#the ruins of second celestial war

[t-a-a-1]

Can you do bayverse optimus ?Tlk if you can.It can be whatever you want i love your scrumptious writing hehe also ignore this if you're uncomfortable!^_^

Raindrops

Summary: Optimus asks you a very important question.

A/N: Written after the happenings of TLK. 4K Words

Raindrops

....

Everyday since he met you, he’s asked himself the same question. 

“Would you come with me?”

It was a question he had imagined the answer to. A resounding ‘no’.

Optimus didn’t see any reason why you would want to go with him to Cybertron. Leaving your friends, family and career behind. All the commodities Earth provided you will be gone the moment you decide to come with him.

And it’s not like he offers you a beautiful home. Cybertron was hostile, after the war it had become ruins. He dreamed many times of showing you his home in its golden age. You would have loved the museums, the theaters, the libraries, the arts. Would you have loved them as much you love your planet? Would it be enough for you to want to stay?

“It seems Earth and Cybertron’s destiny has always been intertwined,” the sun is setting. Optimus looks at his home planet, now on Earth’s orbit. “If that had been any other celestial object, it would probably cause catastrophic events. But it seems like Cybertron was made to not disturb Earth’s gravitational pull and magnetic fields.”

Your field wasn’t physics but you had basic knowledge on how things worked. Just like he expected you to do, you started to ask the real questions. Something he was trying to avoid as long as he could. 

“But I wonder if that’s because Cybertron currently lacks a core … Maybe once we are able to restore it, Cybertron’s gravitational pull will be too strong and destroy Earth.”

You look at him but he seems lost in thought. You didn’t blame him, having his home planet back must be unbelievable. After so many years of war and lost friends, what he always wanted is right here. 

“When that happens, we’ll have to send Cybertron back to its original place in the universe.”

You expected him to continue the conversation some way or another but it's as if he wasn’t listening or rather he did not want to. Maybe he is tired of everything and wishes to leave immediately. Probably not wanting to deal with humans anymore. 

Sighing heavily, you turn around, the wind moving your hair. The smell of the grass was strong and so a new aroma. It was hard to describe. Metal but alive. It was probably Cybertron. It didn’t bother you but it was different. 

Looking back at Optimus made you realize that maybe he wanted to be alone. It is a lot of process for today. 

“Well, then I guess this is goodbye–”

And suddenly, a servo is in front of you. Stopping you from walking any further. You look back, only to find Optimus’ faceplate extremely close to you. 

“I-I … My apologies, I don’t know what took over me.”

It’s like you triggered something in him with your words. But you weren’t sure what. Now he looks confused and lost. As if I wanted to say more but can’t or don't have the words. You wanted to guess but your mind made you believe stupid ideas. Ones in which you prefer to not indulge any longer. They will only cause you unnecessary pain. 

“It’s alright, you must be emotional. That’s all.”

You wait for a few seconds in which you could see Optimus’ blue optics in all of their glory. They were beautiful as they were mysterious. So close that you could see the small circuitry and cables that make up his optics. Such intricacy that you find yourself lost in them. 

And then … you are ashamed. 

“I must go.”

You say as you look away, expecting him to move his servo but he doesn’t. 

“I must go.”

You say again and this time you see the hesitancy in his faceplace.

He slowly removes his servo and distances himself from you. His optics looks away and then looks at you in a repetitive manner. 

“Do you–”

“I–”

“Oh sorry, you go first–” You raise a hand, trying to get his attention only to be interrupted by the Prime. 

“No, you go first.”

It was awkward. And the fact that it was that way made you wonder what went wrong. In what moment did things between the two of you become so uncomfortable? Was it just the sudden realization of final peace? Was it too unrealistic for the two of you to believe? What is it? 

“Nothing, I was just wondering if there’s something you wanted to say before I leave?”

Optimus servo clutch into fits. He opens his intake but nothing would come out. It was strange to see him this way. So confused, so … innocent. As if he was a kid trying to ask for another piece of cake. Too shy to ask and yet you find these small moments to be a treasure. 

“I was just wondering …” 

He hesitates again. He closes his optics and lets out a heavy vent. Turning his entire body around, you are unable to see his faceplate. 

“When the time comes … Will you …”

His voice becomes so low that you are unable to hear him. 

“What?” 

You ask him, confused by his sudden lack of confidence. 

“Will you … me?”

He says again but the loud wind and low tone voice weren’t helping the situation. 

“... What?”

You ask once again, your voice gets louder, showing your clear annoyance at being unable to hear him.

“Will you come to Cybetron with me?!”

Suddenly, he turns around, you can see his faceplate again. 

It was that expression again. One that you had only seen a few times. That of pure distress. Worriness. Anxiety. You had seen it before. During that time you had been captured by a Decepticon, badly injured and bleeding. His troubled expression was the last thing you saw before going unconscious. 

But now? What was that distressed look for? What was he so worried about?

“I, I–”

What were you nervous for? Why were you stuttering? Your cheeks are getting hotter and you can’t speak. You can’t manage words. The expression on his faceplate had left you stunned as your brain tried to understand the reasoning behind it. 

The longer you take to answer, the more pain is evident on his faceplate. His eyebrows squish together and his optics tremble. His lips formed a thin line that slowly became an upside down smile. He is begging you to end his torment and yet you know you have to tell him the truth. 

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It’s quiet around the hangar. 

A small base had been built near Stonehenge. It was the logical thing to do after Cybertron had appeared above the ancient pillars. Although the American Government wasn’t too pleased to make negotiations with the British to let them have a base in their land. 

You weren’t even supposed to be here but due to all the commotion in the last days, they let you stay. As well, Optimus and the rest of the Autobots enjoyed your stay. No one asked you when you will leave nor ever mentioned that you were a bothered. So you decided to stay for a couple of days until things settle down. 

And because your boss had asked you to stay and bring back the full story when you are done. 

“Are we just going to pretend Prime is ok?”

“Not like we can do much either or.”

They probably didn’t see you. As they were too busy talking to each other, carrying a few boxes of what you thought to be Energon. Meanwhile, you were typing on your laptop behind some piles of metal. It’s not like you were hiding but you rather found yourself a place where you could not be bothered when you needed to concentrate. 

“I still can’t believe (Y/N) said no … I thought the two of them had a strong bond.”

“Yes but everything she knows is here,” Bumblebee puts down his box as Hot Rod walks close by.  “Besides, they were too different … things wouldn’t work out.” 

“But does she even know that Optimus’s processor has identified her as his Conjunx?” Hot Rod also puts the Energon box down and sits on top of it. “Boss-Bot won’t be able to attach to anyone ever again … Isn’t that a bit cruel?”

“Cruel?” Bumblebee inquiries. “His Conjunx is someone who lives a fraction of our lives. The universe enjoys the game and the Primes are the pawns.” 

“And they know how to play well.”

It started to rain. It wasn’t unusual for rain to come and go in England. 

The bots look at it with amusement. This was unknown in Cybertron. It will take a long time before they can rebuild Cybertron and go back home but this will be one of the things they will miss the most. 

“What is a Conjunx?”

You came out of your hiding spot, behind the bots and they quickly stumble in their steps as they look down on you. 

“What are you doing there?!”

“What is a Conjunx?”

You ask again, not caring whether Hot Rod or Bumblebee looked like they just had seen a ghost. 

“You don’t need to know that,” Bumblebee quickly starts to walk away while Hot Rod keeps looking back and forth. He looks hesitant but doesn’t speak, waiting for Bee’s next action. 

“You said Optimus saw me as his Conjunx,” you don’t move but rather speak loud enough for him to hear. 

“Yes but there’s no need–”

“She should know,” Hot Rod interrupts the talking yellow Mustang. 

“Optimus wouldn’t want it,” Bumblebee stops walking and turns to look at his comrade and you. There is certain determination in your eyes, letting him know that you won’t stop pushing it until you find the answers you were looking for. You had always been known for that, probably something Optimus likes about you. 

“Optimus will die of sadness if she doesn’t know.”

Bumblebee doesn't say a thing but just ex-vents heavily. 

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“Would you stay with me?”

That’s what you wanted to ask but you already knew the answer. A resounding ‘no’. There was nothing for him on Earth. Humanity had once betrayed him and now he is doubtful. Humanity will help rebuild Cybertron and after that the transformers will leave. It would be a selfish thing to ask him to stay. You can’t ask him to give up on everything he fought for. His home, his family and friends, everything was on Cybertron. And you just were a human who wanted him to stay. 

It’s still raining. 

But that doesn’t mean you’ll stop looking for him. 

Although you can already feel yourself getting sick. Your hair is wet and your clothes damp. 

It wasn’t unusual to rain in England but you hated how unpredictable the weather was. The wind was also strong but the base was already too far away to back away now. You had to find him. 

Suddenly, a truck you immediately recognized makes his way towards you. The bot you were looking for appeared in front of you but he aggressively stops and opens his pilot door, signaling to go in. 

You didn’t hesitate and jumped right in. Optimus closes the door and starts driving away as you are welcomed with warmness. Although you were cold and tired, you didn’t wait any longer.

“I was looking for–”

“Have you gone mad?” Optimus asks, his voice showing his clear annoyance. “ What are you doing in the rain without proper protection?”

“What? That doesn’t matter, I was–”

You wanted to start asking questions but you started to sneeze. 

“How can I leave knowing you are this helpless?”

And after that, all previous questions left your mind. 

“Excuse me? I can take care of myself.”

“Your actions tell me otherwise.”

You roll your eyes, maybe he had a point. Running in the rain to look for him was probably not the best of ideas. But you were not about to tell him that. 

“And what about you?” you sneeze again although more softly this time as to not to prove his point any further.  “Aren’t you too told to be outside without an umbrella, you could be getting rusty anytime now?”

Optimus didn’t say a word. Your words will resonate at the back of his processor. He can’t believe he ever thought you would say yes to coming to Cybertron with him. You were right, he was an old rusty robot. Too many scars, too many mistakes and injuries. He can’t provide you with anything. Not even a family. 

And yet he is selfish. 

And you sneeze again.

And again.

“Great, I think I am going to get sick.”

He hates that word. Cybertronians also get sick but rarely. But humans are different. According to his research and observations, humans tend to get sick often and tragically a lot of them die. 

Optimus didn’t want to say a word, his pride told him to stay quiet. That you don’t need his concern, you do not wish it nor want it.

But you sneeze again.

“I’ll be taking you to the closest hospital,” he says as he makes a turn, heading for the closest road. 

“I am not going to the hospital, it's just a cold–”

“You are going to the hospital and it's final,”His voice is demanding but you don’t care.

“No, I won’t–”

“Why won’t you take my feelings into consideration?!”

His inside trembles. You could feel how his engine gets louder. The air coming from his vents got warmer and for a moment you felt your heart race. Out of guilt for making the Prime lose composure.

“What if you die?” he asks again. “What would I do after you are gone?”

The more he talks, the more desperate he sounds. As if he was living the circumstances he speaks of. 

“Have you thought what my life would be like without your presence?” you feel the seatbelt across your chest get tighter. “Do you really wish for me to be tormented for eternity.”

“This isn’t about me going to the hospital, is it?”

He doesn’t respond, his silence answers your question. 

“Let me out Prime, I want to talk to you, face to faceplate.”

He drives off the road and takes you to a heavy section of a nearby forest. Raining still, the tall trees prevent the rain from fully touching the ground. But some drops still make it through. Not like you cared about getting wet, you already were but Optimus had other plans. 

Opening the door and removing the seat belt, you jump out of his alt form. You watch him transform, a scene you will never be tired of. It's beautiful as it is scary, yet he is gentle. He knows it can be scary and he moves slower, softly as if not to scare you. 

Optimus doesn’t mass shift but he tries to see you at an eye-level. It must be uncomfortable for him and before you ask him why he doesn’t size-down, you feel him move closer.

He puts one of his large servo on top of you, protecting you from any rain from touching you.

“I want you to be honest with me,” you say as your breath is agitated, your heart pumping against your chest.  “I need to hear it from you.”

“What do you feel for me?”

Without you knowing, Optimus’ spark is also pulsating strongly against his chassis. He moves his optics away for a second, only for them to return to look at you. 

“You are a valuable asset to the Autobot cause.”

“Is that all?”

“You are also an important comrade.” 

You didn’t expect him to fully understand what you were asking. But you were hoping he could read your undertones. 

“I am giving you one last chance,” you say, your hands turning into a fist. You weren’t the best at this either and if you were honest, you didn’t know what you were trying to achieve.  “Is that all you feel for me?”

The Prime has always been known to be eloquent. Especially with words. But when it comes to you, he loses all sense of vocabulary. It didn’t use to be that way. There used to be a time when you meant nothing to him but a friend. 

But you had never stopped looking for him. After the attacks in Chicago, even after Sam’s death, an occurrence in which he blamed himself, you never stopped looking for him

What is it? Why did you do it?

“Look at the rain … Can you count each drop that falls from the sky?”

Optimus moves his optics to look at his surroundings. The rain, the trees, the beauty of nature. It cannot compare to you. 

“No, I can’t,” you respond quickly, your face full of wonder.

“Then, you are the rain,” he says.  “And I am trying to count.”

He sees your hands soften. Your expression had become awkward, with now avoiding eyes and pink cheeks. He has this need to hold you but respects your anatomy. 

“I can’t tell you how I feel because there are not enough words to describe it,” he calculates his words but he finds himself taking longer to answer. “I could recite you all of Cybertronian poetry and yet that doesn't feel enough for me.”

You keep looking at him and he looks away. Your eyes were too beautiful and it distracts him immensely. 

“But if you were to ask me to count each star in the universe I would,” he lets his spark do the talking, finally subsiding the yearning it has been holding for a long time.  “If you asked me to bring you a star, I would bring you a constellation.”

“This old rusted body belongs to you but if you ask me for my silence and distance, I won’t retaliate.” 

“And if I asked you to stay with me, on Earth, would you do it?”

You know it was a selfish question. You didn’t want to make him choose between his world and you. But you just had to know if there was a small possibility, a small chance that the life you had with him could still be a possibility. 

After the accidents in Chicago, you had looked for him, only to find him broken. Sam’s death had affected him greatly but in that grieve of losing loved ones, something sparked. 

Three years. You had lived with him for three years, in an isolated cottage. Where he could have all the dandelions he wanted. Where he could care for animals and the two of you would look at the stars and try to count them. Each one of them. 

“If that’s what you wish,” Optimus says. “I would stay by your side as long as you would have me.”

“I can’t,” you look away this time. “I won’t ask you to stay with me.”

“You have a duty to complete and Cybertron is your home,” there is more to it. More doubts than you are able to articulate.  “When you asked me to go to Cybertron with you, I said no because I don’t think I am worthy to be on your side.”

“Have my actions made you feel this way?” 

“You are Optimus Prime … I think anyone would feel unworthy,” you pause, thinking about the earlier events. “But today, Bumblebee and Hot Rod told me that you see me as your Conjunx.”

Optimus opens his intake only to close it. He looks side to side, trying to evade eye contact. One of the few times you can tell he is shy. But him acting in such a way has also made your body betray you. You wonder if he can tell just how nervous you are. 

“Does that mean — You do?”

“You weren’t supposed to know,” his voice is delicate with an apologetic tone. As if you had just caught him stealing extra energon from the resource room.  “Without noticing, my processor had one day started the Conjunx Ritus and as time passed, we both successfully completed the requirements.”

“And before I knew it, my Spark belonged to you.”

“But we are so different.”

“And yet here we are,” he makes a pause and he hears the rain. He tries to calm down before asking his next question, knowing that this will break his Spark. “Does my affection displease you?”

“No, no, I just–” you stumble with your words. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Is there a possibility that perhaps, in your heart, you reciprocate my sentiments?”

And you stay silent. Mostly because you don’t fully know what is going through your heart and the implications behind it. Can this even be possible? Are your feelings even real? Can he comprehend what your feelings are? Can this … Whatever it is, be real? 

“Please end my torment,” his faceplate looks to be in distress, his optics yearning. Longing for something unknown to the both of you.  “Your silence makes me have hope and I don’t want to suffer when you destroy my delusions.”

Gently, you walk towards him. You reach out a hand and touch his faceplate. Rubbing your soft skin against his cold metal. You watch his optics close, his engine gets louder just a bit but you hear him. As if your touch had saved him, healed him from whatever his processor agonized him with. 

“You are cold,” you say as you put your forehead against his faceplate. “Until you get warm, I’ll stay with you.”

Optimus didn’t need to ask further. You didn’t have to say anything either. He just basks himself into this moment. Not knowing what the future holds but he doesn’t care as long as you are with him. This moment won’t last forever but he wants to think that one day it could be true. 

A moment were he believed he could spend eternity counting the raindrops and stars in the sky with you. 

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A/N: Sorry this took so long. I’ve seen all the Bayverse movies but TLK is a movie that is a bit hard for me to write about because I don’t understand it much lol. But I still hope you like this and that it's not too OOC?  

It was fun to write this! So thank you so much for the request! :) 

[honeyteakaros]

au where Hermes burns down Cyllene as punishment for Luke

If Apollo's "involvement" in the second war leads to a six-month-long punishment named Lester, it's weird how Hermes seems to get off scot free for Luke (and honestly, Ares too for the bolt). And yeah, I've seen theories where it states Hermes didn't break the ultimate non-interference laws and therefore was not punished, buT! I think it would make sense if anyone who had any involvement in any war WAS punished, just kept their mouths shut about the details.

so what would be hermes' punishment for luke's actions in the first war? i propose this:

Zues should make Hermes burn down his birthplace. destroy it. wipe it off the map. kill whatever was left of his mother's earthly connections, thereby locking her and her sisters into their celestial forms, never to step foot on the earth again. It's the death of an immortal, and how chilling is that? According to Apollo, there is a power in birthplaces, but for a bastard of Olympus, it is only a stain of a reminder of where they came from.

(putting the rest under the cut bc its long lol)

ig there would be 3 main things that Heremes would take away from this:

showing Hermes that Cyllene is the consequence of his own actions. May Castellan, Luke Castellan, now his mother, who else? Everything he has touched has turned to ash, and any life he has entered has been led to ruin. ig this mindset would also shine a different light on Hermes' deadbeatness, in a way.

1. Enforces the consequences of Zeus' non-interference rule.

Scaring Hermes into inaction by punishing the results of his rare action (giving Luke a quest, speaking to him that literal one(?) time, telling May about the oracle) would also handily explain why the hell he was so absent during the giant war and the entirety of toa. Like, communications are down and messaging systems are in complete disarray, isn't that Hermes' domain? Why the hell isn't he doing anything about it? Well, that's bc he knows what happens when he disobeys, and at this point, he's running out of family to lose.

2. Prophecy is set in stone

This punishment would also unknowingly (to Zeus) create a mindset of the inevitability of prophecy in Hermes. Aka, the literal opposite of what Apollo and his trial's entire deal. Aka Zues' entire deal! !!!This is negative character development for Hermes gang!!!

If we go with the idea that Hermes knew about Luke's fate since he was a baby, and his giving Luke that quest was Hermes trying to change his son's fate... Then it almost sounds like one of the only times Hermes broke his father's non-interference rules was in an attempt to change Luke's fate. But not only did it blow up in his face spectacularly, but if that quest was a fundamental canon event in Luke's spiral into vengeance, then this is a classic tale of a hero meeting his end on the path he took to avoid it.

Not only has Hermes failed to save his son in what he believed was a futile attempt to go against prophecy, but he has also doomed his homeland in his rash actions. By punishing Hermes through Cyllene, it enforces the idea that his ever daring to think he could change fate has inadvertently brought the mountain to its ruin.

Furthermore, Zeus' choice of Hermes' birthplace as the target is uniquely tailored to hit where it hurts the most. A forest fire can go burning on for years, after all, and a mountain of ancient trees surrounded by boundaries of the boundary god could theoretically go on burning forever. After the deed has been done and the entire mountain is up in flames, from that point onwards, Zeus would only have to point to a ruined Cyllene to quell whatever mere suggestion Hermes has of stepping out of line.

3. zues proving to hermes that he is ultimately his father's son

if nympths in the rrverse are physically bound to a certain place, then maia and her sisters would have both their stars in the pleiades constellations in addition to mount cyllene.

Say, would the offsping of a nympth and a god be a minor god themselves? another nympth? a monster? who knows? in reality, their entire existence hinges on mortal belief and how humans perceive them, but parentage still plays a role in how their stories are told. so therefore the only olympian with a nympth for a mother would also reasonablly assume that there is a peice of him, like his mother, is tied to that mountain. weather or not thats actually true doesnt matter, what matters is when cyllene burned and hermes stood at the foot of the mountain and did not burn with it, to him it was the dreaded proof that he was no longer his mothers son. that he has left behind everything good that he used to be, and through his very own efforts, somewhere between his childhood in that cave where he dared dreamed of something greater, he has forfeited what made those dreams worth chasing in the firat place. through his own efforts, he has become something terrible. he has become his fathers son.

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all this is to say that rrverse zues may be evil, but bros not uncreative lmao. isolating Hermes through cutting off some of the last of his support system (by his own hands, no less) not only ensures Hermes' reliance on Zeus but also Hermes' reliance and identification with Olympus as a whole. also ensures that when the time comes for Apollo's punishment, there's already a hurt there that's ripe and ready to be dug into.

Apollo's been banished to mortal-hood? oh boo hoo, what a tragedy (compleatly different hc but i think hermes honestly would've had a much easier time adjusting to mortalhood compared to apollo at first, mainly due to the nature of hermes' domains). Oh, Apollo nearly keeps dying as a mortal and is prophesied to perish at the jaws of Python? well, fuck, his head for his crimes is what he deserves, is it not? While Apollo's punishment is a thinly veiled assassination attempt, Hermes' punishment would be to isolate him further.

There was already a jealousy here that could be amplified to the nines post-trials. I think it's due to the sheer fact that Apollo came out of his punishment better off than how he began, divine and golden and shining once more, even though he has defied their father again and again and has acted as an antithesis to everything he once preached. To Hermes, Apollo's death-defying ascension makes the fact that while Apollo effortlessly gets everything, the only thing Hermes has received for his troubles is a dead mother, dead son, and a homeland in ashes.

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

1968 [Chapter 1: Ares, God Of War]

Series Summary: Aemond is embroiled in a fierce battle to secure the Democratic Party nomination and defeat his archnemesis, Richard Nixon, in the presidential election. You are his wife of two years and wholeheartedly indoctrinated into the Targaryen political dynasty. But you have an archnemesis of your own: Aemond’s chronically delinquent brother Aegon.

Series Warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), violence, bodily injury, character deaths, New Jersey, age-gap relationships, drinking, smoking, drugs, pregnancy and childbirth, kids with weird Greek names, historical topics including war and discrimination, math.

Word Count: 5.7k

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💜 All of my writing can be found HERE! 💜

Let’s begin with a definition.

Disaster is a noun derived from Ancient Greek: dus, a prefix meaning “bad,” and aster, or “star.” In the time when humans worshipped Zeus and Hera, Hephaestus and Aphrodite, it was believed that tragedies resulted from the inauspicious positioning of celestial bodies: a volcano erupts because of Jupiter, a returning comet brings with it a flood. There is a certain helplessness inherent in this mythology. There is predestined suffering that lies in wait until all the jewels of the sky have malignantly aligned.

Have you ever met someone who made you ache to change the stars?

~~~~~~~~~~

Gunshots explode through the lobby of the Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach, Florida; you feel the wind of the bullets as they clip by, fragmented metallic rage. Aemond is on the marble floor, blood pouring down his face, blood all over the white shirt beneath his navy blue suit jacket when you rip it open, tearing a button loose. He’s reaching for you through the jostling and the screams, leaving crimson handprints on your mint green dress. And you think: He just won the Florida primary. He’s not supposed to die. He’s supposed to be the president.

“What happened?” Aemond murmurs, his right eye dazed and only half-open; the left has vanished beneath a cloudburst of gore. Perhaps ten yards away, people have caught the assailant and pinned him against one of the vast Venetian windows until the police arrive. They’re roaring at him in red-faced fury, their closed fists strike his ribs and his cheekbones, their knuckles paint him scarlet and indigo.

“You’re alright, you’re alright.” You brace both palms over the maroon stain spreading rapidly across Aemond’s chest and press down as hard as you can. Your fingers are drenched in seconds, warm fading life. He’s bleeding to death. You shriek through the turmoil: “Criston?!”

“Is he okay?” Aemond asks faintly. He means the baby; you’re six months pregnant with his first child, his greatest treasure, his Atlantis, his Holy Grail. Aemond has already decided that it’s a boy. Sometimes you fear what will happen if he’s wrong.

“Yes, honey, the baby’s fine, don’t worry. Criston!”

Aegon is here instead, sweating out rum and ruin like he always is, hair too long, veins full of pills, colliding with you and pawing at his dying brother with untrustworthy hands. “Aemond?!”

You shove Aegon away, splattering him with blood. “Get back, he needs air!”

“Where’s he shot?! Let me see—”

“I told you to get back!”

“Goddammit, you don’t own him! He’s mine too!”

Criston has battled his way to you and is yanking Aegon back by the collar of his frayed olive green army jacket, stolen from Daeron when he visited home after basic training, a uniform of embittered revolution worn by a man who’s never fought for anything. “Aegon, make sure someone’s called for an ambulance, then meet the paramedics at the door and help them find us.”

“But—”

“Go!” Criston yells, and Aegon scrambles to his feet and is lost within the crowd. You can hear Otto bellowing at journalists and hotel employees to make space for the fallen senator; there are flashes of cameras and prayers shouted aloud. Above your head are crystal chandeliers and a vaulted ceiling hand-painted by 75 Italian artists in the 1920s; swimming in your skull are visions of Jackie Kennedy in the pink suit filthy with her husband’s brains. It’s just before midnight on Tuesday, May 28th. Upstairs in their oceanfront Imperial Suites, nannies will be shaking awake the absent adults of the Targaryen dynasty, who retired with the children before Aemond made his victory speech in the hotel ballroom: Alicent, Helaena, Fosco, Mimi.

Criston’s hands—larger, stronger—replace yours over the gushing wound in Aemond’s chest. What did the bullet hit? His lung, his heart? He’s not speaking anymore, his right eye is closed. His bloodied hands rest open and empty on the floor. “Criston, he’s dying,” you sob.

“No he’s not. We’re not going to let him.”

“What’s the closest hospital?”

“Good Samaritan is just across the bridge on the mainland.” It’s Criston’s job to know these things, though he had been thinking of you when he plotted his meticulous notes in his day planner: in case you eat a bad cheeseburger, or trip on the stairs, or catch the flu and start burning up with fever. Aemond worries about the baby. Aegon has five children, Helaena has three, and Aemond will feel that he has been robbed of something if he does not swiftly procure a family of his own. He needs you on the campaign trail, but still, he worries.

Across the lobby, the police have arrived to arrest the aspiring assassin. He puts up a fight when they try to handcuff him and earns a nightstick to the gut, an elbow to the nose. He is choking on his own blood. Perhaps he is drowning in it. Good, you think.

“Don’t kill him!” Otto booms at the officers. “I want him alive for trial! I want him to ride the lighting up in Raiford, you keep that son of a bitch alive!”

“Aemond?” You thread your fingers through his blood-soaked hair. What happened to his left eye? Is it somewhere underneath all that carnage, or is it gone? “Please wake up. Please stay with me. We need you. The baby and I need you.”

“He’s going to live,” Criston promises, both hands still clamped over the bullet wound to slow the hemorrhaging.

“Aemond, please…” How can he be the president with only one eye?

An old woman in a yellow striped skirt suit is lumbering close with a homemade prayer rope clenched in her fist. “A komboskini for the senator!” For his last rites. For his soul.

“He doesn’t need it!” Criston says. “He’s not dying! No one is dying tonight!”

Still, you take the komboskini from the lady, each of the 100 knots a prayer unspoken. She is a devotee of Aemond, and you must show her gratitude. “Efcharistó, aderfí. O Theós na se evlogeí.” They are some of the few Greek words you’ve mastered; you’ve used them often since Aemond announced that he was running for president. Thank you, sister. God bless you.

The paramedics arrive, splitting the crowd like a laceration, white uniforms and a stretcher to ferry Aemond away. People are wailing, cursing, swearing vengeance. Aegon has returned and is peering down at Aemond with those large, glassy, muddled eyes, afraid to ask. “Is he…is he still…?”

“He has a pulse,” Criston replies. He helps the paramedics drag Aemond onto the stretcher and strap him to it. Your husband’s shirt is now drenched in red like garnet, like cinnabar, like the poppies that commemorate the boys butchered in World War I, like the wasted blood being spilled in Vietnam, men reduced to memory. “Good Samaritan?” Criston confirms with the paramedics.

“Yes sir,” the most senior one agrees. And then to you, with great deference, with compassion that transcends what somebody can harbor for strangers: “Ma’am, there’s a place for you if you want it.”

“I do,” you say, tear-streaked face, hands bathed in blood. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

The ambulance is idling outside the main entranceway of the hotel. Criston grasps your hand to steady you as you step up into the back, and you take a seat on the red leather bench beside the stretcher. The paramedics are placing IVs, holding an oxygen mask to Aemond’s face, muttering urgently into their radio, abbreviations and code words you can’t understand, a secret language of organic calamities. High above the stars are crystalline and radiant in a clear sky. In your own chest—unshredded by metal, unpierced by rage—your intact heart is pounding.

The lead paramedic turns to you again and says: “We can fit one more person.”

It’s your decision. You are the senator’s wife; you were supposed to be the next first lady of the United States. You look through the ambulance’s open doors. Aegon stares back expectantly, his hair falling in his face, his arms thrown wide, petulant, combative, useless, drunk. “Criston.”

“Bitch!” Aegon hisses at you as Criston climbs into the vehicle. The doors slam shut, the engine rumbles, the siren squeals as the ambulance races westbound on Breakers Row towards County Road, which connects with Flagler Memorial Bridge and the mainland.

Through the rear window you watch Aegon as he stands in the white-gold hotel luminescence, becoming smaller and smaller until he vanishes, and all you can see are streetlights, and all you can smell is blood.

~~~~~~~~~~

Every story needs its cast of characters. Here are the major players in the summer of 1968.

President Lyndon Baines Johnson is in the White House watching the clocks tick towards November 5th, when his successor will be ordained. He has chosen not to seek reelection. Since his ascension upon Kennedy’s assassination in 1963, Johnson’s domestic focus has been unprecedented civil rights legislation and his War On Poverty, yet what has infected the media like blood poisoning is the war in Vietnam. On the television are napalm bombs incinerating Vietnamese peasants, caskets draped with American flags, riots being beaten down by police, college students torching draft cards and chanting “Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?” Now the president is sick in body, in spirit, in heart, and this is not a metaphor: he suffered a near-fatal cardiac arrest in 1955 and another shortly after John F. Kennedy was murdered in Dallas, Texas. He will die almost exactly four years after leaving office. Had he sought another term, he would have been unlikely to survive it. The public eye is something like a snake bite; it sinks its fangs in and you hope the venom burns clean before it can curse you with clots or hemorrhages or paralysis, before it can drown you in the dark waters of infamy.

In the void left by President Johnson’s surrender, four factions have emerged within the Democratic Party. The old guard—the same labor unions, congressmen, and local political machines who have steered the platform since the days of Franklin D. Roosvelt’s New Deal—has flocked to current Vice President Hubert Humphrey. Humphrey is competent yet uninspiring, a mid-fifties Midwesterner who flinches at the unpolished fury of antiwar protests and sedately lectures Black Power activists on the dangers of “reverse racism.” He is not a threat. He is a sheep in sheep’s clothing, and this is the time for wolves.

Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota is unapologetically opposed to the Vietnam War, a moral crusader, a reluctant warrior, a man who wears his lack of taste for the presidency like a badge of honor. He feels compelled to run, but he does not crave it. He thinks this makes him a saint; but Joan of Arc was burned at the stake and Saint Lawrence was roasted alive. Like Halloween candy plunked into a child’s neon orange plastic pumpkin, McCarthy has collected his own coalition, college students and posh urbanites who believe themselves to be the future of the Democratic Party. In 2016, people will conjure McCarthy’s ghost when drawing comparisons to a controversial left-wing senator from Vermont named Bernie Sanders.

If McCarthy is the future and Humphrey is the past, then former governor of Alabama George Wallace is downright archaic. He is the candidate of choice for Southern white supremacists, averse to Republicans since Lincoln and still reverent of Depression-era New Deal programs that kept them from starving to death. Wallace is best known for his promise of “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever,” and pledges to end the chaos that has besieged America through strict law and order. Provided he loses the Democratic primary, Wallace plans to run in the general election as an Independent, hoping to peel away enough support from the major party candidates to force the House of Representatives to declare the winner and then leverage his votes to negotiate an end to federal desegregation efforts in the South. His devoted wife Lurleen just died of uterine cancer, a diagnosis which Wallace kept hidden from her for years; doctors are in the habit of informing husbands of their wives’ ailments and giving them carte blanche control over the treatment plan, which unfortunately in Lurleen’s case was nothing. She was 41 years old.

In his short-lived castle of red corridors like the marrow rivers of bones, President Johnson hides from the hippies who jeer and spit; Humphrey frowns at them, McCarthy tries to appease them, Wallace says the only four-letter words they don’t know are “w-o-r-k” and “s-o-a-p.” But Aemond climbs down from podiums to meet them like old friends. He is young, only 36. He has a brother serving in the swamps of Vietnam. He is focused, determined, insatiable; he devours every scrap of news that is printed about him and writes his speeches by hand. As the self-admitted runt of the Targaryen family, Aemond knows what it is like to be underestimated. He wants a better America, and he wants to be the president, and he wants these things in equal, relentless measure, each fueling the other until these ambitions become inseparable. He has grown up hearing slurs against Greeks and consequently has no tolerance for discrimination, which he contends is antithetical to the American Dream. He attends civil rights marches in labyrinthian cities, antiwar protests on college campuses, union meetings in coal mining towns of West Virginia and Kentucky and Wyoming, music festivals crowded with long unwashed hair and braless women, fundraisers flush with the deep pockets of the Northeastern elite. Aemond’s coalition grows each day, bleeding away strength from his rivals like a Medieval surgeon. Their flesh turns cold and anemic, while Aemond’s heart pumps scalding torrents of blood.

If Aemond wins the Democratic primary at the convention in August, his opponent will almost certainly be the Republican frontrunner Richard Nixon of California. Nixon wants the White House just as badly, and he’s much smarter than he looks. He was Eisenhower’s vice president for eight years in the 1950s and lost to the ill-fated John F. Kennedy in 1960 by a whisker; some say he did not lose at all, but instead was cheated out of 100,000 votes by Kennedy’s mafia connections in Chicago. But with the Democrats divided and their incumbent president floundering, Nixon’s timing has never been better. He was once a poor boy with two dead brothers who earned a scholarship to Duke Law. Now he will become whoever he needs to be to win the presidency of the United States.

1968 is the year of wolves. The fangs are sharp, and the bellies ache with hunger.

~~~~~~~~~~

A local deli has opened early and sent sandwiches to Good Samaritan Medical Center for the family and friends of the senator from New Jersey: ham and Swiss, cucumber and cream cheese, tuna salad, egg salad, pimento cheese, BLTs, Cubans. The lobby is filling up with bouquets of flowers and handwritten notes. You pace and count the knots of the komboskini over and over again as you wait; Aemond has been in surgery for hours. The nurses periodically bring you Styrofoam cups of hot chocolate, scalding watered-down sweetness to distract you from the fact that some surgeon is currently rooting around inside your husband’s ribcage.

Alicent—a convert to the Greek Orthodox faith just as you are, though far more zealous, far more sincere if you dared to admit it—is pleading for God to save her son as she clasps her own prayer rope. Helaena is seated beside her, eerily calm. Helaena’s husband Fosco is wandering around boredly and inflicting small talk upon the nurses, ogling out the third-story windows, playing with his red Duncan yo-yo. Otto is making a series of calls using one of the phones at the nurses’ station. Criston is there too, leaning over the countertop and speaking with Otto in low conspiratorial whispers.

Aegon is sitting alone and glaring at you. He takes a rattling bottle of pills—prescriptions that doctors are too afraid not to write for him when he asks—out of a pocket on the front of his green army jacket, spotted like a leopard with your bloody handprints. He opens the amber-colored, cylindrical container and pours two, no, three tiny white tablets into his palm. He tosses them into his mouth and washes them down with a swallow of his own mediocre hot chocolate, still glaring. You ignore him.

“How could this have happened?” Mimi says again from where she’s slumped in her chair. Aegon’s wife has a Snow White sort of beauty, but with a perpetual ruddiness in her nose and cheeks from the gin she sips constantly. You suppose it would make anyone a drunk, being married to a man like that. Her maiden name was Marina Marceline Leroux, but everyone has always called her Mimi, even the press on the rare occasions when she makes an appearance. Her children—Orion, Spiro, Violeta, Thaddeus, and little Cosmo, only five years old—are all back at the Breakers Hotel with the nannies, the same as Helaena’s. Mimi blubbers to nobody in particular: “How…? Who…? Who would want to hurt Aemond…?”

Someone needs to sober her up. You fetch a BLT off the platter of sandwiches and offer it to her. “Here. Eat.”

“I’m not hungry. Who on earth could be hungry at a time like this? I’m absolutely nauseated, I’ll never want food again—”

“Mimi, eat the sandwich.”

“Fine, fine,” she slurs morosely, then takes an unenthusiastic bite. She listens to you, all the women do. They listen to you, and you listen to Aemond, and the circle is closed and complete.

Criston is walking over now. You turn to him, needing good news, bad news, any news. “It was a Wallace supporter,” Criston says. From his seat, Aegon is watching Criston with his slow drugged gaze, listening intently. “Some bell pepper farmer from up by Jacksonville.”

“He’s been taken to the local jail for holding?” you ask, and then add: “Alive?”

“Yeah, and he already has a record. Assault and battery. His brother-in-law is apparently a Grand Dragon in the Klan.”

“What the hell is a Grand Dragon?”

“Well, it’s higher than a Goblin, but not as illustrious as an Imperial Wizard, does that answer your question?”

“Perfectly.” You smile at Criston, a pained, wry smile. He returns it and places a palm over your belly. You are still wearing the mint green dress Aemond picked out for you this morning, before he won the Florida primary, before he was shot twice by the disciple of a political adversary and laid at death’s doorstep. You are still covered in your husband’s blood.

“You’re feeling alright?” Then Criston smirks, knowing how ridiculous he must sound. “You know. All things considered.”

“We’re both fine. The baby’s moving around, I can feel it.”

“You can feel him, you mean,” Criston teases, knowing Aemond’s preoccupation with his unborn son; but you can’t bring yourself to appreciate the joke.

Aegon says to you suddenly: “How the fuck did you let this happen?”

“What?” you answer, stunned.

Aegon stands and approaches, lurching, raging. “You always have to be right beside him, in the photographs, in the headlines, in the soundbites, but you let some psychopath run up and shoot him? Twice?!”

“I thought he just wanted to shake Aemond’s hand, or maybe get a quote for an article—”

“You didn’t notice the gun?!”

“Aegon, sit down,” Criston orders.

“It happened in seconds,” you say. “You think you would have done better? You and your Valium, and your Librium, and your Percodan? You think your reaction time would have been so superior to mine?”

“Please,” Alicent moans, mopping tears from her pink cheeks with a handkerchief. “Please, don’t fight, not now…”

“We are all friends here,” Fosco adds in his thick Italian accent, yo-yoing by a window.

“You want to be the first lady so bad but you can’t handle it!” Aegon shouts, his voice echoing through the lobby. “You’re not some prodigy, you don’t have all the answers, you’re just a girl who stitched yourself to Aemond and then you let him get shot, he’s being operated on right now, maybe he’s even dying, and you still act like you’re so fucking perfect—”

“You’re mad because you know that everybody here is thinking the same thing,” you tell Aegon, cold and cruel. “That if someone had to get killed tonight it should have been you.”

Aegon’s mouth drops open; he stares at you with that slippery, opaque, stoned woundedness, pathetic, infuriating, illogically childish. Everyone else pretends they haven’t heard you. Alicent sniffles into her handkerchief. Fosco begins humming I Want To Hold Your Hand. Mimi chews sluggishly on her BLT. From the nurses’ station, Otto says, holding the phone to his chest: “It’s George Wallace. He’s calling for Aemond’s wife.” Then he waits to see if you’ll agree to take it.

Of course you will. You have to. You are acting in your husband’s stead. You go to the nurses’ station and grab the handset when Otto passes it to you. “This is Mrs. Targaryen.”

“Ma’am, I just wanted to offer you my sincerest condolences.” He has a pronounced drawl, born and raised in what he has praised as the Great Anglo-Saxon Southland. You animal, you think. You braindead bigot. “I do hope the senator makes a hasty recovery. I sure would like to beat him at the ballot box, but I have no stomach for anarchy. An act like this is repugnant to me, as it should be to any red-blooded American.”

“It was one of yours, do you know that?” you say, dripping venom. “One of your hateful ghouls.”

“I have no such knowledge. But if the shooter does turn out to be a supporter of my campaign, I disavow him utterly. He deserves a nice long sit in Old Sparky and then to meet his maker.”

“You inspire men to commit violence, and then you renounce them when they spill blood. I’m still wearing my husband’s. It’s on my hands, it’s on my dress, and I will not absolve you of blame. You are a gardener of discord. You grow it like roses or wheat. You tend to it until it blooms.” Otto is studying you, bushy eyebrows raised. “If you’d truly like to repent, perhaps dropping out of the Democratic primary would be a good start. And then you could find something useful to do, like drowning yourself.”

From whatever office he’s currently lounging comfortably in, his shoes kicked up on the desk, Wallace chuckles. “Aemond is very fortunate to have as ardent a defender as you, my dear.”

“Yes, a devoted wife is such a treasure. It’s a shame you killed yours.”

“Ma’am, once again, I just wanted to express how terribly sorry I am for your family’s hardship. I would never wish for an incident like this—”

“Maybe you shouldn’t be emboldening white supremacists then!” You slam the phone as you hang up.

Otto looks at you. He says: “Did it go well?”

The heavy double doors leading to the operating theater swing open, and a surgeon steps through them, still drying his hands with a dark blue towel. He has changed his scrubs and washed his skin, but you notice a spot he missed: a fleck of half-dried blood up by his temple. That’s Aemond, you think. That’s a piece of him.

Everyone rushes to gather around the doctor, even Mimi; she lists like a ship taking on water as she walks, gnawing at all that remains of her BLT, just a sliver of white toast crust.

“The senator is alive,” the doctor says, and Alicent cries out in relief. Criston rests a palm on her shoulder. “But we could not save the eye.”

“He’s half-blind?” you ask. There’s never been a half-blind president. There’s never been a Greek one either. And the only reason this is stuck in your mind is because you know it will consume Aemond’s.

The doctor nods. “We had to remove it. The bullet that struck Senator Targaryen in the head, fortunately, was more of a graze. It ricocheted off his skull and didn’t cause any trauma to the brain, but his eye was…” He hesitates, trying to find a more polite word than shredded, macerated, pulverized. “Destroyed.”

“You stopped the bleeding?” Aegon says, astonished. “He’s okay? He’s really okay?”

“The second bullet pierced the thoracic cavity and was lodged less than an inch from his heart. He was very lucky. We repaired the damage to the best of our ability, and I am optimistic that the senator will make a full recovery. He’s resting comfortably now, but he should be awake soon.”

“Oh, thank God,” Alicent says, glistening dark eyes raised to heaven. The salient points gathered, Fosco wanders off again, his yo-yo dangling from its string.

Otto asks: “When can he resume campaigning?”

The doctor is caught off-guard; it takes him a moment to answer. “That will depend on the senator’s stamina as he regains his strength. If he chooses to stay in the race at all.”

Otto scoffs. “Of course he’ll stay in. This is what he lives for. You really can’t give me a ballpark figure?”

The doctor is determinately impassive. “I would estimate a month or two before he can withstand the rigors of the campaign trail again.”

“California is June 4th,” Otto recalls, counting off dates on his fingers. “Illinois is the 11th, New York is the 18th…”

“Look, there are people outside!” Fosco announces excitedly as he peers through one of the windows. “Hello! Hello everybody!”

“Fosco, you idiot, stop waving,” Otto snaps. “Go sit down.”

“But they are cheering.”

“Not for you.”

Fosco, somewhat deflated, grabs an egg salad sandwich off the platter and plops into a chair to eat it. He’s dressed in a green plaid sport coat and tight white trousers, very chic, very European. You’ve never been able to imagine Fosco and Helaena being passionately romantic with each other. They’re both a bit too doll-like for that, closer to Barbie and Ken than flesh and blood, blank stares and vague ambitions.

“Someone should talk to them,” Alicent says softly. She means the crowd that is forming in front of the hospital: journalists, cops, local politicians, mutilated veterans, college kids, farmers, fishermen, women and children, the future and the past. Everyone turns to look at you.

“I’ll do it,” you volunteer. You will, you must. Aemond could have chosen a hundred similarly suited women to be his wife, but he chose you, and when he did your vows became a blood oath.

Criston accompanies you downstairs to where the crowd has gathered just outside the front entrance of Good Samaritan Medical Center. The night air is warm and humid, the stars bright. You had thought of so many things to tell these people as you’d stood in the elevator as it descended, but now your mind is empty, fearful. There are photographers with blinding camera flashes and apostles waiting with famished eyes. From the depths of injustice and poverty and war, they have come to pay their respects to the man they believe is destined to save not just themselves but their world. What should I say? What would Aemond want me to say?

“I am very pleased to share with you all that Senator Targaryen is out of surgery and regaining his strength.”

There are cheers and applause and prayers; you are still clutching the komboskini that the old woman gave you in the lobby of the Breakers Hotel. You see more prayer ropes in this flock, and rosaries too, Bibles and dog tags, copies of The Autobiography of Malcolm X and Joanne Didion’s Slouching Towards Bethlehem.

“We would like to thank you for your heartfelt support. Aemond and I are so very grateful, and he is looking forward to being back on the campaign trail soon.”

More clapping and whistling, and then the crowd waits. You aren’t sure what they want to hear as you stand in the glow of the hospital luminance; your hands are trembling wildly, so you clasp them together as you hold the komboskini. Criston glances over at you, concerned. You settle on the truth.

“The man who tried to kill my husband tonight is a supporter of former Alabama governor George Wallace and an avowed white supremacist. Any ideology that advocates for violence and prejudice is a threat to our bodies, our nation, and our souls. We will not surrender to it, not even when our lives are in jeopardy. We will not concede that hope for a better world is lost. We will press ever onward with the knowledge that God is on our side, and that the future of this country is worth fighting for.”

You are bathed in flashbulb lightning; your ears ring with the thunder of the applause. You are shaking hands now, nodding, beaming, Criston following you like a shadow as you move through the congregation. You stop to listen to a middle-aged woman in a floral dress who wants to give you marriage advice: never get bossy, don’t become selfish, remember that you are his safe harbor in the storms of life. It is your job to gift her your momentary veneration. You have beauty, but she has wisdom; or at least, that is the bargain that has been struck, that is the presumption everyone agrees upon. She must have some advantage over you, otherwise the decades she has spent in service of her parents and husband and children have been wasted, she has carved away pieces of herself to feed hungry mouths until she vanished like the doomed nymph Echo. In return, she tries not to envy you too much, not to dismiss you as foolish or frivolous or lustful. Sometimes you think that women are filled with such vicious, relentless self-loathing that it feels good to direct it at someone else for a while, to pick apart another body, to tally up the deficits of her spirit.

“Aemond is so lucky to have you,” the woman says. You can barely hear her over the roar of the crowd.

And you smile as you dutifully reply: “I think it’s the other way around.”

~~~~~~~~~~

There is a television mounted on the wall in Aemond’s room. The news coverage, the volume turned way down low, oscillates between his own near-assassination and the stalled peace talks in Paris. Representatives of the United States and North Vietnam cannot agree, and so each day more body bags are flown home to return the bones of the nation’s sons and fathers to Missouri, Alabama, Idaho, Maine, Wisconsin, Maryland, Arizona, California, New Jersey, everywhere else. Someone has to end it. Aemond will end it.

“I dreamed I won Florida,” your husband mumbles, and that’s how you know he’s awake, here in a hospital bed and wearing IVs like strings of Christmas lights around a pine tree.

“You did,” you tell him, gently smoothing back his hair from his forehead. His left eye—where his left eye used to be—is bandaged; his words are soft and labored. “Humphrey was second. Wallace got third. But you won. And you’re going to be okay.”

“McCarthy?”

“It seems you’re devouring his coalition.”

Aemond’s lips slowly curl into a grin, triumphant. “It is God’s will.” And this is what he always says. It is God’s will that he survives, it is God’s will that he wins the presidency, it is God’s will that you give him sons.

“Yes,” you agree, lifting his right hand to kiss his knuckles. Then you press the komboskini you’re still carrying into his weak grasp. It means more to Aemond than it does to you. “Yes it is.”

Aemond sinks into unconsciousness again, morphine and dreams that blur with reality. There will be pain soon, and plenty of it, but he is free from that impending truth for now. You rise from your chair to tell the rest of the family that Aemond is beginning to wake up. Alicent and Criston will want to speak with him.

When you open the door, Aegon is standing there: an eavesdropper, a trespasser. He glares at you with his large wet ocean-blue eyes, hazy with pills, glinting with resentment. Reluctantly, you step aside to let him in. Aegon wobbles as he passes you and has to grab onto the doorframe to steady himself, scrabbling like a trapped animal.

“You’re a disaster,” you say, caustic like acid, biting, repulsed.

Aegon whirls and jabs his index finger against your chest, bloodstained mint green wool bouclé by Chanel. “You’re a vessel. You’re a cow. And one day he’ll be done with you.”

You feel something hitting you like a bullet, cracking ribs, piercing lungs, tearing muscles and ligaments. Your lips have parted, but you can’t fathom words. Aegon has said many things to you—bitter things, belittling things, things in mixed company, things when you’re alone—but never this. For the first time since you met him two years ago, he has won one of your sparring matches. He has the upper hand. He has wounded you.

Aegon can see this, certainly. But he doesn’t seem pleased with himself. He looks a little shellshocked, like he can’t quite believe he said the words, like maybe if given the chance again he wouldn’t take it. But the moment is over now, and you can’t get time back, it is a thread that unspools until every inch is gone, spent, tangled in a thousand webs.

Aegon staggers into the hospital room. You flee from it. Out in the lobby the phone at the nurses’ station is ringing again. They’ll all be calling now to give their requisite sympathies. Humphrey counsels prudence, McCarthy prays for peace, LBJ offers the empathy of someone who has felt the cold gaze of Death in his own doorway, Nixon praises Aemond’s resilience and quotes the ancient philosopher Seneca: “There is no easy way from the earth to the stars.”

[quitealotofsodapop]

Just imagining, in a world where Wukogn wasn't immediately trapped in the scroll of memory after Azure freed the rest of the Brotherhood, he'd have some things to say. I'm thinking TMKATI au post Wu is Wikong reveal

Wu: MK... who helped you get me out of there?

MK: Oh, this only friend of yours. Called himself the Azure Lion?

Wu, immediately going pale as a ghost: Azure Lion!? MK, please tell me you didn't listen to him or make any deals!

Pigsy: What? Why would it be such a big deal? He's your friend isn't he?

Wu: Azure is anything but a friend! He's the reason I was trapped on the Furnace and under the Mountain to begin with, him and his rebellion!

Tang: Uh, what? But all the stories say it was because of the Havoc you caused!

Wu: The Peach Festival I crashed and ruined was hardly important enough for Heaven to do what they did to me, even with the pills and immortal peaches and wine I had stolen. It was just the catalyst. I was still a cub back then, a stupid, reckless cub who was impressionable enough to trust the wrong person. And then Azure had left me to take the fall for the rebellion he had started! Whatever you do, don't trust Azure!

Tang, taking in the implications: ...I'll kill him.

+Bonus:

Even if Azure did not realise it himself, he had built Wukong up in his mind to be the matyr of the Rebellion. And when Wukong surrendered, rather than die for it, Azure became convinced it was a great betrayal.

There's even hints of Macaque recognising/suspecting this sort of manipulation all the way back during their carefree Brotherhood days. There's a split second in "New Adventures" just after Azure convinces the others to make Wukong the leader of the rebellion, when Macaque is clearly unhappy/thinking about the situation. The only reason he doesn't speak out then and there is because Wukong seemed so sure of it. We see a similar look again just before they head out on their first attack.

And of course there's the memory Tang wanders into in "Court of the Yellow Robed Demon" thats very telling;

Peng: "Wukong is a traitor! He'll end us the first chance he gets!" Yellowtusk: "Yes. The Stone Monkey is unpredictable. Now he's thrown his lot in with the Celestial Host, there's no telling where his true allegiances lie." Peng: "You're characteristically quiet, Macaque!" Macaque: "I just think we should consider all our options before we—" Peng: "What's to consider? Wukong's made his choice. I say we strike him down now while we have the chance!"

The Trio are discussing attacking Wukong for aligning himself with "the Celestial Host" [i.e helping Tripitaka on the Journey so he can do parole] - the memory taking place within Camel Ridge.

Macaque's reaction brings up a super interesting twist to the story told in JTTW. Was the whole plan of disguising himself as Wukong and taking the scriptures not his own? Did the other three or an unknown villain working in the background insist he do so? Did he do it to stall Wukong so that his best friend/mate did not fall into a trap from the rest of the Brotherhood? Did Macaque die trying to give Wukong another option less the Monkey King risk being captured or worse at the hands of his former sworn brothers?

Macaque recognised that *something* was super wrong in how the Brotherhood treated Wukong, especially how Azure directed the situation. But being the same, barely-a-cub, age Wukong was at the time, Macaque wasn't sure/confident enough to speak out about it.

And ofc this whole thing with the Brotherhood would come to a boil in the TMKATI au when Macaque and Wukong are having their Big Fight.

Wukong/Wu had long since recognised that Azure was grooming/manipulating him for the fall, but isn't sure why he tried attacking him afterwards. Macaque is a bit proud in a "I told you so"-way and says that Azure had expected Wukong to *die* in the war as a matyr rather than live as a prisoner.

Wukong: "Why didn't you say anything!?" Macaque: "I was as young and stupid as you were! I only wanted to see you happy!" Wukong: "Oh yeah! Like you did when you left me under that mountain!" Macaque: "You weren't exactly grateful for the company at the time." Wukong: "Uh, need I remind you that before I was imprisoned, I had just spent 49 days being broiled alive!? I wasn't exactly firing on all cylinders. You could have atleast tried to visit me after a few years!" Macaque, uncharastically quiet: "I wanted to..." Wukong: "Huh?" Macaque: (*goes silent and leaves the room*) Wukong: "Wait! Mihou! What do you mean "you wanted" to!?"

note: Tang is accidentally privy to this convo cus he was in the stairwell when it started and got nosey. Then he kinda gets kidnapped by a baby bull demon before he can ramble his discovery to Pigsy and/or Sandy.

Wu gives the clipnote version of events to the gang as he's trying The Big Stupid, and they are horrified. The Monkey King, one of the most infamous tricksters in folkore, was ultimately a groomed teenager at the time of his punishment! And the Macaque was in the same boat, just more cautious...

When things are said and done - Wukong and Macaque go out of their way to tell their kids to always be wary of powerful people who put you on a pedestal. Perhaps not delving into their personal history (they are Normal Demon Parents™ afterall), but using the story of the Monkey King and his Brotherhood as an aesop. The Monkey King had many friends who thought he should lead them, but they shrunk away for whatever reasons when he chose to live and not die in heaven.

MK thinks its the saddest "superhero backstory" ever.

So when S4 of TMKATI comes about and the memory curse gets loose...

Azure Lion: "Ah, Monkie Kid-" MK:

Legit the only reason Azure is able to get away unscathed is because he's the only one who knows how the Scroll works and MK and the rest of the babus want their parents back.

Red Son is on standby (fire ready) outside the Scroll in case Azure tries some sh-t. But of course that doesn't last long.

Tang, Pigsy, and Sandy: (*released from the scroll. Sees Azure Lion*) All three: "YOU."

Then again this is all with the idea that someone else was additionally pulling the strings to ensure the demons downfall...

[quilloleander]

As there is a poll going on right now about getting Megatron pregnant (and if you haven’t voted, you should because we need to get our glorious Decepticon leader pregnant!), I decided to share a bit about my SG Continuity soup (which I will be making fanfics for starting June skksksks).

This is relevant because that SG continuity soup involves OPMeg sparklings and I just wanted to share all four of them because I thought it would be fun and I think the OPMeg server can use a break from my craziness so I shall put this on my Tumblr instead.

So, I based them off of the four celestial bodies that make up the Orion Sword part of the Orion constellation.

Orionis

He’s the eldest. Created and emerged before the war. He was initially an Autobot and one of the more ruthless ones at that. He was very loyal to SG OP but valued family in that he didn’t actually want SG Megatron dead - unlike Optimus who did begin to resent Megatron eventually. After the war, he becomes a neutral and chose to become a “detective.”

I’m not good with describing appearances but he has a similar frame to Optimus, his paintjob is white (from Megatron) and green (from Optimus), and he has Megatron’s blue optics.

Theta

She’s the second eldest but the twin sister of Iota. Created and emerged during the war (because OPMeg are freaks like that let’s be honest), Theta was taken in by OP and was a very loyal Autobot. She’s a medic who pretends to run a “neutral” medical base but it’s actually a trap to lure in Decepticons. Despite this though, she actively doesn’t harm neutrals.

Her appearance is that she has a similar frame to Optimus, her paintjob is blue (from Megatron) and black (from Megatron), and she has Megatron’s blue optics.

Iota

She’s the third creation but the twin sister of Theta. Created and emerged during the war, she was taken in by Megatron. Surprisingly, Megatron actually did his best to not involve her in the war so she grew up a little clueless about the ruthlessness of the Autobots and SG OP. Unfortunately, this does backfire later on because she ends up defecting to the Autobots after the war. She is also comically clumsy.

Her appearance is that she has a similar frame to Megatron’s frame (reformatted flier frame, not his old miner frame), her paintjob is purple (from Optimus), and she has OP’s red optics.

Messier

They are the youngest. Created and emerged after the war that destroyed the Earth and killed Megatron, OP kind of… cut them out of Megatron’s spark chamber so Messier kind of developed inside of an incubator instead of their carrier. While OP tried to give Messier a normal life since the war was over, Messier eventually understood the cruelties of the Autobots (literally cause the Autobots bombed a neutral planet that Messier was visiting) and ended up defecting to the SG DJD (who saved them from the bombing). They have the outlier ability to track anyone so long as they have a perfect image of the person they’re tracking. Usually it’s impossible to escape Messier’s tracking outlier ability unless you drastically change appearance. At least, there’s always a mark showing you are being tracked.

Their appearance is that they have a similar frame to OP’s. Their paintjob is white (from Megatron). They have Megatron’s purple optics (this will be explained later sksksk).

So yeah those are all my OPMeg fankids… I am ruining their lives lmao.

[llamaisllama777]

Headcanons I have for TSAMS, LAES, FEMNAF, AND EAPS!

There's a lot so buckle up. Enter if you dare :]

Each of the Earth variants have different favorite musical

Tsams Earth: Epic the musical

Prez. Earth: Six the musical

Femnaf Earth: Dear Evan Hansen

New laes Earth: The SpongeBob squarepants musical.

Moonie once caught the cats sleeping in one of her old hats... it's their bed now.

Moonie is a Nexus variant. She's a Nexus that never went evil.

Clipsey definitely has some streamer gig on the side and absolutely uses that to her advantage.

Chico and Earth/Terran are friends most of the time, but when it comes to cooking, they are mortal enemies cause they always fight over who's the head chef and who's the better cook.

Sundroid's and Eleanor's bodies are still somewhere in that Fazbear facility and are most likely in police custody now, so hypothetically, someone could bring them back to life but it would take YEARS! Especially after everything those Fazbear mercs did to their bodies.

Monty and Earth often pass out on the couch together while watching movies.

Roxas is still making music and modeling even though Fazbear is super dead now.

Roxas let Sunny keep his old tank top back when he was Roxanne. She wears it sometimes. <- this is inspired by some fanart I saw on here. I think it was from @cindylou-who7

Eclipse does want to tell the kids he loves them but he physically can't bring himself to say it, not cause he doesn't love them but cause he doesn't think he deserves someone to love.

Eaps Monty has let Eclipse's kids play GTA when no one's around. She plays with them sometimes.

Before his death, Lefty got really into ARGS.

Ruin has been shown Six the musical by Ballora, and he has shown her Hamilton. They agrue over which one's better.

Dazzle has a sweater that was a gift from Earth that says "Doedrop" like the nickname Lunar gave her.

Eclipse often wonders if he's still in debt to Puppet now that she's dead, since she's dead does that mean the soul contract is still in place?

Sunny and Moonie's dad, Victor, definitely fought in some war when he was younger.

Ruin wonders if he's still immortal even though Puppet is dead. Did her immortal leave him when she died, or is it still in him? Will he be forced to watch his friends wither away a second time?

Victor had a lot of sisters growing up, which is why he made his first two animatronic children girls and didn't make Earth till years later.

That CEO villain from Femnaf (The guy in the suit who threatened and then kidnapped Roxas) is actually the William Afton of this world.

Clipsey built Luna as a test run to see if she could even build an ai... spoiler alert she could.

While Clipsey wasn't physically abusive to Luna, like how Eclipse was with Lunar, Luna and Clipsey aren't close cause Clipsey was sort of neglectful of her which is why Earth has Luna cause he was always there when Clipsey wasn't. As a result Earth and Clipsey in this universe aren't that close either. Clipsey has gotten better especially after meeting Sundroid but... the damage has already been done.

All of the Celestial family + Monty do karaoke sometimes.

The EAPS characters do that sometimes too. They once forced Eclipse on stage and made him sing that song that goes 'Dan-nah-nah na-na Tequila.' Ruin thought was the funniest poo he ever saw.

Dark Sun and Prez. Earth are friends but will absolutely stab each other in the back if the other does something that interferes with the other's plans.

[artist-kreating-stuff]

I was making god designs for an AU for another fandom I’m in, and I had an idea for a kind of Clone Wars Celestial!AU:

Cody: God of the Sun ☀️

Rex: God of the Moon 🌕

Obi Wan: God of the Ocean 🌊

Anakin: God of the Earth 🌍 / later the God of Destruction 🔥

Padmé: Goddess of Nature 🌸

Ahsoka: Goddess of Animals 🐅

Palpatine: God of War ⚔️

Mythological angst incoming:

Anakin was once the God of the Earth, a benevolent deity who cared for all, most of all his lover Padmé, who clothed his earth with her beautiful foliage. Second and third were his siblings Obi Wan and Ahsoka, who each spotted his earth with water and scattered caring animals across its surface, respectively.

But Palpatine, the God of War, saw his benevolence as a weakness and sought to exploit it. He got close to the God of the Earth and fed him lies, telling him all who resided on his earth were taking advantage of him and would one day betray him. Anakin started to believe him and his kindness all but vanished, turning him into a cruel and distrustful god.

When his lover and siblings confronted him about it, he lashed out at them, splitting open the Earth’s crust and allowing lava to flood the surface. The lava turned the foliage to ash, evaporated the ocean, and killed off the animals.

Obi Wan and Ahsoka were thankfully able to escape. Obi Wan sought refuge with his lover Cody, the God of the Sun, while Ahsoka rescued what remained of her animals and sought refuge with her friend Rex, the God of the Moon.

Padmé was not so lucky - she had refused to leave her lover, and was turned to ash along with her foliage.

By the time Anakin realized what he had done and had time to feel guilty for it, it was too late. He was all alone in a world of lava and war.

He had become the God of Destruction, while all his siblings could do was watch with sorrow, and Palpatine with glee, as he continued to bring ruin to himself.

Just an idea!

[thefollow-spot]

hello you're the resident silmarillion fan out of my following list so I'm curious, how bad do you think the Rings of Power is as a Tolkien-world story compared to what was actually written in the book? Like, i get the feeling that the story is the kind of adaptation that would stand up really well on its own as a story if it weren't related to the source material at all?

I started the book (and by that I mean first chapter) years ago and never got to finish it, but i've been meaning to do it after seeing you reblog things about the story. I only saw like three episodes of TROP season two as my father (LOTR fan) watched it and i was laying on his couch sick, and he mentioned that he likes the way the story expands on some things such as how the rings came into being, he says that the book didn't really do that. But I've seen some people say that the show really deviates from the book almost to the point of scoffing at Tolkien's established world and plots. So, I think it's likely that i will watch the show and read the book at some point in time, but i wanted to know, is this a case in which i absolutely must read the book first before the show ruins it, and if so how hard do i need to hold onto my hat?

Hello!! I’m so flattered that I’m your resident Silmarillion fan, even though I’m sure there are more Qualified™️ Tolkien fans on this hellsite <3 And THANK YOU for asking me this; I would LOVE to share my thoughts! Full-disclosure: I’m a self-proclaimed recreational Rings of Power hater. Of course, none of this is really that serious and I bear no ill-will towards fans of the show + hope anyone who likes RoP is out there having the best time, but hating on The Rings of Power is like candy to me so I’m going to be sooo mean about it <3

The short answers are: IMO, Rings of Power is a blatant cash-grab, which reveals itself in every structural choice. It’s an abysmal adaptation, and I personally find it to be an uncompelling piece of original fantasy. I would 100% recommend you read The Silmarillion in general, and definitely before watching RoP!

As someone who loves The Silmarillion, please please please give the book another try, I am begging you!! If you absolutely must only read the relevant sections to RoP, “Akallabêth” and onward + the appendices to The Lord of the Rings are all you need (but you’ll be lacking some really compelling context). The Silmarillion is a book where you get out of it what you invest—the first time I read it, TBH I found it really dry, but the second time I read it, I absolutely fell in love.

I’m in love with Maedhros being the best of his family until he loses it all to grief; I’m in love with Fingon never forgetting how to love people despite always being left behind; I’m in love with Túrin being a damning examination of cultural alienation and queerness (even if Tolkien didn’t 100% know it). I am so so so in love with this book PLEASE try it again 😭

If you do end up watching The Rings of Power first, I feel I need to emphasize a non-exhaustive list of things to keep in mind:

RoP does Elrond a disservice by erasing his past as a child of war

RoP does Gil-galad a disservice of sidelining him when he should be a main character

RoP does Celebrimbor a disservice by depicting him as a stuffy older academic instead of as an ambitious artist clawing for esteem in the shadow of his bloodline being the most infamous noble house in Elvish history

RoP does Galadriel (and women) a disservice by aging her down several thousands of years and portraying her as emotional, unreasonable, and politically ineffectual instead of as celestial, war-sharpened, eldritchly wise, and so so so exhausted with Sauron’s bullshit

You can stop reading here, but if you want longer answers and ✨me being a recreational hater✨, it’s under the read-more:

Is The Rings of Power a good book adaptation of Tolkien’s Second Age?

No!! The Rings of Power is a financial asset owned by Amazon disguised as a television show! We can tell that the production is focused more on marketability than on artistic merit by looking at the character breakdown, plot structure, lore, and themes:

Tolkien’s works are vast in scope, therefore every age of Middle-earth has its own set of key players; a Second Age story should focus on Celebrimbor and Gil-galad, but RoP focuses on Elrond and Galadriel for no reason but name recognition (RoP producers, probably: “No casual LotR fan is gonna watch a show about a cast of randos they don’t know!”). As a result, they are NOT telling the story from the book(s) because they’ve pointed the camera away from the people who are actually doing anything in canon! They are making up plot and lore because the canon plot is unprofitable!!

The showrunners are adamant to give the Second Age the same thematic wash as Peter Jackson’s Third Age story even though the two periods are completely different (they go on and on in interviews and marketing material about it needing to feel like “Tolkien” but what they really mean is, ‘like the successful fantasy media franchise we’re corpse-robbing for nostalgia money’). The Second Age is a transitional period—the Third Age is practically post-apocalyptic. But these writers cannot do thematic textual interpretation beyond beating the Lord of the Rings movies to death and dragging its corpse around… which is actually a win for Amazon because woohoo, that makes these poor fuckers marketable!

If Amazon hired anyone who actually cared about the Second Age, they would have a less familiar property, therefore a difficult-to-market product; a Second Age story written by people who care about the Second Age would feel thematically different from the name they’re trying to capitalize on. I cannot stress enough how disappointing Rings of Power is as an adaptation of one of the most compelling and underexplored periods of Middle-earth history.

Is The Rings of Power a good fantasy TV show?

IMO, no! Because the producers greenlit a show written by two writers who are utterly incapable of doing their own thematic reading, the resulting product is what you get when you throw money at people with no artistic vision. I say this as someone who believes 100% in the value of poorly-crafted TV: I find Rings of Power to be tonally and structurally confused, inescapably derivative, and over-reliant on clichés. Maybe this is just because, as someone who knows anything about the Second Age, it also actively punishes me for knowing what I do but anywayyy.

They jammed a ‘whodunnit mystery’ format onto a fantasy epic, and write dialogue scenes with no stakes and little charm. The world is often lacking in whimsy or gravitas due to their CGI sets and underbudgeted costumes and hair design (RIP to the costume designer Kate Hawley, she’s done some fantastic stuff on productions that give her respect and resources). And every single person talks like Kilgharrah (RIP to the actors who are all putting in a valiant, earnest effort with the under-edited material and poor direction they’re being given). They advertised the show on diversity, yet underwrite their OCs of colour and disrespect their female characters. The best part of Season 1 was when Halbrand almost took his shirt off in the finale, but he didn’t even take his shirt off all the way so that was the worst disappointment of all 😔

Re: how the rings of power were made & does the show scoff at Tolkien’s lore?

It’s true that (at least according to the books I’ve read), there are no in-depth descriptions of the magic or silversmithing techniques used in the forging of the rings of power (but this is unsurprising, given that Tolkien’s magic system is soft-magic rather than hard-magic). In The Silmarillion and in the appendices to The Lord of the Rings, the important part isn’t so much how the rings were made, but why—the political circumstances surrounding their forging. I think it’s evidence that the writers don’t have a fucking clue what they’re doing that they’ve focused on the mechanics of smithing rather than the seduction of Celebrimbor.

The Rings of Power does more than scoff at Tolkien’s established world and plots—what it does is treat Tolkien’s writings as an outdated hindrance to their goal of telling the clumsiest, self-aggrandizing, resumé-padding television story known to modern audiences.

Okay, okay—I'll shut up now <3

As you can tell, I am unhinged about this topic LOL!! I hope I’ve answered your question, and if you DO decide to watch Rings of Power, I hope you have a better time than I did and wish you all my best <3 I’ll just be over here in the corner shaking my fist in RoP’s general direction, for enrichment 😌✌️

[moikey-croikey]

okay but i REALLY wanna talk about the “second world”

this will contain huge spoilers of one piece, specifically of the elbaf arc and the most recent chapter, chpt. 1138!! so if you’d rather not see that, please skip bc i don’t wanna ruin this for you lol. this is like a pretty big lore drop (to me at least).

first of all… girl, there is A LOT going on

everything i say from this point on is strictly theory. and some of the parts of my theory are stretches. and some parts i was confused on, so i just kinda bullshitted my thoughts (meaning that i just said, “sure that works” when thinking what certain parts could mean). i could be right on the money or i could be not even close to what this means. so yeah, take that as you will 🫡

“There was breath upon the emptiness.”

okay so, my interpretation is this is either joy boy’s birth (whether that be natural or some other way due to the whole void century thing) OR this could be joy boy ringing in a new era.

“The god of the forest sent forth demons. The Sun merely spread the embers of war.”

the sun would be joy boy in this case. and the god of the forest would be imu, or someone who was “imu before imu” if that makes sense. like someone who would’ve been joy boy’s equivalent of imu. this could be connected to devil fruits, or it could be connected to the celestial dragons since they’re also called “heavenly demons” (which now that i think about it, that’s an oxymoron. that’s not important tho lol). now i don’t FOR SURE know what the sun “merely” spreading the embers of war could mean. if i had to take a guess, the fight between joy boy and the demons proved destructive. joy boy didn’t mean for it to be this way, but that’s how it turned out to be. that is a huge ass stretch tho i’m not even gonna lie.

“The people of the half-moon dreamed. The people of the moon dreamed.”

now this… oh buddy don’t get me STARTED…

reading this, at first i was like “huh?” but then i saw a lot of people speculating that this could be the d clan’s origins!! which makes so much sense. okay so a half moon looks like this:

it’s also the “first quarter” moon phase. although this isn’t the only half-moon. there’s also the “third quarter” phase, which is like the image of the moon above only flipped horizontally. there’s actually a really well-written and awesome theory on the moon phases and the clan of D that i’ll link HERE. (okay actually no i fucking WON’T because tumblr won’t let me link it, so the name of the post is “Exciting speculations on the D clan in relationship to the Moon and the Ancient Kingdom after chpt. 1138” if you wanna look it up lol). but i don’t wanna talk about that right now. but i highly suggest you guys read it because it’s so good!!

so my theory is that the clan of d either: a) descended from the moon or a moon clan OR b) were humans that worshipped the moon (?). i’m very highly more swayed towards them being from the moon, because it makes sense to me and bc i think it’d be awesome-sauce. maybe they came to earth and had no idea what to call themselves other than “D” because it looked like the moon (now that’s just a headcanon. i just needed to share that lol bc that’d be so cool)

and we also know that enel (or eneru) went to the moon in search of “fairy vearth”. and if you connect the dots between skypiea (which is such a good arc idk how people could hate it) and this most recent chapter, you’ll see that there’s gotta be a connection from the shandia tribe and the skypieans to the D clan or the people of the half moon. As for what the people of the moon means, i’m gonna be honest i have no clue. it could be other people who come from the moon or perhaps the D clan are half human, half moon person. i really don’t know 😭😭 as for their dream, maybe their dream was for peace or freedom. or maybe their dream is for these demons to meet their match. to me, the clan of D consistently goes against the grain. they don’t adhere to what the world expects of them, they don’t fall in line. that’s why they’re hated and feared by celestial dragons. maybe their dream is them fighting along side joy boy? I DONT KNOW THIS IS A STRETCH I DONT WANNA BE WRONG

“Humanity killed the Sun and then ascended to divinity. The god of the sea became enraged.”

okay. i think this explains the origin of devil fruits. when they “killed the Sun” they killed joy boy. either out of the fear of facing punishment from celestial dragons or perhaps the god of the forest mentioned earlier OR out of rage due to joy boy and the demon’s war. maybe they were upset by all the destruction it caused and they had to take it out on someone (that someone being joy boy). maybe they wanted a taste of his power and they wanted to play god. somehow, nika was placed into a devil fruit (??? idk man this is also a stretch) after joy boy was killed. the god of the sea, probably a god who was friendly with nika and/or joy boy, observed this as an act of greed and saw this as unjust. as we know, devil fruit users are “hated by the sea”. if you put them in water, they drown. if they touch sea prism stone, they can’t use their devil fruit abilities and so on and so forth. the god of the sea was so enraged by this that they said “fuck it, y’all are not allowed in the sea NO MORE” which leads us to…

“They could never meet again.”

to me, this means that the people who killed joy boy and/or nika, who maybe also subsequently created devil fruits, can no longer touch the sea. this also means anyone who consumes a devil fruit cannot touch the sea because they have a “connection” to those that killed joy boy. now, this COULD BE tricky because if i remember correctly, joy boy ate a devil fruit which is how he gained nika’s abilities. i might be completely wrong because im only on whole cake island 😭😭 but at least that’s what i’ve heard and read. maybe devil fruits were created and consumed at some point in time during the void century. maybe the god of the sea was chill with devil fruit users UNTIL they killed joy boy and then they decided “nah you guys suck” which leads to devil fruit users no longer being able to touch the sea. they can never meet again means that the users and the sea can never interact again due to the acts of the humans that killed joy boy (possibly)

all of this is theory as i said!! i could be wrong or i could be right or i could have half of this right. really, i was just excited about the mention of the people of the half-moon and the possible connection between them and the clan of D. but uh, yeah. that’s just what i think. i’m not completely caught up with everything in one piece, i haven’t even gotten to gear 5 yet bruh, but yk my jaw dropped seeing this panel and hearing/seeing the theories. lmk what you think!! in other news, here’s a poorly drawn ace punching the air or something

[peachyfnaf]

I'm sorry but "MY BEAUTIFUL PRINCESS WITH A DISORDER<3" really made my day and I needed you to know

🤣🤣🤣

I can't believe Nexus is bullying peepaw war criminal.

Do you think Nexus is going to be stopped by big bro Sun or do you think the lil guy is going beyond the point of no return?

(Please talk about baby cringe Lord Nexus, I want to hear about your blorbo 🙏)

That's because Nexus IS my beautiful princess with a disorder, I'll have you know <3 they're diseased but it's okay I can give them their tetanus and flu shots and it'll all be better I GOT THIS

But. ahem, okay, blorbo yapping time. I'm not even gonna say "I'll try to keep this short" because I know it wont end up that way HAHAHAHAHA

"Do you think Nexus is going to be stopped by big bro Sun or do you think the lil guy is going beyond the point of no return?"

I... have absolutely no idea!!!1! (and also it took me an embarrassingly long amount of time to realize peepaw war criminal was Ruin KJDFHSDF)

The most frustrating thing about canon Nexus is how his morals, motivations, and goals seem to see-saw back and forth all the time. at first, he became how he is now due to Solar's death. he spiraled in his grief, identity-issues, and abandonment. but... now his motivation is to become an all powerful god??? while it's most likely that NSP is at play and affecting his thought process, it's... well, it's really hard to take him seriously as a villain because of it, lol. for an audience to enjoy, and even sympathize in some cases, with a villain, their goals and motivations have to be concrete. they have to be relatable, or at least understandable, but Nexus' whole thing is... not, Imho. and I know I'm not the only person who feels this way!!!

I see a lot of people calling Nexus "cringe", and the thing is, when it comes to canon Nexus, they're not really... wrong??? The worst thing Nexus has done so far is make Old Moon see his past victims, which is fucked up of him to do, but.. so far, that's kind of it??? other than that, his "villainy" consists of saying empty threats and cheesy evil one-liners. hell, he was supposed to kidnap Sun yesterday but instead spent the whole episode yapping and venting to him, chasing Sun around in the worlds darkest game of tag before getting some lead right in the face dkfjhsdfsd

Also, notice how he's only targeted Old Moon when it comes to actual physical violence? not Lunar, Earth, Solar, or Sun, but Old Moon? yeah, I did too. we already know that Nexus does everything because he's lashing out, but as of rn the only target he's gotten his hands on physically being O.M...? well. I think it says a lot. cause' yeah, he sure as shit scared the life out of the other Celestials, but he's never put his hands on them!! the only other one of them he harmed physically was Earth- and not only was he not aiming for her, she was just in the way- he felt immediate regret for his actions once in space, and has yet to even see Earth ever since that day.

So, I really have no idea if he's going to be "redeemed" or not. one second he's showing signs he might be, and the next he's falling further down the "pretty badly written villain" rabbit-hole. if he does get something akin to a redemption arc, he'll prolly mostly be accepted in the eyes of the viewers, considering a lot of peeps sympathize or at least understand where he's coming from, but I seriously doubt the other Celestials would take him back. the only one's who might see him as family/a close friend again are Sun and Solar, but even then, nothing would ever be the same.

I hope he gets redeemed, or at least freed from the hold Dark Sun has on him and he's able to live his own life, I really do. at his core, Nexus is a good person. a good person who was crushed under the weight of the shadow of the man he was born under. and we know this because he used to be New Moon. sweet, dorky New Moon.

New Moon, who made inventions like sentient knives and whoopee cushions. New Moon, who had matching My Little Pony stickers with his best friend. New Moon, who bought a whole ass island-luxury-house for Sun because he wanted to make him feel better and give him the proper space to heal. and New Moon- the poor freshly-baked A.I who gave his all to make sure he could do everything that Old Moon could, but it just wasn't enough. he tried and tried and tried, but it wasn't enough.

So yeah, idk if he's getting one in canon, but to me, he more than deserves a good ending, for the life he was given. let him be at peace.

[anatomic-girl]

War

Chapter 24 (War) of The Regret List is up. It’s the last flashback chapter, and everyone is basically at their very worst. Mind the TW list. Read it here on ao3! Excerpt:

“Angel! Hey, angel!”

Crowley’s voice shook Aziraphale from his thoughts, but he didn’t dare turn toward it. In the year since their confrontation in the bathroom, their animosity toward each other had grown into full-blown war. Insults and nasty nicknames, elbow-jabs in crowded hallways, the occasional shoving match or verbal altercation broken up by teachers. It was better to ignore Crowley when he was in a mood.

“Awww, come on, angel. You’ve always liked my art. Come see! I made this for you!”

Crowley was always in a mood when he saw Az with Carmen.

“Leave it,” Aziraphale whispered to Carmen. “Don’t let him ruin our date with his vitriol.”

“You’re right,” Carmen said with a sigh. She came to an abrupt stop, forcing Az to stop with her, and went up on her tiptoes to kiss him. Again, a spasm of irritation tried to work its way across his face, but he kept it until control, dutifully kissing her back. It was purely for show, this kiss. A jab at Crowley—engaging him exactly as he’d asked her not to.

A whistle followed their kiss, but not from Crowley’s direction. Az broke away to find Furfur standing next to them. He leered. “Making out in public, angel? Doesn’t that break the celestial code? I didn’t think PDA was allowed. What would Jesus think?”

“Jesus would be happy to see two of his devout followers expressing their love for each other,” Carmen said. Aziraphale’s cheeks were burning up. Hopefully, everyone thought he was embarrassed about the kiss and not his girlfriend’s ridiculous statement. “Unlike how he feels about you and your pervert boyfriend.”

Furfur snorted. “Riiiight. Jesus definitely approves of lying and hiding and using naïve girls like you as a shield against suspicion.” He looked from Carmen to Aziraphale. “Come on, angel. Crowley created his whole display with you in mind. It’s called Ode to Heaven. Won one of the top prizes here.”

Once again, Carmen opened her mouth to retort. Aziraphale squeezed her arm to stop her. “If Crowley has created award-winning art in an attempt to insult me, it sounds like his time would be better spent in positive pursuits.” Now he turned, both to meet Crowley’s eyes, and to see exactly what had been created “for” him. “Imagine how far you might go if you stopped focusing on your petty hatred of me.”

At this distance, with the way the various displays were set out, Aziraphale couldn’t see the entirety of Crowley’s work. It appeared to be a variety of canvases exploding outward from a central point, backgrounds black, foregrounds made up of colorful clouds in unique formations. The further from the central point they were, the fewer clouds, the more distant stars. It only took Az a few seconds to understand. A nebula. Crowley had created a nebula—the very thing he’d been working on in the art room when the two had broken up when they were thirteen. His chest grew tight with rage and sorrow. How dare he?

***** Fic notes: human AU, religious deconstruction, old friends, starting over late in life, rated E.

[captonite]

Burn the Bridge Behind Me – Part 2: The Break That Saved Me

The bunker had never felt so quiet.

It wasn’t peace. It wasn’t calm. It was absence — the kind that echoed through metal halls like a scream no one heard.

Sachi sat curled up on the library couch, knees hugged to her chest, trembling despite the flannel Dean had draped over her. Her eyes were red. She hadn’t spoken all day.

Cas sat across from her, silent as ever. He wanted to help. He wanted to speak. But he was celestial, and she was broken in the most human way possible. All he could do was stay close.

Dean paced in the war room, hands running through his hair. Sam leaned against the map table, arms crossed tight, his jaw locked like he was holding his entire soul behind clenched teeth.

The deal.

Sachi’s soul.

They had just found out. She had sold her soul — for Sam — months ago.

And she hadn’t told them.

She had smiled through it. Carried it like it was hers alone to carry. Because she didn’t want them to hurt.

And now she was the one shattering.

“Why didn’t she tell us?” Sam whispered hoarsely, as if saying it too loud would make it worse. “Why would she think she had to do that alone?”

Dean looked wrecked. “Because we taught her to. Because we made her think she had to be quiet. Be good. Stay small.”

“She was a kid, Dean.”

“She still is.”

And that cut deeper than anything else.

---

That night, Sachi disappeared.

Not far — just her room.

But the door was locked.

When Dean knocked, she didn’t answer.

When Sam called, she stayed silent.

Cas stood outside her door for two hours before finally whispering, “She’s still breathing. But her light… it’s flickering.”

---

She finally came out two days later.

Puffy-eyed. Hollow. Like all the fight had leaked out of her.

They were in the kitchen when they heard her.

Soft footsteps.

“Hey, baby,” Dean said gently, turning around. “You hungry?”

She didn’t answer.

She walked straight to the table, hands shaking, and sat down without looking at them.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

Sam frowned. “Chubs—”

“I didn’t want to lie. I just— I didn’t want to lose you. Either of you.”

Her voice broke on the word you.

Dean sat down across from her. “You were never gonna lose us.”

“I thought—” she swallowed hard, “I thought maybe you’d be better off if I just… kept the burden off you. You’ve both already lost so much.”

Sam looked like someone had just punched him in the heart.

Dean’s voice cracked. “You are not a burden.”

Sachi looked up.

“I made a deal, Dean. I sold my soul.”

“You were a kid.”

“I chose it.”

“You chose to save Sam. Just like we would’ve.”

“But you didn’t want me to.”

“That doesn’t mean you were wrong.”

She blinked fast. “But I ruined everything.”

“You didn’t ruin anything, Chubs,” Sam said. “You saved me. And we didn’t even notice.”

“That’s why I didn’t say anything.” She twisted her hands. “Because I didn’t want to hear that it wasn’t worth it.”

Dean stood slowly and came around the table.

Then he knelt in front of her.

And rested his hands on her knees.

“You’re worth every damn soul in the world. Mine included. You hear me?”

Her eyes filled again. “I didn’t want to die alone.”

“You’re not dying.” Dean’s voice was fierce. “We’re fixing this. Together.”

Sam stepped forward too, crouching beside her.

“We’re not leaving you, baby girl. Not for anything. We’re in this. Every damn second of it.”

And that’s when it hit her.

The pressure.

The ache.

The weight of months of pretending everything was fine.

Sachi sobbed.

Not just tears.

A full-body collapse.

Like a house crumbling from the inside.

“I can’t— I can’t—” she gasped. “I’m so scared, and I’m so tired— I didn’t wanna hurt you— I didn’t want you to hate me—”

Dean wrapped his arms around her and held tight. “Shh. You’re okay. You’re okay, baby. Let it out.”

Sam stroked her hair. “You held it in too long.”

“I kept thinking if I just stayed good, if I just stayed small, maybe— maybe you wouldn’t see it— maybe I could just disappear without hurting anyone.”

Dean’s heart cracked.

“Never say that,” he whispered. “Never.”

“I’m sorry—”

“You don’t have to be.”

“But I’m so tired, Dean— I don’t know how to carry it anymore— I thought maybe it’d be better if I just disappeared.”

Dean’s voice broke. “No. You don’t disappear. You don’t. You are our heart, Chubs. You are the reason we even made it this far.”

“I’m not strong like you.”

Dean pulled back enough to look in her eyes.

“You are the strongest person I’ve ever met.”

She shook her head. “I’m not.”

“You are. You carried this pain so we wouldn’t have to. You protected us even when we didn’t protect you. That’s strength, sweetheart.”

Cas knelt next to her, voice soft and full of celestial sorrow.

“You shine, Sachi. Even now. Even in your grief. I have never seen a soul fight so hard to love.”

She let out a broken laugh. “I love you guys so much it hurts.”

Sam kissed her forehead. “We know. And we love you back.”

---

Later that night, she fell asleep between Sam and Dean on the couch. Curled up like a child, finally unburdened.

Dean didn’t sleep.

Sam held her hand all night.

Cas stayed nearby, a watchful guardian.

The deal wasn’t broken yet.

But the silence was.

And for once, that was enough

[littlejuicebox]

Midnight Chimes 4 / Ringleader

Pairing: Astarion x F!Reader Warlock.

Word Count: 2,415

Summary/Setting: You and Astarion have met before, though you think it meant more to you than it did to him. You are an apothecary shop owner that has recently gained some mysterious Warlock powers; Astarion is, in your eyes, a rake that you wouldn’t trust as far as you can throw him. You two run into one another again after the nautiloid crash.

Preview:

It hadn’t really been you that found the three new party members, after all. It had been your patron. The blasted thing seemed to alternate between completely ignoring you and positively strong arming you into submission.  And it seemed unfortunately hellbent on collecting every straggler along the way of this little adventure. Though you supposed the cleric, the githyanki, and the Blade would likely prove to be more useful additions than the pale elf sitting nearby.  But how could you explain the connection to the celestial being to Gale or anyone else if you did not truly understand the connection yourself? How could you explain they were putting their trust in the wrong person for the job? Gods, you needed to get back to Baldur’s Gate and head to Sorcerous Sundries. Surely they would have some information about this unwilling bond. And speaking of unwilling bonds…

Warnings: eventual smut and gore 18+ / in game spoilers / angst, trauma, fluff

A/N: Finally feeling (almost) 100% back to my normal, healthy self! Thank you for the good vibes and well wishes! &lt;3

The warlock, the wizard, and the rogue.

This little group started off with the makings of some ridiculous fairytale your parents would have read to you before bed.

Though, despite your parents wishes, you hadn’t really been a child interested in fairytales and make believe. Your penchant for pragmatics had developed early on, and before long mama and papa had all but given up on their dreams of a perfect princess daughter. In her place stood some sort of mad scientist… at least in their eyes.

You hadn’t actually been mad. Not then, at least. Though you were starting to worry that between the parasite and your patron, you might truly be going crazy now. No doubt the two were at war, trying to determine who would wrestle ultimate control of your mind.

Should you simply choose between the lesser of two evils, when your fate already feels sealed as it is? 

Gale and Astarion had blindly followed your lead the first day, and remained silent every time you decided to stop and change course, prodded in another direction by the celestial being playing with your psyche. This abrupt switch in traveling plans led you all to Lae’zel, where you convinced the tieflings to let her go, and Shadowheart, as she desperately tried to break open the door of some abandoned ruins. 

Astarion had simply picked the lock of the ruins, earning him some clout among the others for his skill set and further suspicion from you. After all, why exactly did a man like Astarion have any need for a skill like that? 

Subsequently, the five of you explored the dank, dilapidated building. After downing a handful of humanoids and some reanimated corpses, the group happened upon a strange, skeletal being named Withers. He said he would see you again soon.

After a relatively restless night in camp, you all happened upon the Grove on the second day of exploration. Some druid named Halsin is missing, though it turns out he may be the answer to your little predicament, Nettie tried to poison you (stupid, really, to try to poison an apothecary with one of the most basic tricks in the book), you saved a little tiefling thief from death, and then you met Wyll… all in a couple of hours.

The Blade of Frontiers is looking for some devil he’s supposed to kill; he’s also got a tadpole in his head, and like Gale, seems in relatively good spirits for such a grim situation. Those two seem suspiciously well-adjusted. 

The entire journey thus far had only been two days long and exceedingly… well, odd. 

It was certainly a much different experience from your day to day of brewing potions and tending the shop. You wanted nothing more than to return to the comforts of city life. But instead, you were forced to be the unwilling ringleader of this circus, despite your protests on the matter.

You are discussing your concerns about leadership with Gale as the group takes a short rest not far from the Grove. Wyll is gathering the last of his supplies and will meet up with all of you in mere moments. 

“Oh, but you’re doing a fantastic job, Demetria!” Gale exclaims, somehow unfailingly supportive of a woman he barely knew. 

Oh, how you wished to trust anyone half as much. 

“You have such remarkable intuition. We wouldn’t have found Shadowheart, Lae’zel, Wyll, or all this great loot without you!” He continues, before gesturing to a handful of gold and scrolls while positively beaming.

The wizard clasps a friendly hand on your back and then scans the surrounding area. He smiles at you once more, “Now I plan to make myself useful and harvest some flora! If you plan to make use of that newly procured cauldron, I best give you materials to work with.” 

You smile softly and nod at the wizard before he disappears into the shrubbery. Brewing potions was easy; you could craft all the basic ones by memory alone. But leading a group of people through the wilds based on some sort of fabled intuition and instinct? You weren’t so sure about that. 

It hadn’t really been you that found the three new party members, after all. It had been your patron. The blasted thing seemed to alternate between completely ignoring you and positively strong arming you into submission. 

And it seemed unfortunately hellbent on collecting every straggler along the way of this little adventure. Though you supposed the cleric, the githyanki, and the Blade would likely prove to be more useful additions than the pale elf sitting nearby. 

But how could you explain the connection to the celestial being to Gale or anyone else if you did not truly understand the connection yourself? How could you explain they were putting their trust in the wrong person for the job?

Gods, you needed to get back to Baldur’s Gate and head to Sorcerous Sundries. Surely they would have some information about this unwilling bond. And speaking of unwilling bonds…

Astarion is perched on a fallen log, basking in the midday sun’s rays. He’s the picture of relaxation, as if this entire sordid affair is a holiday away from Baldur’s Gate.

Sure, the pale elf had been helpful in battle, and he seemed to have a strange knack for opening locks, but as far as participating in camp efforts went, he certainly left a lot to be desired. You should have guessed as much. With the princely attitude and haughty confidence, it was likely he was merely another spoiled, rich elf. He reminded you of…

Nevermind.

You look to Shadowheart, hoping to pursue a conversation with the woman, but she is a few feet away, resting on her knees in prayer. Lae’zel is also preoccupied as she meticulously sharpens her already deathly blade. You’ve spent almost all day trying to intentionally avoid Astarion and keep any conversation with him to a minimum. But as everyone else seems busy doing their own thing, you’re left with no choice but to take a few minutes of reprieve near the rogue. 

You sigh and nestle yourself on the ground, unwilling to take the empty spot on the log next to Astarion; sitting like an animal in the dirt seemed the better option for your pride. As you lean back to stretch your aching muscles, the warm country breeze picks up, swirling around the elf’s silver curls. You are sitting downwind from the rogue, and the gust pushes a whiff of bergamot and rosemary in your direction. 

You can’t help it. The fragrance angers you. Astarion hadn’t even written to you once, even to send a simple rejection or at least compliment your sample. He’d wasted your time on your last few hours of vacation three years ago. All for what, exactly? 

He hadn’t even gotten to bed you, which had surely been his goal, in the end. 

You glare at him, in all his world-endingly beautiful privilege, as he simply lounges about in the sun as if nothing is wrong.

“It seems you liked my perfume sample enough to procure a rip off of it, but not enough to write.” You state coolly, watching the pale elf as he snaps his eyes open to study you. You notice him thinking, no doubt calculating some sort of smooth response.

“You can save the piss-poor excuses, Astarion.” You sigh, now reaching into your pack, trying to find the small vial of perfume oil you’d had inside your robes when that ship snatched you up. You open the vial and take a deep breath, basking in the comfort of familiarity.

It smelled like home. Like your quaint little townhome, in Waterdeep. Too bad scents can’t transport you back in time… at least not literally. 

There are a few beats of silence as Astarion watches you.

“I do apologize for not recognizing you before, and for not writing…” He begins, slowly, as if trying to soothe a wild animal, “I lost your card. I have a tendency to be… forgetful. And I lose things a lot. But, I did quite like the scent, as you can tell.”

You nod, acknowledging the apology but not willing to acquiesce any further. You cannot decipher if Astarion’s words are the truth or if they are simply honeyed lines meant to subdue you. Your pinky finger presses against the perfume bottle’s rim and you rub a bit of the fragranced liquid behind your ears.

The wind shifts, blowing your thick, dark hair forward around your face, obscuring your vision. You cap the small vial and then quickly tie your hair back. When you are able to see again, Astarion is almost gawking at you, scarlet eyes blown wide in surprise. 

He shifts and recovers quickly, jerking his gaze away and running a hand through his windswept curls. When he speaks, his voice has a manufactured, airy nonchalance to it, “It is quite windy out here, isn’t it?”

You don’t respond, and he turns to face you once again. His jaw tenses for a moment, and then he leans back, assessing you once more. He tries another tactic.

“That is… another lovely scent that you’re wearing.” He murmurs, and this time, the genuine, hesitant intrigue in his voice catches you off guard.

“Thank you,” You begin, and despite yourself, you are flattered by his statement. You truly love when others notice and compliment the artistry of your craft. You shrug and offer the vial to Astarion. Perhaps a small olive branch is due, if the two of you are stuck tethered together for who knows how long. 

The rogue takes the bottle and inhales the fragrance, and then he emits a noise that sounds something like a soft moan or groan. It’s a deep, uninhibited sound from the back of his throat, almost as if he’s absolutely losing himself in the scent. When he focuses on you again, there’s a relaxed look in his eyes paired with a soft, unguarded smile. It reminds you of the way he looked at you in your parent’s tavern. 

“Delicious…” He murmurs, his tone dropping into that salacious one he’d used on you at the tavern all those years ago, when asking if you planned to murder someone with poisons. Something about the way he said the word while staring directly into your eyes, his pupils blown from the fragrance he’d just inhaled, made your face grow hot.

You aren’t interested in a rake, and you won’t be fooled again, you remind yourself. No matter how beautiful the bastard truly is. 

You extend your hand out, motioning for the vial and he obliges with a disappointed tut.

“It’s a combination of lavender, sage, and vanilla.” You explain, tucking the precious vial back into your pack.

“And what else? There’s something else, isn’t there? It’s the same thing that was in the sample you gave me.” He responds, eyebrow cocked in curiosity.

You laugh in genuine surprise, “Good nose. Are you trying to steal my recipe so that when you return to Baldur’s Gate, you can have an exact duplication instead of the lesser version you have now, Astarion?”

You are partly joking, partly serious. 

The elf shakes his head, brows crinkling together in absent thought, “No… merely curious, I suppose. I’ve never smelt anything quite like your concoctions. I have to admit the memory of the scent from that night has… stayed with me. I would have written to you to tell you as much, if I could have. If I hadn’t… lost your card.”

You squint your eyes. There is something genuine in Astarion’s statement, despite the strange excuse about losing the card. Sure, he may have truly lost it. But then, he could have simply returned to the Drunken Dragon and asked your cousin for your address.

The next time you visited your family on holiday, after your conversation with the rake, your cousin indicated the elf hadn’t been by since that night. When you asked about Astarion every year, feigning nonchalance, your family always indicated he hadn’t been seen. 

It was almost as if he were avoiding the Drunken Dragon altogether for those three years.

You’d ultimately assumed he moved away… or perhaps died, murdered by one of his jealous lovers.

“It’s dragonsblood… just a drop.” You admit, eyeing the silver-haired elf with suspicious curiosity.

A sudden bark of laughter escapes Astarion’s lips. And then his head tips back and he positively cackles in a mixture of amusement and delight. He seems to find this information exceptionally hilarious. Your brows stitch together in confusion as you watch the rogue chortle.

Sure, it was an unusual additive. But it wasn’t exactly hilarious, was it? 

“Dragonsblood!” He exclaims, clapping his hands together in front of him as his eyes crinkle with mirth, “How… unique. You are quite the artist, Demetria.”

You feel the flush rise in your cheeks at the compliment while you murmur another thank you. Surely he’s flattering you, trying to ingratiate himself and hoping you’ll forgive his slight against you, isn’t he? 

Astarion’s eyes flit between yours now, and he hums in thought, “You look… different. From my memory at the tavern.”

“Really? Well you didn’t actually remember me at all until the parasite helped you, so I’m not quite sure how reliable your memory of me is. You look the same as I remember.” You deadpan, instantly trying to deflect from his observation. 

You know what he means… the ring hadn’t just affected your mind. It has permanently altered the color of your eyes into a strange purple, reminiscent of the cosmos itself. But you aren’t ready to share anything about your patron or the damn ring with anyone else just yet.

Astarion cocks his head, and he is about to say something more, but then Gale is bursting back through the brush. His eyes are wide with apprehension as he looks between you and the rogue. The concerned expression on your otherwise affable campmate causes everyone in the vicinity to quickly rise to their feet.

Gale grimaces as he addresses his new traveling companions with some level of unease, “I think you all might want to see this.”

And then he disappears back into the brush without another word. Part of you thinks you shouldn’t follow him, but you do anyway. After all, how could this possibly get stranger than it already is? 

Your patron is laughing again. Poor little apothecary, you have no idea.

[alysannesconfessions]

Chapter Four: An Ominous Alliance

"I need to take down Doflamingo."

"Okay," Luffy said immediately.

Everyone screams "LUFFYYYYY!!!"

Nami in protest "You have to think about this!!"

Law paused, thrown off by how fast the answer came. "What—?"

Luffy grinned. "Yeah. Let’s go kick his ass."

Law stared at him. "You didn’t even let me explain."

"Don’t need to," Luffy said simply. "We were gonna fight him anyway."

Law’s patience was hanging by a thread. "That is not how alliances work."

Shadow smirked from where she leaned against the mast, arms crossed. "You should’ve expected this, Captain."

Law inhaled deeply, regretting everything. "This is bigger than just a fight. Doflamingo is controlling an underground network that supplies artificial Devil Fruits—SMILEs—to Kaido."

Robin’s eyes narrowed slightly. "SMILEs?"

"A manufactured Zoan-type Devil Fruit," Law confirmed. "Doflamingo is producing them in Punk Hazard, and he's shipping them to Kaido. If we take out his supply chain, we cut off his biggest advantage before he can use it against the world."

Luffy blinked. "Huh."

Law clenched his jaw. "Do you understand the scale of what we’re dealing with?"

Luffy grinned. "Nope!"

Law nearly lost it.

Shadow chuckled, arms still crossed. "He’s not wrong, though. You’re explaining this like he’s interested in strategy."

Law exhaled sharply, trying to ignore the growing headache. "I need to get to Punk Hazard first. If I arrive alone, they’ll believe I’m one of them. That gives me a chance to get close before you and your crew show up."

Luffy tilted his head. "So we’re not going together?"

Law clenched his jaw. "No. Because that would ruin the entire plan."

Luffy made a thoughtful noise, then shrugged. "Alright. See you there."

Law blinked. That’s it?

Everyone is protesting in the background. A chaotic crew indeed.

Zoro frowned slightly, looking at Law. "That’s not the only reason you need to go first, is it?"

Law hesitated for a fraction of a second before exhaling. "No."

Robin leaned forward slightly, sensing there was more. "You need someone specific."

Law nodded. "Caesar Clown. The man behind SMILE. If we capture him, we control the supply. Doflamingo won’t have another way to make them. Kaido loses a major advantage. And Doflamingo—" his golden eyes darkened, "—loses everything."

There was a brief silence.

Sanji sighed, taking a drag of his cigarette. "So we need to sneak into the biggest underground trade operation, steal a high-profile scientist, and take down a Warlord who’s backed by a Yonko. Sounds fun."

Law ignored him. "This isn’t just about getting to Caesar. Someone needs to uncover Doflamingo’s black market network. That’s why I need her."

He turned slightly, looking at Shadow.

Luffy blinked. "Aly?"

Shadow arched a brow. "Me?"

Law nodded. "You know how the underground works. You know how to get information without being noticed. I need to focus on securing Caesar. You’ll focus on Doflamingo’s contacts."

Usopp paled. "We’re seriously sending her to deal with the underworld alone?"

Shadow smirked slightly. "I wouldn’t say alone."

Law crossed his arms. "Doflamingo’s network runs deep. His associates handle arms dealing, human trafficking, weapons smuggling, and war funding. There are even rumors that he has contacts in the Celestial Dragons’ circles. If we don’t take this apart carefully, we’ll have more than just Kaido coming after us."

Robin’s expression darkened slightly. "He’s entangled in Mary Geoise’s elite, then."

Law didn’t confirm or deny it. "That’s why I need you," he said again, looking at Shadow. "You know how to track people who don’t want to be found. And if we can uncover the right deals, we can cut him off at every turn before he even realizes what’s happening."

Shadow studied him for a long moment. "You trust me with this?"

Law met her gaze, steady. "I don’t trust anyone. But you’re the best one for the job."

Luffy grinned. "See? Told you he liked you."

Law tensed. "That is not what I said—"

Luffy stretched his arms behind his head. "Alright, then! We’ll meet you there!"

Law stared. "...That’s it?"

"Yeah!" Luffy laughed. "See you at Punk Hazard!"

Law pinched the bridge of his nose.

This was not how alliances worked.

And yet, as he stood on the deck of the Thousand Sunny, watching the Straw Hats fall into their usual chaotic rhythm, he realized something terrifying.

He had just willingly thrown himself into absolute madness.

And worse?

Shadow had known it would happen all along.

[maicolgoldlion]

Sunless Odyssey - Devlog 1: Dark

In this first devlog, I'd like to analyze the various choices I made in creating the Lite version of Sunless Odyssey. This is a simplified version that I wrote in a few hours, summarizing the 39 pages I had managed to write. Unfortunately, I signed up for the jam late, and even with the addition of a few days, I couldn't finish in time, especially since the project turned out to be extremely ambitious!

Here you can find the game downloadable for free:

The first column refers to a worldbuilding phase that also serves as the back of the pamphlet. Here I have written six settings that I have created over time playing other games or that I have prepared for Sword&Sorcery campaigns. In reality, I hope to be able to reuse each of these settings in a game of its own.

Roll or Choose together the Legend from which your world will originates from:

A battlefield wrecked by horrors left behind by a celestial war.

Ruins of a great empire roamed by its ghost servants.

The palace-tomb of a dead God fighting to escape one more.

A land devastated by the many magical calamities unleashed by one wish.

Baronies ruled by fools and knight-kings on the verge of a pointless war.

Placid isles and villages of the Realm under the full moon, now ablaze.

All or some of the above.

he third part contains a very brief summary of the exploration rules. Obviously, I didn't have the space to include all the mechanics I wrote, but I must say I'm satisfied with what I included. My main inspiration for games where a pointcrawl map is created during the game is On Mighty Thews. The idea of creating a map of influences on the territory allows you to have reference points to tell what is there and the distance from the center acts as a second factor, both visual and intuitive. I've always found this mechanic brilliant and, as simple as it is to explain, it can be included in minimal games like this one.

The second part, on the other hand, is inspired by The Golden Sea, which, however, has deeper insights into how to build points of interest. While I limited myself to opening the creation of stages to dialogue through questions and answers with the Lorekeeper. I used the last part to insert the Encounter mechanic that I thought of for the finished game. Even though I couldn't include a part on Shrines, I'm happy to have given space to the various types of encounters, which are inspired by the structure of 5-room dungeons.

This flap can be folded to be read next to the Lorekeeper column on the other page, so you have everything you need for the exploration phase in front of you.

Now, before we move on to the second page, a small ad from our sponsor: Water

Drink water Unclench your jaw Drink water

On the second page, we have character creation in the left column, the main resolution mechanics, and finally a section on death and the GM/Lorekeeper.

I am a big fan of Laser & Feelings' character creation, which shows us that complex parameters are not needed to make a character unique. So I built the characters on two very simple pillars: Skills and Class, to which I later added a deeper look at objects (consumables, of course).

Specifically, the Skills part was inspired by reading those of Gubat Banwa, one of the games I used as my main inspiration and which I will talk more about in a future devlog. The idea of having High/Low Skill comes from there. To be clear, Gubat Banwa doesn't use a minimal approach at all, but there's a chapter where it describes what it means to have a high or low value in them, and when I read Wrath as a skill I was already in love.

For the classes, I was inspired by D&D, it's a low blow I know, but I recently read some articles about the identity of the classes and I wanted to use those smoky thoughts to write a list of classes and move on to a more fun part to write.

Here in Italy, D&D is as famous and played as it is in US, remaining firmly the most played game. But there is also a significant number of DMs who have tried to adapt it to their style and I am no exception. One of my most extreme homebrew rules is to treat race, class and background as traits without using any parametric elements given by the manual. What does it mean to be an elf? What can a paladin do? I don't know, you're the elf paladin, tell me and if it helps you in this situation you have advantage or +2/+5 on the roll (like M&M 3e, kinda).

While for the objects I used a very simple structure with traits that give a lot of freedom but which I think also pushes you to think about how the objects you choose. Since these can have traits that you don't attribute to them, the player has simple restrictions that can give impetus or make you think more creatively.

Immediately after skills, class and items are consolidated in the game through mechanics on their use during a test and the character receives further color through simple questions.

I would have liked to add something more about the role of the group but I have few reference tropes since souls-like games are generally individualistic and I had already run out of space.

I've already written a lot and I don't want to make this devlog too long. There's still a lot to cover and I feel like I could talk about the system for hours, so I'll leave that for the next post!

Now on my to-do list before I pick up this project again:

Make an Italian translation

Propose some one-shots

Create a layout and find some suitable art

Complete the itch page

Side quests:

Work on the other Jams this month

[bruh-anator3000]

Again, writing to save myself. Absolute nonsense. Enjoy. Possibly, loosely connected with this.

...

It's quiet. A rarity in Zaun. The chaos of it all finally boiled down to burning paper with loved names on the bridge. But you weren't watching that ceremony.

Viktor, his body augmented to the point of insanity, was joined by Jayce. Viktor kept his face covered with the metal mask Jayce mended for him. Their recovery was not easy, but they were there.

In his hand, a blue notebook. Jayce held a distant sadness in his golden eyes. His leg, along with his wrist, had been replaced with the same celestial machinery Viktor was composed of.

"Do you think she's mad at us?" Jayce questioned, igniting his lighter.

Viktor's shoulders shook with a hum. "I think Ms. Young is happy to know we are done pursuing perfection." He sighed, voice laced with static. They shared a sad look - or at least, you assumed they did. It was hard to tell what Viktor was thinking.

They lit the book on fire, Sky's name written on the cover. Her notes, though fascinating and a true reflection of her mind, were filled with ideas for the Hexcore. A subject they won't ever again. Though, for sake of legacy, Viktor had pulled a couple pages not infested with Arcane magic for her.

A cloaked figure joins the duo, a duo behind them. The hood of white lowers, revealing Mel in her melancholy. "Caitlyn requested that I show her to you." Her decorated face offers a sympathetic smile.

Hearing her name, Caitlyn steps forward. A silent moment before Jayce collects her into his arms. It's been a whole war since they've seen each other.

"I think I'm going to step down as Councilor." He attempts at a joke, but its choked and filled with worry for his best friend.

"You better not," Caitlyn argued, closing her eye and hugging Jayce tighter. "I need an old man to show me how it works." Again, the joke is shortened with a sniffle.

Vi awkwardly coughs. Nodding to the disgraced golden boy. Side eyeing Viktor. He shares a similar sentiment.

"The doctor mentioned bringing-" Vi tries.

"I do not meddle with life and death any more, Violet." He states simply. Almost regretfully, if it weren't for the static in every syllable. Mourning.

It was rough, but it was peaceful. Jayce asked what they would all do next. Mel said she had to leave to lead Noxus. Caitlyn asked that he remain to help her soothe Piltover and Zaun, along with Vi and Sevika.

The moment is ruined for you the second you hear that *zzloop.* You drop your head onto your knees. His heavy footsteps end behind you. "You can't do this everytime your shows don't end the way you want," He adds his nickname for you in thay familiar trill of Spanish.

Miguel sighs, taking a seat beside you on the rooftop. Watching the scene the animators and writers of Arcane would never allow. Happiness.

"Where's Jinx, hm?" Miguel asks, disappointed in your choices of multi-dimensional travel, but invested. You pull up a hologram on your watch.

"She's with Ekko and Isha." You zoom in on the blimp. Finding Jinx and Isha napping, while Ekko directs the big balloon. "They're going to travel the world."

Miguel nods tiredly, patting your back gently. "Let's go." He stands back up. "I don't want another Wolverine mishap."

"It was one time!" You scoff as he drags you up with him. "And he admitted it was his fault."

"He wouldn't have tried to stab an anomaly if there wasn't one to begin with." Orange and purple whirl around as Miguel takes you through the portal.

"Hey! He didn't know you were Spider-Man. He thought you were a sketchy impressionist."