#I think its more to do with the planets destiny

[thankskenpenders]

Amy's fortune cards

The Sonic fandom has long been the kind of fandom that takes minor details very seriously, for better or worse. On the one hand, this means fans will really dig for the diamonds in the rough, latching onto fun character interactions, animations, bits of background worldbuilding, and more in pieces of Sonic media that many would write off as "the bad ones." But it also feels like every week another needlessly hostile debate over Sonic minutia erupts on Twitter, whether it's over individual lines of dialogue, fanart that makes Tails' shoes blue, or the ideal length and volume for Sonic's quills.

So it was probably inevitable that a fandom-wide debate would erupt upon seeing Amy's new gameplay style in the DLC for Sonic Frontiers, which takes the once-obscure fact that she enjoys reading tarot and shines a spotlight on it like never before.

I mean:

The thing is, while I basically always try to tune out Sonic fandom bickering... for once, I kind of sympathize with the detractors? Don't get me wrong, I like Amy's tarot stuff, and people on all sides of the discussion are being overly nasty about their opinions, as usual. (Sonic Twitter remains my personal hell.) But when I set aside the hyperbole and zoom out, I do think I understand why some fans are put off by the sudden shift in focus for the character, even if I think it's cool.

It's complicated. Let me attempt to present the cases for and against Amy's fortune cards

For years, I was always one of those fans who thought it could be fun if they played with Amy's tarot reading, or even leaned into some kind of magic with her. Part of that is my own biases showing, but there's just something that makes sense there, especially when you look at Sonic, Tails, and Amy as a trio. (I would argue that's the real "Team Sonic" these days, especially in the comics where Knuckles is more likely to be stuck on Angel Island or otherwise doing his own thing.)

You could argue that Tails is all about logic, relying on science and technology and deductive reasoning to solve problems. But Amy is all about emotion. She wears her heart on her sleeve, is extremely empathetic, and is very prone to magical thinking - both figuratively and sometimes literally. Her origin story has always been that her tarot cards told her it was her destiny to meet Sonic on Little Planet. She's claimed to be able to "sense" peoples' presences - particularly Sonic's. She's the type to believe that The Power of Love is a literal magical force. So, on some level, it makes sense to mirror Tails's science by having Sonic's other best friend believe in magic. And then Sonic is somewhere in the middle, primarily following his own gut instincts but taking advice from both of them as needed. This isn't totally accurate to how their dynamics actually function in canon stories, but I think it's a mode that could work for them.

Going off of that, it's fun to lean all the way into Amy being a magical girl, or even a witch, using her fortune telling as a foundation. Take, for example, this version of Amy from Diana Skelly's old Sonic cast redesigns from before she freelanced for Archie and IDW. This is one of MANY such redesigns for Amy.

Fast forward to the 2020s, and Amy's tarot cards are, in fact, finally getting brought up again in canon. Which is fun! I like seeing that. I like all of the individual stories involving Amy's fortune cards. This is a fun character trait for Amy, a fun nod to old lore, AND a fun storytelling device, all in one. It's really cool that the Sonic universe has its own thematically appropriate arcana, and that the cards are getting made as physical merch. And sure enough, the official card backs and borders were designed by none other than Diana Skelly, in yet another cool example of an ascendant fan leaving their mark on the series.

BUT... when you step back and look at the big picture, I get why some fans find this shift in focus jarring. At the moment, it's starting to feel like every new story about Amy involves her fortune cards to some degree.

The most recent mainline comic arc to feature Amy as the lead character, 2021's Trial by Fire arc, prominently features a sequence where she reads fortunes while camping with the girls. The Origins version of Sonic CD now bookends the game with scenes of Amy and her tarot cards. Sonic randomly mentioned it in a scene in Frontiers. And now, just this week, we got the (very cute, gorgeously illustrated) Amy's 30th Anniversary comic with a story revolving around Amy's tarot cards, followed the very next day by the Frontiers DLC in which she gets a brand new tarot-based moveset. Even her base melee attack now has her throwing tarot cards instead of swinging her hammer. Again, I like all of these individual things, but after years of it almost never coming up at all, it's VERY noticeable that Amy's tarot cards are suddenly everywhere.

To be fair, I'm looking at this from the perspective of a superfan who's actively following ALL Sonic media. Casual fans - especially kids - aren't necessarily going to be reading the comics every month, buying the thousandth rerelease of the Genesis games, or playing the ultra-hard new alternate ending DLC for a game that came out last year. Each of these stories is going to be someone's introduction to the idea that Amy can read tarot, and that's probably part of the idea behind this unified push.

But to play devil's advocate, for my fellow superfans, I understand why it feels like a very minor footnote of Amy's character is suddenly becoming the entire focus of her personality. While Amy has always been said to enjoy fortune telling, that wasn't really a character trait in and of itself, but rather an example of her being a typical girl who hopes she'll be able to find true love one day. It's less that Amy can literally predict the future and more like her using a cootie catcher or going "he loves me, he loves me not" while picking the petals off of a flower. So I get not vibing with this stuff, or feeling like it's being pushed very hard out of nowhere.

What I don't agree with are comparisons like "it's like if they made Knuckles' moveset revolve around him liking grapes." Like, I get it. Ian Flynn loves shoehorning in his little winking references for us nerds, and mentions of Amy's tarot cards were previously on the same level as other random bullet points from old Japanese manuals. But a multifaceted hobby like fortune telling that opens up so many narrative and aesthetic possibilities is obviously very different from having a favorite food. It's ALWAYS been a part of her story, not just a random fact, and there's no reason why the fortune telling can't be elevated to something more.

And, hell, even if it wasn't an established character trait, there's nothing inherently wrong with injecting new ideas into a character. One of the best Amy stories in recent years, the Free Comic Book Day special "Amy's New Hobby" written by Gale Galligan, came up with the idea that Amy's secretly been drawing little comics about her and her friends. Is this based on Lore? No. But it's cute, and helps tell the story of a younger Amy who's still coming out of her shell as both a hero and a friend.

Certain fans are also looking at Amy's Frontiers moveset and using it as evidence that once again the Vile American Contributors like Ian are CORRUPTING Sonic Team's perfect vision of Sonic with their misinterpretations. And like. Come on. Ian does not control the gameplay. He's a freelance writer. The tarot stuff is clearly something that Sonic Team likes if they made it the basis of Amy's new moveset - and, you know, if they keep approving comics and animations about Amy's fortune telling. None of this gets made without their blessing, and lord knows how much they can micromanage shit and shoot down ideas over the most minor of details.

Like, yeah, Amy's fortune telling was probably conceived less as a sign that she Knows Magic and more as a pretty mundane hobby for a lovesick young Japanese girl to have. But you're gonna sit there and tell me that using Amy's tarot cards for more than that could only be the result of a cultural misunderstanding? That nobody in Japan uses tarot card theming and aesthetics (or the general idea of magical cards) for the cool factor? Stardust Crusaders? Persona? The Astrologian class in FFXIV? Cardcaptor Sakura?? Hello??? Do you think Capcom put Gambit in Marvel vs. Capcom ironically because they thought using magic to throw cards at people was stupid? There's tons of precedent for this! It's nothing like Knuckles throwing grapes at people, be for real.

Giving Amy a very magical girl-esque moveset also just makes a lot of sense. For decades her hammer attacks have literally made sparkly heart shapes appear around her. Leaning into both that and her tarot cards in her new moveset makes a lot of sense to me.

But, admittedly... I do think it's very odd that her hammer is treated as a secondary element here, rather than having her primarily use her hammer and adding the cards for extra flair. If hitting the attack button made her swing her hammer instead of throwing cards, I'm not sure we'd even be having this discussion right now.

But the tarot-cycle and Amy riding her hammer like a witch's broom are fucking SICK and I will not concede on this point

The thing is, this whole fortune card discourse is but a small piece of a bigger problem. Amy's been a character who needed some work for ages, but there's basically nothing you can do with her without pissing SOMEONE off.

Years of stories where Amy's crush was her primary motivator and Sonic went "Ew, cooties!" have lead many casual fans to believe that being Sonic's obsessive fangirl is Amy's entire personality. At best people might call her Sonic's Minnie Mouse. This isn't just a matter of Amy having haters within the fandom - venture outside of that bubble and you'll realize that this is how MOST video game playing people seem to see her to this day. I don't feel like this is a fair assessment of the character, but this idea didn't come from nowhere. No matter how much good deeply entrenched Sonic fans may see in their old dynamic where Amy perpetually chases Sonic, this is a very real problem that Sonic Team has to contend with for their leading girl. Of course all those games where the way-past-cool protagonist thought Amy was annoyingly clingy and tried to get away from her made people think less of her.

If new stories were to go back to emphasizing Amy's crush on Sonic a little more, they'd probably be taken as confirmation that Amy's just the girl with a crush on Sonic and that this is her entire personality. Conversely, when the crush is played down, you piss off the hardcore SonAmy fans who don't seem to understand that they're Charlie Brown and Sega is Lucy holding the football. You can't win.

And so here we are. In the absence of what was once her defining trait, now reduced to an occasional blush or wink in Sonic's direction, new stories are trying to mine Amy's past for additional material to work with. Having been a thing fans wanted to see for years, right now we're getting a lot of tarot, but we're also getting reminders of her compassionate nature and her desire to go out of her way to help the little guy. This is an ongoing process. I continue to hope that her bubbly, exuberant demeanor can shine more in future stories. Now, I also hope that the tarot stuff gets balanced out a little better with other traits of hers. But I don't want it to go away. I think it's fun.

This course correcting is far from exclusive to Amy. Knuckles is getting stories that remind us that he's a competent fighter, an experienced treasure hunter, and even a self-taught archaeologist after years of him being perceived as either the dumb one or just the guy who stands in front of the Master Emerald all day. And Tails has been getting some stories reminding folks that he's a capable hero in his own right and not just Sonic's timid kid sidekick.

But no supporting character will ever compete with the sheer number of new ideas Sega has tried with Sonic himself. Like Amy, his Frontiers moveset has also given him half a dozen new superpowers that he never had before, from the Cyloop to air-slicing projectile attacks to his own take on Shadow Clone Jutsu and beyond. He's also been a hoverboarder, a swordsman, a time traveler, an Olympic athlete, a racecar driver, cursed with a Flame of Judgment, imbued with alien power, a fucking Werehog with stretchy powers, and on and on and on.

If Sonic can do all that, Amy can try out using a tarot-cycle.

Anyway TL;DR the REAL problem with Amy's current characterization... is where the FUCK is Amy's bestie, Honey the Cat???????

#tkp post

[plutonianeris]

‧₊˚ pick a pile‧₊˚✩embracing your alter ego⛓𓌹*♰*𓌺⛓

this is a general reading & for entertainment purposes only, take what resonates and leave what doesn't. scroll through the images & choose based on your inner guidance and gut feeling. 🖤

PILE ONE 彡

🕯️energy you need to embody/ reflect on: aries, leadership, willpower, ANGER, turning points, epiphanies, destiny, fate, pallas, creativity, wisdom, venus, pleasure, love, art, money, 4th house, foundations, traditions, home, family, roots. 🔐 **note: i got a lot of libra/aries energy from this reading. if you know your birth chart maybe look at the houses that are in aries and libra. or if you have any aries/ libra placements do some more research on them 👀

your alter ego is someone that refuses to go down a dead end. if they get the slightest hint that someone isnt respecting their boundaries or treating them/ providing them with less than what they deserve they LEAVE. in order to embrace your alter ego you have to accept that you are in a state of metamorphosis 🦋 and push through to that next stage. rip that bandaid off and stop sitting there “crying over spilled milk” & your alter ego isnt having none of that. theyre the type to not let anyone seem them cry or sad (espeically the people that hurt them) and theyll if anything, dress up and fix their hair and strut like nothing happened. “I will always win in the end”

the person you are now isnt the same as who you were a couple months or even a year ago. you could have been a BIG people pleaser or scared of disappointing the people you love. the difference is now you are more sure of what you want and now your boundaries have become less shaky.

once you realize how fucking good it feels to love yourself your alter ego will bloom and you will take more risks and do all those things u were to afraid to do before. your alter ego reminds me of beyonces “sasha fierce” alter ego lol bc you will snap into it soon and it will help u get over that “stage fright”

i just heard“if you needed more time why didnt you make it?” your alter ego is someone who is bold, a risk taker, the first person to ask that question (and then break that rule), to wear the strange outfit. the first one to lean in for the kiss. your alter ego is an innovator, creative to no end (don’t worry if you aren’t inspired right now, you are the inspiration thats why you cant find it). its you. you are the muse, the canvas and the artist. your alter ego has harmonious relationships because they are very attractive, balanced, fair, fiery.

𓆩♱🤍₊˙ TIP JAR 🧸 ♡♱𓆪

PILE TWO 彡

🕯️energy you need to embody/ reflect on: compassion, dreams, confrontotation, disharmony, pleasure, love, trauma, wounds, health, routine, pets. note: i got a lot of pisces, scorpio/ pluto/ 10th house, and virgo energy from this reading. if you know your birth chart maybe look at the houses that are in these signs. or if you have any planets in these signs do some more research on them 👀

in order to embrace your alter ego you need to stop victimizing yourself, similar to pile one there is need to use past trauams as an excuse for staying the same in unhelful behaviors and self sabotaging habbits. you’re letting life happen to you and shrugging your shoulders saying “it what it is” or “I cant change the past” get UP! when you walk, walk with your head held up high. I heard “don’t let people step on you not even once or they’ll keep their foot there pressing against your neck, suffocating..” don’t be afraid to show teeth, whether its a smile or a snarl.

people have wronged you deeply, maybe in irreperable ways. thats okay if youre not the same person. i promise they didnt take anything from you. you are whole and complete on your own. what people are DEEPLY scared of is you realizing your power. I heard “what? did you think I was going to stay small and insecure forever?” people in your close relationships want you to be down bad when they are (misery loves company). in order to embrace your alter ego you need to take the wheel and take control.

your alter ego embodies boss ass energy. your alter ego is mysterious, intuitive, passionate, magnetic energy. the ultimate femme fatale. your alter ego doesn’t let any sly or snarky comment slide, doesn’t allow fake ass people in their circle (theres a vetting process to getting close to them), is deeply loyal and ambitious. your alter ego enters peoples lives and leaves them in awe and jealous and in love and also turned on lol. This is POWERFUL (and slighlty dangerous) energy but if you know how to balance well your alter ego can easily climb the ranks in whatever endeavor its interested in. your alter ego loves to be in control. they’re the ones who dress in all black or sexy clothing. they love to work out as well. they secretly love the pain and soreness later. 🔥

𓆩♱🤍₊˙ TIP JAR 🧸 ♡♱𓆪

PILE THREE 彡

🕯️energy you need to embody/ reflect on: conflict, tension, your calling, discomfort, challenge, destiny, appearance, physical body, character, first house, ninth house, long distance travel, morals, teachers, beliefs. note: i got a lot of pisces, sagittarius/ jupiter, gemini/ mercury energy from this reading. if you know your birth chart maybe look at the houses that are in these signs. or if you have any planets in these signs do some more research on them 👀

in order to embrace your alter ego you need to really work on your forms of communication (this pile gives off blocked throat chakra energy or some kind of harsh influence in your surrounding area that makes you feel like you to watch how you speak to the point where you dont speak up at all). you could have saturn in third house, squares/ oppositions to your mercury, or Capricorn or aquarius in your third house. the point is though, it has felt like when youre in groups theres so much conflict that youve spent so much time alone, that you believe you have to stay alone forever now.

youll find the people that will become like family to you but they will be of other backgrounds, religions, status, ethnicities or even in different states (possiblly entirely different countries). it makes sense considering your alter ego is philosophical, adventurous, flirty, fiesty, and very very very beautiful with a big smile and nice hips. a sight to behold to the eyes of the public. i heard “they talk shit about me to make themselves feel better” your alter ego is a heart breaker, people fall fast for there intoxicating personality and their big dreams. but in the blink of an eye theyre off to the next person or dream or adventure. i heard “ill mourn my losses on the way but im not gonna stop”

hey if you been thinking about booking that flight then maybe do it. or if you’re thinking about or make that vision board or buying those books on that occult topic you’ve bern interested in. your alter ego is determined, they wanna see the world and drink up all its beauty, delicacies, sights, rainbows, books, temples, slow and then fast kisses in the middle of sweaty and neon night clubs. they wanna feel it all. i just heard “im going to free my mind. just wanna remember all the good things” 💗

𓆩♱🤍₊˙ TIP JAR 🧸 ♡♱𓆪

PILE FOUR 彡

🕯️energy you need to embody/ reflect on: responsibilities, routines, self-worth, savings, sticking to your budget, investing, new moon energy (making wishes), shadow side, marriage, secret enemies, love, health, false notions of purity. note: i got a lot of pisces, libra/venus/ 7th house, virgo/ 6th house energy from this reading. if you know your birth chart maybe look at the houses that are in these signs. or if you have any planets in these signs do some more research on them 👀

pile four, I see you giving and giving and giving to others. whether it’s letting people borrow money or listening to them endlessly vent or being there for people that necessarily aren’t always there for you. I see you putting other people first and not necessarily the people please in the way pile one does. Because pile one does it but secretly doesn’t wanna do it. But you do it and think you have to do it and feel like it’s your responsibility to make sure that other people are okay. i just heard “im your hero, you see me as your angel” is there someone deeply depending on you right now? im sorry but they’re not your child. nurture yourself and your inner world. give yourself more credit now..

oopp, the song i was playing just said “i could use a vacation but i gotta take care of my family,… im so damn tired from working overtime” PLEASE😭 this pile is so sweet/ wholesoom🥺🥺🥺🥺 its really calling on you to be selfish. and unapologetically so. you don’t have to share everything. your feelings, your hobbies, your resources or time or money. your alter ego slams the door shut IN THE FACE OF ENERGY VAMPIRES.

your alter ego reminds me of a mermaid or something. just very MYSTICAL and elegant energy. your alter ego is well loved and seen as very wise but they stand tall like a queen/ king. people want to worship your alter ego. i heard “you have beautiful eyes” a lot of people cherish their advice and could do well in doing spiritual readings as well. your alter ego is kind but not nice. they see right through superficial bullshit. They dont care if they have to force you to behave, you will not take from them without asking. I just heard “I respect your opinion, but please don’t force it on me. accept we see things differently.”

𓆩♱🤍₊˙ TIP JAR 🧸 ♡♱𓆪

© plutonianeris 🕷

#pac #pick a deck #pick a photo #pick a picture #pick a pile #astro tarot #astrology #intuitive reading #pick a pile reading #pick an image reading #astro tarot reading #plutonianeris #healing tarot #self help tarot #alter ego tarot #pac tarot #pick a card reading #zodiac #pick a card #pick an image #tarot spread #tarot pac

[starrailstories]

Hey! Could you write something about Blade having a keeper of time/ timekeeper s/o? ♥

first ask!!! let's hecking goooooooo

i wanted to write headcanons but then one thing led to another and it's a short story that i hope you enjoy

Blade x gn!Timekeeper!S/O — Seen in the shards

warnings: mentions of blade's depression and suicidal thoughts (canon-compliant), possibly ooc but i really really hope i wrote him well

Blade is destruction incarnate, the mara and rage and grief taking over him sporadically, like bile rising to the throat. He is an effective tool of the Hunters (ironic, isn't it? an abomination like him hardly can Hunt), and many would think that this is all he is, a bounty and a sin and a loosely held leash.

You know him differently, though. You know him in the moments of repose in-between the storm that he brings along, and in those moments, he feels like a large shard of time away from where he'd fit. It's always shards with him, glimpses of past mistakes, and battles, and memories, but mostly sorrow. You think of the ways time cracks as you struggle to keep it whole, revealing the uncomfortable truths you dare not mention to the IPC or the Intelligentsia Guild. It's kind of similar, like if you try just enough, you'll see the complete picture once again.

And he doesn't get you at first, because collecting broken shards and piecing them back is not what Blade does. Blade is all about burning bridges, throwing himself into battle headfirst, Blade does - not - get it when you show concern or worry, when you offer to share a meal, when you tend to a wound of his, when you try and protect him in battle, because he isn't supposed to be together, only apart, shatter and shatter and shatter in hopes that one day, he'll just lie there broken and dead and gone.

You care and that hurts, for some reason, hurts in a way that doesn't sate his urge to be hurt.

✦✧✦✧✦✧✦✧✦✧✦✧

"I almost pity you, Bladie. But envy you all the same," Kafka drops one day as they're sat in a boujee cafe on a planet that will experience a Stellaron catastrophe in about three system hours. She raises her cup of tea to her lips almost immediately, but he catches a hint of a smile.

"Pity, I understand, but I do not welcome it. However, what of the envy?"

Kafka set down her cup gently, in a manner that she would always do, and her smile faded.

"Soon, you would know the meaning of fear. You knew it once, but in a different lifetime. Now, you will know it again, and it will hurt in different ways. It's fascinating."

She spoke with a certainty, as if reciting a script. Possibly that was the case, and that was more sad than anything. Given a power to make anyone listen, but stuck saying words someone else wrote.

"So it will happen?"

"As much as anything said by Destiny's Slave will. There's a seed for fear in that, too. You will resent your wish and your fate, but it still will happen, even if you don't want it to happen anymore."

Right. Blade looks away, because he doesn't usually decipher the grand scheme of things. He was promised a death and a settling of the score, and he is content with that, content in the way a sword is content to rest in its sheath. Kafka reaches across the table to touch his forehead as if to impart a wisdom.

She'd point a gun to his head and he'd be just as apathetic.

"Listen. I am telling you this for your sake, after all."

There's no command behind the word, and Blade regrets this, because thinking he dislikes most of all.

✦✧✦✧✦✧✦✧✦✧✦✧

Fear is a foreign concept, but the more you reach out to him with your care, the more he starts to grasp it. He knows of your strength, he knows of your capabilities, he sees you constantly fixing time itself, reaching into the molten metal with hands exposed and heart bare, to stitch all together before the past pours into the present and the future into the past and a sea of fake stars replaces the cosmos you traverse (you told him once of a world inside an egg one time, where the sky is fake and the up is down and why does he remember these trivial things again).

But he also knows of his own strength, and how all that he touches goes awry, and that is scary — to see you reach out when he knows full well how your care might destroy you, how he might destroy you.

"You shouldn't be picking up the shards. They'd cut you," he says one time after another crack is restored and the anomaly of the Fragmentum shifts into a stable state. His sword drags on the ground, leaving a distinctly red trace. You know he isn't speaking about the timeline.

"Those are big words coming from someone carrying a sword made of shards," you smile like you always do and it hurts. Because it hurts to be cared for and treated like a person and where were you those centuries ago when dying still felt memorable and there was something besides the anger?

He wishes he fell into a timeline anomaly back then because that would mean even for a moment, being caught by you, and that is a scary thought.

"Blade?" he's zoning out. Bad. He is supposed to keep himself in check, because most people are capable of dying and he is a remarkably well-working death machine.

"I will say this more clearly: if you keep reaching out to me, you will die."

✦✧✦✧✦✧✦✧✦✧✦✧

You don't stop because... actually why. Blade still doesn't get it. Blade doesn't speak up anymore, a sword in its sheath, but he thinks sometimes. Thinking is still a horrible pastime activity. But he does wonder about what it would have felt like to have met you earlier, when there was some feeling left in him.

He wonders if you bandaging a wound of his would make him feel safe. He wonders if the snacks you buy on the planets you visit would make him feel sated. He wonders if after a long day, sleeping next to each other would make him feel truly content.

Dangerous thoughts, yet strangely warm, like candlelight.

You plop on the bed of a dingy hotel room you two are staying at. Blade cares little about the quality of the establishment, but he does care about security, and keeping on the down low is of the essence. He stores his sword next to his side of the bed, to draw if a fight occurs.

He doesn't sleep anyway, simply lies in a dreamless haze, so nothing would catch him off-guard.

"Room's tiny. Bed's hard as a rock, too," you make small talk, untying the laces of your boots.

"Mhm," Blade hums. He thinks that there were free rooms in the hotel. With two beds in each, no less. He doesn't bring this up because it's safer to stay close together and that's the only reason.

"And it's cold."

"Mhm," he hums again. He doesn't feel much in terms of warmth or coldness.

You lie back on the bed, staring at the ceiling as he checks for emergency exit pathways and makes notes of useful items.

"Sometimes I wish there were no anomalies or Stellarons out there. Then we wouldn't have large bounties on our heads and we'd be able to afford all the good hotels."

"We wouldn't have met then. And this room is sufficient."

Blade says sufficient, but for the last while, he found sufficient lacking. He wanted good things, despite being undeserving, and it hurt, too, because he knew all too well what happened to the good things in his life.

He lies down next to you, six inches, seven hundred years and a universe apart.

"Would we? I'd still have found you, I feel like."

It feels weird to hear this. He remembers how you once got hurt because you tried to block a hit meant for him. It was a long time ago, before that could hurt. It wasn't anything serious, but now, guilt eats at him each time he notices the faint scar on your shoulder. He drifts his gaze left, and there it is, a reminder.

And he also sees that you're cold.

What comes next is a whim and Blade never acts on whims. But he turns on the bed and drags you into an embrace.

"You wouldn't have liked what you've found."

Because then he'd be a mara-struck abomination, immortal mess of ginkgo leaves and dripping bile and the same names roared so much that no one would hear what he says. He still is like that, just somewhat grounded.

"You always decide for me. But isn't it up to me to weigh my choices, Blade?"

No, he wants to say, it's not. He's been mortal and stupid before, and that was his mistake. For that, he must pay a price. He doesn't want you to be hurt that way because you, unlike him, don't deserve this.

But he says none of it, as you raise your hand and touch his cheek and it's warm and it hurts—

His voice breaks, in both anger and fear, "I don't want you fixing me. I know you want to pick up the shards and glue them together. But you will regret that wish."

He isn't Yingxing and he won't be Yingxing ever again. What was him died on the Xianzhou Luofu, and it died again and again and again until what was left couldn't recall the deaths any longer. Then, a mess of shards, an empty husk, he was Blade, and he couldn't ever go back.

You smile gently at him.

"I know. If you ever decide to piece the shards together, it should be your choice and not mine, and I have no deal interfering with that. But still, I want to see all of you, Blade. Broken or not."

It's scary because admitting that he wants you to see him too would mean accepting that it won't change a thing. The script is merciless and uncaring. Even if he allows himself to love you, he is already destined to die as part of the performance. It's scary because it changes everything. It's scary because it changes nothing.

He shifts on the bed, so that you're face to face.

"May I kiss you?"

You close the distance first, as you always do, and he, for the first time in seven hundred years, feels seen.

#blade x reader #blade x you #blade x y/n #honkai star rail #honkai x reader #blade hsr #blade honkai #hsr #yingxing

[itsjustjake13]

First: I adore the universe of Destiny, the game, and the story... So if you are looking for some Destiny vitriol, look elsewhere.

Second: Destiny 2 spoilers from this week's story beat ahead... tagging and putting a line here just as a heads up.

Third: Ranting time!

"Thus began the Witness's pursuit... its campaign to impose meaning on a meaningless universe."

I would love if some of the critics of Destiny 2, and most recently the harsh critics of the Lightfall campaign, would listen to that one line over and over and over again.

While many stories often have meaning and lessons behind them, did you ever stop to consider to just sit back and enjoy? The Witness's prior existence as an entire species was wiped out because it could not just sit back and enjoy what was right in front of it.

They sought to impose meaning where there was none and have destroyed so much in the process.

Civilizations, planets, people... and now so many Guardians and characters we hold dear.

This is what seems to be happening to the Destiny 2 community these days. It is so focused on what it purports to not have rather than focus on what it does: an incredible world built by some of the most talented game developers in the world.

Why hold this back? This should have been the last cutscene in Lightfall. Destiny 2 is in the worst shape its ever been.

How about looking at what's right in front of you? Just over a month ago, we were all thrilled at the addition of two new unique seasonal activities AND they added fishing AND they brought back a beloved NPC AND started unveiling the mystery of the veil by connecting us to a prior piece of lore about a creature on Titan. How fuckin' rad is all of that in ONE season?

Not just that but why not let them unfold the mystery they want to unfold as they unfold it? Why do they have to answer to what certain "lore daddys" consider to be poor storytelling?

If anyone who works on Destiny 2 sees this: I think your game is so awesome. I think the story you are telling is amazing. And I really appreciate everything you've placed before me.

People often look for meaning in the meaningless, look for what's not there instead of what is, and often miss the love, community, and awesome stuff that is happening right in front of their eyes.

Video games are entertainment. Let them entertain you.

More love. Less anger.

</rant>

#destiny 2 #spoilers #destiny 2 spoilers

[thewertsearch]

AC: :33 < sorry to bother you again! AC: :33 < is AC: :33 < um [...] AC: :33 < he available? [...] TT: What is the name of this mystery fellow you seek? AC: :33 < aaaaa youre just teasing me now! AC: :33 < i f33l bad about bugging you about it [...] AC: :33 < i miss pounce a lot :(( AC: :33 < and talking to him reminds me of her

Aw, Nepeta. :(

Still, there are ways to solve this. Maybe Rose could give her the code for Jaspersprite's pendant - or just give him his own computer, like Davesprite's iShades.

You won't need it anymore. It served you well. You suppose there are a lot of things you've outgrown, now that you think about it.

...his own computer, Rose! I said his own computer!

Rose is abandoning her primary communication device. Obviously she has others, but her attitude here is still making me nervous - especially considering how heavy-handed her phrasing is.

Who or what do you think you've outgrown, Rose?

JASPERSPRITE: Did you learn to play the rain rose? ROSE: Not yet, Jaspers. ROSE: It's a little complicated, but I believe I've embarked on another quest, one which surpasses the scope of the objectives local to this planet.

I'm on record as being fully on board with Rose's skepticism about her Quest - but she should be equally skeptical about her new quest. Both are sponsored by suspicious entities with unclear motives, and I'm not sold on either of them.

ROSE: I'm saying there's something more important to accomplish now. Something more important than creating a universe. JASPERSPRITE: Oh thats ok rose i wouldnt want you to feel obligated to do that.

That's a strange sentiment, coming from Jaspers. Sprites generally echo the game's expectations for its Players, so it's odd that a game centered around fate, destiny and temporal obligation would tell Rose that her ultimate goal is optional. After all, she was made to create a universe.

Maybe Jaspers just loves Rose so much that he's on board with her rebellion, even though he doesn't understand it.

JASPERSPRITE: I think that winning this game and getting the prize is up to you and your friends. JASPERSPRITE: You get to decide whether or not you feel its right to do that and what kind of prize you want to make!

Is Jaspers implying that Sburb's prize doesn't have to be a universe? That winning the game can mean something else, instead?

Rose thinks her only options are to submit to the game's whims, or fight it tooth and nail. Perhaps that's a false dichotomy, and it's possible to fall somewhere in the middle of the spectrum - some sort of alternate win condition that saves their doomed session.

Perhaps the game has recognized that Rose is a renegade, and it's trying to show her that things aren't so black and white. Maybe Sburb is signaling that it's willing to negotiate.

JASPERSPRITE: Its part of becoming who youre supposed to become i think.

Damn it! Just as I'm starting to wonder if Sburb is more flexible than we thought, it tosses this line at us.

I don't like this sentiment. It stinks of Alpha, and it's exactly the kind of thing that will piss Rose off. She's rebelling against what she perceives to be her destiny - the last thing she wants to hear is that there's someone she's 'supposed' to become.

JASPERSPRITE: I dont know i hope im not being too pushy rose its not my place to be im just your cat! JASPERSPRITE: But the thing that made me how i am now seems to really want me to say this to you. JASPERSPRITE: Your quest is really important for you to do. JASPERSPRITE: Not really because thats how to get the prize. JASPERSPRITE: But because its what you need to do for yourself!

This isn't about the universe, says Sburb.

This is totally bizarre. I thought it was all about the universe, and the game's Players were just the mechanism for creating them. Even the Quests are just extended tutorials on how to terraform planets.

Do the Players have another role to play?

JASPERSPRITE: I love you rose! I always have even when you were a little girl and i was an alive cat. ROSE: Thanks, Jaspers, that's nice to hear. ROSE: It's hard to remember, but I'm pretty sure I felt the same way back then. JASPERSPRITE: It was fun getting to be your cat again rose even if it was just for a little while and also while being a princess ghost. JASPERSPRITE: Bye rose! ROSE: See you, Jaspers! ROSE: If you see my mother in the course of your travels, tell her I said hello.

Alright, let's hit the pause button on the lore speculation. I need to grab some tissues :'(

#homestuck liveblog #full liveblog #act 5.2 #2812 #s76

[gunpowderdtim]

could i possibly please hear your marius backstory hc? no pressure ofc

boy am i glad you asked.

Byron, as per "canon", grew up on a planet with poor nutrition, poor everything really, with his sister, Dorothea, and his parent. (menntioned by kofi once)

Dorothea and Byron spent their time, when not experiencing the horrors, poking around ruins, trying not to die, and to scavenge what they can from the relics left behind by the long-crumbled ancient society of some sort.

(Very memory of water, if any of you have read that book)

One day, Byron and Dorothea stumble across an entrance to some sort of old science facility, or warehouse, or perhaps hangar is the best word.

And together, they discover Kismet, Fate, (or, more pertinently within my mechs canon, fate in the matter that a story has its written ending.) - and Byron begins piloting it.

A sword in a stone, one might say.

Arthur.

When Arthur got his railgun, that started his destiny.

Byron did not have a military grade gun.

Byron had Kismet.

Now what is Kismet?

A gundam, a mecha, a giant fucking humanoid robot vehicle that Byron then pilots to do plot things.

What sort of plot things? Exactly what doesn't particularly matter, only that Byron did not stop.

He just kept on fucking going. Until he couldn't. That sounds sort of familiar, huh?

Like Hercules.

[Zeus's] favourite trick is to offer [his bastard children] a place in the family, contingent on the completion of a suicide mission or two. Most barely last a week, but Heracles? Heracles is too mean, too tough, and too stupid to stop. So he just keeps going. 

Now, Kismet eventually will crash, with Byron inside, but thats to discuss later, for now, lets ask another question:

How does Kismet operate?

To me, Kismet is made of a very familiar metal - the sort, that we may know, "hums like a far off chant"

(the sort of metal i think all Mechanisms are made of, a far off chant, you say? like a song?)

And how, i may offer, do machines of metal like that operate?

His name is Kvasir, a low level member of the Midgardian resistance, but that doesn't matter. What matters is the dozen tubes and feed lines plugged into his veins, pumping blood through the arcane glyphs and blood channels and gears and sigils that line the chamber. The metal is the same as that which makes the track, and it hums like a far off chant.​

Blood. Blood that runs through channels, the life force of the user, hoooking them into the heart of the machine to feed it, to regulate it.

(We know the mechanisms are likely powered off void. They shimmer rainbow when damaged.)

Byron is Kismet's pilot, and, i would imagine, there has to me a mechanism of sort to pilot it, pilot fate, to me, i envision a cuff around his arm, with veins of metal snaking up his veins, sapping his blood, drop by drop, to power the machine.

Byron is the heart, in the center of machine, who needs hearts blood when you act as it? He controls Kismet with a cuff around his arm He is its pilot.

He steers fate.

Thor begins pulling levers and throwing switches seemingly at random, causing the glyphs and channels to move and warp their constellations.

Byron, most likely, pulls the wrong lever.

Kismet crashes.

And Byron becomes it.

Or it becomes Marius.

The cuff stops being around his arm, starts being his arm, fusing into his body, his bones, becoming it, becoming him, and Byron becomes something else altogether.

Byron Von Raum once piloted Kismet.

Kismet is now piloting Marius.

What is the relationship between parasite and host? What is the relationship between pilot and ship? What is the relationship between Mechanism, and the body a mechanism 'enhances'?

What is the relationship between a story, and its ending?

#marius von raum #the mechanisms #the mechs #asks #the amount of narratomancy i can shove into this guy is INSANEEEEE

[ruthlesslistener]

do you have any headcanons for anything you've been holding onto, but haven't had a good chance to post about? I love your fics and I wanna peer into your mind palace

Shhdhchs EXCELLENT bc ive had a lot of thoughts but this quarter + anxiety in general has been killin me

-Okay so I'm still hyperfixated on Destiny 2 bc of a DnDestiny game I'm in, but since Hollow Knight is a special interest and I read a couple of frankly stunning crossover fics (one with the Inheritance Cycle, one with Transformers, both are outstanding and I will recc them wholeheartedly if you ask- the TF one especially blew my tits clean off which is saying something bc I have zero TF knowledge, also its 500k words but I'm rambling), my brain has been essentially locked into the concept of a crossover AU where a couple of my D2 OCs get slingshot into the HK world via a fucked-up warpgate through wish-dragon magic, and it's now got me kind of obsessed with the idea of the world of Hollow Knight taking place on an alien planet that had some convergent evolution re: general insect body plans, but went off the fuckin' rails with everything else. So here's some worldbuilding thoughts on that:

-Their planet would be far from Earth and the origin place of the Ahamkara and precursor race to the Worm Gods, who are distant relatives to each other that took to the stars to opportunistically feed off of rifts in reality. They are in turn sister taxa to the Wyrms and Higher Beings from Hollow Knight, who also feed off of the wants, desires, and gulf between what-is-desired-and-what-is-true, but unlike the worms and wish-dragons, the Higher Beings are essentially 'settled' species. They're the farming civilization to the hunter-gatherers of their Destiny-based kindred, and yes, both branches of the family tree fucking despise each other and look down scornfully on the other's lifestyle. The Higher Beings view the Worms and Ahamkara as little more than scavengers, while the Worms and Ahamkara see the Higher Beings as glorified slavedrivers with sticks up their asses- though it should be noted that since the Ahamkara's whole deal so far has been malignant trickery as a hunting style, this doesn't neccessarily carry the same negative connotations that it would in our society. I also don't know enough about the proto-Worms to say how their race would react, but the Worm Gods as they are now certainly are something that Wyrms would look down on

-(Yes that means I have thought extensively about the Pale King's ghost bristling aggressively at a baby ahamkara barely a few hours old. In my defense, it's funny, and also I almost never remember to write him as the cold, prickly, arrogant ass that he is bc his kids make him Big Sad)

-The planet would likely be smaller than Earth with lighter gravity, though how much smaller I can't say because I'm not a fuckin' physicist. I just want an excuse for making fuckoff-huge animals a thing even beyond the inherent space magic thing going on

-Oh, and most life is underground because the atmosphere is thinner than Earth and so the upper surface gets bombarded with deadly amounts of radiation, which causes the mind-wiping effects of the Wastes (where the angle towards their sun is the greatest and thus the strongest). Ngl I did briefly think about potential magnetic field fluxes also being the cause of that effect but like, I cannot overstate how little I know of things outside biology

-HK being set on an alien planet lets me do wack shit with the species there too bc I'm no longer bound by comparing them to Earthbound species. For example, I can make Quirrel an isopod with cricket legs. Who's going to stop me, God? He doesn't exist here

-That also means I can stop being bothered by Herrah's dubious leg placement bc it would kill me forever otherwise

-Also, them being on an alien planet gives me even more of an excuse to never put traditional vertebrate species in there, which is great. I've said it before, but putting Earth vertebrates in the HK setting totally ruins all the fun for me because I love the concept of all the species diversity being made up of invertebrates, and that the 'advanced' bugs we see have filled the niche that vertebrates would have otherwise taken over. Like the carboniferous period but on steroids

General HK thoughts too:

-been toying with the idea of wyrms having a set of evertable inner jaws like polychaete worms, which would be used for keeping dirt out of the mouth and biting off chunks to eat, while the outer jaws (the ones we see) are used for killing, digging, and sparring with other wyrms. The idea is that the outer ring of mandibles bites big circular chunks out of the substrate, which then breaks off into tiny pieces they filter out in between gaps in their mandibles and pack down into tunnel walls as they move forward

-I've also been toying with the idea of them secreting some kind of mucus as they dig that's almost a calcifying substance, but now that I think about it, I can probs just put those glands in their frontal mouth so if they need to reinforce a tunnel (like, say, one burrowed in sand instead of rock), they can mix their saliva in with the substrate to chemically solidify the tunnel walls

-Which btw is a major thing for ecosystems bc the tunnels are used for lots of different things by lots of different species. Wyrms are terraformers baybee!! Kinda the same way wildfires are, but still

-I've also been thinking about maybe making it so that the row of plates I like to draw on their backs act as a secondary pair of belly scutes, which means that wyrms can slither just as easily upside down as they can on their undersides, which helps underground. It's not as efficient as the super-smooth scales on a blind snake, but that's the tradeoff they get for needing to be so heavily armoured

-I'm also leaning towards making marine/freshwater variants that are just straight-up bobbit worms on even more steroids, but since I already have fuckoff huge marine alien bobbit worms in a scifi setting of mine, I'd need to figure out a way to make them unique

-I learned that there's internalized folds of exoskeleton for muscle attatchment in my invertebrate biology course and got really excited about that being a potential basis for the formation of skeletal elements in the world of Hollow Knight- like, maybe bug bones started off as those lil folds (i forgot their technical name which is embaressing bc i literally just took the final this night) becoming stronger and deeper-set into the body to better support the weight of larger and larger bugs, and then it spiraled into a skeleton analogue from there. Being derived from the exoskeleton probably means that it would be less strong than our bones, but it would likely also be lighter

Misc:

-God I really need to write Hornet in Silksong so bad. Fuck. I need need need to write this mildly autistic unsocialized princess running amok in a civilization that isn't ready for her. Also my interpretation of Lace is basically an oc at this point but I don't want to do anything with her just yet bc that shits a lot of work, I just need to write everything down for her so far (and tbh Lurien probs also counts at this point but thats more filling a niche that TC left unfufilled)

-I've also got gijinka thoughts in that I'm leaning towards making Lurien a trans guy who didn't have any gender-affirming surgeries bc a.) I love love love making a variety of trans characters and b.) Hallownest isn't a society where the concept of being transgender is an issue, so there's no need to do it to pass, only to prioritize your own comfort. And since Lurien never expected to be seen in anything but his formalware, he never saw the point of bothering

-(The aformentioned point also applies to normal bug Lurien but this is more of a personal thing here)

-Need to focus more on how the latent magic of the god of a realm changes your eye colour, with the more intense the shade = the more involved you are with their magic. Using Lurien as an example again: his eyes were brown naturally, but after he became Watcher, they slowly shifted to shades of paler and paler blue. I also like the idea of Quirrel's eyes getting more blue the more memories of Hallownest he unlocks, until they're the same shade as the Blue Lake in his final scene

-This can also happen in reverse; for example, my Lace gijinka starts off with gold eyes to signify the church of Pharloom's hold over her, but then slowly revert back to brown as Hornet gives her more and more hope that the institution can be toppled, until they're eventually their natural deep brown with just the faintest flecks of silver in them (signifying Hornet's importance in her life)

-It just occurred to me the other day when I was at work that Striga and Morgana from Castlevania S3 are almost exactly how I imagined my Vespa and Herrah gijinkas to be and now I can't stop thinking about it. The main difference is that my Herrah is a fat spider-orc with tats and Vespa is a fae queen with bee features shimmering through her human veil, but still. Its uncanny

#anon #reply #hollow knight #hollow knight headcanons #ramblings #there were more but alas im eepy and brainburnt from tests #theyll come back to me eventually

[sharks-n-bones]

COOPER AND DARNELL ARE FINALLY DONE WOOHOO

Holy fuck guys I'm so sorry this took so long, I had major writers block with these two and I got sick recently and it's been a time BUT NOW THEY'RE FINISHED HUZZAH I HOPE Y'ALL ENJOY AND THANK YOU FOR STILL SUPPORTING ME EVEN THOUGH IT TOOK ME SO DAMN LONG TO WRITE FOR THEM

EDIT FORGOT TO SAY EARLIER BUT A HUGE THANK YOU TO @hauntedghostboo FOR HELPING ME OUT WITH THIS CHAPTER AND THE AU IT HELPED ME OUT SO MUCH

When the flood hit, the twins didn't really realize the severity of things until it reached the village. Prince D spent most of his life in a UFO and Cooper just thought it'd be like every other time the rivers flooded. Both thought that the water would go down in a few days time, and they thought that until the water reached the village. Darnel asked if it was normal for the water to reach the village. Cooper said no

Branch had instructed the village to pack what they could carry and start heading up the mountain, and given that he was the one with the most survival experience, they listened. They made their way up the mountain as quick as they could. The first few days they'd sometimes wake up to the water at their heels. They walked a bit faster those days

Cooper had switched out his “Everything's Good” hat for his “Destiny” hat. Darnell had asked why, and Cooper explained that everything was not good right now. They had to leave the place he'd called home for the majority of his life, the flood had completely washed over it and was still rising, they had to move and try and outrun the rising water, nothing was okay right now. The only thing that was okay was that everyone got out in time and he had Darnell with him

Darnell could understand that. Their world had turn up on its head, and they had to leave everything behind. Darnell hadn't even expa normal flood before, he lived in a UFO for star's sake! So for all of Pop Village to go underwater while he was visiting? He was freaking a little bit. But he'd smiled and told Cooper that they'd be okay as long as they had each other

A week or two of travelling and they were almost at the peak of the mountain, and that's when everyone started building rafts and boats. Cooper and Darnell helped Poppy, Branch and the rest of their friend group with building the ship. They'd brought their hover boards when they visited the village, so they used them to work on areas the others couldn't reach easily. Everyone sang and danced as they built, and honestly it helped take their minds off the fact that Pop Village, and probably the whole planet, was flooding

Singing and building took up most of their time during the day, but it was fun for the most part! Cooper chose to think of this as a new adventure, like when he'd gone to find more trolls like him and ended up finding his brother and parents! Their parents… he wondered how they were holding up during all of this, or is they'd even noticed the flood yet… would they ever see them again? He tried not to think about it

While the building and singing and dancing helped, Darnell still wasn't doing all that great. While building, he kept either looking at the sky, watching for his floating home, or in the direction of where the village used to be, wondering when the water would catch up to them. He'd quickly shake himself out of it though and focus back on the task at hand

It took another couple weeks, but soon enough, everyone's rafts and ships were built and the water was at their heels. They loaded the ship with everything they needed and could carry, the twins helping with bringing things aboard with their hover boards while the other's either gave them supplies to bring aboard or worked on storing things away. Then, once everything was loaded, they climbed aboard and waited for the water to whisk their ships away into the ever growing sea

Once they were actually on the water, Branch made sure everyone got a crash course on survival. For once, Cooper appreciated how prepared the formerly gray troll was for any given situation. Everyone had chores and jobs on the ship. When they came across islands, some would gather supplies like wood and metal if they could find it and other such things for repairs while others would forage for food and collect seeds for the garden aboard their ship. Cooper and Darnell usually helped with bringing everything back to the ship

It took a few months for everyone to get used to surviving at sea, but once they all started getting the swing of things, they had fun! It was obviously much different than the peaceful village life they were used to, and getting through storms was always a bit rough, but they got the hang of things pretty quick with Branch’s help. Whenever they reached an island, they'd gather anything they could before relaxing at the waterside or back on the ship, depending on the preference

Cooper and Darnell would usually splash around in the water or just generally good off if they weren't busy, Cooper a bit more-so than Darnell. However, they still had their moments where they missed the times before the flood. Sometimes, when it was late and night and neither could sleep for one reason or another, they'd sit together in one of their beds and talk until they grew tired, telling stories of things that happened before they were reunited, recounting memories, sharing their wishes, their fears… anything and everything

Cooper told stories of all the shenanigans he and the snack pack would get into in the village, and Darnell would tell of life inside the UFO and all the parties and celebrations. Cooper didn't mind life at sea, it was a lot of fun and getting to explore new islands all the time and enjoy the water whenever he wanted was awesome, but sometimes he'd admit to Darnell that he missed life in the village and how simple and carefree everything was. Darnell knew what he meant. Life on the ship was fun, but he missed his floating home

Everyone got a huge reality check when Tiny disappeared into the jaws of a fish. It'd just been a normal day. They'd finished gathering what they could from the island for the day and were taking a much needed break on the beach. Then Tiny screamed, Guy tried to save him and didn't get there in time, and then everything was silent save for Guy's sobs. It all happened so fast. Cooper and Darnell were horrified — they hadn't even thought of ocean predators being a possibility — but now, once again, the universe showed them through force that the world wasn't all sunshine and rainbows

Cooper didn't know what to do when Guy went gray, and Darnell didn't even know what was happening. He'd never seen a troll go gray before. When they'd all returned to the ship and the twins went Cooper's room, Darnell asked about it. Cooper told him what a troll going gray meant, how they lost their happiness and their music. He told him how everyone in the village had gone gray before after they were captured by the bergens, albeit for a very short time. Darnell was so shocked, he didn't know how to react

The next few weeks on the ship had a somber note to them. They all worked a bit harder and starting working on safety measures to make sure nothing like that would ever happen again. Cooper would try to cheer up Guy when he could, but nothing worked and Darnell told him to give Guy some space to breathe and mourn. Cooper settled for occasionally leaving cupcakes outside his door

They all still sang and danced as they worked, albeit maybe not as often or with as much vigor as usual, but it helped take their minds off things a bit. Everyone was a bit more hesitant to go into the water until Branch made the safety nets so no big fish could get through to eat them. Speaking of the water, Cooper and Darnell had started to notice somethings

- For one, they both loved swimming. Hell, everyone on the ship seemed to, even after the incident! Sure, Cooper and D were a bit more hesitant getting in, but they still loved it! And swimming came easy to them both, which was a bit shocking since D lived in a UFO most of his life

(Cooper wondered if they had pools in there. He'd gotten to explore the place a bit, but not all of it yet. He'd only found his family a month before the flood hit, after all)

The twins had also started noticing their hair changing slightly. Darnell had been the first to notice that it seemed to bounce more when they moved, and how it almost seemed squishy? Cooper had been amazed when Darnell pointed it out, and they both thought it was hilarious

Cooper noticed that their skin that wasn't covered in fur was a lot smoother, almost silky. He'd first noticed it when he and Darnell had gotten back onto the ship one time, both still soaked from swimming in the water, and both immediately slipped and ate shit on the deck!

They'd howled with laughter about it and D had joked that their skin was too smooth to walk on. Cooper had noticed he was actually right when he was showering later and almost couldn't keep his footing. He'd taken a close look at his arms and legs and noticed just how smooth they were. Almost jelly-like… Cooper had laughed at the thought of having jelly limbs and joked to Darnell about it before promptly forgetting about it

It was only after the techno trolls had visited their ship and told them of the magic in the water and the changes it would cause that the funk twins realized that they were actually changing. They had gaped at each other for a bit before breaking out into matching grins

The techno troll had said that, based on what they'd seen, they'd take on the traits and some appearances of actual sea creatures, and Cooper and Darnell immediately wanted to find out just what kind of siren they'd become

They started paying more attention to any changes they'd develop, and whenever they found one they'd run to tell the other. Darnell had discovered they were becoming more flexible when he'd slipped and done the splits without any pain, and Cooper had found that their hair was easier to control. It could act more like another limb than before

Almost 2 months later when they set anchor at another island, the bros we're trying to figure out what they we're turning into when a stranger's ship pulled up next to The Main Course. The funk bros stopped what they were doing, along with everyone else on the ship, to see what the newcomer was up to and if they could possibly befriend them

The troll on board had goggles over his eyes. He wore a vest made of leaves and had teal skin with matching hair that he used to swing himself onto their ship. He'd said he was looking for his brothers, pushing his goggles up on to his head as he did, and locked eyes with Branch. They heard Branch gasp, and the stranger's face broke out into a wide, toothy grin.

-“Baby Branch!!”

#trolls #flood au #trolls band together #the world floods basically #trolls au #guy diamond #branch trolls #tiny diamond #trolls flood au #queen poppy #cooper trolls #prince d trolls #biggie trolls #smidge #dj suki #mr dinkles #satin and chenille #guy and his son #john dory trolls #bruce trolls #clay trolls #floyd trolls #brandy trolls #brozone #creek trolls #riff trolls #barb trolls #queen barb #king peppy #trolls world tour

[beautifulterriblequeen]

Multiple Choice - a Callum and Aaravos theory

Not to be all Han Solo or anything, but when it comes to Aaravos and magic in Xadia, I Have A Bad Feeling About This.

If there's one thing I love more than corrupt systems, it's breaking them, so let's get to it: please enjoy yet another way that Callum's pursuit of magic could potentially go very wrong for him - and how he can still fix it.

The system, in this case, isn't a monarchy (on either side of the border), wartime tensions reaching forward from the cycle, or a Xadia-wide racial hierarchy.

It's magic itself.

We don't know where it came from, magic. Was deep magic always here? Did one of the Star Touch elves create it, or perhaps choose to make it his bailiwick while others chose things like Justice and Mercy?

Aaravos, I mean Aaravos. If he's basically the god of magic (feel free to view him through a Loki-esque lens here, I am), then of course he's an archmage, and of course he's the only one among the Star Touch elves. Magic is His Thing.

And according to Zubeia, the Dragon Queen, its mages are his prey. We don't know yet what his full intent has been. We only have her millennia-long view from the surface of the planet. There's definitely more to the story, but which direction that story takes us is anyone's guess at this point. However, it seems clear that Aaravos's history during his time in Xadia does show a pattern of him targeting and influencing mages. He certainly has been during the years the show has covered.

What all he did with these mages, besides the manipulation, is also still unknown. But even if all he ever did was pull their strings, he's still choosing magic-imbued beings as his favorite puppets. The most likely explanation for this is that mages and Aaravos have something in common, making them easier for him to work with. Is it just magic? Does their ambition count too? Is there more to it?

I think there's more. I feel there is some deep dangerous secret Aaravos has managed to hide from everyone so far - including us. But just because it's dangerous doesn't mean it's evil, or even ill-intentioned. Do we consider the threat to anthills when we begin construction on a new apartment complex? Usually no. We're busy doing human-level tasks. The ants' welfare is truly not our concern. And most of them will probably be fine... right?

So. What's Aaravos really up to, and what does it have to do with Callum?

Something Rayla believes about Callum made me wonder: in the short story Chasing Shadows, she believes that he, and all humans, can change their destiny (and it's super annoying!). Why is that a human thing only, though?

Arcanums, perhaps. We've all seen the elven peoples get uptight about their own rules and the options they can choose for themselves. It's not just the Moonshadows. Sunfire elves can absolutely be sticklers for tradition - look at my disaster boy Karim over here, willing to go to war against his own people because his sister wants to marry a human.

Bruh.

So here's part one of the theory:

Having an arcanum in you forces your destiny into a certain path.

If you're born with it, you know the path of your whole life - and I don't just mean "serve your people" or "be a warrior" or "be one with nature." There is a very dark side to being locked into your destiny. It means you cannot escape it even if you desperately want to.

*wordlessly points to Runaan and his overly honorbound decisions*

*wordlessly points to Rayla and her overly sacrificial decisions*

*wordlessly points to Finnegrin and his overly fear-driven decisions*

*wordlessly points to Janai and her overly dutybound decisions*

*wordlessly points to Karim and his overly traditional decisions*

I don't need to say anything here, do I? Thought not.

But it's one thing to be born with an arcanum - maybe they know and accept this part of their destiny already. Maybe it's just a subconscious thing they... know.

It's another thing entirely to opt into an arcanum as a free choice. And here's where we get to part two:

Callum thinks he chose his destiny. He doesn't know he just gave it away.

If he just handed his fate to Aaravos by embracing an arcanum (and then one more), his destiny isn't currently in his hands at all. It's in Aaravos's. And the archmage has proven that he, at least, knows that, since he's been pulling at Callum's strings and toying with him for a while now. He wouldn't flex like that unless he was supremely confident - which he is, he always is - he wouldn't show that hand early on like this unless he knew Callum didn't understand what he'd done or how to reverse it.

This theory is about more than dark magic. It's about all magic. Even if Callum could cleanse himself from dark magic and never let Aaravos puppet him again, is he really free? He still has an arcanum. Where did that come from? He's walking around with a couple of magical bona fides stamped on his brain, and I just want to know...

Who crafted the stamps?

If all Xadian magic is some kind of... creation, or spill, or experiment... and Aaravos needs that power back for himself in order to be who he used to be and/or re-ascend to the stars, he's got more than one way to harness it again:

dark magic consumes primal magic - but matter and energy are never destroyed, so... where does that power go? Aaravos has a very convenient black hole symbol right on his chest. Maybe every spell dark mages have ever cast sends him some of his precious primal magic again. It would be a very convenient way of getting desperate humans to do his cleanup for him. And he has all the time in the world.

primal magic won't save anyone from his will - it just harnesses the elves to Aaravos's magic rules and binds their destiny to a predetermined outcome. They've become, in a word... predictable.

There's no way to beat a Star Touch Archmage at his own game. He literally wrote its rules. So what's a bright young kid like Callum to do?

To quote War Games, "the only way to win is not to play."

Callum's in a unique position, in that he knows who he was before he had an arcanum. Back when he could choose his destiny every day, without binding him to some powerful force he doesn't fully understand yet. This might lead him to a very difficult and dangerous choice, and it could break the game, and the world, wide open.

If Callum can choose to learn an arcanum, maybe he can choose to forget one.

If he can un-know the things that bound him to that magic destiny, he'd be free again, of Aaravos's reach and of his influence.

And that's just for him, but if everyone else is trapped too, how can he help them and hurt Aaravos's power grab at the same time? No idea, beyond "someone hand him a powerful magical artifact and wait," at this point, but I'm sure he'll find a way to break something important eventually! Something vital to the structure and distribution of magic itself, preferably.

If he manages to find a way to destroy magic itself, then everyone would be free. There would be no rules binding anyone to Aaravos. There would be no dark magic feeding off its fumes, either. It's theoretically possible that destroying primal magic would undo the taint of dark magic, all in one go.

And we all know how Callum loves to go around ruining ancient and powerful magical objects. Kid's got quite a track record by now!

Maybe he's not done yet. Maybe Callum's true destiny will be both Savior and Destroyer. But he'll have to play his own game to do it - he can't play Aaravos's game and win. He'll have to fight outside of magic itself. And if he's going to put down his most powerful weapon, forged by someone else - by the mastermind himself - and try without it, then he'll need help, just like always.

#tdp #tdp theory #tdp speculation #callum #aaravos #primal magic #dark magic

[masp161]

Astro Observations #IV

I feel like y'all like those observations, so here are some more you can like, in hope some of them helps you feel understood

North Node conjunct or parallel Vertex in a birth chart easily shows that most events and people in our lives are fated, they mostly will be there to help achieving your destiny or soul purpose.

The best example I can find is having Vertex and/or North Node in the Eighth/Seventh house : A person having these aspects in said houses may have a very mistrustful personality probably due to early hardships or broken trust. So every people in their lifetime will be a piece of learning to rely on other people, and more specifically those we have bonds or close relationships with.

When we say a person's dominant can tell a lot about their personality, we don't just mean the planet or the sign of the dominant, BUT ALSO THE HOUSE IT'S IN AND THE SIGN THAT GOVERNS THAT HOUSE IN YOUR BIRTH CHART

For a 6th house dominant, they can show anxious traits or overnalaytic or artistic sides of the Virgo sign, which naturally governs the 6th house.

And if in a chart the 6th house is governed by Aries, it can mean that this person is passionate or reactive, hardworking, or spontaneous (mixing traits of Virgo×Aries

I've seen no one doing it, so I'm gonna put here what I think planets/asteroids aspecting North Node could mean (If I'm wrong, you have the rights to share your knowledge :)) :

Conjunction to North Node could have a direct and easy flowing relation. It make things work almost instantly, make you instantly familiar with the energy it's conjunct to.

Trine North Node will come in your life pretty easily, and might even give help or elevate you, develop you more, at condition that you bring a push into it, bring a bit of yourself to get it.

Sextile North Node could naturally bring the thing to you, it'll just show itself and work a way to implant it into your life without your notice. It'll just merge into your being.

Square North Node could have a bit of hardships or inner work to do before getting it, a certain number of questioning, doubts, or people blocking your path. It has a high-likelyhood of happening, but there will be work to do before, or things to face against our will. Another view of it could also be that the energy it's squaring might have a lot of difficulty coming through, and might be negative for you.

Opposition North Node, I think, could bring a lot of misunderstanding at first, as it is both balancing energies and touching new, different energies. Oppositions to North Node bring lessons to learn, what we can learn (from the other, in synastry, and what the other has to learn from us) for harmonious relations. Could bring lots of trouble and miscommunication, but can work out.

I believe our inner child manifests not only as our Moon Sign and its house/aspects, but also as our Saturn sign and its house/aspects, as our 4th house, 12th house and the planets in it

Asteroid Karma in the 2nd or the 7th in synastry can show a past life married bond, or a fated marriage in this lifetime. This statement is backed up if there's North or South node involved with Karma aspects.

Saturn, in some ways, can represent trauma which, despite not believing it, you can overcome, even if it means detaching or going out of normal ways. As such, I believe, as one myself, that people with Saturn 9th house have religious trauma (And it's not even forcibly related to famous and common religions like Christianity, it can simply be the spiritual community itself)

Surprisingly, the asteroid Karma (3811) in a solar return chart represents themes that you will inevitably face during the year and how it will affect you (watch out for its aspects)

I think the asteroid Asclepius (4551) can show maybe more where your wounds sit after you've been hurt, how it affects you and in what ways you can heal yourself and/or others

So for example, people with Asclepius in Scorpio in the 1st house may have issues with how they've been perceived or how they perceive themselves, how people treated them, or insecure about their looks, and may learn by themselves to value themselves and practice self-care

Another example would be Asclepius in Virgo in the 10th house, they may be overburdened with stress and the need to live up to people's expectations, and constant rethinking of their own skills. In exchange, they could learn to give importance to the efforts they've made and look at how far they've gone, give themselves time and put themselves forward

(This is of course theoretical, I might be wrong. That entirely depends of placements and how people live it)

I might also get a lot of hate on this one, but I personally think the 1st and 10th house rely a lot more on the self than the outside world. The rising as who we show, try to be (not only for others but for ourselves too) and the 10th house as the effort we put in trying to be while also fitting who we want to be in a workspace, in the outside world, in our environment

When the planet(s) you have in retrograde in your birth chart, goes retrograde in everyone's life, your everyday struggle with that planet becomes everyone's temporary struggle until the planet is over retrograding

I'm talking about y'all Saturn retrograders. I know responsabilities are complicated for you and that you still seek a powerful or dark figure to protect and cherish you....

That's my opinion, but I think fire and air placements, especially Moon or Saturn, are more prone to depressive disorders, while water and earth placements are more prone to dissociative disorders

Aries/Leo/Sagittarius Moon/Saturn - Gemini/Libra/Aquarius Moon/Saturn

Cancer/Scorpio/Pisces Sun/Moon/Saturn - Taurus/Virgo/Capricorn Sun/Moon/Saturn

The asteroid Chant shows more about your general music taste than most of your planets in your birth chart (that's my opinion). So for example : I think people with Chant in Aries or Scorpio, 1st or 8th or 1°/8°/13°/20°/24° might like songs that include intense emotions, screaming, lashing out

Lil observation for the witches out there, I feel like the asteroids of deities you have prominent in your chart tend to be the deities you, at some point, end up working with or that is there from afar, sending you their strength

Aries placements, ruled by Mars, are a lot centered around the impulsive action/the move

Leo placements, ruled by the Sun, are a lot centered around the aspect of demonstration and showing off, the me/I

Sagittarius placements, ruled by Jupiter, are a lot centered on the others/the surrounding, the invisible/the spiritual

Aries is action, Leo is me, Sag is others

So, I was just told this and I think a lot of people deserve to know that : no, Cancer Midheaven isn't entirely about jobs that centers around helping others or providing care to others, or salesman at all, even if Cancer Midheavens often wind up there. Cancer Midheaven is about doing the things (jobs) that help yourself grow, while liking what you do. It's about your emotions, more than others'.

Theoretical, but I think when you start embodying one specific placement, you tend to attract people with the sign of that placement (so should you embody for example your dark divine Scorpio Lilith, you might attract lots of Scorpio moon or North Node)

Your Lilith, other than telling you how your confident, divine feminine self is, can tell much more things about yourself at your worst and how you behave, your toxic reactions, etc...

People with the asteroid Christian in hard aspects to Saturn/Moon/Pluto or the 8th/9th house might have known people who were deep christian believers, and might have religious trauma related to it, or may have turned away from it

Tell me whatever you want, but people with Scorpio and/or Sagittarius placements are divinely protected and guided by the Universe, even if they don't notice it.

Venus conjunct Pluto will love you with their lives the second they know they can trust you, Venus trine Pluto will need a bit of proof before they truly give you their love fully. Both of them are dangerous, jealous species that will not hold back in vengeance for cheating or replacement

Everyone talking about Gemini Lilith being promiscuous, have y'all ever seen Scorpio and Taurus Lilith????

Talking about Lilith, Lilith in synastry can show not just where the other might see your being and think 'Untouchable', but also where and how you find interest/attraction in them

Icarus in the 11th house or in Virgo/Pisces might either want to discover the world and be able to socialize with people (literally might've been through sequestration) or might hate overpopulated crowds and have intense fear of people

#astro observations #astro notes #aries sign #taurus #gemini #cancer #leo placements #virgo zodiac sign #libra #scorpio #sagittarius #capricorn #aquarius #pisces

[neptunedivine]

my 2023 solar return observations

(tw: possible eating disorder mentions)

I was looking over my solar return chart yesterday and it made me very nervous. When I get nervous I feel better writing everything out. So that’s what I’m going to do :)

✨natal north node year✨ ✧ I turn my north node degree this year! My NN is Gemini 11H at 21° and in combination with everything else going on in my solar return, it does amp up the anxiety for me. I feel like I’m gonna be shoved into my destiny because I’ve been stalling for so long (well not stalling as avoiding, but not taking the leap(s) I need to out of fear).

8H stellium ✧ tbh I just wanted to address the obvious in all its glory before I tried to dissect it any further. Transformations feel like they’ll be a focal point this year, like heavily. But then again looking at the planets that make up this stellium (aside from Chiron), it doesn’t seem too bad? We’ll see.

Virgo rising at 3° + mercury as the chart ruler in Pisces 8H @ 29° ✧ I taste a lot of criticism in the air (mainly from myself but we’ll see). Some of this energy looks familiar because natally I have my mercury in Pisces in the 8H but @ 10°. Virgo is on my 3H cusp natally as well. Naturally knowing myself I feel like writing is going to be the focus for the year. Since my natal NN is also ruled by my chart ruler this year, I think I’m going to be pushed to really start making music this year. Especially since mercury is conjunct with my sun too. I think putting more time and dedication into it will change my life? (I’ve been viewing a lot of readings lately telling me that my passions and creativity will grant me great abundance so this could be in association) There could be an emphasis on me speaking my truth as well. Possible recognition as well with it being at 29°? It feels intense not only because it’s a fame degree but it’s the fate degree and conjunct with the Aries point.

Pisces sun 8H @ 28° ✧ I’m used to the placement but not in the 8H. With it being conjunct with my mercury I feel like this could be related to me shedding a bad mindset or patterns in my habits this year? (I feel like this pairs well with my Saturn placement which I’ll talk about later). As well as finding a trusted source to have deep conversations with (possibly a therapist) seems very likely for this year.

Aquarius Moon 6H @ 19° ✧ I think I will be very analytical and regulatory with my emotions and my feelings this year. Instead of feeling everything and questioning everything and feeling lost, especially with the possibility of a therapist, being able to dissect the reason for why I feel certain ways may happen. I also spiraled a lot in the past year so there could be a sense of grounding brought into the year.

Taurus Venus 9H @ 2° + + NN @ 4°+ Uranus @ 16° ✧ I don’t see myself traveling really? I could travel to somewhere beautiful, but since my natal venus is in 9H too this would be a continuation of my love for other cultures. A possible love interest from a different country or uni could be possible, but my guides know for sure that I’m not looking for that right now…right? Idk I’ve been very career driven for a few years now and I don’t see that changing. But who knows since my SR Uranus and NN are in the same house lol. Speaking of Uranus here, please for the love of God let this not play with my degree. I'm supposed to graduate next spring.

✧ I’m just now noticing how many feminine degrees there are that inspire creativity (Taurus (2°,14°,26°), Libra (7°,19°), and Cancer (4°, 16°,28°). Pretty cool. ✧

Gemini Mars 10H @ 26° ✧ Pairing drive (Mars) with curiosity (Gemini), this could relate to my passion and writing outside of the box of what is expected from me, or who I'd expect. (I have a list of talent that I really want to write for and I think about them when I write songs sometimes so that could be relevant). Or I could be just collaborating more? I’m not sure with the 8H stellium though. Oh! A drive to learn new things maybe? I’ve always wanted to get into production but with it being so white cis-male dominant it felt gatekeepy. But miraculously I have I think enough tools to figure out a good part of it independently.

Aries Jupiter 8H @ 16° ✧ I keep reading good things about this placement and I’m very excited about it. I could be receiving a large sum(s) of money this year (scholarships?). Also, this placement is not only conjunct with my natal venus but MC as well, so this energy could be amplified since having Venus/Jupiter in the 8H are very strong wealth indicators, but I could be gaining monetary abundance or just abundance in general towards my career somehow.

Pisces Saturn 6H @ 1° (tw: possible eating disorder mentions) ✧ I was watching a tiktok a few weeks ago about Saturn going into Pisces and what that could mean. They mentioned an end to things that relate to escapism, which makes sense since in modern astrology Pisces is ruled by Neptune, like overeating and procrastination. I feel like both of those topics would be covered in my life this year since the 6H rules over the physical body and health, but also the daily and routines. There could be a theme of cutting the bs and getting in control of my life in these areas. My Chiron natally is in the 6H so this has been a struggle I’ve been dealing with for a while. I don’t know if the "problem of Chiron” will be resolved but I think significant improvements could be made.

Pisces Neptune 7H @ 25° ✧ I don’t have the energy to be delusional in love this year please abeg. I have Neptune in the 7H but in Aquarius, so there’s an element of this that I’m used to. I could be continuing to manifest my dream partner? Because I do that every day when I listen to love songs and I really enjoy it. But a real person? In the flesh? Right now? Absolutely not, pass.

Capricorn Pluto 5H @ 29° ✧ I have my natal pluto in sag at 17° so I’m used to some of the energy but I think with it being Capricorn which rules over hard work and discipline rather than the freedom sag grants, I will take my passions seriously enough to make moves. Personally, I stress so much about making music and my skills and being really talented and getting everything right but I don’t do anything. I just sit in my charged obsessive energy. But hopefully, I’ll make the right moves this year. Recognition worthy? Possibly with how much 29° is popping up in my chart.

Taurus MC @ 29° ✧ The idea of getting recognition for my passion and my work feels very daunting for me because I don’t feel ready at all. I'm very perfectionistic with my passion. I'm so adamant about making it my career and being very well-known for it. I get very nervous about f*cking up. Regardless I don't think this year cares I might be shoved into the position to be seen, maybe not at its height because I glanced at my SR for the next two years and they feel like extensions of this year, like in acts.

that's all for now. see you later! :)

#solar return #solar return observations #astro notes #astrology #astro observations #solar return chart #solar return 2023 #north node #north node year #pisces saturn #pisces saturn transit #saturn transit

[timetravelersdoctor]

How do you think the Decepticons (TFA and TFP) would react if they saw the acts committed by Megatron (BW) during the events of Beast Machines?

Let's review the charges:

-He created a deadly virus that he released throughout the planet Cybertron, infecting almost the entire population, the survivors were hunted.

A virus suddenly sprending over the whole planet. Everyone was infected, many deactivated... Most just disappeared. -Nightscream

-Those captured were stripped of their sparks that were locked with a method that prevented them from joining the All-Spark, being trapped in the physical world, their bodies were torn apart to create his Vehicon army from those parts. He literally has a place completely full of corpses which he throws away as if they were nothing more than garbage.

This place is where Megatron stole every Spark on Cybertron -Blackarachnia Megatron stole all this parse and use their bodies to create mindless Vehicons -Optimus Primal

-His army was deprived of free will, so that they were just puppets that he could manipulate. He planned to rebuild the entire population of Cybertron so that they were just mindless zombies who only obeyed him, who was the only one with an individual mind.

The wave of the future, Cybertronians without Sparks, no more individual minds, just one single guiding intelligence... Mine. -Megatron

-The saved sparks were absorbed by him, ending his existence forever. Macabrely quoting: 'til all are one.

The sparks! What are you doing?! Fulfilling my destiny, Optimus Primal. Uniting every spark on Cybertron into one perfect being... Me. -Optimus Primal and Megatron

-Attempt on Cybertron's life, when he shot at his organic core. Optimus warned him but he didn't listen. He literally planned to destroy all of Cybertron in order to, according to him: Rebuild it in his image. Something he planned to do with more planets.

If you unleash the key program, you'll destroy all Cybertron No planet is alive, Optimus, merely infested, and I intend to restore it to its natural condition. -Optimus Primal and Megatron Destroyed? I will recreate, in my own image. -Megatron

-In his final fight with Optimus he absorbed all the saved sparks making him and Optimus the only Cybertronians alive. He wanted to extinguish most of his people to be the only one in charge.

My great ascension is finally complete! YEEEEESSSS! -Megatron

Hi Thank you for the Ask!

Tfp Megatron: Megatron thinks that BW Megatrons actions would make Unicron proud. it's disturbing and he doesn't know how to handle the fact that he's a little impressed that he managed to to that on his own.

Tfp Soundwave: He's glad that BW Megatron is from far in to the future because by then he'll be long gone and it won't be his problem to deal with. it's the stupidest plan to have ever been put into action and he deals with Tfp Megatron.

Tfp Starscream: Plans and more plans Starscream in thinking of ways to get rid of BW Megatron ahead of time because not even he would want to be the last Cybertronian alive. He does think it makes sense that BW Megs would be insane enough to do that considering that he works with Tfp Megatron

Tfp Shockwave: He sees no logic in BW Meg's actions. why did he go so far, how was he going to recreate the planet, did BW Megatron even know if he would succeed? Shockwave refuses to believe that BW Megatron is the descendent of the first (technically second depending in the continuity) Megatron

Tfa Megatron: Tfa Megatron doesn't see the merit in what BW Megatron did after all the entire point in the original war was to end the caste system not recreate the universe into his image. He thinks realistically and is very surprised that BW Megs got so far into his plan.

Tfa Lugnut: Lugnut is very glad that Tfa Megatron is smarter then BW Megatron because he genuinely thinks that he would not be loyal if Tfa Megs was anything like BW Megs. He's not the smartest Decepticon out there but he's also not that stupid.

Tfa Blitzwing: Blitzwing thinks that BW Megs is far more insane than himself. He hates learning of all the things Megatron did to create vehicons. no one should ever be changed against their will in his mind, he knows exactly what that's like.

Tfa Starscream: He thinks BW Megatron is an idiot that should have been dealt with a long time ago. he's very disappointed that BW Megatron almost succeeded in doing the dumbest thing ever.

#maccadam #macaddam #i got an ask! #tfp megatron #tfp soundwave #tfp starscream #tfp shockwave #tfa megatron #tfa lugnut #tfa blitzwing #tfa starscream

[oracleofdiscord]

Ninjago OC: Estrella, Master of Starlight (part 1/3)

Hello, everyone! I’ve decided to finally introduce my Ninjago oc: Estrella, Elemental Master of Starlight. But to talk about Estrella, I need to first explain 2 other things: Celestial Elements and the previous Master of Starlight.

Celestial Elements:

Rebooted establishes that Ninjago does have an outer space, complete with other celestial bodies. Seabound establishes that there are other entities that were the originators of elements besides the FSM (not counting the Source Dragons - I figure that the SD may have been responsible for Wojira and the FSM having those elements, but Wojira and the FSM passed them down to Elemental Masters).

The premise for the element of Starlight is that there was a creature like Wojira in outer space who established a set of elements I’ll call the Celestial Elements (like Wojira’s Storm Elements). They were passed down through Elemental Masters on nearby planets. Although I might expand the roster later, my ideas for the Celestial Elements are:

Starlight: Masters of Starlight can create starlight in their hands that can take the form of twinkling balls of light or can be used as a bright flash that temporarily blinds enemies. They can also create a more soothing form of starlight that can be used for healing.

Sunlight: Masters of Sunlight can create sunlight in their hands or manipulate sunlight around them, using it to light up the area or to burn enemies. They can also create a more soothing form of sunlight that can stimulate the growth of plants.

Moonlight: …okay, so I have no idea what moonlight does yet. My initial ideas were based on illusion and transformation, but illusion feels too close to the regular element of Light, and transformation feels like Form. I’ll figure it out some day.

Fun fact - I was going to include some sort of prophetic/destiny-reading power in Estrella’s powers because “written in the stars,” but I couldn’t figure out how to not step on Zane’s toes, it felt too OP to give her prophecy and healing, and destiny is more associated with clouds (Cloud Kingdom) than stars in Ninjago anyway.

Fun fact 2 - If I ever create a fanseason focused solely on Estrella, it’s probably going to involve the other Celestial Elemental Masters showing up on Ninjago.

Note - Corrupted Celestial Elements: If someone with a Celestial Element were corrupted by something like the Staff of Forbidden Spinjitzu, their powers would essentially become radioactive, causing weakness in people who were exposed to their powers, and eventually causing their own bodies to start to break down.

Aethra, (former) Master of Starlight:

Aethra was the Master of Starlight before Estrella - and the reason that element ended up on Ninjago. She’s from Cepheus, the home planet of all the previous Masters of Starlight. 

Once, Cepheus was small but prosperous. When threats appeared, Aethra was able to fend them off, being both a skilled fighter and in tune with her powers. But one day, a threat unlike any other emerged. Calling itself “The One Who Is Many,” it moved across Cepheus, spreading distrust and chaos wherever it went. As the chaos spread, its power grew. When Aethra confronted it, she could not beat it, and it took the opportunity to take her form. 

She knew the damage it could do in her guise, and so, in a last-ditch attempt to keep it from winning, she gave up her form, reducing herself to a weakened shell in a reduced body (think magical girl mascot). It didn’t work. The One Who Is Many kept her form, and she was trapped in her weakened state, forced to watch as Cepheus fell to war, and ruin, and eventually to pieces. 

It was on one of these pieces that she found herself when Cepheus crumbled - a comet that became known as Delta-V. On this comet, she kept alive a fading hope of one day finding civilization again. She also suspected that The One Who Is Many was stuck on the same comet, although it seemed also reduced in power. 

One day, a strange rocket arrived - the one the ninja used to visit Delta-V in season 3. In her new small body, she was able to stow away on the rocket on its return to Ninjago. She wandered around Ninjago for a time, unsure of what to do with her life since her powers were weak, her body was changed, and her people were gone. Eventually, she made her way to Stiix. There, she made the acquaintance of Estrella, a lonely girl in need of a friend.

#ninjago #ninjago oc #oc: aethra #oc: estrella #my art

[honeydjarin]

TO THE BONE PART II

DIN DJARIN X READER

Crowds part for the Mandalorian, eyes averted, a constant path standing clear before him even in the busiest places. By the time you realize exactly why his kind is so feared, it’s too late for you. Your silence just might be your downfall.

warnings: fem!reader, soulmates, non-consensual drug use, Dr. Pershing conducts tests on unwilling subjects, canon typical violence

word count: 6,800

a/n: Thank you so much for all of the kind feedback on the first part of this series! I’m so excited to continue this journey together.

I have several parts written, and hope to post every two weeks. That may change towards the end depending on how long it takes to get the end written.

EDIT: reposting because the previous version wasn’t showing up in the tags

SERIES MASTERLIST || MASTERLIST || AO3

It’s been a while since you were last in hyperspace. You’ve forgotten the strength of the initial jump, the atmospheric turbulence transitioning into something much smoother. You’ve forgotten the lurching in your stomach as your body tries to adjust to going far faster than should be possible for a human.

If you don’t think about why you’re traveling, or who is keeping you company during the journey, you just might find this jump through hyperspace peaceful. There are only the stars streaking by around you, clear of your path as you hurtle along the various hyperlanes throughout the galaxy. 

Traveling with the Mandalorian is even quieter than most of your journeys through the galaxy have been. The starliners were always busy, loud, and often ran late, as is to be expected from any sort of public transportation hub. But when you left home to travel the galaxy, the commercial ships had been the only way for you to see new star systems, or at least the only way that wouldn’t put you at risk of having a bounty on your head. The passenger liners always served your purpose despite the constant noise of those also seeking to planet hop. 

You could get a flight at a reasonable cost, and travel between most of the well settled planets regardless of where they were in the galaxy. Even the Outer Rim has its fair share of ports, constantly shutting people for work or trade between planets, or even just for the sake of sightseeing. You could pretend you were running towards a new future for yourself, one that didn’t include the Force, unchanging destinies, or bounty hunters. You could pretend that it wasn’t really your home that you were running from, or that you weren’t really just trying to escape from yourself.    

Even later, when the future you had fought so hard against began to pass, your fate sealed because of the skills your mother had taught you instead of letting your gifts fade to nothing, when you became a target, there was constant commotion in the starships. Passenger liners were no longer a safe way for you to travel, and the smaller, privately owned ships rang out with a different type of noise. Too much sabacc, too much alcohol, too much money lost. These things always led to raised voices and stray blaster fire. 

You felt safer there than you do now. Each moment the words on your forearm weren’t spoken was a promise that you would survive at least one more day.   

The Mandalorian’s starship isn’t like those other transports. It’s quiet, near silent, more so than the scarcely populated Arvala-7. This is the quietest journey across the galaxy you’ve ever been on. There is no conversation, no threats, no blaster fire or raucous laughter. Just a single warning. 

“Don’t touch this,” the Mandalorian said as he locked up his extensive arsenal of weapons upon your entry onto the ship. You doubt you could find a way to crack open the door even if you wanted to. Not without the Force. Then he herded you towards a short ladder, one that reaches up to a second level above, before undoing the restraints just long enough to reattach them to a rung just below the height of your chest. It was high enough to be uncomfortable but low enough that you wouldn’t risk losing feeling in your arms. The action was just more insurance that you won't touch his stuff, it seemed. He left you there alone in the hull and took the still unconscious child up the ladder with him. At least he didn’t shut the door to the cockpit behind him. 

Now, you’re left to wonder if you’ll spend the whole journey like this. 

You almost think he forgot about you. or he finally decided you’re not a flight risk. He has you trapped on his ship with nowhere to possibly run. He only needs to worry about what you might do to the starship itself. 

He doesn’t come back down from the cockpit, even when he clearly has the ship on autopilot. You stretch back as far as you can and watch from below as he turns towards the pram floating beside him, rocking it gently a few times. Grogu must still be asleep. It is a sweet gesture, or it would be, if the hunter wasn’t still planning on turning you both in to whoever the latest client is. It is only then, after he finishes checking on the kid, that he climbs back down the ladder from the cockpit to check on you again.

He removes your binders completely and your arms fall instantly to your sides, not knowing what else to do with them. The Mandalorian makes no indication of wanting to put the restraints back on you. He doesn’t speak, and doesn't show you any further signs of acknowledgement. He just steps back and climbs up the ladder to the cockpit once more. 

It’s too quiet in the Mandalorian’s ship, the silence stretching on from the moment he released you from the restraints. With no chatter, no attempt by the armored man to make you comfortable, no sign of where it is he’s taking you, the silence settles like a heavy weight that pulls you into the floor more firmly than the ship’s artificial gravity. It’s suffocating.  

The Mandalorian intends to hand you off to the client, take his reward, and then forget about you and the child. You know you’re just a job to him, even if he is your soulmate. So you intend to leave as much of an impression as you can. He only told you not to touch where he stores his weapons. He didn’t say anything about the rest of the starship, so you can touch everything else… right? 

You cast a lingering glance towards the carbonite freezer. There are no bodies that you know of on the ship right now, but you’re certain the bounty hunter is more than willing to use it on a quarry. Would he freeze you if he caught you touching his things? 

If he needs you alive, then you doubt it’s a risk he is willing to take. Not when 60% of those put in carbonite don’t survive the process, and the ones that do often face other side effects such as hibernation sickness and temporary blindness. Still, you'll just have to be careful in your meddling. 

As if he can sense your intentions to snoop, the Mandalorian returns for you.

“Come into the cockpit,” he states, leaving no room for argument. 

He helps you to struggle up the ladder, your arms half numb from being restricted, just to make sure you don’t fall and crack your head open, before he makes you sit in one of the remaining unoccupied seats of the cockpit. Your hands remain free, the Mandalorian considering you to not be a threat—it’s almost pitiful. His gaze holds steady on the galaxy before him, trusting that you couldn’t hurt him even if you tried. He still doesn’t speak to you, and you're not really sure if he is comfortable in the silence or not. You are once again reminded that he is most likely used to being completely alone while traveling through the galaxy. 

It’s a thought that almost makes you sad.   

—☾—

He brings you to another desert planet, one you’ve never been to before and really don’t want to be on now. 

It’s more populated than Arvala-7, the entire population of the previous planet likely not even the equivalent of half the faces you see milling about before you here, especially now that the Niktos no longer have control of the bunker. 

There were no towns on Arvala-7, just some farms, some Jawas, and the hideout, but it didn’t feel gloomy there, even when you were trapped in the bunker walls. The sun would always filter through the slatted windows—they were too small to climb through but just enough to give you a glimpse outside the walls and remind you of the galaxy beyond the well guarded building. The sunlight would glint on the dust particles and show you how they danced through the air, almost as if they were alive. 

Here, everything is dark. The earth is black, burned from the same magma that created it, the sky turned grey with the ever smoldering cinders of the planet. It looks as though a raging storm is coming, but the lack of moisture in the air indicates otherwise. 

You can taste the planet burning on your tongue. Do the people around you taste it too? Or has everyone here grown used to the acrid ash filling their lungs? The Mandalorian pulling you once more by the restraints down the ramp of his ship doesn’t seem to notice. The filter in his helmet keeps all impurities in the air out of his body, just another form of armor against any adversary he might face. 

The docking area, not so much a bay as an expanse of flat land outside of the town limits, has several worn down starships settled in it, the old yellow paint detailing on the Mandalorian’s ship being one of the only things that makes it stand out from the other docked ships. The hunter leads you through the bustling shipyard and pulls you directly to the main street in the town. 

The town’s entrance is framed by a giant stone archway made from the same grey material as everything else around you. The top is almost more square than round, and crumbling from age in different parts. It is still magnificent despite its weathering. The structure towers above everything around it, no building in the town coming close to the height of the arch. 

You stumble slightly as you gawk, too busy paying attention to what lies above you than what rests on the ground before you. You fail to see the uneven dip of the unpaved path, and the toe of your boot catches on the solid earth. The Mandalorian’s grip on you is the only thing that prevents you from tumbling to your knees. 

“Keep up,” he demands, his tone giving away his clear irritation despite the lack of change in his body language. But he still pauses, gives you just a moment to get your feet back under you, before he continues into the town once more. It’s another moment resembling kindness, even if it’s over in a flash. He returns to pulling you forward through the threshold, Grogu floating by your side.

While the street around you is wide, it feels as though the edges are pressing into you, the walls growing closer as the number of sentient lifeforms increases. All around you are vendors stationed at various market stalls—the smell and smoke of cooking food wafts your way from many of the stands, the scents barely stronger than the natural smell of the planet. Groups and individuals of all species are shouting and laughing, some stopping at the stalls while others push through the crowd, heading to some other destination. The commotion in this place is the complete antithesis of the last few days spent on the Mandalorian’s starship. 

The child watches from his spot close by your side, curious about the new location. He doesn’t know that soon your safety will not be guaranteed. He coos slightly each time you’re hit with a new smell, reaching a clawed hand out towards whatever food catches his interest. Even though he ate a ration bar not long ago, the kid is hungry once more. 

In other circumstances you would like to stop and look at the different stands. You would find some real food for the kid to eat, making sure he ate slowly so as not to upset his stomach, as he is prone to do. But the rations have all of the nutrients he needs, and you don’t have that kind of freedom.    

Despite the close press of the crowd, no one jostles into you, even when many keep their eyes away from your form, gazes directed instead at the Mandalorian in front of you. It’s obvious that the majority of those wandering the streets here are not the most law-abiding of people, if the number of blasters and vibroblades you see looped around belts and strapped to thighs is any indication of their character. 

The Republic has little control over the planets in the Outer Rim, creating the perfect breeding ground for those living outside the law, the distance from the rest of the galaxy offering a sense of freedom that often goes too far beyond the line of what’s considered moral by most. But even here the crowd parts for the Mandalorian to pass through. You and The Child receive little attention compared to the armored man directly in front of you. 

The Mandalorian shows no sign that the staring bothers him. He hardly changes his trajectory as he pulls you through the market, the dark visor of his helmet never wavering from the path in front of him. 

“This way,” he grunts, tugging you in a new direction without any further warning. Your new course takes you down an alley. 

There are far fewer people here than there were on the main street. Somehow all the clamor and commotion fades away almost immediately, leaving nothing but the rising fear behind. It bubbles in your gut and turns your stomach sour. There is nothing to distract yourself with now. Nothing but the dull reflection of the churning firmament off the Mandalorian’s helmet, and the dented cuirass—which no longer looks bloodied, the paint instead like rust, in the grey haze of this planet—that has lost almost all of its integrity since he first began dragging you with him from the bunker. 

You wish you could beg, or cry, or even just speak to him. You should do something to stop this, anything to keep him from turning you and the child in for the bounty. If you could just talk to him things could be so different. But you’ve spent your whole life building up resentment for the man, and something that looks like compassion doesn’t mean it is kindness.

 He could still be cruel, and speaking to him may lead to a far worse outcome than you’re already facing. You’ve spent your whole life determining his character without even meeting him and now you can’t bring yourself to reveal the truth. You wish you weren’t so stubborn. 

You wish stubbornness didn’t feel so much like fear. 

The hunter drags you down several other streets and alleys, twisting and turning along the town’s winding passage ways, up and down short flights of stairs until you are too lost to even think of making your way back to the main street—not that doing so would provide any real safety, not when a Mandalorian is after you.

Finally, he brings you to a halt in front of a nondescript door in the back of an alley. He lifts his free hand up to knock on the door, the sound of his fist against metal reverberating off the walls inside in a dead and hollow clang. 

For a moment nothing happens, and you almost think the Mandalorian managed to get lost in the streets himself. Then, a camera the shape of an eye stalk extends from a hatch beside the door, speaking robotically in a language you don’t recognize but must mean something to the Mandalorian. He holds something up in front of the camera, receiving a response in that same unknown language, before the camera disappears in the hatch once more. 

The door hisses open slowly, a cool gust of air breathing against your face, raising goosebumps on your flesh. What lies behind the steel barricade is enough to make your blood run cold. 

The helmets that stare back at you aren’t supposed to exist anymore—at least, not attached to a body. They shouldn’t adorn walking, talking, living beings. But the ghostly figures clad in cheap white armor are clearly alive, and when you turn to look at the man who brought you here, the T of his visor that had seemed so neutral to you before begins to look more terrifying by the second. Suddenly you understand why crowds part around him, why people grow silent and avert their eyes in his presence, or keep their stare trained on him, ensuring that they are not the ones he is after. 

The ghosts usher the three of you into the hall behind the door, and as it slides shut once more you are confronted with the fact that you wasted any chance you had to run. You should have tried harder, fought tooth and nail to protect the child and yourself. Your knowledge of your connection to the Mandalorian allowed you to grow complacent during the journey here, but he doesn’t have the same knowledge as you. He has no reason to change his routine when he is oblivious to the truth. 

You hate him even more for his unwilling ignorance. 

One of the stormtroopers grabs onto the edge of Grogu’s pram, rocking it harshly. You want to scream at him to let go, to get away from the kid, but you can’t. Only now your silence isn’t a choice, it’s a product of fear. Even if you tried to open your mouth to speak, no words would make it past the thick shard of terror sinking down your throat—but you don’t have to speak. The Mandalorian interjects first, his tone sharp enough to send a chill up your spine.

“Easy with that,” he states, visor trained on the trooper. For just the smallest moment you feel hope, not enough to fill you up, to make your chest swell and your mind swarm with thoughts of escape, but just a little flicker. It’s another act of not quite kindness. A small part of you can’t help but think that maybe he won’t leave you here, even if you know there is no reason for him to take you away from this place. He intends to collect on the bounty regardless of your desires, regardless of the fact that you have done nothing to warrant this fate.  

You know It’s a silly thought as soon as you see the client. 

He’s an ex imperial officer. Rather, he should be ex imperial, but the troopers around you and the clear command he holds is evidence that despite the fall of the Empire, the Empire is not truly dead, and now you and the kid are just two more not quite Jedi in their hands. 

If your hands were free, everyone in the room would be tossed aside already, mere rag dolls when confronted with an energy far greater than any individual can ever truly comprehend, but the Force acts as an extension of your body, one you can’t access when your own hands hang uselessly in front of you, bound by your hips. 

You can’t think, can’t breathe. The men around you are talking but you can barely process what they’re saying. All you can do is watch as the kid is passed around, concerned eyes blinking up at you, and then at the Mandalorian. The hunter keeps his own gaze angled towards the client. 

“Yes, very healthy,” you hear someone say, but the words do not fully process in your mind. Suddenly, there is a hand grasping your jaw, fingers digging into the flesh of your cheeks like talons, forcing you back into the present. Cold eyes bear down on your own, lips pulling taught over teeth in a sharp grin. 

This is what you’ve always been destined for.

A light shines at you, bathing your skin in a red glow, scanning for something. Whatever it is that the sensors pick up only makes the officer’s grin grow wider. He finally releases you from his grasp.  

“She will do well,” the officer claims, his tone carrying barely suppressed excitement that sends a shiver down your spine. 

Beside you, Grogu is crying. A man with wide, round glasses begins to pull you and the kid along behind him, heading towards a door away from the officer and the Mandalorian. You can’t bring yourself to turn back as the two discuss the hunter’s payment. 

You can’t let the Mandalorian see how the air has become too thick for you to breathe with ease, filling your lungs but providing no relief. You must hide the way your eyes have finally blurred with the tears you managed to keep at bay until this moment. And you cannot bring yourself to look at the man who the Force determined to be more entangled with you than anyone else in this vast galaxy. You don’t want to see him again.  

Even without turning, you can feel his eyes on you, burning as the spectacled man guides you and the child through the door and deeper into the building.

Suddenly you are glad for your silence. You are grateful for the whispers and less than subtle looks that led to you learning to always hide your mark, because a life with a man who would leave you in the hands of the Empire is not a life you want to live.      

—☾—

It appears that the scan was just the first test. The spectacled man tells you as much. He tells you his name is Dr. Pershing. He tells you that he is the one who will be conducting the tests, and that there will be many more to follow. 

“This will be much easier if you cooperate,” he says. “Otherwise you will be made to comply.”

He guides you to sit on a metal table, the chill of its surface immediately seeping through the thin layer of your clothes. The pram floats silently beside the doctor. Grogu’s large ears are lowered against the sides of his head, but at least he’s no longer crying. 

The tests begin simply. Pershing asks questions that you choose not to answer and that Grogu is unable to answer. Instead of responding, you look around the room, taking in the sterile smell and excessively white walls. It reminds you of a medical facility with big machines, tables, and tubes laid throughout the room. Two stormtroopers remain by the door, watching silently. This is not a place you want to be. You would rather be back with the Niktos. 

“When did you first realize you could do things others could not?” 

“Did you have training that fostered your connection with the Force?”

“Have you ever been tested for your Midi-chlorian count?” 

Your lack of cooperation becomes a growing frustration for the doctor as he continues to ask you more questions. A crease forms between his dark brows, a slight frown tugging at his lips, growing deeper each time you ignore him. He looks up from the holopad he was likely intending to take notes on before he realized you don’t plan on speaking, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose once more before speaking directly to you. 

“May I remind you that your cooperation will make this whole process run much smoother,” he nearly hisses. But there is something more than frustration in his expression, despite the sharp tone of his words. Something like fear seems to flash in his eyes, even if it is only for a brief moment. 

“You may,” you state, tone flat, hiding the storm of your emotions, “but it will not change anything.” 

Dr. Pershing huffs out a sigh before setting the holopad back on a table. 

“Then I will move forward with the other tests,” he says, stepping towards you. He attempts to guide you to lay back on the table, his brow creasing in concentration as he does, but you don’t budge.   

Suddenly, there are more hands on you, pushing you down, the cold metal of the table causing your muscles to spasm in a desperate attempt to avoid contact with the uncomfortable material. The Mandalorian’s binders were removed from your wrists sometime during your initial meeting with the Imperial officer (despite the clarity of the faces around you, you can’t seem to remember anyone removing your restraints), only to be replaced with something less permanent but somehow more painful. These temporary binders are removed now, but before you can relish in the freedom of your hands and attempt to sooth what you’re certain is bruising along your wrists, your arms are once again being restrained. 

Grogu ends up on a similar table. It’s more of a machine really, and you begin to panic.

“Don’t hurt him. Please,” you beg. 

“I will do what I can for the child, but results will be expected,” Pershing states, his words sounding almost truthful, and you hope it’s not some sick sort of mind game, something he’s saying solely to obtain your compliance.  

When he goes to draw blood from Grogu you fight to get to the child, pulling against your restraints even though doing so agitates the already sensitive skin and risks further damage to your flesh. The troopers are there to make sure that your struggle doesn’t amount to anything, and the Doctor is able to collect the blood sample that he needs. 

He returns to your side to collect a sample from you as well, even while you continue to struggle as much as possible. There is not much room to move between the restraints and the stormtroopers holding you down. Pershing begins to unravel the fabric wrapped around your arm. The cloth has, thus far, protected your veins and, more importantly, your soulmark, from the doctor. He starts from the top, quickly revealing the skin of your elbow.  

“Stop!” you beg. “Please don’t!” You’re not sure if he’s listening, if he takes some sort of mercy, or if he just doesn’t understand the real reason why you are pleading with him, but he unravels the fabric only enough that the second half of your mark is exposed. 

I can bring you in cold. 

From the moment you met the Mandalorian, your survival hasn’t been guaranteed. If the officer didn’t care if you were dead before, he sure doesn’t care if you survive what’s coming next.     

It quickly becomes apparent that Dr. Pershing doesn’t care about the mark, just the tests, which require him to collect your blood in order to conduct them. You continue to struggle, but it doesn’t stop the doctor from reaching his goal. 

The site where the needle enters your skin will surely form a mark because of your wriggling, another instance of your own foolish actions resulting in more pain than necessary. The doctor’s patience seems to finally reach its limit. 

“I told you this would be easier if you cooperate,” he states, setting the blood sample aside before grabbing something else from his table. “One way or another you will comply.”

You feel another prick, followed by a chilling numbness that spreads from the crease of your elbow out towards the tips of your fingers and towards your chest, the sensation rapidly extending to the rest of your body. Your mind numbs with it, growing foggy and distant. For just a moment longer you think about escape, but thoughts are growing more fleeting by the second. 

It becomes impossible to keep track of what is happening. Grogu is quiet beside you, the Doctor continues to flit around the two of you. Time passes but you're not sure if it’s mere moments or entire hours.

The lights go out, a quick flicker. Then another begins flashing above the door. 

People rush around you. The child lays still beside you, looking around but remaining quiet.

The room is empty. 

Time still passes.   

—☾—

Sounds travel to you slowly. They are clouded and warped, as if they are passing through thick fog on a cold night, ringing out from directions that shouldn’t possibly be able to produce them. In the distance, or what seems to be the distance but really could be anywhere around you, blaster fire screeches out. The high pitched whine barely registers in your sluggish mind. It isn’t in the room and that’s all that matters. 

There are calls for action, screams of pain and shouts of fear, more blaster fire. 

Beside you Grogu remains still, dark eyes blinking towards you, unafraid. You blink back at him, your own eyes struggling to open again once they close. Everything is just so heavy. 

The door slides open with a hiss, and for just a moment all of the noise sounds just a little closer. It’s all still clouded, but the commotion is not such a distant thing even if it still doesn’t seem real. A figure clad in silver armor steps through the door, reflecting the swirling red light of the lab in the same way every other surface around you flickers and shines, a warning. 

It’s your Mandalorian.

As soon as the door seals behind him he rushes over to you. You can’t help but stare at his new armor—this is what your bounty was worth. More shouting comes from beyond the door and your eyes roll back in its direction, taking a while to finally reach their destination. No one else enters the room.    

“Hey. Hey!” your Mandalorian says, lightly tapping your cheek until your eyes return to him. “What did they do to you?”

You can barely keep your eyes on him, your vision constantly being drawn to different things—like the child cooing next to you, or the way the flashing light reflects off the silver of the Mandalorian’s new beskar armor (real beskar, durable and rare). When you fail to respond, he begins to tug on the restraints closest to him.  

Through the cloud of your mind you are aware of just one thing. You need to hide your soulmark from him. He cannot see the words he said to you scrawled across your forearm in sharp Aurebesh. You twist your arm in your restraint, doing your best to try not to think about just how heavy your muscles feel, or how much your arm aches, as you shift your soulmark so it angles towards the table. You are grateful the hunter occupies himself with the other arm first, working quickly while trying not to hurt you.  

He rips away your restraints with ease, and a small part of you wonders, if you had your full strength, could you have gotten out on your own? But the thought doesn’t linger, your mind unable to focus on anything for longer than a moment.

The Mandalorian turns from you to The Child, setting him free as well. You take the opportunity to rewrap your arm, covering your soulmark once more. It’s a sloppy process, one that is difficult to complete with the weight of your muscles and ache of your wrists. Your fingers seem to have as much function as they would in the freezing cold, and keeping your mind on task proves to be difficult. You’re lucky the fabric used to cover your mark was only partially unwound. 

 The hunter retrieves Grogu, placing the child back into his protective pod, before helping you down off the table, tucking you into his side. Your legs collapse, unable to hold your weight, forcing the Mandalorian to bear the brunt of it, although he likely anticipated this outcome. You take a moment to get your legs back under you, just enough so that he doesn’t need to carry you. He pauses, giving you time to adjust, just as he always does.  

You can’t fully comprehend what is happening as he tugs you through the building. Flashes of blaster fire cross your vision, fading into darkness as they pass. The time between blasts is never long enough to let the shadows linger. Some are aimed at you and some directed towards the stormtroopers blocking your path, courtesy of your Mandalorian. 

He tries to keep you behind him, standing strong as you stumble along, shielding you and the child as much as he can with his body. 

A bright red bolt, burning hot, streaks past your face and nearly makes contact. You’re too out of it to react, eyes shifting in its direction long after the shot has passed, finding nothing but shadows behind you. The hunter turns towards you for just a second, taking any oncoming fire with the shining new beskar on his back. 

His leather clad hand cradles the side of your head for a mere moment, eyes burning through his visor into your own, hotter than the plasma that came so near to the place his hand now holds. His helmet flickers red as more shots go wide around the three of you. He nods, chin barely tilting down in acknowledgement of your continued safety. Then, certain that you are alive and well, he turns towards the oncoming fire once more.

You don’t know how much time you spent in the hands of the Imperials. It could have been hours or weeks, or something in between. Realistically very little time actually passed, no more than a day, but your perception of time is wrong, its passage still something you are unable to cling onto. You’re not even entirely sure how long the Mandalorian has been fighting to get you and The child out from where you've been held. 

All you know is that when the hunter finally gets the three of you outside of the building, back onto the volcanic soil and into the acrid air, it’s night. There are no stars here, not like on Arvala-7. Just the ashy sky, tumbling like a storm but always too dry for rain. Or maybe it’s just your own vision that’s swimming. Now, with the horizon farther in front of you than just a wall across the room, with alleys and streets stretching long before you and lined by rows of buildings, you can tell just how far off its axis your world has become.  

Everything is spinning, and you would be dragged along in the current if it weren’t for the Mandalorian’s grip on you. At some point during the firefight he passed the kid to you, freeing up his other hand. You can barely hold The Child’s weight, terrified that your grip will be too loose and you’ll lose him—or worse yet, too tight. 

The Mandalorian’s words echo in your mind the closer to the ship you get, though you’re not entirely sure where his voice ends and the voice inside your head begins. What did they do to you? 

You reach the main street, familiar to you despite the haze in your mind, but it looks much different than you remember. The stalls that had once been bustling are closed down for the night, the noisy crowd and plethora of smells long gone, but the street isn’t empty. There are others, bounty hunters, gathering around you on all sides. 

The world spins faster. Fire streams from the Mandalorian’s wrist, stretching out towards those around you before eventually sputtering and dying once more. The night seems a little darker after that, the blaze of the flame still burning your already weak eyesight even when it’s extinguished. 

You’re dragged and pushed, hidden and pulled—helpless in the face of your adversaries. All the while the Mandalorian stands before you, risking his own life to save yours and Grogu’s. He doesn’t know you’re his soulmate. He doesn’t know that you have been bound together since before your lives even began. This is a choice entirely his own. You can’t allow yourself to think about what that means right now, partially because of the circumstances you are still in, partially because you physically can’t concentrate on anything, and partially because you just don’t want to. 

Time blurs again as you push further towards the starship. The arch framing the entrance of the town looms before you, a silent witness to the events that you cannot comprehend. 

The world spins and then you see double, triple, quadruple of the Mandalorian. 

No, that’s not quite right. The world is spinning but that is not the cause for what you see. The Mandalorian to your left wears beskar painted a color too dark for you to distinguish by the light of blaster fire. Your Mandalorian stands before you, painted in the colors of the fight around him. 

You cannot concentrate on what they say when they exchange words, only picking up on a single repeated phrase:

“This is the way.”

Then, you are on the move again, stumbling forward, always forward, towards the arch above the town. Towards the ship. Towards your destiny.   

—☾— 

The starship is quiet.

You hadn’t realized just how loud the blasterfire had been, even through the fog in your brain, until the ramp finally raised behind you, sealing you off from the rest of the galaxy. The only sound comes from the Mandalorian’s vocoder, warping his heavy breathing into static. But he doesn’t take long to try and catch his breath. To do so would be to risk being caught once more. 

He lifts you up without warning, slings you over his shoulder like it’s nothing—to him it probably is nothing, even after fighting for his life. 

Somehow he manages to cradle Grogu in the same arm that he uses to keep you stable, a precarious balancing act. Then, impossibly, he manages to begin climbing the ladder to the cockpit. It’s ridiculous, you think, like a stack of farm animals standing on each other’s backs—a Mandalorian warrior, a not quite Jedi, and a 50 year old magic baby piled on the ladder. 

You can’t stop the laugh that rips through your throat, the tone wobbling as the silver pauldron presses into your stomach and releases during the climb. Grogu laughs too, unaware of what exactly you find funny, just happy to join in. When a particularly rough jolt up the ladder causes your laughter to turn into a wheeze, the Mandalorian pauses. He readjusts his grip on you and the kid, then keeps climbing.

First he sets the kid down, temporarily plopping Grogu in one of the passenger seats. Then he does the same to you. He straps you into your seat, not wanting to risk you being launched onto the floor or the control panel as he brings the starship off the planet. You just stare at him, at the glint of his new, unpainted beskar and the steely gaze of his visor. 

The hunter picks Grogu up again, placing him on a cuisse covered thigh and leaving a hand on the kid to act as a seatbelt. The ship starts with a purr, engines whirring as the Mandalorian presses a series of buttons and flips several switches. There’s some turbulence as the ship cuts through the atmosphere before leaving the ashen planet behind. In no time at all you are among the stars, body lurching as you make the jump into hyperspace. 

The Mandalorian’s armor catches the light of the universe as the stars blur all around you, the transparisteel surrounding you allowing for every inch of him to be bathed in the flickering glow of distant suns. It’s as if the galaxy has come alive on his armor, painting the beskar in ever-changing streaks of light and color. It shifts and dances even more as he moves from his spot at the helm. 

He returns the child to the second passenger seat, the hunter no longer needing to worry about the kid falling as he had feared during the ascent. Hyperspace offers protection, freedom. You can’t help but stare at the Mandalorian as he returns back to his seat, his own gaze angled towards the stars before him. Your mind is still hazy, but you are unable to focus on anything other than the resplendent man who sits before you.        

You’re so beautiful, you think. 

For a moment you fear you’ve said the words out loud. The Mandalorian’s shoulders grow stiff, back straightening slightly from where he sits in the pilot’s seat. But he doesn’t turn towards you, and he doesn’t speak. Surely if you had spoken he would have something to say as well, something along the usual lines of “I’ve been waiting for so long,” or even “Why didn’t you say anything?” It must just be the fog drifting through your brain, an unfounded paranoia. Your exit from the planet was rough, after all, both the firefight and the atmospheric turbulence. Some lingering tension is to be expected. 

It’s not until you’re well on your way through hyperspace, safe from any of your would be pursuers, that the Mandalorian says anything at all. His star stained helmet turns towards you, the black of his visor burning just as bright as it had when he cradled your head not so long ago. 

“My name’s Din,” he says. “Din Djarin.” 

NEXT PART

a/n: Next chapter we will get some of Din’s perspective!

taglist: @unmitigatedsuperiority @haven-is-happy @sorrow-has-a-place-here @unofficialavenger90

I don’t have a taglist form, but if you would like to be tagged on future chapters you can let me know in the tags/an ask/etc. this is a sideblog so I can’t respond to replies ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

#din djarin #din djarin x reader #din djarin x you #din djarin x y/n #din djarin x fem!reader #din djarin fanfiction #the mandalorian #the mandalorian x reader #the mandalorian fanfiction

[dragon-snoots-a-boopin]

I am not 100% if I have done this before so I am going to call this my updated Destiny 2 vs Warframe post. However, before I get into thing, please note that EVERYTHING I SAY IS BASED ON MY OWN EXPERIENCES IN BOTH GAMES and that my experiences may differ from yours and if you can't accept that then just stop reading now and go somewhere else. Now I shall get into my thoughts and opinions on both of these games.

As noted in the last post, this one will be all about Warframe. I am first going to start with the things that I like about Warframe and while I am doing that, I will be comparing those things to how things are in Destiny 2.

Now, the first thing is something I pretty much already said in the post, so I am not doing to dwell too much on it. But, basically I think that Warframe is a very good looking game. I do, however, think that Destiny 2 is the better looking game of the two.

Also, as stated in the previous post, Warframe has a very amazing soundtrack. Again, I don't like the vocal tracks but, all the other tracks are so good and I love listening to its soundtrack. Same can be said for Destiny 2 and its soundtracks. So much amazing much that I can listen to anytime.

Warframe absolutely EXCELS at being a F2P game, especially with the vast amount of content at ones disposal. You have like seven to eight planets to do all the nodes on, you have Duviri which also has The Circuit and Steel Path, you have the stuff associated with Railjack missions and so on! Best thing too is that a good amount Warframes and weapons can just be obtained from farming assassination missions and don't have to be bought from a store. Warframe has a terrific F2P structure that definitely sets it far above Destiny 2. Calling Destiny 2 a free to play game is an utter joke. What can one do as a free to play player in Destiny 2 anyway? Well, there is no base game campaign anymore which was the major reason I even tried Destiny 2 in the first place. You get a tutorial mission in place of that and the first mission of each expansion and that's really all the story content you get. You have a limited number of strikes, I think only three or four of them. You have Gambit which, honestly, I have no idea what this mode is as I've never done it. You have Crucible which is PVP which I imagine is a small amount of maps for F2P players. There's the Dares Of Eternity activity from the 30th Anniversary and then there are two raids and one dungeon. Yeah, as a F2P game, Destiny 2 lacks so much. Once you do these things beyond the first time, you'll see just how boring this game really is.

One area where Warframe excels because it has an actual, sound F2P structure. Now, I've heard some people say that one doesn't have to spend a dime on Warframe and I am sorry, but that isn't true. The difference with Warframe is that one doesn't have to spend much on the game. To me, Warframe having a limited number of inventory slots is a major thing. Initially when starting the game, you have a whopping two Warframe slots and if you get more Warframes, it'll cost you 20 platinum per slot and platinum is something that has to be bought with real money. I myself have spent around $7 on platinum because of this, because I have 11 Warframes with a 12th on the way soon. I find it to be a little but looser when it comes to inventory slots for primary, secondary and melee weapons. But here's the thing, you can EARN more inventory slots by doing the Nightweave dailies so if you want to get more slots slowly, that's the way to do it. Also, yes, of course, like Destiny 2, Warframe has a store where you can buy stuff with you platinum. But, ultimately, Warframe is such a better F2P game that Destiny 2 will ever be. When it comes to Destiny 2 thought, if you don't want to be a F2P player and don't want to sit in an empty well of content, you could always fork over somewhere between $160 and $200 to get all the DLC for the game. Oh yeah, you could also spend additional money on the season pass and in game shop too. What? You don't want to fork over more money for a game that you already paid money for? Yeah, no one wants to do that.

Now, something I like with Warframe is that I am only picking between the Warframes I have. What do I mean by that? Well, what I am trying to say is that, unlike Destiny 2, I am glad that in Warframe I am not gaining gear and weapons in missions that I am equip and upgrade for whatever the next mission is and then get rid of that stuff because I got better gear in said next mission. That is something I genuinely get annoyed with in Destiny 2, like why I am spending all this time putting resources into gear and weapons that I am going to ditch after one mission?

There's probably much more I like about Warframe that I am just forgetting in this moment or that is just more rehashed from the previous post. So, I am going to move on to what I don't like about Warframe.

Somthing I think that Warframe really lacks is cohesive storytelling. This came up very recently when I made a post about the Duviri Paradox and how the story was very lost upon me and someone said that it makes more sense after one does The War Within quest and I'm over here like, yeah, and one can't do that until The Second Dream is done and I just don't understand this method of out of order storytelling. Thing is, I don't think that Destiny 2 is any better in regards to storytelling. Given that the games base campaign no longer exists and that Bungie just deletes their old DLC stories to fit whatever the current story is doesn't help either. Maybe don't do so many world shattering events and have to keep resetting the story. Clarification: When I talk about how Destiny 2 has a lot of DLC stories that have been deleted, I am NOT talking about the lore of the game because the game's lore in certainly intact. What I mean by DLC stories being deleted is how The Red War campaign, Curse Of Orsiris campaign and Warmind campaign have been deleted, vaulted and made inaccessible by Bungie themselves.

I do wish that Warframe had a little more interesting things going on when it comes to level design. I mean, one could do like three different types of missions in a row and all three of those missions could very well be on the same looking map and that's kind of lazy if you ask me. Of course, for Destiny 2 this is largely dependent upon if you do or do not have all the DLC. If you're a F2P player then yeah, you're going to be doing things on the same three to four maps but will have more map variety if you have all the DLC.

Warfame could definitely benefit from more enemy variety. Like, every mission you do you'll either be fighting Grineer, Corpus, Infested, those things you fight in the Durviri Paradox and that's it. Sure, there are different sub types of each of those but an entirely new enemy faction would just be so terrific. Destiny 2 isn't any better in this regard either. Enemies in Destiny 2 are either Cabal, Fallen, Hive, Scorn, Taken or Vex and that's it. Sure, that is more variety than Warframe but it's still so limited.

Ultimately, I still and will always regard Warframe to be the better game between the two. But, I still do enjoying popping on to Destiny 2 for a short time and doing some a strike or two as I do think that Destiny 2 is fun game...just that Warframe is a lot more fun and the better game in my opinion.

#video games #warframe #digital extremes #bungie #destiny 2

[marinaiguess]

This is back from December lol. Found it in my drafts so, you can have it. I really don't remember where I was going with this shusugsihs

Ark siblings for yall :')

‐---------------------------------‐--‐

"Are you afraid of anything, Maria?"

"where...where did that come from?"

"I don't know, I was just," he paused for a brief moment, turning his gaze away from her, "thinking about things."

"Shadow, you can talk to me about anything." she smiled reassuringly. "I'll try to help you."

"Yet you're not answering my question."

"how will that help you?"

"I guess you don't want to answer then."

She stops and sighs, her eyes drawn back to Earth before she looks at him again. "I'm sorry, shadow, I was just... not expecting that kind of question." Her face falls as she sits down, admiring her favorite view.

Shadow is concerned but not exactly sure what to do. So, he resorts for a simple hand on her shoulder, it should be enough. "I apologize, Maria, you don't have to answer if you don't -"

"it's funny actually. you were made to protect me from the inevitable."

"Maria?"

She is a human, sure, so she always has had responsibilities. But she is more than that, something more important. She is a big sister. she won't crumble down in front of her brother. she shouldn't be afraid of anything, she can't be. she shouldn't admit to anyone what she is afraid of. but why is she so tempted then?

maybe because it doesn't matter. because they won't be able to change her destiny no matter how hard her grandfather tries. Love prevails, but it can't change fate, it cant create miracles, it won't give her a second chance on this life. she turns to shadow, heart instantly filled with warmth just from looking at his eyes. maybe, whatever she'd do, that crippling fear will always find its way to her. And no one can save her.

"I'm afraid of dying shadow."

He whips his head around to look back at her, confusion prevalent in his features. If he is taken aback, he manages to hide it. "But, isn't death part of life for everyone?"

"for people like me, it is. for you, not really."

shadow remains silent, allowing her to speak further.

"still, it's not just death that I'm scared of, I know I can't avoid that. it's...I want to be able to do things. to make my dreams come true. to find and fulfill my purpose. to go down there, on that planet..." her voice cracks slightly, and Shadow realizes it's the first time he feels like he has a heart, he didn't know he had to feel it break in order to understand that it is there. "that planet which" she reiterated after a very short pause, an important one in order to pull herself together, "is so close yet feels so far out of reach for me, and help people in need with you by my side. I want to live life. and I'm afraid death will deprive me of this before I get the chance to." Not even once had she glanced away from earth, visualizing in her head what life would be like on there, how people lived their everyday lives to the fullest.

The tears pricking her eyes are burning more than they usually do.

#sonic #sth #shadow and maria #shadow the hedgehog #maria robotnik #ark siblings #fic #fanfic #sth fic #my drabbles