#the beam attack can be metaphorical

[clottedscream]

my ideal wlw ship dynamic is a mythologically beautiful girlboss, possibly with claws and/or fangs, who can probably kill you with lightning or breathe fire or obliterate you with some sort of beam attack. and her autistic girlboyfriend from iowa who’s working her way through a computer science degree

[ryin-silverfish]

Nezha's Power Catalog: FSYY

Well, since @journeytothewestresearch has pinged me and @ruibaozha in an ask way back when, we are doing a catalog of Nezha's powers together. I'll be taking the FSYY part.

Google Doc Version

...

Disclaimer: I'm not counting powers from his treasures, such as the Wind-Fire Wheels giving him super speed and allowing him to take flight. 

I'm also excluding the invisibility talisman Taiyi drew on him in Chapter 12, since, unlike his Three-headed Eight-Armed Form, it's not a skill or permanent alteration.

...

Pre-resurrection:

Advanced physical maturity - I don't know what to call “A newborn baby being able to jump and run around right after emerging from a ball of flesh”, but this is probably it. (Chapter 12)

Unusual height - 6ft tall 7 years old kid, though this might just be a result of FSYY's weird sense of scale. (Chapter 12)

Super strength - A 7 years old kid killing Li Gen the Yaksha with a Qiankun Ring to the head likely counts as super strength. In Ao Bing's case, he drags him off the steed with the Huntian Sash first before the bonking. (Chapter 12)

Still, his later beatdown of Ao Guang and being able to draw the Qiankun Bow no one else could lift? Yeah, definitely super strength. (Chapter 13)

Five Elements Travel: Earth - After Ao Guang storms off to make a complaint to JE, Nezha uses Earth Travel to go to Taiyi's abode and ask for help. It's activated by grabbing a handful of dirt and tossing it into the air. (Chapter 12)

Travel to the Celestial Realm - After Taiyi puts an invisibility talisman on him, he goes to wait for Ao Guang under the Celestial Realm's gates. (Chapter 12)

Dream Communication - Talking to Lady Yin in her dream after his suicide. (Chapter 14)

A generic ghost power, as shown by later instances of Wen Zhong and Yin Jiao's souls warning King Zhou in his dreams, before they go into the Terrace of Investiture. (Chapter 52, Chapter 66) 

Efficiency at granting prayers - After Lady Yin builds a temple for him, he is said to be able to fulfill all the wishes of his worshippers, from granting blessings to warding off disasters.  (Chapter 14)

Materialization - After Li Jing's destruction of his temple, Nezha goes to protest to Taiyi, and the narration says that “After receiving incense and worship for half a year, Nezha is able to take a form and voice himself to some extent.” (哪吒受了半年香烟，已觉有些形声)

It is implied here that ghosts can become corporeal again via people's worship, though, from the looks of it, Nezha has only become visible and audible, and doesn't have a physical body yet at the point of the temple's destruction. (Chapter 14)

Post-Resurrection:

Unusual height (Again) - He grows from 6ft to “1 Zhang 6 Chi” after his resurrection, which is about 15-18 ft. (Chapter 14)

Spear arts - Taught by Taiyi. (Chapter 14)

Samadhi Fire - When Wenshu ties him to the Flying Dragon Pillar and orders Jinzha to whip him, he is described as “blowing out Samadhi Fire from his seven orifices” (打的三昧真火七窍齐喷). This may or may not be metaphorical. (Chapter 14)

It must also be noted that FSYY's Samadhi Fire is not the Red Boy-exclusive special attack of JTTW, and multiple Daoists from both Chan and Jie Sects are able to use it.

The best example is when Nezha and his brothers, Lei Zhenzi, Huang Tianhua, and Weihu try to burn Ma Shan with the Samadhi Fire on Jiang Ziya's orders, which doesn't work because he's a lampwick spirit, who proceeds to escape through the flames. (Chapter 63)

Lotus Body: Immunity to soul-based attacks - In Chapter 37, the narration then explains that all beings of flesh and blood possess the Three Souls and Seven Spirits, and Zhang Guifang's spell works by forcefully scattering them. 

Nezha, because of his lotus body, does not have souls, thus granting him immunity to the attack. 

This will become a recurrent thing. Here's a list of all the soul-based treasures and spells that fail against Nezha:

Zhang Guifang's Unhorsing Spell (Chapter 37)

Zheng Lun's nose beams (Chapter 57)

Chijing Zi/Yin Hong's Yin-Yang Mirror (Chapter 60)

Guangcheng Zi/Yin Jiao's Soulfell Bell (Chapter 65)

Qiu Yin's Red Pearl (Chapter 74)

Fa Jie's banner (Chapter 79)

Long Anji's Paralyzing Ring (Chapter 79)

Bian Ji's Spectral White Bone Banner (Chapter 84)

And here's a collection of his sassy responses: 

“Bastard, I'm staying on these wheels and you ain't calling me off them!” (Against Zhang Guifang)

“Dude, are you sick or something, blowing your nose at me like that?” (Against Zheng Lun)

“Idiot, it's just a red orb. What's so special about it, huh?” (When Qiu Yin tells him to take a look at the pearl)

“Your ring sucks, check out mine!” (To Long Anji, right before bonking him with the Qiankun Ring and killing him)

Lotus Body: Resistance to physical attacks - Spells can't knock Nezha off his wheels, but weapons like Yang Sen's Sky-opening Pearl, Wen Zhong and Zhao Gongming's whips, and Guangcheng Zi/Yin Jiao's Heaven-turning Sealstone can. (Chapter 38, Chapter 42, Chapter 47, Chapter 63)

However, he doesn't seem to suffer any lasting injuries afterwards. The only non-magical/poisonous injury that sticks for a while is some bruises, from getting hit in the face by Deng Chanyu's Five Light Stones. (Chapter 53)

Lotus Body: Immunity to diseases - When Lv Yue puts his plague pills into Xi Qi's water supply, the entire city falls victim to the sorcerous plague, save for Nezha and Yang Jian, because of the former's lotus body and the latter's Ninefold Mystic Arts. (Chapter 58)

Later, Yu Hualong's five sons create five bushels of poisonous poxes, which are spilled all over the Zhou camp from the air, giving everyone magical, five-colored smallpox.

Once again, Nezha is immune, and Yang Jian, knowing that the Yu brothers are up to something, gets the hell out of dodge before the pox spell is unleashed. Cue Nezha complaining of them “Pulling a Lv Yue again”. (Chapter 81)

Immunity to the Soul-Killing Banner (戮魂旛) - The treasure in question belongs to Yu Hua: when raised, it unleashes/turns into multiple streams of black smoke that covers the victim and whisks them away. (Chapter 32)

Subsequently, he tries to use it against Nezha, but Nezha just grabs the smokes, seizes the treasure, and stuffs it into his Leopard Skin Sack. This may or may not fall under the umbrella of “Immunity to Soul-based Attacks”. (Chapter 33)

Counterspell: Pearl Attack - Feng Lin can blow a cloud of smoke out of his mouth, which contains a bowl-sized red pearl that functions as a projectile weapon. Nezha just points his finger at the smoke, and it fizzles out. (Chapter 36)

Supernatural endurance: Red Sand Formation - One of the Ten Formations, it contains three bushels of red sand, which can create a giant sandstorm that reduces any humans and immortals who enter the formation to powder. (Chapter 44)

Nezha and Lei Zhenzi are assigned to protect King Wu, the only person who can break the formation…because Fate Says So, but is also Fated to get trapped in there for 100 days. So naturally, Nezha and Lei Zhenzi get stuck in there alongside him. (Chapter 49) 

When Old Man of the South Pole breaks the formation, Nezha and Lei Zhenzi are fine, but King Wu is already dead and has to be resurrected via a magical pill. (Chapter 51)

I'm not putting this under Resistance to Physical Attacks because, unlike the weapons, I'm unsure as to whether the red sand is magical in nature.

Resistance to poison: Blood-melting Knife (化血神刀) - Limited, since Nezha is still severely injured and incapacitated by Yu Hua's new treasure (made by his master Yu Yuan). However, for mortals, a wound from the knife is pretty much an insta-kill. (Chapter 74)

Three-headed, Eight-Armed Form - After Nezha is injured by Yu Hua's knife, he's taken back to Taiyi's abode to recover. When he's ready to leave, Taiyi offers him three cups of wine and three “fire jujubes”, which gives him his iconic multi-headed and armed transformation.

Unlike in JTTW, FSYY's Nezha has 8 arms instead of 6. Presumably, the 2 extra ones are used to wield the Yin-Yang Swords, the pair of weapons Taiyi gives to him alongside the Nine Fire Dragon Bell Cover…which never get used afterwards.

Upon switching to the multi-headed and limbed form, his appearance also changes into a blue-faced, red-haired, fanged monstrosity, which is not too dissimilar to the fierce guardian deities of esoteric Buddhism. (Chapter 76, Chapter 79)

Also, amusing reaction to his new transformation: “Dangit master, how am I supposed to use all these arms? They are like ugly branches on a tree.” (Chapter 76)

Sagehood in Flesh (肉身成圣) - Nezha is said to attain the status post-war, alongside his brothers, Li Jing, Lei Zhenzi, Wei Hu, and Yang Jian. 

Basically, immortality and godhood, but it doesn't require you to die in Ancient China's Bloodiest Bureaucracy Recruitment Program first. (Chapter 100)

[z-nightshade]

Possible Devil Fruit Ideas

I currently have a list of possible Devil Fruit ideas for Cass from my fic An Oracle's Odyssey. Not all of them are completely fleshed out yet and are still subject to tweaking and me figuring out the details, I'd just like to know your opinions on them. Feel free to ask if you have any questions. (If you see an N/A, it just means I haven't figured that part out yet)

Fruit 1

Kibo Kibo no Mi (Scale Scale Fruit)

Type: Paramecia

Abilities: Grants the user the ability to increase or decrease the scale of something exponentially. This can be physical (size, amount/# of things, ect) or metaphorical (force, strength, speed, ect). Only works on the user and objects, not other people

Awakening: N/A

Pros

Would allow Cass to increase the their physical stats for as long as they have the energy to hold their fruit powers

Giant Cass

Pocket sized Cass

Enables Cass’s hoarding tendencies

Cass can be that one meme where one person pulls out an absurd amount of weapons

I can give Cass a giant war hammer and a giant battle ax which I would have to forgo with any other fruit because they’re too big to carry around

The one I can be the most creative with

Fruit 2

Oto Oto no Mi (Sound Sound Fruit)

Type: Logia

Abilities: The ability to become, generate and manipulate sound waves. Grants user control over all sound they create

Awakening: Grants user control over all sound waves

Pros

Ties thematically with Cass’s connection to sound

Ties back to Apollo/the sun god because sound and music (this does include Nika as well bc drums)

Allows Cass to become intangible

Sonic screeches

Sonic vibrations could be used to replicate Whitebeard’s fruit

Very difficult to block sound based attacks (probably the most outright deadly if used properly)

Could use sound waves to break things apart on a molecular level

I actually know what I want the awakening to be

Voice mimicry

Fruit 3

Type: Mythical Zoan

Abilities: Grants the user the ability to turn into the goddess Artemis and tap into her abilities and domains

Nature: Nature is inclined to help & listen to the user

Hunting: Increased physical abilities & aim as well as other hunting abilities

The Moon: Moon beams

Half Form: N/A

Full Form: N/A

Awakening: N/A

Pros

Mood goddess first mate and sun god captain

Ties into nature and the Voice of All Things

Artemis is the twin of Apollo, the greek sun god

Artemis is the goddess of archery and Cass uses ranged weapons

Fruit 4

Hito Hito no Mi Model Hecate (Human Human Fruit Model Hecate)

Type: Mythical Zoan

Abilities: Grants the user the ability to turn into the goddess Hecate and tap into her abilities and domains

Magic/Witchcraft: The ability to practice Greek witchcraft (spells, potions, herbs, runes)

The Night: Nightvision, possible minor control over darkness

Ghosts/Necromancy: Abilities to see and talk to the spirits of the dead

Crossroads: N/A

Half Form: N/A

Full Form: N/A

Awakening: N/A

Pros

One of the most thematically tied to Cass (Greek Mythology, crossroads and decisions, death)

Hecate is also tied to the moon even if she isn't the mood goddess like Artemis

One of Hecate’s symbols is the torch, tying into their connection with Ace

Strong ties to the underworld and death, with Hecate being one of the few deities who can easily travel between realms

Was a titan who helped the gods when over throwing the titans (relevant but the reason is a spoiler)

Called the three headed goddess represent the maiden, the mother and the crone but also the past, present and future

Witch Cass (requires prep work and Cass to make their own spells and magic system)

Fruit 5

Shika Shika no Mi Model Qilin (Deer Deer Fruit Model Qilin)

Type: Mythical Zoan

Abilities: Grants the user the ability to turn into a Qilin and use it’s abilities

Fire breathing

Prophecy

Flight

Shapeshifting

Half Form: The horns & scales of a Qilin, also hovees & horse like legs and tail

Full Form: Fully transforms into a Qilin (“a deer's body, ox's tail, most frequently cloven hooves, a dragon's head, and scales, sometimes with flames emanating from the body.” description from worldhistory.org)

Awakening: N/A

Pros

Ties most closely into Cass’s Oracle shtick as Qilin’s are associated with prophecy, insight and wisdom like Oracles

I actually have ideas regarding the transformations that would take place

A Qilin’s birth is tied to the birth or death of a sage (Cass dying and being reborn)

Qilins are also known to transport souls

The most distinct transformation of all the Zoan ideas and also the most fun

The chimera esque appearance of a Qilin (important and thematically tied but the reason is a spoiler)

Luffy is based on Sun Wukong who also hails from Chinese mythology like the Qilins

As of right now, any of these fruits are possibilities. Cass never getting a Devil Fruit is also an option. I’d love to hear your opinions. Some other miscellaneous notes, I’m a bit on the fence on the idea of Cass being a Zoan. They’re already an Oracle which is a mythological classification on its own. That’s not to say they can’t be both but it’s something I think about. Also, awakenings. If I were to give them a Devil Fruit, I’d want to have them awaken it before the story finishes so I’d love to hear any ideas you have for it

[hedgehogsaretheultimatelifeform]

Kinktober 2024 Day Twenty Nine

Stuck in a Wall

Kyle "Gaz" Garrick/Captain John Price/John "Soap" MacTavish

“What the hell…?” Gaz shoved the door to Price’s room open, stopping with his mouth open as he saw what had caused the shuddering crash he’d heard a moment ago. The wall between Soap and Price’s room had partially collapsed, letting Soap poke his face through the hole above where the two struts had fallen, now crossed over each other rather than standing upright, like they were meant to.

“Hey, Gaz!” Soap’s face brightened even more than it already was when he saw Gaz’s concerned face, beckoning for him to go further into Price’s room. “Come check it out.”

“What happened?” Gaz stepped into the room, studying the randomly decayed architecture closer. “Where’s…”

The questions died on his lips as he saw where Price was. The captain was wedged inside the mysteriously collapsed wall, pinned down by the two crossing struts, propped up on the remains of the wall below him, with his ass and legs face Gaz as he squirmed, struggling to get a solid standing on the floor below him.

“Great, isn’t it?” Soap rested his hand on one of the metal beams as he grinned.

Gaz nodded his head slowly. Something, fuck knows what, had happened, and it had made this specific piece of wall, and only this specific piece of wall collapse; and of course, it had coincidentally just happened to pin Price down underneath them, leaving him… vulnerable to attack, if Gaz could speak metaphorically. He shook his head, done worrying about the details as he walked up to stand behind the captain’s ass. “You’re not hurt, are you John?”

“No.” Price’s grumpy reply came from the other side of the wall. “I’m just stuck in a bloody wall.”

“It’s kind of like a bad porn set up.” Soap stood up on his tiptoes, bracing against the struts as he peered down to get a view of Price’s shaking ass.

“What do you mean, kinda like? It’s exactly a bad porn set up.”

“Well, yeah.” Soap stood back, tapping his fingers against the metal. “But, it’s not like we’re actually going to do that.”

“The hell, we’re not.” Gaz leaned up on the wall himself, poking his head through into Soap’s room to get a look at Price’s head as he craned it up, ready to protest. “You want the front or the back?”

“Oi. Are either of you going to ask what I think about it?”

“We have eyes, Cap. You’re into it.” Gaz rocked back on his heels, dropping into a crouch as he pushed his hand in between Price’s legs and palming his erection through his trousers.

“Oh, he’s not hard, is he?” Soap’s head reappeared at his hole, fingers scrabbling at the decaying plaster as he looked down. “Can I see?”

“Come around and have at it.”

Soap shrieked in glee as he disappeared from the hole, his hurrying footsteps only being interrupted by a door banging against the wall as he tore it open in his eagerness to get around into Price’s room.

“You’re having fun.” Price’s accusation came in a deadpan voice from the other side of the wall.

“Aww, really, you think?” Gaz squeezed his erection again.

Price sighed, but before he could say anything else, the door behind Gaz burst open. Soap appeared, diving to his knees at Gaz’s side before prying his hand away from Price’s crotch to see what the captain was packing.

“Blimey… You weren’t kidding.”

“When do I ever kid?” Gaz gasped, mock offended, before exchanging a kiss with Soap in front of Price’s dick, ignoring the captain’s protests.

“So… Can I please have this side?” Soap looked at Gaz, eyes wide and pleading, pressing kissed against Gaz’s fingertips when Gaz raised his hand to Soap’s face.

“Of course you can.” Gaz smiled and patted Soap’s cheek. “I’ll take the other end.”

“Good man.” Soap clapped Gaz’s shoulder, shuffling closer to Price’s ass as Gaz got up. Gaz lingered a moment, grabbing a handful of John’s ass as he looked around for one little something…

He found it. One of Price’s precious hats.

Gaz plopped it on his head, the sight making Soap snort with laugher, breaking up his efforts to pull Price’s pants down as he sat back on his hands.

“Looking good, Cap.”

“I’ll have you, Soap.” Price spoke up, still struggling for balance where he was stuck in the hole.

“Hush.” Soap patted his ass. “I’m not talking to you.”

Price made a noise of indignation, ignored by Soap as he winked at Gaz, giving him a mock salute as he left the room.

Gaz quickly rounded the corner to where Soap’s room was, breezing through the open door, smiling as he saw Price’s face, tilted up as his hands braced against the wall below him so he could look and see what Soap had found so amusing.

“Hey, Price. Found something of yours.”

Price grimaced. “Nope. Take it off.”

“Why? Doesn’t it suit me?” Gaz posed dashingly, if he said so himself, watching Price’s glowering stare out of the corner of his eye.

“No.” Price snapped, his hands slipping as Gaz approached the wall and reached down to cradle John’s face in his hands.

“Someone’s feeling cranky.” He cooed, picking the hat off his head and putting it on John’s.

“I’m stuck in a bloody wall, Gaz, I’m allowed to be cranky.”

“Uh huh. And sucking my dick just absolutely wouldn’t do anything to help that, would it?”

John hung his head. “It might help a bit.”

“Then let’s make that happen for you.” Gaz let go of John’s face, focusing on undoing his fly and pulling out his dick, unable to stop John from grabbing onto his hips to steady himself. Gaz groaned as Price’s hot breath fanned over his dick, before Price nudged his hands away and sank it into his mouth, tightening his arms around Gaz’s hips as he sucked him gently.

Gaz sighed, his hand dropping to Price’s head, knocking the hat aside to the floor. There was no protest from John, as he was busy becoming absorbed in the sensations and work of having Gaz in his mouth, and Gaz didn’t care, because he was too absorbed in the feeling of having Price’s mouth around his dick. Price was too fucking good; rubbing his tongue along the veiny underside; sucking him in a way that it made it felt like John’s mouth was pulsing around him; using his grip on Gaz’s hips to encourage him to thrust forward gently, with Price swallowing thickly when the head of Gaz’s dick nudged the back of his throat.

Gaz’s fingers tightened on John’s head, tugging at his hair. John responded by grabbing Gaz’s belt loop, pushing his trousers and briefs down to his thighs, before moving his fingers up to ghost them teasingly over Gaz’s asshole.

Gaz poked John’s forehead back. “I’m warning you, cap. Keep that up, I’ll have Soap in here, fucking me every way to Sunday, while all you can do is watch.”

Price swallowed thickly, his fingers tightening on Gaz’s ass cheeks at his words, opting to sink them into the meat of Gaz’s ass rather than continue playing dangerously. Gaz chuckled, letting his eyes slide closed as he felt his gut tightening, John’s swallowing getting more urgent as Gaz grunted, and came in his throat.

Gaz rolled his hips a couple more times before he pried Price’s arms off of his hips, slowly pulling his dick from Price’s mouth and crouching down so his head was level with his captain’s.

“Better?”

“A bit. Now, call some bloody maintenance and get me out of this wall.” Gaz nodded, standing as he pulled his trousers back up and fished his phone out of his pocket, scrolling through his contacts, grinning when a sudden stutter in John’s breath reminded him that there was someone on the other side of the wall.

Gaz took a break from searching through his phone contacts and peeked through the hole. He frowned, unable to see Soap anywhere obvious in John’s room. Gaz stood up on his tiptoes and looked down, first seeing Price’s bare ass, and then, below it, Soap’s legs, spreading out from between Price’s legs.

Gaz chuckled, shaking his head.

“Can’t blame him, can you?” Ghost’s voice made him jump.

“Jesus, Ghost, don’t sneak up on a man like that.” Gaz turned to see the man in question standing in the doorway.

“Maintenance is on the way.” Ghost held up his phone, sliding up to grab the chair from Soap’s desk, dragging it across the room to where Price was stuck, pushing it close enough for Price to lean on, taking some of the strain off his trapped body. “But they won’t be here for a while.”

“Oh, for fucks sake.” John groaned. Gaz noted that it was from pleasure, not frustration, despite his words. “How long is ‘a while’?”

“An hour… maybe more.” Ghost looked at his phone, tapping out another message. “I’ll tell them not to rush.”

“Why?” Gaz frowned.

“Well, your thought about giving Price a show sounded pretty fun. And, I’ve got a problem now, too.”

Gaz glanced down to see that Ghost was hard. “Wow, you sure do.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

“Get on my knees, probably.” Gaz mused. “Soap would kill me if I fucked up his bed.”

Ghost shook his head, chuckling. “Doubt that will be an issue. He’s got his mind, his mouth, on other things right now. Doesn’t he, John?”

Price nodded. “If I can offer a suggestion, do put Gaz on his knees. It would do him some good.”

Ghost shrugged, turning back from Soap’s bed. “Alright, you heard the captain. On your knees, Gaz.”

Gaz smiled. “Yes, sir.”

[tobiasdrake]

Dragon Ball Daima 01x08 - Tamagami

Here we go! It's time to throw hands with a Tamagami. I'm excited to see what they're made of. They've been hyping these things all season thus far.

The opening fight with the Tamagami is another example of how good the animation and fight choreography is in this series.

Dragon Ball has so few weapon battles, so this is a lot of fun to see.

Which makes it a beautiful portrayal of anime's philosophy on weapon combat.

This is my favorite soapbox topics, but this is Daima's first weapon duel so I haven't had a chance to gush about it.

There are major fundamental differences between the way American media thinks of weapons versus anime. This is because of differences in the philosophy of what a weapon is.

The American conception of weapons is rooted in gun culture. A weapon is power. A person is not powerful, but a weapon can bestow power upon them. Possession of a weapon grants the capacity for violence that did not, that could not exist without it.

But anime's conception of weapons is rooted in samurai culture. The weapon is nothing. It's just a thing. It has no power. It can only become powerful when it is in the hands of its wielder. It's an extension of the warrior, a mechanism through which they channel their power, their strength, their skill and ability.

In anime, a weapon can only ever be precisely as powerful as the hand that holds it. No more and no less.

This is why Trunks's sword can be strong enough to cut Frieza in half yet do nothing to Goku's finger and break against Android 18's arm. Because the sword's strength is his strength manifested.

This fight was over right here in this moment.

When the Tamagami's power, when the extension of their being, fractured against Goku's.

The fight kinda seems fairly even from there. Blow by blow, Goku and the Tamagami both struggle to land hits on the other for most of the hand-to-hand fighting that follows.

But actually, no. Goku dominates this fight. This poor Tamagami gets his clock cleaned while putting up the barest resistance.

There are two solid hits, and they're both Goku's.

The first is when Goku stops the Tamagami's punch - which, again, goes to show how much stronger Goku is than the Tamagami. He comes roaring in at full-speed for a flying punch and Goku breaks his momentum and cancels the entire attack with one hand.

Then Goku parries his arm and delivers a spin kick to the Tamagami's face, drawing first blood. Metaphorically speaking; The Tamagami doesn't bleed.

The second solid hit is this kick to the back of the knee.

The Tamagami recovers and is able to deflect Goku's follow-up ki blast, but it's still more of a hit than anything the Tamagami ever lands.

We see an interesting parallel during this fight between Goku and the Tamagami in the way they react to enemy ki flurries. The Tamagami lets off a flurry of shots here.

Which Goku deftly zips around. For his part, Goku attempts a similar flurry here.

Which the Tamagami blocks. There is a sizable mobility difference between the two fighters. The Tamagami's able to follow Goku's movements and react in time to block or parry his moves.

Even with Goku zigzagging around, the Tamagami never loses track of him. Never gets blindsided by an attack it couldn't see coming.

But there's a difference between being able to follow Goku's movements and being able to match them. Goku is light on his feet and fights circles around the Tamagami, while the Tamagami takes more of a bruising juggernaut style. A slow but unstoppable powerhouse.

That. Presents a problem. When we've already established that Goku's strength surpasses the Tamagami's. Goku is fast enough to fight circles around them and strong enough to snap the expression of their power in half. They have nothing.

We see how thoroughly Goku dominates one last time right at the end, when it seems like we're about to get one of the series's iconic Beam Struggles.

Only for Goku's ki to punch straight through the Tamagami's attack like a knife puncturing a water balloon.

It's honestly surprising how thoroughly Goku manhandles the Tamagami. These guys are supposed to be tough enough that even Dabra couldn't take them. Goku and Vegeta were shit-talking Dabra on Babidi's ship, but Gohan did have to go Super Saiyan 2 just to fare as well as he did in that fight.

Man, I guess Gohan let his abilities slide more than we thought. Which. Yeah. That check out. No wonder Vegeta was so furious.

The final test is really interesting too. Traditionally, shell games are a con. You've already lost from the moment you sit down to play. The ball is not under any cup. It's a sleight of hand trick, palming the ball to make it look like you had a chance.

And that is how the Tamagami plays it, but not exactly.

They still cheat, but in a way that's observable if you're fast enough on the uptake. Because you aren't supposed to beat their shell game by just guessing and hoping for the best. This is a test of Goku's observation, and by discarding the Dragon Ball in this fashion, they remove the element of luck from the table while preserving the element of observation.

I have so many questions about how Dr. Arinsu was able to snag a piece of Majin Buu and only 50/50 confidence they will be answered satisfyingly.

However, I am very excited that she has a piece of Majin Buu.

She rides a giant hookah like a witch's broom. Because what's better than traveling in style? Being able to do your drugs while in transit.

Loving the witchy angle we're getting here. I was expecting Dr. Arinsu to be another wicked laboratory scientist type so I am pleasantly surprised by this development.

Continuing down the road of attempting to formally canonize every piece of information Toriyama's ever given in post-series interviews. According to out-of-series interview lore, Bibidi was actually never Majin Buu's creator at all. Buu is an eldritch being of unclear origin that Bibidi merely acquired.

This one seems to have been retconned again, however, in a way that splits the difference. Bibidi still didn't create Majin Buu, but only because this other character standing slightly to his left did it instead.

They're also now pinning the new "All pointy-eared races were secretly Majin all along" lore to Majin Buu's creation. Majin Buu driving the other races away is the reason Namekians fled to the outer world, the reason Dragon Balls exist out there, the reason the whole series can exist.

Someone took it upon themselves to try and make Majin Buu more directly associated with the plot and events of the series and less just. Like. A weird thing that happened one day that has nothing to do with anything.

In the original series, Buu feels utterly divorced from all established storylines and characters. Some god we've never heard of just shows up one day and goes "OH NO A NEW VILLAIN HAS ARRIVED" and we have to go fight him, and that's it. That's the entire plot. New bad guy who dis.

Daima is doing a lot of patchwork to try and hammer Buu into the series lore better. To create ways by which Buu really is an important piece of this universe and really does warrant his status as the Ultimate Villain that it was all leading up to, the very pinnacle of everything that has ever transpired up to that point.

And at the same time to build off of Buu into a new story the way Piccolo or the Saiyans or Frieza or the Androids all springboarded off of what had come before. Simultaneously laying down retroactive connectivity for Buu while also laying down connectivity for itself from Buu.

I'm not a big fan of the way "Everything was Majin all along" shrinks the Dragon Ball universe. I feel about "Namekians and Kaios were all Majin all along" the same way I would if it was established that Saiyans, Namekians, and Frieza were all descended from ancient humans who flew off into space, and actually they were all the same species this whole time.

I liked Namekians better when they were just a cool alien race that existed in space because the universe is weird and requires no explanation.

But I'll take more connectivity for Buu. And if anyone is going to turn out to have been Majin all along, Majin Buu seems like an obvious pick.

So am I. I've been wondering since the start of the series who the Final Boss would be. It obviously can't be Gomah; That little shit is weaker than Dabra. We have a firmly established hierarchy of Gomah < Dabra < Tamagami < Son Goku that makes it unlikely that Gomah could ever have a climactic final battle with Goku.

With Dr. Arinsu now having a new and improved Majin Buu created, the pieces are falling into place. This seems much more like a "Final Boss" type of entity.

[cosmicobubisi]

Cosmic's Malleyuu Whump vs Flufftober: Day 4

HALLUCINATIONS hypnosis | sensory deprivation

The world was deep and dark for Malleus.

Normally, he didn't have very intense or vivid dreams of any sort. While others described disorientation and irrationality , Malleus usually had very mundane dreams, when he dreamed at all.

Making tea, organizing his bookshelves, writing a letter to someone he didn't remember- usually, Malleus had an immediate sense of when he was in a dream, and if not, something gave it away quickly.

But right now, all he could feel was confusion.

Voices in the shadows of the trees told him a great many things, none of which made sense. They spoke of power, of longing, of a need to find something.

They also told him his friends were his enemies, his allies were strangers, and that he had nothing to live for but to defend them.

A bullet of wind struck out at him, and Malleus barely dodged it.

As he did, another shot out behind him, the icy blast causing fear to shoot up his spine.

Another blast, and then another zipped past his skin, getting closer and closer.

Was it some unseen assailant, moving too fast for his eye to catch? Panicked, he shot out a bolt of energy.

It didn't seem like he'd hit anything, though, and despite the green eerie glow of his beam, nothing had been lit up. His vision was as limited as ever.

Malleus summoned a ball of fire to hold in his hand, but he still couldn't see anything.

Wind punched his shoulder, and on instinct, he shot out the fireball, summoning another to replace it.

A jet of air blasted him in the back, and he stumbled to shoot out his fireball.

His eyes were hurting from the sheer strain of looking into the endless darkness for so long, his heart nearly pounding out of his chest.

It was coming to get him. It was getting closer, and closer, and he was getting weaker and weaker.

A distorted shout, distinct from the forest's whispers, rang out through the shadowy forest. It was mostly unintelligible, but the end just barely sounded like his name.

The shout rang out again, and again and again, even as the jets of freezing air assaulted him. He didn't actually feel hurt at all, but whatever invisible beast that was attacking him was clearly taking pleasure in taunting him.

It was working. The jets of air were spaced out enough so that Malleus could feel every slash drag its metaphorical talons across his clothes, but their assault was unrelenting, coming from a dozen different directions.

The hushed voices that seemingly came from the forest itself were getting louder. Their cold words seeped into his skin, only adding to his fervor and panic.

"Malleus, please!"

His head snapped up, and the loss of focus knocked him to the ground. That had been the most intelligible shout yet, and it had almost sounded like...

The wind was knocked out of him as another stream of air shot out at him, and this one hurt.

"Stop!"

The voice was very clear now. Malleus could hear a few others in the background now, still distorted but louder.

The strikes of air were hitting him quite hard, but the cacophony was beginning to drown out the hissing whispers of the forest. They were helping Malleus regain a sense of control, stamping down his rising panic.

"Malleus, can you hear us?"

Now he could. The voice he recognized, the voice that instantly swelled his heart.

The distorted irrationality of the dream fought hard to retain its control on him, but now he remembered. There was a world outside of this forest, with people he loved and cared about.

A faint memory tugged at the back of his mind. All he needed to do was follow that string.

He forced himself to pull harder and harder, trying desperately to remember.

He blinked, and his vision finally cleared. The darkness burned away, as he saw the outstretched hand of the one who'd been calling for him.

"Malleus," said Yuu, heaving with exertion, arm outstretched towards him. "Please."

[mooncalfe-art]

Hi Miss Sophie! I hope you’re doing well, and had a good Halloween. Do you think you would be able to give a basic overview of Venus’ powers?

Hi! Thanks, hope you had a good Halloween too. :)

I kinda left Venus's powers undefined on purpose, but basically I wanted her to have almost entirely defensive and helpful "utility" abilities plus psychic type abilities like telepathy and astral projection. One outlier I can think of off the top of my head is a part in issue 130 where she shoots one of Barlow's goons with sort of a magic laser beam, but I justify it that she had just woken up from a coma and was still figuring things and those goons were kind of undead anyway.

But after she regains much of her identity in Alliance #4, I tried to keep her powers to things like conjuring energy shields to block/deflect/redirect/protect others and no direct offensive attacks. There was one point I thought about giving her healing powers but decided it was too risky like it can make things feel less perilous/dangerous if the characters can just run to the healer afterward and get fixed up after every fight.

Besides all that, the other big thing she did was transform Jasper Barlow into his original form which was meant to be an homage to what she did to Shredder in Next Mutation, using her magic to separate the "evil" persona out of him which I took as sort of a metaphor for removing someone's negative programming and hang-ups. I thought maybe it was too OP but I couldn't resist riffing on that old scene where Venus defeats Shredder but not with physical violence (you could argue she inflicts mental/psychological violence, though). I tried to make it seem like a big event, though, like she couldn't just whip out that particular magic spell whenever she felt like it.

I would have loved to explore her abilities more. Maybe someday!

[fionacle]

I gotta shorten it I think but here's my response for linguistics class on the Tamarian language from the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Darmok", this was really fun to make and i’m kinda proud of my analysis:

In the Star Trek, The Next Generation episode “Darmok”, the Tamarian species is introduced along with its very strange language. Their language is different to human language in that it is nonspecific, and has no words to refer to oneself. This is because of its other difference, which is that it uses metaphors instead of just saying what one means. Every phrase they have is a person or place in a certain location or time. For instance, “The river Temarc in winter” means something like “be quiet”, as the captain uses the phrase to tell someone to stop talking, alluding to the silence of a frozen river. They also use shortened versions of these, as he also says “The river Temarc” to mean the same thing, and while trying to offer peace to Picard, he uses “Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra” and “Darmok and Jalad” interchangeably as well. The first point of understood communication between a Tamarian and another species is when their captain gives Picard a burning stick from his campfire so he won’t be cold, saying “Temba, his arms wide”, where Picard deciphers that this refers to a person having his arms open in generosity, being a metaphor for giving him a gift. Picard then picks up the stick and says thank you, opening his arms to relate his words to the metaphor, and the captain smiles in relief and understanding. The captain also said “Shaka when the walls fell” when Picard failed to make a fire himself at first, and later repeats the phrase. Picard pieces that together with their failure to defeat an enemy, and asks “Is that a failure? An inability to do something?” The captain then says “Uzani, his army with fists open! His army with fists closed!” And Picard deciphers that the first part means to lure in the enemy by spreading out, and the second means to attack. From his experience trying to understand Tamarian phrases, he figures out that “That’s how [they] communicate, isn’t it, by citing example! By metaphor!” The captain then exclaims “Sokath, his eyes uncovered!”, which contextually, and since uncovering one’s eyes means they can see, must mean understanding. Later Picard asks the captain to explain the meaning behind the phrases, bringing up the ones he knows, figuring out that certain words are names or locations, and the captain repeats relevant phrases, from which Picard pieces together the story of “Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra”, two Tamarians who came to an island and were brought together by fighting a common foe. This story contextualizes the language in that each phrase is like a sentence in a story book, connected to that part in the story. This particular story explains “Darmok on the ocean” as loneliness, as he started out his journey alone; “Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra” as cooperation, as they work together while on the island; and “Darmok and Jalad on the ocean” as people coming together through defeating a challenge, as they leave together. (same paragraph, character limit->)

Their high regard for these myths and stories is why Picard was beamed down with the captain in the first place, because the captain hoped they would come together in cooperation to defeat the creature on the planet, paralleling Darmok’s story. Troi, an empath, sensed at the beginning that the Tamarians had only good intentions, and she and Data listen back to a recording of their call with the Tamarians, searching databases for the words they hear: “Darmok” and “Tanagra” from “Darmok at Tanagra”. Later explaining their findings with the rest of the crew, Data says they use “narrative imagery” to communicate, and Troi compares their speech to if she said “Juliet on her balcony”, which Crusher says would mean “An image of romance.” This is where it does relate to human language, as Data says “The situation is analogous to understanding the grammar of a language but not the vocabulary”, and Crusher adds “If I didn’t know who Juliet was, or what she was doing on that balcony, the image alone wouldn’t have any meaning.” Troi brings up the particular phrase they’re trying to decipher, saying “For instance, we know that Darmok was a great hero, a hunter, and that Tanagra was an island, but that’s it. Without the details, there’s no understanding.” and Data says “It is necessary for us to learn the narrative from which the Tamarians draw their imagery.” Tamarian language is similar to human language, in that it has a definitive structure. Picard relates Darmok’s story to the epic of Gilgamesh, where people came together to defeat an enemy. Trying to bridge their language gap by comparison, and to help the captain understand his words, he says “Gilgamesh and Enkidu at Uruk”. He also later says “More familiarity with our own mythology might help us to relate to theirs.” He then comes back and calls the rest of the Tamarian crew to tell them he’s learned some of their language, desires peace, and that their captain died, and one of them says “Picard and Dathon at El-Adrel”, showing they do have names for present-day people, or at least nouns that can refer to them, and that when new events come up they refer to them by phrasing them like their current phrases. This shows their sentence structure to be names, optionally with other names, at places, or doing activities. This single sentence shows that they don’t just say events that happened because that’s what they were taught, but that there is also a structure to how they say it, and that they are capable of making new phrases and words as long as it fits this structure. This is like English, in that we have sets of words we already use, like Darmok can be replaced with Picard we can make new nouns and verbs. Their adherence to saying “at” or “with” is comparable to our closed class words, like determiners. English also uses metaphors, even, as at the end Picard is reading the Homeric Hymns and says it’s “…one of the root metaphors of our own culture.” All our words only have meaning because we’re told it, and like Picard deciphering “Temba, his arms wide”, we can figure out meaning through context clues, so we don’t have to know the etymology of every word.

The Tamarian’s language is a possible language for a species to have. I went back and forth on this a lot, because there are a lot of reasons to the contrary. The universal translator transfers another’s thoughts into one’s own language, so it should be able to do the same for this language and simplify out the metaphors into proper English. Its inability to do this is a sign their language is incomplete. Also, since it’s so nonspecific, certain important things would be unable to be communicated, like “Chris needs you to grab a wrench out of the blue toolbox”. Finally, you need a language to tell these stories and say the metaphors with, something with other words to give the full picture. Originally the first and last points were going to make my final answer be that their odd way of speaking may not be a language at all, but rather just an odd way of speaking while using another language. In the end, I changed my mind, because like I said before, human language has its own metaphors and etymologies. People don’t all know “mad as a hatter” refers to hat makers in the past getting poisoned from the mercury they used in their hats, yet we all know it means someone is very, very crazy. We also have words borrowed from other languages, like ballet is from French, and you could go further than that to find out the ways words were changed throughout the years to morph into that form. This means that there could at one point have been another Tamarian language, or even that they borrowed from another species’ language, and that its morphing into its current form is valid as its own separate language. Also, communicating complex ideas shouldn’t be hard for someone well-versed in the language, and we may not have even seen the most complex phrases as they were talking to foreigners, and we all try to simplify our words and sentences when speaking to those who don’t know our language at all. We actually communicate complex things all the time, with memes. There is a screenshot from Sonic where Eggman walks into a room with Rouge the Bat and Shadow the Hedgehog in it, and in a popular fan dub of the game the line said at that moment is “What are you two f*cking talking about?” This means someone can send a textless screenshot of this moment, and communicate that they either don’t understand what’s being said, or that even though they do understand they think the topic is absurd. Children could acquire such a language by being introduced to it by their elders, but would not come up with it themselves as they’d need the historical context explained to hold any value in the metaphors. Picard learned Darmok’s story through noting the context in and the tone with which the captain repeated the phrases, and then the captain put them in order and Picard drew out the tale with a rock and a stick in the sand.

[ixiot-ghostrebel]

Chapter 1 → Chapter 2 → Chapter 3

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐇𝐮𝐧𝐭 𝐆𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐁𝐲 𝐓𝐢𝐦𝐞.

Warning! This Series Includes: Spoilers to Genshin Impact Lore, Bad Grammar (Not Beta Read) & The Characters Might Be OOC!

"God of Freedom...Where are the Others?"

You can feel a deadly chill run over your entire spine, your entire form shaking at not only the cold breeze that suddenly wafted through the area, but how your nerves began to act up.

That voice. That voice sounded almost like yours. How was that possible..? You were here, and you weren't talking—that can't be you, can it?

Venti, ever the sly son of a Truck-Kun he is, smiles, clearly unaffected by what you would assume is Istaroth's presence.

"Ah, Istaroth!" He says, beaming as if he's only just now realize it was truly the God of Time. "It's nice to hear from you again!"

Clearly, your past (?) self was not in the mood to indulge Venti, letting out an unamused hum in response.

"Answer my question, Barbatos. Where are the Others? I cannot sense them...in your current time. It should only be me absent of my duties..."

Okay, Past You confirmed. Your past self really has foreseen this, huh? Dropping lore bombs here and there—at this rate, you were surprised how resilient you are by how often these attacks were coming, each lore bomb leaving a heavier dent than the last.

Venti only chuckles, amused. "Come on, Istaroth!~" he says, his voice taking on a slight childish sing-song tone. "Don't be like that—I haven't heard from you in so long, and this is how you greet me?"

"Answer the question, Barbatos."

You swear you can hear tiredness and exasperation in Past You's voice. Holy cow, I really am a tired, single parent. You look over at Venti as your thoughts whisper in your own ear.

Venti's smile widens a little. "Oh, fine. I don't know, honestly." He pulls off a wide grin as he said so, as if proud.

Silence.

You weren't sure if you were going to be struck down alongside Venti for his spectacle.

"...Barbatos. You best not be lying."

"I'm not!" Venti raises his hands in front of his chest. "You know I don't kid around that much~" You can hear the living life seep out of Past You as they sigh.

"I will not waste anymore time. Barbatos, go search for the Others. I will personally see what I can do now—in the past—to help you find them."

You can feel a divine presence staring you down all of a sudden. It took a moment for you to stop the shivers running down your back as you (technically) meet Past You face-to-face (in a metaphoric sense, of course).

"Me, Who is of The Future. You are looking for 3 Others. You know them very well, I am sure."

Past You's voice was surprisingly gentle, calm and melodic. It was as if Past You could hear how much you were panicking on the inside or something.

Not that you would so openly tell anyone that you were having a heart attack every now and again, constantly reminding yourself that you just got isekai'd into a flipping video game.

"Uh....are they friends of mine?" You ask. "'3 Others' can be a lot of people..."

"You have 3 close friends, no?"

Oh.

Oh holy macaroni and cheese. THAT'S who Past You Was TALKING ABOUT?! You're three other friends that you also play Genshin with?

"Excuse me, but what?!" You exclaim, your voice accidentally rising a little. "Who are sending my friends here? Better yet—WHY are they sending us here?!"

"Me of the Future, please relax."

You hear Past You chuckle, as if expecting this to happen—as if amused. Good to know Past You enjoys your misery (not really).

You were sure the other three present were also silently taking joy of your mental breakdowns—you can see that smug smile Venti was wearing from the corner of your eye as you stare into space like a weird buffoon.

"Just like this famed Traveler that stands beside you, Me of the Future, you will face many trials ahead. All of your friends have already identified themselves to fit in this world that is Teyvat. Under this luminsicent sky, you too, shall find yourself and rise back to the Heavens to reclaim your throne."

....Okay. Okay.

But with all due respect: WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON? You were getting lore bombed for breakfast, lunch, and dinner with no stops.

You were really fricking Istaroth. Was it really time to throw your atheism out the window already?

"Your journey will begin in Liyue—you are to reach for Inazuma. I'm sure the Traveler and Paimon shall guide you there. I must leave you—there are some important matters I have to deal with in my current time. I wish you luck, Me of the Future."

With that being said, you felt Past You's presence fade, along with what remaining anemo was left. Except your hands felt weird to yourself—which was odd, since they weren't feeling like that while you were talking to Past You.

"Well," Venti speaks, breaking the silence amongst them all. His gaze was set on you, his smile widening a little. "It seems that you've unlocked your powers, Y/N."

You look down at your hands, and to your astonishment (and horror—sort of), your hands were filled with winds of anemo. How you were holding wind in your hands, you have no idea—but hey, to be fair—some genshin logic throws your world's common sense and logic out of an imaginary window and into the unknown.

"What the heck...." You stare down at your hands. Venti chuckles.

"Well, this bard will leave you to the trusty hands of the Traveler and Paimon!" he cheers, smiling wide. He summons his lyre. "A new ballad for the famous Traveler—a song I shall produce and share for all of Mondstadt to hear!" With that being his way of saying farewell, the boy just ditches you right then and there.

You sigh. So much for being a "guide" for me, Venti, you think, deadpanning. 5 star-review for one part, though—he did a pretty good job when it came to showing the Tree of Vanessa.

"Well..." You look over at Paimon and the Traveler. Paimon looks sheepish. "I guess we can show you around Teyvat to help you find your real-self. Right, Traveler?" They nod—they were honestly too helpful for their own good sometimes. You sigh again.

"Thank you, both of you," you say, looking back down at your hands. Oh yeah—they were still holding wind. "Uhh....does anyone know how I control anemo?"

"Oh! Paimon can teach—"

The poor fairy did not finish her sentence before your hands engulfed more wind and became two mini tornados.

You're off to a great start, keep it up!

𝐄𝐧𝐝.

Ghost Rebel Side Note: This is probably a good time to mention that I don't play Genshin Impact myself—I just indulge myself in the lore. So, in advance, I would like to apologize if I get any of the settings wrong! That is a mistake on my behalf, and I hope it doesn't affect your reading experience!

I don't usually do tag lists, but there are a few people who wanted me to tag them when this was out: @nymphsdomain @sielt

Again, allow me to apologize how long this took to be posted! My motivation is at constant writer's block since Honkai: Star Rail came into my life 😭 Nevertheless, I'm not jumping out of the Sagau Genshin franchise just yet lol—

Fair Warning: I might take a small break from working on this series due to my lack of motivation, but I promise you this series will not be cancelled anytime soon!

✦ Check out The Ghost Rebel’s Blog Description & Info Page to See if Their Mailbox is Open! ✦

[violethowler]

When re-reading Light Bringer I noticed that each of the titles of each section – and often the associated quotes too – were relevant in some way to either the events that occurred in that section, the themes of the book, or a combination of the two.

Part I: Circus

“Yea, and if some god shall wreck me in the wine-dark deep, even so I will endure… For already have I suffered full much, and much have I toiled in perils of waves and war. Let this be added to the tale of those.”

For Part I, Circus can refer to a multitude of moments on Mercury and Venus.

How Apollonius makes a spectacle of holding Sevro prisoner in order to bait Darrow into the dramatic final showdown with the Reaper that the Minotaur craves. How Sevro metaphorically stole the show by getting out before Darrow could even arrive and staging an explosion to bait the Carthii into attacking Apple. How Lysander puts on sporting events and makes a big production of relaunching the Morning Star to impress his benefactors and attract potential allies, as well as how he has to play the role that Atalantia has pushed him into so that he can avoid scrutiny while he establishes his power base behind her back.

But it can also refer to Atalantia’s role as the puppet master who orchestrated much of the events that happen in the story to her own benefit. Volsung Fa’s invasion of the Rim, the Day of Red Doves, the destruction of the Republic Fleet, the false peace talks, the kidnapping of Pax and Electra… all things that Atalantia either personally orchestrated or sponsored as part of her own plans.

Even the quote for Part I is a reflection of how the war itself is a circus, with Atalantia as the ringmaster directing the events, and Darrow as the metaphorical clown, enduring one pitfall and setback after another.

But on top of all that, Circus describes how much of Lysander’s reputation is built on theater and spectacle. He makes a production out of defying Atalantia at the summit in Rome to call for the attack on Mars in order to show his commitment to the alliance with the Rim, he goes along with Atlas’ plans for the Rim and starts beaming propaganda as soon as he liberates Io from the Ascomanni. His big show of calling the Moon Lords to speak his false narrative at them before bombing the Garter. To say nothing of his big spectacles in Dark Age.

Part II: Rampart

“The alarm soon carried to the city, and when they heard the war cry, the people came out at daybreak till the plain was filled with horsemen and foot soldiers and with the gleam of armor.”

Rampart clearly refers to the invasion of Mars, and the efforts of the POV characters to either defend or conquer it. Not just in terms of the invasion itself, but what each side was willing to do in order to achieve victory.

In each POV, the narrator’s experiences repeatedly force them to think about what they are willing to do in order to protect Mars and the Republic, or in Lysander’s case, to achieve his goal of restoring The Society and becoming Sovereign.

How far are they willing to go? What are they willing to risk in the present to preserve the future they want? At what point does the cost become too high to pay?

Lyria’s first two chapters articulate this thread most obviously, when she is offered the choice to have the parasite repaired so that she can use it to become a powerhouse that could deal major damage to the Society or the Volk to protect Mars and get Volga back, but with the cost of potentially losing her memories of her family on Mars and the love she has for them.

Virginia even has a similar struggle to chose between victory at any cost, and staying true to herself. At multiple points in her POV, she reflects on lessons she learned from her father, or what Nero and Adrius would do in her situation. She even directly says that the chaos of war forces her to abandon “the learned moralities that separate me from my father,” and that Nero would be proud of her for prioritizing logic over humanity when coordinating the evacuation of the Nucleus.

When considering this perspective, her decision to surrender Phobos represents the moment where she decides that the price of keeping the moon in the short term – the number of lives she’ll have to throw away in order to deny the enemy another inch of space – is too high for the Republic to afford in the long term. That, just as Harnassus asked of Darrow in Dark Age, she has to choose whether it’s more important to save her own army or to destroy Lysander’s.

And even though Darrow isn’t directly involved in defending Mars, the question of what price is acceptable to pay for the defense of his planet still runs through all of his chapters.

Throughout the book, he chooses to delay his chance to reunite with his wife and child for the sake of helping the Republic in the long run. From risking his live to infiltrate Venus, to sailing for the Rim when he learns about the Volk invasion, Darrow repeatedly delays going home in order to either buy the Republic time or gather the reinforcements that Mars desperately needs.

When Darrow finds out about the loss of Phobos, he accepts Virginia’s orders to seek out Quicksilver for aid, sacrificing the reunion with his family that he’s spent months longing for in order to ensure his home’s continued survival.

He submits himself to the judgement of the Daughts and is prepared to face execution for his crimes against the lowColors of the Rim if it would mean they opened their hearts to give aid to the people of Mars and Earth.

He makes peace with the Rim and humbles himself before the Moon Lords to apologize for his destruction of the Ganymede Docks in order to secure an alliance and subsequently end their aggression against the Republic.

And although Lysander spat on the chance that he was given. Darrow at least was willing to put aside his own grievances for the sake of a path to peace.

Meanwhile Lysander has demonstrated throughout the book that no price is too high for him to pay for the sake of claiming the Morning Throne. He signs Glirastes’ death warrant as the price of Gold support for his invasion of Mars. And as Virginia puts it, he’s willing to sacrifice a generation of Golds to achieve his promised new age, throwing weeks’ worth of lives and resources into the meat grinder of Phobos, never stopping even after losing Ajax.

And this question of how far he’s willing to go extends even to his alliances that he forms across Dark Age and Light Bringer. He pours so much money and resources into cultivating alliances with various major Gold factions and families. Nearly everything he did for over half the book was dedicated toward earning the respect and trust of the Rim. All those lives and resources spent taking Phobos, all that he risked by dragging most of his allies out to Jupiter and leaving Mars vulnerable to Atalantia, was the cost of winning their continued investment in their alliance with and positive ties with the Core.

But the price that Lysander considered too high for the Rim’s continued respect of him was being asked to show humility. To admit culpability in Atlas’s actions. To confess his coerced involvement in Atlas’ plot against the Dominion and apologize for his role. To show vulnerability, show weakness in front of the Golds of the Core whose resources he depended on for his own ambitions. And to admit the reality that he can never return to the way the world was when he was a child.

Part III: Tempest

“Ah, how shameless – the way these mortals blame the gods. From us alone, they say, come all their miseries. Yes, but they themselves, with their own reckless ways, compound their pains beyond their proper share.”

Tempest feels like a fitting description of Volsung Fa’s invasion of Ilium and the chaos and destruction it wreaks. But it also feels like an accurate description of the invasion of Phobos, as well as the situations that Darrow, Lyria, and Lysander end up in over the rest of the book. It fits with the collision of Darrow facing the Daughters of Athena and being forced to reckon with his actions in Morning Star. It fits Volga’s inner turmoil over her actions as part of her grandfather’s campaign and how Lyria metaphorically rides the storm in order to help Volga escape the proverbial winds and waves, so to speak.

And the word Tempest also serves as a fitting description of how Lysander felt when Atlas pulled the rug out from under him and revealed the true scope of his and Atalantia’s plans, as Lysander struggles to keep his head above water in the hopes of coming out of this ordeal with his life and reputation intact.

Meanwhile the quote reflects how much Darrow and Lysander have both made decisions that backfired on them and have caused even more suffering for themselves than they would’ve had otherwise.

Darrow giving up the Sons of Ares on the Rim to Romulus in exchange for aid against the Sword Armada in Morning Star resulted in over a decade of resentment that nearly resulted in his own execution by the Daughters of Athena. Meanwhile, the Rim’s entire involvement in the war and the resulting losses the Republic and Mars have suffered since Dark Age would never have happened if he hadn’t destroyed the Ganymede Dockyards. There would be no footage for Atlas and Atalantia to sell to the Rim via the Syndicate. No reason for Seraphina to come to the Core and drag Lysander and Cassius to the Rim, thereby giving Lysander a reason and means to get involved in the war at all.

Meanwhile Lysander continues to dig his own grave over the course of Light Bringer by deliberately torching the alliance he fought so hard for and sowing the seeds of his own destruction by ensuring that even his own allies are set to turn against him because of the atrocities that he’s committing, while alienating and/or murdering the only other people in the solar system who give a damn about ending the war in any way other than his execution.

But unlike Lysander, who is firmly in denial about how much he’s doomed himself, Darrow consistently recognizes the consequences of his own actions and accepts culpability for them.

Part IV: Brothers

“For a friend with an understanding heart is worth no less than a brother.”

There are multiple different relationships that receive focus in Light Bringer for which Brothers is a fitting label:

Darrow and Sevro.

Darrow and Cassius.

Cassius and Lysander.

And the section’s quote ties back to all three of these relationships and the directions they each go in during Light Bringer in some way or another.

Sevro stayed on the Dockyards even after escaping because he knew that Darrow would attempt a rescue mission when he saw Apple’s broadcast, and that his best friend would need help. And in his speech on Europa, he acknowledges how he and Darrow both wanted to rush through the war so they could have the lives with their families that they wanted.

And Darrow shows over the course of the book that he understands Sevro as well. He was able to figure out that Sevro was alive and had escaped as soon as the bomb went off on Venus. His speech about prisons of the mind in chapter 48 show that even as he struggled with how to communicate with Sevro earlier in the book, he does understand why Sevro has fallen backward since Dark Age.

Meanwhile, Cassius recognizes that Darrow is planning to sneak off to save Sevro in the middle of the night from the moment that Darrow asks his troops to let him sleep on it, and insists on coming along so that he has backup. He can see the flaws in Darrow’s razor fighting style and how Darrow has become dependent on the Willow Way. When they’re getting the Archimedes repaired by Quicksilver, Cassius accurately predicts that “knowing Darrow, we’ll crash on Europa,” even as a joke.

And its Darrow’s understanding of Cassius that actually inspires the Morning Knight’s more impulsive and insubordinate moments when they get to Ilium. When Cassius brought Diomedes with them to Sungrave, he was seeing himself in Diomedes – drawing parallels between Atlas’s massacre of House Raa and The Jackal’s slaughter of House Bellona – and thinking about how he and Darrow reconciled back in Morning Star.

When he rushed to save the lowColors being carted off by Skarde’s war band, he was living by the example Darrow set on Phobos twelve years ago when he insisted on taking a stand to fight for the moon instead of sneaking away while the Boneriders came swarming or bombing the moon and leaving its population to suffer like Sevro had originally planned.

When he went after Lysander, he was thinking about how Darrow succeeded in winning the Ascomanni back to his side by appealing to over a decade of history, and the likelihood that Darrow would’ve sent him in anyway just like he sent Sevro to steal the footage of Julian’s death from him back at The Institute all those years ago.

Both of these relationships contrast that of Cassius and Lysander.

Cassius recognizes how much Lysander cares about how others perceive him, and how this leads Lysander to ‘shift his shape’ in order to survive. But he misjudges how far Lysander will go to craft the image of himself that he desires, failing to see that Lysander’s tearful, panicked confession of all his fears of being Atlas’s puppet in chapter 83 was just more shapeshifting.

Meanwhile, Lysander thoroughly fails to understand Cassius when he tries to get Cassius to leave without killing him. He was so insistent on giving Cassius the opportunity to slip away and live, failing to understand that Cassius would not react well to the existence of either Eidmi or the fact that he’d been used. In his relentless pursuit of the Morning Throne at all costs, Lysander has failed to understand that Cassius (and Diomedes) was one of the only people on Darrow’s side who cared about keeping him alive. The only one who cared about him as a person and not as a rising star to ride the coattails of.

Closing Thoughts:

These connections have given me a deeper appreciation of Light Bringer’s story and how the narrative of the book is structured. The way it all fits together so well honestly makes me want to re-read all the previous books so that I can see if the other books in the saga have been doing this the whole time and I’ve just been too single-minded on my past read-throughs to notice.

[mandatory-blog-stop-asking]

"X People Can't Shoot Laser Beams!"

Hey so I've been seeing a lot of people, now that X-Men Is Hot Again, coming to the conclusion that "X-Men doesn't work as a metaphor for marginalized communities because gay people can't shoot laser beams, so it doesn't hit for me". Do not get me wrong -- people have been coming to that conclusion since 1963. It's nothing new. And, it's great that you're engaging with it! Stories are meant to bring about thoughts and be controversial. But I need you to understand that's already text.

That's not something the stories pretend isn't the case, or something that authors are afraid people will bring up to nullify their experiences with the work -- trust me, the X-Men know, in-universe, that they're not just a harmless ethnic minority.

If you are stuck with "Gay people don't shoot laser beams", please, I am just asking you to keep going one single step and then go "But even if they did, we probably shouldn't genocide them."

Like, this is the crucial thing that I see people who stop conversations about X-Men with "It's a bad metaphor" never engage with. Yes, Cyclops should be held accountable for his powers in a public setting, no one is pretending he shouldn't-- but that's not the point. That's not who suffers the most.

The point is that just because that's the case, mutant children shouldn't die in their homes. Mutant pregnant women shouldn't be told hospitals don't do mutant pregnancies by default. Mutant children shouldn't be barred from schools. Mutant elderly shouldn't be denied access to healthcare.

Just because you're afraid of some people, it doesn't mean people from their group are not people. You do not get to umbrella an entire group connected by genetics and say they all deserve to die just because you're afraid of a few of them.

Of fucking course you should be afraid of Magneto, Professor X, the Phoenix and Quentin Quire. You should also be afraid of anyone who holds nukes, anyone with that much inherited wealth and social standing on birth alone, anyone who doesn't have control of themselves all the time and has hurt others during episodes, and any incels with access to weapons. That doesn't actually have anything to do with them being mutants; that has everything to do with their lives and what they do with their time. Them being mutants just informs the ways they can hurt you, but everyone can hurt you.

A child like Leech didn't deserve to get exploded by a machine just because people are afraid of Wolverine's claws. Stopping the thought at "well Black people can't kill you with a thought" robs the story of the actual point. My man, even if Black people could kill you with a thought, a government-sponsored apartheid state that invades other countries to kill and capture people would still be horrendous.

I am begging you to read these stories not as just a superficial insert-your-favorite-group here allegory, but also as an exploration of how easy it is to get people to agree with villains. How easy it is to manipulate populations, or to sell you on things you would never really agree with in other situations, even highly politicized people who see stories as extensions of their beliefs.

To imply the story doesn't engage with that is to give up without getting to the point.

The messy conversations about power, about community, about responsibility, about leaders who fail and problems with movements that have some points but fail in several ways is valid, and it is there for you to engage with. There's no X-Men story that would genuinely stare you in the eye and tell you "Magneto is not scary."

Of course he's scary. But he's not attacking you because he's a mutant. He's attacking you because he's being persecuted. You shouldn't persecute people on the off-chance one of them will do something to you just because they're born different.

But, yes, Jews can't shoot laser beams. At least not usually. That's true, and thus, X-Men is not 100% about oppressed groups in real life.

It's also a very boring take, dude, like, come on. The thought is incomplete. Please complete it.

[thefirstknife]

Crack headcanoodle monday: the Winnower wishes to preserve the state of the game and the status quo. The Gardener is tired of one shape always winning and changes the rules to fundamentally alter the game and give other shapes a chance. Their estranged offspring, Witness, it tired of the endless, pointless cycle of life-death-life-death and wishes to raze the universe of all life so no one suffers anymore. It very much subscribes to the theory of "why live if you die anyway"/"why fight if you will lose anyway". It is soon to be taught a lesson by its creators it is rebelling against.

That's a really cool idea, omg.

I've been thinking about something similar, specifically that the Witness is maybe some sort of manifestation of the Winnower that it needed to place into the game.

Now, literally just now as I rewatched the starting cutscene I remembered something that I first thought of when I saw this scene:

Ghost Fragment: The Traveler 3:

The knife had a million blades.

This lore tab is a recounting of the Collapse from the Traveler's POV. The knife attacked with a million blades and "cut its godly flesh." It also "stole so much more than your body."

Blades would be the Pyramid ships. Their angles in that second image were always so peculiar to me, we don't usually see them like that. The look like blades, perhaps on a spear or arrow. Or a knife.

And well. In Unveiling the Winnower says:

I looked at the gardener.

I looked at my hands.

I discovered the first knife.

When they fought in the Garden, the Winnower "discovered" the first knife, possibly some sort of manifestation of the Witness that it's using to chase down the Gardener. In that sense, your theory is basically there; the Witness would be some type of progeny of the first conflict.

It's really evocative that the only time we've ever seen the Witness physically affect reality around it was when it did the slicening of the Ghost and Guardian and their ships (sliced, like with a knife). As it was passing through a beam of Light. Outside of that, it always appears through shattered glass or speaking through our Ghost. It doesn't do anything; perhaps it can't unless it's being directly affected by the Gardener. It can interact with that for which it was made; the original conflict between Gardener and Winnower. Otherwise, it needs Disciples to do its bidding.

The Witness is obsessed with bringing about the final shape and it believes it can only be done so with what it did; connected the Veil with the Traveler, opened a portal to an unknown dimension and... Currently unknown and characters are hard at work to figure it out. I am most interested in what it told the Traveler:

"The universe makes us all victim and perpetrator of its infinite cruelty. You, more than any, suffer both fates.

And:

"Be free."

I am currently obsessed with this and thinking it could mean that the way to enact the final shape would be to remove the Gardener from the game and effectively restart the universe. By "freeing" the Gardener from the body it used to enter the game (Traveler), and banishing it back to the original dimension it came from (the original metaphorical garden where the Gardener and Winnower fought), the final shape can happen. Originally, before the Gardener's change of rules, the final shape were always the Vex. Perhaps Sol Divisive know what's up. Or the Witness is simply using them and the ultimate goal is revert to a reality without the Gardener's rule and start anew.

Ghosts currently can't feel the Traveler, but the Light isn't gone. The Gardener may have been banished from its body, but its rule is still in effect in the universe. For now. In that sense, the Gardener is the victim of it all, but also the perpetrator, for enabling that rule in the first place.

This is all purely speculation ofc, but I've always wanted some really cool follow up on the Unveiling and the original conflict and possibly an explanation for a few things that are quite strange and are related to a dimension we haven't seen yet. The place outside of time and space, the original garden.

There's so much possibility here. We could be completely wrong or we could be entirely correct. Or a secret third thing (correct in wrong ways, or wrong in correct ways). I don't expect anyone to really guess what's up, but this is currently what's really interesting to think about until we get any sort of confirmation or denial.

[arlequinelunaire]

Crossover Special! Wrath of the Daleks (A Little Vice/Doctor Who crossover)

A/N: ​Crossover between my own Doctor Who fanfic and the trans Magical Girl webnovel A Little Vice (available in book form).

*

The Angelic Saints, Castitas, Diligentia, and now Temperantia, were three young maidens chosen by the angels to be the champions of Virtue against the forces of Sin!

Already the Saints were dashing deep into the thorny labyrinth that was stronghold of Sin, the Abyssal Forest, till at last they set eyes upon the twisted and gargantuan castle of Superbia at its core. Their mission couldn't be more urgent, for the Archangel Michael's premonitions and their foe Avaritia's boasting had alerted them to the anointing of the Beast of Wrath being imminent.

"Does seem counter-productive," the dark skinned blonde Diligentia had to remark, "Outright telling us they've found the perfect Candidate with enough time to stop them."

"Heh, that's Avaritia for you," the bluenette Temperantia said, referencing the shadowy wolf who was the Beast of Greed.

"Yeah, I can tell," the redhead Castitas chimed in, "Ey're the sort who lives for that kind of moustache-twirling showboating. Er, metaphorical moustache-twirling in this case, don't know how ey'd look with facial hair." Castitas of course couldn't resist engaging in her own form of showboating as her petite physique kicked the iron gates flying open. Fiery bow already at hand, she proclaimed "FINIS, MALEFACTOR!" (a term she totally didn't use Google Translate to look up)... only to then see that said malefactors were already finishing off each other.

"Sheesh, I thought you were just gonna be the screaming, brutish type," Avaritia said in-between having to dodge beam blasts that the very Candidate for the Sin of Wrath ey'd brought in was firing at em, "But no, you just had to pull this big brain subterfuge bullsh-" a near hit cut em off. While eir lupine leaps were swift enough to keep em from getting blasted, the entourage of minions she had with her, 'Resinners' they were called, weren't so lucky. One by one they were disintegrated by this Candidate's beams. Soon enough, Avaritia was left to fend for herself.

"YOU-HAVE-OUTLIVED-YOUR-PURPOSE!" the Ira Candidate's inhuman voice blared at Avaritia. "NOW-THAT-WE-HAVE-INFILTRATED-YOUR-BASE, YOU-WILL-HAND-THE-REMAINING-SEEDS-OVER-TO-US-TO-POWER-OUR-WEAPONS-OR-BE-EXTERMINATED!"

The Angelic Saints only now getting a good look at the Ira Candidate, Castitas' first thought was that 'Candidate' was no longer the word. He(?) no longer looked like a human or even humanoid, but instead like... "A saltshaker, whisk, and plunger?" Diligentia said, scratching her head.

"More like a trashcan," Temperantia said, her stoic face allowing itself the slightest smirk, "Fitting for Avaritia to bring in."

"W-Whatever it is, it's too late. They've already taken his humanity and made him the Beast of Wrath!" Castitas gasped. For a moment it looked like all the warmth and brightness had been sucked out of her face, but no, a Saint like her would not sink to defeatism so easily. She then shook her head, clenched her fists, and said, "No, it's never too late! If us Saints can purify a Resinner, then there's nothing stopping us from purifying a Beast!" The thought of a certain someone she once called friend, and still would if possible, flashed in her mind with those words. "It'll just take, ah, a little more firepower, that's all!"

While the Saints took heed of what was going down, Avaritia had already sped eir way behind this 'Beast of Wrath', then pounced to wrench his metal plating off with eir claws. "More like 'AND-BE-EXTERMINATED'. I'm not Superbia, I can already tell what you'd pull if we for whatever reason did give you the Seeds, Dalek," she said, only for this Ira to dodge her attack as he levitated straight upwards. "And what's this 'we' and 'us', you never said you were plural? You're the only one here!"

"INCORRECT! THE-DALEK-RACE-IS-INNUMERABLE!" Ira, or 'Dalek', bleated back down at em, then levitated further out of eir reach, pointed what could only be called his 'eyestalk' upwards, and announced, "CO-ORDINATES-OF-CASTLE-IDENTIFIED! ACTIVATING-MASS-TELEPORT!"

The crimson skies above the Abyss were then filled by a swarm of shimmering lights, with metal monsters identical to the Beast of Wrath materialising. "Wait, uh, it can call on clones of itself?" Castitas had to wonder, "Not sure what that has to do with Wrath? Incitement thing, Zerg Rush deal?"

"Won't be doing that for long," Temperantia said, as she took the moment to shoot a sniper-like water jet right at Ira's eyestalk. The sudden shot sent that stalk of his swiveling, which forced him to halt his summoning ability less than halfway through.

"TELEPORTATION-HALTED!" Ira announced, before he observed, "YOU-HAVE-REINFORCEMENTS. THAT-MEANS-NOTHING, A-DIMINISHED-ARMY-OF-DALEKS-IS-STILL-MORE-THAN-ENOUGH-TO-EXTERMINATE-YOU-ALL!"

"Guess again, Beast of Wrath!" Castitas called forth, her cover already having been blown anyway. The three Saints striking poses, Castitas lead with, "Cleansing with the flames of purity-"

"Can it, goody-goods," Avaritia cut the three off. "When our would-be infiltrator here said 'reinforcements', he didn't mean you."

The instant all the summoned 'Daleks' had materialised, they were ambushed from behind by a flock of flying Resinners, this flock taking the shape of balloons, plane engines, helicopter blades, even a flying car. All random objects throughout the city that had been infused with Sin, just like the Saints had fought time and time again. Leading this flock was none other than the one Beast whose Castitas' heart sank at the sight of.

"Yep, did you seriously think we'd have no defence against an airborne attack?" Avaritia laughed, not just at the first Dalek but also with one eye on the Saints. "Just because Old Man Superbia was so out of touch he fell for your 'creator' pulling a Nigerian Prince on him, Dalek, doesn't mean you can do a thing to rest of us!"

Not that the aerial ambush was going as smoothly as Avaritia made it sound. With the remaining 'Daleks' now having the chance to react, the sky became a lightshow as they fired beam blast after beam blast. Both Resinner and Dalek then crashed to the ground in fiery wrecks.

"Please, hang in there," Castitas found herself muttering as she stared up at the Beast of Envy still fighting, even in spite of what that Beast had just put her through. The Beast Invidia wielded a copy of her own bow to fire identical laser blasts right back at the Daleks. Seeing the fight Envy put up, Castitas in turn said, "Alright Saints, let's show the Abyss that even a Beast can be purified! Focus on the summoner, all as one!"

"YOU-ARE-DELUDED!" Ira the Beast of Wrath, or a Dalek as he called himself, bleated out, this time definitely addressing the Saints, "THE-DALEK-RACE-ARE-THE-ONLY-PURE-RACE!"

He then shot not only a single blast, but rapid-fire blasts down at the Saints, but these were all met with another eagled-eyed water snipe by Temperantia, an entire statue picked up and thrown by Diligentia, and a firestorm of arrows from Castitas.

The inevitable outcome was an explosion that left this Dalek Ira spinning and shrieking, at which Castitas pulled out one last arrow and said, "Michael by my right hand, let's draw out the Heart Amber!" What followed was not an arrow of fire, but one of pure, shining love stronger than all her target's hate. This eternal love struck the Dalek Ira... ...And made it drop down full force onto the courtyard. Its metal shell was blown open, revealing what the girls could only call a 'cyclopean squid' inside. Or rather the corpse of one.

"What? No!" Castitas gasped and ran forth, as what she may have done dawned on her. "This, this has to be a Heart Amber, just extra-corrupted from the seed, right? C'mon now, purify! Purify!" But minutes later and no purification, just that corpse still lying there, denial was no longer possible.

"Castitas, it's... hard to believe. Seeing a Saint not just purify someone, but kill them outright," Avaritia said, in an oddly tender tone of voice coming from their enemy. "It's hard to admit, but that kinda scares me, y'know? Oh, not that I have any sympathy for this 'Dalek' thing here. Sneaky as he thought he was, it's clear he was nothing but a supremacist, mindless killer, the exact same thing people call me. But I suppose a monstrous life is still a life to you, huh Castitas?"

"Regardless, that's your Beast of Wrath all gone," Diligentia said, trying to hide any devastation behind a rock-hard facade.

"Pfft, no it's not," Avaritia laughed back at her, eir arms folded, "Big-brain super-strategist trashcan here attacked the instant we reached the castle, before we could bestow the seed of Ira upon him. He and his pals thought they were oh so much the superior beings that they could make us hand over all our Seeds at once."

"That does track," Temperantia said, also keeping her feelings about what Castitas just did to herself.

"This 'Dalek' said he wanted the Seeds to power his race's technology, not to plant it in himself. Would directly absorbing the Seed be an 'impurity' to him?" Diligentia asked.

"Guess so. Us forces of Sin couldn't care what is or isn't 'impure', that's something you Virtue types tend to yammer on about," Avaritia had to remark as ey side eyed Temperantia. "Something I suppose you're having to put up with now, huh?" ey remarked, with Temperantia choosing not to respond. "Okay okay, comparing even Saints and Angels to that genocidal traschcan is a low blow from me, I confess."

Castitas, slumped over with tears streaming down her face, only then look up to see the airborne Invidia glare down at her. Like that glare said it all, the new Beast of Envy flew away without a word, leaving Castitas to her desolation...

*

The next morning, Castitas or rather her civilian identity of Inessa was... fine, just fine. She got dressed, ate breakfast, greeted her parents good morning before she left for school, all with the brightest smile on her face. Well, the brightest smile she could possibly manage, in her current state. While on her usual route to school, she had the chance to bump into someone brand new to her. A woman not that much older than her if far meeker in looks, given her glasses and brownish-black hair kept together by braids. The two not diverging in their paths, Inessa tried to keep up her cheer by saying, "Hi there! I'm Inessa Brandt, nice to meetcha! Ah, you'd be a new transfer student, did I get that right?"

"Huh?" the woman said like she'd been ambushed. But as Inessa of course posed little threat, she then composed herself and said, "Actually no, I've graduated. My name's Lavinia Mortlake, I've been Assistant Librarian for about a week now. Wait, I do think I've seen you around school, you're the one dashing between classes, aren't you? Ah, no offence, I didn't mean to sound accusatory," she gulped, her glasses almost slipping.

"Hey, none taken. And yep, that'd be me," Inessa said with a smile, "And I've really been meaning to study more at the library, but y'know, life gets in the way," which was the technical truth for her. Then she paused as it occurred to her, "Huh, your accent- Ooh, you're British, aren't you? I mean, 'Lavinia Mortlake' sounds all British-y too."

"Ah yes, yes I am, and I guess it does," Lavinia nodded, "I'm from Alderley Edge, that's near Manchester, and I'm here across the pond due to- well, it's complicated. Shortest I can put it is I have this friend who's here on... business, and she invited me to come along. She was a bit concerned when I applied for library work, since I've had, er, previous bad experience in the job. But I said it was fine, it's what I'm used to."

"Wow! Friends are the greatest, aren't they?" Inessa grinned and twirled around, even as inside her heart felt numbed. But she continued not to show that as she said, "Oh hey, I can see some of mine now. Hey, Ida! Temperance!" She then spun back around and asked, "You wanna come meet them, Lavinia? Though I guess you've got library stuff to attend to, huh?"

"I'm afraid I do. Plus, I'm... really not the best in group conservations, that's more my friend's field of expertise. But thanks for the offer, Miss Brandt, it was nice to meet you too," Lavinia said, managed a smile herself, and waved goodbye.

Inessa waved goodbye even harder, before Ida and Temperance, aka Diligentia and Temperantia, both approached their leader. Ida then asked her, "Everything alright after, well, how last night went down?"

For a few seconds Inessa was able to maintain her smile. But finally, she broke down and forced herself to say, "No, no I'm not. Look, I get it, that 'Dalek' was clearly not a good guy, whatever it was, talking about 'extermination' and the 'superior race'. But even if we're talking total evil, it- it doesn't matter. I killed someone! I'm an Angelic Saint and I killed a living, thinking being! With my friend gone too, I... I don't know if I can even call myself a magical girl anymore."

"Inessa, you didn't know," Ida told her, placing her hands on Inessa's shoulders, "You didn't mean to kill, you truly thought you were purifying them."

"And even if you do have murder's stain, along with Invidia's corruption, upon your soul," it was the Archangel Michael who now spoke, her truncated form popping up out of Inessa's schoolbag, "The Angelic Saints still need you. Could you truly just leave Diligentia and Temperantia to fight back the Abyss on their own? Not just anyone can become Castitas."

"Hmm, maybe we just need to take your mind off all that, give you something to focus on. Ah, we've got just the thing," Temperance said, as she then pointed over to a gaggle of staff members talking, a mysterious woman among them.

"That right there's our new Guidance Counselor," Ida said, "Yeah, we've got another one already, she came in just last week. Says her name's 'Kaguya Naotake', a pseudonym more obvious than 'Mr. Noir' since it sounds straight out of Sailor Moon, and she up and appeared out of nowhere."

"Straight out of one of Sailor Moon's inspirations, actually," Inessa couldn't help but correct, "Like, you can tell from the S movie- ah sorry, go on."

"Anyway, we're thinking we should snoop around her office the moment she's out," Temperantia said.

"Make sure there's no Abyssal business going on," Ida added.

"Huh, 'last week'? That was when Lavinia, uh the girl I was talking to, said she became Assistant Librarian," Inessa mumbled, but shook her head and said, "nah, I'm sounding all paranoid, probably just coincidence." She eyed this 'Kaguya Naotake' closer, seeing she was clad in extravagant yet gothic finery, her flowing black hair and lipstick contrasting her ghostly skin which looked like the sun had never touched it, and her piercing scarlet eyes. But perhaps what you'd expect from someone called 'Kaguya Naotake'. "Wow, she kinda does look like an older Lupin- er, Avaritia, now I think about it. Less punkish and more ladylike though," Inessa said. "Stealth mission, eh? Sounds good, means we try and avoid combat, avoid... you know what. Should we sneak in this afternoon, that alright with you?"

Ida and Temperance both nodded. Before they all went into class however, Temperance turned to Inessa and suddenly said, "Look, you know me. I was... one of them, so it shouldn't be a surprise that I have killed people." Despite already knowing that about 'Gula', Inessa still had to stumble back hearing those words.

Ida however was quick to fill in for her friend, "Listen, you know what Temperance killing people has done. It's just made her more determined not to kill any more. Like the heroes in those anime we watch, that's how they soldier on when they've got that on their conscience, don't they?"

Inessa stood still as those words sunk in, but slowly smiled and said, "Yeah. Just like them. Ida, Temperance... thanks."

*

Much later that day, the untransformed Angelic Saints finally had the chance to sneak into the new Guidance Counselor's Office. Turned out Ms. Naotake had been doing some serious redecorating after her predecessor Mr. Noir's untimely exit. The giant box at one end of the room covered by a heavy sheet was the first thing to stand out, but that was far from it.

"The Possibilities of Chronophysics, The Peoples Beneath the Earth, Intergalactic Diplomacy, Guide to Pocket Dimensions, er, not the sort of books I'd expect a Guidance Counselor to have," Ida said on scanning the bookshelf.

"At least none of them sound too Abyssal-y," Temperance said, but shrugged and added, "Well, 'Peoples Beneath the Earth' does a little. 'Pocket Dimensions', definitely."

Inessa then pulled down the giant sheet in a single swipe, to see it hid... "Huh? Says this thing's a 'Police Box'," she said, with no idea what to think of this big blue rectangle. "Wait, could the Abyss be in league with the cops? Hmm, that does make sense actually."

The doors on the box however were shut tight, as were most of the office's drawers and cupboards. Then they all heard footsteps approaching, with Inessa then scrambling to cover up the blue box again, and all three girls then ducking behind the desk. As Inessa snuck a peek, her stomach dropped on seeing both Kaguya and Lavinia entering at once, like they really were working together.

"Well, no more sign of any Daleks since yesterday, Doctor," Lavinia said, her words confirming Inessa's paranoia about the two. "Not that we can just go and check, since it looks like we need a portal to even get into that Forest."

"Though from all the scrap metal we've found, I'd say someone's done a remarkable job fighting us for them," 'Kaguya Naotake' said, or 'Doctor' as Lavinia called her. "Why, at this rate the universe will hardly have any need for a daft old bat like me. Still, Lavinia, do not get your guard down," her voice dropped, "I've been fighting these things through all my regenerations. Much as I'd love to go sauntering off again, I can't take that risk till I know for certain the Daleks have been vanquished here. Nothing from that Forest of Sin can fall into their plungers."

Inessa twitched. While it was a relief that Lavinia and 'Kaguya' didn't sound like they served the Abyss, there was definitely something supernatural about them. "Angels, maybe?" she whispered down at Michael in her bag, only for her to shake her head.

"So sorry to involve you in yet another pocket dimension, Lavinia dear," Doctor Kaguya said, "At least the place didn't look to be Oterne-related, well not till that castle showed up anyway. Again, it's a lovely old castle, just a godforsaken shame about the occupants. And its new Dalek neighbours."

"Don't worry Doctor, if it really was Oterne," Lavinia said but had to pause, then just managed to say, "If it was, I'd know."

"True, but there's always the annoyance of getting stranded in one of them again, that's what bothersome about pocket dimensions. Anyway," The Doctor said, a wide grin suddenly covering her face, "This upstanding institution may forbid alcohol on its grounds, but my TARDIS my rules. Just popped over a few centuries to nab us the most exquisite collection of Draconian sake. Come, come!"

"Wait, 'popped over'? Doctor, didn't you say you were staying here till we'd dealt with the Daleks?" Lavinia had to ask.

"A few short trips won't hurt, timeship and whatnot. Besides, it's not like I ever drank and drove, Lavinia dear, just what do you take me for?" The Doctor said.

"They're... time travellers?" Inessa gasped, straining to keep quiet. Given her profession and interests, someone like Sailor Pluto was who she initially thought of. No, not quite, this Kaguya Naotake already came off way too cavalier for Setsuna's standards. Though Lavinia did have a little bit of Mercury in her, she figured. With both Doctor Kaguya and Lavinia heading into that cramped box, Inessa said on impulse, "Alright, let's corner them!"

Inessa, Ida, and Temperance sprang out and dashed towards the door in the box... only to come to a halt when they saw it was far, far bigger inside than out. "Get a hold of yourself, it's just another portal," Temperance said in Inessa's ear as the girl remained gobsmacked, even if she'd seen things way weirder than this. Still, any continued attempt at secrecy went nowhere.

"You know, you three have a lot to learn when it comes to stealth, Misses Brandt, Montgomery, and Atwater," Doctor Kaguya said without needing to turn around, making the girls, Ida even, sweatdrop. When she did, she knelt to meet the three at eye level and told them, "Really, if you were so anxious to meet me, all you had to do was book an appointment. Oh my, but that wouldn't be exciting now, would it?"

"This confirms it," Michael then spoke out of nowhere, as her crystal eyes scoured the TARDIS' dark, shrine-like interior, "We have a Time Lady before us. But how? Your people abhor interference."

"'My' people? Honestly, do you greet everyone like that?" The Doctor said as she took out some sort of metal wand and scanned Michael with it. "Hmm, an Angel I take it? Afraid you may have a bit of a branding problem; I've met quite a few sorts across the universe calling themselves 'angels'."

Inessa snatched Michael back up and went, "What did you just do to her?!"

"Oh, The Doctor scans everyone like that. Don't worry, it's harmless," Lavinia said, but then said less casually to Inessa, "Listen, I know you're worried about what's going on, but please, you have to stay out of this. What we're doing, it's not safe."

"I am afraid, Lavinia, that Miss Brandt and her friends have not stayed out of this at all. Really, they appear to have been on the scene longer than we have, if they're walking around with no less than an Archangel," The Doctor said.

"Huh, the librarian's calling you 'The Doctor' like Kaguya Naotake's not your real name," Temperance picked up on.

"Because it isn't," The Doctor said, then had to chuckle, "Honestly, can you imagine me being the Moon princess of old, was anyone ever fooled? My real name is strictly my own business, but for you three aspiring Nancy Drews, 'The Doctor' will suffice."

"Wait, so you're a magical girl? 'Cause you gotta be!" Inessa then said, her eyes widening, "I know you can't be an Angelic Saint, but with what Michael called you, you have to be something, if you really can travel in time."

"Travel in time and space, my dear. Not that the distinction need be made, I trust your Science classes have delved into relativity," The Doctor said, but then furrowed her brows. "Magical 'Girl' though, really? Do I look like anything less than a Woman to you? I can accept 'magical' if I must, for what does and doesn't count as magic is all a matter of perspective, is it not?"

"And those 'Daleks'? Sounds like you really know them," Temperance said.

"...All too well," The Doctor muttered.

"What about this girl you're with, 'Lavinia' right?" Ida asked as she eyed the Doctor's companion, "There has to be something special about her, if you've chosen her to bring along through time and space, so you say."

Lavinia shrank at this attention, but The Doctor then stood in and said, "No, there's absolutely nothing special about Miss Lavinia Mortlake at all. Nor does there need to be. It's not 'special' that matters to me, it's people. I invited Lavinia along with me just because she's her, simple as that." Lavinia herself didn't reply but couldn't help but blush.

"Just because she's her..." Inessa muttered. "Ah, sorry, it's just there's someone I know who I- I really should've said that to. I mean, I did say that to them, but I really should've said that to them more, y'know?"

"I can tell you there's a fair few people across the universe who really do need to hear those words more," The Doctor said, then grinned and clasped her hands, "Right, you've learned quite your fair share about me, only fair that in exchange I learn some things from you. Tell me, how much do you know about this 'Abyssal Forest'?"

[druidx]

Her Countenance was Light - Chapter 23

CW: Eye Dialect, Fantasy religion/ mythology, Non-graphic description of murder AO3 ; Chapters: 01. 10. 20. 21. 22. Tag list (ask for +/-): @aquadestinyswriting, @hannah-heartstrings, @jacqueswriteblrlibrary, @babyblueetbaemonster @mr-orion

«Hallo?» comes a green-skin's voice. «Is youse presentable yet? Can I come out?» "Snotgrut?" Elo asks in disbelief. She's not a hundred per cent sure that she's not hallucinating, given the painkillers from Mrs Higgins, the sudden surge of adrenalin and tiredness all combined. «Yeh,» the Dvasia replies. A hundred different questions flit through her brain. She instead chooses to move her pillows to prop herself up in bed. "I'm decent," she says. "You can come out." The closet door creaks open, and a green shadow slips out. «Fanks,» Snotgrut says. Those red eyes find her like torchlight beams. «Wus starting to get stuffy in there. Bit pongy, too.» He has the audacity to wink at her for farting in her closet. On her clothes. Elo makes a mental note to buy air fresheners as she drops back against the headboard. In the sodium-orange light that slices through the blinds, she sees Snotgrut tilt his head. «Youse don't look so great,» he says. She can hear a smattering of worry in his voice and has to fight down a giggle at the idea of a fairy tale villain being concerned over her health. «Youse want us to do this later?» Elo is exhausted, short of patience and still in pain despite the drugs, but she knows she doesn't have long with this strange little creature, and he's the best chance of getting her questions answered. "No," she says. "I need my questions answered." «Sure thing, boss,» Snotgrut says and moves to sit on the floor, still keeping his distance.

Elo realises she's still gripping the knife and forces her hand to relax around the handle. She rests it on the bedside table, within easy reach. The Dvasia still seems tense, still doesn't come any closer. Maybe that's just what they're like; it's not like she has a frame of reference to read its body language. "Honestly, I'm surprised to even see you at all. Your buddy, Legnok, said you were 'tied up' in a manner that makes me think he wasn't being metaphorical," Elo says, relaxing back against the headboard. «Yeh, well. I hit a few snags. But us gobbos is a bendy sort, and I found a way to wriggle out of me issues.» Elo frowns, but he doesn't seem inclined to expand any further so she returns to the point at hand. "First question: how the hell did you get in my 4th-floor, locked room?" «Vent shaft.» She blinks, thinking the creature should be too big – but then, half of this is some twisted magic bullcrap, and he has just said green-skins are all sorts of bendy, so she suspends her disbelief and plays along. "I assume you're aware of the attack yesterday?" «Yeh.» "Second question: what the hell was that that attacked me?" «Kasskekadmas.» She just stares, so he repeats it slower, «Kaz-kek-a-dam-ass.» "That doesn't answer my question. What is it?" Snortgut frowns. "Well… is like… You know how lotsa folks got this idea of a big skelly dude with a farm implement?" "The Grim Reaper?" «Yeah, that's the one. Well, Kasskekadmas is him.» "You're trying to tell me the personification of Death has a personal grudge against me?" «No. Well. I mean, yes. But, he ain't…» the Davsia groans and puts his hands to his head. «I ain't good with this phillysophical shit.» "Just… do your best. Please. I don't have any idea what's going on, and you're the only one who's even trying to explain." «Oh, I got it. You know the story of the little girl wot finds an old crone who asks her to stir her big cauldron and the girl gets the liquid on her and licks it away and then the crone turns out to be the guardian of the underworld and the girl's gotta come stay with her for 6 months of a year, yeah?» Elo frowns. It sounds a bit like the story of Hades and Persephone, but mythology was never something she focused on. She makes an encouraging murmur all the same. «Well, the girl, right? She's a metaphor for summer, and the old crone's a metaphor for winter. And Kasskekadmas, he's more like the crone.» Elo lets this percolate, then understands with a flash. "Oh! So the personification of the inevitability of time and the decay that comes with it has a personal grudge against me?" «There, see. I knew youse was as smart as y'are pretty.» "But why is it attacking me?" «Cuz youse the Atnešė.» Again, he says it slowly for her: Atn-esh-ey. "And what is that?" «It's… It's a bit like the girl from the story, right?" "So I'm… life?" "Ehh." Snotgrut screws up one side of his face. "'S a bit more complicated than that. Anyway, that's not Dvasia stuff, so I dunno if I should be saying it." "But you could find someone who can?" «Prob'ly? Yeah, yeah, I reckon so.» "Good. Right." Elo lets her eyes close as she thinks of her next question. The desire to keep them closed is strong, but not stronger than her need to understand. "How come I can understand you and the tree creature who was with Legnok, but there are still words you say that don't get translated, like Kasskekadmas?" Snotgrut's face scrumples into his constipated, thinking expression. «As I understand it,» he says slowly, «there's a lot of different words for things in this world, but in some places the word is always the same, cuz it's not so much of a word for a thing as it is the thing itself and what it is.» "What?"

Snotgrut sighs. He wiggles a bit as if he's trying to get comfy for a long-winded explanation. «In the beginning,» Snotgrut says, his tone patient and measured, as though what he's saying is something that he has learnt by rote, «was Aukštasvilkas. «Its pelt wus the night, and Its teeth wus the stars, an' It's one bright eye wus the moon. An' one day, It laid down to sleep, and the place It chose to lay happened to have some moss-covered pebbles. Long did Aukštasvilkas sleep, and the heat of Its breath woke the moss, and the caress of Its fur woke the stone. «And when It awoke, Aukštasvilkas was so surprised by what had been unintentionally made that the other eye opened, and the sun bathed the moss in its rich light while the stone bathed in the gentle moon's glow. And so wus born them we call Dvasia and them as we call Eshen. Aukštasvilkas wus pleased with the little things that'd been born, and It took care to keep the eye of fire on the one and the eye of ice on the other, watching each grow under their chosen light. «But then one day, Aukštasvilkas fell sick, though there was none as could say how a thing might be possible, nor where the sickness came from. But it was so, and It's children gathered around him. But they became distressed and started to fight, each blaming the other for Aukštasvilkas' fall. «They fought so that none witnessed the passing of Aukštasvilkas – or It would have, 'sept Aukštasvilkas' was the first death, and rather than pass easy into the other world, the fighting corrupted what It was. So when they did finally look so they could attend the body, instead of a corpse wus two new beings, Kasskekadmas and Atnešė. Both wus angry – at the other and their people – and in their anger, they banished the Eshen and the Dvasia to the mortal realms.» Elo stared at the Dvasia, pulling her vision back to the here-and-now, instead of the strange palace that had been replaced in front of her eyes as Snotgrut spoke. "That's… great," she said. "But it doesn't really answer my questions." «Pah,» Snotgrut spits. «I told youse, I ain't good at the wordage. I's trying to tell youse – there's another place out there. A world beyond the worlds. 'S why there're names of things that ain't just their names, and that's hows you can understand me, and the moss-ears, but not them, cuz they's untranslatable." Elo frowns, her head beginning to hurt. Maybe she should have sent him away, maybe now isn't the best time. But still. She has to know the answers. "So you think I'm some kind of… Reincarnated god?" Snotgrut shrugs. «Youse opened the Nerishklis. Ain't just anyone can do that.» "I don't know how I did that." Snotgrut shrugs again. «'S Eshen stuff, innit.»

Elo passes a wearied hand over her face. "Alright. Talking of the Nerishklis – the blond girl who was murdered had it. Do you know why? Do you know why she was down on the docks that night?" «I dunno why that dafty moss-ears had it,» Snotgrut says and shakes his head. «But she went asking the wrong sorta folks the wrong sorta questions about it. And cuz she was making a fuss and hoo-ra about it, Kasskekadmas got wind, and he thought mebby she'd unlocked it. «But she weren't s'posed to be down there at all!» He shrinks into himself, arms crossed, hands tucked under his armpits. «I guess someone gave the game away. Tipped her off, that's where her answers was.» "That's why she was killed? For sticking her nose in where it wasn't wanted?" "I dunno, I guess?" the Davsia pulls his legs up, scrunching down as if to disappear, and doesn't he sound the most pathetic right now…? A creeping chill of intuition sneaks up her spine.

"Snotgrut, what aren't you telling me?" she asks, a hardness in her voice. "Did you lie to me when you said you didn't kill her?" «No! I– Well, that is… Y'see…» he mumbles, making himself as small as possible. Elo forces herself to keep breathing in even measures, to not stand up and act on the fury that's building in her chest. She grips the edge of the bed and in a voice that has a hardness and a quality she does not recognise as her own, says, "Tell me." Snotgrut yelps, flings his arms over his head. «I swung the tool!» he cries. «But I never killed her! I swears it!» Elo feels oddly displaced then, as if it's not actually her doing the talking and acting, but that she has taken a step to the side while another – dispassionate, cold and hard – borrows her body. This other version of her says, "Who stabbed Evelyn Stucker?" «Youse don't wanna know.» "Tell me who did it!" «Boss– Ex-Boss took care of it himself. He fought she was you, I guess, cuz she was carrying the Nerishklis wiv no pain, an' he thought he'd jus' kill 'er and take it, only she weren't you, wus she? And it weren't unbound yet and so he couldn't touch it, and so he killed 'er cuz she almost found the tome!» "Did he know I would come? Was he counting on me finding the Nerishklis and unbinding it, and coming back to the docks?" «I don't fink so?» Snotgrut has stopped cowering, now she hasn't lashed out as he has expected, but he still crouches there, snivelling and grovelling instead. «He had us hole the boat so it would all sink. But we's didn't know about the ropes what still tied it.» "What weapon did he use?" Elo asks softly. The fury and the pain are still there, but they are dimmed for the moment. «You… Youse really don't wanna know» "I really think I do." She will have her answers, even through the pain of knowing.

Snotgrut slumps, a dejected little pile of flesh and stone, sad red eyes turned upwards. «He, uh… he kinda… He took a splinter from that icy sword he's got and used that. Um, and then the blade, it drank all what she could be, and all that she had still to give the world, and all the time she had left.» Elo absorbs this and feels like she is fainting without fainting, like she is fracturing into a hundred versions of herself, like light passed through a prism, scattering what she is into a hundred shards of differences, none of which know what to do with this information or themselves and What the hell is she going to tell Strucker? Elo thinks, and the force of the thought pulls her back together. Elo drags in a stuttering breath, knuckles as white as the bed linen clutched within, and she sways on her feet, though when she stood she can't tell, and she thinks she might be sick. Snotgrut is on his feet, dithering as he wants to support her, but there is that unspoken distance he cannot seem to break. Panic and worry chase each other over his face. «Mebby youse should siddown?» She drops onto the edge of the bed, shivering, marshalling her thoughts. "You said something about a tome?" Snotgut nods. "It's important, right? Must be, if he didn't want the vic to get it." «Guess so?"» "Is it still on the barge?" Another nod. "Bring it to me?" Snotgrut cowers back, but only for a moment. «Yes, Boss,» he says with some reluctance. Elo adjusts her pillow and settles back. "You said there was some stuff you couldn't answer because it was Eshen, right?" «Yeah?» "I need someone to explain it then. What about that little moss-ears from last night, Willow-something – can you find them?" «What?» he squawks. «Youse want me to willingly seek out a moss-ears?» "I would do it myself, but I've got no clue what I'm even looking for." She gives him a pleading look. "Please?" «Alright, fine,» he grumbles. «But not now. I'll move through the shadows and the sewers come sun-up. Right now, youse need to sleep, and you won't sleep if you've half an ear open to grab that liddle knife o'yours. For now, I stays. I'll keep watch over youse.»

Snotgrut finally approaches the bed, pulling the coverlets up over her shoulders and pats her on the shoulder. «I'll guard the night. You sleep,» he says gently. She quickly falls into a dreamless slumber, lulled by Snotgrut's roughly hummed melody that is both familiar and not.

[veryace-ficrecs]

Trent/Ted Lasso fic recs part 2

This list will include all ratings and tags, so read at your own discretion! :)

part 1 here

some small comfort by trentcrimminallybeautiful (biDEMONium) - Rated T

Trent finds Ted having a panic attack in the coaches' office. 

Curious & Judgmental by r_n_g_are_dead - Rated T

When he was ten and three-quarters-years-old, Ted Lasso’s parents left him at the Allen-Bradley Clock Tower for 3 hours and 42 minutes. Well, more like the park across the street. While there, he met a young British boy. Ted gave him a football trading card. The British boy gave him a pen.

Time was infinite. Time with people in your life was not. But sometimes you got more time with them than you ever expected.

what do dogs dream about? by trans_chickens - Rated T

She nestles into her pillows and is just about to close her eyes when she suddenly seems to remember something else. She sits up straight again, blinking at Trent. “He was silly I think, when he said a thing about you.”  Trent, who was this close to feeling triumph over a toddler brought to sleep with no incidents or hiccups, suddenly feels like he’s losing a battle. “What… did he say about me, love?” he asks, mouth dry. Maybe he doesn’t want the answer. He wasn’t even gone that long for the ice cream, how could Ted and Olive have fit in a whole conversation about dog dreams and also talk about Trent behind his back? It’s not fair. It doesn’t make sense. He’d think Olive was making it up if it wasn’t for her sincere expression. That and the fact that Trent suspects his daughter hasn’t figured out the concept of lying yet. He dreads the day she’ll get there, and hopes he still has tons of time until then. He almost wants to believe that time is now when he hears the next words out of Olive’s mouth. “He said you’re pretty.”

recipe for happiness (in khabarovsk or anyplace) by prewars - Not Rated

Series: 7 Works

Ted does what he does best: talk. Trent listens.

I Told You I Would Stay by hippiecommune - Rated G

Coach Ted Lasso from America, the man whose incurable optimism and seemingly infinite supply of well-wishes had somehow wrangled a good opinion out of quite literally everyone he’d ever met, was giving up. He was going home. Trent was here to ask questions about relegation and Ted was here to announce formally that he was resigning. Trent knew this because Ted had left a message three hours ago giving him a heads-up.

the funny thing about coincidences by mmummydust - Rated T

MrBlueSky: What are you working on tonight? Or thinking about on your walk? starman72: Coincidences, coincidentally. MrBlueSky: :) What about them? starman72: Nothing in particular. Just thinking. I’ve had a lot of them occur lately. Just a bit funny how things work out sometimes. --- Ted Lasso has been talking to someone on Bantr. Trent Crimm has also been talking to someone on Bantr. Turns out, they're both using it as a fairly poor distraction for their feelings. This doesn't turn out to be as big of an issue as it seems. Or - Ted and Trent are both incredibly, helplessly oblivious.

the courage to put on the cape by clementines_and_colourful_things - Not Rated

Trent Crimm, The Daily Planet. — A Ted Lasso Superman AU inspired by a Tumblr post by matttheratking. Thank you for violently (and metaphorically) shaking me by the shoulders.

things we are too young to know by andaskwhynot - Rated M

The other man stops talking, looks straight at him. And Trent was wrong, the look he had fixed on him earlier was not a smile, not really. Because now he is smiling at him, and it is nothing short of a beam, bright and open, and there are dimples, and even though the other man has a face that is more narrow than not, all Trent can think of as he looks at him is ‘corn fed’. Trent does a year abroad in the states, gets assigned a football player as a roommate and has his life turned upside down. It's all horribly cliched, until it isn't.

Words are very unnecessary (but they brought me to you) by blueberrywizard - Rated T

“At 4:44 in the morning the smell of coffee, like every other day, woke Trent up. At 4:45 kitchen radio started to play quietly in the background and Trent could, just like yesterday, recognise the sounds of Enjoy The Silence, which he thought was a little bit of a strange coincidence, but well. Stranger things had happened. At 4:50 he was at the kitchen table, thinking about his life choices. About journalism and football and life that kept having turns that he couldn’t predict.” Or: Trent Crimm, The Independent finds himself stuck in the time loop. There’s a lot of British 80's music and questionable life choices included.

Trent Crimm Cannot Be Objective About This by thegables - Rated E

“I’m bigger, you know, so I won’t get as cold, and you’re… not as big, so the cold would bother you more, it stands to reason, so you should just let me go on the outside by the window.” Trent said, “You have the gallantry of a big-jawed American film hero.” His tone when saying it was such that Ted said, “Sorry.”

in my head (I found you there) by lilysaid - Rated E

Trent loses the last three years to amnesia and can't figure out where overly-familiar American football coach Ted Lasso fits into his life.

friday (never hesitate) by oriscribes - Rated G

Trent froze with a small wince. Oops. This was too much. This wasn’t what he meant to do. But it was Ted and he was fucking leaving. But right now Ted was looking at Trent with a gentle smile and a gentler look in his eyes and well shit. Trent needed to leave before he did something stupid like kiss the the gaffer like he got the boy at the end of this fucking fairytale of a season. OR: an alternative take of when Ted is reading over Trent's book.

that funny feeling by bearfeathers - Rated T

Ted needs to talk to Trent about the security footage he found. Except that's hard to do standing in West Ham's facilities with people bustling all around them. So he does the only reasonable thing he can think of: he invites him to dinner.

Total Writing by sbkmm - Rated T

'He’s bouncing off the walls. He definitely made at least two weird noises and waved his arms around like a Muppet.' What happens to Trent after That Scene in s3e07. Can he recover his cool exterior? (spoiler: he can not.)

Take My Whole Life Too by ItsClydeBitches - Rated G

Ted Lasso was the kind of man who taught NSYNC choreography for a going away party and bent his players into impossible positions just to say “Hi, Boss!” in the morning. He’d organized fearsome bets over darts, baked heavenly biscuits on the regular, and had requested at least two boxes from Nate Shelley’s niece, one of which still sat on a shelf in his office, despite the betrayal. Ted was also a passionate believer in what he referred to as “rom-communism,” all the trappings included. In retrospect, Trent should have known he’d go all out for Valentine’s Day.

red-handed love by clementines_and_colourful_things - Not Rated

The ever-bubbling reservoirs of hyperactive energy stored deep in Ted Lasso’s sun-touched soul never ran dry. — Or, Ted Lasso is not the most spatially aware, which leads to a head injury, a hospital visit, and a very stressed Trent.

When Life Gives You Lemons by Springandastorm - Rated T

Trent snorts, which is a sound that Ted has trouble believing he's able to make. "You didn't want to touch the knob?" He repeats. "Nah, it's got all kindsa nasty germs on it, and I know that you bake 'em out anyway, but this one time in college I got food poisoning from a bad donut and spent about two days straight on the—wait." Trent waits patiently for Ted to finish realizing, arms folded. Ted feels his face break open wide. "Trent Crimm, are you making a dick joke?" "...I'm attempting to." Ted thinks that if there were a little meter for how much he likes Trent, that might've just broken it.

lonely, lonely boys (this one's for you) by clementines_and_colourful_things - Not Rated

Nothing about Kansas feels right. And that’s only partly due to the massive fucking tornado.

Or, Trent ventures to Kansas to attempt to drag Ted back to Richmond, but nasty weather throws a wrench in his plans.

Biscuits for Blushes by JessJesstheBest - Rated G

“Clara’s class is having a holiday party and it just so happens that she has listed your biscuits as her ‘Favorotti’ of all time. She absolutely refuses to bring her classmates anything else to the party.” Or Trent's daughter has requested Ted bake cookies for her whole class and obviously he's on board.

Can’t Cry in Public and Can’t Drink Alone by WordsInTheNight - Rated G

When the wifi goes out at Ted's, Ted and Beard turn to watching the Shocker game at Mae's. Trent happens upon them and is invited into the wonderland that is watching football--with football coaches. Ted jumps on chairs. Beard is as protective as a mama bear, but buys Trent a pint. Just some smoopy afternoon getting to know each other and sharing each other's space. Pre-relationship, but the air is thick with promise. Set slightly after season 2, so two-ish years since the Shockers won the Division II NCAA championship. Trent Crimm is working on a book about Richmond. They haven’t hooked up, but intention is in the air.

exercising restraint by trentcrimminallybeautiful (biDEMONium) - Rated E

Following a fun and informative encounter with his favorite ex-journalist, Ted has a rather uncomfortable meeting with the Diamond Dogs. Featuring: Trent Crimm and the be-catted bag, Leslie Higgins knowing a lot about BDSM, Roy Kent being the world's most unwilling participant in this conversation, and Beard being Beard.

Top of the List by infiniteeight - Rated G

Rebecca wants Ted to be happy. Ted is good at making other people happy, but sometimes he needs to be nudged into taking something for himself.

The Humble Himbo by ItsClydeBitches - Rated G

Join narrator Trent Crimm as he follows one of the world's most magnificent creatures, the Himbo, capturing never-before-seen moments within AFC Richmond.

linger by trentcrimminallybeautiful (biDEMONium) - Rated G

Rebecca comes to see why Ted hasn't gotten off the team bus yet.

[definitelynotshouting]

hihi ok ok a lot of thinksies incoming

the fact that grian realized he was drawing on everyone while he was asleep and decided to not sleep and ended up having a panic attack and accidentally amplifying scar and xisuma's feelings to the same level its like.. living with a mental illness. you can't be passive and ignore it (which for grian would mean sleeping and hoping he can just *not* do it) but you also can't be aggressive and try to get rid of it (which for grian is not sleeping) you just have to learn to live with it and have it not harm you or other people (which he hasnt found yet)

+ i am loving that we are seeing more of his memories from being with the watchers but not as a flashback but in parallels from present to past (+the past repeats itself) + also your similies/metaphors are delicious "To skirt past the edge of death and fly, a blind and unwitting moth, toward the bright, unspoiled future", "a creeping, crawling notion that the world no longer makes sense, fits poorly around one's shoulders. Like a worn, childhood coat, stained with the devastating loss of innocence" and "he's pressed a knife to every promise he's ever made since the day he emerged, digging into sinew until each fitful thread snaps. His existence lies in the shadows of these distorted fractures, jagged hopes and dented dreams, forever fated to cut his hands on the fragments. Holding them together has never been a permanent solution; all it ever does is make him bleed." to name a few + HEHEHE IMAGINING MUMBOS IMMACULATE MOUSTACHE

also i might just be vibibg this but i think out of everyone tango feels a sort of parental obligation to grian. hes worried he'll stop breathing in the night, he gets him out of his room, he beams when grian smiles. pearl and mumbo have the sort of betrayed sibling feeling, scar is still trying to hold everything together and xisuma is harbouring the guilt of being the guy who kicked him for the good of the server because they were also good friends. tango has ideas of what is good for grian but being peers ig? also doesn't want to go over what grian wants too much. tango is a little more divided from the others, hes here for jimmy and grian getting better extends to everyone else in their immediate party and further back to hermitcraft and to jimmy and joel and lizzie and everyone

"this would all be so much simpler if nobody cared. But they do, because they're good people" this. this is so bhersnfkksd cause im no stranger to suicidal thoughts and its spot on but then ALSO grian attributing it to their being good people rather than his friends and his saying "they're good people" as if he isn't a good person is so telling in his self loathing

"He senses more than sees Tango level him with an appraising look. As if Grian is a redstone problem in need of solving, of only finding the right tinker to make him function again." i love this. the dynamic of one cahracter being techy/handy in some way and wishing they could fix someone because its so much harder making a person ok again

also also it is so important to me that scar can recognise grian's needs as having wings and can say that they haven't been taken care of and are probably uncomfy but grians so wallowed in his self hatred and refuses to allow himself fundamental upkeep

+ TANGO VOICE IS DELICIOUS

"Grian hesitates. It's somehow both sooner and later than he'd thought he'd have, but… he can make it work. He has to." gODSS he doesnt want to go quite yet because hes suddenly reconnected with these people he lost and it would've been so much easier if he had never reconnected with them in the first place but its so hard to want to die and then be faced with death because all of a sudden you're thinking about that cake you'll never get to bake and wishing death came before you thought of baking a cake

+ tango is our like relief character ig? he doesnt bring all the same weight and its so amazing because a) i love tango b) hes able to be lighthearted and joke and hope and its so necessary with everyone else drowning (even if no one can really tell scar is falling apart)

"Despite the distance and heartbreak between them, Grian knows how the hermits work." MAN. the way he can tell where people have walked and what theyve done, its such a cool mechanic + i giggled a bit knowing Scar made the doorknobs of copper he has a very healthy diet of it /silly

"Tango gives him another one of those long, appraising looks. Then, before Grian can unclench his jaw to ask, Tango pulls back altogether, bringing his other hand up to twist the cork. It frees from the bottle's mouth with a musical plop, and without the faintest twitch in expression, Tango smoothly offers it out again." THIS!! its sad because in a way you know tango hoped grian would be able to open the bottle himself at some point but its also sweet because hes willing to help and take care of grian until that comes

+ grian relishing in the loneliness. sometimes it is just such a privelige to let yourself be sad or lonely for a bit. dont know why

as always its been an absolute treat to read your writing!! boy this is a long one.. thanks for feeding us :P

-🍁

I cannot come up with a coherent response to this rn but !!!!! Please know i am so 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ abt this omg!!! This is so sweet and i love love love seeing analysis of my writing it just makes me so excited to see what you guys pick up from it :] this made my night omg thank u