#whatever setting i did earlier was all nullified

[happythexceed]

Summary of K SEVEN STORIES Episode 1 「R：B ～BLAZE～」

Repost as I need ALL spoiler under the cut for edit later. The tumblr app isn’t helping exposing everything after I done a bit of text editing. Deleted the previous post. 

It’s finally here in cinema. The Idol K was shown as an appetizer and R:B ～BLAZE～ the main course after that.

Spoilers ahead. Pardon me for any errors. I tried to put in whatever I remembered.

The Idol K

Around 6 min. The scenes interchanged with normal (zoom in) and chibi (zoom out) forms of the characters throughout the mini episode.  

The setting was the same as K Project except that the characters are idols under Kokujouji Daikaku’s jurisdiction. The Silver Record was having a meeting about rice. Shiro decided to organise a charity event. Kuroh reminded him that they knew nothing about rice and agriculture and THEY ARE IDOLS. They are not suppose to deal with that. Shiro responded with “can’t they do that?” much to Kuroh’s dismay. Worse still, it was not kept among the Silver Record. Shiro wanted to involve the other entertainment companies much to Kuroh’s horror. Shiro would approach HOMRA Entertainment first and Kuroh warned him it would be very difficult to get them to agree to collaborate with them considering their passion. Neko claimed to be close with Anna (she would be easier to talk to). Kuroh highlighted that Anna and Totsuka Tatara were exception but it would be difficult to get the other HOMRA idols such as the one who just returned from America and that he is a walking furnace (hottest looking with his hair down) and an idol who was calculative (can’t remember the actual word used to describe Kusanagi).

But still since Shiro had decided, Kuroh would lend him a land and the scene ended with the three of them leaving for HOMRA.

Kiss kiss kiss was played as the ED.

R:B ～BLAZE～

Started off with a fighting between mafia and HOMRA.

Too much firepower. Bullets flying everywhere. Kamamoto must be an idiot to be running to the open and yelping over the bullets which missed him.

The Red King Suoh Mikoto melted it down. His Sword of Damocles appeared. It appeared to be in better condition obviously. He started to lose control and the sword started to crack like Shiro’s in S2. It was stopped when he heard someone called him, “King”. Totsuka made his appearance and Mikoto regained his sense.  

Discussion about the new Blue King who quickly rebuilt Scepter 4 and how impressive he is to be taking command at scene.

HOMRA has been expanding very fast since Scepter 4 disbanded. The newbies had been acting irresponsibly causing chaos under the name of HOMRA which was an issue. They will accept anyone who can pass Mikoto’s test.

The newbies had been causing troubles enough to gain Scepter 4 attention.

Kagustu Genji looks like this.

Habari Jin obviously will gain more fangirls. ^^

Mikoto had a dream of the previous Red King, Kagutsu Genji losing control and the former Blue King, Habari Jin trying to stop him and the scene of Damocles Down happened. Mikoto saw himself transforming into Berserker a monster and losing control before awakening in the room behind the bar. The HOMRA trio discussed about the newbies of HOMRA starting the fight with the mafia as someone wanted to deal with drugs. Mikoto started HOMRA as he wanted to oppose those who oppressed them.

Mikoto was frustrated as he was finding hard to suppress his power. He felt he was hopeless and want to go all out to have a blast and destroy himself.

He was in the park smoking when another person stood beside him for sometime (quietly) startling Mikoto.

Mikoto kept muttering he felt very hot.

Mikoto was feeling very hot (it was summer) and to see someone dressing in full uniform suit was unimaginable. He instantly realized he was the law abiding new Blue King, Munakata Reisi.

Mikoto was provoking him calling him newbie and he had come to greet him as a respect since he was a senior who became a King before him.

There was a short scene on the awakening of the new Blue King in a plane on fire with Awashima Seri onboard. They used to be ordinary civilians who didn’t know anything. Awashima has become his clansman since then and was helping him to train the new clansman to prepare for any clash with HOMRA. Munakata was wondering who he was and he only got it when he awakened as a King.

He came to Mikoto to ask for collaboration and Mikoto rejected as he didn’t want to follow anybody’s order. Mikoto wanted power to fight against those who oppressed them. Since when his power became a restriction.

Before Munakata left, he asked Mikoto his opinion about Kagutsu Genji. Mikoto merely replied he had not met him.

Mikoto and Munakata decided that they don’t see eye to eye with each other.

The slate kid had made an appearance.

Kusanagi leave Totsuka out to handle the newbie, Yamato Taichi (not Digimon) Yamata Daichi who just joined three months ago who was the source of the trouble.

Yata beaten a newbie up demanding for Yamata’s location. Fushimi was being sadistic. He threatened the newbie not to do anything and live like a corpse if not he would turn him into a corpse right there. Yata decided to take this on himself to find Yamata to teach him a lesson behind Kusanagi’s back. Fushimi agreed to be part of it. They did a knuckle bump.

They intended this movie to be a 2-part episode having the opening theme twice in the movie.

Next half of the movie started out with Yamata reminiscing on his past on his first encounter with HOMRA and Mikoto like Sarumi during their Middle School days. Think it was a reused scene of Mikoto and group walking in the street (Fushimi included).  

Mikoto spotted Totsuka in the street. Totsuka was looking for Yamata and Mikoto decided to stalk follow him.

Yata barged into a cafe (I think) where Yamata was and Scepter 4 arrived in the scene and Yamata escaped. Yamata didn’t understand why it turned out like that.

He was stopped by a butterfly flame and Totsuka appeared before him. He wanted to talk.

The newbies of HOMRA joined for the wrong reason. Mikoto reasoned this out with Yamata Daichi when he showed up behind Totsuka. Yamata was happy that Mikoto actually remembered him (how will you react if your idol remembers you?). A lot of trouble was caused under the name of HOMRA by this group of newbie. There was nothing wrong to bully people so he would not be bullied, to snatch people’s things so his would not be snatched but still, things he had taken from other would be taken from him one day for sure. Mikoto concluded that Yamata and the newbies joined HOMRA merely because of pride.

Mikoto wanted to disband HOMRA and Totsuka told him NO! His King who could not control his power need somewhere to dwell, somewhere to eat and sleep. Mikoto obviously couldn’t say no to him.

Scepter 4 arrived in the scene with Munakata Reisi. Munakara wanted Mikoto to hand Yamata custody over to ask some questions. Mikoto wouldn't budge in the name of he won’t follow anyone’s order. Mikoto decided to buy some time while Totsuka took Yamata and ran.

Munakata ordered Awashima to take the troop and run after Totsuka and Yamata while he would take Mikoto on.

Both Mikoto and Munakata underestimated each other’s ability or rather they were overconfident about themselves. It was a fight between two children granted with toys they shouldn’t have received.

Mikoto was thrown against a wall and he melted the wall down. Munakata insisted he would not unsheathe his sword and took him on. Mikoto stepped on Munakata’s sword which he used as a shield to block his kick declaring he would be on top. Munakata dodged and Mikoto was impressed by his movement.

Munakata noticed the damage their battle had caused and he “rationally” decided to retreat. He declared he would concede defeat to Mikoto leaving Yamata Daichi’s custody to him and thought he would like it. Mikoto was like “huh?”, “wtf?” and he got really pissed. They clashed again and Mikoto sent Munakata flying... Yes he went blasting off like a shooting star 😂😂😂. Awashima saw shooting star aka a man flying past up in the sky (it’s a bird, it’s a plane, no it’s her King. The whole cinema burst into laughter. Sorry, fans of Munakata) She came to Munakata who picked himself up leaving a dent on the wall of a building acting as though nothing happened when she asked him about the Red King. Munakata decided that he “would finish him off” with an straight face.

Yata and Fushimi had a run in with the alphabet boys of S4. They were saved from being arrested by Kusanagi as Totsuka called him. The alphabet boys retreated.

He made his way back to Mikoto by walking as though nothing happened to continue their battles. Mikoto wanted to make Munakata cry while Munakata wanted to make Mikoto grovel on the ground. This time they released both their Sword of Damocles and decided to go all out. Totsuka said he believed in his King. The fight went on until someone dropped a sword and stood on it to stop them. The man was Miwa Ichigen, the Colourless King. He was the mediator sent by Kokujouji Daikaku and he should have come to meet them earlier. Mikoto did not want to follow anybody’s order and expanded his sanctum but it was dispelled instantly by Ichigen and that gave him a shock. Munakata being a good boy put away his sword.

Mikoto and Munakata with their second-in-command had a family meeting with Kokujouji Daikaku and Miwa Ichigen. Kokujouji let them off this time. They were the chosen ones by the Slate and he would leave them to do what they wished as long as they abide to protocol 120 (he did not come up with that). Munakata asked him if they would be punished since they released their Sword of Damocles. Kokujouji suddenly clapped his hands and laughed to lighten up the mood much to Mikoto and Munakata’s surprise. (They did not expect the no-nonsense old man will make that kind of face a silly old man would make). They should make peace with each other.

Comment: When the two young kings met, it became a fight between two kids granted with powers they shouldn’t be receiving. Mikoto clashing on walls, Munataka blasting off into the sky *facepalm*. 

Mikoto’s facial expression can be more amusing.

Kokujouji clapped his hand laughing sheepishly like a certain younger Silver King to lighten the mood. Ok, Reisi is not getting any punishment from fighting with Mikoto today.

Ok they are all “OOC”.

I wish they could expand more on the incident with Kagutsu Genji. Perhaps we will get more insight about it in Episode 2 「SIDE-BLUE ～天狼の如く～」when it gets released.

[donquxiotes]

ONCE iN A BLUE MOON.

daddy dom 69’s stamp — this started off as a small brainrot, just a couple of minutes of bs but then i got kisakified!!! can u fuckin’ believe it??? 😰😰😰 anyways, kisaki’s difficult in terms of dialogue but i think i did ok. not proofread, excuse any mistakes. enjoy enjoy!

sub kisaki tetta + dom afab reader. no gendered terms.

content warnings — unprotected vaginal penetration + cowgirl position. reader’s a meanie. kisaki begging. overstimulation. orgasm control. little objectification. dry orgasm. petnames used — mr.president. plaything. pet. to kisaki.

minors don’t interact, u will be blocked.

out of reflex, kisaki arches into your body. the feeling of your velvety walls clenching around his aching and overstimulated cock, forces a broken sigh to spill between his lips. his chest rises quick and falls deeply, a telltale that he’s pushed past his limit.

though, kisaki tetta being kisaki tetta—he’ll never tell you such a thing himself.

“is my little plaything worn out? already? we’ve been at it for a hour and a half…” you teased, voice like silk.

and just like that, just that easily the man fell for the bait. you could see it by the way he clenches his jaw and glares at you with fire in those silver eyes, from underneath you. the twitch in his eyes almost made you laugh.

“you think i’m gonna let you fuck around w—“

“you don’t get to be upset mr.president.” you tsk’d, unimpressed. “you couldn’t even fuck me right, leaving me to do all the work. you should be embarrassed.”

to quickly remind the foolish man of his current position—you picked up your hips quickly, fueled by his ignorance and dropped them down just as quick.

kisaki’s body jolts. too much of your wet, hot caven swallowing him up all at once and it doesn’t help that you’ve already forced a two orgasms out of him just minutes before. the mess in his work pants reminded him.

his cock itself was screaming for a break, pulsating quicker than his own heartbeat, preparing to cum inside you once more.

“f-fucking hell!” kisaki hissed. his face, reddening and swollen was screwed up in both pain and pleasure. his fingers dug into the softness of the sofa seemingly holding for dear life as you fuck kisaki until he sees nothing but stars. you panted above him looking as sexy as ever, ravishing him, taking him apart piece by piece. he thought he was going to pass out.

until you come to an abrupt stop.

the feeling of his approaching orgasm, vastly dulling sent the man in turmoil. “what the hell, man?!”

“beg me.”

kisaki’s panting, louder than you. “w-what?”

“you heard me.”

kisaki blinks at you owlishly, considering.

and he looked so adorable like this—cheeks flushed, lips swollen and sticky with both yours and his saliva, waterline thick with unshed tears, hair frazzled from your yanking and pulling on it earlier. it sticks to whatever moist skin it could find. the opposite of his usual appearance, just a mess all because you wouldn’t allow him to cum.

it’s just something about having such a mastermind, the city’s most powerful man being so drunk off of you, being such a cock to fuck for you and you only. something like your own personal sex doll….

you drink it all in with pride.

“i said beg me, pet.” the cock in your head, the authority in your tone, the heat in your stare—all of it traveled down his spine in an instant. god and kisaki hated it. hated the way you could actually set him straight whenever you please. he don’t think he could get anymore turned on them this.

and begrudgingly, kisaki’s lips part with a word. your all time favorite word. “please.”

“louder.”

“please! let me cum!”

you laughed, sleazy smile gracing your face as you take in the state of the quivering man underneath you. he must’ve really been fed up with you nullifying his orgasms. if it’s even possible, kisaki was turning the angriest shade of red. you’re sure his cock’s in the same situation. “you really are pathetic.”

but before he could bite back, your hips start up again and the pace’s murderous.

you fuck him with a goal in mind to make him dissolve and your reaching that goal quicker than expected. the kisaki’s eyes rolled into the back of his head in borderline pleasure, downright whimpering,

your hands rooted in his shoulders, digging in to help.

you’re going to use his cock until you can’t anymore because it was made for you, made to fit inside of you and then some. you might as well. your own orgasm boils in your lower belly, so you roll your hips against him—puncturing a breathless slur of words.

“c-cum! let me–haah! hah! l-let me!!” he babbles. your gummy walls devouring him without hesitation.

“beg louder, i want this entire complex to hear you.” you huffed, not yet satisfied with his pathetic begging. and you weren’t going to stop until your slut of a partner have his neighbors knocking on the door because of the noise complaints.

“p-please!! please! please!!! oh god..m’gonna…” kisaki’s eyes are blown wide, head lolling and body spasming. the boiling in his abdomen rushes up to him quicker than expected, kisaki sucks in a breath. “h-hold on a sec.”

“you gonna cum now ‘saki?”

kisaki grunts, nodding his head in fervor.

“you’re gonna cum for me right now?” you squeezed him impossibly tighter.

“y-yes!”

“cum now.”

and just like that, just like the ringleader you are—triggered kisaki’s orgasm.

he comes undone with a loud and broken moan as his world shatters right before his eyes. his mind blanks white, body convulses underneath your figure before it falls limp against the couch.

kisaki’s left broken and pliant from the ground breaking dry orgasm you gifted him, you know for a fact he was going to be sore and limping the next day…

but, that didn’t you can stop just yet.

+ taglist. @kokonoienjoyer @mnjrosn @mommysano @ravioliplease @wakamoles @baji-lover @jenijae @hirwishin @inu1gf.

reblogs are highly appreciated!

[absolutepokemontrash]

Aaa congrats on 666 :D you've been one of my favorite obey me blogs since I joined the fandom! can I request the brothers with an mc that looks/acts like they just walked out of a zombie apocalypse? Turns out that while the demons werent looking, things in the human realm went down hill ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

👀 I love this! Sorry this took so long! I hope you enjoy!

Lucifer

When Solomon popped down into the Devildom earlier, Lucifer had noticed that the sorcerer looked a tad… concerned. After he left, Lucifer thought nothing of it until the second human exchange student appeared brandishing a gun and looking like they hadn’t showered in eight days.

After managing to disarm the human and avoiding the baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire, Lucifer managed to explain exactly why the human was in the Devildom and what was going on. In return, the human calmed down and explained what was going on in the human world.

…geez, shit really hit the fan. Uh… Lucifer wished them luck in their exchange year and foisted them off on Mammon. Lucifer was not about to deal with that right then.

(Apparently one of Solomon’s necromancing acquaintances had something to do with the mini apocalypse going on in the human world. Lucifer and MC were assured that the zombie problem was being dealt with)

As confused and annoyed as Lucifer was at first, he quickly became glad that the human had some kind of self defence on them. The Devildom was a dangerous place, and the human could nullify some of that danger by popping a bullet or twelve into some idiots’ heads.

But one of MC’s more annoying habits were their tendency to set traps and hoard food. They didn’t seem to grasp that lack of food wasn’t an issue and that there were plenty of spells in place to make sure-

Okay, Beel just raided the fridge. Maybe MC had the right idea. Up for sharing some spaghetti-o’s?

Mammon

Now listen here! The Great and Amazing and Mega-Sexy Mammon wasn’t scared of the human at all! Got it?! Good. He wasn’t scared of how dishevelled and dirty they were and how they looked like they just crawled out of a horror movie! Not at all! He also wasn’t scared of the baseball bat they threatened to hit him with if he continued to spout threats of eating them.

Pff, he wasn’t scared… totally not scared… *ahem*

Once the human took a bath and stopped pointing their various weapons at him, Mammon quickly began to warm up to the human in their own tsundere kind of way. Fine, he could admit that MC was kinda cool.

The one thing that Mammon just couldn’t deal with was MC’s traps… he kept setting them off while trying to get into MC’s room!

Oi! Don’t look at him like that! He wasn’t tryin’ to steal anything! He also wasn’t goin’ in there to hang out with the dumb human either! Wasn’t goin’ in there to check on em’ and make sure they were comfortable…

Mammon is also #2 in terms of food theft in the house. He just spotted ramen and decided that possibly getting hit with MC’s baseball bat of pain was worth getting his greedy little mitts on some dollar store noodles.

Leviathan

When Levi went downstairs to threaten Mammon for his money back, Levi immediately recoiled at the absolutely fowl smell coming from the human. Ew, normie stink was getting all over him! And why did they look like they just walked out of TellTale’s The Walking Dead?

Once MC explained their situation, Levi took it upon himself to mansplain the zombie apocalypse to the poor human that was going through it. He had played plenty of zombie survival games and he was surely the expert-

AAKSJAKAJANA- PUT THE BAT DOWN! HE’LL SHUT UP! HE’LL SHUT UP!

After that was over and done with, Levi decided it would be his job to reintroduce MC to some quality entertainment. There couldn’t be that many good shows to watch in the apocalypse, so MC (starved for entertainment) agreed to watch whatever Levi wanted.

Food hoarding? Been there done that. Levi keeps at least ten boxes of Pocky in his room at all times, and a crap ton of other snack foods too. That habit doesn’t phase Levi.

The traps on the other hand? HELL YES TEACH HIM MC! THAT’LL WARD OFF SOME SCUMMY MORONS! *insert Levi cackle here*

Satan

Satan was amongst the people who had the privilege of getting a gun pointed at them on the first day of the exchange program. He kept his fake little smile on his face, but he sure as hell wasn’t too pleased with the human.

He kept his distance at first, studying MC from afar and taking note of their weird little habits. Satan found it quite interesting how quickly this seemingly average human adapted to their new circumstances.

After the body switching incident and the murder train incident, Satan developed a fondness for MC. But… maybe MC shouldn’t have brought their weapons with them on one of their hangout sessions with Satan.

It was on that day that MC learned that Satan was as good a shot with a gun as they were… Rest in Pieces to the idiot that decided fucking with the Avatar of Wrath would be a good idea.

The traps… oh yes the traps… that exact skill set transferred perfectly to pranks! Oh if MC would be so kind as to let Satan teach them the way of the bastard (tm) so the two of them could annoy that pompous peacock together?

Asmodeus

Ewwwww! What was that awful stench coming from the- EWWWWW! Why was the human so gross and dirty! Someone get the hose! They summoned a feral one!

Asmo was less concerned with the fact that the human was threatening everyone with an actual weapon and more concerned with how they smelled like a month old macaroni salad.

MC got a bottle of admittedly pleasant smelling soap thrown at them before Mammon dragged them off to the HOL.

Despite the nasty first impression, once MC took a much needed bath and washed all that gross grime off of themselves… they were honestly really hot… man, apocalypses should happen more often if they produce babes like MC~ *eyebrow wiggle*

Though, the poor human still needed some work, Asmo declared himself their fairy goddaddy (I regret ever learning how to type) and took every opportunity to make sure MC looked their best and took care of themselves.

MC’s odd habits don’t exactly phase Asmo much, I mean, look at who he lives with.

Beelzebub

…he doesn’t wanna eat this human.

Listen, Beel will eat anything, but if he has other options, he’s not eating the gross dirty human pointing a gun at him.

At first, Beel’s pretty neutral towards anything and everything MC ends up doing. They barricaded themselves in their room to keep safe out of habit? Okay. They scarily polish and clean their weapons out in the middle of the living room? So does Satan on occasion. They cleared out the fridge- wait they cleared out the fridge?

BEEL WAS GOING TO DO THAT! PREPARE TO BE EATEN, HUMAN!

MC miraculously survived a hungry Beel attack by chucking food at him until he calmed back down. Beel felt a little bad for scaring them, but anyone with more than five brain cells should know not to steal food from the Avatar of Gluttony.

Anyway, once the two get closer, Beel’s always there for a hug and comfort if MC needs it. Just don’t let him near the food hoard. He will reduce it to nothing in less than an hour.

More than 90% of the traps that get set off are set off by Beel trying to get into MC’s room for food.

Belphegor

Father Dammit, Belphie wanted a nice easy defenceless human to murder, not this Rambo-lookalike. Whatever, sure the human looked tough, but Belphie’s a demon.

Well… Belphegor’s plan went to shit when he was in the middle of choking the human, who pulled out a gun and nearly shot him in the eye. He ended up dropping them in surprise when the bullet grazed his face and ended up getting MC’s boot planted into his forehead.

Yeah… Belphie did not fare well. MC: 1 Belphie: 0

After that nonsense, Belphie demanded begged that MC become his full time nap guardian. They were scary and could protect him, the totally defenceless war criminal 🥺, come on MC, don’t be heartless!

Similar to Asmo, Belphie isn’t too phased by MC’s weird habits. As long as they don’t try and steal his pillows, he’s okay. Those traps though… perfect for a certain older brother of his…

He joins in on Satan’s crusade to get MC to join the Anti Lucifer League. Puh-LEEEEEEEAAAAAASE MC?

[yatsugareboyf]

bad day? [edogawa ranpo x reader]

i had a bad day yall know what that means! this time w ranpo my love

you never realized it was already 7 PM until your phone started to blow up with messages from your beloved boyfriend asking to be picked up from the agency. all the blinds were shut, the lights were off and your phone was set silent (except for ranpo, of course, you knew he'd ask for you to get him sooner or later.) the entire time since you've arrived home.

sitting up, you feel your head ache in every way possible and your eyes burn causing you to shut them closed. definitely, you're in no condition to even drive, let alone walk and get up, but your wonderful, smart intelligent boyfriend needed his ride back home because if he did it himself, he might end up in someone else's home.

soon enough, your pained trance was interrupted by your phone's obnoxious ringtone (which ranpo set for his ringtone).

"hey, y/n !! where are you? i'm waiting y'know!!" you hear your beloved's loud and cheery voice out of your phone, which you would usually enjoy hearing, but right now it made your head ache more.

"yeah... yeah i'm coming.."

it took you five minutes contemplating if you trust your ranpo well enough to walk home by himself, 10 minutes realizing that even if you trust your ever-charismatic boyfriend, you dont trust anyone else, and seven minutes to get up and out the door. you decided to walk instead of taking your car, if you cant even properly maneuver yourself on your feet, what more if you use a car with a living, breathing passenger?

while walking to the agency, slumped over and tired, you glance over at an overly lit bar that seemed to be packed to the brim. you could spot a few familiar faces– people from your classes. they seem to be celebrating, you thought, scoffing bitterly as you continue your slow descent.

you could feel tears welling up in your eyes, though you can’t tell if you’re crying because of the overwhelming pain in your head or the overwhelming pain in your heart. despite that, you just rub it out and hold it back in.

i was supposed to be there, you think back to the bar you just passed moments ago. today was your last finals exam and you overheard many students wanting to either party their ass off or sleep for 72 hours. whatever it was they choose, you couldn't do either. you hadn't been satisfied with your test scores and this last one just hit it out of the park.

no matter how hard you tried, there never seemed to be anything great about anything you do. besides everyone else, you were just average. you couldn't turn into a tiger, you couldn't nullify abilities, you couldn't manifest an object from writing it on a notebook, you couldn't deduce murder mysteries, the list goes on. of course, you always knew someone out there would be better than you, so you thrived to become someone better for yourself, but being surrounded by so many people who you would do anything to become, it's been harder.

and then of course, there's your lovely boyfriend, waving his hand frantically as he spots you walking up to the agency's building. you could only manage a small wave, walking up to him and kunikida, who seemed to accompany ranpo while waiting for you.

"it usually takes you 15 minutes to get here, but today it took you 25 minutes," kunikida said, but when he saw the state you were in, he decided not to push your tardiness any further, "i'll be on my way. please take care of ranpo-san on your way home."

you bow to the blond man before facing ranpo, "let's go home?"

"lead the way!"

-

the walk home was unusually quiet, but you appreciated it a lot. he didn't pry when he saw your gaze lingering on the bar you passed earlier, and he didn't ask why you just plopped down on the sofa without a second thought.

a few moments later, you feel him nudging you to scoot over. you lazily followed and felt him lay down beside you, nuzzling his face in the crook of your neck.

“ranpo, it’s kinda cramped here..”

“don’t care. let's stay here.”

you could only hum in response, slowly threading your fingers in his hair. usually around this time, he would be asking his dinner or maybe even a bath if it was a rather grueling day, but instead he chose to fit himself with you on a small couch while you play with his hair.

“do you remember that one case i told you about? the bear brook murders?”

“the international one? yeah i remember a bit..”

“it took them 36 years to identify the 3 victims and a suspect. they haven’t even solved the case.”

“you would’ve known in 36 seconds, though.”

“of course i would know! i’m better than all of the detectives combined!” he even raises his head to prove his point, making you giggle a bit and pat his head.

he proceeds to softly rub your cheek with his thumb, making you open your eyes to meet his. his bright green eyes always make you melt subconsciously, knowing that he rarely ever opens his eyes.

“what i’m trying to say is,” he starts, holding both of your cheeks this time, “it took them such a long time to make great things, people take even more than 36 years to create something extraordinary,

it may not be as fast as me solving a case or people passing their finals,” you sigh, leaning into his touch, “whether it takes one minute or 36 decades, you can still do something great and i'll still be proud of you.”

he wipes a stray tear falling from your eye, giggling when you scrunch your nose in response. you could only nod at him quietly, of course he knows what happened, and you’re so glad that he didn’t ask you what was wrong and just spoke his mind.

“not everyone can be great as me, and that really frustrates me,” he pouts, “but i’ll make an exception for you, because i know one day you might come a close second.”

you scoff playfully at him, swatting his hands away from your cheeks, “is that supposed to be a compliment?”

“it is! no one comes second to me, not even that Sherlock Shmerlock you keep talking to me about..”

he places his hands around your waist now, positioning back to where he was previously.

“you’ll do great things, y/n, more than just acing a finals exam.”

there’s nothing else you’d rather hear.

[just-call-me-the-intrusive-thot]

Soulmate September - Day 13

Day 13 - Everyone is born with a super power, but when soulmates are together their powers are nullified by each other.

Pairing(s): Romantic Intrulogical, Romantic Moceit, Romantic Prinxiety (background), Familial Anxceit

TWs: swearing, one mention of puking [nothing detailed], innuendo, Remus being Remus

--

Logic reigned at night in Newmind City.

Okay, that may not be entirely correct; the quicker the time sluggishly dragged itself towards 6 am, the faster the brain cell count dwindled. Stupider and stupider decisions were made edging the lines of the illegal and bordering on the disastrous. 

No, the Logic that owned the night came in the form of the superhero; Logic. 

The hero had to admit, it wasn’t the most extravagant name out there, he’d heard many more creative and intimidating names; the Sandman, Sweet Psyche, the Tempest Tongue, all of them household names by now, whether hero or villain. Logic wasn’t exactly a name that struck hearts much outside of NewMind City, but within the alleyways and dive bars, criminals lived in fear of his watchful patrols.

Harnessing the power of Order and Stability made Logic a formidable opponent. The effect on his physical balance allowed him to fight on any surface - even hundreds of feet off of the ground - with almost zero chance of falling. The way he could manipulate any situation into the perfect rube goldberg machine to aid his crusade was terrifying given the right situations. Only one villain dared provoke Logic at every turn; Deceit.

The Lord of the Lies. A Self-Proclaimed Subterfuge Specialist. 

Deceit seemed to live for one thing and one thing only; to destroy the city from the inside out. Logic would have admired the serpentine slanderer if not for his methods. Forcing politicians to spout the truth? Urging government officials to spill their true agendas against their will? Logic admired that kind of drive, but at the same time, this was a man who used lies as weapons. Deceit used them to hurt others whenever he so desired. 

Stalking across the edge of the Talyn Street apartment block, the hero could hear a commotion in the distance; by the sounds of it, at least three men were involved and by the sound of it, things had gotten ugly in a hurry. Logic took off along the edges of the nearest buildings and-

Wait. Something didn’t feel right.

The closer he got to the commotion, the less balanced he felt on his own two feet. Had he somehow exhausted himself? Impossible. He’d faced rather a quiet night until now. His thoughts were distracted long enough that he nearly slid right off of the edge of the building overlooking the alleyway in question. The scene that unfolded set Logic’s blood to a boil. 

Four men, not three. One held back by the largest thug in the group while the other two took turns brutalising the man, though he didn’t let out a single sound. Logic had to be careful; he couldn’t tell if his powers were acting up for sure, but just in case, he used the fire escape to stick to the shadows, to better observe the situation.

Despite the beating he was taking, the man being held back didn’t seem too worried. Logic found out exactly why when the man waited for the next brutal gut punch and used it to flip the larger man holding him onto his attacker. It was impressive to say the least. The final attacker still standing went to pull out a blade, evident by the flash of silver light that caught Logic’s eye, but thankfully, their victim was armed as well. 

The way the man twirled the butterfly knife in his hand so effortlessly was hypnotic, borderline erotic if Logic were to be so bold. Focus. You have a job to do. He leapt down from the fire escape with only a few inches between him and the attacker’s back. Before the assailant could do anything, Logic drove his elbow into the man’s temple, knocking him unconscious. Checking that he hadn't actually killed him, Logic took his pulse with relief before looking up towards the victim, 

“Are you unharmed-”

“That was so sexy.”, the man murmured.

“..... Come again?”

“Gimme a second.”

It took Logic that second and more to realise the innuendo. He annoyedly rolled his eyes and made sure his hair was neatly pushed back once again out of the way of his mask.

“Would you mind informing me of the situation, um..?”

“Remus.”, the man grinned. 

Logic wasn’t sure whether the grin reminded him more of a gassy shark or a seasick crocodile, but either way, he began to wonder if Remus wasn’t entirely innocent in this situation…

“Remus.”, Logan repeated, “Actually, I’ll need to ask you to assist me in escorting these charming gentlemen to the station-”

“That won’t be necessary. You’re too tired to move.”

The silky, venomous voice pierced through Logic before he could react. Dammit, he hadn’t anticipated these thugs would be working for Deceit. His movements were sluggish and just as he watched Remus hit the ground, Logic too felt the rough kiss of gravel before he was out like a light…

--

When Logic awoke, he felt rather like the Fresh Prince of Bel Air; everything was flipped, turned upside down.

Startled, he noted the boiling oil below him - typical of the villain’s over the top style - and the power suppressing cuffs keeping his hands secured behind his back. On the floor just to the left of him, he could make out the goons from earlier sat playing cards while Remus was tied to a chair a couple of feet away. Logic was thankful to see Remus had no new injuries though he was still out cold. The man may be a wretch but the hero really didn’t want to see harm come to him.

“Ah, you’re finally awake, my dear nemesis.”

Deceit’s voice trickled from the speakers in the room, sickly smooth and deadly, like honey laced with poison. Logic knew not to listen to it consciously, he’d made that mistake once before and it’d nearly cost him his life. He instead focused on struggling to get out of the situation he was in, but with his hands cuffed using suppressor cuffs, he was fighting an uphill battle. 

“Now, now, don’t exhaust yourself. I’ve been waiting for this day for a while now, I don’t want you too tired for the grand finale.”

The smugness dripping from every word even passively began to give Logic a headache. His attempts to escape were becoming more and more fruitless; the chain that held his legs in place also stopped him having his skin boiled right off the bone so being too unruly with them was out of the question. All he could do was hope that Remus would wake up and have some kind of ability that might help the both of them. 

Come to think of it, why had his powers suddenly stopped working as he’d approached? Perhaps one of Deceit’s thugs had been in possession of something made to counteract his abilities? No, that didn’t seem likely. Knowing the smug villain, Logic knew there was no way Deceit would let his cronies take charge of something that powerful and impressive. He was wrenched from his thoughts as Deceit’s message continued,

“I hope you’re prepared to-”

He stopped. There was a sound akin to rustling and clattering before Deceit’s voice came once more. From the muffled volume and the conversation, Logic guessed the idiot had forgotten to turn off the microphone.

“Pat, dearest?”

Another voice, probably the aforementioned Pat, spoke sweetly in response, 

“What, honey?“

“Where’s my villainous cape?”, came Deceit’s inquiry. Logic had to bite his tongue to refrain from laughing. Might as well enjoy the show while he thought of an escape plan.

“What???”, came Pat’s reply, a little closer now going by the acoustics.

“Where. Is. My. Villainous. Cape?!”

“Oh, I put it away!”

Logic was thoroughly enjoying the drama going down over the speakers, and so were Deceit’s henchmen who Logic spotted had stopped their rousing game of blackjack to instead get comfy and enjoy the show.

“Where did you put it?!”

“Why do you need to know, Jan!?”

Huh. This wasn’t how Logic figured he’d find out his arch nemesis’ name, but he wasn’t about to complain. What did strike urgency back into him was the progression of their conversation.

“Oh for the love of-! My plan to erase my nemesis is in danger!”

“Our EVENING is in danger!”, there was a soft sigh, “Look, Jan, we’ve had this reservation planned for months now! I’m gonna assume your nemesis is a little tied up at the moment,” , Logan rolled his eyes at such an awful pun, “So why don’t we just go enjoy our anniversary dinner and you can deal with him when you get back, alright?”

Horrifyingly, Deceit huffed a sigh, “I suppose it would be interesting to keep him suspended for a while, let the terror sink in. Good thinking, my love.” The sound of a light kiss and a chuckle could’ve made Logic lose his lunch. Or perhaps it was the idea of being held upside down for so long..

 “Alright, Pat, if we hurry, parking shouldn’t be too awful...”

The intercom went quiet and now Logic could truly let the situation sink in; he’d have to remain suspended over boiling oil, watched by Deceit’s cronies, unable to save himself or-

Remus!

He’d almost forgotten about the odd gentleman. He turned to see him-

Oh, are you kidding me.

Remus was still out cold. How. How in the HELL could one man be asleep for so long?!

Logic didn’t like the idea, but he had little choice. Inhaling, he began to yell, “WAKE UP-” when something hard impacted his cheek. The blow sent his glasses hurtling onto the ground - thankfully missing the boiling oil at least - and breaking apart on impact. Dammit. 

“Keep your mouth shut, Zero!”, one of the thugs chided, earning snickers from the other two and inciting them to join in on the jeering and insult hurling. Logic was just thankful that whatever had been thrown - he suspected a mug by the feel of it - must have been the single dispensable item at hand considering nothing else was thrown other than attempts at insults. The hero had no idea what was worse; the idea of dying from heart failure with the blood rushing to his head, or dying of sheer embarrassment knowing it’d happen while having to listen to these ignoramuses try to genuinely roast him.

Logic could already feel unconsciousness taking hold of him when the first thug began screaming. It took the last of his strength to turn towards the cacophonous cries of terror, but his vision was so blurred without his glasses, all Logic could see before he passed out were a pair of glowing green eyes and a whirlwind of obsidian tendrils.

--

When Logic awoke, the first thing he noticed was the cold breeze settling into his skin through his suit. Opening his eyes, the hero still couldn’t see clearly, but as he squinted, he began to make out stars and clouds. Shit, how long was he out?

“Wakey wakey, princess! You had me thinking you’d gone and died on me there!”, came Remus’ already unmistakable voice. Logic sat up, still reeling as he saw Remus approach him, getting clearer the closer he came until he was knelt down beside the hero.

“Here,”, Remus placed Logan’s broken glasses in his hand, “Sorry I couldn’t fix ‘em, it’s not exactly my expertise.”

Logic had so many questions already; how had they survived?! What had Remus done back at Deceit’s lair before he’d passed out?! Why did he still find it hard to use his powers even now he was free of the cuffs?! The hero frowned as his powers refused to work on his glasses. Remus - seemingly uncaring about Logic’s lack of a response - watched him attempt to work before he caught himself.

“Ah, wait. Lemme back up.”

The hero was confused as Remus backed away a good couple of feet from him on what Logic now recognised as the rooftop of the Crofter’s Hotel. He was about to ask for an explanation when he realised his powers were slowly coming back, reslotting the glass into the frames and straightening out the bridge and legs of the glasses. Order maintained once more, Logic donned the glasses, thankful for his vision stabilising. 

“Thank you, Remus.”, Logic went to stand up, but he still felt lightheaded. Thankfully, Remus saved him from toppling over, catching him at the waist and helping him carefully sit back down.

“Careful, Specs. I don’t want my soulmate hurting himself-”

“Apologies, your what?!“

Logic was stunned to say the least; Remus had just thrown that out there like it was any old fact.

“Soulmate. Y’know, your cosmic companion, your destiny dictated darling, your fatemate!”, Remus listed excitedly, “You know all about it right? When you meet-”

“- your superpower is nullified around that person, yes, I am aware.”

Logic wasn’t sure what to think; he’d never paid much thought to his soulmate, in truth, he preferred to think of his work as his soulmate. Not that he didn’t like the idea of meeting the man the universe decided was his perfect match. Nor did Logic mind that the man was rather handsome in the mysterious cryptid kind of way. Logic gestured for Remus to sit with him and extended his hand to Remus for shaking, 

“Logan Berrie.”, Logan offered, trying to settle back into his civilian mindset.

“Pie.”, Remus responded, low-fiving Logan’s hand.

“Pardon?”

“....We’re not playing a word association game?”

“.... I was providing you with my name, Remus.”

Remus grinned, “Wait, that’s your name?! That’s-”

“Ridiculous, I am well aware.”, Logan scowled, “I did go to school after all-” 

“I was gonna say that’s awesome but whatever!”

Logan did poorly to hide his surprise as Remus laid back like he could fall asleep, “So Logan, how’d you fall in with ol’ Snake Face himself?”

Logan rolled his eyes, still propped up on his hands, “The same way all heroes are presented with their arch nemesis; he and I crossed paths and unfortunately, while we share some values, we have vastly differing opinions on how society’s problems should be fixed.”. He glanced over at Remus, fidgeting idly with the corner of the beat up long coat his soulmate wore. 

“What was your transgression?”

Remus squinted at Logan for a second, “I’m cis.”

“... No. Transgression. What was it you did that made my nemesis target you? I noticed you addressed him by a rather flattering nickname earlier, so I assume you know of him personally.” 

“Oooh.”, Remus grinned, snickering at just the memory of it, “I may or may not have pissed off his little brother.”

Well, that had Logan’s attention immediately. The hero lay on his side next to Remus, propping his head up on his hand, ready for the juicy details. He may have thought himself above gossip, but that didn’t mean Logan didn’t enjoy a good old tea party.

“How so?”

With a grin Logan was sure should’ve split his soulmate’s face in half, Remus proudly elaborated, “Well he and my twin brother were dating, and they had a bunch of friends and family all gathered for some bullshit, and my brother wants me to say something - a terrible decision, really - and I’m there kinda caught for what to say. So I’m having to think on the fly.”

“So, what did you do?”, Logan inquired, clearly getting sucked into the plot unfolding.

“I just said the first thing that popped into my head!”

Logan rolled his eyes once more, but there was a fondness to it this time. “Which was?”

Remus proudly cleared his throat, bringing a hand up to clasp an imaginary microphone, reciting perfectly from memory,

“To the seventeen people in this room that all wished they’d taken my brother’s virginity first, just remember this is the guy who got blackout drunk, cried because he couldn’t afford chicken nuggets, and scared a birthday party of kids when he puked up behind Chuck E Cheese’s back in college!”

The snort of laughter Logan let out was disgustingly ugly. He clapped his free hand over his mouth despite his giggling soulmate’s attempt to swat the hand away. Logan finally gathered himself,

“That’s amazing, oh my goodness.”

Remus excitedly beamed, “Ten tittied Christ, thank you!”

What a visual.

He continued to rant, “I knew it was funny! But nooooo! It was all “that's not an appropriate story, Remus”, or “How could you say that right now?!”! They were the ones who wanted me to ad lib a last minute speech! So what if I said it in front of hundreds of people at their wedding-?!”

Logan couldn’t help it, the bellowing laughter that tore out of him was too much to contain. When was the last time he’d laughed so heartily? Logan wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure when Remus joined in with his laughter, but by the time they were done, Logan had laid down next to his soulmate to stare up at the stars. Then a thought hit him,

“Wait, you said your brother and Deceit’s brother are married, correct? Making you and Deceit brother-in-laws? ”

Remus nodded, “Yep.”

“And you’re not on his side, but are-?”

“Nah,”, Remus predicted with a head shake, “Ditz-ney Prince and TT are both heroes, so there won’t be much of a problem with us being a thing. If that’s what you were worried about.”

Logan nodded, though his frown continued into his query, “Ditz-ney Prince and TT are… interesting hero names...”

Remus rolled his eyes as if it was obvious, “Nah, those are nicknames. My brother’s The Prince over in Sanders Town a couple miles out from here, and you probably know the Tempest Tongue-”

“I’m sorry, your brother is married to THE Tempest Tongue?!”, Logan interrupted, though he shot Remus an apologetic look for his outburst. His soulmate chuckled, “Sounds like someone’s a bit of a fanboy.”

“No, no,”, Logan assured him, frowning despite his obvious embarrassment, “Nothing so childish, I merely admire his work-”

“You think he’s hot-”

“I said no such thing-”

“You didn’t deny it either.”

Remus had him there. Logan punched him in the arm playfully and, as if to prove a point, shuffled closer until he was almost laying on Remus. There was a question on Logan’s mind still, and he finally verbalised it as his gaze fell back onto his soulmate,

“Might I ask, how did we escape? I hate to admit it, but I was passed out for the entirety of your rescue.”

“No shit, who do you think had to carry you?”  Remus teased, “I just used my power, wanna see? It’s super fucked up-!”

“No. I mean, I would like to at some point, but I would rather we stay like this. For a little while.”

It felt like his cheeks were on fire, and the sweet smile Remus shot his way had Logan’s heart racing. 

“Sure thing, Specs!”, he slid his hand along Logan’s arm and softly let it card through his dark hair, “And how about after we’re done here we go mess with Snake Face? ”

Logan grinned back at him; why shouldn’t they have a little fun after all?

“What did you have in mind?...”

-----

This was fun! 

I haven’t written many hero fics before so I hope this is okay!

A big thanks to my friends in the discord for helping with this one when I had a writers block moment.

@tsshipmonth2020

Taglist: @somehow-i-got-an-account   @cateye-glasses   @fandomsofrandom

[funnysnake2019]

Can a machine consent?

Requirements

Suppose we require consent to be something that is: a) given freely, b) enthusiastically, and c) with full information.

This is already an impossibility on two accounts, namely on a) and c).

Whether it is possible to choose something freely is an open question, because it is not entirely clear what this might entail. You might say that it requires an absence of duress, but it is possible to make a choice nonfree without the use of duress, for example via a reduction of options. If I choose to engage in activity A because I don't have access to activity B, but I actually prefer activity B, is my choice for A truly free? It would almost certainly not be enthusiastic. Further, having full information is impossible, because it would require omniscience.

One might argue that these are ideal situations, and that the point is to approach them, rather than reach them. But then it becomes a question of where to set the arbitrary threshold of when a choice is 'more or less' (or, 'as good as') free, or when someone has 'more or less' full information.

An additional problem arises when we realise that the genesis of this analysis arises from introspection. That entails two things: firstly it means that these things are phenomenological, or that they cannot be extricated from personhood, or the 'one-that-feels' of the phenomenon. Secondly, it means that it cannot be detected second-hand. It is impossible for me to know whether another person has full information of something; it is only possible for myself to know this about myself.

Zombies

This leads us to the central question: can a machine consent? Or, perhaps more accurately, can a p-zombie consent? A p-zombie has all the external characteristics of a person, but there are no phenomena to speak of that it might experience. In other words, you might say that there is no 'one-that-feels' in the p-zombie. The obvious answer to this question is that no, a p-zombie clearly cannot consent. However, because it is impossible to determine second-hand whether someone is a p-zombie, it is impossible for any person to extract consent from anyone, because it is entirely possible for them to be p-zombies. Even if we suppose that p-zombies do not exist, we still run into difficulties. It is not hard to construct a normal person who might express the behaviour of one who consents, but in actuality does not consent.

Suppose someone who simply says what the other wants to hear, for whatever reason. It would be impossible to determine whether there was consent in this situation. If we relax the conditions, we might say that one can execute some n number of procedures to determine consent, and this person answers in line with consent for some number k of these procedures. Then, if consent was not given, this person would answer in a way that indicates this on the k+1th procedure. If we do not know the value of k, what is the right number of procedures to execute? We might imagine that this value varies over a population, so it might be the case that we must execute so many procedures that it covers p% of all cases. Of course this is practically unfeasible for one person, especially since we have no information about the distribution of k or the parameters of its distribution.

Confusion

Matters are made worse when we consider that one might themselves be confused about whether or not one consents. Think of when you were a child and were scared to do something, but when you were egged on to do it, you ended up enjoying it anyway. Knowing this ahead of time, you would have surely consented, but since you were unaware of this, could you have been said to have consented? The theoretical answer is that your consent was not genuine, because you did not have full information. Also, because of your trepidation, it was not enthusiastic. We have seen people say that post hoc considerations might retroactively nullify consent given earlier. This is clearly problematic, in both cases, because it means that the truth value of consent cannot actually be determined at the time when the choice is made. We might, if we wanted, say that it is undeterminable at the time of the choice, rather than it being either true or false. This, too, makes determining consent impossible.

[magistralucis]

Are you really taking Rammstein prompts for the soft summer prompts? 🥺 Can I ask number 3 'sitting on the porch at night' then please?

3: Sitting on the porch at night // Till/Richard

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

Richard awakens in the dead of night.

He turns his face towards the door. From the porch he can hear wisps of music, interspersed with crackles of analog static. These are the same noises that cut through the fabric of his sleep every night, but tonight, they feel like a suggestion. He wraps himself up and tiptoes out of the room.

“Till.”

Every night the same routine. As Richard names the dear name he knows what he’s going to see: his friend sat on the porch, a battered radio by his side. He’ll have it on the lowest volume, but his favourite music tends to cancel that out. Richard sits beside him, and when Till turns his head, raises his hand in greeting. Till nods back, then they both turn to gaze at the stars, weighing the silence between them.

They like their silences.

The radio fades to white. Till adjusts the dial, and Richard watches, until the sound comes in clear again. A local punk rock station. “Were we on earlier?”

“Much earlier. Wait and see, you may come back on.”

Till’s voice is low and thoughtful. Richard smiles wryly. This station often goes offline, sometimes for repairs, or to escape scrutiny, or because the authorities snatched up whoever was manning the station. Public opinion on punk rock is still such that he may have to wait up to a whole week to hear himself on the radio again.

He would barely put up with it if not for his pride, and for the fact Till would wait that long. Richard cranes his head and sees what he was doing: stringing his guitar and weaving a handle for a new basket. All this he has seen before, and all this Till will do again, a beacon of Schweriner steadiness. Richard can relax with him because he’s stable in a world constantly shifting about them.

“Which track?”

“‘Geh zurück in dein Buch’. More to come, they said.”

Richard laughs. Feeling B’s first album came out a fortnight ago. “Josch will be pleased. Paul and Flake, too, even if Flake doesn’t show it. They did a stellar job.”

Till tilts his head. Their eyes are equally dark in the night. “They?”

Maybe it was really the summer heat that disturbed Richard’s sleep, or the chirping crickets, or the news earlier. But whatever it was, it’s clear he needed to be at Till’s side tonight. He raises his head and meets the other’s gaze.

“Till, I’m planning to jump the border.”

A glimmer of something alights in Till’s eyes, then is gone.

It wasn’t just Aljoscha, Paul, and Flake who produced that album. Till drummed for a track, and although Richard’s role didn’t extend as far as the credits, he jumped in to smooth out the lyrics and organize the recording sessions. He also plays in another band full time. So really, Richard’s situation is not one that merits a they, when he’s been saying we all this time.

He’s glad Till noticed the change, but it doesn’t necessarily mean Till will approve. Richard expects he won’t, for no other reason than that Till may be able to talk him out of this. Till leans forwards, resting his chin on his hand, and thinks for so long Richard begins to fidget.

He eventually sighs. “Do your folks know."

Richard’s smile is not so wry this time. ”Do you let your old man know what’s going on in your life nowadays?"

"Sometimes I wish I could.” He says, which surprises Richard. Till pulls the basket to his lap and plucks at the reeds poking out from the handle. His tone is brooding, but he is very alert, perhaps more than he was with Richard’s plan. “He used to be a lot funnier, then he gave up drinking. Used to think that was great, because, well. More for me. (He grins guiltily.) But now I am old myself and all I know are conversations to have over a stiff drink, and he can no longer join me at the table. He made his commitment and he’s a free man; me, I can’t imagine doing the same, so I am not free.”

“You’re way too young to quit, anyway. You’re only twenty-six. Before you’re forty you can do just about anything, you can even sin.”

A little smirk. “And after that, Scholle?”

“Oh nein, not afterwards.” Richard grins, and brushes his mohawk back. It’s usually peaked up, but the combination of lying down and the heat has laid it out flat. “After forty you have to repent. Then God will forgive you, if Honecker hasn’t done it first.”

Till laughs out loud, his teeth gleaming white. Richard laughs too. The clouds have split and revealed the moon above their heads, still a sliver short of being full. The breeze smells grassy and tickles their hair. Soon, Richard thinks, soon he’ll be able to smell the first bite of the autumn chill; soon, if he’s still here for it. He straightens his back and sits up.

“No, my folks don’t know. Not about my life, and definitely not about wanting to cross the border. I’ve been thinking of doing this since I was sixteen. I didn’t do it then because I was scared, and I’m scared now.”

“What makes you less scared this time?”

Richard looks at him. “You heard they opened the border between Austria and Hungary?”

Till’s fingers tighten briefly on the basket, then relax again.

“I don’t know how long it’s going to be open,” Richard continues, watching closely, “but I know things are boiling over here. There will be an exodus.” He shakes his head. “None of us have connections in the West, Till. If things get really bad, we all ought to consider leaving. It’s already happening. Remember when Flake got arrested?”

“You think he can’t get out a second time.”

“I never assume the best-case scenario."

Till opens his mouth to speak, but stops. Slowly, he lies down, first on his side then fully onto his back, his legs dangling over the porch. Richard joins in. The basket lolls on Till’s stomach and the moon drowns out the starlight. Immersed in the loamy smell of the earth Richard waits, considering the conversation to follow. He can think of so many questions and has answers for so few of them.

When are you going? He doesn’t know if he ever will go, let alone the when. He has the uncomfortable feeling he’ll be forced into it when the time comes, and he at least wanted Till to know. I can’t go with you. Richard knows that already. Till’s daughter needs him. Why are you abandoning us at this time? He’s not abandoning them, he wants to set up a safe house to receive everybody in. Richard has never said this out loud, but he has always felt of little importance; better he go and be useful, rather than someone like Aljoscha leaving and destroying the band overnight.

Surely someone would buy into this response? Surely Till would?

But Till doesn’t ask either of those things. He doesn’t ask anything else Richard was expecting, in fact. After a long time, he merely asks: “Want some coffee?”

“... In this heat?”

Till heaves himself up on his arms and pads silently into the kitchen. Richard stares after him until he leans out from the doorway, shaking a jug he pulled out from the fridge. “Oh. Please.”

Soon they’re sitting side by side once more, glasses filled with cold coffee brew topped with ice and sweet creamy milk. One would think they were here to shoot the shit if not for the severity of their conversation. Thankfully, Till doesn’t let it descend that far. “Will it be cold when you go, do you think?”

“I...” Richard nurses his iced coffee anxiously. “I don’t know.”

Till nods. “My coat is real wool,” he says, and pushes his glass aside. Richard gasps as the other’s cool hand rests upon his own. “It’ll help in a pinch. You know where I am, Scholle, write to me. That’s all I ask.”

“...”

“Tell me if the moon is as bright over there as it is here.”

Richard looks at him. Slowly, he sets down his glass. With resigned finality, Richard sinks into Till’s shoulder, sliding down until his head is resting on the other’s lap. He need say nothing, not even to express his gratitude, for Till has touched his shoulder to indicate he understood. The radio crackles again; Till twists the dial; all over to the other end the pointer goes, until they hit a classical piece drifting silvery strings into the night. “Till.”

“Yes.”

He prays there will be moments this beautiful on the other side of the fence. However long it takes Till to join him, anyway. “This is good, isn’t it?” He whispers, and closes his eyes.

“Yes.” Till’s fingers play over Richard’s hair. “It is good.”

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

13: Watching the sun rise // Till/Richard

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

Till awakens to a cool breeze against his cheek.

He wonders where he is. For a moment he wonders if he’s still backstage, or staring up at the bold white lightbar of a tour bus, before he registers the noise of flowing water and a faint mist about his head. Just as he raises his head he hears the sound of footsteps, which come to a rapid stop next to him.

“Till.”

He blinks and looks into Richard’s face. Richard looks back at him just as carefully. Slowly, he yields his gaze, and turns to see where he is.

The airport lounge. The exclusive lounge, complete with bars, showers, and the fountain that’s currently misting up his hair from a distance. It is dark outside. They are the only people remaining. The pieces of the journey that exhausted him fall into place as Richard offers his hand. “Shall we go?”

“Yes.” His voice feels foreign to him. “Let’s go.”

Past the subdued halls they leave together. On the way they walk along a row of duty-free shops and Till glances at them all. It seems so long ago his world was littered with Intershops and other such outlets, duty-free and Ostmark-free and just free, generally speaking. He has grown into modern comforts, but sometimes, he still thinks about his youthful familiar life.

And to think he disliked it so much, back in the East. Nostalgia is the ultimate nullifier. Flake would have a field day if he knew.

The summer heat hits them like a blast to the face as they exit. All of their limbs are weighed down with lethargy. One look at each other, and they agree silently that they’re too tired to drive home. They need not wait long for the sunrise, they’ll endure until then. Their bandmates are long gone. Paul and Schneider went to an overnight hotel and Olli went to stay with a friend. Only Flake, a stubborn homebody, insisted on driving back. If Richard hadn’t parked here, maybe they’d have hopped a ride with him, Till and Richard curled up like overgrown cats in the back seat while Flake listens to one of his esoteric audiobooks. Richard is staying with him until the tour reconvenes, so they don’t need any stops on the way home - but oh, how far home seems from here.

And still the heat. Even away from the bustle of the airport it is suffocating. It’s a blessing when Richard points out an overnight cafe in a nearby kiosk. “Iced coffee?” He asks, referring to an old tradition they began thirty years ago, and chuckles as Till nods with eyebrows-raised desperation. He hands Till the keys. “Wait for me in the car.”

This Till does, happily. He sinks his head back in the passenger’s seat. The leather of the headrest is smooth and cool, and makes him sigh. But he’s a polite guest first and foremost, and so he affords himself only a brief rest before adjusting the environment to Richard’s liking.

First the A/C. Richard likes the overhead lights on when it’s dark. Till pulls out a new pack of cigarettes from his bag and puts it on the cup holder, his unspoken thanks to Richard for putting up with him tonight. And, of course, the radio:

- and now we meet in an abandoned studio, we hear the playback and it seems so long ago-

Till drowns that one out with the slider. But he’s smiling; the self-referencing parts of life are the best ones, they taught him all he knew. But he’d prefer the affirmative tonight, and before long he hits on something he and Richard both likes. He knows this because Richard knocks on his window the moment he sits back, and when he looks over, he finds the younger man smiling broadly.

- einfach fort mit der Musik, Schwebe so durch helle Räume, Keine Grenzen, keine Zäune!

Just in time.

Richard doesn’t need to say anything. Till rolls down the window; he passes Till’s iced coffee through, as well as a hot buttered pretzel. (He knows him so well, that Richard.) Till murmurs a thanks and takes a bite of the pretzel. The hot salt of butter floods his head and Till almost blacks out from the pleasure, every sense kickstarted by the taste. Richard chuckles as he climbs in beside him, timing a luxuriant sip of his frappé with the slam of the door.

“They know we’re coming to them, huh?”

“Must do. We have been quiet for many years.”

Richard removes the lid and gulps his coffee thirstily. With a relieved sigh he rolls down his window and rests his elbow upon it, wiping his brow with the side of his coffee-holding hand. Condensation drips down his fingers.

“I agreed with you, you know. That this ought to be the first single.”

The words sink like honeyed balm into his heart. Till laughs quietly. Promoting ‘Radio’ to first single was an idea overriden early in the planning process, and neither Till nor Richard protested at the time, but the sentiment means a lot to him.

The song ends. Promises more from ‘Rammstein’s new album’, then moves swiftly onto a prog rock track. Till finishes the pretzel and gulps down the iced coffee. It goes down sweetly, drives the heat from his brain, makes him alert.

Iced coffee is done so sophisticated nowadays. Some wouldn’t look out of place in a luxury ice-cream parlor. Till has no opinion on whether sophisticated coffee is good or bad, only that it’s a tie to his and Richard’s shared memory, much like moonlit summer nights and the radio. He didn’t exactly write that song about Richard, nor did Richard write his parts with Till in mind (he thinks, anyway), but they know they were referring to the same thing.

He looks at Richard. Richard, who’s just excavated Till’s gift for him, notices him looking in the midst of putting the cigarettes in his pocket. His blue eyes are pale from the light glancing off them. He seems to expect Till to say something, but is content to return the gentle gaze when Till does not. Yes, Till loves that. He loves that Richard is still by his side. He loves the taste of cold coffee, the dewy warmth of summer; especially the radio, which for so many years brought them the news, meted out hope and despair, and celebrated all the nights that couldn’t become the future. Their country is gone but they are still here.

They see what they only heard before.

The dashboard clock ticks four. The sun is rising in the horizon; it brings only with a pale blue light, rather than the expected gold or red, but the sun rises fast and early at this time of year. Soon that gentle blue will streak over Richard’s car, and then he’ll start the engine, and then they’ll go. Slowly, Till leans to the side, finally resting his head on Richard’s shoulder. Richard doesn’t mind. He moves in to make Till more comfortable. “Risch.”

“Yes.”

His eyelashes flutter shut as his friend strokes his hair, as if he were awaiting this moment since before the tour, before Rammstein, before the fall. “This is good, isn’t it?”

Richard’s hand cups his cheek. Till lifts his hand to press it close, his long eyelashes soft against calloused fingertips.

“Yes.” Richard whispers. “It is good.”

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

NOTE: The set is done at last! I don’t usually append notes to drabble posts, but this turned out to be not-so-much drabbles as a doubleshot, or part of a longer fic. I really wanted to take my time on those because I hadn’t written for Rammstein in a very long time, and I got this for the effort 😂 You also gave parallel prompts, so I figured I might use that to reflect both perspectives of a Tillchard relationship!

The second piece is at some loose point during the summer of 2019, but the first has a definite date of the 27th of June 1989. This was the exact day when Austria and Hungary finished cutting their border fence, though the actual removal had begun some time during May. Cue many East Germans, whether on holiday or for this specific purpose, jumping the gap and rerouting through to West Germany; I think this must have been the same border Richard crossed when he fled the East, although he did it much later than he planned here. Flake was also definitely arrested at one point (and dodged several other attempts) by the authorities - for failing to get out of the way at a protest, if I remember correctly. I don’t have the exact quotes/page numbers for this event as described in Mix Mir Einen Drink, but I do remember reading it.

I hope you enjoyed this. Maybe I can expand this into something bigger or maybe this is it. But I enjoyed writing it a lot 💖

[kihaku-gato]

OC Ships / Ship Dynamics

For whatever reason I fizzled out mid-writing so I had to power through last night to try to follow through what I wanted to ramble about Valentine’s Day night. Probably full of typos and incoherence once you hit the Harriet X Anne section onwards, but I’m not proofreading for typos cause brain frustrated trying to spit this out into words so WHATEVER TAKE HERE IT AND SHIP THE CHARACTERS hopefully

If the ship title is wrapped in “*“ it means it’s a canonical ship in the main canon story of said OCs. Also since AUs will be mentioned, if a specific sentence is wrapped with “*“ it means its a specific thing to the canon story and may not be consistent in AUs.

LETS GO

*Terra X Kayla*

My first OC ship so one of the ones closest to my heart. The serious-chivalrous X bubbly-princess kind of ship (Xena/Gabrielle and Lucia/Sumire are good comparisons). Terra sees Kayla as as an innocent woman that needs to be protected *though Kayla in reality is plenty capable of taking care of herself, and may not be as naive/innocent as Terra thinks*. Despite Kayla’s capabilities, Kayla fantasizes being swept off her feet by Terra as if Terra were a prince charming- but quickly learning Terra’s boundaries she does not force those fantasies onto Terra. Do not mistake Kayla’s damsel-esque fantasies to mean she would not protect Terra in return, if Terra is truly threatened Kayla is far scarier *and more powerful* than Terra could ever be.

*A lot of their developing relationship is them realizing that they both have severe scars from major points of their childhoods, that though both coped with it very differently, they are not so different in many regards.*

Kayla is very physically affectionate, at least having body-to-body contact, hand/arm holding, and if able, rubbing her face against her s/o. Terra’s affection is more aloof but shows her affection by wanting to at least be in the same room/space as Kayla, *craft/curate magical items/trinkets with Kayla in mind* and at times when lost in thought/focus sometimes ends up catching herself stimming via twirling Kayla’s hair in her hands. I could nonetheless see Terra potentially caressing Kayla’s face with her hand though less common.

More direct affection between them is show via kunik kisses (rubbing/touching their noses together), less so actual lip to lip kissing though it happens rarely.

Among the ship complexes they are one of the least sexual of the ships, though among the Terra related ships its the one where I could most likely see Terra having sex (despite Terra not being a sexually driven person); being that Kayla is extremely respectful of Terra’s set boundaries and Terra wanting to please Kayla best she can.

*Riivar X Demauria*

*Their relationship starts as an unofficial Royal X Guard relationship, even though it’s purely for the title and not cause Riivar needs protection*. Between Riivar’s very flirty sexually open nature, and Demauria’s tsundere-esque will-not-admit-she-has-high-sexual-drive/attraction nature, this ship is very sexually tense even though a lot of their starting relationship doesn’t even remotely have sex involved (Riivar doesn’t even make any sexual moves on Demauria as she does not want to make Demauria uncomfortable, rather it’s Demauria later on that makes the move).

Demauria sees Riivar as a tall powerful, confident, knows-what-she-wants-in-life person, and eventually seeks to understand how she came to be so *since a lot of Demauria’s character arc is about finding her drive/purpose in life*. Riivar sees Demauria as a small almost-child that needs room/space/resources and love to grow *though later in the story believes she is not the one that can give enough for Demauria as she feels Demauria has outgrown the need for Riivar*.

Riivar is very open and affectionate and is all about pleasing her partner however her s/o wishes, so as such tries to keep Demauria as comfortable as possible, and only pushes Dema out of her comfort zone is she believes it’s something of benefit to Demauria. Demauria in contrast is very closeted in her emotions, and struggles to regulate them; though she likes the affection she is prone to snapping at Riivar, as such she tries to be more aloof to avoid accidentally snapping at Riivar altogether, as she does not want to hurt the very person doing so much for her. It takes a long time for Demauria to open up and better manage some of her more major intense emotions.

Relationship-wise Demauria wants to try to take the lead but is often strongly outshone by Riivar though not intended.

Among the canon ships this is one of the ships I’ve wanted to drop canonization of; being that I struggle to read/predict how the two interact with each other, plus though unintended there is an accidental power dynamic between Riivar/Demauria that I don’t like (some of it is Riivar having more experience, some of it is that *the canon story has Riivar in the position of hero / good summaratin, which puts Dema in almost a child-like position*), despite my attempts to remove/nullify said power dynamic.

*Harriet X Anne*

This ship is relatively new as far as canon ships go and I keep beating around the bush when it comes to Anne (as a character and her motives etc.) so excuse the disservice of how short this may be for them. Chivalrous Prince X Princess, but in contrast to Terra X Kayla, the energy is reversed; Harriet is the more energetic/open “prince” while Anne is the more aloof “princess”. Probably the ship with the most pining of the 3 canonical ships; Both hold each other with utmost respect.

Harriet puts a lot of effort in treating Anne like a lady when she’s not treating her like a “partner” (non-romantically), which just absolutely squeezes Anne’s heart. A huge arc in their relationship is putting trust that they can help each other in their times of need, being both have a habit if shouldering responsibilities on their individual selves instead of taking the helping hand. I originally was gonna give Harriet a rivalrous energy with Anne at the start of their story, but Anne ended up becoming much much softer/gentler of a character than initially planned, so it became a gentle chivalrous/comradic energy towards instead.

 Harriet X Terra

One of the non-canon ships I think about a lot. I think a lot of it is my enjoyment for seeing Harriet’s feathers getting ruffled by Terra being very attractive in Harriet’s eyes w/o Terra even caring or doing any effort to be so. So yes, the majority of the variations of this ship are rivalrous, whether it is or not really depends Harriet and the context of the AU and how they meet.

In the DnD and MHW AUs for example, Harriet treats/sees Terra in a “broski” sense since they meet each other in a more socially null environment, while most other AUs (and for that matter even in the canon main story where they aren’t a ship) they meet indirectly while in their own social cliches, leading to Harriet to quickly see/treat Terra as a rival/nemesis, due to feeling Terra as a threat to her social/romantic spotlight. It doesn’t help either that Harriet likes to be the center of attention and Terra by no direct fault of her own has a presence that “robs” that of Harriet when the eyes turn to Terra instead.

Terra on the other hand sees Harriet dismissively at the start of their ship/non-ship stories, changing to either “an interesting person” when seeing Harriet’s skills/specialities/morals, or to “a loud nuisance” when Harriet is attempting to instigate competitions/fights with Terra. Later in said ships Terra tends to grow a respect for Harriet even though they don’t entirely play to the same tune.

Interestingly I think they’d both try to get along quicker if they both saw some of the similarities in each other; one being they both will risk their necks to protect other women in their somewhat chivalrous ways, the other being my not-officially-canon-yet-cause-hesitancy is both of them being Autistic (Terra leaning more to the what people expect, while Harriet is not what one would expect- but “how/why my OCs are/should be canonically Autistic, writtern by their creator who is also Autistic” is for a different ramble).

One thing I enjoy is thinking about the point of the ship where Terra may start to open up to Harriet and show her more vulnerable side (either out of long term built trust or out of bad luck / inconvenience if they are earlier yet in the ship) and Harriet being outright disarmed by it. Tbh a lot of this ship is Harriet getting disarmed by Terra in various ways.

 Kayla X Demauria

A ship I initially did not think of till a friend drew fanart of it, but has since become a nice one for me. Kayla’s bubbly friendliness/openness and Demauria’s cold angry/pissyness is a grand contrast. Demauria is a lot more aggressive with Kayla than with  Riivar (whether that being in the “make the first move” sense or actual behaviour) *which is a lil ironic if you learn towards the canon story where Demauria is actually scared of Kayla’s capabilities hidden under the warm smile*.  Despite Dema being the more “aggressive” one I like to think they are on equal grounds as far so “who make the first move” since Kayla is very physically affectionate.

Also while Dema is more closeted with Riivar even when they become a couple, I like to follow my friend’s headcanon that Demauria would be much more physically/sexually open to Kayla than she is in the Riivar ship.

While I don’t have much for ship AUs between the two compared to the others, my one favourite that sometimes comes to my mind is an AU of an AU; the College/roomates AU where they are crushing over Terra and Riivar only to instead fall for each other instead of their crushes during the time they try to pursue them (if you are familiar with the Toradora anime you will sort of know what I mean by that).

 Riivar/Abbey X Harriet

Do I mean Riivar or Abbey or do I mean a poly ship? The Answer is both, also it is categorized together as the results would be very similar whether it’s Riivar, Abbey, or both being together with Harriet. One word; SPICY! While Terra X Harriet is indulgent for me storywise/emotionally, this ship here is tbh is the steamy kind of indulgence and I both apologize and don’t apologize for it.

Harriet has a huge celebrity crush on Riivar (both canonically and in several AUs), and while Harriet never meets Abbey in canon I would like to believe Harriet would be just as weak for Abbey as she is with Riivar. Both Riivar and Abbey would find Harriet absolutely adorable and too fun to tease/please.

Riivar is all about giving her partner comfortable pleasure, while Abbey is more one to be a lil sadistic with her partner(s) liking to bite or give a lil pain to the pleasure if her partner allows. So unsurprisingly such a combo put upon Harriet is quite fun, as she can just crumble into a mess from so much as a pretty girl smiling at her, much less two VERY pretty/beautiful women going ALL-IN as far as seduction/flirtation goes.

As I said, this ship is VERY indulgent even if imo it is one of my shallowest ships.

   Kayla X Kal

 Almost forgot this one when posting but is one I CANNOT IGNORE; a ship between Kayla and my friend Shiro’s OC Kal. THEY’D BE SO CUTE TOGETHER AND IM GLAD SHIRO LOWKEY SHIPS IT TOO. Kal flexing her muscles to flirt with Kayla? Kayla absolutely losing it / swooning cause she is a woman who loves beefy ladies? YES PLEASE. Also Kayla being stronger than she looks catching Kal by surprise is a hella nice bonus too.

[todisturbtheuniverse]

FIC: Set All Trappings Aside [6/8]

Rating: T Fandom: Dragon Age: Inquisition Pairing: f!Adaar/Josephine Montilyet Tags: Friends to Lovers, Mutual Pining, Class Differences Word Count: 3800 (this chapter) Summary: After months of flirtation, a contract on Josephine’s life brings Adaar’s feelings for her closer to the surface than ever. It highlights, too, all of their differences, all of the reasons a relationship between them would not last. But Adaar is a hopeful woman at heart; if Josephine can set all trappings aside, then so can she. Also on AO3. Notes: While the context for this story is the Of Somewhat Fallen Fortune questline, some of the conversations within it didn’t quite fit for this Inquisitor. The resulting fic is a twist on the canon romance. This Adaar and Josephine have featured in other fics, so you may miss a little context if you haven’t read Promising or Truth-Telling, which both come before this one.

Chapter 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

"My company is not going to help you get out that door without Adaar, Lady Montilyet."

Josephine sagged back against Cassandra's door. It took a great deal of self-control to keep a scowl from her face. Cassandra hadn't even looked up from her book; in fact, her eyes were still scanning the page, the slightest hint of a smile at the corner of her mouth, as if whatever she was reading amused her.

"Surely your protection is equal to hers," Josephine tried, though she had a sinking feeling that this was already a lost cause. "Superior, some would argue."

Cassandra did shut the book now, one finger between the pages to hold her place. She looked up at Josephine with slightly narrowed eyes. "You have been trying to get out of this inn without her for the last three days. What is so important that she can't shadow you?"

Josephine considered her options. She thought the likelihood that Cassandra would repeat this conversation to Adaar was low; she also thought that she was more likely to gain some kind of assistance if she was honest.

And she needed the assistance. Cassandra was right. She had been trying, ever since Adaar's meeting with Minister Bellise, to escape the inn they'd rented for the duration of their stay here. She'd walked the streets of Val Royeaux plenty. She just hadn't managed to do it without Adaar.

She gestured to the empty chair at the room's rough hewn desk. "May I sit?"

Cassandra tilted her head to the side, eyes slightly narrowed, and nodded.

Josephine sat. "I had a gift made for Her—for her. The Inquisitor." She didn't think Cassandra had noticed the slip, but she pressed quickly onward regardless. "For helping me with this…mess. I need to visit the shop here to pick it up, but the surprise would be somewhat ruined if she was looming over my shoulder while I did that."

"Oh. I see. That is...thoughtful of you." Cassandra looked like she might say something else, but she shook her head instead. "Still, I stand by what I said. She will want to come along. It puts her mind at ease."

"Yes, I know. Believe me, I am not trying to make her uneasy. I only want to be able to thank her, but I fear that as soon as we receive word that the contract has been nullified, and I'm able to move freely again, she'll…"

She didn't need to finish the sentence; she could see in Cassandra's face, which was not exactly given to deception, that she knew exactly what Adaar planned to do as soon as this was over. Josephine wished that she—that someone, anyone—could convince Adaar otherwise. She sat at that table downstairs where she could see the entrances and exits from sunrise to sunset, and probably earlier and later, too. She looked more worn by the day, not prepared for another long ride and conflict waiting at the end of it.

"Will this merchant only release the gift to you, or would a proxy be able to collect it?"

"I suppose a proxy could." Josephine mulled this over, tapping a finger to her lips. "But it would be hard to pull any of our guards away from their duties. The Inquisitor would surely question—"

"A guard, yes," Cassandra said. "But not me." She snorted. "She'll think I went in search of another book, probably. I have not heard the end of this business from her." She tapped one finger on the cover of the book lying on the bed.

"You would…" Josephine's heart lifted. "Really? Cassandra, I would be so grateful."

"Consider it done. She has been very unpleasant to travel with recently. I did not realize how much I liked her jokes and stories until she became so...moody." Cassandra made a disgruntled face. "Hopefully this gift of yours will help return her to her usual self."

"I hope so, too." Among other things, Josephine thought. "I'll write something to the merchant, to explain. Laurine Boudet; she's on the Artists' Street."

Cassandra opened her book up again. "And I will go as soon as I've finished this chapter."

"Take your time." Josephine stood, feeling a hundred times lighter. "Thank you, Cassandra."

Cassandra only nodded, her eyes already traveling quickly across the page once more, and Josephine let herself out.

From here, at the railing that looked down into the lower level of the inn, she saw that Adaar still sat at that table. There was an untouched mug of ale at one corner, holding down one of the pieces of vellum strewn across the surface. She rested her chin on one hand, dark eyes downcast—maybe reading some of the reports Josephine had composed for her on the shaky political state of Orlais, or maybe trying, desperately, to stay awake. Once in a while, she stirred enough to look from one doorway to the next, then went back to her work.

Well, that was Josephine's next task. Once Cassandra was safely away, Josephine would lead Adaar in the opposite direction. Since she refused to rest, this was the only way that Josephine could convince her to step away from her post—well, after a fashion. It was more that her post moved, so she followed it. Josephine made sure to lead them only to shops where the entrances were few, and obvious, where Adaar did not need to have eyes in the back of her head to keep careful watch.

Josephine returned briefly to her room to dash off a note to Madame Laurine. She dripped wax on the folded paper, pressed her signet ring to it, and then left it with Cassandra, who waved away her thanks and went downstairs. She and Adaar exchanged a few brief words, but true to Cassandra's guess, Adaar had no issues with her wandering off on her own.

Josephine waited a few more minutes, watching from the railing. Adaar shuffled a few pieces of paper. Her hand rested on her mug, briefly, but she didn't drink. She tugged thoughtfully on the end of her braid, tied with a piece of simple leather cord. Small wisps of her hair—dark, but with a peculiar gray cast that gave it an interesting depth—had pulled free of the plait.

Josephine's heart ached for her. Ached for her weariness, yes, wanted to smooth away the furrows that drew her brows together, but also ached just for her. They hadn't spoken again of their relationship; every time they came close, Adaar found a way to steer them around. Still thinking, still weighing. Josephine, true to her word, had held her tongue.

It was hard, when new arguments occurred to her every day—every hour, it seemed sometimes.

But she had to be patient. Adaar's concerns were not without foundation. She had the measure of the world; she saw it clearly. There were people who would look at them askance: people Josephine knew in Antiva who would think that the level-headed Montilyet girl had fallen to flights of romantic fancy, as was inevitable, given her father's artistic spirit; people who saw Adaar as a tool instead of a person, and so would wonder how Josephine planned to use her; people who were too ignorant to learn the distinction between Vashoth and Tal-Vashoth and Qunari, who would think Josephine had become a puppet of the Qun. There had been whispers of that from the beginning, suggestions that the whole of the Inquisition was under the sway of some foreign power.

And Adaar had never cared about any of that before. Well, Josephine was sure that she cared; she just was very good at appearing as if she was above it all. Josephine had seen her keep a politely bland look on her face even while people stared at her, gawped at her, whispered behind their hands about her; even while visiting delegations to Haven and Skyhold had done their best to pretend that she wasn't in the room; even when their closest allies had treated her warily, had questioned her intentions. I've had thirty years to get used to those kinds of looks, she'd told Josephine once. I will survive.

It had eaten away at her while she survived it, though. How could it not? She enjoyed the friendship and respect she'd gained, but worried—understandably—that it could be taken from her, swept away as if it had never existed in the first place. As if she didn't have the right to it. As if she wasn't deserving.

Josephine would prove her wrong, given the opportunity. She'd dress her in a gown beautiful enough to complement, if not quite match, Adaar's own beauty. Drape her in some of the glittering jewelry Adaar had spoken of so flippantly, even if the look in her eyes had spoken of an emotion more like old, hopeful longing. Weave bright, lovely flowers through her long, lovely hair. Present her to the people Josephine knew would appreciate her, starting with her own family. Her brothers would admire Adaar's habit of hard work even as they sometimes shirked their own duties; Yvette would hang on all of Adaar's exaggerated stories, a perfect audience; her mother would meet Adaar's dry humor word for word, and her father would look on it all with an indulgent smile, as long as Josephine was happy.

And their friends, their closest social circle...no matter how gauche, those people attended the salons Papa put on himself; they were indulgent of Yvette's many harebrained interruptions. They might blink in surprise at their first sight of Adaar, but by the end of an evening, they would adore her. Not as much as Josephine adored her—that was impossible—but enough.

There were plenty of cruelties in this world, but Josephine would find some way to shield Adaar from them, to the best of her ability. If only Adaar would let her try.

She shook herself from her scheming and made for the stairs. In the meantime, she would do what she could to soothe Adaar's uneasiness, and pray that she would come around sooner rather than later.

Adaar looked up at her as she descended, a brief, slow smile spreading over her face, warming her eyes. Josephine's heart fluttered in her chest at the sight of it.

Adaar pushed out the chair across from her with her foot. "Coming to see me, my lady?"

Josephine sat, settling her skirts, tucking her ankles neatly against one another. "Who else?"

"Maybe you have urgent business with Bull," Adaar mused, glancing across to a corner of the tavern room, where Iron Bull and Dorian were in the midst of an animated conversation.

"I know better than to try to interject there," Josephine said, and Adaar chuckled. "I thought we might take a walk. There's a delightful seamstress just a few streets away. Beautiful fabric—silks, velvet, lace…my wardrobe is still woefully thin after Haven, and you ought to supplement yours, too."

"Me?" Adaar cast her a bemused look, eyebrows slightly raised. "What for?" 

There was a little wavy tendril of her hair that had fallen against her cheek. Josephine hated how tired she looked, but being a little mussed, a little undone, did suit her. As if she'd just woken up; as if she smiled at Josephine from the other side of the pillow instead of the other side of the table—

She tried to clip that line of thought before it could spiral out of control. "You look very dashing in armor," she said, and Adaar snorted, but she didn't look displeased. "But it doesn't suit all circumstances. There are more events of a social nature in your near future."

Adaar plucked at the collar of her leather coat. "Wonderful. I'm sure you've guessed this, but I don't think I'd feel comfortable in…finery. I doubt I'd look comfortable, either. There's just too many frills, and laces, and—"

"I promise you, this seamstress can make plenty of things that are perfectly comfortable. And elegant, but understated." Josephine eyed Adaar thoughtfully. "Many people wander the ballrooms of Val Royeaux wearing such exaggerated, fantastic pieces that the wearer is entirely overshadowed by them. That is not the goal, here. You will not be displaying frills and laces; whatever you wear must display you. Your power, your resolve…your beauty."

Adaar ducked her head, but not before Josephine saw her smile. "Flatterer. What do the courts care for my beauty?"

"Oh, they are blind to such things," Josephine said, flippantly, daringly. "But I have eyes."

Adaar gave a breathless laugh that sounded very sweet indeed. "Well, then. I suppose I have been talked into a walk."

Josephine grinned in triumph and was halfway to her feet when one of the guards trotted up to their table. "Message for you, Ambassador," he said, laying the scroll on the table. "Runner just came and went. And from Skyhold, for you, Inquisitor." He handed a second, much smaller, scroll to Adaar—the paper thin, the better to be carried by raven.

Josephine gave the scroll on the table a long look. She could feel her heart beating in her ears, beneath her ribs, in her stomach—a nervous, anxious drumming so much less pleasant than the flutters Adaar inspired.

"This is the seal of the House of Repose," she said. 

Adaar paused in the act of slitting her own scroll open. Her eyes darted to the missive. "Read quickly."

Josephine fumbled a little on the seal, but rolled the paper open, held it in her hands. The culmination of all her work, all Adaar's patience—she hoped. Maker, how she hoped. She hoped so much that she was nearly blind with it.

She read the words rapidly. Once through, and then twice, to make sure it was not a hazy daydream. She let out a trembling breath she had not realized she'd been holding.

"They confirm that the Du Paraquettes have nullified the contract," she said. "There's no longer a price on my life."

Adaar slumped back in her seat, a marionette with her strings cut. Josephine was quite tempted to do the same. She was so stunned that she was not quite sure she had arrived at relief yet.

"You're sure?" Adaar said, as though she couldn't help but ask. "It's not a trick, or a dupe, or…"

"It's their seal. Genuine. It's over."

Josephine steadied herself, trying to calm her racing thoughts, set them in order. She still needed to dispatch the new paperwork restoring her family's trading status; the couriers would have much less distance to travel this time. The arbiter still had to agree to uphold their earlier negotiations. 

But the worst of it…yes, the worst of it was done.

"I think I am so relieved that my fingers have gone numb," Adaar said—dryly, but a little faintly, too.

"That might be the exhaustion," Josephine pointed out. Just as she'd mentioned to Cassandra, just as she'd feared, she saw her window of opportunity closing, and leapt to hold it open. "I know you planned to set out again as soon as you could, but…might I convince you to stay in Val Royeaux, just for one more night? To celebrate?"

Adaar glanced at her over the scroll she'd just finished carefully prying open. Her hands were trembling a little. "Heard about that, did you?"

"I was not under the impression that it was a secret."

"It wasn't," Adaar sighed, bending her head to the page. "One more night couldn't do any harm, I guess. We'd only get a few hours down the road before we'd have to rest for the evening, anyway."

"Good. There is a lovely little restaurant here I think you'd like." Josephine lowered her voice. "The food at this inn is perfectly fine, mind, but we've had the same stew for three days."

A frown had appeared on Adaar's brow. Her eyes swept the flimsy page, back and forth, back and forth. "Yes," she muttered, but as if with only half a mind. "It's been sort of…lumpy…"

Josephine was so distracted by the thought of a candlelit dinner, free of worry—well, free of immediate worry—and daydreams of a moonlit walk afterward where she might present Adaar with her gift, and what reaction she might receive to it, that it took her much too long to realize that Adaar had stopped reading; that she stared frozen at the page like it had driven a blade through her ribs.

A cold shiver of dread touched Josephine's nape. "What is it?" she asked.

It seemed as if Josephine's words unknotted a spell; Adaar shook her head, lurched back from the table. She rose to her feet with none of her usual grace. "I have to go," she said, her voice rough.

Josephine stood, too, just in time to catch Adaar's arm as she moved toward the stairs. "Go where? What's happened? Has Skyhold…?"

Adaar looked down at her, her eyes—which had gone distant and unfocused, panicked—catching on Josephine's face. "Nothing like that," she said, though the fine shiver in her voice was not particularly reassuring. "No, it's Duskfield. A letter from Jana arrived after we departed. I have to go home."

She offered the scroll to Josephine, and Josephine took it, aware that the entire room had quieted, aware that no one was staring at them but that plenty were waiting, breath baited, for whatever news had so unsettled Adaar. The letter was in Leliana's elegant, compact hand, describing the plea from Jana: the bandits that had taken the village, her flight to Tantervale to beg help, the city-state's forces stretched too thin to respond quickly, to help…

I've sent word to my closest agents, Leliana had written. They will offer what aid they can, but I thought that you would want to know.

Josephine knew that Leliana's closest agents could not exactly be close. The worst of the rifts, the fighting, had not yet bled over into the Free Marches; the Inquisition had only the lightest of presences there. And Duskfield, while close to Adaar's heart, held no real strategic importance as a result.

Leliana's intention was clear: she would not waste time by sending no one at all, but she had notified Adaar so that she could go herself.

Josephine looked from the page to Adaar's troubled, frightened features. "I will go with you," she declared.

For a moment, Adaar didn't react at all; then the furrow in her brow deepened. "Josephine—it will be—"

"Dangerous. I know. I said I would go, and I'm going." She put the scroll back in Adaar's hand.

Adaar's fingers curled around it automatically. "That was when we'd planned a leisure trip—I wouldn't hold you to—"

"I can help," Josephine said, making her voice firm, squaring her shoulders. "These are not rifts and demons. They are people. Perhaps they can still hear reason."

Adaar gave a broken, hopeless laugh. "You do have a way with words, I'll give you that, but it doesn't sound like these people do. It might come to bloodshed, anyway. Then what?"

"Then I will keep your old friends and neighbors calm and quiet and hidden while you do your work," she said. "And I know that you will not fail, so I will be perfectly safe."

Still, Adaar hesitated. Josephine could see the conflict all over her face. Josephine had just been safely delivered from mortal danger, and now she demanded to ride right back into it. Unnecessarily, in Adaar's opinion.

But Josephine had just proven, too, that she could unknot an elaborate problem with words and promises. With a little help, and a little time. And this did not sound like nearly so elaborate a problem as the one that had just come unknotted.

Josephine told herself to be bold, and lifted her hand from Adaar's arm to touch her cheek instead. Adaar's eyes flicked away from her and back again, as if to warn her that there were others here, others who might talk about this little scene later.

A voice made of silverite within her said, Let them.

She would begin now to prove to Adaar what she had promised. That she did not care, and would not change her mind. That if this place, these people, were important to Adaar, then they were important to her, status or strategic importance entirely aside.

"You risked much to help my family," she said quietly, for Adaar's ears alone. "To save me. I could not live with myself if I didn't help you when you needed me."

Adaar looked at her now. Her, and only her. "There is no debt between us. There is nothing to repay."

"I am not speaking of debt," Josephine said, so that Adaar could not misunderstand her.

Adaar held her gaze a moment longer, then nodded, the motion brief, her eyes closing. "Thank you."

Josephine let her hand fall, and did not linger to long on Adaar's acceptance. She did not want to give her the opportunity to change her mind. "We should travel light, I think. Light and fast."

Again, Adaar nodded. When her eyes opened again, the overwhelming emotion that had briefly brimmed there had banked somewhat. "None of the guards. Cassandra, Bull, and Dorian only."

"Finally, I will get a chance to see how you usually travel," Josephine said, teasing, hoping to lighten the burden on Adaar's heart just a little, and she was rewarded with a shaky smile. "Without all of this pomp and ceremony."

"You might regret that later," Adaar said. "Cassandra complains about the horses whenever the slightest opportunity presents itself, and Dorian complains about the cold whenever there's the slightest breeze, and Bull winds them both up for fun."

"But we usually have fresh roasted rabbit for dinner," Bull's voice said cheerfully from the other side of the table. "Where we heading, boss?"

Josephine knew that he had likely overheard everything, and Adaar obviously suspected it, too. "East," she said. "If you're willing to help with a personal errand."

"I, for one, love personal errands," Dorian put in.

Adaar rubbed at her temples. "All right. As soon as Cassandra returns…best pack up. I want to use the daylight we have left."

Josephine was grateful that she'd approached Cassandra an hour ago. She hadn't known how close she'd come to being unable to collect the gift at all. She mourned the idea of that candlelit dinner, the moonlit walk she'd imagined along Val Royeaux's waterfront, but she let the daydreams go.

She would find some other way.

[gunnerpalace]

In your opinion, what zanpakutos did you think were the most unique or interesting? And which zanpakutos do you think could have had the most potential? While I'm not a big fan of soi fon, i think her zanpakuto was really interesting.

I think Rukia’s is the most interesting because it relies on a physical constant and a set of defined zones of control, and also likely one of the strongest. (It should be able to completely nullify Yamamoto, who was always stated to have the absolute strongest one.)

A lot of them (e.g., Soi Fon’s, Shunsui’s, Shinji’s) seem really gimmicky and niche, and a lot of them (e.g., Ichigo’s, Renji’s, Byakuya’s, Yamamoto’s) seem really generic and can become basically whatever the plot demands. The ones that are “just one thing” tend to either woefully underpowered (e.g., Sajin) or woefully overpowered (e.g., Aizen’s). The gimmicky ones seem initially more interesting, but they only get shown off a handful of times and rarely work out as advertised because… because.

I think one of the few things I liked about TYBW was Rangiku and Toushirou working together to basically make spaced pykrete, but then it did nothing, so it was kinda pointless.

The degree of variability they have kind of annoys me, actually, since their powers can be “basically anything” and it results in really weird power-scaling issues when combined with the fact that ones introduced earlier are obviously weaker and have to be gradually buffed as time goes on (Renji and Byakuya being the clearest examples.) I just don’t really get excited by the powers, to be honest. Their implementation strikes me as superficial and lackluster compared to something like One Piece.

That said, I would agree that Soi Fon’s shikai is interesting because its rules are exceedingly simple and it’s an all-or-nothing kinda deal. Very few of them are set up like that, so it’s rather refreshing. But it doesn’t work if she’s fighting someone much stronger than her so it again comes across as kind of pointless.

[recentanimenews]

KonoSuba Movie: Legend of Crimson – Megumin’s Homecoming

First of all, it’s been some time since I’ve seen Kazuma, Aqua, Megumin, and Darkness in their original non-chibified form, so it’s a rare pleasure to see them in their regular proportions and setting. KonoSuba’s twenty episodes proved you can make an often over-the-top isekai comedy with genuine heart.

If you liked the TV show, you’ll love the movie (as I did), which delivers more of everything. Though it contains roughly a half-cour’s worth of story, the ninety minutes just breeze by. Officially a sequel to KonoSuba 2, we return to Kazuma’s party’s mansion, where notoriously involuntary loner Yunyun has an unusual request: she wants—nay, must—make a baby with Kazuma. She comes to this belief upon receiving a letter from her father, Chief of the Crimson Demon Village.

While that letter turns out to be a work of fiction written by one of her academy classmates, Yunyun is nevertheless compelled to return to her hometown to help fight the forces of the Demon King. Megumin and the others decide to follow her, and rely on Iz to teleport them there.

Unfortunately, they end up far from the village, and in the midst of a stampede of rabidly horny she-orcs (there are no more male orcs) after Kazuma. After Yunyun’s request, this marks the second instance of Kazuma being entangled in romance (for good or ill) which he comes to call his “popular phase.”

What better way to learn more about Megumin than to visit her home? Turns out she’s hardly an anomoly, the town is nothing but overly-dramatic chuuni dressed in cool outfits with an emphasis on reds and blacks. The orcs are scattered by their overwhelming offensive magical power, a quality Megumin also shares with her clan.

Megumin’s parents are each eccentric in their own ways, while her little sister Komekko is adorable as all-get-out. Her family is poor, so the moment her parents smell money on Kazuma (he’s in the process of a 300m-Eris deal with Vanir to sell his memoirs), Kazuma finds himself at the mercy of a mother who wants to pair him with Megumin with all due haste.

To this end, she locks Kazuma and Megumin (sleeping due to a recent Explosion) in a room together. She comes to when he’s about to kiss her after much hand-wringing about how to proceed, and she escapes through the window to spend the night at Yunyun’s, fearing further lecherous advances.

The next day, Megumin shows her friends around the village, including to her and Yunyun’s (very Hogwarts-y) magical academy. We learn that when goblins attacked Komekko, Yunyun sacrificed her amassed skill points to repel the enemy. Because Megumin hesitated, that meant she was able to preserve her points and attain Explosion magic she cultivates to this day.

Megumin finds herself locked in her room with Kazuma again, this time by ice. Kazuma assures her that he won’t do anything, and offers his apologies as well as thanks for all the things she and the others have gone through with and for him.

It’s a very nice heartfelt scene, and Megumin even ends up clinging to Kazuma under the covers, commenting on how he’s really a “wimp” when it comes to making a move. Unfortunately, their tender moment is interrupted by the return of Sylvia, the voluptuous Demon King who leads the attack on the village.

Kazuma managed to scare her and her goblin army off with bluster earlier, but when she learns he’s not really Mitsurugi of the Cursed Sword, she takes him hostage…and Kazuma lets it happen. First, because it’s more proof of his Popular Phase; second, because it’s comfy between Sylvia’s boobs; and third, he has an ax to grind with his comrades regarding his treatment.

Kazuma accompanies Sylvia to the Crimson Demon Village’s underground storage facility, and inadvertently unlocks the chamber where Mage Killer, the one weapon he can’t let a demon king get ahold of, is stored. While he doesn’t intend to make things worse for the village, Kazuma’s so out of it he doesn’t realize punching in the classic cheat code on the Nintendo-style control pad would unlock the weapon.

He manages to lock Sylvia in the chamber, but once she has the Mage Killer and absorbs it into her artificial body, she blows the entire facility to kingdom come, then heads to the village to start blowing it up. Megumin leads Kazuma & Co. to more underground caverns, where they find Japanese carvings that explain the origin of the Crimson Demons, and why they’re so “pretentious yet nerdy”

Turns out their culture was basically created by another Japanese man sent there by the goddesses. He also built the Mage Killer, but also created a countermeasure for it: something he tentatively called “Railgun” that Kazuma previously noticed being used as a backyard clothesline in the village.

When Crimson Demons march out to defend their town, Sylvia engulfs them in an “Ancient Dispel” field that nullifies all of their magical power. They’re “saved” by a suddenly cool and confident Yunyun, finally taking up the mantle of her father the chief and luring Sylvia away.

Turns out she’s acting as a lure to bring Sylvia in firing range of the Railgun. Aqua fills it with magial energy, but it still fails to fire. That’s when Megumin unleashes an Explosion meant to his Sylvia directly, but is instead shunted into the rifle, which her little sister Komekko then fires.

Sylvia is killed, and ends up in the same place as fellow defeated Demon Kings Verdia and Hans. She merges with them an is resurrected into a huge, bizarre four-legged beast. Turns out her old comrades Wiz and Vanir have arrived in the village on an unrelated errand, and join in the fight, but even they are barely able to keep Sylvia at bay.

That’s when Kazuma decides to use his Popular Phase for good; by appealing to Sylvia’s innate need to be loved and wanted by somebody other than her adoring hordes of goblins. Kazuma, his luck boosted by Aqua’s blessings, is that person, and stands before her unarmed and ready to be taken into her arms…or tentacles…or whatever.

I never thought I’d empathize with a Konosuba villain so much, but Sylvia turns out to be one of the most dynamic and sympathetic of Demon Kings KonoSuba has served up. Her feelings, and specifically her romantic longing, isn’t entirely played for jokes, but portrayed as a very human side of her that turns out to be the Achilles Heel Kazuma must betray her heart to exploit.

He succeeds in gaining her trust and becomes one with her as Wiz gathers the magical energy from all of the villagers and transfers it to Megumin and Yunyun, who combine their powers to unleash a gargantuan Explosion beam that, combined with Kazuma breaking her heart, destroys Sylvia and ends the threat to the village for good.

Back home in Axel, Kazuma receives a hero’s welcome, proving his Popular Phase still has a bit left in the tank. While having a picnic with Aqua and Darkness, Megumin asks Kazuma to allow her to learn advanced magic, setting aside her Explosion magic so she can be of greater use to the party.

Kazuma may have long railed against her utter lack of versatility and durability in battle, but spending so much time in close quarters with her and meeting both her family and the villagers who shaped her, Kazuma suddenly isn’t so quick to deprive her of her “Explosiveness”. Whatever he does to her skill card, she’s still able to cast a beautiful Explosion that creates a heart-shaped cloud. And for that, Megumin is happy.

Did Aqua and Darkness get the short end of the stick in this movie? Perhaps, but that meant a lot of great development for Megumin, Kazuma, and their unique bond. They may get on each others nerves at times, but at the end of the day they’ll always be there for each other: Megumin blowing up something that needs blowing up, and Kazuma carrying her home on his back.

It’s quite simply KonoSuba at its absolute best, firing on all cylinders with confidence, comedy, and chemistry. My main gripe with this movie is that it makes me long that much more for KonoSuba 3!

By: sesameacrylic

[tetrakys]

Trois Allumettes - Chapter 1

What if Lysander never attended Sweet Amoris and he and Candy met for the first time in college? Starts between Episode 3 and 4 and will rewrite each MCL UL episode with Lysander as the main route.

“Ugh! This tuna sandwich sucks!”

It was just another Tuesday afternoon. Rosa, Chani ed I were having lunch in the dining hall.

“We both know you are going to eat it anyway” I laughed.

“You know what, Candy?” Rosa said pensively while biting into her sandwich “You look really tired. Is everything okay?”

One of my friend’s most charming qualities, she never beats around the bush.

“Everything is f-fine.” I said yawning “Yesterday I stayed up late watching a horror movie.”

“Oooohhh which one?” asked Chani, eyes shining with interest.

“Just a crappy one about a haunted mansion I found on Netflix. It was really bad but I was hooked and had to know how it ended. It freaked me out though.”

“I know that one” said Chani “it isn’t scary at all.”

“Of course you would say that.”

“It really isn’t” she added passionately “haunted mansions are not scary, they are really fascinating, all that mystery and the amazing ancient architecture… you would know it if you came urbexing with me. Tonight I am going back to that amazing place I told you about.”

“Uhm… no thanks.”

“Also” she added “that movie is very inaccurate, ghosts are not evil. They are just lost.”

“I can see how being lost for a few hundred years could make anyone grumpy” I said smiling.

“Oh crap!” we both turned to see Rosa looking at her watch “The keys! Sorry girls I have to run, I’m so late. I have to meet with…” she stuffed two sandwiches in her mouth and mumbled something we couldn’t understand while running towards the door.

For a few moments we both stared silently at the door where she had just disappeared, then Chani turned in her chair and said “You know what would be really scary? Being late for Mr Lebarde’s class.”

We both rushed to finish our meal.

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////

It was a cold windy night, I was coming back from the gym after one of my sporadic and exhausting work out sessions and, thanks to Kim’s drill sergeant ways, I was feeling sore everywhere. I couldn’t wait to have the shortest shower ever and jump into bed with a box of cookies, effectively nullifying all my hard work.

I was just about to open the dorm door when I heard a strange noise from the right side of the building. I looked around. Like any weekday night, the campus was basically desert. It had rained earlier that evening and a eerie mist surrounded the large open area. I really don’t like this… I thought. Last time I had heard a strange noise out there it was just Nath with a girl. Trying not to focus my thoughts on that scene, which was still quite upsetting, I headed back towards the door.

I heard it again. All of a sudden my conversation with Chani from the a few days ago came back to mind. Ghosts are not evil, they are just lost… No! Ghosts do not exist! I blamed my freakout on the stupid movie I had watched the other day, never again I was going to watch horror movies late at night.

To prove myself brave I headed towards the source of the noise, it seemed to originate from that little black door that lead to a basement at the back of the art department. With steady steps and led only by the moonlight, I made my way to the building. I was just about to grab the handle when I heard the noise again, louder than ever. The door suddenly opened with a bang and a tall dark shadow emerged on the doorway.

I ran to my room without looking back.

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////

“OMG that’s just too funny!”

Sometimes Alexy could be really annoying.

“Quit it! I’m not joking, it was the scariest shit I’ve haver experienced.”

We were having a drink at the Snake Room and he was laughing his ass off without a care in the world.

“Yes Alex, stop teasing Candy, she looks quite upset” said Priya, patting me on the arm.

“Thank you!”

“Even though…” she continued cautiously “you should admit that a ghost is not the most plausible explanation.”

“Why not?” Chani interrupted “ghosts are perfectly natural. We are made of both flesh and spirit, some of us just stick around a little longer than what our perishable bodies allow.”

Alexy started laughing even louder.

“Come on Chani, do you really think that a dead guy would waste his time haunting a deserted dusty storage room? Personally, if it was me, I would set up home in the male locker room.”

“It could have been a girl, you know?” said Priya “and we have no idea what’s in that room at the back of the art building, anything could be going on there.”

“Nothing is going on there” I said “I went back in the morning. The door was locked and I found no indication of anyone ever being there.”

It wasn’t totally true. I did go back in the morning when lots of sunlight and passerbys felt like the best shield against whatever I had seen the night before. The door was indeed locked but I found a piece of paper lying on the floor that I didn’t think was there before. It was a page from a notebook where a poem was written in an elegant and slightly ancient-looking handwriting. For some reason I didn’t feel like sharing this detail with my friends. It may have had nothing to do with my ghost anyway.

My ghost… that sounded ridiculous even in my head, but I didn’t know how else to explain what I saw.

“I am going back there tonight and will get to the bottom of this!”

“Please let us accompany you, I hadn’t laughed so hard in days, we are all going back to the dorms anyway” said Alexy while we all got up and put our coats on.

This was secretly what I was hoping for, and the real reason I had brought up the incident in the first place. Strength was in numbers. Alexy wanted to get a good laugh out of the situation, Priya was the voice of reason and Chani was just interested in anything mysterious.

“Too bad Rosa was busy tonight, she is going to miss a real ghost hunt” he sniggered.

“Quite fitting” said Chani “it’s almost Halloween.”

Once on campus we made way to the dorms. The place was again desert.

“So… where is this haunted broom closet?” Alexy joked.

“Right over there” I pointed to the back of the art building.

“I hear no gruesome sounds”

“I know…”

“No scraping of chains”

“I know…”

“No dying screams”

“I know…”

“No…”

“Enough Alex” Priya said calmly “stop tormenting Candy, she feels enough mortified.” She turned to me and added “Don’t worry Candy, this place is dark and the wind is so strong, anyone could…”

Whatever she was going to say was cut off by the noise. Everyone froze. We looked at each other with wide eyes. Ah! I wasn’t crazy, this time I wasn’t the only one who heard it.

“What the…” said Alexy.

We heard it again, louder. It was a metallic sound, it did remind a bit of rusty chains scraping the floor.

In that moment three things happened almost at the same time: with the same loud noise the black door burst open and crushed against the wall, the tall dark figure raised against the doorway more imposing and majestic than ever, and a piercing scream split the air.

“You were right I would have never been able to open this rusty door by mys… Guys? What are you doing here? Alexy, why are you screaming like this?”

Rosa rushed out of the building and ran towards Alexy who was crouching on the floor with his head in his hands. He looked up when he heard her voice, a moment passed where he seemed to pull himself together, got back to his feet, dusted his clothes and said with a too-bright-to-be-real smile

“Ahah I was just teasing Candy, she has been telling everyone she saw a ghost here yesterday. It was you all along, great prank Rosa.”

“It was me, actually.”

A deep voice said from behind Rosa’s back. We all turned towards the door to see a tall man step into the light. He had slightly long hair of different shades from white and grey to dark, and the most beautiful heterochromia of the eyes I had ever seen, one golden brown and one deep green. He was wearing clothes in what looked like a gothic or Victorian style, a long black coat and a dark green cravat at his neck. He was… striking, and he was looking at me with those unsettling eyes.

“Guys, this is Lysander, Leigh’s brother.”

Everyone got out of their stupor and started saying hi and giving their names. I felt like my tongue was tied.

“He just moved in town to study at Anteros, he stayed with Leigh and I for a few days while the university sorted the mess they made with his dorm room. The idiot admin officer apparently mixed up his documents and assigned it to someone else.”

“What are you going to study, Lysander?” asked Priya with a smile.

“Poetry” he simply replied.

“He is doing his fifth year specialising in poetry, he has a real talent with words.” Rosa replied proudly patting his back.

“And what have you been doing in this building at night?” asked Chani curious.

“He is collaborating with the music department as a lyricist, they do lots of rehearsal at night, as I said he is really talented.” Why was Rosa talking in his place? If he really was so talented at putting words together he apparently wasn’t as much at expressing them. Also, why did he keep staring at me?

“Okay, good, mystery solved. I’m going to my room. Nice to meet you Lysander” Alexy said walking towards the dorms still looking a little unsettled.

“I have to go too, I just came to bring a few stuff my dear brother in law forgot” she said laughing “I swear Lysander, if your head wasn’t on your neck you would lose that too.”

“I am going to the library, goodnight.” Chiani waved and walked away.

Priya, Lysander and I headed to the dorms together.

“Well, this is me” she said looking at me a little apologetically, I had totally forgot her room was on the ground floor! “Nice meeting you Lysander, see you tomorrow Candy, goodnight.”

Lysander and I were now alone in the deserted hall of the dorms. I felt really awkward, why was I feeling so awkward? I pushed the elevator button, a part of me hoping he also had a room on the ground floor, but no, he was waiting right next to me. At some point the doors opened and we got in. I pushed seven and he pushed nine.

Was this the longest elevator ride in history? The silence was deafening. I was rummaging through my brain trying to find something, anything to say when, to my surprise he spoke first.

“I’m sorry.”

“W-what?” I stuttered.

“For yesterday, for scaring you. It wasn’t my intention. The door of the basement where we compose is very old and rusty, it needs a good push to open up. I apparently applied too much force and smashed it into the wall. I must have terrorised you, like that in the dark… I tried to explain but you run away, I am really sorry.”

I felt heath rising in my cheeks, God I was such an idiot.

“No, I should be the one to apologise, for acting like a child and thinking you were a…”

“A ghost?” he said and smiled. He actually smiled and it was… enchanting.

“I admit that’s pretty funny” was he teasing me? “but Casper was one of my favourite movies when I was a child so I’ll take it as a compliment.”

The elevator doors opened and, with a mental shake, I stepped out of the elevator mumbling a goodnight.

“Candy?”

I turned around surprised.

“See you around” he said with a small smirk on his lips. The doors closed, hiding his beautiful face.

Wow… I had so many questions. Who was this guy? Leigh’s brother yes but… where had he been all along?

And that intense aura surrounding him… those incredible and slightly sad eyes… I was intrigued and wanted to know more. Much more.

See you around he had said, I smiled a little.

Looking forward to it.

////////////////////////

Go to Chapter 2

[littlemissgeek8]

Okay I just wanted to say I love your dnd art like so much!! It’s amazing!!! If you don’t mind me asking, can you summarize what you’ve done in your campaign with Jemima Appleblossom so far? She’s so cute and I would literally die for your PC

Aww!! Thanks! It’s always a joy to run into people who likemy characters! :3 I can totally give you a summary of our campaign thoughunfortunately it is 30 episodes atthe time of writing, with 31 going up later today, and I was unable to shrinkit to a reasonable size. I’ll put it under a cut to save on people’s dashspace, and I’ll also put links here for the youtube playlists in case there’sanyone who’d like to watch it instead of just reading about it. XD And for anyone interested in the series, this recap will catch you up in time for today’s episode to go out!

For those not wanting to read through all 8,930 words ofthis, TL;DR: “Ragtag group of adventurers get pulled into another world wherethey find themselves rubbing elbows with gods, fighting monsters, makingfriends, reviving demigods and unwittingly unleashing some massively dangerousthings onto the planet. In between accidentally dying a few times.”

[Ghostwolf] [EscoNitz] [CriticalHat]

Well, we started off in Parnast, sent by our individualfactions to investigate a missing wizard. My halfling bard Jemima is a Harper,same as our other bard, the human Gineye. Our other party members included Lei,the Tortle Paladin, Zuradar the Tiefling ranger, Lilystra the half-orcbarbarian and Zareem, the Aasimar warlock (who works for the Zhentarim, theonly other faction I remember.) On our way to find the missing wizard, we raninto a bunch of Kobolds who attacked us, but one Kobold --with distinctivewooden legs and one arm-- was trapped inside a cart by his own people and gaveus some assistance. When we finally found the wizard he was in the process ofsummoning something that turned out to be a Water Weird, which subsequently atethe whole party, ending the first session.

We woke up a week later inside an infirmary, which we soondiscovered was in an underwater city—the water weird didn’t just eat us, ittransported us basically to another dimension far away from Faerun. Seeing usas adventurers, one of the triton soldiers from the town we woke up in took us upto the surface to the port town of Audio Bay. (I might be spelling it wrong,sorry, I don’t have good notes this far back.) There, a dwarven merchant namedJonah gave us a quest to track down some missing gear that was stolen from him,a quest which lead us to a well with a Zhentarim symbol on it (surprisingly,since none of our factions exist in this dimension) and inside said well, weencountered a “dungeon” of a dubious nature filled with hobgoblins and bugbearsin leather armor and chain shirts. (Yes it was a kink dungeon, no I don’t wantto remember much about it. XD) After thoroughly stomping everyone involved, aminiscule orc calling himself “Bob” entered the room, shouting at us forhurting his people (whom he then revived with no effort at all.) We told him ofour mission and he agreed to let us take the stolen weapons back, along withgifting us a mysterious box filled with magic coins and a magical shield to ourpaladin. It wasn’t until later that we discovered that “Bob” was actually thegod of slaughter, not until after Zareem managed to roll a natural 100 and hithim with an eldritch blast.

As we left the dungeon, we were greeted by a pack of strangelooking wolves and a tall, blond man in a black coat who asked us to give himthe weapons we’d retrieved. He wouldn’t accept “no” for an answer, nor did wehave much time to try convincing him that we’d been assigned to collect thembefore our hair-trigger warlock decided to cast Charm Person on this newcomer.Unfortunately, the man was carrying a Staff of Charming and nullified the spellbefore it could affect him, before wildshaping into an earth elemental andproceeding to do his best to squash us. It wasn’t until Zareem and Zuradarmanaged to capture one of the “wolves” who turned out to be another druid thatthe man relented, changing back and calling off his friends. He admitted hisactions were hasty and together we traveled back to Jonah’s store with thestolen weapons, where it was revealed that the weapons were a special orderfrom the druid himself, Edan. In return for the weapons, Edan financed someupgrades for our group through the organization he works for (including a sweetring for Jemima which changes her vicious mockery from a d4 to a d6.)

The next day saw Edan taking us to an open air market on thedocks to shop around for supplies, before taking us to a tavern and treating usto lunch. (It was a pretty low-key session though there was a lot ofnon-story-important horseplay.) At the tavern we ran into the druids we’dfought the day before as well as a familiar face: Hanzi, the Kobold with thewooden limbs. While we ate, Edan mentioned that the druids, Hanzi and himselfwere all from Faerun originally and offered to let us join the organizationthey were working with when they went back to their base at the end of themonth. Shortly afterwards (after Jemima spent some time performing for thetavern patrons) Edan left the tavern, citing a “call” from his celestial parent(which Jemima immediately recognized, due to her own bardic master having beenan Aasimar as well.) Before they could pursue, the party was given a quest toinvestigate something in the tavern’s cellar, which turned out to be a wholeton of giant spiders (and a lot of screaming from Jemima) as well as a mimicwhich had taken the place of a box intended for Jonah.

As we returned to Jonah’s shop with his shipment, a heavystorm had started rolling in off the ocean, and after checking in with Jonah(and asking him if anyone would have been trying to kill him by sending him amimic) we headed out to the courtyard to find Edan standing by a scorched areawhere several lightning strikes had taken place. One of the lightning strikesleft behind a glowing orb that turned into a box which he quickly pocketed andrefused to tell us what it was, but we learned some troubling information aboutthe how though the portal we’d come through was a common occurrence, somethinghad interfered with it and kept his organization from closing it on time. Afterthings nearly came to blows between him, Zareem, Zuradar and Gineye, we allheaded off to prepare for whatever the next day would bring and eventuallysleep.

The next day was stormy again, but we set out with Edan anda few others to the docks, hoping to stave off whatever horrible thing wasapproaching the town from the portal in the ocean. Almost immediately, Edanflew off towards a monster out in the ocean, leaving us to deal with a largenumber of minor water elementals who did a good deal of damage before welearned we could destroy them by damaging the summoning circles they came from.Meanwhile, Gineye (with his Special Eyes) noticed “Bob” and several cloakedfigures watching the proceedings from the air nearby. As we defeated theelementals, a massive bolt of lighting shot from the storm over the ocean,right into the monster Edan was fighting, killing it and throwing Edan’slifeless body onto the docks nearby. Jemima tried in vain to use Healing Wordto revive him, only to be shut down by someone sending her a clear mentalmessage that she was wasting her time. Soon afterwards we found ourselvesfacing the same Wizard we’d been sent to find, who had merged himself with thewater weird. The battle was short and fairly one-sided as we all charged himbefore he could do much, eventually leading him to attack Lei one-on-one.Nobody’s entirely sure what happened but the wizard disappeared and Lei learnedhe could shoot a beam of radiant energy from his mouth.

That concluded, the realization of what happened to Edan hithome as a few of us tried to go over to him, only to be stopped by two of thecloaked figures Gineye had seen. One, a massive bugbear went to solemnlycollect the body, while the other (a skeletal form we couldn’t see well) tooksome glowing orb from Edan’s head before leaving. We’d managed to save thecity, but we’d lost a friend in the process. The next week was spent helpingthe city rebuild from the attack, though for Jemima it was a week of privatemourning and a grim realization that the fairy tale heroics she’d dreamed ofwere only a fantasy in the face of harsh reality. Then, we were called in toJonah’s again, only to find “Bob” sitting there, along with a large box and thedruids we’d met earlier. He gave us a mission we couldn’t really reject—travelwith Jonah and the druids to take the mysterious box to a town calledSylvenstand, checking in with a few towns along the way. When asked why hechose our group to do this, he admitted that we’d been specially requested, orrather Jemima had been requested for this job and it followed that everyoneelse would come too. In addition, Jemima was given three gifts—the owl-headedStaff of Charming that Edan had used, his bag of holding, and Bob’s holy symbolon her wrist as a sign of protection. And so, the group set off cross-countryto Sylvenstand in an enchanted cart with a box they weren’t allowed to touch(or let anyone else touch either, save for one contact they were told to meet.)

Their first destination was Flatol, where they were sent toinvestigate some reports of some strange goings on. This lead the party toinvestigate a crypt, one decorated with symbols and writing praising Orcus, andinside we found the necromancer that we’d been sent to find who almostimmediately trapped us into seeing our worst fears, but before anyone couldreally dwell on them, the Necromancer himself was murdered by the thingconjured up by Hanzi’s fear: a terrifying shadowy cleric. The battle thatensued was brutal, with us trying to defend against the cleric’s powerfulattacks or healing each other as best we could, but in the end the nightmarecleric was defeated. However, the cost of fighting him turned out to be Lei’slife, for the killing blow on the cleric sent our unconscious paladin into hisfinal death saves (Thanks, Zareem for not moving your Shatter spell somewhereelse.) However, instead of outright dying, a glow surrounded him, bringing himback but without his hard shell and with a much longer tail. The coins we’dreceived from “Bob” on our first meeting with him had each bonded with one ofus and this was the first time they’d revealed their powers: saving the bearerfrom death but bringing them back with a change or two.

We ushered our now semi-naked Tortle back to the cart andprepared to move on (though not until after a horrifying lunch in which ourTiefling nearly petrified several people with some of the dishes he’d made and did actually petrify himself for a shorttime.) Then, we moved on to Glens, the next town on our journey. TheNecromancer we’d run into had gone to Flatol from Glens and we were informedthat another necromancer had been in town as well, along with a frighteningbounty hunter who was hunting him down. Our search for clues turned up little,but as we all went to meet up in the town square, a huge hulking barbarianleaped down into our midst, wielding a massive axe. We weren’t much of a matchfor him, until Lei managed to grapple him, giving Gineye a chance to use a boltof petrification he’d picked up earlier. The Barbarian failed his save hard,turning to stone before our eyes, but as Gineye removed his hood, a familiarface stared back—Edan’s, thoughframed by dark hair instead of blond. Needless to say, Jemima didn’t take itwell, and we carefully moved the petrified man back to the cart to be restored.Before we left, however, the axe the barbarian had been using decided to attachitself to Gineye, revealing itself to be not only cursed but sentient as well.

A cleric who was currently traveling with us managed torestore the barbarian, and a conversation later revealed that he was not, infact, Edan. He introduced himself as Ivan the Lucky, a bounty hunter who hadbeen chasing down the necromancers we had run into, and he’d been working longenough to have a solid reputation, so the chances of him being Edan withamnesia or something was extremely low. However, we couldn’t let him leave asone of the jobs in our contracts was to investigate the grisly murders in Glensand there was a good likelihood he was involved somehow. So, with Ivan in towwe headed off to the next town, Crance, which was currently embroiled in arebellion of some kind. However, we had to stop there to meet up with acontact, and since we weren’t given a description of the contact we had tocross our fingers and hope we found him. A couple of men in a tavern claimed tobe the people we were looking for and agreed to come back to the wagon inexchange for some help with a situation they were in. It was only after givingthem the information we had and letting them inspect the box (which thankfullythey didn’t tamper with) that we found out they were not, in fact, our contact,but a mysterious half-orc in town might be. They were with the resistanceagainst the tyrannical government in the area and they directed us to a guardshack where the half-orc and some of their own people were being held.

Our group headed over there and found the guards to besurprisingly easy to defeat, and in the cells were a group of heavily injuredresistance fighters and one massive, angry owlbear. The half-orc however wasnowhere to be seen, until we headed to a room in the back. There, we found himstanding over the corpse of the head guard, pulling a knife out of thestill-warm body. The distinctive red teardrop tattoo on his face marked him asthe person we were searching for, since it matched the mark Jemima had receivedfrom “Bob” at the start of our quest. The half-orc, Grug, followed us back tothe cart to properly inspect the box and pay us for the tasks we’d alreadycompleted, but took an immediate dislike to the currently sleeping Ivan. Heexplained that Ivan was Edan’s Alternate—somewhat but not quite the same personborn in another dimension, though many differences in environment and home lifecan lead to wildly different characteristics, jobs and lives. He then warned usto keep Ivan away from the box, stating that it was dangerous to have himaround when Edan was in such a “weakened state.” Yet again, Jemima freaked out,demanding to know what he meant by that before Zareem completely stopped theconversation by boasting about how Bob approved of him b/c Zareem had managedto hit him. In a fit of rage, Grug dragged Ivan’s sleeping body away andunleashed a bunch of monsters on us, since pissing off a paladin by boastingthat you’d hit his god is probably the worst idea ever.

Once the monsters were defeated we raced outside after Grugand Ivan, finding Ivan yet again possessed by Gineye’s axe as he’d been thefirst time we fought him. After getting the axe back from Ivan (which sent thelarge barbarian back to sleep) we turned our attention to Grug and the animatedswords he was currently attacking our cart with. A few near deaths later, ourfight was interrupted by Grug vanishing and “Bob” appearing in his place,demanding to know what was going on. Thankfully we were in our rights to defendourselves and “Bob” admitted that Grug was overzealous and a huge problem forhim, but he was obligated to keep the half-orc around due to Grug’s familyconnections. Still, Bob fixed our wagon for us and decided to travel with us toSylvenstand, stating that he couldn’t just teleport there due to the nature ofthe place. A few days of travel later, we reached the woods surroundingSylvenstand, a dark frightening forest that seemed to twist and move around,confusing travelers who dared venture into it.

Which is when we ran into the dinosaurs. About halfway intothe forest we were stopped by a dead end and a voice demanding to know why wewere there. When we explained our mission, the voice told us we could only passafter it had “tested our mettle” upon which an allosaurus and a swarm ofdeinonychus showed up. The battle was surprisingly long, made worse by thearrows being shot from an unknown source deep in the woods. However, thedinosaurs eventually backed down, but not until after Jemima heard a veryfamiliar male voice saying the phrase “You can do better” before their woundswere healed. The fight over, we trooped back inside the cart, following theAllosaurus (named Sharp) to the secret town of Sylvenstand.

When we arrived, Jonah took the mysterious box away, whileour group accompanied by “Bob” went to a building built into the massive treein the center of town. Before we could turn in our quest, we checked in with aman at the front desk by the name of Eldon. It was he who finally explainedwhat exactly it was we had been transporting all this time—Edan’s body,magically preserved and warded to prevent decay so that a reviving ritual couldbe performed once his soul was reclaimed. Then, we were ushered upstairs intothe massive tree to an enormous room where a humanoid figure seemingly made ofwood or possibly completely encased in wooden armor sat. Seeing as it wastechnically her quest, Jemima was chosen to speak for the party, turning in theletter they were sent with as well as being given a bag of coin to be dividedamongst the team later. Lei’s divine sense however, picked up the massive amounts of divine energy comingfrom the figure in front of them, as well as noticing the oak leaf symbol onthe man’s chest. Though the contract said we’d been sent to report in to a mannamed Tay’rados, there was little question that the true originator of thequest was none other than Silvanus, the god of nature and druids himself.

After some impromptu shopping at a small bazaar in town, weheaded off to the temple district to meet with one Captain Taylor who wassupposed to be able to help Zareem with a mysterious mark he bore on his chest.Captain Taylor agreed to help on the condition that we spar with him, anexperience none of us were quite prepared for, as he turned out to be anextremely high-level paladin who was pulling his punches. Midway through thefight, having taken a decent amount of damage, Taylor grabbed Jemima beforereaching an arm into her bag of holding, coming up with a purple coin that she’dnever seen before (she’d been getting small trinkets including a bag of dragonbone from Edan’s bag over time, but never seen that coin in all her searching.)Again, Edan’s voice chimed in with the phrase “You can do better” as Taylor’swounds began to heal. In an almost uncharacteristic display of kindness, Zareemhelped her get the coin back and to keep Taylor from taking it again, Jemimadropped it down the front of her shirt with a glare. Then, taking the staff ofcharming she’d inherited from Edan, she stormed over and slapped him deadbetween the eyes, shouting at him “How dareyou touch my things?” only for Taylor to shout back “How dare you take mybrother’s things?” When the fight finally ended, she confronted him about thosewords, discovering that Taylor (who is, in fact, the real Tay’rados and thenext in line to take over for Silvanus) wasn’t kidding about Edan being hisbrother, and the coin he’d taken was an Ioun stone that Edan had obtainedduring one of his many travels. The voice she’d been hearing was simply theHealing Word spell he’d kept inside it being activated.

After our sparring match ended, Tay invited us to join himat the local tavern for drinks to celebrate Edan’s approaching revival, thoughnot before we returned to the large tree building to answer a few questionsabout the wizard we’d fought back in Audio Bay. That was where, after the armorthe wizard had worn attached itself to Lei, that the wizard hadn’t justdisappeared that day, he’d been stowing along in Lei’s brain the whole timewithout anyone knowing. He hasn’t shown his hand yet, but the eventual effectsof this are unknown. Then we trooped off to the tavern, Lei and Zareemintending to party and have a good time, Zuradar and Gineye picking a fightwith a time-manipulating satyr who’d magic’d away some of our gear earlier (wegot it back thankfully) and Jemima meeting a nice man who gave her a book oncreating a Guard Drake from dragonscale (which she conveniently had thanks tothe bag of bones and scales in Edan’s bag of holding.) The party lasted allnight, though most were passed out before it got too late, particularly Zuradarwho was the first out after he failed to seduce an elf lady two times in a rowand left to drink until he couldn’t remember anything.

The next few days were less eventful, mostly everyone havinga bit of downtime and resting up, preparing for the next phase of the revivaloperation: retrieving Edan’s soul from wherever it had ended up. The owlbearthat we’d encountered in Crance had been put into a crystal by Grug fortransport, and thanks to Eldon, it was healed (though it had to be magicallyde-aged to save it) and given to Zuradar as a companion under the name Pip.When the time came for the expedition to set out, Jemima made sure our team wasinvited, since she desperately wanted to be able to save Edan. The expeditionwould leave Sylvenstand through a portal that had been set up over the last fewdays, though the endpoint was unknown until the portal was actually opened,bringing with it a group of dimensional “police” who wanted to know why we hadopened a portal onto a plane known as “Lunacy.” Tay seemed visibly distressedat the mention of that location, but in the end we were permitted to pass,providing he didn’t come with us (astipulation he didn’t challenge at all.) Armed with a glass jar with a locatingspell cast on it, we headed off into Lunacy.

The jar lead us through marshy woods until we came upon ascene of grisly carnage. Two hags had been torn apart along with a shambling moundor two, and as we approached we saw the one who had caused such destruction: acreature seemingly formed of wood with a featureless wooden mask. Immediatelythe jar Jemima was holding began to glow and vibrate, but just as quickly thecreature melted away into the ground, causing the jar to go dark again. Afterwe were set upon by another hag (and discovered that the damaged Weave on thisplane made casting spells a risky chance that often triggered wild magic tohappen) we continued on, the trail having been picked up again by the jar.After some walking we came upon a small tavern, the inside of which was emptysave for a lone barkeep in fancy eveningwear. He offered to give us informationor magic trinkets, and explained that the creature we had encountered, the“Beastmaster” was keeping him trapped. Our whole party was sure it was a trap,with the notable exception of Zareem, who made an agreement to smuggle a blackshard out of the plane in exchange for a magic sword and an axe.

Thoroughly disgusted at our companion, we continued on untilwe came to another clearing. As Zareem dashed across the grass towards a gate,the ground turned into more shambling mounds which proceeded to attack theparty. Midway through the fight, a large bear with a wooden mask lumbered in,attacking the mounds with us. However, once the mounds were destroyed, the bearturned towards us instead. Jemima had already put together that the jarresponding to both the Beastmaster (whose mask looked shockingly likeSilvanus’s) and the Bear (one of Edan’s common wildshape forms) were somehowconnected to Edan’s soul and she was reluctant to fight until being remindedthat druids change back from their wildshape forms after losing all their HP.When the bear finally fell, it morphed back into Edan, before dissolving intodust with a cry of distress, causing part of the jar to light up. This spurredthe party forward, towards the next location. There they ran across Eldonagain, who had followed them into the plane. He was badly wounded butsurrounded by corpses, including one giant spider wearing a wooden mask.Another piece of the jar lit up as Jemima approached it.

Then, Gineye managed to spot something across a nearbylake—on an island in the center, strapped to a cross-like structure, was Edan,or at least his soul. Coming from his body were five tendrils, two of whichwere rapidly dissolving. Using the teleportation that he had gotten from a wildmagic surge, Gineye teleported over to the island and summoned his axe, usingthe soul-collecting power of the axe to free Edan by having him slice off thetendrils. Edan’s soul disappeared, along with the fragments in the jar and theBeastmaster across the lake, but as soon as he’d done that, a massive shapeappeared in the distance. Sensing danger, Gineye returned, driving us all torun with Eldon in tow, back to the portal we’d come through.

The giant creature, which revealed itself to be a Terrasque,chased us all the way to the portal, eventually parking itself right on theother side of the portal but very much within striking range should we try toescape. Then, it revealed itself to be the same person Zareem had made a dealwith--the one who had marked him with the symbol of Vecna—itself an old andpowerful Primordial. It offered to let us pass as long as we kept the guardsbusy enough for it to escape, since the plane was rapidly dissolving around usas the weave unraveled. We agreed, while secretly planning to alert the guardsonce we were through, and escaped through the portal. The dimensional “police”were on hand to help, and drove back the massive claw that came through, butdespite our efforts, a tiny portion of the creature broke off and disappeared.Still, we had what we had journeyed for and after relinquishing the axe to Silvanus,so that he could extract the soul, we nervously awaited the revival itself. Wewere graciously allowed to be present for it, and the process went surprisinglysmoothly for all the trouble we put in. Upon waking up, groggy and disoriented,Edan asked for his bag which Jemima unquestioningly returned. However, insteadof keeping it, he simply took out the wooden box from the month prior andopened it, revealing a deactivated Void card from the Deck of Many Things. Witha glare he turned to Silvanus, telling his father to try harder the next timehe wanted to kill him before storming out of the room (just in time for Gineyeto return from searching the town for a saxophone in order to serenade Jemima’sreunion with the man she was clearly crushing on.) Gineye’s return lead to anembarrassment-fueled brawl, culminating with the party members involved (sansZuradar and Zareem who had left to talk to Jonah again) waking up the next dayin the infirmary.

When the party reunited in the tavern the next day theyfound out about a list of jobs open to them, now that they had been acceptedinto Mantle, the organization based in Sylvenstand. The party was very excitedover an upcoming tournament (though Jemima had her eyes more on the Bardcollege which nobody even looked at twice) but Gineye demanded they go to thecapitol city Paplus first, upon seeing not only the capture of the resistanceleader they’d encountered in Crance, but also a name he recognized—Lord Darius,a man he’d known before we first met up who seemed to be somehow connected tothe scars Gineye hides under a porcelain mask. As we geared up to go, we askedEdan if he wanted to come along, which he agreed to do, as he wanted to get asfar away from Sylvenstand and his family as possible.

The furthest we could travel by portal was to Paplus’sneighboring town StoneHelm, a two day’s walk from Paplus. Once the journey byportal was completed, Edan took his leave, stating he would be taking the jobat the Bards college there, though the party (save for a heartbroken Jemima)were too busy making plans for marching order and cooking arrangements to evennotice. A days walk later, they set up camp, dividing the nighttime watch intoshifts. During the second shift, after Jemima had bedded down for the night atthe end of her watch, a group of drow appeared, demanding Zuradar tell them thename of the halfling in the nearby bedroll, and at her last name ofAppleblossom the drow attacked, easily subduing the sleepy party and cartingthem off.

We awoke in darkness, with our arms and legs bound, with theexception of Zuradar who had been inadvertently untied by his owlbear Pip, andZareem who instead found himself in a nice room as if he’d been invited as aguest instead of kidnapped. It wasn’t long before the drow returned, removingtheir blindfolds and walking them out of their cells to a large central roomwhere they saw Jemima trussed up and suspended over a fire, and a hooded man atthe end of the room. The man demanded Gineye be brought forward and demandedhim to take off his mask or risk Jemima’s life. Grudgingly, Gineye complied andthe man removed his own hood, revealing the face of a man Gineye had worked withbefore during a similar rebellion back in Faerun, Tiberius. Like many of the peoplethey’d met, Tai had found his way to this world as well and joined the currentrebellion due to his own curiosity at how similar it was to the one in theirown world, even down to the blonde lady behaving shockingly like Gineye himselfhad done. A betrayal from within their ranks had gotten her caught by LordDarius’s forces, and the traitor in question happened to be the reason theywere captured in the first place—they were searching for a young halfling manwith the last name of Appleblossom who was known to use polymorph spells withthe aid of an enchanted broom. Alternates again, the party realized as theygrouped back up.

As we had found our way not only to Paplus but the rebellionwe were supposed to aid, we found ourselves tasked with helping them take downsome high-priority targets. Namely, we were sent to investigate a guard house(since trying to talk a gnomish inventor into helping us without copiousviolence was sadly not anywhere close to our forte.) Inside we found no guardsat all, but instead a massive iron golem guarding the place which we wereforced to fight after the attempts to bluff our way past it failed. With sometricky maneuvering (and a hand grenade), Gineye managed to deactivate the golemand we entered the captain’s office. Our suspicions were on high alert when theguard captain’s voice didn’t quite seem to match his body, but before theErinyes possessing him could do anything, Gineye petrified the captain with acrossbow bolt, then shattered the resulting stone form to prevent the Erinyesdoing more harm.

By the time we returned, the other team had safely securedthe inventor who was currently very clearly possessed himself. After a gooddeal of fooling around and failed attempts at exorcism using the Command spell,Lei realized that as a paladin, he could perform the exorcism himself. With theinventor finally free of possession, he demanded we shut down the factory thathad been making the golems and mechanical enforcers for Lord Darius, butinsisted that we not harm Darius when the time comes for he was in fact, a goodman. The revelation that the revenge Gineye sought would be deflected by yetanother Alternate did not go over well.

So, we set off towards the golem factory with Gineye leadingthe charge, revenge still smoldering behind his mask. When we arrived, thefactory seemed deserted, but when the guard dogs that came out of a few nearbykennels turned into hellhounds, and an ice devil dropped in from above, werealized we were in trouble. The battle, though brief, was tough, painful andlikely made worse by the absence of help from Zareem (who spent all of his timeattempting to get one of the hellhounds to trust him in an attempt to keep it.)Meanwhile, the ice devil managed to get inside the mental world Gineye used toconverse with the spirit of his axe and begin to corrupt it, leading to Gineyebeing unable to get back in. In a desperate bid to regain control, he demandedLei kill him, hoping that the soul trapping powers of the axe would give him aback door and a chance to find “Axey” again before his coin revived him. With aheavy heart, Lei and Zuradar complied, using their own weapons to kill theircompanion.

Gineye fell, then disappeared, reappearing shortly afterwardsacross the room, but something was very much different. Instead of the cheerymask he wore, there was a more sinister one with a jagged smile and a sinisterred glow from his eyes. As it had several times before, the axe had taken overGineye’s unconscious body, puppeteering it into using all of its abilities toattack his friends. Hoping to somehow break its control, Lei, Jemima andZuradar threw themselves into combat while Zareem continued to ignore the fightand attempted to gain favor with the hellhound in the corner. Even aftercalling for help, Zareem didn’t join the fight, stopping only to retrieve anice spear that had fallen from the ice devil’s body and throwing it into a furnace,completing the job of destroying the factory that they had been given.

Meanwhile, inside his head, Gineye was locked in a battlewith a being that resembled a corrupted version of the mostly benevolent spirtwho had helped him for the last several weeks. Assuming (probably correctly,though no confirmation has been given on this point) that this was in fact thepower source of the axe, built from the many slaughtered souls trapped insideit, and having corrupted the actual “Axey,” he sought to free her from thecorruption. A few times her consciousness seemed to flicker, as if his attemptswere getting through, but he was running out of ideas. In one last desperate move,he pulled her into a hug, and when that didn’t work, he used the power of theaxe to summon two spears, stabbing them both through her back and into his ownchest, aiming for the coin around his heart.

Back in the real world, the spear tips manifested out ofGineye’s body before they and he vanished again, leaving only the axe behind.The party barricaded the factory and then rested, worried about their friendbut too battered and tired to leave (save Zareem who had done basically nothingthe whole fight.) As they were ending their rest, a figure began to crawl outof the axe nearby, eventually solidifying into Gineye, though mysteriouslywearing the dress his spirit friend had worn. Naturally the team had questionsbut Gineye was evasive and wanted to move on, stopping only to shoo Jemima awayafter noticing that her poking his leg was causing no sensation of touch.

Their mission complete and their party gathered, theyventured forth to return to the rebellion’s hideout, only to find the doorwelded shut and a trail of blood leading them towards the other door and an unconsciousTai. Thankfully his injuries were minimal, but Tai’s story was grim: during thetime they were away, the hideout had been attacked by the robotic enforcersthat Lord Darius was using, but during that time they had made contact with adivination wizard by the name of Monty who was also a transplant from Faerun,one willing to aid them in their cause. Monty had given them a tip, telling thatthe leader of the rebellion was going to be publicly executed the next day, whichhappened to be only hours away now. Together they went to the town square, nowfitted with a gallows and a horde of people gathered to watch the execution.

Something was very much off, however, as the party hid amongthe crowd, waiting for their chance to strike. The man introduced as LordDarius was a far cry older than the man Gineye had known, and something feltvery wrong about the whole scenario. Those feelings were proven right whenGineye was attacked by one of the masked enforcers and the cloak was knockedoff of the “prisoner,” revealing yet another masked enforcer. The crowd ran asour heroes found themselves surrounded by more of the metallic men. Having dispatchedhis own attacker, Gineye used his axe to create a rope and swung over to thebox with the elderly Lord Darius, soon after followed by Lei using his ownmisty step ability to teleport over.

Inside the box, while the old man may have been recognizedas Lord Darius to the crowd, behind him, hidden from the audience, sat a muchyounger man with a stony expression on his face. The same Lord Darius who hadscarred Gineye’s face. Gineye readied one of the many small powder keg grenadeshe owned, but before he could exact his revenge, the two figures flanking theyounger Darius revealed themselves—one, an arch devil and the other, a demonlord. The demon quickly whisked Darius away, while the arch devil took off intothe city, leaving a swath of destruction in his wake. Before long, our heroesfound themselves in the midst of a holy war, with hordes of demonic forcespreviously hidden in the town, rising up to fight an onslaught of paladins, clerics,and other warriors blessed by divine forces.

Flanked by Zuradar, Gineye ran after the arch devil that hadfled from the observation box, but quickly ran into a group of paladins andclerics who were also pursing the same target. Two of the group, marked by thesymbol of the Raven Queen, immediately took offense at Gineye’s existence, callinghim a “filthy undead” as one attempted to smite him with a lightning bolt. AsGineye protested the inhumane treatment (while the gaping hole in his chestproved their accusations correct) a paladin marked with the symbol of “Bob,”the god of slaughter they had met previous, came over and uppercut the one who castthe lightning bolt (said storm cleric looking shockingly like Zareem.) Thepaladin of Bob revealed soon himself to be in fact Grug, released from thepunishment he had been given by Bob, who urged them to leave before somethingworse happened.

The older Lord had been retrieved from the observation boxby the time Gineye and Zareem returned, but as they returned so did the archdevilwho Gineye had failed to catch before. Introducing himself as Bael, he demandedthe old man be turned over. The party refused, attempting to stop him throughcombat, but their efforts proved futile as he simply walked over and took whathe wanted, before disappearing. Through the use of a haste spell and his own paladinskills, Lei was able to track Bael’s movement back to the Lord’s castle, but itwas decided that the party should rest before continuing on. After a short rest(in which Jemima hounded Gineye for a while in regards to his new undeadstatus, one he couldn’t really deny when the gaping hole in his chest magicallypatched itself up) they trooped off to the castle, preparing for a confrontation.

Lord Darius was inside when they entered, Gineye fullyprepared to take him down one-on-one, were it not for the young noble killinghis older counterpart in front of the bard. Remembering the request from thegnome earlier, Gineye used a new spell, revivify, to revive him before whiskingthe old man outside to protect him. Then, as he returned, finally ready for hisrevenge, that moment was stolen from him as a dark shape appeared behind theyoung Darius, taunting the party before snapping his neck and summoning shadowsto attack our heroes. After having fought them once thanks to Grug, the partyknew how to deal with these shadows and the fight was brief, but by the timethey finished the shadowy creature had left, leaving behind the empty husk thatwas once Gineye’s most hated foe.

Gineye was all set to use his magic to revive or preservethe body, but the arrival of a man through a dimensional door stopped him. Itwas Monty, the diviner they’d been told about, who was more than happy to usehis magic to prove that even if Gineye preserved the body, there was no soulleft to revive him. However, Monty was able to speed them along on their waytowards finding the rebellion’s missing leader, as he directed them towards a dungeonarea that his scrying couldn’t see into—which must be the place as he couldfind her nowhere else.

Inside the dungeon lay a maze of traps, pitfalls andsentient doors who kept their rooms locked with riddles. Inside the very last doorin the maze was a set of stairs leading down to a large room, where a strange,sinister ritual was taking place. A number of cultists surrounded summoning circles,two of whom were wreathed in flame, the one in the middle conjuring up a domeof solid darkness. As stealthily as they could, the party slid closer, Gineyemanaging to make it all the way to a door on one side of the room where he cameacross a terrifying sight: the same exact cell in which he had been tortured.

Unleashing the full power of the axe, he demolished the cultistsin a single hail of swords, which left the summoned fire elementals free toattack at will. Again, the fight was short, the most notable event was Jemimadoing her best to attack one of the elementals with the rapier she’d beencarrying all this time—while forgetting that without magical properties to it,the enchanted fire could easily melt it. Rest in peace, rapier, you were loved.Once the fires died down (literally) the team set about investigating the roomand the dome of darkness in the center of the room. Sadly, efforts to dispel itproved fruitless so the party turned their attention towards a mural on thewall, one depicting a multi-segmented circle, each with a crowned creature carvedinside. After close inspection—including noticing that one segment seemed todepict the same tarrasque they had unleashed upon the world previously—the partyguessed the mural was related somehow to the cult they had encountered, worshippingprimordials from the different planes (each of the elementals seemed to bedepicted, along with ones that looked celestial and infernal.) Finally, theygave one last attempt to dispel the dome, finally breaking the spell with awell-placed arrow, but instead of finding the leader inside as they’d hoped,all they saw was a shadowy creature who disappeared in seconds, followed by hermagical cloak which Zareem kept for himself.

As they went to leave, who should they run into but Grug andthe same paladins and clerics from before? Gineye, remembering their reaction tohim, attempted to hide in the stairwell, but the storm cleric (who still lookedshockingly like Zareem) detected him with his own divine sense. As the partyrushed to protect him, Zareem himself squared up, drawing his sword anddemanding that the paladin face him instead. It only took one single mightyblow from the paladin’s mace to instantly kill the already injured Zareem. Therepresentatives of the Raven Queen left, telling the group to keep “theirundead” on a leash, as everyone tried to figure out what to do now. It was thenGineye posed an idea: someone should let him borrow a 3rd levelspell slot. His words were cryptic, but nobody had any third level slots leftafter the long day they’d had, so Gineye lowered it to a second level slot. TentativelyJemima offered him one of her second level slots, and Gineye in responseplunged his hand into his own heart, pulling out an axe and handing it to her,fading into the axe as his mask appeared on her face. From inside her mind, heused her body and magic to cast a spell to preserve Zareem’s body, before the groupset about a much longer rest.

About halfway through their rest, Zareem revived, his coinhaving activated—giving him permanent wings and a new set of powers. Gineye leftJemima’s mind and reformed in the physical world, and after a bit of foolingaround with him trying to mind-hop into Pip the owlbear’s mind that ended withGineye accidentally killing (and immediately reviving) the poor creature, the teamdecided it was time to move on. The war had died down across Paplus, and theirmission was over though at great cost. After delivering the news of the outcometo Tai, the team set off in search of a Gnoll paladin of Silvanus who they weretold had a scroll for them

What they found instead was a mysterious bar—the same barthey had encountered in Lunacy, still run by the extremely shady feeling manwho just so happened to sometimes be the primordial of Earth. Zareem andZuradar both asked to see what goods he was peddling today, leading to Zareemgaining a +1 chain shirt and Zuradar acquiring himself a +2 bow (for only twoof his hit dice, a total “bargain!”). Meanwhile, Jemima found the gnoll seatedat a table and retrieved the scroll from him. The man let them leave afterthat, noticing how uncomfortable the other three were, but with a reminder thatthey could find him if they only looked for him.

Outside the shady bar (which had mysteriously vanishedagain) they discovered that the scroll was a teleportation sigil, but one thatthey weren’t capable of activating. One person however, was, and it took only asingle utterance of Monty’s name for him to appear through a tear in reality,casting the spell that would take them off to the tournament.

After the chaos of a holy war and a rebellion all in thespan of less than a week, the gang was happy to have a chance to settle down andrelax. Once in the tournament building, they had to sign up, either in solo matchesor groups of 2, which lead to Zareem and Zuradar becoming a group (fittinglynamed Heaven and Hell), Lei and Jemima teaming up (as Swords and Chords) andGineye going solo (under the name “The Entirety of France.”) Then, with an hourto prepare, the teams wandered the building, discovering their old friend Jonahhaving set up a merchants stall there. Jemima immediately informed him of theloss of her rapier, relinquishing the melted remains. In return, he gave her asword he’d fashioned from some of the dragon bones she’d given him, a rapierelegantly combining master swordcraft with the sublime beauty of the naturalworld.

Geared up once more, the matches began. Zareem and Zuradarfound themselves heavily outmatched by a pair of orcs. After Zareemaccidentally hit the younger (and far more badly damaged) of the two with acritical hit poison spray, inadvertently killing the orc, the older and moreexperienced orc proceeded to knock both of them out. Jemima and Lei’s roundwent much smoother, against a lizardfolk and a man in a strange leather dusterwho carried what could only be referred to as guns. Despite the strange man’sapparent prowess with his weapons, he managed to score only one hit on Jemimabefore he was knocked unconscious himself, and the Lizardfolk surrendered soonafter.

Gineye’s match however was stranger still. His opponent wasa man who seemed to disappear shortly after the match started, stayinginvisible or hiding behind dust clouds the whole match, but doing significantdamage to Gineye in the process. Finally, angered, Gineye readied a crossbowbolt, striking as soon as he saw the man’s arm clearly. The petrification boltworked perfectly, petrifying the man and winning Gineye the match (though notbefore a contingency spell activated, using lesser restoration on the man whograciously conceded.)

After their match concluded, Gineye left to find his friendsin the infirmary (though only Zuradar and Zareem needed much attention.) In themidst of their conversation, the man he had just fought walked in, joining thediscussion of the fights he had witnessed. He introduced himself as James and extendedan offer to Gineye to meet him for breakfast at a specific tavern the nextmorning. Tired from their battles, the group headed out to an inn to rest. Itwas agreed that Gineye should go to the tavern to meet James the next day (sincethey might be more relaxed if it was just him) while the rest would return tothe tournament location to find out what was going on. The tournament itselfwouldn’t start for two days, and the actual matches were entirely team-based,but since Lei and Jemima both had passed their matches (as well as Gineye) theywere allowed to form a team and invite the two who had failed their matches aswell.

Gineye’s investigation only put him more on edge. Jamesseemed very eager to recruit him away from the others, even offering to “helphim leave” should Gineye need it, in a way that suggested assassination wouldbe involved. He also knew more than he should, particularly about the war inPaplus and how Gineye’s party had come through a portal in Paplus that shouldhave originated north of the town of Tance, the same as another group whoarrived recently (where, unknown to James, the hidden town of Sylvenstand waslocated.) Gineye played along as best he could, mocking his teammates and theirdecisions and offering to send a package later that day that might be useful toJames’ group. However, once he returned, he clearly wasn’t eager to join such ashady group, but instead had Lei send a package over to the tavern—one containingthe Axe Gineye had pulled from his own heart yet again. However, to his dismaynobody actually took the axe while he was there and in fact nobody was home forthe full day, leaving him to sneak out the next night with a pilfered spellbookand a sour mood.

Finally however, the day of the tournament arrived. The gangwas among the first to compete, finding themselves soon in a large arena packedwith thousands of onlookers. In the middle of the arena, a Kenku introducinghimself as Veo Elmwood was acting as the Emcee, introducing first our heroes asthe “NaCl Pain Delivery Service” and their opponents as “The Hands of Nature.” Theparty (and especially Jemima) were pleased to see Edan again, along with hisalternate Ivan, the ranger Alice (whom Zuradar had attempted and failed to seduceback in Sylvenstand) and Leafsong, the Gnoll paladin from earlier.

However, instead of a fighting competition as the party hadexpected, it was instead a series of games and tests of skill, each with a “firstto 3 points” system of one-on-one matches. The actual games were chosen by diceroll, with the first being a drinking contest. Gineye stepped up, certain hecould win with his undead constitution, even against his opponent Ivan, butonce again Ivan’s luck was on his side as he came back with three points toGineye’s two. Next, Jemima found herself face-to-face with Edan in a challengeof pure luck as they rolled dice, each hoping for a higher roll than theiropponent. Right at the last moment, when it looked as though Edan would scoreanother point for his team, Jemima caught a glow around Ivan’s hand for amoment as the dice flipped over onto a natural 1. Finally, it was Lei and Leafsong’sturn, a test of endurance as they were forced to withstand increasingly harderthrown rocks without crying out in pain. In the end however, Lei managed tohold out the longest, scoring another point for our heroes. And as we left themat the end of that session, they were preparing for the next round of combat: atrial by combat, forced by Ivan again using his luck to twist the die to his favor.

And there you are, thirty episodes summarized as best Icould, with deep apologies for not being able to condense it even further. Ihope you enjoy reading it, and feel free to check out our episodes on youtube!

[pudorfeco1977-blog]

I passed out, half way through. Fortunately no one was injured, but what did my Dad do? He stepped over me, and while I was still foggy and confused, spat in my face that he was going up to the house for a cup of tea, and I should let him know when I was ready to stop fucking around. Even after my diagnosis, after I showed him the copy of my tilt table test that showed my heart rate reaching over 300bpm before I passed out, he still thought it was all in my head. I work at a financial institution where we have to verify customers with photo ID. One time a lady threw her wallet at me (like aggressively at my face) because she was super entitled and upset that I had asked her for it. Neither me or anyone else working that day knew who tf she was at all.. I just found out one of my oldest 동인천출장안마 friends had her identity stolen. By her husband. He took out $30k of loans on credit cards. So yeah, I don't know what to say except ignoring menstrual conditions, the pain young women are in. Fifteen years later they're going to pay the price for it. If my endo had been treated earlier, I wouldn't be in this position. I really don wanna move back in with my parents. I really want to know how to get myself back together and become a real adult. Would you give me some advice?. It took a whole season of 55% win rate just to start winning and losing sr at the same rate. The system didn want to acknowledge I had improved and was fighting against it. Starting 동인천출장안마 on a fresh account would have nullified this.. I get it if people choose not to support a certain brand for whatever reason. There certain brand I just don bother with anymore(KVD) but I still reach out for Tarte even if it only for their eyeshadow palettes. Besides the foundation scandal, I can think of anything else that they screwed up with. Search for various double knitting videos on YouTube, and try the ones that appeal to you. Personally, I knit continental with both yarns held in one hand, knitting with the yarn over my index finger and purling with the one over my thumb; this may work for you, but it may not. Try, try, try!. +Essential Balancing Water EX: Their bestselling toner for it cheap price and effectiveness. This toner is thicker than most toners you see in Western beauty. It has a light herbal scent, signature to the Essential line. I not sure why, but ever since I was a little kid, I been obsessed with all things tiny. Tiny dictionaries, tiny food play sets, tiny Polly Pocket dolls, tiny makeup, etc. It a weird obsession of mine. So because kids play it, you usually don get much from the communication even if they speak your language, simply because most of them don really care or feel akward talking to other people (yet they always have their mic on(. This has been the case for me at least.And even though fortnite has a big playerbase, pretty much everyone likes to communicate in their own language, so giving people the option to say "only Italian" will result in Italians only playing with Italians, but probably also against other Italians. So every country, every language would create a seperate server.You could say "My language + English + another language you can speak". 3 points submitted 1 day agoas a category of action hasn always existed as something distinct from regular, consensual sex. And it certainly wasn always considered wrong in the way it is today. Sex was just a thing that happened, sometimes with the woman consent and sometimes without. Bady, who was 31, stood 2 feet 6 inches tall and weighed 80 pounds, was born with muscular dystrophy and spent his life in a wheelchair, tended for the past nine years by companion Dave Lerman.Yet Bady boasted a razor sharp sense of humor and a self deprecating tone that endeared him to such high profile entertainers as Kinison and radio host Howard Stern.When asked why he turned to comedy, Bady once replied: Well, the thought of doing construction work was out of the question.''Stern paid tribute to the comedian Monday by replaying an appearance in which Bady hid in a closed steamer trunk on a New York street and cried, Help me!' as unsuspecting pedestrians happened by. When one of the innocent bystanders opened the trunk, he was confronted with Bady's foul mouth.Bady traveled with Kinison from 1987 to 1990, often performing a famous expletive filled tirade based on an alleged incident in which Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA) telethon host Jerry Lewis supposedly had a violent confrontation with the midget.The Lewis incident made tabloid headlines. On July 10, 1990, the National Enquirer ran the front page story: Jerry Lewis attacked me in my wheelchair!'.

[thorraborinn]

hi! i want to tattoo "lucky in my path" in runes, but i have no idea of how to make it; do you got any resources?

The first step is to answer a few questions. Maybe you’ve already done this, maybe you didn’t realize that you had to. But without doing this, and without me knowing where you’ve landed, all I can really do is point you to my runic resources page and hope for the best.

I’m emphasizing Elder Futhark in this post because that’s what most people seem to be interested in but definitely send another ask to correct me if that’s an incorrect assumption, especially since Younger Futhark is unambiguously cooler in almost every imaginable way I am interested in increasing the general rune-oriented community’s familiarity with Younger Futhark.

What language do you want it in?

If you just want it in English that’s cool but it will make the next step harder. There is no traditional way to write runes in English so whatever you do will be correct, which relieves the pressure somewhat but also nullifies your question, and it seems like you’re looking for something other than arbitrariness.

Traditionally different sets of runes are going to map to different linguistic groups/time periods with different precedents for using them which are bound to those languages. For example there is no “correct” way to write Old Norse using Elder Futhark. While classification of runes and languages are both less cut-and-dry than such a list suggests, some futhark-language pairs that can be associated with each other could reasonably include (but not be limited to, and every single one of these can be further broken down):

24-rune “classical” elder futhark : “Proto-Northwest Germanic”; “Proto-Norse”; “Urnordisch”

“transitional” (roughly 21-rune) elder futhark : “transitional” mid-syncope North Germanic (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stentoften_Runestone)

Anglo-Frisian runes : West Germanic, early Old English

Anglo-Saxon futhorc : Old English (in various dialects)

16-rune younger futhark : early Viking-age Old Norse

younger futhark with a few dotted runes: also Viking-age Old Norse

“medieval runes” : Classical Old Icelandic, Old Danish, Old Swedish, Old Norwegian (each with their own regional variants)

So like for example if you wanted it to look like it came from the Viking age you would have to start by translating it to something like “hæpin(n) ã mínum vegi” (which honestly you kinda need some training to do, this is earlier than the stuff you would find in an Old Norse dictionary). Then you could use a resource like this page I made years ago and arrive at something like ᚼᛅᛒᛁᚾ᛬ᚬ᛬ᛘᛁᚾᚢᛘ᛬ᚢᛁᚴᛁ habin.ą.minum.uiki.

transliteration or transcription?

If you’re writing in Modern English you have to choose whether you’re going to use Modern English spelling customs by mapping each letter to a rune, or if you’re going to try to transcribe the sounds (”sounding it out”; [lʌki ɪn mai pʰeəθ] in my accent). Pre-literate rune-writers seem to have leaned closer to transcribing sounds although some arguments have been made for specific instances of traditional spelling here and there (e.g. writing ai for what we believe was actually “ē” in the language).

If you’re transliterating (letter-to-letter) you probably don’t need any advice, you can just kinda go ᛚᚢᚲᛁ᛬ᛁᚾ᛬ᛗᛁ᛬ᛈᚨᚦ luki.in.mi.paþ and be done with it, there’s nothing wrong with that even though people are going to tell you there is. If you’re transcribing it you have to make up your mind about how to write the “u” in “lucky” and your accent will effect how you write “path” (I say it basically with the vowels in “air”; if you’re British you’re probably just saying [a] anyway so you don’t have to think too hard about it). The sound in “my” is written ᚨᛁ ai in Elder Futhark (e.g. staina ‘stone’ (accusative)).

If you want help with sounds of the Elder Futhark you can check out this page here although to be honest I made that page years ago and there are probably things I would do differently if I did it now. It should get you pretty close to understanding though.

Hope that helps. Feel free to respond with more specification. See also this post I made for what I can’t just give you a straight answer.

[geminicblue]

20 Galaxies: Legend in the Sky Chapter 4

(fire brushes by Amaranth Dreams - their website doesn’t seem to be working anymore)

Ru knew her brother could hear the shrill sound when he dropped the empty ravioli can and ran to the living room with her. The two of them scrambled over the top of the small sofa and crouched behind the backrest, raising their heads just enough to see what was in the kitchen. There was nothing yet, but the scratchy squealing was louder than ever.

Gravity changed course. Every tile in the room clattered, the air in the house pulled, drained towards the kitchen light. Then, a flash -- but not a flash of light. Ru's eyes struggled to focus. It was glowing, but everything it touched changed color instead of lit up. It was as if she was looking at a film negative of the room. Her own skin flushed sickly blue, the shadows of the furniture turned white.

There was something solid in the kitchen when it faded. Two shapes, hovering just below the ceiling. One was gray and long, shaped like a thin tornado, the other looked like a burnt marshmallow. Cat eyes surveyed the kitchen, narrow slit pupils with glowing violet and green irises. The creatures had catlike mouths as well, crinkled skin like the surfaces of a dried lake, and something tilted above the tops of their bodies. A ring, a cold halo.

"A windsock and a marshmallow," Jayson murmured. "Too bad we're dreaming. I could have sold this as one of the legends."

Was there a legend already like it? No, it had to be a dream, Ru agreed silently, but the thought didn't make her feel any better. Most of her concentration went into keeping her breathing quiet and slow. She was trembling, and she wasn't sure if it was fear or because the room felt so cold. She wanted to wake up and get a thicker blanket.

The gray creature opened its mouth.

The sound tore into Ru's ears like the scream of a jetliner. She and Jayson both hunched and clapped their hands over their ears, but it did nothing to ease the pain. Each syllable the creature pronounced sent a rush of searing needles stabbing through her veins. Her heart struggled to find its own rhythm again, struggled to work at all, as if it were pumping wet cement. Jayson writhed beside her, his face contorted and wet with tears. She barely noticed the creature had spoken at a normal volume.

The negative light flashed again, and the voice stopped. She sat in a limp ball, stifling sobs. If this was a dream, it was the worst nightmare she'd ever had. She only dared to move again when she heard a human voice. A woman.

"That should take care of it."

Ru and Jayson exchanged glances. Jayson's dark eyes were full of surprise and hurt, but otherwise his face was calm. He peered over the top of the couch again. With all effort to contain her terror, her mind screaming that it was just a dream, Ru eased herself back into a kneel.

Humans stood in place of the floating creatures. One was a pale, shapely woman with silver hair, so shiny it was almost metallic. Split white bangs framed her young face. The other was a tall, square man with hair that looked like oil pouring from the back of his head. He had beady eyes, a vivid enough shade of green Ru to see a good thirty or forty feet away, and a hard face she couldn't imagine with a smile. Both were dressed in tight black clothing and armor that reminded Ru of SWAT uniforms. The woman wore a belt of square silver plates on her hips.

The woman took in the kitchen with narrow eyes, eyes too similar to the form she'd taken a few moments earlier. The way the man followed her every tiny footstep made Ru think she was in charge. He winced slightly when he spoke to her. "Are you sure they're here? It looks empty."

"Maybe they're aliens," Jayson said.

Ru jumped at the sound of his plain-spoken voice. The intruders had to have heard him. Clearly he'd forgotten what pain a simple dream could put him through. "Get down!" she hissed. "They'll see you!"

Before the last word fell from her lips, a shadow fell over them. Ru shrieked and nearly slipped off the couch. The woman, in less than half a second, had crossed that thirty feet of space without a footstep. Jayson's eyes widened, but he stayed upright, even showing a hint of defiance. The woman's expression, however, softened into an excited smile. "Crowe, look! Children. How cute!"

Jayson became more than defiant now, indignant. Ru almost relaxed, but when Crowe joined his partner, she understood letting her guard down was a very bad idea. His face took on all the fierce twisting it had when he was the marshmallow creature. He was also much bigger than she first thought, almost twice her height. His scorn was directed at the woman, though. "Sylph. Sylph!" He reached for her shoulder, then thought better of touching her and waved his hand in front of her face. "This could be a trap."

"Why are they afraid of us?" Sylph wondered absently.

"It is the unawakened planet."

Jayson barked a laugh. "Please. I'm not afraid of you."

Ru watched her brother out of the corner of her eye and tried to resist curling into a ball again. It didn't seem like he was being very smart, but it was a dream. Wasn't it? Ru wasn't so sure anymore. She tried everything to wake herself up. She purposely scrambled her thoughts. She pinched her own arm. She tried falling asleep, as impossible as that seemed.

"No?" Sylph said.

Jayson tipped the bill of his cap up. "I've had scarier dreams than this."

The strange woman looked on the verge of a laughing fit. "Dreams?"

"Yeah." Jayson crossed his arms. "You can't be real. Giant living windsocks and marshmallows -- I won't even tell you what's wrong with that -- can't turn into people."

"Jayson, let the windsock people turn into whatever they want!" Ru squeaked.

A threatening look flashed across Crowe's face. Jayson made a mistake, Ru realized, mentioning he'd seen the alien forms of the intruders. She felt queasy with terror. Crowe forced Sylph aside and held his hand in an upturned claw, straining as if he was trying to lift a heavy door. "I don't care what they are," he growled. "They've seen too much."

Green fire burst from his palm. The sickly flames forced into a ball. There was no smoke, but a distinct stench filled the room and froze Ru in place. She felt cold and hollow, like the entire universe had been emptied except for her. Sylph stood calmly aside. She would not step in.

It's a dream, Ru thought again. The words were as empty as Crowe's flames. The fire did nothing to his gloves, but as the fireball grew it stung Ru's skin like a bad sunburn. She couldn't back away, she'd forgotten how. The green light of the fire filled the room, turning the quaint garden wallpaper into a toxic wasteland. Then the light went cyan, then blue. The flames lashed out, eager to be released, to consume.

The blue light. It wasn't coming from the flames. It was shining behind Sylph.

"Look out!" Sylph shrieked. Crowe had just enough time to turn his head.

A brilliant torrent of blue-white light blasted out of the kitchen. Wind roared through the house. The floor rumbled as if a train was passing through. Papers fluttered into the air. That horrible rasping voice tore from Crowe's throat in an agonized scream, but its effects were nullified by the sound of the light. The alien man became a silhouette as the torrent ripped into him. He was shredded, faded as he lost form. For a moment, Ru thought she saw a bird, a crow flapping its wings before it winked out of sight.

The light passed over everything else without harming it. It packed into a solid point, a ball that shined like the sun, only blue. Four delicate beams formed a cross from its center. Soft tendrils of cerulean flame flowed around its edges.

When Ru finally realized what she was looking at, her fears tripled. If the aliens didn't fry her, she and Jayson would be lost to the Blue Star.

Sylph's arms were raised defensively, her teeth bared. "What are you doing here?"

"Leave immediately, or you will share the same fate as your guard."

Ru felt fear momentarily give way to surprise. The Star's voice was sweet and clear. It had crystalline ends to its words, the sound of wind chimes in a tender breeze. Most legends did not have the Star speak, but those that did told of its ferocious, howling voice, all the thunder of a storm contained in a few words. Maybe this wasn't the Blue Star, but Ru couldn't think of anything else it would be.

Sylph gaped at the Star, then at Ru and Jayson, and her expression changed several times in a few seconds. Confusion, realization, and a deadly glare aimed squarely at the two children. Ru wanted to wither up at that. Then the negative light flashed again, and Sylph was gone.

They sat absolutely still. Ru heard Jayson's breathing, soft and even, but he was shaking.

Here they were, facing a legend. The very symbol of their town and the unknown, the Blue Star. It was looking at them. Ru didn't know how she could tell, it didn't have a face, but she knew.

"Please do not fear me," it chimed. "Though many have vanished before me, I will bring you no harm."

There was something in its voice that made the crystalline tones sound like a mobile, the way the fire flickered gently around its edges brought heaviness to Ru's mind. She set her head on the backrest of the couch, and found the dreamless sleep she was looking for.

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