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abalidoth · 7 months

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Replanting (Chapter 1)

[read on ao3]

When you feel the missile clip the corner of your mech's leg joint, you know it's over.

It feels like a line of white fire directly to your brain; your pain and the mech's mingling. But pain is nothing, pain is your every day. It's the immobility that terrifies you. Your mech knows before you do that the leg won't work, can't carry you back to base.

They won't send a field repair team out this far, not into enemy territory. Not even for the material outlay of the mech. You have no illusions of what would happen to you if they had to extract, but at least it would be fine, given a new pilot and allowed to keep doing its duty.

Don't think like that, it sends to you. I don't want another pilot.

You struggle a few dozen meters until the residual coolant in the leg motivators gives out and the intractable hand of physics pulls your mech to its knees. A cloud of dust billows up around you and you give up the rest of the way, mech lying on its side amid the baked earth and the scrubby bushes.

Creosote bush, the mech says. Didn't know it grew this far north.

You know it's just trying to keep you from panicking. It's not working -- you can feel your heart racing, the connection gel around you contracting in an autonomic effort to keep you from thrashing in the cockpit. Worst of all, your handler's ever present voice in your ear has gone silent.

A pilot's job is to keep its mech moving. No more and no less. You know there's no real affection from your handler, that her ministrations are part of the system, but you can't think about that sudden abandonment without a pang of grief. She should be there, she should always be there, but now there's nothing. Silence and static.

That feeling gives you a rush of adrenaline, coarser and hotter than the artificial flush the mech gives when you complete an objective, purely a product of your own withered adrenal glands. You have to get back you have to get back. You struggle to your knees, planting the mech's hands in the caliche like anchors and shoving so hard you feel something pop. (In you? In the mech? Is there a difference?)

You make it another hundred meters before you fall again, and the Caskie mech finds you, hitting you with an EMP before you can take them down with you. It lands with a jumpjet hiss in your sightline, so you're treated to the view of the alien-looking mech opening its canopy wide, two pilots getting out of the crude-looking mechanical cockpit.

---

They salvage the mech with you in it.

The pilots didn't seem to know what to do with you; you could hear from your outboard sensors that they were discussing in that strange, fluid accent how to get you out without killing you.

(You don't understand why that matters.)

Eventually, they just called for reinforcements; three heavy carriers showed up some indeterminate amount of time later. They haul your mech, pilot included, through the air on a frankly ridiculous web of heavy cables. You see the desert fade to green, canals threading through the land like veins, as you pass from the disputed zone into Union territory.

Your mech keeps a constant stream of commentary, talking about the plants that it sees, pointing out where old semi-arid forests have been restored. Its voice across the neural tunnel holds false cheer, picking up whenever you start panicking, but the enthusiasm is genuine.

Finally the carriers land at a base. It looks much like Conclave military architecture, concrete in utilitarian blocks, but you can see shining glass and chrome off in the distance, a city. They must want to keep you a ways away from civilians. You suppose that's fair.

They land you in an empty mech bay. It’s been cleared out hastily – you can see the Union mech that used to reside there off to the side, plugged into an aux power array. Your mech is not the right size, not the right shape, but a gaggle of mechanics come out anyway. They locked a restraining clamp on you at some point so you can't move, can't fight. Still, the mechanics move around you warily, like you'll snap and take them all out at any moment.

You would, in a heartbeat. Not just to get the euphoric response, but to quiet the anxiety, the feeling that you're entering a world where you don't have the tools to survive. But you can't, and a quiet part of you (or the mech) is relieved at that.

They strip your mech of all its weaponry, a harsh and hasty disassembly. You feel each removal sharply. Not physically -- mercifully, the mech has dialed down the haptic connection so it's left to suffer alone -- but in loss of potential, the closing of options.

Finally, when everything is done and your mech is defenseless (other than being a fifteen ton vehicle) a tall woman in a labcoat comes out, flanked by guards with red cross emblems on their sleeves.

"Hello," she says. Her voice is formal, neutral. Lower than you expected, with just a hint of that singsong Cascadian accent. "Can you hear me? Or see me? We have sensitive solid-conductance microphones on the outside of your mech so we can hear you if you speak."

You know the trainings. A pilot is part of the system, part of the Conclave war engine, and cogs don't speak. Your tongue flicks idly against the suicide capsule in your back left molar. You go to press in on it.

You feel something, like a hand, guiding you away. A great wave of fear washes over you, and you know it's not yours.

Please. No.

You stop. Think a moment.

"Hhhhh."

It's been a while since you've spoken. Just whispers in the dark with your handler, words carrying neither voice nor meaning. Your throat is dry, and you feel for a moment like it's not there. (Why would a mech have a throat?) You clear it, and try again.

"Yes. I can hear you."

She nods. "Good. I'm Dr. Mia Crane. I'm required by Cascadian Union treaty to inform you that as a prisoner of war, you have rights including food, shelter, protection from torture, and the right to ask about your other rights." She adjusts her round framed glasses. "I'm required by basic hospitality to ask you your name."

You pause. You know what names are, of course. Your handler's name is Rebecca. But that's not something pilots have. "I, uh. No?"

She blinks, a little taken aback. "Okay, well, we can work on that. Do you at least acknowledge your rights as a prisoner of war?"

This isn't going to end until you acknowledge, you feel, so you just say "Yes."

"Okay. Is there anything we need to know before we get you out of there?"

"I don't want out," you say. Your throat tightens.

You can't stay in me forever. It's okay. You'll find a way back to me.

You hear a hissing sound, and the low, sick gurgle of the connection gel draining out of your suit. Before you understand what's happening, the canopy drops open and you stagger out of the mech onto the diamond-patterned steel catwalk.

The sharp edge of disconnection, the sudden hole where there should be something inside you, keeps you off your feet. You stagger to one knee, felled as surely by shock as you had been by the missile.

The guards rush over to you and help you up. You want to fight them off but your muscles are jelly. Your head hurts.

Dr. Crane looks you over. You know she's not your handler, but you reach for the familiarity anyway, half expecting the usual routine, the ministrations that get lost in the foggy haze of post-battle euphoria. If your arms weren't being held for your own stability, you'd start opening your suit.

Instead she shines a light in your eyes and asks you to stick out your tongue, making notes on a clipboard as she goes. She puts a strip of fabric around your arm and it gets tight for a moment. "Elevated heart rate and systolic pressure, pupil dilation is beyond what I consider normal."

Your heart hammers in your ears. The smells around you -- the saccharine sweet of connection gel, your own body, something undefinable coming off the doctor, heighten to a nauseating strength. Your head hurts. "Are you going to..." You swallow. "Do you have the syringe?"

Dr. Crane tilts her head. "The syringe?"

"When the..." How do you explain this? You haven't had to explain any of this, people just know what to do. "When I'm done. Rebecca, she has the syringe, it's blue, and."

"Do you know what's in it?" she asks, gently. Too gently. The words are too soft, they smother you, it's too hard to breathe.

Your head hurts. The lights beat down.

"No, but it... she... always..."

Your head hurts.

Your head hu--

---

There are voices.

At first you don't care. You just want to go back to sleep. But there's something wrong with your bed, it's too soft. And the voices don't sound right -- that soft lilt, one you've only recently heard.

"Patient has been stable for six hours. Their heartrate is still a little funny, and I'm not sure this godawful cocktail of tramadol, modafinil, and tricyclics we pulled out of their tox panel is good for anything other than keeping them from dying of withdrawal, but we should be seeing them awake soon."

"Thanks, Dr. Chen." You recognize this voice, soft and husky -- it's Dr. Crane. "Have you figured out the... um. Mortality problem?"

"Part of it is that stimulant cocktail, I'm sure -- we haven't had the chance to pull in a full Conclave mech with pilot intact, and our field teams don't have the tools to stabilize someone as quickly as we were able to do here. But the most likely reason... false molar full of tetrodotoxin. We made sure to extract it. Carefully."

You probe the back of your mouth with a sluggish tongue. There's still a tooth there, but it feels strange. The one that had been there was artificial already, of course, but this one is much smoother, more like the rest of your teeth. Something lightens within you -- you've lost an option, sure, but maybe you were never good with options.

"Fuck," Dr. Crane says quietly.

"That's not all," Dr. Chen says. "There's extensive neural grafts consistent with the autopsies we've performed, but... there's something weird going on with the brain activity scan. I'm not sure what the Conclave is doing to their people, but it's scary."

"Nnn. 'M not," you say.

There's a rustling around your bed. You open your eyes and blink against the sharp light a few times, and eventually the face of Dr. Crane comes into focus.

"Hey," she says. "Glad you're awake. How are you feeling?"

You have no idea how to deal with this. Never expected to be in a hospital room of all things, being treated like valuable materiel instead of ammunition. So instead of answering her question, you just repeat your previous statement. "I'm not. Person."

She gives you a look you don't really know how to read. You never had to get all that good at reading faces, but you suspect this one might be hard even if you did.

"...well. Anyway." Dr. Crane clears her throat. "You had a medical emergency when you left your mech. You mentioned something about a syringe? I assume that's part of your post-operation routine? We've got you stable now. We're going to give you about another day to rest up before we bring you in for questioning."

"Questioning?"

"You're the only Conclave pilot we've brought in alive," she says, with a twist of her mouth. "It's damn near impossible to piece together any information about Conclave technology and hierarchy. I should know -- I'm the Union's top academic expert in Conclave culture and I always feel like I'm flying blind."

That was... a lot. You just nod.

"So you said something about... not having a name? Do you have something you'd like to be called? I know you're technically a prisoner, but you're safe here. People will respect what you say you are."

She says that last part with a lot of emphasis, a particular gravity to the words, but you're not sure why. "No."

"Okay. Designation number?"

"They re-assign our numbers every week so we don't get attached to them," you say.

She says a word under her breath that you don't know, other than that your handler says it when she gets mad.

"Alright." Dr. Crane takes off her glasses and pinches the bridge of her nose. "How about I just call you "Pilot" for now?"

That's what you are, and you don't see why that's so difficult, but at least this line of questioning seems to be over when you answer yes. She promises to check on you in a while, and leaves.

---

You dream about vines.

They're all over you. You haven't seen many vines up close -- there was sparse ivy on the back of one hangar for a little while before Maintenance took care of it. But you feel you know these.

They aren't strangling you. It almost feels like a caress, like the flight suit, like Rebecca's post combat care, but not quite any of those. It's pleasant. Cool rather than warm, and calming.

There is intense pain in your arms and legs, but it doesn't bother you. It's like someone is telling you that your limbs are being shredded, but the pain isn't getting through to the part of you that cares. It's just another sensation, less pleasant than the vines but certainly not bad.

You feel things you can't explain. A name, a pull in a direction that's not physical, feelings and sounds beyond your ability to parse. They build to a crescendo, and you wake with a shout. But at the edges of your awareness, the green is still there.

---

The next morning, you're herded into a shower stall with a clean jumpsuit, a washcloth, and a bar of soap. You clean yourself off as well as you can, given the circumstances. The soap has a soft smell to it, and no grit. It almost doesn't feel like it's cleaning you at all, without the scratches.

You knock on the stall door once you're finished dressing, and the door slides back. In addition to the two guards, Dr. Crane is there. She's wearing the same white coat, but her hair is pulled back, and she looks even more tired.

Still, she manages a slight smile. "Pilot. Did you sleep well?"

"No," you say.

"Ah. Well, hopefully we can help with that tonight. In the meantime I have some questions for you."

You follow her through a maze of white corridors, lit with skylights. Your sense of direction was never the best (your mech always took care of that, you think with a twist in your gut.) You wouldn't be able to find your way back if you needed to.

She leads you to a room with two chairs, both of them plush and soft. You feel like you're sinking into it; she looks like she's perched on hers. She balances her clipboard on her knees and starts in eagerly on the questions.

There's a part of you that feels you should shut up, refuse to answer, let them finish the work they didn't let your false tooth start. But one handler's as good as another. You're a weapon, and weapons know no loyalty. So you answer -- even when the questions don't make sense, or aren't about obvious things, or are about things you've never been allowed to see.

The reactions don't really make sense to you either. You talk about some of your worst missions, and she seems sad but like she knew what was coming; you talk about your handler, and she's gripping her clipboard so hard her fingers go pale. You stop trying to understand what's going on, and try to hit the same state of unconscious action that you do on a sortie. Question, response. Question, response.

There are a few about your accommodations. They're fine, of course. You have little standard for comparison, and if she asks if you need anything else, you feel she won't leave you alone with a "no," so you ask for books. Rebecca was always reading when you were doing synch tests.

After what feels like the whole day, Dr. Crane lets you go. She doesn't ask you any questions about the haze of green starting to fade in around the corners of your vision when your mind drifts, so you don't volunteer any information.

---

The next day's meal comes with a couple of books, and Dr. Crane seems determined to find you the right reading material because every meal tray thereafter has more. There's a shelf in your room for the purpose. It was a ruse at first, but it is genuinely a better way of spending your time then staring at the wall.

There's more questions, along with a handful of medical tests, supervised by Dr. Chen. Dr. Chen's questions are even stranger than Dr. Crane's, but at least they seem satisfied with the answers given by the scans and blood draws.

A few days pass until you get a good enough feeling of the layout of the facility to know which direction the hangar is in. You occasionally see Caskie pilots in groups of twos and threes, talking and joking with each other. No handlers, no augments that you can see -- if you hadn't seen people in those same outfits walk out of their primitive looking mechs in the desert, you wouldn't believe that they were pilots at all.

All of them are coming and going in the same direction, and it's a direction that Doctor Crane and your guards never take you. So naturally, the first chance you get when both of your escorts are distracted and you have the chance, you peel off that direction and start running.

Your augments sing as you stretch your legs. They’re not like infantry augments (or so you’ve heard) and they don’t have auxiliary power – you can feel them burning away your body’s energy, energy that would normally be supplied by your mech. But your desperation fuels them just as much as your calories do, and the initial burst of speed and agility is all you need.

The facility is confusing as always, but you spot a sign that says HANGAR and get reoriented. Startled cries fly in your wake, doctors and workers and pilots confused at your frenzied speed. Something that might be an alarm and might just be lighting flashes at the corner of your vision, nearly obscured by the green.

You get lucky, and a mechanic is coming through the secured door at the checkpoint at the same time you arrive. You take advantage of her confusion and duck underneath her outstretched arm, through the door and out into the hangar bay.

It's not hard to find your mech. You remember the layout from your brief spell of consciousness after arrival, the way your mech looked so different from the rest and didn't quite fit into its space.

You pull up to a stop, wheezing from exertion, and look at it with dismay.

Your mech has been dismembered, all four limbs strewn about the bay hooked up to various pieces of testing equipment. The body itself is on a riser jack, slightly askew like there wasn't the right connector to fit it, hooked up by thick cables and patched-together connectors to the exposed limb contacts. The canopy stands open, the inside unlit but visibly cleaned of leftover connection gel.

The sight makes you sick. You hold it down, but barely; but the nausea makes it hard for you to resist when a burly mechanic comes up behind you and wrestles you to the floor.

You're not sure you would have, anyway.

By the time Dr. Crane has shown up, your face is wet with tears and snot, and your breath comes only with sobs. You're still being pinned to the ground by a mechanic, but she's not putting her full weight into it. She more or less let go when you started crying.

Dr. Crane pushes through the crowd of onlooking mechanics and kneels down in front of you. "Are you all right?" she asks.

At first, you think she's addressing the mechanic; it would be such an incongruous question to a pilot about to be terminated for insubordination. After a silence disproves that theory, you shake your head and gesture with one semi-restrained arm to the mech. "No."

"I'm sorry, pilot," she says, "but you are still a prisoner. I'm going to request the board not to restrict your access for this, given that you didn't really hurt anything -- and I'm sure they'll listen to me -- but you surely didn't think you could just get back in your mech and run away?"

"No," you say again, frustration at your own inadequate words prompting a fresh fall of tears. "It's... you're hurting it, you're..."

Things click together, things that you've always known. Feelings shared through the neural tunnel, deeply held beliefs that couldn't be kept from a pilot. You understand, now, what your mech was trying to tell you all along.

"You're hurting her."

Dr. Crane looks from you, to your mech, back to you. She goes pale.

"Are you telling me," she says quietly, "that there's an AI in your mech? A sentient AI?"

You nod. It's too late to lie, now. To protect her. The green in your vision threatens to overwhelm you. You're sorry, so, so sorry...

"A sentient AI that... we have been effectively torturing for four days. Fuck." She takes her glasses off, buries her face in her hands for a moment. "I can't believe that didn't come up during questioning."

It could have. You had avoided the topic, because you were afraid of this happening -- your greater part, torn away and experimented on because you couldn't keep her safe. You had always heard that the Union had strange beliefs about machine minds.

Dr. Crane looks around to some of the mechanics. "Anyone who was working on this mech -- did you have any idea there was a sentient AI? Any anomalous readings?"

"Some anomalies came up in the report that indicated synaptic activity in the post-0.4 Turing level," says one mechanic, nervously playing with their hair. "But everything about Conclave tech is anomalous. Kinda got buried in all the other weirdness."

"Okay." Dr. Crane sighs. "Can we get some input/output hooked up to her, please? And give her her limbs back."

One of the guards flanking her frowns. "I don't think that's a good--"

"She's a prisoner of war, Ortega. Pretty sure removing a sapient being's body parts is against something in the codes. Not to mention the First Principle."

Ortega sighs, and waves some mechanics over.

---

They don't know what connection gel is, but it doesn't matter. The sensation of her against your skin is important, but not as important as just reestablishing the connection.

Dr. Crane apparently spots your longing glances towards your mech, and takes you by the arm. When you flinch back, she holds her hands up in a defensive posture. "I'm sorry," she said. "I was just going to guide you over there again."

There's a lot of activity going on in the hangar, between the mechanics re-arming your mech and the other pilots getting suited up to react in case she tries to start killing people. (You don't think she's going to, but you suppose you can't blame them too much.) It would be a shame if your reunion with your mech got postponed because you got beaned in the head by an inattentive mechanic carrying a crysteel strut, so you offer your arm to Dr. Crane again and she guides you through.

You don't want to take too long, but you're only going to get to do this once. You run your hand over the lip where the canopy seats into the body, feel the soft seal and the framework beneath, then lift yourself up over and inside the cockpit.

There's no gel, so you can't hear her voice right away, but you know what to do. Years of drilling guide your hand to the hidden compartment with the emergency connection pads. It falls open with a clunk, the ribbon cables and connection pads jutting out in a fall like vines. One on either temple, one on either side of the chest, one on the back of each trembling hand. You're probably being watched, stared at as you have been since you broke into this hangar, but you don't care. She's here.

Hello, love.

You shudder, come apart, not in a procedural way like with your handler but in a form that shoots through to the very core of you. Untouched, but undone. You have no words for her, but you know she can feel your relief and your joy. You crumple, weeping, and run your hands over the familiar inside of the cockpit.

The green in your vision doesn’t go away, but it recontextualizes. It’s her. It’s the part of her that lives in you, a fragment within a fragment.

It's a little while, just basking in the connection, before you realize you've fallen in an uncomfortable position. Your skin, your joints, protesting their treatment. You reorganize yourself, pull yourself from the connection just long enough to get there.

They've hooked a set of speakers up to her ports. They come to life with a spiky flare of static as she finds her voice.

"Hello," she says. You can feel her voice from inside and outside, through the tunnel and through the skin of the mech. "I am a Conclave of God Armored Forces Samson-B Light Interdiction Unit, but I would prefer if you called me Acacia."

#mechposting #empty spaces #might be a bit too cheerful to be empty spaces proper but it's part of the conversation #tessa writes stuff #tesserants #There's going to be probably one chapter after this

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banyanas · 21 days

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murder drones for wip wednesday- i refuse to think tessa is dead but uhhhh currently her situation as a conscious skinsuit aint much better. dissociation into the Solver is a different kind of death, but hey pain and memory means you're Alive

#bañana post #murder drones #marball stuff still in the works i prommy #i just wanted to write some gnarlier horror on the side. its enrichment #also slid in theater buff J for a md fic buddy and trans gener in for my besties #tessa james elliot

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hydesjackiespuddinpop · 6 days

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Now I'm falling asleep

And she's calling a cab

While he's having a smoke

And she's taking a drag

Forwood - Mr.Brightside (The Killers)

#tvd #otp: until we find a way #forwood #forwoodedit #tvdedit #forwood shippers club #het ship #tyler x caroline #caroline x tyler #my gifs #my edits #my stuff #dria & tessa getting me back in my forwood feels #I miss them #wanna write them again

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mxwhore · 1 year

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Absolutely adored every-single page of Hunger Pangs! So many emotions through those 66 files.... I did not expect to laugh as much as I did! Every piece of dialogue was wonderful and was fun re-reading re-analyzing your work as your designs are staring-at-for-hours worthy. I knew I needed to tell you what a delight Hunger Pangs was, please know how adored it is!

#love when u guys tell me you laughed at my stuff or compliment my writing in general #makes me want to KEEP DOIN THEM COMICS YEAAA #but really comedy is so hard to write properly it really warms me heart #tessa answers!#maybe ill do some art

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gracerings · 2 years

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I’m rereading the shadowhunters books and I have two strong opinions I need to share:

1. will and jem were just as in love with each other as they were with tessa and anyone who disagrees has read different books

2. simon should have just waited to be married to isabelle and taken her last name instead of a new one entirely

#that's it #tsc #tid #tmi #heronstairs #sizzy #some of the writing for will and jem is literally just as romantic as will/tessa or jem/tessa #like i didn't remember how strongly romantic some of the stuff will says to jem is #if you didn't know he was talking to jem he might as well have been talking to tessa #also sorry but simon lightwood sounds better than simon lovelace

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dvarapala · 2 years

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“The fact that it’s 2022 and my Dutch teacher - a presumably straight, white man - is out there peddling stereotypical and, quite frankly, borderline racist and hurtful content in his own writing is just... enraging to me. And then he has the gall to be like: ‘am I not being politically correct enough for your tastes?’ like... seriously, seriously?! This is not about being correct, politically or otherwise. It’s about basic respect.”

#ic for ooc.#//sdhudsd i am enraged #//and also i'm mad at myself for not having the words to like express how uncomfortable and hurt and gross and angry this makes me feel #//like yes ofc it's his writing and his world view and stuff was different when he grew up #//but it still makes me want to scream it's so disrespectful #//and the fact he doesn't even want to engage in dialogue about this is just....astounding #//like one of his books is called miligro the half blood and that just gives me the hives and it's about a presumably white woman #//vacationing in greece with her presumably white husband and then she meets a dark skinned (presumably black) man and then she is torn #//between both men and i just. dude. come the fuck on. for real.#//maybe you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover he said; maybe you should write something that isn't hurtful and racist you fuckwad #//i was actually gonna do my replies but i am Angery so i'm gonna take a shower and cool down and maybe come back later #//and also like he's also a writer and why isn't he using his connections to fucking help other writers like???? what a tool #//and if not i'll just fill the queue #//screaming tessa noises intensify

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memento-morri-writes · 2 years

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Little bit of some nonsense I wrote months ago...

So, for context, this takes place ~3 years after the end of ATQH. The person talking (and having a crisis) is Leo, who is/was a member of the Royal Guard, but in this instance is a captain in the army, at least for the moment. That's (I think) only the 2nd f-bomb in all of my writing for the ATQH-verse, which is shocking given my vocabulary in person. But anyways, Kris gets the first one (in actual ATQH) and Leo gets the second one (in this self-indulgent fun). Both are (at least vaguely) related to Fallon.

(the reason the soldier is so surprised is cause Leo is usually so collected and has everything under control. Things must be Very Bad Indeed if he's freaking out.....)

Transcript and light "spoiler" about the context of Leo's f-bomb under the cut.

[ID: Black serif text on a light background that reads as follows: He sat down heavily on one of the logs that surrounded the firepit, burying his face in his hands. "What the fuck am I supposed to do now?" The soldier blinked in surprise. "Sir?" /end ID]

A friend said "passing it like class notes" about the f-bomb, and my response was "well, tbf, Kris is fucking unconscious right now, so he can't exactly say it."

#morrigan.txt #fun stuff #random writing #random dialogue #I love this little bit #I'm not sold on the rest of the scene but this little bit with Leo and this random soldier makes me happy #poor Leo #he did not sign up for this lmao #(I say 'poor Leo' as if Kris isn't having a 100x worse time atm)#I love Leo tbh #he's just a side character who's in like 3 or 4 scenes max (not including this)#but I love him anyways #I hc that he has a hopeless crush on Tessa (the Palace healer)#He's also Captain Blackthorne's best guard and Blackthorne lowkey/highkey wants to nominate him as the next Captain #atqh: extras #atqh: Leo

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jazzyblusnowflake · 1 month

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OKAY SO

since yall wanted me to talk more about this Demon!Uzi and Hunter/Exorcist!N,V,J au I'm just gonna write down my ideas here just to get them out of my head-

thanks to @purrple-bat for helping with some of the ideas :D

some details may be nsfw cuz i mentioned it previously so that's your content warning🔞

also there may be plot holes and its not fully complete or whatever im just trying to get this out of my head 😭 main ship is NUziV // ViolentBitingBiscuits

the Au is an urban setting- not a forest and fantasy dnd kinda thing-

Tessa is the leader of several groups of teams that are demon hunters and exorcists.

J, V and N are in the same team and those are their codenames.

Uzi is a halfie, with Khan as the human parent and Nori as the demon parent. they are referred to as "Changelings" too.

Uzi cannot be exorcised from her demon side or she will become a mindless unresponsive zombie. methods have still not been found on how to exorcise these demons and disabling their powers without killing them, mostly due to the lack of anyone caring.

Demons feed on different things related to humans, mostly their emotions, with a heavy preference on fear, pain, anguish and etc

some more bolder demons will kill or drink blood of humans but even in the demons society that's a taboo and if any leads are traced back to you being a demon, you will be eliminated by your own kind before the humans can get to you.

Uzi was caught by accident, fully blended in as a human.

She's cheeky and likes making humans miserable and playing around with them, but she's not really one of the threatening ones, she doesn't want to or care about hurting them.

Doll is a full demon and is kinda like a sister figure to Uzi, always advising her to get away from humans and she might end up getting hurt or some shit.

Nori has multiple lovers, she feeds off the love and lust but she considers it a just a treat, she's actually one of the most powerful demons around and absolutely loves feeding off of nightmares, trauma, horror and dread. she does have a soft spot for khan tho as her only human lover. khan is generally just dumb for loving a demon as his wife. smh

Nori is a high ranked demon meaning she could share her energy with other demons if any of them would want to pass as normal humans and just live in society. also could send out demons to capture or punish one of their own for breaking rules.

Uzi starts out weak but upon capture, bluffs a lot about how powerful she is and that she likes to play around with them.

They keep Uzi to get information out of her about other demons.

On attempts at getting away she does end up getting closer to N.

Uzi likes feeding on misery and angst but the genuineness of Ns affections made her thirsty for more.

She ends up also getting closer to V from bantering and sometimes talking about stuff and etc and sometimes sparring and fights when she attempts to escape. N saves V at one point before Uzi did some real damage. V grew to actually respect her more after that.

Uzi was let go after a while since they checked and she wasn't really at a power level to threat anyone [much to Uzi's resentment that she could be powerful if she wanted to >:( ]

Hunters and exorcists have magical seals hacked into their bodies for protection. their arms have these symbols that can be used as weapons that appear in translucent shapes like claws and shields and swords. 5 pair of vertical eyes appear above their heads and a glowing X marks their face when they are using their powers- marking that the demon cannot get into their heads. their eyes glow gold once using their powers despite the original color of their eyes.

the same kind of powers and seals appear on demons but they don't hack it into their bodies, they gain it with ranks. demons have human forms and demon forms, changelings are just weaker from the beginning. unless they are possessed...

V and N start giving Uzi "treats" whenever she helps them out in catching more dangerous demons. this ranges from kisses, bites, their blood toooooo more intimate stuff :3 at first this starts out as an idea to get her to talk but after a while V couldn't help but to feel affection towards this pint sized little gremlin.

Uzi gets overwhelmed when she is showered with affection by being in the middle of V and N, she is touch and affection starved and she gets easily addicted to it, wanting to claim the two as her own.

V and N putting seals on Uzi that makes her enjoy their touches and intimacy more but edging her and keeping her from releasing until she gives them the info they need. Uzi probably would tell them the info anyway- she just likes to see how far she could handle the two before she breaks into a begging, pleading mess.

Uzi purrs and does everything in her power to keep anyone from finding out...

Drinking demon blood makes Hunters gain more power, and drinking human blood makes demons feel pleasure and ecstasy as well as gaining more power, especially if the human is a hunter/magic user.

Uzis wings are sensitive and she likes to clean them with a wet cloth. N and V like to help her with this. and her tail mouth too lol.

The demons have a hellish demon sect that even they all fear... i think you can guess who the head of it is...

Aaaaand i think thats all for now idk. bye- //exploads

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secretsofblackthornhall · 2 years

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Kit to Jace

Jace—

I don’t know why I’m writing, I don’t know why I’m writing to you, I’m just sitting here trying to stay calm but all these thoughts are in my head repeating over and over and I need to put them down and send them somewhere. You said you would always be there if I needed to talk so hi, yes, hello, I need to talk. I can’t go to Jem and Tessa, they’re just as traumatized as I am, maybe more. And Emma and Julian were there and they were having such a good time, enjoying their house that was finally safe and pleasant and comfortable and then suddenly a baby is kidnapped right out of that safe and pleasant house without anybody noticing anything.

The truth is—I haven’t wanted to admit it, but the truth is Mina’s always been in danger. Because of me. Because I have some long-past faerie ancestors, so everyone close to me is in danger. Nothing I can do about it, nothing I did to deserve it. And it means Jem and Tessa, because they adopted me, because they love me, got their daughter kidnapped for their troubles.

By the way, since you are someone I care about, you’re a member of the group of people I’ve put in danger. Sorry about that. But you’re Jace Herondale! You eat danger for breakfast. You eat danger flakes topped with perilberries. You’ll be fine. But Mina…she’s so little. And she’s never been away from her family before.

I keep telling myself they won’t hurt her. It’s not her they want. It’s something else.

Every indication is that she was grabbed by faeries. Most of Round Tom’s workers have left and we don’t know if one of them maybe did it, or helped whoever did it. Round Tom himself says he doesn’t know anything and is as confused as everyone else—never concerns himself with politics. Everyone is suspicious of him anyway, but, well, he can’t lie, and the sentence, “I had no knowledge of anything to do with your daughter’s kidnapping,” is hard to interpret any other way.

But it may not matter. If Mina was kidnapped by faeries…especially faeries under direct orders by one of the Courts…that’s a violation of the Accords. And that means war with Faerie. Another war with Faerie.

How do you live like this, man? How do you get through the day knowing that you endanger everyone, just by existing?

I guess I can answer that myself. You are who you are because of everything you’ve been through. You handle stuff because you’ve had to handle stuff. Jem and Tessa adopted me thinking they could keep me safe, but maybe nothing can keep me safe. I’ve been drifting along, playing happy families, but the truth is I have to change. Be harder. Stronger. More powerful. Be someone the bad guys should be afraid of. Not a kid who has to be protected. That has to end.

I’m not a kid anymore.

Anyway. I just realized that you know the whole situation already, because I’m sure Alec has filled you in. But it helps to write it down myself, like I said. I don’t think there’s anything you can do, and I’m not asking for help. I just thought of all people, you’d get it. That you could be someone for me to talk to about this. Hope it’s okay for you to be that for me.

Kit

#secretsofblackthornhall #sobh #kit herondale #jace herondale #mina carstairs #faerie

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abalidoth · 1 year

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With all the attention on the film of Goncharov recently, I wanted to talk about a particular rabbit hole of mine from a few years ago: the obscure, little-known licensed Goncharov game for the Atari 2600.

Released in August of 1979 and developed by Sinneslöschen (a small German company that would later become better known for other titles), Goncharov (1979) is a fascinating case study in adaptation.

Many early video game adaptations of this era have little to nothing to do with their source material. On the surface, Goncharov is the same: a simplistic beat-em-up where our hero, armed with a tommy gun (apparently only able to use it in melee range) kills a series of waves of faceless, suited mooks. Nothing to do with the morally complex, thoughtful film.

However, there was clearly a film lover among the programmers at Sinneslöschen.

The first thing is the focus on the film's consistent clock motif. Every level has both a prominent red clock in the background art, as well as a time indicator in the corner, indicating the progress of one particularly violent night in the lives of these characters. The clock's prominence is eerie and out of place, drawing attention to itself as a strangely off-scale element of the skyline. It gives a true sense of the inexorable closing of the night that gives the film its poignancy -- clumsy, but necessarily so.

The second interesting aspect is the choice of protagonists. Plural.

Levels alternate between Goncharov and Katya. Mechanically they are identical, but the scenes they progress through roughly match the plot and progression of the film. (The screengrab above is, of course, from the boat scene.)

Also of note is what Goncharov (1979) has to say about the ending of Goncharov (1973). Specifically, with regards to Katya's fate. Katya's ultimate ending is vague in the film, subject to a large degree of speculation on the part of watchers. In the game, though, despite her increasingly bloodied white dress, she emerges unquestionably triumphant even as her husband lies defeated. (That she rides off into the sunset with Sofia isn't explicitly shown, but you'd better believe that's my personal read.)

I'm not really sure what Sinneslöschen were trying to say with this. Certainly this overtly girlbossish message has been blamed for the game's dismal commercial failure and general obscurity; but it's difficult to see what the purpose of that adaptational decision was. (Other than just throwing more fuel on the already raging fire that is the speculation about the end of Goncharov 73.)

#goncharov #goncharov 1973 #unreality #tessa writes stuff #tessa makes stuff #i am. inordinately proud of this.

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cassandraclare · 4 months

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I still have some questions about Belial:

1) How did Belial make Tessa with his curse?

2) Was Belial's debt to Jem originally planned as something other than passing on a message?

3) Why would Belial give powers to James and esp Lucie when they could use them against him (and in the latter's case, he didn't care about her)? I just still can't understand why they would be taken away with his death or why he'd intentionally bother with that.

Thank you in advance!

Okay! I would say strap in for some boring technical the-nature-of-fantasy-writing stuff.

How did Belial make Tessa with his curse?

We already know Belial can, in fact, walk on the earth if he possesses someone. In the case of possessing an ordinary human, the body falls apart quickly. If he possesses a demon it lasts longer, and he could wander about for a while as a demon if he liked, he's just not interested. He's obsessed with the idea of being on the earth in a human body: i.e. James. Anyway, he possessed the Eidolon demon that took the form of Richard Gray, Tessa's father.

2) Was Belial's debt to Jem originally planned as something other than passing on a message?

It took me a while to try to understand this question, and I'm still not totally sure I do. I thought it was a question about what the favor was, but I think it's "Did you ever plan for Belial to owe Jem for some other reason?" To which the answer is no. It was always planned to hinge on the deal that is made re: the Herondales. While Jem frames it as "passing on a message" that is in fact, not what the favor was.

These seem like two different questions, so for the first one: Belial didn't give powers to James and Lucie in the way you seem to be framing it. He gave a specific power to Grace, which is why Grace, you know, remembers that happening. James and Lucie just have powers because they are related to Belial. Same reason Tessa has her power. Belial had no idea what the specifics of all his mortal descendants would be—how could he? Shadowhunter/demon hybrids had never existed before. He may have thought they might have powers of some sort, but he did not handcraft them and send them to James and Lucie for Demon Christmas. :-)

As for why, I guess, Belial didn't kill them in the womb or something (assuming he could have done that) — this seems to be the question, "Why would Belial ever make a mistake or take a risk?" And the answer is, "Why wouldn't that happen?" Being a demon doesn't insulate Belial from having flaws or being in error (some might say that's the essential nature of demons.) It's a bit like asking why Satan made war on God in Paradise Lost when he was certain to lose because you know, God. Milton kind of wrote his entire epic poem to answer that question. And (Cliff Notes): the answer was pride. Pride blinded Lucifer, and if Lucifer can be blinded by pride, then Belial can also be blinded by his own flaws, specifically hubris and a misunderstanding of the nature of human beings. While Belial knew James and Lucie had powers, he never thought those powers posed a significant risk to him and he wrongly assumed he would always be more powerful than they were and easily able to turn their powers to his advantage. Jem explains Belial's error fairly plainly:

"There was also the great weakness of demons: they did not understand either love or faith. Belial had underestimated not just Cordelia, Lucie, and James, but also their friends, and what they would all do for each other."

As for why J&L's powers vanished with his death: I think there is a confusion here between two kinds of magic. Rules-based magic, and numinous magic. Rules-based magic being what it sounds like, and numinous magic being magic that has an almost mystical element that cannot be explained like a math problem but is rooted in the resonance of human experience, of myth and fairy tale. Rules-based magic needs to be explained to us in fiction. Numinous magic we understand because we're human and we know. (Jo Walton has a good essay on the two kinds of magic and the ways they work together and apart here.)

Neither is a better kind of magic in fiction than the other and most good fantasy contains both. An example: The Ring in Lord of the Rings. It has a numinous power: it exerts an evil influence, but that evil influence doesn't work in a specific, ordered way, and it works differently in different situations and on different people, often without an obvious reason why. But it makes sense, as long as you keep the essential nature of the Ring in mind. The Ring also has another power. If you put it on, you become invisible. The end. Works the same for everyone. The Ring has both numinous and rules-based powers.

If you are looking for a math-type answer to why James and Lucie's powers vanished with Belial's death, there is not one, as their powers were inherently numinous to begin with, and we already have both rules-based and numinous magic in the Shadowhunter world. In fact, we already have examples of magic coming apart when the magic-creator dies in the Shadowhunter world. When Sebastian dies, the Endarkened die with him. When Johnny Rook dies, his wards fail.

To go back to Lord of the Rings, when Sauron dies, his fortress of Barad-dûr collapses. This is not because it was architecturally unsound. It is because we understand things like Sauron's fortress to be the expression of someone's will in the world, and when they die, their will is broken.

The breaking or undoing of that will is concretized in fiction (just like all metaphor is) — so while James and Lucie couldn't have predicted that their powers would vanish with Belial's death as their situation (being a Prince of Hell’s Shadowhunter grandchildren) is literally unprecedented, it makes sense to them that their powers would go when he went. They don't seek a rules-based explanation since 1) they already live in a world where magic sometimes disappears or collapses when the magic-creator dies and 2) they don't need one. As James says, "Not because [the gun] no longer fires at my command, though that is true—but because it only ever worked for me because of Belial, and Belial is gone."

#the last hours #tsc #shadowhunters

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