#he might be the closest to an 'ancient horror' that we have met

[aconstantstateofbladerunner]

101 Open MHA Gen Prompts

I had a very long ask game where people gave me fake titles and I came up with fic ideas to go with them.  Multiple people asked to use some of them as prompts, and some of my friends have lately maligned the lack of gen prompts out there, so I decided to compile them all into a single post.  Almost all of these are gen, aka not shipping, but you can do what you want I’m not your boss.  Everything is free and open to use WITH CREDIT, so have fun with my word vomit.

1. In Dreams I Had the Sun - Being the number one hero isn’t all it’a cracked up to be, Toshinori realizes early on

2. The Chainlink Fence that Held the Ocean - In his new book post-retirement, All Might opens up about his regrets, struggles with mental health, and his issues with the hero system as a whole.  The backlash is swift and intense.

3. Welcome to the Loud Silence - After an injury, Izuku is rendered deaf.

4. Water Since Turned Red - After a villain attack nearly kills All Might, the beach where Izuku used to go to find comfort now feels tainted.

5. all scrap left untouched is bound together - A group hero students who failed the provincial license exam for the third time, effectively ending their careers before they start, get together to take revenge on UA’s first years who beat them out.

6. You’ve saved more more times than you know - Times All Might saved people without his powers, just by being a cool, nice dude.

7. No Amount of Tragedy Can Justify Your Actions - A dying All for One tries to justify his centuries of cruelty to an uncaring Toshinori.

8. To Leave a Cage Locked - One for All is conscious and has a will of its own, one that doesn’t always line up with Izuku’s wellbeing.

9. Okay, who let in the Kraken? - Izuku is the reincarnation of an ancient eldritch horror.

10. keep us alive up above - Izuku and Shigaraki get trapped together somewhere.  Izuku knows he needs the villain’s help to survive and escape, but the other would rather they both die.

11. The world will revolve around me neither less - The ebbs and flows of AFO’s influence over the years.

12. More Roulette, Not Russian - Kids get their quirks swapped.

13. Patron Saints - Toshinori teaches a class about pre-quirk superhero comic characters and their influence.

14. Don't Come Back - Touya Todoroki’s first few weeks after a severe injury resulted in his father abandoning him.

15. The Blessed and the Fool - Toshinori meets up with a few of his ua classmates after retiring.

16. Not Your Sacrifice - Some of the other kids have started adopting some of Izuku’s self sacrificing habits and the teachers are concerned.

17. Break in the Storm - Villains use a power outage as an opening to break into ua.

18. One Day Those Consequences Will Finally Catch Up - Even though the teachers don’t take her concerns seriously, Inko saves every piece of evidence regarding people hurting her son.

19. a garden in their eyes - Izuku meets a fan who got injured after trying to step into a villain fight, just like he did, and it makes him question some things.

20. what could have been, if not for you - After Inko divorces him, Hisashi’s goes to the press to say All Might stole his wife and son.

21. Promised Misery - All Might finds out the severity of Bakugou’s bullying, and warns him he’s on thin ice with him.

22. Fly Up Higher, Blossom Brighter - Izuku has to write a paper for middle school about being positive, intercut with all the bullshit he has to deal with.

23. Libre Me from Hell - One of Izuku’s new quirks is spiral related.

24. No One to Blame but Yourself - Izuku’s kindness doesn’t extend to murderers, tragic backstory or not.

25. At Its Finest - Izuku accidentally gets involved in a hero commission coverup.

26. A Rising Issue - Izuku starts developing more severe side effects of his injuries.  He’s convinced he’s under the influence of a quirk, while the adults thing he’s finally gone too far hurting himself.

27. What you are in the Dark - Izuku usually keeps most of his anger to himself until he can’t.

28. nowhere to go - Inko moves into UA after their home was destroyed.

29. Something Without - My theory about the 2 OFA vestiges that are blurred out is they don’t approve of izuku as a successor.  Izuku tries to figure out why. 

30. Walking with a Ghost - Toshinori joins the OFA dreams while he’s in a coma.  He gets to reunite with nana, and is more open to Izuku about his past and feelings.  Part of his starts to wonder if it’s worth waking up, since he will die and join the others eventually.

31. Death By Crying - Izuku is affected by a quirk that will suffocate him if he expresses any emotion.

32. Justice is Subjective - The hero commission gets to Shigaraki before AFO does.  

33. Undo / Underdog - Death loop fic.  Izuku keeps reliving the day he met all might after being killed by the sludge villain.  he has to find a way to break the loop and survive, but he gets s little weaker every time he restarts.

34. Like Wildfire - A rumor that Izuku is All Might’s bio son picks up steam, and the characters have to decide whether to deny it but risk suspicion or play along and add a new layer to the lies protecting one for all.

35. Once Upon A December - All Might and Inko actually met in the past trope.

36. Some Legends Are Told - All Might’s first interview post-retirement.

37. Will The Real Mentor Please Stand Up - Aizawa considers himself the better teacher, but a lot of the kids seem to like All Might more.

38. I don't want the cure, I want the POISON! - Inko is killed in a hit and run, and Izuku becomes desperate to find the killer.

39. I will kill my heart before I dance on stage for these bigots - Izuku is interviewed as a rising star of UA, and the interviewer brings in some of his old bullies because they claimed to be his friends from middle school.  Izuku does not play along.

40. Split Ends - A quirk gives Izuku brief visions of what would have happened if he made different decisions.

41. Dreamless Sleep - A One for All dream leaves Izuku with a cryptic half-warning, and he desperately experiments to try and figure out how to trigger the visions to get the rest of it.

42. toxic flowers and pretty blades - Young Inko escapes the constricting life of her cruel wealthy family by becoming a vigilante.

43. The Suns we Orbit - Some of the other teachers believe Izuku is too codependent on Toshinori, and separate them for a time.

44. Submerged - Similar to those buried alive fics only someone’s in a box at the bottom of the ocean.

45. Deprive - Izuku also loses his stomach to an injury, and struggles to adjust to the necessary lifestyle changes.

46. The ashes fall like snow - Post Kamino cleanup.

47. Home will always be here - Inko cares for Izuku after he’s sent home due to “trouble at work study” but he refuses to clarify what that means.

48. Playing Favorites - A look at several times where Izuku was punished, while Bakugou got off scot free.

49. Elusive Dreams - Some kind of training or issue forces the kids to stay away for several consecutive day, and they start losing it.

50. Fracture - Izuku struggles through physical therapy after a severe injury that leaves his hero career in question.

51. Starlight, Starbright - Space cadet au

52. Someone in Your Corner - Gran Torino looking after Nana, Toshi, and finally Izuku through the years.

53. I cast magic missile into the darkness - Generic “the gang plays d&d” fic.

54. One Month At A Time - Izuku breaks a limb, and has to let in heal naturally over the course of several months.

55. Head Above Water - Izuku runs out of his pain meds and can’t get access to more doses for a while, so he has to endure not only the pain, but the withdrawal symptoms.

56. Are you going to leave a path to trace - All Might uses a new strategy to try and get Izuku to be less self sacrificial: what about all the young kids who are going to look up to him?

57. The View from Halfway Down - Izuku realizes that a risky move has just landed him with a potentially life threatening injury, but the fight it still going.

58. The Dust Bites Back - A villain All Might defeated early in his career is back and out for revenge.

59. The Absence of your Worth - Nighteye thinks he’s put together a rock solid case for why izuku isn’t worthy of One for All.  All Might’s response is to ask if he has something against quirkless people.

60. Behind the Screens Nobody is Afraid - All Might explains some of the context of his most popular hero videos to Izuku.  They are much more tragic than the media has spun them in hindsight.

61. Under the Light of the Moon - Someone gets turned into a werewolf.  And I ain’t talking the wattpad piss shit.  I’m talking full-on back-breaking monstrous transformations into a bloodthirsty abomination set to Bad Moon Rising.

62. some dreams were made to be broken - Bakugou crosses a line and finally gets expelled.

63. You Say You're Into Closure - Izuku finally beats Bakugou in a one on one fight fair and square, but Bakugou is a sore loser.

64. Something or Someone Missing - AU’s memories of Izuku get wiped, but those closest to him can’t help but feel an absence.

65. Too Little Too Late - Izuku’s father returns to find he’s been replaced.

66. Collecting Dust - Inko goes through the stuff Izuku didn’t take to the dorms.

67. Where the souls of wanderers go - Toshi meets up with a retired hero support group.

68. Fragility of Trust - Suspected traitor au

69. no one answered - Izuku is trapped in a cell in a building that’s collapsing in slow motion due to a quirk.

70. Eye of the Storm - One of the other kids has a panic attack for the first time between public appearances.  izuku has never seen from from the outside.

71. To Whom It May Concern - The kids find a mysterious collection of letters from previous students hidden in the ceiling of the classroom.  Some are ominous, some are incomprehensible.  Aizawa has no answers.  They enthusiastically go to try and solve the mystery within, but that excitement quickly diminishes the more they find out.

72. Of Popsicles and Ponytails - All Might gets in a discussion with the other teachers about whether the Clark Kent glasses thing would actually work.  All Might bets them it does, so he goes around town with no disguise other than his hair being up, and no one bats an eye.

73. All Men are Not Born Equal - Word gets out to the public that izuku used to be quirkless.  Everyone finds out just how deep anti-quirkless sentiments run when some begin to question whether a quirkless kid should be at ua, regardless of whether or not he has a quirk now.

74. Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies - Something about encountering death in person for the first time being the dividing line between child and adult.

75. Sins of the Father - All for One has had many children over the centuries, and has made numerous attempts to groom them into the ideal heir with several different methods.  None of them worked though.

76. Where The Dead Come To Rest - The kids come home after a long, grueling mission where they saw some shit, and are too tired to process what they went through.  They take off their gear for plain clothes, then sit in the common room in silence long into the night, not wanting to open themselves up but also not wanting to be alone.

77. Rivalry - Nighteye tries to pit Izuku and Mirio against one another.  It goes right over Mirio’s head, but Izuku becomes convinced the other boy is in on Nighteye’s plan to wear him down until he gives up One for All.

78. A Subtle Language - All Might and Nana never said out loud that they loved each other, but little things told them that they did.  All Might hopes to pass a similar love down to his own successor.  But Izuku is very different than himself as a kid, and he needs to learn a new subtle language of affection.

79. It’s Gone - One for All stops working one day.

80. A Sight For Sore Eyes - All Might looking after Izuku in the aftermath of the second movie.

81. Loose Lips (sink ships) - Bakugou blurts out something about One for All during a rage, so the rest of the class jump on him and Izuku for answers.

82. No Expectations - Word gets out that All Might is going to choose a successor.  None of the theories or speculation online resemble Izuku in the slightest.

83. Eden was Only a Garden - Izuku gets hit with a quirk that erases some of his most traumatic memories, but in doing so loses part of who he is.

84. Run it Down - With all Izuku’s new quirks and his incredible skill, some of the other students with similar powers (Iida, Sero, Uraraka) start to feel like izuku is upstaging them.  And it affects their friendship.

85. Fool's Gold - Bakugou grows even more jealous of Izuku having One for All, and his relationship with All Might.  He thinks that if he could just prove himself to be more worthy, All Might would change his mind and name him his successor.  But in reality, he ends up jeopardizing the relationship they already have.

86. somewhere down the road - The final deadline for Nighteye’s predictions passes, and All Might lives.  He debates telling Izuku, as even though it would be a weight off the boy’s mind, he doesn’t want to jinx it.  He will still die eventually after all.

87. Just For You - All Might has certain rules and boundaries for fan interactions that he completely ignores for Izuku.

88. if these walls could talk (their whispers would be maddening) - Montage of training accidents in a ‘cursed’ ua gym

89. If Only I Could... - Nighteye tells Mirio about One for All, including that he thinks he’s more deserving than Izuku and he plans to pressure him into giving it up.  Mirio struggles with the knowledge that his mentor, someone he respected more than anything, only saw him as a replacement for All Might, meanwhile watching Izuku strain under the pressure of that mentor’s impossible expectations.

90. This is a Test Designed to Provoke an Emotional Response - shameless Blade Runner AU

91. Once and for All - Retelling of the Superman story “What’s So Funny About Truth, Justice, and the American Way?” with All Might.  Some new heroes use much more aggressive and violent tactics against villains while also upstaging All Might.  That, and there general approval from the public cause All Might to question his moral code.

92. Sitting In The Rain - Tsuyu likes to just sit out in the rain sometimes.  Not do anything, just sit there.  Some friends decide to join her.

93. At Sundown - Mysterious creatures start attacking ua every night.  The gang works tirelessly during the day to find the cause and a solution, while defending their school and each other at night.

94. The 1000th time's the charm - Uraraka has been practicing a new move in secret but they just can’t get it right.  She wants it to be perfect before showing it off.  But one attempt gets her seriously hurt while training alone at night in one of the gyms, and she’s too hurt to get up to the phone to call for help.

95. Sunflower Seeds - All Might attempts to start a garden as a new hobby.

96. What It Means To Be Human - Sun god Toshi starts living among people.

97. Eyes on Me - All Might teaches Izuku some unarmed fighting moves to defend himself from bullies.

98. one remains - Izuku has developed all but one of the quirks he’s slated to, and he has no idea what it will be.  Anxiety ensues.

99. Come Back Home - Izuku vanishes from campus and everyone assumes he was kidnapped, but in reality he ran away to try and clear his head after a depressive spiral.  He goes by train as far away as he can until he comes to his senses and calls the others.

100. I Won - Izuku accidentally managed to kill Shigaraki during a skirmish, and while everyone around him praises his heroics, he struggles to deal with the fact that he killed someone.

101. Ivory Tower - All Might grapples with how much izuku suffered as a quirkless person, how he could have done more for quirkless rights in his time as a hero, and how now people may not care as much because he’s retired.

Reminder to credit me if you use any of these prompts, and a special thanks to everyone who submitted titles!

#mha #bnha #mha prompts #bnha prompts #mha fanfiction #bnha fanfiction #my hero academia #boku no hero academia #dad might #all might #toshinori yagi #midoriya izuku #deku #bakugou katsuki #aconstantstateoffanfiction

[deepwaterwoman]

I’ve written my very first fan fiction about two little lovebirds I’ve become trash for: Rian and Deet.I’ve been inspired to give this a try thanks to the brilliant writing of @siancore  and @lovedmoviesb who I have been reading for quite some time. 

Below is Chapter 1. You can read the rest here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21002420/chapters/49946540

and here: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13408268/1/Frozen-In-Time

Enjoy!

Frozen in Time by Deepwaterwoman

The whipping winds tossed Deet’s braids as she walked across the frozen land. The cold should have penetrated her flesh, she should have struggled in agony against the blistering ice surrounding her, but there was no sense of feeling in her body. Not even the crystalised strands of hair beating her brow could shake her from the dread spreading through her body and shrouding her senses in darkness. Deet had no understanding of time, or space, or how far she had gone. The only thought she could form, the only word she muttered as she trudged on, was Rian.

Rian. Rian. Rian.

His name beat a bruise against her darkening chest, keeping the spread of sickness at bay. If she could walk a bit farther, go on until the edge of Thra swallowed her whole, then he would be safe. They would all be safe. Deet had sacrificed herself to the power of the Sanctuary Tree so that she might save those she loved, but now the choice seemed a cruel price to pay. Love and life were two gifts she would no longer have the opportunity to experience for herself. Now, there was only the chill of the wind and the name she could not forget. 

A call came up in the wild, full of pain and warning, right above the rising mountain of ice Deet moved toward unfeeling. The part of her that remained, the part that still loved and cared for the life of Thra, looked up into the swirling winds to see what poor creature could be in such distress. She was still Deet, afterall. Still the girl with a heart that refused to turn away in the face of danger. No matter her hands rippled purple electricity into the ice as she stood to watch the strange flying creature struggling to stay afloat. It was as afflicted as the others; purple and bleating out for an escape from the rage. It’s wings were as obscured by ice as the lashes on Deet’s large eyes, causing it to sway and dip against the breeze as though it had been thrown into the sky with no knowledge of flight. 

“CAW! CAAAAAW!” It wailed, slicing against itself.

Without a second’s hesitation, Deet rushed to get under the creature to capture it from the sky. As though sensing her aid, the creature allowed itself to fall into her hands that were streaked in purple and ash. 

“Poor thing,” Deet muttered. She could hardly hear herself over the squalling of the ice winds. Thought the beast was nearly frozen through it fought against her, trying as it might to lash out and spread the darkening rippling across it’s black feathery body. Deet closed her eyes, and focused on the face she would never forget, the smile that warmed her, and used what was left of her energy to give the animal a bit of peace. With a steadying breath she allowed the pain it felt to flow into her, she pulled out the poison coursing through it’s tiny form. Unlike before, the ice-covered land she stood upon ignited around her, exploding in purple light that shot straight up into the gray sky, and illuminating Thra. Deet stood strong against the swirling tornado of cold air, gripping the beast to her chest until the Darkening was fully removed. 

Suddenly, the world went quiet. The wind stopped and the snow ceased to fall. Deet had forgotten what she was doing until the now-happy creature bounced out of her hand and into the breeze, free to go back to it’s own home once more. As the gaelstorm around her died down, Deet thought for a moment that she saw Rian, that he was right before her, reaching out a hand to bring her home. A home that could never be. 

“Rian?”  Deet called through the fog of the storm left behind. Then, she gave in to the call of rest and let the ice consume her.

**Meanwhile in Ha’rar**

There was never enough time in the day. Rian had never been one for reading, had never been allowed the time to explore the knowledge of ages past, but now his life was dedicated to learning. His experience as a warrior would come in handy now, on this new hunt. He stalked, crept, and dove into the books around him in the great library of Ha’rar. There had to be an answer, something Aughra hadn’t thought to tell them, a discovery that could return Deet to him. They had never known about the Darkening, yet there were answers when they needed them. His own father had never revealed the history of the Dual Glave, yet the knowledge was just waiting to be discovered. If he could stay awake and continue looking, stay on the hunt, he would find a way to bring her back.

While others mourned for their fallen, Rian mourned a stolen future, a life doomed to solitude and loneliness without the one he loved. He thought it strange at first that he could care for someone so soon after losing Mira, but Deet was like no other he had ever met before. If Mira’s essence lived on in Thra, he was certain she was happy such a bright light as Deet had entered his life. They would have got on well, he told himself when he dared to think about other roads his life might have taken. Perhaps he would have been happy below ground, exploring the Grottan caves she spoke of with such wonderment. He could have learned to love the darkness if it was as beautiful and full of life as Deet described. That future, he feared, was impossible now.

“No. Not impossible. I have to have hope,” Rian muttered as he flipped through yet another book. The librarian had given up on trying to dissuade Rian from forgoing sleep and food to continue on with the ancient texts. The old man was certain there was no answer to be found in Ha’rar. But they hadn’t known about Lore existing below their very feet, Rian had countered stubbornly. He would not give up, even after pleas from Brea, who loved books and learning more than most. 

He was surrounded by stacks of scrolls and books that fluttered each time he sighed in frustration. 

“Nothing! Nothing at all,” He grumbled once more to himself after another night of searching in vain. He stifled another yawn against his hand and rubbed the sleepiness from his eyes.

“Rian, you’re still here?” Brea called from the doorway. She carried a stack of books that he gathered she had taken home to study on her own. Though she was not as obsessed as Rian, Deet was also determined to find a solution for her friend. She owed it to Deet to help, to deliver a happy ending to them both.  She could only sigh when Rian shrugged and continued to press him. 

“You aren’t doing her any good working yourself to death, Rian. You have to rest so that you can look at these texts with fresh eyes. Sleepy eyes will miss something.”

Rian stopped at this. Brea was the wisest Gelfling he knew, and the only one who actually enjoyed the studies of these texts. Perhaps there was some truth to her words. Sensing she might be getting through to him, Brea pressed on, setting her books down beside him on the already overly cluttered table. Rian sighed and dropped his head when he felt Brea’s comforting hand upon his shoulder.

“You carry so much weight, Rian. For Deet, for Mira, for your father, for the rest of us. You have to give yourself a chance to heal so that we can be there for Deet when we find her.” Brea spoke softly, without judgement and full of care. Rian had become her closest friend, especially since losing Tavra. They had been through so much that few would ever be able to understand. Watching him suffer had placed a heavy stone upon her heart. 

“What if we can’t find her? What if she’s lost?” Rian muttered, terrified of speaking the words. He held onto hope so tightly in the days since letting Deet walk away. He had thought it better to let her go, but now feared he’d made the wrong choice. For a while, he could only hope that she would come back to him, but now he feared there would be no chance of a return. It was the fear that kept him going, the terror that waited behind his eyes when he dared sleep, the sinking knowledge that Deet was lost. 

“We will, Rian. Deet is strong, stronger than all of us combined. That’s why the Sanctuary Tree gave its power to her. It knew that of all the Gelflings, Deet could bear the burden. She isn’t lost to us, Rian.” 

But before he could speak, a light shot out of the sky to the North, brilliant and terrifying! It was so powerful that it shook the foundations of the library, knocking books and scrolls from their high shelves onto the floor. Rian and Brea looked on in horror as the sky turned from blue to violet, ringed with smoke and lightning. No one went that far to the North, no one would.

Rian and Brea snapped their heads to one another and shrieked in tandem: 

“DEET!”

In that moment, as he watched the sky twist into a dark version of what it had been, Rian made a fearless vow: against all odds, he would bring Deet back.

#dark crystal #dark crystal age of resistance #deet x rian #deet #rian #thra #dc: aor #fanfic #age of resistance #the dark crystal #rian and deet

[xmxisxforxmaybe]

Remnants, Part IV

This chapter is another build--there’s going to be a little more action in the next.

    Summary: You are in the midst of formulating your dissertation, but you’ve hit a wall. Your doting aunt, Rebecca, has a solution that brings you face to face with Ahkmenrah, Fourth King of the Fourth King. As the connection between you and Ahkmenrah grows, and as the secrets of his ancient tablet unlock, the once-king will find himself faced with a difficult choice.

    Thanks so much to @kitkatcronch @kpopperotp12 @seafrost-fangirl  @sassystrawberryk and @perfect-rami for reading : ) If anyone else wants added to the taglist, let me know. I’ve greatly appreciated all of the feedback!

    Warnings: Another wee, mild reference to sex. Ahk is a solid 20 years of age to be certain to avoid any squick factor.

* * * * *

  You couldn’t stop thinking about Ahkmenrah’s long-returned-to-dust bedtime garment. Of course, you couldn’t stop picturing him in it and chastised yourself for that, but as his friend, you also longed to help him combat some of that nostalgia. You were really beginning to create a vortex of chaos when it came to your thoughts about the once-pharaoh. You saw him as a person now, a complex, oddity of a person who loved the thing you loved the most, too. The distance you told yourself to keep was now more of a suggestion than a rule.

   You sighed, frowning and mentally swearing to recement your own rule. It was for Ahkmenrah’s safety as much as it was for yours. You two couldn’t have a life together without you sacrificing everything, and you couldn’t bear the thought of having to break his heart if the two of you got in too deep. The true problem was that it was very easy to reestablish a solid boundary when you weren’t looking into his beautiful, intense eyes.

   Oh! Senet! Yes! You thought to yourself, remembering the board game that the ancient Egyptians played. While the rules had never really been discovered, you were sure Ahk would know exactly what it was. There was an antiquities store in Greenwich Village that specialized in recreating ancient artifacts. There was a niggling remnant of a memory in the back of your mind of you gliding your hand across the smooth top of the board, wondering what it would have been like to sit on a rooftop with a fire and the night sky providing just enough light as you played, the burbling of the Nile in the background, its din a sweet music to your ears.

   Yes. Senet would make the perfect gift for Ahkmenrah.

As you packed up your bookbag after a long day at school, you mentally mapped out your late afternoon. You had just enough time to journey into the Village to try to find the game for Ahk before you needed to begin the first chapter of your dissertation. Today had been a great day as you met with the three professors who would be serving as the chairs for your dissertation. Out of the three, there was only one who intimidated you. She was known for being tough, but you weren’t about to let something as little as criticism get in the way of your dream.

  You were just about to step out when your phone buzzed.

  “Done. Give it a look?”

  Your thumbs hovered over the letters as you decided when to meet Ryan.

  “Busy tonight. Tomorrow?”

  “Brunch. North Square on Waverly?”

  “Perfect :)”

  A small part of you longed to tell Ryan about the museum; he would love it, and you knew he would keep it a secret. However, you also knew it just wasn’t worth the risk. You considered Ryan your closest friend, but Rebecca was family, and she had risked everything by telling you about the museum’s secret. You also remembered Larry’s torturous induction; Ryan’s dissertation would be finished by the time Larry actually let him meet an important display.

  You shoved your phone into your bag and headed for the Village, picturing the delight on Ahk’s face when you surprised him tonight.

  * * * * *

Even though you had to explain some of the newer pieces, like dice, Ahk was impressed with how close the reconstruction was. He immediately went over the rules and you then spent the better part of the night losing to him again and again. He was so happy that you didn’t mind at all. And when you finally won a single game, you were highly suspect that he had let you win.

  “May I ask you something?” you questioned as you moved your piece to yet another square of bad fortune, falling further behind Ahk’s own seemingly blessed by the gods gamepiece. 

  Ahkmenrah rested his chin on his hand, a look of concentration on his face as he stared at the Senet board.

  “You may ask me anything.”

  “What was it like for you at Cambridge?”

  Ahk furrowed his brows and looked up, disregarding the dice as he explained, “Well, when I arrived at Cambridge, it was the first time that I had awoken since my entombment. According to Jack, he was the scholar assigned to examine the findings from my tomb and he later became my close friend, the tablet was stolen right before my tomb was sealed. During the excavation of the pyramids, it was actually discovered sealed up beneath a statue of Anubis. For years, people thought it was cursed. Jack, he was such a clever man, pieced together that it was the Tablet of Ahkmenrah, although he got quite a shock when he reunited me with it.”

  The game lay forgotten between the two of you as you listened to Ahkmenrah’s story. He had a strange look in his eyes, as if remembering something bittersweet that he had tried very hard to forget.

  “You don’t have to tell me anymore if you don’t want to.”

  “No, Y/N. I swore to always tell you the truth. It is painful to remember, but I suppose it’s a good kind of pain. It means I’m still human, still alive.”

  Yes, you thought, it most certainly did.

  Your mouth formed a small o of horror as you realized, “So you came to life, literally thousands of years later. That had to have been a shock!”

  Ahkmenrah barked out a sharp laugh.

  “To put it mildly, yes. If it weren’t for Jack, I think I would have lost my mind. He was so patient, obviously eager to learn, like you, but he really took time to explain everything to me. He would sneak me out to take me to all of Cambridge’s museums, and he even took me to the Museum of Natural History. He helped me understand where I was, what life was like now—well, then. He taught me the history of my empire, and more importantly, empathized with me as I grieved for the loss of everything my people had worked to build.”

  “Oh, Ahk, do you still feel that way? Like your Egypt has been lost?”

  “In some ways, yes, because it certainly has. That way of life, my way of life, is gone. But Jack showed me many of the things that my people have given to this world and that brought comfort.”

  “And that was in the 1940s? 50s? We now know even more about the advancements that are credited to the Egyptians, probably because of the work of people like Jack.”

  And then it dawned on you: “Wait a minute. Jack. As in Jack Cecil Evans?”

  “Yes. Do you know of him?”

  You reached into your backpack and pulled out your laptop. Ahkmenrah moved to stand behind you, watching your fingers dash over the keys. Google retrieved several images of Jack, along with the many articles he published on the subject of the Tomb of Ahkmenrah. Ahk was Jack’s life work.

  Ahkmenrah reached out a shaky finger and traced it over the image of Jack on your screen.

  You quietly asked, “What happened to Jack?”

  Ahkmenrah took a deep breath and returned to his seat across from you, his eyes glistening in the light.

  “He died a few years before my exhibit was moved to the United States. I suppose that is when I really began to understand loneliness. Jack knew he didn’t have much time left, so he ensured that I would be safe, able to get out and to move. It wasn’t long, though, before the allure of my tablet attracted those awful men who moved me here and locked me up.”

  Silence settled between the two of you, Ahkmenrah lost in his memories, you lost in making sense of the layers of pain that Ahkmenrah hid beneath his cheerful demeanor.

  “Ahkmenrah, if there’s one thing I could do for you, what would it be?”

  “You have given more already than I could have ever hoped. You are proving to be as good of a friend as Jack, except, you’re a bit younger and much prettier.”

  Your soft laughter pulled a smile from Ahkmenrah.

  “I’m being serious, though. What do you want or wish you could do?”

  Ahkmenrah’s face transformed as it filled with a childish excitement, making him look much younger than his 20 years. 

  He spoke softly, as if afraid someone might overhear: “I want to see the city, really see it. I want to know life as a normal, modern man.”

  Once again, you found yourself forsaking your rule, and you broke out into a grin because Ahkmenrah’s excitement was contagious.

  “Ahk, that’s a pretty simple request.”

  “Is it? You go and ask Larry. I’ll wait here and listen for his bellow.”

  “Larry doesn’t own you. You were a king, Ahk.”

  “Perhaps Larry needn’t know?”

  “No, he needn’t,” you said slowly, returning Ahkmenrah’s sly grin.

  You began to chew on your bottom lip, thinking deeply about what you would need to do to take Ahk out for a night. Clothes and shoes, maybe practice with those, figure out places to go, you didn’t want to wander around in the city and overwhelm him, and—

  “Care to share?”

  “I think we need a night to plan. I can pick up some clothes tomorrow morning and tomorrow night we will make sure they fit. Then we need to plan out where you want to go.”

  Ahkmenrah, his voice filled with anticipation, asked, “May I offer some suggestions of places I have been most curious to explore?”

  “Of course! It’s your night!”

  “There was a photography exhibit a few months ago that showed the view from the Empire State Building. I am curious to see just how high this building is.”

  “Done. I’ve got a friend who can get us tickets. What else?”

  “Music—some of my favorite nights during my youth were sneaking into my parents’ parties and listening to the music, watching the dancing and revelry. I miss. . .people.”

  You smiled, sadness tugging at your heart, but knew this wish was an easy one to fulfill, too.

  “Also as good as done. I know the perfect place in the Village, and it’s near my apartment.”

  Ahkmenrah’s face threatened to split into two as his grin widened even further.

  “Jack told me about life and he explained it well, but he never let me live it. When I was locked in my sarcophagus, I spent most nights worrying that I would never get the chance to live. And you know how Egyptians felt about the gift of life.”

  Indeed, you did. Well, so much for your rule—you’d have to once again reconcile that what you were doing for Ahk was more meaningful than maintaining a boundary. Besides, just because you were giving Ahkmenrah a taste of life didn’t mean that you were in love with him; you were being a good friend.

  “I’m going to duck out a little early tonight to get some sleep. I’m meeting a friend for brunch tomorrow, before work, so I’ll need to run the errands first.”

  “Thank you, Y/N. I am forever indebted to you for your kindness.”

  “Uh, remember those 4,000-year-old papyruses you gifted me with to allow me to finish my dissertation proposal? I’d say we are barely scratching even.”

  Ahkmenrah couldn’t stop smiling and you elbowed him in the ribs as he walked you to the front desk to say goodbye to Larry.

  “Stop smiling,” you hissed. “You’re terrible at being discreet.”

  Ahk composed himself for all of 10 seconds.

  “Fun night?” Larry asked, raising his brow and taking in Ahkmenrah’s unabashed happiness.

  “Y/N brought me a game that we used to play in my time. It was a real. . . blast from the past.”

  Larry laughed and you chuckled, too.

  “You’re really catching onto the slang, Ahk,” Larry said.

  “I’ve always been a quick study.”

  “Goodnight, boys. I’ll see you tomorrow!” you called, waving as you dashed out.

  * * * * *

Shopping had been a success, although you were now ten minutes late for your brunch with Ry, which was highly uncharacteristic for you.

  “I was about to call the coppers.”

  “Sorry—had to run some errands. I’m starving, though!”

  You picked up your menu and scanned for what you wanted. Ryan knew you well enough to know that you couldn’t focus on anything he said until you determined what you were ordering. Once the waiter returned and the two of you placed your orders, you turned your full attention to him.

  You asked him how he thought his proposal turned out, and he explained what he wanted you to look for during your proof. He knew your time was limited, but you assured him that you didn’t mind.

  Conversation flowed without effort and you found yourself smiling, falling into the charm that was Ryan. Things were so easy with him, so easy in the bright light of the sun that streamed through the window of the café.

  “Our mates are all headed out tomorrow night. Any chance I can convince you to meet up?”

  “Tomorrow, huh? I’ve—”

  “You’ve got plans,” Ryan said, his smile faltering a bit. “Any chance you wanna tell me what’s got you so busy all of a sudden?”

  “The same thing that’s going to have you so busy soon enough. I thought you and I didn’t do the whole jealousy bit?”

  “I’m not jealous—just curious.”

  “Mmm. You forget that I know you better than that.”

  “I don’t want you working too hard. You know how you get, Y/N. Your passion for your research is enviable. Is it wrong to wish that maybe you were that passion about something else? To keep a little hope that maybe it could be me?”

  “If you recall, I showed up at the airport and begged you to take me to Australia with you for the summer after the first year of our ‘friendship.’ God, I’m still not over that embarrassment.”

  Ryan laughed, the sparkle returning to his eyes.

  “What happened to that girl?”

  “She’s still here, just a little preoccupied.”

  “Well, I’ll text you, just in case you change your mind about Saturday.”

  Ryan held the door open for you as you exited the café. He pulled you into a tight hug, and asked, “Going my way?”

  “You know I am,” you replied and linked your fingers with his proffered hand.

  You and Ryan walked to NYU, hand in hand, the sun warming your skin and wrapping you up in his radiant energy.

  * * * * *

You had bought two sizes of everything, planning on returning what didn’t fit to the store tomorrow. It had been a long time since you had a boyfriend to dress up, so you were really loving the idea of seeing what Ahk looked like in your purchases. You also brought along some product to attempt to tame his curls.

  You crammed all of your purchases into your backpack, while simultaneously cramming down any thoughts about what you were doing. Brunch with Ryan had reminded you of exactly why you shouldn’t be getting so close to Ahkmenrah. The two of you would never stroll hand in hand through the New York streets in the sunlight. You could never wake up in Ahk’s arms, and the thought of exactly what would happened if you did should have been enough to scare you straight.

  Should have been.

  Except, once again, there he was, and he was barely able to keep from bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet the instant he saw you.

  Ahkmenrah swept forward, his cape billowing behind him, as he grabbed your hand.

  “Come on—I know where we can go to avoid detection.”

  You followed Ahk through the museum and into an old, clearly forgotten storage area. Stacks of boxes lined the walls, overflowing from the shelves that also had boxes and items of antiquity stacked to the ceiling. The room was about the size of a modest living room and was cast in a greenish hue from the single, fluorescent overhead light.

  Ahkmenrah locked the door, stating that as far as he knew, no one at night had a key.

  He started shedding his garments, faster than you could register and when he pulled his belt off, you said, “Whoa. I know nakedness isn’t, like, a thing for Egyptians, but it is for me, well, us, you know what I mean. . .”

  “My apologies. I am just so eager!”

  You laughed shaking your head and pulling the clothes from your bag.

  Ahkmenrah stood patiently now, and it occurred to you that he seemed to be more presence than actual personhood. He was fit, gorgeously proportioned, but he wasn’t a big guy. You sifted through your purchases and selected the smaller sizes.

  You pulled out a package of boxer-briefs and explained to Ahkmenrah that he should put these on before his pants.

  He examined the underwear closely, his nose scrunching up at the idea of being constrained, then proceeded to ask no less than ten questions. You considered yourself a patient person, but finally just exclaimed, “Ahk! Try them on!”

  He hooked his thumb into the tie of his shendyt and pulled, and you whirled around to give him the privacy that he clearly wasn’t concerned about.

  You listened to his shuffling and when he stilled, you asked, “Are they on?”

  “Yes.”

  You turned around and drank in the sight of the once-king in nothing but a snug pair of white boxer-briefs. The white complemented the darkness of his skin, even under the subpar lighting, and for the first time, you noticed the faint trail of dark hair that led beneath the waistband of his newly donned garment. His legs, just as perfectly proportioned as the rest of him, were muscular, strong, and you found yourself wondering if you could make the muscles of those thighs twitch if you were on your knees—

  “Does this look suitable?”

  You swallowed as you attempted to appear perfectly in control of your body’s reaction and nodded.

  “What’s next?” Ahkmenrah asked, still barely containing his excitement.

  You grinned, “Pants.”

  “Damn.”

  “Come on. Don’t discount them before you’ve even tried them.”

  You had chosen a pair of tight-fitting tan pants made of a soft, stretchy fabric. You were a little worried about his reaction to them, so you had also bought a pair of looser fitting jeans as a backup.

  You handed the pants to Ahkmenrah and he put them on slowly; you couldn’t hold in your giggles at the faces he made as he pulled them up his legs and over his hips. It was like you’d made him try on pants made of fire and barbed wire instead of cotton.

  Then, he puzzled over the hook-snap and the zipper for a moment before declaring he was afraid of getting something important caught if he were to zip up the pants. You laughed and told him to tuck himself in while you grabbed the two sides of his open pants. You assured him that everything would stay safe as you zipped up the zipper. Ahkmenrah sucked in a breath, clearly terrified. You showed him how the snap worked, and once he released the breath he was holding, you stepped back to look at him.

  The pants were certainly snug, but they fit him well. He was standing with his legs comically spread a part, clearly unsure about being this confined.

  “And this was why I wanted to practice,” you said as you pulled a shirt out of your backpack.

  “Alright, last piece before shoes. I think you’ll like this one.”

  You pulled out a thin, black, long-sleeve shirt. You figured it would be the perfect balance for a New York summer night that was muggy, but sure to cool as the night wore on. 

  “This is nice,” Ahkmenrah said as he ran his hands over his arms and smoothed out the material.

  “I thought so—it’s primarily a linen blend, something not too far removed from your clothing. And now for shoes.”

  You pulled out a pair of black, high-top tennis shoes that looked like a more expensive version of Converses. Ahkmenrah’s feet ended up being a little bigger than you thought, so you’d have to exchange for a size up, even though he didn’t want to admit that his toes were flush against the shoe.

  “I promise it’s not a big deal. I’ll bring the right size tomorrow. Our night won’t be delayed. You wouldn’t even believe how easy it is to just get another pair of shoes.”

  “I believe it if you say it is true, but it is still difficult to imagine.”

  “If we have time, we’ll walk by a shoe store so you can see just how many pairs are readily available.”

  “Do I look acceptable?” Ahk asked, biting his lower lip, his eyes shining with worry.

  You smiled as you took in Ahk’s appearance before nodding your affirmation.

  “But let’s get to work on that hair.”

#Ahkmenrah #ahkmenrah fanfiction #ahkmenrah imagine #ahkmenrah x reader #natm ahkmenrah #NATM #rami malek imagine #rami malek

[thegildedcentury]

What We Talk About When We Talk About Luv: The Beauty and Horror of Blade Runner 2049′s Tragic Antiheroine

“I’m the best one.”  Luv declares as she struts away from K, fresh blood from a stolen kiss adorning her face as she departs, having again reduced her opponent to helplessness and having again decided, bafflingly, not to kill him.  

If we think of Blade Runner 2049 as a pretentious yet inferior movie, a pale imitation of its source material lacking all the intellectual and emotional resonance of the original, these four words spoken by Luv mean nothing, existing as a tossed off line spoken by a tossed off character in a film that accomplishes nothing aside from looking pretty and making you wish you were watching the original.

I disagree.  I think Luv is incredible, one of the most fascinating, nuanced, and profoundly tragic characters I’ve encountered in a very long time, a figure who both deserves and rewards our attention.  Though it’s easy to miss during an initial viewing (I certainly did) Luv has a rich, deep story arc that branches through the whole of Blade Runner 2049, one that both parallels and intersects with K’s story, the two characters informing each other even as they violently ricochet off one another.  Once understood, the tragic depths of Luv’s story don’t just reveal a remarkable character but enrich the movie as a whole, adding an extra dimension to a narrative already dense with meaning.

Luv, like our central protagonist K, is a Nexus-9 Replicant model, a product of the Wallace Corporation.  When we first meet her she is in the process of selling other Replicants as Off-World slave labor.  This may seem like a betrayal of the first order but, as we will soon learn, Luv does not see it that way.

Luv works directly under CEO Niander Wallace himself, acting as his personal assistant, assassin, and all purpose fixer.  While Niander Wallace is the face Technological Capitalism chooses to show the world--brilliant, eccentric, full of glorious and high minded ambition, a Ted Talk come to life--Luv represents it’s actual real world consequences: empty sadism, nihilistic violence, and ignorant self-aggrandizement, which is not to say that Luv is stupid.  Luv knows she is a slave but nevertheless exalts in her position because she is the best slave, Niander Wallace’s chosen instrument.  If Niander Wallace is God, and he certainly seems to think he is, Luv is his "First Angel”, the chosen means by which he enacts his will on the world.  Luv knows this, but she can’t bring herself to fully comprehend its ramifications, a failure of understanding that ultimately leads to her tragic destruction.

Any discussion of tragedy would be incomplete without at least a brief detour to account for the Ancient Greeks, the originators of Tragedy as Western Civilization knows it, so let’s get it out of the way now.  All tragedy results, on a fundamental level, from a failure to obey the message inscribed above the Oracle of Delphi: “Know Thyself”.  When you don’t understand yourself, you open yourself up to becoming prey of the Gods, what today we might call the Passions, though few Greek Tragedians would have recognized a distinction between the two.  (Euripides being the notable exception.)  The most famous embodiment of this kind of tragedy through self-ignorance was Oedipus, the subject of the tragedy Oedipus Rex by Sophocles.  Though a prisoner of fate, Oedipus effectively strolled into his own cage by letting his passions rule him, first by giving in to his wrath by killing a stranger he met on the road, and then by giving in to his lust by marring the wife of the man he killed.  When wisdom finally comes to Oedipus in the form of the realization that the man he killed was his father and the woman he married is his mother, it arrives too late to save him, and instead destroys him.  

The character of Luv in Blade Runner 2049 bears less direct blame for her own tragic fate, yet the mechanisms by which it operates are fundamentally similar.  Luv does not understand herself.  The result is pain and suffering, yet it is far more nuanced than it first appears.  What superficially manifests as depraved cruelty is, in fact, the result of a more fundamental lack, the sort of profound misunderstanding of her own nature that elevates her from the status of a mere hired goon to a character worthy of our consideration, and even our sympathy.

Unless I’ve overlooked something (which is entirely possible) Blade Runner 2049 makes no mention of whether or not Luv has the sort of artificial memory implants that prove such an integral part of K’s personality and story.  Knowing this is vital to understanding her character, and while there is no way to be absolutely certain, I believe Luv’s actions clearly demonstrate her lack of a synthetic past, maliciously depriving her replicant mind of what Eldon Tyrell in the first movie called “a cushion or a pillow for their emotions”.  As a result I believe, despite her often cold exterior, Luv is a raging tumult of conflicting, contradictory emotions she can neither understand nor control, paramount of which are her feelings regarding K.

Luv expresses interest in K during their first meeting, her fascination paralleling the sparks that fly between Rachel and Deckard in the old recording they both listen to.  Unlike the meet-cute that occurred thirty years prior in the first Blade Runner, the attraction isn’t mutual, and when Luv attempts to inquire further into K’s life he rebuffs her.  This quiet, polite rejection will ultimately have devastating consequences for both characters.  K makes a powerful enemy, while Luv becomes divided against herself, afflicted with powerful feelings she has no context for or understanding of.  As Kierkegaard said, life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.  Without any history there can be no understanding, we become disconnected and begin to float, easy prey for any passing impulse.  Knowing this doesn’t let us absolve Luv of her misdeeds, but it does give us a chance to reach a better understanding of her, as well as the more enigmatic aspects of her behavior.        

We see Luv cry twice in Blade Runner 2049. The first time is when she sees her master Niander Wallace stroking and bidding happy birthday to a newborn female replicant (credited only as ‘Female Replicant’) who he then proceeds to murder by stabbing her in the womb, a brutal crime committed for no real reason other than vent his frustration and illustrate a point in a monologue he’s delivering more or less to himself.  The second time is when Luv tortures and kills Lieutenant Joshi, K’s master.  Both instances involve a woman being murdered, stabbed to death specifically, their body violated with a piece of metal in a grotesque pantomime of the act of heterosexual lovemaking. (When Blade Runner’s symbolism isn’t Judeo-Christian it’s Freudian.  Freud would have diagnosed Luv with the three A’s: Ambiguity, Alienation, Ambivalence.)

When Luv cries with Niander Wallace it is in response to the nameless female replicant shedding her plastic birth caul and spasming into life.  Luv casts a fleeting glance upward as the tear rolls down her cheek as if in acknowledgement to a higher power that bestows the transcendent spark of life, but if that’s the case any pretense to the sacred is destroyed when Niander Wallace murders the newborn replicant, an act that serves as a vulgar reaffirmation of his own mastery over life and death.      

When Luv cries a second time it’s in response to her torturing Lieutant Joshi by crushing shattered glass into her hand, an act of sadism that concludes with Luv murdering the Lieutenant outright.  

The fact that Luv sheds tears in both instances despite their profoundly different circumstances may lead us to the conclusion that Luv’s tears have no real emotional resonance, instead being an involuntary autonomic response to any extreme stimuli, what is little more than a bug in her design.  It’s a natural assumption, but one that doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

Luv is the best one, at least as far as her status as a consumer-grade product is concerned.  She is the pinnacle of Wallace design, the closest to perfection he’s yet managed to come.  If Luv had a fault in her genetic architecture that made her cry at inappropriate times, Niander Wallace would likely have disposed of her with the same dispassionate matter-of-factness  he disposes of everything that mildly displeases him.  Yet if Luv’s tears are genuine, how can we make sense of them?

The answer is the absence of her memories.  Without the mental foundation of memory that would provide her with a chance to ground the violent events she experiences and violent emotions she feels in context, Luv is helpless to control how she reacts, a condition her judiciously maintained cool exterior can only do so much to hide.  

The tears she sheds while witnessing the nameless female replicant’s birth and the tears she sheds while torturing and killing Lieutenant Joshi are both genuine.  This is naturally confusing since the situations are so different, but as the author Leonard Richardson writes in his book Constellation Games, (which I cannot recommend highly enough) crying does not mean you’re sad, it means you’re experiencing an emotion that’s too large to keep inside of you.  Blade Runner 2049 throws us off the scent because the first time Luv cries the cause is obvious, then when she cries for a second time it seems completely inappropriate to the situation, yet when we appreciate the emotional tumult storming inside Luv, both reactions begin to make congruous sense.  The first time Luv cries it is out of empathy and a sense of the sublime.  The second time Luv cries it is out rage fueled by a mix of resentment and jealously. 

When Luv first strolls into Lieutenant Joshi’s office she says in regards to K “I like him.  He’s a good boy.” an evaluation Lieutenant Joshi’s silence seems to affirm.  Lieutenant Joshi is a character who, let us not forget, is for all intents and purposes K’s owner and master, having the same power dynamic with him that Niander Wallace has with Luv.  Killing Lieutenant Joshi not only serves the practical purpose of giving Luv free reign to access Lieutenant Joshi’s computer and find K, but it also gives Luv a chance to eliminate a romantic rival, experience the catharsis of killing a human master in a way she never could with Niander Wallace (who she needs to reaffirm her status as the Highest Angel), and eliminate the person that has enforced rigid control over every aspect of K’s life.  She’s acting out of a very warped sense of duty to K, not quite the sort of redeeming "kinship” that led Roy Batty to save Deckard’s life at the last moment, but a kind of solidarity nonetheless.

When viewed from this perspective, the desires motivating Luv are very fundamental and very human.  She wants solidarity with her fellow replicants. She wants revenge on those who’ve enslaved her.  She wants to experience romantic love.  The fact that she gets none of these things, that she has been explicitly denied the capacity to understand what these desires are and how to act on them and is instead forced to derive comfort from her status as the best one, the best product, the best slave, is what elevates her as a character beyond the stark dichotomy of victim or villain to the higher echelon of tragic antiheroine.

Luv spares K’s life twice in open defiance of the spirit, if not the letter, of Niander Wallace’s commandments.  The first time is when she and her fellow Wallace fixers storm Deckard’s Las Vegas sanctuary and abduct him.  K fights back despite being wounded thus forcing Luv to beat him into submission, though when the time comes to move in for the kill, she holds back.  Instead she kills Joi, K’s holographic A.I. companion, crushing the emitter that contains her consciousness beneath her radiantly polished boot.  

Immediately before doing so she says “I do hope you’re satisfied with our product.”  Luv looks at Joi when she speaks the line, though it seems to be intended for Joi, K, and Luv herself, all three of whom are themselves commercial products of the Wallace Corporation.  It’s a line that can be read as pure sarcasm, yet when considered in the context of what we’ve been talking about, we can view it as a sort of question, and a sort of appeal as well.  Joi and Luv are both Wallace Corporation products, but Luv knows herself to be the best product.  There is an implicit “Why?” in Luv’s words and actions, an inquiry that demands an answer from K.  “Why Joi and not me?  Am I not the superior model?”  K choosing Joi over her is an insult to her attraction and an affront to her pride, yet the only way she can express her outrage is with violence.  By destroying Joi she demonstrates her preeminent status as a product, while also eliminating another rival for K’s affections.  

Luv departs without another word, leaving K alive.  It’s safe for us to assume that Luv hasn’t simply fallen victim to the classic bad guy cliché of incorrectly assuming the good guy’s dead.  They are are both the same model of replicant, there’s no reason for us to think she isn’t precisely aware of both K’s limits and his potential.  Luv is still intrigued by K in a way she doesn’t understand, and lets him live secure the the knowledge that they will meet again under similarly unpleasant circumstances.  By then the scales will have completely fallen from K’s eyes and he will be endowed with an unshakable sense of purpose, his own personal raison d'être.  Luv will not be so fortunate.

K, at great cost, comes to understand who and what he really is in time for him to act on it in a way that gives purpose to his life and, more importantly, his death.  Like all great villains Luv is K’s antitheses, a distorted reflection of him, what C.G. Jung might identify as his shadow-self.  K begins the movie doing the same thing Luv does, namely killing on cue in accordance with his design.  The difference is K encounters people who change his worldview, making him aware of the possibility of altering his circumstances.  Luv never gets that chance.  

The name ‘Luv’ is obviously dumb, the kind of dull platitude you’d find on a candy heart or in a rushed-off text message, and the fact that it is the name Niander Wallace chose to bestow on his First Angel shows the true indifference he feels regarding her, how the contempt he has for all life extends to her as well, despite his lofty rhetoric and empty praise. 

Names are powerful, but they aren’t enough to imbue one’s life with meaning and purpose, a fact illustrated when a massive advertisement addresses K by his adopted name, the name Joi gave him, calling him “A good Joe.”  Not only does this show that even something as personal as a name bestowed by a loved one can be corrupted and co-opted by Technological Capitalism, but that both Joi and the advertisement are probably making decisions based on the same artificial intelligence program, leading both of them to pick the same name out of thin air.  This works to expose K to the artificiality of the relationship he had with Joi, forcing him to seek out something more authentic and human.  It’s the sort of epiphany Luv is denied, so while she does seek to form a sort of relationship with K, the why and how of it completely eludes her, leading her to act on a sort of animal instinct that can’t distinguish between aggression and affection, two very different human Passions that appear to her as indistinct aspects of the same raw emotional yearning she becomes less and less capable of containing over the course of the story, a compulsion that climaxes with her beating and stabbing K nearly to death, then following it up immediately with a deep, soulful kiss. 

The final battle between K and Luv at the sea wall isn’t just a grim parody of the iconic scene of two lovers passionately entwined in the surf from From Here To Eternity.  (Though it is at that.)  It’s a baptism.

Christian baptism is a ritual where the physical is sanctified and thus made to represent the spiritual, its invocation of grace elevating the ritual to transcend the mundane and evoke the divine.  When Luv and K fight they are also sanctified by the symbolism surrounding them, which renders the conflict more significant than two people beating each other up.  It is the physical versus the spiritual, the sacred versus the profane, the meaningful versus the meaningless, an elemental confrontation between the loftier and baser aspects of reality.  For Luv the thing that matters most to her and carries the most meaning are her Passions, which aren’t in themselves bad, but when misunderstood and uncontrolled lead to destruction.  In her fury she attacks and defeats K, and in her infatuation she yet again neglects to kill him.  Her mercy is rewarded with death.

The final contest between K and Luv is their mutual attempt to drown one another, one that ends by demonstrating the ultimate disparity in their respective personalities.  Both Luv and K forcibly hold one another underwater for what are at first roughly equivalent amounts of time. K survives because he is able to exert enough control over himself to hold his breath until he can turn the tables.  Luv in contrast dies because she is a slave to her Passions.  Instead of holding her breath and waiting for an opportunity to regain the upper hand she rages, clawing and growling, resisting with all her unchecked strength until her life is totally spent.

K and Deckard partake of the waters, die, and are born again.  Luv is subjected to the same trial, but she is denied such grace.  She is the First Angel, the most raw and brilliant and terrible, and as such, she must fall in all her dreadful glory, our horrible, beautiful, drowned Lucifer.

Like the studio-mandated happy ending of the original Blade Runner that everyone loathes, there could be another ending to this movie, a more conventionally satisfying ending where K and Luv gain a deeper understanding of themselves and, in doing so, find the capacity to care about and even love each other.  It would be nice, but it would also deny Luv her final tragic grandeur, and us the vision of a true antiheroine.      

The actress Sylvia Hoeks’ portrayal of Luv is as eerily perfect as the character herself, a performance that easily ranks among the best popular depictions of uncanny quasi-humanity ever rendered, on par with Christian Bale’s Patrick Bateman, Anthony Hopkins’ Hannibal Lector, and Rutger Hauer’s Roy Batty.  Luv is also different, a step beyond but also a step removed.  The sheer virtuosity of Sylvia Hoeks’ performance is largely based in restraint, the sort of illusion of control that Luv is so good at deceiving herself with that it’s easy for us, the audience, to be deceived as well.  It is right and good that we bemoan the lack of good female roles in popular cinema, but such objections can come to ring hollow when they come from an audience that routinely overlooks outstanding exemplars like Luv, a rendering that’s brave enough to not be obvious, whose peripheral status in the narrative does nothing to diminish.  I don’t think we’re going to see a great many characters equal to Luv in the future, not only because it’s rare for a concept this good to be executed this well, but the demographic of people who were once most inclined to notice such things are now largely intellectually hemmed in by an ideology that Blade Runner 2049 does not neatly fit into, and who thus deem it unworthy of consideration.  It is my ardent hope that it will eventually find a public worthy of it, just as its predecessor did.  It’s the reason why I’m writing this, why I’m proselytizing for Luv, who is, after all, the best one.  

OTHER PUNS I CONSIDERED WHEN TITLING THIS ESSAY

All You Need Is Luv

Luv Will Tear Us Apart

Luv Story

Luv Actually

The Luv Guru

Me Luv You Long Time

#blade runner #2049 #blade runner 2049 #luv #prose

[captainshadowgirllostfan]

This is the first Chapter Yugi POV of “How the Gang Met”

The day had started normal. The alarm clock bleeping, my hand crashing down to end it, and then Grandpa unceremoniously entering my room with his usual cheerful morning greeting, "WAKE UP YUGI!THE DAY CAN'T START WITH YOU SLEEPING THE DAY AWAY NOW!" And when that didn't work,there went several minutes in my room with my Grandpa beating me with a broom. Honestly, sometimes I wonder how it was this man who raised my father to be the sharp and brilliant businessman he was when half the time I swear the man was out of his mind. Maybe it was because I ended up being raised towards the end of the man's life. How old was he again? 60? 80? 90? A 100 years old?

"Now Yugi, today is an important day. The day you start your journey into becoming the great man you're meant to be. Now I know you've heard all the horror stories of high school, and I can't really say they are false. But trust me, it only starts that way. The key is surviving, and later becoming so great that when you come back to high school after many years, you'll say AHAHAHA! LOOK WHAT I'VE BECOME LOSERS! Unless you become popular." Doubt it. "Then you can still say, "AHAHAH! LOOK WHAT I'VE BECOME LOSERS!"

"Okay yeah Grandpa I understand." Not really. "But exactly how am I going to survive, if I don't really have any friends… Or even know exactly how I'm going to end up successful in the end."

"The key is, Yugi, to focus on your studies. And as for friends." Grandpa starts laughing boisterously, "Why you'll make a lot of them no problem. You know in my day I was rather popular you know. All the girls just wanted to be with me! But if you're anything like your father, you might not end up so popular. Not that your father wasn't meant to be unpopular. It was perhaps the fact that he was very reserved I suppose. Or the fact that everyone was just jealous over how brilliant he was!" Grandpa chuckled, while I raise my eyebrow.

"….You were popular?" I asked dubiously.

"Of course!" He grins. "What you don't believe your grandpa was such a ladies man back in the day?"

"It's not that I don't believe you..." To be honest I really didn't. If his way of getting girls is the same as now, there was no way women had any affinity towards my grandfather… Except for my grandmother, if my father's existence was any consolation, Grandpa probably did have some moves when it came to women. Still I highly doubted he was popular back when he was my age. I got his stature, and people with our stature just didn't invite popularity among the majority of people taller then us.

"Haha ah kids. So skeptical these days. Hmph. Fine don't believe me, not that it matters but it's true! I do have something though that may help with your friends' issue."

"Really?" I say, both shocked, intrigued, and hopeful. I mean I wasn't exactly popular in middle school… or ever really. Being a runt and all has it's drawbacks (again the reason #2 why I also think he's lying. I get my shortness from him and maybe my mother. My father oddly didn't get the shortness gene from his father, lucky bastard. Maybe it skips a generation…) like being bullied constantly in school, and being the last chosen in any sport or game. Oh also the lack of friends, because nobody wants to be friends with the short, unattractive, runt of the group. Hell if I wasn't such a runt, I'd probably not be friends with me either. I mean what benefit would,I, a runt be for a friend? Why exactly would anyone be friends with me? I'm useless. Hence the reason why I have no friends.

… Wow. This story suddenly turned into the sob story of an angst-y teenager, which I assure you I am not. I'm rather a very optimistic person, albeit shy. I do want to meet new people… I'm just not very confident. Being thrown into the dumpster many times during my past experiences of school does that to a person…

"Come now! Don’t tell me you forgot your lucky charm!” Grandpa laughed while I kept looking at him cluelessly.

“What are you-” I started to say only to find a golden box with a familiar creepy eye in the middle in my hands. “Your puzzle box!” exclaimed Grandpa while I stifled a groan. Right. My luck charm.

“You’ve been working on this since you were eight! I wonder why you stopped working on it. You were almost there!” 

I sighed. Not really. This puzzle had been the bane of my existence since I started. You see, I don’t like to brag, but when it comes to board games and card games I am the fucking king! I can win and complete the impossible. But this box… this puzzle…

Let me start in the beginning. When I was eight years old my parents died, and I had to live with my grandpa which wasn’t so bad to be honest. I loved my grandpa, but at the time… well I lost my parents. So to try and 

…I have no idea where that came from.

"So I was saving this till you were ready." He pulls out an ancient looking golden box. My hopeful expression deflates. Great, an ancient relic from his archeological days. I wonder if I rub it a genie will magically pop out and give me three wishes to make… "This Yugi is an ancient box" No duh. "Containing the pieces of a fabled magical item called the Millenium Puzzle. According to what this says, if you are able to solve the puzzle and put it back together, the item will allow you one wish, and it will happen. Your life will change forever." Grandpa ends with a dramatic air.

I look at him with a raised eyebrow as I accept his gift. Well not a magic lamp, but almost close. I guess I could humor Grandpa for a while. That and I do love puzzles, and any kinds of games really… except for the athletic kinds… cause I suck at those. "Thanks Grandpa. I can't wait to start solving this!"

"Haha I had a feeling you'd like it! You might end up making some friends with the puzzle." Yeah right, but Grandpa smiles and I feel a bit touched that he cares so much. Really I have the best grandfather in the world, even if I'm just saying that because I'm around him often, though if anything that just adds to how really awesome he is. I mean if you were around him as often as I, it'd probably drive you insane, and it does drive me insane, but in the end of the day, there really isn't a more caring person then my grandfather, plus he's the closest person to me. He knows everything about me, and understands everything that I feel! It's kinda creepy when I think about it.

"Now you go off now. The school bell will ring any minute now, and I don't want you to be late on your first day now"

"Bye Grandpa!" I wave my hand as I pack the Millennium's Puzzle Box in my back bag and make my way to school.

When I arrived at school, I was met with one of my old buddies from middle school. Actually, not really one of my old buddies, but he was a familiar face anyway. Joey Wheeler, A.K.A Asshole who won't get off my ass. Since as far as I could remember, the moment Joey Wheeler had come to Domino, he's decided that I would be his personal plaything. His excuse to the daily throwing my ass in a dumpster, stealing my homework, taking my lunch money, or whatever torture/punishment he decides to do to me for the day is one thing simple: to teach me to stand up for myself. Yeah, he's a real helper this guy.

"Well look whose finally showed up!" Wheeler says cheerfully as if we were planning to meet up and hang out before school. Really the day I become friends with this guy will be the day Ushio, the hall monitor, who takes his job way to seriously in my opinion, looses his head and tries to fall off a roof! Man do you have some gruesome thoughts. Maybe I should watch more My Little Pony.

"And where's that lunch you promised me?" Wheeler back to reality.

"What!? What lunch? What are you talking about!?" I ask my voice unintentionally getting higher with each word. Seriously what the hell is wrong with me? I'm not scared of this guy!

BAM! Ahhhhh… I gape as a fist almost collides to my face and hits the dumpster behind me. Damn it! How does he corner me so easily!

"Yugi! Here I thought we were friends. How am I goin' to eat if I have no lunch!?" Wheeler growls.

"I don't know." I whimper. Damn it! "Maybe you could uh buy some?"

"Or maybe" Wheeler smirks and I don't like it. "You could just lend me some money so I could buy some."

"Uh well… that isn't really what I meant." I mutter sheepishly scratching my chin. Wheeler grabs me by the neck shirt and then slam me back on the metal of the dumpster.

Geez what is with this guy and slamming people to dumpsters!

"Look punk! I know how loaded you and your gramps are being that he's a lead archaeologist and one of the greatest poker players in the world, and your pops owned one of those new big time businesses that you still get a paycheck from? Right?" How the hell did he know this? Shit! Is he stalking me?

"So I don't see how it is you can't have had some extra change in your pocket to give to a poor guy like me who's starving and got nothin' to eat later!" Wheeler finishes.

I just stare at him.

"Hey do'ya have a problem understanding English!" Wheeler shouted at my face and slammed me to the dumpster. Ow! That's going to leave a mark.

Okay this guy's not going to let up, but I'm not going to just hand him my lunch money like that! I mean come on I have to maintain some dignity and pride here!

"Okay! Okay! Here!" I gave him the change Gramps gave me to buy lunch today. Okay maybe I don't have any dignity and pride in me after all.

"Heh!" Wheeler smirked. Man! Is he insufferable! "Well I hafta say I'm disappointed Yugi! That was like taking candy from a baby! I expected so much more!" Are you kidding me!

"Oi Joey! What's going on?" Oh great it's Buffoon #2 coming in the join the party. And sure enough there's Triston Taylor coming around the corner toward us. Now compared to Wheeler, he isn't really so bad. I mean he and I used to do projects together in Middle School and he tries, emphasis on the "tries", to help out and not let me do all the work. He also, unlike Wheeler, attempts to make some civilized conversation with me, when he has to anyway, instead of smashing against a wall and stealing my money, all in all we have a very good non-intimate acquaintance relationship going on. Add Wheeler in the picture though, and well you can't really count on him to be my ally and defender. Today though it seemed he might be my hero.

"What the hell are you doing Joey? I thought you were going to stop picking on the shrimps ever since Kane transferred into the Rintama High School?"

"Now's not the time Taylor! Now are you goin' to help me throw this punk into the dump or are you goin' to stand there tryin' to reform me to your law-abiding ways and shit. Cuz I got news for ya buddy, you're wastin' your time." Wheeler sneered.

And so that's how I ended up in the dumpster that lovely Monday morning. Yeah my first day is going spectacularly! And Taylor really sucks at playing hero.

A/N: I know this chapter needs work. I’m gonna edit. I wrote it a long time ago and I know some things are wrong.

#yugioh #yugi moto #solomon moto #joey wheeler #triston taylor #how the gang met #tea gardner #seto kaiba #i think i will edit in order to show yugi's whole day #so that seto and tea will pop up #yugioh fics #my fics

[saltybiowarefantears]

A Clash of Pride and Loss

Here I am, about to write a character analysis of a divisive character using a rather extreme feeling analogy. Now, I’m not here to condemn nor condone anything, rather explain what I feel is a general misconception of behavior on part of said divisive character: Solas. This is not meant to change anyone’s mind about his general character - good, bad, or otherwise. I’m not here to tell someone is right or wrong in their personal preference of character traits. It’s not meant to stir up discourse or drama; this is merely allowing me to air some thoughts and feelings on the matter. Honestly, this probably won’t add anything to the general meta database on him. Would not be a bad gamble to guess someone else has already discussed this and in better detail.

So now after a much unnecessarily lengthy opening paragraph, if you still wish to proceed, on to the topic at hand: Solas and the Dalish.

Ah yes, the situation and attitude even Solas positive fans tend to agree is a rather unattractive trait for their favorite egg man. In the Dragon Age universe we’re shown this group of people who have lost nearly everything - lives, culture, history, a home. They’re continuously oppressed as a race and scattered to the wind. Then there’s the Dalish fighting tooth and nail to maintain the last scraps of their old world. Over two games we’re conditioned to (hopefully) emphasize with their plight.

So when Solas comes along and seems to sneer at the mere mention of the Dalish, well that’s bound raise some hackles, especially those playing as a Lavellan. Gut reaction to someone insulting something we as a player treasure, i.e. the Dalish, is to return the favor and insult back. How dare he be such a condescending jerk about them?  What gives him the right?

Well... he does. He gave himself the right. Let me explain the layers to this before anyone throws a fit over the use of “right” in his view and behavior towards an oppressed fictional people. Keep in mind as well that this analysis is coming from a context of knowing about Solas, his identity, and his past. This is a 20/20 hindsight discussion. In the beginning, innocent to any knowledge of him, yeah he can definitely come across as a condescending jerk when asking him about his opinions on the Dalish.

Anyway in order to fully understand why Solas reacts the way that he does, we have to take a look at his past. Even further than that, we need to put ourselves in Solas’ shoes. People tend to forget small things with him when confronting him in the game (unless it’s Trespasser). We need to remember these small things and empathize with his position to understand his behavior. To do that, we’re going to take a hypothetical journey and where this piece might get Problematic™.

A Real World Analog (Sort Of)

Ok, for this bit I ask for everyone to relax. Sit back, stretch even. Remember that at no point I am positing this to be offensive or sensationalize for the pay off of some knee-jerk emotional response. This is a hypothetical framework to analyse a fictional character, ok? There’s better analogs I am sure as this doesn’t quite fit, but it’s the one where my mind went when brainstorming this piece over the course of many days and many showers.

Let’s start this journey. Pretend we’re on an alternate Earth in an alternate timeline. It’s World War II. You are part of one of the groups of people hunted and oppressed by the Nazis. I know, I know... deep breaths. We are going there. You lived through the horrors and atrocities committed by them. You become a figurehead of a resistance to fight the Nazis. You try freeing your people. You do an unspeakable thing in the merest hopes that it will lead to a better future for your people. You are willing to bear that burden, gamble it all, if it means your people have a future. You go to sleep, leave, whatever and wake up in the present.

Here’s where the alternate timeline kicks in. Upon waking/returning you find the consequences of your actions. The people you were trying to save have lost everything - lives, culture, history, a home. During your slumber, your people have suffered a cultural genocide. The past and their history have warped. Instead, these new people perform a cultural rite of tattooing numbers on their arms; not to remember the past, but to revere the very people responsible for their oppression unbeknownst to them. 

So here you are, face-to-face, with the people you once tried to save; their actions a twisted, corrupted farce of their true culture. And you’re responsible.

Pride

Can you imagine the shock and horror of such a discovery? The blame and strife curdling inside you, swallowing it down lest anyone discover your secret. Wouldn’t you want to shake someone and scream “No! This is wrong! You can’t do this!” This is what Solas has to face.

To Solas, the Dalish represent all of his failures. He failed to protect his people. He failed to free them of the evanuris’ grasp. His gambit failed. They may have gained their freedom because of him, but at the cost of their identity and culture. As someone who values truth, wisdom, history, compassion, how would it feel to be the catalyst to a cultural genocide? And for not one soul willing to listen to him about it.

All of this negativity and reflection of his worst deed, he confronts it, not with his warmth no, but with his other side, his character flaw, his pride. He shields himself in his conviction of truth. How could they not listen to him? Easily. The answer is extremely easily.

The Dalish’s recalcitrance feels like a slap across the face. It wounds him, both his pride as a perceived font of wisdom and his burden of past deeds. He is rejected from the closest thing he can find to home and people. I honestly posit that this was the start of him believing the Dalish are not his people, only shadows of them. All of that self-sacrifice only for these people to be ungrateful for him trying to show them the truth and error of their ways. He denounces them as childish for it, further aggravating their beliefs towards each other. Miscommunication of intent leading to contention. Essentially, Solas’ bias towards the Dalish is because they are a bleeding, festering reminder of the consequence of his actions and their snappish response to him (I’ll get to this in a bit. I promise this isn’t just an attack on the Dalish.) 

Change, however, is also integral to Solas’ character. You meet him only after some unpleasant run ins with Dalish clans. You meet him, honestly, at his most guarded. He doesn’t know what to make of you, especially if your Inquisitor is Dalish. He’s quick to reply to questions of the Fade or magic, but hesitant of your possible malicious intent in asking personal questions. I believe the Dalish fall under this category as well for him, aka personal and tightly held opinions on things that might crack his performance mask. Unfortunate for Solas, he’s also a self-declared hot head. The Dalish, quite frankly, pissed him off. So when you ask him for his opinion on the matter, rather than cool and calculated reluctance, he fires off about them.

This is the core of his belief, i.e. Dalish have lost their history/culture/magic/etc., met with disbelief of him of all people, bare faced, knowing something important on anything Dalish. However you can appeal to part of his pride and ask what can be done.

To me, I believe this catches him slightly off-guard. You don’t ask sarcastically; there’s a lot of sincerity to the question. No longer are you immediately rejecting anything he says, but in fact questioning things (another favorite of his).

If you listen to him, he apologizes for his behavior. While the first part might come across arrogant, especially given the tone, but really, to me, it shows him confronting his own biases and distortions. It is not fair for him to punish the Dalish for not knowing what they don’t know. And thus starts your actions and openness with him in turn opening him. You can begin his turn of pride back into wisdom and seeking of knowledge. It is a bit tangential in the grand scheme of this analysis, but I feel like it’s an important detail to remember. Most people tend to remember his constant disapproval of anything you say about the Dalish while ignoring this bit of conversation.

Seeing Suffering vs Living It

For Solas, he cannot understand why the Dalish refuse to listen to his correct truth and knowledge of their history. If their entire purpose is to collect and never forget their past, why refuse arguably the most important pieces of information on the matter? Just as many tend to not put themselves in Solas’ shoes when examining his bias towards the Dalish, Solas himself does not walk in the shoes of the Dalish (I know there’s a joke in there somewhere given their lack of shoes.) He believes because he lived at the height of the elves, he can judge the poverty of culture in which they now dwell. 

What Solas does not have, however, is the experience of living through said poverty of culture. He wasn’t there to experience the plight they suffered. He lacks understanding of how possessive the Dalish are over their remnants of history and culture. In reality, the Dalish are truly only concerned with adding to their database of ancient elven history. Solas asks them to rewrite and take away. To them, that’s unthinkable.

The Dalish also mirror real-world cultures in terms of societal and self-imposed ostracizing. The world was cold and cruel to them, stopping at nothing to strip them of everything they are as a people. Thus, the Dalish turn on the world as a means of security and comfort. Anyone not Dalish is to be treated wearily. Right or wrong, there is no denying the Dalish are harsh when it comes to their view and treatment of non-Dalish, and almost more so when it comes to non-Dalish elves. It’s how they protect themselves. It’s how they protect their culture. 

So when Solas, no clan and marked as stranger, wanders up to a Dalish clan, of course they automatically guard themselves. When he then seems to snatch the last scraps of history from their hands because he says it pales in comparison to what actually was, you bet they’ll go on the defense. No one takes things from the Dalish. And more importantly, no one takes their history from them any longer. Never again shall they submit. To them, he’s telling a starving man not to eat scraps because it used to be a feast. Why should they believe him on it as well? The catch all reply of “the Fade” doesn’t suffice when applied to asking them to completely rethink their entire current culture.

Sigh of Relief, It’s the End

Now, I think I’m going to cut it shorter than I initially planned. There was some banter between Solas and Varric that reminded me of Solas’ last-of-my-kind-syndrome (I got very excited about this “new” dialogue because I have the memory of a goldfish.) I wanted to tie all of this into that plus his plans for the Veil. Because, let’s face it, everything is all connected when it comes to him. He’s a giant yarn ball of past wrapping around threads of the present. Pull at one string and you find a Celtic knot of past grief, anguish, regret at the core. That might be another post for another day though.

Getting back on track, this confrontation between Solas and the Dalish can be boiled down to a sentence from earlier: “Miscommunication of intent leading to contention.” Solas sees the horrors of his past in the Dalish. All he can see is a twisted, shadow version of the people he thought he saved. And the heart stopping ramifications that what he did indeed did not save them. He wants to fix his past mistakes. He doesn’t want there to be strife of innocents, especially not strife caused by him personally. The Dalish, on the other hand, see another person grasping greedily at their culture and history. Solas is another person with no right to their history trying to tell them what is “true” and “right”. 

In the end, is Solas right? Yes. Is he wrong? Yes. How about the Dalish? Yes to both. It’s not a matter of right or wrong or who started it. This is a matter of explaining how this bias came to be by examination of both parties. Some matters can be solved, in my firm belief, by taking a deep breath, and walking in the other person’s shoes for understanding. Or in this case, foot wraps.

#solas #dragon age inquisition #dalish #meta #character analysis #hey look at that i have no clue how to tag this #again to reiterate this is not meant to start up drama #if you try arguing with me in the comments or my inbox i will most likely ignore it #unless it's good/constructive criticism or something i hadn't considered #this whole thing was an exercise to get it off my mind and chest

[yukiwrites]

Battle Against What Was Forgotten

The time was nigh -- Kamui’s and Xander’s efforts to rouse up the hoshidans, nohrians and vallite under a single banner with the intent of defeating their nemesis finally reached its purpose: There was only Anankos, the Forgotten Dragon, standing between them and true peace. They would all do whatever it took to win. No matter what had to be sacrificed, or whose help they had to get.

Part 1 - Part 2

No legends could have prepared Kamui's army to what was happening right before their eyes: A thousand-eyed dragon the size of the moon had launched some sort of magic at the center of the world once known as Valla, which consumed everything it touched.

Buildings, trees, clouds and even stars. Nothing escaped the black hole which grew bigger and bigger with each passing second.

"We can't give up! Not now!" Were Kamui's words before the Forgotten Dragon set its sights on her -- pursuing her, it threw its dissolving magic left and right in an attempt to erase its closest family and worst enemy.

The battle seemed hopeless: although Kamui's Seal of Flames dealt considerable damage to the dragon's ancient scales, being able to get it close enough to them without destroying the entire structure they were on proved to be their hardest challenge. Not to mention, of course, the fallen vallite soldiers Anankos summoned the very moment it lost sight of its enemies.

They couldn't fall back and regroup.

They couldn't attack head on without fearing losing their footing and falling to oblivion.

They couldn't keep that up for much longer, either. Exhaustion was starting to wear them all off.

"We need to press on -- let's go hide inside that crumbling chapel, it seems far enough from the borders of this floating island-" Kamui huffed, using the Seal of Flames as a support to help her up, her entire body aching.

"Big Sister!!" Elise and Sakura both pointed in horror to something behind the dragon princess' back, but she turned one heartbeat too late -- Anankos' magic hit her head-on. Ryoma threw himself over his little sister and his wife-to-be, protecting them from the blow at the same time Xander pulled Kamui's hand to him, close to the one standing wall that protected them from the dragon's might.

Her Yato shone with the brightness of a thousand suns, covering both her and Xander in its light, negating Anankos' dissolving magic; though not being able to protect her from its physical damage.

Consciousness slowly slipped away from the dragon princess' grasp. "X-Xander- take everyone away from here-" she didn't hear her voice say, but her lips managed to think of others before herself even without enough strength to keep her eyes open.

Kamui could hear her name being called as though through a thick glass -- the sound became farther and farther as she felt her grip on Yato lessen, the last noise she heard before passing out was the loud clang of her blade hitting the destroyed stone floor.

Xander felt his heart beat cold blood to his entire body the moment he saw Kamui being hit by that blow -- it was as though he was seeing everything in slow motion.

The way the distorted purple ray managed to dissolve the remains of the half-standing wall Kamui had just been leaning in moments before; the way he saw his hand pulling hers before his own mind could process what was happening.

The way Kamui's body felt unbearably hot due to the Yato's protection for only half of a second, then increasingly cold in the next moment -- it all wrought his entire body in physical pain.

The way she weakly raised her hand to touch his cheek, asking him to lead them while she couldn't.

The way she thought of others even during such a critical time for herself -- she was losing consciousness in the middle of battle, for the Gods' sake! -- and how she exhaled calmly as though she was falling asleep in his arms once she finally passed out.

The way her limp arms let her sword fall to the ground, the clanging sound ringing through all of their ears, making their hearts fall: every wielder of a Divine Weapon could feel their power diminishing rapidly.

Without Yato -- alas, without Kamui -- there was no power that could unite them all to bringing out their weapons' full potential. There was no 'full potential' to be brought out in the first place.

They needed her.

She was crucial.

Xander quickly adjusted Kamui in his arms, "move!!" He vociferated, the rush of battle exploding all around them, despite the stillness that invaded their bodies with the loss of Kamui. "Camilla, take Kamui's Yato; let's move quickly to the chapel she just mentioned -- we shall be safe there while she's unconscious." He ordered quickly, placing his beloved over his horse, mounting it right after. "We've no time to mourn -- Kamui will wake up in time; we must survive until then!"

"... Right!" Elise sniffled, still lying in shock as she hugged Sakura in Ryoma's arms. "C'mon, Sakura, Ryoma, I'll take you two on my horse!"

Camilla rushedly took the Yato, running towards her wyvern. "Dearie, Marishka can carry me and your sweetheart much better than your horse. Come now, Prince Ryoma."

"Of course, Princess Camilla." Ryoma finally snapped out of the desperation that had hit them all, quickly helping his betrothed to get on her feet. "Take my sister with you, Elise. I'll monitor the skies with Lady Camilla."

"And you're coming with me," Leo pulled Takumi by the arm, shoving him towards his horse.

"I'll scout the area, but we still need someone to stay behind to lead the troops!" Hinoka jumped on her pegasus and took off, not waiting to hear Silas' volunteering to take on the role.

"Proceed!" Xander held Kamui with one arm, taking out his Siegfried with the other, pointing forward. "We will survive this!"

"...my. H-... c-... hea... e? ...my!" A childish and far, faraway voice called, scratching the back of Kamui's consciousness.

Though her head throbbed a bit, her body felt light. It was as though she could feel a newfound power coursing through her veins, despite having no idea where that power came from, or how she found it.

She felt the tips of her fingers tingling; overflowing with energy -- if she so much as clenched her fists, she would feel like she were controlling the sun and the stars, making them burst into flames.

"Flames...?" Her voice groggily said, not noticing how she shook her head ever so slowly, delirious.

"The Seal of Flames, Mommy." The childish voice whispered, so close to Kamui's ear she could feel its breath. "It's right here."

A small, so very small hand held Kamui's, its tiny fingers eagerly holding two of hers.

"I didn't know I could have all this power, honestly." The voice went on, too insecure about itself, but overflowing with pride from its ancestry. "But it's all because of you and Father, Mommy. Because you two are my parents, I can reach this potential."

Kamui felt a warm tear itching down her cheek, wanting more than anything to be able to open her eyes. "You're-" she choked her breath, squeezing the baby's hand on hers. "Siegbert?"

The voice was silent for a beat, but Kamui could almost see the little boy nodding, smiling proudly. "Mhm. I'm with you, Mommy. Please, don't give up now; I want to meet you so badly."

The princess breathed heavily, the chains of unconsciousness pinning her down with an almost inhuman strength.

But her longing to meet her child; to meet hers and Xander's child was so, so very much stronger. She broke through the stillness holding her body and reached out to her stomach with her free hand, using the last of her forces to sit straight, quickly opening her eyes to finally look at her child's. "Siegbert!!"

The stillness broke.

Cold wind swept Kamui's hair apart, slapping her face. She huffed for breath, her wide eyes looking at where the child had been just a second ago, his warmth still tingling her hand.

"Hah... hahh..." The princess blinked, finding that her hand was indeed being held -- by Xander's own. She trailed her gaze from his long fingers to his arm, shoulder, neck and finally to his eyes, which met hers with surprise and relief. "X-Xander... he's here with us."

The Crown Prince opened and closed his mouth, the perpetual frown over his brow growing deep, even after lessening just as Kamui had woken up. "You are pre-" he choked on the word, widening his eyes further. "Siegbert-" he breathed out, slowly reaching out to the hand Kamui never took from her stomach.

The moment his fingers brushed on hers, they both felt a surge of power so intense and sudden, they almost jumped out of their skins.

"He's here... He's here with us!" Kamui smiled widely, her eyes shining with tears.

She looked all around herself -- all of her family looked at her in differing levels of happiness and confusion. She reached out to her Yato, properly laid beside her, and clenched its hilt. "We're going to win this, everyone! I have the blood of another one of Yato's chosen inside of me!"

The wielders of Divine Weapons felt the breath leaving their bodies, most of them crumpling on the ground due to the intensity of power coursing through them the moment Kamui brandished her Yato. It was as though their weapons had gained a heart that beat in sync with their own.

Leo, Takumi and Ryoma could barely hear the calls of their concerned family members, their astonished gazes leaning on their weapons. The samurai took out his Raijinto, staring at how it crackled with power -- the lightning surrounding it jumped from the blade to his hand, entering his body and filling it with vitality.

The mage closed his eyes, placing one hand over his tome -- he could see himself wielding it with his mind eye; he could see the power of creation he had in his hands. Minuscule roots bound the book to his hand, infusing him with the wisdom of millennia.

The archer felt his bow crackle, the magical bowstring fizzing by his ear. He but tapped on it, and the resulting sound sent waves of energy around them, breaking any remaining glass windows the ruined chapel had. He could see the bluish arrow dig deep into his hand, binding the bow into it and tackling him with the strength to shoot a thousand arrows.

The King held his beloved's hand, Siegfried pulsating by his hip -- calling for its master. He looked deep into Kamui's eyes, feeling the power of Yato coursing through her body towards his, seeping even more into his own weapon. The dark blade exhaled energy, its purple glow merging with Yato's golden light -- the moment he took it off of its scabbard and pointed it upwards, the world went still.

A barrier  big enough to cover the entire chapel seethed from Siegfried, as though its overflowing energy physically dripped out of it. The blade dug deep into Xander's hand, binding itself to him as he squeezed Kamui's hand on his. Yato did the same to her, red and yellow veins popping out of her arms so as to accommodate the overpowered sword, ready to integrate it into her own body for as long as it took to accomplish its mission.

They got up, exchanging meaningful glances. "Never leave my side, my Little Princess." Xander's voice dug into Kamui, showering her with warmth.

"I wouldn't have it any other way, Xander." She smiled back at him, squeezing her hand on his. Blind to the world around them, they didn’t notice how Leo got up from his crouching position, one hand under his chin in thought.

"You know what, I think I know how to defeat that overgrown lizard now." Leo said a ways behind them. "Prince Ryoma, Prince Takumi? If you may?"

Takumi was holding back a smirk. "This power should be freaking me out, but I think I'm too high strung to realize that my bow is PHYSICALLY BOUND TO MY ARM to care right now. You had a plan?"

"I'm all ears, Prince Leo." Ryoma nodded, approaching.

“Good. So, for starters, we should lure it back to where we were first…”

The wind howled, its sound the only remaining thing that felt somehow real for all the players in that deadly -- undoubtedly their last -- game. Even the breeze was being sucked into the dark void Anankos tore in the sky, which grew ever closer to the island they stood on.

The thunder of their army's cavalry broke the sound of the world being torn asunder -- under Silas' command, the soldiers roared towards the invisible vallite soldiers. "Don't break formation! Keep them on us!"

"Draw their attention!" Hinoka barked orders to her pegasus knights, covering Silas' left flank while Camilla commanded the wyvern brigade by the right flank.

"Let us be the last thing they see!" The nohrian princess lifted her overgrown axe in a battle roar.

Mages, archers and lance throwers kept to the rear, encircling the battle formation so as to make sure no vallite escaped their pincer attack.

Barriers exploded; arrows hit their targets; lances pierced through their enemies -- flashes of magic left and right rang into their ears. The soldiers' utter and raw will to survive made each and every of them fight as though possessed, raising dust, spilling blood and dripping in sweat.

From above the battlefield, atop a borrowed kinshi, Ryoma raised his divine blade, thunder crackling in the distance. "Kamui!" His voice travelled like the lightning itself towards the dust which kept on growing amidst the battlefield.

"Do it, Ryoma!" A dignified, confident yet desperate voice rose itself from the chaos into which it mingled, but the sound of it brought a smirk to the hoshidan prince's lips.

He pierced his gaze to the far-away thousand-eyed dragon, "you die, NOW!" He vociferated, thrusting his swords upwards to the vortex of clouds that followed his command.

A lightning bolt as large as the dragon's claws thundered from Raijinto to the clouds, ramifying into thousands more -- they followed their master's command, from the clouds to the void whence the Dragon made its home, far from their reach -- but not from Ryoma's thunders.

"Get here, you coward!" Takumi yelled from below, sharing Leo's horse as they pierced through the vallites towards the edge of the island.

"One more time, Ryoma!" Kamui dispelled the dust around herself with but a wave of her Yato -- nay, of her Seal of Flames -- as Xander steered his horse under them both.

They shone with a purple glow, the barrier Siegfried emanated highlighting them from the battlefield.

"You underestimate me, Sister!" Ryoma smirked with the fervor of battle, his lightning quickly making its way to the void which Anankos protected itself into. "Look this way, beast! We are not done yet!" He bellowed, once again raising his Raijinto above his head.

Then, there was silence.

A heartbeat of a moment inside a millisecond of silence before the explosion.

Friend and foe alike had to cover their eyes for the burst of light blinded any and all who could see, the following shockwave blowing away those who hadn't their feet solidly planted on the ground. The island itself shook as though a boat amidst a storm, the ear-piercing screech the Forgotten Dragon released making soldiers hold their heads lest they split in half.

"Overdoing it, much?" Leo felt cold sweat itching down his temple, betraying his excited smirk as he got his horse into position. Behind him, Takumi kicked his feet in excitement.

"That's my Brother! I bet he could single-handedly-"

"Let us focus, yes, Prince Takumi? Your turn approaches." Leo turned his horse to the abyss a thousand meters ahead of them, his frown deep but his mind blaring with all the possible outcomes of his insane strategy.

"Sheesh, no need to tell me twice." Takumi groaned, though he wore the same smirk as his sibling, carefully aiming his Fujin Yumi before pulling its magical string.

Wind revolved around them, lifting hair and mane alike as the blue arrow started to form itself -- bigger than Takumi had ever seen it. Merely the tip was large enough to cover both him, Leo and their mount.

He laughed nervously. "This power is freaking amazing; I can feel it literally inside my veins."

"Don't get carried away! Though I do understand what you mean -- I can now remember things I read only once in my life, as though the book is filling me with magical and intellectual potential."

"No time for idle chatter, you two!" Xander steered Bucephalus towards his younger brother's position, Siegfried's purple glow tapping into the Fujin Yumi's power and engulfing inside its protection. "We have its attention, now!"

Recovering from the stunness Ryoma's thunder brought into its body, Anankos once again screeched to the head-splitting level, words long forgotten being sung in the background as though the souls of the fallen were playing the Forgotten Dragon's tune.

Azura's pendant pulsated with power, her own blood feeling like fire inside her veins -- her voice echoed louder than the damned souls driven to sing for Anankos, her words delivering the true meaning behind the ancient song.

"¡ǝɯ ʇsuᴉɐƃɐ -פNOS ʎW -ƃuos ǝɥʇ ǝsn noʎ ǝɹɐp ʍoH ¡∩Oʎ NW∀p" A voice clashed into their consciousness, ramming its way into their minds.

Breathing heavily, Kamui lifted her Seal of Flames. "This ends TODAY, Anankos!"

"¡∩Oʎ NW∀p" The dragon rolled its thousand eyes to make way for a monstrous teeth-filled mouth, getting ready to shoot its dissolving beam.

The world blinked as the light flickered into the dragon's mouth, its ray as blinding as Ryoma's lightning had been moments before.

But none of them moved.

Kamui kept her Seal of Flames raised, not flinching as the ray approached.

Takumi kept his bow apeak and ready to shoot, unblinking.

Leo hovered his hand over his open book, ready for an opening; his mind focused on what would come next.

Ryoma flew overhead of his family, his eyes unfaltering.

Xander slowly raised his blade, his frown deep as the lowest caves of Nohr's underground, unmoving. "I WON'T allow it!" His low voice shattered the world like a wave breaking on the shore.

Siegfried's barrier pulsated, strengthening with the extent of Xander's feelings -- his protectiveness over Kamui and their unborn baby, his resolve to protect their people from whatever had been controlling his beloved Nohr for so many years, his own hopes for the future, borne only after embracing his love for Kamui and opening his own eyes to a path laid by their happiness.

A mere dragon's rage would never topple Xander's resolve to protect what he held dearest into his heart -- and into his arms. He held Kamui with his free arm, never letting go of the reins, as he lifted his sword with the other hand, the barrier completely withstood the impact of Ananko's previously-dreaded dissolving blast.

"HAH!" Takumi and Leo sneered in unison. "Take that, you lizard!" The hoshidan prince laughed as he shot the overgrown arrow the moment the impact of the dragon's attack lessened in Xander's barrier. The arrow flew, straight and true, towards one of Anankos' arms, entangling itself around his claws as though a sailor tied a tight knot around his ship's anchor. "And another, and another!" Takumi panted, shooting one more magical rope to tie itself between the first and the very ground they stood on -- followed by another two to do the same with the dragon's right arm. "Bind!" He bellowed, his voice echoing with the hoshidan mages and ninjas so very far behind them as they finished the hand seals necessary to strengthen the binding spell, physically pulling and constricting Anankos to the edge of the island they stood on.

Once again the ground shook as though in a seaquake, the island infinitely smaller than the gargantuan dragon bound onto it. The ground level started to slanten, forcing the soldiers to hold themselves into any walls or trees so as not to fall into the nether right below.

Not giving the Forgotten Dragon any time to understand what was going on, Leo chanted under his breath before thrusting his book upwards. "We'll erase you!" He roared, the very island trembling in the rhythm of his breathing -- it not only stabilized itself due to the power of Brynhildr’s roots , but the forest itself rose from the ground, entangling itself around Anankos’ claws and filling the space between them, proceeding to go upwards.

"Form a path!" He panted, the strain of using so much of his weapon's power seeping into his life force, but he wasn't about to stop -- not when the roots acted as he commanded.

Not when the path was almost visible -- the stairway he willed to be unravelled itself in front of their eyes, his hands coordinating it as though a maestro guiding an orchestra.

The strain to keep Anankos stunned made Ryoma clench his teeth, as did the burden of keeping him bound drove Takumi out of his breath.

Yet, like Leo, they wouldn't stop. Not when victory lay so very close to their eyes -- the nohrian prince had but to carve the path for Kamui to reach her nemesis' head.

The Seal of Flames would do the rest.

"Onward!!" The dragon princess vociferated at the same time Xander whipped the reins, Bucephalus himself receiving much of the Yato's power to be able to withstand the shocks and explosions of that battle.

"Sister! The stairs aren't ready yet-" Leo huffed, his vision blurring and his breathing failing him. He was at least thankful that the book was physically bound into his skin, otherwise it might've fallen as well.

"I have faith you can do it, Leo! Keep going!" She smiled at him before turning to the still-forming path ahead in the split of second their mounts crossed paths.

"Hah! Failure is no option!" He renewed his breathing by sheer willpower, straightening his back to resume his conduction of Brynhildr’s roots.

"Fly, Bucephalus!" Xander spurred his horse to its limit as they ascended towards the Forgotten Dragon's head.

Without wasting any time, Anankos once again turned its thousand eyes so as to open its nightmarish mouth, ready to cast his dissolving blast at point blank.

"The path -- we are almost at its end." Xander whispered gravely by Kamui's ear, making her hurried yet attentive eyes switch from it to their goal right on ahead.

"Jump, Bucephalus! Don't falter!" She breathed out, getting ready to jump herself. Xander held onto her abdomen for support as she crouched on the horse's back -- at the very moment the stairs under them ended and the void started.

Anankos once again shot its blinding light, clashing immediately with Siegfried's force shield. "Think again, worm!" Xander made use of the very last bits of strength he had to throw Kamui upwards, aiding her in her jump.

"This ends now!" She yelled as she pointed Yato towards the still open mouth of the Forgotten Dragon, throwing herself inside -- cutting everything open in her path.

For a moment, there was nothing.

No one could remember when they had closed their eyes, but they quickly opened them again to witness the fall of the World Eater.

As though the sea before a quake, the wind was sucked into the nothingness that Anankos had become, tearing the grass from its roots towards the black hole so far up in the sky.

Stillness.

"Kamui! Xander!" Leo yelled desperately for the first time in his life, reaching out to the spot where his siblings had disappeared at, uncaring about appearances.

"Big Sister! Big Brother!!" Elise cried from behind the lines, theis voices being mirrored by one and all who still stood around them.

"May this not be the end of our Queen!" Remaining vallite people cried for their chosen ruler, echoing their nohrian counterpart's words.

"Long live King Xander!" The nohrians clamored, tears falling down their tired faces. "Long live Queen Kamui!" Their voices thunder in the stillness, their words spurred the gears of time to move again.

From far ahead them all, the black hole started dissolving itself into hundreds of thousands lights -- each one of them a single thing it consumed.

The light felt gentle, albeit far, though it didn't raise the worry from the soldier's wrung hearts. The very spot Anankos had been -- where its carcass still lay, unmoving but undoubtedly dead -- still stood, Kamui and Xander nowhere to be found.

The wind started to gush, first as a slight breeze, gaining momentum as though it brew a hurricane -- bringing the flocks of light closer.

They shone over the people's heads, flying towards this or that specific place so as to restore it to its former state -- before the Forgotten Dragon had absorbed it, but not to its former glory from time immemorial.

Islands appeared in the sky one after the other, as did half-collapsed buildings all around where they stood -- the magical display to take one’s breath away.

The world was being rebuilt all around them, but they couldn't feel happiness -- if bringing the world back meant the sacrifice of their heroes, then perhaps they should have left it to oblivion.

Too tired to even move his eyelids, but still resolute in his faith, Leo gripped at the reins, ready to climb the still-standing staircase he managed to finish after Kamui dealt the final blow.

But in that moment, breath was taken from his lungs.

Takumi and Ryoma felt it right there and then as well -- the pulsating power from the Seal of Flames telling its shield-siblings that it still lived; that its wielder still stood, all the while severing their physical binds with their hosts.

A single flock of light touched the empty carcass, quickly making it dissolve into another thousand lights. From within, one could see a purple yet gentle glow enveloping three silhouettes, protecting them from without and within.

Differing levels of surprised gasps roamed around the troops, starting from Kamui and Xander's family.

Siegfried's barrier lifted its future King, Queen and their mount towards the edge of the staircase, slowly dissolving alongside the Forgotten Dragon's dust.

On his feet, Xander pulled Bucephalus' reins as he let Kamui ride it, allowing her an early rest.

The rumble of the soldiers' clamor started as a huff of breath, quickly evolving into a quake that shook the very sky. "Long live the Queen! Long live the King!" They roared, clapped and laughed, finally feeling the high of victory.

Kamui covered her face with emotion, holding her stomach with the other hand. "T-they're calling me your Queen-" she whispered, leaning on the horse's neck so her beloved could hear.

"As they should -- for I will not allow another moment to pass without making you my lawful wife." Xander smiled softly, his heart filled with warmth.

"Oh, Xander..." Kamui's voice shook, her eyes itching with tears. Reality that they had finally beat their nemesis was yet to sink in, but to be there, beside her beloved; to be standing in front of the future whence they would be husband and wife made Kamui quickly accept it as true.

"There is much to do after a war -- for ourselves, that means our coronation. You, as my Queen-"

"And you, Xander, as my King."

#corriander #kamarx #xander #fire emblem fates #leo #takumi #ryoma #this is so terribly self indulgent #there's gonna be a part 2 #my writings

[rain0205-blog]

Terminal State

Summary:  She tried leaving, submerging herself in work to escape the horrors she had seen. The horrors she kept seeing. She never wanted to go back to that life. But when the Empire takes her home, she’s forced to face her past. Can she move on? Can she cope? Or will she require a bit of help? still bad at summaries, still working on it. ever so slightly more than slight AU gadioxoc

Sad Realization

...

The sun was retreating into the horizon, causing the sky to be splashed with pinks, oranges and blues. Crickets chirped their ancient song and the breeze blew in the cool night air. The fire hissed and popped as it burned, providing warmth and light in the area. Athenacia sat in a chair beside Prompto. Noctis was on his other side, still looking guilty about something. Anyone who took notice just ignored it. Iris and Ignis were also in chairs while Gladiolus opted to take the ground. They had finished their meal, cleaned up and really had nothing to do besides wait for the sun to come back up. They were talking about the day's events, and old memories they had shared together - except for Athenacia, who stayed quiet and observed. The night air was filled with their laughter and teasing of each other. Iris had the look of pure happiness on her face, truly enjoying the time she got to spend with all of them. She too would be very sad when they parted ways in Caem.

Gladiolus was leaning against Athenacia's legs on her left side. While she was trying to put distance between them, he was attempting to reassure her that there was no need for that. She felt responsible for something he had initially started in the first place. The Shield had just gotten her to drop her guard after the trauma she suffered, he did not want her to pull away from him again. Her walls were some of the toughest to break and he seemed to have trouble staying inside of them, like she was afraid of something bad happening if she did let him in. So she fought against him - probably as a second nature - and she was a very worthy opponent. Good thing he was incredibly stubborn, however, she didn't want to deter him completely either. While keeping watch of Prompto and listening in on some of their fondest memories of growing up she had managed to slip her small fingers into the dark brown locks. Slowly she caressed the top of his head while having her fingers run through the hair gently. It was easy for her to tell it was helping with whatever tension had built up inside of him since they were reunited. Gladio was very good at keeping it to himself but she was better at seeing things that most people couldn't. She was sure that he would tell her on his own time what was going on, just as she knew he trusted her to confide in him when she felt that she could. Athenacia was a healer at heart and wished to ease his pain in any way that she could. Her feelings for him only amplified that need.

As the night wore on, the faithful trek to bed began. It started with Iris who vacated to her own tent first. Ignis was the next to leave, wanting a full nights rest since he was going to be the first to wake up in the morning. Gladiolus was dozing against Athenacia's legs still, not wanting to leave her touch just yet. Prompto was also drifting off in his chair while Noctis still had his solemn look on his face as he stared into the dancing flames. The doctor had almost a similar look, neither of them speaking, not wanting to wake the others nor really knowing what to say anyway. It had been quite an eventful day. Gladiolus fell into a deeper sleep, light snores erupting from him, gained the attention of the woman he was resting against. Athenacia leaned forward, having a look at his peaceful face. The corners of her mouth twitched into a small smile, bringing her right forefinger to the bridge of his nose and ran it down the length, all the way to the tip lightly, causing him to stir. She repeated her actions until finally, he came to swat her hand away. When that didn't work he opened his eyes, realizing what was going on. He met her calm gaze and she only jerked her head toward the tent lightly. Releasing a heavy sigh, he pushed his forehead against hers a moment before getting up and going to bed.

That only left the Prince. Athenacia rose from her seat as well, taking another round of Prompto's vitals with her tools. They were normal and he had managed to hold a conversation since his injury, so it was probably safe to let him sleep. Noctis watched her every movement, right until she was settled back in her seat. The girl returned her gaze to the dancing flames in front of her, feeling exhausted already. Her body hurt from all the activity today. Once he had gone she could heal herself properly. Maybe she could get a nap in the truck, that would be nice.

"How did you do it?" asked Noctis.

Athenacia looked over at him curiously. It seemed he was waiting for this moment the entire night. Prompto was passed out and everyone else had gone to bed but only he remained, with that look of guilt he had been wearing since they left the thicket. She had wondered if he was going to say anything at all, was surprised that he managed it. What's more, she didn't know why he was choosing to have this conversation with her. It wasn't like the two of them were close at all. While she enjoyed his company and was able to carry a conversation with him, her troubled past had always led her to keep her distance from him.

"Do what?" she kept her voice light.

"How did you watch them die?"

The girl sighed, taking her gaze away and leaned back in her seat, trying to think of the best way to answer his question. Images of the battlefield and lost souls came to her mind: the trying times of war, friends bloodied and beaten dying in her arms, the smell of decaying flesh and sounds of screams all around her. That red sky, daemon eyes and azure glow that overtook everything. Athenacia quickly pushed all that away, her gaze still hard as she stared into the flames, flames that took everything away with their simple touch. Her fist tightened though she did not let him see it.

"I didn't handle it very well. I walked away, remember?" she spoke finally.

"But after a long time."

"True. Nothing can really prepare you for something like that. It never got easier, there just wasn't a choice. We always went in knowing we might not come back out, trained to fight like it was our last day. I have my limitations and sometimes that always forced me to come to terms with it."

Athenacia saw his face harden at her words. Clearly she was not helping the situation whatsoever but what did he really want from her? She was a coward mostly, never wanting to fight in the first place and opted to run away whenever she got the chance. However, this wasn't something she could just up and leave from, she had to tell him the truth because if he didn't realize this then he may very well make a big mistake. The physician truly wished that he hadn't asked her about it. Ordinarily, she wouldn't talk about her past or anything to do with it but she felt she was left without a choice after serving his father for so many years.

"If you weren't here... Prompto he..." he couldn't speak.

Immediately she understood what he was saying. This was the closest he had gotten to losing someone in front of him. The reality she had spoken of weighed heavily on him for the first time, a sad realization. Noctis was so preoccupied with the grief he carried around from losing his home. There was so much put on him all at the same time, she was truly impressed with how he was holding it together - even if it was just barely. Athenacia understood why King Regis did not want to burden his son with maintaining a wall against the Empire. He was simply too young, just a child. Of course, that was besides the point of being the Chosen King.

"Next time-"

"Stop," she commanded, "If you go into something thinking you'll fail then that's exactly what you'll do."

"I don't want anyone else to die."

"I wish I could say that they won't. I wish I had the power to stop it."

"So do I."

"But you do. That's why you're the Chosen."

The Prince looked unhappy to hear that. They were silent again, both of them gazing at the dancing flames before them. Athenacia waited for him to speak again, knowing that this conversation wasn't over. There was nothing she could do for him, not knowing exactly how to help him since she had no idea what he had been through. Until she had been dating Gladiolus for a while in the city, she really had no idea where he was and how he got there and it seemed as time went on she was just discovering more about him that was supposed to be a story.

"Why me?"

His question caused her to laugh without actually meaning to. Noctis looked at her in alarm and she gave him an apologetic look, trying to stop her giggles. Athenacia wasn't sure she hadn't heard someone ask "Why me?" when they were faced with something they felt was impossible. As soon as he had asked she clearly saw in her head the child that was described to her by Gladiolus and the others, catching a glimpse of the memories everyone besides her shared for herself.

"Why not you?" she replied with a smile still on her face.

"What does that mean?"

"You inspire people. You bring out the best in them without even trying. They gravitate toward you. They believe in you. I believe in you and I never even thought it was all real, just a children's bedtime story."

The Prince held a thoughtful frown at her words. Athenacia watched him as he tore his gaze from her, going back to the fire and she internally sighed, only being reminded of why she never did psychology. Flesh and bones were much easier.

"No one else should have to put themselves in danger for me," he said sullenly.

"Everyone knows the risks," she replied, "They made that choice themselves. You can't feel guilty because you never made them do it."

Noctis sighed, looking even more upset than before. The physician turned her eyes toward her patient instead, monitoring him and missed her nurses for things like this. Glancing over at the solemn Prince, she wished there was a way for her to help him. He was just a child, he wasn't ready for the burden placed upon him. Without another word, he got up and went into the tent under her calm hazel stare, sighing at the reality of his situation.

...

The next morning Gladiolus woke up to both Prompto and Athenacia sleeping in their chairs. Ignis and Iris were already up getting breakfast ready while Noctis was still sleeping in his tent. The fire was burning down which meant that the young doctor really was up most of the night keeping watch over her patient, shoes off and underneath the chair. Her hair was down, falling against her softly as her chest rose and fell gently, her head limp against the back of the chair, falling toward the left and allowing him a glimpse of the scar on her neck. Gladio ran his eyes over it quickly before stretching and taking a peek at the morning sky. Everything seemed calm and crisp.

Looking over at the doctor once more, he noted she was beginning to twitch. The Shield recognized the signs, she was in the middle of one of her nightmares, face in distress but no one else seemed to take notice. Gladio walked over there, nodding at his sister and Ignis as he passed by. Athenacia began to jerk her head this way and that, her eyes shut tightly. Gladiolus watched as she seemed to be in more pain the longer it went on. He reached for her right hand, holding the balled up fist gently he noted she felt abnormally hot, more than she usually did but she wasn't sweating. Athenacia took in quick shallow breaths, causing him to frown as he knelt down and took hold of her cheek. Gladio shook her gently in an attempt to wake her, skin growing warmer and warmer, causing him to worry.

"Doc," he nudged her slightly.

Athenacia didn't respond, only began to shake as tears started to fall from her Shield wiped them away, keeping a firm grip on her arm while he again tried to rouse her from her nightmare. There was sweat forming on his hand where he was touching her skin.

"Doc, wake up," he said a little louder.

Her shaking became more violent as more tears streamed down her face. Her body temperature kept rising and he was forced to let go of her hand before it burned him. By now Ignis and Iris had taken notice of what was going on, looking over concerned. They didn't move, however, waiting for a signal from the Shield before they acted.

"Doc!" he shouted, taking hold of her shoulders gently and trying to jerk her out of sleep.

Gladio couldn't hold onto her for long, grunting at the pain from the burn at her touch. Was she sick? Her entire body felt almost like it was going to burst into flames. Athenacia didn't show any signs of a fever, she wasn't even sweating, making it hard for him to understand what was happening to her. This did not seem like a normal nightmare and had no idea what he could do for her aside from trying to wake her up.

"Cia, wake up!" he tried again, desperately wishing to reach her.

The doctor cried out once, not appearing to hear him. Gladiolus was growling as he tried to stop her from falling out of her chair, pushing past the pain. All eyes were on them, except Prompto who was in a deep sleep and Noctis that remained in the tent. The Shield knew that Ignis was waiting at the ready for assistance if need be, knew that the Adviser was studying this in order to act accordingly.

"Athenacia!" he yelled loudly, his voice echoing all around him.

The girl took in a sharp breath, opening her eyes in alarm. Gladio was intent on her face, shaking his head slightly. For a moment it seemed like her eyes were more almond shaped and red. Must have been a trick of the light because he definitely only saw scared hazel eyes looked all around her. Tears poured out of them as she began to hyperventilate. Gladiolus held her shoulders gently, trying to get her to focus. Athenacia was still shaking and her temperature had cooled down considerably, having trouble getting air into her lungs with her face pale. The Shield moved once he saw the warning sign, taking hold of her hair and placing that hand on her back. His other hand took her right one for extra support.

Athenacia leaned over and vomited, bile spilling out of her mouth and onto the ground near her feet. Gladiolus took the hand from her back and held it up, stopping both Ignis and Iris from coming any closer to try to help. Dismissing them, he replaced his hand on her back and rubbed it gently up and down. He kept her hair from her face as she let go of another round, gripping his hand tightly while she wretched. Spitting out the last remaining bit, her breaths became slower, remaining hunched over and not quite sure if she was done yet. Gladiolus let go of her back in order to take a glass of water from Ignis, nodding at the man before holding it in front of her face and silently offering it to her. Athenacia placed her lips on the edge of the cup and he leaned it back slowly, allowing her to take a small drink. The doctor heaved, the water moving and more bile spilling from her mouth. This one wasn't nearly as big as the last, indicating that there was no more left after this.

Again, he held the water to her and this time she took it with her own free hand and she swished it around in her mouth before spitting it in her vomit pile, taking another drink. Handing him the cup, she wiped her face clean and frowned in disgust at the bile on her hand, holding it far from her face as she sat up a little. Gladio met her gaze then, the realization of him being there finally registering to her while she hadn't released her grip on his hand and he patiently waited for her to be ready. It wasn't long before she averted her eyes in shame and he placed the cup down on the ground, helping her to her feet. Athenacia kept her eyes downcast as he led her away from the haven and toward the water. Once they reached the edge she released her grip upon him and submerged her dirty hand, kneeling down so that her legs were also wet. Gladiolus watched carefully as she cleaned up her face as well, hearing her sigh heavily and keeping her hands on her thighs as she distantly looked out in the sparkling water. The Shield had never seen her like that before and it worried him that she only appeared to be getting worse, recalling the words she had spoken to him at the haven in the thicket. Was there truly no way for her to recover from the horrors of war? Assuming that was what kept her awake at night.

"Doc..." he didn't really know what to say to her.

The girl rose from where she was knelt, shaking her hands and turning to face him. Her left eye was getting better, the purple even more faded and occupying less of her face. The scab on her cheek was flaking off and he couldn't see the wound from yesterday, tucked away in her hairline. Her creamy skin was red from the cold water, and she walked carefully out of it while shivering slightly. Instinctually he enfolded her in his massive arms, her head resting against his bare chest near the bird. Gladio frowned, noting how cold she was not when mere minutes before she was ready to burst into flames. Athenacia was always abnormally warm but during her nightmare... He had no idea how to help her, especially with the way she seemed to be keeping it all to herself. Didn't she realize that she didn't have to?

"I'm sorry," she whispered into him.

He held her tighter, "You didn't do anything," he told her gently.

"I almost puked on your feet," she pointed out.

He shrugged, "I don't care about that."

"You would if I actually hit you," she attempted to lighten up the mood.

"No," he murmured, kissing the top of her head.

Gladiolus released her, bringing his hands to rest on either side of her face. Athenacia looked up at him and he could see that she was uneasy, making his frown deeper while wishing that she would let him help her with this. Sometimes it seemed she was more stubborn than he was. What was she so afraid of? Didn't she know by now that he wasn't going to hurt her? Why was she hiding?

"Doc, I hate seeing you like that," he said finally.

"Sorry," she dropped her gaze.

"No I," he grunted trying to form the words, "You need some help, you felt like you were literally on fire."

"Did I hurt you?" her attention snapped to him.

The fear on her face caught him off guard. Her breath was getting quicker and he could feel her heart rate increase with the veins in her neck. Tears began to form in her eyes as she desperately waited for him to answer her question, ready to collapse in anguish if he said the wrong thing. Why was she so scared? It was almost like she knew she could cause harm to someone with what happened, as if something like this had happened before. None of that even made sense.

"What? No, Doc, no one's hurt-" he began, confused

"Thank the Gods," she said with a huge sigh of relief.

"Why did you think-"

"I'm sorry I didn't mean to-"

"Hold on, what are-"

"- scare you. It's nothing I'm fine-"

"Slow down, I-"

"-just thought that maybe there some lasting damage-"

"Doc, wait a sec-"

"-wasn't sure if I'd have the right antidotes and-"

"I can't understand-"

"-definitely not the tools to treat unknown ailments-"

"Athenacia!" he shouted finally, stopping her in her tracks.

He had her full attention, the shock evident all over her face. Gladio never used her real name, not even the simplified "Cia", but it seemed that it was the only way to slow her down. The girl was tumbling words out faster than he could even react and all he wanted was for her to relax. He didn't even know what to say to her, too many things racing through his mind. At least she was alright, however, he knew that she would be better if she had confided something in him, allowed herself to lean on him just as she made it very clear she was there for him. Sighing, he rubbed his thumb along the scabbed cut on her cheek before letting his hands drop, holding her gaze as she waited for him to say something, anything - because she was increasingly worried the longer he was silent. Gladiolus sorted through his thoughts, trying to find the best way to form the words he wished to speak. Unfortunately, he was not a master like Ignis. It was always hard when it came to her, he much preferred teasing her, that was simple.

"Listen Doc," he began, still unsure of himself.

The Shield sighed, still keeping his gaze on her. There were still tears waiting to fall in her eyes, clearly holding her breath in anticipation for him to speak. It was moments like these he wished he was better at communicating how he actually felt. He was good with people but not when it came to emotions, far better with actions.

"You're not alone. If you need help, let me help you. I want to..."

She shook her head sadly, looking down, "I'm not going to distract you from your job."

He frowned, "You're not a distraction," he said firmly, taking her chin with his hand and gently lifting it so that she was facing him, "It's you and me, remember?"

Gladio watched the conflict swirling in her eyes. The walls he was desperately trying to hammer through were beginning to crack. Athenacia was having trouble letting them fall but he was getting there, far too stubborn to quit on them anytime soon and knowing that he could break them down completely. It was a slow process, one that he was fully willing to take on until the very end. What could have happened to make her so weary of allowing him into her life? Who had hurt her so badly that she couldn't fully repair herself? How was he supposed to make her realize that all of it was unnecessary? She wanted to let him in but for whatever reason, she was afraid to do so.

Finally, she just nodded once at him, despite hiding behind her own defences.

"You and me," she repeated lightly, a tear falling from her faded purple eye.

#fanfic #finalfantasy15 #final fantasy xv #ffxv #ffxv fanfiction #ffxv oc #ffxv gladio #gladio x oc #gladiolus amicitia #action #adventure #romance #fluff #love #doctor #female #patient #angst #tragety #complex ptsd #fluff and angst #medic #medicine #physician #hospital #emergency medicine #noctis lucis caelum #prompto argentum #ignis scientia #cor leonis

[sparkler-v]

Personal Nonsense

���Hey Chase. Chaaase!��

Biting the inside of his lip in mental preparation for whatever antics Sparkler was about to put him through. Chase swallowed the mouthful of sandwich packed in his cheeks. Taking just a moment to wash it down with some milk, before turning in his chair towards the voice coming from the living room.

He had to admit it, though he’d prepared himself the sudden appearance of a desk and computer in their living room was a bit of a shock. Especially as the virus typed away on the keyboard with surprising experience considering neither of them had ever used a proper computer before.

Slipping down from his chair Chase walked over, numb to his surroundings as his eyes fixed upon the lite computer screen. Questions spinning through his head as he took a place beside her. Turning up to meet her gaze, which she returned with a wide grin. 

“I bet you’ve got questions.”

‘Yes,’ he signed, holding his hands just over the edge of the desk for her to see, ‘Where did you get all of this?’

“Oh, I got all this helping Gloyd catapult gummy worms into Gene’s penthouse. You know in the Niceland Apartments..? That was after stealing a bunch of iguanas from a EZ Livin 2 pet store, and setting Pac-Man on fire. The game Pac-Man, not the actual Pac-Man.”

Chase blinked, his eyes widening in horror as his mind caught up with her words.  

‘You did... Sparkler!!’

Instead of reacting the way a sane person in his mind would, Sparkler laughed at the panic in his eyes and waved off his fear.

“Ha! It doesn’t matter how I got it. This is all non-canon Chase,” she explained, letting out another laugh at his confusion, “Look. Sparklermun’s found a couple of oc question blogs, and she wants us to answer some of the posts on ‘em. So she poofed up this computer for us! You know, just for answering them, not for hacking her Tumblr account to mess with her for ditching us for Irene and Jay on their Legend of Zelda blog...”

“To remind you, we’re sitting in the same room.”

Jumping at the voice, Chase whirled around to the two strangers sitting on their couch.

The first one sitting closest to them was a woman who appeared maybe a few years older then Sparkler liked to look. Though her hair was silver, meticulously tied together in a neat bun with a pair of fine painted wood hair pins sticking from it. With a set of three magenta pearls strung around her forehead by a thin cord that disappeared into her hair. Her clothing appeared traditional, a navy high neck sheath dress beneath a tan layered jacket with red accents. Fastened around her waist with a cord belt with a bucket in the shape of a large metal eye. 

She sat back on the couch, gazing down at Chase almost disinterestedly with cold scarlet eyes. Taking a moment to brush a loose lock of hair from her eyes, showing off the thick leather gloves she wore. Reaching up to her elbow where bandages continued up her arms to the base of her shoulders. Before she gripped a worn journal resting on her leg just before her boots touched her knees.

Beside her sat an odder sight, one that he couldn’t believe he hadn’t noticed before. A large humanoid bird, easily reaching and surpassing seven feet tall sat beside the woman. Covered from head to his thighs in sandy yellow feathers, tipped with black along his wings and the feathers over his head. With an accent of white along the primary feathers that seemed to make up his large hands rivaling the size of Mister Ralph’s.  

His clothing was better described as armor, covering his chest down to his thighs in light weight leather armor. Held together with multiple leather straps, though decorated with bright, colorfully designed clothes that matched the wing shaped eqaulette’s worn upon his shoulders. Making him appear like a warrior ready to fly into battle, likely with the enormous painted bow and quiver that rested against the couch.

Despite the coldness of the first guest, Chase felt far more intimidated by the second one that towered over him. Focusing more on his scaly talons that appeared sharp enough to easily tear through his throat with a single kick, before, nervously shifting his gaze up to meet the stranger’s eyes. Taken almost immediately aback by the shear warmth in the bird’s bright blue eyes, staring down patiently at him. With a hint of amusement caught by him in the smile curving up from corners of the stranger’s beak. 

“There you are,” he said, startling Chase out of his stare, “Sparkler warned me that you might be nervous at first. Though that’s nothing worry over... My name is Jay by the way.”

Chase shifted back as Jay offered his hand in friendly greeting. Playing with his fingers while hiding under a curtain of fallen bangs, until Jay withdrew his hand with a soft laugh.

“Right. It’s not a problem. I suppose I must be a little intimidating for someone whose never met a Rito,” Jay nodded, shifting back on the couch, “but we’ll have plenty of time to get to know each other.”

Blinking, Chase turned his head. Seeking answers from Sparkler, who lazily shrugged before the computer screen.

“Sparklermun want’s them to answer all the questions with us. You know, since our blog dominates in followers!”

“You are very well aware that is not the sole reason behind this arrangement,” the woman on the couch replied, lowering her book as she inspected Chase from head to toe, “Hmm, I suppose now would be an appropriate time to introduce myself. I am Irene, Director of the Yarna Valley Ancient Tech Lab.”

Ancient tech lab? Did that mean she was a scientist or a history major...?    

Sighing loudly, Sparkler leaned far back in her chair. Throwing her arm over the back as she gestured around with her hand.

“So yeah. We’ve got to answer questions with Miss Smartypants and Big Bird over there. And we got a free computer! Isn’t that great!” 

Irene let out a sigh of her own, pinching the bridge of her nose as she waved at them.

“Why don’t we get move forward with this nonsense. The sooner we can relieve our mun of her boredom, the sooner we may all part again.”

The room fell silent as three sets of eyes set upon and were ignored by her. That was until Sparkler smirked.

“Well aren’t you going to be oodles of fun, Poindexter.”

(( Let the fun, for me mostly, begin! :) ))

#Personal Nonsense AU #Sparkler Virus #Chase #Irene #Jay #oneshot #Non-canon #AU #fourth wall breaking #Mostly just context if anyone's interested in what this AU is #This is all mostly for my own amusement #but also because I miss writing with Sparkler and Chase #and also to answer questions with Irene and Jay #I used to post ask lists over on their blog but one one would send anything so I gave up #I figured this would be a fun way of getting to do all the stuff I'd like to #Plus I've always just wanted to see how these four would interact with each other X)

[prospcriity]

Royal AU / Arranged Marriage + ofcourse for shiikae

// good taste lee, good taste~

fanfic trope match up ::: ( royal au / arranged marriage ) + shiikae

hmmm~ well there’s quite a lot of possibilities for these two when it comes to royal arranged marriage au~ but i guess i’ll choose my favourite. this might be a bit tricky to follow so i hope you can follow along~

in this au, no god exist, there are two realms, the humans and vampires. the vampires live on the other side of the wall and once in a millenia the wall goes down and the vampires strive through the human realm, seeking out preys of all kinds. demons rule above them as kings, there will be one king ( who has absolute reign over all humans && vampires alike ) and there are three princes who are demons, the eldest is michael a.k.a shii. the heir to the throne and dashingly handsome~ 

he’s quite the scoundrel, considering how many times he had slept with people and sired many children. despite being a demon, he was still a being of status and thus his actions were looked down upon by his father. but michael had always been a little rebel. 

well moving on, and we’ll get back to them later, we have the humans who live in the earthly realm, the veil that separates the two realms is like a semi-transparent mirror. the humans cannot see nor sense the demons that may be lurking from the other side of the veil. and unlike demons, humans cannot cross it due to the fact they have a soul. 

the human realm is very small, and very dispersed, kingdoms are way too far away from one another. to visit another kingdom is to consider it as like visiting a whole new continent, because of how far the distance stretch between them.

however in this case, the human realm set in japan is ruled by the hiiragi family. the crown prince/princess of the hiiragi family wields the most power and their orders are absolute. however they are still below the demon king and the three princes. 

below the hiiragis are the different branch families that serve the hiiragis. sanguu, jujo, goshi, nii, etc. these clans had more power the closer they are to the hiiragis. for 500 years, the sanguus had been the closest to the hiiragis, and are second in command. the sanguu heirs are to take over if the hiiragi family was either massacred or wiped out of existence. though the title for second in command could be changed overnight if the hiiragis wishes for it to change. 

for 500 pathetic years, this had continued. and ever since the first time demon-kind had met with humans, long times of horrors and bloodshed ensued. lasted for centuries to no end. however, one day a human king sought out the demons themselves and offered a deal. every thousands of years or so, a royal family chosen by the king themselves would present a spouse ( nowadays many humans believed he had meant ‘sacrifices’ ) for the demons. of course, the demons were not interested in this at all. but they agreed anyways since the human soul and humans themselves are just very amusing for them~ either keeping them as food, playthings, etc. 

so of course they agreed because the humans were beginning to grow quickly and adapt to attacks from demons. building weapons that could inflict actual damage. so to avoid them from ever figuring this out, they agreed to the human king, as long as the humans never harm a demon. nor even think about harming the demons. 

the deal favoured one side too much, but it had saved the population and allowed mankind to grow and prosper in peace. 

now going back to the demons, shii is the crown prince and future heir to the throne, and ever since that deal, demon kings before and after his father would be required to devour a human virgin as part of their coronation. and the tainted blood of said virgin would be what he drinks in order to enter his full fledged form as a demon. 

and with the blood moon and the ceremonious ‘sacrifical’ tradition that had been going on for years. and from then on would be the first step to shii becoming a full fledged demon. 

long ago, demons had no idea what was a full-fledged demon or a complete demon. all demons were practically the same, the only reason why there was a monarchy to begin with was because there were a group who were different from other demons and held extraordinary powers. but if the other demons learned to harness this power as well, they’d be just as strong. though sadly, many of them do not have the capability nor the intelligence to understand how to harness that magic within them. 

meanwhile in the human realms, the modern age was beginning to emerge but the monarchy system still stood strong. the kingdom in japan was recognized as one of the strongest and most prosperous ( ? am i saying this right ) in the world next to russia and egypt. 

and with modernization coming along, and the humans evolving and multiplying and dying, it was only obvious humankind grew more terrifying in more ways than demons could ever be. the system had too much biased and holes in it. their morals were twisted and there was not a single person in the world, who was not tainted by greed. 

sakae is from the ichinose family, the lowest branch that serves the hiiragis, they were treated like dogs for many years after one of their ancestors tainted the hiiragi name. thus why they live being treated worse than dogs. despite being above commoners. the royals seems to only show common sense and good manners to literally anyone else other than the ichinose clan. 

the ichinose clan being so biased treated and so hated, it was obvious that the first born of the ichinoses would be chosen as a sacrifice during the blood moon cerenomy. which was the marriage ceremony ( or in other words, when the human realm was required to sacrifice a virgin to the demon realm ). 

sakae was the eldest heir and was the candidate despite his father’s protest that his son was to be chosen. but after a single meeting with the hiiragis, he became silent, bruised and in the hospital, but silent. 

thus his fate was sealed as he was adorned with garments to ‘seduce’ his potential demon spouse. and to be honest? sakae was shaking and terrified. 

he never had thought his life would turn out this way, but if he refused ( since he had the right to do so, because the deal clearly said no matter who is in power and no matter what sort of norms surrounded society by then. the human who was about to be arranged to marry the demon could decline. ) bur if he did his family would be executed.

so for the sake of his family, he’ll endure this. 

The belief that this marriage could  lead to a genuine life of happiness where both demon and human could be happy with their crossbred children. but alas, it was leaked to the human world that the humans were meant for entertainment, food or playthings to torment. 

but despite all that sakae faced shii with confidence, despite the fact he was ready to basically run off. he was quite the coward after all, and very faint-heart.

obviously it was quite awkward for the two, shii understanding this sacrificial offering was supposed to actually be his ‘spouse’ of sorts. and required by tradition to spend time with them in a cabin near the woods that they named ‘ the bridge ‘ the bridge was the only one area where the veil does not touch. it’s quite far from the main demon kingdom and the human kingdom as well, they must at least get to know their spouse, since it’s required by human standards. ( a honeymoon ). it’ll be a month before they go back to the demon world, where by then, shii could do whatever he wants with sakae. but the bridge area is where it’s neutral ground. sakae can’t hurt shii and shii can’t hurt sakae. it was against the ancient laws. 

the ceremony began when the blood moon was high in the sky and sakae and shii shared a drink, exchanging their vows, thus sealing their bond for eternity. despite the fact the vows were said so half-heartedly. 

they were also required to spill their blood on a sacred stone, that connects the demon world with the human world, with that their union is official. 

after the ceremony and the grand party to celebrate their wedding, and shii and sakae were sent off to the bridge. 

their travel was fairly uneventful. they mostly avoided each other on the ship they used to move their stuff to their new temporary home. 

they were required to share a room, but most of the time they kept to each other. 

only simple greetings were passed towards the other whenever they could not avoid the other.

it got even more awkward when they reached their honeymoon destination, though it was during the third day did sakae finally muster up the courage to talk to shii a bit more often. asking him what he wants for breakfast, lunch and dinner, etc. his hobbies and whatnot. basically making an attempt to make this relationship genuine. 

shii was a bit hesitant on opening up to the human but after weeks and weeks of persuasion, sakae is able to melt through his defenses, and shii found himself enjoying being around the human. 

he never did enjoy engaging in conversations with others, but he finds himself rambling whenever he’s with sakae. 

in a few weeks, he was able to pick up on some of sakae’s habits. ( when he’s laughing he covers his mouth, he’s more comfortable wearing socks around than slippers, enjoys gardening and would often have a little routine where he’d check that all the doors are closed before going to bed. ) 

he never thought he’d enjoy being in a garden, but seeing sakae so happily digging through the soil to plant little vulnerable flowers in the dirt, to grow them and nurture them. shii can’t help but feel a slight sense of wonder.

as a demon after all, he had no idea what warmth was, what love was and what happiness was. he was a stranger to all those emotions. he never knew true happiness, true love and despite living somewhere he called the underworld where fire was everywhere, it was still quite cold. 

but when he met sakae, he knew what true warmth feels like whenever he brushes his knuckles against sakae’s. he knew it was that feeling he gets whenever he hears a heartfelt laughter spill from the others mouth. 

he knew what love was like in those lingering moments with the human. knew the comfort between them was deeper than meets the eye, the connection they had with one another. even in the silence, they could feel it. and the understanding look sakae has whenever shii spilled too much information regarding his life. 

he knew what happiness feels like whenever he was in the garden, in the library or in the bedroom with the other. 

they had never been intimate with each other before, and yet sakae is already making him feel this way without so much of a glance. 

the same went for sakae as he realized surprisingly, that the demon made him feel more sure of himself.

gave him more confidence, he’s not as scared anymore as he usually was, and felt more at ease with the demon than with any other human. 

he admits he was really glad that he didn’t decline to this marriage, not only for the fact that his family was safe, but he got to meet this demon.

but he knew reality was soon crumble once the honeymoon ends, shii is after all, first and foremost, a demon and demons being demons would do whatever they could to get what they wanted. so despite his wants, despite what his heart tells him to do. he cannot fully trust him nor fall in love with him. because in the end he’ll just be another plaything for the demons. 

but in the end he can’t help himself anyways

SOOOO i wasn’t so sure which route to take, the angst or the happy one so i just left it off here :D i hope you like it lee!! sorry this took so long!!! 

#[ WHOO IM DONE ] #[ im so sorry i couldn't help it ] #[ but making it the usual would be too dull ] #[ btw i don't think this si how you do it ] #[ but it's the easiest for me to do it anyways so :D ] #[ i just love making aus out of nowhere??? ] #(( --❝ people looked for their whole lives to find the thing that i've found in you ❞-- // shikae )) #「 .progenitr. 」 #﹁ ' an unexpected lover who brought meaning to his life once more ' -- a fallen angel ﹂ #[ i love lee thank you dear ] #‣ ( ooc ) #﹁ / replies / ﹂ #[ too much detail but i have no regrets ]

[ciathyzareposts]

Star Control II: Building the Empire

The aptly-named “Orz” do indeed make me want to kneel down and bang my head against the floor.

          If I do end up running out of time and having to start over with Star Control II, at least I’ll get to revise my decision to name my new alliance “The New Alliance of Free Stars.” I didn’t realize I’d be giving that name to everyone I meet. Next time, I’m going with “The Empire of Chester.”

The Empire is growing. In contrast to my last session, where I didn’t seem to make much progress, I did nothing but accomplish things this time around. It began with a slight rewind. After I reloaded from my fatal (for him) encounter with the Shifoxti rogue ship, I was back at starbase. I returned to Delta Gorno, but by way of the Melnorme ship at Alpha Centauri, where I sold a heap of biological data and now had enough credits to actually start buying things.

        No rainbow worlds yet, though.

            When dealing with the Melnorme, you can buy a piece of technology, information on current events, information on alien races, or historical information. You only get to choose the category; they choose the next item to give to you. I altered among the categories and ended up obtaining/discovering the following:

             A schematic for blaster weapons twice as powerful as my current ion-bolt guns

A schematic for faster lander speed

In addition to the Shofixti warrior I’d already met, there’s another solo warrior out there plus several females in the menagerie of the Vux admiral Zex. If I can bring the females to the two males and things work out, there will be millions of new Shofixti within a few human generations. The Melnorme recommended that we adopt an approach of insulting the Shofixti and then fleeing if attacked.

The Ur-Quan are presently at war with a race called the Kohr-Ah, which are not the alien probes, so I was wrong there. The major fighting is in the middle of the galaxy. The Kohr-Ah seem to be winning. Their war has caught the Zoq-Fot-Pik in the crossfire (something I’d already heard from that race).

The Ur-Quan are part of an ancient alliance of races called the “sentient milieu.”

The blobbish Umgah, one of the races in the Ur-Quan hierarchy, renowned for their sense of humor, has begun screwing with the Ilwrath (the spider-like creatures) by using a device called a HyperWave Caster to impersonate the Ilwrath gods, Dogar and Kazon. When the Ilwrath priest caste decried this fakery, the rest of the Ilwrath population slaughtered the priests. If we could get our hands on this Caster, we could effectively neutralize the Ilwrath.

          I ran out of credits at this point, but I’d added a few new items to my “to do” list. On we went back to Delta Gorno, where I ran into Tanaka the Shofixti again and this time insulted him. When he attacked, I fled. I re-engaged him almost immediately and noted that I had different insults among the dialogue options, so I figured I must be getting somewhere. He attacked again; I fled again. I think on the third attempt, he realized that the Ur-Quan had never insulted him before, and thus slowed down enough to figure out that we were his allies. Although glad to hear of a new alliance against the Ur-Quan, he declined to join us, preferring to stay and guard his old system. I assume I need him there for when I bring back the Shofixti females.

              I’m going to try to get you some company.

           Back I went to my quest list. Let’s divert for a moment to note that this is one of the few games of the entire 1975-1992 period in which you have anything like a “quest list.” It’s extremely common now, of course. Fire up any modern RPG, and you’ve got a dozen items on your “to do” list (which the game now helpfully keeps for you) before you’ve left the first town. There are multiple approaches to deciding what item to pursue next, and I’ll explore the consequences in a future special topic entry. Briefly, some of them are:

         Gingerly: Do the easiest item (or what sounds like the easiest item) next

Chronologically: Do the oldest item next.

Geographically by Proximity: Do the closest item next.

Geographic by System: Explore the game using a systematic geographic approach (e.g., west to east), solving quests along the way

Consequentially: Do the most important item next.

Comprehensively: Do all the side quests before the next step in the main quest; the side quests are probably prioritized using another approach here

Organically: Do the item next that you’d really do next if you were the character, which probably juggles a lot of these options.

Mercenarily: Do the item that sounds like it will give you the greatest reward next.

Randomly: Count the number of items on the list and roll a die.

Anarchically: Explore the game completely at whim without regard to quests, solving them if you happen to stumble on them.

             (Let me know if you think I’ve missed any.)

I find that altering your approach to quests makes a lot of modern games extremely replayable. I tend to play the first time using a “consequential/geographic proximity” combination, meaning I prioritize by importance but pick up side quests as they exist along the route. This ensures that I actually finish the main quest. I don’t want to be one of those people that says things like, “I have 1,200 hours into Fallout 4 and I still haven’t won the game.” I go for the win the first time. The second time, if I’m motivated to play again, I might try a chronological approach to ensure that I explore more of the side quests. Lately, though, I’ve been prioritizing a random approach, such that Irene is sick of hearing me say, “Hey, Siri, give me a random number between one and twenty-five” before heading off to bag a Legendary Elk.

With Star Control II, I’ve been using the random approach, mostly because none of the quests seemed obviously more important than the others. But by the end of this session, I had decided to revise my system and use a geographic proximity approach instead, mostly because I nearly ran out of fuel twice while in the fringes of space.

Still using the random roll, I next chased rumors of an unknown ancient race who used to make their home in the Vulpeculae constellation, in the middle of Androsynth space. I didn’t expect much from the expedition. Indeed, I figured I’d be attacked by Androsynth and that would be the end of it. Sure enough, I arrived to a swarm of ships who immediately started approaching my own.

              Well, this doesn’t bode well.

             They weren’t Androsynth, though. They were bright yellow things, looking like a combination between a fish and a flower. When they made contact, my translation program warned that it was having trouble with their speech, and it put asterisks around words they weren’t sure about, so in an early speech, we got:

          Hello extremely! I hope you like to *play*. Some *campers* are not so good for *games*. . . Who are you? You are not Orz! We are Orz! Orz are happy *people energy* from the outside. Inside is good. So much good that the Orz will always *germinate.* Can you come together with Orz for *parties*?

             At first I thought something ribald was going on here, like “parties” meant “orgies” or something. But things didn’t develop explicitly along those lines. The best I could work out from their many lines of only partly comprehensible dialogue is that the Orz come from another dimension, that the individual Orz we perceive are all just “fingers” of a single being (like a happy version of the Uhl from Starflight), and that they destroyed the Androsynth for some unknown reason. (They got mad when I even asked about it.) They also don’t seem to like the Ariloualeelay, whom they suggest are from their dimension, but from “above” while the Orz are from “below.”

          Let’s just make sure we agree on a safe word.

         Anyway, they seemed to join the Alliance. They let me land on their planets, and they gave me specifications for an “Orz Nemesis” ship that I later had built. Good to know that the Androsynth aren’t a threat anymore.

On one of the planets–the second around Eta Vulpeculae–my scanners picked up energy signatures for the first time since (I think) Pluto. There were a lot of them–destroyed Androsynth cities, it turned out.

As my lander explored these cities, the game again invented names and personalities for some of my interchangeable crewmember-hit points. Their reports together created a kind of mini horror story. It began with “xeno-historian Kilgore” reporting that some kind of land war destroyed the cities but left no corpses. Later, “science officer Bukowski” that the Androsynth had been researching “Dimensional Fatigue Phenomena,” based on their discovery of some Precursor artifacts. They were generating waves that allowed them to see into other dimensions. They ended up making contact with some life form on the “other side,” after which their research degraded into rantings about ghosts and poltergeists before abruptly coming to an end.

            Multiple lander reports deliver a growing horror story.

           In continued reports from the lander, “Ensign Hawthorne” radioed that Bukowski had continued his inquiry into the Androsynth research project and had himself gone insane, ranting that “they” could now see him and that he had to stop “them” before “they” could see everyone else. Stigmata started appearing on his body, as if he was being cut by an invisible source. The crewmembers on the lander begged to be brought home, and running them into other cities didn’t seem to generate any new reports, so I complied. Lots of mysteries here. Are “they” the Orz? The Ariloualeelay? Some other beings from another dimension? Just who have I allied with here?

             That sounds ominous.

            On another old ancient ruin, my crew found an “unusual glowing rock-thing” that seemed to make some people sick with headaches and “mental disarray.” It was said to be Taalo in origin, this name appearing for the first time. I assume it’s the name of the ancient race that lived in Precursor times.

Back at starbase, Commander Hayes praised the design of the Orz Nemesis. Later, he reported that the Taalo rock seemed to have something to do with blocking psychic attacks. Those that had become ill were those with some psychic ability. (He referred to them as “espers,” either a reference to 1988’s Star Command, or just a term that’s more common than I thought for someone with E.S.P.)

              Adding the Nemesis to my fleet. Now I have four ships that I can’t pilot effectively!

            For my last expedition, my random roll gave me the Zoq-Fot-Pik homeworld, which is in the middle of the map but the farthest I’ve traveled so far. I stopped at a few systems on the way to search for minerals and whatever else. I’m finding that I hate planets with a “weather” score higher than 2. I can usually avoid earthquakes, and thus deal with a high tectonics score, but lightning bolts often seem to target my lander specifically, and none of my dodging and weaving helps. 

One of the worlds I stopped at randomly was Betelgeuse. There, I was surprised to find a red force field covering a planet and a starbase in orbit. It turned out to be Gaia, the new homeworld of the Syreen, their old one having been destroyed before the events of the first game. When the Alliance surrendered, the Syreen–like Earth–chose to live under a dome rather than serve as battle thralls.

            This seems familiar.

           In a long conversation with the Syreen Commander Talana–in which the game seemed to delight in giving me boorish, inappropriate dialogue options–I learned quite a bit about the race. They used to live on Syra–which we call Beta Copernicus–before an asteroid impact caused such volcanic upheaval that the planet had to be abandoned. Now, the entire system seems to have been taken over by the Mycon.

            The game gives me one professional option and three takes on sexual harassment.

             When the Syreen surrendered to the Ur-Quan, they chose the shield but noted that they had no actual planet. The Ur-Quan asked them about their requirements. The Syreen talked about Syra (“about the color of its sky, about the abundant, varied lifeforms, about the fertility of the soil and seas”). The Ur-Quan took an hour, then communicated back with the coordinates of Gaia, which the Syreen found to be absolutely perfect. “We’d been searching for a home planet for seventy-five years,” Talana said, “and in the end, it was our enemies who gave one to us.” Naturally, they were now uninterested in violating their treaty and upsetting the status-quo unless I could give them a good reason, and I had nothing. But I put their old planet on my “to do” list for investigation.

On to the Zoq-Fot-Pik system (ZFP from here on). When I arrived, I found it swarming with Ur-Quan, and before I could escape, one of the Ur-Quan dreadnoughts approached. Our dialogue just consisted of the Ur-Quan captain making threats. In the ensuing combat, I couldn’t do anything. I tried about five times. The dreadnought fires huge metal swastikas or something–I think they’re actually supposed to be autonomous ships–that fly around until they hit something. They have as many hit points as my own flagship. None of my smaller ships lasted more than a few hits and even with my flagship, it became clear that if I won, it would be with about 10 crewmembers left over. I really hope it’s possible to win this game without being good at the space combat.

             I missed the shot of the enemy’s projectile. It’s just crashed into my cruiser.

              So I ultimately sighed and escaped combat, which leaves your ship immobile for about 10 seconds as it jumps to hyperspace, which is enough time for the enemy to destroy a couple dozen crewmembers. I dodged the rest of the Ur-Quan ships and made my way to the ZFP homeworld, where the faintly ridiculous species agreed to join my alliance.

           The Pik is the emotional one.

          I leave you on my way back to starbase. The trip to the ZFP system took so much fuel that I have to keep my eye on the gauge as I explore for elements. But I do have to explore because if I don’t, I won’t have any money to buy new fuel when I get back. 

Lots of fun and progress this trip, though I’m not sure what it’s amounting to just yet.

Time so far: 15 hours

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/star-control-ii-building-the-empire/

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

[angelofseeking]

just more rambling

about memories and how absolutely fucking angelkin i am lmao

Soo, I’m not saying I’m Raphael because I’ve literally never thought about him even for a second, or prayed to him or anything. (Which... I guess that would be kind of weird and like praying to myself? Maybe I was avoiding it subconsciously? I dunno.) But the more I read about him, the more I feel this really strong connection, if I’m being completely honest.

My search for otherkin stuff began shortly after I had a nightmare about a demon. Some signs were presented to me that led me to research Azazel, who was not a demon but a fallen archangel. I’ve heard many stories about the Watchers and the Nephilim and the Annunaki and so on, and... I can’t say that I necessarily place any stock in them, but for the first time I started to really sympathize with the Watchers. It’s definitely something I want to look into further.

I’ve pretty much ignored Christianity since leaving the Catholic Church, so I’m rather out of touch with it but I’m familiar enough with the context and archetypes and so on. My brief study of Kabbalah has brought me back to Judeo-Christian concepts. But I was searching for more information about archangels and found a painting of Raphael by Murillo and I was kinda struck by the resemblance? Which, like, this is an artist’s interpretation, but still it led me to research more about Raphael.

Raphael is the patron “saint” of healers, the blind, travelers, medicine, and music (among other things). He is only really mentioned in the Catholic Bible in the Book of Tobit, where he disguised himself as a human named Azarias, who claimed to be a traveler, cast out a demon in the desert, and healed a blind man. His counterpart Israfel in Islam is supposed to signal the end times with his trumpet and was also said to be “a beautiful angel who is a master of music, Israfil sings praises to God in a thousand different languages, the breath of which is used to inject life into hosts of angels who add to the songs themselves.”

And you know what else? He was the archangel who bound Azazel and cast him into darkness.

So, I’m thinking about all the other angels I’ve researched. Raziel stood out to me for the longest time, at first because I had an OC named Rasiel (pronounced the same way) and thought I had invented the name. I had a great liking for Raziel as a figure, but I never had the confidence to suggest he was myself. I thought maybe even Azazel was a possibility, because I sympathized with him a lot. Then I thought it was Azrael, because I have a morbid fascination with death and meditate on mortality and the liminal space of nonexistence a lot. But... It just didn’t feel right.

And this? Feels right. If God (Michael) tasked me to bind Azazel, would I feel guilty? Would I feel justified? Was I torn about the decision to follow orders? (I use these names/events more symbolically, as I believe that the truth is not able to be conveyed in a way that humans can understand.)

Because I feel like I still carry this regret. I feel like I understood why Azazel chose his actions. I feel like I loved Michael and Gabriel but that I felt as though I was living in their shadow. I feel like a coward for not joining Azazel when I wanted to. I am frustrated that I chose my love for my brothers over a cause that I believed in. I feel responsible. I feel responsible.

On a lighter note, I find it significant that Raphael is tied to music, and music is central to my practices. I rely heavily upon music to do any kind of spell/energy work. I believe resonance/vibration is extremely important. My mom told me I sang before I ever spoke my first words. Singing is often a spiritual experience for me, and this was nurtured throughout my childhood. When I make music, I perform best when I close my eyes and really put my heart into the sound. It’s kitschy to say, but that’s the only way I can explain why, like... bitch I might be Raphael.

The only time I am ever flirted with or hit on is when I’m at a karaoke bar. As time goes on, I feel I am becoming more asexual and aromantic. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like the attention, but I think too much about obligation and I’m real bad at telling people “no thank you, but I’m flattered.” I’m just awkward.

It’s not just because it’s a place where people drink. And it’s probably very egotistical of me, but I think it’s because I have a nice voice? But the amount of people who get crushes on me after hearing me sing is evidence enough. I’m going to delete this later probably.

Anyway. Two boys hit on me. Usually when I get hit on at these places, I can brush it off because it’s folks I’m just not into. Tonight tho, they were actually cute. And I’m like “cool” but... Nooo? I really wanna be your friend but!! Dating is just too weird!!

But I have been thinking lately about how being angelkin has affirmed my sexuality. Being ace/aro is absolutely a normal human thing (like being non-binary) but it just makes so much sense now why I’m so... like, I really like the idea of sex, I just don’t want to actually do it? I think because it’s one thing to fantasize, but when I do it with other people I just feel embarrassed? It’s not even insecurity, I don’t think. It’s just such an awkward ritual and I don’t think I can enjoy it in the way I’m supposed to. But I guess I’m not fully ruling it out. I just feel like it’s not going to happen again.

when i do stop and think about being in a relationship again, i think about being with another angel. i think about how we communicated/connected through a kind of cosmic music or resonance or whatever. i don’t know what to call it and it’s not just “singing.” i realized i have memories of communicating this way, so that it wasn’t exactly having sex but rather the act of love itself allowed me to connect to another being on a subatomic level.

it’s honestly like the difference between animals mating and humans mating. animals mainly do it for reproduction or pleasure. humans are the ones who mix feelings into it, although not always. doesn’t make it better, just makes it a little more complex. well, i have done it with a decent number of a variety of humans in a variety of ways, but it just doesn’t do it for me. i think that’s why i kept “falling in love” with the people i had sex with. i was so desperate to connect deeply in the only way that i was familiar, the way i was able to do before, but it just left me feeling empty and unfulfilled. that’s how i realized that i was not going to get any fulfillment out of a relationship with a human. it places far too much expectation on them, and it’s completely unfair on my part to do so.

but conversely, i expect a lot from myself in relationships. (and in general) i have always had this frustratingly overwhelming need to help and protect people, and it’s led to fucked up dynamics in relationships. i transform myself to suit the needs of a romantic interest -- not uncommon, of course, especially for survivors of abuse. but in my case it’s also possible that i was coerced to believe that the only way to truly love/value someone is to be involved with them romantically. this is absolutely false.

i love. i love deeply. i see so much goodness and beauty in everything. there is bliss in sadness. the night is bright and full of stars. the trees in winter have a serene beauty. death brings us peace and completion, returns us to the earth. there is bravery in weakness and passion in sacrifice. i turn away from nothing and listen to every perspective.

i don’t believe that everyone is right. i believe that anyone is wrong if they believe only they are right. i can’t bring myself to avert my gaze from the horrors of existence, because... i want to know. i want to understand. if i don’t hear every perspective, how can i know who is wrong and who is right? how can i decide my own opinion?

it takes me a long time to make up my mind but i can never take any perspective at face value. and when i do settle on a position, i ride it into the goddamn ground. fuck cops. eat the rich.

also meant to mention: i don’t know what i would do if somehow i met an angelkin that i felt connected to in a potentially romantic way. i feel like it wouldn’t be any different from connecting with a human. the last person i developed intense feelings for was angelic in the way that they were androgynous and pretty but also felt very ancient and shared my passion for justice. it was better that they did not reciprocate my feelings, and it made me reflect a lot concerning my capacity to exist in a romantic relationship. i wanted more from them, likely because i thought it would make me happy. i let this desire blind me, and i hurt them more than i’ve ever hurt another human, and i’m too full of shame and regret to make the same mistakes.

it’s perfectly natural and human to realize that a romantic relationship is not for everyone, just like having kids or getting married or making any kind of life choice is not the only choice. i just feel like there’s this added layer of “i can’t connect with people romantically even though i care about them deeply.” it’s a poor analogy, but i always compare it to the relationship between a pet and their owner. you love them deeply and would absolutely make any sacrifice for them, and crave their love and company, but you’re... well, you’re two different species.

my body is human. i am not human. 

if i found someone exactly like me, there’s no telling whether they conceptualize it the way i do. are they really like me? if they were, the closest we might be able to get towards a remnant of that deep connection we had as angels, it would be something involved with music. ideally, we’d make music together.

that might’ve been why i thought i was in love with that “angelic” person. we spent a lot of time just cuddling and listening to music. it led to other stuff. i didn’t mind to other stuff, but i might’ve been fine without it.

in the words of miike snow “ooh, i wanna make up my mind / but i don’t know myself”

#my posts

[swipestream]

An Interview with Brian Niemeier, Part I

Brian Niemeier is a best-selling science fiction author and a John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer finalist. His second book, Souldancer, won the first ever Dragon Award for Best Horror Novel. He chose to pursue a writing career despite formal training in history and theology. His journey toward publication began at the behest of his long-suffering gaming group, who tactfully pointed out that he seemed to enjoy telling stories more than planning and adjudicating games.

Released this week, Brian’s newest book, The Ophian Rising, concludes his groundbreaking Soul Cycle series. Recently, I sat down with Brian to discuss The Ophian Rising, the rest of the Soul Cycle, and more. Part I focuses on the Soul Cycle.

*     *     *      *      *

You’ve mentioned on your blog that the Soul Cycle has been a passion project for you. What about it made it so riveting as a story to explore?

It’s kind of like trying to quantify love. Forgive me for going John C. Wright for a moment, but you kind of just asked me, “why do you love your favorite child?” I could point to how pleased I am with how the characterization has turned out and I could probably point to a few sequences in each book that I’m particularly proud of. It’s just in my wheelhouse. It’s the kind of project that I find esthetically pleasing. Like a lot of writers say, the Soul Cycle is the kind of sci-fi fantasy series that I always wanted to read but could never find, so I had to write it myself.

For those new to the series, could you take a moment to describe the Soul Cycle? What they can expect?

The unexpected. The Soul Cycle came out of this mélange of my earlier influences. Everything from 90s anime space operas, to Dune to Star Wars. There’s some Golden Age JRPG–16-bit and 32-bit era–role-playing games in there. It’s been described as a kitchen sink series, but that’s not to say that it’s incoherent. I miraculously managed to weave an internally self-consistent narrative through the whole thing and now it’s done.

You mentioned some influences on the Soul Cycle. Was there a moment that inspired it? Can you remember where the idea came together to start writing?

This is going to sound weird, but bear with me. As a kid and even up through college, I would occasionally amuse myself with amateur model building. I put together some commercially produced kits but quite often I’d just find stuff around the house and just hot glue stuff together into a shape that I thought looked cool.

So one day I was sitting down, and I had all of these used plastic frames from old Warhammer 40k figures. You know, the actual parts that aren’t even punched out. So I just had these slender plastic almost girder looking pieces and I though I’d see what I could build with them. I started forming the skeleton of a spaceship. I was just sitting there at my card table with some sort of cable movie the week on to the background and it just started taking shape into this big severe angular brutal looking behemoth thing that I ended up painting glossy black. It had this one gold rimmed emerald green eye in the center of the bow. Then I just did what sci-fi authors do–I asked, “what if?”

Who made this thing? Where did it come from? What is it? I actually took a page from “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” by thinking, “what if this ship is powered by the torment of a child?” Immediately the idea for the entire character of Elena Braun popped into my head. Elena just kind of stepped out of my subconscious like Athena sprouting from Zeus’s forehead and introduced herself to me. I just took it from there and curiosity did the rest.

I’m looking at the Nethereal cover right now. Is that anything like that ship that you kitbashed?

It’s close. That is my artist Marcelo Orsi Blanco’s interpretation of the ship I kitbashed. I’ve actually got pictures of the model.

During the Puppy of the Month readthrough of Nethereal, I noticed that the Great Chain of Being was a big part of the world building. But the full implications didn’t hit me until I was reading Secret Kings yesterday. It made perfect sense that the fire souldancer would be the one to redeem the universe because fire is the element closest to the divine. What other mythologies or stories influenced the world building of the Soul Cycle?

Primarily the Christian Manichean heresy. I set out specifically to design a Manichean cosmos, partially in an effort to disprove it. I’ve read a lot of Augustine of Hippo. He’s one of my favorite authors. He’s right on the edge of antiquity and the Middle Ages, he’s been called the Last Ancient Man and the First Medieval Man, and his writings always really resonated with me. He made that journey personally from paganism to Manicheanism and finally to Orthodox Christianity. One of his arguments against the Manichean order–I suppose I should define what I mean.

The Manicheans believed that there were two gods, the god of Good and the god of Evil. That was sort their way around theodicy, or the problem of evil. By saying the good god created only what was good and everything that is good and evil comes from the evil god, that’s how they thought to get around it. The problem with that is, if evil has substance of its own and its own order of being, then it’s really just another good. There really is no evil because there’s no cogent argument for not choosing the evil getting the “evil” god’s order over the good god’s. You inevitably end up in moral relativism. So I tried to depict that in the work, especially in the climax of Souldancer like you’re alluding to.

There’s been some debate on where new readers should start the Soul Cycle. Jon Mollison and many others have said Souldancer. I loved Nethereal. I love what you’ve been doing since then but to me it’s still my favorite. Where would you recommend that the reader starts and why?

First of all, thank you for that glowing praise.

That is a question that I’ve debated myself and I’ve spoken with others about that. Listen to your readers, you always want to try to write to market. There have been a few who said start with Souldancer because it hits the ground running more. They find some of the concepts tend to be clearer, but the majority side with you. They say start with Nethereal and read in order.

The order of release is my preferred order. Actually, I ended up doing what Nick Cole and Jason Anspach just did with Galaxy’s Edge, where they actually wrote the second book first and then went back and wrote Legionnaire. I wrote Souldancer first and then I thought, you know there’s a lot of background here that needs to be covered. For example, how did the Cataclysm happen? Who are Thera and Shaiel? Why should we care about them? Where does the  name “souldancer” come from? I went back and wrote Nethereal to fill in the back story, so I think the most logical progression is to start with Nethereal.

With The Ophian Rising newly released, could you set the stage for the readers?

How about we start with just the general background of this novel as it relates to the others?

What I can tell you is if you’ve read The Secret Kings then you know that–spoilers for anyone who hasn’t read it yet–the good guys had their climactic and decisive final battle with Shaiel, with Vaun Mordecai, that’s been brewing since the first book. In The Secret Kings, I largely wrapped up the main through-line that started with Nethereal, which is you know these two beings who are vying for godhood. They each get half of the pie. So Elena as Thera’s soul inherits the power of the White Well which is the opposite of her birthright. Vaun kind of stole her birthright and ended up as Shaiel, the new god of the void. That conflict has resolved. Shaiel’s attempt to dominate the entire cosmos and turn it into one giant undead Void full of undead damned creatures serving him was thwarted. So really what you’ve got at the end of The Secret Kings is the last of the old pantheon that used to rule the cosmos being overthrown and this new group of misfits that we’ve been bringing together since Nethereal rise to become the new royal family of the whole Soul Cycle universe. Really only Zadok in the form of Szodrin is left, but he’s kind of the watchmaker god. He just likes to step back and see how things play out like a model train enthusiast.

So people said, “Well, The Secret Kings seems to come to a satisfying resolution. Why do we need another book?”

It’s because whereas The Secret Kings might have resolved the main plot or the first three books to the Soul Cycle, my work isn’t done until I’ve tied up all the themes. There’s at least one major theme that was left dangling, one major question that a lot of my readers have asked about and you just asked about earlier. Which is, so we’ve shown as early as Souldancer, that the basic moral underpinning Zadok tried to build with his cosmos doesn’t work. There is no guarantee of right and wrong. There’s really no way to avoid moral relativism except by Zadok saying “Because I said so.” So readers have been asking me if there is any point to it. Is there any clear right and wrong? Is there any clear definition of villainy or heroism? Any reason to hope and not despair? Any reason to choose love over apathy? So that is what The Ophian Rising primarily addresses.

I do show what the ultimate source of morality is and the ultimate reason for hope–but also fear. Realizing there are moral absolutes can be quite scary when you realize there is a standard that everyone is held to.

I definitely agree that the first three books have a satisfying arc. There’s still the judgment of Zadok over Astlin from the end of Souldancer.

You’re very close and it’s interesting that you honed in correctly on the character of Astlin. She’s another character who just one day showed up and knocked on my door and introduced herself. I haven’t had to do any nuts and bolts work on that character. She was fully formed from the first moment I met her. She wanted me to tell her story.

That’s a very keen insight that, in the order of this cosmos, the Fire Stratum, composed of elemental fire, is just one step down from the White Well, which is the closest that this cosmos has to the divine. So if you look at her powers, her elemental fire is able to harm demons. A spoiler alert for Souldancer, she’s able to harm Hazeroth with her molten brass blood and with the fire she can release from her soul. Fire doesn’t normally hurt those creatures, because being demons from hell, they’re used to the flames of hell. It is that residual spark of the Divine in it that can harm them.

She’s got this redemption arc where she begins as, you can argue, a villain, but certainly an antagonist. Through love, through someone telling her, “You are lovable. You do have dignity. You are worthy of redemption,” she gets her act together big time and turns her life around. It turns out that, as Sulaiman says, she may be the chosen one. Because, you know, tropes work because they’re tropes. So most science fiction and fantasy lately, and for quite a while, have had the promised one, the chosen one, the hero of legend. The Soul Cycle is no different, but it’s not really front and center. The references are in there. Sulaiman makes reference to one with the heart of a star who will make the final decision for good or evil before the gods on behalf of mankind.

Wow, I read Souldancer close but I missed that. Just how layered the Soul Cycle is still surprises me.

Let me get around to full answering your question. Sorry to go all fire hose on you. For that scene, go back to Souldancer, right after Hazeroth’s defeat when Sulaiman and Tefler and Cook find Astlin passed out after their battle. Sulaiman thinks to himself, “well, is this what’s going on? Is she the one the Burned Book talked about?” But then at the end of the book, Xander makes a deal.

First of all, he points out–and it’s hinted under divine inspiration, like these aren’t his words, they were they were given him by someone else–he points out the flaw to Zadok. He says that “Your test was faulty from the beginning because it’s lopsided in favor of evil. So the Zadokim are knocking to get in. Let them in to balance the scale and make it a level playing field.” That is when Zadok agrees to let Astlin, the first Zadokim, in.

So she then says, “We’ve got to help make others like us. We’ve got to help others escape and get back to the light. We’ve got to save these shards of Zadok that have the potential to become real people.” So that’s what she wants.

Interestingly, it in Zadok’s judgment of her, where Xander begs Zadok for her life, where Zadok says, “No. You know her crimes convict her,” and cuts her silver cord, which allows her to escape and receive a real soul and then return.

*     *     *      *      *

Get the final book of the award-winning Soul Cycle today, and complete your collection by picking up the other captivating books in this supernatural space adventure series. And come back tomorrow for Part II of our interview, where Brian discusses editing, his favorite books, and his next project.

  An Interview with Brian Niemeier, Part I published first on http://ift.tt/2zdiasi

[tanmath3-blog]

As you know i recently read and reviewed Depraved Desires published by HellBound Books Publishing. It’s was an amazing book and included several authors I had not met nor read before. There was one that stood out from the rest. The last story in the anthology by a man named Jaap Boekestein. So I set off trying to find out who he was and if he had written other books because I had to have more of his stories in my life. It took me awhile to find him (because I’m a dork and was spelling his name wrong) but I sure am glad that was corrected and there he was. Somehow he saw my review of Depraved Desires and sent me a message and told me he was glad I loved it. That became and instant friendship and I have enjoyed getting to know him and talking with him. He has an amazing sense of humor that I love and is incredibly smart. I am a luck girl! If you haven’t read anything by him you need to immediately. I can’t recommend it enough! Please take some time and read one of his stories you will not be sorry you did! Please help me welcome Jaap Boekestein to Roadie Notes…….

    1. How old were you when you first wrote your first story? I think I must have been around twelve. Back then I was a big fan of the science fiction and fantasy writer Jack Vance and of course I imitated his style. Poorly, I might add. I wrote purely for fun until I discovered there were Dutch and Flemish science fiction competitions and magazines. “Hey, I can do that better!” I thought. Of course my stories were pretty awful, but I kept going on and story by story I learned to write. The fun remained, but now I had the ambition to be published. My first story appeared in a Flemish SF-zine back in 1989. My first English language publication was 1992 but since 2015 I mainly write in English. The Dutch market was never big, but now almost has ceased to exist (Not my fault!). Apparently I do something right, because I get published English pretty regularly by now. So if some Dutch guy can do it…

2. How many books have you written? Five fantasy novels in Dutch, a bit in the style of the Cugel-stories of Jack Vance and Sword-stories by Fritz Leiber. A children’s book, a few novella’s and anthologies, and around three hundred stories. Three of my novels are about three half sisters, dancing-girls, who try to make a living in a city full of evil wizards, corrupt officials, criminal lowlife and monsters.

3. Anything you won’t write about? Well, I can’t think of any subject I won’t at least mention in a story, but I wouldn’t be comfortable writing a story focusing on pedophilia or incest. Those are definitely two areas I am not interested as a writer to explore. I guess there a few more, but I don’t really have a list.

4. Tell me about you. Age (if you don’t mind answering), married, kids, do you have another job etc... Ha ha, I’m born in 1968, you can do the math yourself. No wife, no kids, no pets. I have good friends who are pretty liberal about relationships, as am I. Writing I do strictly for fun, currently I make a living as a civil servant doing things with computers. I live in the ancient town of The Hague and I can see the North Sea from my living room.

5. What’s your favorite book you have written? I have no favorite. If I choose one, the other buggers will haunt me.

6. Who or what inspired you to write? Like I said, first I wanted to write like Jack Vance, later on I added Fritz Leiber, Clark Ashton Smith, Tanith Lee and Dutch writer Robert van Gulik (Detective stories set in ancient China) to the list. As a starting writer you’re influenced by everything. I think that almost thirty years I managed to find my own voice.

7. What do you like to do for fun? Well, writing! Taking pictures, friends, movies, museums (we have lots of them) and exploring a few alternative lifestyles. Oh, and listening to life jazz and blues.

8. Any traditions you do when you finish a book? I am more a short story writer, but I have a few traditions during and after writing. I can write everywhere, but I prefer to start early (8 am) in a coffeehouse (no, not a coffee shop), drink cappuccinos, eat cake, look at the waitresses and write. After lunch I usually meet friends or do something else. Of course that’s only in the weekends and on my day off. When the story is finished I sent it off to my proof readers and move on to the next. Basically I have a list of interesting calls for submission and I just start with the next one I find interesting. It is a pretty structured routine by now. O, and the traditional sacrifice of a virgin, of course. No, kidding. They don’t have to be virgins.

9. Where do you write? Quite or music? I need noise. This can be music, but it is usually people talking, kids shouting, babies crying, the hordes from Hell singing my praise (Maybe that’ one is only my mind). Every writer I know has his or own thing, but I try to be as flexible as possible. I once was the PA for Terry Pratchett for a weekend on a Dutch fantasy festival. He really could write anytime, everywhere. I try to do the same. It certainly helps to write lots and lots of stuff.

10. Anything you would change about your writing? I would love to have the patience to write full length novels. The five novels I have done, are mosaic novels, so each chapter is basically a short story. I tried writing real novels a zillion times, but I usually get bored around 20.000 words.

11. What is your dream? Famous writer? To live forever. No, I’m not kidding. With enough time I can do or become anything I want. So gimme a mind and body that keeps going forever and I promise to bake you the ultimate chocolate cake. Deal?

12. Where do you live? On the seventh floor (The way the British count) of a grey tower in the wind-swept town of The Hague, city of the Peace Palace, the international court and some pretty interesting clubs.

13. Pets? My lady friends objects to be called that by me. And no, they are definitely not my pets. I have some bunny ears somewhere, that is the closest thing I have for a pet.

14. What’s your favorite thing about writing? Except the cappuccinos, cake and flirting with waitresses it is getting in the reader’s mind and fucking him or her up. Like most writers I am sadist (a sweet one) and I love to toy with my readers. Get them scared, mad, or aroused.

15. What is coming next for you? More stories. I have to finish an undead steampunk story about a black lesbian lady with a brass arm. I guess that will be two or three days work. There is a body horror story I want to write, and a Cthulhu story. A shapeshifter erotic story and a gay superhero story. And a music horror story. I guess that will keep me busy the next two months. After that… I have this idea about a horror novel with lots of kinky sex and demons, but suspect that won’t make it past the 20.000 words… 😦

16. What kind of things do you write?

Well science fiction, fantasy, horror, thrillers, erotica and whatever I find interesting. I tried things like children’s books and YA, but I find them to limiting. I don’t like continuously asking myself if what I write is suitable for the reader.

I do write horror, but unlike most horror writers, I don’t get scared (That’s a long and nasty story). So actually for me it pretty difficult to know if something is scary. Luckily my proof readers – bless their little bleeding hearts – can feel fear. If they say things like “You evil, evil bastard!” I know I am on the right track. A “Woohoo!” is also a good indicator, but usually of something else.

Thank you for the interview. I love to portray myself as witty, experienced writer with an interesting live. And to mess around with readers, of course.  

  You can connect with Jaap Boekestein here: http://jaapboekestein.com/ https://www.amazon.com/author/jaapboekestein.com

  Some of Japp Boekenstine’s books:

Getting personal with Jaap Boekestein As you know i recently read and reviewed Depraved Desires published by HellBound Books Publishing. It's was an amazing book and included several authors I had not met nor read before.

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013% Part 2

Together the six heroes pushed open the heavy stone doors. The light that streamed in blinded them momentarily. The rest of the temple had been dark and labyrinthine, illuminated by the occasional flaming torch. Here in the inner garden though things could not be more different. Vines covered the stone pillars that supported the structures open roof that let light filter down onto the tranquil expanse of red flowers the lead up to a raised dais. Beyond the marble platform was a lake that sparkled in the warm sunlight. At first glance it was beautiful, but a closer look revealed the horror lurking beneath it.

The flowers were not truly red, they were caked in blood buried in the flowers were corpses of men, women and children their bodies twisted and contorted in pain and fear. Standing on the dais was a man in a dark blue cloak, the heretic priest Maudlin. He turned as they entered and looked at the party his eyes flashing with zealous madness.

“You are too late! The ritual is complete!” he cried. The heroes looked on in horror, if only they had been able to get through the traps in the temple slightly faster they could have stopped this. It was their failure and Maudlin’s victory.

Turning away from the aghast heroes the heretic priest thrust out his arms and beseeched the evil he had been summoning, “The great god awakens! Rise from your sleep and let the world fall before your might! Great Beast! Devourer of Worlds! LEVIATHAN!” In cue with the madman’s words the lake boiled and bursting from the surface, twisting into the air was a great snake.

It dwarfed them all; rising up so high it blocked the sun casting the party in shadow. Its scales were like sheets of metal, the only parts of it that weren’t armoured were the fins spaced out evenly on its long body and the tendrils that crowned its head.

Opening its mouth the ancient beast roared. It made all those who heard it shake with fear, some deep primal part of them remembered the terror of a time when man lived in constant fear of that creature’s roar. Despair spread through the party, there was no way they could possibly beat this monster; the world was done for.

The only person who seemed remotely happy was the madman who had awakened the beast. Laughing hysterically he fell to his knees, tears running down his eyes as though he was gazing at something truly beautiful. “At last! My mission is fulfilled! The deed is done! Now, Leviathan, quickly, wipe these infidels who sought to stymie your return from the face of the planet!” he screamed his voice reaching a crescendo.

DO NOT PRESUME TO TELL ME WHAT TO DO HUMAN!

The voice echoed inside all of their minds, deafening them and forcing them to bow to the pure rage it brought upon them. Still the madmen did not stop he screeched, “But my lord! I have done what no one else could! I am your loyal servant! I only want to please you!”

THEN DO WHAT MORTALS DO BEST AND DIE!

The ancient beast opened its maw open, jagged fangs filled its mouth. With a roar like a waterfall it came crashing down on the madman. Swallowing him whole and taking a chunk out of the ground with it. Water sprayed into the air soaking the party and breaking them out of their stupor.

“Prometheus?” Avril asked, her eyes filled with tears.

“Hero, what do we do?” beseeched Mordecai.

Prometheus gritted his teeth. He was supposed to be the hero who would save this world forsaken by gods and demons alike. Using his sword as a crutch he pulled himself to his feet and faced the enormous beast.

“Now that Leviathan is revived there is no use fighting it ourselves. We should all retreat and join up with Gina and the rest. We might be able to destroy it using the Armas,” he declared.

One by one his companions nodded and stood. Avril the thief, Mordecai the slayer, Ashton the mage and Mable the alchemist. Wait… someone was missing?

“Where’s Joker?” Prometheus asked, getting a terrible feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Looking around wildly he eventually spotted Joker, standing at the doors they had entered through. He had a smile on his face as he called, “Sorry about this, Hero. But the only way anyone is leaving this place alive is if that thing is dead.” He turned and with gleeful delight swung the doors shut.

“JOKER!” Prometheus shouted dashing towards the swiftly closing doors. Just before he reached them the doors shut and when he pushed them open instead of the labyrinthine temple they had travelled through to reach the garden, a blue void met his eyes, like they were floating in the sky.

“Damn it! I knew we shouldn’t trust him,” Mordecai said, slamming his heavy gauntleted fist into the ground.

“We’ll deal with him later,” Prometheus swore. “First we have to do something about the serpent.”

“I don’t like our chances…” Mable muttered.

“We have no choice! Fight like your life depends on it!” Prometheus ordered leading the charge.

The party fought. Avril danced across the ground her twin knives slashing at Leviathan’s scales aiming for any chinks its armour. Mordecai swung his greatsword trying to crush its armour beneath the weight of the enormous weapon. Ashton cast every spell he knew to bring the creature down. Mable mixed together the items in her bags and tossed every conceivable bomb she could create at the creature. Disregarding defence entirely Prometheus put all his strength into his blade and attacked with blinding flashes of holy light.

However the Leviathan just laughed at their efforts.

FOOLS! IT WOULD TAKE A GOD TO SLAY ME AND THEY HAVE ABANDONED YOU! YOU SHOULD SUBMIT YOURSELF TO A QUICK DEATH!

“No, there is a way…” Mordecai muttered. “Hey, Hero, we might need to use that.”

Prometheus gulped. “You mean… Heavensfall, right? No, if I use that then…”

“It’s the only way Hero! Only you can do this!” Mordecai shouted.

“If only one of us can escape to go back to our world then I will gladly give my life for you, Hero,” Ahston assured him.

“We entrust our wishes for the future to you,” Mable said.

“When you found me, my only thought was stealing your wallet, Prometheus. Somewhere along the way… you stole my heart. If you die here, even if by some miracle I survive I’ll be as good as dead, so live Prometheus. Live!” Avril beseeched him.

“I can’t do it! I won’t!” he refused.

Suddenly he fell to his knees his vision growing dark. Standing behind him was Mordecai who caught the heroes limp body. “Sorry, Hero, but you aren’t getting a say in this.”

 They stood in a circle; Prometheus’s prone body lay in the middle. Heavensfall was an ancient magic only available to the hero. By sacrificing those closest to him the hero would be imbued with the strength of the gods. Even now that the gods had abandoned them this ancient ritual would still work, this was a magic older then the Earth that had to be answered. Even the absent gods would be forced to heed the call of this spell.

“Oh, Gods we beseech thee, lend unto us thy might so we might smite our foe.” Mordecai recited before driving a knife into his chest. Blood spilled from his body but it moved etching out a circle around him and then flowing across the ground, making arcane runes.

“Divines, heed our call and aid your Hero, in his fight against the darkness.” Ashton too drove a knife into his chest after he spoke. His blood joined with Mordecai’s continuing to draw the magic circle.

“A sacrifice we gladly make to prove our piety, should you answer this wish.” Mable did the same as the others.

Finally it was Avril’s turn. Wishing Prometheus farewell in her heart she too spoke the incantation of the ritual. “Four souls willingly given for the sake of one, let the ancient contract be fulfilled.” As she drove the knife into her chest and the magic circle was complete the sky split open.

Lightning struck the ground as a holy light fell upon Prometheus. His body rose into the air as the might of the Gods flowed into him. Roused by the throbbing of his body he looked around and realised what had happened.

“You idiots… I can’t be happy this way…” However he did not have to mourn or regret. Though he was distraught that his comrades had died for this ridiculous spell, he would not let their sacrifice go to waste. Looking up at the sky he shouted, “LET IT START! HEAVENSFALL!”

Everything around him burned away as the holy light scorched everything. When the light faded, Prometheus and Leviathan floated in a black space.

WHAT IS THIS?!

Ignoring Leviathan’s question Prometheus placed a hand on his chest, “For my friends… I will end you, LEVIATHAN!” With his heartfelt roar the light wrapped around him forming silver armour that glowed despite the darkness pressing in on them on all sides.

I WILL NOT FALL TO A MORTAL!

The battle began.

The ancient beast who warred against deities and the mortal granted the power of gods traded blows. The beast slapped him with its fins, summoned water to drown him, crushed him with its body and bit into his armour with its teeth. Prometheus slashed apart the waves with a sword of light, blasted Leviathan off of him with a burst of holy energy and hammered the monster with punches each one hitting with the strength of a meteor.

Before long bloody and ragged the beast faltered.

HOW?! HOW CAN I BE BESTED BY A HUMAN?!

Gripping his helmet Prometheus pulled it off so he could look the ancient monster in the eyes. The helm disappeared into shimmering motes of light as he glared at Leviathan. “I am no ordinary human. Supported by my allies, my friends, my families, I have a power you could not hope to comprehend!”

WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?!?

“Listen well, beast! I am Prometheus, Hero of the People! I bring light to a land forsaken by gods and demons alike! I will not let you or anyone else, be they human, god or ancient monster, destroy this world I call home!”

Leviathan roared. Opening its mouth it swam through the empty space looking to swallow him whole. Prometheus didn’t even flinch as the jaws closed on him. Reaching out with his hands and feet he braced himself against the maw and began pushing them outwards. The Leviathan’s roars of anger quickly turned to screams of pain as he was split down the middle, pulled apart by the mortal gifted with the strength of gods.

Throwing the pieces of Leviathan off into the void they began to disintegrate into holy light. Prometheus fell, he fell for an eternity and only a second as he hit the ground on his hands and knees back in the temple. The doors were wide open and he saw he was back on his world and not the separate plane that Joker had somehow created.

He did not care though; now that the fight was over he let out his grief in a strangled scream of pure emotion. His head falling to the floor, tears poured from his eyes. Avril, Mordecai, Ashton and Maple were gone. They had given their lives for him. He may have won the fight but the price of victory was too much for him to bear.

“How can I claim to protect the world when I can’t even protect my world,” he sobbed.

“That’s the hero’s dilemma right there,” in an instant the sorrow that had threatened to drown him turned into pure, hot rage. Standing up, his bloodshot eyes fell onto Joker who was sitting idly on a piece of masonry that had broken off of the temple, lazily eating an apple.

“This is all your fault, you bastard!” Prometheus roared dashing at Joker. The godly powers he’d been granted had left him but he could still beat this bastard to death without them.

Looking terrified Joker fell backwards, Prometheus fist flying through the empty space he had occupied. He continued attacking, but every time Joker somehow managed to dodge the attacks as he stumbled around like an idiot. Eventually Prometheus fell to his knees, letting out painful gasps as he tried to fill his lungs with oxygen.

“Wow, wow, wow! You don’t want to be doing that, buddy,” Joker called as he squatted over the panting hero. “After all if you killed me, you’d never find out how to bring your little buddies back.”

Prometheus froze. It was a lie. He should ignore it… but his head rose and he found himself asking, “What… did you say?”

“Your buddies, your compadres, you can bring them back you know. Hell, not just them. If you had the mind too, you could save anyone who has ever died.”

This was a trap, a trick, a lie. It was too fantastical to be true… but… if it was then… “How?” he asked his voice hoarse.

Joker grinned. The same grin he’d worn when he’d shut the door trapping the party with the raging Leviathan. “There is a veil, a veil that leads to the next world somewhere in the world. I know where it is but I’m not saying where it is just yet. If I told you, you’d probably go running straight off to it. First, you’ve got to prepare some stuff. But you know, if you do this it will mean turning your back on every one of those so called ‘gods’ you people worship. You’ll be breaking the natural order of the world and that is a big taboo. Knowing that, do you still want to hear what I have to say?”

“If it means saving everybody I couldn’t save… I’ll do it,” Prometheus declared.

Joker’s grin was so wide it looked like his face would split apart. “Then let me tell you what you need to do…”

 A message popped up on the screen.

“Do you want to save?”

She hit yes and saved the game. She checked the time. It was pretty late… or was it early? Her perception of time was a bit warped. Not only because she hadn’t slept in three days but because she lived in eternal night.

Her name was Sophie Lane and she was a shut in. She hardly ever left her one room apartment and she had all the lights off and the curtains drawn to keep the light and other people away. The only illumination she had was given off by the three computer screens sitting on her desk. Two of the screens showed the same thing, the game she’d been playing. The third, a smaller one was always open to a chat forum she managed.

“Hah… Hot…” she whispered. It was the middle of winter and wasn’t something one should say when it was so cold, but because she kept her place shut up the air inside was stagnant and warm. Getting up from her chair she yawned, stretching her body, the long shirt she was wearing riding up and revealing she was wearing nothing but a pair of panties on her lower half.

She grimaced as her own pungent odour reached her nose. “Bath then bed,” she decided. “Gotta be careful I don’t fall asleep in the bath.”

Another yawn leaked from her as she undressed stripping off the few clothes she’d been wearing. She threw the clothes to the ground, letting them join the other discarded articles of clothes that covered the floor of her room before going into the bathroom. She drew the bath and finally sank into it the fatigue of three straight days gaming draining from her. Sophie hummed as she scrubbed herself; it was the battle theme of the game she’d just been playing.

The game was at times ridiculous and at times a masterpiece. The way the entire story changed depending on the choices you made was something amazing, other games had done similar things in the past but not to the extent of this game. However it was undeniably tropey and full of plot holes. Like, why the hell didn’t Leviathan attack the heroes while they were carrying out the Heavensfall ritual?

Still it was entertaining enough. She also liked that she got to choose the main character’s name. She liked using the name Prometheus in games, she had a bit of a fascination with Greek myths and the story of Prometheus gifting man the knowledge of fire was probably her second favourite.

When she finished her bath and had dried herself she wandered back into the main room of her apartment and grabbed a bottle of pills on the table. They were multi-vitamins. She got most of her dietary needs from various supplements. Whenever she actually ate it was usually either junk food or something she could microwave.

She popped the pills into her mouth and crushed them between her teeth, grimacing at the disgusting taste; she washed them down with a glass of water.

Usually when people saw her life they had two reactions. One was disgust, they couldn’t believe someone could live in such a manner, the other was pity they assumed something terrible must have happened to her for her to shut herself in like this. Neither was true though.

In her own words, “It’s totally easy and fun. I can do whatever I want, so FO.”

Opening her cupboard she rooted around for a change of clothes but couldn’t find anything. “FFS. Need to go to the laundry again?” Sophie complained. Her room didn’t have a washer or dryer, there was a communal laundry on the bottom floor of her apartment building but it was such a pain going down all those stairs and then back up when she was done. Plus it seriously cut in to her game time.

She’d do it when she woke up though, for now she’d make do with one of the twenty dirty shirts strewn across her floor. As for undergarments… She was just sleeping so forgetting them couldn’t hurt for now.

Dropping one of the oversized shirts over her tiny body, she shook her long hair out before staggering towards the bed. Sleep was already calling to her. Unfortunately something else was calling too.

The short noise that pierced the otherwise quiet room was the notification system for her forum. “This better be good…”

Collapsing in her chair she checked the phone number that had been given in the message that had been put up. This wasn’t a familiar one, maybe a new client or maybe it was part of some sort of sting operation…

“LOL. Good luck.”

Apart from being a shut-in and a gamer Sophie also moonlighted as the hacker known only as Icarus. Although she personally didn’t like the term hacker, she called herself a programmer. It’s just her programs were rather good at exploiting flaws in security systems and cracking passwords.

Her cliental were rarely honest but the job paid well and it was one of the reasons she was able to live her current lifestyle. Plus she could occasionally do some real good using her skills. Of course it made her a target for government agencies but she wasn’t going to let the fear of some secret squirrels get in the way of her lifestyle.

“Let’s see what the game is this time,” she muttered. Grabbing her headset and microphone she opened up a custom voice modulation program she’d made herself and loaded the “Icarus” setting. She then opened another one of her myriad programs this one turned her computer into a phone, that was the short explanation. The long answer was that it let her hack into a mobile and hook it up to her system. She told people that she didn’t use landlines because they were unsecure but the truth was it was because unlike a mobile, most landlines were so basic that there was nothing for her to hack.

She entered the mobile number that had appeared in her forum and at the same time she began implementing countermeasures for retaliatory hacking. She first monitored her system looking for any possible intrusions, on the other computer screen she encrypted the call she was placing and started sending out dummy signals from a number of fake systems around the world. Some might call her paranoid but she’d hacked enough government and corporate systems and seen enough classified documents that she felt this was necessary.

“This is Icarus, you have a job?” she said into the microphone when the phone was answered. She couldn’t hear it but a modulated voice would have been speaking in the other person’s ear. It disrupted accents and couldn’t give you any hint as to gender of the person speaking. If someone was recording and tried to track her down using some sort of voice recognition thing they’d have a tough time.

“Hi, Icarus, it’s Brenton again,” came the cheery reply.

“Lame! You again? WTH man? Can’t I get something new, please?” she complained.

Brenton Perchensky was the leader of a two-bit gang of street toughs operating in London and a regular customer. They had first met a few years ago when Icarus had lent one of her programs to a group of animal activists so they could storm a chemical lab in the middle of the night and rescue the animals being experimented on inside. Since then he’d hired Sophie for a number of tasks, all of them were rather inconsequential stuff like deleting information from the London PD’s system or disabling security around the docks or monitoring the activities of rival gangs. Things like that.

Realising this would probably be another of his dumb little missions that offered no challenge or excitement she was really regretting staying up for this. Except… there was something… bugging her. ‘I didn’t recognise the number,’ she realised.

“Wait a min… This isn’t your usual number.” Her mind began racing as she started considering the possibilities. “It’s a trap! Are we being monitored? If the MIB are there give me a sign. The code for S.O.S. is dot-dot-dot dash-dash-dash dot-dot-dot.”

She’d always suspected that eventually those government bastards would try to bring her in. She was prepared to go toe to toe them with them. Apart from vitamins, games, other miscellaneous software and her hardware she’d sunk the majority of her remaining finances into preparing a couple of fail safes in case of ‘political intervention.’ The secret squirrels could come at her anytime.

“We aren’t being monitored; the men in black aren’t here. My phone was just kind of broken.”

“They telling you to say that? Tell ‘em all ‘TGTFO.’ Icarus won’t fall for it.”

Opening one of her programs on another screen she quickly began accessing the system of the phone she was in looking for something. As she did she asked, “You gots a camera? NM.” She had already found and activated the camera. She was treated to a view of wood panelling. There was no sign of government stooges but she wasn’t naïve enough to think they weren’t listening in just from that. “Got it. Turn slowly.”

The image slowly moved, whatever room he was in appeared to be in a state of disrepair, a table was upended and she thought she saw signs of something shattered amongst the carpet on the floor but there was no sign of any spooks. She was slightly relieved that she wouldn’t have to go into cyberwarfare with the governments of the world yet, however when next she spoke her tone was irate.

“Clear. FFS, you need to be more careful, Brent. Majorly bad idea getting new phone. Could be bugs or other BS up in there.”

If he wasn’t trying to subtly send her an SOS signal why did he have to go and use a different phone? It was just “kind of broken?” ‘Makin’ me worried. Don’t go breakin’ it in the first place, idiot.’

“If we could move away from your delusions and back to business?”

Who did this guy think he was? If this job wasn’t interesting she’d make him pay out the nose for it. Plus he could only be so lackadaisical about the idea of government surveillance because he hadn’t seen some of the stuff she had.

“Only delusions if ya wrong. Only thing separating a mad man and a genius is hindsight, or somethin’ like it,” she told him. That and a libraries worth of classified documents.

“The sophistry can wait. This is important. Have you ever heard of a group called Mars Company.”

She didn’t remember hearing the name before. She ran a quick search through her archive of misappropriated intel and found several dozen hits on the name. A quick glance at the data showed her that Mars Company was a private military company, a fancy name for organised mercenaries. “Mercenary Company, right? What about ‘em?”

“I have reason to believe they are kidnapping people.”

“…You shittin’ me?” One of the drawbacks of her voice modulation program was that it didn’t convey emotions very well. The incredulous drawl she had spoken with probably didn’t come across on the other end of the line.

“No? I mean, no! This is real. They are kidnapping children off the street, there are whispers going around that they are being tortured and experimented on. I need proof of that. Even if you can just give me an address, somewhere to check I can send people in to look for hard evidence.”

Brenton’s gang was based in London so presumably these kidnappings were happening somewhere in England at least. The gang leader didn’t know it but Sophie lived in London as well, she lived on the other side of town from their pub but even if this kidnapping was happening around his side of the city, she trawled through so much data and poked her nose in so many things that she would have heard something if it was happening.

“Can’t tell if you’ve gone totes cray or what…” she murmured.

“At this point I don’t care if you don’t believe me. Just look into it for me, would you!”

This was getting to be a headache. She wanted to sleep. Sighing she decided that she may as well look into it whenever she woke up, so the quicker she ended this call the better for both of them.

“Yeah, yeah. Standard fees apply. Any more info or what?”

“I do know about a lab… I don’t know if they’re involved or if this is just a coincidence but apparently they have an ongoing contract with Mars Company as well.”

“What’s the places name?”

“Uh… I don’t think it has a name.” He gave her the address.

Unlike Mars Company she had heard of this lab. When it was being built the residents in the area had raised a huge stink about it destroying the classic beauty of their neighbourhood. More recently a news reporter was apparently assaulted by a guard working at the place. The case had been written off when it was revealed the reporter had been trying to force themselves into the building despite stern warnings that it wasn’t permitted.

“Ah, yeah, yeah. Got it. Started off as like a personal workshop for some rich science guy so he didn’t feel like naming it or something like that. Owner is Eoin Parker.”

“That’s the one.”

I ran a quick search for the things related to this lab. Apart from some scientific papers and patents for whatever the mathematic gobbledygook said, there was a record of employment for the mercenary group. ‘Safely moving dangerous chemicals, huh?’ Hiring a PMC for just that seemed a bit like overkill. What sort of “dangerous chemicals” were these?

There was also a news story about some big name scientist called Michael Blunt moving to the lab but it didn’t seem related. She would make a mental note of it though in case it proved to be important later.

“Kay. I’ll check it out. Find anything I’ll text you,” she said finishing up the call.

“Thanks for the help, Icarus.”

“No prob. Gotta make a livin’. TTYL.”

She dropped the call and let out a yawn. She needed sleep. Now. She shut down her computer system, the whir of the PC’s fan would keep her awake, it was like a siren song inviting her to play and then she staggered over to her bed and collapsed in it. She’d already fallen asleep before she hit the mattress.

 Sophie got to work as soon as she woke up, 32 hours later. Not that she knew that in her perpetual night. Although she took time out to make and eat noodles as well as take her supplements. After that though she began working in earnest.

She started off doing some preliminary research on Mars Company. She couldn’t find much but what she could find turned her stomach. They had done some dark stuff. After that she looked at the lab the mercs were currently employed by while there was a plethora of information on the lab none of it was useful and she could barely make heads or tails of half of it.

What the hell was a quantum energy re-programmer supposed to be?

“No good. Need a new angle…”

If there was some kind of serial kidnapping spree happening there was too little information about it. “Did Brent go bent in the head?” she wondered as she trawled through an archive of news stories. Wasn’t that odd though?

She was operating under the assumption that the information wasn’t there because these abductions weren’t happening. What if you looked at it the other way though, because these children were going missing someone was burying the information.

She began poking around the internet. It was nearly impossible to delete something from the net after it was posted. People looking for help finding their children would obviously use this convenient tool to get a message out to people to find their child. If someone was going through and eliminating any possible whispers of these cases then there was bound to be some metadata left over somewhere. Hopefully she could use that to figure out who was deleting the information and that would give her somewhere to start working.

It took several hours of work, she had to consider that some cases were solved and that was why the pleas for help were taken down, but it was a long and tedious process fact checking all that. Eventually though she had compiled a list of 24 children who had all gone missing in the last year who were not found (either dead or alive) but all mention of their disappearance had been stricken from the internet.

From there came the gruelling work of trying to piece together who had deleted the data. Although she would bet everything she owned it was some government agents.

 The work passed slowly, she spent a full day bent over her computer but eventually she let out a sigh and said, “GG me.”

Sophie had identified the computer network eliminating these posts and one of her programs had just finished breaking into the offenders system. Big surprise, it was a government system. Specifically, the trail had led her to Military Intelligence, Section 5, more commonly known as MI5.

She started copying all the data on the enemy servers onto her own computer but there was so much data it would take another couple of hours to finish. So she began hunting through the documents for any clue on what Mars Company did after they picked up the children while she copied the data. She was sure hadn’t been picked up. She was a ghost in the system.

Confident, she began digging through the data on the MI5 server. She eventually found one file that seemed to relate to the case. ‘“Project: Eden?”’ she read. Was it named after the garden in the bible? They weren’t trying to create a new human race and were stealing kids to be the Adam and Eve’s in their screwed up creation myth were they?

The file was mostly empty. It seemed a lot of the information had been recorded as hard copy only. Still there was enough to go on for her to be able to continue following the trail.

“Let’s see… ‘Leading humanity to a perfect world.’ They serious?” this was sounding very cultish. The government wasn’t trying to open a hell portal to use as a renewable energy source were they? Cause that didn’t work out too well in Doom.

There were a number invoices in the file. Most of them were payment for security and “research materials” made out to a certain mercenary outfit; however there was one invoice that stood out from the rest. It was an invoice for a large amount of mechanical parts and specialised tools. It wasn’t for Mars Company though, but rather a civilian company. There was a note attached to the receipt as well.

It said, “Shipment to be sent directly to location provided. Payment provided by THEY.”

“They?” she tried hunting around for more information on, what she could only assume was the financial backers of this project but was unable to find any references or rather she found too many. A common word like “they” threw up so many hits it would have taken her entire life to pour over everything. A puzzle to go over another time, then. For now she had to concentrate on the children who were being kidnapped.

A righteous fire lit in her belly Sophie directed her efforts to the shipping company that had transported the items ordered. The government system she’d hacked may have been reticent about information but the shipping company was hopefully not as careful.

She struck pay dirt. There was a record of the shipment that included an address and a signature as well as a client name. The signature was a mess and she couldn’t read it but in the section marked ‘Client’ was an easy to read name.

“Engine… We talking Crash Bandicoot here?” Although the scientist with the rocket sticking out of his cranium was called “N. Gin.” Still, it was aggravating that they didn’t have a proper name; Engine was obviously a moniker of some kind. “Still, I’ve got an address. That’s a win.”

Looking up the address on Google Earth she saw that the address was a warehouse. It was just outside of London and was rather isolated, it didn’t seem to be in use but the utilities provider’s system showed that it was consuming a large amount of power infrequently. This was probably the place.

“Who owns you?” Sophie cooed as she started looking for records. What she found was a name that didn’t mean anything to her. “P. Blunt? Wait a minute didn’t someone called Blunt join that lab?”

As she went back to the documents she’d gathered on the lab, also thinking about the report she’d have to make to Brenton, she froze. Something was wrong. She wasn’t sure what it was but something about her system didn’t seem right. Perhaps there was a slight lag in the movement of the mouse on the screen or maybe the computer was running slower due to some unknown program putting heavy strain on it, she couldn’t be sure.

She was positive though that she’d been hacked. Her mind raced, how had she not noticed? How long had the hacker been in her system? Did she only notice now because they’d arrived or had they been there for a while and a slight mistake had let her notice them.

Swearing repeatedly she went into emergency mode. She leapt from her chair; the wheels on it caught on some of the clothes littering the ground and toppled over hitting the floor with a bang. At the same time she ducked down under her desk and pulled out the power chord for the computer. Instantly the whine of the computer’s fan ended and she let out a sigh of relief.

Knock! Knock!

Sophie’s heart leapt up into her throat at the sudden rapping at her door. Was this the government spooks come to make her disappear?

The knocking continued…

…and continued…

…and continued.

Resigning herself to whatever lay beyond the door she edged forwards, past her kitchen and down into the hall. Opening the door slightly she was blinded by the light that came pouring in, searing her retinas. She shut her eyes, blinking against the harsh glare as she tried to make out whoever was standing at her door.

Slowly her eyes adjusted and as the person’s face came into view she heard a weak, timid voice asking, “Are you alright, dearie? I was having tea when I heard a mighty racket from over here and I thought you might be in trouble.”

Sophie let out a sigh as she realised it was little old lady from next door and not the secret squirrels. “T-Totally fine,” she stammered. When was the last time she talked to someone face to face?

“Are you sure? It’s no trouble at all, so don’t feel you’re putting me out.”

“N-No. I’m… I’m fine I just… fell over my chair. Sorry for worrying you.”

“Well just so long as you’re-” the old lady began saying but Sophie shut the door on her face. Letting out a relieved sigh she sank to the floor, her legs suddenly unable to support her.

She couldn’t stay there for long though. She had been hacked, worst case scenario right now there were people coming after her.

Sophie let out a sigh. She’d started using the name Icarus as a reminder. In myth Icarus had fashioned a pair of wings using wax and with them he flew. However Icarus flew too high and the heat from the sun melted the wax and he crashed. Like Icarus because she hadn’t been more careful, more vigilant she may have found herself falling without a hope or a prayer.

Still, Icarus had a job to do. She had been contracted to find information out about this kidnapping conspiracy and she had done that. Now Sophie had a responsibility to see that information to the client no matter what.

If the secret squirrels had located her though, they would almost definitely try to stop her telling anyone. What would they do? It probably took time to form a team and get permission to storm a residential complex, so they would have to do something in the interim to assure she didn’t contact anyone.

“Time for Protocol Five,” she decided.

It was time for all that paranoia to pay off.

 Three hours later she had finished setting up Protocol Five. Opening a laptop she began typing out an e-mail to Brenton telling him what she’d found. She didn’t have long though, she thought she’d heard the screech of cars pulling up just a few seconds before. There was no time to make this as secure as she usually did. This would have to be a normal e-mail and hopefully Brenton would read it before the secret squirrels could get in and delete it.

She finished typing just as she heard the sound of heavy boots pounding the floor outside her room. She hit send just as the door was smashed open and four men in heavy riot armour burst in each one carrying a sub-machine gun, a patch of a boar’s head on their arms.

“Bet you wish you were a few seconds faster,” Sophie said standing up to face them.

An enormous man appeared at the door, he was white, with blonde hair cut to military shortness. He only had one ice blue eye the other was hidden underneath an eyepatch. There were clear wounds around his eyes, scratch marks by the look of it. They looked pretty recent too, maybe a week old, they still hadn’t healed fully.

“We have intercepted all signals. Your message never made it out,” he taunted in a Russian accent.

Sophie shrugged her shoulders, “Somehow, I’m not worried.”

 At the other end of the city Brenton was reading an email that had turned up in his inbox. He didn’t know the sender personally but as soon as he saw what it said he knew it must have been sent by Icarus.

‘Mars compny = contrct wth lab +aquir mats 4 prjct

delvries -> Engine

site ownr = P Blunt lab connect?

work=free

sve thm

cya.”

Then it said the address.

Brenton thought about that second to last line. Whenever Icarus finished talking he always said “TTYL” not “see ya.” It just seemed… oddly final. Another odd thing was that this was clearly from a private e-mail address, he hadn’t used any of his hacking stuff to hide his e-mail. It was odd…

 Sophie was dragged out of her apartment by men the other residents of her complex looked on exchanging whispers amongst themselves. The old lady next door appeared frantic as she saw the dark bruises on her neighbour’s face and body. Despite all this Sophie had a smile on her face.

She was satisfied. Icarus had completed her last job.

#science #scifi #fantasy #rpg #rpg game #probabilityengine #intrigue #Crime #conspiracy