So 900 BCE to 70 CE, it belonged to the Jewish people (with the brief exception to the period of exile to Babylon). 

Then the Christians took over from Rome when Christianity took over and mass conversions started to sweep the world. 

Eventually, the population became a mixed bag of Romans and migrants from nearby provinces. 

361-363 CE - The Roman Emperor says the Jewish people can return to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple. In fact, he encourages it! He’s excited about it and starts to fund it and gathers up all the leaders, who are confused but cautiously optimistic. 

The Emperor is assassinated before anything gets underway and the Jewish people are banished from the holy land again. 

438 CE - Jews are now allowed to visit the Temple site. Note how it's visit, not live. A few times a year they are let into the city to visit where the Temple once stood so they can pray, then they are forced to leave again. 

Oops! Back up a it! What’s happening over there during all this? It’s the 7th Century and Islam has now become a major religion! Any Jews hanging out in the Arabian Peninsula? Convert or get out. They’re going to keep their eye on what’s been happening with Rome, the Jews, and the Christians in regards to ‘Palestine’. 

After all, Islam is a cousin to Judaism and they do share similarities to the holy sites. 

And there have been MANY wars over the holy sites. Sieges, betrayals, false alliances, and an overall repeated attempt to eradicate and massacre people over the land.

Now, we all know the Roman Empire eventually fell. But the Jewish people? Still banished. They became the Diaspora. Attempting to settle in place after place until they are either massacred, converted, or kicked out. They have no home. Just a place to sit for a bit until the next massacre forces them to flee. 

That's not even getting into the Crusades of the Christians against Islam in Palestine 1095-1291!! 

So... Skipping over a LOT of history and massacres and terrible things....

Oh boy oh boy. I'm going to skip a LOT. Because the crusades are a mess of WTFery and I'm not writing a thesis here (right?). 

But... 1917, enter Britain. Because of course Britain has to get involved at some point. You wouldn't be telling a world history tragedy story without Britain somehow getting involved. 

They take control of Palestine from the Turks. Basically, WWI just ended and the Ottoman Empire lost big time. Their punishment? Britain now rules their land (I’ll get to that in a bit). 

A decree is issued establishing Palestine as a national home for Jewish People, so long as nothing is done to cause prejudice or remove the civil rights or religious rights of the existing people that live there (Non-Jewish communities). 

Many Jewish people interpret this to mean that ALL of Palestine is now a Jewish State. 

1921: Britain changes their mind. All of Palestine east of the Jordan River is closed to Jewish settlement, but not to Arab settlement. 

Oh boy. 

1923: Britain says Arabs can immigrate but NOT Jewish people to Syria and Lebanon. 

What? What are you doing Britain? 

Remember that Western Wall rubble that was found in Jerusalem? The last remains of the Temple? By 1929: Muslims and Jews have been fighting over that wall for ages. Riots break out in Palestine and Jewish people are massacred. 

Annnnnnd that takes us to 1933 when Hitler rises to power. Jewish people everywhere attempt to start to emigrate and flee to what they hope are safe countries. 

1939: British government limits Jewish immigrants to 10,000 a year. Jewish people are trapped and the Holocaust catches up. 

1945-1948: Post Holocaust refugees try to find the only place that they may call home: Palestine. The British government detains them and prevents their entry. 

1946-1948: Things start to get violent in Palestine and British rule is unsure if they want Jews there or not. 

1947: the UN approves the creation of the Jewish State and an Arab State in British ruled Palestine. 

1948: Israel declares independence as a Jewish State and opens up to all Jewish people trying to find a safe place to live after the Holocaust. Essentially, it becomes a refugee state and if you are Jewish in any manner of the word, you are now a citizen and have a country to escape to when the massacres happen. 

A Jewish Exodus from Arab and Muslim lands results as they flee or are expelled. 

Egypt invades and Israel holds fast, expanding its borders as a result. 

Egypt continues to attack and threaten Israel until the Six Day War in 1967 when Israel captured the West Bank

(Pictured here)

The West Bank is considered the heart of Palestinians. This is known as the Gaza Strip. 

Many Israelis see this area as their ancestral Homeland. Many Israeli settlements are starting to push into this area in a ruthless attempt to take it back. I DO say ruthless because they have been using violence against those living there and farming there. 

There is international law that states that this area is off limits to Israelis. 

"1890: The term "Zionism" is coined by an Austrian Jewish publicist Nathan Birnbaum in his journal "Self Emancipation" and is defined as the National movement for the return of the Jewish people to their homeland and the resumption of Jewish Sovereignty in the Land of Israel. "

Now, the term Zionism has taken on different roles and meanings over the years. I mentioned above what the word means and comes from. But it was later claimed by right wing Israelis who want the Arab nations out of Israel. It was later taken back again to being used as a simple declaration of nationalism for the right for Jews to have a place to call their own. 

It's...complicated. I think Zionism can only really be defined by those who claim they are Zionists. Which ideology they follow may vary and much like any notion of nationalism, there are problems and dangers. 

Is it wrong to be a Zionist? Depends. But the answer is not a straightforward yes or no. 

The Jewish people deserve to exist in a state. But so do the Palestinians. 

Let's talk about Palestine! 

Historically, you got nothing until Judea is destroyed and the people are taken as slaves and killed in 70 CE. 

Then you have a bunch of Christians wandering around it declaring all the historical sites to be theirs. Which, since Christianity comes from Judaism, they happen to share a lot of the same spiritual and historical sites. 

But so does Islam.

There are repeated revolts, wars, disputes, and claims to the area by MANY different factions. 

Many times the Jewish people attempted to retake the area only to be put down again and again. 

In the late 6th Century, Islam was founded. They conquered Palestine in 636. Unlike previous rulers, they allowed Jews and Christians the freedom to practice their religion in peace.... but they had to pay a special tax and be submissive to Muslims. But, they did lift the centuries long ban on Jews being banished from Jerusalem. 

Guess who wasn't a fan of all this? 

Time for Crusades to 'liberate' Jerusalem from the Muslims. 

European Christians campaigned against Muslims to reconquer the 'Holy Land' of Palestine. 

Hey look! The Ottomon Empire (1466 CE) decided to show up! 

As I mentioned above, the Ottoman Empire had sided with the Germans and lost. They were driven from Palestine and British rule took over. 

Remember how I mentioned that the British government declared Palestine to be a Jewish State in 1916? Well it turns out that just one year earlier, in 1915, it had been declared an Arab State in which the UK agreed to recognize Arab independence. BOTH declarations were seen as giving full control to either the Jewish People or the Arabs. 

Good job Britain. Way to do what you always do and cock it up. 

Here’s the biggest problem with saying that you side fully with Palestine. Internationally recognized terrorists political movement of: Hamas. 

Hamas is an Acronym that translates to 'Islamic Resistance Movement'. 

It's a political military movement that governs parts of the Gaza Strip. 

They have taken charge and governed the Gaza Strip since 2006 and have periodically attacked Israel. They promote Palestinian Nationalism in a strictly Islamic context. 

In fact, they propose that Israel NOT be recognized as a state and that a strictly Palestinian State be formed. 

All the truces they offer to Israel over the years? Incredibly Antisemitic. They have carried out numerous terrorist attacks against the citizens of Israel and continue to 'advocate' for the return of Palestine without Jews. 

They tend to be the 'dominant political force' in Palestine because of their anti-israel stance. They pretend to want a two state solution, but will repeatedly reject talks and demand "From the River to the Sea". Their end goal is to remove ALL of Israel and return the entire region to Palestine, thus making it an Islamic State. 

It’s important to know that this is a radical group that unfortunately has a lot of control and uses its own people to terrorize and hide behind in an effort to bring about fear and hate and death. The actual Palestinian people do not deserve that. 

It’s also important to know that the Israeli people do not all support their own government or leaders who have decided to take up an extremist approach to attempting to eradicate the terrorist movement. 

MANY Israeli and Palestinian people believe in trying to find a negotiation that will benefit both sides and share a land that in a long lengthy way does represent three major religions. 

It is important to know what Charities are supporting. Where the money is going, and who is only furthering violence on both sides. 

It’s also important to know your history. 

When I was little, If you said someone was Jewish, I imagined a white European man. Why is that the common image of a Jewish person? How is it possible to be a colonizer if your people come from that country in the first place? 

So I'm going to ask you a question, and I REALLY want you to think about this. 

If someone owns land and comes from a land, they are forcibly removed from the land for a LONG amount of time, someone else comes in and makes a home of this land and lives there for a long time, and then the first people want that land back.... Do they become colonizers? Are they wrong? Do they not deserve their land back?

If you think the answer is yes, you need to go have a conversation with the Native Americans. 

BUT, as we all know... What do you do about the people that currently own and live on that land that was stolen from the first people? Maybe you didn't do the stealing, but you acquired stolen property and if you give it back then now you have nowhere else to go.... What sort of conversation needs to happen now? How do you solve this problem? 

If you made it to the end, I thank you so much for taking the time to be curious about history and how it impacts current events. If you have questions, please let me know.

[accultant]

⋆.ೃ࿔*:･hyperactive hornets in my lungs ~ Dragon Age verse !

details of Iago's Dragon Age verse below bc i have DA brainrot again ➷

The Darlington family was small but content in their small but content town, too quaint to even be recognized by name. When the Fifth Blight hit, it was run through without much fanfare or remorse. Iago was visited by a spirit while they huddled with their family, praying to whomever would listen. It promised to save Iago's family, to give Iago themselves the power to do so, for nothing in return but a space beside their soul, just a little real estate, it's not as if they needed all that room for themselves anyway -

They were young and staring death in the face. It was hardly a question.

They don't remember everything that Chaos did once Iago gave their body to it, but they know a path of violet flames was carved through their hometown, giving only Iago and their brother an escape from the Darkspawn, and devouring everything else.

They traveled aimlessly for some time, Iago learning to live with the spirit they hosted and the effect it had on their magic. Chaos made them stronger, more powerful, but wildly unpredictable and volatile at times, their emotions often amplified by another soul beating up against theirs, crammed into one, small, scared body.

Puck and Iago scraped by with some less-than-savory work, starting as cutpurses and young thieves, eventually blossoming into an assassin and an information broker respectively in Kirkwall. It wasn't pretty, but they were at least getting back on their feet.

It came to a screeching halt Iago's talents were discovered and they were taken to a strict Circle against their will, where they stayed secluded for years, keeping Chaos a secret and festering in unrest and homesickness without their brother, who would join the Grey Wardens while they were away.

They tried their best to stay unnoticed, quiet, but their volatile magic acted out one too many times and they were eventually sentenced to the Rite of Tranquility. It was meant to blindside them, to subdue the wild mage quickly with a single notice to their only remaining family and nothing more, but they discovered what was planned for them and Chaos couldn't sit by. Once again, there were gaps in their memory of this escape, but they remember a brand, screaming, dead templars, broken mages, and stumbling out of the circle into their brother's arms with their connection to the fade miraculously still intact.

With Chaos making itself known and their violent escape from the circle, Iago became a highly wanted apostate. Their life turned into an endless cycle of panic and paranoia, running away and mercilessly cutting down any Templars who got too close. They traveled with Puck until he went missing, seemingly disappearing in the middle of the night, along with the other Grey Wardens. Now, they can be found anywhere across the map, searching for their brother and trying to survive.

━━━━━ ★. *･｡ﾟ✧⁺

TL;DR Iago shares their body with a spirit of Chaos. They kept this a secret until the circle they had been kept in attempted to make them Tranquil. They attacked the circle and escaped, marking themselves as a highly sought after apostate. Now, they remain on the run and search for their brother, one of the missing Grey Wardens. NOTE !! I am hoping to avoid any and all spoilers for Veilguard until the game is released so I can play it as blindly as possible ! Please keep this in mind <3

a billion thanks to @skyheld for helping me figure this out and yapping with me ^-^

[whentvsfly]

S.E.E.S, but Pokemon. (Kudos to those who can tell who's who without the readmore)

More info after the cut!

Tried to make everyone look like themselves without adding clothing/accessories. More difficult than expected, but a nice challenge!

I imagine either only persona users can use their moves (at all, or effectively, not entirely sure which) or when they use their personas (personamon?) they appear as an altered version of their fully evolved forms. Kinda like the second one better, as a way to use more powerful attacks and keep in theme with Persona games

Tried to keep them with their elemental affinities:

Mitsuru Kirijo: Sneasel. It just had the right vibe for her, and I curled the tail (feathers?) to make it look like her hair (although Akihiko is standing in front of most of them).

Akihiko Sanada: Pawmo. I needed electric type, and with his affinity for boxing and being fit, I figured an electric/fighting type would work well for him! Didn't want to do Pawmi because it wasn't yet fighting type (maybe he evolves sometime after The Fire) and didn't want to do Pawmot because no one else is evolved, so having him be max evolution would feel *weird*.

Shinjiro Arakgaki: Scraggy. A solely phys skill user HAS to be fighting type. There were several choices for him - Mankey was one, I believe - though something about Scraggy's appearance made me go with it.

Minato Arisato / Makoto Yuki: Castform (Sunny). I like to make the wild cards pokemon with several forms, or the ability to transform in some way. His 'base' form in Tartarus is Sunny, since Orpheus has fire attacks, but he shifts with whatever element he's using.

Yukari: Ducklett (Shiny). She was just going to be normal ducklett, but then I remembered the shiny was pink, and it makes her more 'special' and talk of the school, so I decided that's fine haha. Flying is the wind equivalent, here, so it was hard to Not make her some sort of bird. It works though, I think!

Junpei Iori: Charcadet. Needed a fire type, and charcadet seemed spunky enough to be him, out of the ones available. After Chidori [redacted], his personamon changes from an Armarouge-equivalent to a Ceruledge-equivalent.

Fuuka Yamagishi: Psy attacks don't exist in p3, though they do in p5, who I also already pokemoned, but Psychic still fits both psy attacks and navi abilities, so I'll let them overlap. She was able to avoid being killed in Tartarus for 10 hours, so she would have been using teleport to keep herself safe, as well as other psychic moves to detect where shadows lurked. Wanted a pokemon not usually known for attacking, to fit more with the navi role.

Aigis: Iron Valiant. Another phys-heavy user, so I wanted fighting type, and Iron Valiant happened to be just that. Looks like Gallade/Gardevoir (*is* Gallade/Gardevoir but in the future/ an alternate dimension?) but is also distinctly Robotic. Luckily most people pin the oddness about her as 'why is she fully evolved and in highschool' rather than 'hey, that's not a pokemon I know, what the hell'.

Koromaru: Houndour (Albino). There are not too many fire/dark pokemon, to go along with Koro's fire/curse attacks, and one of them just Happened to be a dog. I had to. I also made up an 'albino' coloration, based off of real albino dogs. If shiny, as a genetic mutation exists, then others can as well!

Ken Amada: Dedenne. Very similar to Koro, there are exactly two (2) pokemon that are electric/fairy, as I equate bless to fairy type, and one of those was a legendary. So Ken is Dedenne. It oddly works out, since he looks up to Akihiko, and they're both small, rodent pokemon (who happen to be their pkmn generation's equivalent of pikachu :P)

I have Many more thoughts on this crossover, if anyone wants to talk about it! I have a few more P3 characters planned out (Strega, pharos, ryoji, nyx avatar), P4's Investigation team, and P5's Phantom Thieves, though I need to actually Draw them all.

[would-this-pokemon-be-a-friend]

Nickit?

Nickit, as far as I can tell, would make a pretty great pet, especially for those looking to adopt an easier-to-manage dark-type pokémon!

Nickits are small and furry, which is a great place to start. They are known to be mischievous and crafty, but they seem to be friendly enough! Unfortunately, we don't have a lot of data about the behavior of wild nickits. We know that, in the wild, nickits survive not by hunting prey or grazing on vegetation: they're thieves that steal all of their food from other pokémon (Sword)! They're good at it too, with soft pads on their paws that allow them to sneak about silently (Sword) and a brush-like tail they can use to wipe away any tracks they leave behind (Shield). When you have a nickit in the home, don't be surprised when your food gets... misplaced, from time to time. If you're adopting a nickit, you're really going to want to invest in child-proofing your kitchen! It's really important to not scold or punish your nickit for stealing food, because it's just their instinctual behavior. Nickit-keepers should try to redirect this behavior through various forms of enrichment play, like hiding treats or the nickit's food in places for them to "discover" and make off with.

When we're considering nickits' move set, there's not much to worry about. In battle, nickits make use of almost exclusively physical moves, making use of simple teeth and claws to defend themselves. A nickit's not going to be much more dangerous than a real-world dog or cat, so their score doesn't suffer much here.

We don't have a whole lot of data about nickits, since they are a more recently discovered species, but from what we know they would make great pets. They're intelligent and not particularly aggressive, and I'd wager that they would probably be. a lot of fun to play with!

[power-chords]

Have you ever been “in a pickle”?

Then you have encountered Rotwelsch, an ancient language of the road, spoken by vagrants and refugees, merchants and thieves since the European Middle Ages. This tongue was based on a combination of German, Yiddish, Hebrew, a smattering of Romani (the language of Sinti and Roma, pejoratively known as Gypsies), Czech, and Latin—and was incomprehensible to all but initiates.

I was inducted into this strange language during my childhood in Southern Germany. My earliest memories were of strange figures, dressed in long coats that had lost their original colors, who showed up at our door with bags slung across their backs. When it rained, they smelled, and my mother wouldn’t let them inside the house. “I know what you want. Wait. I’ll be right back,” she would say.

Lingering near the door, I would hear noises from the kitchen, my mother fixing open-faced sandwiches. While they ate, she remained standing on the threshold, guarding the house, trying to make conversation. I had trouble understanding them because they spoke a strange dialect, mixed with words I didn’t know. When they had finished, my mother would take the empty plate from their hands and close the door, relieved that the encounter was over.

“Who are they?”

“They don’t have a home. We’re giving them something to eat.”

That didn’t answer my real questions. I wanted to know why: Why didn’t they have a home; why were we giving them something to eat; and why did they have such a strange way of talking?

Later, I asked my father about these men and their language. “They are Travelers,” he said.

I didn’t understand. “Where are they going?”

“They are people of the road, escaping to nowhere.”

My uncle eventually figured out why these travelers kept showing up at our house. One day, he found a sign discreetly carved into the foundation stone, a cross with a circle around it, which meant that there was bread to be had here. The signs were called zinken, a word derived from the Latin signum. But the language was Rotwelsch, also known as kochemer loshn, an adaptation of the Hebrew khokhem, which means a wise person and loshn, tongue, or language.

It was a language of those in the know, the lingo of the wise guys. These signs and words pointed to an underground of traveling people; a world hidden away from view. Over centuries, outcasts had developed this secret world, with its coded lingo, to protect themselves from a world hostile to strangers (Rotwelsch means beggar’s cant). Their special language bound migrants together, because it distinguished those who belonged to the road from those who didn’t.

[perpetualexistence]

Noah and the Beanstalk AU

New AU hot off the press! This one's what I'd call a one-shot AU since this is the main thought without really any other ideas to go along with it. I would still love to answer any questions about it, though!

Look under the read more for an Alenoaheather g/t au! It won't be the last, though it is currently the only one that ends in a villain thruple.

Fantasy AU where giants are a known thing to exist in the clouds. Jack did his thing with the beanstalk and became famous since he's wealthy a la golden goose. This has just encouraged more humans to try to go up and steal from giants, occasionally even killing one. At this point stealing from giants is a profession in itself. An incredibly dangerous one with a very high mortality rate.

With that context out of the way, now onto Noah. He's the youngest of 9, and his life's doing pretty okay up until his mom catches an incurable illness. Being a nerd, he throws himself into research to find some kind of magic that can save her.

Good news! There's a chalice that cures the most pressing of ailments the next town over! The bad news? That town just got razed to the ground and pillaged by a pair of giants. Giants normally don't bother coming down and prefer to stay up to hoard and guard their treasures. These two are particularly greedy though because they go out of their way to come down and take things for themselves. The treasure's their priority but if anyone gets in the way of that? They're going to lose their lives trying to protect what's theirs. Giant thieves have gone up to try to reclaim the wealth and seek revenge. Though some even theorize that these two are only doing this out of desperation and can potentially be reasoned with. People from neither side of this argument have come back down.

There's also another problem in trying to go after these two. A more human one. You see, when everyone started going after giants, the earlier ones had the advantage of stealing from unsuspecting giants with no idea this was going to be an epidemic of stealing. They got power real fast, and started doing what they could to keep that power to themselves. Certain giant thieves went as far as hiring guards to stop other giant thieves from going up and getting rich without at least some hefty fee. The particular beanstalk that Noah's got to get to has royal guards.

Noah's only got a timeline of a couple of months since that's how long the doctors predicted. So he uses that to the fullest extend he dares. Most giant thieves get killed because they think they can just sneak in without a plan and get what they want the first time they get up there.

Noah's plans to do this smart thing called reconnaissance. He's going to make a few trips up before he tries actually stealing the chalice. He needs to know a few things before he's even going to think about touching that treasure:

Where these two keep their treasure

How they guard it

If they know how valuable the chalice is, and subsequently

If they'll notice that the chalice goes missing

Can they track him down if they do notice

He somehow manages to get his way up the beanstalk whether it's through bribing guards or distracting them so he can sneak up. Though he does manage to catch the attention through Justin, the prince or else some kind of royal who wants to make a name for himself but is also too cowardly to try stealing from a giant. Justin can't prove anything, so he just watches and waits as Noah keeps up with his frequent trips.

Through Noah's reconnaissance, he learns a couple of things. The two giants are named Alejandro and Heather. They're both around his age, and they really do only care about the treasure so they can gloat to others about how wealthy they are. They're also clearly in the honeymoon phase of their relationship. It's just incredibly unfortunate that they define a romantic outing as stealing and killing together.

Noah also learns that they have no idea they've got a magic chalice on their hands, which is good. What's not so good is they have a giant dog that guards their treasure room when they're not around. (Is the giant dog a stand in for anyone in particular? Maybe! Part of me wants to say Tyler for some reason. Still trying to figure that out.) However, he does learn that the dog has been trained at least a bit through whistles. This leads to the start of a brilliant plan.

Rather than steal the chalice himself, he trains the dog to steal the chalice FOR him. The dog goes in and out of the treasure room so he won't set off any alarms. Noah already knows some tricks for doing so thanks to training his own dog. It takes a while to make sure the dog becomes familiar with and loves him as a person with treats rather than a person who is a treat. Even longer to go through the training of teaching him how to fetch the chalice through creating a replica so the dog knows what to look for. But eventually it pays off.

He books it with the chalice. He doesn't dare to get greedy because he knows these two will notice if too much goes missing. And he's seen enough of them to know they'll be incredibly vindictive against anyone who injures their pride by stealing. He actually plans to return the chalice after using it on his mother. He'd rather have them never realize it was gone rather than live with the ticking time bomb of waiting to see if they notice.

Before he goes too far with it, he tests it on himself first. It would be a waste to steal it only for it to be for nothing. He cuts the palm of his hand, then pours some water into the chalice and drinks. He was not prepared for the intensity. It feels like he's swallowed liquid fire and he nearly coughs it out, but he forces himself to swallow. As to be expected, his whole body feels like it's on fire. This was a horrible mistake. Fortunately for him, the pain subsides. And look, that cut has been healed! Finally, life is looking up for once!

Noah's biggest mistake was thinking this because the moment he gets off the beanstalk, Justin shows up. He reveals that he's been watching Noah and let him keep going up, which is why it's been so easy for Noah to make repeated trips. Justin rips the chalice out of Noah's hands to claim it for himself so he can have the prestige of being a giant thief without ever putting himself in any danger. Noah gets to live because Justin can't be bothered to kill him, and doesn't see him as a threat. Noah's only saving grace is Justin has no idea what the chalice can do, and Noah sure as hell isn't going to tell him.

Noah's forced to go home empty-handed. He starts trying to plan how to steal the chalice back, and if he even has enough time to do that. Infiltrating a castle with plenty of guards is much different than infiltrating a giant home with only three occupants.

He only gets about a week or two before two rather pissed off giants and their dog come crashing down to reclaim their stolen treasure. Noah's in town doing reconnaissance on the castle so he's close enough to see the dog bounding into the castle to reclaim the chalice and the person who's currently claiming he took the chalice: Justin.

Heather and Alejandro are busy trying to interrogate Justin into telling them how he stole from them. Neither of them are paying attention to their dog, who smells Noah, and comes bounding towards him with the chalice as he's been trained. Noah can't believe his luck.

Literally, he can't. Because if Heather or Alejandro catch sight of this they're going to figure out who the real thief is in an instant. But also this is his one chance of curing his mom while the two are distracted. He just has to pray he's faster than they are. At least he has a giant dog that serves as a great mode of transportation if you're willing to cling for your life and pray to anyone that'll listen to not fall off.

He does manage to make it home and cure his mother, thankfully without her looking too pained by drinking from the chalice. Bad news is this is around the time he hears two incredibly loud, incredibly frustrated screams and he knows they've realized the chalice is gone again.

He tries to order the dog to return the chalice to Alejandro and Heather. Which is pretty difficult considering this isn't a command he's taught the dog. The dog also hears itself being called back by its giant owners, so it comes up with the perfect solution. It lightly bites down onto both the chalice AND Noah and begins bounding back. Cue Noah screaming and trying to give the 'drop it'.

Which works! Partially. It gets the dog to drop the chalice. Down a hill. Rolling off a cliff. To the ocean below. Where it's immediately swept away. Never to be seen again.

His only hope is that Alejandro and Heather will make his death quick.

When he does get brought back to the two, he's immediately snatched up by Heather who demands to know who he thinks he is, and where the chalice is when she realizes it's gone. Noah tries to lie that their dog picked him up on complete accident, but they're not buying it. Alejandro does notice that their dog is acting particularly strange towards this one human, and convinces Heather to drop Noah into the dog's mouth.

Noah does land into his mouth, though out of sheer desperation gives the 'drop it' order. This saves him, but it also reveals himself as the original thief.

They're both at least slightly impressed that Noah managed to scheme his way into the chalice, but they've still got their images to maintain. Plus, he lost the chalice.

So, Alejandro crushes him under his heel. It's quick, although incredibly painful. The two walk off to see if they can recover the chalice, and that's the end of the story.

...Or it would be, if Noah wasn't screaming in confused pain and panic not even a minute after being crushed, perfectly healthy.

Remember when he drank from the chalice to test it out? Well, it only really has one setting: turbo-charged. So with his mother with a terminal illness, it worked exactly as intended. But when he drank from it with only a cut on his hand, it decided to go after a deeper, underlying issue.

This pesky little thing called mortality.

Alejandro and Heather also scream because what?? the fuck?? Heather kicks him into a tree on instinct and Noah goes flying. And not long after, his body rebuilds himself and he's back. The process of killing Noah and him reviving repeats for a few times before they all stop and try to figure out where the fuck to go from here.

Their pride won't allow Heather or Alejandro to simply let Noah live. And Noah plans to do everything in his power to not go through that whole die/revive process again. Alejandro comes up with the idea to just take Noah if they can't have the original chalice. Raze the town so they can still prove a point, and be on their way.

Noah has many problems with this plan, but neither cares about his opinion. Up until he points out that he'll always be looking for a way to escape. With his newfound immortality, he'll get there eventually. (He's completely bluffing about whether or not his lifespan will be extended to and this isn't just regeneration, but they don't have to know that.)

If they agree NOT to destroy the town he grew up in, then he'll promise never to try to escape. And he will want proof that they stick to their end. He doesn't want them to just lie about his town being fine while they destroyed it days ago.

They reluctantly agree to these terms. Justin, who the two had dumped earlier, tries to take claim when they start to head out with their new prize. Leading Noah to just share at the sheer audacity of him before speaking again.

"...You know how I said you couldn't touch a single person in this town? I don't consider Justin to be a part of this town, so you can do whatever you want with him."

"Oh thank god he was getting SO annoying."

"Want to bat him through the air like a human racquetball until one of us inevitably drops him mi cariño?"

"Yes, but you are so the one who's dropping him first."

Eventually Heather realizes they can use Noah to steal from other giants. So he becomes their own pet giant thief, and he eventually gets pampered since they do legitimately enjoy his schemes and sarcastic wit.

All of this because I basically wanted a g/t au where Alejandro and Heather are a bond villain couple with a small Noah as the little bastard cat they stroke on their lap. He 100% pokes fights with human royalty or other giants to watch Alejandro and Heather take them down. Alejandro and Heather know this, and they love this about him. Plus it just gives them more of an excuse to have fun dates involving ruining people's lives.

[theproperweirdo]

Nara and Sonja story for @noisette-tornade 🤞all copy and pasted directly from the in game stories

Nara - Heartcarver

The city known as Rustport may have once had a more conventional name, but if that is in fact the case, it has long been forgotten. A sprawl of ramshackle structures that sway and creak in the salty winds blowing in from the sea, taverns lean against gambling halls and establishments of ominous repute like crooked teeth. For every baker there are two thieves, for every blacksmith two pirates. When the sun sets, the woefully few honest citizens bar their doors and secure the latches on windows. It is a rare night indeed that passes in Rustport without a murder and a rare resident who has not seen the body of a victim by the time they are able to speak.

Within this city lies a district where not even the city watch will tread after dark-Mire Town.

It was here, among sludge-slick alleyways and chittering swarms of rats that Nara was born and raised. As an infant, her mother abandoned Rustport and the family she had there, unwilling to suffer the place any longer or see her daughter do the same. Nara's father was deeply in debt to a criminal enterprise, but still managed to keep his daughter fed and sheltered, paying meager installments to the gang without incurring too much physical injury. This continued for a long time, until Nara was nine years old and the criminals discovered that not only had her father not been paying as much as he could, but that he in fact had enough coin stashed away to pay off the entirety of his debt.

After abducting and "interrogating" the debtor, a confession was pulled out. He had been saving the money to skip town and start a new life with his daughter somewhere far away. Having what they needed, they disposed of him: A lesson to other would-be debt evaders. Orphaned, Nara was thrown out of the hovel she had shared with her father. She wandered the streets, stealing and scavenging to survive.

Every day was a fight for survival, and Nara quickly became callous and mistrustful. The other people on the street were simply targets or hazards, and she began to lose any sense of warmth or compassion she once had. The people she did engage with were invariably others like herself- orphaned children and runaways getting by however they could. Eventually, she found herself at the head of a small thieve's guild alongside Sonja, the only other child who could match her abilities.

They called themselves Whispers, for the faint whisper coins make on cloth while being picked out of pockets.

As season after season blended into another, they subsumed the smaller child gangs until they were the largest network of thieves in the city. The size of their operation had grown tremendously until there was hardly a street corner in Rustport that didn't have a Whisper lingering, waiting for a chance to make a quick profit. Other gangs of course wanted in on the Whispers' turf at first, but Nara was quick to show that she was capable of much more than theft. After the initial disputes, those who didn't work for her stayed out of her way.

After dominating the city's criminal underground while still just a teen, she began to look at expanding her horizons.

The most profitable market in Rustport certainly wasn't pickpocketing, even at the scale she commanded. Rustport has a bustling slave market, a plaza drowning in the noises of commerce and despair.

Maulers slump in their chains next to Wilders, men, and other peoples of Esperia.

Here the only distinction is between master and slave. If she wanted to make the real money, she'd need a good ship and lots of manacles.

The first expedition she attended personally. Though she was well past the stage in her career of doing the dirty work herself, she wanted to oversee this new venture. She selected Azure Cove as her target, a patch of water lending access to the forests of the Wilders. What she didn't know was that Azure Cove had a new protector. When her ship sailed in, Seirus the elemental sensed the malicious intent from the crew. In a single great wave, the ship was capsized, drowning all aboard.

Nara's body sank softly to the bottom of the cove. Her story was over, it would seem.

For days she lay there, the seaweed brushing against her pale, open eyes. Then, one night, the husk that had been Nara received the call. With a sickly flicker of green light, her eyes cast about the seafloor and she stood, trudging toward the shore.

If Nara was cruel and violent in life, she is far worse now. She takes great pleasure in the harm she can cause others, and does so as often as she can.

“How would you like to die?”

Sonja - Ruler of the underworld

Sonja and I have known each other for years. Back then she was a wan, listless little thing, scurrying around with us in the dark, lawless alleys of the slums. She had long, flowing blonde hair - not that you'd know it under all the mud and fleas - which she still stubbornly spent ages braiding.

She was one of us: another weak and downtrodden worm, mired in the silt of chaos and turmoil, all too often caught and beaten for her thievery. Now and then I would share with her some of the vegetables I'd managed to obtain and, maybe in response to such unexpected kindness, she in turn would tear off some of her stolen bread and return the favor. As the days, weeks, months dripped by, we inevitably got to know each other better.

Oh, Sonja was a clever one. She was in and out of the various traders all year long, and knew the black market better than anyone else. Am I the slightest bit surprised that she hit it off so well with Nara? Of course not. After all, Nara was the most agile and fierce of all our dank alley thieves.

Ever since they started working together, the two of them complemented each other so well that they were never again caught, instead going on to make a killing with every single job. They made sure to share their profits and goods with us, yet we still remained the target of extortion and bullying by the various other gangs.

One evening, Sonja came looking for us.

She and Nara, tired of the other gangs lording it over us, wanted to form their own group. This would give us orphans, the scurrying inhabitants of the alleys, a proper foothold in Rustport. Together with Nara, she told us of their vision, something we never would have countenanced in a million years: they wished for us to live well, able to eat and drink our fill, as one family. And so it was that the Whispers were born, and we felt we'd finally come home.

It didn't take long for the Whispers to earn a reputation for itself in Rustport.

While Nara's obvious ruthlessness and brutality terrified the other gangs, they still hadn't realized Sonja's strategy, which aimed to elevate the Whispers head and shoulders above the other Rustport gangs.

Blood and roses... These, to me, perfectly symbolize Nara and Sonja. Nara's savagery stained the ground of this sinful land with the blood of countless opponents, while Sonja was more a gorgeous, mud-encrusted rose, tangled and bristling with the thorns of sin.

In order to make real money, we Whispers had to carve out our own unique niche. We gradually found an emerging market in the trade of... "Special" goods, which became our best chance to make it big. Nara bribed her way to ensure the sea routes were open for the Whispers to bring back our plunder, which she held at port for Sonja to dispose of. The excellent coordination between the two have allowed us to really profit from this emerging new industry. As our business grew, Sonja discovered that smuggling was not without risk: while she had always respected and followed the unwritten code of smugglers, the expanding gang brought in more and more people, some of whom may not be so faithful to the criminal creed. There were those who were not above playing multiple sides for their own personal benefit. Once the smuggling lines were leaked, the Whispers had to contend not just with the threat of robbery, but also with the fact that the leaker may well be a member of our own little "family".

Inevitably, this fear became reality. Our secret smuggling routes were leaked to rival gangs by those closest to us. Nara wiped out those who ambushed our goods, while the leaker defected to our rivals.

Faced with those who had once shared bread and battle by our sides, and who now worked to harm the interests of our family, seeds of suspicion were sown and took root in the hearts of many of the Whispers.

This caused the very first argument to erupt between Nara and Sonja. Nara wanted to publicly execute those in the Whispers who were suspected of being traitors, to serve as a warning to others.

She even thought to begin with the earliest members of the gang. Her rage and distress terrified me, yet I was also cognizant of the arrogant, entitled attitude amongst many of these old "veterans". They were no longer satisfied by the wealth the Whispers generated for them, desirous of ever more power, and secretly making moves within our own ranks by leaning on the newest members.

Sonja, however, was more hesitant to take such drastic measures. Perhaps she was reluctant to dig too deeply into the treachery of those with whom she had risen from the mud of the slums. Whatever her motive, she was unwilling to kill the traitors, preferring instead the "merciful" option of banishment.

Their quarrel ended as Nara slammed a door and stormed off. Sonja said not a word, perhaps in resentment of her own hesitation, as she had never before had such a major disagreement with Nara. My own conjecture is that Sonja still believed in the Whispers' original purpose: to provide a stable home for the worms struggling in the mud of the slums. Now that this dream was realized, how could she evict her own " family"?

Nara vanished. One day she set sail on an ordinary voyage, and just never returned. Sonja exhorted all Whispers to search for them, but no trace was ever found. The other gangs felt that with Nara's disappearance we had lost our most powerful deterrent, and began eyeing what had previously been unequivocally under our command. Discontent inside the Whispers also surged, and even I could hear the tavern rumors that there were plans afoot to overthrow the Whispers from within.

Not everyone was rooting for Nara. Some of the veteran members secretly rejoiced, as they eyed Sonja's position as leader and dreamt of seizing power for themselves. For Sonja, these circumstances opened her eyes, stripping away her tolerance of and faith in the old guard. She abandoned her merciful approach, shook off the pain of Nara's disappearance, and began to ruthlessly screen all those around her. She discerns the traitors in her midst and, after a mental and physical flaying, rejects them back into the mud and slime of the slums, broken and dejected.

No one could have seen this coming. That the girl who used to cry because her moldy bread was stolen could make such a cruel decision. Sonja retaliated against the traitors even more than Nara, until no one even dared think of betrayal, and all of Rustport was in awe. Sonja no longer showed pity to those who shared her background, while those orphans she rescued from the slums had to pay everything for the privilege.

I almost do not recognize Sonja now. She has shaved off her long, golden hair, and carved roses into her temples. She no longer smiles at me, but beneath her ice-cold expression constantly wonders if I am tempted to betray her. She had trusted us, and we were unable to repay her with unerring loyalty. She can but watch over the Whispers and, even if she feels the task too heavy to bear alone, will never give up. She knows that only by making the Whispers even stronger, will Nara be able to find her way home.

Sonja is an iron rose blooming among thorns. She has trodden on the corpses of countless traitors, turned her back on the last vestiges of goodwill, and climbed step by step onto the throne of power. The Whispers is not just an empire she built with Nara, but also testament to her ambition and greed.

I am but a bystander to her life of sin, which one may call cruel, another great.

She will never be satisfied with what she has and, while she used to be kind, she now wields total control over life and death in the Whispers, despite never needing to ever again dirty her own hands.

"Desire is the rose that cuts its way through the sinful soil which is covered in blood. That is my weapon.”

Whispers and Shadows (Nara & Sonja union story)

1. The towering waves overturned thecargo ship from Rustport, causing the hull to flip onto the surface of the sea.

The crew cried out in despair as they were swallowed up by the raging waves.

Nara tried to grab the broken spar in front of her, but before she could press her body against the mast, she was dragged into the sea by the person next to her, her arms covered in blood. The pain of salt water rushing into her wounds was quickly drowned out by the crashing waves. During the last throes of her consciousness, the crimson blood that spread in the sea blinded her eyes, and the pungent seawater poured into her nostrils, suffocating her.

The last time she felt such suffocation was when she was a child. Back then, she used to hide with her father in the alleys of Rustport to avoid their creditors. They would bury themselves in piles of garbage reeking of rotten fish soaked in stale water - the same odor that invaded her nostrils now as the salty seawater threatened to drown her.

Nara's memories of her father were filled with hatred. The shameless old man had promised her time and time again that he would give her a stable home once he paid off his debts. But his broken promises only brought her endless disappointment. Eventually, even the disappointment faded away, because she no longer held any hope for her father. When her father was killed by his creditors, Nara hid in a garbage heap and struggled to hold her breath.

Perhaps when she woke up from her suffocating stupor, everything would have passed.

Nara became an orphan, wandering alone in the slums and surviving by stealing. Being beaten up black-and-blue was par for the course with her, and sometimes she even had to fight over scraps of food with wild dogs. She had lost all the innocence that she should have had at her age. Instead, she had to be cunning and even resort to deception to get a measly piece of moldy bread.

Life was like a bone-chilling deep ocean, and except to hold her breath, she was helpless.

She never harbored any hope for a rescuing hand to pull her out form the depths of this ocean. Not until Sonja appeared.

2. The seawater no longer stung Nara's scarred skin like a sharp blade. She even felt a soft touch. She tried to open her eyes, but could only see faint dots no matter how hard she turned her eyeballs. Gradually, the dots took on the familiar shape of Sonja's hand reaching out to her.

Their meeting began with a theft in a dark alley. Sonja, also an orphan, used to wander in the alleys of the slums before she met Nara. Sonja relied on her exceptional intelligence to secretly learn various knowledge that might benefit her.

Compared to Nara's roughness, she seemed particularly cautious. After all, given her lack of agile physical skills, she could easily be caught, beaten, and perhaps even die from that.

On that day, Nara, who was starving, went to a bakery in Rustport. Hunger made her clumsy and her mind dull. So much so that when she smelled the freshly baked bread, she almost lost her faculties and wanted to burst out from her hiding spot in the kitchen's corner and grab it right away. Even a piece of moldy bread was a delicacy that the homeless orphans in this stinking harbor could only dream of, yet at that moment, such a slice of heaven was within Nara's arm's reach.

When Sonja came across Nara, the latter was pinned to the ground by the shopkeeper, covered in blood and filth.

Such was common sight for Sonja, who was even considering using the distraction to swipe something useful from the cupboard. However, when their eyes met, Sonja changed her mind. Nara' s gaze was deep and filled with intense resentment and despair, as if she was calling for help while also declaring war on life.

Carefully, Sonja retrieved an unburnt piece of coal from the stove and used it to ignite the discarded wood planks in the back alley, while the shopkeeper was distracted. The sudden thick smoke frightened the shopkeeper, who abandoned Nara and rushed to put out the fire. Seizing the opportunity, Sonja pulled Nara out of the bakery, taking a few freshly baked loaves of bread on the way.

In this dog-eat-dog world of Rustport, exposing one's weakness to others meant putting oneself in danger. Yet Nara had allowed Sonja to witness her most vulnerable state, perhaps hoping that someone would see through her feebleness and offer a helping hand. For so long, Nara had been wandering the dark alleys alone, but now she asked Sonja if she would be willing to join forces and move forward together. She wanted to prove to Sonja that she was more than just the girl who was beaten and covered in mud, and show the nimbleness and agility that had kept her alive for so long.

Their bond began on the day they met and from then on, they established the Whispers together, building a sanctuary for Nara's soul. As long as she could return to Sonja's side, there would always be warm hands waiting to soothe her icy soul.

Yet, as the spark of life within her dwindled, Nara realized that she was stil a helpless victim of fate, unable to grasp the hand that was reaching out to her.

3. Nara no longer felt any pain, and the last glimmer of light in her eyes faded away. In fact, she knew from the beginning that everything up until now was just a dying dream. Nothing more than an illusion.

Before their latest voyage, Nara and Sonja had a fierce argument. Nara had angrily stormed out of the room, leaving Sonja behind. It was their last conversation, which yet ended in an argument. Nara could not understand Sonja's "hypocritical kindness." Perhaps as an intelligent person, Sonja had her own thoughts on the matter, while a reckless person driven by instinct like Nara could not weigh the pros and con like her. Nara had always relied on Sonja, believing that it was her friend's plansand decisions that had neutralized numerous threats to the Whispers.

Only this time, Sonja made a decision that went against Nara's beliefs.

Sonja often warned Nara not to be satisfied with the status quo, as they had already sacrificed too much for their cause. Nara's injuries, Sonja's sleepless nights - they were all for the sake of protecting those they wanted to keep safe... And yet they had been given tyrannical and cruel labels by the very people they were trying to help.

Nara knew that the argument over how to deal with the traitors was just a reflection of the Whispers' plight, but if she could become stronger and prevent the traitors from doing anything that would harm the Whispers, maybe she could bring everything back on track?

As she sank into the cold abyss, the darkness consumed Nara's vision, leaving her with no chance for regret.

The ocean currents pulled her deeper and deeper until she reached the ocean floor. In her final moments, she realized that none of it mattered anymore. The survival of the Whispers, or punishing the traitors—they were all irrelevant now. All she wanted was to return to Rustport, to the Whispers, and to Sonja's side, where those warm hands could once again comfort her icy soul.

4. "O slumbering assassin. Thou whose nature shy not from killing or plundering, shall be reborn. Serve me, and I will grant thee immortality."

After what felt like an eternity, a low whisper echoing through the deep sea stirred Nara's dormant, icy soul. She was surrounded by a hollow darkness, submerged in the depths for what felt like ages, until the voice infused her with a power that lifted her above the waves.

Penetrating dim light shafts came into her line of sight, and she caught a glimpse of brightness once again.

However, this light was tainted with the color of decay, just like her own rotten body. Her longing to return home had led her to hear the call from the abyss.

Despite knowing that the voice must have malicious designs, she did not hesitate to say yes. For even after spending dozens of days and nights at the bottom of the sea as a corpse, which had left her memories on the verge of shattering, she still remembered that there was someone waiting for her return in a place called Rustport.

As for the cost? That was never a consideration. Nara would gladly give all that she had.

"Go back. Return to where you belong, and embrace the pleasure that death brings you."

As her decayed body ascended from the seabed, her shattered hands regained strength. As she approached the sea surface, sunlight penetrated the dark water and shone on Nara's cold body once again. In a trance, she saw the blurry figure of an old acquaintance reflected on the surface, reaching out a familiar yet strange hand towards her.

Without hesitation, Nara reached out and grasped at that hand.

Yet there was nothing but air.

[riddle-me-ri]

a/n: sooo this is 100% pure self indulgence lmao. As much as I love the main five wholly…I can't help but feel a wee bit more favoritism to Goemon lol. I'm a sucker for the protective and stoic type that can also be silly but tries to be serious most of the time lol. Bonus if he gets shy or flustered around women lol. I understand that canonically speaking Goemon will likely turn away in such a scenario, so there's probably some OOC-ness in that, but I did try to keep him as close to character as possible! Goemon's injuries (and how he obtained them) are based on the ones he gets in Blood Spray because that film broke me and I just really, really, really want to just take care of him and love him and yeah…so hope you enjoy!

Context: You’re the latest member of Lupin's gang. Whenever the gang needed a place to lie low, extra intel, or someone to help patch them up, you were the one they called upon. You always tried to stay ready for whatever they may throw at you…but what happens when the stoic samurai (whom you may have feelings for) of the group comes to your aid after winning a death match and what's to come of your relationship as just more than wounds are exposed.

Content Warning: sensual content (heavy touching, kissing, really soft romantic stuffs), brief mentions of blood and bodily wounds.

Word Count: 3.5 k (oops)

Goemon Ishikawa XIII x F!Reader - Like Real People Do

It was another uneventful evening in your tiny, cozy, humble cabin in the forest not far from the bottom of a gorgeous mountain.

You were going through the motions of making dinner. You always somehow make more portions than necessary, but it left you with enough to keep you fed for the week.

You just never know when the gang may need 6 if they need somewhere to lay low, and they always seem to be hungry.

You have known Lupin and the others for a few years now. You crossed the gang during a heist of your own where both your goals were the same.

And you know what they say about if you can't beat them, join them.

Lupin was thrilled to have another lady ally while Jigen and Goemon weren't too fond of the idea. Fujiko had a mixed reaction between being elated and having a female companion to be envious of having Lupin's attentions possibly deviated from her.

However, after years of consistent aid and comradery to the gang, they slowly came around.

Over the years, it was easy to see how you had a soft spot for the motley crew of thieves. They each had their own personality that either complimented each other or made for amusing banters and creating an abundance of cherished memories.

You could say you've never laughed so hard or genuinely enjoyed yourself as much as when you were with them.

There was always something new but the people stayed the same. You somehow knew what to expect from them while embracing the unexpected from what they got themselves into.

What you didn't expect was a knock on your cabin door. Lupin usually sent a note or called on your burner cell if he or the others were coming.

Your body went rigid. You scanned your surroundings for the nearest pliable weapon. You settled for the cleaver you were using to cut tonight's dinner.

You slowly approached your door when another racket of knocks hit your door.

A deep, strained, but familiar voice called your name through the door. “It's me…”

You furrowed your brows as you slowly lowered your weapon and simultaneously reached for the door handle.

“Goemon?” You turned the door, still tense and ready in case it was some kind of trick, but you knew the samurai's voice anywhere.

Once you opened the door, your kitchen utensil turned weapon fell to the floor with a crashing clatter.

“G-Goemon?”

He was pale. His once warm obsidian irises were bloodshot. The man that would stand tall or sit straight in his neutral meditative pose was limping to the side, slouched over in pain.

There was blood, so much that stained what remained of his trademark traditional clothes. You feared to find out how much of it was his or his enemy's.

He didn't say anything as you flung his arm around your shoulders and got him inside to immediately begin treating him.

You couldn't deny the hurtful pang in your heart at the state Goemon was in.

You're used to the usual stab or gunshot wound, but this was far worse…

Minutes turned into hours as you finally got control of Goemon's bleeding, your heart twisting at just how much blood he possibly lost just getting to you.

You did your best to stitch the deep scar that cut from his right shoulder diagonally to the lower left side of his back.

The slash along his arm was disinfected and tightly bandaged.

The lacerations took priority over the various bruises and minor scabs you also detected…not that there was much you could do for them anyway.

Neither of you spoke a word. The only sound resonating through the living room was the pops and cracks of the ongoing fire.

You didn't want to pry.

Whether it was out of respect for the man that he would tell you in his own time or you were too nervous to find out and feel guilty that you weren't there to help…you weren't sure, possibly both.

“Okay…I've stitched up those wounds as best as I could. Everything's been disinfected and covered up…” You gently patted the covering you put on his back, in some attempt of comfort.

“Thank you…” Goemon grumbled the first sentence he spoke since you allowed him in.

“Don't mention it…that's what I'm here for.”

Goemon hummed in acknowledgment, although it looked like he wanted to say something else.

You bit your lip as a thick silence took over the room.

Whenever heists got hectic or when the gang had to recoup from a setback, you always gravitated towards Goemon.

In all the chaos and mishaps, you could always rely on him to mostly remain calm, and it would rub off on you and allow you to regain control of your nerves.

Goemon, being the bashful man he is when it comes to women, was very cautious and confused as to why you came to him.

When his curiosity got the better of him and he asked you why this is, you said:

“I just…you help me feel safe and calm, I suppose, especially when things sorta get crazy…I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable at all.” You chuckled nervously.

You remember the way your heart fluttered at his sweet smile and the soft reddening of his cheeks before he turned his head away to shield himself from further embarrassment.

“I…I'm glad I can do that for you…” He responded shyly, still not fully facing you.

His smile widened when he heard your giggle.

From then on, Goemon slowly got more accustomed to your close proximity.

Secretly relishing in the fact you trusted your wellbeing with him despite who he is and what he's done.

You hoped that in some way with Goemon being here and now on the road to healing from his wounds, you're returning the favor by offering a safe space for him.

You got up from resting on your knees behind his back and walked around him to face him.

Goemon was in his usual position, legs criss-crossed, arms crossed, and his eyes closed.

That is until his eyes creaked open to look at you as he felt your presence move around him.

“I-is there anything else you need?” You asked as you tried to focus your eyes on his and not his fully exposed, now bandaged torso.

Goemon closed his eyes as if in thought. He opened his eyes once more and looked at you.

“May I stay? Just for a few days…”

His eyes somehow looked more tired than before, and the slight bags under them seemed heavier…

“Of course…stay as long as you need.”

~~~~~

Goemon seemed to silently accept your offer of staying as long as he needed. Seeing as how way more than “a few days” have passed and he was still here with you.

Not that you were complaining, you enjoyed his presence, and you were able to keep tabs on his recovery.

Plus, maybe just maybe this could be your chance to get closer to the samurai and not worry about being interrupted by the others.

It had been almost a week when Goemon finally opened up to you about how he ended up in the condition he did.

You tried your best to hide the guilt that slowly crept up inside.

The last you heard from anyone in the gang was Lupin and Jigen targeting a cruise with a full casino and only knew that it would likely port where you reside now.

There was no way for you to know how everyone's paths would cross, how the objectives changed, and how the events would play out.

Goemon didn't ignore the crestfallen look on your face as your head fell at the end of his tale with him arriving at your temporary home.

Your eyes widened at the soft, feathery touch that landed on the bottom of your chin.

Goemon gently lifted your head up to face him, his hand quickly falling away from your skin as his eyes met yours.

“There's nothing you could have done before any of those events…you couldn't stop or help me…but in the end…the very end you were here when I needed you the most…and for that, I'm grateful.”

“I-I know it's just…” You sniffled, trying and failing to keep your tears at bay.

It's hard to hear how someone you cared about felt so defeated that he trained himself nearly to death just to almost die by his enemy he swore to defeat and come out victorious but deeply wounded.

Goemon shuffled in his trademark sitting position. He can't recall a time when he's seen you get upset. He instantly determined he didn't like seeing you cry.

You began hastily wiping the tiny tears at the corners of your eyes on your sleeve. “T-thank you for telling me…I'm so glad you came and that you're here now, Goemon.”

He nodded firmly with a warm hum.

As night fell and you wrapped up cleaning the dishes from that night's meal, you settled behind the samurai to do a nightly check-in on his wounds.

You pray he doesn't notice your fingers resting longer than necessary along the scar currently rising against his skin across his back. The lingering caresses, a faux test for any pain or tenderness to the healing wound.

Each opportunity to touch his bare skin for originally medicinal purposes has now turned into tiny indulgences…

It’s not often Goemon is openly vulnerable or trusting to many others, but you swelled up with the fact that he seemed to trust you.

You wish you could just wrap your arms around him, hold his hand, run your fingers through his hair, kiss him…love him fully and openly…

Goemon glanced at you over his shoulder. He softly whispered your name, noticing your far away eyes.

“Hm?” You looked up and were surprised to see Goemon looking at you. “Oh, uh…sorry, I got lost in thought…”

You quickly stood up and took a gander around the room. You tried and failed to find anything to occupy your mind away from the colleague, currently half naked, sitting on your living room floor.

“Is there something wrong?” Goemon asked, looking up at you.

You broke from your reverie when you realized what your actions may have unintentionally told him.

“No, not at all. Everything's fine,” You found some composure to sit across from him again on the floor.

“Your wounds are healing nicely, and there's no signs of an infect-”

“That is not what I meant..” Goemon, cut off your sentence.

“O-oh…still there's nothing wrong…nothing for you to worry about..”

“If it troubles you, I worry.” Goemon said, as he pulled up the top of his kimono over his shoulders.

Such a profound statement, yet he said it so casually as if he was discussing the weather.

You could feel your heart beat rapidly against your ribcage. Your eyes shifted around as if you could find the answer in the various cuts and dents in the wooden floorboards.

Goemon called your name once more.

You looked to him immediately, obediently.

“If you wish not to discuss it…I understand, but I would appreciate it if you did. Perhaps I could be of help.”

You couldn’t help but chuckle softly. How could he possibly help when he’s the reason for this dilemma in the first place.

You closed your eyes as you sighed, as if in defeat.

You lowered yourself onto your knees as you rested on your haunches in front of him.

His eyes seemed to soften as he gave you a small contented smile, hoping this was you finally opening up to him as he has to you.

“I’m…not sure where to start…” you whispered dumbfounded to where to begin.

From the very start or when he first walked through your door? When you first felt butterflies around him or how you weren’t ready to let him leave you, which you knew was inevitable?

You stared down at your hands, and one hand cupped the other as your fingers linked and unlinked from each other. You never felt so helpless and over something so…juvenile as having feelings over someone you have now known for years.

Were you ready to risk that partnership? You may not be able to work with Lupin and the others if this confession goes downhill. The last thing you want is to put anyone in any awkward positions.

Another pair of hands reach out and cradle your own. Somehow, it felt like you finally ascended from the vastest depths of the ocean.

You followed the hands, up to the arms, up to the handsome face of Goemon. He seemed somewhat unsure, with a slightly crooked smile and side shrug. Yet his eyes seemed certain and adamant as his pupils never darted away from yours.

“I…I don’t want you to go…” You admitted with the relieving breath you released. “I enjoyed having you here with me…just the two of us…and I can’t say I won’t worry about you when you’re gone, not that I never did before but…I just want to be with you. I’ve wanted to be with you for a long time now…” You glanced down at your hands as they switched out from under his grasp to replace with your own before squeezing his hands in earnest.

You kept your head down, somewhat worried you would lose your nerve otherwise. “I've tried to ignore it…tried to suppress it. Knowing the life we live, there's really no room for…romance at least not the fleeting, giving and taking kind…and you deserve better than that.”

Goemon softly shook his head in disagreement, but he let you continue.

“And I don't ever want to be in the way of your training, your journey. I don’t want to hold you back…but since you came to me…I've just tried to enjoy the time I had with you alone while I could…”

You looked back up with a sad side grin. “Pretty selfish of me…huh?”

This time, you noticed Goemon shake his head. “If anyone is selfish, it's me. I could have left at any time, but I chose not to. I, too, wanted to stay with you longer.”

“Why?”

Goemon's eyes shifted from side to side as his cheeks flushed. “I was hoping it would be obvious…”

He slid his hands out from yours but quickly interlocked his fingers with yours, finally properly holding each other's hands.

“I also long to be with you. Dare I say, for the amusement being with Lupin and the others has given me, in addition to the occasional disdain-”

This comment made you giggle.

“-You somehow always brought peace. I could rely on you for moments of solace even in the more tense of situations…”

“You're thoughtful and compassionate especially towards me and to…not expect something from me in return…”

“I never wanted anything from you, I just…”

Goemon's thumb softly caressed your own. “I know…”

Your heart swelled, but instead of anxiety inflating it, it was the pure adoration you had for the samurai. The adoration you have tried to keep on a leash and hoped for the longest time it would fade, but now it’s present and prospering with each second you were with him.

There was a beat of comfortable silence as you both enjoyed the feeling of your hands joined in the other, like they were always meant to be held.

But you wanted more. To be vastly closer to him than you were now.

You knew how bashful he was, so you had to tread carefully to not make him uncomfortable.

You tested how far you could go by slowly scooching over to where you sat beside him.

While Goemon’s cheeks began flushing to a stronger red, he didn’t scamper away but sat still, anticipating your next move or possibly planning his own.

“Is this okay?” You asked in a tone barely above a whisper before softly resting your chin on his shoulder, looking up at him for any signs of discomfort.

You could not help the small giggle you let out at seeing how coy Goemon had become.

“Yes.” He replied timidly.

His confirmation gave you the courage to continue. You linked your left arm with his arm while your other reached out to touch his pecs that were exposed from under his kimono.

Your heart fluttered as it felt his own kick into a higher rhythm.

Goemon's eyes never left your face as he watched you follow the slow trail up his skin your hand was making.

You felt the bit of air he inhaled softly as your hand finally made it to the side of his face.

His side smile and hooded eyes encouraged you further as your thumb gently rubbed tiny circles along his heated cheeks.

Your eyes darted at his lips before glancing up to his heated, loving gaze.

You managed to get this far. It would be pointless to go back now.

As you leaned your face closer to Goemon's, you didn't fail to notice you didn't have to nudge his face with your hand as he seemed to follow your lead.

When your sweet lips met his earnest ones, a warmth flooded over your body. A kiss so sweet and gentle, much like the man you kissed.

You slowly albeit reluctantly pulled retracted your lips from his. You snickered at the bewildered look on his face.

“Goemon?” You asked, concerned you may have broken the samurai.

He blinked a few times before he turned his eyes back to you.

“You all right?” You lifted an eyebrow incredulously.

Goemon brought up his other hand and grabbed your hand that resided on his face as he gave it a squeeze.

Although all he could do was nod, it was enough reassurance to drive you to kiss his cheeks.

“You will be the death of me…” He muttered as he closed his eyes to try and fight another onslaught of blushes.

You giggled. “But what a way to go, hm?”

He tsked as he shook his head in disbelief but still smiled endearingly at you as he rested his forehead against yours with his eyes still closed.

You two stayed this way for some time. Just soaking in the warmth and close presence of the other.

Eventually, Goemon wrapped his arm around your waist in an attempt to pull you closer, and you felt like you could melt into him.

You occasionally kissed a part of Goemon's face, and he'd temporarily try and defy how flustered he got with you giggling at his attempts.

You two also shared many more kisses, each one slowly getting longer as Goemon started feeling more confident in the gesture.

Soon, you two fell asleep on the futon Goemon had been sleeping in since his stay in your cabin. His head nestled gently above your own as you lulled yourself asleep to the sound of his heartbeat.

You heard a buzzing noise coming from a side table in the living room. You groaned, not wanting to move from your newly claimed spot in Goemon's arms.

Goemon must have also heard it as he slowly removed his arms to allow you to retrieve it.

“I'm gonna kill whoever that was…”

Goemon chuckled. He didn't doubt it.

You got your phone and were even more upset. It was just a stupid text message and not even a call.

When you opened the message, your face turned from annoyed to amused.

“Who is it, love?” Goemon inquired, voice still busy with sleep.

Your heart skipped a beat at the pet name that was going to take some getting used to.

“Who else…Lupin and his exquisite timing..”

“What does he want?”

“To meet him at a hide out in New York ASAP…” You pinched the bridge of your nose.

You typed a short response and then turned your phone on silent and placed it back down on the table.

“We'll worry about it tomorrow.” You declared. “But for now, I wanna keep you for myself some more.” You wrapped your arms around Goemon as you pulled him close and nestled your head back under his.

Goemon hummed softly in agreement as his arms copied yours and wrapped around you as well.

“Fine by me…” He quickly kissed the top of your head.

You smiled contentedly as you slowly fell back to sleep, silently hoping that you wouldn't cruelly wake up to this all being a dream.

Yet with strong arms holding you and a steady heartbeat in your ears, you knew that this was love and it was all real and all yours.

—--

LIII: Oi! Don't hold out on me! How'd it go? I tried to give you time to finally admit your feelings to Goemon-chan, did you do it? Huh? Oh well, don't say I never did anything for ya! Anyway I need my cool samurai back~ so if you could send him my way in proper condition, I'd appreciate it 👍 See ya soon~

[kingdomkeykitsune]

KHOC WEEK DAY 3: CONNECTION

Okay, so, I only had time to fully finish one of today's art pieces for @khoc-week (and of course I chose the moody one) I might update later with the finished version of the other one, we'll have to see lol. Anyway! While she's friendly with most people there are a few connections C.E. has that really stand out, but I'm putting it all under a cut because this one's a bit long.

Luka (left) and Nao (right).

Relationship Theme: Here's to Never Growing Up by Avril Lavigne

Having known each other most of their lives these three are practically inseparable. Together they make up a group called the Twilight Guardians. Most people thing it's just the name of their skate group (Luka and C.E. skateboard, Nao rollerskates) and/or their garage band (C.E. plays bass, Luka plays guitar/keyboard, Nao drums, and Luka and C.E. both do vocals) but in actuality they call themselves that because they make up the newest incarnation of the Twilight Town protectors. Each unknowingly descended from the original protectors and their families, they unlocked their abilities to fight Creatures of Darkness when they were attacked by Heartless while exploring the Mansion in the Woods sometime prior to DiZ setting up camp there. Because this was such a formative experience for them all they decided to make the winged unicorns that show up all around the mansion their group symbol.

A little info on their abilities:

Luka is a magic user and healer, he can summon a staff weapon that doubles as a melee weapon in a tight spot and can use a few types of elemental magic, namely air and fire, in addition to having strong healing magic.

Nao is a little gremlin of a tank who can summon a giant hammer weapon. She can also technically use earth/stone magic, but she often forgoes it in favor of a brute force approach.

C.E. covers ranged combat, she can summon a revolver that fires magic projectiles. These projectiles are basically concentrated light magic, the upside to this is that she doesn't need to take time to physically reload, the downside is that how many rounds she can fire is linked directly to her MP, meaning if she doesn't take care it's easy for her to drain her reserves and end up in a bad spot.

Like I said, these three are thick as thieves and the very best of friends. Of course, not every relationship is so smooth.

Seifer

Relationship Theme: Not Another Song About Love by Hollywood Ending

It's been said that no one knows how to drive you crazy quite like the ones who know you best, and these two are a perfect example of that. Having grown up as next door neighbors in the same apartment block they've known each other since they were in diapers, and generally tend to get along about as well as the proverbial cats and dogs. They bicker about anything and everything, often to the point their respective friends will wander off together to hang out until they burn themselves out.

And yet... They find themselves drawn back together again and again. No one knows them the way they know each other, Seifer knows about the shelves full of photo albums and scrapbooks C.E. keeps in her room, C.E. knows about the movie that Seifer watches over and over even though he knows the script by heart. They know just what to say to set the other off like a fireworks show, and where they hide when they get lost in their head. If one is in real trouble the other is the first one to come running and when everything is just too much they know they can count on each other for a shoulder to lean on, no words needed. And somewhere along the way childish rivalry began to grow into something more, something deeper.

Not that either one is quite ready to admit it.

Bonus points if anyone can figure out what any of the blurred posters in the background are. Hint: They're all Covers/Official Art for Square games (They're also all things that have influenced the developement of C.E.'s character, but I doubt anyone but me can draw those connections lol)

[bingerzone]

Hey!! So about the OCs in your most recent art post, what’s going on there? I see a lot of drama there and i would love to know more 👀

I love you for asking this. Insane amount of lore under the cut. I'll also be adding the art I've already done when I talk about that part of the story! Btw fair warning this Yaoi sure can toxic!!! (Some light cnc and sex is mentioned)

So, firstly, I'll explain who these ocs are :)

So, this is Dios Apate- he is a hexblood who, after running away from his mother at 14, was raised by a thieves guild known as The Veil- mostly by it's leader, Erwin Mourningmoon. He's a cocky, flirtatious conman who probably? Maybe? Has a heart of gold under all of his greed, but with him actively trying to hide any hint of goodness in him, who's to say?

(^Art by @kiwibyrd ) Ok, next up,

Dante is the son of Erwin Mourningmoon, Heir to The Veil and Dios's childhood friend. They were trained side by side by Erwin, who, much to Dante's chagrin, treated Dios like a second son (Although they never saw each other as anything even close to brothers- in fact, Dios had a crush on Dante from a young age). One day, Dante overheard his father and a higher-up in the guild discussing which of Erwin's "sons" would inherit the guild- and the moment Dios's name left his father's mouth Dante ran off, not listening to the rest of the conversation... So, Dante planned to have Dios arrested by tipping off the guards where the next place he would be robbing was. That... didn't quite go as planned. The guards decided one dirty street kid wasn't worth the trouble, and decided to just kill Dios outright. However, Erwin, who had a bad feeling about the job, had been tailing Dios, and jumped to his rescue- only to fall after taking down well over a dozen guards. Dios believed he was caught because of his own stupidity- and therefor, that Erwin's death was his fault... so he ran. However, in The Veil, when you fuck up, there is a way to atone. A gift is traditional- but it must be as valuable as the mistake you made. So, Dios set off to be the richest man the city had ever seen, hoping to give everything he had to Dante- the new leader of The Veil- and beg for forgiveness for causing the death of his father. Dios finds himself in a new land- a new continent altogether, about to start the pre-written adventure Call of the Netherdeep (We haven't started yet, we gotta finish Strahd, so to stave off my brainrot I have been just talking about possible things that could happen with my partners- after this point none of it has actually happened yet, and might not happen at all, but I consider it a type of canon, even if it won't be canon to the main timeline) So, that's when Dios meets Harlow

Harlow Goldbriar belongs to my boyfriend @aberranteidolon ! He is an Earth Genasi paladin who has a stick so far up his ass that you can see it when he talks. Harlow is a walking weapon, and is treated like nothing but a tool by his peers and family. He is serious and convicted, which makes him the perfect toy for Dios to play with. And, even better, he's married! (Little does Dios know it's a loveless, abusive marriage- his wife married him only for the precious little gem in his chest. She has plenty of jewelry made from his amethyst heart). Still, Dios has zoned in on this man and is dead set on fucking him and ruining his marriage, for fun. Dios is a little shit. They get into many, many arguments and physical altercations, and whether they admit it or not, getting each other bloody and panting is the most they've ever enjoyed themselves. And yet, when he finally see's Harlow's heart for one reason or another (probably in a 'only one bed' situation lets be real) he realizes two things. 1. Inside of Harlow is the biggest gem he's ever seen, and not only is it huge, it's laced with magic. This alone could pay off his debt to Dante, and 2. He can't do it. Harlow is asleep beside him, and his fingers are wrapped around the sharp stone- it would be easy, just one tug and it was his and Harlow would be gone. But he can see the way Harlow's chest is rising and lowering in his sleep, and the way his expression is so soft, so serene... and he lets it go, deciding to make his fortune in other ways.

They grow increasingly obsessed with each other, and just closer in general. Dios starts sneaking copies of Harlow's favorite book series (trashy vampire romance, of course) into his bags while he's away. Dios's flirting starts to really get to Harlow, and he can tell there's something... wrong. He's actually considering cheating on his rich, powerful wife with this sneaky little thief... all because it's the first time he's ever felt loved.

After weeks of adventuring together, the tension FINALLY snaps and they fuck. We have many, many ideas for how their first time would go, but my personal favorites are "A fight gets so sexually charged that Harlow just starts fucking him" and "Dios says it's not cheating on his wife if Harlow doesn't consent and fucks Harlow while Harlow half-heartedly goes 'wait, dios, no, please' and makes absolutely no move to stop him".

The second one is extra fun because if Harlow wanted to he could easily toss Dios across the room, and has before. From there, it goes from sexual tension to romantic tension...

And then, Dante enters the picture again. We don't know why yet or how it will go down, just that we will have the ability to have him in our party at some point. So, of course, Harlow and Dante don't get along at ALL. Harlow is jealous of how sweet Dios is around Dante, and of how close they are/how long they have known each other, and Dante is jealous of how head-over-heels Dios is for Harlow and how Harlow has actually had sex with him. Dios has been in love with Dante since they were kids of course, but he is also deeply in love with Harlow at this point and terrified of it. It leads to some fun possessiveness and probably some rockin "I bet I could pleasure him better than you" sex that Dios gets stuck in the middle of :3

Eventually, though, they all start to get closer. Still- Harlow confesses to Dios first. Dios is the first person to ever treat him like... a person. The first person to be upset on his behalf, the first person to learn about his interests, the first person to hold him softly and treat him with reverence, like he was fragile... It sort of breaks something in Dios to hear the confession, so he completely reverts to his old self and laughs in his face, "Love me? You don't even know me! I... I can't believe you fell for my loverboy act, are you an idiot? I... I could never fall for... I would never..." And he just runs off, and Harlow is left alone. Dante tells him to chase him- and Harlow does- he finds Dios hiding, nearly sobbing in a closet, and he holds him. He holds Dios tighter than he's ever held him, and Dios scratches and bites and says awful things to try and get away, but Harlow doesn't let him. He holds him and takes every bit of it until Dios calms down, telling him over and over again that he loves him and that he's not going to let him run off so easily... and once Dios's body is exhausted from thrashing and his voice raw from yelling, he says "I love you too."

And, this part is far less developed, but eventually Dante and Dios get together romantically as well, and it becomes a hinge polycule... Dante starts off a shitty little asshole- he's always treated Dios like his property, and he didn't start getting better until he realized if he didn't start treating Dios well, someone else would. He does love Dios- I think he has for a while- but that doesn't mean he respects him as an equal. On his adventure, Dios gains a lot of self confidence and the ability to stand up to Dante, which scares Dante to death. He has to learn to respect Dios, or lose him forever, and he mostly does the former, eventually. Because Harlow puts the fear of god in him lmao. I have no idea what would happen if Harlow found out that Dante is the reason that Erwin died, and was the reason Dios almost died... but the drama would be fucking INTENSE. If Dios found out (which he probably would) He would attack Dante, using only his fists, no daggers or rapiers, and Dante would take every hit while Dios dissolves into a sobbing mess above him. I love the idea of Dios's voice cracking "I... Dante I loved you..." and him responding through busted lips, "I love you too."

That's a lot of it, but far from all of it, so if you have any more questions or want more info on certain parts, PLEASE ask, I LOVE talking about them so fucking much!!!!!!! And here's the TLDR (An old thing I made honestly before they were very developed at all:)