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riathedreamer · 3 years

Text

Zero is Null

A discussion of Zero’s love-hate-relationship with RvB and struggling independence; including a hotdog too big for the bun, tragic backstories, a single bow-chicka-bow-wow, and a cookie at the very end.

Welcome to what will be a lot of text. Basically, it will explore why Zero fails as an RvB (with emphasis on RvB) season. I will not be the first one to bring forth some of the points, and I promise to be fair and civil and fun. This isn’t supposed to be a piece of hate – in fact, I’m writing this because I love Red vs. Blue.

Okay, first of all, to increase your fun – take a guess on just how much of Zero is spent on fight scenes. You see, I’ve calculated the exact amount, and I will reveal it later, but for now, take a guess and remember the number. Maybe you are the winner!

Alright, time to share my thoughts. Wait! Since I suffer from anxiety and have this one annoying voice pretending to be all those critical statements my opinion could be met with, let’s give it an actual voice and address the points throughout this review.

“Why would I care about your opinion, Ria?” – I don’t know, you’re the one who clicked Read More.

“Your opinion doesn’t matter!” – Of course, it doesn’t! Geez. Do you think your opinion matters, though? Listen, we’re on Tumblr, the actual equivalent of screaming into the void. And it’s fun, too!

“If you don’t like it, don’t watch!” - *activates Uno Reverse Card* “You can’t talk about something you haven’t watched!”

“You’re just a Hater” – Actually, this is a point I’ll come back to. Like a cliffhanger. Also, at the end of this, there’ll be a cookie. But this will also include me talking about the stuff I like, because, surprise, Zero is not without talent!

“You just don’t like it because the Reds and Blues aren’t in it!” – Actually, that’s a good point, so instead, this review will start with a sole focus on Zero and discuss the problem that lies within that story. Then we can address why the lack of OG cast is understandable and problematic and weird.

But first! Backstory.

When the first 5 second teaser dropped back in spring (you know, when we were young and innocent and the world didn’t feel like an apocalyptic movie yet), I held onto that one image of what I thought (hoped) to be Grif and Simmons in the sunset, hopefully addressing Grif’s hateglue arc, but boy was I wrong because a) that’s not Simmons, that’s Sarge, and b) the image was from a PSA since the Reds are not in Zero.

Actual face-reveal of me below:

Admittedly, when I heard that the Reds and Blues were not going to be the main characters (or even show up), it felt like a gut punch. However, I actually found myself getting excited due to the creators’ hype. I want to praise them for this. It’s been a while since an RvB season was talked so much ABOUT before its release; it had advertisements, it had creators and voice-actors talking about it. Please. More of that in the future. Their passion rubbed off on me, and that deserves recognition. So it pains me that this was clearly a passion-project, and then when I gave it a try, I didn’t want to touch it again for weeks.

Here’s the thing. I cannot whole-heartedly say that Zero is bad. It’s not gonna melt your eyes. It’s not even so-bad-it’s-good. For me, it’s meh. It’s a Saturday-morning-cartoon aimed for a younger audience with a rushed plot and clichéd characters. The problem is that it calls itself RvB, and with that title comes something to live up to – but more importantly, something to continue.

My main issue is that Zero forces its story into existence by ignoring established content rather than adjusting to it. Let’s call this for the hotdog-too-big-for-the-bun syndrome solely for the sake of the bow-chicka-bow-wow that’s coming now. Bow-chicka-bow-wow. Many of the separate issues I will dive into all add to this hotdog-issue, so I will scream “Hotdog!” whenever this is the case so we can all keep track of my argument.

You can continue the story of Red vs. Blue without the Reds and Blues. While that would personally crush my heart, it can be done. There’s a story of Red vs. Blue that can be continued. The world can be expanded, the previous actions of the Reds and Blues can be explored from another angle.

So.

How does Zero do this? It doesn’t.

I just want to make it clear that new elements can definitely be added when it comes to worldbuilding. That’s literally the point of sequels. But Zero’s settings are presented with so little grace and with no connection to previously established worldbuilding. We get Alliance of Defense and GLASS thrown in our face as very big important organizations – yet we’ve never heard of them before. A big central plot point of RvB is the UNSC and Project Freelancers, and those were introduced naturally with the plot. We already have big established intergalactic organizations. What is AOD’s connection with those? We aren’t told. We are just told they exist and expected to accept it, no questions asked. If this was a whole new world and story – fine. But when you need to build on an already established worldbuilding, you need more grace than this. Chorus was a whole new setting, but it was explained, and it was connected to the previous plot. Same with Iris. Same with Desert Gulch. In Zero, it feels lazy. It feels forced. These organizations are just there because the story is built around them (HOTDOG).

This vagueness when it comes to wordbuilding is also reflected in the settings - we have a desert, a training base, a lab, temples, Tucker’s workplace, and we do not know if all those are set place on the same planet. If that is the case, what is this planet’s relationship with Chorus? Is it Earth? And most importantly, what is the deal with the temples? Why are they connected to Tucker’s sword if it isn’t the same planet. Are they made by the same aliens? Are people okay with this? Why haven’t these temples been explored before? Chorus makes sure to establish this, while Zero doesn’t, adding to a growing amount of confusion.

Okay, so no connection with previous worldbuilding. What about characters? I mean, we got Wash and Carolina and Tucker! So we have RvB characters, it gotta be RvB! Technically – yeah. But it feels dirty. These three characters are not here to be characters. They are here to be props to the new cast. They are not given any development. Their presence isn’t even that important, and if this was a whole new show, they could easily have been replaced with an unknown face. Worst of all, they feel miswritten.

Carolina and Wash are working at a new military organization? Leaving the Reds and Blues behind? To help people? First of all, fucking bad idea, Carolina, the last time you left the Reds and Blues alone, they changed the timeline. But most importantly – Carolina and Wash just joined this new super elite military organization? After being mistreated and manipulated by such an organization in the past?

Carolina is there to introduce the characters. That’s it. We are force-fed their personality by having her literally read out loud their personality. There is no gentle introduction to the new cast. We are not allowed to get to know them naturally. Why show when you can tell, huh? That’s Carolina’s role. That’s why she is there. To introduce the cast and explain their story. That’s it. (HOTDOG).

How about Wash? He is there to get beat up and be a damsel in distress so that the new cast has a reason to explore the plot. Oh, and that brain damage that was the consequence of previous seasons – gone now. The guy who literally has trauma from having an AI explode inside his head is fine with having a computer inserted into it instead. Because that’s needed. To explore his brain damage wouldn’t work now when his role is to be a prop to lure the new cast for one episode and then be put onto the bench for the rest of the runtime (HOTDOG).

And Tucker – he is there to die for a second and have his sword taken from him. That’s literally it. And for the few moments he is there, he feels like old super flirty Tucker, which erases the character development he went through in previous seasons. Okay, so Tucker dies, and then not dies, and then he is put on the bench with Wash where they can sit and talk or whatever (‘cause holy shit, the new cast is not allowed to that), because he isn’t important. The sword is. Tucker is just a prop, even more than his sword is (HOTDOG).

Damn. Wash gets beat up. Tucker gets beat up. Dies. Gets his sword taken away. Almost seems like a Red’s wet dream. Sorry not sorry, Blues, you were done dirty.

So there are miswritten old characters. Even worse is the retconning. The plot needs a “normal” Wash, so, bam, magic computer solution. Never mind Wash’s trauma and character traits. Never mind the logic of the new worldbuilding which also includes a character suffering for years to heal an illness. But the brain damage that was such a big consequence that it became the main part of the plot of the last two seasons – gone. I mean, a gunshot to the head can be healed by CPR. That’s canon. But no one gave Wash CPR so it’s a big thing, okay. It was canonically a big thing, and Zero erased that. This is not me saying that a Cerebral Enhancer couldn’t work in the RvB universe. Imagine it being done right. Wash struggling with the choice of getting used to his disability or accepting the possibility of help - at the cost of reliving his trauma. The struggle between what to choose - what should he choose when he wants to help as many as possible, the sacrifices he thinks he has to make, the way it could have been used as a part of his character growth. But in Zero, the enhancer isn’t a part of Wash’s character. It’s there so the story can work without having to deal with the previous plot’s consequence (HOTDOG).

Same with the sword thing. They sorta explain it by having Tucker flatline, but it’s weak. Honestly, I find it sorta offensive. What about Locus’ sword as well? It’s twisting previous lore to make the new plot work (HOTDOG). (Also, are we not gonna talk about the ultimate power being Spencer Porkensenson’s helmet? Have the writers forgotten Spencer Porkensenson? Have we as a community forgotten Spencer Porkensenson?)

If you have Red vs. Blue in your title, you cannot ignore what you inherit from it. You need to respect the worldbuilding, the established characters, and the previous plot. Zero does not do this.

Let’s talk about the Triplets. No, really, let’s do it. I don’t think I’ve ever talked about them before, because season 14 was a mixed bag for me (that I have now learned to appreciate. Thank you, Zero.) because I have heart at the size of the Grinch and can only love a few characters at a time, and that did not include the Triplets. Can’t even remember their names. Well, I can, but I can’t for the love of me remember which state is which, and my tongue is twisted every time I try to say Ohio, Iowa, and Idaho, and I know it’s on purpose. I know it is. And it got me good. That being said, the fandom actually embraced them really, really well! Seriously, I’ve seen more content for the Triplets than for Zero as a whole.

Why talk about the Triplets? (Was Iowa the lesbian? Or was it Ohio? Fuck.) Because like Zero, they introduced new characters with a story of their own. The Reds and Blues didn’t play a role. But here’s what I feel like the Triplets got right. They didn’t change the settings to force their narrative. They used stuff already established (Project Freelancer), added their own story as a continuation of that. They even included old characters in the beginning (Wash and some other Freelancers) but it felt natural and it didn’t feel like it happened at the expense of the old characters. Wash’s writing felt natural, and his presence wasn’t needed to tell these new character’s stories. He wasn’t a prop to them. He was there to establish the setting and to establish the relationship with these new characters, and then he and the other familiar faces (helmets??) left, and we as the viewers were left with these new characters. And the new characters told their own story by themselves. It felt like, hey, here’s something you know – remember Mother of Invention, and remember Wash’ lower rank, but now, try to imagine being even lower rank than him, aren’t you curious about those fates? Now let’s hear their story! It was new, it was something else, but it didn’t wreck what came before it, and it stayed true to the classic vibes of RvB.

As I said before, the hotdog-issue is my biggest problem with Zero. It infuriates me. I will return to this. But there are more issues, even if we try to look past the title-related problems.

If we try to imagine Zero as its own story and universe (as it should be, in my opinion), it still earns the meh review from me.

These isolated issues include awkwardness, the writing, lack of self-awareness, and pacing. First of all, holy shit, this is a tell, don’t show. Nothing is subtle, nothing is allowed to develop. It’s like the show thinks you are six years old with an attention span of a goldfish. You are not just led by the hand – they have literally pulled off your arm by the end of the show. We are force-fed every bit of information, every bit of personality from these new characters.

The voice-acting is a mixed bag for me. Sometimes it’s pretty good, sometimes it’s not. Some of the problems can definitely be blamed on the dialogue that you can only do so much with. It’s not good. I can’t remember any good jokes (the one joke I really appreciate was the cast on armor, and that was freaking visual humor. That was so RvB. Kudos to that. It was fun. More of that, please.), and RvB is known for having memorably good lines. This is a show built on good, clever, funny dialogue. Zero does not deliver. You have to sit through clichéd lines – “You’re not my dad”, “I trusted you”, “Come with me”, “It can’t be!”, “She’s way too powerful”, and “We have to do this together” – performed unironically. I cringed more than I laughed. Worst thing is that Zero could be a good parody. Sometimes, it feels like it is. One-dimensional characters, a villain wanting ‘the ultimate power’, very overpowered characters, bad one-liners, etc. But Zero takes itself seriously, and I was one of the people rooting for Jax to show up at the end and yell “Cut”. That would have been a funny-as-fuck twist. A spin-off parody. If I can’t have “Sarge the Movie”, I would have taken that and loved it. I would have forgiven everything. “We put so much info into finding that power, but we had no idea what it was” is really a line in the finale, and I cannot believe this is real in a show that somehow still tries to present itself as serious. What a plot.

We have to talk about pacing. God, first of all it should be stated that RvB is a mess when it comes to pacing. I honestly get what they were going for. Sometimes, RvB has come across as a bit boring when you get three episodes stretched over three weeks without much going on. I know season 11 did not have the warmest welcome because it was seen as boring until the finale. But when you see season 11 as a whole, as a movie, as a part of a trilogy, it works so well. Zero is more focused on being episodic. They want something to happen all the time so we will stay tuned. The thing that will happen – a fight. Oh god. The fight scenes.

I have done the math. I have run the numbers. I deserve a freaking cookie for this. Are you ready?

If you put all the episodes together, you have a runtime of 106 minutes. HOWEVER, with the introduction of credits in every episode, you gotta account for this. Removing the credits, this gives us 94 minutes of actual runtime. Out of that, 45 minutes are dedicated to fight scenes. That means 48% of the show is fight scenes.

If I wanted that many fight scenes, I’d watch Death Battle. Except the actual RvB Death Battle episode has a runtime of 20 minutes, and out of that, 5 minutes is dedicated to the actual battle. For the people who hate math – that’s 25% of the actual runtime.

RvB Zero has more fight scenes than a show called Death Battle. Take that in.

The pace suffers from this. Where’s the time to explore the characters? Where’s the time for good dialogue? All I can think of is this:

I get that RvB is a show that’s literally making fun of itself by acknowledging all their characters do is stand around and talk. I get that you want characters to do more than that. But for the love of Church, would it kill the new characters to stand around and talk? For just a minute? Stop fighting, I am begging you, stop fighting! Am I a pacifist now? Am I purple? Have I joined Doc’s team? What has Zero done to me?!

The good thing though is that fight scenes are very good. They’re entertaining. However, they seem to deconstruct themselves when we need to get a fight scene in every episode. Usually, the few fight scenes in an RvB season were in some of the most climatic episodes. In Zero, I can hardly keep up with the pace because they won’t stop moving. Fight scenes aren’t plot. They aren’t character development. You need more than just fight scenes. They entertain, but there’s a limit to that.

Noël Wiggins, the co-writer, stated the inspiration was a Saturday-morning cartoon. They nailed that vibe. If that was their goal, hurray, they have accomplished something! Because of the poor plot and constant fight scenes, it feels like you could just switch on the TV and drop in at any moment and let yourself be entertained by the cool and colorful soldiers punching and kicking each other. I will admit that the fight scenes entertained me. But they don’t make it a good season.

If I were the six-year-old with the attention span of a goldfish that the show believes I am, I honestly would enjoy it. The stiff dialogue and the constant tell-don’t-show makes you feel like an audience that’s not supposed to do anything else but admire the flashy fight scenes. I miss the cleverness of RvB. I miss the characters I get to connect with as I see them grow.

I miss the tone of RvB. Because this isn’t RvB to me.

It’s not that RvB hasn’t changed its tone before. Holy shit, I sorta do want to experience the absolute shock the RvB fandom went through when s6 aired and they were given new characters and serious plot. I would have loved to experience that, but I was too busy being ten years old. The Freelancers seasons also introduced a new tone and more fight scenes with very talented fighters compared to the Blood Gulch gang, but a balance was kept by having half of the season still revolving around the Reds and Blues. But Zero – Zero is so much change. And it’s on purpose. At least this has been made very clear from the beginning.

They constantly seem to appeal to new fans, rather than be directed towards older fans of the show. If you want an entirely new audience with a season with a new cast, new worldbuilding, and new tone, I’m confused as to why they don’t just make a new show. The hotdog-problem begs for this solution. This story and environment and characters feel so out of touch with the original RvB, that with a few rewrites and lack of Halo-armor, it could just be a new show. Problem solved.

If not this, then present it as a spin-off. In all ways, it feels like a spin-off (again, see everything marked HOTDOG). But the creators refuse to do this, and I don’t understand why. I could forgive many of these issues, had they officially separated themselves from canon.

Ah, what’s the idiom? You can’t both swallow and blow? (You can hear the Bow-chicka-bow-wow in the distance). Something about eating cake and having it. Forgive me, English isn’t my native language. POINT IS why are you calling yourself RvB while actively fighting against the core essence of RvB? In my humble opinion, you can’t be both. Marketing it as a spin-off would have granted it some defense when changing, well, literally everything, and I just, would someone please properly describe why it isn’t a spin-off? Isn’t this season marked by its association with the plot of RvB rather than a continuation of it? Zero presenting itself as not a spinoff feels like a toddler clinging to the hem of its mother’s dress while forcefully running away from her, ripping the dress in the process.

When they do connect with the original RvB, it leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. When they let Carolina, Wash, and Tucker appear for a moment, it feels like luring viewers in with the RvB title. Look at me. Look at me! I’m not saying this is the case. I say that it gives me the annoying vibes of being lured, rather than letting the characters be a part of the show for their own development, rather than having RvB in the title to continue its story. I should not be getting these vibes at all. But I am.

If you want to use RvB in the title, something from the core of RvB needs to be embraced. Things can be changed. They should. Something new should be brought in. But there’s a limit to how much you can change and replace and twist until it would have been better with an original show. As a season of RvB, it should tell the story of Red vs. Blue.

From my perspective, Zero fails to do so.

It pains me that the old cast has been replaced, but as stated earlier, a season could have worked without them. However, I do not like the take that one should be excited about all the new characters. That it isn’t a big thing that the OG cast got replaced. That we should just deal with it. Just, try to imagine another show suddenly replacing the main characters with characters we’ve never met before. Imagine RWBY suddenly only focusing on a new team of huntresses with the previous main characters reduced to an Easter Egg presence, or Camp Camp suddenly being about a new team of campers, no warning given. Can you imagine the outcry? So maybe let’s agree that a replacement of the main cast is a big thing and should be addressed and it’s valid to be upset about this change.

Could Zero have worked? It’s hard to answer this. How can I accept something as RvB if the season actively pushes away the core of RvB aside for an isolated story that could have been told in any other media? As a spinoff, I could have ignored it. To enjoy Zero, I have to fully separate it from RvB in my mind, and then it’s alright. S’not good. But it’s not bad. It’s entertaining enough. I really ended up liking Raymond and Tiny, and there were a few good jokes, and the fight scenes were admirable (but too much) and I love the creators’ passion. But it’s not RvB. I also wish that the new characters had been attached to previous worldbuilding, for example soldiers on Chorus or agents from Project Freelancer. That way we could build on familiar lore which would have decreased the confusion and added a much needed connection with the previous seasons of RvB.

God, the anxious voice is back (by the way, it sounds like Tutter from “Bear in the Blue House”).

“You’re racist” – I hope not. Literally, I do not want to be. Tell me if I’ve ever crossed some lines, because I swear, that is not my intention, I will apologize and most of all, change and do better. I included this because I’ve seen this take thrown around in the big ugly mess that is the fandom clashes regarding Zero. And racism is problem within RT community (this includes AH and RvB, sorry, I just use RT as an umbrella term for the latter), and I’m not saying it hasn’t been a problem with this season. Writers should never be harassed, and never-fucking-ever because of their skin color, and voice actors shouldn’t be treated like they are responsible for the choices of the show. But I was legit nervous to post this review, and I hope it’s been factual without feeling like personal attacks on the creators because that has never been my intention. I was delighted to hear about the diversity behind this project, and Torrian’s passion legit blew me away because it’s been a while since I’ve seen that for an RvB project. I’d hoped for it to be good, and when I feel disappointed, it’s for the reasons stated in this analysis. That said, Zero is made by a diverse cast and it’s made with love, and both of those things are so, so great, but it does not mean that Zero cannot be criticized. It can, and it should. It’s a product, just like all the other seasons, and fans are allowed to discuss it – both what they loved, and both what they found troublesome. And to repeat previous points, and be respectful, always, fuck racists, and never-fucking-ever harass the staff behind a season, what the fuck is wrong with you if you do this.

“Don’t you get it, it’s different because it’s trying something new!” – Hey, remember the philosophical question: if you replace all the parts of a ship one-by-one, is it still the same ship when you’re done? If it doesn’t include the Reds and Blues, if it ignores previous plot, if the old characters feel miswritten, if it values animation over dialogue, if it values fight scenes over comedy, if it wants to be Fast and Furious instead of Red vs. Blue – is it still Red vs. Blue? Because it doesn’t feel like it to me.

“It's been 17 seasons, it’s time to let the Reds and Blues go so someone else can shine!” – I simply do not understand us having been with the Reds and Blues for 17 seasons should be an argument to let them go, rather than be an argument as to why their absence hurt like hell.

“The Reds and Blues ran out of things to do!” – Did- did they, though? I mean, if we were discussing pretty much any other show, I’d probably agree that they were running out of content. But for the Reds and Blues… I think the PSAs nailed it this year! I’m not kidding, I had more fun watching the Reds and Blues discuss how to do laundry than watching Zero. You could literally give me an hour of the Reds and Blues trying to bake a cake or clear a gutter or simply settling down with an ordinary life, and I would trust them to make it worth the watch.

“The flaws were due to the fact it’s only 8 episodes long!” – Look, I can only judge a product the way it’s presented to me. I cannot come up with excuses for it. If they had 8 episodes to work with, they need to come up with a plot that works with this runtime. Seriously, this excuse cannot work when 48% of the season is spent on fight scenes. They could have used more runtime, sure, but the show needs to be able to pace itself and be planned accordingly.

“The OG cast couldn’t be a part of this year, hence Zero!” – That might be true. But. Would one year without RvB kill it? Is Zero necessary? Again, I just can’t judge excuses for the show. But trouble with the cast has been an issue before. Season 15 solves Geoff’s sabbatical by actually making Grif’s absence a part of the plot. Zero’s lack of Reds and Blues just feels like this excuse to tell a story that needn’t be a part of RvB.

Am I a hater? I guess? I greatly dislike Zero for the critique stated above. I do, however, not harass the creators and no one should ever do that. However, I have to admit that I feel there’s been this weird rejection of any critique of Zero where everything’s been brushed off as haters gonna hate, including the critique stated above. And I think that’s a problem because critique, as hard as it can be to hear (and I know this. I’m an author of original works. Weird flex, I know), is valid and necessary and shouldn’t just be shrugged away. As always, both sides of the fandom should always be respectful, but my own opinion is that addressing the flaws of Zero should not be controversial.

Does this super long rant/critique/whatever mean you cannot enjoy Zero? Gods no! I almost envy you if you enjoy this season, but holy shit, feel free to love it and tell the creators that you love it! Me pointing out the issues I have with the season shouldn’t be stopping you. I loved (and still love) s15 when it came out, and it was majorly rejected by the fandom. There were many, many critical posts, people were going on about how RvB should have ended with s13, and it evolved into the writer receiving death threats (me, once again: never ever harass the creators, assholes). But I didn’t tell people to stop being negative. I actually agreed with many of the flaws that were pointed out, and I enjoyed the season despite this, because that is possible. We, as RvB fans, should agree that RvB, is... I mean, it’s not the greatest, most flawless of shows, but we love it nonetheless. So go ahead and love Zero. This is not a stop sign. This is my opinion that you chose to read.

Wait, I promised you a cookie, didn’t I? Well, you’re not getting one. Why? Because I’m a Red and this is my chance to piss off a Blue. As Caboose wisely said: “Well, at least I don't go around... knocking on people's non-doors... and promising them cookies... and then NOT. GIVING. THEM. COOKIES!”

Blue Team sucks.

End speech.

#rvb zero #rvb #rvb zero critical #rvb critical #rvb0 #my rvb stuff #pls dont hate me for this #this is my honest opinion that people apparantly wanted to hear #as a standalone story zero isnt totally bad #as an rvb season it is

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raxgond · 4 years

Photo

@gw2commanderweek

COMMANDER WEEK: ORIGINS

My entry is a little late because the artwork wound up taking more time than I hoped it would! The post for the Commander Week event says that late entries are totally fine though - so hopefully it’s okay I’m posting this a day later than it should be!

So before I launch into an explanation of how this image applies to the theme, I first would like to state that my canonical commander character seen here (Cento - this isn’t his full in-game name) is actually something of a co-commander with two other characters of my own (who I’m going to call Rea and Lyri for short). Cento is one of my oldest characters, dating long before I ever played / signed up to GW2, so his in-game version is basically a Tyrian AU of my original character. His backstory is loosely based off of that, but modified to fit into GW2′s overall lore / story / setting instead!

Some of the things I’m going to be revealing in this post I’ve literally never told anyone about concerning his storyline / backstory / character. Trigger / content warning for abuse / trauma / (possible ableism / racist) themes below the Read More.

Where does your Commander come from? What were their goals and aspirations?

Cento is an asura, and like many of them, was born in Rata Sum and “destined for greatness,” as it were. As a young progeny, he had originally set his sights on studying the Eternal Alchemy, as its inner mechanisms of the world largely fascinated him, and he hoped to one day attend the College of Synergetics so that he might understand more of the very fabric of reality. However, things didn’t really turn out that way...

How did they grow up? Who influenced them when they were young and impressionable?

The asura and sylvari have quite a bit of history together, unfortunately. It all started with the firstborn sylvari, Malomedies, whose brilliant mind was torn apart, according to Caithe, by the asura and their unparalleled quest for knowledge. Their ruthlessness and cruelty is one of the incidences that went on to inspire secondborn Cadeyrn to found the Nightmare Court, to break free of the shackles of Ventari’s Tablet; after all, why should the sylvari have to follow these teachings, when other races clearly did not? Being naive meant you’d be taken advantage of. Trampled on. The Nightmare Court wanted to infect the Dream with their poison, so that their race as a whole could see with clarity the reality of the world, and ascend to their true purpose, not the chains of an outdated centaur they had never even known.

While there are some members of the Nightmare Court far more noble, and think they are in the right, who only wish to help their race as a whole, it is all too true that there are many who simply delight in tormenting others, and causing pain and suffering where-ever they may go. A group of some such courtiers sprang up, remembering the injustices done to their people by the asura, and targeted one of the labs in which the progeny were learning their first lessons. Cento was amongst this group, and fell victim to the Nightmare Court’s wrath, trapped as a prisoner for years within their clutches and subjected to their various tortures until he was finally freed by another group of sylvari whose Wyld Hunt was to liberate those taken by the court.

This incident continued to shape Cento’s personality and mental health state over the years, as well as his fellow remaining trauma-survivors, those who hadn’t succumbed to the wounds and the pain inflicted on their bodies, proving too much for their grasp on this world. Unfortunately, what had happened took a toll on him, and the previous course he’d set out for his life was too triggering for him to pursue. Instead of joining the College of Synergetics, he decided to enroll in Statics, instead, and put aside his desire to study the Eternal Alchemy, as it had been one of the reasons his lab group in particular had been targeted. However, due to his C-PTSD symptoms, he struggled to fit into society and his peers around him, feeling distanced from his own kind.

Asura are... often not so gentle when they believe another life form lacks the intelligence that they do. Dissociation can be mistaken for being “air-headed” - and even though Cento was far from being “dull-witted,” as it were, his college-mates didn’t see it that way. Once he’d graduated from Statics, instead of joining a krewe as-is custom for one of the asura race, he decided to embark on his own instead, wanting to remove himself from the asuran culture as there was no-one there he felt close to, like he could trust. Instead, he joined the Durmand Priory, his desire for knowledge not entirely quelled - and was immediately assigned to Magister Sieran, his mentor.

Cento had mixed feelings about the sylvari race as a whole at this point; while it was true his tormentors were of their race, it was equally true that those who had saved him from their clutches were as well. Naturally, Cento was rather wary of Sieran at first, especially when she seemed to detour wildly off the task at hand, but when their “little side-trip” wound up with the two saving a group of kidnapped Priory Explorers, he very quickly warmed up to her, solidly placing her in the same category as his saviors, as he felt she was very much akin to them from her actions that day.

Sieran is the first true friend that Cento ever had, and one of the few that really understood him entirely. She’s the only person in his life up to that point he felt entirely comfortable around, as though he could truly be himself without expectations or worry. It’d be a real shame if anything ever happened to her, wouldn’t it?

About this image/prompt.

Specifically, this image is supposed to be a depiction of Cento’s nightmares, which is why he’s wearing his present-day outfit / is depicted as an adult here instead of a progeny. I also included a target-symbol in the background as symbolism for him being “in the sights” so to speak of those who have ill-intention. The text is asuran script; I’ll be wildly curious to see if anyone manages to translate it.

Furthermore, I’m very sorry if anyone was actually expecting something fun / nice / that this totally went sideways from what the theme was supposed to be. My character’s backstory is obviously not very fun since he’s a trauma survivor and deals with heavy C-PTSD and dissociation. Some of what I wrote here is very vague because it’s not actually my intention to upset anyone. Also, I don’t exactly intend to fully get into all the details of what happened; there’s a lot more to this than what I’ve written down here but I think I’ve said enough for now. Just know that I’ve really thought about his backstory a lot and how his trauma would wind up effecting everything he does and feels. It’s very much a part of his character, and it’s also a bit of a personal subject to me, too.

Also... rip. I think we all know what happens at Claw Island so.

TL;DR honestly Cento is not having a great time. His story’s very chaotic to be honest but also a little therapeutic / cathartic to me for various reasons.

#gw2commanderweek #guild wars 2 #gw2 #asura #my art #ocs #cento

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lgbtyrus · 5 years

Text

Two Exes on Mars

A Tyrus fic where they’re aged up + broken up :) It will have a ‘happily ever after’, I promise. Note: IDK if you know your Andi Mack lore, but just in case, Shadyside is in a fictional US state called Midwest.

Part 1/? (I’m thinking 3 or 4)

Words: 2,668

He kissed him goodbye. It wasn’t even rainy or cloudy outside, much less foggy. It was super bright and sunny, and Cyrus could hear every single bird in Shadyside chirping as his now ex-boyfriend walked out the front door of his house. He waited until TJ was out of his driveway to shut the door and break out in tears, pressing his forehead and fist against his door.

Why? he wondered. Why? Why? Why?

But he knew why. He knew why TJ had let him go in the worst breakup in the world. He had tried to a week ago which led to Cyrus breaking down in front of him and ended up with them back together. But the tension between them was so obviously, and it lead to TJ’s horrible mood swings and random outbursts he never apologized for. It made Cyrus feel like crap. Then in the middle of the week, TJ tried breaking up with him over text. Cyrus ignored it, and TJ went over to his house the next day like nothing had happened. Not even three days later, TJ came over to break up him a third time. For good.

That just happened two minutes ago, and Cyrus silently let him leave this time. He shouldn’t have ever let him see him cry.

“You have to go to California, Cyrus,” TJ had told him, his eyes red and his hands clenching into tight fists. All Cyrus could do was stare at the floor. It’s not everyday you get a chance to go to USC, but it also meant leaving everyone you loved behind- including TJ. Him and TJ had been together since the 8th grade, and he had included TJ in all of his future plans. For him, being in a long distance relationship was a possibility, and he never thought TJ would be against it.

“I want to go to MSU,” Cyrus shook his head, refusing to look at him. TJ was going to MSU on a basketball scholarship, and yeah, they had a theatre and screenwriting, but it wasn’t USC. It was one of the hardest choices Cyrus had to make.

“You’re clearly lying, Cyrus,” TJ let out a frustrated sigh, “I know when you’re lying.” It’s true, he did. His hands always instinctively went inside a pocket, and Cyrus has never been able to stop it. “Cyrus. I know I’m the main reason why you want to stay in Midwest, but I want you to go to USC. It’s what you want.”

“Does that mean we have to break up, though?” Cyrus asked him sadly, his voice quiet. TJ ran his fingers through his blonde hair and let out a deep breath.

“We’d be doing long distance for four years, Cyrus. I don’t want to hold you back from being at your prime if you’re moping around missing me the entire time.”

“Are you just saying this because you’re the one that’s not going to be fine?” There wasn’t even a pause.

“Yes, Cyrus!” TJ said loudly, startling Cyrus. “I can’t spend four years of my life being sad because I miss you all the time, but I also can’t live with the guilt I’m going to feel if you don’t go to USC. This entire situation is driving me insane, and I really think breaking up is the best way to go.”

“You honestly think that?” Cyrus frowned, looking right up at him. He didn’t want to break down like he did the first time. “You’re just giving up? Not even giving long distance a try. After five years, TJ?”

TJ shamefully looked away before saying, “I love you, Cyrus. But I think it’d hurt less to let you go.”

“How?” Cyrus’ voice started to tremble as he spoke in complete disbelief, “How can you even say you love me right now?” TJ didn’t say anything. He just slowly walking up to Cyrus, each step taking its own time before cupping his face in his hands and kissing him softly.

TJ pulled away, whispering, “Bye, Cyrus.”

Cyrus was now sitting on his bedroom floor, playing music louder than his occasional sob. Andi and Buffy were on their way, but until then, it was him, and a lone polaroid picture he had of him and TJ on their first Valentine’s Day together right in front of him. Him and TJ were sitting on one side of the booth at The Spoon while Marty and Buffy sat on the other side. TJ had his arms around him and was smiling in to his cheek, leaving a very fluttered Cyrus to be captured forever.

“Cyrus!” someone yelled out from downstairs. “We’re here.”

“Upstairs!” Cyrus yelled out, his voice slightly cracking. He hadn’t spoken since TJ left, and his throat hurt. He was glad he left the door unlocked for them because he didn’t have the energy to move.

Andi peaked her head through his bedroom door, frowning when she saw him, “Hi, Cyrus.”

“Hey,” Cyrus waved, “come in.” He hadn’t seen Andi in about three weeks was she was getting busy with her senior art project for SAVA. He loved her for being here during a busy time. Buffy trailed in behind Andi with two loaded grocery bags.

“We brought ice cream and pie,” Buffy held the bags up. “We stopped by your kitchen to get utensils.”

“Thank you because I was not going to move,” Cyrus said. Andi and Buffy sat down on each side of him and rested their heads on his shoulder.

“You can cry if you want,” Andi told him.

“Yeah,” Buffy agreed, “we bought three tissue boxes.”

“I’ve been crying for like an hour, and I’m just tired of it at this point. But this is also probably just the start,” Cyrus mumbled. “How am I supposed to accept that someone I talked to everyday for five years is leaving my life?”

“I know it hurts, Cyrus,” Buffy whispered. “But you’re stronger than you think. You’re going to get through this. Trust me. I’m always right.”

“I know you are,” Cyrus smiled slightly. “You know what sucks the most though?”

“What?” they asked in unison.

“We already have matching tuxedos from prom.” -

Cyrus and TJ showed up with new tuxedos to prom. Andi herself made Cyrus a brand new one. The according to different sources, both Cyrus and TJ had both begged Gus to cancel their Prom Court nomination. Gus thought it was funny until Buffy stepped in, and he got scared.

Cyrus and TJ didn’t sit together at lunch anymore or do homework together or visit the swing sets every Tuesday after TJ got out of tutoring. Cyrus submitted his paperwork to attend USC in the fall and according to Amber who was at Shadyside’s community college, TJ was going to go to MSU to play for their basketball team. Buffy and Marty would be seeing him at MSU seeing they got track scholarships.

Cyrus cried every night for the rest of the school year after finishing his homework because he worked to hard to have his GPA suffer over a boy who clearly didn’t care if he fell apart. He sometimes sat in the bathtub and let music fill his whole bathroom and no matter what, every single song would remind him of TJ. Of course, that was his fault for playing the playlists TJ had made him on Spotify. He wondered if he could see that he was listening to them. He hoped he did.

Cyrus didn’t have any communication with TJ since the last texts he sent him. It was a 2AM on a Saturday night, about three weeks since the breakup. He felt horrible and didn’t know how to stop crying. Even though Buffy had told him to call him whenever, he couldn’t keep dumping everything on her.

Cyrus: hey tj I hope im not waking u up idk if you still have your phone set so that u only get text alerts from me but I just wanted to say that I miss you.

Cyrus: I miss you so much tj idk what to do without you. Everything hurts all the time and I just want to talk to you and hear you voice even if we cant date anymore please talk to me. Please be my friend again tj we were best friends for 5 years we work so good together

Cyrus: I love you. I think that ill always be in love with you.

TJ: Goodnight Underdog.

Cyrus didn’t remember what time he went to sleep, but he felt like he cried for hours after that. The pain in his chest beat him up completely until he was too weak to flip his pillow to the dry side.

At their graduation, Cyrus gave a speech and then walked off stage to everyone in the auditorium clapping. It felt surreal. When he looked up smiling, out of all of the people he saw in the sea of graduates, he saw TJ clapping. He had his lip curled up in one corner which showed that he was on the verge of tears. That was the only time that night Cyrus wanted to cry.

A month into USC and without a doubt, Cyrus was homesick and probably depressed. He had made a great group of friends that were similar to him and super positive. He appreciated them, but 8 out of 10 times, they could never convince him to leave his room. He just stayed in and did homework and work on his script. It was about a man who gets his heart shattered and decided to move to Mars as part of a science experiment and when he’s already in space, he realize that his ex is one of the 100 people on board. Things quickly escalate. His friends loved the scripts and always asked to read updates, but he still sent snippets to Bex because he missed her.

It had been months since the breakup with TJ that happened late April. He should be over it now, he thought a lot of the time. But it still hurt. TJ really shot a hole in his heart and there was nothing he could do about it. He didn’t cry everyday like he used to. But every other few weeks, he snuck into the bathroom to cry so his roommate wouldn’t see. It was embarrassing to admit.

Cyrus kept things in a rotation. Script, class, eat, homework, sometimes friends, and sleep. It was hard to stay happy and to enjoy himself. It was hard to feel like he was living through something when he’s been dead inside for months. With Halloween coming up, he felt even worse. He’s never not had anyone to match costumes with. For five years, him and TJ did a couple’s costume and before that, him, Buffy, and Andi always had something up their sleeves. He missed all of them.

Then one day, his roommate let one of his friends into their dorm room. His roommate was part of his friend group, so there was that. Cyrus was working on his infamous script and didn’t even get a text that he was coming. Usually, he said no, though. “Hey, Rich,” Cyrus said as he walked in.

“Hey, Cy,” he said. “I was in the building and wanted to drop by.”

“Why’d you text Karson and not me?” Cyrus asked.

“You always say no.”

“True. Anyways, what’s up?”

“We need one more person for our Halloween costume. It’s Full House. We need an Uncle Jesse. You in?”

“Yeah,” Cyrus grinned, “of course.”

“Damn,” his friend Bogie said. “That TJ foo fucked you up bad, huh?” All eight of them were sitting around a bonfire before Thanksgiving break. It had been a long night of confessions and telling each other things not a lot of other people knew. Somehow in the moment, Cyrus spent thirty minutes telling them the becoming and downfall of him and TJ. Rich had convinced him to go to therapy on campus early November, and Cyrus wished he had gone sooner. It was getting so much easier to be around his friends and have open conversations.

“Yeah,” Cyrus admitted. “I cried everyday for months. I still cry sometimes.”

“Is that why you spend forever in the bathroom?” Karson asked him. Cyrus nodded.

“Damn, Cy,” Roxana mumbled, “no wonder you were so distant at the beginning of the school year. I thought you were just stuck up, but I guess I was wrong. I’m glad you trust us now, though.”

“Me, too,” Cyrus said.

“So, this TJ,” Bogie asked, “what’s he up to?”

“Besides knowing that he plays basketball for Midwest State U, I have no idea. I haven’t talked to him since I last texted him after the breakup. I’m still good friends with his sister, but she never says anything.”

“Dang, so he’s a baller?” Bogie asked.

“Probably just getting fucked up at parties,” Mikhenna suggested. Cyrus didn’t respond. He just shrugged.

“Do you still love him?” Roxana asked him.

“I don’t think so,” Cyrus shook his head. “I’d be stupid to. But thanks for listening, guys. I feel a lot better. I feel like I belong and that I can finally move on.”

Cyrus didn’t see the point of flying all the way back home for a week long break, so he decided to stay behind in California and take a train to his aunt and uncle’s place. They had a daughter that thirteen and always had juicy middle school drama.

When he was laying down on the bed of the guest room, his phone started vibrating. Buffy was on Facetime, and he answered immediately saying, “Hey, Buff.”

“Hey, Cyrus,” Buffy grinned widely before switching the camera, “look who’s with me!”

Andi waved at the camera, “Hey, Cyrus!”

“Andi,” Cyrus grinned. “How are you? We haven’t talked in like four days.”

“I know right,” Andi laughed. “I’m fine. What about you?”

“I’m good, I’m good,” he said before registering completely that Andi was in Shadyside. “Wait,” he paused, “aren’t you supposed to be in Pennsylvania?”

“Yeah but a professor died, so they gave us two weeks off instead of three days and just postponed winter break.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“I have no idea who he is,” Andi shrugged. “But where are you?”

“With my dad’s sister and her family. I’m just chilling and eating home made food before I go back,” Cyrus smiled. Andi moved over to sit next to Buffy and Cyrus noted that they were at the Mack’s place.

“So enough of that,” Buffy said and then looked at Andi who gave her a stern look. “Come on, let me tell him.”

“Well now you have to tell him,” Andi rolled his eyes.

“That’s very true,” Cyrus agreed.

“I know,” Buffy smirked. “That’s why I said that. Anyways,” she looked right at the camera, “we went to the mall with Amber in her car, but it broke down in the parking lot when we were leaving. She had to call TJ to come pick us up, which was already awkward enough because I always ignore him at school, but I was like whatever, it’s a twenty minute drive. Then in the car, literally, this man, I mean, boy, can ask any question. Any question in the world. Preferably, one directed at his sister, like you know, has your car been acting funky for a while? But he asks me and Andi, ‘How is Cyrus doing?’” Cyrus’ heart dropped. He hasn’t heard anything about TJ in so long he’s forgotten how to react.

“What did you say?” Cyrus asked nervously.

“I said that I charge $50 per fact,” Buffy said, “and he didn’t say anything else.”

“That’s weird,” Cyrus frowned. “I wonder why he doesn’t just ask Amber. I literally call her once a week, every Tuesday.”

“No idea,” Buffy said. “But maybe she just doesn’t answer him for the same reasons I didn’t.”

“Which are?”

“We love you.”

anyways follow my main @webarebares <3 thank you for reading! feel free to send asks if something was confusing or if a typo was horrible or just because. i luv u.

#shoosh star #stars writing #andi mack #tyrus #kind of lol #im just a sucker for angst and cant help writing it whenever i can

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cupidmarwani-archive · 5 years

Text

Big News

Summary: Sarah and Ava have big news for the groupchat.

WC: ~1.5k

[Other Bekker renamed the chat “HOUSE PARTY”]

Other Bekker: it’s official

Other Bekker: i own a house

Other Bekker: with my WIFE!!!!!!

Bekker: We’re throwing a housewarming party and everyone’s invited!

Dr. Lanik: What’s the dress code

Other Bekker: casual if you wear a suit ill kill you

Ethan Choi: When?

Bekker: We were thinking it would start at around six or seven? It would mean a lot to us if Crockett could make it.

FreeWilly: Will there be alcohol?

Other Bekker: some of us are sober. No

no-ah: I’m in

Maggie<3: Wait who’s sober other than Crockett?

Dr. Lanik: Me

Other Bekker: me

connor: @OtherBekker there was an open bar at your wedding

Bekker: Circumstances change

Ethan Choi: This is such a fun conversation. Let’s not have it.

April: So back to the party… details!

Other Bekker: ill send the address in a bit but its gonna be potluck style. Everybody brings food. itll be pretty casual so dont be that asshole (@Dr.Lanik). starting at six ish and ending at maybe 10 or 11 depending on how tired we all are

Ethan Choi: Crockett’s program usually ends at like 5:30 so we might be a little late?

Other Bekker: ok sounds good. how is he btw

Ethan Choi: Pretty well. He’s outpatient for another few weeks and then his doctors are going to discuss long term options. Hopefully he’ll be back at work soon, too

April: Tell him we’re proud of him?

Ethan Choi: As soon as I pick him up tonight.

Sarah: are we telling them tonight?

Wifey: I was thinking so, yes. I mean, we have our house, and the paperwork went through.

Sarah: im so excited

Wifey: Me too, honey

Nat: Not to alarm anybody but whoever’s in charge of Connor right now, come to treatment 4

FreeWilly: love the implication that we take turns babysitting him

Dr. Lanik: We kind of do. I think it’s Maggie’s turn.

Maggie<3: I’m not at work. Who’s next in line?

April: @QueenElsa

Queen Elsa: Fine

connor: im a big boy i can take care of myself

Nat: You literally have a concussion

Ethan Choi: Why?

Nat: He fainted after a surgery. His sugar is low on the finger prick and he said he hasn’t had any water since his shift started

Dr. Lanik: @connor We’ve talked about this

connor: ok boomer

Dr. Lanik: @connor Stop calling me a boomer! We’re the same age!

connor: ok

connor: boomer

Bekker: Can you grow up @connor

connor: no

Queen Elsa: Update for everyone, Connor is getting a CT. He’s eating a Snickers bar right now and we’re pushing fluids

FreeWilly: youre not you when youre hungry

Dr. Lanik: @Bekker @OtherBekker What day will your housewarming party be? My daughter’s birthday is Friday.

Maggie<3: IM SORRY YOUR WHAT

Other Bekker: ?????

Bekker: We were thinking Saturday.

April: @FreeWilly Did you know about this???????

FreeWilly: uh yeah?

no-ah: Why did none of us know you had a daughter?

Dr. Lanik: I just don’t see how it’s any of your business.

Nat: How old is she? Who’s her mother? What school does she go to? How did we go this long without knowing?

[Dr. Lanik has sent an image to the chat]

Dr. Lanik: This is Emma, she’s almost eleven, and this is the most information any of you will ever be getting about her.

Ethan Choi: Well this has been a wild ride

Other Bekker: now taking bets on how crockett will react. $10 says he thinks its a joke

no-ah: Coward. He knows everything. $20 says he already knew.

Other Bekker: youre on

Queen Elsa: ...Anyways, Connor’s CT came back alright. It’s a minor concussion; he’ll be fine soon.

Maggie<3: That’s good

Dr. Lanik: @FreeWilly and I will look after him.

Ethan Choi: Just picked up Crockett, he says hi. He also has letters for each of you as part of his process

Nat: That’s sweet

Ethan Choi: I have been assured none of them contain nudes

Other Bekker: thank g-d

Ethan Choi: I’ll be giving them to you all at work.

Ethan Choi: Crockett will be cooking something I won’t even try to pronounce for the housewarming party

Other Bekker: his cooking is all so good...

no-ah: It slaps

Queen Elsa: Is it that pasta thing??? With the crawfish????

Ethan Choi: Honestly, I don’t know.

Nat: Owen and I are bringing cookies.

Bekker: Important question, @Dr.Lanik… will Emma be coming?

Dr. Lanik: No. I don’t want her near any of you.

connor: hes got a point

Maggie<3: Have you never, in your life, had to bring her to a doctor?

Dr. Lanik: We use East Mercy so that you all keep your noses out of my life.

FreeWilly: ouch

April: I mean, if I had a daughter, I wouldn’t want any of you near her either.

Nat: Harsh, I trust you with my son

April: You’re different.

Bekker: Do I hear wedding bells?

Nat: @April What if we kissed in the doctor’s lounge… and we’re both girls?

Nat: Haha just kidding

Nat: Unless…?

April: Did you just hit on me with a meme

Nat: Did it work?

Other Bekker: another win for the gaydies

Other Bekker: THEY BOTH JUST WENT INTO THE DOCTORS LOUNGE JHGFKHFRH

Ethan Choi: Crockett laughed

connor: do you read these messages to him?

Ethan Choi: Sometimes. He likes to be in the loop.

FreeWilly: hot take but. we could just add him back to the chat?

Ethan Choi: He’s not ready for that yet, but he does like to be updated on your lives and one-on-one texting is stressful for him

Other Bekker: we spend more time talking about crockett now than we did when he was in the chat

no-ah: Sweet I have my Crockett letter

Ethan Choi: I'll put them in your lockers. My shift is starting so I'm turning my phone to silent.

Other Bekker: Crockett Time

Bekker: Did he write me one?

Other Bekker: @Bekker both mine and yours are in my locker i think. one is for "blonde bekker" and one is for "brunette bekker"

no-ah: That's what he has your contacts saved as

Queen Elsa: Mine is just a smiley face sticker in an envelope?

Other Bekker: jsyk we should probably keep these private! this is important to him

Maggie<3: I'm so excited to see him again on Saturday, I've missed him.

FreeWilly: He's been busy. I think his program is like eight to five every day but Sunday

Nat: What's that even like?

Other Bekker: they have an in house aa group that meets a few times a day and theres a ton of other support like therapy to get to the root of the problem. i mean before he got sober the first time he was self medicating

Other Bekker: he does a lot of art therapy i think. when he was inpatient he kept mailing paintings to my wife and i

Curry (Not Dr.): Hey, it's Elsa Curry from Med. Sarah gave me your number. I was just wondering why you gave me a sticker?

Crockett: dont u put them on the inside of your binder? the one u put ur case notes in at the end of ur shift

Curry (Not Dr.): How did you know that?

Crockett: u pull ur binder out when ur stressed to reference old cases. i thot u might like another sticker so u know ur not in this alone

Crockett: :)

[crickett has renamed the chat "dick bros"]

crickett: @connor do u wanna fuck again this weekend lmao

connor: ???

connor: i thought that was a one time thing

Ethan Choi: It doesn't have to be.

Maggie<3: @Bekker @OtherBekker Sorry I'm running a little behind! I couldn't find my keys

Bekker: No harm, no foul!

[Bekker has sent an image to the chat]

Bekker: Definitely hurry, we're having so much fun!

Crockett: baby

HUBBY: I'm sitting right beside you.

Crockett: ik but im feeling kinda overwhelmed

HUBBY: Do you want to go home?

Crockett: i think i just need air will you cover for me if someone comes looking

Other Bekker: THANK YOU @Maggie<3 FOR ACTUALLY HELPING CLEAN UP

FreeWilly: sorry!

connor: sorry ahhhhhh i didnt think about it

Nat: Congrats again, you two, this is huge!

April: ^^

no-ah: Will we get to meet her, or will she be a secret like Laniks daughter?

Bekker: You'll all definitely get to meet her, but let's not do so much at once? Adjusting to a new home is hard, and from what the adoption agency tells us, she's had a rough go of it.

no-ah: Of course!

Queen Elsa: No little girl could have a better home! Congratulations on your daughter and I wish you really good luck. If you ever need help, we're all here!

Dr. Lanik: She's about eight, right?

Bekker: Yes

Dr. Lanik: If she needs help adjusting, let me know, and maybe Emma and I can help. She was about that age when I adopted her.

connor: the Lanik lore we are getting today omg

Dr. Lanik: You'll both be great parents, and @OtherBekker don't hesitate to let me know if you need extra time off. This is a big deal and you shouldn't have to stress about work when you should be worrying about your family. @Bekker I'll also ask Dr. Latham to be lenient with you as well.

Other Bekker: thank you from both of us <3

connor: who knew lanik had a heart.

#chicago med #fic #mine #medgroupchat

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faunusrights · 4 years

Text

OFFAL HUNT REMASTERED LIVEBLOG // CHAPTER 18

IN THIS EPISODE OF ROBLOX OOF NOISE:

“Yes.” Glynda couldn’t hang up, not without: “I’m—I’m sorry. About what I—”

“It’s alright. I’ll talk to you soon.”

“Okay—” The feed cut. Softly, Glynda said again, “Okay.”

GLYNDA DISCOVERS WHY BEING CINDER FALL SUCKS

do u know how hard it is to wake up and play animal crossing whilst knowing this chapter looms over yr shoulder,

OKAY HERE WE GO

She was fidgety; even Cinder mentioned her pacing, shooting a critical eye her way. Glynda sat, intent on stillness; moments later, Cinder mentioned her bouncing leg.

i LOVE it when a chapter calls me out just right out of the gate hahaha who gave u the right

"Really?" How long had they been doing that? How long ago had Cinder noticed? "Should I stay?"

cinder: maybe i should tell glynda abt that /see glynda pacing a dent into the floor cinder: ooooooor i could. NOT give her an excuse to bully them for something to do,

On her way down the street, Glynda couldn't help but stare at the car, its tinted windows revealing nothing within. As she passed it, she kept glancing over her shoulder, expecting an attack or something. But nothing came of it.

HJGDFSGSDFHKGHJDF GLYNDA,,,,,,,,,,, can u imagine being in the white fang, and sittin in yr fuckin. TINTED WINDOWED like BULLETPROOF CAR and yr sat on yr ass watching out for cinder “dumbass” fall and suddenly glynda goodwitch, The Top Bitch, comes out and starts GLARING YR CAR DOWN,,, like ah. i think she knows we’re here. hrm. hm.

i would just like. drive to mcdonalds and get some nuggies at that point.

She had a clutch of flash-images and a wash of emotions and impressions, the raw materials of memory, stored as-is without refining. She was quite used to that—most of her missions were hazy and rough in her memory, mere sketches of events.

i cant wait for glynda to become a vlogger if only so she can actually have physical proof of whatever the fuck happens whenever she goes out and about. get her a go-pro.

It told her: despite her restlessness, despite the arduous journey here, and despite the way Vale seemed to call for her from somewhere beyond the horizon, she felt quite content to be where she was.

the difference having a gf has huh,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, u got a whole ass home (being cased by the fang) a real nice city to live in (its floating and atlas wants yr number) a bunch of unread msgs (from a [redacted] who [redacted]) and its a nice day!!! its all coming together. but probably not for very long,

(i got very distracted at this point making a line graph for the animal crossing stalk market so here we go, x2 edition,)

That meant the nightlife would soon begin. She had never liked crowds; too many people, too much input at once. It was hard to focus, to be comfortable.

/chefs kiss

autistic glynda did u kno: id die for u,

Since she’d blocked Ozpin’s number, there was no chance of receiving anything directly from him—but there was still a moment of pause each time she checked her Scroll, as if expecting his smiling face to appear somehow.

OH YEAH LMAO SHE DID THAT SHIT HUH,,,,,,,,,, i still cannot BELIEVE that happened. GOD. cant wait for this to bite her entire ass right off her body,

By the time she reached the top landing, Winter had replied: “I wasn’t aware that you had additional support on this mission, Professor. I will need their full name and Hunter’s license number.”

To answer Cinder Fall and she doesn’t have a license, but she does have several warrants for her arrest felt like inviting Winter to question not only her integrity, but her sanity as well.

SDHGJFKSKGHDJFGJHDKF i cant say what makes this funnier because 👈😎👈 but HOHOHOHOOOOO could u imagine the fallout if she did just, say that shit. if we just went and fuckin said it like it was no biggie--

Finally, Glynda let her shoulders relax, exhaling deeply, like she would before rushing a Grimm. She wrote it plainly: “The clearance is for Cinder Fall.”

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

MA’AM WHAT THE F U C K

winter rn:

She’d just have to wriggle her way out of having to talk face-to-face, then return the game to a field she felt slightly more comfortable with: text.

okay this is so funny to me cause i just keep thinking of her sending ‘no reason’ to oz. a MASTER of textual conversion. un fucking PARALLELED in this field, UNRIVALLED,

Glynda tossed a look at the door as well, her mouth pulling into a line; what if Cinder came outside? What if—

Could Winter track her exact position using her Scroll signal? She minimized the projection of Winter’s face and hurried off in a random direction the instant she hit the bottom of the stairs.

i LOVE these two because this is the first time we’ve rly seen glynda like. Actively do smthng to defend cinder in this sort of way? she’s been pretty passivve abt letting cinder take the lead when theyre together but on her own shes thinking of all the contingencies to make sure winter cant find cinder and u know what. thats gay. what will u do for yr not-gf when yr talking to someone who would kick her ass in a hot second,

also im TAKING to grab choice lines here to comment upon but honestly this next section is SO GOOD that im rly struggling to find a line to encapsulate how much i am LOVING this convo. i cant say exactly WHY im loving it because again thats 👈😎👈 BUT KNOW THAT THIS IS VERY GOOD FOOD AND I AM ENJOYING IT. and im also enjoying this line a lot

Winter’s voice was decisive: “Professor, if you hang up on me, I am flying to your location—tonight.”

winter: if y’all dont shut the fuck up back there i am turning this car, city, and continent AROUND,

It was the same thing, over and over: people didn’t understand her and she didn’t understand them. It was an exercise in futility that only gave her grief. In the end, she gave up on trying to explain herself. She resigned to being wrong, to always being wrong, even when she knew she wasn’t.

OOF OKAY WHAT THE HELL IS UP W/ THIS FIC AND CALLOUTS. HUH??? ME BITCH!!! I FEEL THAT!! AND IT SUCKS,

/reads the next bit

oh are we donning our tinfoil hats? we’re donning our tinfoil hats.

It was so easy. Glynda didn’t stumble over her words even once; didn’t waver. She was built for doing harm. Her anger burned hot and clean; it excised all the hurt like a malignant tumor.

Maybe she really had learned something from Cinder—channeling her frustration, her guilt, her pain, all of it into anger like this was something Glynda was new to. But it felt good. She leaned into it, letting it take the reins; the distressing memories vanished like wisps of smoke, vaporized by the heat of her wrath.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS god this is. SO EXCITING. i also love it when ppl rub off one one another its my FAV thing in the WORLD and this anger is. WOO. this anger is. DANDY. its also a very short-term burst of pleasure glynda so enjoy that hollowed-out whoopsie feeling that i sure get when i Blow Up,

“She butchered my friend!” Winter snarled, the camera shaking as she slapped the desk. “She butchered my friend in the streets like he was cattle! And I have done everything in my power to help you! Everything! To keep her from doing the same to you, and you’ve blown me off or lied or—” Winter’s voice snagged. “And now you tell me—you accuse me—”

It was early evening in Umbraroot, but it must already be night in Atlas. The shadows revealed the unclean angles of Winter’s face: the bruises of exhaustion under her eyes, the lines of stress at the corners of her mouth.

im sorry im just copy-pasting wholesale at this point but OH this is GOOD. i cant rly explain. like. the difference-- because you’d think from the og version this is just a bit more flavouring right? its like getting a bit of hot sauce on yr chicken wings and yr like ‘okay it adds smthng but its not like a side meal’ BUT IT IS A SIDE MEAL this is like a whole basket of fuckin. cheese-baked fries. winter DESERVES this screentime she DESERVES to have presence in this fic and OH does she USE IT im LIVINGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG

Glynda wanted anger. She wanted fire and brimstone. She wanted a fight.

What she got was the glisten of tears on pale lashes. A hand covering Winter’s trembling mouth.

The ashy taste of remorse in her throat.

THERES THAT HOLLOWED-OUT WHOOPSIE FEELING!!!!!!!!!!!!! THERE IT IS RIGHT ON TIME. its like CLOCKWORK,

She didn’t have anything. Nothing against that. The possibility that Winter might truly care what happened to her had been so insignificantly small and easy to trample. She had forgotten about the losses Winter shouldered the moment Cinder had whispered inheritance.

it’s just like clockwork,

also this chapter feels lengthy but maybe its just cause i got distracted with animal crossing so ill have to do a wordcount check at the end

/checks

no its lengthy this is a thicc one,

“I know,” Glynda said. “I know. I know how this sounds. But she’s the only person who makes me feel like—like I make sense.” In her mind, Glynda lay in the darkness of Cinder’s bedroom, watching the glaze of streetlights along her lips as she said you.

you,,,,,,,,, we,,,,,,,,,,,, our,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, its all that gay shit,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

“If I’ve learned anything, it’s that Cinder Fall is a tremendous liar. She could convince you it is raining in Vacuo, given enough time. Two years ago, I was working on the Argus base, where I met her as a client; she told me she was a merchant seeking entrance into Atlas—she had all her documents in order, her entire persona set up, and she sold it perfectly. She was flawless—and all of it was fake. She gave me no reason to doubt her. She was—”

Winter cut herself off, abruptly. Then: “Once I was comfortable and safe, she burned down my office and murdered my friend.”

YES,,, SLOWLY THE LORE PIECES TOGETHER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! winter is once bitten twice shy, but mayhaps we mean,,, once burnt,,,, twice shy,,,,,,,,,, hrmmmm,

Glynda told Winter everything.

OH MAN,,,, we’re really getting this messy fucking trio up in this bitch i am SO excited. i am THRILLED. here! we! go!!!!!!!!!! also i said it before but again im so glad winter gets to Be Here for this. sure this has nothing to do w/ her destiny or w/e but shes here now. shes in the uber. she waiting outside.

The dying potted plant Glynda had spotted last time on the back wall’s shelf had been replaced with a new one; this one’s leaves were beginning to shrivel at the ends.

dsfjhhkljsdf side note: is this like that scene in finding nemo where all the new fish see the niece and go ‘oh no we’re gonna die’ but instead its plants getting taken into winters office? they go ‘im sorry, mate, but once you go into her office, you come out TOTALLY dead,’

okay so this whole convo happened and if i try to pick one section ill end up picking it all AAAAAAAAAAAAAA im dying out here. WINTER BLEASE,,, BELIEVE THAT SOMETIMES CINDER CAN TELL A HALF-LIE. A SORTA-TRUTH. A SEMI-HEMI-DEMI HONESTY,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

How different would that mission have gone? How different would her life have been?

She found herself saying, “He had so many chances to tell me. Instead, he let me think I was reckless. That I was a danger to other people. I stopped working in teams. I didn’t have many people in my life to begin with, but afterwards was worse. He saw to it that he was all I had, and he let me think it was my fault.”

ROBLOXOOFNOISEDISTORTEDWITHDELAY.MP4

OOF!!!!!!! O O F!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! honestly OOF that shit HURTS BITCH!!!!!!! thats BANANAS. WILD. im also loving (hating???) the increase of painful glynda lore and honestly everyone feels like they have So Much More that builds them up and im THRIVING off it. im also suffering for it.

With the video feed closed, Glynda could see she had new notifications. Missed calls. From Cinder.

Glynda’s stomach lurched. She stowed her Scroll before she could think about them.

At the mouth of the alley, she could see the shape of Cinder’s apartment in the distance. She stood there for a long time, staring, uncertain what to do with her hands, unsure what to do with her heart. Her jaw flexed. She remembered the tears on Winter’s lashes. The friend she’d lost.

Glynda took her first step toward the apartment.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA and so the soft domestic shit ends. but nowhere near as explosively as id thought???????? HUH. H U H. must b because we’re gearing up for smthng honk honk honk

ANYWAY!!!!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. this chap was SO good its astonishing (despite the [several] times i got distracted by animal crossing rip me). WINTER!!!!!!!! BABY!!!!!!!!!!!!! i cant believe this disaster trio is coming together. also cant wait for glynda to tell cinder the shit she just pulled. oh no,

(also the wordcount was 5,931. just in case u were curious)

#liveblog #rwby #offal hunt #HERE IT IS #so much went unsaid because the convos were SO juicy so PLEASE read it #dfsghsdfjgh

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barbitone · 5 years

Text

So Aaravos x Lotor crossover

Before you read this keep in mind that it was developed in two hours on four hours of sleep. Entirely in text messages. (And feel free to change anything about it I just want to read Aary and Lotor)

Lotor’s ship crashes or he just lands there to hide

But we don’t know exactly how old he is just that he’s roughly ten thousand. And idk when Voltron takes place so I’ll make Lotor like 9000 since tdp takes place in medieval Europe

So he lands there because earths atmosphere is oxygen and he’s like “I got air and it looks like they have a lot of stuff I could eat to survive”

OH FUCK IF SENDAK FINDS HIM THE ELVES ARE GONNA THINK HES A MAGICAL ANIMAL AND ATTEMPT TO TAME HIM JSJSJSJSKJS

Anyways he lands in a forest in human territory and they attack him thinking he’s some sort of elf and try to capture him but they have wooden spears and Lotor’s been training for nine thousand years with the galra so he has to kill them when he can’t reason with them

And he starts walking and survives in the forest

And like it’s really easy because you just havevall these small animals?? just running around?? and fruits? everywhere?

And he ends up in Xadia. And he’s smart so after a few days he figures out the moonstone path

And he gets there and he gets a few weird looks because he’s in full armor and also where are his horns? Is it birth defect? But he has pointy ears and white hair so he passes mostly unnoticed. But some of the attention is also from the purple skin because “startouch elf?? Here?”

And there’s the headcanon that startouch elves are pompous douchebags that are too good to hang out with the rest of the elves. Also they do weird rich ppl stuff

So they just assume Lotor is a startouch elf but dimmed the stars on his skin

And startouch elves aren’t warriors but Lotor is wearing full armor

But they brush it off because nobody understands startouch elves

“Why did he cut off his horns?” “Idk man but why do startouch elves do anything?”

And idk if I should set it before Aaravos is inprisoned

Cause if I do it before then he meets Aaravos while walking through Xadia

Because Aaravos hangs out with everyone and doesn’t give a shit about startouch fancyness (also humans. He’s a human fucker too)

And Lotor is intrigued “you have the literal sky on your skin? Such an intriguing speeches. I’ve never seen these constellations before? What galaxies are they from?”

So Aaravos is intrigued by him bc “I thought you were a startouch elf. I must admit I did find it strange that you have no horns but given that my own mother broke hers in half for ”“fashion”“ I assumed you did the same. My father attempted to dip his in molten gold. Oh that’s a story ”

And ong the magic systems just CRASHING

Because quintessence is pretty ominous like they never explain what exactly it does

Meanwhile tdp developed this big ass lore and have everything set up

“I have the power of the universe at my fingertips”

“Oh I didn’t know planet Earth discovered quintessence”

“Quin- no! I’m a startouch elf. ????!!!”

And technically star elves do control the universe since they are the universe

And Aaravos doesn’t care about the Galra succeeding or anything he’ll still rule the universe

And just- I love this

AND AND

Then they leave each other for a while and Aaravos gets inprisoned in the mirror and Lotor kinda moves on bc “1000 years?? ok he left me”

But wait

They meet way before Aaravos was inprisoned

Let’s go with Lotor is almost 8050? And meets Aaravos and they explore space

And Aary reruns to earth at some point

Maybe I’ll make Elarion his child or student?

He’s like “I have to go back. The plan is in motion ”(since he can see the future and all that. And like I’m headcanoning that he set up everything. The whole war and dark magic. Cause I assume elves were just looking for an excuse to kick people out and Aary saw the opportunity and started dark magic)

And teaches Elarion but something goes wrong and he ends up inprisoned

Maybe Elarion was supposed to be trapped in the mirror but she placed the blame on him and ran away. Or they discovered that Aary helped and they’re both inprisoned separately

So he doesn’t come back for a thousand years so Lotor eventually moves on

“Did we really have anything?” And waits for him to come back but you know it’s been a thousand years and he started developing feelings for Allura and then the show happens

Then he gets trapped in the quintessence rift and Aaravos finally escapes the mirror (he manipulates Viren and I’m not gonna ramble about Viravos because you already know the deal)

So idk if he does develop feelings for Viren or just manipulates him. We’ll see

AND AND Voltron makes a big deal out of time and realities

And Lotor arrives on earth through a worm hole. So he was supposed to arrive in idk the 90s but the worm hole landed him in medieval Europe

So basically he accidentally time traveled and when he went back to the universe with Aaravos- so like

>they travel through space

>Aary says “I gotta go and do my star magic plan”

>(Aary kisses him right before he leaves and that’s their first kiss and Lotor is surprised but doesn’t have time to reply. And basically [ill wait for you to come back speech] [kiss] [Aary disappears]

>Lotor leaves earth through a worm hole

>worm hole takes him to the future where VLD events happen

>he doesn’t hear from Aary since he left and when he meets Allura he decides its time to move on. Maybe he’s dead? Lotor doesn’t know and Aary has no way of contacting him

>when Lotor dies in the quintessence fiend he gets reunited with Aaravos because Aary is literally the universe and Lotor got consumed by it

#fic prompt #submission #aavaros-aaravos #This fic prompt is great @_@#omg Lotor wandering around Xadia is amazing #he would have the wackiest adventures tbh

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pain-somnia · 6 years

Text

Covenant Rating: M Disclaimer Day’s Note: a witch/familiar au that @saradacchi distracted me with; rating is for mentions of sexual content and future sexual content; Kakashi-Shizune sexual content mentioned but it’s not an actual pairing? Sort of a casual thing; as always ShiItaIzu is in this fic, will always be in my fics; a lot of the witch lore in this fic is just a combination of stuff I made up and from Wicca and other witch sources; I call this part one because I expect to continue it in the future Next

Part One

She had wanted a cat.

Sister Shizune had a charming familiar with sleek gray fur. A relaxed creature that was lackadaisical in all its forms.

But when the lightning and smoke cleared there was a haughty screech and the flapping of wings.

A pissed off hawk cried at her from the center of her summoning circle.

She had wanted a cat.

. .

It had been seven days and the summoned hawk had yet to speak to her. She had to assume it was male due to its size, sure that if it were bigger than it would have been a female like the book on hawks she had bought stated. But she couldn’t be sure until it actually spoke to her and told her how it identified.

But it had been days and the hawk refused to communicate with her.

When she had first summoned the hawk it had taken flight as soon as all the smoke had cleared and it had become aware of the seal it stood in the center of. She could only gape at the empty space as Shizune tried to rub her back to comfort her.

Kakashi, Shizune’s familiar, had snickered and had only stopped when Tsunade, the eldest of their coven, shot him a glare.

“They will come back to you,” Tsunade informed her. “They are bound by the summon.”

“But they obviously don’t want to be my familiar…”

Sakura shuffled in her boots, her ceremonial robes feeling heavier than when she had first put it on.

Tsunade had said that young witches needed a familiar, that they weren’t pets but companions that protected them as they came into their own and learned the ways of magic.

Tsunade had told her that she had more control of her powers than what was usual for young witches, but that it was safer to go through all of the proper rituals. A familiar would help assist her as she honed her magical gifts as she matured as a witch.

But the summoning ritual didn’t go well.

She refused to accept that the summoned creature picking at its feathers by her opened bedroom window was her match.

The hawk caught her staring at it and turned its beak up at her, shuffling on its perch so that its back was to her.

Do what you will, so long as it harms none. Do what you will, so long as it harms none…

Sakura chanted the Rede in her head and tried to focus on her studies. She knew she drew her circle perfectly and Tsunade had examined the sigils for any flaws but there was no way the haughty creature before her was what her energy had called to across all of the realms.

“You’re going to need to talk to me eventually you know,” Sakura huffed, flipping through the pages of her tome before slamming it shut. “You won’t be getting your true form back until we complete the covenant. At least that’s what the High Priestess said.”

The hawk continued to look outside the window. Sakura rolled her eyes and grabbed another tome.

“You’re not trapped in here. You can go whenever you want.”

The hawk finally turned its head towards her. It cocked its head to the side.

“I mean yeah you have to come back because our lives are each others technically.”

The hawk turned its head away with a scoff, the first sound it made since it was forced back to her.

“But we’re both dealing with only half of our magic until we complete the covenant. So if you would like to have all of your power back━whatever power you have━I suggest you get talking.”

The hawk gave her another look before spreading its wings and taking flight.

Sakura grabbed one of the throw pillows from her bed and screamed into it.

. .

Sakura stared blankly at the trains going by. After school she would usually head over to lessons but without access to half of her magic she wasn’t allowed to strain herself with incantations.

She loved helping out Shizune but she was getting tired of only being able to brew potions.

Sakura whipped out her guide on magical remedies to common illnesses and began studying. Magic or no magic she still needed to prepare for her practical exam. Even with only half of her magic she was sure she had enough control to pass her next exam.

The sound of a bell went off signaling the arrival of a train on her platform. Without looking up from her book she got up from her bench and walked slowly over to the train.

“That’s a sure way to get us both killed,” a husky voice called out from behind her as something tugged on the back off her wool cardigan.

Sakura spun around and looked up to be met with classic Japanese features. Her jaw dropped as the beautiful face before her contorted itself into a scowl.

“Is staring all you do? Are you sure you’re a witch? You act like a mundane with all of your staring.”

“You do know it’s not every day that someone wears a kimono in the middle of a subway platform.”

Sakura eyed the dark blue kimono with the pattern of silver feathers etched into the fabric. The outfit was eye catching yet the man━no teenage boy for he couldn’t be that much older than her━stood there confident, completely indifferent to any attention he could be attracting.

“Wait! Did you say witch?”

Out in the realm of the mundane, a stranger shouldn’t have been able to recognize her as a witch.

“Isn’t that what you are? A mundane wouldn’t have been able to summon any sort of familiar, let alone an Uchiha.”

Sakura’s eyes roamed the boy before her, mouth still parted in shock. This was the hawk that she had summoned!?

“Which one of these things do we need to board to get back to your place?”

“So you do know English?” Sakura narrowed her eyes at him. “I was trying to use every language I knew, waiting for you to respond to me and you didn’t say anything.

The boy ignored her and looked at the board for arrival times. He headed toward the train that was approaching and Sakura followed him hesitantly. She wasn’t quite sure of what to make of this boy.

“I also know Mandarin and understood all of the colorful words you called me.”

. .

Sasuke was in no rush to have all of his power returned to him.

Sakura peeked over the top of her book on rune translations and watched him pour over her books while lying flat on his back on the ground.

Kakashi had loaned him some sweats and muscle tanks that had Sakura’s face heating up as she buried her nose back into her books.

She didn’t expect for her familiar to be as attractive as he was in his human form. Her only experience with familiars were Tsunade’s familiar Katsuyu that only had a slug form though it varied in sizes and Shizune’s familiar Kakashi who she could consider good looking but he was almost two decades older than she was and not her type in the slightest.

She found herself wishing that Sasuke would go back to using his hawk form.

From what Sasuke had told her he was almost an entire year older than she was and was in the middle of preparing for an event that was important to his family when he was kidnapped.

“I didn’t kidnap you!”

“Right. You summoned me.”

He spoke to her very little, only asking for more tomes to pour over as he looked for whatever information he was searching for and interrupting her whenever he couldn’t find anything in her fridge that suited his tastes or skill level in cooking.

“Ah.”

Sakura jumped not having expected Sasuke to say anything or make a sound.

“I found nothing. Your human texts are too limited. As soon as my family receives my message we can figure out how to correct this problem.”

“Problem? We just need to proceed with making the covenant and everything will be fixed and we’ll have our power back.”

Sasuke sat up and stared at her impassively. The longer he stared at her the more uncomfortable she felt.

“I will never be some witch’s pet.”

. .

All Sasuke had wanted was silence but now that the witch wasn’t talking anymore he felt mild irritation at the fact.

She went about her day ignoring him, refusing to acknowledge his presence. She had become cold towards him ever since he told her that he refused to become her familiar.

It didn’t matter to him how she behaved as long as she stayed away from him. He wanted nothing to do with cunning witches, especially if their power level was high enough to summon a member of the Uchiha clan as their familiar.

Members of the Uchiha clan becoming familiars was an anomaly. It was rare for a witch to be equals with an Uchiha and for one to be summoned was extremely uncommon.

It had happened two times before him in his lifetime━before that it had been half a century━and the instances of someone being summoned were that of one of his distant cousins, Shisui, by a witch who just so happened to also carry their blood in her veins and then his older brother who was so strong that he was summoned when he was but a child by a warlock many years his senior.

At the time it had been an honor.

Now it was the reason why Sasuke watched the little witch with distrustful eyes.

Itachi was now happy in a covenant with Shisui and their witch Izumi but it didn’t change the fact that he was damaged and an eyesore to most of the Uchiha.

Sasuke was sure most wished that Itachi had died when his warlock betrayed him and sullied their covenant.

He could just imagine the shame in his father’s face to discover that his second son had also been summoned and right in the middle of hanami.

“She’s not going to bite you,” Kakashi, the cat familiar of the dark haired witch, told him from behind an orange covered novel. “Unless you’re into that thing. She might if you ask nicely.”

“What?” Sasuke’s eyebrows furrowed, not sure why he would ever want the little witch to bite him.

“Oh boy. You’re one of those sheltered tengu from one of those noble houses, huh?”

Sasuke remained silent. Beyond his first name he hadn’t shared much information about himself with the witches or their familiars. They didn’t know his family name so they couldn’t trace him back to the Uchiha.

There was no need to give them any more reason to hold him hostage.

“How long have you been with your witch?”

“Since I was sixteen. Witches call to their familiars when they turn of age. You met your witch on her seventeenth birthday.”

“She’s not my witch,” Sasuke grumbled.

He eyed the little witch as she sorted through ingredients. Her long, bright rose gold locks were pulled away from her face as she set to work. She worked her bottom lip between her teeth as she concentrated.

“Technically she is. You gave her your name.”

“What.”

“You really don’t know anything about witches and covenants, do you?”

Kakashi sighed and pulled out a tome from a shelf behind him.

“You were so busy trying to find a way back home you never bothered to look at the texts that detailed the relationship between witches and their familiars.”

Kakashi stretched his limbs and began to shift into his cat form. He yawned, popping his jaw.

“You ever wonder why she hasn’t given you her name yet? It’s because she refuses to enter the covenant without your consent. Read you sheltered bocchama.”

. .

She was annoying.

The little witch had a bad habit of staying up late to study. Sasuke would find her cuddling with a tome and surrounded by scrolls.

“Mess,” Sasuke mumbled and collected the scrolls and put them where they belonged in her room. As carefully as he could he pried the tome from her arms and set it down on her desk.

He caught himself in the middle of pulling up her quilt and ran a hand down his face.

This isn’t happening.

Sasuke went back to the futon couch on the other side of the room and turned his back on the little witch. He pulled up the blanket she had provided and willed himself to sleep.

. .

It was another few days before the little witch spoke to him directly again.

“You’re going to need to stay with Shizune and Kakashi starting tomorrow.”

She rocked back and forth on her heels and pulled at a lock of her hair.

“You’re kicking me out?”

“I’m not kicking you out!”

Her cheeks flushed red and she opened her mouth to shout again but seemed to decide against it when her mouth closed again. She closed her eyes and drew a deep breath before speaking again.

“My parents are coming back from their trip to China tomorrow night and you can’t be here. It would have been different if you were my familiar but for now you’re just a random boy. I don’t want my mom thinking I was shacking up with you while they were away.”

And that was how he ended up at the home Shizune and her familiar shared with the High Priestess Tsunade.

It irritated him that the High Priestess had been called to fulfill her duties in the coven led by her husband when he needed her assistance to break from the chains of the summon.

“Were you fighting with stray cats again?”

Sasuke stopped right in front of the doorway of the kitchen. He was trying to avoid any run ins with the witch and Kakashi. He didn’t want anyone trying to convince him to accept the covenant.

“Hold still while I disinfect it.”

“Why don’t you just lick it better? And lick other things while you’re at it…”

Sasuke fled as quickly as he could.

. .

Sakura was in the middle of changing into her sleepwear when her window was yanked open.

“Do you mind!?”

Sakura flung her discarded shirt at Sasuke’s face and she yanked down the baggy shirt she was putting on. She just hoped he hadn’t seen anything while breaking in.

The red tint to his ears wasn’t promising.

“You didn’t tell me that Kakashi and his witch were involved.”

“She has a name you know,” Sakura muttered. “You call that moron by his name but you won’t even offer the same respect to Shizune.”

“You didn’t tell me Kakashi and Shizune-san were involved.”

“I thought they would hold back while you were around. Those two...I swear it’s like they’re always in heat.”

“Do witches always take advantage of their familiars?”

“Will you quit making us sound so evil!” Sakura huffed, marching right up to him. “I’ll have you know that they have a very balanced partnership. What they choose to do as two consenting adults is none of our business.”

Sakura crossed her arms in front of her chest and drew inward on herself.

“Not all witches and familiars have relationships like that. Lady Tsunade’s familiar is very motherly with her. Kakashi and Shizune are the kind that don’t like relationships but still have needs they like to attend to and they trust each other. My dad and his familiar...they’re like brothers.”

“Your father has a familiar?”

“Yeah you’ll see him as a mouse sometimes but don’t let that fool you. He just can’t go around parading as whatever. He’s a púca. You would think it were quite fitting if you ever met my father.”

“So your father is a warlock?”

“Uh, yeah? How else did you think I ended up being a witch?”

From the look on his face it was apparent that he hadn’t thought of her at all. That shouldn’t have hurt as much as it did considering the fact that she knew he didn’t want to enter a covenant with her but it did.

“You can sleep here tonight but don’t let my parents see you.”

. .

He shouldn’t have been shocked by the puce colored hair. Sasuke knew the little witch’s hair was naturally the shade it was because of he pale pink of her lashes so genetically they had to have come from somewhere but he wasn’t completely ready for the puce colored spikes that belonged to who he could only assume was her father.

“A tengu!” The man cheered, pounding a fist into his hand at his discovery. “Your markings are amazing.”

Sasuke stood there frozen as the man rubbed his shoulder blades where the markings of his wings began. In his human form they were nothing but an imprint on his back.

“What’s with all of the racket?”

The little witch came out of her room rubbing her eye with the heel of her palm. Sasuke cursed her decision to sleep pantsless as he felt her father’s strong hand on his bare back.

“Good morning Sa━!”

“No!” The little witch shrieked waving her hands in front of her, signaling to her father to stop. “You can’t tell him my name.”

“Okay, my blossom.” Kizashi frowned. “What’s going on? It’s been two weeks since your birthday.”

Blossom?

Sasuke looked over at the stammering witch. She was explaining everything that had happened so he blocked out her words, not interested in reliving the past two weeks through her story. Instead his eyes roamed over the strands of her hair.

Her hair was a pale pink, like a certain flower that his family celebrated around this time of the year.

Remembering that he was kidnapped during such an important holiday, Sasuke turned and walked away from the witch and her warlock father.

. .

Her father insisted on giving Sasuke some privacy.

“Tengu are very traditional. I’m surprised he didn’t kick you out of your own room,” he had joked.

Sakura and Sasuke watched as her father drew a door on the wall and a seal on it. Sakura had her notebook out taking notes on everything her father was doing.

“An expansion spell isn’t that difficult for me on my own but it does need to be modified so that it’s hidden from the outside. Can’t have mundanes wondering when we built an addition,” he explained as he adjusted the sigils. “It will also help Sasuke come and go as he pleases if no one can see where he’s coming from. And it’s for that exact reason I’m going to need Llewelyn’s help.”

A black furred mouse scampered off of Kizashi’s shoulder and down his leg. It shifted into the form of a young dark haired boy although the snout, ears, and tail of a mouse remained.

“Ready when you are,” Llewelyn squeaked.

Kizashi bit his thumb hard enough until it drew blood and Llewelyn mirrored his actions. They placed a drop of their blood in the center of the seal and the chalk drawing door glowed.

Kizashi muttered an incantation and within seconds the wall stopped glowing and where the chalk drawing had been previously now stood a door that looked exactly like the rest in the house.

“Usually this would take a lot more out of me and would be difficult to do for one witch or warlock but with the assistance of a shapeshifter like a púca these kinds of spells are a lot easier to pull off.”

Llewelyn placed his hands on his hips and looked proud of himself.

“Does it have to be a shapeshifter familiar for these kinds of spells?” Sakura questioned.

Sasuke snorted and she shot him a quick glare. He had mentioned her habit of overworking herself but she ignored him. She wanted to learn.

“Any familiar can assist with these just fine but due to Llewelyn being a púca it makes it so my control doesn’t have to be as perfect as another witch’s would have to be.”

“It’s the lazy man’s way out,” Llewelyn joked as he shifted back into his mouse form.

“I would say to just ask Blossom here to help you modify anything but in her state she might damage the illusion keeping the room hidden.”

“I’m not that hopeless!” Sakura scowled, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

“Yes but let’s not risk it until Lady Tsunade gets back and figures out how to cut the summon.”

“You don’t know anything about it?”

Sakura would have been annoyed with Sasuke’s questioning if it weren’t for the fact he seemed genuinely curious.

“Hmm,” Kizashi hummed, brows drawn down in a frown, “there’s only one way I’ve ever known and I would rather avoid it.”

“What is it?”

“Death.”

. .

Sasuke stared out of his new bedroom window, feeling more frustrated than he had earlier.

Whenever he was in that sort of mood he would soar through the sky and relax as the wind rustled his hair and feathers.

But he wasn’t able to turn to his true form and he knew shifting to a hawk wouldn’t be give him the same feeling.

He had suspected that death would be the only way out of his predicament but the thought of ending the little witch’s life in exchange for his freedom was distasteful.

As much as he hated the idea of being tied to her forever because of a magical chaining of their souls, he hated the idea of sacrificing someone that was still technically an innocent.

It wasn’t until after that thought settled that he remembered that he would be risking his own life if she died.

“Dad wanted to make your room look more like home for you but mom freaked out because it’s troublesome to clean tatami.”

The little witch walked in with sheets for the bed Kizashi had transfigured from a bundle of twigs that he had found in the yard.

“This is fine.”

There was nothing with the western style room. He actually had a western style bedroom back home and it was quite comfortable especially now that he was on a real bed.

But those were little things about him that he wasn’t willing to share. He didn’t want to know the little witch or for her to know him.

At least that’s what he kept telling himself.

“Can’t you just summon another familiar?” Sasuke asked her before she could leave. “Wouldn’t that cancel out the summoning with me?”

“Uh, no.”

The little witch averted her gaze and made herself busy fitting the sheets on his matress.

“Is it because you don’t have access to the rest of your magic?”

“I know Kakashi gave you a book on summoning and familiars. Do you have to ask me these questions?”

Sasuke was thrown off by her new demeanor. She had ignored him before but now she was actually putting up a guard.

“I want to hear it from you. Why didn’t you have your High Priestess assist you in getting a new familiar? I don’t mean to sound arrogant but you would have to be a particularly strong witch to have summoned me. You could have any familiar you wanted probably.”

The little witch stood up and kept her gaze averted. Her cheeks had flushed to a delicate shade of red.

“It’s not a choice. I didn’t choose you.” she wrung her hands in front of her. “We were supposed to be meant for each other. You were supposed to━”

She cut herself off and took a deep breath.

“It’s not important.”

“Apparently it is if you’re reacting like this.”

Sasuke moved from the bench by the window and approached her.

“It bothers you that I don’t want to be your summon. Specifically that it’s me.”

“Wouldn’t you see it as a rejection?” The little witch narrowed her eyes at him. They glistened with unshed tears. It had only been two weeks but he knew how emotional she got.

A person that cries when frustrated. What an annoying new experience.

“I thought I was prepared for a familiar to find me unworthy of them. Reality hurts a lot more.”

That explanation wasn’t expected. Sasuke had assumed all witches were arrogant, that they had to be to summon creatures to submit to them.

“I’m a half-breed. I thought I would get a low tier familiar because of that. I didn’t expect you to show up. I didn’t kidnap you. I just wanted a partner and to finally feel like I was a real witch.”

That was something Sasuke could understand now that she let her feelings on the matter known.

He was a tengu but he was unlike the other tengu in his clan. They all took the form of crows excluding his mother. They both took the form of hawks and for that fact alone there were members of his clan that were wary of them.

“You are a real witch.”

The little witch’s eyes went wide and he turned his face away in embarrassment.

“You summoned me. You would have to be a real witch.”

. .

Sasuke stared at the tome sitting on his bed and frowned.

He still hadn’t opened the book that Kakashi had loaned him. He was avoiding everything that had to do with witches and familiars and hadn’t considered opening the text even if it gave him the chance to find information on breaking a summon.

He sighed and laid back on the bed bringing the tome up with him.

It wouldn’t hurt to do some light reading.

. .

Sasuke let out a yawn and immediately sobered up. His mother would have smacked him on his head with her uchiwa if she saw him yawning at the breakfast table.

He had stayed up the night before reading and he felt a little awkward because it was a habit of the little witch’s and there was a section about familiars and witches adopting quirks from each other.

“Here you go Llewelyn.”

Mebuki, the mundane mother of the little witch, offered the púca pumpkin and cream cheese pancakes. The little familiar was fond of sweet foods and sometimes she would treat him but often she would scold him and force him to eat all of the healthier food she made.

“Here you go Sasuke,” Mebuki placed a plate with egg and cheese stuffed tomatoes.

Sasuke put his hands together and said his thanks for the meal. It wasn’t something he would usually eat for breakfast but he appreciated the fact that it had been made with him in mind after it was discovered that he favored the fruit.

He was sure it was the little witch that had informed her mother. She was the one that had to pick up a bushel of them when they were alone in the house.

“Yinghuā?” Mebuki called to her daughter who was rushing around the kitchen table collecting her things for school. “Aren’t you going to eat?”

“I’m running late. I forgot that I had to stop by my math teacher’s classroom before class started.”

Sasuke reached out and grabbed the sleeve of her cardigan hoodie. The little witch’s eyebrows rose up in shock but she accepted the yellow and red apple that he placed in her hand.

She tended to skip meals when she was busy but she always grabbed an apple.

. .

Sasuke pulled on his new pair of jeans and the pullover that Mebuki had picked up for him. She also purchased a fare card so that he could travel around in the mundane way.

“There you go. Just an average teenage boy.” She pinched his cheek gently and chuckled. “Well not actually average. Far too pretty to say you’re average.”

Heat rose up Sasuke’s neck and he turned away. He heard Mebuki giggle and continue to tease him as she went back to tending to her chores.

Minus the wrinkles around her eyes, the jade of them lit up the same way his little witch’s eyes did when she was finally able to translate her runes properly.

. .

“Message for you.”

Kakashi dropped the scroll from his mouth and curled up on one of Sasuke’s pillows. Sasuke swatted at him until he moved to the edge of the bed and then unrolled the scroll.

“Shisui and Izumi are coming to visit.”

“Your family?”

Sasuke thought about the role they had in his older brother Itachi’s life and nodded.

They saved his brother’s life. They would always be family.

Sasuke was in the middle of meditation when there was a soft knock on his door. He waited a moment to see if the person was insistent on needing his attention before granting them permission to enter.

“Come in,” he called out after the second knock.

The little witch poked her head in and averted her gaze. She hesitantly came all the way inside, hiding something behind her back.

Sasuke raised a brow at her expectantly and she pulled her arms from behind her back.

“Do you know arithmancy? I don’t think I’m reading this chart correctly.”

“Yes. it’s a subject my mother thought important to teach me.”

“Really?” she squealed in excitement. “Are you good at it? I’m pretty good at memorization but sometimes I screw up with runes because I’m not very good at reading traditional glyphs.”

“Aa.”

Sasuke took her charts from her hand and got to reading them. The witch sat on his bed, close enough to press her shoulder against his.

He explained to her where she had messed up in her charts and redrew them for her. He made sure to keep everything as simple as possible so that she would understand.

Funny.

He never expected a random skill his mother told him could be useful one day to actually serve a purpose in his life.

. .

Levitation was something she could do without any focus. She had been doing it ever since she was a toddler without the need for any incantations or potions.

“You don’t need to float when you meditate.”

“I don’t but it’s just something that comes naturally to me. It kind of helps.”

Sasuke sighed out his nose and closed his eyes. Sakura smiled softly at his serene expression. It was nice to be able to be close enough to see it.

Sakura held back from giggling when she came to a realization that she couldn’t come to before when things were tense between them.

She had always wanted to have the ability to fly and her summoned familiar happened to have wings.

. .

“You’re a disaster.”

The little witch scowled at him from her position in his arms. He smirked down at her as she rambled off about how his help wasn’t needed but that she appreciated it anyway.

She was busy levitating some vials from the shelves to speed up her tasks of organizing all of the ingredients and reshelving all of the scrolls that she hadn’t noticed that she herself was levitating in the direction of a bubbling cauldron.

“You’re doing too much at once,” he reprimanded her. “I’ll take care of the scrolls.”

“Thank you.”

Sasuke was just about done with putting away the scrolls in the proper order when Kakashi in his cat form slinked over from his place amongst the cushions in the corner of Shizune’s workspace.

“Having fun?”

“Who has fun doing chores?”

“Familiars that enjoy being helpful to their witches.”

Sasuke almost dropped the remaining scrolls in his arms at the statement.

“That’s not what this is.”

“Oh? Alright then. Boys that like helping out cute girls.”

“It’s not that either!” Sasuke denied, his neck warming up.

Sasuke plucked Kakashi up by the scruff of his neck and tossed him out the second story window.

. .

He was getting too comfortable.

Izumi and Shisui were expected to arrive in a few days and with their arrival they would have an answer to his question of how to break a familiar summoning.

He hoped they would have the answer considering they were able to form a new covenant with a second familiar. It was a rare occurrence but it was done to save his dying older brother.

They weren’t there when Itachi’s covenant was broken but it felt insensitive to ask his brother about it.

Even in the text that he had borrowed from Kakashi there was nothing about breaking a covenant. The only mention was that the breaking of a covenant by either party was a vile act.

Sasuke could only think about how his brother was a wingless tengu and wonder what it was exactly that the warlock that summoned Itachi had done.

The more time he spent with the little witch he couldn’t imagine her doing anything that cruel.

She was sweet and at times even her temper was amusing. She was kind to him even when he was standoffish.

He didn’t mind when she invaded his space and spoke to him.

Sasuke was starting to enjoy his time in the mundane realm with her and her family.

He was getting comfortable.

But it was getting hard to think of that as a bad thing.

. .

Sakura was happy for him, she really was.

If it had been the other way around she would have been ecstatic if her family visited her.

But it wasn’t just a visit. They were here to take him back home.

Izumi was able to harness a lot of power to create a portal between the mundane realm and the one they called home. Tengu had immense power and the connection she shared with her familiar Shisui was a strong one.

She had never seen such a large spell done before, especially not one performed by a single witch.

It was still weird that it was all happening in the middle of Tsunade’s living room, especially since she still wasn’t back home.

“It’s not just Shisui and I. Itachi isn’t here with us physically but we can still feel our connection to him,” Izumi explained. “The stronger the bond, the bigger the magic.”

“So the summon should break when Sasuke returns home?”

“It should.” Shisui smiled gently at her. “It works like you’re returning him by letting him go. He should be able to stay there as long as you don’t attempt to summon a familiar again. Then he’ll just end up back here. So unfortunately you will just have to go without one.”

“So this is technically goodbye then,” she muttered. She turned sad eyes to Sasuke who stood in front of her impassively.

Sakura was starting to get use to seeing him around.

It was odd how close she felt to him when he had never even uttered her name the entire time he stayed with her and her family.

And now he was leaving without knowing it.

Sakura cleared her throat and strengthened her resolve. She wasn’t going to being crying the last time she saw him.

“I wish you luck with everything.”

Sakura stuck out her hand, offering it to him to take. He raised a brow at her and she swore she saw the corners of his lips twitch upwards.

“I’ll see you soon.”

Sakura’s eyes went wide when he smiled softly at her and used his pointer and middle finger to poke her in the center of her forehead. It was such a random gesture that she couldn’t help the heat rising to her cheeks. She wasn’t prepared for it at all.

See me...soon?

Nor was she prepared for what he said next.

“Sakura.”

#sasusaku #ss fanfiction #day!fics #covenant au

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gurguliare · 7 years

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I would love your thoughts on Dirhavel, vocaroo or text? Just because you were recently blogging about Hurin and I suppose this is kind of related. :)

A lot of my interest in Dirhavel is in his sources. The most detailed description we get of who he consulted in composing the Narn is from a pretty early stage of Tolkien’s legendarium-composition, which, let me just paste that here:

…this lay was the work of a Mannish poet, Dirhavel, who lived at the Havens in the days of Earendel and theregathered all the tidings and lore that he could of the House ofHador, whether among Men or Elves, remnants and fugitivesof Dorlomin, of Nargothrond, or of Doriath. From Mablung he learned much; and by fortune also he found a man namedAndvir, and he was very old, but was the son of that Androgwho was in the outlaw-band of Turin, and alone survived thebattle on the summit of Amon Rudh.(2) Otherwise all that timebetween the flight of Turin from Doriath and his coming toNargothrond, and Turin’s deeds in those days, would haveremained hidden, save the little that was remembered amongthe people of Nargothrond concerning such matters as Gwindoror Turin ever revealed. In this way also the matter of Mim andhis later dealings with Hurin were made clear. This lay was allthat Dirhavel ever made, but it was prized by the Elves andremembered by them. Dirhavel they say perished in the last raidof the sons of Feanor upon the Havens. His lay was composedin that mode of verse which was called Minlamad thent / estent.

Okay. So the first glaring Problem is Mablung: we know Mablung didn’t escape Doriath in the final timeline. But of course Mablung is in all other ways the ideal source for the Narn poet—we need that Mablung’s eye view on Nienor and Morwen on the trip to Nargothrond, Turin as he was that final morning in Brethil, etc. There’s another possibility, I suppose, which is that Dirhavel talks to one of the unnamed riders who form the rest of Morwen’s escort and (perhaps?) escape the clusterfuck at Nargothrond to ride out with Mablung again when he goes seeking Nienor and Turin in Brethil—but that’s not super satisfying, unless we can come up with anything else about the rider. We could also think in terms of people Mablung might choose as a confidante. Beleg’s out. Melian’s out, unfortunately. Hmm. Well, let me not string you along, I obviously have an idea here, although it’s a stupid one: NELLAS. Maybe a) Mablung started talking to Nellas after the trial/Beleg’s disappearance, since no one else was going to keep her updated and she was not going to stop creepily staring at him from a tree until he gave her an answer … b) it developed into a genuine friendship?? … c) Nellas took inspiration from Nienor and disguised herself as one of the riders who go with Mablung to Brethil? Or just legitimately went as a volunteer, who cares. Or like, everyone knew she was going along as a volunteer, but she still went in disguise, because it made her feel better.

…Hmm. Anyway, my point is, I like the idea of Nellas among the refugees in Sirion, and I like the idea of her making Dirhavel promise that he’ll list “Mablung” as his source, not “Nellas, who hates publicity.” I think it fits well in a few other ways—we know she spoke (and passed on to Turin) the beautiful ancient Doriath dialect or whatever, and one of the few pieces of information we’re given about Dirhavel is that he “has great skill in” Sindarin, which suggests to me not just fluency but mastery of multiple registers and a linguistic interest in Sindarin’s character as a language: maybe he got some material from Nellas, or it was what allowed him to talk to Nellas in the first place, or ideally both. Also, I have no basis for this actually, but Nellas seems like the kind of person who would be a really good mimic, A+ impressions—I hope this played a role in her teaching Turin about animals—and again I think it would be cool if there really was this feeling of Nellas like, channeling Mablung for the purposes of getting his testimony, in kind of the flip of Beleg summoning her for Turin’s trial.

Downsides to this theory: CoH specifically says that “Nellas of Doriath never saw [Túrin] again, and his shadow passed from her.” I don’t want to take this from Nellas!! I want to let his shadow pass from her! Still, I feel like ‘burning voyeuristic curiosity’ is distinct from ‘helpless loyalty to a memory,’ so maybe I can fudge it.

Moving on, I’m also suuuuuuuper interested in what “the people of Nargothrond” means here tbh. GWINDOR SURVIVED AND WENT TO THE HAVENS jk I love the freaking jab about “the little that… Gwindor or Turin ever revealed” too much to tamper with his post-mortem reticence, at least for the duration of this theory post. But, so, people from Nargothrond… I mean, I guess what puzzles me is the idea that it’s specifically Nargothrond’s survivors who know what happened to Mim, for example. Does that mean there were survivors in the area up to 5 years after the sack?? I guess that makes sense, now I think about it—people living off the land/going from part-time woodelf back to full-time woodelf, people who were left for dead in the battle—but I had never considered it before and it’s kind of weirding me out. Or do we imagine that Glaurung reserved a subset of the prisoners for his own slaves? That’s. Uhhh. Weird. I really don’t know what to picture for “witnesses to Mim’s death,” although I guess they could just have found the body after Hurin left. That’s a little more reasonable. That said what would make way MORE sense would be for Mim to have been one of the sources, given how many private Turin-Mim conversations are recorded. I realize Androg is supposed to have been eavesdropping but did he REALLY relay ALL of his eavesdropping to his adult son. Also, if you were Mim, would you not take this golden opportunity to pointedly enter your own “death” into the historical record

“I actually just camouflaged with the hoard because I was wearing so much shiny shit at that point. But listen, I saw his face, he WOULD have killed me if he hadn’t been busy playing hackey-sack with the Nauglamir. What do you mean he threw himself into the ocean somewhere near here, why would the ocean kill him, this isn’t safe”

…As for Dirhavel himself, I don’t know if I have a ton of headcanons. I guess I was thinking of him (??) as the kid of refugees from Brodda’s house, although man, now that I say that that feels like the kind of thing that would absolutely be mentioned if ‘true.’ Okay, here’s my thinking: I imagine him growing up in the Havens, not having ever been himself enslaved by the Easterlings, even as a child, and I also assume he was at least late 30s/40 when he died, so it would make SENSE if his parent(s) escaped in the 490s, and… hm. I guess that’s not super strong evidence. Because he’s listed as a man of the House of Hador and not, say, a man with a Hadorian mother and a Haladin father or something, I was thinking it would make sense if both his parents came from Dor-lomin and knew each other before Sirion, which was much more of a melting pot, but there’s really a bunch of unjustified assumptions I’m making there that don’t stand up to close examination, so, eh. On the other hand it’s kind of cute. Look. Whatever. I’m going to arbitrarily say I also picture him being related to Asgon. OH the other reason I was thinking about Brodda-refugees was because I was like, “where would the special affinity for Sindarin have come from,” and we know Brodda specifically seized most of Hurin’s holdings/people, and like sure everyone spoke Sindarin by then but I imagine nowhere moreso than in Hurin and Morwen’s service? To be polite to all the elf ambassadors constantly tramping through the garden if nothing else? So, that is my still deeply shaky basis. Thanks.

I was going to throw in some bullshit meta at the end here about blah blah the longest lay from those days not because more stuff HAPPENS in the Narn but because of the human preference for some granular description in the language whereas elves save the details for the telepathic music video, and also about the elves prizing the Narn because elf musicians never INTERVIEW people, the survivors of Nargothrond have never been INTERVIEWED before, no one ever talks to us!! It’s so enlivening. Then I decided I wouldn’t type it out. Then apparently I typed it out anyway. I do love the Narn being composed in Sirion because it really captures something about Sirion’s feeling of ill-defined urgency, like, we know we have to do SOMETHING… it’s all down to us… but what…… and in what timeframe… oh god, are we going to have to talk it out. I like the mechanical constraints—it can’t be a Numenorean reconstruction or whatever because it’s too immediate and living a piece of history, and he wants it to be history, and yet the Narn is in some senses about the end of history for Beleriand, or the end of its great bastions, so how do you get it written? Well, by engineering one more pause for breath. Okay. Sirion. And Dirhavel running around in the middle of that is someone I FEEL like I have a very clear image of, even if I haven’t actually talked about hypothetical personality at all here, nor would I because I suck at textual ghosts. Cute, though.

#Anonymous #no one expects the fannish inquisition #silmarillion #holy shit this is long.#'maybe i should go back and put in some thoughts on andvir--' 'MAYBE NOT'#dirhavel #nellas #sirion

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ciathyzareposts · 5 years

Text

Lords of Time: You Knew Just What I Was There For

If The Realm has the phrase, “once in a blue moon,” it must mean “quite often.”

When we last checked in with Major Thom, he was trying to get into the Druid Temple but didn’t know how to determine whether it was a night of a blue moon. It turns out that the game tells you quite explicitly in the text that the moon is blue, so I needed have worried. On the night of the blue moon, at midnight, I burned the four sacred plants in the four braziers, and the way to the temple opened.

The temple started off easy enough. The first level had a little shop and a library. At the shop, I bought a druid cloak. Books in the library confirmed that the world of The Realm is flat, and said that the Druid Book of Life holds the most powerful spells in The Realm and must not fall into the wrong hands.

On a conference table, I found a memo that indicated that the Council of Druids had declined to help Bessak. “He will have to fight Kruel alone,” it said. Unfortunately, there was no word on where Bessak went after that.

At first, I thought the game was making an homage to Maurice Sendak, but now I see that it’s “Senoak.”

The second level of the temple got a lot harder. It was a giant maze with four different entrances, swarming with druids who attacked me with some kind of force lightning. I hoped the druid cloak would disguise me, but it didn’t do anything. I swiftly started to run out of clear and blue potions, which restore health and spell points respectively. Enemies respawn as quickly indoors as they do outdoors, so there’s no way to clear them all and yet fewer ways to run away from them.

One of the books in the library notes that druids have an inexplicable love for mazes.

At the same time, another problem became clear. I hadn’t slept since waking up that morning. Since the Druid Temple requires you to stay up until midnight to even enter, you’re bound to run into fatigue problems unless you plan accordingly by staying up the previous night and then sleeping until dusk on the day that you go to open the temple. There are no beds in the temple, and I later confirmed that you can’t open the temple on one day, then go away to sleep, then come back to enter. The door closes while you’re away.

Still, I pushed forward. The second level maze (a book said that druids love mazes) led to a stairway to a third level, where a bunch of twisting corridors–again swarming with hostile druids–led to the shore of an underground lake. Since you can’t swim in this game, the only way I could find to cross the lake was to quaff a green potion, which polymorphs you into a frog. I had two green potions at the time.

Where’s Baba Yaga when you need her?

I soon discovered that there were two “exits” from the lake, both leading to small caverns with large spellbooks on pedestals. One cavern was blocked by a wall of fire, but the druid cloak protects against it. The first spellbook had something called “Mascar’s Spell of Protection”; the second had a “Mage Annulment Spell.”

Getting one of the druid spells on my second visit. I forgot to take a shot on my first.

Unfortunately, by this point, I was dead on my feet from exhaustion, I had no way to keep fighting the druids, and because I had used both green potions to get to the two chambers, I had no way to get back to the exit. I had to reload a saved game from before entering the temple.

Upon reloading, I had a plan: grind a bit; buy more clear, blue, and green potions; take the rest of the training courses; return in four days and try again. A commenter had said that blue moons occurred on nights 2 and 6, and I had entered the Druid Temple on night 14, so naturally I assumed they came along every 4 days. I planned my return for night 18.

In the next few days, I accomplished most of my list. I spent a little time fighting random enemies and got my experience points over 11,000–the highest value needed for any of the training courses. In Murkvale and Castleguard, I took “Advanced Lockpicking,” “Transformations,” “Advanced Swordplay,” and “Advanced Spellcasting.” With the money I made while grinding, I bought about a dozen of the blue and clear potions. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any place that sold green potions. But I figured I’d try again and perhaps find an exit or some other resource that I missed the first time.

The final guild course, which requires 11,000 experience.

Then the blue moon came unexpectedly on night 17. I was nowhere near the temple. To make sure this didn’t happen again, I saved the game and then burned a few days in Castleguard, watching for the next blue moon. It came on night 22, as I would have expected. So I’m not sure why night 17/18 was the one weird departure from the pattern.

Anyway, that gave me four days to screw around, so I decided to revisit some of the mountain locations. I originally set out hoping to find the dragon’s cavern and kill it with dragonsbane, but I couldn’t find it again. I couldn’t even find a cavern of the same shape as the image in my last entry, so it wasn’t just a matter of the dragon not being there. I stopped at the occult shop and sold my wyvern eggs, hoping their absence would stop wyverns from dive-bombing me with rocks, but it didn’t do anything.

But while searching the mountains, I was surprised to find that my lockpicking skill now worked at Lord Dertak’s Holde. (The game map has it as “Dervak,” but all the text in the castle gives it as “Dertak.”) Entering, I found a large dwarven keep of two levels. Among the books in the library and the few NPCs in the tavern, I learned that dwarves are the original inhabitants of The Realm. Humans encroached later, and the dwarves “deeply despise” the human settlements. The dwarven population has been declining for centuries, forcing them to abandon the “island keep.” Dertak, meanwhile, is said to be an amiable dwarf who bears humans no particular ill will. He has been known to grant humans favors in return for gifts. He particularly likes jewels.

I get some lore from a bartender . . .

. . . and more from a book.

When I encountered Dertak, he wasn’t impressed by anything I owned, including the several jewels. But the trip was useful for other reasons. A shop in the keep sold enchanted swords and armor, and I had enough to purchase one of each. Moreover, I found both a third green potion and something called “Grorph’s Spell of Exiting,” both of which sounded like they’d solve my problem getting out of the Druid Temple. A couple of skeleton keys led to a winding series of caverns where I found a treasure hoard and something called “Kruel’s Winterblast Spell.”

I still had a couple of days, so I returned to the mines west of Castleguard and employed my pick axe. Sure enough, I found a few generic jewels but also one that the came called out as a particularly large jewel.

This seems promising.

When I took the large jewel back to Dertak, he gave me a letter of recommendation for the dwarven high king, whose “holde” is in the mountain range north of Dertak’s. With one day remaining before the blue moon, I went there.

Dertak is pleased with my offering.

I had to bribe the guard to get through the first level. On the second level, I ran into some kind of golem who dissolved into mud when I defeated him.

No idea what this was about.

The third level had the living quarters of the hold, but unlike Dertak’s, it was swarming with (respawning) hostile dwarves who attacked me. (They’re the same dwarves who attack on the surface.) Fighting my way through them, I reached the dwarven high king, who didn’t seem to mind that I’d made my way to him by slaughtering his subjects. He took the letter and gave me in return a jeweled key that unlocks the door on the abandoned island keep. He then “expelled” me from his hold, which took me back outside automatically instead of forcing me to fight through dwarves. That was nice.

I think the bodies behind me are evidence of “my own valor.”

I had just enough time to make it to the Druid Temple–and again through that damned maze–before midnight. I did the ritual again and opened the door. This time, things went a bit easier. I got the two spells from the books and decided to use the exit spell (rather than the third green potion) to get out.

I really hope I don’t need that somewhere else.

I checked my statistics and was surprised to find that my “score” had risen from 10 to 110 (out of 190). In one session, I went from 5% game completion to almost 60%.

I returned to Bessak’s keep, thinking he might show up there now that I’d found the spells he wanted from the druids, but he was nowhere to be found. So the only thing I can think to do at this point is to try the island keep.

Before I go, I have to spend some more time complaining about the combat system. It’s not just bad; it’s exhausting. The animated .gif below shows what happens when you stop and pause for just a few seconds.

The hero makes the mistake of pausing by the riverside.

Enemies spawn constantly, and stopping to fight one is just an invitation for others to swarm you. You never really “end” combat; you just finally decide to break away. Getting from one place to another becomes an extremely tedious affair.

The combat system itself makes it worse. Victory and defeat are a matter of pixels–in a game where the graphics and controls aren’t quite good enough to find-tune your alignment. And upgrades in equipment don’t seem to make things much easier. I hardly notice a difference between wearing enchanted armor and wearing nothing. All the guild courses, attribute increases, and investments in increasingly-better weapons have only marginally improved upon my character’s performance with a pocket knife at the very beginning of the game.

Offensive spells don’t help much. “Fireball” (which you can equip like a weapon) doesn’t do any better than physical attacks and it’s very hard to aim. (The same is true of missile weapons.) “Pinok’s Paralyzing Spell” (which freezes every enemy on the screen) and “Fistak’s Fear Spell” (which causes them to run away) are theoretically useful but have such a high cost that you can’t rely on them.

The “Fear” spell sends enemies scurrying away but costs 50 points.

Still, experimenting with spells for the purposes of writing this entry led to some interesting results. At some point, I collected a spell called “Wyvern Morphing Spell,” which transforms you to a wyvern. It only works outdoors, but it’s probably my key to getting to the island keep, unless I want to rent a raft and paddle it all the way up from the delta. I otherwise don’t know the purpose of renting rafts, though.

“Kruel’s Winterblast Spell” sounds like an offensive combat spell, but instead it’s more akin to Ultima‘s “Armageddon,” turning the whole world to ice. I don’t know when I’ll need such a spell, but it doesn’t seem like something I want to cast randomly.

The spell froze the sea serpent that was on-screen at the time, but that didn’t stop a wolf from spawning and attacking while I was taking this screen shot.

The uses of “Grorph’s Spell of Darkness” are equally mysterious–it blankets the area around you in darkness, making it impossible to see. Two others–“Mascar’s Spell of Protection” and “Portal Activation Spell”–never seem to do anything no matter where I use them.

Lords of Time has some decent moments when it comes to exploration and puzzle-solving, unfortunately marred by the enemy and combat systems. I’m ready to enter the home stretch. I just hope that by the end, the game delivers some kind of explanation for its title.

Time so far: 20 hours

****

If anyone has played and gotten anywhere with the 1989 text-RPG hybrid Advanced Xoru, I’d appreciate a line. I thought it would be a quick one, but I’m hopelessly stuck.

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/lords-of-time-you-knew-just-what-i-was-there-for/

#retro games #dos games #retro #crpg #adventure #amiga #oldcomputers #8bit #16bit #blog #repost

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