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fenristheorem · 4 years ago

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Hi! First of all... You are a LEGEND🤩! Your head cons are sooooooo good. When I read theme I really get into the story and can feel the emotion you put on the characters, 💖its amazing! Not that long ago you did a head con of Erika being ok with Leiftan being a Demon. So I was wondering... Could you do a head con of Lance accepting to take Erika with him, were she becomes a demon and enters the plot with Lance against the guard🤔? It would be very interesting to se that.😊 Hope u have a good day, evening or night!

Oh thank you so much! 😄 That’s so kind of you to say, I don’t think you truly know how much I value your compliment! You’re so kind! 😊

I originally considered nearly completely re-writing the plot from episode 15 (I believe that’s when she asks him to take her) for this ask, but then realized I would be re-writing half the plot of Origins lol. That would take way too long to write (while including different emotions and perspectives and requiring knowledge that’s too hard to hunt down or doesn’t exist) so I decided to write this with a very broad spectrum of headcanons, including some major alternative events (usually not including the guard since she’ll be holed up in a secret place so Lance doesn’t need to watch out for her every second of every day) and Lance and Guardienne’s overall compatibility.

This is probably my most bizarre ask yet, in the manner of how I’ve responded, so brace yourself because there’s a few crazy moments in this lol. Also, there’s a bit of swearing in this - I have a tendency to write stories / headcanons in a pretty crude style sometimes.

~Under the cut~

Guardienne joins Lance against the guard:

To start off with, when Guardienne asked Lance to take her with him, she didn’t know his identity. He was still Ashkore to her. That changed somewhat quickly.

I theorize Lance did actually have some sort of “home base” deep within a forest or the mountains somewhat near the guard. He did have to sleep and eat after all. And where do you think he was taking all those supplies on the night Guardienne asked him to take her with him? Where do you think he stored that frying pan so dear to him? Buried it in the ground? Hung it on a tree branch for a Sabali to find later? Sure, he moved around a lot, but he had to keep his stolen resources somewhere, so he must have had a main cabin or cave or something that no one knew about that he made a temporary home of sorts.

Assuming that; that’s probably where he kept Guardienne most of the time after she came with him. Of course, he would be sure to restrict her movements for a while - after all, she could have asked to come merely to find out what a day in the life of Ashkore is like and then tell that to the guard - but once he realizes that she truly was compliant and happy to be there, even helping him by providing information he didn’t know already and taking care of basic chores like cooking and such so he can spend more time screwing with the guard, he loosened up and let her roam around his domain.

He kept personal things well hidden; any old drawings, weapons, and clothing. Basically anything he didn’t want her to touch... which was most of his stuff... but he was reasonable and didn’t restrain her too much. Just as long as she didn’t bother him and continued to help he didn’t mind her presence... too much anyways.

But again, it wasn’t too long before Guardienne found out his true identity. In reference to the existing plot-line, I imagine her finding out his identity in this AU long before she found out in the existing plot-line. After all - they’re living together now, and he needs to take off his mask and armor sometimes. Do you think he always sleeps in his mask? And armor for that case? What about when he eats or bathes? Certainly he can do most of those things in private, but I don’t see Lance demanding she turn her back every time he removes his mask and armor. I can see him doing that to begin with - when she’s restricted - but once he realizes she truly wants to help, he’ll find it to be inconvenient to always hide himself whenever he wants to do anything without his mask and armor. He’ll probably still want her to call him Ashkore, though... and that’ll be the case until she realizes his identity and refuses to call him anything but Lance.

Now I forget if she knew about Lance’s existence at the time of asking to leave with him (I believe she did), but since she never got a description I imagine it would take her a small while to connect the dots once she's living with him. She would certainly have theories that Ashkore is Lance, and she would certainly irritate the utter crap out of him with countless questions regarding possible confirmation or hints to back up her theory, but she wouldn’t get many answers. Either he would ignore her, or turn to level his icy stare on her. She would quickly understand that he’s not interested in answering questions about his identity and past. He eventually threatened to cut her tongue out a few times if she kept asking nonsensical questions, but she didn't seem to care much and he eventually let it be; perhaps he realized that she would be even more irritating then. She wouldn't be able to speak easily without her tongue, but her resolve is steady, so she'd still try to find some way to speak with him - and then he'd still need to deal with her questions in whatever way she deemed fit, which included investing time to learn this new way of communication. Threatening her friends wouldn't work as she doesn't consider the guard her friends, so Lance came to recognize that's it better to just deal with her questions and ignore her.

However, he would answer general questions that couldn’t be used heavily against him if she were captured and questioned; why is he trying to destroy the crystal, what’s with his grudge against Eldarya, what does he know about the Blue Sacrifice? From his answers she can put a few logical pieces together. The Eldaryans don’t deserve to live? They’re disrespecting the kind gift of life the dragons gave them? They were apparently forced to sacrifice? Then hunted down after the sacrifice despite their generous gesture? Well he must be a dragon, since angels didn’t end up sacrificing and he speaks so passionately about them. And Valk said he was faelien, so either he lied and does know or Ashkore (being Lance in her theory) somehow found out their genetics while Valk remained clueless to it. And they look so similar, they would have to be brothers. Ashkore’s story started around the same time that Lance apparently died? Lance apparently fought valiantly and passionately for the things he believed in, like what she’s seen with Ashkore? Goodness are the pieces adding up now.

Guardienne would eventually approach him about her theory and he would respond with a cold hiss.

“What, you want a reward? A pat on the back and a ‘well done’? Why does my identity matter to you?”

He never said a direct yes - he was basically incapable of responding calmly or reasonably with touchy subjects - but she would know she has it right.

You would think them being on different sides of the war would mean they’d be more likely to try and kill each other, right? Wrong. Them being around each other all the time, I believe, leads them to be more likely to kill each other. Why? Recall episode 26 - their overall chemistry. Regardless of if choices made increased the LOM or decreased it, bizarre, entertaining conversation between the two still ensued. The main thing with that episode was that Lance became emotionally vulnerable as time went on, so actual tender...-ish moments came about where both of them were taken seriously but gently. Now imagine both of them - neither of them in vulnerable moments - being around the other constantly, both working together but still stepping on each other’s toes. Guardienne wants to make a meal; where’s this ingredient? What’s the ingredient compatibility? What do these things taste like? That’s not a food, that’s an alchemy ingredient? AND WHERE IS THE GODDAMN FRYING PAN!? (*cue Lance in the background clutching the pan and hissing at Guardienne*). Now Lance - who’s holed himself up in a private room - needs to plan his next attack on the guard; he needs this map of the layout, and this item to help him plan. He can use this pathway to- “Hey Lance?” ... Silence - if he pretends he’s not in there she’ll surely leave... Anyways, this pathway will probably be the safest, and his destination is there. Leiftan can- “Lance, I know you’re there, don’t ignore me!” ... Leiftan can- “Where’s the corn!?” Oh by the Oracle! But what the hell is corn? He’ll go to the door and crack it open only enough to give her an odd look. “Small, yellow, hard grain but smooth? About the size of a fingernail?” ... “Back right, lower pantry.” He’ll slam the door and hover over the map again. Ok, Leiftan... yes, that’s what he was going to do. Then he’ll have access to- “Oh - where’s the big pot?” *SLAM* Pain will shoot up his arm from his fist as the table shakes and he turns his head to seethe at the woman through the door. “You’ve lived here for weeks, you know where it is!” “Well you seem to have an obsession with hiding things, so actually I don’t because everything is always moved around!” He’ll rush to the door and fling it open to glare down at her. The door and it’s frame creak unsteadily at his tight grip as he looms over her. “Find. It. Yourself.” He’ll go to recede back into the room but she’ll grab his shirt and pull him into the room she’s in - he’ll snarl at her in response. “I’ve tried looking for it, it’s impossible to find.” She’ll hiss back at him with folded arms. “I’m busy planning.” He growls at her. “Well take a break then.” She snaps as they stare each other down... Silence again... “You make me want to kill myself.” “Don’t. You need to destroy the guard first.” He throws his hand back towards the door he was stolen from with a wild look in his scathing eyes; what did she think he was planning for in there!? “You gonna help me or what?” She speaks as if this is completely alright. He nearly shouts in rage as he slams his fist against the wall - pain shooting up his arm a second time - before pacing and clutching his head, eventually resigning to stomping towards the makeshift kitchen - not caring about whether she follows - and tearing through his stores to find the pot. He’ll throw it on the counter and cast a livid glare at her as he passes to head back to planning. “Well goodness, you didn’t need to throw a tantrum over it.” He whirls around and nearly leaps on her - she’s helping to destroy the crystal, she’s helping to destroy the crystal, she’s helping to destroy the crystal, WHY DOES A POT MATTER RIGHT NOW!?

So yes, they’re more likely to attempt to kill each other when on the same side; only because they’re alone and around each other more so they can chew on each other's nerves more.

However, as time carries on and they spend more time together, they actually begin to... enjoy each other's presence sometimes - not even sometimes; a good portion of the time. Sure they have moments where they argue and are a breath away from stabbing each other, but there are also moments where they aren’t treading on the other, by accident or purposeful. In these moments, they see a different side of each other - a good side of each other.

Guardienne quickly picks up on how passionate, resolute, and intelligent Lance is, noting that he’ll spend hours on end studying texts he’s found and maps of the areas the guard will be around next. He’ll carry these texts and maps around with him as he ghosts around their make-shift home, spending most of his days off curled up next to a small indoor fireplace and moving only for a few moments to take a quick break. Ironically, Guardienne leaves him alone to study more when he studies within her presence rather than when he locks himself alone in a separate area for hours, so in time Lance realizes he’s less likely to be interrupted if he studies in their living room/common area. As he begins to study more within her sight, Guardienne begins to see what he studies - and many of those things provide great insight for her regarding knowing Lance better. These things can range from different languages, histories and cultures, maps, geography, alchemy, mission reports (stolen from the guard of course) and even a few books touching on warfare, philosophy and psychology - what little of those latter texts exists in their world, at least. Guardienne begins to realize that, while Lance is very set on destroying the guard and the crystal, he’s also much more than just a man who wishes to exact revenge. He studies these texts to learn how to use it to his advantage, sure, but he also seems to have a genuine interest in these subjects. She even interrupted him one day - finding that he was oddly patient with answering this specific question - to ask if he perhaps ever grows bored of learning about these things, stressing that it’s a good idea to take a break from working constantly all the time - only for him to respond that he doesn’t view all of it as work. Some subjects he’s less interested in but are necessary to know for his agenda of revenge, but in the case where he’s feeling drained from that he’ll turn to reading another subject that he’s more interested in and go back to it later. She sometimes resigns to observing him as he studies - and she knows that Lance knows she watches him by the way his gaze will flick over to her every once and a while - but eventually she’ll begin to ask exactly what’s written in the books or what he’s thinking regarding the maps, asking to try to get to know his thought process better or just having nothing better to do at the moment. This is how Guardienne learns to grow closer to him; he doesn’t snap at her half as much when he explains what he’s studying, and he explains things in such a way that she doesn’t need to interrupt him to ask him to explain it better. In turn, she also begins to learn a bit about what he’s studying and can provide a bit of her own interesting input. Occasionally they debate these topics with one another, and Lance is actually very temperate when debating these things - he can speak in beautiful, grand tones about certain subjects, clearly showing just how much he’s interested in it. His eyes will glow with a warmth and passion that seems to dull even the indoor fire that burns with an eternal energy. These moments of enthusiasm actually entertain her greatly, and she begins to realize that she truly enjoys being around him in these moments. However, this also leads to minor conversations about his past, usually sparked from conversing about past experiences in these fields, and Guardienne witnesses firsthand the icing over of his personality from the reminder of his past. She’ll mention anything about his past; the village he lived in, his brother, his time in the guard, any memories he has, and the lively shimmer in his eyes will dull. His shoulders will drop and gaze will be cast to the floor as he bows his head slightly, a weight seeming to settle on him as he stares into a void for just a few mere moments. Then his facial features will harden, a stone cold look will invade his eyes and he’ll straighten again despite the clear effort it takes for him to stand tall. His formerly lively, sonorous tone will harden into cold, scathing words that are nearly spat out as he closes himself off, snapping and growling at her if she attempts to connect with him again. It’s from these continuous experiences that she recognizes something important; he's not truly as evil as he seems - he's wounded and aches for his reality to not be what it is now, and he seeks every day to ease that torturous pain, believing that that pain can only be eased by hurting others, by showing them just how much he’s hurt from his knowledge. Nobody is born evil, she realizes - he’s cruel only because he feels this is the only way he can deal with the pain of reality.

In turn, she tries her best to be understanding and comforting when she can. She understands, in some ways, his pain of knowing about the guard and sacrifice - she’s against the guard as well for her own reasons not too different than his - and seeing just how much Lance has broken because of the guard - just like her - only makes her want to burn it to the ground more. Lance notices this in time; where she once always pushed him to tell her more about his past and identity and reasoning, she’s now willing to drop the subject for a while or ask in a manner that’s more... considerate or empathetic. She begins to overlook his snapping and huffing at her, and instead focuses more on what he says and his reaction to those words instead of his irritation at her persistence. As Guardienne comes to understand Lance more, she realizes that he actually enjoys her company as well, even if he won’t admit it. He’ll jump at the chance to explain and debate his studies with her, and when she backs off of a sensitive topic she accidentally tread on for a while, he’ll be more temperate if she returns in a few hours and touches at the topic again, provided she approaches it in a neutral, tactful way. After all, the topic she wishes to speak about is a reminder of or is the exact reason he went from honorable and righteous to cruel and destructive - in his perception, if she doesn’t know how to approach it in a cautious, gentle manner then she doesn’t deserve to know exactly what happened and why it bothers him so much. However, she does learn this in in time, and he eventually allows her to listen to his most personal thoughts on... well, nearly everything. As they grow to understand each other better, she begins to provide a bit of support for him. He’s been alone for so long that sometimes he wonders if he’s truly losing his mind, but her presence reminds him that he’s not as lost as he thinks sometimes. Guardienne becomes a grounding force for him. She willingly - happily - listens to his rants and stories of his past if he agrees to talk about it, even if he’s fuming and raging the whole time, and eventually she can actually calm him down a bit. As much as he wishes to maintain a distance between them, in time he can’t help but grow a bit protective over her for personal reasons; her perspectives agree with his, she readily and willingly - even humorously, sometimes - puts up with his temperamental outbursts, eagerly speaks with him about basically anything, and wants to do something about what she feels is right or wrong. He refuses to fully acknowledge the hold she has on him - he’s not supposed to be attached to anyone in any way if his mission is to succeed- but when he stares at her as she nestles next to a stream, eyes bright and curious with innocence as she watches shimmering native fish glide by and turns to him to ask why they’re swimming up-stream instead of down, he can’t help but forget his past and feel normal with her.

She’ll eventually be made aware of Leiftan and Chrome as well. Not at first, but when Lance drags her half-way across Eldarya with him because he needs to fuck with the guard in foreign lands she’ll be dragged into their late-night-hang-out-meetings.

Leiftan quickly takes to her, Lance notices, and this is also how - in this version of the story - Guardienne finds out about her genetics. They need her strength in the war, so Leiftan will enlighten her and encourage her to train her abilities, even helping her in the few moments he can.

Lance quickly snaps at him, making sure he knows he can’t jeopardize his fake role within the guard to train her late in the night. He comes up with all sorts of excuses and aggressively reminds Leif that he can’t spend too much time around her. She’s supposed to not exist anymore and Leiftan needs to pretend like nothing is going on.

Really, though, Lance is just feeling threatened. He doesn’t want his personal source of information, good food, and entertainment to be wooed and stolen away. Good luck getting him to admit that, though.

Lance believes she’s safest with him; he’s the one outside the guard and his location and activities are unknown most of the time. All he needs to do is keep her veiled in that shroud of mysterious unknown to the guard and she’ll be impossible to find. Of course, she won’t want to just sit around forever. She’ll eventually want to be more proactive in helping him destroy the guard, and he’ll argue it at first until she becomes just so annoying that he can’t possibly stand it anymore! It’s either she helps or he kills her because she won’t shut up, so he trains her; hard and brutally. He’ll train her in how to master her demon abilities, how to gain the upper hand in any fight with any enemy, the most lethal points of different creatures, the most lethal tactics she could use, how to improve her strength, stamina, speed and stealth. He was once Chief of the Obsidian Guard; he knows how to turn a weak, scraggly runt into a masterful, fearsome warrior. When he finally sees fit, he’ll gift her with personalized equipment - bought or made specifically by him - so she can slink around the guard late at night with him. Of course, he’ll demand that she call him Ashkore on premises - or anywhere except home, really - but she’ll follow his lead in that case; she knows how important it is to remain unknown.

So how exactly do these restock or attack missions go? Well, she’s usually brought along for restock missions - where no one is supposed to know they were there in the first place - in which case her role is to stay quiet and help him throw stuff into the bag. She’ll typically be left to carrying the bags unless there’s one that’s too heavy for her to remain quiet - he’ll take the heavier bags. Lance will usually be busy designing their path out and planning their timing correctly while she focuses on following him. He doesn’t really take her on attack missions, though. He wants her to remain unknown. If a feminine figure is suddenly working with him not too long after Guardienne’s disappearance, especially since it was clear there was a rift between her and the guard, then suspicions will rise, and unfortunately those questions could then begin trace further back to reflect on Lance’s death and Ashkore’s appearance due to the similar time-frame of events. Basically, their stories and disappearance/death to villain appearance time-frame would begin to mirror each other. If she was to remain unknown then she can’t directly fight the guard, so no attack missions for her. However, Lance isn’t against turning a restock mission into a restock-attack mission if he sees the chance - he’ll just make sure she’s basically safe the rest of the way back home before enacting on it, even going as far as retracing his steps back to the guard to cause trouble.

In the original plot-line, it seems that most of the time when Lance, Leiftan and Guardienne are fighting each other it’s due mainly to the fact that Leiftan abandons the plans against the guard because he's in love with Guardienne, Lance wants Leiftan to continue against the guard, and then he realizes he needs Guardienne out of the picture so Leiftan forgets about her and so he can gain some other information he needs/use her as leverage against the guard. Since in this AU, she's happily on their side (so Leiftan isn't abandoning his plans against the guard and Lance has all access to her power/information) I can see a bit less of a rift among their team as their plans harmonize together. Instead of Leiftan and Lance fighting, Lance kidnapping Guardienne, Lance becoming reckless by putting off breaking the crystal, and many other things happening caused by the rift between them, they’d most likely collaborate and work together better, and they’d be more coordinated in attacks and better at getting to the crystal. Of course, it’s possible that Leiftan may have wanted Eldarya to be saved at some point so he could spend his life with Guardienne, but seeing how Leiftan would do nearly anything for her throughout the original plot-line, I wouldn’t be surprised if he continued his efforts against the guard knowing that she’d want him to in this AU. It would also help knowing that the guard hurt her many times in many ways, so he’d be seeking revenge for that as well.

Dragging Guardienne around Eldarya with Lance, however, has risks and consequences that could come down on top of them if not careful. One such issue is the fact that, while Lance is very good at evading the guard, occasionally he’s caught and is sent on a wild-goose chase trying to flee from them. This occasionally can put Guardienne at risk of being found out, as she’s nearly always close to him, but Lance has considered this possibility a long time ago and has already devised a plan during these times to avoid from any heavy repercussions falling back on them. He’s just fine with fleeing with her - he knows how to keep her out of sight and her equipment is lightweight enough so that she has no trouble moving swiftly and flexibly if needed - but he’s realized that it may not be the smartest idea to have her fleeing with him while clearly seeming to be working with him. Instead, Lance realized, it would be a good idea for her to act as though she’s a hostage if she’s about to be revealed. That way, if she’s captured at any point in the future, she can play the innocent victim who knows nothing, and the guard - while persistent in finding out anything she may know, no matter how little the information may be- certainly won’t hurt their precious Guardienne who has already been through so much while in the clutches of the evil Ashkore. If she’s seen as a hostage, she can use excuses like “I’m sorry, it just so hard to talk about so soon... can we continue this later”, “I honestly don’t remember much, I was so busy focusing on a possible way of escaping that I didn’t pay much attention to that detail”, and “He kept me locked away in a certain area, I don’t know if there were any landmarks around that could point to his location” to deter their questioning and buy time before she needs to reveal anything actually important, else she look like she’s protecting him. Acting as a hostage will also assure that she won’t be thrown in the prison and guarded the whole time; so being free to roam around the guard while buying time to keep important information a secret will allow Lance the time to plan a rescue mission - disguised as another easy kidnapping since she won’t be guarded - to return her to their side. This is merely a backup plan if they know she’ll likely be captured at some point, and it will only work if the guard is unaware of a female figure helping him out, but provided that everything goes smoothly it should be a solid plan with little negative effects. However, this can’t happen more than once or twice; the first time will be easily accepted by the guard, the second time she plays the innocent, panicking fool she’ll be walking the line between seeming suspicious or if she’s truly that foolish, and for her sake the second time she will need to reveal some important information. A third time and the guard would know that something is up.

These hostage situations can get quite amusing for Guardienne - despite how fragile the situation is - and, frankly, Lance would snap at her every time she snickers about this, except he finds these situations absolutely hilarious as well. They’ll be running around Eldarya, the guard occasionally cornering them before they flee, and Guardienne will do her best to attack Lance in ways that are weak enough to not actually effect anything, but are strong enough to make it look like she’s truly trying to escape. Is the guard within ear-shot and they know they’ll be found out eventually? Great, Lance has an escape plan to get out of there already, so Guardienne can throw a screeching hissy-fit at him to make it seem like she’s trying to escape. Sometimes this can aid them as well, as they can set up a maze that the guard will certainly come running through to find Guardienne, following the sound of her struggle, only to then be trapped somewhere because Lance has traps set up that Guardienne certainly couldn’t have known about since she’s a hostage. Other times she’ll do her best to attack Lance - but let’s face it, even if he did train her she would still have a hard time bringing him down if their fight was serious - and he’ll quickly disarm her in front of the guard before finding a way to gain distance from them again. This is all just to reconfirm the illusion that she’s a hostage to the guard, and of course they panic every time and believe it, but it’s knowing that they’re running circles around the guard - bringing them here and having her bait them to this location so Lance can attack them, or leading them to discover a certain fact at some point so they think they have a useful piece of information on Lance when in fact Lance is using that to draw them out in confidence so he can crush them - that they find truly amusing. The guard is being played this whole time and they keep falling for it. Even Lance can’t help but laugh at a few moments of running the guard around with Guardienne later, when they’re no longer in danger.

Of course, this all leads up to the grand finale; the final shattering of the crystal. I imagine this happening much sooner than in the original plot-line because Guardienne isn’t a hindering factor anymore, and I can see it happening with much more ease than how it originally played out. Perhaps they’ll lure the important members of the guard to another land - letting them think that they’ve caught Guardienne’s trail over there - and launch their final attack when no one who can stop them is around. They might decide to fuck with the guard one last time, running them around within the guard while Lance infiltrates the crystal room. Perhaps they decide to go out with a bang and capture the important members of the guard, binding them and closing off the crystal room so they can reveal their identities and the guard can watch as the people that were once held dear to them destroy their world while they’re helpless to do anything. It doesn’t matter much how it happens, though, at this point - with an angered dragon and two powerful demons - there’s nothing that the guard can do to stop them. In some ways it will hurt, knowing that this is the end of their beautiful story of revenge, but - no matter what happens after this - they’ll know they succeeded, and that will be the last truth Eldarya will ever know.

I think this may be one of the longer headcanons that I’ve written so far, and I’m very pleased with how it turned out! Also, Tumblr ate this ask while it was a draft once or twice (it was in the 3-draft radius of asks that were at risk of being eaten so it disappeared a few times) so it did take a bit longer to write than I’d hoped, but fortunately no progress had been deleted so I’m just fine with that.

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#eldarya #eldarya origins #eldarya lance #eldarya lance origins #eldarya lance headcanons #fenristheorem writing #askfenris

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bcdrawsandwrites · 4 years ago

Photo

Fandom: The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance

Rating: T

Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort

Characters: urTih, urZah, urIm, urNol

Warnings: Torture, eye gore

Description: As the ritual began in the Castle of the Crystal, the Scientist at least knew what was coming. But miles away, in the calm of the Valley, the Alchemist had little warning.

Beta Readers: @jaywings, @kiwi-strawberry-banana

Notes: Basically what happened with urTih during skekTek’s punishment. Was originally going to do it as an illustration, but then I realized that would require drawing four creatures with six limbs each and I nope’d the heck out of that idea. Soooo... here it is as a fic!

---~~~---

His tools lay out before him in a meticulous array. Whenever one had completed its purpose, he would set it in the exact spot it had been before, and thus not one tool could be lost.

Yet urTih found himself staring over them as though unfamiliar with his own layout. He was familiar with it, of course—he'd only been using the same tools for the past three hundred trine or so—and yet something felt off. He had gathered together a handful of feathers from the nest of a rare bird (it would not miss them, surely), fully intent on studying them to determine their properties, and yet his mind had gone blank upon entering his cave. He should be able to do this easily, and yet... he could not concentrate.

The realization stirred up uneasiness within him, but he shut it down with a soft hum. If something would happen today, he would go through it as usual. There was also a chance that nothing at all would happen—he'd had false alarms before.

Sure enough, the feeling passed, and he calmly began to arrange the feathers across his work table, trying to determine which would be the best subject to study. Some he'd had to clean of dirt and droppings, but... leaning in and tipping his head to the left to view them more closely, he found the process left them somewhat frayed. So perhaps these were not the best subjects. But if he could take the others, he could... he could take the others, and... and...

Oh, he was losing his train of thought again.

UrTih sighed, and sent the feathers scattering across the table as he did so. One smaller feather drifted off to the floor and blew toward the mouth of his cave. His eyes followed its path, then blinked, for something was blocking the entrance.

The Ritual Guardian, urZah, stood before him. He opened his mouth, and spoke, his voice solemn:

"I have seen my shadow fall over you."

It hadn't been a false alarm, then.

Feeling his stomach clench, urTih slipped away from his table. The Ritual Guardian nodded to him slowly and stepped away from the cave, heading out into the Valley and up the wooden path that wound through it. After pausing for a moment to pin the feathers he'd collected beneath a few instruments, urTih followed his fellow Mystic, following the familiar path up to urIm's cave, his mind on nothing but his own footsteps.

It would be best to leave the more important thoughts for when his mind needed distracting.

The Healer was the only urRu that kept two beds in his cavern, and he was currently resting upon one of them. But hearing urTih and urZah approach, he lifted his head and the rest of his body followed immediately. "Ritual Guardian," he greeted with a slow nod. "Who is it today?"

UrZah only stepped aside, allowing urTih to come closer. Wordlessly, urIm waved him over to the second bed, which urTih numbly sat upon, curling in on himself. He kept one hand resting on his tail; last time, he recalled, it had been tugged at terribly for some time, as though the weight of an entire urRu were pulling against it. The memory of it still made his tail ache... but he had borne the pain, as he had all the times prior. The burns on his feet left scars, and he'd wound up with many bruises and cuts to his face and body. But all of these he'd endured.

Yet...

His gaze went from urZah to urIm, before lowering back to his tail. The Healer received wounds intermittently, which he could treat on his own, but rarely the kind inflicted by a shadow. The Ritual Guardian, meanwhile, seemed to never receive them at all. UrAc, urAmaj, urNol—all of the other Mystics had gone through their own painful trials, all enacted upon their counterparts for reasons they still did not understand.

Yet urTih felt like it happened to his... more frequently.

The Scientist is a cruel being, he would tell himself. Surely if something happens to him... it is deserved. Surely if something happens... to me...

And yet his gaze turned to urZah again, staring at the deep spirals that wound throughout his face, his hands, his body, and not a trace of scars upon them.

"I cannot see what lies ahead," the Ritual Guardian said, drawing him out of his thoughts. "Shadows are often indistinct. But we will prepare for whatever the future holds."

"We will," came urIm's soft voice. Already he was gathering clean cloths together, and pouring water from a pitcher into a bowl.

"I can only hope... it is not my tail... again," urTih muttered, pulling his tail closer to himself with two of his arms.

"The pain will pass," urIm said gently.

UrTih shut his eyes, the familiar chant running through his mind. "The pain will pass, it will pass..." he hummed to himself, meditating on those words until they became a rhythm that wound through his mind and soul. After a moment, urZah joined him, and urIm followed shortly after, taking a spot next to him and wrapping his tail around his body. It was a chant that every urRu spoke from time to time, whenever they bore the pain endured by their other halves. Whenever distracting thoughts failed them, the chant was always something that pulled their mind from—

Something was pinching at his eyelids—

The next thing he knew his head was laying on its side and gently pressed into the bed beneath him, and he could not see. The right side of his face was sticky and wet, and someone—urIm probably—was skillfully mopping it while holding his hands away from his face.

And urTih was screaming.

The pain lanced all throughout his head, greater even than the burns had been on his feet, the wounds on his body, the pain in his tail. It seemed to stab straight into his mind, relentlessly, endlessly, but most of the pain was concentrated in his right eye. He suddenly greatly, greatly missed when his tail was pulled. He missed when his head was struck at, when he wound up with cuts and burns on his hands. Why could it have not been his tail?

Why could he not see?

"It will all be over soon," came urZah's voice nearby, and before urTih could stop himself, three of his arms lashed out in the voice's direction, the fourth pinned by his own body.

Something caught each hand, one by one, but it was not the gnarled hands of the Ritual Guardian. Three other skilled hands held his three free ones, and gripped them tightly in a comforting squeeze. "Keep still as you're able," urNol the Herbalist said, a firmness and urgency to his tone not normally heard in Mystic voices.

UrTih tried to do as he suggested, squeezing the Herbalist's hands in his own, but he could not stop his tail from lashing. Another tail wrapped around his own, but whose he could not tell.

Meanwhile, the pain in his eye went from stabbing to gnawing. Subsequently his own voice went from screaming to straining, and he snapped his muzzle shut, teeth grinding together. "I... c-cannot... see..." he whimpered into the blankets beneath him. Frantic thoughts suddenly filled his head: Was he going blind? Were they blinding him? Would he be able to navigate the Valley after this? Would he be able to walk at all? What of his experiments? Had he been wrong to do them from the start?

This is because of the work of the Scientist, he told himself. The work of one who inflicts harm upon others... who tries to change the nature of Thra, who... steals from other creatures to perform worthless experiments—

His mouth was forcibly pried open, and something bitter shoved inside. His initial reaction was to push out the offending substance with his tongue, but another gnawing pain sent his jaw snapping shut, teeth grinding against the thick plant matter.

"These herbs numb pain," urNol said. His hands still gripped urTih's own. "Please chew them."

UrTih did this already, the overwhelmingly bitter taste drawing his mind away from the pain. He wasn't sure whether the herbs were working, or whether the torture was nearing its end, for the active pain was slowing down. "No more..." he moaned around the plants in his mouth. "No more, no more."

Yet he felt the Herbalist's hands squeezing his again. "Brace yourself."

Now what were they going to do? He didn't want to, he didn't... "No, no... no—"

There was a sharp, painful pulling at his eye socket, and his voice broke off into a scream. And just like that, the pain lessened in intensity, leaving an agonizing, gnawing emptiness in his right eye.

"It is over," urNol announced, and urTih moaned into the blankets beneath him. The words should have relieved him, but everything felt wrong.

"Be still." UrIm continued to wipe at his face for a moment longer, then applied something sticky over his right eye... or where, he suspected, it had once been. He then removed the much-chewed herbs from urTih's mouth, and held something cold to it. "You must drink."

"I-I cannot... see..." he stammered. Had he gone blind? Had his other half truly...?

But urIm gently lifted his head, and a blurry, flat vision of the Healer's cave appeared to his left eye. The Healer tipped his head back, and urged him to drink water. He did so eagerly, until urIm took the bowl away and gently set his head back down.

For a moment urTih thought he may be able to relax, only for something damp to gently cover the left side of his face, blocking his vision. Immediately he shrieked, tossing his head back.

"Enough, Healer," urNol snapped, and the cloth was removed.

His vision restored, albeit partially, urTih rested his head upon the bed once again. However, he did not feel calm—only exhausted.

"The shadow has passed,'' urZah stated, and urTih flicked his tail. "I am sorry for his doing. May the Crystal call us soon."

That was the Ritual Guardian's signal to leave, and he stepped out of the cave. UrIm remained, of course, saying softly that urTih could stay as long as needed. Yet... urNol stayed as well, no longer holding urTih's hands (he had rested them gently upon the bed), but settling himself next to him.

"Have... you... more herbs... t-to apply...?" urTih managed to stammer, shutting his eyes.

"No."

Then why had the Herbalist remained?

Curiosity overtaking him, urTih raised his head, turning it toward urNol... and blinked, noting the eye patch over the Herbalist's right eye.

"It will hurt... for some time," urNol said. "Distances will be unknown to you, and travel will be hard. But these you will learn."

This would have brought him some relief, but another worry plagued him, though he nearly feared to ask about it. "M-my... experiments?"

A small smile crossed the Herbalist's face. "Herbs have become no more harder for me to use. The same should be for pebbles, feathers, and string."

Relief filled him, and his body rose and fell in a great sigh.

"Our halves can be maimed..." urIm said, and the others raised their heads. "But we may yet live to see them joined with us again... and become whole."

The Healer's words should have brought comfort, but one of urTih's hands raised themselves to touch the bandage over his eye socket.

Perhaps he would be able to walk, and travel, and experiment once again... but to become whole...

No, he thought, lowering his hand.

I shall never be truly whole again.

#urtih #urzah #urim #the dark crystal #the dark crystal age of resistance #urnol #my art #my writing #fanfic

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misanthropecopy · 3 years ago

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@telekinetiq, @gooselullaby

The hour had come.

With all the time she spent preparing not only did Psyche find a new place to stay, she also completely set up new abode for family. The Mewtwo came up and collaborated with the villagers to create a new system of the island they were staying at. She figured out all the best places they could gather food, in their new home. Finally, she found multiple, backup locations in the unlikely event that Giovanni and Team Rocket would destroy their territory once again. Legendary was NOT going to be caught unprepared, this time.

The layout for their new system was a fairly simplistic one, or at least something villagers were faintly accustomed towards. The Zoroark would use their illusionary powers for concealing island completely from humanity’s radars and satellites whenever there were not any real storms going over, while Psyche would make sure to amplify their skills tenfold when amidst new home. No Pokemon was allowed to leave the island unless they asked Mewtwo first and save for some situation where an individual wanted out entirely genetic experiment would take them wherever she went, then keep a telepathic eye on wandering Pocket Monsters when exploring. If in the case of an unlikely event where some person just accidentally stumbles onto their territory they were to be tested as always. Those who weren’t involved in orchestrating these trials would need to keep their distance and if a human failed even once, they were to be immediately subdued until clone teleported them back towards wherever man originated from. Finally, any drones or tracking devices found were to immediately be terminated on SIGHT. No accused device containing surveillance functions was going to enter their sanctum, again.

It was more of a harsher life, then what the villagers had once known and Psyche did not exactly feel entirely satisfied with choices made herself but they all were pushed towards taking such measures. Besides if anyone scarcely believed this life was meant for them, individuals were free to take their own path and Mewtwo would drop them off wherever they wanted.

All the villagers were gathered around Mount Quena’s lakebed, taking one last look at their ephemeral home. It was evident that they had developed some fond memories here, with Stein, his clones and even “Amber”. Even if some had to hold themselves back on their natural instincts, they would never forget this place. Psyche herself would muse over these past, few weeks inside her heart for a long time. Elder clone had granted her a personal mercy, by allowing chosen kin to briefly remain here. Though whenever they spoke towards each other more masculine experiment’s tone often sounded critical, his actions spoke louder then meager words could express. She hoped that... he wouldn’t think less of her, for doing this.

Honestly, it was for the best that they leave. Stein was making enemies on so many sides and even those he dubbed allies Psyche knew hardly had his best interest at heart. Elder clone had provoked the dark side to come out from others and younger one wasn’t sure who she could trust outside of family anymore. Additionally though she tried so hard to refrain from getting involved in conflict, more savage-hearted side still leaked through and now newer Mewtwo was URGED on in creating advanced Pokeballs in case a certain, alien species tried invading or destroying planet. She was falling into that Raboot-hole of hypocrisy and more feminine Pokemon felt compelled to leave before villagers were dragged down with her! They had already been through enough, she didn’t want them fighting against Silvally and foul aliens too! Besides it’s not like she failed to inform other genetic legendary about her plans. From the very beginning she stated they would remain until another, suitable home was found. However... there was a possibility his ideas on this arrangement could have changed. Either way, she was not sticking around to find out.

Eyes engulfing themselves in a white light, with one broad extension of her arms she teleported villagers and herself to new home. This was the start of a new journey for them; a new adventure, waiting on the horizon. If all went well, the villagers would have a peaceful life here. As she and chosen kin vanished from Mount Quena however, something special was being delivered to Stein’s fortified abode.

With a flash of bright light, a single flower appeared near each and every one of Stein’s clones. These blossoms shaped similar towards stars contained white petals, which blended into a deep pink at its tips. Golden anther and filament stemmed from their centers, bringing with them a lovely aroma into atmosphere. They were gracideas and Psyche hoped bringing them these gifts would help appease any pain this parting evoked.

While each of the clones would receive their own blossom, there were two cases amidst Stein’s family who were especially lavished. Nanako, now called Amber would have many blossoms surrounding her person. Amidst these blooms would be a single note. If the little girl noticed it and picked item up, this is what she would read:

Dear “Amber”,

I know this may all be confusing to you; having these things suddenly appear before your person, so I will try my best to explain it in this letter. When me and Myuutsu met and he offered to let us stay with you all, it was only meant to be for a little while. We agreed that we would remain in Mount Quena until I found the villagers a new home. I have since then done that, thus by the time you read this letter the villagers and I will have already left the place. I know you considered us all family and I admit a part of me wishes we can still be that in your eyes, but this is for the best. Don’t be sad though! Life is full of hellos as well as goodbyes. Sometimes things have to change and maybe sometimes they are for the better. Whatever the case may be, know that we all love you very much and you’ll always be welcomed in our new home. This is why we left all these flowers for you, to show that. Just because we’re far apart now, shouldn’t mean we aren’t family anymore however if you feel differently because of our leaving, I understand. Finally, make sure to keep a good eye on Myuutsu. If he does anything that worries you, don’t be afraid to tell him about it. Out of everyone else in the world, you will probably be the one he listens to the most.

Sincerely yours, Psyche.

The second person who was given many gifts was surprisingly, Stein himself. In his most private quarters lied a plethora of not only gracidea flowers but lavender as well, all piled together. It was no small present and elder clone would need to lack sight and scent, in order for offering to go by unnoticed. She hoped such displays would be enough for him to acknowledge it, at least.

In the center of this mound there was a truly unique blossom, as it was not natural but meticulously crafted out of various gemstones. Shaped similar to the gracidea flowers, its petals were forged from amethysts whilst clear quartz made up the anther. Moonstone strands acted as the filament and magenta-colored metal strapped against sides of petals; seemingly holding small sculpture together. Finally two, green bloodstones were carved as the bloom’s leaves and protruded on its left side.

Another written note was right next to this present, if Stein bothered reading it the following words would be seen:

Dear Stein,

You will be pleased to know that I managed to find a suitable home, for me and the villagers. As per the agreement, we are now officially off of Mount Quena. You will not have to worry about us anymore, though if Rocket does stir up some trouble for us again I will be sure to let you know. I did not initially intend to inform you about my discovery through this, as I desired to tell you in person. Then again, you probably realized we were going to leave which is why you left first with your clones. The things that are coupled with this note are mainly gracidea flowers. They are said to bloom whenever an individual is extremely thankful and are given as a sign of gratitude. Each of your family members have received at least one and your little girl has been given enough for a bouquet or two. The villagers adored her, after all. The pile here however is specifically just for you, as it is a little something from all of us. I understand my family and I have thanked you numerous times verbally, for your hospitality and willingness to put up with what quirks we presented, but words were not enough. Thus we felt compelled to express our appreciation through some gesture, like this. You will also find lavender amongst your pile. This specific blossom grew in our former territory and its scent can be relaxing to where it even helps one sleep better. The gems making up this floret next to this letter are stones that I managed to salvage from the wreckage of my home. They were abundant in the caves there and each jewel is said to enhance a psychic’s clairvoyance, telepathy amongst other abilities. The bloodstone forming leaves in particular is said to protect its owner from evil, which you might need now more than ever. I will not lie to you, Stein. Everyone is worried for your well-being. The villagers, your clones, your little girl, even I myself have become concerned. I am aware of your strength and you are fully capable of handling yourself, but you have made countless enemies recently and I will be frank that I do not trust your newfound ally one bit. However since I assume you have left us out of whatever negotiations you forged with that individual, I will refrain from delving into that matter further. I do not doubt that humanity’s time will come, one day. They were erroneous to create sentient entities and then treat said creatures as if we were not alive. Their hubris will undoubtedly lead toward their downfall, in some fashion. I just hope they are not eradicated, while there are still other little girls like yours out there. What I am trying to say is, please be careful and most importantly watch your back. I fear that despite my efforts to crush any knowledge concerning beings like us, a flaw in our design may have been heard by ill-intentioned ears. I hope that you will stay safe, Stein. I do not wish for your family to possibly loose its protector. I don’t want a young lady to watch the closest thing she has towards a father be seriously wounded or worse. I do not want to see you get hurt, as you have already been through so much. Regardless whatever decision you make, I will try not to stand in your way. Whatever choice you put into action, I know you will do it out of consideration for your family. The villagers and I will never forget your kindness towards us and I confess that I hope it will not be too forward of me to call you a friend now. If you do not desire for me to regard you in such a way however, I will comprehend it.

Signed, Psyche.

It was Psyche’s wish that elder clone and the others might have some gratitude towards this little, grandiose gesture of theirs. She hoped that somewhere inside more masculine clone might at least appreciate the effort, put into it. However she would not set her hopes too high, on the matter. Stein, the clones and “Amber” were their own individuals, thus if any of them reacted poorly towards this she would accept it without protest.

She simply had to muster up faith, that they would all be okay.

#BEYOND MY LIMITS (ic)#IC UPDATE #telekinetiq #gooselullaby #littleblaze #popgoesthesneaselreturns #Long post//#((I know I mentioned only the first two blogs))#((but I figured I would tag the rest of the blogs who didn't get a note but are still effected by this decision too))#((also this is my 4000th post))#((so that makes it extra special :D))#((but DANG this took forever to write!))#((I may have to edit this like... 65 more times because I wrote so much sjhfjksf //SHOT))

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thebibliomancer · 4 years ago

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Song of the Dark Crystal liveblog pt 17

Song of the Dark Crystal by J.M. Lee because no time to stop and wonder who stabbed Tavra, we have a flute to find!

Last times on book: Kylan, Naia, and Tavra have traveled to the Cave of Obscurity to find a magic firca that will help them warn all Gelfing about the Skeksis. Maudra Argot agrees to lend them the thing and also lends them her delightful son Amri to lead them to it. Also, someone stabbed Tavra and she’s peeved.

Chapter 17

The group travels to the Tomb of Relics, Amri explains the Vapran/Grottan animosity

Amri was busy while he was off-screen in the back half of the previous chapter.

He told Maudra Argot what happened and the maudra is speaking to everyone one at a time trying to find the one responsible for attacking Tavra.

Kylan says that he doesn’t think Tavra will bring the Wrath of the All-Maudra down on the Grottan if Amri helps them find the firca. Which he was already going to do so dunno why you’re doing the hard sell, Kylan.

Amri runs off to let Argot know that they’ll be leaving for the Tomb of Relics right away.

Leaving Kylan alone in a group of Grottan which murmur to themselves and avoid returning his greeting.

If they had garnered any trust within the Grottan clan, it was dashed after Tavra’s disruption. Maudra Argot had been welcoming, but only to a point. The fact was, they were outsiders in the Caves of Grot, and the Grottan loyalty would always be to their own clan, as Maudra Fara’s had been to the Stonewood.

Uniting the clans is going to be a hard sell, it sounds like.

Amri returns and he and Kylan meet back up with Naia and Tavra. Amri bows respectfully to Tavra and tells her that the Tomb of Relics is about a half day’s journey through the tunnels.

Tavra says ok lets go now, i want to leave this cave.

Even though this would be the last time Amri would be home for a long time and even though he doesn’t have any traveling gear or even shoes, Amri gamely agrees to leave right away.

Good sport, Amri.

He does ask for a second to say goodbye, which he does by tapping on the wall.

He placed his hand against the cave wall and tapped with a finger. There was no sound to the open air, but after they waited a moment, Amri pressed his ear against the rock and listened. Kylan did, too, and heard a faint rhythmic tapping, carrying strongly through the dense rock. He had heard it before but not known what it was. So that was how the Grottan could communicate through the tunnels so silently.

That’s neat!

Just a fun concept for a cave-dwelling clan of not-elves.

I wonder who he was saying goodbye to.

By conservation of detail, probably Maudra Argot, but hey, Amri probably has a clique he hang with. Plotting cave mischief and hanging at the cave mall.

Then, Amri leads the group off down a tunnel to the north. As they get further from the central cavern, it gets darker and darker.

Amri does okay with with his enormous eyes. Kylan has to keep one hand on Naia’s back and one on the wall so that he doesn’t lose her or the path.

Tavra seems to lag behind or lose the group a couple times. Kylan loses track of her footsteps a couple times but instead of holding onto the person in front like Kylan is, she does not do that.

Kylan wishes that they could use a torch but as Amri explains without being asked, light attracts bugs. Just so many bugs. Like oh my god so many.

The journey was more than uncomfortable. Kylan kept pushing down impulses of fear and panic of the dark and the closed-in areas. The others were not happy, but they didn’t seem to feel trapped as he did. To make matters worse, Tavra’s words rang in his mind, summoning a recurring sourness of guilt every time he recalled them. He had tried to reach out to her, but it had been at the worst time possible. The words had been jumbled and wrong, an embarrassment coming from a song teller. So, in the dark, Kylan composed a letter in his mind. One that he would write the next change he got, something he could put care into and give to the soldier when the time was right.

You’re an enormous dork, Kylan! But in a positive way, you enormous dork.

Just stewing in social anxiety in the dark and deciding to write a letter.

After I guess a half a day of travel, Amri stops and searches around in the dark until a lock clicks and a door swings open. Amri lights a crystal lantern and introduces the group to the TOME OF RELICS.

The room was circular, with three halls and the door through which they’d entered. The walls were lined with shelves, each stacked full of scrolls and books, boxes and crates, urns and pots, jars and flasks. From where they stood, he could see that the halls that radiated from the room were made of shelvs, full of more items. In the center of the room was a heavy wood tabl.e For examining the artifacts - the relics - Kylan imagined.

Hey, its like this place was made for Kylan! Look at all the reading you could do here!

Amri says he thinks there’s twelve chambers but he’s never actually been here before. Argot was the one who used to visit but she’s too old for that now.

I wonder if she dreamfasted the layout of the room to him. That would have been helpful.

But apparently she just told him where the firca was? In a wood box with a picture of a bell-bird.

Tavra suggests that they split up to cover more ground and then immediately takes off without waiting for agreement.

Amri has to admit she has a point.

Kylan’s imagination was coming out of hiding after the confrontation with Tavra and the suffocating journey here. He had always wanted to visit Stone-in-the-Wood to read all the tablets and songs kept there, but he had never even heard of the Tombs of Relics. Now that he was here, the wealth of knowledge and lore in the place was almost overwhelming.

Best boy Kylan asks Amri what the Tomb of Relics is and why it exists and why is it here

Geez, he wasn’t kidding about his imagination poking its head out. And the curiosity too seems like.

Amri tells Kylan that its “where mysterious and powerful objects are kept, so they aren’t lost to time and the elements” and that the Grottan have been charged to protect it and something called the Sanctuary.

Kylan assumes that Aughra charged the Grottan to protect the relics but Amri says nah, Thra. The planet Thra tasked them. Or at least according to legend.

Since Amri is in a sharing mood, Kylan asks why the Vapran and Grottan have such beef with each other. The Spriton and the Stonewood have a rivalry but nothing like this.

Amri says that it figures that Tavra wouldn’t have told them. Vaprans and their secrets, y’know.

He asks if Kylan ever heard of the story of the Six Sisters? The stories all differ but there’s a common consensus that the clans were founded by six sisters who all went their own way.

So, if there were six sisters, how are there seven clans?

Kylan had given it some thought before and decided that probably one of the sisters founded two clans but how and why never seemed important.

But with the context of the Grottan and Vapran hating each other and the similar skin tones, he realizes that they were the sister clans.

And the songs differ on explanations and every clan has their preferred version. But Amri shares the one Madura Argot prefers.

“She says that, in the beginning, Thra had seven duties to entrust to the Gelfling race. To the Dousan, the heavens: the study of the suns, moons, and stars. To the Sifan, the skies: the telling of signs and omens. To the Stonewood, the fire of the hearth: the keeping of songs and essence of our culture. To the Spriton, the foundation of the earth: the cultivation of the land and its creatures. To the Drenchen, the water of life: the care of medicine and healing. And to the Silver Sea clan, Thra entrusted the light and the shadow: the keeping of the Gelfling history, law, and records. This task was too great to be shouldered by one clan alone, and so the clan split in two. One took on the keepign of the past: our history and dark things that should be left in shadow. The other became the keeper of our future: our laws and philosophies that lead us toward the light.”

“I see where this is going,” Naia remarked.

“Both are important tasks. We all know there can be no light without darkness. Still, no one wants to be bonded to shadow forever! The sisters discussed it for a long time. In the end, it came to be this way: the Vapra and the Grottan. Some say we were banished. Maudra Argot says we chose to come to these dank caves, while the Vapra flit along the crystal coasts. It’s hard not to feel as if we are imprisoned sometimes. But... I know, truly it’s not the Vapra who charged us with this. It’s Thra itself.”

Me and Kylan both are super intrigued by all this new worldbuilding.

Maudra Mera passed down a lot of stuff to Kylan but never mentioned anything about the Spriton being charged to do them. He wonders if Mera knew or whether only the Grottan know.

I wonder if the Caves of Grot were still the Arathim’s original home, as in the show. The Arathim haven’t even been mentioned, although a lot of other spiders have been.

But if the Skeksis told some Gelfling to settle in this cave, it does add a wrinkle.

Amri then sighs and wiggles. I would like to see this in puppet.

He says that the Grottan may not like the Vapra “who look like us but are nothing like us” but that doesn’t excuse someone trying to shank Tavra. He promises to make it up to the group and suggests that they split up to find that important firca.

#dark crystal #the dark crystal #Song of the Dark Crystal #liveblog #Kylan #Naia #Amri #Tavra

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ccinagalaxyfaraway · 5 years ago

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Mayhaps... a senator au if you feel up to it? where plo koon is the senator for dorin, and the wolfpack is assigned as a guard for him for a negotiation mission or something of the like, whatever you want :)

“It would be most shameful if something were to happen to you during these negotiations, Senator,” says the Chancellor. “Especially since you’re overseeing them on our behalf. I won’t think of it. You must accept protection.”

Plo resists the urge to roll his eyes. He’s at home; his face is uncovered. But oh, he would love to. “Chancellor, I am fully capable of looking after my own safety. My staff -”

“Are unfamiliar with the territory. These are dangerous times, Senator Koon.”

“I am aware,” Plo says. If he had teeth, they would be grinding. May you trod on plastic children’s toys, he thinks sourly.

“It’s settled, then. I know just the men for the job. The 104th Wolfpack Battalion will join you for the duration.”

“The what -? An entire battalion is excessive! Absolutely not.” He is a very private person by nature; the thought of having so many people around devoted to knowing where he is and what he is doing at all times is intolerable. Not to mention the stares and whispers that tend to follow his people wherever they go; it’s not a secret that most of the galaxy considers them unattractive at best.

But the Chancellor has already signed off, his hologram winking out of existence. Plo starts a cycle of deep breathing. His sister the Sage swears it’s helpful. He thinks it’s banthashit.

---

Commander Wolffe, after whom the battalion is presumably named, is a stern approaching-middle-age man with a scar over the right side of his face. The cybernetic eye tracks Plo briefly before syncing with the Commander’s natural eye again; Plo pretends not to notice.

“Senator Koon,” says the Commander, saluting and staring over Plo’s shoulder instead of at his masked face. “We’re to be your protection detail while you mediate discussions.”

“Please call me Plo,” he says, offering a bow. “It will be a long week if we stand on formality the entire time. May I ask who else I have the honor of meeting?”

The Commander introduces his personal squad - now Plo’s constant companions - and Plo bows to each of them in turn. “I do apologize to be the cause of this diversion. Please do tell me if there’s anything I can do to make this assignment easier on you; I am accustomed to coming and going as I please, but I understand changes will have to be made. We can discuss the details in the office.”

He leads the way through the hallways. “You’ll have full access to the ship, barring personal quarters, and an emergency override to my quarters should the need arise. My staff have been instructed to provide you with anything you require; there should be ship layouts and a preliminary intelligence report on our destination and relevant factions waiting for you. You are, of course, welcome to use the ship systems. Accounts can be set up with no difficulty.”

“That is . . . very generous, sir,” says the Commander. “Thank you.”

Plo shrugs. “Everyone starts somewhere. Let us say I am reasonably well acquainted with being on the other side of this arrangement, and how obstructive a client may be.”

“You’re a soldier,” says the Commander with some surprise as they pause in front of Plo’s office while he keys in a code. Two of the men - Comet and Boost - take up positions at either side of the doorway.

“Something like that, once upon a time,” says Plo. He stands aside so Sinker can clear the space and pick his spot on the inside of the door before entering, Commander Wolffe trailing behind him. “Please, have a seat. Now, how may I help you with your arrangements?”

---

The clone troopers are less of an imposition than Plo had expected them to be; they’re generally willing to allow Plo to have his freedom, even if they accompany him everywhere but the fresher and to bed. By the time they arrive at neutral ground, the shifts have been worked out and aside from Commander Wolffe’s presence as his shadow, things are almost normal. And even that isn’t altogether unenjoyable; the Commander has a dry wit and a general lack of tolerance for nonsense that aligns well with Plo’s own sense of humor. It’s like having someone to give voice to all the things he wishes he could say himself but can’t due to his position.

It doesn’t hurt that the Commander has had zero discernible thoughts whatsoever about his appearance. The few times they’ve made skin-to-skin contact, the Commander has been carefully, deliberately blank; clearly he’s done his research. It makes for a more cordial relationship, not being bombarded with opinions on things he can do nothing about. Every morning, he waits for Plo at the door to his quarters and escorts him to breakfast before proceeding to the conference hall. A half day of discussions later, they go to lunch, which Plo picks his way through around his mask while the Commander watches, and then back to negotiating. Afterwards, he brings Plo back to his quarters with a reminder to call if he wants to go anywhere, declines to join Plo for any kind of refreshment, and disappears to wherever he goes when Plo isn’t in public.

Plo wonders if he ever eats. He has to; he’s not a droid. But unless he’s downing 4500 calories in one sitting after shift, he needs food during the day and he isn’t getting it. The rest of the men switch out at least; Wolffe is never out of reach. The most he’s ever managed to get the man to accept is a mug of unadulterated caf. It can’t be healthy. Not, of course, that it’s any of Plo’s business.

Still.

The end of the week comes sooner than Plo expects with everything running so smoothly; so of course, the Separatists choose to attack on the last day. The explosion throws the room into chaos, smoke and fire spreading from the blast. Wolffe pulls him into his chest, curling around him even as he draws his pistols, snapping orders at his men. Plo makes himself as small as possible, trying to keep out of the way.

After the first brief exchange with the droids, Wolffe shuffles them both towards Comet, who’s already radioed out for help in case the smoke wasn’t enough to tip someone off. “We were this close,” he complains, throwing a charge pack at Boost.

“I know,” Plo mumbles. “I’d so wanted to tell the Chancellor I-told-you-so.”

“That eager to be rid of us?” Wolffe asks, eyebrow raised.

“Not you in particular, Commander,” Plo says, though Wolffe’s grin says he’s only teasing. “Just perhaps the rest of your battalion. Which I maintain is overkill for one unimportant expansion region senator.”

“Bet you’re glad we’re around now, though,” says Comet, whose informality endeared him to Plo on day one.

“I can’t dispute that,” Plo says. He ducks as more blaster fire strikes their cover.

“We only have to make it -”

“ETA ten minutes,” Comet supplies.

“-until extraction,” says Wolffe. “Keep your head down and things will be fine.”

Plo nods and throws his arms around his head, wishing he’d brought a sound dampener.

“Be ready to move,” Wolffe orders. Boost lays down cover fire for them as they run for the door, Comet ahead and Sinker behind, and Wolffe at his side. They’ve almost made it out when a second blast throws them into a wall. Plo gasps weakly, rolling onto his side, the world spinning. Wolffe has already climbed to his feet and is fighting a droid, his movements wild and uncontrolled; blood trickles from the side of his head. He misses a blow, staggers, and the droid catches him by the neck, lifting him into the air. Wolffe chokes, scrabbling at the droid’s arm for leverage, kicking to no avail, dying.

That cannot be allowed to happen. Plo grasps around for a weapon. Anything. All there is is drywall and rubble. He focuses on a shard of stone. Reaches. The shard remains just out of reach. It can’t be. It won’t be. He clenches his jaw.

The shard launches into the air, rocketing past Wolffe and into the droid’s head. Wolffe drops to the ground and kicks it away as it begins sparking. He staggers over to Plo and drops to his knees beside him.

“What,” he gasps,” was that?”

“Learned it from my sister,” says Plo, right before he passes out.

---

By the time Plo recovers from his Force-exhaustion, cleanup is well underway and they are halfway back to Coruscant. When he steps out of his quarters, Wolffe is one of the men standing guard at the door. Wolffe salutes, and Plo dips his head. They walk to the mess in companionable silence Plo makes a cup of tea and a mug of caf and collects an assortment of fruit and pastry.

“Would you join me?” he asks, taking a seat in the booth. Wolffe studies him, a new curiosity in his eyes, and then acquiesces. He sits stiffly, picture perfect for an army etiquette guide.

“It’s been an eventful end to the week,” Plo says. “I’d wanted to thank you for your protection.”

“Just doing our job, Senator,” says Wolffe. He doesn’t sound, strictly speaking, as though that was the only thing he had been doing.

“Nevertheless, a job well done deserves recognition,” says Plo. He nudges the plate closer to Wolffe. “Please don’t feel like you have to stand on formality with me. You’ve seen how I am with my staff.”

Wolffe hesitates a moment and then caves, selecting a cluster of berries. Plo smiles. “I hope this diversion hasn’t cut into your original plans, Commander.”

“No. Just shifted back a week. If I may, sir, I had a question.” He studies Plo. “At the hall. You used the Force?”

“I did.”

“But you’re not a Jedi.”

“I am not.” He chuckles. “My family is frequently gifted with these abilities. Mine are not so prominent that my parents felt they could not handle me, and I was rather fascinated with systems as a child. When the Master Jedi asked if I wished to be trained, I declined in favor of continuing my studies at home. And so, here we are.” He spreads his hands.

“Here we are,” Wolffe echoes. “I should be thanking you for saving my life.”

“I could hardly do otherwise when I had the ability to help. And if I’m entirely honest, I’ve become rather fond of you in the last week,” Plo says. Wolffe’s eyes linger on him. He decides to take the chance. “Please feel free to refuse, but might I ask for the honor of your company at dinner?”

Wolffe’s lips twitch. “I am afraid I must decline, Senator,” he says. Plo lets out a self-depreciating puff. “However - I’m off-duty once I’ve reported in on Coruscant, and I have no plans other than to kill time with paperwork in an office. You might have better luck then.”

“I see,” says Plo. “Please do eat, Commander. I’m not at all collecting information on your preferences.”

Wolffe smiles and pops a berry into his mouth.

#plo koon #commander wolffe #plowolffe #swcw #promptfic #cocoeast

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suckmysupernatural · 4 years ago

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Sunshine - Chapter 2

Series Masterlist

Word Count: 1642

Pairing: Sam x OC Sunny

Series Summary: The Winchesters meet a cheerful hunter named Sunny, who quickly captures Sam’s attention. Little do any of them know what lies in store when Sunny gets invited to join the brothers. Who can say how Sam, Dean, and Sunny will be some training days, a handful of hunts, romantic dates, a kidnapping, and one vengeful demon later.

Chapter Summary: The Winchesters show Sunny the bunker.

Warnings: language

--------------------------------------

Driving back to Lebanon went a lot faster than expected. Sam attributed it to the anticipation he felt at the thought of talking to Sunny again. Looking at her car in the rearview was nice, but not nearly good enough. Every once in awhile, he would catch Dean smirking at him and honestly didn’t blame him. Sam had a total crush on the woman.

The two classic cars pulled into the bunker’s garage, one right next to the other. Sunny was already fascinated with the brother’s home base. The garage had about a dozen different cars, all in mint condition.

She exited the car, pulling out her duffel bag from the back seat. Everything she owned fit inside of it, aside from the weapons that were expertly organized in the trunk. Sunny watched as the brothers grabbed their things and ushered her to the door that leads to the bunker’s interior. Sunny was surprised to see how spacious the place was and was excited to explore it.

“Wow, it’s just the two of you here?” she asked, looking towards the men. It seemed like there could be room for over a dozen people.

“Yeah, well, we like to take in strays, now and then. You’ll probably meet Cas at some point, so don’t be surprised if you find a man in a trench coat wandering around. He sometimes stays here as well,” Dean told her.

“So is that me? One of your strays?” Sunny joked to the older brother.

“Nah. You’re our Yoda,” Dean smirked. The three of them made their way down the staircase and Dean split off from the two, giving his brother a wink before heading to his room. Sam bit back an insult to his brother, instead offering to carry Sunny’s duffel.

“How ‘bout you pick out a room and then I can give you the rest of the tour?” Sam asked, to which Sunny responded with an enthusiastic nod. Sam motioned for her to follow, showing the way to his side of the bunker. Walking down the hallway, Sam stopped in front of a door.

“So, this one is mine right here,” Sam said, giving his bedroom door a small smack. “You can choose any empty room, they are all basically identical so whatever works for you.”

“I’ll take this one,” Sunny said as she opened the door across the hall. She was met with a basic room, bare apart from the furniture. Sam couldn’t help but smile. He had been hoping that she would choose one close to his. The two walked into Sunny’s new room, Sam sitting on the bed as he watched the woman unpack.

It didn’t take her long as most of her belongings were clothes, but she had a few trinkets as well. Near the bottom of the bag were two photos, each in its own frame. She put them on the nightstand and couldn’t help but smile. She turned to Sam, pointing to one of the photos.

“That’s my sister and me. I was 6; she was 3. We went on a family vacation to Disneyland. It’s one of my happiest memories,” she motioned towards the other one, which showed a couple laughing as they held one another, “This one is from my parents’ wedding day.”

“So, where are they now?” Sam asked.

“Gone. Have been for a long time now. It was a djinn. My whole family was at home, eating dinner one night when there was a knock at the door. My dad went to see who it was and when we didn’t hear anything for a few minutes, my mom followed. The djinn got to them both before walking into the house and getting my sister and me before we could even notice. It’s funny, my dream was just finishing dinner.

A hunter who had caught wind of the djinn, ended up killing it right there in my living room. I was the only survivor. I was 22 and my whole family was dead. I had no extended family, no clue what I was going to do. So, I decided to start hunting. The one who saved me, Jason, he taught me the basics before I went off on my own. Last I heard, he had moved to Hawaii.”

“Wow, I’m so sorry,” Sam empathized. He knew loss quite well by now.

“At least I know that they got to live long, happy lives. Even if it was just in their heads,” she said. Her positivity was something Sam was glad to be around. Sure, he wasn’t entirely negative but the shit that he and Dean had gone through made them rough around the edges. Sunny, on the other hand, seemed to seep optimism from her pores. Sam found it refreshing.

Sunny continued to unpack her things, pulling out a few worn-down novels, a lavender candle, and toiletries. She liked to keep a candle with her. It was something to make motel rooms feel the slightest bit like home.

Once the bag was empty, Sunny kicked it under the bed. Sam stood and started the tour. He showed her all the main places in the bunker: the bathroom, the kitchen, infirmary, dungeon, Dean-cave, and library. He also showed off the gun range and mat room where she would be trying to teach the brothers. Once he had shown her just about everything, they ended back up in the hallway that led to their rooms.

“I am gonna go unpack my duffel, let you get settled. Dean and I will be in the library later; you’re more than welcome to join us.” Sam smiled at Sunny before leaving. Sunny simply nodded in response. She decided to take a shower, more than thrilled to be somewhere other than a motel. The water pressure in those places is horrendous.

Walking into the bathroom, she locked the door behind her and scoped the layout. The shower was nicer than she was used to, stepping onto the cool tile and looking over the knobs. She quickly figured out which one was connected to the hot water and turned it up. Soon, the warm water washed over her, all the tension in her muscles quickly dissipating. Sunny took her time, enjoying a quality shower for the first time in what felt like forever. She didn’t want to use up all the hot water in case one of the brothers wanted a shower, so she sadly turned off the water and wrapped a fluffy towel around her.

Her bare feet padded towards her room, finding it with relative ease. She decided to dress for comfort, pulling on a pair of grey sweatpants and a pink crop top. Using the towel, Sunny squeezed most of the water from her hair before heading out to meet the brothers in the library.

Only making one wrong turn, it didn’t take long before she found the two brothers sitting at the center table. Sam and Dean turned at the sound of her entering the room, Sam trying his best not to show a reaction. He was once again baffled by her beauty. Even in sweatpants and wet hair, she was basically irresistible.

“Hey, Sunny,” Dean greeted, motioning for her to sit at the table. She sat, giving the older brother her attention. “Whatcha want for dinner? I was thinking of getting take-out.”

“I eat just about anything,” Sunny said, “I’m not picky.”

“Mexican?” Dean offered.

“Yeah, sure. A burrito sounds fantastic,” she agreed. Dean chuckled, taking Sam’s order before leaving to go grab dinner.

Sunny couldn’t help but stand, fascinated by the number of books in the bunker’s library. Her hands skimmed the spines, her head tilted to read the titles. She was mesmerized by the amount of literature, her eyes sparkling as she cataloged the material.

Sam couldn’t take his eyes off of her, appreciating her wonder. He almost couldn’t bear it. She was just perfect. Standing, he walked over to where she stood. She looked up, smiling when she met his eyes.

“Yes, Sam?” Sunny batted her eyes. It was apparent he wanted to say something.

“I know this might be a little… forward, but I like you, Sunshine,” Sam reached down, taking her hand in his, “I was wondering if you wanted to go on a date with me?” He was nervous; it had been years since he had asked a girl on a date. He felt like a teenage boy all over again, his heart racing as he looked at the beautiful girl. Her smile grew even bigger, and he could swear her eyes were sparkling.

“I like you too, Sam,” she said, “I would love to go on a date with you.” Sam grinned, a slight blush creeping onto his face. He nodded slightly, trying to contain his giddiness. With his free hand, he brushed her cheek before going back to his seat. He didn’t want to rush anything. Not with her. Sunny was exceptional, and he wanted to make sure that she knew it.

Sunny turned back to the shelves, rocking slightly on the balls of her feet. She was excited to see where things went with Sam. They had been drawn to one another right away. It felt right to pursue something more than just friends.

The two stayed where they were, with Sam nursing a beer and Sunny looking at the titles of books until Dean returned with dinner. Immediately, the older brother could sense that something was different between the two. Glancing at Sam, he saw his younger brother give a small nod to confirm that something had indeed happened when he was gone. Dean was proud of Sam; it wasn’t every day that he was this bold around women. But even Dean knew that Sunny was different.

That she was someone that had the capability to change Sam’s life.

Chapter 3 ->

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xb-squaredx · 4 years ago

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Please Don’t Sleep on Hades

2020’s…been a real year, huh? At a time when in-person gatherings aren’t much of a thing and people have to stay in, video games are suddenly a pretty attractive option. That said, few games have really grabbed me this year; in a roundabout way, 2020’s been a year of reruns, as I go through a lot of games I’ve already played or games that are just yesterday’s news (but new to me!). However, in the nick of time, the folks at Supergiant Games delivered unto us their latest title, Hades. While they’ve been working on this game for years, with it hitting Early Access on Steam back in 2018, the full version of Hades finally hit Steam, the Epic Game Store and made the leap to consoles with the Switch, which is where I picked it up. It has been a WHILE since I’ve had a game grab me so strongly so early on, and I’ve been hearing this game’s praises for years now already, so allow me to happily state why I think Hades is worthy of the hype and is a fantastic game I’d easily recommend!

DADDY ISSUES

OK, so first things first…you don’t actually play as Hades in this game, but rather his son Zagreus. Ol’ Zag has had it with his father, and tries to literally fight his way out of hell to reach the surface, and no matter what his old man puts in his way, Zagreus (and the player) will meet the challenge. And probably die, but hey, that’s OK! In the underworld, death is more of an inconvenience than anything else, so after taking a moment to dust himself off, Zagreus will head out for another attempt. For as long as it takes.

Hades is a rogue-like, meaning it’s a game based around randomization and adaptation. On any given “run” of the game, the level layouts, enemies present and the variety of power-ups Zagreus can find will be left to chance, with the player challenged to amass the best build they can to eventually break out of hell and reach the human world and if you die…start from scratch. That said, Hades is among the ever-growing sub-genre of rogue-lites, in that there IS some permanent progression, which takes a bit of a sting out of dying, but more on that later. Now, most games of this type aren’t really big on story. They have a premise that’s little more than an excuse to play. Splunkey wants you to explore a cave, The Binding of Isaac sees you escaping a basement and in Enter the Gungeon you uh…e-enter the gun—you get the point! But what separates Hades from most rogue-likes/lites is that there actually IS a very interesting story that unfolds as you play.

There’s more to Zag’s desire to get to the surface than just getting away from his father, though their strained relationship certainly doesn’t help matters, and over the course of your many, MANY escape attempts, players learn of the rather screwed-up nature of Zagreus’ family of deities, though any mythology nut could tell you to expect that. Hades has an incredibly charismatic cast, superb voice acting across the board, and some real sharp writing that really got me wanting to meet anyone and everyone and learn more about this world. You’re likely to run into Hypnos first, who always has a “tip” ready for you when you meet your end to a given enemy or hazard, or the fabled hero Achilles, who acts as a mentor to Zagreus. There’s Dusa, the adorably frazzled flying gorgon head who acts as the House of Hades’ maid, and of course…Megaera, of the Furies.

She serves as the first proper boss in the game, and will be a pretty sizable challenge for most players, but as you eventually overcome her again and again, she and Zagreus end up attempting to reconnect with each other, and her recurring fights become an excuse to flirt and test each other. I may as well say too that it’s easy to fall in love with the characters in this game because…I-I mean, just look at them! This game is a bisexual’s paradise, that’s all I’ll say.

A bit of a fun fact, but Zagreus’ voice actor, Darren Korb, is also a composer at Supergiant, so he’s a man of many talents, since Hades has a killer score. From the laid-back tunes at the House of Hades where you can unwind and recharge after a botched run, to the pulse-pounding boss theme, there’s some GREAT music on display here. And that’s before you meet Orpheus and Eurydice, two characters with amazing singing voices that, if you play your cards right, might start singing together. The game’s visuals, meanwhile, aren’t a slouch either. While the level layouts are randomized, everything manages to look well-crafted, each region of the underworld having their own distinct look and feel. The fiery pits of Asphodel end up juxtaposing well with the paradise that is Elysium. Now, character models are generally less-detailed since the camera stays zoomed out to give players a good view of the action, but the portraits for the various characters more than make up for it with their distinct, detailed designs. A-And I’m not just saying that because everyone’s hot! Now, admittedly you might take a look at Zag and think he’s nothing but an edgelord and the game itself might be taking itself too seriously, but in reality, Hades strikes a pretty good balance, and definitely carries a sense of humor. Characters love to snark at each other, the various Shades chilling in the House of Hades’ lounge have some funny conversations you can listen in on and all told, the game only gets serious when appropriate. Really, I have no real complaints with the game on a presentation level; it’s all aces so far, and thankfully the game-y part follows suit!

LIVE.DIE. REPEAT.

Hades is best described as a dungeon-crawler. You have an isometric view as you move about, avoiding hazards and fighting off enemies as you climb each chamber on your way to the surface. Defeat every enemy in a chamber and get a reward. Sounds simple enough until you factor in all of the various permutations of events; Hades aims to make sure no two runs are alike, with different enemies, power-ups and challenges awaiting you. All of this is doled out slowly, as with each subsequent playthrough you begin to have more of the game unraveled. First and foremost, Zagreus can gain various Boons from the other Olympian Gods, who are sympathetic to his plight and lend him some power if he makes contact with them. Each God has their own twist on the abilities they grant Zagreus. They can all increase his stats in some way, or affect either his dash ability or his Cast, a projectile attack. For Zeus, naturally, all of Zagreus’ moves will gain an electric effect, whereas Artemis focuses more on upping Zag’s critical hit chance. Dionysus, the God of Wine, grants you the “hangover” status effect, allowing your attacks to uh…make enemies drunk? Sure! You’ll be given a random selection of three Boons to pick from, of varying rarities. Over the course of a run, you might try to nab as many Boons from the same God as possible, or vary it up and see which abilities synchronize together. At times, you might even be granted a Duo Boon, where two Gods decide to combine their power for a special ability that plays to both of their strengths. Still, at other times, you might be forced into a Trial of the Gods, where you must choose one God’s Boon over the other, with the snubbed God lashing out afterwards. Hey, just because they’re Gods, doesn’t mean they’re nice. Of course, you’ve also got a variety of health and weapon upgrades too. In fact, let’s gush about the weapons for a second, shall we?

At the time of writing, Hades has six weapons to play with. You start with a sword, which is the all-rounder of the set, but as you gain keys to unlock more weapons, you can start to really experiment. The bow and rail cannon serve as ranged options with different approaches, while the spear is the melee weapon with the best range at the cost of pure power. The shield grants you absolute defense at the cost of range, while the gauntlets let you unleash your fisticuffs on underworld scum, though leave you with limited ranged attacks. Each weapon has specific Boons and weapon upgrades you can find as well, some of which can radically alter how a weapon works. The rail cannon, for example, fires a lot faster than the bow, but this is balanced by needing to manually reload…unless you get a weapon upgrade that gives you unlimited ammo with the only catch being that you can only do burst fire. Adding to this, players eventually unlock hidden Aspects of weapons, morphing them into different forms which can also influence their moveset. Change the shield to the Aspect of Zeus, and when you throw your shield Captain America style, it stays out and continually spins, dealing tons of damage over time and effectively forcing enemies to get sliced to bits if they want to get near you. I didn’t expect this game to have half this many weapons or to have them balanced so well. Really, just like anything else, weapons are another tool you can poke and prod and experiment with until you get a truly killer collection of Boons and upgrades that let you just demolish anything in your way. It’s very satisfying when you finally clear a run with a great build…though depending on the RNG, you WILL get some crummy builds, but that’s the nature of the rogue-like!

It’s likely that a bad build (or really, just getting hit with a new boss or enemy you aren’t prepared for) will lead to a death, but as already established, death isn’t really that much of an inconvenience in the underworld. Zagreus just spawns back at home and is free to immediately try to escape again, but this brief reprieve lets you chat up whoever happens to be around, give them gifts, advance some side-quests, pet your dog Cerberus and practice with weapons and such before you’re ready to go at it again. It’s after a run that you also get to spend a lot of the spoils of your escape attempts. While you lose Boons and weapon upgrades and the like upon death, there’s a LOT of various items you keep with you that have plenty of uses. Darkness shards are used for permanent skills that can be applied to Zagreus, like Death’s Defiance, which grants Zagreus another life upon dying, which can eventually be upgraded to give him THREE extra lives, just as an example. Precious gems can be used to fund a variety of cosmetic changes to the House of Hades. Just because Zagreus doesn’t want to live there anymore, doesn’t mean he can’t at least make it look good! Nectar can be gifted to other characters to improve your relationships with them, with bottles of Ambrosia being required later on, while special keys can be used to unlock weapons, more upgrades for your Darkness shards, or just used as a secondary currency for trade. There’s really a LOT of different items to mess around with, though admittedly if you’re the type to want to max out EVERYTHING you’ll be in it for the long haul, as there is not only a LOT of stuff to upgrade and purchase, but the random nature of things means rewards are never a guarantee. Though it’s worth noting the game’s totally beatable without going nuts with completion. Which I guess leads me to the biggest compliment I can give this game: even after “beating” it, I still can’t stop playing, and there’s plenty of reason to keep going.

REPLAYS AND REWARDS

So, full disclosure, I’ve gotten Zagreus to the surface. Several times, actually. But I haven’t quite “beaten” the game yet. In fact, at the risk of sounding pretentious, it is as if the true game begins after you’ve beaten it once. Without getting into specifics, let’s just say the game gives you a very good in-story reason to keep playing, and you won’t reach credits without several completed runs under your belt. And even then, there’s still stuff to do. I’m almost 30 hours into Hades and I’ve barely scratched the surface honestly. Every major character has their own sidequest you can undergo, but it can be slow goings when it comes to advancing them. Trying out all the weapons and boons and different combinations will easily take dozens of hours to fully experience, though the game has a handy in-game list of what you’ve done and haven’t done, as well as in-game achievements with tangible rewards that will spur you on. I was admittedly surprised at how dense of a game Hades can be. A successful run will likely take you somewhere between a half-hour to an hour, which is pretty devious. Just long enough to stay engaging throughout, and short enough that I can keep convincing myself that I have time for “one more run” and then suddenly several hours have gone by. Strangest thing.

Something that’s become a bit of a staple of Supergiant’s work is customizable difficulty, various modifiers you can flip on to make the game harder if you so desire, which in Hades takes the form of the Pact of Punishment. After a successful run, you can turn on a given pact to spice things up for subsequent runs. Maybe enemies do a bit more damage, or you give yourself a super strict time limit to clear a run. You can give enemies armor that makes them sturdier, or jack up the in-game shop’s prices. You can even be forced to give up Boons in order to advance past certain doors! Probably the most impressive Pact is Extreme Measures, which ends up greatly affecting the boss fights in the game…trust me when I say you won’t be ready for them the first time you flip that on. Activating a given pact increases a “heat gauge” that, should it reach a given level, will end up granting you various special items to help with fully upgrading and unlocking stuff. Of course, with each successful run completed with a given Pact activated, you’ll have to raise the heat more and more in order to keep getting these upgrade materials so be prepared. You can also still gain these materials (albeit at a much slower rate) playing through the game normally though, and there’s really no penalty for choosing NOT to activate a given pact. On the flip side of things, there’s also a God Mode you can toggle on that makes Zagreus a little stronger with each death, which can help those that want to see more of the story but are struggling with the game. Have your God Cake and eat it too!

All and all, this game just delivers on every level and I’ve been devouring it since release whenever I have a spare minute. You can see that Supergiant is taking all the lessons they learned from each previous game and combined it to make what is easily their best game yet. I don’t throw around words like “masterpiece” lightly, but Hades is just such a slam dunk that I’m sorely tempted to call it just that. I mean, if you hate rogue-likes, I’m not sure if Hades will really push you over the edge admittedly? You get way more rewards retained after death than just about any other rogue-like I’ve played, but if you’re the type that hates having to constantly adapt and not being able to memorize what’s coming, I can see this not working for you. But for me at least, I’ve had an absolute blast with the game and the only issue I really have with it is a small nitpick at best. When it comes to getting to know various characters, you can talk to them and give them Nectar or Ambrosia as a gift right? But what happens if they don’t show up on a given run? Or what if they DO show up, but they’re locked into a conversation with someone else? That means you can’t really advance anything with them until a given dice roll pities you. MEGAERA I THINK YOU’RE COOL, PLEASE JUST TALK TO M—oh sorry, don’t know where that came from… So yeah, that’s the nittiest of picks.

I adore this game’s cast, the voice work and music is excellent to the ear, the combat is engaging, the gameplay loop is addicting…need I say more? I mean, I’ve said almost 3000 words, but to really sum it up…I highly recommend Hades and I hope you don’t pass it up if you’re even remotely interested. You can find it on Steam, the Epic store and Switch as of right now, and I don’t think you could go wrong with any version.

Blood and darkness await you.

-B

#Hades #Hades game #supergiant games #hades supergiant #zagreus #megaera #rouge like #nintendo switch #xb-squaredx

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storm-in-a-tea-cup0 · 5 years ago

Note

22, 23, 31, and 40 for the OC asks.

I'll apologize in advance for how all over the place these answers are. Sorry Kelly '*'

22. Is there any OC of yours people tend to mischaracterize? If yes, how?

*sigh* Yes. Ilya. Some of my friends tend to see him as a cold-blooded man even though I make sure to begin always open his description with words like "soft" and "sentimental". But I think I get where that comes from. I mean, he's an assassin, literally walks around with blood-stained hands and he doesn't lose his sleep over that but did I really write him so poorly that no one realises he's not his own person yet? That his beliefs, his actions, his everything is not his but his family's?

And that, that—that notion of him as an emotionless bastard grew exponentially between my friends who read the "I'd lay the streets with bodies for you" scene and I'll again blame myself for that because I thought the parallels were explicit in that scene but I was most certainly wrong? I wrote that with the Alteo and Amaryllis in mind. And writer insight: Ilya plays the role of Amaryllis. Did he lay the streets with bodies? Yes. But did you see how his heart bled with every death? Or how many times he asked Yulia if that was really her wish if that was the only way he could win her love?

Anyway, that's it. Sorry for the mess of a rant but I'm really attached to that bish.

23. Introduce OC that has changed from your first idea concerning what the character would be like?

Friends and family, meet Yavannië Wilwarindëa, better known as Autumn Evenstar. She's a 6'4" elven princess initially meant to be way too traumatized by past events to function properly. Current Autumn is a very independent kid who left her realm for "you treat me as if I'd break" reasons. She has a nomadic soul, loves the colour blue and wants to be a teacher for the baby elves to come.

The few things I can say she kept from OG Autumn are the absolute fear of flight, the love for surprising people and the talent as a blacksmith? Ah, the total lack of pudor as well.

31. Pick one OC of yours and explain what their Tumblr blog would be like (what they reblog, layout, anything really).

Mikado, I choose you. I know I haven't said shirt about her but this might be a good opportunity to. Her username would be something like "rosycriminal", "nippon-floral-rebellion" or "misguidedyakuzahime". Black, White and Red floral/manga general aesthetic. She'd basically post about plants. How to take care of them, pretty plants, random info on plants, gardening hacks, best tea plants, how to start your home garden, seasonal diseases, plants now is the moment I say she's a botanist. Every now and then however you'd have posts criticizing the conduct of the Japanese police as well as the crime syndicates. Until one day there'd be a short apology post and no further communication.

40. Any fond memories linked to your characters? Feel free to share!

Aaaah, okay, okay. I feel like all of these will be about Nick but it's just because the memories linked to him are just merry. Alright, let's begin.

Nicholas came to life at a Halloween party in 2018. My friend and I had been sitting at a table stuffing our face with pizza and sparkling wine for good 2h when I blurted a "You know what, enough of this. Remember the universe I just told you about during the car ride here? Pois é. We're making a new OC to throw there." And just like that, the party became one of the best we ever attended together 🤣 And I think all of that night is very evident when you see Nick. That and how he is for sure the child of my friendship with Aninha. It's just, yeah.

Hmm, Okay. The second one would be the time I was at my parents' house and decided to elaborate on the cave episode. I'm sitting like I'm gay on the couch when baby brother enters the room and goes "You're making the face. What is it now?" To which I reply very absentmindedly "Just dropping a cave at my son." I immediately closed my mouth and looked at him, he paused the game and stared at me with a "What the actual Fork" expression on his face, sighs his soul out and says "You have issues. You should talk to mom," and resumes his videogame. My mother arrived not long after to a Milie laughing on the couch. Baby brother then proceeded to tell her how I'm a sadist who needs treatment, to which I just laughed more.

Aaah!!! I have an Olivia one. I think we were out celebrating my birthday eating Japanese food, no one was saying a word, we were just at our phones and I decided that was the time to enquire my mother, a shrink, how to best depict schizophrenia on my writing. You see, that would've been quite normal had my mother not pulled a "Living with Schizophrenia" flyer from her purse. That was when my dad ordered more sashimi because he knew we were just beginning.

#answered #Aaah thanks Kelly. I feel like I wanted to take the Ilya weight out of my chest so really. Thanks.#MM's OCs

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linerwriter · 5 years ago

Text

Soon

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Trigger warning for whipping near the end. It doesn’t explicitly occur, but it is mentioned and discussed.

“317! The Mistress would like to see you.”

Wild glanced up from where he was stitching carpets on a loom to see one of the guards above him. At the guard’s eyebrow raise, he quickly stood up and bowed his head. From the corner of his eyes, he could see Ada tilt her head slightly to make sure he was okay. He gave a subtle nod and walked out of the room, unknowing of the danger he was about to face.

He kept his head down as he was escorted, although he was mentally tracing the layout of the place. The slaves were only allowed to go to two places: the sleeping room, the place he had woken up in, and the loom room, the place he had just been in. It was very hard mapping any possible exits for their plan, but perhaps this meeting was a blessing in disguise.

Suddenly, a flash of light caught his eye, making him squint and stop walking. It had been incredibly long since he had seen any source of light besides torches; he had a feeling they were kept in some type of cave structure, and it seemed he was right. The light appeared to be coming from a hallway full of windows overlooking a snowcapped mountain. A realization struck him: they were in the Gerudo Highlands.

“Hey!” The guard barked, “Keep walking!”

Hurriedly, Wild caught up to the man, acting like the submissive servant. “Sorry,” he apologized softly, making sure to manipulate his voice so it sounded feminine, “I just haven’t seen sunlight in so long.”

The guy sneered, “Treasure it while it lasts. You won’t see it for much longer.”

Once he turned around, Wild had to hold back a glare. Treasure it yourself, he thought, when we bust out of here, you’re gonna be first on my list.

Finally, they arrived at the designated spot. The guard slammed his spear on the floor. “Listen up,” he barked, “You disrespect the Mistress? You ain’t coming out of this alive.” Wild kept his eyes trained on the floor, carefully schooling his expression. “Got it?”

The sudden spear tip under his chin forced Wild to lift his head up and stare into the dark eyes of the guard. “I said,” the guard increased the pressure, “Got it?”

“Dakota, enough.”

Both men looked toward the new voice to see the woman that had lured Wild into this mess. “Iesha,” the guard, now dubbed Dakota, took the spear away from Wild’s throat, “How are you doing?”

“Fine,” she sauntered over to the two, “So this is Mother’s latest sales pitch?”

“It would appear so.”

Iesha quirked an eyebrow, “If she’s meeting with her, then why was I called here as well?”

Dakota shrugged, “Don’t know. We need to get going, though, or else the Mistress won’t be happy.”

“Hmm,” Iesha looked pensive, “Let’s get going, shall we?” And with that, she sauntered into the room, leaving Wild to catch up with her.

When they walked into the room, they were greeted by a Gerudo woman with black eyes and braided red hair wearing a purple sheer version of Wild’s outfit sitting on a stone throne. (How she was able to survive up here with that little protection was a mystery to Wild. Perhaps potions?) “Ah,” she smirked, “I see you have arrived. Guards,” she addressed the warriors in the room with a sharp look, “leave us at once.”

As the guards filed out of the room, Iesha slowly lowered herself until she was kneeling before her mother, “You’ve called for me, Mother?”

“Yes,” the smirk the woman wore turned into a look of disdain, “I will get to you in a moment. Now,” she turned her attention towards the smallest person in the room, “we have other business to get to.”

Wild straightened up immediately, which caused the woman’s grin to widen. “Don’t worry, you’ve done nothing wrong. Yet.” The threat hung in the air making the two young adults shiver.

“Indeed, we have something else to get to.” The woman continued, “First off, I simply must introduce myself. It’s a requirement when you’re sold off to know the name of your former owner, of course.”

That didn’t sound good. Wild cleared his throat quietly, “What is your name, milady?”

“Oh, I like this one,” the Gerudo laughed, “I go by many names, most unimportant to you lot.” She snarled, “You may address me as Mistress Zara, if you need to address me at all.”

So this was the mysterious Zara. Wild flashbacked to the first time he had heard the name, after he had first met Ada and Nabila.

“If you ever are called to meet her, be careful,” Nabila had warned, clutching Ada’s hand tightly, “She may look Gerudo, but that is the extent of it. She is a monster in every sense of the word.”

Ada had nodded, looking at her lover in concern, “I’ve heard that she beats her most loyal follower for absolutely no reason, no matter the time of day.” She had looked at Wild fiercely, “Do not upset her, no matter what.”

With those words of wisdom echoing in his head, he responded, “Of course, Mistress Zara.”

“Good,” Zara clapped her hands together, “Now, onto to more important news: you’re being sold.”

Wild’s breath caught in his throat, “Excuse me, Mistress?”

“You heard me. We’ve had a recent buyer ask for someone with your proportions, something we don’t normally carry, so you were plucked from the masses. I’ve only kept you here for the past week so you can be trained properly, and then you’ll be shipped off, outside of the kingdom.” Zara sighed dreamily, “Isn’t it great? You won’t ever have to think for yourself ever again!”

Still in shock, Wild licked his lips, “O-of course, milady. That is truly the greatest thing I could hope for.” The last words came out so quietly, even Wild had a hard time hearing them.

“I’m glad you agree. And now, for you.” Zara’s face changed from one of faux-excitement into one of ice-cold anger. “My own daughter. My, how you disappoint me.”

“Mother?” Iesha said timidly in response.

“Silence!” Zara hissed, “Do you know what you have down? There have been a string of those horrid Gerudo bimbos traipsing by here too closely. Do you know who’s fault that has been?”

Iesha kneeled in silence for a moment before saying, “Mine.”

“Yes,” Zara waltzed off of her harsh throne, “If it weren’t for your stupid, selfish mistake, we wouldn’t be having this problem. As such, you will have to learn from it. One hundred lashes.”

Iesha’s head dipped lower than Wild thought possible, “Understood, Mother.”

“And as a bonus,” the cruel grin was back on the mother’s face, “you will do it here, in front of 317.”

Wild heard Iesha’s breath stall, “Of course, Mother. I will not disappoint you next time.”

“You better not. Dakota!” Zara barked. She waited until said man entered the room, “Strike her one hundred times. Make sure it hurts this time.”

Dakota’s eyes widened, “Mistress, I don’t think that’s a good-”

“Did I ask for your opinion?” Zara whispered icily. At Dakota’s head shake, she continued, “Then do as I say.”

“Y-yes, Mistress.” He slowly turned toward Iesha, who refused to look at him. “I’m sorry.”

As Dakota took out a whip and raised it up, Wild refused to be silent anymore. “Stop!”

Dakota seized raising the whip and looked to Zara for guidance, who simply looked toward Wild. “What did you say?”

Wild’s throat went dry. He hadn’t thought this far ahead, “W-well,” he kept his voice high pitched, “I just think if you do this in front of me, I won’t be motivated to help my master. I-if you do it to me instead, I’ll have more incentive to do it.”

Zara thought for a moment, mulling it over in her mind. “Weak argument, but fine,” she drawled. “If that is what it’ll take to make you behave, then so be it. You’ll be receiving two hundred lashes each day, one hundred in the morning and one hundred in the evening, until you get sold off. It starts now.”

Wild exhaled shakily, feeling tears slowly forming in his eyes, “Thank you, milady.”

Zara waved toward Dakota, “Start swinging, guard. And don’t forget to count!”

As the whip fell on his back, Wild closed his eyes. His last coherent thought was seeing Iesha’s horrified face and thinking she doesn’t deserve this before he lost himself to the pain.

Phew, it’s done. I spent pretty much all of this evening writing this because you guys deserve an update <3 I hope you guys like it! If you did, leave a comment or something, it helps me to know that you enjoyed it!

For the @linkeduniverse AU.

#linkeduniverse #linked universe #hero of the wild #my ocs i guess #we finally meet zara #also nabila and ada are a couple #i dont think i established that when we first met them

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verannaca · 5 years ago

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so I saw Frozen 2 for the fourth time

i have so many questions.

there’s a relatively negative (and very long) review beneath the cut so pls read at your own risk. and, of course, spoilers.

I’ve seen Frozen 2 four times now and yikes. I’d kinda hoped it would get better with each viewing, but it’s somehow worse??? I really loved the first movie; it literally changed my life in an incredibly drastic way (don’t ask) but it had been very important to me over the past six years, and...I’m so disappointed.

My initial reaction was disappointment, and I should’ve stuck with it. Like, wtf was that? But some parts were also really well done? It left me so conflicted lol

PROS

Vuelie was a good way to open the film; I quite liked the nostalgia :’)

The intro scene in general was good; I liked seeing more of their parents, although idk what their father was thinking telling them such a tale before bed lmao seems like some shit my mother would do

All is Found is my favourite non-depressing song in the movie, and it opens it beautifully. ERW has a wonderful voice.

The animation really is beautiful; it looks so realistic. Specifically the clouds and the one scene of the waves crashing over the pine trees. It looked amazing!

The music is good but not great. FTFTIF is my favourite; it’s so catchy and cheery. I really liked TNRT, and SY is perfect, but these songs just weren’t as catchy as the ones in Frozen?? I’m thankful for AURORA tho, that was a lovely gift.

Bruni was absolutely adorable (even tho he was an obvious cash-grab for merch lol), 10/10 love Bruni. Bruni + Elsa = even better.

Anna looked absolutely breathtaking throughout the entire movie; the redesign they did animation-wise really works in her favour, and now she’s rocking those Emilia Clarke eyebrows which is a hell yes from me. Her final look gave me all the feels; I can’t say I’m a huge fan of the dress and hairstyle?? it seemed a bit too not Anna, but at the same time, it showed her growth and maturity and I’m very happy with that.

As dark as it was, the shipwreck scene was beautiful. It was handled beautifully; their reactions were devastating. There is a huge con here, but I’ll save that for later.

The ocean battle was really neat. The water looked so good, and Elsa looks good wet???

The whole scene in Ahtohallan was well done; I liked the memories. I wish Anna had been there; she deserved to see her history, too, and it wasn’t fair that Elsa got that spotlight once again.

Everything after Elsa freezing was absolutely breathtaking as well. Anna’s reactions, the song, the scenery-- it was tragically beautiful.

Kristoff had the two best lines in the ENTIRE movie: “I’m here. What do you need?” and “It’s okay. My love is not fragile.” It’s so rare to see a good, supportive relationship in tv/movies, be it heterosexual or homosexual, it doesn’t happen. It’s so rare. So this was a beautiful break from that; the faith he had in her was amazing. Thank u. the real mvp.

The scene with Anna as she accepts the fate of her future; as she takes in a breath and realises/accepts that her home is gone, and her blood family is gone. Everything about it was perfect. You could feel her emptiness. Poor baby needed a hug :(

I liked that Kristoff also hugged Elsa when she returned; it showed that they were friends, which is really important for Anna tbh

I think that’s it for pros??? Now for the cons.

CONS:

Gonna start this off simple: the plot was weak. This is unfortunately not an unpopular opinion; it made no sense. It was too convoluted to the point where nothing was explained.

The pacing was off, and it was ridiculously anti-climactic. The layout in general seemed a bit weird tbh I could definitely sit here and justify all of it, but I shouldn’t have to.

They gave us no reason to gaf about this voice that Elsa was hearing. How long had she been hearing it for? Why was she so drawn to it? Why didn’t she think she was just hearing things? Or maybe she did at one point and then realised she wasn’t crazy?

There was almost no character development. Elsa was the same as she was in Frozen, but this time, it was just annoying. She never learned or grew. Anna was demoted to a clingy side-character even though she’s the protagonist; I have no words for how frustrating this was to watch. I miss the Kristanna bickering. I liked their dynamic overall; I understand their insecurities and lack of ability to communicate because of it, and I liked how non-toxic they were. Overall, they did love and trust each other; they believed in and supported each other, even though they had a falling out (again and again) and were separated for most of the film (again, wtf?) EA had no development together, and honestly, they were annoying asf as a duo. There was no communication and no understanding. I will say that Anna’s fear and frustration throughout the entire movie was absolutely 100% understandable and sensible; she’d already lost too much before, and wasn’t prepared to lose anything else. I just wish she’d been portrayed a bit differently??? And it would’ve been nice if Elsa had stopped for, like, two minutes to be like, “hey, are you okay, you seem clingy and worried” but instead she just kept running and didn’t gaf.

It was over dramatic for the sake of plot, when it didn’t have to be. Elsa didn’t have to continuously try and push Anna away “for her protection.” They absolutely could’ve done the vast majority of things together. Fuck, they could’ve gone to the dark sea together. Anna could’ve stayed on the beach while Elsa tackled the Nokk. Then when Anna saw that Elsa was perfectly capable of protecting herself, they could’ve parted ways then and done whatever it was they needed to do. Or, Elsa could’ve taken Anna to Ahtohallan?? They may have discovered there that Anna couldn’t enter, but then they’d be given the opportunity to communicate, and Anna would’ve at least been included, since this was her history, too.

If this is a movie about two sisters, why the ever loving fuck is it all about Elsa and her origins? What about Anna’s origins? They were her parents, too. Sure, we ask “why does Elsa have magic,” but why doesn’t Anna have magic? Why was Elsa the “gift”? Why is Anna’s superpower “love”?? And why is that “superpower” only valid when it’s in regards to Elsa? Why is Anna so strong, physically? Emotionally? Personally? Is it just her? Why isn’t she an element, too? What’s with this bridge bullshit? Why the fuckkkk is Elsa the “fifth spirit” when she’s ice and ice is literally just water? I have so many questions.

How the heck was Iduna Northuldra? Did she become “whiter” because she remained inside a castle for twenty years? Or was she always “white passing”? Or was she adopted into the forest? Who are her parents? Did anybody miss her when she ran off to the kingdom? Her scarf was from “one of [their] oldest families” and yet nobody seemed to know who she was? And what do you mean “oldest families”? Are there no remaining members of that family? Nobody who was missing her? Nobody who would’ve recognised her daughters who are literally carbon-copies of her????

The shipwreck scene and the following scene pissed me off soooo much in the theatre lol First, it really was beautiful how they did it, but the interactions felt out of character. Elsa brought up the memories of their parents’ demise without consoling Anna at all. Not only did she just do it without at least a warning, she then proceeded to leave her behind in her own fit. Which, okay, yes, to an extent that makes sense; she was over-ridden by guilt. But those were Anna’s parents too. Elsa was all she had, and Elsa left her behind. I just- AND THEN in this moment of severe grief and horror, as these terrible things were revealed, Anna was pushed away again to be left on her own to deal with things alone. She’d JUST sacrificed her own feelings for Elsa, and Elsa’s response was to shove her away. WHY. I just??? hello??? Like, Elsa does care about Anna, right? That’s canon? So why tf would they write her like this?? jfc

Every single new character was wasted potential. Mattias above all else was very interesting, and should’ve had at least ten minutes more screentime??? I liked the scene of him and Anna discussing whatever, but there should’ve been more. They both cared more about Arendelle than anyone; they were both sworn to protect. There could’ve been more of an on-screen relationship there. (and don’t fucking come at me with your gross-ass ships please, tyvm). Honeymaren and Ryder were there for ??? merchandise? A reason for Elsa to stay behind? Queer-baiting??? I don’t get it. They did,,, nothing. Yelena? Did nothing. Why do these name-characters do nothing?? What’s the point???

This was advertised as a “big adventure” but had hardly any adventure. Frohana was apart for most of the damn movie, the action scenes had little consequences, the “climax” was ??? what, Elsa freezing? Who cares?? It’s obvious she’s going to come back. The wave heading for Arendelle??? Yeah, that would’ve been a good climax if it actually did any damage. But no, I guess Elsa can teleport now? aight. and now she gets to play hero again even though she didn’t do shit

The plot(?) was very predictable, and didnt really have a twist. Old white guy kills innocent POC. Okay. That’s real life, yeah? It’s shit; it happens, but why was this whole movie based around that? Was it a political statement? We don’t really need more political movies these days??? People are aware, and things are shit as is; idk it just felt forced. But this is a v controversial subject so imma shut up lol

THERE ARE NO CONSEQUENCES. Unless you’re Anna. Then you suffer severely cuz,,, fuck her, right? The entire cave thing (as beautiful and needed as it was) could’ve been prevented entirely if Elsa had just fucking communicated. But instead, Anna had to suffer again in such a severe way. Her feelings DID have consequences; they effected her severely and even influenced wreckless behaviour. But then?? it’s all over. And suddenly, it doesn’t matter. Suddenly, who cares? Elsa returns and is (for some unforeseen reason) magically forgiven. This ISN’T HOW SISTERS ARE. If my sister pulled half the shit Elsa did, the first thing she’d be greeted with is a slap across the face and a very loud “fuck you.” THEN she’d get a hug and some tears. You don’t fuck with people’s emotions like that. And the fact that there were no serious consequences is infuriating.

Anna becomes Queen without context. Did she want to be queen? Did she suggest it? Did Elsa decided “eh fuck it i’m bored, your turn” and just dump it on her? Anna is a free-spirit. Yes, she was absolutely devoted to her kingdom; her people always came first; she was an incredibly loving and selfless princess, but was she truly prepared to give up that freedom to be Queen? I think she fits the role beautifully; she was absolutely born to rule. But is she happy? Or is she yet again cleaning up Elsa’s mess, since that seems to be all she does?

Why did Elsa stay in the forest? Is it because she felt like she belonged with the spirits? With the people? Away from civilisation? All of the above? None of the above? And how did that conversation go with Anna? How did she explain; “hey, I know I died and fucked you up and promised that we’d always stay together, but I’ve decided I’m gonna leave you behind again and stay here with these people I barely know.” Did Anna object, or did she see the positives of being away from someone so toxic???? It makes no senseeeee, they were so good together in the first movie; it all feels so out of character. Both of them feel out of character.

There were few (very few) moments in which they really were like themselves:

The charades scene.

“You think I’m c R A Z Y?”

Head tilts with Bruni.

Anna laughing at Elsa’s braid-stache.

Elsa making toys for children.

The pleasant Kristanna scenes at the beginning.

Anna’s anger scenes.

Even Elsa’s personal drama???

but that’s it? I’ve seen it four times in theatre, and a few times online (though mostly in pieces) so I don’t think I missed anything. Perhaps I’m blinded by the frustration that this film caused. Overall:

The plot was weak.

The animation was beautiful.

Kristanna wasn’t the Kristanna we truly know?

Elsa was dramatic and annoying because she had no development.

Anna was demoted to a clingy side-character and was given a half-assed purpose.

The music was meh.

There was too much and yet somehow not enough.

It was a mess.

Six years. SIX. I-

ugh.

final note: PLEASE ANSWER MY QUESTIONS IF I MISSED SOMETHING. I think it’s also important to note that if you went to the theatre for 2 hours of entertainment, that’s great, but not the same as those of us that have dedicated six years of our lives to these characters? So please don’t come @ me if you were just a movie-goer. I also wanna say that there were a lot of parts of this movie that I loved and will hold onto, but overall, the movie as a whole was meh. I LOVED Anna & Elsa in Frozen; they had good development and had reasons for being how they were. They had a good dynamtic and worked well together. I hated their relationship in F2; it was toxic and forced in many ways; they didn’t interact nearly enough, and when they did, they were bitching for the sake of plot, which was very frustrating.

This isn’t a hate post so please don’t come at me lol my opinion is entirely irrelevent in the grand scheme of things, but hey, we’re here to chat and share, right?

sigh.

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chaniters · 5 years ago

Text

SUNKEN TOWN

Episode 4 of my Awan Cormac second series! (Belonging to @kruk-art)

Spoilers in this one too!

Enjoy!

__________________________

Rangers HQ

“There’s nothing there!” Anathema says, enhancing the image

“We just need to go over the parameters. Can you switch to thermal readings?”

“Already did and it’s not turning up anything”

“Why are we letting the civilian into the city’s camera security feed again?” Steel complains.

“If he thinks he’s onto something,” Ortega says tiredly “We ought to try”

“Combine thermal and visual trough this filter,” you say handing him a Data-rod. “That should get us what we want”

“Sure, but I think we’re a bit past filters by now. This isn’t going to… “ he stops mid-sentence as the image changes radically

“...wow. You’ve got to be joking!” he says as the image shows a ghostly figure walking the streets, unseen by all civilians.

“I told you he was using cloaking devices!” you say exasperated.

Ortega goes silent as he observes Void leave the camera’s fixed angle.

Anathema doesn’t wait for your cue and applies the same procedure to other cameras. Soon, they begin showing images of Void, setting up the hospital attack from the shadows.

“That’s enough, the tech team can take it from here,” Ortega says putting a palm on Anathema’s shoulder. Technicians begin duplicating the procedure over the rest of the city-wide security feed as you all follow him to the meeting room.

“Good job, Sidestep,” he says with a smile

……………………………………………………….

It takes hours, and they won’t even let you back into the tech-room. Your access got rescinded after Steel started quoting regulations. Nothing to do but wait and you’re in no mood for Ortega’s shenanigans.

You keep fiddling with your targeting jammer, trying to amplify its powers, since that’s all you can really do. The ranger tech-tools you stole are admittedly better than your old work tools at home, and you want to fine-tune the hell out of it for the next time you meet Void.

An annoying tingling at the back of your skull starts distracting you from your work, while you do your best to ignore it. Contrary to what you would expect, It doesn’t go away but begins burning mercilessly, like a hot iron. No. Not iron.

“What?” you say without turning, as you feel you can’t take it anymore.

“I see you already helped yourself to our tech,” Steel says, arms crossed, staring at you.

“I shared something, so it’s only fair you share something in return, don’t you think?” you retort. You generally respect Steel but you’re on edge.

You. Are. Not. Having. It. Today.

“I want to stop that asshole, just like you and rescue all the patients while at it. Isn’t that enough for you?”

“You seem to know an awful lot about Void”

“We do have a history. Ortega knows that already, I think he told you unless I imagined that part”

“No one fully explained what that history is, and I don’t think he knows either.”

“I helped stop him last time in case you forget!”

“Maybe so, but I think you know a lot more than you’re letting on. And I think we’re going to be at risk because you’re holding on to information.”

He’s right, and you know he’s right. But you can’t really tell him that Void was trained by a government program that creates artificial humans because that would lead to a whole different can of worms. “I told you everything I know about his mods!”

“Yes, you did. Still, I also know cloaking devices like that are experimental army tech that you’re not even supposed to know about. How you have a filter capable of seeing through it, that’s what I’m wondering.”

“Experimental stuff gets misplaced all the time, right? Like drugs that kill people or give them powers. You’re seriously coming at me because the army lost another toy? I’ve just happened to have seen this stuff before” At least this is the truth. Void’s cloaking is government made, and they misplaced it. Big time. How Void got authorization to even use back when you were both in the farm it is something that you always wondered about. Whoever handled it to him back then must be regretting it very much now that he’s gone rogue.

He says nothing, so you take the chance to speak again.

“If that’s all you got, please go away? I don’t like being stared at”

“I’ll stop when I figure out who do you work for.”

“What the fuck are you implying?!” you say standing up and facing him…

“ENOUGH!” Ortega says entering the room. “Can’t I leave you two alone for more than a couple of minutes?”

“I WISH I was alone” you complain under Steel’s glare.

“You know what? You two should just…” Ortega starts before realizing the futility of it all “... whatever. I’m not your nanny… Just came to let you know that we lost them. The trail goes cold when they reach Sunken Town. The cameras end there”

“So when do we leave? I’m ready right now” you state standing up and shoving the scrambler on your backpack

“Nobody’s going right now ... What we’re going to do is keep working on it day and night. There are other… whoa. Wait!”

You’re already walking to the door, Steel stepping to the side more than happy to have you out of the HQ

“That’s it, I heard enough. I’m going to Sunken Town alone then”

“That area’s not even mapped! And it’s huge! You’re never going to find them like that. And they’ll see you coming from miles away! Our teams are trying to trace their comms… something’s going to show up, we just need to be patient, that’s how these things work!”

“Well, that’s not how I work!”

“But… one does not simply walk into …”

You slam the door leaving him and Steel behind.

“...Sunken town” he finishes the sentence groaning.

--------------------------------------------

Sunken Town.

Blacked out on tourists maps of Los Diablos, the government would have it be looked at from afar but never visited.

Former Los Angeles’ city center, the area was sprawling with skyscrapers right until the big one hit. The city’s iconic skyline turned wasteland in a matter of minutes, as the earthquake seemed to hate this area hardest. What remains now is a labyrinth, of interconnected toppled buildings leaning unsteadily onto each other in odd angles, along with a series of tunnels, garages, basements and old subway installations.

The new system combined to create a massive man-made cave system that is constantly expanded further by its duellers in (often catastrophic) attempts to create new passages and recover pieces of sellable wreckage and valuables. Everyone refers to it as the “Sunken Town” and only the most desperate dare venture -or live- here, the population consisting mostly of criminals, treasure hunters, social outcasts and the desperate.

Declared unsafe by virtually every engineering survey, the whole area became abandoned after attempts to bulldoze the rubble caused heavy tremors and deadly incidents with the locals. By all accounts, it is a death-trap with buildings collapsing almost every week and populated by hostile and armed pariahs under the ugly shadows cast by of Los Diablos brand new buildings.

Ortega wasn’t kidding when he said you’d never find Void like this. Even with your telepathy, the residents simply don’t know the layout well enough beyond their own turf and have confused and conflicting ideas about the rest. Picking their minds to create some sort of map won’t be effective if the pieces won’t add up.

You switched strategies to focus on rumors of the kidnapped victims, but all you get is some silly urban legend about people getting taken in their sleep and murdered by some sort of cult hiding somewhere in here. You have a hard time imagining Void joining a cult, and while Psycopathor and his fans are actually a sort of cult, their killings tend to be public.

You’ve been at this almost the whole day now, and not a single mention of them. It’s maddening. You might as well go back to the rangers and see if they got something by now, but that’d be admitting defeat. The night-vision setting on your mask is really giving you a headache by now but there’s no electricity here.

Your thoughts are interrupted by stray thoughts atop one of the inclined buildings. You can hear gunshots as you lift your gaze, and then a figure jumping several stories down onto the pile or rubble below, the fall slowing down into a glide before her feet touch the ground.

Impressive. Some sort of levitating boost?

You’re getting an adrenaline rush from her mind. Someone’s after her… and soon enough you can see her pursuers, wearing night-vision goggles. All of them jumping down behind her.

Unlike her delicate fall, they’re using a simple combat exoskeleton enhancement over their clothing, landing heavily and leaving cracks on the old pavement. You considered getting one of those, but the batteries are faulty and need recharging all the time.

But more importantly… Matching uniforms and equipment, and all of them chasing the same individual…? This stinks of supervillain minions.

Without another thought, you start running towards them with your gun drawn. If you don’t act, she’s going to get caught. You hide behind a corner and pull her by the arm the moment she runs next to you.

She tries to pull away, but you hold her arms and look into her arms while trying to calm her mind. It takes a few seconds for her to realize who you are, and then she stops struggling. In turn, you can see she’s no ordinary civilian… she’s wearing her own costume.

“I’m Sidestep, and I’m here to help.”

“Wow. I thought I was the only one in this dump, less of all someone famous. I’m Elyise, nice to finally meet you!”

“Any idea why those goons are chasing after you ?”

“I don’t know.. Maybe my magnetic personality? No?” she laughs nervously “Help me take those jerks down and I’ll share what I know”

“You’ve got it,” you say to that peeking at the rubble pile from your hiding spot.

Your mind’s sensing something odd about her. Some sort of telepathic ability bouncing off yours, too faint but it’s there. She might be an empath?.

No time to give much thought to it as you can see her pursuers catching up.

“She can’t have gone far! Find her now!” one of them demands, furious.

The enemy starts running in your direction, four males and a woman, all armed, all furious and charging with their exo-skeleton suits, so it’s do or die. You pull quickly and take a shot at the one who spoke. He collapses with a shriek as the energy blast hits him squarely on the chest, while the other one avoids you taking cover. He shoots his own gun right back at you, but you’re behind cover now. Telepathy always gives you an edge in shootouts.

Elyise jumps to the side, waving her arm… causing several pieces of debris to lift from the ground and rain in her general direction. Telekinesis… magnetism? Hard to tell. One of the enemies gets hit by a piece of wreckage and falls flat, while the other covers with their exoskeleton’s arms. Your mind tells you the one hiding is about to shoot Elyise, and thus you’re ready to take a shot the moment he pokes his head from his cover, taking him down as well.

Only two left.

“It’s Sidestep!” one of them screams

“I don’t care who he is, he’s not gonna get past me!” the woman answers in turn, ripping the door from a rusted car, and charging towards you. The old door blocks your shots and Elyise’s wreckage rain, letting the other minion follow.

Both of you are forced to duck as the one closer to you flings the door in your direction, missing narrowly. Falling to the side, you roll to avoid getting stomped by the male minion, but end up taking a hit to your hand, forcing the gun out of your fingers. Elyise’s got her plate full, gliding to the side to avoid the other one.

“You're so beautiful in that suit… I’m going to enjoy turning you to a pulp!” the woman screams charging her, sending fist after fist, edging closer to her.

Your opponent gets ready to finish you off, pulling his fist back, ready to crush your skull… but luckily he’s forgotten who you are. You haven’t.

Stepping to the side, you let his fist get stuck in a decayed brick wall.

You can’t help the smile under your mask as he struggles to free himself realizing his mistake, not fast enough to avoid the spinning kick that turns light’s out for him.

Turning to help Elyise turns unnecessary, as she’s lifting her opponent in the air as she flails her arms fruitlessly before being slammed into the dirt so hard it makes you close your eyes.

“Who’s the pulp now, asshole??” she says kicking her a few times. Perhaps there are some anger management problems there…?

“Well, that takes care of the trash,” she says dusting her hands “We have to bind them so they don’t report back on us and…”

“Leave that to me,” you say focusing on their unconscious minds. It takes a few moments, but it’s relatively easy now that they’ve been taken down. “They won’t remember a thing,” you say standing up.

“You… you did something to them?” she asks uncertainly. Of course, you were right, she is a telepath of some sort. This just confirms it, that she could tell you did anything in the first place.

“Just a minor thing. Let’s get far before they wake up” you say taking a tunnel formed by a collapsed structure as she follows.

……………………………………….

“Come in! Come in Elyise” the intercom says

“I’m here! Stop yapping already!” she answers

“Oh thank god! I thought they’d get you! And it’d be all my fault!”

“Nobody’s going to get me, you hear me?. I had it under control! And now Sidestep’s here so we have an even better chance!”

“Sidestep? Sidestep is that you?” the voice sounds different than what you remember… he seems confused. You look at the image… Reaper’s on the other side, sitting on a sofa with a cast arm and a cigar on his mouth in a very richly decorated room, a half-empty whiskey bottle next to him. What the hells is going on…?

“Hey, Reaper… it’s me” you say

“Thank you! Thank you for looking after my protegee.. She’s…”

“I’m not your protegee!” she interrupts “I found you drunk at Owl’s wailing about what Psycophator did, and took the case, remember? I needed your resources and your computers! You’re the one helping me, not the other way around!”

“Thank you Sidestep…” he goes on and on ignoring her.

Elyise groans, turning off the audio. “He’s under meds for the pain… his doctors are a bit… liberal about painkillers. He’s been in high cloud nine right now since the fire, and he’s also drunk because he thinks it’s somehow his fault” she says before turning the audio back on.

“... and if something happened to her, it would be like Hood’s death all over again! She’s even telekinetic like him… I mean not exactly like him, she’s not nearly as insufferable but still, if something happened I wouldn’t even know what to…”

“Nevermind that! Did you find any extra intel?” she cuts him off

“Intel?” Reaper asks losing his previous train of thought. “Oh… right. Yes, Charon found a lot actually interesting details”

Charon… his supercomputer named after the mythical ferryman according to the comics. Supposedly an AI. You never thought it was real.

“The structure you found, is part of a collapsed chemical plant” he explains showing a diagram in the intercom's screen. “The plant’s been abandoned since before the big one. Also, hear this out… It’s the original plant where they first manufactured the hero drugs, back when they were just diet pills! It was a big scandal back then when the media broke the entire story, the corporations, they stole this researcher’s papers and used them without her consent to develop...”

“You can spare us the history lesson… we could use plans of the place tough” Elyise interrupts again. It would seem she’s officially had it with wasted Reaper by now.

“Hm.. here,” he says the intercom updating with schematics. “The building’s partially collapsed now, but many floors and labs should be intact, and it had several basements, you’d have to go check on them yourselves.”

“It wasn’t abandoned now,” she says “It’s been turned into some sort of clinic, guards everywhere, and they’ve got the patients from Houswald captured inside. I think they’re experimenting on them… “ she says looking at you.

“Those bastards! They can’t do that!!!! You just hold right there… I’ll go get my suit and…” he says suddenly enraged.

“Enough!” she yells “You’re wounded, and in no shape to fight Reaper, and besides you’re retired! If you want to help, you need to pass on the coordinates to the rangers, your the only one with the tech in place to have communications in this dump!” Reaper’s gizmos are the most advanced you’ve seen yet rivaling farm’s experimental tech, and way ahead of the rangers. No wonder he was the top hero for so long if he had that much money to burn on it...

There is a silence on the other end and you can tell Reaper’s trying to process the words in slow motion. He’s so darn high, it’d be funny if your lives didn’t depend on him right now. “Fine… I’ll tell the rangers. Just wait till they are close before you make your move, you don’t want to get caught without reinfor..-”

“I know!!! It’s not my first time doing this!” Elyise complains, but Reaper keeps going on about the dangers of the job until she simply turns off the intercom frustrated.

“Wow… you’re really harsh on him”

“Spare me,” she says walking onwards “I’ve been taking his tale of woe for three days straight while Charon investigated. And the worst part? The AI It only works with HIS voice recognition. HIS. Not mine. So I had to get him to repeat every question I asked, and you’d think he ‘d stop drinking while at it? He did not. And the crying. God, the crying is the worst… You wouldn’t believe how bad he…”

You smile as you keep walking behind her hearing her huge list of complaints.

____________________________

My fanfics: https://chaniters.tumblr.com/post/181692759294/my-fanfiction-for-fallen-hero

DISCLAIMER: This is a work of fan fiction using characters and the setting of the Fallen Hero: Rebirth and upcoming Fallen Hero: Retribution games written by Malin Riden. I do not claim ownership of any characters from the Fallen Hero wold. These stories are a work of my imagination, and I do not ascribe them to the official story canon. These works are intended for entertainment outside the official storyline owned by the author. I am not profiting financially from the creation of these stories, and thank the author for her wonderful game/s, without which these works would not exist.

#fallen hero: rebirth #Awan Cormac #Elyise #Reaper #Sidestep #Steel #Ortega #Fanfic

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iblue-kitzune · 5 years ago

Text

Of Rising Calamities Beyond the Cosmos: Chapter 10

A/N: And now we have arrived at the final chapter guys! This one is a bit special because it serves as both a regular epilogue (NOTE: There’s a bit of time-skip in here just to let y’all know) and a Halloween chapter, so it’s a half-and-half kind of deal if you want to look at it that way.

So, with that out of the way now, I hope you guys enjoy the chapter! Happy Halloween everyone!

Droplets of water fell from the air and onto the rocky floor below, which was littered with puddles in every direction Jane looked. And the young woman took care to avoid stepping in one as she walked deeper and deeper into the darkness, a single blue flame lit in the palm of her hand to light her path up ahead.

“[Tell me again why are we exploring this dingy and damp dungeon?]”

“[Jane said she wanted to investigate this place a little bit more thoroughly this time.]”

“[Then why did she send a clone in place of herself and have the three of us accompany it?]”

“[Maybe she thought the monsters and wild animals wouldn’t dare approach her at the sight of us being by her side? I don’t know! I’m not exactly a mind reader or know the woman’s thoughts like you two think I do just because I spend more time with—]”

“Raiden! Gale! Inferno!” the three great spirits went quiet at the sharp voice of the clone and looked up. “I can hear you three you know...despite your whispering,” the trio sweat-dropped and turned their heads away from the moody half-spirit.

‘Finally...’ Jane let out an inaudible sigh when her great spirit companions switched to a different topic. Thank god for that. She didn’t have to listen to either of them complain anymore—even though most of it came from Raiden.

But she wasn’t focused on that. Right now, she just wanted to pass this section of dungeon and get to the next level.

And sure, it’s been a while since she’s last been down here, but it’s not like Jane had forgotten the layout of the cavern.

The floor above her, she knew by heart now. This one, however, not so much.

‘All the more reason to check it out.’

When the young woman found this cave two months ago and started to explore it, she made sure that she memorized all of the pathways and secret crevices in this area—well this floor at least, before she left. But now that there weren’t any pressing issues at hand here or any type of commotion happening outside of the cave, she was free to investigate this place without worry for the time being.

There was just so much energy she could feel in here, and so many shiny objects she could see around her, twinkling within the cracks embedded into the walls, and ceiling. All of them had an iridescent glow to them, and all of them were glowing a different color—from golden white, seafoam green, and baby blue to periwinkle, alexandrite, and coral pink. Any one of these could a rare item or ingredient for something; however, Jane wasn’t so sure about that.

‘Maybe I should take a look first.’

The young half-spirit stopped to pull out an empty transparent container with a handle on the top, and set it on the ground. She kneeled, and with her free hand, Jane tapped on it. A small section of the container glowed white and opened up with a chilling swoosh. Then she carefully stuck her fireball inside before pulling her hand back out, watching the hole close up and disappear.

Satisfied with her work, she moved away from her makeshift lantern and stood halfway up, making sure to crouch on the balls of her feet. And once she did, the clone of Jane bounded high into the air with just a single leap and latched onto one of the stalagmites hanging from the ceiling.

‘Wow!’ her eyes turned into stars at the sight of many items and gems staring at her right in the face. ‘There’s so stuff...huh?’ she trailed off with a silent gasp. But that didn’t last long as the look of excitement entered her golden brown-amber eyes, and replaced her awe.

‘Oh my god! Is that what I think it is?!’

She was in heaven right now, and rightfully so because she could see a bunch of stuff on the ceiling and higher end of the walls ranging from bottle based items:

Holy Bottle, Dark Bottle, Life Bottle, Panacea Bottle, and Syrup Bottle

To tool based items:

Banrea, All-Divide, Hourglass, Spectacles, Dried Peels, and Goat Horn

And medicine based items:

Lemon Gel, Melange Gel, Miracle Gel, Pine Gel, and Elixir

It was hard to believe that she was seeing all of this in one place since they would normally be spread out throughout the cave, or just be hidden in some obscure spot no one would bother to check, especially if it’s not sticking out in the open. But Jane wasn’t like others, and she wasn’t the type to pass up on stuff like this just sitting out here.

She was like a collector of sorts, and sometimes she likes to stock up on these items for future use. And whatever’s left that she doesn’t use, she mixes them together—much to the surprise of her friends who thought she was crazy for doing something potentially dangerous like that.

To her and everyone else’s shock, the mixed components come out looking totally different. They become a completely new item, medicine, or tool. One with brand new properties that changes after each use. It was something her and her friends had never seen before, and Jane loved it—so did Tony, Bruce, Peter, Shuri, and Strange (to some extent), who were like scientists in their own way as they, too, tended to experiments with things from time to time, magic or not.

Plus, it’s not like she can help it. She was a scientist—and a brilliant one who won the Nobel Prize many years ago at that!

And as such, Jane felt obligated to mix components with others and see what comes out of it. If the experiment turned out to be a successful one, then the next logical step would be the test the bad boy out and see what it does. If she likes the results of her fruits of her labor, she will keep the finished product and think about making duplicates in the future—which, nine times out of ten, she does.

However, if the whole thing turned out to be a failure in the end, then Jane saw no reason to continue working with the components. She would just dispose of them in the biohazard bin she keeps in her lab.

‘It’s a good thing I found these things. I was just beginning to get low on all of this stuff,’ the clone said as she proceeded to pick them all out of the cracks of the walls and ceilings with her telekinesis.

Two minutes later after gathering all sixteen items and arranging them in a giant ball, the young half spirit took out a black-light blue accented bag that had a star shaped zipper on it, and unzipped the thing. The pile fell neatly inside, and Jane zipped the bag up before making it vanish back into her pocket dimension.

“[Are you done with collecting items, Jane?]” she heard Gale ask, and looked down at him and the other two great spirits, who were all patiently waiting on her.

“Yeah!” she answered and let go of the stalagmite. “For now I am,” the young woman quickly added once she landed safely on the rocky ground.

Raiden pinched the bridge of his nose while Inferno and Gale sighed to themselves.

The clone gave them an apologetic smile before she picked up her lantern, turned on her heel, and took off with a light dash, then heard the three flying after her seconds later.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Thousands upon thousands of miles away from Snow Lunar Island, and somewhere in London, two animals sat on the front lawn of a huge two-story, thirty-eight hundred square-foot home that had a large walkway area leading over to the garage on the other side, and leading down to the sidewalk where a mailbox stood in place.

The first animal was a large midnight blue and pale yellow dog with extra fur that was colored black on its back and fluffy tail, which was tipped magenta at the end, black hind paws, black tipped pointy ears, and magenta eyes while the second animal was a large royal purple and white bird with teal colored markings on the sides of its cheeks, the inner lining of its wings and the tips of its feathered tails, which were also tipped white, yellow talons, and teal eyes.

The two were currently playing a game of fetch with Darcy, who decided to come out here and play with Jane’s pets. No offense to her friend or anything, but she got tired of waiting in the lab on Jane to finish streaming the mini expedition her clone, Inferno, Gale, and Raiden were on.

As exciting as it was to see what the inside of that mysterious cave was like on one of the three twenty-four inch screen desktop computers of Jane’s, she got really bored thirty minutes into the video when nothing of interest was happening. And so, she told Jane that she’ll be outside with Luna and Raymond, who is called Ray for short, sometimes—but only by his owner and her closest friends.

And that happened an hour ago.

“Luna!” she shouted, grabbing the dog’s attention, “Fetch!” and tossed a red ball with a white strip filled with black diamonds on it up in the air.

Luna barked and ran after it; however, Raymond, who she thought of like a little brother to her, swooped down and quickly yet carefully caught the ball with his talons. She stared in disbelief at the bird, who gave her a bird-like cry of laughter, and flew over to the human woman.

Darcy sweat-dropped and caught the ball Raymond dropped in her right hand. “Sorry Luna! I guess Ray beat ya to it!” she said to dog and almost rolled her eyes at the display of Ray puffing his chest out in pride. “Wanna try again?”

Luna narrowed her magenta eyes and nodded in determination.

“Woof!”

Before she could get ready, however, her ears perked up at the sound of an engine from a vehicle pulling up in front of the house. When she turned around and saw a dark haired man and light haired woman get out of a red SUV, her eyes lit up at the sight of them and three other people climbing out from the backseat.

“Woof, woof!” she ran over to them with Raymond flying overhead not too far from her.

Darcy looked up to see the two getting petted by Kagome, Sota, Morgan, Pepper, and Tony. Then all of a sudden, she remembered what today was and what was supposed to take place at the Devil May Cry shop tonight.

‘Oh shit! I totally forgot about that!’ she panicked a bit on the inside, and before she could say anything, the Stark family walked up to her with Luna and Raymond in tow.

“Hello Darcy. How are you doing this evening?” Pepper, who was dressed up in a modest-looking devil costume, greeted her with a small smile.

“Splendid,” she answered part truthfully before looking down to see Morgan, who was in a cute little fairy costume. The little girl ran up to her and hugged her. “Oh you look adorable, Morgan!” she cooed.

“Thank you Auntie Darce!” the little six year old said with a big smile on her face.

The young woman grinned down and patted the young girl on her head with her left hand. Though she laughed when Morgan pulled back and gave her a pout before deciding to turn away in the other direction, as if she was saying “don’t look”, to fix her hair.

“So are you, Jane, and Lady ready for the Halloween party yet?” Tony, who was dressed up in a handsome pirate costume, asked, raising a brow at her casual state of her appearance.

Darcy sweat-dropped. “Eh, not exactly,” she said with a slow shrug until she brightened up and waved her hand in reassurance. “But you guys can wait inside the living room while Jane, Lady, and I go get ready.”

The Stark family looked at each other then back at the young woman.

“That’s fine with us,” Pepper replied.

Darcy nodded and led the family along with Jane’s pets up the walkway to the house.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Jane stared at her desktop monitor, watching her clone and the three great spirits arrive inside of a brightly lit room filled with shiny gems that were embedded in the stalagmites hanging from the cavern ceiling. There was also some kind of runes, black in color, etched onto the walls, giant potholes that were either filled up with water or had a large glowing gem stuck inside of it on the ground, and a bunch of floating platforms gathered around a circle of sharp pillars that contained an unidentified rune inside.

“I sense a large amount of mana and some other kind of energy in this room,” she heard her clone speak.

“[Yes, I sense it too. And it seems to be coming from both the rune behind those pillars and further down the path I see up ahead.]”

‘In that case...’ Jane narrowed her eyes before pressing a button on the side of the wireless headphones she had on her head. “Alright, listen up you four!” she spoke into the built-in mic of her headphones. “Inferno, I want you and my clone to stay there and check out the rune. Run an analysis on it with the Magi Analyzer Spectro-Rod. And in the meantime, Raiden and Gale can go further into the cave and check the other sections out with the other six MASRs. Got it?”

“Yeah! / [Yes!]”

The young half spirit watched her clone pull out twelve intricate-looking silver and violet colored rods with shiny red gems on top of them, and distribute the items amongst her companions evenly.

With their equipment in hand, the group fanned out and got to work.

‘This will take a while.’

Jane pushed away from her computer desk and leaned back in her rolling chair. Seeing as the young woman had no further instructions to give to the group, she was in the mood for a little break. Maybe she can sneak in a small nap while she was at it too?

“Hey Jane!”

Well so much for that idea.

‘Aw screw it! I’ll just have another me take over.”

With a few simple gestures of her hand, Jane summoned another clone, making it appear by her side in a flash of red flames. Then she took off her headphones and turned to face the second clone. “Since there’s a high chance that Darcy is calling me to either come do something for her or drag me out of the house with her somewhere, stay here and watch the video and the other desktop monitor. Give more instructions to the group if you have to, okay?” she told her and handed them over to her.

Her second clone nodded and took the headphones, putting them on right away.

“Jane!”

A small sigh left the young astrophysicist’s mouth as she rolled around in her chair and faced her ex-intern and best friend, who was standing in the doorway of her lab and panting out of exhaustion.

“I thought you said you were going to be outside with Luna and Ray for a while? And why in the world do you look so out of breath?” she frowned at her.

“I was at first but then Tony and his family stopped by, so I told them they can wait in the living room while I come get you,” Darcy answered. “Oh and the reason why I’m so tired is because I ran up the stairs to put your pets in your room then ran back downstairs and came over here.”

Jane sat up. “Huh? Why didn’t they call—oh...” she leaped from her chair, her eyes wide in shock. “Oh god! They came to pick us up for the party at Dante’s place tonight, right?” the young woman grabbed her clone, who was looking so puzzled by what was going on, and sat her down in the chair. “Darcy! Why didn’t you remind me?” she moved away and rushed past her best friend.

Thankfully, Darcy moved out of the way in time to avoid getting ran over by her former boss who already bolted out the door and into the hallway.

“Hell if I know! Look, how the heck was I supposed to remind you if I forget about the whole thing myself?” she whined at the older woman and ran after her, but not before shutting the lab door closed.

“That’s surprising to hear coming from someone like you who loves parties,” Jane said over shoulder at Darcy, who caught up with her.

Darcy rolled her eyes.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Let’s just hurry up and get dressed in our rooms then see if Lady’s up yet—”

“There’s no need for that,” came the muffled voice of Lady.

The two women looked up to see their other roommate standing at the end of the hallway, already decked out in an elegant kitsune costume she was wearing for the night. And to complete the look, she had a mask on her face that came with it too.

“You two are the only ones that are not ready. We have three hours until the party starts at seven. I suggest you hurry up on upstairs to your rooms and get dressed so that all eight of us can leave the house and get there on time,” she continued and turned around. “I’ll be waiting in the living room with Tony and his family in the meantime.”

Then she was gone.

“Let’s go before she comes back here and yells at us.”

“Yeah, good idea.”

The two quickly made it out of the hall, passing through the lobby area, and headed up the long stairs.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Two hours have gone by since Lady had last seen her two roommates on the first floor hallway, and she was starting to get a little anxious now. They were starting to run out of time. Sure the drive from here to the shop wasn’t far—just a thirty minute drive...if you don’t count running into any traffic along the way, but she rather be safe than sorry, and show up at the party on time. It was a routine of sorts she got into since she started working as a devil hunter all those years back and had to meet up with her clients at the destination on time, something that they —and even Vergil, who teamed up with her a few times in the past on missions, and he always made a point to meet up with her halfway so that they can head over to their client’s destination together— appreciated her greatly about.

‘Unbelievable...what are those two taking so long for?’ Lady thought to herself in irritation as she sat on the couch in between Kagome and Sota, who were watching and laughing in joy at their little sister standing in the middle of the living room, posing for the pictures that Pepper and Tony were taking on their phones.

Just when the devil huntress was thinking about getting up from the couch to check up on Jane and Darcy, she felt both of their presences walked into the room.

“Okay guys, we’re ready!”

Everyone stopped what they were doing and turned to look at the two, a collective gasp leaving their mouths at the sight of them.

First up was Jane. The young woman wore a long dark robe with pale yellow accents and a star symbol on the hood over a midnight bluish-black skin tight sleeveless tunic that had a glowing white star (with a black diamond inside of it) marking on top of an upside glowing white crescent moon sitting on her chest, which had a few stars scattered about. She also wore a full lavender and glowing white accented waist cape-like cloth —that had a slit in the front, back, and both sides— with an intricate pale yellow metallic belt on top, some black tights that were tucked into her tall brown heeled boots, and a long light purple vest with a pale yellow accented high collar that also had a transparent vest in the form of a cloth attached to it on top, and it stopped just a few inches above her ankles.

Then finally, to top the whole look off, Jane wore some large curled dark horns on top of her long stylized white wig, pale yellow contacts over her eyes, and fake elven midnight blue ears over her real ones. She also painted her eyebrows white, painted both her face and whole body midnight blue, and painted some white stars on her bare arms, hands, cheeks, and the bridge of her nose.

“So, what do you think?”

Up next was Darcy. She wore modest-looking one-piece black tube top and purple tights outfit that had small violet bat symbols on her legs, brown arm warmers with white fluff over her bare arms, and some black high-heeled boots on her feet.

Then to top the whole look off, Darcy wore some black-purple bat wings on the sides of her long stylized green wig and her waist, and green contacts over her eyes.

“Beautiful / Pretty costumes!” Pepper and Morgan cooed in unison.

Sota, who was dressed up in a jester costume, and Kagome, who was dressed up in a witch costume, looked at the two with impressed eyes.

“So cool! You nailed that one star-touched dude from The Dragon Prince down pretty well, Auntie!” Sota said with a grin.

Kagome rolled her eyes at her brother, “His name was Aaravos I believe, Sota...” and turned to her other aunt with a smile. “Anyway, your Morrigan looks wonderful, Auntie Darcy.”

The two said nothing as they beamed under their praises and compliments.

“Well...” Lady began as she and the Starks stood from the couch. “I think it’s about time we head out now.”

They all nodded and headed out of the living room, making their way over to the front door. Jane opened it, letting everyone else out first before stepping outside herself and locked the door behind her. Then she ran to catch up with the others who were waiting for her by Tony’s rental SUV.

It only took a few minutes for everyone to pile in the vehicle and buckle themselves in before taking off down the road.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The made it to Devil May Cry, which had been heavily remodeled since anyone’s (except for Lady) last been there, with two minutes left to spare. And the group met up with Nero along with Jude, Elize, Teepo, and Alvin, who were all wearing costumes, inside.

Then after walking further into the shop, they came across the Sparda twins, Trish, Patty, Nico, Nero’s wife: Kyrie, Jude’s childhood friend: Leia, Kagome’s friends: Shippo, Miroku, and Sango, Clint and his family, Bruce, Bucky, and Peter hanging out in the huge living room.

And since everyone was here now—at least the ones who were invited and able to attend, music started blasting through the speakers that were set up by the wall, signifying that the party has begun. It was also at this time the kids and teenagers went upstairs on the second floor to have their own party in one of the back rooms while the adults stayed downstairs and had their own.

Throughout the whole night, Jane and all the other adults played many games:

First, they bobbed for apples. And Dante was the only one out of everyone else that was able to snag the most apples from the bucket with Nero coming in second place, Clint in third, Tony and Jane tying in fourth, and everyone else following up after.

Second, they had a drinking contest. And surprisingly enough, Jane and Lady —who weren’t really casual drinkers compared to some of their friends— along with Bucky drank those who participated (Nico, Nero, Alvin, Clint, Tony, Miroku, Sango, Leia, and Trish) under the table.

Third, they all participated in a dance off competition that was held in one of the rooms next over after drinking some water and eating some snacks, which were laced with magic, that sobered them up. Too bad the whole dance thing ended up being awkward for some since they weren’t dancers; however, Dante, Darcy, and Sota slayed the competition with their smooth moves. So in the end, they ended up out dancing them and the ones who already knew how to dance.

And finally, they held a quick costume competition to see who had the best one of them all. It was no surprise that Jane ended being first place winner with Lady coming in second place and Darcy coming in third place.

The party started winding down near ten o’ clock, and by the time eleven o’ clock rolled around, everyone started cleaning up their mess. Due to their combined efforts, the whole group finished putting everything back where they belonged twenty minutes. Then everyone said their goodbyes to each other, and the Sparda twins along with Trish escorted their friends out the door.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

“Hey Jane...”

The young woman stopped in her tracks, letting Darcy and Lady walk past her towards their home, and turned around to see Tony rolling the passenger window down.

“Yes?” she asked, walking up to the vehicle. Then she blinked in shock when the man picked up a metallic case and held it out to her out the window. “What’s this?” the young half-spirit took the case and looked at it curiously. “What’s in here—” Jane trailed off with wide eyes when she felt the familiar presence of a certain infinity stone inside.

“Think of it as a “trick-or-treat” from me. I want you to look after the thing from now on—at least for a little while until we find a better place to stash the stone...” at Jane's confused look, Tony went ahead and told the woman point blank, “Reindeer Games’ been looking for it. Well, only after he left that morning before you and the others did and came back two weeks later.”

“I see...” Jane mumbled, taking a look around the area to make sure there weren’t any lurkers nearby. When she sensed none, she vanished the case away and asked, “Has he been causing you guys any trouble or bothering you?” in a serious voice.

Pepper frowned from her spot in the driver’s seat. “Other than the few unannounced visits he’s made here and there at our home, no. He’s been strangely compliant with us after Tony and I discovered him playing with Morgan out in our front yard, disguised as a black cat with green eyes no less, one day. Then, we sat him down before he could make his escape and had a nice, long chat with him after that,” she explained.

“That is strange,” Jane looked down with a muse.

“We haven’t heard anything “disastrous” on the news this past month-and-a half, so we assume the guy isn’t causing any trouble,” Tony added. “Then again, as long as Rock of Ages isn’t trying to cause chaos anywhere, take over a city, or kill anyone, Pep and I don’t care what he does in his free time. He can stay here on Earth without any complaints from us. And we won’t take any action against him either as long as he doesn't do any of those three things I listed there.”

Jane nodded. “Do the other Avengers know? And did they agree with this decision?”

Tony gave her a sly smile. “They do now. I told them during our little “get together” kind of meeting we held at the Tower last week, but that was only after the guy appeared and played a little harmless prank on us before disappearing. The gang weren’t too happy about it in the beginning, which I can understand. But in the end, they reluctantly agreed with my wife and I’s decision,” he explained. “I have no idea what Reindeer Games wants with the Tesseract—which the team also knows about too by the way. But anyhow, that’s not the point! From what Nero, Lady, and Kagome told me, he seems to gets along with you pretty well...” there was something in his tone of voice that made Jane want to glare at him.

But before she could do so, Tony continued on—and in a normal voice this time. “So, if you happen to run into him in the future, can you try to get an idea of what his motives for the stone are?”

Jane looked up. “I was already thinking about doing that actually,” she replied, repressing a sigh back.

“Oh good!” he sighed in relief. Then he cheered up and gave her a grin. “Well, have a good night Jane!”

“You too! And thanks for dropping me and the girls off, Pepper!” she waved at them both with a smile on her face. “Have a safe trip back to the hotel!”

The two waved back before the window rolled up and the SUV took off.

Three minutes passed by with nothing but serene silence. And once she no longer saw her friend’s rental vehicle in the distance, Jane turned around and started walking towards her home, the one she shared with Lady and Darcy.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The clone slowly looked up at the sound of door opening up behind her, and she turned around to see Jane, who was still in her Aaravos costume, standing in the doorway of the lab.

“Did you capture anything good?” she asked, watching over to her.

Without saying anything, the second clone nodded and stood up from the chair, removing the headphones from her head as she did so with a sleepy look on her face.

Jane took the headphones from her then walked right past the clone and stopped in front of the desk. She raised a brow and leaned down to take a closer look at her screen monitor. Even though there was no video showing now, she could see that it had been downloaded and saved right to her desktop along with a new file that she never seen before right next to it. “Hmm...” her eyes narrowed at the title typed on it. “Data Findings from The Cave on Snow Lunar Island,” she quietly read out loud.

‘This will be interesting to look through...’

The young woman placed her headphones down before straightening herself back up. And she stood there with her arms crossed over her chest, slowly going over what she read in her head. ‘But I’ll do that another day. Too damn tired at the moment to do really anything productive,’ she said to herself while covering up a yawn. ‘Now then...’ she uncrossed her arms and turned her attention back on the silent clone. “Since I felt my first clone dismiss herself about an hour ago, I’m gonna assume that Inferno and the other two went home already. Am I right?” at her nod, Jane continued. “Alright then, nice work. I don’t need you anymore for the night,” she said to the clone before sending her off as well.

Once she vanished, Jane shut her computer down and turned it off. “Time to go shower now then head to bed,” she mumbled, sleepily, and walked away.

However, in the midst of her wanting to hurry up and leave the room, there were a few strands of black fur and faint claw marks left behind on the floor, sitting oh-so innocently next to the computer desk that she completely missed earlier.

CLICK!

The door shut closed.

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jinsung-doyum-1the9 · 5 years ago

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UP10TION BLUE ROSE; DETECTIVE AU PT7

A steps out of her apartment building, taking a few more hurried steps before stopping to wait for Bitto. When he still isn’t out the door A calls out for him “Bitto! I told you not to have coffee last night cause I knew you’d be like this! Just hurry up and we can get some on the way there! Quick! Marco’s already at the office!”. Bitto sighs dragging A’s luggage that he offered to carry as he walked out to greet the morning sun which made him grimace.

“yah! If I didn’t have coffee who would stay up to comfort you? I need my coffee before I pass out!” Bitto responded when he saw A waiting for him. She shook her head before turning around to meet someone’s eyes, Yohan’s eyes.

“I wonder who would Y/N, because it’s clearly not the person it should be..” Yohan spoke addressing Bitto’s question from before. A stood surprised he still came around after her warnings. She wished she could do more than just stare into his sweet eyes but she knew not to wrap her arms around him for his own good and because Bitto was around. Yohan handed her the yellow tulips he held behind his back after a moment of silence, knowing she wasn’t able to reply although she wanted to. “thanks for the roses yesterday, I know you prefer tulips” he continued before Bitto reached A’s side.

“Are you sure you have everything? Why are you in such a rush?” Bitto asked before realizing the situation he walked himself into, “oh sorry.. I guess you two were in the middle of something..”. Bitto glanced at Yohan then to the flowers in A’s hand, putting two and two together “Oh you must be-“. A knew where this was headed, handing the flowers to her babysitter which cut him off. “Yoh-“ she sighs before starting again, “this is for your own good, okay?”

“you can’t even say my name now?” Yohan asked blocking A from walking away from him, holding her hands in his so she would listen. “I just wanted to say thanks for the flowers and for keeping me safe but Y/N! I can keep you safe! I’m here for you” Yohan was desperate it was distinct in his words. Both parties had tears in their eyes, Yohan’s were more apparent. A was still holding back her façade not failing in front of a co-worker.

Said co-worker decided to enter the convo “if it’s any constatation I’m just the babysitter” he mentioned not helping the situation. A couldn’t take it any longer looking down to the ground so the tears wouldn’t roll down her face and be noticeable. “Yohan.. I don’t need you right now please, this is important, it’s only for a while..” She uttered trying to move away from Yohan again but was trapped in his arms. A was glad that she wasn’t the first one to cave in but knew her heart would break more after their embrace.

Wei witnessed the hug while making his way towards A’s apartment complex. He coughed when he reached the group. “I’m here to help you guys to the office, M said you were running late so I was sent over.” Wei announced. He then whispered a short “who’s he?” to his fellow member looking towards the boy hugging one of their leaders.

Once A heard Wei enter the situation, she broke up the hug and composed herself. “another one?” Yohan questioned when he saw the cause to the hug’s abrupt end. “I gotta go we’re late, you really shouldn’t be jealous just remember what I said in the note.” A said swiftly grabbing her luggage from Bitto. With a brief “let’s go” she walked past the two up10tion members not waiting for them or looking back.

The 3 boys stood for a moment, one left in heartbreak the other two left in confusion. Wei was first to react noticing that A wasn’t going to wait for them, rushing to catch up to her. And when he did, he took her luggage away from her. “I’ll take that for you” he told her with a small smile then he called out to Bitto to catch up.

Bitto sends Yohan an awkward smile, “yah we’re still getting coffee, right?” he called out before trying to catch up to the others. “we can get coffee at the office and then have it on the way to the base” A calls back not turning back to face Bitto and especially Yohan.

He finally reaches them putting his hands on A’s shoulders while panting a sign to slow down. “so.. who was that?” Wei inquired. “None of your business.” A said nonchalantly. Wei turned to Bitto at her response, Bitto only giving him a sign to stop by making an ‘X’ with his arms. Wei dismissed this and continued “that wasn’t the famous Yohan was it?” he said in a more teasing tone. “No, now shut it” A replied sternly starting to pick up the pace in her steps.

When they reach the office the first thing done was get coffee for Bitto. A asked secretary Chungha to get everyone coffee but especially Bitto.

When the Up10tion members entered the office, they were amazed yet intimidated by the space. Of course, they have been in the building before for past cases but this was the first time they had entered the 4th floor which belonged to JUST. They were greeted by Chungha who’s station was situated in front of the elevator. Hallways extending from her desk leading to other rooms signs helping the newcomers see the layout of their floor. A kitchen area, multiple storage rooms, bathrooms and an IT room all on one floor. The main focus was 4 glass-walled offices for the 4 teenagers, each having their own transparent room so they could peek at each other but also letting Bitto and Wei compare the differently organised rooms.

A’s being the largest and working as a meeting room, being used again as they entered to meet the rest of JUST. Once A entered her own office, she saw Kate and Kuba sleeping on the sofa’s that lined 2 walls of the room. Upon seeing their sleepy bodies, she turns to Marco who was facing the large window behind her main desk with his back towards them.

“They were out spying last night” M spoke when he heard A come in. “on who?” A questioned and with this Marco turned back towards them somewhat surprised by the 2 men behind A but mostly because of the bouquet of tulips Bitto was holding. “we’ll talk about it later..” he spoke hesitantly but hid it quickly about to ask about their night.

“Nothing.. much.. but she was talking in her sleep, well more mumbling.. but I couldn’t make it out, she didn’t seem too scared tho” Bitto reported. “you lads act like I’m not in charge of this operation” A mumbled before opening the door for Chungha sensing her presence and the smell of coffee which Bitto was excited to see. Chungha handed out the coffee mainly iced americanos for their guests and half of JUST while there was 2 iced caramel macchiatos for the ’01 liners, KU and A. Chungha was about to leave the room but as she did she handed A’ a box of chocolates, this was when Wei saw I.N through the glass wall wearing a delivery boy uniform as he sipped his coffee. He remembered when N said “it’s time” to the boy a couple nights before.

“Flowers and chocolates?? He must really like you” Wei commented referring to the golden tulips that were still held by Bitto from Yohan.

Bitto: “where do you want me to leave them?”

A: “M deal with them”. This almost caused Marco to do a spit take, he figured the flowers were from Yohan yet she wanted to get rid of them?

M: “you-you sure you don’t want to keep them?”

A: “Yes I’m sure! Now wake the spies up and let’s get going, I’ll meet you in the car in 7 mins”

Wei: “wait where are you going?”. A was already gone and with her raise of voice woke up the others, all turning to M for an explanation.

M: “it’s for work, we have to tell them where we’re off to for the remainder of this case, especially with A and her father.. But come on lads get up!”. Kate was already pretty much up, sat up and wiping her eyes. Kuba on the other hand, was still half asleep, eyes slowing closing again but before they could fully close Marco shook him up.

A was nervous to talk to her father, she usually isn’t too anxious but with this case made her afraid and guilty knowing she could’ve changed the situation their family was in. She reached his door with his name labelling it, Moon Taeil, she took another breath before knocking and entering.

“JUST is staying at Up10tion’s base for the rest of this case, we’re not sure for how long but maximum is 2 months for this type of case, we’ve packed our own belongings and equipment but we will be back to the office every morning to do reports” A announced quickly, waiting for approval but also wanting the convo to end, it being the first convo the father and daughter had in about 2 months.

“okay.. but be safe Y/N especially with Up10tion I heard they got a new member and I do remember the others trying to flirt with you in the past, I won’t allow for it” Taeil replied watching his daughter carefully as she tried best not to make eye contact.

With a quick nod she was about to leave the room but was called back by her father who stood up, walking towards her with open arms and when he finally was close enough to her, he wrapped his arms around his child. “please be careful..” he whispered before letting her go then noticing the box she held. He had noticed it before wondering if that’s why she wasn’t her usual self today. “Are those chocolates..? from Yohan??” He asked but before A could answer there was a knock on the door.

Wei entered once he was permitted by Taeil, entering the room about to ask for A but was interrupted. “you must be up10tion’s new member, Wei isn’t it? You wouldn’t happen to know if the box of chocolates that my daughter was holding is from Yohan or not? You know Yohan don’t you??” Taeil insisted, Wei looking more nervous than he was before from the bombard of more questions. A cough was heard from A signalling her parent that he was being too much on the rookie.

Wei: “well it’s not confirmed if the chocolates are from Yohan I’m guessing they aren’t but the tulips were definitely from Yohan.. umm.. also M told me to come get you because Jinhoo texted and said we are meeting at a different place”. A nodded turning to her father still stood in front of her. Taeil looked back at her, she gulped before looking up to face him. “We’re also taking a break for this case .. soo um.. if he comes around please just send him home..” A admits. Taeil takes this chance of her vulnerability to act as a good and loving dad, giving her one last hug and petting her head.

“I get it don’t worry about it.. now go and be careful, we know how sensitive Jinhoo is about time” He said while letting her go, giving a small smile before she left following behind Wei. --

Wei and A meet the others outside, Kuba and Kate fully awake greeting her but she doesn’t greet them back. Instead, she sees Marco still with Yohan’s flowers and decides to get rid of them by throwing them in the nearest trash can. The others just watching in shock as she does so.

Bitto: “that was kinda harsh”

A: “It’s just safety precautions when you’re in this line of work”. KA and KU somewhat agreeing with her statement while M is stilled shocked at her actions.

KU: “okay now that was harsh!” Referring to A’s sharp tone and words.

KA: “what did the boy do?”

A: “nothing now let’s get going, where are we meeting Jinhoo?”

M: “he said we should get brunch soo..” -- {PT6} {PT8}

#up10tion #up10tion scenarios #up10tion imagines #up10tion au #produce x 101 #produce x scenarios #produce x imagines #x1 #x1 scenarios #x1 imagines #x1 wooseok #x1 au #kpop #kpop scenarios #kpop au #kpop imagines #lee jinhyuk #kim wooseok #kim wooshin

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fae-fucker · 5 years ago

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Zenith: Chapter 37-40

Chapter 37

So this chapter is very rapey and if you’re not comfy reading it I can safely say that it’s not crucial to the “plot” of the rest of the book at all and you can skip it if you wish.

We’re back with Klaren, who’s being strangled by General Cortas because he’s mad that he’s constantly horny for her. She mind-controls him into letting her go and we find out that she’s been here for two years, where they forced her to send videos to the King of Xen Ptera to get him to surrender but she’s a rebel so she told him to keep fighting.

During that time, she’s also been brainwashing General Cortas into “loving” her. And now that his mind has been completely fucked, it’s time for Klaren to also get fucked.

No, really. This was apparently the “sacrifice” she was supposed to make.

She was born to do this. Born to sacrifice herself. Her heart, to the king of Xen Ptera. Her daughter, unplanned, had been sacrificed, too.

Now, she would willingly give up her body to the cause.

[...]

They spent the rest of the night together, tangled in the sheets.

Tangled in her lies.

Now, let me explain how this squicks me out, beyond the obvious.

Are we supposed to feel ... bad? Feel sad that she’s doing this? Feel bad for her? Because so far, General Cortas/Cyprian has been painted and portrayed as a crusty antagonist who’s out to get out dear Andi and Dex, while every Klaren chapter has been all about how she’s sad and she has to sacrifice herself and how it’s her destiny and how she regrets she can’t stay with her family and all that jazz. We even get an emphasis on how she’s in love with her king and loves her daughter as well.

Like, I know in the end Cyprian dies (spoilers, but I talked about this in my review so) and Klaren only exists in flashbacks, so it’s not like we’re getting redemption arcs for either of them.

But like, if this is supposed to make me uncomfortable and to be very muddled then I’m honestly impressed. But I doubt it? And I’m very unsettled by the fact that we spend so many chapters moping around with Klaren to sympathize with her and her plight, and I don’t understand why they chose to spend so much time on the backstories of two characters that are either dead or will die in the main timeline in the first place.

Nexus better answer these questions or else it will just prove Shinsay wrote this because ... No, I don’t think Nexus can justify this, actually. I don’t get why this subplot exists.

SHINSAY WHY DID YOU WRITE THIS

Chapter 38

We’re back with Andi post-argument and she’s in the med bay with Gilly and Lira, and we get an actually pretty nice, quiet moment where the girls try to both care for Andi and give her space. If y’all had focused on this instead of the mind-rape and the mind-control (oh boy I bet these two will have shit to do with each other huh) and the reality TV drama and space wars you defo can’t write it would’ve been a much better and more fun book.

Anyway, the other girls leave to eat and Andi chooses to remain with Valen and watch over him. Lira drops this on us:

“There’s a fissure in you. I can sense it even from here.” Lira loosed a gentle sigh before explaining her words. But when she did, they sunk like a rock into Andi’s gut. “Sooner or later, you’re going to have to choose between forgiveness or hate. And you and I both know which one is harder to live with.”

I know this is in reference to Dex, considering how Andi’s been all quiet and weird after their argument, but honestly? Andi’s looking at Valen’s fucked body and my headcanon is that Lira is actually referring to Andi herself. Think about it. Lira knows what happened. Lira knows Andi still feels like it’s her fault Kalee died.

And instead of it being another tired “forgiving is better for ur soul than hatred uwu” sentiment, when applied to Andi’s self-hatred, this would be a hard-hitting and genuinely insightful statement from Lira.

Because self-hatred is harder to live with than self-forgiveness.

But this is Shinsay and I’d be surprised if they thought that far.

Anyway, Andi has yet another flashback to the crash and Kalee’s death and it’s all blood and metal and bla bla bla, we’ve seen this a billion times already. Then it turns out that Valen’s tests come back positive for “abnormalities,” and then he wakes up and is all like “kill meeeeeeeeee” and the chapter ends.

Riveting.

Chapter 39

We skip to some time later, I guess? Dex is shirtless and getting his nails painted by Gilly, which is fun. They discuss whether Valen is or isn’t a mutant, and we get this:

“Valen is no different than us,” Andi said to Dex, “and he’s not a mutant. And put on a damned shirt. This is a spaceship, not a pleasure palace.”

“It used to be both.” He waggled his eyebrows at her, then winced as Andi ripped off one of his boots and launched it at his face.

Y’all really gonna talk about how much sex you used to have when there’s a literal 13-year-old right there in the room with you who’s listening and is a part of this conversation?

Interesting choice there, Shinsay. Not even a little uncomfortable at all. Just these two adults talking about how they used to fuck while one of them is shirtless.

Andi thinks about how the Marauder used to be a man cave, and yes, that’s what the text says, and how it’s actually beautiful and modern and well-furnished now because they have genuine Adhiran cowhide couches. Then there’s more descriptions of the interior of the ship and I’m extremely bored and wondering why we needed to know the layout of the kitchen or what Alfie was wearing while in said kitchen (it’s a Kiss the Cook apron, btw).

There’s a little argument about whether Valen is or isn’t a mutant due to his weird blood. It’s completely pointless.

“Ah-hah!” Alfie’ s head emerged from the cooling unit, frost covering the tip of his oval chin. “I have discovered the source of the smell.” He held up a dripping hunk of green meat, then proceeded to march over to the small ejection site and blast it out into space.

... Right.

So why do you people have a dedicated trash compartment again?

All this waffling about brings nothing, as Alfie just cryptically says that Valen’s DNA seems to have changed and that they’ll have to do further tests once Valen’s back home.

Andi thinks about how Gilly does have a soul after all, because Gilly seems excited about having a mutant on board. This book has too many characters considering whether they or someone else they know has a soul or not. I think it’s Shinsay’s way of trying to be deep.

Andi thinks about how cool her team is and how they got out of Lunamere without issue and how it’s gonna be nice to take a break. Then the ship starts crashing, I guess?

We gotta throw more forced plot into the narrative because clearly these characters don’t actually have any goals of their own.

Chapter 40

We’re back with Nor, who’s moping about her backstory and Zahn and Darai again. We find out through math that she’s 26?

Anyway, remember the prison guard they were gonna test Zenith on? Yeah, she’s dead. Which does indeed confirm that they hadn’t tested it before then. Alrighty. I also don’t get why they test it on their own loyal citizens instead of, you know, the prisoners they have in Lunamere. It just makes so much sense to try to brainwash someone who already loves you into loving you more and risk them dying from this foreign chemical instead of trying to brainwash someone who hates your guts and who wouldn’t be a loss if they died anyway.

IT JUST MAKES SO MUCH SENSE YOU GUYS.

This time, they are testing it on prisoners, so maybe their “head scientist” (more like two-head scientist amirite fellas) learned their fiking lesson. Ok but then Aclisia says these prisoners are the “first participants in the study” which ... Yeah it doesn’t make sense and I’m pretty sure they’re not participants nor is this a study.

Then Aclisia says this will be the “final batch.” So ... the Lunamere guard is not classified as a test subject nor a “participant,” and these guys are “participants” but will hopefully be the “first” but also “final” test subjects?

You’d think having two heads would make for a better scientist.

You’d think having two heads would make for a better writer ...

One of the prisoners calls Nor a “scnav,” which does sound nastier than all the other dumbass curse words they scrapped, and Nor says that they’ll begin testing on that one.

Aclisia says that “the weapon” is effective on any body part, as long as it comes in contact with the skin and can enter the blood stream. So ... Which one of those? Cuz having both makes no sense. The former sort of makes the other irrelevant. Also, what if an alien creature doesn’t have skin or blood? I guess it’s just universal. Even though they’ve only tested it on one alien species before ... and she died from it.

Flawless worldbuilding, lads.

We find out that Zenith has the ability to “to enthrall a person or terrify them, depending on how strong their will was” which is ... dumb as hell even before combined with the fact that 1) they haven’t tested it on live subjects until now and 2) it apparently transcends species. And now you’re telling me it will also work differently on different individuals based on their “will?” How is that even quantifiable? And if it is, how did they define it? How did they define something so nebulous so closely, without ANY test subjects, to the point of making this silver goop able to tell apart who has a strong will and who doesn’t?

Whatever. Zenith seems to work and the prisoner now obeys Nor’s every whim.

He lowered his head in an attempt to bow, even with his hands tied.

You don’t need your hands to bow but go off.

The other prisoners get Zenith’d as well.

[Nor] turned to Darai and Zahn with a grin as solid as steel. “My soldiers, it’s time to darken the stars.”

And we got Zenith’d too, my lads.

#eff reads: zenith

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